All right, thank you ladies.
Let's go to the book of Job and chapter 33. And we'll be visiting just a
few verses here in chapter 33 this morning and again this evening. Job chapter 33. The words were, spoken by a man whose name is
Eli Hu. He has this to say, and I'm just
going to kind of break in what he has to say, because actually
his remarks cover several chapters. But let me just kind of focus on two verses. Job 33. Verses 23 and 24. He says, if there be a messenger,
the word messenger is literally a representative. If there be
a representative with him, an interpreter, a revealer, or a
mediator, among a thousand, one among a
thousand, to show, to manifest unto man his uprightness, then
he is gracious unto him, and he
saith, deliver him from going down to the pit And here's the reason. God says,
I have found a ransom. I want to speak to you about
one among a thousand. The word thousand, I'm sure you're
acquainted with this, is used frequently in the Scriptures
as a definite number which represents an indefinite number. a great
multitude. That's why one day with the Lord
is like a thousand years with us. And we don't hold that literally
to just 999 and then a thousand. It's just kind of what we'd call
a symbolic word to mean a great many. In the book of Revelation,
we read about a thousand years reign I don't think we should
limit that to just a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ Jesus. He reigns forever. To the Jew,
that was just a number that meant a long, long time or a great,
great number of whatever might be mentioned there. So I want to speak to you on
one among the thousand. This is the one of whom Solomon
wrote in the book of Song of Solomon, he said, he's the fairest
of, he said, 10,000 to my soul. We'll talk about the Lord Jesus
Christ. Go back now to chapter one. So
you know the direction we're going, but I want to begin back
here in Job chapter one in a good bit of the passage that Brother
Ron read to us a few minutes ago. You know, the book of Job,
it's most likely the oldest book in the Bible, if not one of the
oldest. It was written to set before
us God's wonderful interest and His loving attention to this
man named Job. Throughout the book, we see God's
great concern, God's great care for this vessel of mercy that
God chose unto salvation before the foundation of the world. And throughout the book, we see
that Job has the loving attention of God. Now, the Lord is, he's
purposed to make Job, make him a patient man. In fact, James
will even remark about that. You've heard of the patience
of Job. Well, it was to that end that
God made him a suffering man. Because the scripture said, tribulation
worketh patience. Somebody said, be careful what
you ask God for. He may give it to you. And if
you ask God for patience, this is the way he gives it.
He gives it through tribulation. Job is introduced to us in chapter
one as being a man who's perfect, upright, one who fears God, and
one who hates evil. That's found in verse one, Job
was a perfect man. What kind of perfection is this? It is the perfection that all
of God's people had. And I would say this is gospel
perfection. I think that's a good way to
express this. This is gospel perfection. We have our perfection in the
Lord Jesus Christ, even though we ourselves are imperfect. Though we are very sinful people,
we eat and drink iniquity, and we're full of vileness, we know
that. But in the eyes of God, there
is a perfection that we've got in the Lord Jesus. We're upright
in Him. He is our righteousness. Our
righteousness. The Scripture says here of Job,
he was upright. He had a right spirit toward
God. God gave him a right spirit.
God gave him a right attitude. And God gave him an uprightness. Though Job by nature was like
all the rest of us, yet by grace, By grace, God made him to be
a perfect man, and God made him to be an upright man, and God
made him one to reverence and fear God. This is not a fear
like the devils have, who tremble. This is a fear of reverence,
a fear of awe, as you said in your prayer. This is a fear where
we come before the Lord as His children who are coming before
the Father, and we have such a deep respect for God. We have a profound feeling of
reverence in His sight, and we come before Him bowing, and we
understand something of His greatness, and something of His glory, and
we understand something of our littleness, something of our
nothingness, and so we come before Him in a fearful way, in a respectful
way, in a reverence way. We come to worship Him. Yes,
we come boldly to the throne of grace. We're told to do that
in Hebrews chapter 4. But even in coming boldly, we
always remember we're coming to God. We're coming to One who's
holy. We're coming to One who's righteous
in all of His ways. He's the Great Maker, the Creator. He's the Sustainer. He's the
Giver of all things. And we come before Him realizing
how great He is and how little We are. And like Job, we fear
him. This is the very beginning of
wisdom. It's what the scripture says
is the fear of the Lord. And it says in verse one, he
eschewed evil. He hated evil. He hated it in
himself. Of all of the evil in the world,
you who are the people of God now, I ask you, of all the people
in the world, all the wickedness that you see, what is the evil
