Let's go to the Lord in prayer
this morning. Father, be with us. Lord, be our teacher. Open our hearts and our minds.
Allow us to see your son. Lord, let us gather in this place
to worship him. Let Christ be exalted. So many
brethren that's suffering in trials, Lord, refine them as
you refine the gold. Until that final day, Lord, make
this Word necessary as their food for them. What a comfort. What a peace we can have in trial,
knowing our Savior. We'll be with your pastors everywhere
this morning and preach Your Word faithfully. Give them boldness. Give them that unction. It's
in Christ's name that we ask it. Amen. Alright, brethren,
if you will, we'll be turning to Job 23. Job 23. A lot of theologians
have a lot of different words for how you preach. It's expositional,
topical, the theories behind developing a message. I hope
I can just talk to you today. But many times you ever got a
question When you feel you know that person asked you a question,
just so you can say something, so they can tell you what they
know. That happens a lot, don't it? Sometimes I get a phone call
or I talk to somebody in person, and they'll ask me questions
like, do you preach the full gospel? Anytime somebody asks
me that, I've found it to be there is one or two aspects of
a gospel that's in their head that they're harping on. They
want the full gospel, but they only see one or two things. They
say they want true worship. Are we having true worship there?
There'll be one or two aspects. It'll be praying, or reading,
or singing, or kneeling, or whatever they think it is. Well, they
want to know that. But I remember whenever I was
a teenager, I was hungry. I grew quick. I used to be kind
of short. And I grew fast. And I'd come home and I'd say,
Mom, what's for dinner? And she said, well, we're going
to have some carrots, and we're going to have some peas, and some mashed potatoes. And I said, yeah, but what's
for dinner? She said, well, I'm going to have some rolls, and
we'll probably have some salad. And then afterwards, we might
have some dessert. And I said, but what's for dinner? Well,
we're having pork chops. That's what's for dinner. Those
other things are good. We need salad. We need vegetables. We need some fruit. Every now
and then, we need a little piece of dessert, too, don't we? Worry about that
meat. I need that meat. I need those
other things here and there, but I need to meet. But anyway,
today I wanted to touch on something. I started listening to a message
I'd list two years ago. I grew up in church. I grew up
under a faithful man of God that told us who God was and told
us who man was, ever since I was a little tiny boy. I grew up
there. I was made to go to church every
week and twice on Sunday. That's a funny joke if you're
from where I go from. But many years ago, one day,
this great big man from another church came to preach for us.
Huge man. Very large, loud, booming voice.
His name was Maurice. And he stood up in that pulpit
and he talked about God's sovereignty. And he began that message by
saying, Let God? Let God? What? over and over. He just kept driving
that point home and that day I could not turn my attention
away. I was a young person sitting
there in a pew and I would try to think of anything else to
make that painful hour, hour and a half go by faster. I would
think about my four-wheeler, what kind of riding boots I was
going to get, where was I going to go fishing that evening, what
kind of bait was I going to use, anything I could think of to
make time pass faster. But that day, I couldn't stop
listening to that big man up there. He was preaching, and
I couldn't turn my ear away. I tried. Couldn't quit. I was
reading, I was thinking about that, I reflect on it often,
and I was thinking about one verse that he talked about, and
I thought I was going to do a topical message, and then I think I read
the verses before, read the verses after, and I think we're going
to stay pretty close to Job 23 today. Let's read this larger
portion of text here. Job 23 and verse 8. I go forward, and he is not there,
and backward, but I cannot perceive him. On the left hand, where
he doth work, but I cannot behold him, he hideth himself on the
right hand, and I cannot see him. But he knoweth the way that
I take, When he had tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My
foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept and not declined. Neither have I gone back from
the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of
his mouth more than my necessary food. But he is in one mind,
and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even
that he doeth. For he performeth a thing that
is appointed for me, and many such things are with him. Therefore
am I troubled at his presence when I consider. I am afraid
of him, for God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth
me." Millions of people are gathered
today. around this world in what they
call churches. There's a man standing up in
front of them. He's got a Bible. He reads the words out of that
Bible. He talks to those people. They may sing some songs. Someone's going to pray. Someone's
going to just read the scriptures. All those elements are going
to be there. They may take the Lord's table and they say a lot
of words that we may say, that I say. But the vast majority
of those people do not know who they're worshiping. They do not
know God. So many people that read their
Bibles often, they read them in those churches or they read
them at home. They read them every day. They see the same
words that you and I just read. They read those same words. And
they say horrible things. ignorant things, disgusting things. They say things like God wants
to do something. They say that God needs something. He's trying to do something. They say that men and women must
let God get what He wants. They must let God get what He
needs. They must let God try. Blasphemy. What horrible, wicked, blasphemy. I hear somebody say that about
my God, and I get a little fiery. We'll see that in tonight's message. I'm going to chop somebody's
ear off. I get mad. That hurts me. You talk about
my wife, talk about my father, my mother, I'm going to get mad.
