Turn with me to 1 John 2. 1 John
2, and then we'll be going right into Job. 1 John 2 and verse
1. My little children, these things write I unto you
that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Now turn to Job chapter 42. We have an advocate with the
father. Webster's unabridged dictionary
defines advocacy as any action that speaks in
favor of, recommends, argues for a cause. supports or defends
or pleads on behalf of others. This is what an advocate does.
He pleads on behalf of others. Now that word in the Greek advocate
in first John is counselor, comforter or intercessor. He's the go between
us and God. Now look at this. Look at this
example of such advocacy in Job chapter 42. And we'll begin reading
in verse 1. Then Job answered the Lord and
said, I know that thou can do everything and that no thought
can be withholden from thee. Who is this that hideth counsel
without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that
I understood not things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. There's a confession. That's
what we're talking about back there. He spoke and he shouldn't
have spoken. He should have closed his mouth. Here I beseech thee, and I will
speak, I will demand of thee, says God, and declare thou unto
me. I have heard of thee by the hearing
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. So Job understood
the God. He understood the God of all
grace. He understood the sovereignty of God, the God who is sovereign.
He understood propitiation. He understood immediate advocacy. And he says, wherefore I abhor
myself and repent in dust and ashes. This is the two verses
we're going to look at. And it was so that after the
Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz,
the Temanite, my wrath is kindled against thee and against thy
two friends. Why? For you have not spoken
of me, the thing that is right, as my servant Job has. Therefore, Take unto you now
seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job. This is just kind of weird. You
come to me directly when you sacrifice. He says go to Job.
Go to Job. And offer up for yourselves a
burnt offering. And my servant Job shall pray
for you. Advocacy for him. will I accept, lest I deal with
you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me, the
thing which is right, like my servant Job. And we'll look at
verse nine, but we'll stop for now. What a glorious picture of this
advocacy in this passage in Joel 42. Job, him will I accept. I want us to look at this just
kind of going through here. We have a problem. The first
thing is an issue. God has an issue with these three
friends, these three acquaintances. God's anger or wrath is kindled
against all unrighteousness. Now the thing that struck me
this morning, even when I was this morning in Bible class,
They didn't speak right about God. Well, you look back at some
of the conversation and it was wrong, but was it really a big
deal? If God should mark with iniquity,
nobody could stand. See, that's missing in today's
preaching. Everybody's fine. Everybody's
okay. You don't have to worry about
your sin. If they just spoke, which the tongue is attached
to the heart, is God's anger, it was kindled, His wrath was
kindled against them. We know it's kindled against
all unrighteousness. And we are, all of us here, from
birth and by nature and by practice, we speak of God wrong because
we are born wrong. We're born in sin. Again, that's
original sin, that's total depravity. We don't talk about that. We
were speaking to somebody yesterday and they were talking about how
horrible the world is. And Linda said it's because depravity. It's because we fell in the garden.
And it's like, okay, but you don't think about that. We are
what we are because of who we are. As a matter of fact, the
best we can attain to is faulty and incorrect thoughts regarding
God, regarding Christ, and regarding the Holy Spirit. This will not
relieve us from the responsibility that we have of honoring and
glorifying our Redeemer. It will not relieve us of responsibility.
Yet, we know out of John 10 that we will not come to Him that
we might have life. Our natural thoughts concerning
God, God's salvation, redemption, or any other proposition with
God is never, ever right from birth. Now, we teach our children
And hopefully the Lord will use this teaching, this word, not
our thoughts, and the Holy Spirit will grab their heart and bring
them to hear the preaching of the gospel. No, the natural man,
says 1 Corinthians 2, receives not, cannot. The things of the
Spirit of God, he cannot know them. They are spiritually discerned. And I know I've said this several
months, Wednesdays ago or something, but that Latin term, felix culpa,
C-U-L-P-A, felix culpa is attributed to Augustine in the fourth century.
