Two Journeys

This poem in the middle of Job's statements is a beautiful depiction of wisdom and how it is only found in Christ, not the minds of men.

The post Human Wisdom, True Wisdom, Eternal Wisdom (Job Sermon 16) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Andy Davis delivered a message to the Carolinas Regional Chapter of TGC titled “How the Scriptures Equip,” as a part of the series “Equipped for Every Good.” Teaching from 2 Timothy 3:14–17, he argued that Scripture alone is sufficient to equip believers for our journey of salvation—from unbelief to faithful followers of Jesus. He then applied that truth to the responsibility pastors steward as they preach and lead their churches. Summarizing Spurgeon, Davis challenged his audience: “There should be real teaching in your sermon. The doctrine should be solid and substantial. There should be a system of truth building up in your hearers if they hear you over a length of time.” And Scripture—in concert with the ministry of the Holy Spirit—provides all you need to wisely lead each person under your care.

The post The Absolute Authority of Scripture appeared first on Two Journeys.

In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul instructs on holy living in light of the Second Coming of Christ, and to not grieve as those who have no hope, for when Christ returns the dead in Christ will rise and meet the Lord.

The post Thessalonians Episode 4: Living, Dying, and Rising for the Glory of God appeared first on Two Journeys.

Andy Davis preaches a sermon on Job 25-27. Bildad asks how someone can be found righteous before God. Jesus' imputed righteousness is the answer.

This morning, we'll be looking at Job 25-27, and as we do, we come to a very challenging section of this book for the interpreters, for scholars, for preachers like me. It's a challenging section for a couple of reasons, and therefore, it's good for me to give you just some of the principles, or perhaps even remind you of some of the principles that I use as I approach the book of Job, as I approach all scripture. Really, it's beneficial for me to teach you how to read the book of Job for yourself. So that years later, when you're no longer listening to a sermon series in Job, and you may actually never hear an exegetical sermon series on the book of Job again in your lives; it's actually pretty unusual. And you may not ever hear again, expository sermon on Job 25-27 again. So how can we understand the book of Job? How can we understand this passage?

It is with great reverence that we should come to the Scriptures. We should come to it realizing we're reading a document that has stood over and been involved in the lives of God's people for two and a half millennia or more. This book is going to be here long after any of us are dead, and so there's a respect and a reverence that we take to this. And also we're taught in 2 Timothy 3:16 that all Scripture is God breathed. And so we're reading the words of men. We're reading human words, but we are reading the Word of God. So the Holy Spirit is saying something to us as we read these chapters. And that's an awesome thought, isn't it? The idea that we can actually have God speak to us and talk to us, but it's not simple. It's not a simplistic thing. We have to interpret it because it's coming to us through the words of the actors, the players in this drama, through Zophar or Bildad or Eliphaz, through Job. And so we kind of filter what we're reading through them and through what we know about them and try to understand it, but we know that it's God-breathed. And so behind their human words, we have God speaking to us, and we want to try to understand that and to understand what God is doing in our lives. And so in order to do that, I think it's good to go one section before 2 Timothy 3, where we're told what the purpose of all Scripture is, and how Paul said that Timothy “from infancy had known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

So I believe the book of Job is for that purpose. It's able to make all of us wise. It's a wisdom book, but able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ. And not only that, the Scripture is given to equip us. “[So] all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.” So I expect to get rebuked and corrected when I read Scripture. And I think that's going to happen for us today, and that rebuking and correcting will bring me, in some amazing way, to Christ. I expect to be brought to Christ by reading Job. And I expect, having been brought to Christ for salvation, for the forgiveness of my sins, I am brought to Christ by the Scripture for equipping and training and preparation so that I might be prepared to do good works. "So that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work," the text says 2 Timothy.

So I expect that this book of Job, not only will it aid or point toward the salvation of my soul through faith in Christ, but it's able to equip me and prepare me to do good works for the rest of my life. But it does so in a unique kind of pattern here. It's a book about suffering. It's a book about a man who lived it a long time ago, we don't know when, who was blameless and upright, who was a godly man and who suffered overwhelming afflictions and trials, in his life; who lost overwhelming percentage of his wealth and his possessions; and whose 10 children died in a single day, all of them; and who subsequently then lost his health in an affliction that was just so overwhelming that his physical appearance was very different than usual. He was in agony, physical agony. So those three things, the dread of all of us who live in this world. Shouldn't be, we shouldn't be filled with dread, but we do naturally fear the loss of our possessions, our money, what might happen to our loved ones, our children, our loved ones, our spouses, and what might happen to our health, even to the point of death. These things stand over us and we are afraid of them.

And along comes this man and he walks through this, and then he begins to talk and some friends, Eliphaz and Zophar and Bildad, come and they talk to him. And there's this cycle of discussions that go on that make up the bulk of the book of Job. And we're nearing—this is the end.

This is the final time that we'll hear from one of Job's friends, Bildad, his third speech. But here we come to some interpretive problems. I was thinking this, I don't know if this is helpful, but I'm going to go ahead and say it. Therefore, you shouldn't say it, but anyway, I'm going to say it.

There was a woman that Jesus dealt with. It said of her that she had a problem of bleeding, she had suffered a problem of bleeding for 12 years. And it says in Mark's gospel, she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and didn't get any better, but only got worse. Hence, this text, it has suffered a great deal under the care of many interpreters and didn't get any better, but only got worse. And I'm probably one of them, because I think it's quite possible that the second half of Job 27 isn't Job, but maybe is Bildad or one of his friends. And yet there's no scene telling me that. There's no, "Bildad answered," or any of that. So it's right in the Job section, but it's so contradicts stuff that Job said earlier that you're left scratching your head. So you're either saying, "Why did the account get kind of rearranged or shredded in some way?" Or you're like, "What is up with our friend Job that he says one thing in chapter 21 and something entirely different in chapter 27? How do we deal with that?" Either way, you've got a problem.

So that's what I get to preach on today. Hence all kinds of introductory comments saying, "All right, what are we going to do with this text?" But here's the thing, I think in the end, I have to be honest, it doesn't matter who said these words. It doesn't matter if it's Job. It doesn't matter if it's Bildad or one of the other friends. It doesn't matter. We know that it's not God Almighty saying it. It's coming through a human. So we're going to have to do the same thing we always do: take the words you read and evaluate them by the rest of Scripture. And we're going to find some things that will be very true and helpful, no matter who said them, and we're going to be lifted up from the present text and the circumstances to a timeless meditation that I hope will lead to your salvation and to your fruitfulness in service to Christ. So that's what we're going to walk through today.

And what we're finding in the book of Job, I said this to a woman at the back of the church last week, I find this every week, the book of Job raises some of the deepest, most profound questions there are in life. Questions about life and death and suffering and pain, and about resurrection, death, resurrection. Some of the deepest questions, and I find again and again, and again, the answer is Christ. The answer is Christ. And we're going to find that here right away with Bildad. Bildad asks a question here, in his section in Job 25. And this is part of the problem, Bildad's section is so short, six verses. It's like, “Is that it? You have nothing more to say? Job has worn you out, and you have nothing more to say?” Or did his section get transposed to somewhere else? We will never know, I think.

So there's some brevity here, but he asked this profound question, verse 4, "How then can a man be righteous before God?" So we could just expand it and say, "How can wicked, sinful people like you and me actually stand righteous before such a majestic, holy God?" Do you not see how that question will lead you to Christ? How that question will be useful for your salvation? That's what we're going to look at today. So we're going to walk through this and try to understand what Bildad says and the exalted language he uses about Almighty God. And then I'm going to jump over to chapter 27 and read the second half, and then kind of continue as though that's still Bildad. That may be right or wrong, but no matter what you do with it, I think you're going to have to evaluate the words anyway and their statement. And then we're going to walk through Job's statement and apply it.

So in verse 1-6 of 25, "Bildad the Shuhite replied: 'Dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes peace in the heights of heaven. Can his forces be numbered? Upon whom does his light not rise? How then can a man be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is but a maggot—a son of man, who is only a worm!'" This is an excellent question. God is infinitely majestic, so how can a man be righteous before him?

He says, "Dominion and awe belong to God." Dominion is God's sovereignty. His kingly rule over the universe. As Nebuchadnezzar said in Daniel 4:35 of God, "All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?'" That's dominion. He is king. He doesn't ask permission. He's not accountable to anyone for anything he does. Dominion belongs to God and awe belongs to Him. Dread, terror, the fear of the Lord that comes upon creatures who come into his presence. "Would not his majesty terrify you?" Job 13:11. Yes, it would. And so awe, even the holiest angels cover their faces when they come into the presence of such a holy God.

And it says, "He establishes peace in the heights of heaven." This is the Hebrew word shalom, which is a deep, rich, full word, has to do with a peaceful orderliness, an arrangement in an orderliness. And God in the highest heavens establishes peace or tranquility, order. God is a God of peace. He is of tranquility of mind. The heavens, therefore, where he has his throne are in perfect order around Him. Almost, you get the picture in the book of Revelation of concentric circles, all around the throne of God. Everything's in order in heaven. All of the angels are gladly and instantly obedient to Him, and they worship him. More importantly, God has peace, shalom, within himself. God is at peace with himself. He is one with himself. What that means is He has not ever conflicted within his being about anything. He never has second thoughts or doubts. He's never conflicted. His attributes never fight each other so you get half of the attributes on one side and half of the other, and he's going back and forth on any decision. It's just not the case.

God is one with Himself, and we Christians understand in the deep mystery of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God, this one, God exists in three persons. And the three persons, the Father and the Son and the Spirit are perfectly at one with one another. They never disagree with each other, ever. And isn't it marvelous to think that we, God's children, will someday be as one with each other, every one of us, as one with each other, as the Father is with the Son. Perfect unity in heaven. There's that peacefulness the highest heavens represent the realm of God himself. He is above even the highest created order, and there God is at peace.

But we human beings are not so. We are not so. We are deeply divided within ourselves. We are deeply conflicted within ourselves. We battle within ourselves as Isaiah 57:20-21 says, "The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and [muck]. 'There is no peace,' says my God, 'for the wicked.'" We have that churning mire and muck going on inside our minds and hearts.

And because we, individually, are not at peace with ourselves, we're not at peace with each other, either just person A to person B or nation A to nation B, there's all this disharmony and disunity in the world because of our wickedness and our sin. Says an Isaiah, 17:12, "Oh, the raging of many nations—they rage like the raging sea! Oh, the uproars of the peoples—they roar like the roaring of great waters!" We see that every day on whatever news based websites you go to find out what's happening in the world. Disunity, disharmony, brokenness, strife, and conflict because individuals, sinners, are not at peace within themselves. And they're not at peace with God. But God—praise God! God brings order out of chaos. That's what's happening in our salvation. He's taking all of this churning wickedness. And in the end He will banish it. He will convert it, transform it, or destroy it. And the universe will be at peace with God and with one another. That's where we're heading.

