Job 33a

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We are working through the portion where Elihu, I'm going to pronounce it as Elihu, and if I'm wrong just let me know, but Elihu has come into the picture, and remember now his friends have exhausted themselves as far as they weren't able to cause
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Job to say, you're right, I'm wrong, I repent. And yet the three friends haven't been convinced by Job that they're wrong, and so this whole thing is, they're basically out of argument.
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And then Elihu comes in, and we started to look at it last week in chapter 32, as he comes in and he says, listen,
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I've been listening to you guys all along, and now I want to speak. So let's just read the chapters, chapter 33, and then we'll go over it a little bit.
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So he continues it in verse 1, he says, But please, Job, hear my speech, and listen to all my words.
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Now I open my mouth, and my tongue speaks in my mouth, and my words come from my upright heart, and my lips utter pure knowledge, and the
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Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
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If you can answer me, set your words in order before me. Take your stand. Truly I am as your spokesman before God.
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I also have been formed out of the clay, and surely no fear of me will terrify you, nor will my hand be heavy on you.
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Surely you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sounds of your words, saying
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I am pure without transgression, I am innocent, and there is no iniquity in me.
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Yet he finds occasions against me, he counts me as his enemy, he puts my feet in the stocks, he watches all my paths.
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Look, in this you are not righteous, I will answer you, for God is greater than man.
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Why do you contend with him? For he does not give an accounting of any of his works, or of his words.
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For God may speak in one way or in another, yet man does not perceive it in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men while stumbling on their beds, slumbering man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, and he keeps back his soul from the pit and his life from perishing by the sword.
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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.
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His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones stick out, which once were not seen.
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Yes, his soul draws near to 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,
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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 in the days of his youth, he shall pray to God, and he will delight in him.
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He shall see his face with joy, he restores man to his righteousness, he looks at men and says,
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I have sinned and perverted what is right, and it didn't profit me. And he will redeem his soul from going down to the pit, and his life shall see the light.
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Behold God works all these things, twice in fact, three times would a man to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life.
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Give ear Job, listen to me, hold your peace, and I will speak, if you have anything to say, answer me, speak, for I desire to justify you, if not, listen to me, hold your peace, and I will teach you wisdom.
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So as this conversation now moves towards Elihu and direction towards Job, to me
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Elihu has a, I want to say he has like a fresh outlook on things.
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He's not, he doesn't have all these, at least what he's stating here, he doesn't have all these preconceived notions about Job that his friends had, and it's just, if he's going to come in, and he's going to, and it says that, where he says in verse 6, truly
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I'm your spokesman before God, and remember what Job had been continually asking for?
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Let me just show you something, go back to Job chapter 9 real quick, just to look at one verse,
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Job chapter 9, and it should be, I don't know, 30, verse 31, 32, something like that, but remember what
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Job has been asking for? He's been asking for someone to come in and act as a mediator in the situation that was taking place, and in a sense he almost asked for an umpire, and that's what's going to take place.
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So in Job chapter 9, verse 32, it says, for he's not a man, and as I am, that I may answer him, and that we should go to court together, nor is there any mediator between us who may lay his hand on us both.
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And I think in one sense what Elihu is going to try to do, attempt to do, and he gets better at it than what his friends had done, is he's going to try to speak for God, and he's going to try to be the mediator, or to go between, in the situation and try to bring it to some sort of resolve, and again, that is something that Job wanted, and we can read it in other places.
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Job can't understand what's happening. Just like you and I, in the times in our life, we can't really understand what's happening.
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Aren't there times in our life when we almost want to say, God, what are you doing? What's going on?
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I can't make, in that sense, I can't make sense of it. And the real question that we want to know is, well, there's probably a couple of them.
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First is, why? And second is, might be first, but when is it going to stop?
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Because remember what Job thinks, Job thinks that God is hunting him down, right?
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That's been a continual theme, that Job says that God has, in a sense, been, had spied him out above everybody else, and now
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God has become his enemy, and you can see that in verse 10, look what it says, back in chapter 33.
