Job 4

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As I said, some of the chapters will be a little slower.
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Some of the chapters we'll be able to move through rather rapidly.
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Because again, some of the themes and some of the teaching is repetitive throughout the book.
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And as I wondered about that more and more, because again, we would all agree that God doesn't put anything in his word that is of no importance.
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And even in that idea of repeating things, that the things that are repeated over and over again are the very things that perhaps we struggle with.
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And God is gracious and reminds us over and over and over again of some truths that could be very hurtful if we don't follow them and very helpful if we do.
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So with that, again, I'm going to read chapter 2 of the book of Job.
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Again, there was a day when the sons of men came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.
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And the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it.
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And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one that fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity.
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Although you incited me against him to destroy him without cause.
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So Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
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But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse you to your face.
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So the Lord said to Satan, behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.
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And Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
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And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
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Then his wife said to him, do you still hold your integrity? Curse God and die.
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But he said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks.
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Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
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Now when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place.
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Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuite, and Zophar the Naamanite.
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And they made an appointment together to come and mourn with him and to comfort him.
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When they raised their eyes from afar, they did not recognize him.
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They lifted up their voices and wept, and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head towards heaven.
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And they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights.
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No one spoke a word to them, but they saw that his grief was great.
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So as we come to the chapter, this morning, remember what has taken place.
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Again, we spent a little time on that.
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There has already been evil brought upon Job, right? He lost many of the things that he had, and that was the great challenge, if you will, that the evil ones set before God was.
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You take what he has, and he'll curse you.
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And lo and behold, as we finished last week, that was the very thing that Job wouldn't do.
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In verse 21 of the first chapter, where he said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I return there.
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The Lord gave, and the Lord takes away.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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In all this, Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrong.
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So the very thing that was thought would take place by the evil one did not.
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And now we come to chapter 2, and there's a couple of things I just want to highlight.
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One, it says, again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before God, in verse 1.
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And I wanted to just ask us to think about this for a minute.
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Is this teaching us that there is a regular occurrence of angels presenting themselves before God? Is this telling us that there is a, if you will, some sort of meeting that takes place at the throne room of God where angels are called in to give account, almost as if a king, or almost as if you would try to think of it as a president calling those that work for him, calling them together and asking them what takes place.
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And as you see this, and I would suggest that there has to be some time period in between, right? I'm not trying to say that they met every week, or I'm not trying to say that they, I don't know.
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But would you agree that this suggests, at least, that there is some sort of continual activity that takes place, not because God needs to know, because why? God knows all things.
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But because God requires, of all, an account.
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And we talked about this a little bit.
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Whether this is only the good angels, or the good angels and the bad angels, again, I'm not absolutely certain.
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Sometimes I lean to the left.
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Sometimes I lean to the right.
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And I'm just going to leave it there.
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The thing I do think is a little bit different in verse two.
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And I wanted to look at it.
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Look what it says.
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Well, verse one.
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So it says that Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.
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Now, go back to chapter one.
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Just for a second, I want to show you something.
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And in verse six.
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Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
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That's a little bit different wording than chapter two, verse one.
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Now, there was a day in chapter two, it says that Satan presented himself.
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In chapter one, it says he came with them.
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And I take from this that now God has called the evil one to present himself, because he has given him permission to do what? He's given him permission to inflict Job.
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And it backfired, didn't it? Matter of fact, not only did it backfire, it went completely wrong.
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And I believe that what God is now doing is now he's summonsing the evil one to come to present before him that although you asked me to move against him, and I gave you permission, it didn't work.
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And again, I don't want to be irreverent, but it's almost like, OK, Satan, what's up? You asked me, and I gave you the permission.
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And so there seems to be, if you didn't know, we're in Job chapter two, but I kind of figured you knew something of that general area.
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That there's this regular form of presenting themselves back and forth, somewhat the way we come together on a scheduled basis, not because of, well, we come because of the New Testament example and the New Testament presenting itself to us to worship on the Lord's day.
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But there is this presentation before the king, the great king, and so in verse two, Lord said to Satan, where did you come from? God knew where he came from, because God knows everything.
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So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth and from walking back and forth in it.
