that one visit is enough, and people don't need to have me come back again, you see. At least that's the way I look at it. But somebody will discover that this is J.P. Morgan who will make some remark about maybe he'll leave a sizable check for the building fund before he leaves, you know. And I think if I had a nickel for every time I'd heard that, I could leave a sizable gift to the building fund. Then after all, the Lord's going to give you a new name one these days, isn't he? Why are you concerned with the old one? I meet a young lady. I never learn her last name because she's going to get married and change it anyway. Why waste a lot of time? Well, for those of you who have just joined us tonight via satellite, this morning hour, we got well started in the book of Job. I think we're up to chapter fifteen now. Somebody said I was speaking in shorthand this morning. And we're going right along. I'm skipping over the verses I don't know anything about. And so that's why we're already up to Job chapter fifteen. Job chapter number fifteen. And to refresh your minds, or as Peter would say, to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, we notice that there's a pattern that has evolved. And the pattern is that the speakers always speak in the same succession. Eliphaz is always the one who speaks first, and then Job answers him. And then we find that Bildad is the one who always speaks secondly, and then Job answers him. And then there's another fellow, Zophar. He's always the third speaker. And we were sort of amused to note that Zophar's name means to Twitter. And that's what he does. He doesn't say anything new. He simply echoes or re-echoes or reiterates what Eliphaz or Bildad have already said. He puts it in different words, but the subject material doesn't change. We notice also that the two men, especially the first two men, are approaching Job from two different areas. And that is Eliphaz, the chief speaker or the first speaker at least, he says, Now God doesn't punish innocent people. And you've lost your family, you've all lost your material possessions, you lost all your money, you've lost your children, and now you've lost your health, and you have some secret sin within because God doesn't punish innocent people. Far as we can tell, you live a righteous life. You live a spiritual life. And yet God looks upon the heart, and he sees that you have some guilt associated with you. And so this is why all these terrible things have befallen you. And now if you would just confess these things to the Lord, then the Lord would straighten it out, and maybe he'd make you a rich man again, you know, if only you'd do this. And Job reiterates the same thing over and over again. The truth is, but I am a righteous man, and this is taken as being self-righteous. I don't think that's what Job meant at all. He says, I am righteous before God, and tonight he's going to call God his Redeemer. He says, I have been saved from my old sin, you see. God is my Redeemer, and as far as I can tell, I don't have any sin to confess at this point. Sometimes you see the bumper sticker. Christians aren't perfect, but they are forgiven. which sometimes worldly people look at as a cop-out. You cut him off in traffic and you'll say, I'm sorry, I'm not perfect. Well, he knows that already if you cut him off in traffic. But this seems to irritate Eliphaz, that Job maintains his integrity and his righteousness, and this seems to bother Eliphaz because he says, you talk like a self-righteous man, you see. And Job says, as far as I can tell, I am righteous before God. God is my Savior. God is my Redeemer. I am a believer. He's taken care of all my unrighteousness. Therefore, I am a righteous person. Anyway, that's the way they go at it. Eliphah says, God doesn't punish innocent people, and if God is punishing you, then you are guilty of some sin that we don't know about at this time. But if you'll confess it, the Lord will make it right. And then the second speaker, Bill Dad, comes along, and he's thinking more of the kids. And he says there was sin in the lives of your children, and that's why God is punishing you this way. Now, we know the Bible says that the sins of the father go on to the third and fourth generation, but apparently Bildad thinks it goes the other way. You see, the sins of the children affect the father. Well, someone has said insanity is hereditary. You get it from your children. But that seems to be the way that Bildad is thinking. And then Zophar simply echoes and re-echoes and reiterates and so forth whatever has interested him concerning what the other two fellas have said. So we find that poor Job, he's not the wealthy man he used to be, he's not even the healthy man that he used to be. And we see him sitting on the ash heap and scraping his running sores with that broken piece of pottery. And we didn't mention Mrs. Job, but she appears this one time, and she says to him, you remember, how long will you retain your integrity? She says, just curse God and die. Curse God and die. Shake your fist in the face of God, and God will strike you dead with a lightning bolt. Or he'll send a lion to devour you as God did on some occasions, you remember? Or he'll open up the