Two Journeys

Paul gives overwhelming credentials of his suffering to show the superiority of his character and his calling to his doctrinal enemies, and to reestablish his leadership over the Corinthian church.

The post 2 Corinthians Episode 13: Paul’s Staggering Credentials of Suffering appeared first on Two Journeys.

Job ends with the complete vindication of Job. But his real happy ending is written in eternity where he will get all that he lacked on earth.

The post The Happy Ending (Job Sermon 30) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Job 42 ends happily with the complete vindication of Job. But his real happy ending is written in eternity where he will get all that he lacked on earth.

Turn in your Bible to Job 42. We'll walk through the last verses that we'll be looking at. As I said, next week, we'll go one more time over the entire book. But today, we get to look at these final words. As I do, I remember reading this and thinking about this in terms of a happy ending. Everyone loves a happy ending, especially if the story has been filled with peril, with suffering and extreme valor, and many obstacles overcome. Obviously, there are some super, mature literary folks, perhaps even in our midst, from time to time that require a more convoluted and murky end to the stories that they love. They look on the standard happy ending as trite and overworked maybe. So the hero of the tale dying unfulfilled with the quest not having been achieved and without him making it safely home, they get excited about such stories. They seem to them more realistic. I think those folks are weird. They say, "After all, we're not children. We don't always have to have the happy ending." I don't know about you, but I do. I want the happy ending. I think amazingly, God agrees with all of us children. Jesus himself said, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." So this little child wants a happy ending. Amen? And children's bedtime stories always have happy endings. The usual fairytale ending is, and they lived happily ever after.

R. R. Tolkien understood the need for happy ending for within his famous Hobbit stories. Bilbo Baggins is the historian of the whole proceedings and he is speaking to Gandalf the wizard describing how he wanted to finish his life. “I want to see mountains again, Gandalf, mountains, and then find somewhere where I can rest in peace and quiet without a lot of relatives prying around and a string of confounded visitors hanging on the bell. I might find somewhere where I can finish my book and I've thought of a nice ending for it: And he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.” Well, that sounds pretty good. A happy ending to our story, but it's only according to Bilbo to the end of our days, the standard fairytale, I think has it a little better. They lived happily ever after. That sounds to me infinitely better, happy ever after, that means for all eternity. Now the book of Job ends on a triumphant note. Job was completely vindicated by Almighty God, vindicated in every way. Job's friends, “friends”, were rebuked soundly. Job's earthly wealth was restored double, Job and his wife had the joy of 10 more children. Job lived to a very old age. But then what? Then what? Job got none of his questions answered in this life, it seems at least not in the text. Job and his wife did have 10 more children, but any parent knows that new children cannot in any way replace dead children.

We also know that Job understood the vulnerability of all earthly situations better than he ever did before. If the first pile of wealth can be taken away in a single day, then so can the next one. True security cannot be found in this world, in this present age of pain, sorrow, and death. The book of Job, as we've seen, does not give all the answers. The problem of death. The problem of eternity are not clearly addressed in this book, but the Holy Spirit has assigned to different books of the Bible, different dimensions of the story. And we know that the final chapter of Job's life actually is unending: eternity in the presence of God, glorious, wealthy with a wealth that can never be taken, with perfect relationships with his wife and children that can never end. Christ Jesus the savior, the Lord of heaven and earth must come along in the fullness of time and write Job's final chapter with his own blood on the cross and in his own mighty triumph over death at the resurrection. To Christ alone must belong the right to open wide the gates of eternity and give the true final chapter to the lives of all of his elect children. Eternity in resurrection bodies, in a resurrected world called the new heavens and the new earth, dwelling in a glorious eternal city called the New Jerusalem with an eternal education and the glory of God, which will include, I believe a backward history lesson in which all of God's purposes are eternally revealed and explained to the everlasting joy and satisfaction of his people. Now that sounds like a happy ending. Amen? Amen.

Job's final chapter was not written therefore in the book of Job, but will be an eternity. All questions answered, all love relationships restored, all wealth perfectly secure, all health perfectly and eternally guaranteed. This is the happy ending the Bible promises all believers in Jesus Christ. And that's where we're heading in this morning sermon: Job living happily ever after to all eternity, not merely to the end of his days. 

So we begin with God vindicating Job, and it starts with God severely rebuking Eliphaz, and his two friends look at verse 7, "After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz The Temanite, ‘I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.’" Imagine having the great God, the almighty God, the God who had just spoken to Job out of a mighty whirlwind. Now speak to you directly and say to you, "I am angry with you." But what terror could be greater than that? Jeremiah 10:10 says, "But the Lord is the true God. He is the living God, the eternal King, when He is angry, the earth trembles, the nations cannot endure his wrath." Again, Psalm 104:32, "He who looks at the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke." Well, we don't know if Job heard these words that were spoken to Eliphaz, or if God spoke them later to Eliphaz, maybe directly or maybe in a dream we don't know. In any case, Eliphaz must have been stripped of all pride and leveled by these words, how humbling this must have been. And God refutes Eliphaz's doctrine and establishes Job's doctrine in its place. Eliphaz has his faulty doctrine, which is as we saw the simple application of the law of retribution, "You reap what you sow." God sees to that. God blesses the righteous with earthly blessings. And he curses the wicked with earthly curses. That's the simple law of retribution. That was their theology. Well, according to God, it's faulty about God, "You have not spoken about me what is right." It is of course, partly true. We noted that at the time, God does sometimes reward the righteous with earthly blessings. And he does sometimes bring immediate earthly judgments on the wicked. But as theologian, J. I. Packer said, "A half truth, masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth."

The sheer authority of almighty God is on display here, to shut down these three men and all their river of words, just like that. You are wrong. End of debate. Notice that God does not directly vindicate Job concerning the wicked things that Eliphaz had said about Job, like, "Is not your wickedness endless." Remember that one? Job 22:5. God doesn't focus on that. He didn't say, "You have not spoken what is right about my servant Job." No, the issue is their view of God. "You have not spoken what is right about me." he says. Yet God does vindicate Job, doesn't he? By calling him, "My servant." And not just once, but several times, "My servant, my servant." Just like at the beginning of the book, when he said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job?" Now in effect, He's saying the same thing to Eliphaz and through Eliphaz to Bildad, and Zophar. And through the three of them to the entire community, who knew Job. They will all hear of God's words, concerning Job. God's vindication of Job. Now, furthermore, God vindicates Job's doctrine. Again, multiple times, verse 7, "I'm angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has." And then again, in verse 8, "You have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has." It’s emphasizing that. Now we know that God is not here validating everything Job said, that's just not true. Oh, if that were true, then why would God have begun talking to Job with these words in Job 38:2? "Who is this that darkens my counsel by speaking words without knowledge?" That's not God vindicating everything job said, not at all.

And why then also Job have repented of his own words saying in Job 42:3, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things that were too wonderful for me." So then the question remains, how then did Job speak what was right about God? Well, I think we should go back to the beginning of the book to see that. Remember where it said that in all these things Job did not sin in what he said against God. So back in Job 1:21, it says, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised." So I would start there. That's true. According to God, that's true. And again, in Job 2:10, "Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" I think we would say the same thing. That perspective is accurate. It's right. All things come from God. So that was Job at his best. And it did line up with reality. It seems, according to God.

God also then honors Job as his servant. He honors him. It is powerful vindication for God to say, "My servant Job, my servant Job, my servant Job." That's powerful vindication. What could be higher commendation than that? And I believe in heaven, the essence of our rewards, the best part of our rewards will be commendation from almighty God. Amen? Praise from God. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” You've been faithful, to have God say that to us. Or as Jesus himself said in John 12:26, "Whoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servant also will be, my Father will honor the one who serves me." We will not get higher commendation than that, higher reward than that to have almighty God honor us for how we serve Christ. And so won't that be something to have almighty God, speak your name from his throne and call you by name his servant. What higher commendation could there be? What higher vindication in all eternity?

Then God restores Job's ministry as intercessor. Just as powerfully, Eliphaz is humbled by God requiring him to go back to Job to intercede for him. Verse 8, "Now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly." So remember at the beginning of the book, Job's piety was established by his intercessory life for his children. Remember how he would send and have them purified thinking perhaps they had sinned in their hearts, cursed God in their hearts. Job was a prayer warrior for his children. Now that role has been reestablished, actually enhanced because God specifically spoke of it. And how humbling for Eliphaz and for Bildad and Zophar, to have their lives and their prosperity, now in Job's hands as intercessor, there is a clear threat from God. "If you don't go to him, I will deal with you according to your folly, I will deal with you according to your foolish words. But if Job intercedes for you, I will restore you and you will not be dealt with as you truly deserve."

Also notice, whenever you have animal sacrifice, whenever you have this kind of intercession by a godly man for others, you have a foretaste or a shadow of Christ’s priestly ministry for all of us. A picture of what Christ does for all of us. In Hebrews 9:13-14, it says, "The blood of goats bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God." Jesus is the great mediator, the great intercessor, his sacrifice, the perfect, final end to animal sacrifice- his intercession. He constantly lives at the right hand of God intercede for us. And on that basis, we are made right with God and God doesn't deal with us according to our folly. 

Secondly, God restores Job's earthly blessings. So this is the sequence: first Job prayed then God blessed him. So Job was under obligation too; he had to act as an intercessor for his friends. Look at verse 9, “So Eliphaz The Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord had told them; and the Lord accepted Job's prayer.” To some degree, it seems like Job's own restoration awaited his intercession for his friends, they would be restored together. And so this is a picture of how vital it is for us when we pray, to set aside any bitterness or any un-forgiveness that we may have toward anyone else, or God will not hear our prayer. As he says, very plainly in Mark 11:25, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." Mark 11:25. So Job has to put aside any bitterness he may have toward his friends and pray for them and all of them, the four of them together to some degree restored at the same time.

God made then Job prosperous, again, a twofold or a double restitution. Look at verse 10, "After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as before.” All of his earthly prosperity was restored and actually doubled. Verse 12, "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yolk of oxen and 1,000 donkeys." So if you go back to Job 1, you realize that the chapter did the math for us. Isn't it wonderful that math always works. Math is math. It will always be the same. So in case you had trouble with that or needed your calculator on the whole doubling thing, it just does it for you. From 7,000 sheep to 14,000, that's pure doubling. From 3,000 camels to 6,000, again, doubled, from 500 oxen to 1,000 and from 500 donkeys to a 1,000.

Now, we need to realize this didn't happen all at once. Like the next morning he awoke and poof, there they were. Now that would be something. Some instant donkeys, some instant camels and all that. I think not. I think this was an unfolding, developing prosperity that God did over many years. This is just how it ended up. Year by year Job got to see this happening before his very eyes, the prosperity of the Lord. And God also, more significantly, healed Job's reputation in the community. One of the bitterest aspects of Job's trial was his loss of reputation. The public shames, one of the things we fear the most and with good reason. Before all of this came upon him, before any of these trials came upon him, remember Job was like a prince in that city. He was the primary citizen of that city. He was honored at the city gate. Men used to come to get his wisdom and help them make key decisions. Back in Job 29:24-25 it says, "When I smiled at them, they could scarcely believe it. The light of my face was precious to them. I chose the way for them and sat as their chief, I dwelt as a king among his troops, I was like one who comforts mourners.” That's what it used to be like, he said. Well, all of that went away when his sufferings came upon him. It seems that the friends in their attitude toward Job were representing the normative view of the community about Job. "He must truly be a wicked man. His wickedness must be great to have this level of trial come upon him." They all bought into that, it seems. Remember he said his wife couldn't stand him. Job said his breath was offensive to her. It seems like his family, his extended family all stayed away from him, had nothing to do with him. Remember how he lamented, how his name had become like a laughing stock, in Job 30:9-10 he said, "But now their sons mock me in song. I have become a byword among them. They detest me and keep their distance. They do not hesitate to spit in my face." So that must have been incredibly difficult for him to lose all of that esteem from other people. But when God spoke and vindicated Job, all of that was reversed. Romans 8:31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Who cares who's against you if God is for you. But his family understood the significance of his vindication and his family, both close and extended family and many others from the community. Now they wanted to get near him again, they wanted to come and be with him again. Look at verse 11, "All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before, came and ate with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him."

Now Job could have been bitter. He could have said, "Where were all of you when I needed you? Why didn't you believe in me then? When I needed you the most, you kept your distance from me." But he didn't. He accepted their changed demeanor toward him with grace and dignity. And I think it's appropriate for a man who's been humbled by God; he's not going to be arrogant toward others. When you get vertically humbled by God you realize who you are in the sight of God, and yet God loves you through Christ, horizontally, you're going to be gracious toward the sins and failings of others. How could you not? And so that's how Job is. He's very gracious with them. And then God used them to begin restoring Job's wealth. Again, a long time frame, look at verse 11. It says, "They comforted and consoled him over all the troubles the Lord had brought up on him and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring." So these are significant gifts. One preacher I listened to, as I was working on this sermon said, this was something like the ancient version of a GoFundMe account set up for Job. All the families showed up with a little starter money for him, because he's just stripped, doesn't have anything left. And so they all want to contribute to the pot. The hat was passed and they dropped in some money. They wanted to help. But these gifts were significant under the blessing of God, I would think. And there'd be a connection between these initial gifts. And then they have ultimate prosperity that God brought in his life. And so it came back to him gradually over a long timeframe. Then God blessed him and his wife, it seems, with children.

Verse 13-15, "He had also seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemima the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. And nowhere in all the land were found women as beautiful as job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers." Job's wife is not mentioned here, but I think it's best to assume that it's the same woman, the same wife, maybe she died, we have no reason to think- so let's assume it's the same one. And so she was elevated back to joy and back to honor along with her husband. And again, the number of children is significant 10, 10 children. And the same thing with the son, seven sons and three daughters, all of that's significant. I'll speak more about them at the end of the sermon. But this shows how gradually God restored Job's earthly blessings. You don't get 10 children in a month, that doesn't happen.