Reminds me of Jesus stealing the storm. Remember how he was asleep in the back of the boat, on the cushion, and the disciples were distressed to find their boat filling with water. And they went and woke Him saying, "Don't you care that we're about to drown?" The things they said to Jesus. "Don't you care that we're about to drown?" But you remember what Jesus did, “[He] got up, and [he stretched out his hands] and said to the wind and the waves, ‘Peace, be still.’" And instantly it became quiet. He has that power. He establishes peace.

And Bildad says, "Look at the imensity of his army. He's got a very impressive army. Can his forces be numbered?" Well, we get some numbering of the forces of God's angelic army. He is the Lord of hosts, the Lord of army hosts, the angelic armies. And so in the book of Daniel, in Daniel 7, and also Revelation 5, we get 10,000 times 10,000. Some pastors will do the math and others won't, all right? So that's 100,000,000 angels, 100,000,000. See, you're looking at me. My kids never got over of the fact that I was in the math club. Say, "Dad, what is the math club? What did you do?" I'm sorry I said that. Let's move on. But actually, Bildad is implying His forces are beyond number.

And it's incredible because, you know, we're told in that account about Sennacherib and the Assyrian army, that a single angel went out and killed 185,000 as Assyrian troops in one night. That's one angel, imagine 100,000,000 angels. And Bildad says, "His light illuminates the entire universe and every creature in it." Verse 3, "Upon whom does his light not rise?" That started on the first day of creation when “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” And then He delegated that job on the fourth day to the sun and the moon and the stars, but He didn't need them because in the new heaven, the new earth, they will not be needed. Revelation 21:23, it says, "The city [the new Jerusalem] does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp." So Bildad is saying that all light ultimately comes from God, and there's not a single creature that God's light does not illuminate. "As a matter of fact," says Bildad, "to God who is pure light, even the moon and the stars are dim by comparison." Look at verse 5. It says, "If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes."

Now what's the point of all this poetical, meditation on the greatness of God? Well, keep in mind, this is debate going back and forth between Job and his friends, Job and his friends, and their basic theology is God is a just holy God who gets involved in human affairs, who gets involved in human history, and brings justice against the wicked and great justice against those who are greatly wicked—judgments. And therefore, in their theology, Job must be a greatly wicked person because of the magnitude of the judgments God's brought on him. That's their theology.

And yet, Job keeps claiming to be innocent. He keeps claiming to be righteous. And so Bildad says, "How can you, a human, be righteous before such a God?" Look at verses 4-6, "How then can a man be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is but a maggot—the son of man who is only a worm!" Now, that kind of language, like "Amazing Grace," we sang earlier, "that saved a wretch like me." That's wretch language, maggot, worm is not popular with those who would like their preachers to tickle their ears and fluff up their self-esteem, but Jesus didn't come to do that. He didn't come to fluff up anybody's self-esteem. He came to heal us of a deadly contagion, which is sin.

And he said, "[It is not the righteous. He has] not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” It's a great work of therapy that he's doing here. He's healing maggots and worms and rebels like us so that we'll be healthy, we'll be forgiven, pure, and holy. That's what he's come to do. And so the Scripture does this kind of leveling work in us, using very extreme language like maggots and worms, and then poets come along like John Newton and say, "Wretch, saved a wretch like me." So the central question he's asking here is how can such an evil corrupt being as I am, be righteous in the sight of such a majestic, holy, glorious, powerful God? Now, Bildad is asking this of Job. It's a tool in his arsenal against Job. That's what he's doing.

Job has consistently said, "I'm innocent. I want to make my defense before God, and he will equip me." So Bildad is actually right to ask this of Job. It's a good thing for Job to feel the weight of that question: "How can a maggot like you, by comparison with a holy God, ever be righteous before such a God?" It's right, actually. And not only is it right for Bildad to ask that of Job, but it's right for all of us to ask that of ourselves. Are you feeling the of that question? You should. How can I, someone like me, stand before a God like this, forgiven of my sins and righteous in his sight? Bildad's problem is he doesn't seem to ask it of himself, doesn't seem to bother him—it's for Job to deal with.

I can't help but think about Jesus' parable in Luke 18 of the Pharisee and the tax collector. “Two men went up to pray,” and the Pharisee prayed about himself. He was self-righteous and he said, "I thank you, God, that I'm this and I'm that," and he's so full of himself, self righteous. “But the tax collector beat his breast and would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but said, ‘Be merciful to me, oh God, a sinner.’ … ‘That man,’ [Jesus said,] ‘went home justified.’" So the answer to this question is Christ. That's the answer. I cannot go any further in this sermon without celebrating the answer. There is an answer. If there were no answer, we would, all of us, be condemned. God's perfect holiness would exclude us all. God's future world, the new heavens and the new earth, would exclude us all. As Revelation 21:27 says, "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful." And so only in Christ can maggots and worms and wretches like us be made pure and holy, and be able to stand in His presence.

As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, concerning Christ, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." So look, just look with your eyes at whatever form of Scripture you have in front of you. Look at Bildad's question, Job 25:4, "How then can a man be righteous before God?" Just stop and ask yourself that question, "How can I be righteous before God?" And you will stand before God, so will I, so will Bildad, so will Job. We're all going to stand before Him. How can we survive? And the answer in the gospel, the good news is we survive by faith in Christ, alone by his gift of perfect righteousness, alone, and no other way.

If you stand before God and you pray about yourself saying, "I thank you that I'm so awesome," and you're effectively saying, "I thank you. I don't need Jesus to save me," that's what you're saying, then you will not be justified. You'll be condemned. But if, on the other hand, you like that tax collector, in some way, you're beating your breast and you won't even look up to heaven to such a holy God is this, and you say, "Be merciful to me, oh God, the sinner." And you know that mercy is found in Christ, crucified and resurrected, then you will be forgiven.

Well, if we jump ahead now to Job 27:13-23, again, I don't know if this is the right procedure. If you want to say, this is Job speaking here, fine, but you got to pay your money, make your choice at the fork and the road. So we're going to jump ahead, and let's think for a moment that this is one of Job's friends, or maybe Bildad finishing, or it may be Job contradicting himself. That's fine. Either way, you have to make some—but let's just walk through what he says.

Now, what he is going to say in this section is the wicked are going to be overwhelmingly judged by God. That's what he's saying, but you've heard that before. The wicked are going to get it, they're going to get crushed. Look at verse 13, "Here is the fate God allots to the wicked, the heritage a ruthless man receives from the Almighty." And what does he say? Well, their children are going to get slaughtered by the sword or die of starvation or of the plague. Verse 14-15, Job 27:14-15, "However many his children, their fate is the sword; [their] offspring will never have enough to eat. The plague will bury those who survive him, and their widows will not weep for them." Now, the problem I have as an interpreter is this is a direct contradiction of what Job said in chapter 21. What did he say in chapter 21? He said, "The wicked actually seemed to do very well. Many of them die in their beds and their children sing and dance with tambourines." You remember that? So let me just read it again, Job 21:7-8, "Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes." So that's hard to harmonize those statements. There's not a single commentator that writes a commentary on this that says this is Job. And if you're going to say to me, "Well, how did they get disconnected?" Or "Where's the 'Then Job said,' or 'Then Bildad said'?" I'm going to say, "I don't know." But in any case, this is what this text is saying.

So what Bildad is continuing—I think, his final case against Job, he's saying, and he lines these things up with what Job actually, what happened in his life. He suddenly lost his children. They died quickly. See that's what happened to you? He lost all of his wealth, instantly. See that's what happened to you. All the wealth of the wicked melts away. Other people are going to get their ill-gotten gains. Look at verse 16-17, "Though he heaps up silver like dust and clothes like piles of clay, what he lays up the righteous will wear, and the innocent will divide his silver." And the mighty mansions of the wicked will crumble though they build with marble pillars. And though they look like they're going to last forever, they won't. Verse 18, "The house he builds is like a moth's cocoon, like a hut made by a watchman." You're going to lose everything. The disasters will come on the wicked instantly. Verse 19, "He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more; when he opens his eyes, [everything's] gone."

Doesn't that seem like that's something like one of the friends would say to Job? It seems that way. The judgements of God are overwhelming, like a man swept away by a mighty wind or a flood powerless to stand against the onslaught. Look verses 20-23, chapter 27, "Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest snatches him away in the night. The east wind carries him off, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place. It hurls itself against him without mercy as he flees headlong from its power. It claps its hands in derision and hisses him out of his place."

Well, how do we hear all this? How do we read the second half of Job 27, no matter who says it? Well, in one sense, this is going to be true, ultimately, of all the wicked. They are going to face the overwhelming judgment of God. They will lose everything, all of them, in some ultimate sense. God's wrath cannot be escaped. It cannot be avoided. There is one and only one refuge for the coming wrath, and that is Christ. He's the only refuge. And so if those words cause a sinner to flee to Christ, then they will have done good. As it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3, "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'Peace and safety,' destruction will come on them suddenly." And so that is coming. Judgment day is coming. Your own death is coming. Everything will be lost and quickly. So as I said, the problem with this being Bildad is that he's saying it to Job, saying, "Look what happened to you? You are a wicked man, in a way the rest of us aren't. You're a significantly evil man. Look, what's happened to you. This is why it's happened. And secondly, I don't need to worry about this." Those are the problems with this being Bildad saying it.

All right. So let's go now to chapter 26 and look at Job's statement. First of all, as always, he rejects Bildad's council. We start with—almost every Job's speech starts with some version of "You guys are losers, and why should I listen to you?" Something like that. Not exactly like that, but you know what I mean. Look at verses 1-4, "Then Job replied: 'How you have helped the powerless! How you have saved the arm that is feeble! What advice you have offered to one without wisdom! And what great insight you have displayed! Who has helped you to utter these words? And whose spirit spoke from your mouth?'" All right, that's sarcasm, friends. He's not like, "Boy, I'm so glad to have a friend like you." Not at all. So he’s just rejecting.

Here's a man that was beaten and crushed and struck down by trials. His friends come, they sit with him, and he has got nothing but destroyed by them, so he swats them aside like annoying mosquitoes. Then Job has his own meditation on the majestic power of Almighty God. Again, let me say to you, we talked last week about transcendence and imminence. Transcendence is the sense of the infinite majesty of God. There are a few books in the Bible that speak with such transcendent language as the book of Job above God. So any drinking in of transcendence and majesty you can get, do it, because we all have a very lax, low view of God. We're very informal, casual people. And so whatever ways we can have a sense of God's majestic power, it will do us good.

Look at verses 5-6 of chapter 26, "The dead are in deep anguish, those beneath the waters and all that live in them. Death is naked before God; destruction lies uncovered." God knows the living and the dead. He knows them completely. There's nothing hidden from Him. God is mighty over the heavens and its celestial bodies. Look at verse 7-11, "He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight. He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it. He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke."