earth alive and you'll go down alive to the pit, and God will take care of you somehow and put you out of your misery. Now, Laman Strauss suggests that maybe she said that because she loved him. Usually we don't think of that, you see, and usually we're not taught that. But it may be that Mrs. Job just couldn't bear to see her husband in such misery. He lost everything. And she says there's only one thing that you can do that would be better, and that is if you just pass off this scene. You'd be rid of your pain and all of these problems and all of your heartache. Why don't you just curse God and die and be finished with the whole thing? Maybe she said that because she loved him. Anyway, that's something for us to think about, isn't it? But then Job, you remember, says to her, you talked like a foolish woman. You know, we didn't have anything when we came into this world. Naked I came into the world, and naked apparently I'm going to leave this world. And everything that we have enjoyed by all this wealth and all of our property and our flocks and our herds and even our children and all the things we have enjoyed are things that God has given to us. Because we didn't have any of this stuff to begin with. I wasn't even born with any kind of a nativity clothing upon me, you see. Naked I came in and apparently naked, I'm going to go out. And everything that we have enjoyed all these years have simply been a part of our stewardship from the Lord. And so say we all in nineteen ninety seven. Someone has said, you know, that, well, there's no U-Haul trailers on the back of a hearse. And I was thinking of a funeral I had in New York City. And this was supposedly the oldest cemetery in New York City, and somebody who lives up there is going to ask me about it, what the name of it was, and I don't know. A courtyard of the angels or something. I don't know what it was, but it was a very old cemetery, a big cemetery in the Bronx. And I had that funeral service, and I was riding in the front seat with the undertaker, whose name was Mr. Maloney. And we, down all these, he says, you know, Mayor Fiorello Liguardi's bodies buried here. And I'm glad he didn't say the Mary's the mayor is buried there, because, you know, you can't bury anybody, you know. You just bury their body, don't you? And I wondered if this guy's a believer. And he says, you know, the body of J.P. Morgan is buried here. I mean, the other one. Not this one. And we came around the corner, and there was a huge three-story sandstone building covered a whole block of that cemetery. And I said, Mr. Maloney, now, Is this the building you use for committal services when the weather is intemperate? He said, no, that's a tomb. Somebody's buried in there. I said, who? Well, he said, I don't know. Some rich fellow. Well, yeah, I figured that, you know. I said, is it a three-story building? And the building had windows in it. What for? What for, you see? And I said, is there anybody else in there? I thought maybe it was for a whole township or a whole tribe or something, you see. And he said, no. The fellow's body is buried there, and his wife's body is buried there, and I think the body of his son, three people, bodies buried in this big place. And I was thinking along the same thing, and Mr. Maloney then said, you know, the Bible says you can't take it with you, but some people take it just as far as they possibly can. And we do, don't we? We do. And you see, Job says, you talk like a foolish woman. You know, you act as if as if we are entitled to all of these things. You act as if these things belong to us. We received all these good things in this easy life from the hand of God. Now, if in God's providential will, He seeks to remove all these things from our life, what have we got to complain about? We never owned these things to begin with, and that's what you and I can say in nineteen ninety seven. You know, the Lord's promise to give us all of our needs, but You know, we have our wants, too. A lot of our wants, don't we? We have more than we need, really. And I see these poor refugees on television, and they got everything they own in a wheelbarrow or tied to a bicycle frame. And here's the little kids hanging on to mama, and these people are fleeing for their lives. And I think of the stuff that we have. And our three-bedroom, two-bath, double-car garages aren't big enough to hold our stuff. So everywhere you look, you find storage buildings, because we have more stuff than we can put in our houses, you see. And I'm indicted by these sorts of things. The Lord gives us a lot of stuff. But I would hope that if, for some reason, maybe another depression, maybe another war that might touch our shores this time, and we should lose all of these things, I hope we Christians wouldn't lose our spiritual victory. The Lord has given. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And that wasn't just words, you see, with Job, because then the Holy Spirit follows it up and says, In all this, Job sinned not. So he wasn't hypocritical when he said that. He really meant it when he said that. So we go from that part up here to Job chapter fifteen, and we enter in to the same pattern that was established this morning hour and which will continue to be the pattern tomorrow morning if the Lord gives it to us. That is, Eliphaz is going to speak first, and then Job's going to answer him. And then Bildad is going to speak secondly, and Job is going to answer him, and then Zophar is going to say what he's going to say. So in chapter fifteen, Eliphaz, still talking to Job about this particular problem that he thinks Job has, mentions in verses seven, eight, and nine of Job chapter fifteen. And he seems to be saying here, this is the danger of you thinking you know it all, or the danger of self-wisdom. Job fifteen, verse seven, Are thou the first man that was born, question mark? Or what's thou made before the hills, question mark? Has thou heard the secret of God, question mark, and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself, question mark? What knowest thou that we know not, question mark? What understandest thou which is not in us? the danger of self-wisdom. And I bring this out tonight because as you and I talk to people about the Lord, we run into this sort of philosophy. We run into this sort of thing, you see. And people that you talk to about spiritual things, especially about getting saved, you'll find that everybody has his own philosophy about what constitutes salvation. Some people today say, well, I believe in reincarnation. I believe that you go around again. You get recycled, you know. And when this body dies because of cancer or heart attack or auto accident or something, you go back into the pool of souls, and then first thing you know, you get another body. Now, hopefully, every body is a little bit better than the body you used to have. And so you get recycled. Now there's some prominent people who promote this sort of philosophy, and you'll run into people who believe that you come back again. And you point out to them the verse in Hebrews that says, It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment. You don't come around again. Aren't you glad of that? Boy, most of us here tonight came through the Depression. I'd hate to have to go through that again. And it pointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment. reincarnation would be a wonderful thing to believe in if you didn't want to face the great white throne judgment of revelation chapter twenty you'd never have to face god finish with this body give me another one i'll go through this thing again and you talk to people that believe that and you know the verse that you that you give to them in this way and a while back i was talking to a man not very long ago and uh I think I was quoting something out of Philippians chapter two, and I said, you know, the Bible says the day is coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And he said, I don't believe that. And you run into people that no matter what you quote, if it strikes a little close to where they're living, they're simply going to say, I don't believe that. And I said to him, oh, I wished I'd had your philosophy on April third, nineteen hundred and ninety. Why? What happened then? I said, that was the morning that I was coming off the garage roof, headed for the concrete driveway down below. And if I had believed what you could believe, on the way down, I could have said, I don't believe in the law of gravity, I don't believe in the law of gravity, and I could have floated right back up onto that garage roof again. I said, my friend, just simply because you say you don't believe it, it don't mean that it's not so. And there's a lot of people who say, oh, I don't believe that. As if that dismisses the whole thing, you see. And people are filled with this self-wisdom that Eliphaz thinks that Job had, you see. And you run into these people and they have all the, well, I think if I follow the golden rule, I think if I go to church on Sunday, I think if I pay my taxes on time or this sort of a thing, and you hear people saying, you know, so-and-so is a fine Christian man, he gave a thousand dollars to the cancer fund last year, as if that makes him a fine Christian man, you see. And so this is the danger of self-wisdom. And everybody that you talk to that is not a believer is going to have some sort of homemade theology that supposedly satisfies them. And you have to talk to them about these things, you see. The danger of self-wisdom, verses seven through nine. Now, you come in that same chapter, chapter fifteen down to verse fourteen. And verse fourteen, fifteen and sixteen. And he says here, What is man that he should be clean? And he who is born of a woman that he should be righteous. Behold, he puteth no trust in his saints, speaking here about God. Yay, the heavens are not clean in his sight. Well, the Lord says we're going to get a new heaven and a new earth, so that's true. Verse sixteen, how much more abominable and filthy is man who drinketh iniquity like water? So here now, Eliphaz is saying, you know, God is holy. God is pure and man is not holy. Man is impure. God is sinless. Man is sinful. And we would agree with that. And I think Job would agree with that. He says precisely. But you see where Eliphaz is going with this. Now, there's a holy God. There's a pure God. But you are a human being. You are not pure. You