Episode Transcript
Good morning.
All right, we are at the 10 o'clock hour, so time to begin our Sunday school lesson.
And we're in Job chapter 5.
Job chapter 5.
And if you would just join me in making sure your phones are silenced.
Every once in a while, I'll hear one during the message.
And it's usually during a wonderful part of the message.
Brother Fulton will be driving a point home, and I hear a ding, ding, ding, ding somewhere.
And so it just reminds me to remind you guys.
We're in Job chapter 5, verse 10, taking every chapter verse by verse and slowing down and learning the significance of these wise sayings.
Job's friend Eliphaz told us about God.
Not everything people say about God is a wise saying because some people say things that About God, that don't apply.
They're not true.
So we get our information from the Bible.
And last week we read that God giveth rain upon the earth.
And I ended the lesson by reminding you that any earthly flood we may see during our lifetimes, no matter how serious it is, Is not a flood of biblical proportions.
That's a statement people make sometimes when we have We have a flood, and maybe people die.
They'll say this is a flood of biblical proportions.
And we saw last night that that's not the case because God said he'd never do that again.
When God flooded the earth in Noah's day, he was judging the world of sin.
And he promised after that to never again destroy all flesh in that way.
He promised to never again bring a flood of biblical proportions.
And not only did God promise not to do that.
But he has given reign.
Now you think about that word given just as we use it in the English language.
And when you are given something, what is that something?
It's a gift, isn't it?
It's a gift.
And a gift is usually a good thing.
Now, grandparents, if you haven't already done this, the next time.
That you want to give your grandchildren something, give them something that makes a lot of noise and is hard to put together.
And that's the only way I know to let your children know how much you love them.
But a gift is normally something that you enjoy receiving.
And so when it says that God giveth rain, He's giving us something that's beneficial.
It's not God's fault that people build their houses on the beach or they build their houses right next to the river that's going to come arise at some point.
But the rain that he gives now is a blessing to people who live on a sin-cursed earth.
Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, pestilence, plagues, all of that is part of living in a fallen world, and it's not God's fault.
Those things are the consequences of sin.
I marvel at some of the questions people have asked to pastors and other theologians. some of those questions are based upon false assumptions about God.
As an example, I recently saw and this has been asked for ages, but I recently saw a little video online Of a person asking a theologian, why did God create evil?
Now, when you read about the account of God's creation, it said everything He created was good.
He didn't create anything evil.
Not one of his creative works was called evil.
And you can read about them in the book of Genesis.
It names what they are.
So rather than telling someone why God created evil, we have to show them that God did not create evil.
And that answer nullifies their original question.
Their question was based on a false assumption about God.
Other people, and I know you've heard this asked.
Other people may say, why does God let bad things happen to good people?
See, you've heard it, haven't you?
Well, that's another question with a false premise, a false foundation.
Jesus told the rich young man, Why callest thou me good?
There is none good but one, and that is God.
And that's from Mark chapter 10, verse 18.
And that rich young man, the reason Jesus did that, I believe, is that rich young man had not seen Jesus as God.
So Jesus answered the man according to the man's perspective of Jesus.
He thought Jesus was a man, a master, yes, but a man, and only a man.
And had that man acknowledged Jesus as God the Son, the conversation would have been a lot different.
So be very careful in making assumptions about God that are not clearly taught in his word.
And back to the giving of the rain, just in case we think rain just happens.
Ediphaz reminded us of one of God's marvelous works, and that is, who giveth rain upon the earth.
Now, look in your text there in verse 10.
We're in Job chapter 5, verse 10.
Similar in nature to this, we see the words, and sendeth waters upon the fields.
Now, this is a specific benefit of the rain being given.
God gives rain, so that's what falls down from the sky.
And when God gives rain upon the earth, a specific benefit of that rain is that the fields which are on the earth receive the water.
And it is in those fields the crops of the great and the small are watered.
So the farmer who just has an acre and he's trying to live off of it and feed his family and maybe trade peaches with a neighbor here and there.
