Book of Job

Come to chapter 38, and this, of course, is where God appears on the scene, and as it says, He answered Job out of the whirlwind. So, the last chapter, mainly chapter 37, we did see from time to time a reference that Eli, he would refer to the lightning and the thunder, and so it is as though the setting was that this very powerful storm was coming. And I think that's something living here in this part of the country we can all relate to whenever we're just about to get blasted. And then, when God begins speaking, it is a rumbling beyond anything maybe we can imagine, but I think the Israelites there at Mount Sinai could, because it didn't take them long to say, Moses, why don't you go talk to Him and tell us what He said? Because it was terrifying. So, verse 1, then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now, let's pause right there. As these final chapters proceed, we will notice that God does not directly answer Job's questions. Job's questions are not really the heart of the issue, but instead, God turns the tables and He asks Job a series of questions, and these are questions that no human being could possibly answer. For the first time, Job's answer is silence. All through the book, whenever one of the friends spoke, he always had a rebuttal. He always came back and said, Well, you're wasting your words, and you don't understand. And he was right, because they didn't understand. But now, all of a sudden, he's going to turn silent. He has cried out for what I call his day in court, that he wanted to appear before God to state his case. And now, he has it. And lo and behold, God starts speaking, and God starts asking questions, and Job has nothing to say. It is interesting that God uses Job's ignorance of the natural order of things to reveal his ignorance of God's providence. God is the one who told Moses long before, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. And God chooses these things. God hated Esau. He chose Jacob. He does not explain why.

And one of the great themes of the book is, are we willing to leave our unanswered questions in God's capable hands and just simply trust him to bring out the best in the end as he sees fit. If Job does not understand how the physical creation is put together, how could he possibly understand the mind and character of God? How could he understand how and why God does anything that he does? God is our standard. He's the standard of judgment. And the only option a limited human has is to choose to submit to God's authority and trust in him to know what is best. As we read verse 2, God basically makes his first point by saying, Job, you don't have one clue as to what you are talking about. And so I will ask you. Verse 3, now prepare yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me. So, Job, it's time to man up. Or in some areas we might say, cowboy up because you're going to have the spotlight on you and the ball be in your hands. Or in the New Testament, a number of times it uses the term gird up your loins. Gird up your loins. So, verse 4, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Suddenly, I suppose Job realized I am in trouble. I'm in trouble here. Who measured its measurements? Surely you know, or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened, or who laid its cornerstone? So, he uses construction terms. And those were things that Job could understand. The laying out, the squaring up of a foundation, the stretching out of a line, the precise measurements. And Job, where were you when I was doing that with the universe? Verse 7 is a very important scripture that we're probably well familiar with. When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Now, we have stars used more than once in the Bible to represent an angel. One of the key references would be Revelation 1, verse 20. Revelation 1, verse 20, in that description John saw of the glorified Christ. He was standing in the midst of seven candlesticks that were the churches, and then there were these seven stars. Verse 20 said, the stars are the angels of the churches. So, more than once. And so, we have to look at this phrase, the morning stars shouted for joy. Excuse me, sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy. Now, sons of God, that's a phrase we look at the context. Wherever it is used, and the context will reveal to us what it is referring to. Sons of God in the Bible, what ways is it used that phrase?

We are the children of God. So, yes, that's one use of the term, sons of God, the converted, spirit-led, sons and daughters of God, children of God, right now. So, what else? Sons of God, well, the son of God, that would be another one. Christ is the son of God.

All right? Genesis 6 is a good one. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, they were fair, and yet from the context. Now, there are those that go off track, and they say angels were having intimate relations with women and these giants. No, no. Two different types, the spirit being of flesh and blood, the human being. The sons of God, there, would have referred to human beings. Obviously, they were cut off from God. They were not obeying God. The world, the earth was filled with wickedness at that time, it says. And, of course, you've got the... And Luke 3 gives a genealogy of Christ that counts backward, and it goes all the way back. I think it's verse 38 is the last verse, and it says, Adam, who was the son of God? So, in a sense, all of humanity falls under that generic term, son of God, male and female. The children of God. So, it's used a number of ways, but in this case, it has to be referring to the angelic created sons of God. The righteous angels had been created before the physical universe was formed. They shouted for joy whenever it took place. All right, verse 8. God here speaks about the sea and the control that he has over it.