So this restoration to earthly prosperity unfolded over years, even over decades. It's also note- noteworthy how prominently Job's daughters are mentioned. The Bible is generally, especially Old Testament, written from a masculine point of view, a male centered perspective, especially in genealogies. The genealogies tend to focus on fathers and sons. Occasionally daughters are mentioned, but often not. They're barely mentioned at all, but Job's daughters are singled out above their brothers. You don't know the brothers’ names, but you know these daughters’ names. And we also know that they're stunningly beautiful and that Job dearly loved them and gave them an inheritance along with his sons. Again, this is very unusual for the time. I don't know why this is, and this is just maybe me speaking as a dad, but there's nothing like a daughter, especially in your old age, which I haven't reached yet, but I anticipate there'll be nothing like a daughter in my old age, but there's something tender about that. And maybe that's why the daughters are singled out. Job was a happy man to have such lovely, comforters and such lovely blessings in his life to lavish attention on him. And he did love them. And then it says, God blessed Job with a long life. And with descendants, even to the fourth generation, verse 16, “After this job lived 140 years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.” So that's just the language, that Old Testament language of blessing. Wealthy, prosperous, family, esteem in the community, long life, but look at the final verse, “And so he died old and full of years.” Is that a happy ending? I think not. We need to understand what death is. Death is an enemy. Death is an enemy. And God must have the final victory over that. And we're going to get to that in a minute, but I'm just telling you that's how this account ends. So we're waiting. We're waiting for the happy ending, the true happy ending.

Now next in providence in redemptive history, God in his wisdom and his goodness uses Job's story in every generation from now until this day. Job could never have known how much his suffering would strengthen the family of God over those generations. The larger purpose of God was hidden from Job. How could he have understood it? God could never have told Job how many of his despairing children, God's despairing children in every generation for centuries and centuries would go back to this book of Job and read it and derive strength and nourishment from it. How could Job possibly know how many of Job's spiritual children? So we look on him somewhat like a father Abraham figure, Job is one of the good fathers of the Bible, maybe one of the best fathers of the Bible. And we are to some degree his spiritual children. How many of us would be strengthened in suffering by his example, taught to persevere, taught to trust in the Lord and never give up just by reading this story? Job's mind would've been overwhelmed by the testimonies. They would be in the hundreds, in the thousands, in the tens of thousands, even in the millions lined up as far as the eye could see to the horizon coming one after the other and saying, "I want you to know what your story meant to me in my life. I want you to know how your story enabled me and my wife to walk through burying one of our children. I want you to know that. I want you to know what it was like for us to be destroyed by a tornado and have all of our crops destroyed, but then to realize from the book of Job of God's good purposes and all of that. I want you to know my story, how God used the book of Job to walk me through the cancer treatments for my wife over two years and then she finally succumbed and died. But you gave me a comfort in God's ultimate purpose in all of that." So God positioned Job for that role in our lives.

And the Holy Spirit recorded this book for every generation of his elect to read. James, James makes this plain. James 5:11, it says, "As you know we consider blessed those who have persevered, you have heard of Job's perseverance or patience and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy." So James in the New Testament just assumes you've read the story. You've heard of it. You know that story right? Centuries later, and God has used Job's experience of extreme suffering to strengthen every generation of God's people since then. It's almost incalculable how many people have been blessed and sustained in their sufferings by the wisdom of this book. Now, James in the NIV it says, "You have seen what the Lord finally brought about.” but the Greek is the telos of the Lord, the perfected or purpose of God in all this, there is a final purpose in Job's story.

And God's final purpose in Job's suffering is the salvation of His people. God's purposes go beyond earthly blessings. It says in Romans 8:28, "We know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose." God actively causes all things, including all of our sufferings to work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose, his telos, his final end. And what is that final purpose? The next few verses Romans tell us, Romans 8:29-30, "For those God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brothers and those he predestined, he also called and those he called, he also justified and those he justified, he also glorified." That's God's purpose.

And God then, going back to Romans 8:28, God causes all things to work together for good to the end that his elect will be glorified in heaven. And he uses sufferings to do that. That's the point of Job's story. 2 Corinthians 4:17, Paul said it in a different way there, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." It’s a typical Pauline sentence, thick with logic and theology. He calls our sufferings light and momentary, but he also says they are achieving the final glory that God's working. They're intrinsic to getting us there. And so that's the lesson of the book of Job. As James made it plain earlier in James 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance and perseverance must finish its work so that you'll be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

So job's example of patience in the face of suffering is powerful for us. All Christians must display perseverance in many afflictions. If we do not persevere, we are not genuine Christians. We are like the stony ground hearers that Jesus mentioned in Mark 4:16-17, "Others like seed stone on rocky places hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word they quickly fall away." As Jesus said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved." And so God's purpose is the salvation of all the elect. God had the long view in mind, dear Christian brothers and sisters. He had you and me in mind. He had you and me in mind. He used Job. I mean, say that with great emphasis. He used him to help us. You can imagine Job saying, "You used me." Yes, I did. "You used me to help all of my brothers and sisters." Yes, I did. Do you think now he thinks it was worth it? Yes, I do. And so God used Job. God wanted to feed your soul with strength, with wisdom and with the example of Job. His sufferings, you know it, are greater than yours, his wrestling and his anguish and his words took you on a much needed journey. God's powerful speech in the whirlwind spoke to you a necessary humbling wisdom, but God's final word always is Christ, Christ whose righteousness is infinitely greater than Job's, whose sufferings were also infinitely greater than Job's, who actually did die when God had forbidden Satan from taking Job's life. But Christ did die. The big picture was always God's plan. And so the scripture is given here, these 42 chapters, to feed your faith to the end of your final salvation.

Fourth, God blesses Job eternally. So the vindication and restoration of Job was dramatic. It must have been so moving to Job to have God's speak such words of vindication to Job's friend Eliphaz, and through him to the other two friends and then ultimately to the entire community and his family, all of that. And it must have been so powerful to see his earthly blessings accumulate, not all at once, but in the end, that twofold blessing. So this is an earthly, earthly, earthly happy ending. However, the vindication and restoration of Job was incomplete. And in no way, finally satisfying. There is the matter, the simple matter of his 10 children, the 10 children. Well, which 10 children? Well, that's the point. Any parent knows, any parent that has lost a child to death knows that the later birth of another child can never take the place of the dead one. Children are unique and the 10 new children Job and his wife had must have filled their hearts with joy, but they could never drive away the memories of their 10 lost children. Those lost children were fully grown. They were into their adult lives. They had developed personalities. They each had stories of their own and Job had a loving relationship with each one of them. And all of that was taken in a moment.

Now he would have new relationships developing with his new children, but the pain of loss of death, the final enemy, could not be fully assuaged by having 10 new children. Furthermore, as we said, Job gets no explanation at all from God about his sorrows, no description of the original challenge from Satan in the heavenly realms, no explanation of the saving purpose he had towards subsequent generations of believers, and no word at all. He just had the overpowering might of God appearing to him in a whirlwind saying, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" That's what he got. And Job knew, as never before, how vulnerable all earthly blessings are. There was no guarantee that these replacements would not themselves be subsequently taken from him in an instant. Everything earthly is temporary. 2 Corinthians 4:18, "What is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." James 4:14, "You don't even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? It is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." Or again, Proverbs 23:5, "Cast but a glance at riches and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle." So Job's true vindication and restoration must be eternal, not earthly in the new heavens and the new earth. And here is where we must finally end up. Everything in this world is temporary. For us Christians, earthly blessings are truly gifts from our loving Father. And in some sense, they are foretastes of heavenly joy, some sense. But we cannot build our lives on earthly blessings for everything that you own, everything you interact with, with your five senses is temporary. All of it. However, we know that there is a new world coming. Amen? A new world is coming where all of the sorrows will be swallowed up in victory. As 1 Corinthians 15 says, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?" Or again, Revelation 21:1-5, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things as passed away.' He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!' And then he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and they are true.’" So the future resurrection of Job into that resurrected glorious world is Job's final vindication and ours as well, ours as well.

Now, one last detail about Job's children, we noticed that all of Job's earthly blessings were doubled, right? All of them. You got double this double, that double the other, but he just got 10 children. Children were not doubled. He lost 10 children. God gave him 10 children after his restoration. But what if all 10 of the children that died in the first attack by Satan were themselves pious, godly people? It's quite possible. Remember that Job prayed when a period of feasting had run its course, prayed for them if perhaps they might have sinned and cursed God in their hearts, what does that tell you about their lifestyle? Godly, pious, righteous, at least apparently, but he's worried about the heart. Wouldn't it be marvelous if Job spent eternity with all 20 of his children? And would spend eternity with that doubled blessing of a perfect and final relationship with each one of the 20. Now, I don't know that actually happened, but I- wouldn't it be an awesome final addendum to the story of Job?

Now, as I conclude now, I just want to give you a final invitation. Next week we're going to fly over this book one more time. I'm going to preach on every single chapter in detail, all 42 of them. So bring your lunch, bring a sleeping bag. No, I'm not doing any of that. Best thing I can do in closing today is to invite all of you to come to Christ, to come and trust in Christ. Only for Christians is there this final vindication, only for Christians is there this final eternal happy ending. We're not universalists. We don't say, “It doesn't matter what you believe. It doesn't matter how you live.” we don't say that. Judgment day is coming and the justice of God will rise up. And the wrath of God will rise up against all sins that have not been atoned for by faith in the blood of Christ. And so all that is happening here and around the world, week after week, as the gospel is being proclaimed is sinners are being told how they can, amazingly, be vindicated by a holy God saying, "You are one of my children. Your sins are forgiven. Enter now into the joy of your Master." All you have to do is acknowledge that you're a sinner, repent of your sins, turn away from wickedness and turn to the mercies and the kindness of God. And let him give you that final vindication and eternal rewards through faith in Christ.

Close with me in prayer. Father thank you for the time that we've had to study, not just today, but 42 chapters of truth, it's overwhelming. And Lord, I thank you for the lessons that we're going to look at, God willing, next week. Father strengthen each one of us, help us to realize that our time of suffering will most certainly come. Maybe it won't be as bad as Job's, it probably won't be, but it's still going to be painful. Help us to be ready to put into practice the things we've learned from this incredible book. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Paul gives overwhelming credentials of his suffering to show the superiority of his character and his calling to his doctrinal enemies, and to reestablish his leadership over the Corinthian church. He is very concerned that they have taken in and been captivated false teachers who claim to be apostles.

The post 2 Corinthians Episode 12: Servants of Satan Exposed appeared first on Two Journeys.

One of God’s purposes in our suffering is to cause hidden corruptions to surface so we'll be humbled and repent. If a godly man like Job needed to repent, how much more do we!

Turn your Bibles to Job 42, the text you just heard read. This morning as we do so, as we turn to Job 42, we come to the final chapter in this great book of Job. God, in his kindness to his people in every generation, has enabled us to walk with Job in his agonies, to feel the anguish of his soul as he lost all his possessions and his 10 children in a single day. Then the second wave of sorrow that came upon him, to lose his health, to the point where his body was ravaged by disease and his friends could scarcely recognize him.

Then as Job's friend sat and discoursed with him, and he began to converse with them, his deep and bitter questions began to come to the surface. Under the intense pressure of pain, internal attitudes of sin toward Almighty God were exposed. Fundamental to his bitter questioning of God was his unshakeable sense of his own righteousness. "How could God deal so unjustly with me, such a righteous man?" Only when God shows up in a whirlwind and speaks powerfully to Job, does Job see the greatness of his sin and his own views of his self-righteousness instantly melts like a snowflake on a hot griddle when God shows up, when God begins to talk to him. And by the time God is done speaking with him, Job repents, deeply and comprehensively repents.

Friends, I think this is the whole point of the book of Job for us. As we read it, we're able to walk vicariously together with Job through his sorrows. If we have any empathy at all, we feel his pain. We understand how our sorrows are definitely less than his. We've not gone through anything to that degree, but we have a similar tendency to question God in the midst of those sorrows, to charge God with wrongdoing. Before we suffered, before we walked through afflictions, we thought we were great people, we thought we were righteous and pure. Only in the fiery oven of suffering and sorrow do the inner corruptions begin to rise to the surface. God uses pain and trial to show us those inner corruptions. God means to humble us, all of us, deeply. And this amazing book of Job is a tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit to bring us to repentance. As we come to Job 42:1-6, we have a stunning and timeless display of repentance by this great man Job. It is the end of a very long process that the mighty wise and loving God has been working in him. And in the passage today, that work has reached its level of completion, according to the plan of God. Job has deeply repented of his sins.

Now, the basic idea of this sermon today is a how much more argument for all of us. If a godly man like Job needed to repent, how much more do you, and do I? How much more do we need to repent? I don't imagine any of you is thinking that God's up in heaven, boasting about you in particular as the one person on planet earth he'd like to commend before Satan. I don't think you have that kind of boldness to think you're the one person. Maybe you do. I don't know how such an attitude couldn't come to the surface at some point, but you know that we are lesser people than Job. And if a man like Job needed to repent, then how much more do I, and do you?

As I've quoted to you many times before, this is something that captures me, I think about it every time I write a sermon, every time I preach, John Calvin's words in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, which says, "Nearly all the wisdom that we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom, consists in two parts, the knowledge of God and of ourselves." We've heard that many times before, but then Calvin, in the institutes, goes on to make this powerful observation about human pride. This is what he wrote: "Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself. For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy. This pride is innate in all of us, unless by clear proofs, we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity." Calvin goes on to say this: "And I, to which nothing is shown but black objects all the time, all it ever sees are black objects, judges, therefore something modeled or off-white or dirty white as pure whiteness itself. It's all we know." So when we compare ourselves to others horizontally, we think we're pretty good people, not as bad as that one or that one or that one over there. That's our nature, our pride. But then, when we lift our eyes to the perfect purity and wisdom and power, and then the radiant light of God's glory, we realize how dark we really are.