So Job here is touching on the mysteries of God's creation, especially of the heavens above of invisible physical forces that cannot be explained, how the earth itself hangs in space on nothing at all. Just like God created the universe itself out of nothing at all. So the earth just seems to hang suspended on nothing at all. And then Job ponders, the clouds they're made up of water, he knows, and they're heavy. And yet they just float in the air, again, suspended on nothing at all. And then those clouds, suspended on nothing, are massive enough to block the light of the moon and snuff it out entirely on some nights. He also ponders—Job ponders the mysteries of the horizon line. Have you ever watched the sunrise over the ocean? Have you ever gone where it's just pitch black and you're there throughout the whole pre-dawn, and then watch the sunrise? At some point, there's this line of light that separates night from day, and then it gets brighter and brighter. It's really quite spectacular. I think the astronauts had the clearest example of these kind of sunrises around the edge of the earth, or around the edge of the moon if they were that far. And you can see God putting a line of demarcation between night and day, light and darkness. He's talking about that. And he speaks of the pillars of the heavens, whatever they are. The heavens rest on them and do not come crashing down, yet God is able to shake those pillars, make them tremble, with his voice anytime he chooses.

And he's mighty over the sea, verses 12-13, "By his power he churned up the sea; by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces. By his breath the skies became fair; his hand pierced the gliding serpent." So the sea is mysterious with its endless, powerful, undulating waves. Its breakers rolling on one after the other, frothy, foamy crashing, and it's God who stirs up the storms and controls them, and He sets a limit to the boundary of the mighty wave saying, "This far, you may go and no further." He has that power. And then he mentions Rahab, in Old Testament wisdom literature, this Rahab character shows up. Some scholars talk about some mythological dragon or serpent or something like that, that's part of the primordial creation order. It's very fascinating to me. I don't know really what the truth is, but the image here is of God, a mighty warrior, hacks Rahab to pieces and brings peace to the sea.

And so the idea is God, a warrior for peace, is able to defeat wicked enemies, even one as powerful as Rahab the silent, hidden serpent. So you get the idea, part of the problem with the ocean is that it's monsters are invisible. They're below the surface. I will never forget the summer that Jaws came out, and I didn't know the difference between fresh water and salt water. We were in Lake Winnipesaukee, and I didn't want to go swimming because you can't see what's down below. You know what I'm saying? You just don't know what's down there. But what Job was saying is whatever is down there, God's sovereign and powerful over it, mighty over it. And He has the power to churn up the sea and then calm them. As we said, Jesus has that power. And His disciples looked at Him after the distilling of the storm and said, "What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the waves, obey Him."

And Job says in all of that, in all this meditation we're doing, we're only touching the fringes of the edge of his garment concerning his power. This is just the absolute fringes. Verse 14, "These are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint is the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?" So as I was writing my book on heaven, this whole thing has expanded for me in ways I can't even begin to explain to you. When you die, in Christ, and go to heaven, you will begin in earnest your education in the greatness of God, and you'll spend eternity learning it. I really believe that. You're going to spend eternity finding out how infinitely majestic God really is. Isn't that exciting, to understand that you're going to be studying the glory of God? As Psalm 111:2-4 says, "Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered," or studied, "by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wonders to be remembered," forever. And so we're going to study them forever. And we're going to find out just how great God was, is, and always will be. And that's exciting, isn't it?

Well, Job in 27:1-12 continues his testimony that he is innocent. And here's where he gets into trouble too. Fundamental is his claim that he is innocent, that God has, in some sense, wronged him. Look at verse 1-5, "Job continues discourse: 'As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice.'" Stop there. That is a problem. I hope by now, we've heard many of these sermons, whenever you see Job say these kinds of things, that's just not okay. "[God,] as surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, my tongue will utter no deceit. I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity." He cannot agree with his friends that he is secretly wicked, famously wicked though no one knows yet how wicked he is. He will never agree to that. This is just not true. And it's amazing how this same Job who just celebrated the infinite immeasurable majesty of God in chapter 26 says, "Yes, but He has denied me justice." And he even takes a Hebrew kind of vow on this, "As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice."

We just need to understand when we suffer, when we hurt, when we ourselves have the cancer diagnosis or a loved one does, or we're walking through that, that trial can bring us to these points. It's never OK, but it can push us to the point where we can start saying these hard, wrong things about God. The book of Job is given to help you not do that, so that you can be fruitful and do good works in the midst of your suffering, and lead other sufferers to Christ rather than be bitter toward God, because it seems Job is very bitter toward God. And fundamental to his bitterness, it seems, is that he's accepted the same basic theology that his friends have, right? The same basic theological structure. The only possible explanation for all this suffering is I am a great wicked man. That's the only way we could understand this. And I'm not, therefore God has made a massive mistake concerning me.

Like there's no other possible explanation for the sufferings that Job's going through. And this is the very blunder that God is going to rebuke him for at the end of the book. At Job 40:6-8, "The LORD spoke to Job out of the storm: 'Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?'" We should never do that, ever. Now, Job's greatest defense, he says, is a clear conscience. Verse 6, "My conscience will not reproach me as long as I live." What is conscience? Well, it's part of the original equipment of creation, inside the heart and mind of every human being that presses them to do the right and avoid the wrong, and then evaluates behavior after the fact to see whether you did right or wrong. That's what conscience is. Every human being has this as part of the original equipment.

Now, conscience is only as good as two things. First of all, is it harnessed to a true system of morality, to a true understanding of right and wrong? And secondly, conscience is only as good as if you listen to it, because if you don't listen to conscience, its voice will get dimmer and dimmer and dimmer in your life. Those are the limitations of conscience. So people in false religious systems have a conscience about their religion. For example, a Muslim is taught by his religion to do the Ramadan fast, so a month of fasting during Ramadan. Well, you could imagine a Muslim secretly violating the fast, but looking like he's a righteous Muslim to all of his neighbors, and then his conscience will smite him for the falsehood. So his conscience is harnessed to a false religion, because I believe every non-Christian religion is ultimately demonic, taught doctrine of demons, Paul talks about, and so ultimately false. And yet he's conscience is smiting him because he snuck food or did something that violated the Ramadan fast. And then beyond that, for anyone, even if the conscience is tied to the Judeo-Christian system of morality, if you don't listen to the conscience, then the conscience will become what Paul calls seared, a seared conscience. 1 Timothy 4:2, it says, "Such teachings come from hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron." That means you don't feel anything anymore. The nerve endings are seared. You just don't feel anything. I read an account of an abortionist doctor who, when she performed the first abortion, went home and vomited and wept all night. Then she performed thousands of them. And after, you know, she didn't do any of that on the 1,000th or 2,000th. Her conscience was seared. Didn't bother her anymore.

Now beautifully, when we come to Christ, the conscience gets healed. Our conscience gets tied to a biblical system of right and wrong, and we begin to feel things again. And I would say, it's very mysterious how Holy Spirit and the conscience work, but there is some kind of partnership there. And Paul gives us both sides of the healthy Christian conscience. He said in Acts 24:16, "I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man." Why? Because there's going to be a resurrection and a judgment day. I'm going to have to give Him an account for everything I've done in the body. So every day I try to keep my conscience clear, vertically before God, and horizontally before others to do nothing to violate my conscience.

And so the author to Hebrews says, in Hebrews 13:18, "Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way." Isn't that a great statement? Wouldn't you love to be able to look someone in the eye and say that? "Pray for us. We're sure that we have a clear conscience and [we do] desire to live honorably in every way." But there is a limit, Paul says, to conscience. 1 Corinthians 4:4 he says, "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me." So you can have a clear conscience and still be wrong. You can have a clear conscience and still you'll find out on judgment day, so it'd be good to be humble about your clear conscience. Paul was. Job had a clear conscience, and he was wrong. And he found out on a mini judgment day how wrong he was about God and about his own sense of righteousness.

Job then gives some final words in verses 7-12. He says, "May my enemies be like the wicked, my adversaries like the unjust! For what hope has the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? Does God listen to his cry when distress comes upon him? Will he find delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?" So there's going to be judgment for his enemies. So you could think who are his enemies? Are his friends, his enemies? I don't think he's thinking necessarily about his friends here, but I think about the Chaldeans and the Sabeans who came and killed his servants and stole all his stuff, and then there's people in the community there that were mocking him and opposed to him, et cetera. But then he zeros in on his friends, verse 11-12, he says, "I will teach you about the power of God; the ways of the Almighty I will not conceal." Verse 12, "You have all seen this yourselves. [So] why then this meaningless talk?"

All right, applications, I've already given you the central application for this text, and I just want you to feel the weight of it. We will all appear before the judgment seat of Almighty God, and Christ will sit on that throne, and He will judge all of us. And He's going to separate everyone into two categories: the believers and the unbelievers. What about you? How can a sinner like you stand before such a holy God? You need to ask that question. What is your hope? What is your confidence? If your answer has something to do with your own righteousness and good works, you are lost. But if your answer is, "I am a great sinner, saved by a great Savior and his name is Jesus Christ," then you have eternal life. So feel the weight of Bildad's question. And isn't it beautiful that impure people like us can actually be purified by faith in Christ, purified. We are purified, perfectly pure positionally in God's sight the moment we come to faith in Christ. He sees us pure in Christ.

And then, as we live our lives, he then continues to purify us as we walk in the light. It says in 1 John 1:7-9, "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin." So you can be walking in the light, a Christian, and still need purification from every sin. Still need it. And how do you get that? First of all, don't deny it. Come to God honestly. "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." But "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins..." And what else? "... purify us from all unrighteousness." So did you come here today with a guilty conscience? Maybe you're able to hide it from others, but others are not the point. God is the point. He knows everything. As soon as you go home, as soon as you have time alone, confess your sins to God, call them by their biblical names, whatever it is you've done wrong. However your conscience is smiting you, confess it, and receive from 1 John 1:9 the forgiveness and the purification that God has the power to give. And then beyond that, if I can just urge you do what Paul does, "I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man." Do that. Don't do anything, ever, that would violate your conscience.

And then thirdly, stand in awe of the majesty of God. Go back and find some of these great passages in Job, and read them and drink in the infinite majestic Person who God is. We are way too informal and casual with God. Let's fall down on our faces before him and tremble at his greatness and realize this great God loves us in Christ, and wants to spend eternity with us. Close with me in prayer.

Father, thank you for the time we've had to study today, these three chapters. So much in here, Lord. We thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit who enables us to walk through these difficult waters, to walk through these difficult words, and put some meaning to them. Father, I pray that you would help us to lift up these truths and press them to our hearts, so that we might find forgiveness through Christ and find the right way to live, that will be maximally fruitful for your glory. In Jesus name, Amen.

Bildad asks how even someone as upright as Job can be found righteous before this majestic God even if he has a clear conscience.

The post How Can a Man Be Righteous Before This Majestic God? (Job Sermon 15) appeared first on Two Journeys.

In 1 Thessalonians 3, Paul writes of how encouraged he was at Timothy’s good report about the Thessalonians’ faith.

The post Thessalonians Episode 3: Joy in the Thessalonians’ Spiritual Health appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy covers Martin Luther (1483-1546), the man who sparked the Reformation. Luther pointed Christians back to the truth of the Bible.

The post Journeys from the Past – Episode 21: Martin Luther (1483-1546) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a sermon on Job 22-24. These chapters present God as both transcendent and immanent - majestic and close.