Or the one who has hundreds and hundreds of acres and all the fancy irrigation systems and the air-conditioned John Deere tractors.
All the latest plows, they both get rain from the same source.
And even the irrigation systems that those rich farmers use, where did that water come from?
It came from God who giveth rain.
And so the small and the great alike depend on the same rain from the giver of rain.
He's the giver of rain to the earth, and he is the sender of rain to the fields, as we just read.
Now, God could cause it to rain and cause that rain to immediately evaporate before it hits the ground or soaks into the earth.
He could have made it that way.
That would do the fields no good, though, because they would remain dry.
Now we might take for granted The fact that when it rains, the water goes to the fields.
It's sent to the fields.
But when we look at the word sendeth in this verse, We see, just like the word giveth, sendeth means that there is an action on the part of the sender.
So for something to be sent, it has to have a sender.
What happens when you put the wrong postage stamp on an envelope?
Return to sender.
That's what it says.
So let's look at the difference between how the godless people of this world and the godly people of this world view rain.
If I were to write, it rains upon the earth, nobody would disagree with that statement, not even a teenager.
But if I were to ask an atheist where rain originates, where did that rain come from?
He might say, Well, it came from the clouds, silly.
But if I ask where do the clouds come from he would say well they're formed by water in the air and we would continue that line of questioning And he would give his answers until we came to a question that he couldn't answer.
Where did the first water molecule come from?
And although the atheist would say that he doesn't believe God gives or sends rain into the fields, he would still have no intelligent answer to my question.
And that's actually where all false science, all false religion falls on its face.
When somebody says, I don't believe in God.
I believe in the Big Bang or I believe in the evolution or however we got all this.
Keep asking those questions if they'll let you.
Keep asking those questions.
Where did that come from?
Oh, okay.
Where did that come from?
And if they'll stay with you long enough, you're going to get to the place where they say.
We don't know.
They don't like to say, I don't know, like say we don't know.
Like it can't be known.
No, it can too.
And we have God's word that tells us, so we don't have to try to guess, do we?
And the same principle applies to the words, sendeth water upon the fields.
Without a belief in God A person would say waters are sent to the field just because it rains on the fields.
Now, when God formed this earth, He made the ground, didn't He?
That's a given.
And the ground is made of different types of dirt and rock, and so some of it is more absorbent than others.
And we don't plant a crop of rice on a large piece of rock and hope that it grows up into a mature plant, do we?
Because the seed would wash away.
The rock doesn't absorb water like dirt does.
And even the dirt has a different makeup depending on where you live.
When I lived in Williamson County, Texas, now that's where Georgetown and Taylor and Round Rock are.
Interstate thirty five split the county almost down the middle from north to south.
And on the west side of the interstate, the soil was very rocky.
In fact, it was predominantly rock.
And there weren't that many farms on that side of the interstate as there were on the east side of the interstate in that county.
Because on the eastern side, the dirt was fertile, it was blackland, and when it rained on that soil, the ground drank up the rain.
And during certain times of the year, you can drive in that part of the county and see beautiful, almost endless rows of cotton and corn and maize.
God created the elements of those fields so they would receive the water he sent.
Now pay attention to that.
He created the fields so they would receive the water he sent.
And when those fields receive the water God sent them.
Then the crops in those fields are blessed with life and then growth and then fruit.
Now let's apply this to us.
Matthew chapter 10 verse 40, if you're taking notes, you can write that down.
Matthew 10, verse 40, Jesus said, He that receiveth you, he's talking to his disciples.
He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
So when God made man, he made man to have a relationship with him, to receive him.
God gave life to man, man sinned and forfeited that life.
And so, because sin entered into the world, death entered by sin.
Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.
But in God's great mercy and his love for us, he sent his son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
God made man so that even as sinners Man could receive the Son of God, whom God sent.
God sent him.
And we receive, and he came to us, and we receive him.
Just like the fields that receive life from the water, God sends them.
