Episode Transcript
Last week we were introduced to the man named Job.
And I'll read the first verse.
We were able to get through most of it It's Job chapter 1 verse 1 if you're just joining us online or in here.
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.
And that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil.
And the last part of our lesson dealt with understanding what it means.
To fear God in this context.
So we talked about that.
And Jesus taught us that if a man loved him, Then that man would keep Jesus' sayings.
He would make it a point.
And we also learn that Those who do not love Jesus will not keep its keep his sayings.
They're not interested in it at all.
If you tell a lost person when I listen, Jesus said to do this, that doesn't mean anything to them.
That's kind of what was exactly what Pharaoh's attitude was, wasn't it?
He said, who is the Lord that I should obey him?
And not only will the people who do not love Jesus not keep his sayings, they won't reverence God's word at all.
They won't be terrified of God.
There is no fear of God in their eyes.
Now there will be one day, but there isn't now.
So we're going to continue looking at Job's character in verse 1.
And let's look at that phrase that says, and eschewed evil.
That was one of the parts of his character.
That was to be commended.
Now we don't say the word eschewed today.
It means to put away Or to depart or remove from.
Now we know what shoe means, don't we?
We tell somebody, shoo.
That means get away from here.
Remove yourself from me, depart.
In Genesis chapter 35, verse 2.
Genesis 35, verse 2, the Hebrew word that's translated as put away. instead of eschewed evil relates very well to our word here.
So I'm going to read that.
I'm actually going to read Genesis 35 verses 1 through 2.
And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.
And make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fledest from the face of Esau, thy brother.
Then Jacob said unto his household and to all that were with him, here it is, put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean and change your garments.
So put away there could be replaced with the word eschew, but why do that?
Why not just say put away?
Now, when the Bible says he eschewed evil, That doesn't mean that he was never tempted by evil.
Because every one of us are.
Every one of us are tempted by evil.
It's that he put that evil away.
So when the temptation came, he went, nope.
I'm putting it away.
It's being eschewed from me.
It's being removed from me, or I'm removing myself from it.
And let me offer you some wise biblical counsel when it comes to eschewing evil.
If you know what evil looks like, then you can avoid putting yourself in a situation that requires you to make a quick decision about it.
I'll give you an example.
I do some reading and I watch videos and do some training.
Because of my the nature of my job, my law enforcement job, in the area of self-defense and tactical takedowns and control measures and arrest procedures and all that that goes with my job.
And occasionally because I look at those things Facebook thinks it knows what else I want to watch.
And so it suggests, well, maybe you want to see this And a video will pop up with a title like this, How to Never Lose Another Bar Fight And whoever the self-proclaimed guru expert is in that video hopes to influence the viewer.
To develop his bar fighting skills so his losing record will become a winning one Now I have the best strategy in the world, and it's even better than his.
It's guaranteed to keep anyone from ever losing another bar fight.
Here it is.
Don't go into a bar.
That's it.
Remove the thought from your mind.
When you see the parking lot, don't turn into it.
Turn away from it.
Eschew it.
Now here's another example, and I give this to everybody, but especially to young people. about sexual sin.
Rather than waiting until the heat of the moment to say, no, I don't think this is a good idea.
Rather than waiting until then to say no to adultery, remove yourself from the strange woman or the strange man, just like the Proverbs have told us to do.
Since I began serving the Lord in positions of responsibility in the church, meaning as either a trustee or Sunday school teacher or an associate pastor here I've had a long-standing policy and it's worked out just fine for me.
If a female wants to speak with me in private, Either my wife will be present or that woman's husband will be present and it's non-negotiable.
Now I'll speak to anybody out in public in the parking lot, but if we're talking about going in a private office For some counseling, you don't want anybody else to hear, don't want anybody else to know you're talking about it, then that's the deal.
And I am not gonna put myself in a situation That gives the appearance of impropriety, not just for you, but for my wife as well.
And men and women, both of you.