Turn in your Bibles to Job 22. We'll be looking at three chapters this morning. And as we do, I want to bring before you the experience of the Apostle John, two different times in his life, the Apostle John. The first at the Last Supper. The Apostle John was reclining at table next to Jesus, and at a critical moment in the Last Supper, he laid his head on Jesus's chest, pillowed it, as it were, very tenderly on the chest of Jesus. It's an amazing picture of intimacy with God, of closeness with Christ. Though the text doesn't say, we could imagine Jesus resting his hand on John's shoulder, perhaps, or patting his head. There was just a closeness and an intimacy and a confidence that John had of love and friendship with Jesus Christ. That's the first vignette, the first scenario.

The second was at the end of his life. The Apostle John was in exile on the Island of Patmos, and he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and was worshiping, and suddenly, he heard a voice behind him like a trumpet. Revelation 1:12-17 describes that encounter with Jesus, the resurrected glorified Jesus, "I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me…. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead."

These are the same two people, Jesus and John. Two different encounters. In this case, however, Jesus was revealed in infinite majesty and glory and power. Look at John now. He fell at his feet as though dead. Brothers and sisters, I believe to have a healthy relationship with Jesus, to have a healthy relationship with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we need to absorb both of those images completely. Take them into ourselves as we come to Christ.

Now, theologians use some big words to describe these themes. The words are transcendence and imminence. The transcendence of God and the imminence of God. What do they mean? Transcendence means that God is infinitely above and other than his creation. It really connects to his holiness. He is different than everything that he's made. It’s the gap between God and all creatures is infinite and immeasurable. So that's transcendence. Imminence is God's intimate closeness and connection with his creatures, especially his people, that God is close to us personally and intimately in a relational sort of way. Imminence.

Now, from the beginning of the Bible, the Bible establishes the transcendence of God as God created the heavens and the earth. After creating all things in six days, he sat down on a throne of glory and ruled over all of it, resting over it all as a king would reign over his domain. The book of Job has spoken of this infinite majesty of God again and again. For example, Job 13:11. There, it says, "Would not his splendor terrify you? Would not the dread of him fall on you?" And then earlier in Job 11:7-9, "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea."

Now, here in this section, Job will speak of that transcendence in clear and terrifying terms. You just heard some of it. Let me read it again, Job 23:13-16. This is Job speaking of God, "But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases. He carries out his decree against me, and many such plans he still has in store. That is why I'm terrified before him; when I think of all this, I fear him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me." Yet for all of this, it seems clear to me, not just in this chapter but in some that follow, that what Job wants the most is imminence. He wants closeness. He wants intimacy. He wants friendship with God. He wants God to talk to him. In these two chapters, it seems what bothers him the most is that God is nowhere to be found. He can't find him. He's aloof. He's distant from Job in the midst of his suffering.

Now, one of the greatest chapters on the mysterious union of imminence and transcendence of God is Isaiah 40. You don't have to turn there, but just listen. There's a couple of verses in particular that give us a sense of this Isaiah 40:11, "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young." What a sweet verse that is. That's imminence. That's the closeness, the intimacy of God with his people. That gets perfectly fulfilled in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who gathers us into his arms and carries us close to his heart, just like John laying his head on Jesus's chest. But the very next verse is one of the greatest transcendence verses in the whole Bible, Isaiah 40:12, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breath of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales or the hills in a balance?" A couple verses later, verse 15, "Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they're regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust." That's transcendence, infinite majesty, right after he's gathering us close and holding us tenderly.

Now, I personally yearn to understand both of these in Christ. I want both of those moments that John had fulfilled in my life. I want to be able to put my head on his chest and feel that intimate closeness with Christ, but I also want to understand how right it is for me to fall at his feet as though dead. Now, as we look at these three chapters today, these themes are going to come out. In a Eliphaz's speech, his third speech, and then in Job as well. So we're going to follow them and some other key themes as well. Let me warn you ahead of time, this is effectively three different sermons, but what could I do? I want to keep moving in Job, and so I think you can handle it, so we're going to do effectively three sermons in one.

So we begin with Eliphaz's statement in verses one through three. Here, you're going to hear the themes of transcendence, of infinite transcendence, "Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied, 'Can man be of benefit to God? Can even a wise man benefit him? What pleasure would it give the Almighty if you,'" speaking to Job, "'if you were righteous? What would he gain if your ways were blameless?'"

Now, let say to you, much of the purpose of God in Scripture, the saving purpose of God, I believe, is to level our pride. Our pride stands directly opposed to the salvation of our souls. As a matter of fact, probably the essence of our salvation is to have our pride leveled before the holiness of God so we realize who he is and who we are. So much of Scripture is given to make us deeply, completely humbled before God, first as creatures and then secondly as sinners. He wants to make us realize the truth of what he said, “It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” That's what he came to do. So he's not looking for healthy, perfect, righteous people—he can't help you if that's how you think you are.

Instead, what he wants to do is make you realize the truth, which is culminated in one of the greatest statements he ever made, the first statement in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the [spiritual beggars], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I will give you a kingdom if you'll beg, if you realize you have nothing to offer me whatsoever. That's what ptochos means in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The word poor really means somebody standing by the road who has nothing to offer. You realize that's you, I'll give you a kingdom forever. As the scripture says, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will [Be what?] exalted to the heavens.” It's the goodness of God.

So he's seeking to level us. Because honestly, it seems to me, the more I do evangelism and counseling and just live, this is the basic religion around the world. I am basically a good person who does basically good things. Everybody thinks that. And you're not and you don't, and we're all going to find that out on judgment day—it's the grace of God to find it out now. You're not basically a good person who basically does good things. In other words, you don't need a savior. We tend to minimize our faults with others and maximize the faults we see in others, and so God is going to level the pride of all of us.

So in this question, can man be of benefit to God? Can even a wise man assist God in any way? We must answer no to what Eliphaz is intending. We've learned with the friends don't just throw out everything they say, evaluate it. As I look at the point here, I must feel the weight of it. God doesn't need anything from any of us ever. There is nothing we can do, essentially, to benefit God, to improve God's situation. God doesn't need any advice, even from the wisest of us. The more we meditate on this, the better it is for us.

This is an image I've used before, but it's still powerful and helpful to me. Think of the sun blazing away 93 million miles away, the center of our little solar system, little compared to the rest of the universe. The human race collectively, in total, can't do anything to the sun or for the sun. We cannot harm it in any way, we cannot help it in any way. We can't make it hotter or cooler, brighter or dimmer, nearer or farther. And the sun is a small creature in the hand of God, so it is with God in his infinite holiness, sitting on the throne of the universe. John Calvin, in his sermon on this text, said this: "We bring him no gain. He receives from us neither cold nor heat. Just as we cannot be profitable to him, neither can we do him any damage.” Therefore, we should get rid of all the bits of rubbish that we use to cover ourselves as we approach him, and simply fall down and in humility, plead guilty for our sins." John Calvin.

But instead, we tend to think that our works put God in our debt, like he has to repay us for something. This is cannot be, for it says in Romans 11:35-36, "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever." We really do need to meditate on this massively significant sermon and statement that Paul made in Athens in Acts 17:24-25. He said this: "The God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth. He does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything, for he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else." So God doesn't need you to serve him. God is not lucky to have you on his team. Instead, we should realize everything we have with which we could serve God, he gave to us. We're just giving back to him what is his already, and instead, we should say in Psalm 116:12, "How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness to me?"

Now, Eliphaz also says effectively, none of God's communications to the human race is of any benefit to himself, including his law and his gospel. His laws and his gospel are not given to benefit God. He's fine. And as Eliphaz says, God is not benefited at all if we're righteous. It doesn't help him at all if we obey his commands. Actually, God's laws are given for our benefit, as helpful for our salvation and the fruitfulness of our lives, not because his throne would be in any way shaken if we don't obey them. All of God's commands, therefore, are displays of his goodness and kindness and mercy to us to help us and enrich us, not because in any way he needed us to obey him. God is amazingly selfless in all of this, not just in giving us the laws, but in goading us and speaking to us through the prophets, and urging us to obey them and bringing words of rebuke and correction when we don't. He doesn't have to do any of that. He's not benefited if we repent and come back and start obeying. He does it all for us. God will continue to be the same whether we are righteous or wicked.

So when we consider the infinite majesty of God and that he is not benefited by our service or obedience at all, should we not therefore be humbled and deeply in awe at God, at the transcendent majesty of God and his goodness to us? Should we not be ravished and astonished that God would lower himself so much to even talk to us or notice us at all? And yet for all of that, God actually invites us into his works and gives us eternally consequential good works to do by which, amazingly, he builds his eternal kingdom. It's incredible. He invites us into his eternally consequential works, and then he promises to honor us and reward us with glorious crowns and emblems of his favor for all eternity if we will serve him in Christ. "My Father will honor the one who serves me," Jesus said. Incredible.

Now, you think, how can this be? How can this God who needs nothing do this? Well, think of it like a wealthy art collector who has one of the largest collections of Renaissance oil paintings in the world. You go into his office and you find on the wall some framed pictures of his six-year-old daughter's colored pictures next to some Dutch masterpieces also, side by side. How could we understand? Well, all you parents know exactly how something that ridiculous can happen. It's not because there's any intrinsic worth or value to the child's colored picture. It's because of what that child means to the father and the love that he has for her and the picture that she has colored. That's what it is. And so God, in his grace and his mercy, is willing to put our pathetic artwork up on the wall for all eternity and somehow use it for his glory.

Even more than this, God voluntarily obligates himself to us in Christ by making promises to us that he must keep once he's uttered them. He has made so many promises to us, if I were to recount even a small number of them, it would take hours. But he has promised to raise us up out of the grave, out of the just penalty for our sins. The wages of sin is death. He's promised, Jesus has, "I am the resurrection in the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; whoever lives and believes in me will never die." He's made that promise and it's written in the blood of his Son, and he will keep that promise. Anyone who comes to Jesus in faith, he will raise us up at the last day in resurrection bodies.

So man is of no benefit to God, yet in Christ, he lowers himself to save us, and then by his Spirit, lowers himself more to use us and do good works in and through us. John Calvin put it this way. "God takes pleasure in stretching out his benefits to give us such enjoyment of them, that he joins himself to us and us to him. God, then, has had such care for us that it actually does matter to him how we live. But not because he gets by it either profit or damage."

Along with this statement, Eliphaz then goes on to say one of the worst things that has ever been said in the Bible to anybody. This is his nth degree accusation of Job's wickedness. This is as bad as it gets. This is Eliphaz at his absolute worst. Now, you're like, Pastor, how can you take Eliphaz's statement as though it's true, which I've done, and now we're going over here with Eliphaz's accusations of Job? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to say in some sense, they are not at all true of Job. In another sense, it would do us good to think they're true of us.

What does he say? Well, look at verse four. He says, "Is it for your piety that he rebukes you and brings charges against you?" It's not because you're so godly that all this has happened to you. This is the same thing we've been seeing from the friends. It's because you're a great sinner. That's why all these terrible sufferings have happened to you. Now look at verse five. Here it is. This is something you circle in your... Or really, don't. This is such a bad statement. Look at it, "Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?" Now, we've come a long way from Job 1:1, "In the land of Uz, there was a man who was blameless and upright, who feared God and shunned evil." That's what Job... Now we've got, is not your wickedness great and your sins endless?