And that's exactly what happened to Job, but it took the intense heat of pain, of sorrow, to bring this corruption to the surface. Friends, God wants to save us. Think about that. It is the good pleasure of God to give you the kingdom. He wants to save us, and he wants to bring each one of us into his glorious heavenly home. That heavenly home is a world of pure light, of perfect goodness, but we sinners are not pure light. We are not perfect goodness. We are darkness itself, naturally. We are sinners to the core, corrupt to the core. When God therefore begins to save us, he must humble us. And he does humble us, and brings us to an initial saving faith in Jesus Christ. We realize we need a savior. And that's a humbling work. But we realize these things only at a shallow, superficial level at initial justification. At that shallow, superficial level, we flee to Christ, and we find in Christ a savior for all of our sins, but we're underestimating all of those sins. And God, in his wisdom, begins in us an education process. We are saved in stages. Justification leads to sanctification, which leads to glorification. And God, in his wisdom, chooses to leave a huge measure of corruption within our souls. He doesn't have to do that, because at glorification he'll instantaneously take it all away, at death and at the resurrection, it'll be gone.

You might think you have a better plan than God. "Oh, God do it right away. The moment I come to Christ, take away all of my corruptions. What a pure life I would live then." And you would, it's just not God's way. He leaves within us so much pride and selfishness and self-righteousness and independence and idolatry and deceit and lusts. He leaves these corruptions, these seeding corruptions still within us as justified sinners. A seething world of infamy is instilled in our souls. That's why the Apostle Paul cries out against himself in Romans 7:24, "What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?" That's the apostle Paul writing the book of Romans, in the middle of that, says that. Part of the wisdom of God then, is to cause us to walk for years in those seething corruptions, those inner corruptions, all the while thinking we are purer and better than we really are.

In the course of time, God, in his wisdom, just like he did with Job, brings us into the crucible of pain and suffering, of sorrow and trial. And then we begin to cry out as Job did to God, "Why oh Lord, why this? What is happening? Don't you love me?" And God is burning off of those inner corruptions by first showing them to you. Then when at last, he instantaneously purifies you from all of your inner corruptions at death, and at the resurrection, you will spend eternity as pure as light. Brothers and sisters, that's where you're heading, you're going to end up pure as light. You're going to shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father. You're going to be radiant and beautiful in Heaven. But you're not going to fall into self-worship, as Satan originally did. But why not? Because God, I believe, in his kindness, will cause you to remember what you were. What you were. And you'll spend eternity thanking God for his grace, that in the coming ages, he will show you the measure of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ, Ephesians 2:7. He's going to continually show it to you, how kind he was, and how he forgave not only your sinful acts and actions and attitudes, but just the seething world of infamy that was in your heart every day that you lived, how he covered all of it by grace.

Now, God will enable you in heaven to remember your past corruptions, but it will not cause you any pain or shame whatsoever. None, because there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain in heaven, Revelation 21:4. He just wants you to know what he did for you. And you will be humble, won't you? You will spend eternity boasting in your Lord Jesus Christ. As the scripture says in 1 Corinthians 1:31, "As it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." And you will. Whatever boasting capacity you will have in heaven, and you will have it, you'll be boasting in the Lord Jesus for all eternity. That's where we're heading. 

Our study today is to understand the depth and nature of Job's repentance to help us with ours. To help us with ours, so we can understand the nature of true repentance. I don't think that every element of true repentance is found in Job's statements here, but some significant things are, and we're going to walk through them. Now, before we do, I want to just give you a little bit of a biblical history of repentance. Biblical history of repentance. Repentance is the religion of sinners. Religion of sinners. Perfectly righteous people have no need to repent. They think perfectly, they love perfectly, they live perfectly, but since Adam and Eve fell into sin, there's only been one man who has ever done that. Only Jesus Christ has met that description. Only Jesus Christ thought perfectly, only Jesus Christ loved perfectly, only Jesus Christ lived perfectly. Christ alone.

As soon as Adam and Eve fell into sin, they dragged themselves and their progeny, their descendants, the entire human race, into a dark, deep pit of sin. God immediately confronted Adam and Eve as they'd eaten from the forbidden fruit, confronted them in their sin. “The Lord God said,” Genesis 3:13, “to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’” That's God confronting humans in their sin. No one can say to God, "What have you done?" But he has the right to ask us, "What have you done?" And he does. He confronts us. This began the sad history of repentance in the human race.

Now, much of the Old Testament is part of that history, that unfolding story of God working repentance in his people. King David, called a man after God's own heart, was yet still a sinner with much inner corruption. And he wrote two great Psalms of repentance: Psalm 32, Psalm 51. Remember, after his terrible sin with Bathsheba, God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him and bring him to repentance. And Nathan told him a story, like a parable, or maybe as far as David knew, a real story, of some grave injustice that happened in his kingdom. Drew, he lured David into that story, and at some point David's rage was kindled against the villain in the story, and said, "That man deserves to die what- for what he's done." And then the prophet Nathan pointed his finger right at him and said, "You are the man."

That moment is key in understanding God's working with his people. God, through the prophetic word, comes and stands in front of us, and exposes us, and finds our corruptions and our sins, and then points the finger at us. Each one of us. You are the man. You are the woman; it's you. I'm talking about you. David hardened his heart for a year or more against this repentance. He would not yield. He became hardened. His neck was stiff against it. And he writes about that process in Psalm 32, God pressed down hard on him. He had physical pain and disease, it seems, and difficulties, but he would not yield. And then finally he did. Psalm 32:5, "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin." And then in Psalm 51, David makes the most important assertion that all of us need to understand about true repentance. And that is how vertical it is, how God-centered true repentance is. When he says to God, "Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so you are proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge." So therefore true repentance is God-centered. It is God-focused. True repentance realizes that ultimately all that matters is the glory of God, the holiness of God, the sight of God. God alone created us. God alone sustains us. To God alone we will give account on the day of judgment. In God alone do we live and move and have our being.

So God sent a series of prophets, filling them with the Holy Spirit, to confront the people of God in the Old Testament with their sins, and seek to bring them to repentance. Isaiah cried out against the great wickedness and sin of the nation of Israel, and sought to bring them to repentance. In Isaiah 1:16-18, God spoke to his people, "’Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right. Seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow. Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you're willing and obedient, you'll eat the best of the land. But if you resist and rebel, you'll be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’" That's Isaiah, God, calling the people to repent. "Come now, let us reason together." Sadly, however, again and again, the people of God resisted this call. Isaiah 30:15, “This is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No.’’" Isaiah 30.

So again and again, throughout Israel's history, the prophets came in God's name, called his sinful people to repentance. Sometimes they did. Sometimes individually or even as a group, they would turn. But again and again, generally, they resisted. Then John the Baptist came as a forerunner of the New Covenant era, a forerunner of the coming of Christ. And this is what he did. Again, in the same spirit as the Old Testament prophets did, he called on the people to repent of their sins. We're going to study this, God-willing, beginning in two weeks in the Gospel of Mark. Mark 1:4-5, "John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River." And then Jesus, the one he had come to prepare the way for, came and picked right up on the same message. Mark 1:15, he said, "The time has come. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel."

Essential to Jesus's messianic ministry were his healings, Jesus did a river of miracles. Huge populations went out, and Jesus healed them all with a touch over the word. But he showed that those miracles, physical, actual miracles, were also symbolic of a work of healing that has to happen in our souls. And that is a transformation of our hearts through repentance. And so he said in Luke 5:31-32, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." That was his work. He's come to heal our sick hearts, and to give us healthy hearts that are characterized by repentance. "I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Every single one of Christ's people who will spend eternity, radiant and glorious in heaven, will have gotten there the same way, through repentance of their sins and faith in Christ. All of them. And will spend eternity aware of that. 

So, what is repentance? We've been talking about it since the beginning of the sermon. How would we define it? Well, the Greek word, it's a simple change of mind, to change your thoughts, your mind, to have it a new mind. The basic idea there is that sinful actions come from sinful thinking. Always. The sinful thinking precedes the sinful actions. So if you want to change a sinful lifestyle, you have to change a sinful thought pattern, a sinful mind. Some have likened repentance to a massive U-turn. You're driving in one direction, and then you turn around and drive in the opposite direction. Well, that's fine, but you need to understand what causes the person to make that turn. They think differently. It's a different thinking pattern. Something's changed in the way they approach. And fundamental to that is the concept of a new heart, a transformed heart, to have a different heart, the center, the core of our being, the part of us that thinks, that reasons, that understands, the part of us that loves and hates, the part of us that chooses and rejects the core of the being biblically is called the heart. Heart does all of those things. No genuine repentance can happen without a transformation of the heart. That inner part of us that thinks, that loves, that reasons, that chooses, that's the heart. We must have a new heart. And so the prophet is Ezekiel spoke of the radical heart transplant that God does. Ezekiel 36:26-27, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you the heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees, and be careful to keep my laws." That is essential to our salvation. That's what it means to be born again: a radical transformation of the heart, the corrupt heart.

Knowing that you need a new heart is essential to our salvation. It's also essential to know you can't do it to yourself. You could as well perform physical heart surgery on yourself as give yourself a new heart. It's not something you can do, but God in his grace can do it through the Holy Spirit. He can give us a new heart. Repentance, therefore, is a gift of God. 2 Timothy 2:25, it says, "And the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth." God grants to his children repentance; he gives it to us as a gift. So let me just stop and say, if you are right now, and have been for some time, a repenter, believer in Christ, thank God for his grace to you. God has granted you repentance unto life. He's given you a gift, and it's not of yourselves; it's grace from God. And he does this by his powerful Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit knows how to do it. He's very good at it. The Holy Spirit is sovereign in his work, and he's able to take out that heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. Amazingly, it is the kindness of God, Romans 2:4, that leads us to repentance. So when you see the kindness of Christ in dealing with broken sinners, women that are lavishing tears on his feet, and drying his feet with their hair, and he's so kind and gracious to them, or lepers and his heart just moves out to them, the kindness of God in Christ leads you to repentance.

All right. So, in summary, by genuine repentance, the sinner has a spiritual sight of sin and sinfulness. You see it for what it is. There's a deep sense of it. Not just that sin is dangerous and that it will result in consequences and judgment and even eternity in hell itself, all of that's biblically true, but that's not enough. But that sin is essentially morally disgusting, so that even if you could get away with it and not have its consequence, you still wouldn't want any part of it, because it is foul, it is disgusting in the sight of God. And you don't want it either. That's genuine repentance. So the God-centeredness of general repentance, that vertical aspect of it, "Against you, and you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight." There's also an emotional aspect to it, in which we have a sense of brokenness and grieving over the sin, and a sorrow over it. All of this results, ultimately, in a volitional aspect of turning away from a lifestyle of sin to a new kind of life. That's biblical repentance. 

Now let's look at elements of Job's repentance. Now, as we've said, God has been doing a deep work in Job. Given how this whole book of Job unfolds, it seems that bringing Job to this level of repentance was God's loving purpose all along. Job was an amazingly godly man, as we said, a man about whom God was accustomed to boast, even to Satan, the accuser. Then Satan put Job to the test, taking away all of his wealth, taking away in one day, all 10 of his children. Subsequently, taking away his health, afflicting him with terrible sores. And ultimately God was behind all of these things. The Lord gave and the Lord took away. So ultimately this was God's work in Job's life. Job began well. Well enough. He didn't accuse God of wrongdoing. He didn't challenge God. He worshiped God. He started well, but the trial went on. We've learned this. The chronic nature of suffering, it doesn't go short time; it just continues to unfold and so stuff starts to bubble to the surface. And that's what happened with Job. He starts to say very harsh things against God. Maybe you didn't realize before you read the book of Job. You say, "Well, you know, he didn't sin against God in anything he said." Well, that was at the start friends. It just kept going. And then he starts to say some things that are just not godly about God himself. In Job 9:16-18, he said, "Even if I summon him [God] and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing. He would crush me with a storm, and multiply my wounds for no reason. He would not let me regain my breath, but would overwhelm me with misery." It's like God is some cruel capricious tyrant that just enjoys crushing his children.

And it culminated, as we've seen, in him directly accusing God of injustice. In Job 19:7, "Though I cry, ‘I've been wronged.’ I get no response. Though I call for help, there is no justice." He thinks he could directly challenge God in a court of law and win. He's so convinced in his own righteousness. He believes, Job 31, he goes through all of these vows and assertions of purity. And at the end of that, he says, "I sign now on my defense. Let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing. Surely I would wear it on my shoulder. I would put it on like a crown. I would give him an account of my every step. Like a prince, I would approach him." Does that sound like Job here in Job 42? Not at all, but that's where he was at. He was so convinced of his own righteousness that he would take God on in a court of law and win against God. So the very sin God accuses him of in Job 40:8, "Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?"

So let's look at elements of Job's repentance. He begins with this statement in verse 2, "I know that you can do all things." So first we see deeper knowledge of God's power. Job is at a whole different level in understanding God's power now. Job knew that God was powerful before all this happened, but now that God has appeared in a whirlwind and has spoken so powerfully to him with his own voice, Job was ready to be taken to an entirely new level of his knowledge of God's awesome power. Now I think Job 42:2 may be the clearest, simplest statement of the doctrine of God's omnipotence in the Bible. You've heard often of the omnipotence of God. Well, this is the clearest statement of it you'll find. I know that you can do all things. Jesus put it this way. "All things are possible with God." Mark 10:27. Anything that power can do, God can do. Job learned this from God's words, tracing out his direct activity and creating and sustaining the universe, laying the foundations of the world, controlling the boundaries of the sea, making the mountains rise and the valley sink to just where he ordained that they should go. Controlling all the patterns of the weather, the wind, the rain, the snow, thunder and lightning. Controlling even the distant stars and the laws by which they are governed, the distant constellations. God understands those laws, rules over them. There's nothing Job can do about any of them.

