As we will look at these verses,
we will realize that Job realizes, as he gets toward the end of
this chapter, that he needs a day's man between him and God. And
Lord willing, I'm going to deal with that the next time. I'm
going to deal with that verse the next time. I'm not going
to try to deal with it that much tonight, but really lay the foundation
for the reason we need a mediator between us and God. And Job gives
us a good foundation as to why we need a mediator. Now in the
early part of this chapter, Job asks, how should man be just
with God? He said, I know it's sober truth,
but how shall man be just with God? That's the whole question,
isn't it? Isn't that the whole question?
How can this wretch, this sinner, this unjust sinner stand justified
in God's sight, in God's presence forever and ever? You know, one
day I have to die, and you do too. And we will stand before
God. And the question of questions
is how can I stand just before God? And this question will lead
us to this mediator here, Lord willing, in either next week
or next time I come back to this chapter. But Job asked the question,
how should man be just with God? And then he goes on to speak
of God's greatness. God is great. He says God is
wise. He's mighty. He's strong. He
removes mountains. Job said He shakes the earth.
He commands the sun and the stars. He goes by me and I don't perceive
Him. I don't perceive Him. It makes
me think, if you'll remember in the Gospels, I'm sure you'll
remember when Christ went through the midst of them and they didn't
see Him. They were going to kill Him at
one time. He went through the midst of them and they didn't
see Him. How in the world did they miss him? They were standing
there trying to kill him. But Job tells us here, he says,
he goes by me and I don't perceive him. He takes away. And no one calls him into question.
He doesn't answer. He gives no answer to any of
his matters. He's not answerable to us. He brings the principalities,
the proud doers, the proud helpers, and what he's saying here, he
brings the principalities and powers to stoop before Him. He makes them bow down before
Him, whether it be Satan, angels, or men, kings. He makes them
bow down, stoop before Him. God does that. And in verse 14
is where we'll pick up. Job recognizes his inability
to stand before such a God and justify himself. After speaking
of his greatness, he says this, How much less shall I answer
him? How can I answer him? And choose
out my words to reason with him. Job recognizes his own weakness
and his own sinfulness. This is a lot more than his friends
recognized in themselves. Job knows that he cannot argue
in the court of heaven. If I go into heaven, I cannot
stand and argue with God. I can't do it. He's saying what
Paul said in Romans, he recognizes, let me put it this way, he recognizes
the truth way back then. What Paul says over in Romans
9, 19-21. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why
dost he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
And Paul says in verse 20, Nay, but, O man, who art thou that
replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honour and another unto dishonour? Joe recognizes truth. God is holy, God is sovereign,
God is just, and who am I to think I can stand and argue with
God? He knew better than to try to
stand on his own righteousness. He knew that. God taught him
that. He knew he could not stand on
his own righteousness before the judge of heaven and earth.
Job could justify himself, listen, he could justify himself before
his friends as being innocent of their charges of him being
a hypocrite or he must have some secret sin going on. He could
justify himself before them. But he dare not stand before
God and justify himself. We don't justify ourselves before
God, do we? I was going to write it down
and I forgot, but I was reading in I think it's 1 Kings, where
those men put a noose around her neck, they put a rope around
her neck, and they came before him saying, will you save us
instead of kill us? I'm paraphrasing. Is that not
what we do? When we agree with God, we put
the noose around our neck and say, guilty! Lord, guilty! But we'll see here in a little
bit, Job says, but I plead for mercy. I plead for the mercy
of God, because I know I'm guilty. He says here in verse 15, Whom
though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would
make supplication to my Judge. He knows that God the Judge is
merciful. He knows that He likes to show
mercy. And He knows that He cannot, on the basis of righteousness,
of His righteousness, of His righteousness, if I were righteous,
He said, I would not use it to stand before God and argue with
Him. Well, I've done this. Isn't that what that young man
said? All these have I kept from my youth up. He's standing there
before the God of heaven and earth and saying what Job said,
I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't stand before God and
argue with Him over my righteousness. He said, I wouldn't do that,
but I'll tell you what I would do. Here's what I'd do. He said,
I would make supplication. I would beg mercy, this one,
to my judge. I would beg for mercy to my judge.
You know, I think one of the first things a sinner sees when
God saves that sinner, he doesn't just see that, he doesn't see,
and I'm trying to think how to say this, he doesn't see that
God loves me and wants to save me. You know what he sees? I'm guilty and he's my judge. I've broken His law. I'm guilty. I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. Not until you get in trouble
with God will you ever find your need of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ
is useless to anyone until they see they're in trouble with God.
