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About how Elihu is really the friend who is, as he has said in the previous chapter, that he's trying to be objective. He's not trying to come here with a preconceived notion. As his friends, we've been noticing right along, his friends have this presupposition in mind.
And that presupposition, of course, is that Job is a wicked man. And Job is getting what he deserves. And he should just confess and repent. And then perhaps he will prosper. And Elihu has listened to them.
He's listened to Job. They've run out of, remember it said that the words of Job ended, the words of his friend, they basically ran out of breath. There's nothing more for them to do. And now Elihu comes in.
And he's going to seek to, in a sense, rebuke both of them. Both the friends and Job. But anyway, last week we looked at the opening verses. I want to pick it up because, well, we ended off really in verse 8 where he says, surely you have spoken in my hearing and I heard the sound of your words saying, I am pure without transgression.
I am innocent and there is no iniquity in me. And that's not what Job said, right? Job never said he was sinless. Job never said that he was absolutely innocent. What Job said was that he continued to maintain his integrity.
And we've talked about that a number of times. That he was one who feared God and that his friends don't understand. And neither does Job understand why God is doing what he's doing to him. And so rather than review any more of that, and in verse 10 though, that Job understands that God is hunting him down.
And we talked about that a little bit where, did you ever really think that God is after you? It's interesting how, if something comes into our lives sometimes, and it's just a one-off, if you can understand what I'm saying.
In other words, if something goes wrong, we just work through it. If two things go wrong, we begin to think a little bit. If three things go wrong, one after the other, it's like, well, what did I do?
And it's interesting how people will say that. If you remember Steve, who's been in the study, he had said, I was talking to him one day, just asking him how he was doing. He says, I think I'm going through a Job event.
Because he got into a car accident, and there was problems at work, and he wasn't feeling good. And again, that's the assumption that people will make.
Usually when that happens to me, my first thought is, well, dummy, what have you done to bring about this?
Absolutely, right, and that's the situation that we all face, I think, that we begin to, we can deal with a little bit of rain, but when it comes like a deluge, we begin to question, is it me, Lord? What's going on?
Are you hunting after me? You, because I think at times we get to that place where we want to say, Lord, let's ease off of this in my life, and let's work through this and move forward. But anyway, what I really want to do is pick up this morning where he makes this statement in verse 12.
He says to Job, look, in this you're not righteous, Job. After Job has said that, that basically God is his enemy and he's put his foot in the stocks, he says, in this you're not being righteous, Job.
I will answer you, for God is greater than man, and why do you contend with him? He does not give accounting of any of his words. That word, words, really could be matters. In other words, what is he basically saying to Job is that you've got this all wrong, Job, and you can't really question God, and God is free.
Hey, bro. God is free to do whatever he wills with whomever he wills, for whatever reason he wills, and you and I need to think about that. I wanted to look at a New Testament passage because of that, and then we'll try to drill down a little bit further.
So, as he says this, I don't give accounting, God doesn't give accounting to anybody. I want you to turn in the New Testament for a minute into Matthew chapter 20. As I think, well, this is what popped into my mind as I was working through it in my own thinking, and I thought about this teaching in Matthew chapter 20, and I think it's worth our effort to look at a little bit.
I just gotta read it a little bit. So, Matthew chapter 20. And certainly, Jesus is teaching, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
Now, when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, you also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right, I will give you, and they went.
Again, he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, why have you been standing here idle all day?
They said to him, because no one hired us. He said to them, you also go out into the vineyard, whatever is right, you will receive. So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.
And when those who were hired about the 11th hour, they each received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed that they would have received more, and they likewise received each a denarius.
When he had received, and when they had received, they murmured against the landowner saying, these last men have worked only one hour. You made them equal with us, who have borne the burden in the heat of the day.
But he answered one of them and said, friend, I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last the same as you. Really the verse I want us to focus in is verse 15.
Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I'm good? So the last will be first, the first last for many are called but few are chosen. Verse 15 is a troubling verse to many people.
And yet it should be something that you and I are able to not only understand but rest in. And you can imagine this person who's been working all day coming back, and by the way, I thought it was interesting and pretty much just popped in my mind how we were arguing about maybe just working four days a week instead of five now.
