Job 17

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We're going to read the chapter again. We've looked at the first four or five verses, and it's a short chapter, so it's only 16 verses.
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So let's just read it, get our minds set back in it. Job 17, my, and this is
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Job, of course, speaking, responding to Eliphaz's second speech against him, towards him.
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And he says, my spirit is broken, and my days are extinguished, and the grave is ready for me.
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Are not mockers with me, and does not my eye dwell on their provocation?
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Now put down a pledge with yourself. Who is he who will shake hands with me? For you have hidden their heart from understanding, therefore you will not exalt them.
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He who speaks flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children will fail. But he has made me a byword of the people, and I have become one in whose face men spit.
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My eye has grown dim because of sorrow, and all my members are like shadows, and upright men are astonished at me.
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And the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite. Yet the righteous will hold his way, and he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.
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But please come back again, all of you, for I shall not find one wise man among you. My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.
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They change the night into day, and the light is near, they say, in the face of darkness. If I wait for the grave as my house, and if I make my bed in the darkness, if I say to corruption, you are my father, and to the worm, you are my mother and my sister, where then is my hope?
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As for my hope, who can see it? Will they go down to the gates of Sheol? Shall we rest together in the dust?
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So if you remember last week, we just looked at opening verses, and basically Job continues to respond to what he calls miserable friends.
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And they'd be going back and forth, and continually no one wants to give ground.
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The friends are steadfast in their mind that Job is getting what he deserves.
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And matter of fact, he's getting less than what he deserves. And he's a secret sinner, and his sinners found him out, and Job is continually responding to them.
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And there's a great deal of frustration on both the friend's part and his part, because again, just like everything else, when you really believe you're right about something, usually you don't want to give in.
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If we're not sure, maybe we could be swayed. But when we have steadfast convictions, it's not that easy to turn away from them.
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When you really believe you're right, you're going to hold to it.
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And so that's what's been going on. And again, as it opened up, he says in verse 2, calls his friends mockers.
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And Job has been listening to their provocation. And then in verse 3, we had said that when he now speaks in verse 3,
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I believe he's applying it before God. And he says, basically, Lord, you're going to have to come in between this situation, because I'm not getting anywhere with them.
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No one really understands me, so you need to be the one who comes in between. And I know you're just, and your judgment will be just.
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And then we ended pretty much in verse 4, where it says, you have hidden their heart from understanding, and therefore you will not exalt them.
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And if you remember, we looked in Isaiah, where Isaiah, in part of his commission to be a prophet to the people of Israel, we read in Isaiah where it spoke about how purposefully the words that Isaiah spoke to them would wind up being something that would actually cause their eyes to grow dim and their ears to grow deaf, and they wouldn't understand.
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And we ended on that, and so I just want to pick it up from there. I would say this, and maybe you've picked up on it.
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At this point, I don't think Job expects much from his friends. His expectation has been dulled by their constant accusations.
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And so he basically has come, and you'll see it as we work through the latter part of the chapter.
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He's come to wit's end, if you will. Morning, Barry. He's come to wit's end, and really, there's no place for Job to turn to.
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And ultimately, that will change as we move on in the book. But for right now, it's still, he's basically, to me, he's just out of steam.
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He just can't handle this no more. So in verse 5, he says, he who speaks flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children will fail.
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And I had to work on this one a little bit, because, so when you hear that word, flattery, what do you think about?
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What comes to your mind? I mean, does it sit well, and some of you have different translations,
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I know. And doesn't that seem a little strange in verse 5? He who speaks flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children will fail?
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Well, what's flattery in most people's minds? Lying or exaggerating.
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Right, exaggerating, making more out of something for a specific reason.
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Well, so what I did was I went and I looked up that word, because I said, you know, that really doesn't sit well with me. And I found out there's only two places in the whole
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Bible where that word is used in the original language, which would have been in the Hebrew.
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And the other one is in Proverbs chapter 6. You don't have to turn to it there. But in Proverbs chapter 6, it talks about the flattering words of a seductive woman, and how she uses words, if you will, to draw men into her web.
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And I looked it up and tried to get to the root meaning of it. And it basically comes out this way, that to use flattering words is to speak smoothly.
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Just like a woman, a seductress woman, would do that. She would lure people in with her words.
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And so when Job says this, he's really coming back at them. And basically,
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I think what he's saying is, you're going to get the judgment of God. And to the point where even your kids are going to feel the ramifications of it.
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So it's certainly not something that Job is saying to them to lift them up.
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He's basically, again, they've come after him. And he has, in a sense, gone back at them.
