Episode Transcript
Good morning.
It's 10 o'clock.
It's time for us to begin.
We're in Job chapter 2 this morning.
Job chapter 2 is our destination.
Hopefully it's yours too And last week, Job's wife showed us how the world responds to affliction.
And it wasn't a pretty sight, was it?
When his wife asked him, dost thou still retain thine integrity?
Then we could conclude at least one thing, she did recognize that he was a man of integrity.
However, as I meditated further on this, it occurred to me that she didn't really understand integrity.
She thought she did.
The Hebrew word for integrity is used five times in the Old Testament, and four of them are in the book of Job.
But there's one time where it's used in the book of Proverbs, and we've already studied this in our Wednesday night lesson, and it's in Proverbs 11, verse 3 Which says, the integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them.
And I underlined integrity and upright in that proverb.
Because we know from God's own testimony about Job that he was an upright man.
That's what God said he was.
Back in Job chapter 2, verse 3a, the first part of the verse, and the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job?
That there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man.
So the upright man is guided by integrity.
He's not guided by what his wife tells him to do.
He's not guided by what his wife does He's not guided by what the world says or does or recommends.
I've uh I tell you, I've grown, and I don't even watch TV very often, but I keep up with the the news on my phone, and sometimes I'll play a little video.
I've just grown weary of congressional hearings altogether.
I don't care who's having them or what they're for I get tired of the agendas in the questions.
I get tired of witnesses not answering questions.
It just wears me out.
And so I just quit.
I just can't stand it.
I want to keep up with what's going on in the world so I can be informed.
But y'all know you can get fatigued doing that too.
You can get overloaded, you can get discouraged, angry, and all of that.
At a silly little screen with people who uh in our lives really don't matter that much.
Yes, they guide our country and they vote and they do all of that, but they really don't affect our daily lives as much as the ones you're looking at here, the one you look at in the mirror.
So being guided by what the world says or what the world does, that's not what a man of integrity does And even his own friends can't substitute as the guide in the place of integrity If you have a good friend and perhaps he or she calls you and says, I don't know what to do here.
Well, they probably do know what to do.
But they don't want to do it because it's hard.
And it involves a test of their integrity in some cases.
But Job is upright, meaning he's straight.
That's what the word means.
He's level.
And his actions and his words.
Mirror those of the standard of integrity, which is God's word.
That's the standard of integrity.
If Adam, looking back in the Garden of Eden, if Adam had been a man of integrity, Then he would have been guided by God's word, by that integrity, and would not have partaken of the forbidden fruit, even though his wife had already done so.
When Eve offered him the fruit, he just said, I love you, but no.
God said, Do not eat of that fruit, and you've already messed up, and I'm not going to do it just because you did it.
Well, we know how that went.
And with everything we've gone over so far, I think it's fair to say that Job's wife did not really understand integrity.
And based on verse 9, when she said, Dost thou still retain thine integrity, curse God and die?
She seemed to think that integrity was something that could be dropped and then picked back up again.
But that's not how integrity works when something is whole, and that's the the force of the word integrity, is that it means whole, wholeness.
When something is whole and then it's broken, its integrity is gone.
Now the best way I know to demonstrate that is to take a brand new vase and drop it on the ground.
And it breaks into pieces, doesn't it?
And if you try to glue those pieces back together, you will not be able to restore the integrity of that vase.
You may get every piece that you can see.
But there will still be little microscopic shards that you can't see and you can't make this a seamless project.
It's going to look like a broken vase that was Put back together.
And if you put it back on the shelf and told somebody, hey, buy this vase, this'll this will hold water, they're gonna say, that vase has been broken.
I don't want it.
It's lost its integrity, hasn't it?
I remember a guest preacher who came to a church where I was a member years ago and He was going to rev the church up about giving money.
And so he he took a vase and he Dropped it or he threw it down on the floor at the end of his message and it shattered all over the carpet.
And of course I was one of the trustees and you know what my first thought was?
It wasn't praise God the people are gonna give now it was I gotta vacuum that up when this thing's over with.
That was all that was on my mind.
I was already given.
He didn't have to rev me up, but anyway, uh don't know why that came to mind.
It just did.