are not sinless. You are sinful. And I think Job would go along with that. And then I think the next thing that Eifers would do is say, that's what I'm talking about. You're filled with self-righteousness. You need to confess your sin so God can bring these things back again. But we would agree with that. And how do you get into the presence of God, you see? Well, a person needs to be saved. All of his sins are cleansed away. All of his sins are cleansed away, made righteous by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what the Word of God says. All these things are done. God is holy, man is sinful. In verse eleven of this chapter, we have, are the consolations of God small with thee? The consolations of God. Then you turn over the New Testament to Book of Philippians chapter number two and verse number one. Philippians chapter two and verse number one. If or since, since there are therefore certain consolations in Christ, since there are then a comfort, since there is then a comfort of love, since there is a fellowship of the Spirit, since there are bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, etc., etc. The consolations of God. Consolations of God. Now remember what Peter says. Peter says that because the age of grace continues so long that scoffers shall arise, saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation, which is not true. They leave out Noah's flood, they leave out the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, but this is what they want to believe. And the world today believes, and I saw it in the paper last week, believes in the cyclical view of history. That is, history on earth is just a series of cycles over and over again. One generation follows another. Man is bored, man gets married, man brings children into the world, the generations come along, and that generation buries the prior generation, and that's the way thing goes on until finally some madman in the world pushes a red atomic button and incinerates us all. Now, you read in your Bible that said, no, history is not cyclical. It is the drama viewpoint of history. that the whole thing is headed somewhere. One dispensation follows another until the culmination is according to God's will and word. But Peter says, because this era is so long and drawn out, man say, well, this age of grace is going on now for nearly two thousand years, therefore we assume nothing is going to happen. And your Bible says, now wait a minute now, The reason this is so long is that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, you see. And you and I live in an age that believes that. Every once in a while, some religious group somewhere thinks they know exactly the minute when the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back to earth. And I talked with one of those folks one time. They were out in California. Well, that's bad enough as it is, isn't it? Being out there. C-A-L-I-F stands for Come and Live in Florida. But I talked to this fellow and I said, what did you do? Well, he said, we took our kids out of school. Why should kids have an education? It's going to be with the Lord, see. A lot of us hadn't paid our mortgage payments for several months. One of our group went out and bought a brand new Buick. I said, what did he do that for? He never had a brand new Buick. He wanted to have a brand new Buick. And then he said, we put on white robes and we went up to the top of the highest mountain we could get to. He said, what did you do that for? He said, we wanted to make it as easy for God as possible. that God didn't have to exert so much strength to lift us out of the valleys. We're already halfway to glory, you see. But you know, the time came and went, and the Lord didn't come for them. And a lot of them lost their homes. A lot of the kids failed the grades. And that guy lost his Buick. And you see, every time somebody does that, the Lord's going to come eight o'clock Tuesday morning, the Lord doesn't come. It makes this world a little bit more cynical or skeptical. And even amongst Christians, you talk about the coming of the Lord, and they turn their minds off. You can see them turning their minds off. Oh, I've heard this before. Be ready. Be ready. I know I've heard this before. So now we have a cartoon character, the prophet, who says the end of the world is near. We put him now on the cartoon page of the paper, because it's a funny thing, you see. It's a funny thing. And so this is what Eliphaz is saying, and this is what Job is replying, the consolations of God, such as we have over there, the consolations of God because God is so patient and He is not willing that any should perish. Even though there are scoffers that come along and say, where's the promise of His coming? This does not deter God. God says there's folks yet that need to be saved, need to be saved. And He's willing to endure this abuse and this criticism if it can mean the salvation of more souls along the way. All right, that's what Eliphah said. Now, is Job's turn to reply to him. And Job replies to Eliphah in chapters sixteen and seventeen. And in verse fifteen of chapter sixteen, Job says this, or says this about Job. Job says, I have sowed sackcloth upon my skin and defile