My judge. I'd make supplication to my judge.
I'd ask for mercy. I'd ask for mercy. I will cast
myself upon the mercy of the court. Isn't that what we do? We cast ourselves upon the mercy
of God, the sovereign mercy of God. Mercy means, Lord, I don't
deserve what I'm asking you for. I'm asking you for mercy. I'm
asking you for forgiveness. I'm asking you for pardon. I'm
asking you to justify me. I don't deserve it, but I know
you'd like to show mercy, and I know you can do it. Through
the blood and righteousness of Christ, God can show mercy to
this sinner. God can do that. And he says
here, now he said in verse 16 and 17, If I summon him, and
he answered me, that if I summon God, and he answered me, it would
be hard to believe, because of my continual suffering. That's
what he said here in verse 16 and 17. If I called, he answered
me. Yet I did not believe, he hearkened
to my voice. And here's why. Here's why it'd be hard for you
to believe that God has heard my prayer. How many times have
you prayed in trials and heartaches, and you've prayed, and you've
prayed, and you've prayed, and it still doesn't let up? It still
doesn't let up. It's hard for you to believe
that God has heard you because it continues. But I assure you,
He hears you. He has heard you. Because one
reason, He's heard your advocate. He's heard your high priest make
an intercession for you. Peter, Satan hath desired thee
to sift his wheat, but I have prayed for you. You think he
didn't pray for Job also? You think the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, didn't pray for Job also? Just like He did for
Peter, He makes intercessions for all the saints. He makes
intercessions for the first one to the last one. He makes intercessions
for us. And Job said, It would be hard
for me to believe that God heard my voice, for He breaks me with
a tempest and multiplies my wounds without a cause, without a cause
known to Job. He didn't know the cost for it.
Because I thought Job knows better. And here's one thing I'm learning
and continue to learn as I go through the Scriptures and I
look at these, there's some hard things said here. There's some
difficult things. Like Peter said of Paul, he's
written things and said things that's hard to be understood.
But the advantage that I have In reading, when I'm reading
Job, the advantage that I have, I have the whole Word of God.
Job didn't have it. He didn't have the whole Word of God. I
have it. And in light of the Word of God, I can interpret,
understand something of what he's saying back in that time. And so, knowing this, he says
here, he breaks me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without
cause. Job knew that would be unjust.
He's not saying that God has no reason to be doing this. I don't know the cause. You've
gone through trials. I've gone through trials. And
I couldn't tell you why. I can't tell you. I can't say, well, I shouldn't
have done that. That's why that's happening.
Because oftentimes, it just comes up on us, as Peter said, fiery
trials come upon us unaware. Out of the blue, so to speak.
Out of the blue, it just happens. And you just hit so hard, you
don't know what happened. It's just like you get knocked
out. So Job was saying here that he
multiplies my wounds. And I don't understand why. He
didn't know the cause for his suffering. We do, don't we? We have the
Word of God. We look behind the scenes. We
know the conversation that went on between God and Satan. And I know another cause why
God did this to Job. For us. These things are written
for our learning. He suffered what he suffered,
not only for his own sake, not only to conform him to the image
of Christ, but he suffered what he suffered for us, that we might
learn from it. When we go through something,
we've never gone through what he's gone through. Now this trial
is so great, he felt he couldn't breathe. He'll not suffer me
to take my breath. It's just one blow after another
blow. It's one stroke after another
stroke. But He fills me with bitterness, pain. He sat there
in those boils and the maggots were all over His body. They
were all over His body. And He sat there scraping the
boils. And you know He had to not only look like a putrefying
sight, but the smell of Him had to have just been awful, awful. But I noticed this verse jumped
out at me. It said, He, not Satan. by Satan. We know behind the
scenes Satan went and said, you let me touch him, you let me
take his health away, skin for skin. We know that. But Job never
attributes anything but to God who's the cause of, he's the
first cause of all things. And that's good news because
he's under his control. It's under His control. And that's
good news, not only because of what we've gone through, we know
that He has said it, but we don't know what we're going to go through
yet. We don't know that. I'd say two years ago, you know,
Daniel Parks, Moose, and Dee, they didn't realize this was
coming on. And here it is. But it's of God. It's of God. And He will absolutely carry
His children through every storm and every trial. He'll carry
them through it, just as He did Job here. And then Job recognizes,
in verse 19, he recognizes, he says, he recognizes this, he's
no match for God. One of the things we do recognize,
we're no match for God. I honestly, this is so, when
I was a teenager, I was the only one I think in the family probably
hadn't made a profession. I thought I was tough. I really
thought I was tough. That's how I looked at it. That's
how stupid I was. But I really did. Then one day I realized,
you ain't no match for God. Ain't no person on this earth
a match. Satan is no match for God. He
can crack anything, anyone, at any time. We're no match for
him. If I speak of strength, He's
strong. Not me. I used to think I was. But I'm not. I'm not strong at
all. A little microscopic germ can
take me down. I mean, it can take me down and
lay me low. I'm not strong. You want to talk about strong?