Now, we're going to absolutely refute Eliphaz's statement in the particulars, in the details, concerning Job later, but I still think it is beneficial for us to be humbled by these words, to try them on for size and wonder if they're true of us. Honestly, I don't think there's one among us that has a proper valuation of our own sinfulness. There's not one among us that says, "I actually do have a sense of how sinful I really am." We really don't. Even Christians, people who have been convicted our whole lives by the Holy Spirit, underestimate our sin debt.

When Jesus told the parable of forgiveness about the 10,000 talents, and then we learned some information about what that means, and a talent's 75 pounds of precious metal, let's say gold; 750,000 pounds of gold I owed, that was my sin debt? Greater than the entire tax revenue of the Roman Empire in a year, billions and billions of dollars I owed? Yes. Jesus valued your sinfulness at that level. Is this some gross overstatement by Jesus? Or could it be that we all underestimate our sin in the eyes of a holy God? We underestimate their number, and we underestimate their significance or their magnitude. David said in Psalm 40:12, "My sins have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me." So we should have a sense, my sins are more numerous than the hairs of my head. And not only that, they're massively significant, like a mountain range of wickedness, or like an Amazonian rainforest of sinfulness in which each leaf on every tree represents a sinful act or a sinful motive or a sinful thought. This will not prove in the end to, for ourselves, have been any great overstatement. It should lead us to deep humility and repentance. Is not your wickedness great? Yes, it is. Are not my sins endless? They really are. Our sins are vast in quantity.

Now, it will not do to pass lightly over this in a frivolous manner saying, "Oh, I know I have some faults. I don't deny I have some faults." That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a river of sin. We forget. We've been alive for years and years and years, we forget day after day after day of encounters horizontally and attitudes vertically. We forget the two great commandments and how we have not kept them. But the beauty is we can do all of this as Christians in the light of the cross, and realize however great is my wickedness and however endless my sins, the blood of Jesus is infinitely greater than all of them. What's going to happen if you do this properly is you'll just end up having a better estimation of Jesus and what he did for you, and a genuine peace with God and a genuine security that comes from coming to the cross in faith. As Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." He doesn't say, "Come all who admit that you are holding some difficulties in your hands or having some trouble walking down the road," something like that. He said, "No, you're crushed and burdened. You have a yoke of sin upon you that you can't throw off, and it's a crushing burden. Come to me, all you who are weary and crushed by your sins and your guilts, and I will give you rest." That's what he's saying.

Now, what are Eliphaz's false accusations? We'll look at the details, the particulars. Look at verse 6-9, speaking of Job, "You demanded security from your brothers for no reason; you stripped men of their clothing, leaving them naked. You gave no water to the weary; you withheld food from the hungry, though you were a powerful man, owning land—an honored man living on it. And you sent widows away empty-handed and broke the strength of the fatherless." So oppressive business practices, cruelty, withholding water from the thirsty and food from the starvings, stripping men, leaving them cold and naked. Basically, though the parable hadn't been spoken yet, it's like the rich man and Lazarus in Jesus's parable. You were the rich man and the poor men were right at your gates, and you did nothing for them day after day and defrauded them. That's where your wealth came from. That's why you're suffering. Look at verse 10-11, “This is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you, why it is so dark you cannot see, why a flood of water covers you.”

Well, what I want to say to you is just hold on a minute. Eliphaz has no proof of any of these things. You know why? Because they didn't happen. None of them. Where did this come from? I have no idea. Coming from his surmising of what must have been the magnitude of Job's sin to result in such great suffering, just as theology carried to the nth degree here, but it never happened. Later, Job is going to specifically refute this. To some degree, he's going to refute it in chapter 24 that we'll look at in a minute. You know, he says, "I have an overwhelming concern for the poor and needy."

But in chapter 31, which is his final defense and his final résumé of his righteousness, this is what Job says. Job 31:16-23, "If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with a fatherless—but from my youth, I reared him as would a father, and from my birth, I guided the widow—if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing or a needy man without a garment, and his heart did not bless me for warming him with the fleece from my sheep. If I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing I had influence in court, then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint. For I dreaded destruction from God, and for fear of his splendor, I could not do such things." So no, I didn't do these things, Eliphaz, that you're saying I did. It just didn't happen.

But the question is, what about us? Friends, we're not Job. When you look at his résumé of mercy ministry, his résumé, the question is, what about us? What are we doing for the poor? What are we doing for the needy? What actual righteousness is there in our life? Don't go so quickly past what Eliphaz wrongly says concerning Job. We know that when the Lord comes, he's going to assemble all the nations and gather them before them. He's going to separate the people into two categories, sheep and goats, and he's going to talk about what you did. “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was a stranger and you invited me in.” He's going to talk like that to his sheep because they did those things. So it's not right for us to go so quickly and say, “Well, Job's innocent.” Well, he may be innocent, but it's good for us to look at our own lives.

Now, for the rest of this chapter, he says the way of the wicked will perish. These themes we've seen before. God is going to crush such a wicked man. Verse 12-14, he says, "Is not God in the heights of heaven? And see how lofty are his highest star?. Yet you say, ‘What does God know? Does he judge through such darkness? Thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us as he goes about in the vaulted heavens." What he's saying is, "Job, you think like this. You think God is so lofty, he can't see the wicked things you're doing." Lots of wicked people think that now. God can't see what I'm doing. They don't even think about God. In all their thoughts, there's no room for God. And Eliphaz warns Job as he has before, "The way of the wicked will perish." Verse 15-17, "Will you keep to the old path that evil men have trod? They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood. They said to God, 'Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do to us?'" So eventually, judgment is coming.

And then he gives final advice. This is some excellent advice. I'd like you to hear this in light of the cross, hear this in light of Jesus, because this is about the best advice you're ever going to hear. Just Eliphaz is applying it wrongly to Job, in a faulty way. But to us, how sweet is it to see this through Christ? "Submit to God and be at peace with him." Be justified through faith in Christ and you'll be at peace with God. You'll have a right relationship with him. "[And] in this way, prosperity will come to you. Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored. If you remove wickedness far from your tent and assign your nuggets to the dust, [and] your gold of Ophir to the rocks and the ravines, then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you. Surely then, you will find delight in the Almighty and [you will] lift up your face to God." All right. Well, that's Eliphaz.

Now Job responds, chapters 23-24. He does it in two laments. The first lament is God is aloof to me. The second lament in Job 24, we don't need to spend much time on because we'll circle back on all these themes in chapter 31, and that is God doesn't judge those that are pouring out injustice on the poor and needy. He finds, to some degree, fault with God. Now, this is a consistent pattern we see in Job, before he repents at the end of the book, of finding injustice with God. But it's very clear from chapter 24, he's intensely concerned with the sufferings of the poor and needy, and he just wonders why the wicked just seem to get away with it. So those are the two chapters.

Let's begin with God is aloof to me. He yearns to present his case to God in verses 1-7. He doesn't even address Eliphaz's slander against him; he's going to address it later. But he just turns his lonely and lamenting eyes up to God as if he's saying, there's no amount of logic or reasoning or any kind of prayer or debate that can heal my torn soul. What I want more than anything is to be close to God. I want to talk to him. I want to hear him talk to me. I want to be close to him, but the big problem for me here is I can't find him anywhere. He's aloof from me. He's distant from me. I cannot find him.

So he says nothing to his friends. He addresses his lament to God. Look at verse 23:1-7, "Then Job replied: 'Even today, my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him. I would fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out what he would answer me, and consider what he would say. Would he oppose me with great power? No, he would not press charges against me. There an upright man could present his case before him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge.'"

So he's saying, “If I could just somehow find God,” and he's been saying this again and again, “I would present my case to him and he wouldn't be able to answer me. He would exonerate me. He would find that I'm innocent of all these charges. I didn't do these things that Eliphaz said I did. But I can't do that. That's what I would do. If I could get close to God, I would make my case and he would exonerate me, but I can't find him.” Look at verse three, "If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!" I can't find him. And then verse 8-9, "If I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him." All four points of the compass, I cannot find God. He's distant from me in the midst of my suffering.

Now, how different is this than the language of Psalm 139:7-10, where David wrote this, "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." How different are these words from that?

I think one of the hardest parts of trials, some of you may be going through this right now, is a sense of distance from God. You're going through physical trials, maybe cancer or some kind of physical trial, pain in your body, or for a loved one because you love that person. And you're wondering, where is God in all of this? I thought at least as we walk through this trial, he would be with us, hold us by our right hand. We would pass through the waters, through the fire, and he would be with us and we would sense that, but we don't sense it. We feel he is distant from us. Some of you may be feeling that right now. Job felt it. And he says in verse 10-12, “God knows very well how I lived, and I know how I lived. None of those things are true.” Verse 10-12, "But he knows the way I take; [and] when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread." Job knows that his huge pile of wealth, all of his livestock, his gold and silver, that wasn't his true treasure. Really, God was his true treasure. He knew that. And in terms of his own possessions, his own righteousness, his own blamelessness, the way he lived his life, that was the most valuable possession to him. He knew that.

Remember, this is the man that used to offer sacrifice for his children because he thought perhaps they sinned and cursed God in their hearts. He knew that what really mattered was heart religion, not just the external show like a whitewashed tomb. He knew that his children might look good on the outside, but might be corrupted on the inside. So how do you think he lived his own life? It was the same thing. And at the core of his piety, he said, was a deep love for the words of God. He treasured his words more than his food, more than his bread.

Now, this is a bit of a mystery. We don't know when the book of Job happened. Some people say it's the oldest book in the canon. We don't know that. It's an argument from silence. But some of you have the chronological Bible and you start with Job. I always find that interesting. I mean, there's no proof either way. It's just because it doesn't mention the law of Moses, it doesn't mention any of the prophets, it's just a standalone book, so it's assumed that none of those had happened yet. But I'm telling you, in every generation of redemptive history, God spoke to his people. They heard him speak. And God's people treasured the words God said to them, and Job was like that. It reminds me of what Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." That was Job. He's fully confident that when all is said and done, when the refiner's fire is done testing him, he'll shine like pure gold.

But God is utterly aloof for me and I'm terrified of him. Look at verses 13-17, "But he stands alone and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases. He carries out his decree against me, and many such plans he still has in store. That's why I'm terrified before him; when I think of all this, I fear him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face." This is transcendence, friends. This is the infinite loftiness of God. He does whatever he pleases in the heavens and on the earth, and no one can oppose him. No one can call him to account. He doesn't have to give an explanation to anybody for what he does. This is all true. But Job says, "It makes me afraid. The transcendence of God, to me, is terrifying." He's saying, “It's terrifying.”

And so what he's saying is, "If I could find him, I would present my case to him, and I would win my case and he would exonerate me." But that's not really ultimately what he wants. He wants to remove whatever offense there is between them and return back to the way things used to be in his intimate friendship with God. Look ahead to Job 29:4. In Job 29:4, he says what he really wants. There he says, "O for the days when I was in my prime, when God's intimate friendship blessed my house." That's what he wants. “I want my paths drenched in cream and oil like they used to be because God was my friend. God talked to me and I knew he loved me, but now I don't know what to think. I can't find him and we can't have a conversation.”