And if we get all filled with our own self-importance and think that we're really somebody cutting a wide swath in life, just go to the ocean and try to hold back the tide. And then we realize, you know, we have no strength. We have no power. Or who shut up the sea with doors when it burst forth and issued from the womb. When I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness, its swaddling band, when I fixed my limit for it and set bars and doors, when I said, this far you may come and no farther. And here your proud waves must stop. Now, in verse 12, he speaks about the morning when light breaks forth over the earth in the next few verses. Have you commanded the morning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its place? You know, it just amazes me someone here to ask about earlier the time, how long the day is in Alaska right now. You know, we just got back from there. The sun is setting at about 11.20 pm. So, you know, they've got about four more hours of daylight. But then, like here, it comes up. What is day back here? Okay.

I think it's before 6 up there. So, they've got basically six hours of dark, but the sun goes below the horizon. And at night, it's as light as a full moon night here. So, but God determines all of that. And then in six months in Alaska and places up north, they're going to have a window for six hours of daylight and then most of it dark. And if you're above the Arctic Circle, then you don't even have the sun come up. Okay. Verse 13, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth and the wicked be shaken out of it. One of the many places where it lackons light to illuminating the forces of wickedness and evil. It takes on form like clay under a seal and stands out like a garment. From the wicked, their light is withheld and the upraised arm is broken. Now, in the next three verses, he talks about, well, here, the, have you entered the springs of the earth? Have you talked, have you walked in search of the depths? Well, man can't even go down into the depths except what he has built these little mini subs or who is a ballard who has the equipment to go down. They found the Titanic and, but they're, you know, like off the Philippines, the Mariana Trench goes up toward Japan. It's so deep. There's no, no light down there. Man knows very little. We really don't know what's down in some of those places. Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the doors of the shadow of death? You know, there is that point where life ends. It was there once and then the next second it's gone. And we don't understand it. We don't know, we know the effect, but there's so much that is a mystery of man. Some people have these near-death experiences and then everybody wants to know, what was it like? What did you see? What did you hear? Verse 18, have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell me if you know all of this. Now, Job didn't have the internet. He may have understood a lot more than we dream of, but I could go the internet and I looked it up and the circumference of the earth I found on several sites at the equator is 24,901 miles, 0.55. So little over 24,901.5 miles around. Could Job have known that? I don't know. I don't think so. Time zone. One of time zones. That's a more modern thing man has. But anyhow, God understands all of that, everything about time. Verse 19, where is the way to the dwelling of light and darkness? Where is its place? That you may take it to its territory? That you may know the depths to its home? Do you know it because you were born there or because the number of your days is great? God's pointing out, Job, you really don't know one thing about light or the absence of light. And you need to not talk as much about things you don't know anything about. Verse 22, have you entered the treasury of snow? I mean, the things I read about snow. I mean, we realize seven billion human beings and no set of fingerprints is identical.

Research has taken the human voice. And oftentimes, you know, we're down here in the south, you pick up the phone and people don't say, hi, this is Farris, I'm calling you. We just don't do it that much.

Except for our years on Deep South, you go out to Texas, you go out to California and far northeast Tennessee, you pick up the phone and the person says, well, hi, this is David so and so, and I'm calling. But in the south, we don't do that. But usually when the person says a few words, if it's someone you know well, you've got it. And that's even without caller ID to look at.

Oh, I was going to have that thought was going to take me to snow. Apparently snowflakes.

There is there are no two that are identical. They're all different. Let's see verse 22, latter part. Have you seen the treasury of hail, which I reserved for the time of trouble for the day of battle and war? You may remember in Joshua 10, the great overthrow God was giving Joshua the several kings came together. Of course, the sun stood still later. But then there was a time where there was hail that destroyed more than the Israelite did in battle.

By what way is light diffused or the east wind scattered over the earth? So God has all the forces of nature at His command and He can unleash them or He can restrain them at will. He designed the laws by which they work and no limited human even fully understands what they are rain, snow, sleet, hail, and yet God has full control over them. So if Job doesn't understand the basics of water in its various forms, how can he judge and question God?