And yet, if I got this right, they went out and they worked all day. It wasn't any issues about, well, I'm only gonna work a half a day or six hours or four days a week or I would call it baloney. But isn't it interesting that Jesus would say that in a way that would set these things straight in our mind?
Is it not lawful for me to do whatever I will with my own? And then when you couple that with the fact that God owns everything, where's that leave? Where's that leave all to respond to? What are you gonna say?
Is it not lawful? Did Jesus commit any error? Did he commit any offense? Did he offend the person who he hired early in the morning? Absolutely not. And as Elihu says this to Job, he doesn't give accounting of any of his words, and like I said, that really words should be matters, for God may speak in one way or another, and we'll get to that.
But just think about that. Would you agree with me that it's difficult not to look to the left and the right in life? You find yourself at times not looking at others and either saying, why them? Or saying, why me?
And again, especially when it seems as if we are suffering or we're hurting or we're under a great trial and we see others and they seem to be, you know, they're out on the boat on a sunny day and everything is beautiful, and that whole setup is one of just peace and relaxation, and you're kind of fighting against the wind and the waters in your face and all those things.
Do you wrestle with that? Have you ever wrestled with that? I'm glad everybody is just right there with me.
And days when it's pouring rain in your face.
Absolutely.
Everybody has days like that.
Everybody has days like that, and I think it's more difficult on the days of the rain than it is on the sun to say, well, God could do whatever he wants with his own things. And certainly as he says this to him, I thought about a couple of things.
I guess I was reading, I've been reading from my own reading in the book of Acts lately, and again, reading through the opening chapters, and in chapter three of Acts, it talks about how Peter and John went into the temple to pray at three o 'clock in the afternoon, and there was a man who was lame from his birth laying at the gate.
And if you remember that account, Peter says, silver and gold I don't have, but in the name of Christ, rise up and walk. But I began to think about it, and I guess I was thinking a little bit about this.
Here's a man who was lame from his birth, and I don't know how old he was, but I don't assume him to have been a child, that God had taken him and put him in that place at that time that that miracle might be worked on him.
And I began to think, is it not lawful for God? Is it not lawful for God to do what he wills with his own? I mean, you could just go through the gospels, friends. Just think about it. You got the man who was born blind in John nine, right?
And remember that whole big issue, who sinned, was it him or his parents? You've got the woman who had the issue of blood for 38 years. You have the young boy who was possessed by demons since he was a small kid.
Remember his father says the demons throw him in the fire, and they throw him in the water and all those things. There are countless people throughout the, specifically the gospels, and further on as we go through the book of Acts, of people that have been put in certain positions, and again, there's no actual charge put against him.
Like it doesn't say the man was lame because he was a sinner from his birth, because if that were the case, then everybody would be lame because everybody's a sinner, right? And so I began to think about that.
I don't know how it is with you, but to me, I struggle with that at times. Not struggling, struggling in the sense of, you know, you see people that are in terrible situations, whether it be people with diseases, people with situations, relationship issues, people in places.
Here's something I think about. Why were we born here in the United States? Why are we so blessed here? Why are others so oppressed from the day that they're born?
We could have just as soon been born in Haiti as here.
Absolutely, right.
If it would have been God's will, you know?
Is it not lawful for God to do what he wills with his own?
Well, in both occasions, both in Job and in Matthew,.
When we were reading that,.
I mean, my mind couldn't help but go to, you know? And I'm not saying that I don't struggle with the same things, but if we could ever have the right perspective that God does what he wants to, and even in that, we can always find something to be thankful for.
Yeah, and we could always find something to snap us out of that kind of thinking. And again, I think that that's something that even the devil would use against us is to kind of present that almost like, this isn't fair.
Why should you be suffering when so many other people are prospering? And then you throw on top of it, like it says in Psalm 73, we've talked about this, the prosperity of the wicked. And you think about that, how come certain people that are so opposed to God seem to kind of walk through life without a ripple on the pond?
And then there's others who love the Lord who seem to never be able to get out of the way of the ways. All those things enter into our lives because is it not lawful for God to do what he wills with his own?
And as he says this to Job, I think it's important for us to understand what he's really trying to say to Job is,.