And our uh after that our giving just tanked.
It just didn't work at all like he thought it was gonna do.
But that's a whole nother story, I I think.
But you can't make a vase like that whole again.
You can't restore its integrity.
Listen to what God said to Judah through the prophet Jeremiah about this matter of integrity, about being whole.
Jeremiah chapter 19 and verse 11.
Jeremiah nineteen and verse eleven God said, And thou, and say, excuse me, and shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts.
Even so will I break this people and this city as one breaketh a potter's vessel that cannot be made whole again.
And they shall bury them in Tophit till there be no place to bury.
In John chapter 5.
There was a man who had an infirmity, an illness, for 38 years.
This man was broken physically.
Now listen to the exchange between the man and Jesus in John chapter 5, and I'll read verses 6 through 9.
When Jesus saw him lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
And the impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool But while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
So this was a man who was crippled, obviously.
Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole.
And took up his bed and walked.
And on the same day was the Sabbath Now this passage taught us about more than Jesus being able to make a broken man whole physically It taught us that he's able to make the sinner whole.
We can't make ourselves whole again You can be have good genetics, be in good health, take care of yourself and eat right and exercise and get your sunlight and keep your stress down.
You can do all of that and you're still gonna die.
You may not die as soon, or uh you may not go down, spiral down the drain.
You may just go off the cliff.
But you cannot keep yourself from dying.
Isn't that a revelation?
Yet people who can't keep themselves from dying physically somehow think they can keep themselves from dying spiritually.
From being separated from God by their own good works, as though they could make themselves whole again.
But we can't make ourselves whole again, and the religion of Cain tries to tell people that they can do something to make themselves whole Baptist preachers, and I'm gonna stay with our own kind, if you will, I we're not all alike, I'm gonna tell you that.
But Baptist preachers, many have told people that coming down front, taking the preacher by the hand, Repeating some sort of sinner's prayer will make them whole again.
And that's a false gospel.
The only one who can make the sinner whole is Jesus.
We must be born again.
People might say, well, I wish I could just start over.
Well, if you started over as a brand new baby, you'd be born as a sinner into a sinful world and you would choose to sin and you would end up Maybe in a different circumstance, but you'd still be a broken sinner.
So when you need to be born again, contrary to what Nicodemus thought, you need to be born again spiritually.
And only people who are whole, people who have integrity, can enter the kingdom of heaven And only Jesus can restore our integrity because there's not one person outside of him who's kept the law of God perfectly.
And contrary to what Job's wife thought, integrity must be retained.
She said, Dost thou still retain thine integrity?
Integrity must be retained.
Now let's look further in verse 9.
We're in Job chapter 2, verse 9, if you're joining us.
At what Job's wife told him after she said, Dost thou still retain thine integrity?
She said, curse God and die.
Now we looked at the phrase curse God a little bit last week, and we learn that there's never an acceptable reason to curse God or to be angry with God.
Don't let somebody tell you that if you're going through Hard times that it's okay to be angry with God.
It's not.
And Job's wife not only told him to curse God, But to die.
She said, curse God and die.
Now the insinuation here is that he should curse God and then die right after that Two things came to mind here.
One, cursing God leads to death And two, Job's wife would rather him die than to retain his integrity and uphold God's honor In Leviticus chapter 24, verses 15 through 16, Leviticus 24, verses 15 through 16 Here's what God tells Moses, and thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.
And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death.
And all the congregation shall certainly stone him As well as the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.
Now remember the word curse and bless, the English words curse and bless come from the same Hebrew word, barak.
So the context is critical when you're trying to decide which one it is.
Is it cursing or is it blessing?
And in both cases, the cursing and the blessing, the action is directed toward God.
So you either curse God or you bless God.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
That's a blessing.
And then the cursing of God we We saw here with Job's wife suggesting that he do that.
But it was the death penalty in those days.
So in both cases the action is directed toward God, the cursing and the blessing.
But in one case, the action is adoration.
That's what the blessing is.
The other case is treason.
In adoration, we praise God.
In an accusation of treason, a person attempts to overthrow God's righteousness.
They reply against him. instead of agreeing with him, instead of praising his righteous will.