that you despise the most? Is it not the evil that you see
within you? That's what I hate the most. I often hear people, and being
a preacher, people say things like this to me. They say, oh,
the world's in bad shape. The world is so wicked. It's
so filled with ungodliness. Well, there's no question about
that, and I wouldn't take it to issue over that. But the greatest
evil I see is in here. It's my own unbelief. It's my
own rebellion. It's my own lack of motivation
to glorify Christ Jesus in all that I do. And that troubles
me. It bothers me. And I find myself
asking God over and over again, forgive me. Lord, forgive me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Job hated evil. He hated it in
himself, as all the people of God do. We hate it in ourselves,
and we hate it everywhere we find it. Well, Job goes on to say that,
or the scripture does, it says in verse 5, that it was so when the days
of their feasting of his kids, his children, seven sons, three
daughters were gone about, Job sinned, he sanctified them, he
set them apart. He rose up early in the morning,
he offered burnt sacrifices or offerings according to the number
of them all. He offered 10 of them. For Job said, it may be
that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus
did Job continually. Job understood something. He
understood the only way to come before God is by means of a sacrifice. An innocent victim must die instead
of the guilty. He understood that. He wasn't
certain that his children understood that, so he offered a sacrifice
to them, knowing that they were, like himself, sinners. And he's very concerned about
them. as parents are about their children. Those of us who know God as parents,
who have experienced the grace of God in our hearts, to whom
the Lord has been good to us, he's been merciful to us, our
next greatest concern is our children. Isn't it? It's our
children. And so Job, realizing the necessity
of having an offering to God on behalf of his kids, he presents
an offering to the Lord for each one of them, realizing without
the shedding of blood is no remission of sin. He had a great concern
for the welfare, the spiritual welfare of his children. It is a blessed privilege that
God gives us to carry our children to the Lord in prayer and ask
him to deal tenderly with them and mercifully with them even
as he's dealt with us. Well, there came a day when the
angels of God appeared before the Lord. Satan is among them.
And he begins to say some things about Job. But Ron has already read this
to us. But here's what I want to draw
your attention to in verse 11. Now the temptation, the trouble
is going to come from Satan, but it didn't originate with
Satan. Because this is what Satan says,
verse 11. Thine hand now. And touch all that he hath, he
will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord says, in verse 12,
the Lord said unto him, Satan, behold, all that he hath is in
thy power, only upon himself put not forth thine hand. In other words, really, the hand
of Satan is being manipulated by and governed by the hand of
God. And this is the way it is in
all things. And I know Satan, you know, many years ago there
was a book written, I can't remember the guy's name now, it doesn't
matter anyway. Satan is alive and doing well on planet Earth.
Well, number one, he's not alive because he's spiritually dead.
And he's not doing well because his head was wounded at the cross
of Calvary, but he does go about seeking whom he may devour. But all of the actions of Satan,
and this is what the world doesn't know, and this is what we need
to be very much aware of, all of the actions, all of the activities,
all of the works of Satan are ultimately dominated by and controlled
by, fully controlled by, our God. And Satan recognized that. He said, you put forth your hand
on Job. And so the Lord says to Satan,
you go ahead and put forth your hand on him. But in the hand
of Satan, we see the hand of God at work. And this is always the way it
is. And we've said this before and you've heard this. Those
of you who've been here for a lot of years, you've heard this many,
many times. God is the first cause of all things. So that when Job He feels the
hurt as our brother read to us after his children had died.
He had lost all of his possessions. Most of all of his servants had
been killed off and then his children died. Job, he didn't
say the Lord gave and Satan has taken away. That's the way the
world thinks. He says, the Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away. The same one who gave is the
one who took it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And he worshipped God. And you and I who are the people
of God, we've got to understand this. We've got to come to grips
with this. Our God is God over every situation, whether in life
or death. And He governs over all things.
because He's our sovereign God. Job, when he heard about his
oxen taken away and the asses stolen, he didn't say, ah, the
Sabaeans. Ah, those Sabaeans. No, he didn't
say that. When the fire of God fell, fell
from heaven, burned up his sheep, his servants, and consumed them.
He didn't say, oh, Mother Nature, Mother Nature took these away. Oh, no. No. He didn't do that. He didn't blame Mother Nature.