I can't help but think of the infinite dimensions of what Jesus felt when he cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I don't know that we'll ever fully be able to plumb the infinite depths of that statement, that Jesus went to being forsaken by his heavenly Father, by God, so that he felt all of these things, that God is aloof and distant and not close to me, so that we who were distant from God through our sins could be brought near and have intimacy with God and friendship. That's what Jesus went through for us. He went through this, I can't find God anywhere, for us. That's chapter 23.

Chapter 24, the second lament, I've mentioned is basically a list of social justice issues, so to speak, or mercy ministry issues. The fault that Job was finding, again, is with God's justice. We saw this early in chapter 21, that God doesn't ever seem to judge the wicked. They get away with, it seems, murder. Look at verse 24:1, "Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?" So they get crushed by economic oppression. They get crushed and nothing ever seems to happen. So why doesn't God set times for judgment? I looked in one of my old Bibles, one of my first Bibles, this morning. And I wrote in the notes, I'd been a Christian for two years, it's like, but he does have a day. I was correcting Job, even back then. No, but he does, it's called Judgment Day. But at that moment, he wasn't feeling that. He was like, it doesn't ever seem to happen. God doesn't set times for judgment for these people.

Economic abuse of the weak, verses 2-3. “Men move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they've stolen. They drive away the orphan's donkey and take the widow's ox in pledge.” These are economic issues. Moving of boundary lines was stealing property. Stealing beasts of burden meant they couldn't have a crop, a harvest. Because of this economic oppression, the poor are driven into hiding, verse four, "They thrust the needy from the path and force all the poor of the land into hiding." He speaks of oppressive living and working conditions for the poor, verses 5-6, "Like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children. They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked." This is what's done for people who have no resources. They glean a few heads of grain that are left in the stalks because of this kind of oppression.

He says the poor are naked. They're shivering in the cold grain at night. Verses 7-8, "Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked; they have nothing to clothe themselves in the cold. They are drenched by mountain rains and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.” Children are snatched away from their parents to repay debts. Verse nine, "The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt." So the poor work hard, they labor to the last fiber of their strength, but they can never get ahead because they don't get paid hardly anything. Verses 10-11, "Lacking clothes, they go about naked; they carry the sheaves, but still grow hungry. They crush olives among the terraces; they tread the wine presses, but they suffer thirst." So they're working hard, they just never get ahead. So the poor groan, desperately looking for help that never comes. Verse 12, "The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help, but God charges no one with wrongdoing." That's that same thing, that accusation of God's justice. God doesn't seem to do anything about it.

Now, in verses 13-17, he addresses unpunished criminal acts. The wicked love the darkness, which hides all of their dark deeds. Verse 13, "There are those who rebel against the light, who do not know its ways or stay in its paths." So murderers. Verse 14, "When daylight is gone, the murder arises up and kills the poor and needy; in the night he steals forth like a thief." Verse 15, the adulterer goes out at night, “The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk; he thinks, 'No eye will see me,' and he keeps his face concealed." Then thieves, burglars, in verse 16, "In the dark men break into houses, but by day they shut themselves in." They want nothing to do with the light. Verse 17, "For all of them, deep darkness is their morning; they make friends with the terrors of darkness." It's like Jesus said in John 3:19-20, "Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. [Whoever] does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed."

And yet he ends the chapter saying they're still going to get it. The wicked are still going to be judged. So it's a bit of a turn, but he still believes that judgment's coming. Verse 18, "They are foam on the surface of the water; their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one goes into the vineyards. As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow, so the grave snatches away those who have sinned. The womb forgets them, the worm feasts on them; evil men are no longer remembered but are broken like a tree. They prey on the barren and childless woman, and to the widow they show no kindness. But God drags away the mighty by his power; though they have become established, they have no assurance of life. He may let them rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways. For a little while they're exalted, but then they're gone; they're brought low and gathered up like all the others; they're cut off like heads of grain. If this is not so, who can prove me false and reduce my words to nothing?" So he says in the end, they're going to get judged, doesn't happen now, I wish it would, I wish that God would intervene and crush them, but they're going to get it in the end.

All right. So what applications can we take from this? I would like you to begin by just meditating, helpfully, on God's transcendence and imminence. There are two images of God that I think we should keep ever before us. Our God is a consuming fire, like the sun. That's transcendence and holiness. And the father of the prodigal son, who's waiting and waiting and waiting for his sinful son to come back, and when he does, he runs down and hugs him and gives him everything. These two images of God's overwhelming holiness and power and wrath and justice, and God's intimate compassion and tenderness and love must be held together. We can't choose one or the other. We'll be a holiness church, or we'll be a love church. It's both. So meditate on both for yourself. Some of you may need to hear more from one side than the other right now, I understand that. That happens in our sinfulness, that we need to hear more that God really does love us because we've been doubting that, or we need to hear more that God is holy and does not tolerate sin. We need to hear that. Both.

Secondly, ponder at length the question: Is man profitable to God? And answer no. Say, “God, I know that my service doesn't profit you at all. I know that. I know you don't need me to serve. I know even if you wanted to use a person, if I dropped out, you would find another person to do the exact same thing.” It's just good to be humble. That “God is not served by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”

Thirdly, ponder the quantity and weight of your sin. Don't minimize it. Be like the tax collector who beat his breast and would not even look up to heaven, but said, "Be merciful to me, oh God, a sinner." Say, “My sins are more numerous than the hairs of my head and they're mighty like a mountain range.” Don't minimize it. Realize it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Understand your sickness and he'll heal you.

Fourthly, seek salvation in Christ. Christ is, in every chapter of Job, the star, every chapter. Do you not see it? It is in Christ that God's infinite, transcendent holiness is addressed at the cross through the blood sacrifice, and it is in Christ that he draws very close to us in his incarnation. He is Emmanuel, God with us. We are able to pillow our heads on his chest because he loves us. So find salvation through repentance and faith in Christ.

Fifthly, just observe how Job's afflictions and sufferings made him feel that God was distant from him. Expect that to happen when you're suffering, but realize it's not true. That God is as close to you, or perhaps in some ways, even closer than ever when you're suffering. Intimately close. And then finally, know that the remedy is to draw near to the throne of grace. Don't let Satan trick you into staying distant from God. But as it says in Hebrews 4:16, "Let us approach the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Close with us in prayer now. Father, thank you for these three chapters, for all the things that we've discussed. So much in there. God, I pray that you would press these lessons, these timeless lessons, to our hearts, that we would understand them. God, I pray that you would save, that you would convert any that are here that walked in unconverted. Just work in them now that they would know the truth of the gospel. Help all of us, Lord, to see both your infinite, transcendent majesty and holiness, but also your intimacy with us in Christ. In Jesus's name, amen.

God is both magnificent, infinitely above us, and close, near to us, transcendent and immanent, two thoughts we must hold together.

The post God’s Infinite Majesty and His Loving Closeness (Job Sermon 14) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a sermon on Job 20-21, covering the difficult question: what about the prosperity of the wicked?

Well, this morning we'll be looking at two chapters, Job 20-21, and we're going to address the prosperity of the wicked, the problem of the prosperity of the wicked, and I'm going to assert that that problem is only going to be solved by the display of God's justice and eternity, not in this world. This is a big problem, it's an ethical problem, a problem for those of us that believe in a sovereign God, a holy God, a good God, and as we look at the problem of evil in the world, it's sometimes difficult to address this issue of the prosperity, the seeming even final success of many wicked people.

In the closing days of World War II in Europe, many high ranking Nazi officials were able to slip away in the confusion, May of 1945, and escape the justice of the world for their heinous crimes against humanity. The paths of their escapes came to be known as rat lines, as though they were rats escaping. By these means, many of these high-ranking Nazi officials were able to affect their escape to Argentina or to other South American nations and other places around the world and make a new life for themselves, often using money, much money they had stolen from their victims when they were in power.

Now, it is true that in subsequent years, a few of them got caught. For example, Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped in Argentina by Israeli operatives in May of 1960, but others did manage to live out the rest of their lives in obscurity, and in many cases, luxury, and then die of old age. And when their stories were then uncovered and told to the world in the years following their peaceful deaths, the sense of outrage was palpable, not only from Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, but from all who may question the existence of God.

One of the greatest issues that continually troubles the hearts of all people who believe in a sovereign, wise, good, and loving God who rules directly over the affairs of our earth is this, what about the prosperity of the wicked? Why does it seem that the wicked always win? The cheaters get ahead. The tyrants win battles on the battlefield and build evil empires. The corrupt in business overwhelm their smaller and more honest competitors and drive them out of business. Why do corrupt politicians with huge war chests for their campaigns win the elections and then are able to pay off their corporate sponsors with legislation that's favorable to their businesses? Why do organized crime syndicates succeed in corrupting the legal system and then crushing opposition with murder and with illegal business practices? Why do communist governments succeed for decades in crushing Christian house churches, incarcerating and torturing their leaders with, it seems, impunity? Now, that word impunity means “no punishment,” and it doesn't go far from that to “no justice.”

The agonies just go on and on. The wicked seem to prosper and dominate. The weak get overwhelmed and suffer and lose and die. And worst of all, there seems to be absolutely no response from God in heaven. The mighty, omnipotent, perfectly good King of Kings and Lord of Lords just seems to do nothing, and lets them get away, literally, with murder in some cases, lets them build massive mansions and live high on the hog, and there's no answer at all. It seems like so many escape the hangman's noose and beat the system. Now, this is the problem that is addressed, that is raised in Job 20-21, these two chapters, but it is not answered, not fully. Zophar will try to give an answer, but Job swamps him with some of the reading you just heard with Job 21 and wins the debate, I think. If we look a little further in the Old Testament, we will see the beginning of an answer in Psalm 73, and we're going to look at that this morning, but the full answer waits for the clearer revelations that were entrusted by God the Father, to God the Son, to Jesus Christ. Fuller answer given to Christ.

And we will see in the end, final and full satisfaction on this question. The apostle Paul spoke of his own expectation of future reward, eternal reward, reward in heaven. He said in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” In other words, Paul did not expect his rewards for his faithful service to Christ in this life. He was clearly warned by the Holy Spirit to not expect it in this life. In Acts 20:23, he said, “I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.” Well, in the same way, I believe Jesus taught that the ultimate display of God's justice concerning the wicked will not be in this world.

Actually, we can only see it now by faith as we read the scriptures and understand God's intentions and what God will do. We can only see it by faith. But the Scripture is clear, that in every single case, meticulously, God will display his justice, either on the one hand, by the genuine repentance of the evil doer, coming to faith in Christ, where upon all of their wicked deeds were punished by the wrath of God poured out on the substitute Jesus Christ on their behalf, but everything dealt with directly by the blood of Christ on the cross. Or on the other hand, by the eternal condemnation of the wicked, of the unrepentant wicked in hell, not in this world, but in eternity. And so I believe as Jesus threw open the gates of resurrection and gave a clear vision to all who lived after Christ rose from the dead of what the world to come is going to be like.