Happy fall, blessed fault. And he was talking about when
Adam fell. Well, didn't God see that? And he's the author of
sin always. No, we know he's not the author of sin. But he
still said, Augustine, and I agree with him, Felix Culpa, blessed
fall, happy fault, because had it not been without this corruption
revealed, there would be no need for recovery or advocacy or mediatorship. There would be no need if there
was no fall in the garden. So we look back at this first
point as far as God's wrath and his anger kindled. Here we are
in our prison. Here we are in our calamity,
our misery. I repeat, God's wrath is kindled. Ephesians chapter two, we were
by nature children of wrath, even as others. We weren't children
of wrath, but we were by nature. You can argue over the semantics
if you want, but when you're born, you're born in sin. Secondly,
we have not spoken, like these three friends, according to the
truth of scriptures. We have not spoken according
to what, who, or how God is. or anything regarding his free
grace in his son. God says grace, we say works. God says mercy, we say merit. God says free, we say I earned
it. He says debt, we say who us? We're not debted to anybody.
God says it must be perfect to be accepted, we say what I have
is good enough. We haven't spoken right about
God. The two parties, if nothing happens, the two parties will
never meet as it goes forward. However, look back at our text
in verse seven. It was so that after the Lord
had spoken these things to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz, the
Temanite, my wrath is kindled against you, against your two
friends, for you have not spoken the thing which was right as
my servant Job, my servant Job. Therefore, take unto you now
seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, my
servant Job, our servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, the advocate
with the Father. This is my servant, he said,
hear ye him. That's what he's saying here.
This is the rest of the story. He is the only one who has spoken
right concerning God, his father, spoken right, that is right or
upright. He and he singularly has stood
righteously and perfectly before God and man. Nobody else has. He is our righteousness, the
scripture says, or else we perish. He not only spoke right before
God, but he backed it up with action. He died, suffered, bled,
and died on the cross. He sacrificed himself on Calvary's
tree. Plus, he prays. Go to my servant Job, and Job
slash Christ shall pray for you. I don't mean to be irreverent,
but Christ's death was not really enough. That's on the end of
the story. He had to suffer. He had to die
for our sins. But if you stay there in the
grave, it's over. We're all men most miserable.
He had to raise from the grave, and then he intercedes for us.
It's like that message I heard Gary Shepard preached years ago.
It's the harmony of the gospel. It's just a big circle. It's
all about him, all the time. He singularly, and he prays for us, for his
people, all the way up to and into glory. It's not a time in
which he's not interceding for his people. Go to my servant
Job, take these sacrifices, go to my servant Job, and he'll
pray for you. He's the sacrifice. and he is
the incense or prayers unto God on our behalf. But I like this
phrase, and my servant Job shall pray for you. For him, he shall
pray. It's not maybe. He does, and
there's no failing. There's no error here. There's
no breakdown. He shall pray for us. Bless the
Lord, oh my soul, our soul, give unto the Lord the glory due his
name, but read on. Not only will he pray for us,
for him, says God, will I accept him? Him only, will I accept? Accept means accept. Well, in the Hebrew it means,
this is beautiful, it means him will I honor, Him will I exalt,
but I love this. Him will I have respect. Now,
that word respect, you think about, remember back in Genesis
chapter four, when Cain and Abel, what did it say of Abel and his
sacrifice? Him and his sacrifice, I, God,
will accept. Him will I accept. Well, we saw
in Ephesians chapter one, Bruce read verse six, we are accepted
in the beloved. And if we doubt the Lord's prayer,
let's turn to John chapter 17 is in his great high priestly
intercessory prayer that we, we talk about frequently in John
chapter 17. Let's look at it together. Verses
one through nine. John 17, one through nine, these
words make Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said,
father, the hours come glorify thy son, that thy son may also
glorify thee. As thou has given him power over
all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
has given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the
glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine
they were, and Thou gavest them Me, and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all
