Episode Transcript
I've got 10 o'clock, so let's go ahead and begin.
We're in Job chapter 4.
Job chapter 4 and verse 9 this morning.
And I'm thankful for each one of you who made time to be here and also every one of you tune in online for the broadcast.
You know, before I begin studying at the house, that's where I do my studying most of the time, in preparation for the lesson, I always ask God to help me first understand what I'm reading.
And I'm like the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts who's reading the Bible.
And Philip asked him, Do you understand what you're reading?
Understandest thou what thou readest?
And he said, How can I except some man should guide me?
And so that's what I'm doing when I'm studying God's Word.
I need a guide, and my guide's the Holy Spirit.
He's faithful.
He's even more faithful than Philip was. when he joined himself to the chariot in the eunuch, and I'm sure thankful for him.
And last week, Eliphaz, one of Job's three friends, was speaking to Job about how the righteous would not be cut off, but that those who plow iniquity and sow wickedness would reap what they sowed, reap what they plowed.
And if you remember, all of these things Eliphaz is saying, they're true But he's applying them to Job, and so he's making a false assumption.
But even though he's making a false assumption about why Job is in the shape he's in, And while all these things happen to Job, the things Eliphaz says about righteousness, about plowing iniquity and all of that are true.
They're scriptural.
And so we can still learn from them and we have.
And what he said was to insinuate that Job's circumstances were the result of Job's sin.
And we know that's not the case because we've already read.
What God said about Job and why these things are happening.
And now we're going to pick up in verse 9 to see how God deals with the ones who plow iniquity.
And so wickedness.
So look with me in verse 9, Job chapter 4, verse 9, if you're just joining us.
By the blast of God they perish.
That's what happens to them.
Well, what is the blast of God?
It's the breath of God.
And the word is translated as breath on some occasions in the Old Testament.
The nature of that blast or breath, and I'll use those words interchangeably here, the nature of it is demonstrated in Isaiah chapter 30 And I'll first read you verse 30 to give you an idea of the emotion that is present with this blast of the Lord.
It says And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lightning down of his arm with the indignation of his anger.
And I underline the word anger in my notes.
And with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering and tempest and hailstones.
Now without knowing the background of that passage, you may not have a full understanding of it.
But the anger is what we're looking at here.
God is angry, and in his anger, as we skip down to verse 33 in that same chapter, The following happens.
For Tophit is ordained of old, yea, for the king it is prepared.
He hath made it deep and large, the pile thereof is fire and much wood, the breath of the Lord.
Like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it.
So the breath of the Lord there is the same as the blast of God in our text.
And Tophet was a place where some of the kings of Israel and Judah had burned their own children.
Manasseh was one of them who did that before he was saved.
So God was going to judge that place and the sins that were committed there And therefore, referring back to our text here in Job, the breath of the Lord or the blast of God goes forth in anger.
That's the emotion behind it.
Goes forth in anger against those who plow iniquity and sow wickedness.
Now, although the blast of God goes forth in anger, that's not how it was first used in the Bible In fact, how it was first used was a wonderful thing.
It's a wonderful thing when it's done in judgment, too.
However, we don't think of it so wonderfully.
But in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7, Genesis 2 verse 7, it says, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.
And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
There's the word breath.
And man became a living soul.
So the phrase breath of life in Genesis could also be translated as the blast of life.
God breathed into man's nostrils the blast of life.
So before God's breath was ever used to judge, it was first used to give life And the breath of God which gives life is the same breath of God which destroys in judgment.
2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 9 through 11 speaking of the Lord It says, who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death And hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.
So the breath of God gave life to man in the garden.
Man sinned. causing the life-giving breath of God to become the breath of God that brings death upon man to judge his sin.
In fact, God promised Adam and Eve that would be the consequence.
Imagine The very first man into whom God literally breathed the blast of life.
That man would never have known the blast of God in judgment had he simply obeyed.
God's one command.
That one command was to abstain from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
That was it.
And God even warned them, and he could have said, from me came the blast of life that gave you life.
And if you sin from me is going to come the blast of death in judgment.
You're going to die.
God said it this way, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.
So the breath that gave you life will be the breath that brings you death if you sin.
That first death would be a physical death That's one we're all appointed to, and you can't escape it.