And then the animal world, the 10 animals that he brings out as evidence of his wisdom and power. The lions, ravens, goats, deer, donkeys, oxen, ostrich, horse, hawk, and eagle, how they're born, where they live, what they eat, what their habits and habitats are, their capabilities, how they interact with each other in a network of life. When they live, when they die, all of it in God's hands. It was at this point, as you remember, that Job repented for the first time. Job 40:3-5, “Job answered the Lord, ‘I'm unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer twice, but I'll say no more.’” But God wasn't finished with him. He rebuked him for thinking he could discredit his justice in order to justify himself, as we saw. He reminded Job effectively, "I'm God, and you're not." Job 40:9-10, "Do you have an arm like God's, and can your voice thunder like his?" Imagine hearing that from God. "Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty." He reminded Job that he, God alone, can judge the wicked and arrogant of the world. And because Job could do none of these things, then Job cannot save himself.

Then God brought forth those two last great beasts, behemoth and leviathan, whose terrifying power and ferocity make them impossible for man to hunt down, to corral, to control, or to kill. And it seemed best to me, as I walked through those chapters, to see in them the personification of demons and of Satan, that ancient serpent, that ancient dragon who is behind so much of the misery and sorrow of this world, and a beast we cannot kill. Seemed best to me just because there is no physical beast we cannot kill. But hermeneutically it seemed best to say we can't kill Satan. He's too strong for us. He's too powerful for us. But God is saying, "Though you cannot corral him, you can't control him, you can't kill him. I can. I put him on a leash. I put boundaries around him. And when I'm done with him, I'll kill him for all eternity." Job had never realized the extent of God's awesome power before. Now, as essential to his repentance, he does. He knows in ways he never did before. "I know, oh Lord, that you can do all things."

Number two, deeper knowledge of God's wise plan, "I know, oh God, that you can do all things. And no plan of yours can be thwarted." The awesome power of God is controlled at every moment, by the wise plans of God. The wisdom of God controls the power of God. God is not some random, terrifying force of the universe that runs amuck. Picture the proverbial loose cannon, an old wooden fighting vessel, a sailing vessel, and a cannon's loose. And it's a heaving storm. And the deck is rolling and tossing. And the waves are random and powerful and big. And you have no idea where the cannon's going to go next. Non-Christians see suffering and evil and hurricanes and all that with that kind of randomness, but we know differently. God's awesome power is linked to his wisdom in his plan. His wise plan. And God's plans will all be executed. No plan of his can be thwarted because he's all-powerful. So essential to Job's repentance is understanding, not only the infinite power of God, but the perfect details of God's wisdom, God's wise plan. So Job losing all his wealth, all 10 of his children, and his health is part of God's wise plan for his life. It's not time plus chance. Not at all. There is a wisdom to the plan of God.

Essential, therefore, to repentance is thinking differently. Thinking differently. And part of that is vertically realizing God's a better thinker than you are. Can you handle that? Can you handle that God is better at thinking than you are? Isaiah 55 says it plainly, "’For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord. ‘As the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’" So repentance is, God, I know that you're better at thinking than I am. Teach me how to think. Teach me to think differently. So God, when he comes to you and says, "Come now let us reason together," says the Lord, follow his train of thought, not your own.

Thirdly, a deeper sense of Job's own ignorance, this is the other side of that same coin. It follows the last one. Our thinking is juvenile. Our thinking is like that of little children, sometimes. One commentator in the book of Job likened Job and all of us to backseat drivers in our own lives, a 12 year-old backseat driver. And the dad is a skillful driver. Yeah, it's rainy and yeah, the road's wet, and all that, but the kids shrieking in the background, yelling at the driver to do this and to do that. He's a 12 year-old backseat driver. And God wants to say, "I know what I'm doing. I know how to drive your life." So look at verse 3, "You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my council without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know." The words “you asked” are in my translation, your translation may not have them because they're not in the Hebrew, but it is a quote of what God said to him. "You said this to me, ‘Who is this that obscures counsel by speaking words without knowledge?’ So, God, you said that to me.” So basically in his repentance, he's accepting God's very low view of his own thinking. He's accepting God's evaluation of his ignorance. Essentially, he's saying back to God, "You're absolutely right. I was obscuring counsel by speaking words without knowledge. My ignorance is overwhelming. Truly Lord, I was speaking about things I knew nothing about. I was out of my depth." Out of my depth.

Fourth, greater awareness of the wonder of God's ways, look at verse 3, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me." The word translated, wonderful, is really an incredible word here. It means things that are amazing. They create awe and worship. The complexity of creation is certainly among them, the inanimate universe, the foundations of the earth, the mountains, the valleys, the limits of the oceans, the weather patterns, all of those things. “It's too wonderful for me. It's beyond my ability to comprehend. And then how much less can I understand animate creation, the animals, the systems of life if a rock is amazing, and eagle is more amazing? I can't make a rock and I can't make an eagle. And so I think, oh God, your ways are wonderful. They're amazing.” Isn't it striking that Job includes all the dimensions and details of God's wise plan here, including the vast sorrow of his own life, the death of his 10 children? Though the pain is still fresh, his repentance includes their death in his word, wonders- things too wonderful for me to understand. So, when we get to heaven we will look back and remember all of the sorrows of our lives, but they'll cause us no sorrow in heaven. And will we not see the handiwork of God in every moment of our lives? Will we not see it as ultimately wonderful, what God did to get us, in a multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe, language, people and nations, get us all safely to heaven. Are not his ways wonderful and amazing? And so, essential to Job's repentance is to learn, not just to submit to God's wise and fatherly decrees about his life, but to delight in them, delight in them.

Fifth, a vision of God himself, verse 5, "My ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you." This may be the greatest mystery in all this book. Somehow we have to limit our understanding of these words. Because God said to Moses, putting him in a cleft in the rock, "No one can see me and live." Right? We know from 1 Corinthians 15, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” We cannot in these mortal frames, see the full glory of God. We cannot see God and live. Or as John 1:18 says plainly, "No one has ever seen God." So the movement in Job's life from hearing about God to seeing him is mysterious. But this is what we call in the Old Testament, a theophany. God shows up in some display of his person, some display of his greatness, and it’s overwhelming, an overwhelming experience. Now in reality, when we get to heaven, we will actually see the face of God. Revelation 22:6 says, "His servants will see his face." We're going to see God directly. And we'll be able to survive it and delight in it. It says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, "Now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror, then face to face. Now we know in part, then we should know fully, even as we have been fully known." We are heading toward a world in which we will see God face to face.

Perhaps it's like it was with Isaiah, where he saw the pre-incarnate Christ. He saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted. And the train of his robe filled the temple. Isaiah 6. And John 12 tells us, Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him. So there's this pre-incarnate vision of the greatness of the Lord, perhaps. At any rate, essential to Job's repentance is the delight and overwhelming power of seeing God's glory. “I've heard of you, but now my eyes have seen.” And I want to tell you, as I've meditated on heaven for five years, the movement from hearing only to seeing also, that's what heaven's all about. Well, what's that going to be like? I mean, what are we doing here? You're listening to yet another sermon. I have to find ways to use words, nouns, verbs, adjectives to captivate your imagination for another about six minutes. And then we're done. How many of you would prefer to hear a verbal-based sermon, or to see God's glory face to face? I can't compete, friends. I'm not trying to compete. This is what we've got for now. We've got logic, we've got words, we've got the written word of God, and it's enough. But we are going to move someday from hearing only to seeing at last. And I can't wait. That's going to be delightful. I've heard of you at the ears, but now my eyes have seen you.

Six, the vision of God, of himself, has nothing before God. “My ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you, therefore I despise myself.” I despise myself. You're like, "Well, pastor, that's not a healthy self-image." He's going to end up with a very healthy self-image. What was happening before was the unhealthy self-image. That overweening pride, that arrogance we all have. That's unhealthy. It is healthy to be humble before a holy God, to realize we're creatures and that we're sinners. That is healthy. And for us, therefore, to despise ourselves in that healthy way, what does it mean? I think little of myself. It's not self-loathing, it's not self-hatred, it's self-littling. I realize I am a speck on the scales. I am a drop from the bucket. “You, oh Lord, are infinitely majestic. And I can't begin to comprehend you. So I despise myself as small.” It's similar isn't it, to Psalm 8, "When I consider the Heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you created, what is man that you are mindful of?" Isn't that, “I despise myself?” What are we? We're small. We're insignificant. We're weak. That's what “I despise myself.” This is what repentance is. Do you remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector? The tax collector stood at a distance. He would not look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "Be merciful to me, oh God, a sinner." Genuine repentance is a deeply humbling work. And that's what opens the door for God's grace to work. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, for whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And then finally, “I repent in dust and ashes.” What does that mean? I realized I was made from dust. I was made from dust, and to dust I'm going to return. It's who I am. I'm mortal. And it's also a sign of mourning over sin, of grief over sin, of turning from it emotionally and saying, "I hate my sin. And I hate what I said about you. God, all of it was false. I repent in dust and ashes."

Well, that's Job's repentance, elements of Job's repentance. Christ is standing in front of all of you, calling on you to repent. No matter where you're at in your lives, no matter where you're at in your spirituality. You may have walked in here an unbeliever. This morning, you've heard the Gospel. You hear it again. That God, in his kindness, sent his Son. The only begotten Son of God, Jesus, incarnate of the Virgin Mary, lived the only sinless life that has ever been. Died on the cross in our place, rose again. And if you repent of your sins, turning from your sins to him, you'll be forgiven, past, present and future, all your sins, forgiven. And he's calling on you now to repent and believe the good news. But you may have done that years ago and I say, praise God, your sins have been forgiven. They are forgiven, and they will be forgiven. There's still work to be done. Amen? Still work to be done. And so he's standing before each one of you and saying, “Be honest about your inner corruptions.” Say, “I know if you brought that level of sorrow in my life, I would begin to complain against you and murmur against you and question you. And so therefore, God, work in me, work in me, deep, deep repentance.”

Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the things we've learned from Job. We have one more sermon in this incredible series. I thank you for his experiences, oh Lord. We would not want to go through them, but we can benefit from them as we read. And Lord, I pray that we would let go of our pride, let go of our arrogance and our selfishness. And that we would turn to you in repentance, and allow you to work in us, our whole lives, a deep-seeded repentance. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. 

God sometimes uses suffering to reveal hidden corruptions so we will repent. If a godly man like Job needed to repent, how much more do we!

The post Job’s Repentance and Ours (Job Sermon 29) appeared first on Two Journeys.

The problem of evil and suffering we are learning about in Job cannot be addressed without understanding the role of demons and Satan… our invisible enemies.

Turn your Bibles to Job 41 to continue in our series in the book of Job. One of the most exciting, one of my favorite books that I've probably ever read, is a book called To Conquer the Air, and that's the story about Orville and Wilbur Wright and what they did to develop the first heavier than air craft, flying machine, airplane. Now the book's title To Conquer the Air, came from the insight that the Wright brothers had watching birds fly, that conquering and indeed using the eddies and currents, air pressure, the wind, was the issue, the whole issue in flight. And so while others, like Samuel Langley, worked on smaller and lighter and more efficient engines, the Wright brothers worked on the shape, the contour of the wing, and how to conquer the air through the wing. In all of their research they used wind tunnels, among the first to develop a wind tunnel to study the shape of the wing, and the contour of the wing and came to fruition, as we well know, December 17th, 1903, in our home state of North Carolina, you see it on all the license plates. Now I want you guys to know, as loyal as I am to my adopted home state, those were Ohio boys that did that, they just came because there was a bunch of sand dunes and some wind down there, but we want to take credit for it and put it on the license plate, “first in flight,” there it is, Kitty Hawk. What enabled this heavy craft to lift off was the cumulative lift power of invisible molecules of air, air pressure, combining to create a force called lift.

Nowadays we modern people are so used to the scene of a jet airplane taking off, like a Boeing 747, which can weigh over a million pounds, fully loaded. Imagine if Orville and Wilbur could see a million pound aircraft taking off. It lifts off the same way theirs did, by the cumulative power of invisible air molecules, beating on the underside of the wing with more force and net force compared to that, which presses on the upper part of the wing, invisible air, and therefore invisible air must be a very powerful thing, much more powerful than we can imagine. If you were in that cabin and soaring up through the atmosphere, cutting through the clouds like that, sometimes you can feel the change in air pressure, you can feel it in your ears. Has that ever happened to you? It's especially acute if you have an ear infection or some kind of an ear condition, can be very painful, and that's because there is a constant beat of air pressure on our body all the time, about 14.7 pounds per square inch, constantly pushing on your body, every square inch, almost 15 pounds of pressure on every square inch of your body. You're just so used to it, you're you don't even notice it.

Why am I talking about all this? Well, there's a verse in the book of Ephesians that describes Satan's immense, but invisible, power on planet Earth. Ephesians 2:2, calls Satan the ruler of the kingdom of the air. It's an interesting phrase, ruler of the kingdom of the air. Satan's powerful kingdom is like the air, it's invisible, but it's around us at every moment, affecting everything we do with its invisible pressures and eddies and currents and forces, spiritual forces, on our minds and on our hearts. The ruler of the kingdom of the air, that's Satan. Now at the end of that same book, Ephesians, Paul tells the Ephesian Christians that their true warfare is not with other human beings. Ephesians 6:12 says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” As we come to Job 41, we see a description of a beast, an animal, a creature, called leviathan, God brings up this creature and talks about this creature, leviathan, and understanding him as the focus of this sermon.