Let's talk about God. Let's talk about Him who commands
the Son. who commands the stars, who commands
the earth, who commands absolutely everything by His Word He commands. And it happens. Let's go in Genesis. Let there be light. You know, when He cast out devils,
do we ever read one of them saying no? No, I'm not coming out. None of them say that. When He
gives the command, they come out. They come out. If He gives the command to save
a sinner, all of hell can't keep that from happening. He told
Peter, He said, the gates of hell will not prevail against
them. That is, the gates of hell, it doesn't matter if it's China,
North Korea, if God has purpose to send the gospel there, it's
going there. It is going. There's no iron
curtain. There's no wall high enough to
keep the Gospel out if God sends it there. And if God sends it
into the heart of a sinner, if He commands the light of the
Gospel to shine into my heart and your heart, it's going to
shine. Oh, we are so subject to the power and will of God
and purpose of God. And I'm glad it's that way. I'm
glad it's that way. It wouldn't happen any other
way. If I speak of strength, lo, He's strong. And if of judgment,
let's talk about going to court. Who will set us a time to plead? I can't stand in court against
God. If we're going to speak of judgment,
who's going to summon God to court? It's His court. He's the judge. Nobody summons
Him. He summons us. And if I justify myself, verse
20, and he's speaking, remember, these friends here, he's speaking.
You see, they were talking about if a man is righteous, if he's
good, God bless him. If he's wicked, God punishes
him. That's what they were accusing
Job of. And Job was saying, if I justify myself, my own mouth,
my own words will stand against me. They will stand against me. If I seek my own justification,
my own words will condemn me. They'll condemn me if I seek
my own justification. The Lord said, by thy words thou
shalt be justified, by thy words thou shalt be condemned. So if
I stand and try to justify, and here's the key to this, if I
justify myself, You see the big I. If I stand
and try to justify myself, my own mouth will condemn me. My
own mouth will condemn me? Listen, my own conscience will
condemn me. You know, have you ever thought
about that young man when he came and said, Lord, what must
I do to inherit eternal life in order to keep the commandments?
He said, all these I've kept from my youth. He knew something
was missing. He knew it. I tell you, if I justify myself,
I assure you, I'm old mouth, I'm old conscience. Well, condemn
me. If I say, if I, if I do this,
if I say, I am perfect. You know, I think it's a, God
says who's perfect. He said Job was perfect, upright,
didn't he? But Job didn't say that. You
don't go around claiming your own perfection, do you? You and
I know we sin by the moment. We can't even have a thought
that doesn't have sin in it because of this old nature we still have
with us. Paul said, when I would do good,
evil is present with me. If I justify myself, my own mouth
will condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it shall
also prove me perverse. I prove myself perverse. Saying
that I'm perfect, in a legal sense, is what he's saying here,
doesn't make it so. Saying I'm perfect doesn't make
it so, then saying I'm six foot tall doesn't make it so. You
can say it all day long, but it doesn't make it so. If I am
perfect, God says so, and He says so because He made me so
in Jesus Christ. My perfection is in Him. It's
not in myself. It's in my mediator, my surety. My perfection is in Him. It's
not in me. Now Job gives us a supposition
here in verse 21. Though I were not perfect. Alright,
let's say I am perfect. Yet, I wouldn't know my own soul. In fact, I despise my life. If
I were perfect, if I said I was perfect, I still wouldn't know the depth
of my soul, the centralness of it. Do you know how central you
are? Absolutely not. You and I do not know how sinful
we are. We couldn't bear it. If God Almighty
really revealed to me how wretched and sinful I am, I would die
in despair. I don't believe I'd be able to
take another step. I'd be like Hezekiah or Uzziah. I would turn into a leper. It
would just consume me. I couldn't grasp that. But the
Lord Jesus Christ did. He knew the full depth of my
corruption and took it and put it away. He knew it. Scripture says He was made to
be sin for us. And I take that to be He was
made to be what I am that I might be made to be what He is, the
righteousness of God. Any? Although I were perfect, I wouldn't
understand, I wouldn't know my soul, I wouldn't know the depth
of it. Listen to what the psalmist said in Psalm 19, 12. Who can
understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret thoughts,
sins I don't even know of. Sins I don't even know of. Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17,
9, the heart, the natural heart, is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked. Who could know? It's deceitful.