And in the case of Job's wife, the the word Barak is curse, Because she wants to she wants Job to commit treason.
And she knows that if he commits treason against God, he will suffer the death penalty.
She said, just go ahead and do that.
Now, a person who adores God would never tell someone else to commit treason against God You know, when you hear somebody take the Lord's name in vain, I don't know about you, but it just it makes me shiver.
I think, oh no, you don't realize what you just said.
Maybe they do.
Some don't.
Some just comes right out, and it's like the uh anything, any other word that's not a curse word.
But a person who adores God would never tell someone else to curse God.
We'd say, don't curse God Uh when I took over the the shift that I supervised, one of the things I told them, you have to be somewhat careful in the workplace.
You can't force religion down anybody's throat.
I don't want to do that anyway.
I just want to offer it up to 'em and then let it sit between them and God.
But one thing I can do is control the language that is used in my squad room.
And so I told him, I said, I'm going to challenge y'all to clean your language up.
And uh so, you know They they did pretty good and then one of them let one slip and he said excuse me I said nope I'm not going to excuse you because I know you can do better than that.
So I made a little bit of a point to make sure he knew it's not okay and I'm not going to excuse you.
But you know, I don't want them thinking it's okay to talk like that.
And they may talk like that on their own.
But you know, we're talking about blessing versus cursing here when it comes to the Lord.
And that what Job's wife wanted him to do was treason.
Now we expect that an American citizen should love the United States of America.
And if you do some searching on the internet, you can find out what some of these naturalized citizens, now these are people.
Now we don't get any press on this.
We don't get much news on this.
But there are people and have been for my entire life who get in line. and who try to comply with the United States law on legal immigration.
They want to learn the language, they want to assimilate into our culture.
They love the United States because of the freedom it provides and the opportunities and the the uh refuge they have here from whatever country they came from where the living conditions were bad.
I met a man uh when I was working Deep Nights a few years ago, and he worked at uh one of the Valero convenience stores.
And I got to talking to him for a little while, and he was from Iran, and he's a naturalized U.
S. citizen, and he used to build ships. in Iran, a brilliant man, you know, an engineer, working in a convenience store.
He would rather work in a convenience store in the United States than make Probably, I don't know, less than $20 an hour than to be a wealthy shipbuilder in a country where he's oppressed.
But we expect uh people who are citizens here or who want to be citizens here to love this country.
And some of the words that I read from these naturalized citizens were about gratitude.
They were about patriotism and freedom and hope.
And when someone commits treason against this country, they're trying to harm the people of the country in one way or another.
People who adore America would never seek to bring harm to its people.
And although our people and therefore our government have flaws, our system of government was originally based on biblical precepts.
Go back and read your Constitution and see if that's not the case.
It doesn't mean we've done things perfectly.
This is not the perfect nation because it's there are no perfect people.
A treason against God, which Job's wife suggested that he commit, that that uh her husband commit, is far more egregious than treason against the United States of America.
And while our people and our laws are imperfect, God is not imperfect.
He's perfect.
He's holy.
His word, his law is holy, and his integrity has always been the same.
In fact, not only is he whole, which is what integrity means, but he's been that way for all eternity, and it won't ever change And those who adore him would never seek to destroy him.
Only Satan and his angels and his human followers Would ever seek to commit treason against God.
And Job's wife was one of those people.
Let's look now in verse 10, where Job answers his wife's suggestion Verse 10, but he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.
Now, how fitting that we've been studying the fool in our Wednesday night series in Proverbs.
And I'm going to give a quick commercial here.
Every time the Bible is taught, the sheep who listen to it are fed So if you're not coming to Wednesday night or tuning in online or listening to the recorded version of our Wednesday night service, you're leaving food on your plate.
And you're throwing it in the trash.
It's not doing you any good if you don't hear it.
And God is in his providence has made it to where if if we can't be here we can tune in.
If we can't tune in because we're working, we can listen to the recorded version later on.
I mean it's available for you if you want it I don't know about you, but my mom raised me to clean my plate, which probably didn't help me later in life, but that's okay.
But I I believe that's the same case with God's Word.
Don't miss the teaching of God's Word.
And I know some of you, uh I know Sister Alice, go listen to it again at work.
