uXmpwQ_DJM8

Thank you. Psalms chapter 30. Join with me. Psalm 30. Please rise. Thank you. Yeah, I forgot that last time, too. Psalm 30. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have lifted me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried out to you, and you healed me.

O Lord, you brought my soul up from the grave. You have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment.

His favor is for life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Now in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by your favor, you have made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face, and I was troubled. I cried out to you, O Lord, and to the Lord I made supplication.

What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it declare your truth? Hear me, O Lord, and have mercy on me. Lord, be my helper. You have turned for me. My mourning into dancing. You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness to the end that my glory may sing praise to you and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever. Blessed be the reading of God's Word. As you are turning to Job chapter 33, non-rehetorical, quick question, a poll of the room. Has anybody here lived their life thus far perfectly and without sin? Raise your hand. Okay, just making sure who I need to talk to.

Now, second poll of the room. Has anybody here lived their life thus far without any pain of any kind? Please raise your hand. Okay, good to know. That means that this passage applies to everybody in this room. Read with me Job chapter 33, starting in verse 19. Man is also chastened with pain on his bed, and with strong pain in many of his bones, so that his life abhors bread, and his soul succulent food.

His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones stick out, which wants to be. Were not seen. Yes, his soul draws near the pit, and his life to the executioners. If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one among a thousand, to show man his uprightness, then he is gracious to him and says, Deliver him from going down to the pit.

I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be young, like a child's, and he shall return to the days of his youth. He shall pray to God, and he will delight in him, and he shall see his face with joy, for he restores to man his righteousness. Then he looks at men and says, I have sinned and perverted what was right, and it did not profit me.

He will redeem his soul from going down to the pit, and his life shall see the light. Now, if you know a little bit about me, you know that in order to get into our text this morning, we inevitably going to back up just a little bit. So we were going to do that very quickly.

This is my second message to you from Job. You may recall sometime back, I did a message out of Job chapter 1. And kind of like we did here a little while ago in my passage of Nahum, a kind of tying up a previous thought. I thought this morning I would continue and tie up some of the thoughts from that message.

At the beginning of Job. So, to remind us, what is going on in this book? What is the context of Job? In chapter 1, we saw a great many things said about this man, Job, all the things he had, the roles he played in his society, in his family, the possessions, what he prided himself on.

And then we saw all of these things one by one, categorically taken away, and what was left. The only thing left was what God said of Job. And this answers ultimately throughout the book the question: who is Job? A question which then we can reflect back on ourselves: who am I?

And that's what we talked about in the last message. But to get us through from that beginning portion to there, in chapter three, after we're introduced to Job and we see all these things which are ultimately taken away, Job laments his life. He wants to die. And as he is lamenting his life, we are then introduced to four, to three rather friends.

And these friends of Job, seeing their genuine friend in genuine agony, see it as their role to intervene. And what goes on from that point on, from chapter 4 through chapter 31, are 27. Chapters of dialogue between Job and his friends, trying to get at his problem and ultimately to solve the problem.

How can we fix this for Job? And this dialogue between them is in way of a debate of sorts. And this debate is outlined through what Eliphaz, the primary spokesman for these friends, has to say. And as you're looking at what he has to say, a quick summary of this entire dialogue, Eliphaz has a dream.

Eliphaz, in chapter 4, verse 6, he tells Job, Is not your fear your confidence? Is not your fear your confidence? This is the same idea we see throughout Scripture. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Not the fear of man, not the fear of anybody, anything, but the fear of God.

And it is that fear of God that is your confidence. And then in this dream he has, he speaks of a spirit. He doesn't see a face, but a spirit comes to him while he is asleep and speaks to him. And in chapter 4, verse 17, the spirit that comes to Eliphaz says, Can a man be pure before his maker?

That's what the spirit says. Can a man be pure before his maker? It's a question. That's all that he has given. Can a man be pure before his Maker? And Eliphaz, in dealing with this question, continues. No, he cannot. And in chapter 5, verse 8, Eliphaz tells Job, he says, Job, as for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause.

