Episode Transcript
Well, good morning.
It's 10 o'clock.
And let's begin our Bible study.
If you will, turn to Job chapter 5 and verse 12.
Job chapter 5 verse 12 Now last week we were not able to finish our study of this verse so we're going to take up again there this morning In verse twelve, Eliphaz says this about God.
He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
We spent some time studying the first part of the verse.
He disappointeth the devices of the crafty.
And now we're going to look at the outcome of the disappointment of those devices.
And it's found in the next few words.
So that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
And you have the word so there.
Which links the first part of the sentence to the second part.
It's not two standalone statements that may or may not have anything to do with each other, one is linked to the other.
So their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
That's the result of God disappointing the devices of the crafty.
And the word perform there is normally translated as the word do.
So that tells us the word perform is an action verb in the truest sense.
Now, if you go back to the word crafty, we'll just take the verb form of that, craft, to craft.
When you craft a plan, it requires thought.
When you perform a plan, it requires action.
So looking at the word enterprise.
We learn that it means a lifting up of something or something that is lifted up.
And the example that came to my mind as I was studying was the Amish raising the wall of a barn.
I don't know if you've ever seen that before, but it's impressive.
So, from the devices of their minds, These Amish men lay out the lumber and they fasten it together on the ground, parts of it.
And when they have finished that part of the construction, they tie the ropes to it, and with animal and human power, they raise that wall to an upright position.
The crafty, in our verse, will turn their thoughts into evil works.
And as their works begin, God keeps them from raising those works into a fully upright position.
Now he may let those thoughts become works.
Some crafty people have their devices cut off at the thought level.
God doesn't even let their hands perform the enterprise.
They don't even get to start it.
But some are allowed to have the thought and then to transform that into action.
Begin to perform it.
They don't get to fully perform it when God disappoints the devices and does not allow their hands to perform their enterprise.
And you may think God has allowed the crafty ones to fully execute their plans, but he hasn't.
We're going to see why in just a few moments.
You've seen the evil that men do.
If you haven't seen it, you've read about it.
And it seems as though their thoughts Became actions, and their hands were able to perform their enterprise.
But what we have to remember is that the author of evil is the original subtle SUBTIL.
The crafty one who appeared as a serpent in the Garden of Eden.
And his purpose Was to make himself equal with God and to exalt himself above God.
We're in Job chapter 5 and verse 12.
And so as Lucifer, his crafty thoughts became actions.
But his actions were cut short.
They were cut short so that he could not fully perform his enterprise.
I'm sure there were heavenly beings who thought, uh-oh, Satan or Lucifer is being allowed to get by with evil in heaven.
No, he wasn't.
Because he could not, what was his purpose?
He wanted to exalt himself to the sides of the mount and be like the most high God.
And the only way to be like the most high God is to be the most high God.
Because the Most High God has no equals.
There's nobody even close to Him.
You have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, one God, all co-equal.
But they're not three separate gods.
And so Satan wanted to be like the Most High God, as Lucifer he did.
But he didn't get to perform that enterprise because God cut him off.
And through him and the host that followed him out of heaven.
And ever since He was evicted from his glorious place in heaven.
Remember, Lucifer was called the anointed cherub.
And ever since he was evicted from that glorious place in heaven, Satan, which was his name after that, Has desired to prevent the seed of the woman from performing his enterprise Now, the seed of the woman, that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if you were here for the Genesis to Jesus or creation to Christ classes, you learned that pretty early on, that it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that was a prophecy of him, very early prophecy in the Bible.
But he's desired to prevent that seed of the woman from performing his enterprise.
Which was to save sinners from the sure judgment of God.
And God knew beforehand that Satan would put a bullseye on the seed of the woman.
And God said to the serpent in Genesis chapter 3, verses 14 through 15, if you're taking notes, just write that down and I'll read it.