So he is also, it was given to him to throw open a revelation of what eternal condemnation and hell would be like and his apostles as well, so that we can understand the eternity that's coming and live accordingly. And that is the subject of today's sermon.

We're going to begin in chapter 20 with Zophar's inadequate doctrine, Zophar's assertion: God crushes the wicked quickly. God crushes the wicked quickly. Job 20, “The joy of the wicked is brief,” says Zophar. The time the wicked enjoys his ill-gotten gains is very brief. Job 20:5, he says, “The mirth of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.” Well, friends, actually, this is in one sense true. Hebrews 11:25, speaking of Moses, it says that “[Moses chose] rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” The fleeting pleasures of sin. So, that's true. Sin offers only fleeting pleasures, fleeting times of pleasure, then the feast is over. Done. But that is also true of the righteous as well. It's true of every human being, every mortal, for 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, because the breath of the LORD blows on them.” So both the righteous and the wicked have a brief time here on earth. So, to some degree, that's no real answer. Zophar continues, “No matter how high the wicked soar, God brings them down.” Look at 20:6-7, “Though his pride reaches to the heavens and his head touches the clouds, he will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’”

This reminds me of that ancient myth of Icarus who sought to slip from gravity and fly by making some wings, and the wings were held together with wax, but he flew too high, and the sun melted the wax and he came crashing back down to the earth. That's the image that Zophar gives. He's going to crash down, he's going to crash and burn, the wicked is. And Zophar says, “The fall of the wicked comes quickly.” Chapter 20:8-9, “Like a dream, he flies away no more to be found, banished like a vision of the night. The eye that saw him will not see him again; his place will look on him no more.” So it's going to come quickly.

Zophar says the children of the wicked do not enjoy the fruit of their parents' wicked doings. Verse 10, “His children must make amends to the poor; his own hands must give back his wealth.” So Zophar says, “The kids aren't going to enjoy the ill gotten gains. They're going to have to give it back and quickly. And,” says Zophar, “the wicked will never enjoy all the fruit of their ill-gotten gains,” verses 12-15, “Though evil is sweet in his mouth and he hides it under his tongue, though he cannot bear to let it go and keeps it in his mouth, yet his food will turn sour in his stomach; it will become the venom of serpents within him. He will spit out the riches he swallowed; God will make his stomach vomit them up.” Verse 17-18, “He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream. What he toil for, he must give back uneaten; he will not enjoy the profit from his trading.” That's Zophar saying, “He's not going to get to enjoy it. God's going to force him to give it all back. All the pleasures the wicked imagine they would lay around and enjoy, they will not get to for long. At some point, their ill-gotten delicacies will become like poison in their stomachs and they'll vomit them out, God's justice will see to it. God himself is going to hunt down and slaughter the wicked.”

Look at verses 23-29, “When he has filled his belly, God will vent his burning anger against him and rain down his blows upon him, though he flees from an iron weapon, a bronze-tipped arrow pierces him. He pulls it out of his back, the gleaming point out of his liver. Terrors will come over him; total darkness lies and wait for his treasures. A fire unfanned will consume him and devour what is left in his tent.” Verse 27, “The heavens will expose his guilt; the earth will rise up against him. A flood will carry off his house, rushing waters on the day of God's wrath. Such is the fate God allots the wicked, the heritage appointed for them by God.” In other words, God is a skillful heavenly hunter, and he's going to hunt the wicked down and he's going to shoot them and they will die. No one can escape God's wrath.

Now, the hard part about all this, as with all the three friends and their speeches in the book of Job is the clear implication is that this is what's happened to Job, applying it to Job. Job is the wicked man who's amassed all of this fortune and God didn't let him get away with it.

This is the basic premise that Zophar and two other friends have had concerning God and concerning Job, that Job is suffering the just desserts of his hidden wickedness. He's implying that all of these things he's saying in chapter 20 happened to the wicked, that God does the wicked. “Look, they've happened to you. All of your wealth and your luxuries were taken from you in an instant.” All right, so that's chapter 20. That's Zophar.

Now it's Job's turn. And Job's response is basically this: “Actually, the wicked do quite well in this world.” That's Job 21.

Now Job questions Zophar, he refutes him, calls his doctrine and his statements nonsense by the end of this chapter. But his real issue is not with Zophar at all, it's with God. And to some degree Job in Job 21 speaks for or speaks the words of some of the most hostile skeptics against Christianity. He speaks their thoughts for them, he's not trying to do that, but he does. His real issue is vertical. His real issue is with the justice of God. Zophar's premise is that the wicked get crushed very quickly by the relentless active justice of God, but Job is not buying it. His experience tells him otherwise. He is questioning God and his justice, his way of ruling the world. As far as Job can tell, the wicked do very well in this world and there is no justice for their many wicked acts. So this is an issue of theodicy, it's an issue of the justification of God and the attack amazingly comes from Job himself.

Now he begins his assault Zophar, but it's really God he wants to talk to. Look at 21:4, “Is my complaint directed to man?” No, it's not. He's not complaining to Zophar. He's going up, he's going vertically. “My real problem here is not with you, my mocking, arrogant friend. My real problem is with God; Almighty God, the just and righteous ruler of the ends of the earth. The real issue: the wicked do in fact prosper.”

Look at Job 21:7-13, you just heard them read, “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes. Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not upon them. Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry. They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about. They sing to the music of tambourine and harp; they make merry to the sound of the flute. They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.”

Fact of the matter is a lot of wicked people make it safely through this world successfully—right to a peaceful death in their beds. They are successful in all their business ventures. They live very long, healthy lives, generally healthy. They have large, loving families. They die in their beds surrounded by doting children and grandchildren who weep and lament when they die and will miss them. They have no fears because nothing bad ever seems to happen to them. As Job said, the rod of God is not upon them. God leaves them alone, lets them prosper, seems to bless them, actually. Their agricultural ventures go very well. Their bulls breed, cows calve, as he said. Nothing ever seems to go wrong for them. Their children laugh and play and dance and sing. They're well fed, and the children don't know that their comfortable lives were paid for by sinister business deals or by tyranny, the wicked defrauding of the poor. They don't know that; it doesn't really matter to them.

Those healthy, happy kids never learn in their childhood why they are so wealthy, healthy, and happy. Now later in life, they're going to get read in. They're going to find out, and they will, for the most part, join the family business. The corrupt, wicked family business and continue the multigenerational prosperity and wickedness. Now the head of the clan, the founding father of the whole corrupt enterprise dies at age 95, passing away sweetly in his sleep. Why, oh Lord? Why, oh Lord?

1969, Mario Puzo published a novel, which eventually became one of the most famous movies in the history of American cinema, The Godfather, the violent tale of a mafia family, fictitious, but based on real families, crime syndicate families through multiple generations. And on the facing page of chapter one, Puzo put this quote from the French philosopher Balzac, "Behind every great fortune, there is a crime". Well, that's a sweeping generalization, but what he's saying is certainly in the case of the Corleone family, it was true. The whole thing was based on murder and corruption, and the story is the movement from Vito Corleone, the godfather, to the son, Michael, who originally didn't want any part of it, but then gets drawn into it and then becomes the next godfather. Now those are fictitious examples of the very thing that Job is bitterly lamenting. Both of them died peacefully an old age, and they were apparently prosperous.

Now, Job says, these people openly mock God. Look at Job 21:14-15, “They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’” They have no time for God. They're too focused on advancing their own evil agendas, their own empires, furthering their earthly realms. They're pragmatist. Piety doesn't pay. It's a waste of time to go to church. It's a waste of time to read the Bible. It's a waste of time to pray. They don't spend time on those things. They're godless. Job speaks his frustration about their perspective. Verse 16, “But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the council of the wicked.” Job knows full well that every good thing they've ever gotten came ultimately from God, but they don't acknowledge that. They never thank him. They don't give credit to God for any of the good things they enjoyed, and yet God doesn't do anything to them. Look at verses 17-18, “Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger? How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?” His implication is not often. That's what he's saying in this chapter. “It doesn't happen to them, usually not. They don't get paid back evil for the evil they've done. This is what should happen to them but it doesn't.” Now, one practical answer to this whole thing is that the punishment falls on the children. Look at verse 19, “It is said, God stores up a man's punishment for his sons.” So that's one possible answer, but Job's not satisfied with that at all.

Look at verse 19-21. He said, “Let him, [meaning God,] repay the man himself, so that he will know it!” “So if God's going to do that, I'm going to give God some advice. Let God repay the evil doer himself.” Verse 20, “Let his own eyes see his destruction; Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. For what does he care about the family he leaves behind when his allotted months come to an end?” Doesn't do any good. He escaped, he died, so whatever happens in the next generations doesn't matter to him. Both the wicked and the righteous, however, end up in the same place. They both die. Look at verse 23-26, “One man dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease. His body well nourished, his bones rich with marrow. Another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good. Side by side they lie in the dust and worms cover them both.” So they both died. If that's your answer, yes—but look, he died. Yes—but so did his victims—same thing. So how can that be an answer concerning this? So fundamentally, the wicked don't get paid, repaid in this lifetime.

Verse 27-33, “I know full well what you're thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me. You say, ‘Where now is the great man's house, the tents where wicked men lived?’ Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts—that the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, that he's delivered from the day of wrath? Who denounces his conduct to his face? Who repays him for what he's done? He's carried to the grave, and [then] watch is kept over his tomb. The soil in the valley is sweet to him; all men follow after him, and a countless throng goes before him.” He made it through, and everybody loves and misses him. So, in conclusion, Job says in verse 34 to his friends, “Your theology is deeply flawed.” Verse 34, “So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!” It's the end of the chapter. The Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all come at Job with the same basic theology, the law of retribution, the law of sowing and reaping: You reap what you sow.

“But there's a double flaw to your theory,” Job was saying. “Actually, two sides to the same coin. First of all,” Job would say, “look at me. Though you surmise that there's all kinds of deep-seated closet wickedness in my life, it's not true. And look what's happened to me.” But then the flip side, this chapter is, “So many wicked oppressors never get what's coming in this lifetime. They never get punished. They escape justice by death. They die old and vigorous and beloved and prosperous, surrounded by their doting families. Their kids and grandkids laugh and dance and play and eat good food. And where is the justice of God in all of this?” And Job has no answers. He's simply refuting the theology of his friends. In one sense, this is a continued frontal assault by Job on the justice of God. It's a consistent pattern on Job's heart. He just thinks God's unjust, and he doesn't see any fair solution to this problem of the prosperity of the wicked. The solution must come somewhere else.