This is the recommendation of Eliphaz. If I was to summarize it, you are not perfect, Job. You are not sufficient, Job. Turn to God and repent. Okay? We'll come back to that in just a second. But I said this is a dialogue. Two people in this conversation. What does Job have to say?

Chapter 7, verse 21. If I were to give a summary of this entire very long dialogue, Job says, speaking to God, Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? You see, in this dialogue, there's actually quite a bit of agreement between them, even though there's also disagreement.

Job recognizes he is not absolutely perfect. What he grapples with, though, is, if I were again to summarize, I have done everything humanly possible, and yet I am still being punished. There's nothing more, nothing better I could have done, and God is punished me. It's not fair. God, I have done everything in my power.

I could not have been better. No man alive could have been better. In fact, God confirms that fact. He is a blameless man as far as we are concerned. And no one could have done a better job. So, therefore, why are you punishing me? Again, to summarize, I am as righteous as is possible.

God has treated me wrong. So, this is the contention. The friends led by Eliphaz, you are not perfect, you need to repent. Job, I know I'm not perfect, but I've done as good as I can do, and God is not being fair to me. And what we find out, if you skip ahead, spoiler, both are wrong.

In Job, we see this in 38, 2 and in 42, 3. God states explicitly that Job speaks words without knowledge. This flat out says Job is wrong. But in 42, 6, Job repents. Okay, so Job was wrong. Job repents. And in verse 7, God declares that he has spoken what is righteous.

Great. So he was wrong. Now he's right. He was living in apparently some sort of sin, and he repented of that sin. The friends must be right. The friends said, hey, you can't be perfect. You need to repent. Job ultimately sees he was not perfect, he repents. Great, so the end of the discussion.

The argument's over, the friends were right. Well, not so quick. Because in almost the exact same breath, we see the friends condemned. In 42, 7, God speaks to these friends, You have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. Matter of interpretation, but I believe this verse 7 is referring immediately back to verse 6.

If we know that Job was wrong, he has spoken without wisdom, without knowledge, then what is it that Job has said was right? Well, in verse 6, he repented. And finally, we see in this change what Job has said that was right. They have not spoken as Job has.

What have they not done? They have not repented. You have Job living a life of deprivation, of pain, of sorrow, of agony, who repents. You have friends living a life presumably with provision and happiness. They've been able to take off time from work and go sit with their friend without any kind of issue on their part.

They have means. They're not sick physically, and they are also called to repentance. They are both wrong. So, there we are. The book of Job. And everybody's wrong, what do we do? Well, surprise, surprise. You sit there for 27 chapters watching this back and forth dialogue. You see Job, you see the friends.

Back and forth they go. Back and forth they go. And they're both wrong. What do we do this whole time? Unveil the curtain. There was somebody else there. There was somebody that we were not let in on being present. Elihu, and by the way, I might say this name about four different ways.

Just go with it. Elihu comes in a man we see no hint of, and he is the surprise herald. Elihu is going to address the problem. And here I feel a quick need to pause because I was taught in seminary that Elihu is an angry young man who was impertinent and an example of what not to do and what not to say.

I have seen in preparation for this and other messages many sermons preached saying more or less the same. This angry young man who is not speaking truth. Dr. Ethan Jones, if you ever see this, I love you, my brother. I disagree with you. Let's look at this just for a second.

Can we trust what he has to say? God, in chapter 42, verse 7. My anger burns against you and your two friends, speaking to Eliphaz. Elihu in chapter 32, verse 3. He was also angry with the three friends. Okay, so God was angry with the three friends. Elihu is angry with the three friends.

Pretty good track record so far. God, in chapter 40, verse 7 to 8, brace yourself like a man speaking to Job. I will question you, and you shall answer me. Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Elihu, 32:2. He became very angry with Job for justifying himself rather than God.

God angry? Elihu, angry. God angry because Job justified himself. Elihu, angry because Job justified himself. He's angry and he's angry for the same reasons. So, very quickly, just to put that to rest, if you have an issue with Elihu's message, take it up with God Himself. I don't think I can put it much stronger than that.

So, the fact is, we have a witness who is justified in Scripture with what he feels, arguably, and we can go into what he says, and we will in just a moment. So, we have him speaking, and it's the issue he's addressing. He addresses the friends, they're both wrong.