Here's how deceitful the heart is. Here's how deceitful the
natural heart is. It'll make you think you're a
good person. It'll make you think you're a really good person.
I'm not that bad. Well, you know, one skunk compared
to another skunk, they both smell the same. They're really not
that bad to each other, but they stink to me. Don't think they're offensive.
They're not offensive to one another. They like each other's
smell, but I don't. It's offensive to me. Now put
that on a high level. Put that on God's level. I am
an offense to God as I am by nature. I'm an offense to Him. What did he say in one place?
You are a smoke in my nose. That's what he said. You're a smoke in my nose. That's
what we are by nature. He doesn't do something about
it. I can say though I were perfect, it's evident I don't know myself. But verse 22, this is one thing,
therefore I said it. Job was not going to back up
on this one. Now here comes something that is tough to understand. I had to read and read and I
prayed about it and read it and I'm just going to skin the surface.
These are some deep things. What he's about to say here. Job said this is one thing. He
said I agree with you. I agree with you God is just.
I agree with you that God will punish the wicked. I agree with
you that God will not cast off a perfect man. Remember that? I agree with you. But this one
thing I said, and I'm not going to take it back. I'm not going
to take this back. Because they were saying, they
were saying, God blesses the rich, I mean
the good. He makes them rich and He blesses
them. And the bad, He punishes them. And they're always in trouble.
Job said, that's not so. That's what he said. That's not
so. It's one thing, therefore I said it and I'm going to stick
with it. He destroyed the perfect and the wicked. Now you know,
and this is what I'm saying, we've got the whole Word of God.
Scripture in terms of Scripture. So we have to interpret what
he's saying in the light of the Word of God. We know that God
does not destroy the perfect eternally. He doesn't do that. He does the wicked, but now He
doesn't do that with the perfect. But, here's what Job said, Job's
friends believed that calamity came to the wicked and good to
the righteous. Job gives the right answer and he doesn't change.
You see, here's what he's saying. Trouble comes to all in this
life. Whether you're righteous, truly
righteous in Christ, perfect in Christ, that does not exempt
you from trouble. That does not exempt you from
your life being destroyed in this life. He took everything
from Job. He took his health from Job.
He's like, I'm living proof of it. Trouble comes to all in this
life, righteous or not. Good comes to all in this life,
righteous or not. Does not the unjust, did they
not enjoy the sunshine today, as well as the just? Did they
not do that? The difference is why the trial
comes. Why God, which it looks like,
here's what it looks like. Doesn't it look like God destroyed
Job? His friends are sitting there looking at a mass, a putrefied
mass that has lost everything. And he's talking about temporal
things here. He's talking about this life.
He's not talking about eternity. Because God does not destroy
the perfect, those who are perfect in Christ. Listen to this. Listen to this. Well, first of
all, let me finish this thought. Here's the difference as to why
these things come. To the righteous it's the trial
of faith. To the righteous it's to conform
you to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. He takes away these
things that He may wean us from this world and set our hearts
and eyes upon Him. Now He does it to the wicked
as just what I call a simmering of His punishment. That's just
a taste of what's coming. But now listen to Ecclesiastes
9, 2, and 3. All things come alike to all. There is one event
to the righteous and to the wicked, there is one event. To the good
and to the clean and to the unclean, there is one event. To him that
sacrifices and to him that sacrifices not. As is the good, so is the
sinner. And he that swears is he that
fears an oath. He said, This is an evil among
all things that are done unto the Son, that there is one event
unto all. You know what that one event
is? We all die. You know, there's a scripture
that says that the righteous perish, and no man lays it to
heart. Now, does the righteous perish?
No, they don't perish in Christ. What he's saying, they perish
from the earth. You know, we buried some here. They're out
there in the cemetery. They're not coming back on this
earth. They're not coming to this earth. They've left this
earth. And there's one event that happens
to good and bad. They die. They die. And that's what it is. And Job
declares, now he's going to declare in verse 23 and 24, he's going
to declare the absolute rule of God over all. And he said,
if the scourge slay suddenly, and this is a tough one to understand,
it's tough to understand. He will laugh at the trial of
the innocent. He will laugh at the trial of
the innocent. Let me give you a scripture that
gives a little light on this. One, you remember over in Jeremiah
24 and verse 2, God tells them they're going into captivity.