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And so when you think about it that way, it's something that we also have to realize in our own lives, that we need to be careful about the words we use.
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And not only the words we use, but think about this. At least consider this. Not only the words we use, why we use them.
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What's the motivation behind our words? Are we really seeking to help?
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Or are we seeking to lure people into our trap And if any of you want to lie before us all and tell us that you've never used words to try to lure people into whatever you want to have come your way, then you can go ahead and raise your hand.
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And we'll throw rocks at you. But I think we've all been in this spot.
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And so as Job looks at them, and like I said, they just won't stop. And to the point where he even says, you're going to get yours.
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And not only that, but so God's going to punish you, and God's going to punish your kids.
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Then he says this. And I want to look at this from verse 6 to verse 9. Because you remember
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I said to you that through the book of Job, we're going to see shadows.
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And I'm using that word shadow. Because I don't want to represent that it's always an absolute certainty.
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But there are overtones of Christ through the book of Job. Agree? That at certain places in the book, the coming of Christ appears clearer and clearer.
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But it's not always to be considered as apples to apples. Because then we get ourselves in trouble.
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But Job is a type of Christ in that he suffers wrongfully, and others make accusations against him.
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And certainly in these verses, it comes up because he says, but he has made me a byword of the people, and I've become one in whose face men spit.
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And so certainly you could relate to that concern of Christ. That literally, men spit in his face.
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And so I think there is some understanding of that. My eye also has grown dim because of sorrow.
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If there was ever a man of sorrows, it was Christ. Man of sorrows, what a name for the
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Son of God who came. And as you think about it, but I want to just mention that, and it'll come back over and over again.
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But these verses are a little bit interesting. He has made me a byword of the people. I become one in whose face men spit.
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My eye has grown dim because of sorrow, and all my members are like shadows. But look at verse eight and verse nine.
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Upright men are astonished at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.
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Yet the righteous will hold to his way, and he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.
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Now, there's a couple of things in this, but the thing
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I want to point out for now in this is that I believe that Job has a sense that his life is being used by God.
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And again, in a shadowy, perhaps, understanding, but that Job realizes his life is being used as an example for others to see and others to learn by, especially when he says upright men are astonished to me, and the innocent stirs himself up, yet the righteous will hold to his way.
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And I don't think he's talking about himself at this point. That's just my understanding of it, that he's talking about others that will view this, because here's the thing, and this is gonna come out further and further as we get through the book, but do you think,
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I would hope you would think, that this whole activity between the friends and Job is being viewed by others?
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This is not, again, three guys out, or four people out in the woods, just sitting there talking and going back and forth, because I know for sure that Elihu, who is the fourth friend that will come into the book, and he comes in in chapter 32, but Elihu hears both the speeches of the friends and the speeches of Job, and Elihu, later on in the book, he tries to enter into the conversation and clarify things, and of course, he gets closer to the truth, but he's not the ultimate truth.
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Ultimately, it's not until God comes and does that. So certainly, there is
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Elihu in the mix, but I want us to look at something. I'm going to say that I do think not only is
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Elihu present, but I believe there are others that are watching what's taking place, and I'll show it to you.
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Look in chapter 19 real quick, and we'll come back to it when we get to the chapter, but I do wanna mention this.
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So look what Job says. In chapter 18, Bildad comes next, and he takes his second swipe at Job, and then
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Job in 19, he responds, and if you look in verse 13, read this with me.
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He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
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My relatives have failed. My close friends have forgotten me. Again, there's a little bit of an overtone there of the
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Lord Jesus, don't you? Would you not agree in his family? Then he says this, verse 15.
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Those who dwell in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
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I call my servant, but he gives no answer. I beg him with my mouth. Then he says this.
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My breath is offensive to my wife. I'm repulsive to the children of my own body.
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Even young children despise me. I arise, and they wake against me. All my close friends abhor me, and those whom
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I love have turned against me, and my bone clings to my flesh, and I escape by the skin of my teeth.
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My point is this. When was the last time he read of his wife, by the way? It was way, way back in the beginning of the book, wasn't it?
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Remember when she said, curse God and die? So she has appeared again, and again, my understanding, and if you wanna argue with me, that's, we'll have a conversation, that's fine.
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I do not believe she left him. I believe she is still in the mix.
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I have, there's no evidence to me that I found in the book of Job where Job had multiple wives, and he was monogamous, and I think in part because of, well, because of the integrity that Job had, but also, remember the time setting of this, and if we're right in our thinking, it's sometime after the patriarchs, perhaps sometime before Moses comes on the scene.