But in our text, he is going to address Job in particular. And as he's addressing the issue with Job, he's addressing the issue with Job that Job has justified himself rather than God. In other words, and how are we to understand, what does it mean, justified himself? I am right, which means, if it's a test between me and God, God is wrong.

Let me, when you're talking about right and wrong, you're making a moral statement. Let me say this again. I am good. God is evil. Ooh, that's a strong. When you start putting it in those. Now, did he use those words? No. But when you start thinking about what he's implying here, what's the only alternative?

If we see the wrong message, what's the only alternative? I am wrong, and God is right. Moral language, let's put it stronger. I am sinful, and God is good. So, Elihu has addressed the problem with Job. He has pinpointed it. And then we get the solution. What is the solution?

We know that, as I've already said, repentance at the end of the day is the solution. But then I ask you, repentance from what? What are you repenting of? Well. You're repenting again of being opposed to God, of thinking wrong of God. Continue to look with me. Verse 33, getting closer to our text now as we narrow in, verse 14.

For God does speak in one way or in another. Does speak now in one way or now in another. So Elihu says, Look, God has spoken, and he speaks to us to correct. How does God speak? Verse 15, in a dream. What did we just talk about just a minute ago?

What was a dream this could possibly allude to? Well, the dream of Eliphaz. He was not lying. He was not making this up. There's the dream of Eliphaz in which God spoke. Verse 17, why does he speak? In order to turn man from his deed and conceal pride from a man.

Eliphaz was also wrong, but again, we are dealing with Job and not with the friends at this moment. How is Job wrong, and what is the solution for Job? God does speak. In this case, he spoke through friends, through dreams, and in many ways. And then we get to our text.

And the dream portion is incredibly fascinating. Most of the sermons I saw when I was preparing were in fact about the dream, because everybody's fascinated about that. But there's another way, and these are not the only ways, but verse 19, beginning our text. Man is also chastened or rebuked with pain.

Thus we begin my message in earnest. And I've broken this into three sections. The first part I have titled Divine Trial. You've got to get that right, the emphasis there. Divine trial. And that will become more evident as we go. So, verse 19: man is rebuked by means of pain.

This is the base sentence, and there's a lot going on in the language to follow. But that is, if you reduce the sentence which follows verse 19 and 20, this is the base. Man is chastened or rebuked by means of pain. Which, in short, is to say that God uses or utilizes pain to, look back at verse 17, turn man aside from his conduct.

I want to note something at this point. I think this passage, and we're going to see this very clearly, has a lot to say. To anybody in here who is not a Christian, I believe both Job and his friends, if they were to come before us for membership after we got done baptizing them, after that was taken care of and we made them good Baptists, there would be absolutely nothing that would prevent us from putting them as a member of this church.

They all love God, they all pursue God, they all put their faith. Remember, the base conflict in the book of Job: will he curse me? Will he curse God? And he does not. He loves God, and he proves this fact. So, what does it mean for a Christian man to be rebuked by means of pain?

First of all, we must admit and see the fact that God utilizes pain in order to turn our conduct. Next thing I want to observe: was he in physical pain and mental anguish because of his sin? No. It is clear as crystal. It could not be clearer. Why did he suffer?

It was not because of something he did, and God said, I'm going to come down because Job is a sinful man, and because of this sin, I'm going to put him through these trials. He was in pain. For a different reason. But our text is also clear. God uses pain to bring change.

Perhaps put clearer, allow me to read a quote from John Piper explaining this concept. Quote: God originally allowed Job's sufferings to commence in order to show Satan and the armies of heaven that Job cherished the worth of God more than his possessions and his family and his health.

But after Job showed that he did, in fact, love God more than all else in the world, there was another purpose that God sought to achieve by letting his suffering drag on. Catch this. He was suffering. And as he was suffering, God used the suffering to chasten and rebuke.

Allow me to put this in a very succinct way. Nothing in your life is wasted. No experience is meaningless. Nothing that we go through is pointless. Understand this, my brothers and sisters. I am not in pain because God hates me. I am not in pain because God has lost control.