Brother James Johnson, I'll notice that every time Brother Fulton and I teach, he shares it with somebody on the internet.
And you know, people may not notice that kind of thing, but I do, and I think it's wonderful.
So Job told his wife that she spoke as a foolish woman And so we might infer that both Job and his wife know what a foolish woman says.
Foolish means stupid, wicked.
And it's also translated as the word vile.
Psalm chapter 74, verse 18.
Psalm 74, 18.
Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord, and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name.
And then verse 22 in that same psalm, Arise, O God, plead thine own cause.
Remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily.
Blasphemy and reproach against God come from the mouths of fools, including foolish women Now, here Job has offered us further proof of his own integrity.
Instead of trying to be agreeable with his wife, While she is grieving the loss of her children.
And we do, we give people a lot of slack, a lot of leeway there.
You have to, because you could be in that situation before you know it.
But in while she's doing this, instead of him saying, you know what, normally I would never let her get by with cursing God, but right now I'm gonna let her just get by with it.
He didn't do that.
She's grieving the loss of her children, of her servants, of the possessions that they had.
And he draws a hard line and says, right now you're speaking like a foolish woman.
Doesn't mean he doesn't love her.
It doesn't mean that he's not a patient man.
In fact, you're going to see in a moment he doesn't do anything wrong. when he says these words.
But he doesn't excuse her words.
He rebukes them.
And the approval of God means more to him than the approval of his wife.
And even in the midst of this deep despair and tremendous stress that Job is also under, remember these are the children he prayed for daily.
He offered sacrifices in case they had cursed God in their hearts.
And even in the midst of all that, Job held fast his own integrity, and he upheld the honor and the holiness of the Lord.
And Job further said to his wife, look back in your text.
What?
Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?
So Job tells us good and evil come from the hand of God.
Now I'm glad this is not the first time we've come across this difficult truth because it's sometimes difficult to understand.
It's no trouble for us to associate God with good.
When somebody says good comes from God, most people would say, Amen.
But to associate him with evil is challenging unless we understand what that means.
And I don't mind being repetitive when it comes to difficult doctrine.
I've learned that we can teach on something over and over again, and there may still be some who are troubled and don't rightly understand what's been taught.
We all learn at different speeds, and sometimes we nod our heads and it just goes right over our heads because our mind is somewhere else.
So we cover that territory again.
And that's okay.
Not get upset with them because they don't understand.
That doesn't do any good.
And although the Hebrew word here, Ra, is translated evil, wicked, wickedness, it's also translated as trouble, affliction, and adversity.
And so it doesn't mean that evil is wicked in the sense that God has done wrong.
Not at all.
Because we live in a sin-cursed world, you and I both, we have to, we're subject to sickness and injury and violence and adversity of all kinds.
We're subject to to death.
Every one of us.
None of us can get out of here alive But in his providence, God directs all of these things to accomplish his perfect will.
For a Christian such as Job to suffer the loss of children and servants and possessions might seem cruel to us.
We might say, boy, why would God let that happen?
But to God, these things are used to bring him glory whether we understand it or not Psalm 116, verse 15.
Psalm 116, verse 15 says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Now, we don't think of death as precious, do we?
I mean, let's just get real.
As human beings, when somebody we love dies, we don't think, well, how precious is that?
It grieves our hearts.
Our hearts are broken.
We feel compassion for our neighbor who's lost a loved one.
But in the sight of the Lord, it's precious when his saints die.
Because he gets to bring them with him and take them out of this sin-cursed world.
To him, they're the same.
I belong to Christ whether I am now alive in this flesh which troubles me daily, just like yours does you.
Or whether I die and go to be with him and I leave this sinful flesh behind.
I'm still the Lord's, just as much when I am alive as when my body dies.
So for God to have me and for me to still live in this world means He has me.
But he watches me be troubled with my flesh.
He watches me be subjected to the violence of this world, whether it's physical or spiritual, whatever it is.
And so I'm his, but if he can take me out of this world, out of all of that, and I'm still his.
And he rescues me, he delivers me from this present sinful world.
Isn't that more precious to him?
It is.
So we have to see that from God's point of view 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 7 through 10.