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He's way back there, right? He's one of the oldies, but I don't know of any place where he talks about having lost his wife, and what happened to him when, well, we know what happened to him.
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Remember he lost his wealth? He lost his health? Did he lose his kids? Okay, he had how many kids?
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10 kids. He had sons and daughters. Well, it says that they were killed, right, when the tornado or whatever came through, but guess what?
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I think there must have been grandkids involved, and again, you could say it's all conjecture, but if his kids were all grown and married, and they feasted together,
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I gotta believe there were other kids involved. I'm not saying that every one of them had a family, but I do think there's other people involved in this situation.
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Other people are watching this, and that's why Job says the things he says, that people, his breath is offensive.
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I'm a repulsive, I am repulsive to the children of my own body. Could he be talking about his grandkids, others?
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Could he be talking about relatives? We don't know, but we could think that way.
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All I guess I'm trying to get us to think about is that as we go through this, and this conversation takes place between Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophaz, and Job, that there is a witness, and I do think in chapter 17, what he's saying is in those verses where he says upright men are astonished at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite, yet the righteous will hold to his ways, and he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.
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Job, in a sense, is saying that he's been set up as an example, and that others will grow by it, and really, if you think about it, would we not agree that the things that were written before time were written for what?
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Our instruction, upon whom the ends of the world depend? So should we, can we glean from Job, and again, not to, one of the problems that we have to be careful over is taking something especially historically set and ripping it out so far from its context that it loses its meaning, right?
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We gotta make sure that we, because context is always the key, but at the same time, even the things that were written before time, we should be able to make an application in our own lives, right?
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And so I think that that's what he's saying, and that he is saying that he understands, in some sense, that God has brought all this to pass with a great deal of confusion, because Job doesn't understand, really, does he?
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Job still doesn't understand why this has come upon him in his life.
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Just like I'm going to say it,
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I think every one of us are perplexed at times about our own lives. I mean, we don't fully understand the things that are taking place in our own lives, and it's kinda hard to put together.
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It's not always as clear as could be, right? We see our lives make turns, whether up, down, left, right, that we never certainly anticipated, and they kinda set us apart a little bit at times, right?
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So I think that's what he's trying to convey. And then let's look at verse 10. I wanna try to get through this chapter, and like I said, maybe peek a little bit at chapter 18.
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But look what he says in verse 10. He says, but please, and this is where he's talking to his friends.
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He says, but please come back again, all of you. Now, I understand this, that at this point,
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Job's being a little sarcastic, that that's my take on it, that Job has been blasted by his friends, and they're frustrated, because Job won't agree with them.
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Job won't give ground, because Job remains with his integrity, that his hope ultimately is in God.
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And I think what he's saying is, okay, boys, come on, bring it on. You wanna put more stuff into the mix?
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Put it on, because he says, come back again, all of you. There's not a wise man among you.
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Basically, he's calling them a fool. And so as you look at that,
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I think Job's at the point now where he's gonna hold his ground, and no matter what they say, again, and so he,
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I don't wanna say it's a dare, but basically, I think he's at the point of saying to them, okay, you wanna keep trying to throw wood on the fire, you go right ahead, because you're a bunch of dummies anyway.
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Basically, like I said, if you think about what's being said back and forth, they call each other windbags and fools and hypocrites, and this has not been that good around the table.
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This table talk between these two, if you will, groups, the friends and Job have been, at times, vigorous, wouldn't you agree?
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You think about it, sometimes you get together with either friends or families, and sometimes the conversations go real nice and smooth, and then there's other times when conversations get a little bit charged up, right?
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Especially, like, even now you think about it, you get to the holidays, and Uncle Louie comes, because we haven't seen in three years, and Uncle Louie has a total political slant that you don't possess, and you know what
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I'm saying, and not every one of you have an Uncle Louie, but anyway, get my point, though, that this conversation's full of vigor, and so he says,
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I will find a wise man among you, and then the remainder of the chapter, I think
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Job falls back into his depressive state, and the reason why
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I say this, and we'll just briefly comment on it, is you begin to see, again, Job has a sense, as I read through the book,
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I think there is both a sense of hope in Job, and a sense of hopelessness, and that the reason that he kind of vacillates back and forth is the situations of life are driving him, at times, into a great sense of depression, and you know, when we don't understand things, sometimes it can lead to that, right, and then
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I think we have to be aware of that, and that at other times, he holds his ground, and his trust in God, and we'll see it, certainly, as we get into chapter 19, where he says,
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I know my Redeemer lives, and I will see Him at the end, I'll see Him in my flesh, but Job is kind of going back and forth,
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I had asked a while ago, and so, we'll just say it again, if you had to gauge yourself, which we all can, how many of us would say we're,
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I know it's a worldly term, how many of us say we're optimists? I know my wife is.