When we receive the Savior God sent us, then we receive life from that Savior.
The very familiar, I hope very familiar to you, verse in John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave Just like he gives rain, he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
That's what it means when you receive Jesus as your Savior.
Some people put it that way.
You're believing on Him.
There's not some outward act that you're doing, some prayer you're praying, some sort of work that you're doing.
It's believing on Him.
Trusting in him, what he did for you.
And God's the giver of rain, and he's the giver of life through his son.
Now, the plants and the trees in the field.
Receive life through the waters God sends them, from the soil God made, from the sunlight from the sun he created.
Man receives eternal life through the Son that God gave, the S-O-N with a capital S.
And John wrote this about him: He said, In him is life.
So next time it's raining, remember that God not only gave the rain.
But he sends it to the fields so the fields may have life.
And maybe that'll remind you about how he sent Jesus that we may have life.
Now look at verse 11 back in your text in Job chapter 5, verse 11.
He said, to set up on high Those that be low.
Now, this is an act that God does to set up on high those that be low.
This is the next logical progression in a man's faith.
In fact, verse 11 here is part of a sentence that actually began in verse 8.
And if you go back up to verse 8, you see that that sentence began by declaring that God does great and unsearchable things.
It continued by showing God's authority over all his creation.
So, when God's attribute as creator is believed, In other words, when a person believes, yes, God created all things, then it'll be a lot easier to believe that God controls all things.
He has the right to control everything he created, such as the rain and where it goes.
He's sovereign.
He's in charge over all the affairs of his creation.
And the beginning of our current verse takes us to that next step.
God is in control of the affairs of man, whom he created.
Now, because we were given the example Of water being sent to the fields.
Let's draw from that to make the point that God sets up on high Those that be low.
That's what we just read in verse 11.
What was the tallest stalk of corn before it grew to such a height?
It was a dry seed, wasn't it?
And as a dry seed, in fact, if you keep seeds, if you do the heirloom seed thing, if you keep seeds from last year's crop, whether you're growing okra or tomatoes or whatever you're growing, you keep those seeds, they're dry, aren't they?
And you keep them in a bag or maybe in a sack or in a cup.
Do they do anything?
They just sit in there.
They sit in there all year long, all winter, spring, till you get brave enough to say, I'm going to do it before tax day this year.
It won't freeze.
There's nothing that happens to those seeds.
In fact, as a dry seed, it has no possibility of becoming a plant, much less a tall plant.
If it's left to its own devices, that seed is low, it's humble.
In fact, it was at its basest form when it comes to a corn plant.
You look at the stages of a corn plant.
The seed is dry.
It appears to be without life.
The beautiful tall seven-foot plant with all the ears on it.
Boy, I can taste that sweet corn right now.
In about June, we used to pick it down there in Williamson County.
But God created that seed.
And he also created all of the elements necessary to cause that humble seed of low estate to grow to great heights.
In fact, by creating gravity, God made it to where that seed falls down into the ground.
It doesn't blow off somewhere, falls down into the ground.
And eventually it's covered by dirt and detritus, both of which nourish the seed.
God created the sun, which at the right time Heats the soil of the seed where the place where that seed of corn is buried.
And God created water and gave it and sent it to the field so that dry seed Of corn may be given drink.
And once the buried seed of corn, the water, the soil, And the sun's heat cooperate in that perfect combination that God ordained, the seed begins to grow roots under the ground first.
And then, as those roots grow, that tender shoot springs up.
Now, at any time during the life Of a corn plant from seed to full maturity.
That growing shoot, that stalk, that fruit, even.
Is vulnerable to drought, which causes it to die.
It's vulnerable to heat, which usually comes with drought.
It's susceptible to a late frost, which can kill it.
In fact, it's susceptible to anything that depletes the nutrition out of the soil.
There are certain insects and their larvae That can feed on the corn and weaken the plant and even kill it, make its fruit rotten.
So, from its beginning, and I want you to think of people when you're thinking of this corn, from its beginning as a low, humble seed.