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And I think that's interesting, don't you? That the very thing that he says is the same thing he said in chapter one, verse seven.
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So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth and from.
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Satan knew why God summonsed him.
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And yet, as I said to you, and something to think about, that Satan is the most restless creature there is, because he knows his doom is sure.
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He knows he cannot win.
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He knows that God is the victor of all.
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And so he is, again, if you will, as Peter says, he goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour, and there's gotta be great restlessness.
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The scriptures say that the wicked, which is the unbeliever, is like the troubled sea which cannot rest.
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That's in Isaiah.
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Well, let me ask you to think about this.
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If men and women who are apart from God cannot rest, what think you of the evil one who is the father of lies? He's got to be the most restless, wretched, unquiet creature.
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And so again, he goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
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And so he comes before God, and in verse three, and then the Lord said to him, have you considered my servant, Job? Have you considered my servant, Job? There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil.
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And that was the very thing that God said in the very beginning when Satan presented himself before.
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And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without cause.
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Well, let's just pause for a second.
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When God says that Job was without cause, how are we to understand that? Is he saying that Job is absolutely perfect, sinless, of no blemish at all? No, I would say no.
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Because again, if we say that, then what are we saying? Then Job would be what? Sinless.
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And there is no one that's sinless.
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So when God says this about Job, we should not misunderstand.
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People will take that and misinterpret it and try to, again, teach sinless perfectionism or the ability to attain to that.
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And that's not possible, right? So when God says you moved me against him without a cause, ultimately, there's no one that is sinless.
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Matter of fact, and we'll read it as we go on, that God says that even the angels themselves are not what? Clean in his sight.
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Could that be one of the reasons why God calls the angels to them, to present themselves, to require of them a report, to give them further instructions and commands? So again, when we think of this, and you can almost, well, you probably can't visualize it, but as you begin to think about this, and some people will say this is not really taking place, by the way.
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Some people will say this is just a way of speaking.
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I'm not one of them.
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I think this actually takes place.
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I think God, as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, actually summons all his creatures before him to give an account.
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Isn't that not what will take place at that great day? Every knee shall bow, every eye shall see him, even those who pierced him.
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And there'll be an account, right? And certainly in the gospel, it talks about the sheep on one side, on the right side, and the goats on the left.
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So you and I need to consider these things.
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So he comes before God, and God says, and he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me to destroy him without cause.
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Now, what then takes place is, if you will, a second barrage, or a second attack, that is laid out, and it's laid out in verse four.
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So, Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, yea, all that a man has, he will give for his life.
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Now, is that true? Yeah, let's think about that a second.
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Is that true? Skin for skin, all that a man has, he'll give for his life? Yeah, yeah, I mean, in other words, if I had to lose an arm to save my life, would I not lose my arm, right? Most people would.
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Most people will say, no matter what, as long as I survive it, and so there is a reality of truth.
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Good morning, we're in Job chapter two.
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There is a reality of this, right? There is a reality of how you and I will do everything we can, in most ways, to retain and maintain our life.
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And the evil one knows that, and that's the point.
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Do not think, do not think that the evil one does not understand many, many things, not only about falsehood and dishonesty, but he understands many, many things about us.
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And I'm gonna write it again, because the one that he doesn't understand is this.
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He does not understand the grace of God.
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He hates the grace of God.
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And this is the very thing that's going to cause him to fail again, as he comes before God now, and says, okay, the first barrage didn't work, but see, that wasn't really the point.
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Now you gotta touch him, and if you touch him, he's gonna curse you to your face, and we're gonna see, as we go through this, that as much as there is truth in that, Job retains his integrity, and I hope we'll get this as we go through the book.
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The reason why Job retains his integrity is because of this.
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Amen, right? Because every, just think about it, the weapons of the evil one, we're told about his wicked devices, we're told about him being a devouring lion, we're told about him having tricks, it says even angels, doctors, can manifest themselves as angels of light.
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So there's a whole lot of weaponry on that side, coming against us, and yet for all of that, the reason why you and I are gonna make it, do you not think that the devil would devour us if he could? So what's holding him back? That, in all its majesty, right? In all that it conveys, because this conveys to us a lot more than just favor.