You talk about my God, I'm going to get mad. That hurts me. They're
degrading and belittling concerning the true and living God. But
they read the same words in this Bible. How can they read the
Bible so much and not see the power, the authority, the holiness,
and the completeness of God? Is it the book's fault? God forbid. It's the person's fault. It's
the reader's fault. Why? There's sin in us. There's sin
in us and that's the problem. Just as Eve was beguiled by that
serpent, what did she do? She turned to the words of God.
She heard the word and she turned it just a little bit to suit
her. She put a spin on it and that's what happens today. People
put a spin on God's word that's so plain and so clear. It's in English. It's in black
and white. We read it. Well, it's going
to be better. You go looking for a yes, you're
going to find it. That's dangerous. Dangerous. And they call it a
gospel and it's no gospel at all. There's no good news there.
It's a covenant of works. I want to cover just a few aspects
of God this morning. Who we think He is, is not who
the Bible says He is for most people. Not who our loved ones
told us He is, what the scriptures say about Him. Not who our co-workers
or friends who say He is, but who He says He is. That's what
I want to look at. And we cannot see God in the
flesh. There's a lot of people out there
saying they've seen God, that they've audibly heard the Lord
speak to them. I would encourage you to seek
medical advice. That doesn't happen in our day.
The apostolic era is over. We can't heal folks. We don't
communicate directly with God. He has wisdom put in place, His
wisdom. But it's not so. We have His
recorded Word. We have the Word of Life, and
it's preserved for us. We have these scriptures. We
can look at that, and we can hear what He says, and we pray
that God will reveal Himself in His Word to us. That's our
hope. But let's see what Job had to
say. He was a righteous man. The Lord said he was righteous.
He was upright and perfect before the Lord. He was a sinner saved
by grace, wasn't he? One of God's elect. There in
Job 23, verse 8, he says, Behold, I go forward, but he is not there,
and backward, but I cannot perceive him. On the left hand, where
he doth work, but I cannot behold him. He hideth himself on the
right, and I cannot see him. God is working all around us,
and we don't see it. Sin's blinded our eyes, and we
don't see it, and we act like people that don't see it. Believers are brought to know
some things in this world. We are taught of God through
the preaching of His gospel. And throughout our lives we hear
this word preached faithfully week in and week out. Then we
experience some things in our lives. We gently begin to see
that God's working around us. We're told plainly that He works
all things. But we start to finally get a
hold of it in our lives. We start just a little bit to
get a hold of that. He works All things. We are made
to acknowledge that the Lord, who is Spirit, we do not see,
is accomplishing things in our lives all around us. I can go
on for a long time about it, but you know, you take water
and you freeze it and it gets bigger when it thaws. You break
something, bust something in your freezer, you know. The angle
of those molecules, of those hydrogens, change whenever it
stops moving. Who controls that? Who designed
that? Well, that's reflected throughout creation. Who come
up with that? The Lord controls us. We'll see
that. He controls everything. We start to know Him ever so
slightly, but the entire time, He fully knows us. Fully knows
us. He knows all things and is the
ruler of all things, whether we know it or not. He performs
all things and is a ruler of all things, whether we like it
or not. We do not validate God's existence on his throne. He is
God. What can we look at in our lives
that can give us just a poor example of that? We have a president.
You can not know anything about him. You can hate him and you
want him out of there and not agree with anything he says.
He's still there. One person ain't going to do
it. You can love Him, know everything about Him, agree with everything
He says, and that ain't gonna keep Him there. The Lord put
Him there. The Lord's on His throne in all
things. Almighty God knows His people. He loves them. He provides
for them. He chastens them. He saves them. He redeems them.
He keeps them. And He conforms them to the image
of Christ in our new hearts on this earth and fully in body
and spirit whenever He's done with us on this earth. When our
race is run, we're made to be like Christ. Job 23.10 there
says, but He knoweth the way I take. He knows the steps we
take. He knows the feelings we experience. Christ was touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. We do not have a sovereign God
that understands us. He knows us. We all know how
much suffering and heartache Job went through. We've read
this many times throughout our lives. One trial after another,
severe trials. He didn't get a splinter. He
didn't stub his toe. That man had trials. Was the
Lord just watching? Was He just a spectator, knowing
Job's steps that Job chose to take? God forbid. Of course not. Through God's permissive will,
He brought Job to the attention of Satan. He set the bounds of
that trial. He said, have you considered
my servant Job? He said, yeah, you won't let me touch him. I
ain't wasting my time on him. He said, go ahead. Can't kill
him. Do whatever you want to, to Him.