To its climax as a mature fruit-bearing plant full of ears, the corn depends on its creator to be set up on high.
And those are the words in your text.
Those are the next few words in our verse.
So let's look at them.
One of the first things I notice about this phrase is that it also contains an action verb.
Remember the action verbs: giveth and sendeth?
Well, here's another one.
The action verb here is the word set, which is combined.
In the Hebrew with the English word up, it gives us the words in English set up.
So, set up is the action taken on those that are low.
And then the words on high would be the prepositional phrase that describes where the low are set up.
They're set up on high.
Now, understanding the meaning of this phrase better helps us to understand the nature of God and His role in the affairs of men.
What does He do with kings?
He sets them up and He takes them down, doesn't He?
I went to church years ago with a fine Christian man.
I'd love to hear him pray.
And when he'd pray for our country, he'd say, Lord, the ones who are in office, if they don't do right, we pray that you'd take them down, just like you set them up.
They didn't put up with bad leadership, and I don't either.
And we shouldn't.
We ought to pray that, regardless of the political affiliation of a President or a mayor or a city councilman, if they don't do right by God's word, pray that God would take them out.
Take them down.
I'm not talking about killing them.
I'm talking about removing them from office.
So continuing with this corn plant, it's been set up on high from its lowly position as a dry, lifeless seed.
It didn't just grow on its own.
God provided everything the seed needed to be set up on high.
So at no time could this corn plant say, Well, look what I've done for myself.
Look what I've done to myself.
You know, I've eaten corn off the cob, corn on the cob, cream corn, fried corn, just about any way you can make it.
But I've never eaten arrogant corn.
Have you?
You haven't to set up on high those that be low.
There is no such a thing as arrogant corn because corn doesn't have a soul or a spirit.
It just got a body.
The Bible has a lot to say about this truth.
That God sets on high those that be low.
I want us to Look back at God's creation of the first man.
We go back to Genesis an awful lot, and that's there's a reason for that.
That's our foundation, that's our premise for all things.
And I want us to look at the creation of the first man who was named Adam in a different light than perhaps you've seen it before.
If you read Genesis chapter 1, you notice that God created light and water, vegetation.
Animation, that is the living animals, the creatures like the fish, the fowl, and cattle, and so forth.
And after that, he created man.
Before God ever created man.
Man was low and humble.
You might say, well, God hadn't created him yet.
Man was always in the mind of God.
There's never been a time.
Where something occurred to God or became a fresh memory, or God has always known all things.
Yesterday, today, and forever, the same.
There is no difference.
With God, there is no darkness or light in his eyes.
He sees everything as though it were light.
And we talked about that, I believe, Wednesday night.
Pastor did.
But God did not have to create man.
He could have enjoyed, in fact, he didn't have to create anything on this earth.
He could have enjoyed all of his creation, though, without putting a single human on this planet ever.
But because he's a loving God and a wise God, he created the man whom he had previously had only in his mind.
Before he was ever created, man was low, man depended on God for life.
We depended on God deciding within himself, I will make man.
But even If you slow down more and you look at the phases God undertook when he made man, it's quite interesting and instructive to us as we try to understand our text here in Job.
Now, I'll use Genesis chapter 2, verse 7 if you want to write that down.
Genesis 2, verse 7.
And the first part of that verse says, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.
How low was man?
He was in the mind of God until God created him.
And when God created him, God started with the dust of the ground.
Now, that's as low as you can get, isn't it?
He was so low.
That he was formed out of the dust.
Now, nothing is smaller to the naked eye than a particle of dust, if you can even see it.
Nelda, I don't think I can see it anymore.
Even with my glasses.
But some people can't.
And God could have made man out of gold.
Or silver, or some majestic tree that he'd planted in the garden, but he chose dust.
The next part of that verse in Genesis 2:7 says, and breathed into his nostrils.
The breath of life.
So, from the mind of God to the dust of the earth, man was formed, and yet he still had no life in him.