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I mean, you could start, we could spend, oh, so much time, and it talks about God's strength, right? And it talks about God's purpose.
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So all these things, what I'm saying is, when we think about grace, right, we just need to let it explode in our mind.
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And again, that's the very thing that the evil one does not understand, and so he comes before God, didn't work the first time, and that's pretty brutal as we talked about it, right? Pretty brutal that he lost all his camels, he lost all his transportation, he lost his kids, he lost his standing, he lost everything, and for all that, he retained his integrity.
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And now, as the evil one comes, he's basically, he's run out of ammunition.
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What else could he possibly do? And so he turns and he says to God, skin for skin, you touch his life, and he will definitely curse you to your face.
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Stretch out your hand, verse five.
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Stretch out your hand, touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse you to your face.
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And that was the desire of the evil one, that, remember, God's the one that said to him, you consider my servant Job? And that's where he wants to take Job, is to get him to the point where he curses him, curses God face-to-face.
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There's something in this that we could, if we wanted to, we could go to the temptation of Christ, couldn't we, in the wilderness? Right, when the devil came to him, took him up on the pinnacle of the temple, took him to the high mountain, throw yourself down, turn the stone into bread, and what was the intent of that? Was to get Christ to do what? Worship Satan.
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Huh? Worship Satan.
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Well, yeah, worship Satan, because he does say, if you worship me, I'll give you the glory, I'll give you all these kingdoms, and certainly, but what he really wanted was, go ahead, bro.
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Well, you say he, who's the he you're talking about? The evil one.
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Oh, okay.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, the evil one wanted to disprove, or wanted Jesus to disprove who he was.
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Right, and that, and he wanted Christ, because remember he says, if you're the son of God, do what? Take the stone and turn it into bread.
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He not only wanted to discredit him, he also wanted to have him take his mind, his obedience, his will off the father, right? Because it was submission.
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So as we see, in a sense, Job is God's servant here.
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Christ was God's servant, and the overwhelming umbrella of thought from the evil one, he wants to dishonor God and destroy the people of God.
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And this is the very thing.
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And so, of course, he says skin for skin, and we could certainly say that about Christ.
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If there was anyone who gave skin for skin was the Lord Jesus Christ himself, right? And he never turned away.
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So in that sense, as we go through the book, you can see bits and pieces of the Lord Jesus Christ represented, not apples to apples, not perfectly, but we'll see Christ represented through the integrity and the perseverance of Job, although Job is nowhere near it, right? And we'll see, because as I said to you, when we looked at the end of chapter one, when he said, naked came I from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return, and the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, I think that's probably one of the, if not, the highest point in the book of Job, and then it's gonna start going downhill, and then there's gonna be, if you will, a recovery at the end of the book, but from here on, Satan has, in that sense, God allows Satan to have his way with Job.
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And again, loss of kids, loss of this, loss of that, and so we'll see it as we go on.
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So, verse six, so the Lord said to Satan, behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.
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And that's, again, I hope we understand, it's Satan was summons by God to present himself, to be questioned about his attack on Job the first time, and then Job makes this accusation that the only reason why he serves you now is because you haven't touched him, and God now says, again, the same way we saw it the first time, by permission.
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By permission, God says, you can do that, and then God restricts him.
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The same way that God restricts the oceans, when God says the oceans can come what? You can come this far, but no further.
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And in that same way, never ever think that this is a challenge between two equals.
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Of course, it is not, right? The devil is an ape on God's leash, and I thank the Puritans for saying that, because that's the truth.
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And so he has to gain permission, and again, there's a time factor in this.
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So remember, it took a while for the Sabaeans and the Chaldeans to come and to destroy the donkeys and take the camels, and then there's the great wind, and so there's a time period in between chapter one and chapter two, and even in that sense, sometimes time can be a good thing.
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Time can be a bad thing, right? In Proverbs, it says, hope deferred makes the heart sad.
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And so again, even time can be used both as a, again, as a means of grace, or as a means of trial, or as a means of temptation, right? Especially when you are seeking something and it's held back, right? Because it says, hope deferred makes the heart sad, but then it goes on to talk about when that hope manifests itself, it brings great joy, right? So here we are now, God says to him, you can go, he's in your hand, but save his life, and then verse seven.