He set the bounds of that trial. Satan was the tool for that job. We're going to see that here
in just a second. Look here in verse, Job 23, 10. For He knoweth
the way that I take, and He hath tried me. I shall come forth
as gold. Well, did the Lord know His way? The Lord set His way, didn't
He? How did he do it? I thought Satan
put them bulls on him, took all his crops. I thought Satan, that
evil thing, took his cattle from him, killed his children. That
what happened? Lord did it. Through his permissive
will. He's a tool. I got a bunch of
tools at the house. I had to use one yesterday. I
have a multimeter. I can check ohms and microfarads
and currents and all kinds of stuff. It ain't cheap. It's a
nice thing. I take good care of it. I put it in a case. I
take the batteries out as soon as I'm done using it. I don't
want corrosion in that thing. Oh, I take care of it. It's a
tool. I use it in my hand. Do I have some things that are
unpleasant? I got a plunger. Is it used? What hand uses it? The same hand that uses that
big old fancy thing. We're in the Lord's hands. But the Lord
refined Job that whole time. Keeping him, preserving him to
the final end. That's what we looked at a couple
of weeks ago. That's the perfecting to His
end. To what? To bow down to Christ.
Bowing to the Lord. Looking to Christ for all things.
Worshiping Christ alone. Why would God make His children
go through so much? Why wouldn't He just say, You're
like me, and we don't have to be in this world. In the life
of a believer, we experience so many ups and downs. Many of
us have small trials. Some of us have many big trials.
But we see the Lord working His good pleasure through it all.
We're brought to see our weakness and His strength during these
times. We are comforted knowing the
Lord, who loved us first, is the one that is trying us. He's
the one that puts us in that fire to refine us. We are given
faith to believe our Savior during those things. That's where the
faith comes from. That's where it's strengthened.
Peter wrote, "...the trial of your faith, being much more precious
than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire..."
Those trials are fiery. They burn, don't they? They sting.
"...might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the peering
of Jesus Christ." We do not see with our physical eyes Christ
working in and around us majority of the time. Those things are
revealed to us here and there. Boy, it's precious, isn't it?
You say, oh, look how the Lord worked that out. I couldn't have
planned it any better. Everything's going just as I think it's south.
It's getting worse. There could be no good come from
this. And then five years later, two years later, 20 years later,
oh, boy, look at that. I couldn't have planned it better.
But we begin to see His hand ruling and reigning all things
over time, don't we? Look at verse, Job 23, 11. My foot hath held His steps. His way have I kept and not declined,
neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips.
I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary
food. Christ commands the steps of
His sheep in giving to us and taking away from us and all throughout
our lives. He sends times of joy. He sends
times of sorrow. He directs our way. He keeps
us from wavering throughout our path, throughout our race. We
may stumble. We may stagger. But we do not
turn from His path. His path. We do not go back from
His commandment. And like Job, we're made thirsty
and hungry for that food. It's necessary. More than our
daily food, we see our need of Christ. That's what we looked
at Wednesday, our thirst for that gospel. We've got to be
thirsty in a dry land. He makes us that way. Some will
say, see there at that text you just read? We have to walk in
God's path. We have to keep His way. We've
got to go out for a jog, make ourselves hungry. We've got to
work up our own appetite. There in verse 12 it says, He's
not turned in this race of life from the commandment of His lips. The entirety of a believer's
life is commanded from the lips of God. The God of the Bible,
if He commands something, does it happen? It does, don't it? It has so far
in everything. If He says it, it's going to
come pass. Oh, what confidence. What a God. He said, let there be light.
Did the light decide that it was going to follow the commandment
of His lips? Did the light choose to come on? No. There was light. Let there be
light. Light. He said, let the waters
go in one place and let the dry land appear. And in Genesis 1,
it says, and so it was. The grass of the fields, and
it was so. Let the creatures of the land
and the sea come forth, and it was so. The stars, the sun, the
moon, the greater light and the lesser light, it was so. We can't get to the moon if we
really want to. You can fly, you can try, it
might blow up, you might hit a bird, you might run out of
gas. The Lord made that man. Hung it. He's the God of creation. He commanded into existence creation
and He commands creation every moment of every day. We see tsunamis. We see these natural disasters
in our lives. Tornadoes, earthquakes. We see
tsunamis taking out vast numbers of people. Some folks say, I
don't like that. I don't think God would do that.