Who are you?
Who are you to complain and you think God is hunting you? Now, go back in Job just for a few more minutes, because I wanna see how, I wanna show you and think about how this breaks down and how he delineates this in its outworking.
So verse 13, why do you contend with him? For he does not give accounting of any of his matters. Now look at verse 14, for God may speak in one way or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, and these are all the different ways that God uses.
Look, in a dream, in a vision in a night, when deep sleep falls upon men while slumbering upon their beds, he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction. You can go down to verse 19, man is chastened with pain on his bed and strong pain in many of his bones.
And if you continue to read this, you'll see that God varies his method, if you will, of either seeking to correct man or to judge him or to draw him closer to him. And I think that you and I could, should be able to understand this, that because God is not subject to anyone, because God does whatever he pleases to do, and by the way, I'll say this, I don't understand how anyone can not believe that God is sovereign.
Just, I'm not saying that there aren't people who truly love the Lord that might not be able to grasp that in a theological way, but how could you not believe that God is not the absolute ruler? In other words, get the cop off of me right now.
So just think about this.
When you think about God,.
Do you not, by definition,.
When you think about God, what do you think about?
Yeah, yeah, and we've done this before. So certainly holy, which really is, he's the, and I just love this term, so I write it down, right?
He's the great other.
You think of God as boundless, in the sense that he's not restricted by the things that he restricts others with?
How about this?
And this is really what I was trying to get us.
To think about.
I love that I can spell sovereignty, but I can't spell cat.
But when you think about God, by definition, there can only be one God. By definition, he has to be the supreme, right? See, that's why I get in trouble with spelling. Order supreme pizzas so I know how to spell supreme.
But just think about that. What does he say in the Job, and what is he teaching in these words? God may speak in one way or in another, and he does it according to his own free will, and there is no one that can say to him, what are you doing?
Again, if everyone and everything is subject to God, and by definition, God is supreme, and God is sovereign, and God does whatever he pleases to do, right? Isn't that what it says? God does whatever he pleases to do in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
And then it says, and who could say to him, what are you doing?
And all those things should be the things that bring us back into understanding.
You know what I mean?
Right, it should be that which leads us to God, and I would suggest that many times, unless we can get our mind around that, it leads us away from God, because we begin to become absorbed in our own life, in our own situation, in our own predicament, and what does that do?
It has a tendency to cause us to move away rather than towards. And so, but the reality is, in a dream, in a vision, I mean, you can think about it in the Old Testament, do you remember the story of, remember when Abraham and Sarai went into the city, into that kingdom, and remember what he told her?
Just tell me of my sister, which was really a lie, right? Although she was his.
Half truth.
Half, yeah, half a truth is a whole lie, right? Right, she was his half sister, but nevertheless, remember Abimelech, who was the one who took her, and he saw her, and he said, I want this chick. I know he didn't use the word chick,.
But nevertheless,.
I know, baby, you've been trying to tell me not to say that for a long time, but she's my chick, so. But anyway, you remember when Abimelech wanted to have her, and what happened? He had a dream, and what was the dream?
Don't touch her. And if you think about that, God worked in Abimelech's mind, and it says that God did that to cause him from not sinning, and if you will, bringing judgment upon himself. Then of course, Abimelech goes back to Abraham, and he said, what's up, dude?
Why'd you lie to me? All that. But if you think about that, there are countless ways, and in the Old Testament, it might be a little more prevalent, where there were dreams, and there were visions, right?
Didn't Joseph have his dream that my brothers are gonna bow down to me,.
And all of that,.
And if you go through some of the prophets, and some of the characters that are presented to us, there was dreams and visions, and I don't necessarily believe that that's the way in which God does things in our day, but I will say this, and maybe some of you don't know that.
If you remember Scott Phillips, who's our missionary in Indonesia, and if you read through his book, you remember that he spoke, and he even spoke about it when he was here, that there was one of the chief people in the Dao tribe, and we have missionaries that are in Indonesia, and one of them had a dream that some tall white man was gonna come to him and bring them good news.