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It says, yet he finds occasions against me. This is Elihu speaking as if this is what
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Job had said. Yet he finds occasions against me. He counts me as his enemy.
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He puts my feet in the stocks, and he watches all my path. And again, this has been a continual issue with Job, and his friends have given him an answer,
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Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophaz, and they've said the reason why God is hunting
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Job is what? Right?
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He's disobeyed God, and now he's getting what he deserves. And what does
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Job think about that? Why Job maintains his integrity, and to Job, I think this is what happens.
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Job can't figure it out. And again, I say to you that we need to be careful, because we can make a right observation or we can certainly make a wrong observation.
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Do you ever make a wrong observation about somebody that you might not even admit until later on?
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Man, I thought about this person this way, and I was wrong.
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And usually we keep those things to ourselves, right? We don't tell people that, but there are occasions where we make wrong observations.
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So as Elihu comes in, and he says that, and he opens it up, Job, hear my speech and listen to my words, and I'll open my mouth, and my tongue is in my mouth, and my words come from an upright heart.
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My lips are the pure knowledge that what Elihu is trying to do is bring, if you will, a fresh voice into the situation, and again, trying to correct both the friends and Job.
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Ultimately, who's the one who's going to do all the correcting? God, right?
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Because when God comes in, God sets things straight, and remember, as we get to the end, the friends actually have to go to Job and ask
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Job for forgiveness, because God is angry with his friends for misrepresenting
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Job, but God also deals with Job for Job's misrepresenting
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God. And so again, these things continue going, but Elihu, remember, he's younger, and we talked about that.
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I don't know how much younger he is, but there's probably quite a bit of difference between the friends, because that's what he had said, that the hoary head, the gray head, or whatever way you want to term it, they should speak first, and so he's been sitting there, and his stuff has just been, if you will, piling up in his mind and in his heart, and now he's got the opportunity to speak, and I think that's what he's simply saying in the opening verses, and then verse 4, when he says, listen, the
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Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life, and I think when you think about that, a couple things.
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I'll ask it as a question, see what you, how you can work through that.
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When it says the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life, do you think that everybody understands that everyone is on the same level in many ways?
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Would you agree to that? Like, in other words, it doesn't matter whether you're male or female, but the reality is,
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God has made us all. Now, if you were to just stop with that thought and work that out in your mind, how much trouble turmoil, discrimination, how much would be alleviated by just that one thought?
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That the Spirit of God has made everyone, and the breath of the
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Almighty has given everyone life. That would, it would kind of flatten the field, don't you think?
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We would easily be able then to say, or we ought to be able to say, what makes me to differ from you?
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Unless I'm going to go back, in a sense, to the way his friends, they did this, they discriminated against Job based on externals.
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Can you imagine if everyone thought of themselves as a child of God?
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From a creational standpoint. Like people will say that, right, we're all children of God, but then they also add things about why they're,
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I really don't want to go too far with this, but this whole thing with critical race thinking.
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How people, what's the premise in that? What's the main factor in critical race theory?
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Separation of races. Okay. And that there's basically two kinds of people.
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There's the oppressor, and then there's,
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I'll just write it this way, the oppressee. Right?
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Isn't that really what's behind the separation of that, is that we don't see each other externally as equals?
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As equals. Yeah, as equal and on the same playing field, and so we come up with this whole system now that says, well, and then we put subtitles on this, and you know, one of them, it is what it is, what people say.
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White people are the oppressor, and everyone else is the oppressee. Right? And no matter how it trickles down, you can divide that even further.
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Who's on the bottom, if you understand anything about critical race theory, who's on the bottom of the rung?
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Well, who's on the top, first of all? White man's on the top, right?
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We don't like those white men. Yeah. Who's on the bottom? It's black women.
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Black women. Yeah. They are the most oppressed. In critical race theory, that's, who's on the bottom of this rung?
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And everything in between, so what's the premise behind it?
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It's to try to lift this, and how do you lift this? You do it by diminishing what?
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This. Who sits around and comes up with this stuff? People who...
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You know what I'm saying? You have to have a lot of time on your hands, or an agenda. You know, to take the time to come up with this theory, you know?