My basic concept, and I unfolded this or began to open my mind to you two weeks ago, is that leviathan represents Satan, the enemy of God's people. The book of Job, generally, is situated in the canon of scripture with a central purpose to help God's people understand the problem of human suffering, understand how it is that human beings can suffer so much, and specifically a Godly person like Job. The kind of general slogan, “why do bad things happen to good people?” I have all kinds of problems with that slogan, because as Jesus said, there was no one good, but God alone. We understand what that means, and we expect retribution to wicked tyrants who try to conquer the world and end up cowering in a reinforced concrete bunker and committing suicide, that makes sense to us, or a criminal that ends up in some kind of a fire fight with law enforcement and loses his life or ends up getting arrested and sent to prison for his crimes, we understand all that. That's not the problem of evil and suffering. We're talking about why does it happen to innocent people, the little children? Why does it happen to other people? And specifically for us, Christians, why do we go through such grief and sorrow and pain? Why does God allow these kinds of trials to come into our lives? That's the question, and the book of Job is given to answer that. I'm asserting that the problem of evil and suffering cannot be addressed without understanding the role of demons, and the role of Satan, our invisible enemies, kingdom of the air.

I believe, as I said two weeks ago, behemoth, the Hebrew plural, beasts, but singular, and then even more leviathan, even more powerful and terrifying beasts introduced here in this chapter, Job 41, are best understood representing demons and Satan. The message about both is this: Job, your suffering, in part, is caused by Satan and demons, by satanic forces, and as with these two monsters behemoth and leviathan, they are too strong for you. You can't handle them, you cannot control them, you cannot capture them, you cannot kill them, but God can, almighty God, the God of the universe, has absolute power over these terrifying beasts, over Satan and demons. And not only that, but God is channeling them in some way, blocking them, restraining them, redirecting them, he's got them on a leash, all of these things for his wise purposes, and in the end he will capture them, and in the end he will kill them for all eternity, in the lake of fire.

So, we Christians should be aware of Satan, we should prepare for Satan, we should resist Satan, we should be confident in ongoing protection from Satan, we should venture forth boldly in life and ministry despite Satan, and we should be hopeful over the future of Satan's death. And we should understand, much if not all to some degree, of the evil, the sorrow, and misery that happens in this world is ministered or directed or brought about by satanic influences. Now, a key verse for me in interpretation of this, and I began to explain why I'm going this direction, is Isaiah 27:1, which mentions leviathan as well. Isaiah 27:1 says, “In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce great and powerful sword. Leviathan, the gliding serpent, Leviathan, the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.” That's God killing a monster, in Isaiah 27:1 it seems to represent evil, though leviathan is an actual sea creature in Psalm 104:26, Isaiah seems to use Leviathan to represent an evil enemy of God, which at some later time, he will kill with his fierce great and powerful sword. It is biblically reasonable to see Leviathan as some evil force that is set against God, as an enemy against God. Also because Satan is portrayed as a dragon in Revelation 12-13, a dragon, it lines up with the dragon like attributes that we may see in Leviathan. Revelation 12:3, the apostle John has a vision and it says then another sign appeared in heaven, an enormous red dragon with seven heads and 10 horns and seven crowns on its head, so a dragon, and then a few verses later, verse 9, Revelation 12:9, “The great dragon was hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray, he was hurled to the earth and his angels with him.”

This is the biblical backdrop of my interpretation of leviathan as Satan. I did say to you two weeks ago that I am 100% certain, that demons and Satan are immediately involved in the suffering of human beings all over the world. There's no doubt in my mind biblically about that, there's no question about, it's not controversial at all. And, as a matter of fact, in this same book of Job, in Job 1 and 2, Satan is right there, active and involved. I am not 100% certain that behemoth and leviathan represent that.

So as I said, if you would rather go literalistic on this and say, “I just think they're two more animals,” remember what I said, in Job 38, there are 10 animals that God brings out as evidence, natural theology, Job 39, those chapters. And he brings out 10 animals beginning with the lion, and then nine others that show God's amazing creative power. God's very creative, and the lesson is, such a creative, wise, powerful God should be trusted, you should trust him in the midst of your sorrow and suffering and not bring any accusations against me. Job repents and then God comes back with two more animals and the book ends. So, if that's how you want to look at it, I understand, I respect that, and so then you would try to figure out what they are, hippopotamus and crocodile. It's right there in the notes, just look there, all right, God made the hippo and they're very dangerous and they are very dangerous, you don't want to mess with a hippo. One of the biggest, maybe the biggest, animal killer of human beings in Africa, they are dangerous. Then what a dragon maybe, or maybe a crocodile, possibly. The message then in this just simple literal approach would be: “You can't handle behemoth, you can't handle leviathan, but I made them, I can handle them. So how do you think you can challenge me? I'm far greater than they are,” so look at verse 10-11 in the very chapter, what you just heard Dave read, “No one is fierce enough to rouse him [meaning leviathan] who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” I think that's a completely valid way to look at these two animals. It's a “how much more” argument, “I made them, I'm more powerful than they are, but you can't handle them, you can't control them, you can't capture them, you can't kill them. Therefore, how do you think you can challenge me? You ought to trust me.” That's the logic there, and I think that's a valid way.

The one question I would ask for you though, who would want to take only a literal approach here, to these animals, is it even true? Can you name a single animal on earth that we don't win against? Name it. Are you telling me we can't capture hippos and put them in zoos? I've seen a hippo in a zoo. You got to be careful. But the logic that you can't stand against the hippo and all that, I was like, I wouldn't go unarmed and I wouldn't go alone, I wouldn't go at all. There are some people that are skilled at it and they can figure it out. Then the dragon, if it literally was a dragon, now they're extinct, that's fine, I get it. We were given planet Earth, to fill the earth and to do it and rule over it, we win. I just think you're challenged, if it's literal, to actually think this could even be true, that there's no weapon that could possibly be forged against a physical creature named leviathan that we wouldn't win. I think it pushes you toward a spiritual or metaphorical symbolic interpretation. That's the approach I'm going to take. 

Leviathan, the terrifying dragon, is introduced for us in verse 1 and right away, it's an adversarial approach. Keep in mind if that's all that God wanted to do, lions are sufficient, don't you think? Lions are terrifying, you can't just approach a lion. As a matter of fact, in Isaiah they're represented as utterly fearless, they are in no way intimidated by shepherds that are gathered against them yelling and brandishing sticks. If you want to do that, you can do that with lions. But what he's saying right away here, as he did with behemoth, but now even more with leviathan, is as an adversary, you will lose. Look at verse 1-2, “Can you pull in Leviathan with a fish hook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?” so with this verse, God is challenging Job, and all humanity, about leviathan, he cannot be controlled or captured. Right away in this first verse there's a sense of hunting. Like I said, an adversarial relationship with this terrifying beast and man's weakness in the face of leviathan, strength is obvious. The language to pull in leviathan with a fishhook would be to control or capture him. So also, to tie down his tongue with a rope, or put a cord through his nose, or pierce his jaw with a hook, it's the same kind of thing. Controlling him, you can't control him. These are hunting images, and God's saying, “You cannot do this, you cannot control a leviathan with a cord or a hook through his nose. You cannot capture him or tie him down with a rope.” Later, we will see that he's going to say all weapons forged against him will fail, anything you could think of, it'll fail. So, we'll get to that, but that's where we're heading.

God next speaks of leviathan's aggressiveness. He is beast, he is beast through and through. Hear verses 3-6, “Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you, for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put a leash on him for your girls? Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants?” It's all rhetorical questions. There's no, no, no, no, no. You can't handle this beast, he is aggressive, he will never speak with general words, you can't reason with him, too powerful for you. Leviathan cannot be killed by man; no human weapon forged against him. I'm going to say more against that, but that's what verse 7 speaks of. They're just many more verses about this later, “Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?” Well, that would do it, wouldn't it? To fill its head with spears would kill him, but you can't, you can't. Then there's the terror of hunting leviathan verse 8-10, “If you lay a hand on him, you'll remember the struggle, and never do it again.” You'll remember it the rest of your life if you even just laid a hand on him. “Any hope of subduing him is false, the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him.”  Now at this very point, as I've already cited, and I preached a whole sermon on these two verses, verses 10-11, it's vital. God interjects himself right here in the midst of the leviathan section, he just puts himself in, because God, throughout the whole book of Job, God is the issue always, always. Look at verse 10-11, “Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” God is the creator, and the sustainer, and the owner of the entire universe. He is also the active ruler and judge of the entire universe. No creature is powerful enough to stand against God, less we forget, Satan himself is a creature, a created being who openly rebelled against God in the heavenly realms, as Revelation 12 makes plain, was defeated and thrown to the Earth, and in the garden of Eden Satan came subtly masquerading as a serpent, what Revelation 12:9 calls that ancient serpent. So he comes in disguise, hence the beast language just makes sense, because he's just always doing this. He's disguising himself; he masquerades as a serpent.

2 Corinthians 12 says that Satan masquerades as an angel of light. If you could see him as he would present himself, he would be beautiful and alluring. He was enticed by his own beauty, that's why he fell into wickedness, but he really is a monster, and human race this is who you made a covenant with, this is who you broke away from God to serve, this beast, this monster, this is who you made a deal with and who Christ broke that deal, so that we would be drawn into a covenant relationship with God. You need to understand he is a beast. We, Job, all of us, are members of a rebellious race, rebellious. We joined Satan in rebellion against God. Did any of you think we were going to get through this world unscathed? That there wouldn't be any pain. There wouldn't be any loss. The three categories of misery that Job went through: the loss of his wealth, the loss of his loved ones, his children, and then the loss of his health. We’re not going to make it through unscathed, death we leave it all behind, because the wages of sin is death, and whatever God does to us, he has the right to do. We can never have a claim against God that he must pay, but we owe him everything. We are answerable to him; he's not answerable to us. That's what he's saying in these verses. So, no human being, even in the midst of extreme suffering, has the right to challenge God or question God, because we belong to him and we're accountable to him. So, God says you ought to be afraid of leviathan, he is too powerful for you, but you ought to be even more afraid of me because I made leviathan and I made you Job. I don't owe you anything, but you owe me everything, and furthermore, as we'll see in the rest of this sermon, God in the form of his son, Jesus Christ, will exert his infinite power over Satan on our behalf, Jesus is our dragon slayer, he will go forth into battle for us, he will destroy this dragon and set us free forever from his clutches. I already told my own good news, but you knew it, you knew it was coming. This dragon is too powerful for us, but Jesus went forth as our champion on our behalf, to fight him.

So, to continue in the account, leviathan's armor is described, look at verses 12-17, “I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form. Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle? Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.” simple message here, as we've said already, as no weapon man can craft can penetrate such armor, that's what he's talking about here. Then verses 18-21, the dragon becomes a fire breathing dragon, fire breathing.

Look at verse 18 and following, “His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth.” Now many artistic depictions of dragons, especially in the European dragons, not so much the Chinese dragons, depict the fire breathing dragon sort. Amazingly, in the book of Revelation, it's not fire that comes out of the dragon's mouth, but a river of water, Revelation 12, to sweep away the woman and her children. I'm not going into Revelation 12 right now, I preached on that. That imagery is difficult enough, I'm having a hard time with Job 41, so we'll just stick to the difficulties of this one chapter, but out of the dragon's mouth comes a river to sweep away the woman and her children, Revelation 12:15. Then in Revelation 16, evil spirits come out of the mouth of the dragon and the beast, so he opens his mouth there and out come evil spirits. Revelation 16:13, “Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs, they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” The beast that came from the Earth, the antichrist, had a mouth like a dragon, Revelation, 13:11, “Then I saw another beast coming out of the Earth. He had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.” Actually it's the false prophet, but he's got a mouth like a dragon.

So, whether there's literal fire that came out of the mouth of a physical dragon, doesn't seem to be the point. For me, this metaphor of Satan is the amount of damage that comes from Satan's words. False doctrine, every false religion in the world that there ever has been, has come, ultimately, from Satan's mind. All of the alluring temptations of the world come from him. And then once we fall into sin, he turns around and accuses us of our sins. Satan's assaults on the people of God in Ephesians 6 are depicted as flaming arrows, flaming arrows. Ephesians 6:16, “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one,” shield of faith can extinguish all of the flaming arrows of the evil one. I think there's two great categories, when I think about flaming arrows, temptations and accusations, temptations and accusations, so you lift up the shield of faith so you can extinguish them. Verses 22-25, Job 41, describe the overpowering might of leviathan, “Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. His chest is hard as a rock, hard as a lower millstone. When he rises up the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing.” just power, power, you can't defeat him. And now we get, as I've been saying and saying throughout the sermon would come, verse 26-29 says no human weapon forged against him will succeed. Nothing you can contrive can hurt him in any way. Verse 26-29, “The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee; sling stones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance.” that's the whole armory friends. We cannot kill him. There's nothing the human race can do to defeat this beast, that's the point.

And then the trail of destruction behind Leviathan is described, verses 30-32, “His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. He makes the depth churn like a boiling cauldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair.” Now, I can think of lots of weapons that win against a crocodile. I wouldn't want to fight one, but I'm just saying. Now, if this is a literal dragon and nothing could work against that- that just doesn't seem to be the point here. The trail of devastation left by this terrifying beast is overwhelming.

And then look at the summary in verse 33-34, “Nothing on earth is his equal-“ look at that, “Nothing on earth is his equal- he's a creature without fear. He looks down on all that are haughty, he is king over all the proud.” It's like he's king over all the Earth, king over the entire human race, he rules over all humanity, the kingship, almost like king of kings and lord of lords in some way. It's significant because first John 5:19 says of Satan, “We know that we are from God and the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” We know in the temptation of Jesus, in Luke 4:5-7 it says, “The devil led him to a high place [Jesus] and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. He said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you'll worship me it will all be yours.’” that's what I meant by king over kings. I know that's the title we give to Jesus, Amen, it's his and he got it back, but we gave the keys to the kingdom to Satan and he rules in a secret powerful way over every nation on earth. 