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Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
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Wow, I mean, Job is, Job is just, it's one wave after another wave.
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And I tried to understand exactly what this affliction was that he put on him.
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Some people say it was leprosy.
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Some people say it was smallpox.
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Some people say it was elephantitis.
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I say, whatever it was, it was bad.
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And that's the point that he asked.
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Because do you not think if he could have killed Job, he would have? Sure would have, right? Because Job is gonna manifest the grace of God.
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And again, I think at times we need to think about those that serve God the most many times are the ones who go through the most severe trials because they are the witness that is in many ways seen above other witnesses.
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Now, again, I'm not trying to undervalue the children of God.
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We are all on equal level at the cross, amen, amen.
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But those that serve God have to consider that their testimony being highly seen and exhibited might render them greater trials and temptations.
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There was Martin Luther who said that he thought the ministry was made up of meditation, temptation, and prayer.
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Meditation, temptation, and prayer.
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So he goes out and he strikes Job with these boils.
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And the picture is there for us.
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He takes a piece of pottery or whatever he found.
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And maybe he's sitting in the ashes of his kid's house, I don't know, at some place.
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And he took for himself, in verse eight, a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the mist of the ashes.
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And again, the scene before us is nothing of delight.
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But nevertheless, that's where he is.
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And that's another point.
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You know what, brothers and sisters? So often we are concerned about where we're going and what's down the road.
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Remember what Jesus said? Be not anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow be anxious for itself.
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Why? Sufficient unto this day is its own evil.
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Again, you would think that Job, having lost all that he lost, and now sitting in the ashes, would say, man, I survived that one.
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And again, there must have been some sort of time period in between.
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I don't know if it was long or short, but that attack comes again.
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And now again, imagine the intensity coming down on him.
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As I said, if two things go wrong in my life in one day, I think the world's about to end, right? And that's the way we are.
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We're very frail.
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And we might think we're really strong, but we're really not as strong as we think we are.
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And so here it comes.
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And then we come to verse nine.
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I wanna spend a little time on this now.
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So, then his wife said to him, do you still hold your integrity? Curse God and die.
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Now, there's many, many ways to interpret the activity and the actions and the words of his wife.
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And I wanna ask us to think about a couple of things.
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Because I guess the ultimate question is, some might ask, is she for God or against God? Or as we might use New Testament language, is she a believer or not? Is she saved or lost? Where does Job's wife come into this? And I wanna mention a couple of things.
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One is this, there's no indication anywhere in the book of Job that Job was a polygamist.
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A polygamist means what? Means you crazy.
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Right? Well, polygamy means more than one wife at the same time.
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So, there's no indication of it.
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And if you think about it, remember when we talked about the timing of the book? Did the book, I think the book falls somewhere in between the generation after the patriarchs and all the way up to perhaps the time of Moses.
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And if you think about the structure of things as far as marriage then, polygamy was supposed to be a marriage was an activity, right? Abraham and some of the others.
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So, when you think about it, there's no indication throughout the book of Job that he was a polygamist.
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Second, I want you to look at something and we'll come back to it later.
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I want you to look at something.
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Go to Job chapter 19 for a minute.
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Because again, I think it's worth talking about it because it'll kind of give us some frame of thought as to what's taking place with Job and his wife.
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In chapter 19, as Job is continually talking about things, I want you to look at verse 17.
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He says, my breath is offensive to my wife.
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So, if we are correct that Job was not a polygamist, then who's he talking about in chapter 19? He's talking about the same wife.
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Because again, there's no indication of the wife being killed.
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There's nothing in the scriptures you would have to present an argument from silence that Job's wife is no longer in the picture.
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Now, she's probably on the sidelines, right? Because the main character in the book of Job is Job.
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The book isn't called Job's wife.
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But at the same time, that's terrible, right? She said, man, he got stank breath.
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And you and I have to think about it, but nevertheless, I think that helps us to understand that neither Job was a polygamist, nor that his wife disappears out of the background, if nothing else, out of the background.
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Which then leads us to think about another fact that how many kids did he have before Satan struck him the first time? 10, seven boys, three girls? We go to the end of the book, guess what? How many? He has another set.