That's what men do today. And then when the Chaldeans came, fell upon his children, took
the camels away, killed the servants. He didn't say all those Caldeans. And when the Lord sent a whirlwind
and killed all of His children, ten children, seven sons and
three daughters, He didn't blame the wind. He says, it's the Lord. It's
the Lord. And in all of this, Job's in
on. He's a most remarkable man. And I know there's a lot, there's
been quite a bit of preaching on Job, and I've heard some say
that he's filled with self-righteousness, and some have even said that
he wasn't converted at the beginning. And I'll just say this, the scripture
says he's a perfect and upright man. And that sounds pretty good
to me. If God Almighty says you're a
perfect and an upright man, and you fear the Lord and you hate
evil, I'll just take those words quite literally. This is a man
who knows God. And God's going to deal with
him and he is forced through the questions and through the
words of three friends of his, he's forced, I believe, into
a position that he didn't really want to be in, of defending himself. But regardless of all of that,
here's a man that God severely disciplined. God does hasten
His children. That's just a fact. And if you
are a believer, surely you don't expect to go through life without
any hardships, without any sufferings. You shouldn't be shocked when
they come along because there are things the Lord is going
to teach you. He is teaching you and the only
way you can learn and the only way I can learn most of the time
is through difficult times. Those are the lessons that we
really learn properly when we go through seasons of affliction
and tribulation. We know in the second chapter
of Job that Satan again appeared before the Lord and sought permission
to touch His body, which the Lord said, go ahead and do it.
But in all of these severe tribulations and trials, they were all governed
by and watched over by our God, who in His infinite wisdom is
going to make all of this work out for the ultimate good of
Job. Satan was given the authority
to smite his body and his health failed him. And then his own wife said, why
don't you curse God and die? Well, then we get to chapter
three. And we're introduced, beginning with chapter three,
to three of Job's friends. And they accuse him of doing
something very horrible to bring upon him such awful judgment. As they looked upon his wounds,
as they surveyed the past several days of all of these great calamities,
catastrophes in his life, they came to this conclusion. Boy,
you must have really messed up bad to have brought all of this
upon yourself. And they knew there was something
wrong, but they could not direct him to the great physician and
his healing balm of the gospel. That's what they didn't do. Listen,
we're all going to go through difficult troubles. We'll go
through times of pain and sickness and maybe disease, and the body
will get weak. And the thing for you to do,
the thing for me to do is not try to sit around and say, well,
boy, I wonder what they did to bring upon themselves all of
this trouble. No! No! The Lord sends them according
to His will. That which we ask for, God give
them grace during the trial, and give me grace when you put
something on me like that. Lord, be with them. Lord, encourage
their heart. And the way to help someone who
is having difficulties is direct them to the Lord of Glory. Tell
them about the Savior. Tell them about the Great Physician. Tell them about a healing more
necessary and more lasting than the healing of the body. That's
the healing of the soul. That's how you can help people.
But these men never directed Job to the Lord. They didn't
do that. And so in reality, they're not
very good friends at all. They're not very good friends
at all. They persecuted Him with their words. They hurt Him. They hurt Him. Because He knew. He's a believer. I believe God. I believe God. He even said to them, you're
forgers of lies. He said, you're all physicians
of no value. He said, miserable comforters
are you all. Didn't do him any good. And this conversation with these
three friends goes on and on and on until you get to the end
of chapter 31. You get to the end of chapter
31. At this point, we're introduced
to a new character in the book. His name is Elihu. Look at chapter
32 and verse 1. Job 32, verse 1. So these three
men, They ceased to answer Job because
he was righteous in his own eyes. In their estimation, that's what
they concluded. Here's the man who's righteous
in his own eyes. Well, then was kindled the wrath
of Elihu. Elihu. He's a much younger man. He's a man who's listened to
Job and his three friends and their conversations. He heard
the men accuse Job of being a transgressor of God's law, which therefore
resulted in the loss of his possessions, the loss of his children, the
loss of his health, and the loss of the great esteem Job had among
the people. Elihu had listened as Job foolishly
tried to defend himself and justify his actions and his attitude. And then, finally, there's a
lull in the accusations and the conversation, and in the self-defense
of Job, and immediately this younger man, Elihu, steps up
to speak. and speak he does because what
he has to say covers chapters 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and chapter 37. So it's a very
lengthy response that he gives. And he basically, he tells Job
about one who's greater than a thousand, that is, He tells
him about the Lord. And I want to say this, and I'll
spend the rest of my time this morning dealing with this. This
man Elihu, he's a real good picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I'm going to show you this evening, he's a real good preacher of
the Lord Jesus Christ. So just those two things, that's
what we'll deal with. the rest of this morning and
this evening. He's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Number
one, in His name. In His name. Elihu. Made up of
two words. Eli. You know what that is? God. God. Remember our Lord Jesus, when
he hung upon the cross, he said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that
is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? This is
a Hebrew word for God, Eli. It's also translated, by the
way, same Hebrew word in Isaiah 7, 14 and Isaiah 8, 8 as Immanuel. Immanuel. Elihu, another name
for Immanuel, which means God with us. That's the Lord Jesus. He is God with us. This is the
name by which you shall be called, Emmanuel. It's our Lord Jesus
who came into this world and He was God with us. God with
us. He's God the Creator. He's God
the Sustainer. He's God who gives life. He's
God who gives breath. Elihu. God. Part of His name is God. And
our Lord Jesus, He's God. He's God in every way. He's always
been God. From everlasting to everlasting,
thou art God. Jesus Christ the same yesterday
and today and forever. He's God. Great is the mystery
of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Here's the second word though.