Now, I could just say, there's Job 21, let's pray. And you're like, wow, how depressing is that? But in the kind providence of God, there's an unfolding of wisdom in the 66 books of the Bible. It doesn't end with Job 21. There's more to say on this topic. All I'm saying is Job doesn't have an answer, but there is an answer. Now the final answer must come in eternity, and the beginning of that, we can see in Psalm 73. So turn there, if you will, or you can just listen. Psalm 73 covers basically the same ground, but comes out a little bit more hopefully, but still not a full answer. The problem of the prosperity of the wicked is addressed directly. You don't have to wonder what Psalm 73 is about. It says right out. Psalm 73:1-3, “Surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart.” So in other words, God is good to his own children, he's good to the righteous, I really believe that. However, I have a problem, “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked,” and then he unfolds the problem. This will sound very familiar. It's the very same thing as Job 21, “They have no struggles.” Psalm 73:4-5, “They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They're free from the burdens common to man; they're not plagued by human ills.” Verse 8-9, “They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.” Utter arrogance, no fear of God at all. Verse 11-12, “They say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?’ This is what the wicked are like—always carefree, they increase in wealth.” And so for the Psalmist, the issue’s exceptionally burdensome, the Psalmist said he almost slipped into unbelief and rebellion, at least in one side bitterness, but a strong temptation toward if you can't beat him, join him.

Well, what good is it to be righteous if this is how it is in this world? He says in verse 13, “Surely in vain, I've kept my heart pure. In vain, I've washed my hands in innocence.” He says this whole topic was a burden to him. In verse 14-16, it says, “All day long, I have been plagued; I've been punished every morning. If I said, ‘I will speak thus,’ [if I'm going to talk about what's on my heart,] I would've betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me.” But then the turn happens in the song. The solution comes to him, “[Till] I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!” Now that'll sound a little bit like Zophar, won't it? But they're going to be cast down and crushed finally, their final destiny is that. Has the same limit according to Job, the judgment doesn't seem to happen in every case. It doesn't seem to happen in this world.

However, the Psalmist has a view of eternity. His mind goes beyond this life. Psalms 73:21-26 are some of the sweetest verses in the old Testament. Absolutely beautiful. This is what the Psalmist said, “When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand, you guide me with your counsel and afterward you'll take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Sweet. And the Psalmist is saying, “I'm really thinking about heaven now. And I'm thinking when I get to heaven, what do I get? I get God, that's what I'm going to get, that's my portion in heaven, and therefore, that's all I really want here on earth. “

Therefore it is quite possible as he has this vision of eternity, the psalmist, that he sees the destruction of the wicked as eternal as well. Though he doesn't mention it, he does say this in verse 27, “Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.” So he does think about the destruction of the wicked, and he just mentioned eternity. He says “afterward you will take me into glory.” After what? After death. So he is thinking about after death. He just doesn't clearly lay it out, and I'm saying to you in the 39 books of the Old Testament, I don't see hell carefully, clearly laid out anywhere. Nothing contradicts, it just doesn't talk about it. That was given to Jesus. That task was given to Jesus. The final solution of this is eternity in hell. Jesus Christ gives us the full picture of what happens after death and on into eternity. It was given to him by the Father to teach us about hell. And I say to you, you will not really understand what Jesus accomplished if you don't understand hell. If you don't understand that Jesus died to set us free from eternal conscious torment, you don't understand what Jesus came to do. You don't understand what he did for you when he was willing to drink that cup in Gethsemane, which I can scarcely talk about sometimes without weeping.  It chokes me up almost every time when I think about the courage it took for Jesus to be willing to drink that cup. And what was in that cup? Hell. And you may think I need healing. I need money. I need this job, I need, I need, I need. What you need, is you needed Jesus to drink your cup for you so you don't have to drink it. That's what I needed. And he did it. So what else do you need? Not much. In drinking that cup, he's given you heaven forever.

And what else? Like the psalmist said, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has [What?] nothing I desire besides you.” And so it was Jesus who came to teach us details about hell, details that are not found in the 39 books of the Old Testament. For example, Luke 12:4-5, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do nothing more. I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, God has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Jesus quoted Isaiah 66 to give us some picture of what hell is like. In Mark 9:48-49 he says, “Their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” Everyone will be salted with fire, a fire that has never quenched.

He said in Matthew 25:41, “He will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” He said this eternal fire would be exquisite torment. In Matthew 8:12 he said that the wicked would be “thrown outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” He gave a clear picture of what hell would be like in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which directly addresses the issues brought up in Job 21, directly addresses the cavalier, wealthy, powerful, rich oppressor who couldn't care less about the poor people and then dies and seems to do well. Yeah, but this story’s not over.

And so in Luke 16, it's parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Rich man lived in luxury every day, never cared for the poor Lazarus at all who was right at his gate, and when the rich man died, Jesus said he went to hell where he was in fiery torment. Lazarus died and went to heaven where he was joyfully at peace, and the rich man begged for Lazarus to come and cool his tongue from the fire but that was impossible because a big gap was set between the two. This is the final answer to the problem of rich oppressors. The answer does not happen in this world. It doesn't happen in this life.

The apostle Paul continues to expand our comprehension of this. The wicked, says Paul, are actually storing up wrath against themselves every day by how they're living. Romans 2:5-8, he says, “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, your storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done.’ To those who by persistence and doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But to those who are self seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there'll be wrath and anger.” Trouble and distress for everyone who does evil. Romans 2, the wicked reprobate exist to put attributes of God on display. Why did God knit them together in their mother's womb? Paul addresses this deeply in Romans 9:22-24, said, “What if God choosing to show his wrath and make his power known bore with great patience the objects of wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us?”

So all of that is God knit Judas Iscariot in his mother's womb. He knits the wicked together for the purpose of displaying his own attributes. What are they? Wrath, power, and great patience. And he does this to put those attributes on display for us, the elect, the vessels of mercy, he says in Romans 9, so that we can know how much grace and mercy he's shown to us. We can get an education in God's glory. I'm saying to you, the fullness of this display cannot happen in this world. It can't—because God lets the wicked spin out their stories right to the end.

And we don't know in this life who the reprobate are, because we always have a good hope that the gospel can convert them right to the very end, that even on their deathbed they might find mercy, like the thief on the cross did. So we can't see God's power, wrath and great patience in this life—the display must be in eternity, it must be in the next world. Heaven will be a place of eternal education for the redeemed, and this will be part of the lesson. It will be to see and to understand how God waited patiently, channeled the wickedness of the wicked, used it amazingly for his own purposes, and in the end specifically punished those who never did repent. That is the answer. And God tells us he will do it, he will repay. Romans 12:19-20 he says, “Do not take revenge my friends, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: [I will] avenge. [Your vengeance is mine.] I will repay.’” Do you hear that? “I will repay. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he's thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you'll heap burning coals on his head.”  So this display must be in eternity not before, and we will see it. So for the arrogant wicked, there is no escaping justice, a far more terrifying enemy awaits. I don't know exactly how Hitler committed suicide. Maybe he blew his brains out or took a cyanide capsule, as the red army was burning Berlin down right over his head, and he thought—maybe, I don't know what he thought—that he's escaping the wrath of the Russians. But we know that a far more terrifying adversary was waiting for him when he died.

And Jesus made that very, very plain in Luke 12, when other wicked men chuckled to themselves, as they lay on their deathbed, surrounded by loving family and confident of passing on a vast fortune amassed by crime, when they felt they had beat the system and escaped an invading army, maybe, or a peasant uprising, maybe, or an FBI inquiry, maybe. As they slip from this world in peace, they cannot conceive of the terrors that will await them in the next world. As Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body and after that there's nothing more they can do [to you]. But…fear the one who has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell.” And these verses will at last come true in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.”

All right, what applications can we take from this? First, we need to apply this to ourselves. God is being patient with all sinners, all sinners, not just the extremely wicked. It is wrong for us to become angry with the patience of God toward big notorious sinners while we ourselves are sinners as well. And we forget that we're included and God's being patient with us. We should realize the central point. All sin deserves condemnation by God, all sin, and God's patience with sinners is meant to bring us to repentance. As it says in second, Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

"God is being patient with all sinners, all sinners, not just the extremely wicked. It is wrong for us to become angry with the patience of God toward big notorious sinners while we ourselves are sinners as well. "

Secondly, flee the wrath to come, as John the Baptist said. We're all sinners. We should realize that we all deserve to be judged. God sent Jesus Christ to die under his wrath to free us up from eternal condemnation. When I share the gospel with people and I'm explaining these themes, and you have to understand these themes in some sense, or you will never come to Christ. You will not see why you need to. But I look on Jesus as a lightning rod, that device that is designed to attract a lightning strike and take it safely away from the home and its inhabitants. And we live in the home of his security and peace, and he took the strike for us. So I would just say to you who are a sinner just like me, flee the wrath to come by fleeing to the cross, fleeing to Christ, let him be your lightning rod. Let him accept, absorb the lightning strike of the infinite wrath of God against you and carry it safely away from you for all eternity.

Thirdly, trust God concerning the wicked oppressors. Some of them may yet be converted, and we have good hopes, but most of them won't. And Scripture is very clear what's going to happen to them, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9, it says, “God is just.” That answers Job, doesn't it? “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you, [speaking to Christians who are being persecuted.] He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power,” 2 Thessalonians 1. That's what's going to happen. It's consistent teaching in the New Testament, and their Christian victims are going to be rewarded for their suffering and their service to Christ in the next world. As Jesus said in Matthew 5, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Fourthly, patience for those who are being oppressed. Some of our brothers and sisters around the world are being oppressed right now. They're being crushed by power structures, and they cry out for justice. And Jesus addressed it in the parable of the unrighteous judge in Luke 18, he said, “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ For some time he refused but finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming.’” It's a parable about prayer and it's a how-much-more argument, that if that's what the wicked judge does, worn out by this persistent widow, we should be faithful in prayer. That's the point of the parable, but listen to what Jesus says, “And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.” That's what Jesus said. So our brothers and sisters that are being crushed by structures that we can hardly even imagine in other countries, God's going to see that they get justice, Christ said.

And fifth, answering the charges of skeptics. Unbelievers frequently bring up this issue, like the Holocaust and wicked oppressors never get dealt with in this life. Now you have heard a sermon that addresses it, and the answer is eternal conscious torment in hell. That's the answer. There is a judgment day coming and the wicked oppression will be dealt with. But the question, dear friend, is you. You have a sense of justice inside you. God gave that to you, but that justice comes back on you. You also are sinner, flee to Christ. So that's how I would handle that apologetic situation.

I want to close with a story I heard some time ago. Over a century ago, there was a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for God and for Christians, and he openly worked out in his fields, plowing his fields on Sundays, Sunday mornings, so that he could mock the churchgoers who were walking by as he did his work on Sunday. October came and the farmer had his best crop ever, the best actually in the entire county. And when the harvest was complete, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper, belittling Christians for their faith in God and near the end of his ad he wrote, “Faith in God must not mean very much if someone like me can prosper.” Well, one Christian in the community was provoked by this, decided to respond and in the next edition of the town paper, he put in this small advertisement, it read simply, “God doesn't always settle his accounts in October.”

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time we've had to study the deep themes of Job 21. As he, our brother, has raised these questions, but really did not have the clear answer that we have. Lord, help us to absorb the truth, Lord Jesus, that you taught us about hell and also the truth that you taught us about heaven, and that we would realize the truth of our situation, and that we would be eternally grateful to you for drinking the cup of God's wrath on our behalf, and that we will be motivated as never before to evangelize those who are still walking under the wrath of God so that they can flee while there's still time. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.