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Whatever. It is, if you will, and here's where I think we need to start our thinking.
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It's in opposition to God. And if we think of it that way, then you can almost understand.
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I mean, why do people rebel against God? Well, they rebel against God because they refuse to submit to his authority, and his word, and his will that's revealed to us.
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And so, basically, they come up with that the same way we come up with other things.
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You can extend this out, but this is, of course, the one we're dealing with.
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Although I would say it's beginning to lose a little bit of its force. But what else goes along with that?
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Well, there's the, right?
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The diversity. E is for what? Equity.
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And inclusion. So, again, that same premise, right?
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That once you move outside of truth, anything is possible.
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Right? Any form of rebellion is what's going to come out of it.
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And so, I think, in part, that if everybody understood verse four, and as Elihu puts it out there, that the spirit of God, and it's the spirit of God, and that's interesting right?
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Because who's the creator? The father, the son, the spirit? Yes. The spirit of God has made me and has given me life, and basically, what he's saying is,
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I can answer you, Job, because we're on the same level. And I do think it's important for us to understand that,
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I'll say it this way, I don't care where you are on the spiritual ladder, so to speak.
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I don't care whether you've been a Christian for ten days, ten years, or five decades, it doesn't matter in one way that everyone is equal as far as either, as a child of God.
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We're all on the same level, we're all children, right? And I asked this question, I was at Set Free Thursday night, and I asked this question, and I said to them, does
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God have favorites? So I'm going to ask you that, because their response was really interesting, we spent twenty minutes trying to talk through that.
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Does God have favorites? I'm not going to answer it, somebody's going to say something.
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Does he have favorites according to the Bible? Yeah, does God have favorites?
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Well, Daniel and David, I don't know if it's, yeah, kind of similar.
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Are you talking about, and I'm just asking this as I'm thinking, are you talking about of his children or everybody as a whole?
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I guess with election, that's the answer. Let's do it both ways. Oh, yeah, definitely.
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Let's do it by Christian first, though. Because you got
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Esau and... Jacob, have
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I loved Esau or have I hated him? Right. Does that mean, and I'm just trying to understand it and ask us to think about it, does that mean that Jacob was his favorite?
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Well, let me give you, I'll follow through with your saying, remember the twelve sons? Who got the coat of many colors?
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Joseph. Right, right? Why? Because he was daddy's favorite. So from that standpoint, there is a sense in which there is favoritism.
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I'm asking, does anyone start on any kind of a higher level in the
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Christian faith? What I'm trying to get us to think about is that we are all special because we're the elective
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God, in that sense, but that reality is based on what?
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God's discriminating love. Is it based on us?
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See, in that sense, I don't believe God has any favorites in that way because we are all saved by grace.
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And so, again, if there was anything to merit us being a favorite of God, then
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I think that kind of destroys the reality of God's grace. So in one sense, we're all on the same level.
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We're all born what? Sinners. When you think about it from the standpoint, so you brought up someone, did
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God have a favorite in Moses that he didn't have in someone else?
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Does God have favorites in the faith? I think he uses people differently. So that kind of makes it,
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I mean Noah, Noah was saved. Everybody else that wasn't on the earth died.
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And that's absolutely, and that's from a creational, I mean from an electing standpoint, right?
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Because what does God, did
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God choose us because, let me just show it to you real quick. Go to Deuteronomy chapter, let's try four.
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It's not four, it's seven. It's, if I get to the right book,
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I get to the right chapter. Okay, in Deuteronomy, okay,
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Deuteronomy seven. Let's just look at that real quick. I know we're off target a little bit, but that's okay. Okay, when the
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Lord your God brings you into the land, talking to Israel, he brings you into the land to which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the
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Hittites and the Gerkesites and the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you.
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And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them.
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You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them, nor shall you make marriages with them.
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You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and so the anger of the
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Lord be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them, you shall destroy their altars, break down their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.
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For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.
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Is that insinuating that God has chosen Israel as his favorite?
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Yeah. And I think that's part of the answer is we have this, do we have a right understanding of what it means to be a favorite?
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Because, again, many people make, many people show favoritism for the wrong reason.