So, all human beings are, in some sense, his possession. We were locked up in his dungeon, in his dark dungeon with invisible chains, unable to free ourselves. This is why we needed a dragon slayer, and Jesus is that dragonslayer. It was predicted in the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 3:15. Remember how I said, Satan came in the guise of a tricky serpent, that ancient serpent, Revelation 12:9, is Satan. And he came, and there was some kind of a deal or a covenant to some degree, made between the human race and Satan through the deception. And God, in judging the serpent said, “I'm going to sever the tie between you and the woman and between your offspring or seed and hers,” her seed. “He will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel.” it's the first prediction of the coming of Christ. Paul says in the book of Galatians, that Jesus was born of a woman, so without a human father, had a human mother, but no human father. He is the seed of woman, he is the dragon slayer, he's the one that came to crush the head of the serpent.

And when Jesus came and did his ministry, I love in the gospel of Mark, how terrified the demons are of Jesus, amen, hallelujah. Leviathan is fearless concerning humans, but he was afraid of Jesus, he was afraid of Jesus. Mark 1:23-27, at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, this account, “Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are- the Holy One of God!’” That sounds like fear to me. “’Be quiet!’ said Jesus sternly. ‘Come out of him!’ The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. People were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching- and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.’” Jesus described his exorcisms as an act of violence done to a strong man, Satan. Listen to Luke 11:20-22, “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Now listen to this, think of this in terms of leviathan, the description I've just given you, “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe, but when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him [listen] he takes away the armor in which the man trusted, and divides up the spoils.” I love that. He can strip leviathan of his armor, and then plunder leviathan's kingdom. He can just take away the armor in which he trusted, and you know what the spoils are? It's us, dear friends, we are the plunder, we are the spoils. We're the ones that were rescued from Satan's dark kingdom.

The greatest destruction of Satan and his kingdom happened at the cross, and at the empty tomb. Can't separate them, but together, Christ's death and his resurrection gave Satan and his kingdom a mortal wound. And he's been, to some degree friends, bleeding out for 2000 years. Like, “Man, I wish he would've just killed him!” he'll get to that, and we'll talk about why he doesn't in a moment, but he gave him, he inflicted on him, a mortal wound at that moment. Hebrews 2:14-15 says of Jesus, “that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death- that is the devil- and free those who all their lives are held in slavery by their fear of death.” If you're a Christian, you're set free, you should be set free from all fear of death. You know what else? You're set free from what death can take from you. You will lose all your possessions at death, don't worry about it, you'll get your true wealth in heaven. You'll lose all your loved ones at death, don't worry about it, you'll have your loved ones, your Christian loved ones, for all eternity in heaven. Can't wait to talk to you about Job's 10 kids, we'll get to that. No don’t, see don't say those things in advance. It's exciting to spend eternity, not just a mortal life, with your loved ones. Jesus had that power, and how did he do it? That by his death, he might destroy him that held the power of death. Do you get the sense that Jesus went down as our champion, into the pit, and grabbed Satan's weapon out of his hand and turned it on him and killed him with it? He did that by dying. Habakkuk 3:13-14 gives us this image: “You came out to deliver your people,” think of this as Jesus, “You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. With his own spear you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out the scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding.” amen. With Satan's own weapon, he killed him so that we might have eternal life.

So, while leviathan, while Satan, is too powerful for us, he's not too powerful for Christ. Christ, in one day at the cross inflicted a mortal wound on Satan and his kingdom, and in this way, he sets all of his children free from Satan's dark kingdom. Colossians 1:13-14 says, “he [God, almighty God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,” into the kingdom of his beloved Son, “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Do you realize how sweet those words are? Well, what does that mean? It means that Satan can stand at the right hand and accuse you like he does in Zechariah 3, he can accuse and accuse and accuse, because that's what the Hebrew word means, the accuser. He can stand there and accuse you, but you know what the answer's going to be? Romans 8:33[-34], “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died, and moreover is at the right hand of God is interceding for us.” So you stand behind a hedge that is made of iron, really, it cannot ignite with Satan's accusations, because all of those accusations will be as nothing. God is saying, “Who will bring any charge against my forgiven children?” So, in that way, Jesus is our dragonslayer. Now you want the real final, the final killing, don't you? You want Satan to be crushed forever. Well, Revelation 20:10 says it's going to happen. “The devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, [Revelation: 20:10] where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented, day and night, forever and ever.” So, Jesus is the dragonslayer. I just need to stop and say, do you know him today? Do you know him as your savior? Are your sins forgiven? Will Jesus intercede for you and stand at the right hand of God and plead the merits of his blood on your behalf. All you need for that to happen is just repent of your sins and trust in him, not by works, but by simple faith in Christ, he will slay the dragon for you.

Now, the question is, why doesn't he just destroy the demons and Satan? In this, we need to understand the hedge of protection, or the leash, the hedge and the leash. At the beginning of the book, we see Satan roaming free over Earth and wreaking havoc. Job 1:7, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the Lord, ‘From roaming through the Earth and going back and forth in it.’” Then the hedge is described in Job 1:10 as Satan himself said, “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has. You've blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds have spread throughout the land.” So Satan and his demons are blocked, they're limited in their access to us. They want to get at us, they want to steal and kill and destroy, that's all they want to do, but they can't get at us. God will not let them, so that hedge represents a wall of protection that Satan cannot penetrate.

Also the concept of a leash, a leash, look again at verse 5 in this chapter, it's God saying to Job, “Can you make a pet of him [leviathan] like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls?” “Can you leash him? No you can't, but I can. You see he's on a leash, he's like my pet.” A leash is a restraint and Satan has to ask permission for every temptation he would hurl at God's people, he's got to ask permission. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” What do you mean, “will not let you be tempted?” means Satan would like to tempt you more than he does, but God says, no. “He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but with the temptation will make a way of escape so you can stand up under it.”

One thing Satan cannot do to us, which he would like to do, is to destroy our faith in Jesus Christ. Do you remember the night that Jesus was arrested? Jesus gave Simon Peter a warning of what was going to happen that night. Simon Peter was so cocky, so overconfident in his own loyalty to Jesus, you remember, “Even if all fall away on a count of you, I never will, I'm your number one believer Jesus.” Luke 22:31-32,“Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you [plural, all of you] like wheat, but I've prayed for you, [singular] Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back and strengthened your brothers.” So, Jesus is at the right hand of God, Hebrews 7:25, is interceding for you while you go through trials, to the end that your faith will not fail, and it won't. You are a believer going into your trial and you'll be a believer in Jesus Christ coming out of your trial, and not because you're so great. Peter, wasn't so great. It's because you have a great Savior and a great Heavenly Father who gave you the faith to begin with and will sustain it secretly in your soul, no matter what trials you go through, no matter what Satan does, he cannot extinguish your faith in Christ.

So, then what's going on? Well, God is using demons, and using Satan, as his pets to accomplish his ends. They're on a leash, they're controlled, they have to ask permission. This is an image I have right now, I don't know how helpful it is, but imagine a huge building complex like the Pentagon. With almost limitless corridors, but then there are all these doors with swipe cards, that if you don't have the swipe card, you can't get in. You get the picture of the demons running pell-mell through the halls and they can't turn into any door that they choose. And then suddenly a door opens and they flood in there and do some damage in there, and then suddenly that door shuts and they're in there for a while, and then the door opens and they flood back out. This is going on every day at the micro level, around billions of people, all the time. And God is playing an infinitely higher game than Satan is. His intellect is almost staggeringly higher than Satan's, while his is much higher than ours. In heaven, we're going to get to celebrate the wisdom of God and how he used demons and Satan, limited them, and all of that to achieve his incredibly good purposes. God, just in his kindness, and his wisdom, decided to let the demons and Satan have at us in limited ways like he did with Job, right? An opening was made in the hedge to do this and to do that, and then it closed, and that was it. And so, we should celebrate the power of God in wisely, channeling demons and evil for his own purposes. 

All right, so what are our final lessons? God warns us about Satan, if you don't think leviathan is about that then just read Ephesians 6 and it's right there. And there's some things that we need to do. I want- just have an image, I want you to fight Satan from behind your hedge, just fight him from behind the hedge of protection. And if a door opens it's because God opened it. He's choosing to bring some pain into your life, some disease into your life, some suffering into your life. It's limited, it's not everything the demons would want to do or Satan could do, it's not that, but it's going to have a certain impact. Trust God as you walk through that, trust him, we don't live in a dualistic universe where God and Satan are equals and all that, it's not at all. God is infinitely above Satan and is controlling him. As I finish, I'll just give you six quick duties. Christians should be aware of Satan, we should prepare for Satan, we should resist Satan, be confident in ongoing protection from Satan, we should venture forth boldly in life and ministry despite him, and we should be hopeful over Satan's future death. Be aware of Satan, it says put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 2 Corinthians 2:11 says, “in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we're not unaware of his schemes.” Schemes, evil plots, and evil plans, yes, he's playing chess in your life. They're evil schemes, be aware, be aware of it, be aware. 1 Peter 5:8, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” Be alert, be aware. Don't be like Simon Peter, he walked right into the lion's den without any protection, surrounded by Christ's enemies, warming himself at the fire, thinking he was fine, he could handle it, and he couldn't he was in over his head, so be aware. Secondly, prepare, Ephesians 6:13, “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything, to stand.” prepare, prepare to suffer. Prepare for those three categories of pain that were brought in Job's life, loss of possessions, loss of loved ones, loss of health, prepare, get ready, and just every day put on the full armor of God, put on each part in Ephesians 6, get ready.

Thirdly, resist the devil, resist the devil and he will what? Flee from you. What a picture that is. Who am I? Who am I? The devil should flee from me. I know who I am, I'm nothing. I'm the puny person in front of leviathan that Job 41 was about. Well then why is he fleeing? He's not fleeing from me; he's fleeing from Jesus, and from the Spirit of God. Resist him and he will flee from you. Fourthly, be confident in God's ongoing protection from Satan. Be confident in that. He's not going to allow anything to happen to you that is not according to his wise plan. Fifthly venture forth boldly to rescue people from Satan's dark kingdom. Jesus said, “on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades or hell will not prevail against it.” There are lost people here in the Raleigh-Durham area, let's go find them, let's be bold witnesses and be unafraid. Finally, be hopeful over Satan's final demise. One of my favorite verses about this topic is Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Isn't that a marvelous verse.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the chance we've had to walk through Job 41 today. Thank you for the things that we can learn. Pray that you would enable us to take to heart these lessons, and that we would be prepared for the onslaught, which is so much more powerful than we can handle, but that we would look to you, Lord Jesus, our champion, our protector, the wall, the fortress, the citadel who keeps us safe. We look to you. In Jesus' name. Amen. 

We are called to engage in spiritual warfare from behind the hedge of protection that God gives to prevent anything from overwhelming us.

The post Spiritual Warfare: Fighting Leviathan from Behind the Hedge (Job Sermon 28) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Paul vigorously defends his ministry against the attacks of the Super-Apostles, showing that it is improper for them to boast about work they did not accomplish.

The post 2 Corinthians Episode 11: Paul Defends his Ministry appeared first on Two Journeys.

God speaks of two mysterious beasts: the behemoth and the leviathan. He uses them to humble Job, remind him of his limits, and that he can't save himself.

Turn your Bibles to Job 40. We continue our sermon series in the book of Job. As we do, I am mindful of a pretty spectacular moment in the history of Israel. The prophet Elisha and his servant were surrounded by an invading army sent by the king of Syria who was enraged at the prophetic gift of Elisha, and the fact that he was telling military secrets to the king of Israel, so that the king of Syria was consistently thwarted in his efforts, militarily. And the king of Syria was frustrated, and sent a whole army to capture one man who was residing in Dothan. And they went stealthily through the night, snuck up into position, did everything right militarily, surrounded the city, and they're ready to capture this one man. And as the sun rose early in the morning, Elisha's servant went out and suddenly saw the Syrian army surrounding Dothan and figured that the game was up. Terror filled his heart. And he went back to the prophet and he said, "Oh my Lord what shall we do?" And Elijah said these words, "Don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And then he prayed this prayer. "Oh Lord, open his eyes that he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes and he saw hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

So I have that story in mind as I preach this sermon today because I believe that surrounding us every moment of our lives is a spiritual dimension, sometimes in scripture called the heavenly realms. This spiritual dimension cannot, ordinarily, be perceived by our five senses, though occasionally the barrier, whatever it is, between this physical world and the spiritual dimension, the spiritual realms, is occasionally torn open, such as at Jesus's baptism. That's the very word used in Mark's gospel, the heavens were torn open, and the Spirit descended on Jesus. Or again, at Stephen's martyrdom, the heavens were torn open. He saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So occasionally, that membrane, or that wall, that barrier is torn open, but usually not. And everything that we know about the spiritual dimensions we learn in scripture. We read words in scripture and find out these truths and believe them, so that we are aware of the spiritual realms, and that within the spiritual realms that surround us at every moment are powerful beings called angels and demons. And these angels and demons are created beings. They have great power and great influence over the unfolding events of Earth and the unfolding events of our lives. They exert an invisible but constant force on the minds and the bodies of people, so the scripture says. Now this morning, this sermon is meant to be a plea to all of us. As Elisha said, "Lord, open our eyes that we may see."

Now the book of Job, big picture, is addressing the problem of evil and suffering in the world. We have walked through ... We're in the 40th chapter now. We've walked through, again and again, this issue, given to try to explain why it is that there is so much evil and so much suffering and destruction in this world. And specifically for us as followers of Christ, why do bad things happen to God's people? How do we understand that? And I am asserting today that the problem of evil and suffering in the world cannot be fully and rightly explained, understood, without understanding the effect of Satan and his angels called demons. So we come to Job 40 and 41, and these two animals, behemoth and leviathan. And immediately we come, as I have week after week in the book of Job, to the problem of hermeneutics, or Bible interpretation. What shall I do with these two animals? How can we rightly divide the word of truth? My desire is not just to feed you one meal, but to teach you also how to feed yourselves rightly from scripture, so that throughout the week you can read the Bible accurately and rightly for yourselves. So I try to work through that at various moments in the book of Job.