Genesis 3, 14 through 15, And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle. and above every beast of the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
So the serpent, which was the land animal, that was the earthly animal, that was a type of and represented Satan, and actually whom Satan inhabited to do those things that he did in the garden when he tempted Adam and Eve to sin.
When a venomous serpent bites the heel of a man, that venom often brings death.
Now, some serpents are more venomous than others.
If you go to certain parts of Asia, Africa, Australia, there, and even in the oceans.
There are the most venomous serpents in the world.
The inland Taipan, the sand crate, the sea snake, and others.
And when They inject their venom into someone, the likelihood of death is a lot higher than if you get bit by a copperhead.
But the the enterprise of the venom is to bring death to the victim.
Now a serpent doesn't set out to bite people.
They just rather avoid people.
And people usually get bitten.
When they've stepped on a serpent or tried to grab one with their hand or put their hand somewhere that they couldn't see.
But serpents don't go around trying to find people to bite because they don't want to get stepped on.
They don't want their heads to be bruised.
So normally the venom is reserved for their prey, for another snake or some other animal that the serpent wants to eat.
And so when he He either is camouflaged and waits for his prey to go by, or he goes and seeks it out through the sensing mechanisms that God has given that serpent.
And when he strikes, when he bites his victim and injects that venom into the victim.
That venom circulates and the serpent just waits nearby until the venom performs its enterprise and kills that animal.
And then the serpent can swallow the prey whole without having to struggle with it anymore.
When a man is treated for a snake bite The doctor is trying to keep the venom from performing its enterprise.
And how does he do that?
He does it with antivenom.
And if given in a timely manner, antivenom can stop the effects of the venom.
And it can allow the victim to recover.
And to live, even though there may be scars and physical problems left over from it.
Now, I want you to take that earthly example.
And I want you to think about the spiritual application of that truth.
Satan, whom the book of Revelation twice calls that old serpent.
Is the crafty, evil one whose enterprise is to destroy the seed of the woman And from the time God promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head.
In other words, that's what Jesus would do to Satan from the time God promised that until the time Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
Satan has tried to disappoint the righteous and merciful salvation that our God promised, for which he provided.
And that he proved.
And if you follow the earthly, the family tree, the genealogical line of Jesus that's told to you in Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3.
You will see where it looked like the promised seed would be cut off.
You go back and read about each of those people, each of those men who were in Jesus' earthly line through Mary.
You go back, or through Joseph, although he was not the birth father, he would be listed as the father of Jesus when it came to the genealogy.
But if you go back and look at that and read those stories, you'll see several places in the Bible where you think, boy, the seed of the woman's about to be cut off here.
God's not going to be able to perform this promise.
You might think that.
Think about Noah's day.
Now in Noah's day, we've fast-forwarded hundreds of years after the Garden of Eden, after God said.
That the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the seed of the serpent.
God had already made that promise.
He said, This is going to happen.
So you fast forward to Noah's day.
God was about to judge the whole earth and kill every living thing.
Man was included.
Man, especially, was in God's crosshairs.
Because, as God said, the thoughts and imaginations of his heart. were only evil continually.
So with righteous judgment, had God exercised His righteous judgment on the earth In that day, Noah and his family and every other living creature on this earth would have perished.
And the promised seed would have been cut off by the flood.
And that would have allowed the enterprise of the crafty devil to be performed.
He would have cut the seed of the woman off.
Everybody was guilty of sin.
But did you know that God used something to disappoint the devices That Satan had to keep his hands from performing his enterprise.
God used grace.
Even though Noah and all of his family were guilty sinners, the Bible says Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
And through that beautiful picture of the ark, we learn about the salvation that Jesus would provide to all those who are in him by faith.
Those seven members of, well, the six members of Noah's family and himself Along with the animals God told them to bring into the ark, were sealed in that ark, and it was sealed with pitch.
And that Hebrew word for pitch is the same as the word atonement.
So it's a beautiful picture and prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ: how all who are in him by faith in his finished work are sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Now you would have thought Satan would try to stop trying to cut off the seed.