Let's just skim a few verses here. 25, who has divided a channel for the overflowing water or a path for the thunderbolt. There are times that we've all seen lightning that comes from one end of the sky all the way to the other. Recently we had a storm where it seemed like most of it was cloud to ground. And that's the type that terrifies us more than that which just lightens up the whole sky. And yeah, it sobers us and humbles us, but when it's just up there in the clouds, that's one thing. To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one. A wilderness in which there is no man to satisfy the desolate waste and cause to spring forth the growth of tender grass. You see some of these nature shows and out places like the Serengeti. You've got these vast migrations, tens of thousands of wildebeest and other animals heading for a certain area because they know it is about time for the rains to come. And when the rains come, it is this this verdant garden of Eden once again where they can birth their calves and thrive until they can move back. Has the rain a father who has begotten the drops of dew from whose womb comes the ice and the frost of heaven? Who gives it birth? The water hardens like stone and the surface of the deep is frozen. Years ago, I read something about ice. Water is unique. Normally, you know, when it freezes, normally when the mass is such, it gets heavier and it drops. But with water, the molecules arrange in a, what is it, a hexagon, six molecules. And the, now I'm getting in over my head with these scientific things, but the heavier parts of the molecules move to the outside, leaving the lighter to the inside, which gives it tendency to float. And so when it gets cold enough here, there'll be a skim of ice on top of the water, not down at the bottom of the of the pond. And somebody thought that all out. In fact, he designed it in advance.

Verse 31, he speaks of some of the constellations out there in the universe. Can you bind to the cluster of the Pleiades or loose the belt of Orion?

Can you bring out Maseroth in its season? Or can you guide the great bear with its cubs? And these are all constellations. Do you know the ordinance of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth? 34. Can you lift up your voice to the clouds that an abundance of water may cover you?

Can you send out lightnings that they go and say to you, here we are? Who has put wisdom in the mind? Who has given understanding to the heart? Well, we know that that comes from God.

Solomon understood that and asked for that early on. When he wrote the book of Proverbs, he was passing along things where from God would teach wisdom to someone who would listen.

Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Four-fourths the bottles of heaven when the dust darkens, the clumps, and the clods cling together. Can you hunt the prey for the lion or satisfy the appetite of the young lions when they crouch in their dens or lurk in their lairs to lie and wait? Who provides food for the raven? So, you know, God's the one who sets everything in order. There is a intricate design. There's a marvelous instinct in these various animals where they know where to go, and God provided for that. And man just studies it, and we marvel at it, but we sure can't set it in order and make it happen. Chapter 39 we have continuing God has asked Job at the end of the previous chapter a little bit about some of the creatures of the animal world around us. These questions were to demonstrate Job's lack of knowledge about physical things. And in fact, as it goes on, it becomes clear that God's not seeking answers from Job because he knows that Job cannot answer. But by means of the questioning process, somewhere along the line, Job must have begun to recognize God's power is limitless, and his sovereignty over all is absolute. And that includes Job and what happened to Job, and what would happen to Job afterward, and that a man has no business in questioning God about what's going on. In chapter 39, do you know the time when the wild mountain goats bear young? Can you mark when the deer give birth? Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they bear young? They bow down, they give forth their young, they deliver their offspring, their young ones are healthy, they grow with grain, they depart and do not return to them. So this is something that we observe with especially your wild animals, the domesticated animals, maybe not quite as much, but still a phenomenal, you know, a calf is born and in short order gets up on its feet, it's pretty shaky, but a few days of nursing with the early days of the milk with the colostrum and all, they have a strength and they're running bounding around, and goats are the same, and little chicks are the same, and yet much more so with the wild beasts. I mentioned documentaries like On the wildebeests or Caribou migrations up north, and the little ones are born and within minutes they're just scattering around because there are going to be predators, preying on them at that early age.

So verse 5, who set the wild donkey free? He shifts verses 5 through 8 to this wild ass or wild donkey. Who loosed the bonds of the onager? Whose home I made the wilderness, the barren land his dwelling, he scorns the tumult of the city. He does not heed the shouts of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture. He searches after every wild thing.