And I believe that this issue of spiritual warfare, the opposition of demons and of Satan, is such a significant issue that I plan on spending two weeks on this topic. Originally, this sermon was one sermon called “Dragonslayer.” Isn't that exciting? What a great title. But then I realized the sermon was 23 pages long and getting longer. It was growing at night without me doing anything. It just kept getting longer and longer. And so I said, "All right, I've got to separate them." But separating sermons like that is like separating conjoined twins. And both of those twins have to live, so how do we do this? How do we understand? So I thought let's have two sermons on Jesus as dragonslayer. And it really makes sense because Jesus has been slaying this dragon for 2000 years. It's a long, slow death he has ordained for Satan. And he will, in some sense, instantly put his career to an end, in the future, but not yet. In the meantime, it's a long slow death, and that's pretty exciting. So we get to walk through it for two weeks.

And so I have the problem of hermeneutics, of Bible interpretation, with behemoth and leviathan. Who are these mysterious beasts? And they're described only, simply, in beast like terms. So let's understand the context in the book of Job. God has been speaking to his suffering servant Job. Job has had his life shredded by wave upon wave of suffering: the loss of all of his wealth, and the loss of all of his children and then, in phase two, the loss of his health, wave upon wave, and then some ongoing debates and discussions with his friends about the problem of evil, which make up the bulk of the book of Job. And during that time, little by little, by little, more and more of Job's sin came out, emerged where he sinfully accused God of injustice and wrongdoing in his case. To humble Job, God appears and speaks to him out of a storm, a whirlwind. Job 38:2-3, "Who is this that darkens my counsel by speaking words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me." He then exposes Job's frailty and limitations as a man by rolling out natural theology, what we can learn from God's creation. That's what he confines, that's what God confines his comments to with Job. He walks Job through overwhelming evidence of the attributes of God woven through creation. God's power in creating the universe, the foundations of the Earth, the boundaries of the sea, the clouds, the rhythm of sunrise and sunset, the patterns of weather, snow, hail, lightning, thunder, the path of the east winds, the giving of the right amount of rain and dew to satisfy the grasses on the Earth, the freezing patterns of ice, even up to the distant stars that make up the constellations, and the laws of physics that control their motions. The use of all of these inanimate objects that God made show his great power and his wisdom.

And then he brings forth animate creatures, animals, 10 of them, one after the other, animals and birds that God made and controls: the lion, the raven, the mountain goat, the deer, wild donkey, wild ox, the ostrich, the horse, the hawk, and the eagle. He cites their birth, their habits, and habitats, their feeding, their marvelous attributes, the stealthy hunting at night of the lion and the lioness, the mighty strength of the ox, the freedom of the wild donkey, the speed of the ostrich, the bold courage of the horse, the flight of the hawk, the eyesight of the eagle, all of these attributes. But he keeps mixing it in with Job's limited attributes, his limitations. “Job, you are limited in time. I am not. You are limited in wisdom. I am not. You are limited in power. I am not. So how then, Job, can you think to question me? How can you think to challenge me? How can you question my justice?” And by the time this work of natural theology spoken by the Creator of it all is done, Job is humbled. And he says in Job 40:3-5, “Job answered the Lord, ‘I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer. Twice, but I will say no more.’” But God, as I said last week, didn't feel that the work was done. Still more humbling work to do. He doesn’t- God doesn't deal lightly with the corruption of his children. And so he probes deep and deeper, even deeper still. And basically just says the same thing again, we've got more to say, verse 6-7, "Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me." We saw last time that God addresses at that part of Job 40, the fundamental disrespect of Job toward God is fundamental unbelief, charging God with injustice. Verse 8, "Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?"

Now this is the very thing we must not do when we're suffering afflictions, and that is see God as the enemy. God is not accountable to us. He doesn't owe us any explanation. He's infinitely above the entire human race, and he knows exactly what he's doing. Job is not God. He has no splendor of his own. He has no glory radiating from his being, and he has no mighty voice. Verse 9-10, "Do you [Job] have an arm like God's? Can your voice thunder like his? Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.” “And restrain the evil doers of the earth. And if you can do all of that, then I will admit, myself, I will admit to you: that your own right hand can save you."

So that's exactly where we're at in the Book of Job. So, Job, you're limited in time, limited in knowledge, limited in power, and you cannot save yourself. That's exactly the point we're at in Job. We suffering human beings cannot save ourselves. But from what? Who's the adversary, what's the adversary? How do we understand that adversary? Now we've got these two beasts that come in, behemoth and leviathan. God wants Job to know that his own right hand cannot save himself, and then implies we've got two enemies to talk about, because, unlike the 10 animals, he puts Job in an adversarial relationship with these two animals, behemoth and leviathan. Can you fight them? Can you overcome them? He doesn't do that with the other 10 animals. And basically, the concept you cannot save yourself is, in my mind, expanded to these phrases. With these two beasts, you cannot control them, you cannot capture them, and you cannot kill them. But I can control them, I can capture them, and I can kill them. So that's the simple way of looking at these two beasts.

Now, again, with Bible interpretation, we can simply just take them as animals, just two more animals. Should we do that? Should we just take them as literal predators that are just too hard for human beings to conquer, but God has no problem dealing with them? And so the argument, then, is just how then can you challenge God, such a mighty God? He's greater than they are. So if you can't handle them, you certainly can't handle God. And so you got 10 animals, and then Job's repentance, and then you got two more animals, possibly. Some Christian scholars do that. It is safe in one respect. You're just taking the words at face value. Two mighty animals you cannot control, you cannot capture, you cannot kill. God can, so be humble before God. Don't question God. Repent before God. If you can't deal with them, you can't deal with me. That's it. And that fits if you look at chapter 41, the next chapter, verse 10 and 11 in the middle of the leviathan section he basically does this. He says, “No one is fierce enough to rouse leviathan. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” So that's a simple way of understanding these two animals. How much more argument? If you can't handle these animals, then you certainly can't handle their Creator. And then, what you would do is try your best to identify these animals, which almost certainly all of your Bibles have done in the footnotes. What do you have in your footnotes? “Pastor, we have hippopotamus and crocodile.” Is that what you have? I don't know. Maybe you have a study Bible with more options. I don't know. What are they? But I can tell you right now, no matter what you choose, absolute certainty on the literal interpretation will elude you. We don't know for sure. We don't know what the ... But the point is straightforward. God is mightier than they are, so humble yourself before God. And at that point I could just pray, and we would be done with the sermon. You've heard it. All right. There's nothing more to say. But I personally do not find this satisfying. Seems like a letdown at the end of all these chapters. Ten animals, and now two more animals. I feel like that point's already been made. Job's already repented. And now we're going to circle back with two more animals and make the same point again. But I think the problem of evil and human suffering is far deeper and greater than that. And I think God wants to help us. God wants to give us some answers.

And another issue that is openly brought up at the beginning of the book is never addressed again, and that is the role of Satan in human suffering. It's openly brought up for the first two chapters. Satan's one of the main dominant characters in Job 1-2. And then he drops off the account entirely. He's just never mentioned again. So you can go back and look, or just listen, Job 1:6-12, right at the beginning of the book, "One day, the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, 'where have you come from?' Satan answered the Lord, 'From roaming through the Earth and going back and forth in it.' Then the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on Earth like him. He is blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil.' 'Does Job fear God for nothing?' Satan replied, 'Have you not put a hedge around him, and his household, and everything he has? You've blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and his herds spread through the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.' The Lord said to Satan, 'Very well, then. Everything he has is in your hands.'" It's a key statement, isn't it? "'But on the man himself, do not lay a finger.' Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord." Then, as the narrative continues in Job 1, the loss of Job's oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels, and even his 10 children, immediately follows Satan going out from the presence of the Lord when God says, “Everything he has is in your hands.” And then look what happens. Satan's direct activity in the rest of Job 1 isn't mentioned. He's not there in the rest of Job 1. But it's just so openly implied that all of those things that happen, happen because of Satan.

Then in phase two Satan comes back and God directly ascribes the suffering in Job's life to Satan's accusations and activity. Some might argue Satan was not mentioned, therefore not really involved. If you read the account, it was the Sabeans that took Job's oxen and donkeys, the fire of God, whatever that means, fell from the sky and burned his sheep and his servants. The Caldeans came in and stole his camels. And a mighty wind from the desert destroyed Job's children. But just the way Job 1 reads, Satan's behind all of that, all of it. And then in chapter 2:1-6 it says, "On another day, the angels came to present themselves before the Lord. And Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, 'Where have you come from?' Satan answered the Lord, 'From roaming through the Earth and going back and forth in it.' Then the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on Earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.’ ‘Skin for skin,’ Satan replied. 'A man will give all he has for his own life, but stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and his bones, he will surely curse you to your face.' The Lord said to Satan, 'Very well, then. He is in your hands. But you must spare his life.'" And this time there can be no doubt because it openly says in Job 2:7, "So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the souls of his feet to the top of his head." Satan's activity and disease is a deep mystery, isn't it? We'll find out in heaven how active he was in crafting viruses to cause trouble. There's an intelligence behind it. But on that, I'm not going to go any further. It just openly says in Job 2:7 that Job's afflictions, physical afflictions, were directly worked by Satan.

It is reasonable, therefore, I think, to see all of the calamities that came on Job as mediated to him directly by Satan. And I think, therefore, any explanation of evil in the world must address the activities of Satan. Yet, Satan's not mentioned again in the book of Job. He never comes up in the debates between Job and his friends. Elihu never mentioned Satan. God never openly mentioned Satan in all of his statements here at the end of the book. But it may well be that behemoth and leviathan represent the demons and the devil, though hidden behind the forms of beasts.

Satan appeared first in the Bible as a serpent in the Garden of Eden, so this isn't at all far fetched. And even Peter in I Peter 5 says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like [what?] a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” He's like an animal. So if behemoth and leviathan represent Satan and demons, then to some degree, I feel that the book of Job has come now full circle. And we're going to come around to, to some degree, the real enemies of the human race. God is saying to the human race, “Evil and suffering in the world is directly worked by the devil and his demons. They use wicked men as their puppets, but they control this evil world. And behemoth, representing demons, and leviathan, representing Satan, are vastly more powerful than you are. You cannot control them. You cannot capture them. You cannot kill them. But I can.” And in the end he will. And that is a consolation to us in the midst of our suffering. So in that sense, it's satisfying. And beyond that, God will continue in a very powerful, wise, infinitely deep way to channel, and control, and block, and reign in, and use demons and Satan to do things in every generation, literally, I would say every day, in ways that we will discover, I think, in the next world. But in the meantime, we just know general principles that God puts hedges of protection, and leashes, and does all of these things to advance his own purposes. So, I am 100% biblically certain that Satan and demons are directly involved in human suffering every single day. I am not so certain that behemoth and leviathan are talking about that at all. So if you are a let's stick to the animals person, you've heard your sermon. For the rest of you, I'm going to go on and say we're going to talk about behemoth as representing demons, and leviathan as representing Satan.

And in taking this symbolic approach, leviathan, I believe, is the key, just in the book of Job. You have to jump ahead to leviathan, though; I'm not going to walk through the leviathan versus today, but next week. He's the key because he shows up in Psalms and he shows up in Isaiah, and especially Isaiah 27:1 is important for me. He, leviathan, is mentioned in Isaiah as an enemy whom God will slay in the future. Isaiah 27:1, "In that day, the Lord will punish with sword his fierce, great, and powerful sword, leviathan the gliding serpent, leviathan the coiling serpent. He will slay the monster of the sea." a direct enemy of God, who God will slay with his sword, his fierce, great, and powerful sword. What a great verse. John Calvin, in commenting on Isaiah 27:1, wrote this. "The word Leviathan is variously interpreted. But in general, it simply denotes either a large serpent, or whale, or sea fishes, which approach the character of monsters on account of their huge size. For my part, I have no doubt that he speaks allegorically of Satan and his whole kingdom, describing him under the figure of some monstrous animal." Calvin hated speculation. That's not the kind of interpreter he was. He's just saying, to me, it's patently obvious in Isaiah 27:1 that leviathan represents Satan. So it seems to me, best to do the same with Job 41. Leviathan represents Satan, the monster whose wickedness is devastating the whole Earth. It's made even stronger when you read Job 41 and the descriptions of leviathan and he seems like a fire-breathing dragon, especially verses 14-17. He says, "Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth. His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together. Each is so close together that no air can pass between. They're joined fast to one another. They cling to together and cannot be parted." And then fire breathing stuff in verses 18-21. "His snorting throws out flashes of light. His eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth. Sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth."

Now it's interesting. Many cultures have depictions of dragons, fire breathing dragons, that are very similar. The artistic renditions are very similar to one another, though the countries are thousands of miles apart, like the British Isles and China. And they have similar depictions of dragons. I find that interesting. Ken Ham, in his Answers to Genesis, has done a lot of research on dragon legends, and they have a whole wing of dragons in their creation museum. And so creationists will point to Job 40 and 41 as evidence of aspects of creation as over against evolution. However valuable those insights are, for me, I just am not going to pursue that. I think it's probably true that there were creatures like that, and that's where this analogy comes from. But I think it's better to see the dragon here as Satan. And to me, the clincher is Revelation 12, where Satan is clearly presented as a dragon. Revelation 12:3, it says, "Then another sign appeared in heaven. An enormous red dragon with seven heads, and 10 horns, and seven crowns on his head." And then clearly Revelation 12:9, "The great dragon was hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the Earth, and his angels with him." And so, Satan is clearly portrayed in Revelation 12 as a dragon.

And then also, in Daniel 7, we have four great beasts that come up out of the turbulent sea, each of them representing a human empire. So the empire of Babylon, Neo-Persia, Greece, and Rome depicted as success of four beasts coming up out of the sea. And so then again in Revelation 13, the final single world ruler called Antichrist in 1 John 2, the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians, to this single world conquering ruler is the beast from the sea, same image as Daniel 7. So all of this representational language of evil and of Satan makes sense to me. 