The second death would be the spiritual death, which is eternal separation from God, and from that death God gave us the hope of eternal life.
Now, if you just follow the natural course of things, You have life when you're born, and then you die, and then you die again.
If nothing ever changes, if there's never any salvation But God breathed the breath of life into us when we believed the gospel of his son.
That's where the eternal life came from.
Because he first gave life to man by his breath.
Man sin and by that same breath he would pronounce judgment.
And without salvation, that would be it.
Breath of life You breathe the breath of life into man, man becomes a living soul, man sins, the breath of God destroys him, and he goes off into the lake of fire.
And I'm glad that's not where the story ended.
In John chapter 3, verses 5 through 8.
John chapter 3 verses 5 through 8, speaking of this life-giving breath.
That second life-giving breath that we have, not the one that makes us alive physically so we can see each other at church. but the one that makes us alive in Jesus Christ.
Of this Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit.
That's with a capital S.
He cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of flesh is flesh.
So that's where the breath of life was breathed into Adam and passed down to us.
And that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
Now that's the breath of life breathed by God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again.
He could have said, Don't marvel that I'm telling you, you need the breath of life breathed into you again, not the one that made you alive physically, but the one that makes you alive. in Jesus Christ, spiritually.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.
So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.
Now here you go, little Greek.
The Greek word for spirit, and again that's the capital S in in this passage.
The Greek word is pneuma, P-N-E-U-M-A, is how we would spell it.
And it means breath.
That's what it means.
In the beginning, the breath, the pneuma of God gave life to man, man sinned, and the breath, the pneuma of God brought death to man.
In the gospel, the dead man who had no hope now has hope.
He's got oxygen, doesn't he?
He didn't have it before He has the breath of life, not the physical life, but the breath of eternal life.
The breath of life is the Spirit of God. by whom man is born into the kingdom of God by faith in the Son of God.
Let's say that again.
The breath of life.
Is the Spirit of God by whom man is born into the kingdom of God by faith in the Son of God.
That's it.
Ezekiel chapter 33 and verse 11.
Ezekiel 33, verse 11.
This is God's command to Ezekiel concerning the children of Israel.
Say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked But that the wicked turn from his way and live.
Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Now Eliphaz told Job, and therefore us, that the plowers of iniquity and the sowers of wickedness perished by the blast of God.
And it is true.
But it's just as true as we read in Ezekiel that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
What pleases him is for us to hear his beloved son, in whom he is well pleased So if he is well pleased in his son, and we believe in the son in whom he is well pleased, then he is well pleased with us.
It pleases God to give life, both in an earthly sense and And even more so, eternally.
But his breath will also destroy the wicked.
And the gospel, which gives eternal life to the spiritually dead, Will be the same standard by which the unbeliever is sentenced to eternal death.
Gospel gives me life, I believe it.
But because the unbeliever refuses that gospel, then he does not get eternal life.
He has eternal death awaiting him.
So the question there is, what have you done then with Jesus which is called the Christ?
And going back to our text here in Job chapter 4 verse 9.
The plowers of iniquity and the sores of wickedness not only perish by the blast of God, but also, it says, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.
Now the word for breath here is a different Hebrew word than blast, but the two are not that far apart in meaning.
They're very close.
You'll see this Hebrew word for breath translated as the Hebrew word ruach, and it means spirit.
And it's capitalized for the Spirit of God, and it's in lowercase with a lowercase S spirit for other uses, such as man's spirit.
Sometimes it's translated as the word wind.
And it pertains to this same force that proceeds from God, and here it is said to come from his nostrils Interestingly, the Hebrew word for nostrils is translated more often as the word anger or wrath.
In fact, this translated anger or wrath way more than it's translated nostrils.
But every time I study this word, I think of the flaring nostrils of a bull.
And that's just the image that comes to my mind.
In 1997 I had the privilege of going to Mexico City to teach in a law enforcement school.
And as soon as I arrived at the hotel, I put my suitcase in the room, and I had to come right back downstairs because I was being escorted to a bullfight, which took place in the Plaza de Toros.
And that is the world's largest boring.
It seats over 41,000 people.
And the steps are just like this.
If you fall down those steps, you're not going to quit rolling until you hit the The fence at the bottom.
Very old, very out of code, but that's where we were taken.
And The the bull was let out of its enclosure and into the arena.