I read some of the pioneers moving out west and as we got through the Civil War and then the era of the great cattle, not migrations, but the cattle drives up to the railheads, and then you go out further west and in New Mexico and Colorado and Arizona, backing up some of the high alpine valleys. They begin finding thousands and thousands of wild horses and again gathering them up.

They'd been out there for who knows how long. The Spaniards had been there three or four hundred years earlier and left some of the horses behind.

They thrived. God took care of them. God created them in a way to thrive out there in the middle of nowhere. Verse 9, the wild ox. Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will he bed by your manger? Will you bind the wild ox in the furrow with ropes?

Or will he plow the valleys behind you? Will you trust him because his strength is great? Or will you leave your labor to him? Will you trust him to bring home your grain and gather it to your threshing floor? Well, of course not. This is where the King James Version uses the term unicorn, which I'm glad they changed it. We don't know what a unicorn is if it was just a mythical beast or if there really was something. But the crest of Great Britain, it's interesting that there is a lion and there is this unicorn on the other hand.

Anyhow, just something that may have been and is gone or maybe it was just misunderstood and should be wild ox. But at any rate, a powerful animal with great strength. Verse 13, down through 18, it talks about the ostrich. The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but her wings and pinyons like the kindly storks, for she leaves her eggs on the ground and warms them in the dust. She forgets that a foot may crush them or that a wild beast may break them.

And there again, maybe we live far away from where ostriches are native. And in some of the documentaries that perhaps you've seen, you'll see where she's got this little clustering of eggs, not really much of a nest, just kind of there. And she'll run animals or run people off and protect them to a certain point. But she's also kind of clumsy and she might step on one or knock one and then it be lost.

But she treats her young harshly as though they were not hers. Her labor is in vain. Of course, if you have a bunch of little ones, an ostrich, a huge body underneath that long neck and head, and the baby is right underneath her, she can't see them anyhow. And so they're kicked around and maybe injured, maybe killed, even just by the way mother may turn, move, and run. Because God deprived her of wisdom and did not endow her with understanding. When she lifts herself on high, she scorns the horse and its rider. Just a speed and an endurance.

I mean, all she is is powerful thigh muscles and not a whole lot of weight beyond that. Now verse 19, he shifts to the horse. Have you given the horse strength? Have you clothed in his neck with thunder? Can you frighten him like a locust? His majestic snorting strikes terror. He paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength. He gallops into the clash of arms. And that's why throughout history it's been such a valuable asset in warfare to have a cavalry to charge fearlessly into other cavalry or into foot soldiers or into archers.

And the horse charges right in. And yes, I mean, it's hard to fathom in World War I when horses were still used and mules a great deal. It's hard to fathom how many tens of thousands had to have been killed with firearms or artillery or whatever. He gallops into the clash of arms. He mocks at fear, he is not frightened, nor does he turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and javelin. He devours the distance with fierceness and rage. He does not come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded. At the blast of the trumpet he says, Aha! He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of captains and shouting.

Well, the chapter last few verses ends with looking at the hawk. Does the hawk fly by your wisdom? Well, obviously no. Spread its wings toward the south. Does the eagle mount up at your command and make its nest on high? On the rock it dwells and resides on the crag of the rock and the stronghold. Some of them build nests way up high on the clouds. Little rocky outcropping and they then bear young and they bring food and feed the young. But the time comes when the young have to jump off of there.

And sometimes it's not a very pretty picture to see them fall and bounce and bounce and bounce and then get up and run off. I mean, depending on the type of bird. Some of them just sail off and it's not a very pretty sail, but they at least get down and they build their strength as the time goes on.

From there, it spies out the prey. Its eyes observe from afar. Its young ones suck up blood. Where the slain is, there it is. Again, man has been able to determine that what we might be able to see at a few hundred feet, a hawk, an eagle can see from two miles away. Just an eyesight, a keenness to the distance. Eyesight beyond anything we can imagine and understand. Chapter 40, verses 1 and 2, God essentially tells Job that you have been attempting to correct and rebuke me.