He would have stopped trying to cut off the seed of the woman when Jesus was born.
You would think he would say, Well, you know what?
The seed of the woman's been born, I've lost.
Not him.
Because there was a wicked king named Herod.
A man after Satan's own heart, who rose up and commanded that all males up to the age of two be killed in all the land where he was the king.
And he supposed that by killing all the males that were in that age group, he would eliminate the Savior.
Who had been born in a manger during that time.
But his devices were disappointed by the Lord.
And one day, that crafty one and all of his followers will have their devices fully disappointed.
They'll be cast into the lake of fire.
And all the evil thoughts and intents and even actions that they had and that they did will be cut short.
Their hands will not be able to perform their enterprise.
They will not be able to fully raise the barn of their evil deeds up to its upright position.
It'll fall.
Let me read a portion of a Psalm that teaches that very thing.
It's found in Psalm 21, verses 7 through 11.
Psalm 21, verses 7 through 11.
For the king trusteth in the Lord, and though the mercy of the Most High And through the mercy of the Most High, he shall not be moved.
Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies, thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger.
He's speaking to the Lord now.
The Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.
For they intended evil against thee.
They imagined a mischievous device.
There's our word.
Which they are not able to perform.
Man, that's the same thing Eliphaz just told us.
That psalm specifically tells us and prophesies that God Will take those who imagined evil devices, and he will keep them from performing those.
And the word device in that verse is actually a specific type of device.
It's a little different Hebrew word.
It is a mischievous device.
And those words mischievous device come from that single Hebrew word.
For those who imagine mischievous devices.
Who intended evil against us, against the Lord's church?
God has a place of final disappointment for them, and that is the lake of fire.
God will find them out, throw them out, throw them into the lake of fire, and their seed will also be thrown there.
So the next time you're discouraged, you're afraid, you think, boy, the evil have performed their devices.
I mean, they've come all the way through, they've completed their evil schemes.
No, they haven't.
Remember these wise words of Eliphaz in our text.
Even though you live in a world where evil is ever present and ever growing, The evil have not fully performed their enterprise.
You know, the worst thing this world can do to you is kill your body.
It cannot take what God has redeemed.
Your inner man is safe.
I don't care what prison you're in, how horrible the death is.
That coveted prize of the crafty, subtle devil is your inner man.
And his device was to keep it for himself.
Jesus told those wicked Pharisees, Ye are of your father the devil.
All they had to do is keep not believing in Jesus, and they would remain children of the devil.
The Bible says ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
And once you're a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus, you're never a child of the devil ever again.
And religions that teach that, that you can lose that, that you can go from being a child of God to a child of the devil again, those are false religions.
And I don't care what they call themselves.
Even if they have the name Christ or the name God or any of that in their church denomination, they're not teaching the truth.
Because God kept Satan's hands from performing his enterprise when he covered me in the righteous blood of my Savior when I put my faith in Jesus.
I trust in what he did at the cross.
I believe that he resurrected from the dead for my justification.
And because of that, as much as Satan wants my inner man, wants my soul, wants my spirit.
He can't have it.
In continuing to describe God's attributes, look back in your text if you've just joined us online.
We're in Job chapter 5, and now we'll look at verse 13.
Eliphaz says this about God.
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
And taketh means to catch in a trap or to seize it.
I like that image.
God sees these crafty ones, the evil crafty ones.
Making a scheme, making a plan.
And all the while, God knows I'm going to catch them in their own trap.
Some of y'all may have heard me tell this before when my wife and I were a young couple, and I was a little more of a practical joker than I am now.
We had one of those rinsers in the sink.
You know, the kind it has the hose and it has the little Lever on it, and you push it, and you can spray your dishes off with it.
Well, I Scott's taped that thing shut and pointed it just like that, and she went in there and turned the water on it, and it soaked her.
And I got a kick out of it.