And there are men who ride horses with these protective blankets on them, and they're they're called uh picadores.
And picadores have these long spears in their hand.
And so what they do is they ride up to that bull and they start sticking that bull. along the back and neck muscles.
And they're trying to weaken the the muscles in the bull's neck so it drops its head.
Because the matador doesn't stand a chance if that bull's head is up like this.
He can't get to it.
And so not only does the physical act, and I think it's a very cruel sport, by the way, I'm just going to tell you I don't like it.
That's the one and only bullfight I'll ever go to.
But That bull was scared and that bull was angry.
His nostrils were flaring as he breathed in and out and then at one point you would see blood start coming out of his nostrils.
And the matador, who is the bullfighter, after the picadors were through with their job, the matador would strut out there with his uh muleta which is a red cape and by the way bulls are uh not able to see red they I I won't go into all that, but he waved that red flag in front of the bull and of course that's to get the bull's attention.
Bull's not charging because of the color red.
He's charging because he is angry and he's scared.
But the phrase he was seeing red comes from that image of a bull charging the red muleta.
And during the event, the matador begins sticking these small knives in the back of the bull's neck.
He dances up to him, sticks a knife in there.
Dances up to him, sticks another knife.
And so he does that until the bull is in such a weakened and exhausted state that he's just about done with the fight.
And then mercifully, finally, the matador plunges what's called the death sword down the bull's neck and into its heart.
It's a highly skilled and highly powerful movement.
And that kills the bull.
Bull drops just like that.
Now if the matador performed well, he receives one ear. cut off from the bull.
If he did really well he gets two ears and it's very rare that he gets two ears and the tail.
And then the bull is carried out and processed and the good news is it's given to the poor.
Now I did not enjoy the bull fight itself.
I thought it was cruel.
I did appreciate the fact the meat was given to the poor.
But the thing that stuck with me is the bull's face.
Particularly his nostrils, as he breathed out heavily in fear and in anger And the anger is what we're looking at here.
The image created by the blast of God in the breath of his nostrils is an image of an angry God.
One who is judging the plowers of iniquity and the sowers of wickedness.
And looking back at our text, we see That by the blast of God and the breadth of his nostrils, look what it says, are they consumed?
That means they're finished off.
They ceased to be anymore.
In Deuteronomy chapter 9, Moses was speaking God's words to the children of Israel before they passed over the Jordan River into the promised land.
And in that land, in that promised land, there would be enemies whom the children of Israel would have to deal with, whom God would have to deal with.
Now listen to verse 3.
This is Deuteronomy 9, verse 3.
As Moses tells the children of Israel what God said, understand therefore this day.
That the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee as a consuming fire.
He shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face, so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said unto thee.
Now the word for consuming is related to the word consumed in our text.
And the word means to eat.
Think of that.
It gives the idea of completely finishing off the enemy.
One thing my mother never had to tell me to do is to clean my plate.
It was assumed that whatever amount of food I was given, I was going to eat it and probably wanted some more.
But consume, the word for consume in our text carries the idea of destroying, of finishing off, which is essentially what we do when we finish our plate, if that image helps you.
And when God consumes the enemy, they're finished.
He wipes them out.
And thank God they're finished.
There were many times where God commanded the children of Israel to wipe out an enemy nation.
But they didn't finish the job.
And it always cost them.
1 Samuel chapter 15 The prophet Samuel told King Saul how God wanted Israel to deal with the Amalekites.
Now the Amalekites were a constant thorn in the flesh for the children of Israel.
And there's a reason for that.
And here's one of those reasons.
I'll read from verse 3, 1 Samuel 15, verse 3.
And Samuel told Saul, Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have.
And spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Now skip down to verse 7 through 9.
And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur. that is over against Egypt.
And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them.
But everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
So Samuel told Saul, destroy everything.
Because that was what God said.
God had already made the judgment on the Amalekites.
He knew what their babies would turn out to be one day.
He can do that.
He can see into the future, and we can't.
Well, Saul decided to apply his own standard of what was vile and what was wicked.
And so he saved the king.
He saved some of the livestock and so forth.
And because of his disobedience, Saul and Israel would pay a heavy price for not utterly destroying the Amalekites and all that pertained to them.
And from Israel's failure to obey God and to utterly destroy their enemies, We learn that man just cannot save himself.