things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee. For I have given
unto them the words which Thou gavest Me, and they have received
them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee. And they
have believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which Thou hast given Me. for they are thine and all
are mine and are thine, thine are mine and I am glorified in
them. And then he says, I don't pray
for these alone, but for all those who will believe based
on your word. So, uh, I asked this when I read this
John 17, and this is the problem with today's preaching. They're
preaching an unsuccessful redeemer. I ask, can the son ever pray
a prayer and it not be received by his heavenly father? Nope,
it's impossible. So that prayer in John 17, and
this intercessory, this advocacy at Job is for a friend, and we'll
see what happens We'll see what happens. And it's so it's happened
even more so by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary
Street. Now I got this. I almost missed
this. Go back to verse 8 and look with
me at the middle of our verse 8 and my servant Job shall pray. We established that for you for
him. Will I accept now that word him
there's a letter by to my Bible. It's a marginal reading. Look
at what that says. For him, that is his face or
his person. God accepts the very person. quality, quantity, everything,
characteristics, attributes of his son. Now this phrase, I can
only say a little bit because it's just more than my mind can
handle. These are phrases of God to his son of extreme pleasure
or a high attraction or terms of endearment which results in
ultimate satisfaction. Cannot be thwarted. Cannot be. He took our place. He substituted
for us. He pleads on our behalf, our
rotten behalf. Why do I say rotten? Well, continue
on in the verse, lest I deal with you, these three friends,
after your folly. Now that word folly means foolishness
or wickedness. I thought we were perfect in
Christ. We are, but we have the flesh and the flesh seeks its
own. This flesh is selfish. That's
why we continue to need, we continually need our Job, our Redeemer, the
Lord Jesus Christ to advocate for us. He is our advocate. We're talking about advocacy
here. So, because we haven't spoken rightly about God. We
are folly and we have not spoken of me, of God, the things which
are right. You know that. You know our tongue.
James tells us about our tongue. It's a little member. It's like
a rudder. It controls the whole ship. And
even now, we need Christ's prayer because he'll go astray. But
his prayers aren't going to fail. As I say, he'll pray us up into
glory. So said another way, once we've been enlightened, the three
friends here, As a believer says we do not deserve the least of
your mercies We do not deserve the least of your mercies verse
9 so so Stop right there. Is there anybody here? Who needs
an advocate? Anybody here who needs an advocate
anybody here know how wicked we are how foolish We didn't
speak right about God so The Lord made these three willing
in the day of His power, sovereign grace. Eliphaz the Temanite,
Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Meithite went and did according
as the Lord commanded them. The Lord says, repent or perish.
I've had no problems with telling back what the Lord commands,
knowing that if it's his will and his good pleasure, he'll
take that and sink it in our heart, and we'll do that. You
know, I don't understand why baptism, and I say here lately,
I haven't talked to anybody in a long time, but it seemed like
there was a time years ago, in grace circles, I don't care about
the other places, people, they would, the Lord would save them.
And then they, man, I don't know if I, yes, it's not an option. There's only one person that
never, that didn't get baptized as far as we know in our scriptures.
And one old writer said it's so we wouldn't, uh, one person
that a deathbed confession, so to speak. And that was so we
wouldn't fear because as long as we're alive, there's hope,
but that we wouldn't presume upon his grace. Well, I don't need,
no. Believe the Lord Jesus Christ
and be baptized So he makes us willing to the day of his power
Psalms 110 verse 3 come to Christ while it is called today come
with the sacrifice and Come with the advocate and the advocacy
Don't come by yourself the Sacrifice isn't going to do any good without
this prayers and incense of Christ So just come to Christ. He has
everything we need. And I close with this, as someone
said years ago, my hope lives not because I am not a sinner,
but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died and for whom
he pleads. They all did according to the
Lord commanded them. And it said, the Lord also accepted
Job. So, go to my servant Job, go to Christ.
He'll pray for us. For him, God accepts and him
alone. Matt, would you close this?