Well, she thought she would get me back.
So she waited a while and she scotch-taped it.
Well, guess who the first one to use it was after that?
Her.
She soaked herself again.
And that was probably the funniest part of the whole thing: she got caught in her own device.
She was trapped by her own scheme.
Well, the whys in this verse that we're looking at are the same as the crafty in the previous verse.
Their wisdom has been corrupted, just like Lucifer's wisdom was corrupted before he was cast down from heaven and became known as Satan.
You see, God catches the wise, meaning the crafty, the evil ones, in a trap.
He seizes them.
And he seizes them in their own craftiness, it tells us.
And their own craftiness is simply their own subtlety, their own shrewdness.
And this is powerful.
The most subtle, crafty man on this earth could outsmart and outfox me any day.
I'm not even in the competition.
I don't stand a chance.
But no man stands a chance against the craftiness and the subtlety of the devil, who is the original crafty and subtle one.
If somebody thinks, well, I'm slicker than the devil, I'll just trick him, I'll make him think I'm going to do this and I'll do that.
If you try to take on the devil yourself, you're going to lose.
And not only does God's wisdom far outshine the craftiness of man, but it also exceeds the craftiness of the devil.
I can't take Satan in his own craftiness.
He's way too crafty for me, but God can.
Satan thought he could outsmart God.
But the wisdom of God in Christ The grace of God was shown to sinful man in the form of the skins of coats that God put on Adam and Eve in the garden after they sin.
So even from right there, God had no obligation to provide them an atonement, to show them a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who would shed his blood and whose righteousness would be put on as a robe for his people.
God had no obligation to do that.
He did that in His mercy and grace because He's a loving God.
And from the shedding of blood, they were given that picture of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, who would one day shed his blood so sinners could have the code of righteousness and defeat.
The craftiness of the devil, so the devil could not perform his enterprise.
And in doing that, God took Satan in his own craftiness.
Now, if it be the case that God takes the wise in his own craftiness.
Then why does man persist in trying to outmaneuver God?
Why did the children of Israel rely upon the Egyptians?
For food during the famine in Jacob's day.
Why did some of the kings of Israel and Judah Make covenants with Gentile nations who were filled with and ruled by unbelievers rather than just turning to the Lord in their time of need.
Well, I can't tell you why a man does this, but I can tell you what it is.
It's rebellion.
You know, it's hard on this side of the cross to understand why somebody is an unbeliever, particularly after they're presented with the evidence, if they'll let you.
Finish what you're saying.
Jesse's nodding his head.
Jesse knows some people don't want to hear it.
You try to talk to them about the Lord, and boy, they're on to something else.
Listen to what the prophet Samuel said to King Saul in 1 Samuel chapter 15.
Verses twenty-two through twenty-three.
First Samuel fifteen, verses twenty-two through twenty-three and Samuel said Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
Now, what had Saul done to bring on God's displeasure?
He had disobeyed God in the matter of the Amalekites.
And he tried to tell Samuel that he had obeyed God, but he had not.
He killed the Amalekites, but then he took their livestock in violation of the Lord's commandment.
And when Samuel admonished him, as I just read to you, Samuel said, obedience is better than sacrifice.
Saul was going to use the sacrifice of those stolen animals as a cover for disobeying God.
And Samuel went on to say, that was rebellion, which was as the sin of witchcraft.
Witchcraft is made up of two English words, isn't it?
Witch and craft.
One who engages in witchcraft is one who is crafty in an evil way.
That's what it is.
Now, one who is in rebellion against God may think, well, I'm pretty crafty.
I'm pretty wise, but God's not fooled.
God sees that very craftiness, or in the case of Saul, he sees the rebellion.
That was like witchcraft, and he catches the wise in his own craftiness.
And because of his sin, Saul would have the kingdom taken from him.
His hands would not be able to perform the enterprise that he had, and that was to be the long-standing king over Israel.