2 Corinthians 12 verses 7 through 10, the Apostle Paul wrote.
And lest I should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.
Lest I should be exalted above measure.
And for this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, Then I am strong.
Wow, there's a lot there.
But Paul said, I've got this thorn in the flesh, and whether that was a blindness or some other kind of disability he had.
He had something wrong with him physically.
And he asked God three times, would you take this away from me?
And God said, nope.
I'm going to give you my grace instead.
Because in Paul's weakness, God's grace made him strong Hard to understand from an earthly perspective, but when you understand it from God's perspective, which I believe we can on some level if we look at the If we look at the psalm that I just read you and and try to take our own personal bias out of it and say, if I were God, which is hard to imagine like that, but if I were God How would I feel about this?
And God's told us through Paul that his grace is sufficient and that he is glorified even in our weaknesses.
And if Paul and Job could have stood next to each other, imagine them standing next to each other, and each of them spoken the words attributed to them.
Job saying, What shall we receive?
Sh you know, shall we not receive good and evil from the hand of the Lord?
And Paul saying, His grace is sufficient, and my weakness he's made strong.
If they could have both spoken those words to each other, both of them would have said, amen.
You're exactly right And in each case, both Paul and Job would know that God's grace is sufficient for the evil or the afflictions they've endured And Job understood that only a foolish woman would not understand this principle Even as an upright man, Job expected no exemption from afflictions, from evil coming his way.
Now looking back in verse 10.
The judgment upon the words spoken by Job was this, in all this did not Job sin with his lips?
Not one word of what Job said was wrong.
So when he told his woman, Thou speakest as a foolish woman, the world would say, How dare he say that to her?
Is he calling his wife a fool?
But God says he didn't sin when he said that.
When he said, shall we not receive good and evil from the hand of the Lord?
Job wasn't being sarcastic.
He was serious.
And God said, in all this did not Job sin with his lips.
Not one word of what he said was wrong, not one word of what he said was foolish.
But to the contrary, every word he said was wise.
In fact, there were no neutral words, no idle words. that could be condemned.
In Matthew chapter 12, verses 33 through 37, Matthew 12, 33 through 37, Jesus said, Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruit.
O generation of vipers, he's talking to these religious Jews, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?
For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things.
An evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
And by using this teaching here, we may better understand Job's character and also his wife's character.
His wife was a corrupt tree with corrupt fruit.
Yes, we feel terribly sorry for her, but she was still a corrupt tree with corrupt fruit.
She was a fool, and her fruit was foolishness.
The words she spoke were idle at best, and to be condemned at worst.
The treasures of her heart were evil, and from the abundance of the evil in her heart her mouth spoke.
And she wanted her husband to blaspheme and reproach God.
Job was a good tree with good fruit.
And because his heart was filled with good treasure, he didn't speak idle words.
He didn't try to stay in the middle or speak neutral.
He didn't speak words that could be condemned.
In all the words he spoke to this point, Job did not sin.
Now look in verse 11.
Now, when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place.
Now, this is what friends do.
Their friend Job was suffering.
He was suffering emotional pain, physical pain from these boils. and even spiritual anguish, wondering, why did this happen?
What's going on here?
And his friends heard about this evil that had come upon him.
And they came to him.
You know, a good friend will be with you in your adversity.
That doesn't mean they will agree.
If you've done something wrong. .
You may have heard that that silly saying that they'll go to jail with you.
No, a good friend won't do that.
A good friend will love you while you're in jail, but will tell you, you know what you did is wrong.
Now let's make this right.
But in adversity, a good friend will still be with you.
Some people are repelled by the thought of coming to the aid of a friend who needs them.
Some people think, I don't want to get involved in all that.
That I mean, he's just going to be over there crying and crying and complaining about his situation.
And I don't I don't want to be involved in that.
Or I don't know what to say to somebody whose loved one has died.
I just won't go, I just won't go talk to him at all.
That's not what a good friend does.
Proverbs 17, 17 Says, a friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
The love of a friend is very much like the integrity of a man.
You don't turn it on and off You don't pick it up and and lay it down again.
When I hear someone who's getting divorced, splitting up, wanting to split up, whatever it is, say, well, we just don't love each other anymore.