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I mean, that is just totally crazy.
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But he has another set of 10 kids, right? Where did those 10 kids come from? Through his wife.
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Through his wife, which wife? The wife that said he had bad breath.
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He must have brushed his teeth somewhere along the line.
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But the point I'm trying to get at is, I think this will help us, and then there's another thought.
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But Job's wife went through the same thing that Job went through.
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Remember, she raised those kids with Job.
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Do you not think that she was an essential part of that family? Remember, we looked at the kids a little bit.
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You said the kids, they had a good relationship together, right, they got together at everybody's birthday.
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They shared, they weren't estranged from one another.
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Well, who instilled that? I'm gonna say that the mother was an integral part of raising those kids.
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And that when she gets to this point, my thought is, she is, she is far spent.
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Remember what I said to you, and I suggested to you, the reason why I don't think Job is in the Hebrews chapter 11 in the book of faith is because he's mentioned in, later on, by Peter, as, well, I mean by James, as one who persevered, right? And it's the perseverance of Job that I think is the high point of his character.
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Not again, not that he didn't have faith.
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But do think it's against the background here of his wife turning to him and saying, you know what, you should just curse God and die.
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And it's interesting, that word curse that's used there, that that word curse could very well be interpreted bless.
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And it's something like this, and this is what I thought about, and this, I only first heard this when I started, when I moved south.
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I had never heard someone say, bless your heart.
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And when I first heard it, I thought they were really being nice to me.
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And then I really realized it was like a Forrest Gump kind of thing, right? And could it be that that's what he's saying? Because here's something to think about.
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Look what he says to her.
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She says to him, do you still hold your integrity? Okay, Job, you believe in God.
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You trust in God.
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You've raised everything that you've done according to God's will because you're an upright man.
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And God has taken everything from you.
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Are you still gonna hold your integrity, Job? Bless your heart.
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Or she could be just saying, curse God and die.
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Get it over with, Job.
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You wanna hold fast? You wanna say that you still believe? You wanna hold fast to your integrity? Well, then just ask God just to close the curtain on you.
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Just curse God and die.
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Or she could mean curse God and die.
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I mean, it could be that way.
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But his answer to me is quite interesting, right? Because look what he said to her in verse 10.
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He said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speak.
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He doesn't call her a fool.
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He says, you talk like one of the foolish women.
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What does he mean by that? I think he means those that have no regard for God.
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Those that spurn at the truth of God for the unbeliever.
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I think that's what he's saying.
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You act like all the others.
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You act like all the ones.
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Because if you think about it, there was a lot of idolatry.
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And one of the things about people who set up gods in their own mind, whether they be gods of wood or stone or philosophy, whatever way you wanna do it, is when they don't get what they want, many times they turn around and they do what? They curse the God that they made.
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And so when he says to her, you speak as one of the foolish women, and then he says, shall we indeed accept good from God? Shall we not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
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So I take away from this that his wife was crushed by all this.
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And in that sense, the temptation did work.
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And that she has, she's kind of collapsed spiritually, if you will.
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And you know what, friends? And maybe you don't think that.
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But if we look at ourselves, how many times we all go into a little bit of a spiritual collapse, right? Especially when the waves are coming.
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Man, I'll tell you what, when the sun is shining and the ocean's like a lake, man, I'll just go out forever.
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But as soon as those black clouds start forming and that tempest, man, I'll tell you what, oh Lord, you better save me.
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And again, just something to think about because some will say that she was an absolute unbeliever.
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And I would wanna say, be careful about using New Testament terms for Old Testament saints.
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You were gonna say something? Well, the principle's still the same.
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I mean, the principle from the Old Testament's still, because this is one of my favorite parts.
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Yeah.
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When you asked the question, was she an unbeliever? Yeah.
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How would she know that Job would die if he cursed God? Yeah, I mean, there's.
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She had to be willing, at a minimum, to acknowledge God.
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To acknowledge God.
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The awesome power that God possesses.
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Right.
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And I would think that she would see that because of the way she saw Job live his life.
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Absolutely, right.
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By faith, and then all of the blessings that came.
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So in that respect, but she might have thought she would be a merciful.