Lo and behold, it's Scott Phillips, right? And how he's been working with them for as many decades as he's been working for them, but I do think that the dreams and the visions were more prevalent in the Old Testament, and maybe the reason for that is we live in the days of the Spirit of God being within us, and it was certainly a different way in the Old Testament, but just to think about how he talks about these things, and he says that, so God might do that, and when deep sleep falls upon men, and by the way, it's interesting in verse 14, he says, God may speak in one way or another, yet man doesn't perceive it, and that's what I meant when I said there are many people who become disgruntled and move away from God when God works in them to try to correct their manner and their way of living, and even with us, when deep sleep falls upon men, when slumbering on the bed, he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction.
This might seem really fleshly, but you ever try to think about why you have nightmares? Well, maybe you don't. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I do think everybody at certain, some people dream more than others.
Would you agree to that? Some people have recurring dreams. Some people have only pleasant dreams. Some people have nightmares, and it's the same thing, and yet for all those things, and we talk about it every once in a while, and we'll talk about a dream, and I knew I was having a bad dream, so I woke myself up.
I got out of the situation, and just before I was about to, the kibosh was supposed to come on me, I rescued myself, and I woke up, but you see, many people don't realize that that's a method that God uses to try to correct men for their way of living, and I do think that that's what it means here.
I do think it's speaking in a very specific way. In a dream, in a vision at night, he opens the ears, he seals the instruction, and there it is in verse 17, in order to turn man from his deed and conceal pride from man.
That's the purpose of it, and in many ways, that's the purpose of the situations of life that men find themselves in, and I don't just mean men, of course, I mean men and women, is that God is seeking to work with them to cause them to what?
To turn. Cause them to leave that path that they're on, which could very well be the wide path that leads to destruction, and come into the narrow path and the straight gate, which leads to life, and if you look at it, and I wanna try to get through the rest of this chapter this morning, in verse 29, behold, God works all these things, twice in fact, three times would a man to bring back his soul from the pit, and I don't think it just means, literally, you get two chances or three chances, I don't think that that's what it's saying, because if that were the case, then after the third time God seeks to correct you, well, there's no hope, but I don't think, I think as long as there's breath, there's hope.
I mean, I know Paul talks about having a conscience seared with a hot iron, and so there are certain people, if you will, that have been, well, I better ask this as a question, do you think that there are certain people that God has, in a sense, said no more?
Do you think that's possible? Where God says, I'm gonna leave you to yourself.
Go over to a reprobate mind.
But I think even in that, we have to qualify that, right?
Because there are people,.
Let's just say someone who has a debased mind, or is a reprobate in that sense, and yet there are those who still turn, right? So I do think there is a point, and I'm not sure where that point is, and I don't wanna try to say there is, but there is a point, right?
So I don't think he's just talking about two or three times, and that once you get to that point, it's all over. I do think God does, in that sense, leave people to their own evil ways. And if you think about it, well, let me show it to you this way, because I really wanted to get this out before we're done.
I want you to go to Ezekiel for a minute. Ezekiel 33. So I want us to continue to think about not only the fact that God is absolutely sovereign, and Elihu's trying to stress this to Job, but that you and I ought to see that, even in tragedy, God is being merciful, in that he is seeking to turn people to him and not away from him.
So Ezekiel 33, and I'll just read it for a little bit. It says, again, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them, when I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and mourns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head.
And this is about the watchman, of course. He heard the sound of the trumpet, but he didn't take warning, his blood shall be upon himself, but he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes away any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.
And we can spend time on that whole thought, but I really just wanna read it to get through the next couple of verses. So you, son of man, I've made you a watchman for the house of Israel, therefore you shall hear a word from my mouth and warn them for me.
When I say to the wicked, oh, wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.
Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked to turn from his way and he doesn't turn from the way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul. Therefore you, oh, son of man, say to the house of Israel, thus you say, if our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, we can pine away in them, how can we then live?
Say unto them, as I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways, for why should you die, oh, house of Israel?
Now think about that. We kind of put it together a little bit. We talked about how Job misunderstands what's happening in his life. Can't understand, right? He served God, he's loved God, he sought to follow the word of God and the law of God, and for all of that, his friends have come in and they're just piled on.