If you'll operate by this policy when it comes to meeting with members of the opposite sex, it will save you a lot of trouble.
If there's not a reason for you to be in a closed door session with uh somebody the opposite sex, it's not your spouse or your mother. or your sister, then stay away from it.
Avoid it.
The shoe evil.
Turn away from it before it ever starts, just like the Bible says Job did.
Now look in verse 2.
And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
And his name was Job Jeremini.
I just added that.
We don't know Job's last name.
But as we think about Job's upright character.
Then we should consider what a fine example he was to these many children that he had.
Children deserve to have parents like Job.
They deserve to have parents who are upright and parents who eschew evil.
Some of the greatest damage that you can do to a child happens when you're crooked and you give in to temptation.
And what makes it worse is when you're a hypocrite about it.
I grew up with one, my mother's second husband.
I don't mind calling him out either.
It just doesn't bother me at all.
He uh He was that way.
He did whatever he wanted to, but made sure to tell us not to, and and that was hard to take as a child, as a teenager.
But you tell your children to do good and then they see you do evil.
You know, sinful man doesn't need any help being sinful.
But we need a lot of help being upright.
Because it goes against the flesh.
It's not the first thing the flesh wants to do.
My three-year-old granddaughter, Ren, is a sweet little girl just like her mother, but just like every child, including you and me She has a sin nature that makes her want to push her one-year-old sister out of the way when she perceives an invasion into her play area And Ren's mother has had to teach her not to do that.
Now what if Ren's mother pushed Wren's little sister like that and then told Wren, now don't do that.
Don't do what I just did.
That'd be hypocrisy, and it would confuse Ren rather than teaching her to do right.
Now, because we read about Job's upright character and that he feared God and that he eschewed evil. then we know he did right even when it was hard.
And that's the real test, isn't it?
It's not when you're on the mountain.
It's when you're not.
And boy, we're going to see it with Job.
If you've ever read any of, especially the first few chapters of Job, you'll see what a rough life he had.
And as an upright man, he was an upright father.
You can't be an upright father if you're not an upright man I was listening to a man yesterday at work telling me about uh somebody he knew of family uh kind of an extended family member and telling me what a a terrible person he was and he said but he's a good father he's a really good father and I thought well I'm not gonna argue with him but he's not a good father if he's not a good person.
And we're talking about godliness.
You're either upright or you're not.
So if you're upright, then you'll be an upright father or mother.
You'll be that way at home, at school, at church.
How you act here won't be any different than the way you act at work.
It shouldn't be.
And everywhere else you go.
It's not whether I hear you or whether I see you, it's whether God sees you or hears you.
And He does.
The great leadership teacher John Maxwell, who also happens to be a pastor, was once asked if he would teach a seminar on business ethics.
And his answer was this, there is no such thing as business ethics.
There are just ethics.
And he was exactly right.
So apply this principle to yourself.
Are you a good Christian when you come to church?
If you are, then you are a good Christian when you are at home.
And you're a good Christian at work.
Now, if I were to speak with your co-workers Would they say, oh yeah, that's really obvious he's a Christian or she's a Christian.
There's no doubt about it Or, oh, I didn't have any idea they went to church by that mouth and by the actions that they take.
That guy's lazy, he never shows up to work on time, curses worse than a sailor.
Well, that's not being a good Christian at work, and if you're not a good Christian at work, you're not a good Christian, period.
Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29.
Ephesians 4 verse 29.
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
But that which is good to the use of edifying, that means building up, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
Now that goes for every situation, not just church.
I love seeing people come in here and encourage one another.
It's been a long time since we had somebody in here who who liked to tear people down.
And we unfortunately every once in a while somebody'll dance in here and they'll dance right back out because They're just not at home.
But this church has, since I've been here 13 years, has had the uh character of having people who encourage one another.
And I love seeing that.
Job was a consistent Christian And he was a great example to his seven sons and three daughters.