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God, in that sense, is perfect in all his ways and all that he does.
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And when God shows, if we wanted to say favoritism, it's by his decree.
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And the reason why I say that, one second, is what he says in verse 7. So he says, you are a holy people, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.
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And then look at this. The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the least of all people, but because the
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Lord loves you and that he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers.
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The Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand. What is he saying there? It's not really based on any external.
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It wasn't based on the fact of anything other than what? God chose to make
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Israel a special people. And when you begin to think about that and you begin to think about this reality of how people rebel against God and some people even take it that far and say, well,
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God has shown favoritism towards this group that he hasn't shown towards that group.
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I know you were going to say something. Go ahead, Barry. We usually choose favorites based on what somebody does for us.
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But God, I've heard, like I said, Israel is like the run of the litter of all the nations. Absolutely, and they were.
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Sure. Sure they were. And again, when we declare someone to be our favorite, it most often is because they either do something for us or they give us a joy that others don't.
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How many people have a favorite kid? I was just, that's what I got to tell you. I have two boys. I love them very much.
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Right. Me and my oldest, Caleb, we have more in common. Okay. Because on a spiritual sense than me and Josh does.
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So there's a relationship that's developed that's not necessarily caused by merely saying you're my favorite, but it has these things that have made that connection, if you will.
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Is that wrong? Because you wouldn't really say he's your favorite. You would say,
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I listened to what you said, you have a better relationship, right? But that doesn't mean...
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Our conversation and our relationship is different. Yeah. And that, again, that is, that's not favoritism.
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I don't believe that's favoritism. I believe that's just the relationships that have been established and you can extrapolate that out.
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I mean, having things in common with people does what?
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It creates friendships, doesn't it? It creates relationships. Collective. Yeah. I mean, if you are completely opposite from someone else, you might not find that, if you will, that common ground.
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But it doesn't mean that someone necessarily... I guess what we're trying to get at, friends, before we move on, is that God doesn't have favorites.
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God makes purposeful decisions.
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Just like He did with Israel. He didn't choose them because they were the greatest. Like you said, they would have run. In that sense, they would have run.
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Why did God choose Abraham? Where did He get Abraham from? He took him from a land of idolatry.
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There was nothing special in Abraham, was there? Was there?
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No. He called him out of the land. His father was an idolater and he said, get out to the country and I'll show you.
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You think it really comes down to God is sovereign? Yeah, absolutely. It's by decree. And it's because...
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And it's just what it says in Deuteronomy. Because I can't understand this. Maybe you can help me understand it.
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He says that He didn't choose them because they were the most. As a matter of fact, they were the least. But look at verse 8.
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But because the Lord loves you. What does that mean? It's because the
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Lord loved them. And again, that sets God on high, right?
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And so it's not a hymn of works, right? What does Paul say in Romans?
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I will show mercy on what? Whom I will show mercy. I will show compassion on whom
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I will show compassion. Not him that wills, nor him that runs, but God that what?
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Shows mercy. However, I still think there's a reality, just to think about this, that we're all on the same level.
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From a creational standpoint, we just talked about that, right? No one is created, in that sense, greater than another person, are they?
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No, because once you go down that road, then we'll get into CRT and discrimination and prejudice and all that other stuff.
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And even on a spiritual level, we all, when we come to Christ, I think we're still all on the same level.
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We're all chosen of God. We're all, in that sense, washed by the blood.
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So, that's why I said before, I don't care where you are on the spiritual ladder. And, you know, people will look at,
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I'll just use Brother Mike because he's not in here. Brother Mike is super intelligent.
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I don't know if you've noticed that. His intellect is, he's got this almost photographic kind of memory.
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And if you don't believe me, just start asking him some questions. Does that make
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Brother Mike more special than someone that doesn't have a kind of photographic memory or doesn't have that intelligence?
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No. Does that mean that God might use Brother Mike in a different way? Yeah. But again, we're all adopted as sons and daughters.
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And I just wanted to bring that point out. I know we've kind of extended my time on it a little bit.