He cannot deliver himself from his enemies.
Israel could not keep the law, so God sent his son to keep it for them.
And because of sin, Israel could not deliver itself from its enemies, so God would do that for them.
Here it is.
1 Corinthians 15 verses 24 through 26.
Just so we understand, when God utterly destroys the enemies, that's what he does.
He consumes them.
1 Corinthians 15, 24 through 26.
Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
You notice those two words, all enemies.
When God consumes his enemies, he consumes all of them.
And unlike the children of Israel, who spared many of their enemies, God will spare none of his.
Those enemies will never again have power over God's people because they'll be cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death.
So now that we understood uh understand the uh the consuming nature of the blast of God.
Against the power the plowers of iniquity and the sowers of wickedness, all the powers of hell.
Let's see how Eliphaz may be applying this to Job.
As we've learned before, Eliphaz recognized Job as a righteous man in God's sight And we read ahead to Job's testimony there in Job 19, I believe it was, where he testified about his Redeemer, who will stand on the earth in the latter day.
So Job would not be among those whom God would destroy when death and hell are cast into the lake of fire.
Yes, Job will die a physical death.
But This wickedness that Eliphaz is talking about, in my view, based on what we see here, would pertain to some sin, some earthly sin that Job committed.
And for which he was being chastened by God.
So I don't think Elifaz was saying, you're going to hell You must be one of these who plows iniquity and sows wickedness and has rejected the gospel.
I don't believe Elifaz was saying that.
But I believe he was insinuating that there's some earthly sin, there's something you've done that's causing all these things to happen to you right now.
Now let's look at verse 10.
And verse 10 is going to continue on this theme of God's blast, God's breath destroying.
And here's what it says.
The roaring of the lion.
And the voice of the fierce lion and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
So they're broken by the blast of God.
Now, I read the whole verse first because we're going to go back and look at at three things, or here are three creatures.
That are broken by the blast of God.
The first we see is the roaring of the lion.
Roaring is what we know lions for, isn't it?
You think of the king of the jungle and this loud, ominous roar.
Well, man also roars, but not like the lion.
And I mention this because it's not the actual lion, the creature, whose roar God will break.
That's the the lion doesn't have the capability to sin, to do wickedly.
The lion acts upon the instincts that God gave it.
It has the body and the soul, but not the spirit.
And those are things you believe you probably learned in your Genesis to Jesus class, so we won't go back over them again today.
But a lion in the Bible represents a man.
Now here's an example.
Genesis chapter 49.
Been a while since we've been in Genesis 49, but this is where Jacob called all of his sons together To tell them what would befall them, what was going to happen to them, what kind of people they were going to be in the future.
And to his son Judah.
He said this in verses 8 through 9.
That's Genesis 49, 8 through 9.
Judah, thou art he Whom thy brethren shall praise.
Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies.
Thy father's children shall bow down before thee.
Judah is a lion's whelp From the prey, my son, thou art gone up.
He stooped down, he couched as a lion and as an old lion Who shall rouse him up?
So three times in that passage, Judah the son, and therefore Judah the nation, are likened to a lion.
Now, why would God break the roaring of this lion?
Well, there are a couple passages that give us some light about this question.
If a lion represents a man, how is it that God will break that roaring of that lion?
Psalm chapter 7, verses 1 through 2.
Psalm chapter 7, verses 1 through 2.
The psalmist wrote, O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust.
Save me from all them that persecute me.
And deliver me, lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
So the idea here is this psalmist is saying, my persecutors are like a lion.
And there aren't any, there's nobody to deliver me from the lion, from my persecutors.
They'll tear me into pieces.
He said, but I trust in you, Lord, the only one who can deliver you from the lion.
And so the psalmist is crying to the Lord to save him from the lion who persecutes him.
And no doubt that lion roars.
That's what a lion does, it roars.
Anyone who persecuted the psalmist, David, was going to be in God's crosshairs Because that psalmist was David, a man after God's own heart, a type of Jesus Christ, the one upon whose throne there would be a king reigning forever, which is Jesus Christ.
In Psalm chapter 10, the psalmist wrote about the wicked, because we're looking at the word lion here.
And in verse 9, he described the wicked this way.
He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den.
He lieth in wait to catch the poor.
He doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net So the lion in this psalm was a wicked person who lay in wait.
You can see him crouching down, just watching. waiting to catch the poor with his net.
Now that's about as sorry as a person could be right there to kidnap the poor.
I mean the poor.
We think in this country, oh, you know, we have this poverty level that's established.
Listen, the poverty level here would make you probably middle-upper class in India.
Or some of these other countries.
We're not poor.
Just because we don't have the latest iPhone does not make us poor.
Just because we have only two TVs in the house doesn't make us poor.
This word poor is the destitute, those who have absolutely nothing.
And this wicked lion roars, and in his roaring is persecution of the righteous and abuse of the poor.
And I'm sure there are other passages you could find that describe a wicked person as a lion, but these two will suffice for us this morning.
And Elifaz's inference here is that if Job is one of these wicked lions, perhaps he persecuted the poor, then God has broken his roaring.
Now secondly in the in our verse we see the voice of the fierce lion.
Now fierce lion, that's from one Hebrew word.
And it's not the same as for the word lion in the first part of the verse.
You're getting three different types of lions or three attributes of lions.
But fierce lion is from one word, so the emphasis here is on the word fierce.
What is it about this kind of lion that makes him be called a fierce lion?
When a lion is lying in a field during a hot sunny afternoon taking a nap, his fierceness is or ferocity is not on display.
You don't look at that lion and say, boy, he looks fierce.
You know, he looks like he's taking a nap.
But and when a lioness cuddles with her cubs or nurses them, it's not a show of ferocity.
But a fierce lion is one who lays in wait for its prey so it can kill and eat.
In Hosea chapter 5, The prophet wrote about the whoredoms of Ephraim, also called Israel.
And we studied Hosea not too long ago, so maybe some of it's fresh on your mind.
And I'm going to read verses 13 through 14 from that chapter.
I want you to listen for the word lion.
When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian and sent to King Jerob.
Yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.
For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah I even I will tear and go away.
I will take away, and none shall rescue him.
Now the first lion in that verse is the one called a fierce lion in our text back in Job chapter 4.
So in the case of unrepentant Ephraim, unrepentant Israel, the nation.
God himself becomes as a fierce lion.
Now remember the psalmist David said I don't have any escape from these lions.
I don't have anybody to deliver me, so God, I'm trusting you.
What happens when God becomes the lion?
You're out of hope, aren't you?
But in our text, I believe Eliphaz is referring to Job as the fierce lion And it says back in your text, the voice of the fierce line would be broken Now, roaring was a particular word used of the voice in that first line, or that first line, the roaring of the lion.
So the voice encompasses all the expressions of emotion verbally.
So if I laugh, that's a feature of my voice.
If I roar, that's a feature of my voice.
If I growl, so there are different ways to express it.
So the voice here, the voice of the fierce lion is basically any utterance, anything that the fierce lion would say.
And it could be a noise or a sound or a thunder, however you want to look at it.
It was the voice of the Lord that Adam and Eve heard in the cool of the day in the garden.
It was also the thunderous voice of the Lord that Moses and the people heard at the foot of the mountain.
That was a voice that terrified the people.
And in the case of the fierce lion, it is apparent that this voice is a voice of ferocity.
So a man who was a fierce lion was one whose voice struck fear in the hearts of the ones who heard it.
The fierce line is an intimidator.
But God will break that voice.
And then the last line that's mentioned in verse 10, look back in your text.
It says, and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
And the emphasis here being on the youth. of the lion.
One verse in Judges 14 actually uses the word young instead of young lions.
It uses the word young in verse 5.
It says This is Judges 14, 5.
Then went Samson down and his father and his mother to Timnoth, and came to the vineyards of Timnoth, and behold, a young lion roared.
Against him.
Of course, he slayed that young lion.
Ezekiel chapter 19 is a lamentation. for the princes of Israel before they went into Babylonian captivity.
And the mother mentioned in that chapter is the nation of Israel.
The mother represents the nation of Israel.
Now I'm going to read chapter 19, verses 5 through 9 from Ezekiel to show you what young lions were likened to.
Speaking of Israel, now when she saw that she had waited and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps and made him a young lion.
Now I believe that was King Zedekiah.
And he went up and down among the lions.
He became a young lion, and learned to catch prey and devoured men.