So we'll continue here. Verse 1, Moreover the Lord answered Job. So whenever it says moreover, it's kind of like we saw earlier, it's like there was a pause does the, you know, like Zophar. You know, he had his third address potentially, but he just had nothing to say. But it said moreover, and then he went Job went on. Well, here it's like God paused if Job would have anything to say, and then he kept going.

Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct him, he who rebukes God, let him answer it. So then we have a very brief statement by Job, and essentially he says, I haven't known what I'm talking about. I'm going to cover my mouth and hush up. Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile.

What shall I answer you? I lay my hand over my mouth once I have spoken, but I will not answer. Yes, twice, but I will proceed no farther.

Do we demand answers when things don't go our way? You know, Job was doing that up until this point. Do we demand answers when we don't get the information we thank God owes us?

Maybe it's something for us to ponder. Do we expect God to tell us the reason why we lose a job, or have a sickness, or have a loved one die, or have someone who suffers and isn't healed? God doesn't promise that he's going to give us all the answers. Like Job, perhaps, was learning, we need to learn to be quiet and wait for God to reveal the great purpose he's working in our life. The answers to our questions may unfold over the remainder of our life, but not necessarily at the moment. We're in prayer. We cry out to God and demand an answer. Again, it's the journey. It's the process, and we make many, many course corrections, not the destination, although we know where the process ends. But we're given a journey. We are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Verse 6, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, notice it's still out of a fearsome storm, and said, Now prepare yourself like a man I will question you, and you shall answer me. So, same type of a statement. And maybe we should comment out of the whirlwind. There are other places in the Bible. It talks about this. Ezekiel 1, where here is this vision of this portable throne of God coming on the scene as far as what Ezekiel is seeing. The living creatures, he described this wheel within a wheel, and there are things we don't understand. But God came in that vision as it were through that whirlwind storm at that time as well.

Verse 8, Would you indeed know my judgment? Would you condemn me that you may be justified? Ouch! Job had condemned God in order to maintain his own righteousness, and no one yet until now has just nailed Job to the wall. You were judging and condemning and correcting me to make yourself look good. And do we do that? Probably more than we realize. Have you an arm like God, or can you thunder with a voice like his?

Now, he's probably sitting there quivering on his ash heap just from the presence of God and the booming of his voice. Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendor and array yourself with glory and beauty. So if you can do it, let's see it, Job. Disperse the rage of your wrath. Look on everyone who is proud and humble him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low. Tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together. Bind their faces in hidden darkness. Then I will also confess to you that your own right hand can save you. So, Job, if you can do all these things, then I'll give you that fact. Well, obviously, Job could not do that.

Verse 15 is where he starts talking about the behemoth, behemoth, and we really don't even know what it is. Well, now, I think maybe Leviathan was seed. This one seems to be land.

Yeah, those two are the most common guesses that man has. And yet, as we look through here, it doesn't quite follow through with either of them. Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you. Little point there. I made him. I made you too. He eats grass like an ox. See now, his strength is in his hips, his power is in his stomach muscles. He moves his tail like a cedar. Well, now, a hippopotamus has this little stubby nubbin' of a tail, and an elephant, he's not really known for a massive tail, a trunk, yes, legs, stomach, body, but little bitty whisk with a tail on the end of it. He moves his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. His bones are like beans of bronze. His ribs like bars of iron. He is the first of the ways of God. Only he who made him can bring near this his sword. Surely the mountains yield food for him, and all the beasts of the earth play there. He lies under the lotus trees, in the cover of reeds and marsh. The lotus trees cover him with their shade. The willows by the brooks surround him.

Indeed, the river may rage, but he's not disturbed. He is confident, though the Jordan gushes into his mouth. And here again, you know, it's kind of like, well, he's out here in the mountains, and he's out here lying under trees, but then the Jordan at its flood stage doesn't bother him. Though he takes it in his eyes, or one snares his nose with a snare. So again, a lot of things we don't know there.

All right, chapter 41, he continues the questioning, and he continues on the theme of some of these animals. But this chapter focuses on the Leviathan. And here again, you know, my Scopio Bible says a water monster, possibly a crocodile.