Now look back in the chapter and we'll look at verse 3.
It says his substance also was 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels. and 500 yoke of oxen and 500 sheasses.
So you might not have thought of it this way, but Job was a rancher.
A very wealthy rancher.
In West Texas, there's a ranch that has 266,000 acres and it covers parts of four different counties.
It's called the Four Sixes Ranch.
Some of you may have heard of that before.
It's legendary.
And that ranch has approximately 7,000 head of cattle on it.
Job had more livestock than the 46s ranch.
And God had truly blessed him.
And in addition to all this livestock, Job had, look back in the text, a very great household.
Now that refers to his store of servants, the number of servants that he had.
In fact, the word for household. is the same as the phrase store of servants.
And I find it in Genesis chapter 26 and verse 14.
Genesis 26, 14, and I'm going to read verses 12 through 14 for a little context.
Then Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year an hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him.
And the man waxed great and went forward, and grew until he became very great, for he had possession of flocks and possession of herds, and here it is, great store of servants.
And the Philistines envied him.
So we could say Isaac had a very great household, or we could say Job had a great store of service.
It's the same thing.
And just like Isaac, Job had a very great household.
And we read earlier that Job had a large family.
To witness that upright character he demonstrated.
And here, by reading about his store of servants, we see that he had a large group of employees.
Who would also observe that same character.
Job had to do right at home, and he had to do right at work, and those were really one and the same because They all lived on the land that Job was given.
His children saw how he treated his servants.
His servants saw how he treated his children.
There were no business ethics.
There were no family ethics.
There were just ethics.
There was uprightness.
Now I'll tell you one or two of the subtle ways, and we don't even realize we do this.
Maybe you did this, maybe your parents did it when you were growing up.
But when we used to have phones on the wall and that was it, there was no cell phone and you didn't want to talk to anybody.
So whoever answered that phone you'd say, tell them I'm not here.
Especially if you told your little boy or girl, tell them I'm not here.
Well, you just taught them to lie for you.
And so it makes it hard to discipline them when they tell a lie later on because you're the one who taught 'em how to do it.
And you may not have meant anything by it.
You just got home from work and you didn't want to talk to anybody.
And uh No, and I'm not gonna sing that song, tell OI Ain't Here, He better get on home.
Not gonna do it.
And then go on down in the verse, it says, so that this man was the greatest of all the men in the East.
In other words, because of his great herds and flocks, his great household, his great family, Job was the greatest of all the men of the East.
The east of what?
Well that comes from an interesting Hebrew word that means ancient.
And it also means afore or before.
And now how would the word East mean anything like the word before or ancient?
Well, to understand this concept, think about the sun.
Now we like to say the sun comes up in the east.
And sets in the West, and actually the earth rotates in a way that gives it that appearance, but it's no fun to think of it like that People build their their porches, the direction of their porches depending on the sunset and the sunrise and Which way the north wind's gonna blow if you're out in West Texas, which way the west wind's gonna blow, and the north wind.
All of it, in fact.
But the appearance of the sun in the eastern sky happens before its appearance at noon and before its appearance in the west.
Just before it gets dark.
In other words, for us who are looking at the sun, that's the first time we see the sun, is when it pops its head up if you're up that early in the east.
And the word ancient, same as the word East, means that which came before what now exists.
That which came before, that which now exists.
An ancient man was born before a young man who is now living.
Ancient words were written before the time in which we are living And so maybe that helps it, helps you make a little sense of it.
But in the case of Job, His designation as the greatest of all men of the East may have simply had to do with his geographical location in the land of Uz because Edom was a part of Uz, as we learned, and Edom was east of what would later be called the Promised Land.
So that is also a great possibility.
Now, I want us to look a little more at this phrase, the greatest of all men.
You remember Muhammad Ali used to say, I'm the greatest.
He was playing head games with those other boxers and with people who didn't like him.
But I want to make sure we understand here that we've been told that Job had all these possessions.