You're getting what you deserve, you're a wicked man, and you need to confess. And then, as Elihu comes in now, and he brings this thought into the picture that God doesn't give account of himself to anyone on how he does things, and we think about what we're reading here, it's interesting how many people think, I don't want to follow God.
Not just, that's the way many people frame it. I don't want to follow God because God's malicious, because God is mean, because God seems to do things that hurt people. Would you not agree with me that if, as you read what is in Ezekiel 33, is that really the purpose of God?
Is God just out there to be malicious? No, he's not. I know you all said no, but God is not. What is God seeking to do? He's seeking to turn men. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and yet how many people will say that?
Well, I don't like the God of the Bible, because he does terrible things, and he's a God of war, and he's a God of this, and he's a God of that, and it's not fair, and it's not right, and then you see people in certain situations, like I said, the man who's lame from his birth, or the man who's born blind, or a man who's born in a, did you see that article in the paper?
There was a guy who lived in an iron lung, and I never knew that. He died this week, and I guess that's why it was on the news. He died at 78, and for his whole life, he lived inside of an iron lung, because he had some sort of weird disease, and he finally passed away at 78.
And I'm thinking to myself, 78 years? And they had a picture of him in this iron lung. All that was hanging out was his neck, and his bottom torso. Could you imagine living in that kind of a condition for 78 years?
And how many people would say, well, that's terrible, that's malicious, that's mean, there's no purpose in that. Is there a purpose in it?
Yes.
Can we fully understand it? No. And the reason is, we're not God. We're not supreme. We're not the ones who are either in control, or we're not the ones who can see and know, according to purpose and plan, how they all fit together.
Because we believe that everything has a specific purpose in God's universe. I believe that there isn't a leaf that falls off the tree that God hasn't, in essence, determined to fall off the tree at the time it falls off.
Right, and to me, that's what the sovereignty of God means, is that God rules. And he doesn't just rule partially, he rules what? Absolutely. And that ought to be a comfort to us, and yet how many people find that a disturbance?
And how many people would, and again, just to close it out, as I was reading, remember when they, Judas turned away and betrayed Christ, and you remember the apostles, they did what? They cast lots to see who was gonna take Judas' place, and remember it was Justice and Matthias, and they cast lots, and yet you read in Proverbs that the lot is cast into the lap, but the answer comes from who?
God, right. So again, many people will resist that truth. And so as Elihu's talking to Job, and he's talking, and I believe he's addressing the friends that you and I would realize that God works in this way with one, and that way with another, but that God is not seeking just to cause people ill, but God is seeking to turn.
And that even in those things, God is being gracious, and that you and I would understand that. And so as he says this, and we're pretty much out of time, but the end of it is what I said, look in verse 30, this is God's purpose, or verse 29, God works all these things, twice in fact, three times, to bring his soul back that he might be enlightened with the light of life.
That's God's purpose. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God desires that all men would know him, right? In that great Presbyterian confession, although we do not hold to it, but in that statement, what is the chief end of man?
To glorify God and to what?
Enjoy him forever.
Enjoy him forever, right? And yet people resist that, and people fight against it, and the more they fight against it, the harder it gets. It's almost like Saul. The more he fought against Christ, the harder it got to the point where Jesus said, it's hard for you to kick against these goats, isn't it, Saul?
So we'll continue to look at what Elihu says. Like I said, he kind of stays in focus until chapter 38, and then in chapter 38, God comes in, and God's gonna, in a sense, set everything right, or at least give a whole teaching on understanding both to Job and his friends, and then we'll be done with the book.
It's been a while since we started it. Remember what I said, after we finish through Job, we probably will go in with Brother Mike, because we've been trying to hook this up to time it, and go in there and enjoy working on the book of Revelation.
So something to look forward to going forward. Okay, let's just close with a word of prayer. Father and God, at the end, thank you for who you are, Lord. The great truth that you are the one who not only does whatever he pleases, but uses whatever means you please to use, Lord.
Help us to rest in that, Lord. Help us to realize that you desire that we might have the light of life, and not just be those who suffer. May our worship this morning be predicated upon that, that you are worthy of our praise, our worship, our singing, our fellowship, all of it, Lord, for you own all things.
So be with us now, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.