my horn on the dust. And I went back to the beginning because it seems if I read something about when these crivations really came upon Job, and sure enough, it said, Job rent his mantle. He tore his robe. Well, apparently he took that robe off, and now he has clothed himself in sackcloth. I repent, you might say, in sackcloth and ashes. Well, this is what he is doing, you see, in this area. But then I thought, there might be people today that put on sackcloth that doesn't mean a thing. You know, and I found over here in Second Corinthians, chapter seven, Second Corinthians chapter seven, where Paul by the Holy Spirit speaks about this. Second Corinthians chapter seven and verse nine to begin with. Second Corinthians chapter seven verse nine. Paul says, Now I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance. That's the real sorrow, isn't it? You sorrowed to repentance, for ye were made sorry after a godly manner. that you might receive damage by us and nothing. Now in case that slipped by them, he repeats the same thing in the next verse. Verse ten, Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. Now you can talk to people today, they're just as sorry as they can be because they've sinned the particular sins that they have sinned. They see that the sin that they have sinned has cost them their job, it's cost them maybe their marriage, It's cost them their relationship with their children. Maybe it's cost them their property. Maybe it's cost them their health. And they are sorry they made those choices. But that doesn't save them. That's just the worldly sorrow. And the thing that saves a person is godly sorrow, you see. A soul winner, I heard in one of the meetings, a soul winner trying to lead another fellow to the Lord. And the fellow was weeping. And the soul winner said, are you weeping because you recognize you need the Lord in your life? Or are you weeping because you were found out in this sin? The fellow said, I'm weeping because I was found out in this sin. And you can talk to people today and you can say, you see what sin has done in your life? It's cost to your health. It's going to probably bring on an early death for you. It's cost to your marriage. It's cost to this. And they'll say, yes, I'm sorry I did that. But that doesn't save them. A godly sorrow. So Job, you've clothed yourself in sackcloth, but simply because people today clothe themselves in sackcloth doesn't mean that they become saved. And the Lord is speaking about a godly sorrow. I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. So David might say in Psalm fifty-one, you see. I've done this terrible thing, Lord, as unto you. So Job replies concerning those things. Now, I was interested also, as I read through this, in chapter sixteen of the book of Job. and you begin reading in verse nine and you go down through verse number twenty two and I want you to see in it and this this will take some study on your part at some other time I want you to see in those verses foreshadowings of the Messiah himself and what Job says about himself you say well now that could apply to the Lord Jesus from what you know about him in Psalm twenty two and Psalm sixty nine you see and so you're in Job chapter sixteen and you start here with about verse number nine And it sounds a lot like the Lord. He tareth me in his wrath, who hateeth me. He gnashes upon me with his teeth. My enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. Think what the Lord said concerning himself. All my bones are out of joy. The bulls of Bation have set themselves against me. They have gaped upon me with their mouth. Didn't the Lord say that? They have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully. Didn't they do that? They smote him upon the cheek and said, prophesy who it is that struck thee, you know. And then you read in Isaiah chapter fifty-three that his visage was so marred that you couldn't even tell that he was a human being. Now every once in a while, dear friends, you're going to be exposed again to the shroud of Turin. And was this really the burial cloth that was wrapped around the body of the Lord Jesus Christ? And you can read the description of the shroud of Turin and you read down through it and it'll tell you this. Whoever this person was, he was a very handsome man. And that's as far as you need to read. You say, that's not what Isaiah fifty-three tells about the Lord who died for me. His visage was so marred, he couldn't even be recognized as a human being. Furthermore, supposedly the shroud of Turin shows this man had some sort of a beard and what's your Bible tell you about the beard of the Lord Jesus Christ. My beard have they plucked out by the roots. So you say, this is a religious relic, all right. But it's not the burial robe, you see, that was around my Lord and Savior, because it doesn't jive. It doesn't harmonize with Isaiah chapter fifty-three. And so you read about these things. They gaped upon me. They smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully. They have gathered themselves together against me. Here's all the soldiers in the barracks hall. God hath delivered me to the ungodly and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but he has broken