Well, make Him quit. You go stand out on the beach,
if you know it's coming, hold your hands up. See how it works out for
you. You can't stop Him. Colossians 115 says, Christ is
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are
in earth. All creation. Visible and invisible. Stuff
we see, stuff we don't see. Whether they're thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. All things were created by him.
That's something. He set it in motion, didn't he?
We have a governor. They're trying to get rid of
him down there at Target every other week. And then the opposite weeks,
they're trying to keep him in there. Who put him there? Christ put him there. Why? All
things were created by Him, comma, and for Him. You think He's able
to put who He wants there? Who am I to complain? He said to Peter, what's it to
you? We just hush. We're getting fed. Lord loved
us. We're sons of God. He'll take
care of it. And He is before all things and
by Him all things consist. Christ the Almighty God sustains
and controls all things. All things. What's that leave
out? What's put in my hand for me
to handle? What's put in my hand for me
to worry about? What battle do I have to fight? All things. I wish I... Give me 35 minutes
after we get out of here. I need to do something. What's
wrong with me? It's like there's two men inside
of me fighting all the time, isn't it? He turns the hearts of men at
His pleasure, through His power in this earth and in spirit,
at His word, at His command. He's the God of providence. Turn
over just a few pages there, Job 37. You're looking at Job 37.5. I need to hurry. Christ rules over thrones, principalities,
powers, either through His word, or through His thought, or through
the creation He provided. His will is accomplished. What He wants, it's done. Job 37, verse 5. God thundereth marvelously with
His voice. Great things doeth He which we
cannot comprehend. I get pride when I think I can.
We can't comprehend it. Verse 6, For he saith to the
snow, Be thou on the earth, likewise to the small rain and to the
great rain of his strength. He sealeth up the hand of every
man. Why would he seal up our hands? That all men may know his work. What is our will in providence
compared to God? What's man's plans? My flesh
says, I'm going to go to rescue Thursday. And Clay's going to
fly up to rescue, and I'm going to go up there and preach for
him. My new man says, if the Lord's
pleased to let me do so, I'll go to rescue Thursday. Why? He might send a great rain or
a lot of rain. Me and Kimberly was trying to come here. We had
to land a couple hours north, rent a car and drive down. We were offered a reminder of
this in New Jersey. They got Washington's Crossing, and Washington
crossed the Delaware. There's a little state park there
and stuff. They always had that picture of him, and they can
argue it all they want, I don't care. They got a picture of him
on a boat. And the waves are crescent, and
that boat ain't that far out of the water. If you've ever
been on a boat, he's about to sink. He's going to get swamped.
They didn't take all them men, all them horses, and all them
provisions across that river raging in the middle of winter
like that in New Jersey. It's cold. That river was frozen. They walked across it. Where
would our nation be if the Lord didn't breathe and freeze that
river? Oh, what a sweet reminder. Fifteen minutes from Newbie,
from the church. Go pray and think about those
things. But think about this. How many nations have been preserved
or brought down to its knees because God sent a dream? Put
a dream in somebody's mind at night. Our hands are sealed and
we know it. And it's so all men know that
the Lord's working. Through God's creation, through
God's holy providence, He uses all manner of means, all of these
things, to save His people. It's sure. It's going to happen.
To have them declare that Christ is holy, Christ is all powerful,
and He's all. He'll use every bit of it. This
physical earth, all the principalities, powers, dominions, and weather,
and everything, providence, to bring us to say Christ is all.
It's going to happen. He'll call out His people. I'm
sure of it. Why? He's a God of salvation. Our
God is God. Through all the joy, the grace,
the mercy, the trials, the natural disasters, kings, rulers, whatever
their decisions are, Christ brings each one of His elect to declare
with King Nebuchadnezzar what He said. Remember Him? He's King
Babylon, big old strong man, powerful man. He was brought
down to walk around on all fours and eat grass like a cow. He
was crazy. Lord Sovereign and Salvation,
he is. If you think he's not, what happens
if I get bopped on the head? If he's not the God of Providence,
if a brick falls off a building downtown, hits me on the head
and I lose my mind, I have amnesia. What about my confession of faith?
Oh, what about me knowing him? It ain't in my hands, is it? Praise God, it ain't what I know
what I think. But Nebuchadnezzar said that. The Lord gave his
mind back to him. And he said, At the end of the
days of Nebuchadnezzar, I lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and
my understanding returned to me. And I blessed the Most High,
and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion
is an everlasting dominion. And his kingdom is from generation
to generation. And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing. And He doeth according to His
will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth, none can stay His hand and say unto Him, What doest
thou? Do you think it's worth it for Nebuchadnezzar to walk
around eating that grass on all fours for a while? Is it worth
it for us when we go through a trial? Something horrible.