And his family was big and his store of servants was big.
And that is what it meant for him to be the greatest.
Now we've learned about his character.
But this phrase, the greatest of all the men of the East, refers more to the things that he had in this case.
In fact, in Genesis chapter 1, verse 16.
Genesis 1. 16 has a form of that word great.
It's mentioned twice here.
And here's what it says.
And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.
He made the stars also.
Now both of these lights, which were the sun and the moon, both of those lights were great, but one of them was greater.
The sun has more light and gives off more light than the moon.
In fact, the moon gets its light from the sun, just like we do.
So the reason the greater light is called greater is because of its magnitude.
It's bigger, it has more light, not necessarily its character.
Its character is not what makes it Great.
The sun doesn't have a character.
It has characteristics, but it doesn't have a character like a person does.
And so in this respect, that Job had all of these things and all of these people, he was the greatest of all the men of the East.
He had more than all those other men had.
Now here's another truth about that greatness.
Who gave the greatness to the greater light?
The greater light was greater because it was bigger.
It carried light or dispersed light, had more light.
But who made it greater?
It was God.
God did that.
And who made Job the greatest of all the men of the East?
God did.
So Let no man say, well, I'm a self-made millionaire.
I came up from nothing and I've made myself into who I am.
Because it's God who gives him the ability and the opportunity to have all that wealth.
Now God doesn't trust everybody with wealth.
A lot of the people who have wealth are untrustworthy.
But there are also people who don't have wealth and they can't be trusted with it.
And that's okay not to have a bunch of financial wealth.
Now, if you're foolish with your money, that's not okay.
But if you say, you know, Man, I came up hard scrabble and I I put every dime I can aside and I saved and I don't have a lot but I don't owe anybody anything.
I'll tell you what, you're wealthy than more wealthy than most people are in this world who have miles and miles of debt.
Oh, they got the big jacked up truck and the big boat and the houses and all that.
They're not wealthy.
They're stressed.
I see 'em.
I work with 'em, and they're stressed.
But it's God who made Job great, and he is the one who makes anyone great.
And you know, if George Soros were a Christian, he would believe that God made him great when it comes to his wealth.
And we're not talking about George Sorrow's character.
That's a whole nother matter, but about his possessions.
And really, because of his character, he sees his possessions and who gave those to him differently.
Than someone who's godly.
And as for Job, though, we've already been told of his uprightness and his fear for the Lord, or fear of the Lord, before We were told about his possessions.
And that order is important.
Look in verse 4 now.
And his sons went and feasted in their houses, one, every one his day.
Job had seven sons.
How many days in the week are there?
There are seven, aren't they?
And so each of those sons had his own feast day.
And a feast was like a banquet.
And with God's great material blessings on Job, his children were able to enjoy that bounty.
We don't know exactly where his children live.
They had their own houses, so it appeared that they were adults.
And if you well, I got a verse for you to understand this word feast, because when you first read it, you might think, well, look at them.
They're just feast, feast, feasting.
Well, eating is not bad.
Having a I have a feast every Thanksgiving at my house, and we'll have one again on Christmas, and then Father's Day and Mother's Day.
We enjoy good Christian fellowship with our family and eating.
So when you see a feast in the Bible, many times those are good things.
And I'm going to read Genesis 21.
8.
Genesis 21.
8.
And this is where Sarah bare Abraham a son in her old age.
And called him Isaac.
It says, and the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
Job's sons were, as I've said, by all accounts, they appear to be adults because they had their own houses and their own families.
And in their own houses they had these feasts, and they invited not only their brothers, but look down in verse 4, it says.
And sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
So this was like a large family meal every day.
I hope they did crossfed or something else to burn all those calories off.
But can you imagine having that kind of feast every day?
Boy when I was growing up I did my mother worked her whole life and but when she got home man she made a feast for supper.
You didn't wanna miss supper.
It was good.
So I know what that's like, but I burn calories faster then than I do now, so we can't do that too much.