And look back in your text now in verse 13, Job chapter 5, 13, as the sentence continues, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
Now maybe the words here are not as familiar to you as words we might use today.
Counsel is a word we've seen a few times, and the meaning of it is advice.
When you give someone counsel in this sense, you're giving them a plan with a purpose.
And just as many of the words we've studied in Job, the word counsel comes in two forms: wise and foolish.
There's wise counsel, there are righteous words, and there are foolish words, which are unrighteous words.
And based upon the context from the previous verses and then the following verses, we can conclude here that the word counsel Is used to refer to foolish counsel.
And we don't get to decide which counsel is foolish and which is wise.
God's already done that for us.
What we decide is whether we believe what he says or not.
Psalm chapter 1, verses 1 through 2.
If you're looking for a psalm to memorize, why don't you start with number one?
Not just because it's first, but it's short enough and it's just full of meat.
Psalm 1, verses 1 through 2: Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
In this psalm, the counsel Of the ungodly is contrasted with the law of the Lord, which is the counsel of the Lord.
In fact, the psalmist said, the man who is blessed.
Is one who not just walks in the law of the Lord, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord.
If you think, well, boy, this Christian life sure is restrictive.
I'm going to grudgingly walk it because I guess that's what I'm supposed to do since I say I'm a Christian.
Well, you are on the wrong, you have the wrong attitude about it.
When you become a Christian by God's Spirit, the law of the Lord is your delight.
It ought to be.
That doesn't mean it's easy because it's not.
We battle this flesh every day.
The law of the Lord says this, and our flesh says, no, no, no, that's not any fun.
But the blessed man has his delight in the law of the Lord.
It's a pleasure to him to keep the law of God.
He doesn't just try to avoid walking in the counsel of the ungodly.
He walks according to the law of the Lord and he embraces it.
He loves it.
He purposefully, delightfully walks in God's law.
God's law is God's counsel So, if somebody says, Well, I'm waiting around to see what the Lord's going to tell me to do, friend, if you're just waiting around, you might as well open up the book because there's what God wants you to do.
It's in the book.
Quit waiting on Benny Henn to tell you what you should do.
And here is the counsel of the Lord.
Isaiah 45, 22 Isaiah 45, verse 22 says, Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else.
Very clearly here, God has done away with the possibility that there is more than one God.
He said, I'm God, and there's none else.
And with that statement, God has wiped away the validity of all religions that do not honor him as the only wise God and Savior.
And that's how the prophet Jude puts it, or the Apostle Jude.
So here's a good example of the counsel of the ungodly, which we will see is the same as the counsel of the froward in our verse.
When someone tells you there is no God, that person is ungodly.
Maybe a nice person.
I've known some nice people.
Who just don't believe in anything spiritual whatsoever.
They're worse than the Sadducees.
But that person's not only ungodly, but he's a fool.
Oh, he may have a doctorate degree, be a genius, be a billionaire.
Or excel in some other way, but the Bible tells us this man is a fool.
Psalm 14:1 Says, the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Now let's look back in our text in Job 5:13 at the word froward, because that's whose counsel we are looking at.
Now, froward was a word we studied on Wednesday night a good while back because we were in Proverbs chapter 8, verse 8.
Which says, and this is, remember, this is Solomon writing to his son, giving the wisdom of God to his son, and therefore to us.
All the words of my mouth are in righteousness.
There is nothing froward or perverse in them.
And when we studied that, we learned the word froward means twisted.
Now, righteousness makes the crooked things straight.
Frowardness makes the straight things crooked.
It twists them.
A froured person can take a simple truth and twist it into a lie.
When Jim Jones began his cult down in South America, I believe he began it well before then, but his followers convened in a Desolate country area, and followed him.
He started off with a Bible.
And these were weak, easily misled people.
Some of them may have been Christians, and others I don't know.
But they thought, all right, this guy has a Bible.
He must be credible.
And slowly, he got away from that Bible.