Anyone have a doubt that it's a Loch Ness Monster? Crocodile? Yeah, that's about the best guess. It's obviously a sea or river creature. Okay, I would mention out where it says, can you draw a Leviathan with a hook? The word that's translated Leviathan usually is used to refer to a seven-headed sea monster of the old Canaanite myths. I saw that in more than one commentary.

So maybe a mythical creation, but as we go through this, let's also remember Isaiah 27, verse 1, where Satan is likened to this Leviathan also. The word there is used, and it's in reference to Satan the Devil. Or snare his tongue with a line which he lowered. Can you put a reed through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak softly to you? So if you get him on your line, is he going to say, pretty please let me go? No, he's going to drag you and your boat under, probably. Will he make a covenant with you? Will you take him as a servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird? Will you lease him for your maidens?

Will your companions make a banquet of him? No, no, you're not going to have him to be able to carve him up and eat him. Will they apportion him among the merchants? No, you're not going to have him to sell either. Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?

Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle. You will never do it again.

Sounds like a critter that we don't... what was it? In Alaska, I saw a news headline. Some guys down here like you follow... what was it? A nine-foot something alligator they landed.

You know, the man and the son and any other three men. One was young, but anyhow, but they had to have a couple of the game wardens there to help them drag the thing out.

Nine foot something. Never do it again. Verse 9, Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false.

Shall one not be overwhelmed at the sight of him? No one is so fierce that they would dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand against me? Well, essentially, Job, if you wouldn't dare go and poke Leviathan with a stick, why did you not fear to speak against me, the Creator? Verse 11, Who has preceded me that I may pay him everything under heaven is mine. I will not conceal his limbs, his great power, or his graceful proportions. Who can remove his outer coat? Who can approach him with a double bridle? Who can open the doors of his face with his terrible teeth all around? His rows of scales are his pride. Shut up tightly as with a seal. You can see where certain ones would say, well, a crocodile is about as close as we can estimate.

One is so near another that no air can come between them. Near join one to another, they stick together and cannot be parted. His sneezing splashes forth light. His eyelids are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lights and sparks of fire shoot him. Part of this we look at and we think, well, I don't know what in the world he's talking about there. But, you know, I think we're best to use this chapter to look at it as a possible description of Satan the devil. God is fully sovereign. God rules over everything and that includes Satan the devil. But Satan in Genesis 3 came and appeared as a serpent.

But when it came to it, he had to obey God. And when the tempter came to Jesus there in Matthew 4, Luke 4, he tempted Christ. But when Christ ordered him to leave, he had to go.

The great red dragon of Revelation 12 will, as we get to Revelation 20, be chained and removed from influencing mankind. So verse 20, smoke out his nostrils, 21, breath like kindles, coals. Let's go to verse 24, rather, his heart is as hard as stone, even as hard as the lower millstone. When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid because of his crashing there beside themselves. Okay, though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail, nor does spear, dart, or javelin.

28, the arrow cannot make him flee. Sling stones become like stubble to him. Darts are regarded as straw. He laughs at the threat of javelins. His undersides are like sharp potsherds. Okay, verse 32, he leaves a shining wake behind him. One would think of the deep and white hair. The earth on earth, there is nothing like him, which is made without fear. He beholds every high thing. He is king over all the children of pride.