me asunder. He has also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark. You have to be kind of generous in some of these things. His archers compass me round about and so on and so forth. We won't take time with that. But anyway, that goes down through from verse number nine, down through verse twenty-two, and I challenge you to read it and find in it foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what Job says concerning his desperate situation, can be applied in general measure to the situation of the Lord Jesus Christ when he was upon the cross for us. And so that's Job's reply. Now, Eliphaz has spoken, Job has replied. Now it's Bill Dad's turn as the second speaker. And Bill Dad's speech encompasses chapter eighteen of our book. Bill Dad speaks in chapter eighteen without reading the whole thing. He generally says in chapter eighteen, well, a man reaps what he sows. and you're reaping all this desperate situation, this is what you yourself have earned. Now, this is a wonderful thing to try to encourage a fellow with. But you read also, you say, well, that sounds a lot like the New Testament. Sounds a lot like Galatians chapter number six, doesn't it? Galatians chapter number six, where it speaks about these things. And the word there is, Galatians chapter six and verse number seven. Galatians six and verse number seven, be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. And usually that's as far as we go with that verse. Usually every time we read this passage, we always think of it in a negative sense. Well, he died in that condition, but he didn't have to, but he just reaped what he sowed. But you know, there's also a positive thrust to this truth. So you go on to read in verse number eight, He who sows to the Spirit... shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. If it's bad seed, you reap a bad crop. But if it's good seed, you reap a good crop. Again, let me tell you. Let me talk to you about one of my relatives. I could tell you all night about my relatives. I learned that from Tom Taylor. Talk about your relatives. They aren't going to leave you anything anyway, so talk about your relatives. But it was my brother's father-in-law. He's with the Lord now. He had lung cancer and he had months and months and months of very severe pain and I used to go by and see him and I'd hold his hand and every once in a while he'd have a spasm of pain and sometimes I think he's going to break my hand and then the spasm would pass and he tried to get his mind on something else and he said who was the fellow that made the chapel sign I said oh that was that was twenty years ago I can't remember what I had for lunch and we'd think about it we'd get his last name or his first name we'd have And here comes another spasm of pain. He nearly crushed my hand. And then it would pass. And he'd say, what was the name of that boy that we had trouble with in the Sunday school? I said, I could give you fifty names there. No, no, no. He said, no, there was one fellow who brought a knife to Sunday school, and he pulled a knife on one of the other kids. And we told his mother about it, and the mother said, my boy wouldn't do that. Anyway, she got some head. The family left the chapel, so we didn't have that problem anymore. But then he'd say this, my friend lying on his bed of pain, he'd say, they ought not to do that. And I said, who ought not to do what? He said, people. People ought not to do that. And I said, what people ought not to do what? And he said, people who do so many things for my wife and me. I said, well, what do these people do? Well, they bring supper in. And they come in and clean our house. And the men come by and cut our grass and wash the car and And they ought not to do that. And I said, why shouldn't they do that? Well, he says, they've got their own lives to lead. They've got other things to do. And I said, wait a minute now. And I pointed him to this passage in Galatians six. I said, you now and your wife are simply reaping the seed that you sowed in the lives of others all these years. Now you let people bring some goodness into your life because this is what they want to do because they love you. And this, according to the Word of God, is something to which you are entitled. You really believe that? I said, let me read it for you again. Galatians chapter six. And you are simply reaping now all the good fruit of the good seed that you have sown. And friends, that's the way it works. That's the way it works. There's so little that we can do for one another when there's desperate illness and these sorts of things. But when a person is on the receiving end of all these things, They are entitled to that because they have sowed the good seed. Well, we need to hurry along, don't we? Build dead speech. Whatsoever a man sows. Job's reply is in chapter nineteen of our book. And in verses twenty-five, twenty-six and twenty-seven, this is what Job says. I know that my Redeemer liveth. Isn't that a wonderful verse? You hear it at funeral services, but there's nobody dead here. These are living people that are saying this. I know that my Redeemer liveth. And then you tapped Job on his shoulder and said, Wait a minute, wait a minute now. I