Until God breathed life into the nostrils of this formed man, who would have had no life in him had it not been for God making that decision.
He would have been no better than a statue or a piece of furniture made of the dust.
So far, there are two action verbs in Genesis 2 that teach us how man got this far in the creative process: the word formed and the word breathed.
Now this is so different from the evolutionary model that is taught in schools today, many schools.
Had God not formed man, he would have never existed, not even as a piece of furniture.
Had God not breathed the breath of life Into this man whom he formed, the man who existed would have lay as a dead man.
And then the last part of Genesis chapter 2, verse 7 says, And man became a living soul.
So the result of God breathing life into this man whom he formed was the man becoming a living soul.
Now I went through these details of the phases of the creation of man for a reason.
God could have simply made man from his own mind in one step.
He could have bypassed the dust.
He could have bypassed Forming him into this lifeless creature before breathing life into him.
God could have just gone poof and had a living, breathing man standing right there in front of him.
But as he does with all things, God describes the process he used for creating man for a reason, and that's for us to learn from it.
And from that process, we learn many things, but one of them is that man is low.
Man is of a humble, earthly origin, lifeless dust.
Dust thou art?
Unto dust thou shalt return.
Man, in fact, is of a humble, low, earthly continuation.
That means we can't live forever.
We have a weakness, and that is we're going to die.
And man is of a humble ending, even after he dies.
He goes into the ground and he returns to dust if all processors are left.
On their own.
Somebody asked our pastor a question on Facebook the other day about Actually, it was a comment from a question about cremation, but the comment was: if you put somebody's body in a vault, it's hard for it to turn to dust and all that list, and you leave it there long enough, it'll turn to dust.
Man has tried probably as long as man has been alive to keep a dead body looking nice.
Let me tell you, we just never have, in my opinion, never have accomplished that because a nice look, there's no such thing as a nice looking dead body.
Now you may think, well, now when they fixed up my daddy or my mama, she looked beautiful, not nearly as beautiful as she looked when she was alive to you.
I can promise you that.
But you know what we just learned about God and his creation of man ought to make an unbeliever think a little bit more deeply about who he really is.
And who God is.
Friend, I've said this many times, and I'm going to keep saying it from time to time.
I've achieved some goals in my life that I thought were worthwhile.
But I'm under no illusion that I'm anything special.
I was formed as a helpless infant in my mother's womb, and so were you.
And as God provided all the elements in the proper environment for the seed of corn to grow and to be set up on high, so he did with me.
Every day of my life, every breath I've been blessed to take was given to me by God.
I'm thankful that I don't suffer from some of the ailments that some of my fellow believers have endured and are enduring.
But I know this.
That I'm only one stroke, one illness, one car crash away from going from good health to poor health, even death.
So to the person who is haughty and prideful and believes he's a self-made man or she's a self-made woman, I ask you this question.
What did you contribute to your formation in the womb?
What did you contribute to your growth from the time you were an infant?
To childhood, from your youth to your adulthood.
You may say, Well, now, as I got older, I grew wiser and stronger, and I could take care of myself.
Well, in some measure, we can.
Boy, if you ever want to say hallelujah, potty train it, little girl, little boy.
Get them past that phase.
We've been doing a hallelujah in my family with my second daughter's kids.
It's wonderful So there's some things they can take care of later on when they can feed themselves.
Even better, when they can cook their own food and make their own sandwich.
But what happens to us if we live long enough?
We go back down the other side, don't we?
Back down the other side to where people have to do more and more things for us.
Somebody may say, I don't need God for this.
I don't need anyone else.
I've got this.
Well, that kind of person would do well to consider what Elipha has taught us so far: that God, and you can underline that, God.
Sets up on high those that be low.
And that is without exception.
Now, next, we look at a very specific example of one who is low.
And to whom this verse applies.
Look back in your text.
He said that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.
Now, it's clear if you know about Job, if you've been with us, or if you have a memory of the first few chapters of Job, what happened, he's lost his.