They're going to go into captivity. But He gives Jeremiah a vision. He gives him a vision. And here's
this vision. He said, Jeremiah saw one basket
and had very good figs. He had very good figs. Even like
the figs that are the first ripe, The first fruits. And the other
basket had very naughty things which could not be eaten. They
were so bad. Both went into captivity. In
the Babylonian captivity. Those who believed God and those
who didn't believe God, they all went into captivity. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, put
in the fire, and Abednego. Look what the Hebrews went through
in Hebrews 11. Some were sawed and sundered.
They lived in caves. I mean, their life was miserable.
It was miserable. But here, he will laugh at the
trial of the innocent. I don't know if I'm going to
try to... This is how I see this. The Lord takes pleasure in conforming you to the image
of His Son. The trial that hurts is weaning
you from this world, it's conforming you to the image of His Son,
Jesus Christ, and it's enabling you, one trial after another,
it's enabling you to closer walk with God. He's not laughing as though He's
enjoying your pain. That's sick. That's not it. I believe He enjoys the results
of the trial that you're going through. And listen, He says here in verse
24, And the earth is given into the hand of the wicked. This
is their lot. All they have is this earth.
All we have is three school years and ten, and that's basically
it. I mean, that's the average lifespan, about 72 years. This
is it. The earth is given to them. You
know what's given to you? Heaven. Heaven. What did he say to that thief
on the cross? Today, shalt thou be with me in paradise. He'd been there a long time,
about 2,000 years now. He'd been in paradise. He was
in jail. He was hanging on a cross, being put to death. And he ends
up in paradise. The earth is given into the hands
of the wicked. They're going to have it. Because
God's going to burn it up anyway when He's done with it. The earth is given to the hands
of the wicked. Listen, He covers the faces of
the judges thereof. These are tough things. He's
saying to these friends, these are tough. These are tough statements. Tough. He gives them up to judicial
blindness as judgment on the wicked. Don't we see that in
our day? We see this. We see these judges that just
turn a blind eye. to wickedness. They just turn
a blind eye to it. God has given him up to judicial
blindness. You know it says in Genesis,
it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and it says God hardened
his heart. If God lets the judges be the
judges that they are by nature, they're going to be a bunch of
crooks. They're going to be a bunch of crooks. And this is said that we might
fear God. And notice what he says here.
This is something. Job said to these friends of
his, he covereth the faces of the judges thereof, if not, if
he doesn't do it, wherein, who's doing it? Who's doing it? You see what Job's doing? God's
the first cause. He either directly does it, or
by permission does it, He allows it to happen. And He's saying here, if He's
not the one doing it, then who is? As the one preacher said,
and I told you this before, but that one preacher said to the
lady who lost her son, he said, Satan did that, God didn't do
it. God did it. Our times are in His hands. I
lift up, I bring down, I kill and I make alive. I wound and
I heal. I, the Lord, do all these things. Daniel said, He rules among the
kingdom of men and gives it to whomsoever He will. And that's alright. I tell you this, Truth is offensive
because it offends man's thoughts of God. He said, you thought
I was just like you in Psalm 50, verse
21. You thought I was altogether
like yourselves. You think I'm like you. And I'm going to close here with
Joe making note of the brevity of his life. Now my days are swifter than
a post. You know, if every one of us were told that we were
going to die tonight, from the oldest to the youngest here,
we'd say, man, life's been fast. Life's been fast. My dad said
to me, he said, it seems like it's just a dream. He said, it
seems like it's just a dream. Now he's almost 92 years old.
It's just a dream. It's that fast. My days, you
know he didn't say my years, he calls it days, it's that short,
are swifter than a post. It's those men who would ride
for the king and they would, those Persians I believe it was,
they would ride like we call the pony express and they would
deliver messages. They flee away, they see no good. Job felt like he was never going
to see good again. He believed and felt he would
never see good again. You know, some trials can be
that hard. They can be that hard. They are passed away as the swift
ships, as the eagle that hastes to the prey. Have you ever seen
an eagle go down on its prey? He said, my life is over that
fast. And I wrote here how important it is to be joined to the Lord
Jesus Christ. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot
express how important it is to know, believe, and love the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because like that thief, in a
little while, the Lord said, you'll be with me in paradise.
That's a real place. Christ is a real person. God
is a real person. Judgment's real. Eternity's real.
Salvation's real. It's real. And it would do us, behoove us, to just absolutely
throw ourselves into knowing Christ. John said, I write these
things, and I wrote this down in a bulletin, that you may know
that you have eternal life. I want to know that. I don't
want to wait and see, well, maybe I do. I hope so. I don't want
to hope so. I want to know so. Alright, we'll
pick it up there next time.