I said His name made up of two words. Eli, which is God, and
then the H-U means Himself. Himself. Which makes this to
mean, literally, He is my God Himself. That is, in the name of this
man, we see a foreshadowing of our great Emmanuel, Jesus Christ,
who is God, who is our Savior Himself. There is no other. The Scripture says, unto us a
child is born, unto us a son is given. He's said to be the
mighty God, the everlasting Father. God blessed forever. He is one
among a thousand. I tell you, there's nobody like
Him. There's nobody like Him. And even in the name of Elihu,
we see He's one among a thousand. Oh, the rarity of our Savior. He is so rare that there's not
another like Him. There's none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. None other. There's no other name. There's
one name that gives you access to God. There's one name that
gives you the privilege of speaking with God and God will hear you
and that's the name of His Son. He's one among a thousand. Even in His name. Secondly, concerning Elihu, not
only do we see him to be a picture of our Lord Jesus in his name,
but in his origin. Notice in chapter 33 and verse
4. Notice how Elihu speaks of his
origin. He says, the Spirit of God hath
made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.
Now certainly the Lord made Elihu and gave him breath, just like
the Lord made you and gave you breath and made me and gave me
breath. But don't you see in this a picture
of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ? Look, hold your place here and
look at Luke chapter one. Look at Luke chapter one. Remember
now the words of Elihu. who said, the Spirit of God hath
made me. The Spirit, the breath of the
Almighty hath given me life. Look at Luke chapter one. Look at verse 26. In the sixth
month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, she was pregnant with John the
Baptist in the sixth month The angel Gabriel was sent from God
unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, a spouse
to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the
virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in under her
and said, Hail, thou art highly favored, thou art blessed of
God. God's been gracious to you. The
Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women. And when she
saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind
what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said
unto her, fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God.
For behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth
a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and
he shall be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God
shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall
reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there
shall be no end. And then Mary said unto the angel,
Well, how can this be? Seeing I know not a man. And
the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost, the Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee. The power of the highest shall
overshadow thee. Therefore also that Holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Elihu says, let me tell you about
my beginning. The Spirit of God hath made me.
The breath of the Almighty gave me life. And we read the Spirit
of God, the Spirit of the Almighty One came upon Mary. And she became
pregnant with the Lord of glory, with the Lord Jesus. without
the seed of a man being involved here. He's not the seed of the
man. He's the seed of the woman. He's born of the virgin. He is
not contaminated with, He is not polluted with, the Lord Jesus
is not polluted with the sin of Adam. He didn't come from
Adam. He came from a woman. And he
was brought into this world as a result of the authority and
the might of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God. And he could
rightfully say, as did Elihu, the Spirit of God hath made me. Now I know you and I who are
the people of God who have been regenerated by the Lord, we can
say the Spirit of God has made me. Right? And He has. He's made us anew. And the breath
of the Almighty hath given me life. If you live unto God, if
you breathe unto God, if you're alive, spiritually alive, having
been given repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if
you're spiritually alive, it's the Spirit of God who made you.