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How many of us, so, she's the only one that says she's an optimist, so I'm in a room full of pessimists?
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Uh -oh. Uh -oh. There's always hope.
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Yeah, there is. No matter what. I tend to be more of a pessimist, but that doesn't mean
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I don't have hope, I'm just, if I really consider my own mind, and my own heart, and my own thoughts,
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I would have to say sometimes I tend towards that side, rather than the optimistic side.
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Now, I do. What do you think some of it has to do with?
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Yeah, I mean, I do think that the things that God has surrounded each one of us with contribute to our personality, character, and the way we carry ourselves, right?
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But at the same time, I do think that in the sense that we're all created unique, we are all, in that way, no one's like us.
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Individually, nobody is just like you. Even if you were, say you were a twin, even twins have what?
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Differences? So, I do think there is a reality that God has made each one of us for his own purpose, and that in the wisdom of God, someday we'll understand that it wasn't by the rolling of the dice, or any of that, it was by perfect design, right?
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And that's a wonderful thought when you think about it, at least to me it is. That one day, someday, cause it can't be an accident of the people that have come into our circle, can it?
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It can't be by chance that we have this connection that other people don't have with us, right?
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And certainly you can see it in all the spheres of life. Certainly it's not your family appointed for you, absolutely, it's not your situation appointed for you.
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Hey Mary. All those things that have been brought into our life, they have come into our life and contributed to our, the way and manner in which we live.
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So, he now, I think we now see again his anguish.
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So look at verse 11, he said, my days are past. My purposes are broken off.
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Even the thoughts of my heart, they change the night to day. I think what he's saying in verse 12 is he can't escape it.
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No matter what, whether we, no matter what he does, this anguish of, well what would he have the anguish for?
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Think about it. What would be his anguish? None of you have said anything this morning, so I'm gonna wait till somebody says something.
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What was the question? What was the question? What was his anguish?
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What was jokes? What was his anguish? Yeah, what was the thing that was tearing Job up? Being accused of being wicked, he wasn't.
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All right, so there was accusations, right? Accused. What else?
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How about this? He was lost, agree?
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It certainly was, Job himself was full of this, right?
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That's a big word. What else? Anything else? And this loss could be expanded, right?
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He's lost his goods, he's lost his family, he's lost his stature, which at that time must have been pretty strong, if you think about it.
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Remember, his three friends are not, they weren't just guys who lived in boxes on the side of the road. These were wealthy, healthy, royal people in that day.
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And remember the day in which we're talking about. What you had, especially in those days, that contributed a lot to your place and your understanding of things.
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In other words, it was the more you had, the more blessed you were. So in a sense,
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I wonder if Job feels like he's been robbed. Is that two
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Bs? I was gonna check with the teacher here. So there's a bunch of things going on in Job's life.
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And again, just looking at this, just those four things that we have, don't you think this would have an effect on you?
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I do. And so as Job begins to see this and it's brought to the surface more and more as his friends keep jabbing at him and jabbing at him, and as Brother Lee said, the accusations keep coming, that Job kind of goes in and out with a sense of stability and then instability.
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And then until we get to the end of the book, I don't think it's gonna clear up.
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So he says, my days are past. My purposes in verse 11 are broken off. Even the thoughts of my heart, they change from night to day.
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The light is near, they say, in the face of darkness. I wait for the grave as my house. Remember, well, let me pose it as a question.
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And I've said this a number of times, but still. Do you think Job just is looking for a way out with the grave?
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He has said this many different ways at many different times during his conversation, that basically he just wants to go back to the dust.
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Is that an nihilistic view? Do you think
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Job has that in his mind, that I just wanna, I want it to end?
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Sister? Depression, have those highs and those lows, and then when it looks like it's all over, wake up the next day and it's consuming again.
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So I can see him with his emotional state and just all the way through.
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I don't think he's looking to die, but he wants it to end. That's right.
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Sir? Yeah, he wants his earthly woes to end, but he knows there's more after he dies.
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Okay, so I would hope we would all agree with that thought, that Job is not hopeless but he thinks on this side of the veil, he's in a hopeless situation, right?
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And there's a big difference between those. And we talked about this a little last week, that although things seem to, although the waves, and remember he said that?
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He said that his life in many ways was like the waves of the sea keeps hitting the rocks, hitting the rocks, and it's grinding it down to sand, but Job never lose his hope in that which is on his mind.
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He's not on the other side of the veil because I believe Job understands who's on the other side of the veil and that it's not just a matter of eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die, right?