remember that you said back there in the book that bears your name, chapter number nine, you said you don't understand how God is going to redeem you because there's no umpire, there's no referee, there's no mediator between God and man. And there has to be, this person has to be deity and this person has to be perfect man. so that he knows God's heart in the matter and he knows man's heart in the matter. And Job, you've told us back there in Job chapter nine that no such person exists. How can you now make a statement like this, I know that my Redeemer liveth? And Job might say, I don't know how he's going to do it, but he's going to do it. And friends, that's faith. That's faith. And we walk by faith, not by sight, you see. And God gives you a promise. And somebody says, explain it to me. And you say, I can't explain it to you, but I know it's going to happen. I know it's going to happen, you see. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, he said. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Did Joe believe in celestial oblivion, eternal unconsciousness, soul sleep? No, no, he didn't believe in that. In my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine I shall behold, and not another. though my reins be consumed within me. All have forsaken me except God, Job's saying here. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and I believe that when all this is done, when I pass off this scene, and though my skin worms destroy this body, yet I know that in my flesh shall I see God. They might eat my eyes, but God's going to give me eyes. How can I see him if he doesn't give me eyes, you see? And then later on, you remember over there in Second Corinthians, Paul gets caught up to the third heaven, and two or three times he says, whether I was in the body or out of the body, I can't tell. If I was out of the body, I had all the sensations or feelings of being in the body. And I heard things, you see, that I'm not allowed to say. And I had all of these wonderful experiences, and it may be while Paul's body was lying dead there, you know, on the streets after he'd been stoned to death. He wasn't hindered in any way at all, you see, in these things. That's what Job mentions here in this place. Job's reply was, also forsaken me but God. Now, chapter twenty, here comes the yes-man, the twitterer in chapter number twenty, and he simply says if you add up all the verses in chapter number twenty, you simply come to the conclusion of Zophar saying, Sin's pleasures are not lasting. And you say, well, that's a combination of the speech and life as is made, together with the speech that Bildad has made. And Zophar has a great way of digesting things and then spilling them out to you in shorthand, as it were. He says, Sin's pleasures are not lasting. And you say, well, that's true enough. We have to agree with you there, Zophar. You're absolutely right there. And I was reading again today, as you usually hear again, if you will, in a funeral oration. And that is the book of Ecclesiastes chapter twelve. The last chapter of that book of Ecclesiastes Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, and the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. And we believe that today. So we have Sunday school, and we try to reach the boys and girls. And we have vacation Bible schools, and we try to reach the boys and girls. And we have telephone ministries, and child evangelism fellowship, and all different areas of trying to reach boys and girls, to get them for the Lord before the devil gets a hold of them, when it's so hard. when it's so hard for a person to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. I was at a meeting one time and somebody says, how many people here were saved before they were nine years of age? And about three-fourths of the folks in the congregation raised their hand. Three-quarters of the people are saved before they're nine. And that's what your Bible says. Reach out and get the kids, you see, in this area. Verse two, while the sun or the light nor the moon nor the stars be not darkened, Age goes on. They need glasses and all these things. Now the clouds return after the rain. And the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, the knees begin to give way. The strong men shall bow themselves. The legs go. The grinders cease because there are few. There go the teeth. And those who look out of the windows be darkened. There's a problem with eyesight. The door shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low and shall rise up in the voice of the bird. And all the daughters of music shall be brought low. Well, you know how that scripture goes. It's a picture of getting older, isn't it? And things begin to fail, and things begin to break down, and we need all sorts of help, and we have to have heart patients, and we have to have hearing aids, and we have to have bifocal glasses. And Eddie Schwartz, who has been here, I think, several different times, says you enter into the age of the four B's. You get bifocals, and you get bunions, and you get... What's the other thing? No, no, not bald heads. He didn't mention that. He wouldn't dare mention that. Batteries is one of them. The four B's. Anyway, you