Look in verse five.
And it was so when the days of their feasting were gone about That Job sent and sanctified them.
Now what does that mean that he sent and sanctified them?
Well, we have a more detailed look at this practice of sanctifying in Exodus chapter 19 verses 14 through 17.
Exodus 19, verses 14 through 17.
And this is where Moses and the children of Israel were at Mount Sinai.
And it says, and Moses went down from the mount unto the people and sanctified the people, and they washed their clothes.
And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day.
Come not at your wives.
And it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and lightnings.
And a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that was in the camp trembled And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God.
And they stood at the nether part of the mount.
So the purpose in this passage, the purpose of Moses taking the people, setting them apart, telling them, don't come at your wives, sanctify yourselves. was to get them ready to meet with the Lord.
That's what it was for.
Now Moses, by sanctifying them, could not make them clean or holy.
He didn't have that ability.
He simply prepared them to meet with God.
And in our text, rather than, I know Doug, that's what I thought too.
In our text, rather than personally going to each of his children's homes, Job sent, or we can make the reasonable inference here, he sent messengers to them.
And the rest of the verse will help us understand why he did that.
He not only sent messengers to prepare them to be sanctified, but he also looked back in the text.
Job rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all.
This is what you call intercession Job interceded on behalf of his children.
He rose up early, which was a common practice in the Bible.
God often commanded his servants to rise up early.
Whether it was to depart on a journey or to challenge the Pharaoh in Moses' case or to stand before the Lord for one reason or another Abraham rose up early in Genesis 22, verse 3.
It says And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son.
And claved the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him.
So by rising up early, Job was doing business with God, and he wasn't about to wait until high noon or evening to get it done.
Now the offering of burnt offerings that we're reading about here was documented way before this in the book of Genesis, chapter 8.
Genesis chapter 8, which was the time after the flood waters had abated from the earth.
They'd receded from the earth.
And and then after they came out of the ark, here's what happened: Genesis 8, verse 20.
And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl. and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
So burnt offerings could have been thank offerings or peace offerings or sin offering.
They were all burned.
They had different uh specifications for them.
Sometimes the whole animal was burnt, which was called a whole burnt offering.
And Job offered these burnt offerings early in the morning, look back in the text, according to the number of them all.
That means there was a burnt offering for each one of his sons.
And in their feasting or in their daily living outside of this feast, well, they had certainly sinned.
There's no doubt about that.
They were sinners in need of salvation just like everyone else, even though their father was an upright man.
He was a sinner in need of salvation too.
And he was saved.
And in particular, there was a sin Job was especially concerned about.
Look back in the verse where it says he offered these burnt offerings according to the number of them.
For Job said.
It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.
Now this is a Christian father's worst fear right here.
That any of his children not only sin, but would curse God in their hearts.
That Hebrew word translated curse is also translated as the word bless in most other places.
So it's an action that requires a certain intent And if the intent is to speak well of God, to obey God, and all of the forms of the word blessed that are used, e Then it's a good thing if the intent of this action is to disregard God, to set him aside.
To revile him, then that's what a curse is.
That's what it is to curse God in your heart.
And that's why there has to be a context for us to understand whether this Hebrew word means bless or curse.
It says curse here.
And we're told that Job was concerned that his sons may have sinned.
So the word curse would go there.
He's not afraid they bless God in their hearts, is he?
He's afraid they curse God in their hearts.
Now, cursing God in their hearts didn't necessarily and automatically mean they were unbelievers.
It means their thoughts were not good as they should have been.
Their thoughts were evil toward God.
When you sin Knowing that what you're doing is against God's word, would you say the thoughts of your heart toward God are evil or good?
Well, they're certainly not good.
You know what God's word said, and you go, Lord, I'm just not going to do what you told me.
But I still love you.
Thoughts of your heart are not good toward him.
And they're evil.
And you've yielded to your flesh rather than to the Spirit of God.