And he knew their desolate places, and he laid waste their cities, and the land was desolate, and the fullness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.
What did this young lion do?
He roared.
Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces and spread their net over him.
He was taken in their pit And they put him in ward and chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon.
They brought him into holds.
Listen to this, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.
The young lion was an ungodly king who roared and whose voice was heard upon the mountains of Israel And the judgment of God on that ungodly king was to have him put into the prison of the Babylonians.
And therefore the voice of his or the noise of his roaring and the voice that was intimidating to the people was heard no more.
And if you remember Zedekiah, they, the king of Babylon, slew his sons. before his eyes, and then they put his eyes out.
And then he lived the rest of his days like that.
And although they were the enemies of God, God would use Babylon and her kings as his own servants. to accomplish his punishment of Israel, specifically that young lion we just read about.
And then God would later deliver Israel. and return them to their land.
The young lions of Israel and Judah had not submitted themselves to the Lord, so they were silenced And Eliphaz, and boy did we see a great example of that in our study of Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar.
Boy he was a fierce lion, a young lion, and all fat, and he ended up eating grass like a cow, didn't he?
the dew on his back for seven years.
But Elifaz has given us a reason to study the different attributes of the lion and how they represent man.
So let's look at the next two types of lions that are mentioned.
We start in verse 11.
It says, the old lion perisheth for lack of prey.
Now the old lion here is not the washed-up lion, not the one who's on his last breath.
The old lion is contrasted with the young lion because he's stronger than the young lion.
The Hebrew word translated old lion has the sense of crushing, which is what a strong lion does to his prey.
He crushes them.
But this old strong lion also will perish by the blast of God, because it will have no prey.
And when this line represents a man who has oppressed the poor, been cruel to the weak, crushed, literally crushed. people, well I'll say literally, uh probably figuratively crushed people, then that old line still depends on prey and God will just remove it from him.
That's what this is saying.
And this old strong lion will perish by the blast of God because it will have no prey.
And then the lion starves.
He perishes.
The hope of the weak and the poor is not for some other strong line from the earth to save them It's in the Lord, the same as the psalmist.
There wasn't anybody more capable than David in his day, but he said, I realize I've got persecutors and I can't deliver myself from them and nobody else can.
God, you're gonna have to do it.
And only when the weak and the poor have their trust in the Lord.
And that's you and me, by the way.
Can we be truly and permanently delivered from the old line?
We're the prey.
And it seems that Eliphaz implied that perhaps Job's possessions, his family And his health were the prey that God removed from him, therefore he is perishing.
He's sitting on the ash heap, head to toe, boils, in terrible shape.
Even though this would be a wrong assumption on Elifaz's part, we still learn the truth about how God deals with the old lion.
And then look at the second one as we close here.
And the stout lion's whelps were scattered abroad.
Now a stout lion is a great lion.
And the word could also be translated as lioness, the female.
It has been in the scripture a couple times.
I think that is actually a more appropriate use of the word here in our text.
Considering the presence of the cubs, the whelps, Ezekiel 19, 2, it says, And say, what is thy mother?
Now that's Israel, a lioness.
She lay down among the lions.
She nourished her whelps among young lions.
So by her strength she protected her whelps.
By her strength she gave them milk.
And then later, by her strength, she would kill prey to nourish her whelps, give them something to eat before they were developed enough to be able to take down their own prey.
Now, when this is applied to a wicked man Who protects his wicked children, then we're learning God will take his strength away too, or her strength away The whelps would be scattered abroad.
That's what the text says.
And the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad.
They're scattered abroad because that lioness can no longer protect them by her own strength.
Same with Israel.
She could no longer protect her children by her own strength.
And so this was a very personal insinuation to make against Job.
That because his strength was gone, he could not protect his children from death.
It's another wrong assumption by Elifaz.
But it's still one from which we may learn truth.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for every person who came and all of those who tuned in, and Lord, for the hunger they have for God's word.
And Lord, we pray that you'd find us faithful in teaching it today and help us to remember the truth that you've conveyed to us, and may it have an impact on our lives and on our testimony before others And we pray during the next hour for all of the preaching, the singing, the praying, Lord, the A fellowship we have with you and with one another in Jesus Christ, that this would all bring glory and honor to you in Jesus' name.
Amen