In fact, I saw a video of a time when he was stomping on that Bible.
But he had to lure those people in there.
You see what he did?
He took a straight thing and he made it crooked.
He twisted it.
A froured person confuses rather than clarifying.
And I'm sure you've run across those kinds of people before.
I certainly have, and some of them were preachers.
One of the reasons I'm so thankful, and I mean really thankful, to be in this church, is our pastor.
I've known him for a long time, and we've had lots of deep conversations about the Bible and about the doctrines it teaches.
And if you've been here very long, like five minutes, you would confess that God has given him the ability to take a complicated verse or passage or a doctrine.
Even a whole book, and to make it easier to understand.
The scripture isn't twisted, but my understanding of it sometimes has been.
And I didn't need some pastor to further twist my understanding or to leave it just as twisted as it was.
I needed someone to straighten out my understanding of it.
And sometimes Brother Fulton has done that by simply asking me a question about some belief that I said I had.
Usually that question was, what scripture are you getting that from, brother?
And I usually did it right there.
I don't fall for that as much anymore because that's the first thing I do: go to the scripture first, not say, well, you know, my pastor from this other church used to preach.
It doesn't matter what he preached if it's not right here.
Other times, he would advise me to just read another portion of scripture that would resolve my dilemma.
And on a few occasions, we had some very lengthy conversations about things.
If you've been here long enough, you've heard our pastor teach through Revelation, and you've heard him teach through the Song of Solomon, and those are two of the most difficult books in the Bible to understand.
In fact, some people are even afraid of the book of Revelation.
But if you were faithful to listen to the teaching of those books, You can probably bear witness with me here that much of your confusion was resolved.
Now you may not remember everything you were taught.
But I think you'll remember telling yourself, that makes sense.
Now I understand that.
You were finally able to understand what words mean.
So, thank you, Brother Fulton, and thank you, Lord, for putting me in this church and under his leadership.
Righteous words and godly counsel are the medicine that your confused, misled minds.
Need, but you don't need Froward counsel.
Now, our text tells us the counsel of the Froward is carried headlong.
So let's see what it means to be carried headlong.
There's a single Hebrew word that is translated into the three English words, is carried headlong.
So that comes from one Hebrew word.
And the root of that word means to be liquid, to flow easily.
And it's also translated as the words haste.
And quickly, and other similar words.
So, when something is carried headlong, it is hurried on its way, it's made to flow quickly.
In Genesis chapter 24, Abraham sent his servant to find his son Isaac a wife.
And the servant prayed to the Lord and said, Lord, there's a woman that comes by, and I'm paraphrasing.
Who'll give me to drink water, give me water to drink, give my camels water to drink, that's going to be her.
That's the one I'm looking for.
So the servant came across Rebekah.
Who gave him and his camels water to drink?
In fact, she drew it from a well and took it over to the place they were drinking and poured it.
Now listen to verse 20 for the word hasted, because that's the same as our words carried headlong in the text.
It says, And she hasted and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.
She hasted and she ran again.
Now Rebecca could have slowwalked this water to the trough.
She could have carried only one pitcher, but she hasted.
Her fervent desire was to provide water to this servant and his camels.
That desire carried her headlong to the well.
And next week, we'll continue applying this to our text.
But we're out of time.
Lord, thank you for every person who's come.
Thank you for our visitors, our members, and those who tune in online and those who will watch later on.
Thank you for our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world who join with us through the Internet.
Because they are unable to find a good church where they are.
And we pray that you would direct them to a place where there is not Froward Counsel, but godly counsel.
And where God's word is taught.
And we're so thankful to be in a church where that is the case.
And Lord, it's all by your grace that it happens here.
And as we go into the next hour, We pray that your hand would be upon us and upon the pasture, and that your Son Jesus Christ would be lifted high and glorified, and that your word would be honored and taught, explained, believed upon.
And apply it as we walk out these doors into this dark world.
In Jesus' name, amen.