They're never going to be into this. There's no life at the
end of the tunnel. And the Lord brings us out, and we're comforted,
and we see Him as God. Oh, that's a relief. That's peace. What a blessing. What a blessing. Those who believe Christ, that's
so. When the Spirit convicted us of sin, gave us comfort, knowing
that Christ died for us, why He had to die, that He was successful
in satisfying that holy justice of the Father, He preserves us
and He'll conform us to His image. Did you declare that God's sovereign
in all things? He's mighty. He's powerful. He'll
do what He wants. He's holy. His wisdom is perfect
and we're nothing. That's what we're brought to
declare. And here's what Job said back in Job 23.13. Job 23.13, But God is in one
mind, and who can turn Him? And what His soul desireth, even
that He doeth. God is of one mind. That means
there is no one with him giving him advice. He's in one mind. No one's there
to counsel him. He does not seek counsel with
us. He performs his will in all things and no one can turn him.
We cannot, we should not, and we will not misdirect his will. Just like stopping that tsunami.
It ain't gonna happen. Christ does a work in your heart,
you will not want to bend God's will. Look here in verse 14. For He performeth the thing that
is appointed for me, and many such things are with Him. All those things that are appointed
for me, they reside in Him. What was appointed for me and
you? God of creation, physical life. Are we sitting here? Well,
yeah, I'm alive, proven. I'm here. The Lord made us, physically. God of creation made us. What
we consider joyous times and sorrowful times, we've all experienced
those. Everybody here can tell a story
about having a happy day and a sad day, even the youngest one of
us. What's that? God of providence. He made me
alive. He gave me good times, bad times,
trials. Where did He bring me? The most precious one of all. our salvation in Christ the God-man.
He ruled and reigned in the hearts of all creation to bring us all
the way to the feet of Christ, make us bow to Him. I'm glad
I was born. I'm glad I experienced everything
I experienced in my life to bring me to hear that great big man
stand up and preach to me. A man who told me what humans
truly are and what God truly is. You say the same thing? I
don't think. That's a poor, pitiable 20-something-year-old
suing his parents because he said he didn't choose to be alive. God's saints won't sue him that
he has to take care of us because we didn't ask to be alive. Oh,
we'll ask, won't we? What a beautiful life He's given
us. All of it. We experience salvation. We learn
of God's authority and rule in everything in the excellency
of His power and we fear Him. We fear Him. We have a healthy
physical fear of Him. more blasphemous than what I
started with today. And he said, the Lord couldn't
strike me with lightning if he wanted to. He was out in the
middle of the woods. And buddy, I moved. I might get singed by proximity.
I don't want to be close to you. I am a questioner. I'm not tempting
the Lord. But we have a spiritual fear. And being afraid is a good
thing. But we fear Him in honor and respect. We're not just afraid
of Him, we fear Him and we honor Him. We respect Him. We're brought
to bow before Him. Look here in Job 23.15, Therefore
am I troubled at His presence, when I consider I am afraid of
Him. For God maketh my heart soft,
and the Almighty troubleth me. That heart of stone that hated
God, it was so self-righteous, it was so pious, thought so much
of itself, so prideful, it was made soft. It was given life. Have you ever been in a dark
place and went to grab your phone or remote or something, and you
grab something and it's hard? You might know that's it, you
might not know that's it. Have you ever went and grabbed something hard,
like a rock or whatever, and it wasn't hard? You grabbed something
soft. There might be life in that thing. It might bite you. God gives His eternal children
life. eternal life. He softens our
heart. He puts life in us. And He troubles us. That word
there, Job says, I'm troubled at His presence and the Almighty
troubleth me. That word means tremble. We tremble
at His presence. We tremble before Him in honor
and praise. In the bulletin today, there's an article by Brother
Moose Parks about peculiar people. Read that. Those words mean something
different nowadays than what they were when they were written.
We've got to look those things up. We've got to see what they
mean. Lord troubles us. I pray you'd make us tremble.
Wouldn't that be something? Amen. Father, thank you for your
word. Lord, give us a glimpse of your
power and majesty and make us trust you. What happy creatures
we would be, Lord. What peaceful people. Joyous, walking through this
world, knowing that our Father is in heaven, ruling and reigning
all things. And let us tremble, Lord. Let us worship Christ and
praise Him. Forgive us. Forgive our sin,
Lord. We do that which we don't want
to do, and we don't do that which we do want to do. Thank you for
Christ. Thank you for your son. Lord
bless you word today. It's in his name that we ask
it. Amen.