I am not in pain because I have a maniacal God who pleasures in pain. I am in pain because sin exists. Maybe it is not because of your sin. By the way, if this is not clear in Job himself, allow me to use an even stronger example. Question.

Did Jesus sin? No. Question. Did Jesus experience pain? Yes. Can we be clear on this? Every single experience of pain is not because of your personal sin committed. And yet every experience of pain in your life is used by God. God is still in control, and your experience is not wasted or meaningless.

God is using your experience, where you are, when you are, whatever you are going through. And he is using it to bring about change. And in short, to end sin, suffering, and pain. He uses sin to defeat sin. He uses vanity to defeat vanity. There's so many ways it is put throughout Scripture.

Satan is defeated by the means of Satan. Self-defeated. There's so much I could go into there. It's a beautiful thing, the way God works. But simply know that you are not in a hopeless, helpless place. Meaningless place wherever you are. Second, as I stated, rebuke is meant to move us to cause some sort of change in our life.

We already see that Job, in his experience, does in fact make just such a change. The most blameless man to walk the face of the earth, nonetheless, is not a perfect man, and he has room for change, and God uses his experience to bring about that change. And I find what that change is fascinating, and I just want to spend a moment as this relates to the very things Pastor Tom has been teaching us.

How does Job change? He says, he speaks without knowledge. He says things that are not true. And then, what's the change? In 42, 7, Job has spoken correctly. What he says changes. This is the change we see in Job from the beginning of the book to the end.

What he says, something that comes from him. The words. And where do the words and the things we speak come from? They come from where inside of us, from our heart, from out of the heart. Does this start to ring a bell? What is the change in Job?

The words he speaks. Speaks are indicative of a change of the man's heart. The man has been changed in who he is in his heart. And this is the change that all of us, when we are chastised, rebuked, or in these circumstances, are called to make. So when I experience pain, knowing that any experience is not meaningless, knowing that if God uses pain to change me, then the question is, what does God want to change in me?

In the conclusion, as far as Job's change, not only is it repentance, I find it fascinating, it's repentance in dust and ashes. In dust and ashes is not just an extra exclamation mark on how repentant he is. Remember, the man, and in our text as well, is sitting in dust and ashes, scraping sores.

He's in the dust and ashes, and when he repents, he repents in that place. He's not waiting for a change in circumstance to repent. He is not waiting for a change, for a good experience, for the pain to go away before then suddenly he's willing to allow the change in perspective, where he is, right when he is.

He makes this change. Let me put it in the Matthew Earl. Jones translation of what he said, God, I will be content with you where you have put me. If you are in a place of pain and suffering, and you're willing to ask, Lord, what do you want to change in me, and not, Lord, can you change my circumstances?

When you're willing to say, Lord, where I am right now, I will accept this moment. I will accept the fact that you will utilize this time of suffering, and I'm willing to begin to love and move, that willingness in and of itself we will often find is exactly the heart he is looking for as my heart is changed.

From worried about my circumstance to worried about God's teaching and God's love where I am. This often is the point. So we see this, and we see this move that he is making through pain. Before we move on out of this, though, I want you to look at the kind of pain.

Look at verse 20 through 21. And I'm going to give you, first of all, you have the anecdote. This entire book is the anecdote of one man's life. Observing and watching one man's life. And in Job's experience, I want you to notice what is his pain. Primarily. Yes, we know beyond the loss of his family and the loss of his things, he also has physical pains.

But this entire book, the primary pain we see in this man is of entirely different nature. It is not primarily physical. He is not saying, ow, it hurts, I need a doctor. He is talking about his soul anguish. He is speaking of his anguish and his lack of understanding of God and his lack of understanding of his situation and the pain that has caused him.

We see a man who is spiritually distraught. That's the anecdote we observe this entire book. But in our text, we see the principle laid out clearly for us. And I'm going to warn you here, some of your translations don't bring this out as clearly, but I hope to bring it to your attention.

Verse 20: His life loaths bread, and his soul, the choicest food. It's not appetite more properly, it is soul, the choicest food. Look at verse 22. His soul, not they, as some translations would render it, his soul to the pit, his life to the ones causing death. Life, soul, soul, life.