He gave you breath. He gave you breath. So Elihu is a picture of our
Lord Jesus in his origin. Our Lord Jesus was conceived
by the power of the Holy Ghost. And he says, our Lord Jesus says
in Hebrews chapter 10, a body thou hast prepared me, prepared
by the Holy Ghost. Why did the Holy Ghost prepare
him a body? Because in burnt offerings and
sacrifices, God did not have any pleasure. Therefore, the Lord Jesus was
given a body. The Scripture says He partook
flesh and blood just like those He came to save. Because in that
body He would suffer, in that body He would bleed, and in that
body He would die to satisfy the justice of God. He had to
have a body, and so his birth, we go all the way back. The Spirit
of God made him. The breath of the Almighty gave
him life. Thirdly, Elihu is a picture of our Lord
Jesus, not only in his name, and not only in his origin, but
in his position. Go back with me to Job. Hold
your place, of course, in 33. Go back to Job chapter 9. Job
chapter 9. This is Job answering it. And
Job, he's saying, how can I deal with God? How
can I speak with God? And he is defending himself before
these three friends and basically saying, I don't think I've done
anything to deserve this. And this is a self-defense against
these three men. But now he's thinking about,
well, how will he appear before God? How can he deal with God? Because he did recognize the
greatness of God in how little he was himself. And so he says
this about God, chapter 9, verse 32. For he is not a man, that is
God, is not a man as I am that I should answer him and we should
come together in judgment. You know, if you and I have an
issue, We just sit down and talk about it. Okay? Because we're
equals. But Job says, God's not a man. I can't do that with God. And
he says this in verse 33, Neither is there any dazeman betwixt
us that might lay his hand upon us both. He said, I want somebody,
I wish there was somebody who could lay his hand upon God and
lay his hand upon me. I wish there was an individual
who would stand as a mediator. Now go back to chapter 33. And
God gave him exactly what he wanted in giving him Elihu. He did. You see, Elihu was just
the character that Job had requested. One, to stand between himself
and his accusers. Once again, in Job 33. Job 33, 23. If there be a messenger,
a representative with him, an interpreter, a mediator, literally
a daisman. I need a daisman. I need somebody
to stand between, first of all, Job and his accusers, but more
so between Job and God. And Elihu is presented in Elihu's
name and in his origin. We see he's just what Job needed. Just like the Lord Jesus is just
the one we need. You see that? He's just the one
we need. God is way up there on His throne
in everlasting glory. He's a consuming fire. And here
we are, wiggling maggots upon the dung heap of this earth.
We need somebody to stand between us and God. We need a daysman.
We need an interpreter. We need a messenger. Enter onto
the scene a greater than Elihu, one among a thousand, the Lord
Jesus Christ. There he is. And he's just the Savior we need. He just suits our case. Elihu is a picture of our Savior. Our Savior who settled the issue
between God and men. But what's the issue? The issue
is sin. And He paid the debt. He put
it away. I'll give you one more thing. And we'll put the rest off till
tonight. This man Elihu, he came forth with the Word of God. He came forth with the Word of
God. Look at chapter 32 and verse 17. Elihu speaking to Job now, chapter
32, verse 17. I said, I will answer also my
part. I will also show mine opinion.
I'm gonna tell you what I think. And of course, Elihu had been
listening to this extended conversation between Job and his three friends.
And now Elihu says, okay, I've been listening. I've got something
to say now. For he says in verse 18, for
I am full of matter. The spirit within me constraineth
me. Behold, my belly is as wine which
hath no vent. It is ready to burst. like new
bottles. I will speak that I may be refreshed. I will open my lips and answer. He says, I will speak. I got
something to say. I've got something to say. Our Lord Jesus came from God
as the word of God. The Word of God. What is a word? It's a vehicle of thought. You
will only know my mind, my will, my thoughts, if I put them in
the vehicles that we call words. Our Lord Jesus is the Word. In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. God has made Himself known. Don't
you understand that? He has revealed Himself in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Our Savior is the full expression
of God. And like Elihu says, I'm full
of the matter. I'm full of the matter. I've
got words to speak. Our Lord Jesus, He is the One
who gave the written Word, and the written Word is about Him
who is the incarnate Word. And He gives to us the message
of God. No wonder the Father said at
His transfiguration, He said to the three favored disciples,
this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye Him. And we've got to hear Him too.
We've got to hear Him. And He's got to speak to us.
His words are life. And there's no life anywhere
else. When many of our Lord's disciples left Him and walked
with Him no more, and He looked at His immediate 12 disciples
and He said, will you also go away? And Peter said, to whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words, the words
of eternal life. We believe and are sure. Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. He comes giving forth
the words of God. The words of God. And Elihu says,
I'm full of the matter. Elihu, you see, was like the
mouthpiece of God. And that's who Jesus Christ is.
He is the mouthpiece of God. The words of grace and mercy
and salvation. God speaks to us. He speaks through
His Son. The Word of God. And there is
no other Savior. He Himself is the Word of God. And He must speak with mighty
power and grace to save us. Elihu. He's a picture of the
Lord Jesus. And He tells us of one of one
who is among a thousand, one who is above a thousand. He's
telling us of the Savior. And we know from the Scriptures,
all the Scriptures, about the Son of God. And Elihu, he's a
picture of our Savior. I'm going to show you tonight,
he's not only a picture of our Savior, he's a preacher of our
Savior also. May God direct all of our attentions
to the Savior and bring us to true faith. in the hymn.