So now let's zero in on behemoth, and then, God willing, next week will look more at leviathan. Behemoth- and I believe behemoth, in this pattern then, would represent demons. Why would I say that? Well, because the Hebrew word means beast, like a beast of the field, like any four footed creature. It's frequently used of cows, but the plural is used here. The O-T-H ending, oth, is a Hebrew plural, behemoth, like beasts. But he's treated in the text as a singular. So it's kind of odd. You've got this plural singular that behaves cohesively in a certain way. The word behemoth is just inevitably brought over as such into the English translations. They don't translate it saying beasts, but it's just behemoth. But it's a plural word. It's interesting. The plural sets us up well to see behemoth as representing demons collectively.

Now, who are the demons? Revelation 12 tells us that when the dragon was hurled to the Earth, his tail swept a third of the stars and flung them to the Earth. And this represents angels that joined Satan in this heavenly rebellion against the throne of God. One third of them fell into wickedness, and they are the devil's angels, or we also say demons. It's good to know that more ... there are more on our side than on their side. Praise God. Two thirds, isn't that encouraging? Of course, none of that matters. God is on our side. Amen? If God is for us, who can be against us? Even if he had all the angels, we would still win because of omnipotence.

Then Matthew 25, and the sheep and the goats, he says to the wicked who rebels and who never believed in Christ, “Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." So those are demons. And that's the ultimate end of Satan and of demons, the lake of fire. In Mark 5, when Jesus interacted with the Demoniac of the Gadarenes, the demons, many of them spoke collectively as one entity, and named themselves Legion, for we are many, so behemoth then, a plural word representing many demons acting collectively as one evil force in the world. Now, what does he say about behemoth? Well, he starts in many translations with the word behold, or even more urgently, behold now behemoth. It's like he's unveiling behemoth. I want you to see behemoth. Behold him now. Look at him. Behemoth is hidden from our eyes. We don't see him. But I want to unveil him. I want you to look at him. And then he says, "I made him along with you." So God created every creature that exists. As the Creator, he also sustains every creature that exists. Nothing in the universe has existence apart from the will of God. God continues to will the existence of the devil and his angels. At every moment, he sustains them. If God chose, he could speak them out of existence instantly. They would cease to exist. Of course, that begs a question. Why doesn't he do that? I'll address that briefly at the end of this sermon, and more next week at any rate. Then he says behemoth eats grass like an ox. Well, we know that a beast of the field would do this. So if we're just dealing with a beast, that's what they do. He likes grass.

But in a more of an allegorical, or interpretive, or a parable type of ... How do demons eat grass? What is that? Perhaps, I don't know, but that's the whole thing with parables, it's hard to know what every line represents. But it perhaps represents the frailty and mortality of human beings. Because it says in Isaiah 40:6-7, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall." That's speaking of people dying. They die like grass. And I believe that demons are executioners or killers. Satan is a murderer from the beginning. He hates human beings. And so do demons. They don't have any allegiance to any group of human beings. They hate them all. So they're executioners. Remember that God has to tell Satan not to kill Job. He has that power. He has the power to kill.

The next statements all speak to the overwhelming power of behemoth. This beast is very strong, much stronger than human power. Look at verses 16-18. "What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly. His tail sways like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are close knit. His bones or tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron." Well, just speaking of demons, they are vastly more powerful than we are. Vastly more powerful. If you look at the account of the Demoniac of the Gadarenes, it says of him in Mark 5:4, "He had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons from his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him." He was just physically powerful. Remember how God sent a single angel to move the stone from in front of Jesus' tomb. Remember how the women were worried? Who's going to move the stone. Oh, send an angel to take care of it. He just picks up the stone and moves it, and puts it down somewhere. Just no problem for him. So demons are strong, very strong.

And then his rank in creation, verse 19, "He ranks first among the works of God." Interesting statement. If it's just an animal, I don't really understand that. Why would a hippopotamus rank first among the creations of God? But in this case, if demons really are ... if we're really talking about fallen angels here, I would think chronologically they may well have been the first things he ever made. The first things he made were spirit beings who then watched him make everything else and celebrated. As it says in Job 38:7, "While all the morning stars sang together and all the angels," or sons of God there, but clearly angels, "shouted for joy." And so originally, they were created good, powerful, glorious, beautiful beings. So they're very, very powerful. Yet God, the creator, retains full power over behemoth to kill him anytime he chooses. Verse 19, "Yet his Maker can approach him with his sword." That's an interesting statement if we're talking about just an animal. He's saying, "You," effectively, "You can't kill him, but I can. I can do it easily." “His Maker can approach him with his sword.” So it's very obvious that while demons are vastly more powerful than humans, God is infinitely more powerful than they are. So let's just keep it simple in terms of the hierarchy. We are, effectively, we are powerless. Demons have much power. God has all power. So that's what we're dealing with here in the problem of suffering and evil. And that is our great hope. Behemoth, representing demons, exists continually under the threat of that fierce, great, and powerful sword with which God is going to kill Leviathan, Isaiah 27:1.

So the- Satan and his angels are afraid of God. They're afraid of his judgment, his fierce, great, and powerful sword. And it will be Jesus, at his second coming, who is depicted in Revelation 19 as having a sword coming out of his mouth, also in Revelation 1. There's no literal sword coming out of Jesus' mouth. His word is his weapon. If he says, "Be dead," you're dead, because he's God. And so the demons were terrified of Jesus during his time on Earth. They were clearly afraid of him. And he had zero fear of them at all. There was no doubt in Jesus' mind who has the upper hand in these encounters.

First one, in Mark's gospel, Mark, 1:23-24 Jesus is at the synagogue in Capernaum, and suddenly a man with an evil spirit cried out, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the holy one of God." Well, who's afraid of who there? They are afraid that Jesus has come to destroy them, and they know he can do it. And then in verse 20, the whole world pays homage to the behemoth: “The hills bring him their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby.” Satan runs the world, and the demons run it with him.

And just as Satan wanted Jesus to fall down and worship him, so the demons thrive on worship, the worship given by men. All false religions in the world are demonic. All of them, they're essentially demonic. So demons are god and goddess impersonators. They get behind the false ideas, and they make them supernaturally come alive so that people worship. And so Paul says in I Corinthians 10:20, "The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons." Thus, the unbelievers of the world are feeding the demons, feeding their demonic egos by this kind of worship. Remember, Satan wanted Jesus to fall down and worship him. The demons are like that. And so the world brings the harvest, the produce, to the behemoth.

Behemoth also is portrayed as concealed. Look at verse 21:22, "Under the lotus plants, he lies hidden among the reeds in the marsh. The lotuses conceal him in their shadow, the poplars by the stream surround him." So this is beast like for you literalists. It's like yeah, it's the hippo. He's in the river. You can barely ... You just see his eyes and his nostrils moving through the water like that. He's in the reeds. Okay? But for the spiritual interpretation, saying that demons are hidden from us. We can't see what they do. They're invisible. And they do their attacking from the shadows. And so we have to be told by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities against the powers,” plural, plural, plural, rulers, authorities, powers, “of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” That's what's opposing us.

So these demons do their destructive work in the heavenly realms, concealed from our eyes. They lurk in the shadows and suddenly rise up to attack. And they have no fear of man, none. Verse 23-24, "When the river rages, he is not alarmed. He is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth." Verse 24, "Can anyone capture him by the eyes or trap him and pierce him through the nose?" So that's why I say you can't control them: you can't capture them, you can't kill them. And so that adversarial sense between Job and behemoth is set up. It's even stronger, that adversarial sense, even stronger with leviathan, as we'll see, God willing, next week.

We're powerless against behemoth. We can't control him. We can't capture him. We can't kill him. And so, like I said, we're going to walk through leviathan next time, but we need a dragonslayer, don't we? Amen? We need a dragonslayer. And that dragonslayer is Jesus Christ. Christ is the dragonslayer. He was predicted in Genesis 3:15 as the one who had crushed the serpent's head, the serpent, Satan in disguise. So God spoke to the serpent and judged the serpent in serpent-like words, “You're going to crawl on the ground on your belly and eat dust.” But we know he's talking to Satan behind the serpent. And so in Genesis 3:15, he says, "I'll put enmity between you and the woman and in between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel." That happened at the cross. Jesus died, physically died, to crush the serpent's head.

Now, Christ the dragonslayer could not be slain when he was born. Revelation 12, "The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter." That's Jesus. "And her child was snatched up to God into his throne." So the dragon was ready to devour Jesus the moment that he was born. Read about it in Matthew 2, where King Herod sent soldiers to kill all the boy babies in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the magi, but they couldn't get him. They killed a lot of babies, but they didn't kill Jesus because Jesus escaped.

And then when he began his public ministry, Christ the dragonslayer moved out to destroy Satan's kingdom. God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power. And in the power of the Spirit, Jesus drove out demons effortlessly. So again, the Demoniac of the Gadarenes, Mark 5:7, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? Swear to God that you won't torture me." Who's afraid of whom there? 6,000 maybe demons in one man, and who's afraid of whom? “Please don't torture me before the appointed time.” And they begged permission to go into the pigs, and he granted them permission. And that concept of begging permission and permission granted is essential to my understanding of God's sovereign control over this whole thing. So he is absolutely in charge of behemoth. Syrophoenician woman comes with a demon-possessed daughter. She's not even there. She's back home lying in bed, demon possessed. And Jesus said, "First let the children eat all they want. It's not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." "Yes, Lord," she said. "But even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go. The demon is gone. The demon has left your daughter." Like that. Didn't speak any words. He didn't go to the house. He didn't lay hands on her.

How did it happen? What was the modality? What was the effective force that made the demon leave the daughter? He just thought it. And the Father sent forth the power of the Spirit. The demon was evicted immediately. Not given a 30 day notice here. He's out. Effortless power. And Jesus spoke about his power over the demons. "If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Or again, “How can anyone enter strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.” So we cannot control them. We cannot capture them. We cannot kill them. But Jesus effortlessly can do whatever he wants with him. And when he wants to plunder Satan's house, he just ties him up and plunders the house. You know what the plunderer is? It's us, dear friends. We were in Satan's dark kingdom. We were rescued, Colossians, from the kingdom of darkness, and we were brought into the kingdom of the beloved Son.

And so, if you came here today in an un-converted state, the Bible says that you're Satan's possession, you're in Satan's house. Jesus is more powerful than Satan. He can set you free. He can set you free. The chains, the invisible chains that have been around your soul can just drop off by simple hearing of God's word and believing. And the centerpiece of this gospel is Jesus' death on the cross, to some degree under Satan's power, because Judas betrayed him, and Satan was inside Judas. And Jesus gave himself over to that and didn't fight it, and just went like a lamb to the slaughter. But in his death, Hebrews 2:14 says, "By his death, he destroyed him who holds the power of death- that is the devil- and freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." So maybe you came here today knowing you're a sinner and afraid to die. Well, you should be afraid to die if you're outside of Christ. You should be afraid. But if you come to Christ, you don't need a fear of death anymore. Death will be a doorway into heaven. You'll spend eternity looking at the glory of God. That's what Jesus did. He crushed Satan at the cross by his death.

And then he gave us the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of gospel, the ministry of reconciliation, and told us to go out gradually, 20 centuries of destroying Satan's kingdom. “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” And so we go forward in the power of the Holy Spirit, and little by little, by little, a long, slow death for Satan's kingdom, a torturously long slow death, because in every generation there are God's people to be rescued. And so it says in Revelation 12:11, concerning the people of God, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." And in the end, he will kill Satan for all eternity. And the demons. It says in Revelation 20:10, "The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. And they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever." That is the death of leviathan.

All right. So as we bring this to conclusion, God willing to look at it again next week, look at God's goodness in controlling, using, and conquering evil. The big picture topic in the book of Job is the issue of suffering and evil in the world. The book of Job, I think, makes it plain from the beginning. And here, I think again at the end, that Satan and demons have a huge role in that. Any theology of evil and suffering that does not deal with that, with Satan and demons, is defective, inadequate. In Job 40 and 41, we've revealed the power of two great beasts, behemoth-representing demons, leviathan- representing Satan. These beasts are too powerful for human beings.

But God has them on a leash. To some degree, he uses language like, "They are my pets." He uses them every day for his own purposes. And in the end, he will kill them for eternity. In the meantime, we need to understand how wise and good it is for God to keep them going, to keep them alive. It must be, because he does it, and he could effortlessly speak them out of existence if he didn't want to. But God wants to use them. We may say, "Why? Why not kill them now?" Why does he give the legion of demons permission to go into the pigs? Why doesn't he just kill them? Because he's going to use them. And he is using them.

Augustine said, "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist." And so God uses Satan and the demons as foils, creating a context for him to display his power, his wisdom, and his love. And every single day, God uses evil to bring about good. The clearest example of this is the death of his own dear Son, the most singularly evil thing that has ever happened in history. Look at the river of good that's come from it. And so, also the evil of pain, and suffering, and natural disasters, and wars, and all of that create context for us, the servants of God, to show valor, to show self denying love, to lay down our lives for others. That is context for glory that God displays in our lives by enabling us to do courageous, good works. You won't need any courage in heaven, friends. No courage needed in heaven. You won't be sacrificing anything in heaven. Time for that is now. This is the time for courage. This is the time for valor. This is the time for self denial. The time to lay down your life, the time for sacrifice. That's what we're called to do. And behind all of that, are the devil and his angels. And God is controlling them for his own glory.

Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the time we've had to look today at Isaiah ... or at Job 40, 41, behemoth and leviathan. Lord, give us courage, give us courage. Help us, oh Lord, to not be afraid of what the devil and his angels are doing, but know that you have put us, all of us, behind a beautiful hedge of protection, and that Satan can't tempt us beyond what we can bear, that we can stand firm in the time of temptation. Give us courage to witness to people who are lost and in invisible chains so they can be set free. In Jesus' name. Amen.