Yes, the flesh is involved. Yes, we often feel, and things start through the body, but the primary concern is spiritual. John Davis could probably attest to this much better than I could. But I'll just speak for myself, having worked briefly in a hospital, people physically deteriorating and hurting, and over and over, what was the primary concern that they had?

It was not their immediate physical pain, but it was that dark spiral in their mind they started going to. The places they would go to in their head, spiritual attacks on them, reflecting not on just that moment of life, but their entire experience of life, brought to mind through the physical pain.

A dark spiral into dark places you could even label a pit. What is the principle here? If God is the source of our life, and he is speaking to us and demanding us to conform our life, and we reject God, then we necessarily move towards death. He is life.

If we move away from him, we move away from life. If we move away from life, we move towards death. Go to dark places. Do not allow this to happen. Sin is a rejection of God, and a rejection of God is death. It is the ultimate necessary repercussion of sin, death.

Everyone, and hear me on this, everyone who is physically suffering is not suffering because of their personal sin. But also hear me on this. Everyone who lives in sin is not living but dead already. And you will suffer. Everyone who is physically suffering is not suffering because of their physical sin.

But everyone who lives in sin is not living but dead already, and you will suffer the consequences. If you run from God, you run at your own detriment. Do not run from God. So, in summary, God not only speaks to us and tells us how to conform our lives, he shouts.

And his voice is a voice of loving conviction, whatever your circumstance, especially in the low places and low times, and sometimes especially through the low times. Part two. We've seen the conviction. Part two, I have titled Divine Trial, because that's the same thing we're on here. What do we do with conviction?

What do you do in a trial? What is conviction in trial? If you are convicted and sentenced to death, now what? If you are convicted, you are hopeless. I mentioned this in a recent sermon. You are helpless and hopeless. And alone, that's just how we are. If you look at Job chapter 9, verses 2 through 3, Job speaking says, Truly, I know that it is so, speaking of what some of his friends had said.

But how can a human be just before God? Same theme, it runs throughout. If someone wishes to contend with him, with God, he cannot answer him one time in a thousand. You cannot give an answer, no matter how much. And the idea here is it just won't happen.

The statistics are too great. You're not going to accidentally give the right answer. You have no answer in and of yourselves. Again, Eliphaz's dream, chapter 4, 17. Can a mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? My very first sermon ever preached was Job chapter 25 when one of the other friends, Bildad, says in chapter 25, verse 4, how then do you think?

Can man be righteous before God? Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman? You can't. You cannot do it. You are convicted. But I said that Elihu was giving us answers. So, what is the answer? And we see in verse 23, the beginning of that answer: if there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one among a thousand, I can't have that one to show man his uprightness, his righteousness.

William Barrick says, Perhaps the mediator is the most significant contribution made by the book of Job to the Old Testament thought. Delight. Jesus, or God will see his face with joy. The relationship restored. And all I have to do is pray. All I have to do is accept to speak.

All I have to do is say, yes. Job spoke correctly. And out of that, we see the change of his heart. It's not a magical incantation that suddenly allows me to be saved. I don't have to pray a certain formula prayer, the sinner's prayer. The point is not the words I pray.

The point is the heart from which that prayer comes. It is a heart which He, what came first, the sacrifice of a powerful God that He gave me, a new heart that He gave me, out of which I have uttered a prayer because I now love Him and that relationship is restored.

For those of us in this room who are experiencing this dark place, who have already prayed, have already changed, have already had a heart that reflects the relationship, when I see and I've been brought to my attention through my circumstances by God, and I can again come and say, Lord, once again, I'm brought face to face with who you are.

Once again, I acknowledge who you are and who I am in our relationship, no matter what. Look, we as Christians, we sin. We as Christians, we mess up like a child who has a father. That does not change the relationship. And when I have messed up and I go back to the father, to use a human analogy, when I go back into the lap of God, My father.

He does not kick me to the curb. The relationship is restored. The apology given. I say, when I offend somebody, I apologize. I am sorry for what I have done, and I want to be with you because I love you. And he is right there. You think the prodigal son in a Christian context.