So, human weapons cannot overthrow, say, cannot defeat him. And again, let's remember, Lucifer was the great crowning pinnacle of God's creation. He is currently the God of this world, the God of his age, and he is the author of the way of pride. Pride was what was getting in Job's way of being able to see. Well, we'll wrap it up in chapter 42, because Job willingly humbles himself before God. His three friends, the first three, not Eli, the other three, had called for Job to repent of hidden sins. But God said from the beginning, this is a man that hates evil. This is an upright man. Job's sin was in his attitude and his willingness to judge God, and his lack of just humbling himself and waiting for God. So, he repented of that critical judgmental attitude as he acknowledged God's power and God's perfect justice. Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do everything, that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You ask, who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? So, that's quoting back to chapter 38 where God began. Therefore, so he's going to answer God's question, therefore I have uttered what I do not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak. You said I will answer you, I will question you, you shall answer me. Again, quoting from God. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. When we, at the time of great frustration and pain, when we cry out essentially, if God is in control, how could he let this happen? Are we sinning? We're sure taking steps flirting with it. We're just about to turn down that path because we are locked into time. We cannot see everything. We cannot see what has led up. We can't see what is in somebody else's mind. We can't see what will be tomorrow, but God sees things that will be as though they already are. We cannot, we will not know all of the reasons why God does or allows certain things to happen. We just have to leave our unanswered questions in God's hands, and that's the hard part for us. We want answers. We want it right now. Will you trust God with your unanswered questions? Verse 7. Here we see what's going to happen. So it was, after the Lord had spoken these words, the Job that he said to life as the Timonite. God addressed him first. He was always the one who spoke first. He was the one seeing the other two deferred to his lead. My wrath is roused against you and your two friends, for you have spoken of me what is, or excuse me, you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. So his friends kept haranguing and saying, Job, you wouldn't be suffering except for you must ascend and you're keeping it hidden. You need to repent. And they were wrong. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams. Go to my servant Job and offer for yourselves a burnt offering. And my servant Job shall pray for you if for I will accept him lest I deal with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. So, God leaves no doubt that Job's first three friends were wrong.

Eli Hugh is not even mentioned. I truly think that God, because Eli Hugh just talked about how the words are in me. I've got to speak. I've been waiting. And I think God sent him there to begin to prepare the seedbed for God to plant. Because he, for the first time, started saying some things that were right on. Eli, Eli has a team and I, and build at the shoe height and so far the neomathite went and did as the Lord commanded for the Lord had accepted Job. And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Interesting. And, you know, as we...how is it there? After the sample prayer in Matthew 6, if you forgive men their trespasses, I will also forgive yours. So, the final action, the friends made the sacrifices. Then Job prayed for them, and that was the evidence that he had set them free from all the abuse that he had taken from them.

The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then all his brothers, sisters, those of his acquaintances came to him. You know, there was a place in there where Job said, all my relatives, essentially, and my friends have deserted me. They were out of there. Now they come back. Times are good. And they ate food with him in his house. They consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. And I pray it reads to me like they all learned something too. They came and they stuck with him and they consoled him and they comforted him. And that speaks highly of them. Each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold. Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. He had 14,000 sheep. Well, you go back to the beginning. He had 7,000. He's got twice that much, yeah? And he has 6,000 camels. Well, at the beginning he had 3,000. 1,000 yoke of oxen. And again at the beginning. I've got a little chart here in the Scofield Bible. I've got this lined up right.

Anyhow, the 1,000 female donkeys. And at the beginning he had 500. Also he had 7 sons and 3 daughters. Well, that's the same number that he had at the beginning. But wow! Talk about a loss. The man lost 10 children. Somebody asked me, was it the same woman who gave birth to all of them? I don't know. We aren't told. But that's a lot of children. He called the name of the first Jemima. Jemima means dove or beauty like the day. The name of the second Kiziah. And that apparently is a form of Cassia or a fragrance like from Cinnamon.

And then the name of the third Karen Hapuk, born of Cosmitic. Born of iMakeup, some have translated that. In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. And again, remember this was a... I forget what the word... what is the word? Primogenesis. Anyhow, it was a time when the inheritances basically went to the oldest son. The Job, it sounds like, provided an inheritance for all 10 of him, his sons and his daughters. After this, Job lived 140 years. Again, as we mentioned in the beginning, in the introductory material, Jewish tradition, and that's all it is, Jewish tradition says Job was 70 when all this story took place. So it would follow the pattern of giving him double in the end. So if he was 70, now he lives 140 more, so 210 when he died, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. So Job died old and full of days. We see here that God loves us.

He is just in the way that he deals with us. He will repay in his own time as he sees fit. He will restore what is lost unjustly. He will give us far more than we can possibly imagine as entrance into the family of God. So when trials come, and they will, cling to your faith that God is in charge. He knows what he is doing. He knows what he is allowing. He never makes mistakes. And Christ will, in God's time, return, and will restore, and will bring our reward with him.