see, I'm illustrating what I'm talking about. I can't remember what he said. But Zophar says this. And he adds up what the other two fellows have said. And he said, Sin's pleasures are soon over with. Well, yeah, we agree with that. And Job would agree with that. And Zophar, Zophar, he haven't told us anything we hadn't already known. All right, this is the last thing now. And Job replies to Zophar in chapter twenty-one, verses thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen. Chapter twenty-one, verse thirteen says, They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. Now that strikes a responsive chord in your mind while you think of it. And you say, Now that's Romans chapter one. Inasmuch as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up, God gave them up, God gave them over. And people say to me, how can God send people to hell? I said, God doesn't send people to hell. I said, what more barriers or barricades could God put across the pathway of life to keep people from going to hell? Age of grace now is nearly two thousand years old. Here's the living word. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. Here's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. What more could God do? And a fellow said to me a week or so ago, he says, I think that when a person dies, God ought to open the doors of heaven and just let everybody in. Well, I was taught that when I was a kid. How do you get to heaven? You die. That's the way you get to heaven. I said, If the Lord admitted sinners to his heaven, that would become a hell to that person. A person who can't bear to spend one hour listening about the Lord Jesus Christ and singing the praise of the Lord would be up there for all of eternity, endless eternity, that heaven would become a hell to him. What more could God do? People make decisions, don't they? They say, I don't want to be saved. And this is what is recorded here by Job. He says these things. Therefore they say, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. And that's Romans one. We notice this morning what great harmony there is between Old Testament and New Testament. Verse fifteen they say, What is the Almighty that we should serve him? And what profit should we have if we pray unto him? Lo, their good is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked, he says, is far from me and so on and so forth. What is the Almighty that we should obey him? And we close with this. psalm number seventy-three. You remember how that goes? The person, Asaph, who was so discouraged because he looked around about him and he said, we Christians don't have a very good time of it. It seems as if the Lord loves sinner folks more than he loves us. And so he says in psalm seventy-three, as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. And I tell you this, friends, a faint heart is going to make for falling feet. A faint heart is going to make for falling feet. There are no bands in their death. Their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men. Neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasses them, bowed as a chain. Violence covers them as a garment. That's the way he feels all the way down to verse sixteen. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me until what? Until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then understood I therein. And Asaph says, I was looking in the wrong direction. I was looking horizontally when I should have been looking vertically. And isn't that true of us today when we get discouraged and we say, well, it seems if the Lord loves everybody else more than he loves me, I don't know if we'd ever verbalize that, but we sometimes begin to think that way until I went into the sanctuary of God. And then he completely changes his mind, you see. And that's the way we live today, isn't it? the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. And it's a great thrill to know that every minute that we live, we're that much closer to seeing the Lord Jesus Christ as he is. What a joyous homecoming. Well, we'll continue on, Lord willing, in the morning meeting if the Lord gives it to us. Shall we bow together in prayer? Our Father and our God, we do give you thanks again for the truths of the Word of God. And Father, we thank you for such a man as Job. And, Father, we thank you for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, who has seen fit to incorporate in the Holy Word of God the story of Job. We pray, Father, that we might follow his good points and emulate the faith and the trust that he had when he might say, I don't know how God is going to do it, but I know God is going to do it. And, Father, we might be encouraged by these flashes and these rays of light that burned through the apparent darkness of his experience at the time. Continue to bless, Father, we pray that we ask that the ministry of the Holy Spirit might be such that he would find it easy to take portions of the Word of God that we have need of and apply them to our hearts. We pray, Father, blessing upon all these who have gathered here in the homes and the families that we represent and the folks that we're trying to witness to and live before, that, Father, we might be encouraged.