And in their feasting and drinking, the opportunity for Job's sons to have done this cursing of God in their hearts was certainly present.
Job didn't say they did it, he said, if they did it.
And then look back in the text it said, thus did Job continually.
In other words, he got up every day.
All the seven days of the week.
And he offered burnt offerings on behalf of his sons.
Now, how would you like to have a father who interceded on your behalf every day?
Some of you do.
Some of you have an earthly father who prays for you, and some of you don't.
But I'll tell you there's one who prays for you all the time.
How would you like to have a father who offered burnt offerings for you every day for your sin, not for his?
Well, in this way, Job is very much a type of Jesus Christ, a representative Of Jesus Christ.
He represents Jesus.
I want to read to you from an Old Testament passage about the continual burnt offerings.
Job was offering an offering every day.
The Bible said, thus did Job continually.
And this is found in Exodus chapter 29, verses 38 through 42.
Exodus twenty-nine verses thirty-eight through forty-two.
Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar, two lambs of the first year, day by day, continually.
The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning, and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, that's the evening.
And with the one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hen of beaten oil. and the fourth part of a hen of wine for a drink offering.
And the other lamb thou shalt offer it even, and thou shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning. and according to the drink offering thereof, for a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the Lord.
This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, For I will meet you to speak there unto thee.
Now Aaron, the high priest, was a type of Jesus Christ.
And maybe you learned this some in your Genesis to Jesus class.
But if not, you certainly will learn it if you stay here with us long enough.
Aaron represented the people to God, and he represented God to the people.
God gave Moses the commandments that were to be carried out by Aaron and then his sons, and then all the priests, in fact.
So listen to Hebrews chapter 10 verses 10 through 12.
Hebrews 10 verses 10 through 12.
Which says, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But this man, speaking of Jesus, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.
Now the only problem with the continual burnt offerings that Old Testament priests offered, And the continual burnt offerings that Job offered every morning for his sons is that those offerings could not take away sin.
If they could, there wouldn't have been a need for the next one.
But Jesus, who was the fulfillment of the high priest, and also was the fulfillment of all of those continual daily offerings. burnt offerings, sacrifices.
He offered himself as the one sacrifice for the sin of mankind.
And his sacrifice did away with the need for burnt offerings and sacrifices.
And because his sacrifice is good once and for all and forever. then that sacrifice, that offering of himself is continual.
And when Job continually offered burnt offerings for his sons, In case they sinned.
He did what priests did in the Old Testament on behalf of the children of Israel.
But like those priests, Job looked forward to the one whose sacrifice would one day take away sin.
And we're going to see some beautiful verses in Job that tell us that he was a believer.
And that he also believed in what the book of Revelation says.
Now look in verse 6, as we begin to close.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord.
Now this has long been a verse that's been the subject of debate and contention, confusion, as much as anything.
And there's one word that has to be understood to get the interpretation of this verse correct.
It's the word sons.
And going back to the original Hebrew word where we see sons translated, that's going to be our starting place here.
And the Hebrew word translated sons is translated as sons almost every time, but it's also translated as children, first. young man, stranger, and people.
So it has a wide variety of uses.
And then the next thing we're going to look at is where else the phrase, the sons of God, is used in the Old Testament.
The first use of that phrase is in Genesis 6, verse 2, where it has enjoyed much controversy among theologians.
And when we meet again the next Lord's Day, we're going to attempt to solve that controversy.
So there is none.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for everyone who came and everyone who tuned in.
Lord, thank you for making it possible for us to Send this message out over the internet and thank you for our tech team who does that every Sunday and every Wednesday.
And Lord, we're grateful for the study of your word and what it does for us and how it builds us up in the faith and helps us to understand what your will is for us.
And as we go into the next hour, we pray that all that we do, the singing, the preaching, the praying, the encouraging of the saints, the love that we show each other, Because you first loved us, that all that would bring glory and honor to you in Jesus' name.
Amen