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That there is more, and that's really the thing that I think is gonna keep Job, by God's grace, afloat.
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Never forget what Satan said to God. You take what he has and he'll curse you to your face.
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To this point, I have not found a place where Job is curse -guard. Has he complained? Sure has.
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Has he said some things he shouldn't have said? Have we not also said many things we shouldn't have said?
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Have we not done many things we shouldn't have done because of our situation, where we felt we were trapped or whatever?
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But at this point, I think Job just wants it to, he just wants the curtain to go down. And knowing, of course, as you say, brother, that there is hope on the other side.
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As he says in verse 13, if I wait for my grave as my house, and if I make my bed in darkness, if I say to corruption, you're my father, and to the worm, you're my mother and my sister.
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Again, looking for, he's looking for a sense of relief.
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Listen, think about it this way. When you have a toothache, what's the only thing usually you think about?
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Getting rid of the toothache. I mean, that's the thing that's got you trapped.
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That's the situation. And you don't care, that's why people get to the point where, you know, I'll tie a string and you put the other end of the string on a doorknob and let it fly.
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Because we get to that point of, I don't care what it takes, I just gotta get this off of my chest.
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I gotta get this out of my life. And I think that's to the point where Job is at, from time to time.
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And you said it, sister, and I think it's important if you think about it that way. I know
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I always do this, but it just makes some sense to me that all lives, friends are so much like this, right?
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And that this is really cool when we're here at the top.
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This stinks, right? And I think what God desires of us is to do this, to be able to walk.
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Again, affected, yes, but not so affected that we can't walk. And again, if you're given to those kinds of things,
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I think you would understand it better. In other words, people that are more given to getting stuck down here, or more desirous to always be here, neither of them are gonna be that way, right?
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Life is not gonna be totally this or totally that. But again, when you're down here, basically you're just looking to get some help to get out of that trouble.
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And so Job continually says, and then in verse 15 and 16 to end the chapter, he says this, where then is my hope?
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As for my hope, who can see it? Well, as we've been saying,
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I believe Job has hope, but hope that is, again, based in the hereafter, and not the now.
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One of the great issues in life are there's so many people that are hopeless.
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And I don't mean just hopeless in their life. I mean, hopeless in their understanding.
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And you remember a couple of weeks ago when I was speaking, preaching, and I said to you, hope so is really nothing but a disguise for hopeless.
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Right? Because if you only hope so, well, there's no hope in that.
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That's, again, a polite way of saying I really don't know. That's not the way we live our lives, do we?
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Are you and I here today because we hope that God is for us and not against us?
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I hope that's not what you're here for, or why you're here. We believe, right?
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We stand on the rock. We have a sure anchor, and that anchor never fails because it's not us that's the anchor.
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It's God that's the anchor, right? So again, I do think, does Job understand personally the
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Lord Jesus Christ? I would say if any, in any way, it would have to be really in a shadowy sense.
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But he has hope in the workings of Jehovah, Yahweh, that God is gonna do right, even as we read in Genesis, shall not the judge of all the earth do right.
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And so when he says that, he is looking for a place to find rest because that's what he says.
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And at the end of verse 16, shall we have rest together in the dust? But I do think he wants to escape his situation.
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And I know we touched on this last week, and we'll stop there. We'll pick up 18 next week. And I think we can get through the whole chapter.
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But we ought to be people who show forth hope in our life.
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And again, you look at the way of the things of the world. I mean, if you just look at the things of the news, you open up your news every morning, and there's not a lot of hope out there.
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There's a lot of misery. There's a lot of sadness. There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of hatred. There's a lot of this and a lot of that.
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And that you and I really should be the, and again, I say this to myself, because again, I tend to be a little bit more pessimistic than honestly
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I should be. And remember when Jesus said, don't be anxious for tomorrow? Guess why?
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There's enough evil today to deal with, right? So just something to think about. Next week, we'll get into it.
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And then Bill Dadd comes back. And of course, he's gonna come back. And Bill Dadd doesn't hold back.
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He just blasts Job and tells him he's a wicked, evil man, and on and on and on.
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And we're getting there. And then we'll get to the point where Elihu comes in.
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And then ultimately, God comes in. And when God comes in, things get clearer and clearer.
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Okay, let's close with a word of prayer. Our Father God, thank you for our ability to open your word,
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Lord. It's amazing that your word speaks to so many things, so many situations of life, so many thoughts that we all have in one way or another.
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Lord, bless us this morning. And as we worship now together, may we be those who worship you in spirit and truth, and that you will be pleased in all that we do.