You know what I want to say?
You never did love each other.
You don't really know what love is.
You may have had lust.
You may have had physical attraction.
You may have gotten along when times were good, but You don't really love each other because a friend loveth at all times, and your best friend in the world ought to be your spouse.
It's mine.
Somebody says, who's your best friend?
And I say, my wife.
They say, well, you know, besides her.
No, she's my best friend.
Now I have some really good friends in this world.
But there's none who is my best friend.
I love my dad with all my heart.
He's not my best friend.
My wife is.
And I've the my mother, I love her.
She's not my best friend There are things that they have done for me that no one else could do.
But a friend is loveth at all times and is born for adversity.
A brother is born for adversity.
So let's meet these friends because we're going to hear from them an awful lot in the coming chapters.
In fact, the majority of the book of Job is about.
The conversations among these friends in Job.
First, in your text, Eliphaz or Eliphaz the Timenite And his name means my God is gold.
That doesn't mean he worships golden idols.
The prefix L, E-L, in his first name is a name that means God.
It's a Hebrew word for God.
And he's a Temanite.
What's a Temanite?
Genesis chapter 36, verses 31 through 34.
Genesis 36, verses 31 through 34.
And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.
And Bilah, the son of Baor, reigned in Edom, and the name of his city was Dinhaba.
And Bilah died, and Jobab.
Jobobs.
See, there's been Jobobs around for a long time.
That's probably not how you say that, but it's how I said it.
The son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead.
And Jobab died and Husham of the land of Timani, T-E-M-A-N-I, reigned in his stead.
So it appears that Eliphaz was from an area associated with Edom, Timani.
It's not certain, but that was the first place I saw that name in the Bible.
And it is a land.
Then build I the Shuhite.
Is the second friend mentioned in this verse.
And Bildod's name means confusing love.
And I'm not sure Uh since we don't have much about Bildot in the Bible, I'm not sure what that means, confusing love, but that's what the name means if you break it down.
Now where is the shoe height from?
That's less certain here.
We don't see any reference to a land named Shuah or something like that, but there was a woman named Shuah, and she was a Canaanitis, with whom Judah, one of Jacob's sons, With whom Judah had three sons.
And then we have the name Zophar the Naamathite.
And Zophar's name means sparrow, so we know the Lord's eye was on him, right?
He loves the sparrow.
Where the Naamathite is from is also not certain.
There was a woman named Naemah, and she was the sister of the grandson of Enoch.
You don't have to remember all that.
But that's uh the the best I can do on where they're from.
But I think we could probably conclude they're all from somewhere in the land of Edom and they're friends of Job.
And we've learned the identity of these three friends.
So let's look quickly at their purpose.
We won't be able to finish this.
But it says, for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
This was their purpose.
Now I want to show you the strength of this single Hebrew word translated as they had made an appointment.
That's one Hebrew word With the emphasis being on the words made and appointment.
My eldest daughter is a cosmetologist and she specializes in women's hair.
That's where the money is, in case you're wondering.
Because she's self-employed, she works by appointment, and her clients go online and they she has an appointment calendar.
And they put their names in the desired time slots on the days of their choice.
And then my daughter responds by confirming those appointments and meeting her clients at the salon at the time and day they requested.
And once both parties arrive, then the service and the payment for the service takes place.
Now without the appointment, there'd be no service and there'd be no payment.
You'd have one showing up one day and looking for the other one who wasn't there because they hadn't made an appointment.
So there has to be, when it comes to an appointment, there has to be an agreement between the parties, and both have to abide by their end of the agreement.
And we'll talk more about this Hebrew word for made appointment.
Next week, when you make your appointment and keep it to come back to Sunday school.
And I'll be here too, Lord willing.
Let's pray.
Father, we're thankful for your word.
We're thankful for what you've taught us today.
And we pray that your spirit would just help us to keep in mind these truths and that they would make a difference in our lives, Lord.
We wouldn't just leave them here in the pew or in the in the church and walk away from them.
But Father, that they would help us as we navigate this very difficult life in an increasingly hostile and sinful world. but that we may bring glory to your name and reflect your son Jesus to this lost and dying world.
And it's in his name we pray.
Amen.