He is right there. If you have offended him, he has not left you, no matter how dark you're placed. He has not wasted, and he has not left you. Lastly, I come to the third part. So we had the divine trial. We had the divine trial. Part three, I have titled the Divine Trial.

Yes, see? Divine trial. We look at our last two verses, verses 27 through 28. The salvation secure. Not through means of something I have done, but through my mediator. The salvation secure, we see something of excitement. He looks at men. The man who was just saved looks at men and says, I have sinned and perverts.

What was right, and it didn't profit me. He will redeem his soul from going down to the pit, and his life shall see the light. And in some translations, you'll see the word sing. He sings. This is the picture of a man who has been through the dark places, who knows what it means.

And yet he can say, not because of me, but because of the God I serve, I am saved. Wherever I am, if I am in the dark place, I am in that dark place, saved. If I am hurting, I'm in that hurtful place, saved. Not just because I'm going to go to heaven someday, but because in that place, I'm with the Father who loves me.

I am with the Son who loves me. The Holy Spirit has been granted to me. No matter where I am, I have my God who loves me, and I am safe in his arms. I can sing. I have the light of life. Looking at verse 30 as well.

A couple things I want to point to. Looking at this pit, I briefly brought it up. What is the pit? You can compare this. You could think of it as the afterlife is used sometimes of that, but it's not only and exclusively used that way, of hell. Many times in Scripture, it is used simply of a place of bondage, an inescapable prison, a place of uselessness.

When you start giving in these traps, these spiritual mental traps, and you allow Satan to take you there, and you forget who your Father is, who the Son is who has saved you. When you forget your God, you allow yourself to go to a place of uselessness. You stop serving, and that is a dark place to be.

You stop loving. You stop experiencing love. You don't have to be there. Psalm 30, we read this morning before. I'll read again. Psalm 32 and 3. O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help, and you helped me. You, O Lord, you pulled me up from Sheol.

You spared me from descending into the pit. Jonah chapter 2, verse 6. Speaking of his time in the fish, you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit. You may or may not continue to experience physical ailments, or, for that matter, mental ailments. But that does not mean you must stay in a bound to a useless place.

Sin does not bind us. All pain is the result of sin, regardless of the source of that sin. But that sin has no control over you, me, or any brother or sister who has been saved by grace. I want to end this morning with a word for those who have not experienced the freedom to be able to say that.

And I want to end using words which were much more poignantly put than I could pin myself, but nonetheless express my sentiments. Spurgeon, and I already quoted from him briefly in the same sermon, in preaching this text, or parts of it, ended his sermon in this way. And this is my word.

To those again who do not know the peace and joy in the midst of pain and suffering. What more can I say to you, my dear hearers? I have told you the way of mercy, and I have described to you the footsteps of mercy in the experience of those who have proved its saving efficacy.

But I cannot bring Christ to your souls, or when Christ comes nigh unto you, as he doth now in the ministry of his gospel, I cannot make you open the doors of your hearts to receive him. O ye who do not believe and are yet in your sins, what more can I do for you than thus to cry aloud in your ears and proclaim to you the path of life?

This one thing I can do. I can stand here and break my heart to think that you refuse him. But no, I cannot take leave of you as thus. I must again beseech and entreat and implore you, as you love your souls, turn not away from the divine messenger, from Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners.

He asks no great thing of you. He bids you not pass through ceremonies that you will take your days and months, but now, one believing glance at yonder cross, one glance at him who died there for sinners. And it is done. Christ is honored. God is satisfied. You are saved.

This is the call. After this service is over, find me. Find one of the pastors or elders here. Find a believing brother or sister and talk to us. And don't live another day in the misery and pain of a trial that you haven't escaped from through the divine answer.

Let's pray. My Lord, I thank you. I thank you that every step in this life, we have the opportunity to walk with and closer to you. I pray for those in this room who are suffering, many of whom no one knows, I pray that you will demonstrate your love and that they will know your love and that they will, through the experience, be changed closer to you.

I pray for those in this room who do not know you, that today that will change. I pray these things. In Jesus' name, amen.