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But when Elihu says this, what I think he's trying to say is, listen,
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I'm no different. As a matter of fact, he does say that. Go back to Job real quick before we close.
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Where was that where he said? Oh, there it is, verse 6.
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So he says, if you can answer me, set your words before me. Truly I am as you have spoken before God. I also, that's what it is in verse 6,
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I also have been formed out of clay. And so surely no fear of me should terrify you.
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Again, what is he saying? Listen, I'm not coming at you like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophaz.
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I'm coming at you as one who's equal to you. And then if we were to continue on, we might have to finish this next week.
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But he says, you don't need to be afraid of me because I'm here to help you. And I do think that that's important for us to think about.
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That in one sense, why we have the ministry we have as a
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Christian is to help others. Help others what? Help others to see
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God. And so there ought to be not a sense of arrogance about us.
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There ought to be a great sense of humility. Again, Israel had no reason to boast, did they?
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Do we have any reason to boast before God? No. We're all made out of clay.
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And God in his discriminating sovereign love chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
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That flattens the field. And you and I sometimes are, we get caught up in things we ought not to get caught up in.
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And I'll just say this because I've always pretty much thought this way.
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You know, some people will really enjoy having their name
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Dr. So -and -so -and -so -and -so, PhD and DD and PQ and whatever else.
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Their title is 47 letters. And I'm not saying it's wrong because if you honor should go to who?
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To whom honor is due. And so in that sense, if someone has put in time in any particular area,
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I'll probably get in trouble, but listen, this thing about calling Joe Biden's wife doctor.
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And I remember when that first came out, it was, oh, she's a doctor. And then all of a sudden
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I found out she's a doctor of education. Come on. They made it sound like she was a brain surgeon. I mean, you want to tell her the brain surgeon, it was
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Dr. Carson. It was Ben Carson that did that. Matter of fact, do you remember in the debate he actually used that?
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He says, I might not know everything, but I can put a brain back together. My whole point is we ought to give honor to whom honor is due, but not in a warped sense at all.
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We ought to be able to understand. And I think that's why Elihu is going to be helpful to a certain point because he's not coming with all these notions that he has the answer and Joe just needs to shut up and listen to him.
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Because if you think about it, Joe's friends were a little arrogant. At least to me they were. I will tell you what's wrong with you.
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You've sinned against God and now he's coming after you. And you and I ought to be very, very humble.
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It ought to cause us a sense of humility to realize, listen man, we all came out of dust.
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And we're all going back to dust. And some of us might be this and some of us might be that.
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But ultimately, it's the same spirit of God that made us. And in truth, it's the same spirit of God that's going to take us out.
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Because if you think about that, life only ends when God is pleased to remove life.
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The means are different. We might say, well, someone caused their own issues and that might very well be true.
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But again, it's still by the hand of God. So, just to wind it up, so as he says this and he says,
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Surely, in verse 7, no fear of me will terrify you, nor will my hand be heavy on you.
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And then he just says, we'll get down to a couple of verses and stop. He says,
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Surely you have spoken in my hearing. I heard the sound of your words, saying, I am pure without transgression.
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I am innocent and there is no iniquity in me. Now, just as a remark, did
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Job say that? Did Job say, I am pure without transgression. I am innocent and there is no iniquity in me?
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Anybody remember anywhere in the book of Job where Job said that? He never said that. He maintained his integrity before God that he was desirous to follow
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God. He never claimed to be without sin. Had he claimed to be without sin, then he ought to have been rebuked.
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He never made that claim. Just like you and I, which one of us would be so foolish to open our mouth and say we are without sin?
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Does that not also, from that standpoint, does that not also put us on the same field? Are we not all sinners?
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Are we not all in need of grace? Are we not all, at times, changeable, movable?
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We move back and forth almost like the leaves in the wind. So what he's saying here about Job, that's not really what
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Job said. And we'll deal with that a little bit more. And then, well, we'll have to stop with that.
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Next week we'll pick it up. Because he then tries to say what, not only has
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Job declared he was innocent, but that Job thinks that God is hunting him.
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And in one sense he is, and in another sense he's not. So we'll stop with that for now.