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Yeah, yeah, that was sarcastic, right? It could be, like I said, bless your heart.
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Or, Job, you know what? You wanna hold fast to her, just get it over with.
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But I agree with you 100%.
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That she has observed, she's raised 10 kids.
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She's observed Job before the true God.
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And that she basically just, at this point, becomes weak.
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And again, something to think about.
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Because, listen, if the evil one can't destroy us, he will take, causing us to be weak.
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Remember, he's a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour.
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His overall desire is to wipe God's people off the face of the earth, by the way.
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Right? But if he can't do that, if he can only cripple us, he'd be willing to do that.
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So you and I have to think about this, as we go through this.
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You can say something else? Oh, one other thing.
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It's to your point that if he can't destroy us, he'll cripple us.
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If he can't destroy us, he'll try to get us to destroy ourselves.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah, whatever means, again, whatever means are at his disposal.
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And sometimes it's as simple as gossip.
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Sometimes it's as simple as, because again, in all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
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And I will say to you as we close, we all know the sins of our own hearts.
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A mature Christian will learn, if nothing else, in his warfare to kill the sin in his heart, at least to try to keep his mouth shut.
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Thank you, sister.
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And that's what it says in Psalm 144, and I'll leave you with that.
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In Psalm 144, the psalmist says, well, we're right here, so just look at it.
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We'll close with this verse.
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Psalm 144, and I believe it's verse one.
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Could be wrong.
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And I will honestly say, I say this to myself every morning, and then I reflect on it every night to see how far amiss I am, and just get there.
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What, in the world? It's not there.
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Wait a minute, I'm gonna find it.
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Up there it is, Psalm 141.
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Sorry.
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Look at it.
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Lord, I cry out to you.
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Make haste to me.
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Give ear to my voice when I cry out to you.
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Let my prayer be set before you as incense, the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
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And then he says this.
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Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth.
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Keep watch over the door of my lips.
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Many as do not incline my heart to any evil thing.
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I think we need to spend a lot of time asking God to put, to shut our mouths.
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God, we do a lot of damage with our words.
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Sticks and stones will break my bone, or whatever that dumb thing is, but words will never harm me.
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That's not true.
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I would say Satan invented that saying.
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Right, because words do hurt.
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You know, people, we kind of change it around.
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We say, well, if you can't say anything good, don't say nothing.
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Yeah, okay, but that's, it's all coming from the scriptures, right? So just think about that, and that's what he says to his wife.
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He says to his wife, you speak as a foolish woman.
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And in all this, it says Job did not sin with his lips, nor charge God with being unjust.
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Job is a really cool guy.
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And yet, the very thing that Job's wife says, in many ways, Job will now begin to say.
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That's why I say, when we hit that, where he said, naked I came, and naked I return, that's a high point, he's on the mountain.
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He's headed into the valley, because he's gonna start wailing and murmuring and disputing and complaining about his situation, and that's one of his defenses against his friends.
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His friends say, you don't understand my situation, and I'm gonna complain.
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And that's what he does, until the end of the book, and then after, when we get there, it's so cool, where God says, you stand up.
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I'm gonna ask you some questions, and you answer me.
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And he starts out, well, where were you? And then he thinks he's done with God, right? And after there's two chapters, there's four ending chapters, and in the first two of those four ending chapters, Job thinks, okay, I'm done, and then he says, I'm sorry, and then God says, no, no, no, no.
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Stand up, I'm gonna question you some more, and then we get to the end of the book, and finally Job says, I've heard of you with the hearing of my ear, but now I've seen you.
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Okay, let's close before we go.
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Father, we thank you for your word, Lord.
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Your word is such a guide to us, it's a path for our way.
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Lord, help us, help us to always keep our eyes fixed on you.
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May we trust you, both in the sun and in the storm, Lord.
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May we set our minds on high.
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May we keep our lips closed, and only allow praise and things that honor you to come out of it.
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And yet, oh Lord, in all this, help us in the depth of our hearts to put away sin, because if we put away sin in our heart, even as your word says, from out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
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So cleanse our hearts, Lord.
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Cleanse our lives.
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Help us as we worship you this morning, in Christ's name, amen.