Children, all but four of his servants, his cattle.
I mean, he's in a mess, and his wife told him to curse God and die.
He's got boils from head to foot.
He's sitting on an ash heap.
With his friends who have recently begun to speak, the first one being Eliphaz.
And so it's clear that what Eliphaz is saying applies to Job, or he's applying it to Job.
That those which mourn, which Job is doing, may be exalted to safety.
But it applies to us as well.
You know, because of the length of the book of Job and how long it takes to teach through it It never fails, and this will be the third time I've taught through Job in my life.
It never fails that some of the Bible classes I've taught, including here, Some of the people have been in mourning.
Many of them lost loved ones while we were studying this book, not because we were studying this book.
Except that be in God's providence.
But because of the amount of time we spend teaching through it, somebody is going to go through a hardship.
Others received bad news of some sort, and whatever it was, it caused them to mourn.
And when we mourn, we are low.
Maybe not physically, but emotionally, we're very low.
And the first time the Hebrew word translated mourn is used in the Bible is found in 1 Kings 18, verse 45.
Remember, it's the Hebrew word here.
The same one as we use for the word mourn in our text.
1 Kings 18:45 says, And it came to pass in the meanwhile that the heaven Meaning the skies was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain, and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel.
Did you hear the word mourn in that verse?
You didn't, did you?
But you did hear the word black.
The Hebrew word for black and mourn are the same.
It means ashy, darkened.
When the children of Israel mourned, they often put on sackcloth, put that on their bodies, and put ashes on their head.
And you'll find this several times in the Old Testament.
Now, when you put ashes on your head, it turns your head and your face dark, the color of the ashes.
So those who mourned in the Bible would have appeared black wherever those ashes were on their body.
And that was also a sign to other people that this person is in mourning.
There are certain cultures.
That in which the people put morning clothes on.
Sometimes it's like sackcloth or just plain sheets.
Korea had that in its formation, and also the dynasties in China, there were Customs like that, where the people wore certain clothing.
And if you saw one of them in those clothes, you'd say, Oh, he's mourning.
His mother must have died, or his father must have died.
So, when a person is in mourning, he's in a very low place in his life.
And although we mourn as a people, We mourn in different ways for different lengths of time.
We all have this in common.
We wish the mourning would pass.
We wish we could get back to feeling better.
Listen, it's okay to mourn.
It's quite natural.
God gave us tears and emotions for mourning.
Deuteronomy chapter 34 verses 7 through 8.
Deuteronomy 34 verses 7 through 8.
And I read this at Jim's funeral.
And Moses was 120 years old when he died.
His eye was not dimmed, nor his natural force abated.
And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.
So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. 30 days.
So if you think, well, you know, it's been two weeks since my best friend died and I just still feel sad.
Listen, it may be years.
You may never completely get over it.
You don't get over it.
It leaves a hole in your heart.
But by God's grace, He heals that.
And it's like a little piece of scar tissue.
Sometimes it bothers you more than it does, other times.
So the question is, in light of what we're learning here, how do we go from mourning to joy?
Well, let's look at the rest of the verse.
That those which mourn, he says, may be exalted to safety.
So safety Is the destination, it's the desired destination of those who mourn And we have two words to look at here: exalted and safety.
First, we notice the word exalted.
And it comes from a Hebrew word that is also translated as the word high, or safe, or defend, or excellent.
And then the second word is safety.
Now we ran across this word back up in verse 4 there in chapter 5 of Job.
Where it said, speaking of the children of the foolish man, his children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.
So, being crushed in the gate, the children of the foolish man were far from safety.
And the word for safety in the Old Testament is normally translated as salvation.
And that can be physical or spiritual, and we'll look at that when we come back next week.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for everyone who attended.
Thank you for our faithful members and for our visitors as well, and all of those who watch online.
Lord, we pray the teaching today would be acceptable in your sight, that we would accept the truth and meditate upon it, and it may make a difference in our lives.
In Jesus' name, amen.
