Job Chapter 23-24:ALL

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee, Weekend Edition. Pastor David McGee is internationally recognized for his unique conversational verse-by-verse and chapter-by-chapter teaching through the Word of God. We have hundreds of his teachings through the many books of the Bible and encourage you to visit crossthebridge.com to study the scriptures along with Pastor David. But right now, open your Bible to the Old Testament Book of Job and follow along for today's teaching. Pastor David has been teaching practical lessons from the life of Job.

We are finding out that what needed to be learned back then still needs to be learned today. I think you'll find that to be true today and tomorrow as we take a closer look at chapters 23 and 24. Now, here's Pastor David. Welcome to Job 23.

And if you don't have a Bible, if you'll raise your hand while the ushers will come around and bring you a Bible so that you can read along with us. What's happening is Job is a good man. He's a very good man. Job chapter 1 verse 8. Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? So Satan answered the Lord and says, Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge around him? Enemy has been checking Job out. He's been looking at that hedge. He not only knows there's a hedge around him, but it's around his household and around all that he has on every side.

So the enemy's been fence-walking, looking for homes, looking for a way in, hasn't found one. Notice one of the things that God says about Job, that he fears God. When you fear God, fear in a reverential way, you fear God, so you make him number one. You make him the priority. If you fear something else, you make it the priority. You perhaps even make it an idol. If you fear something bad happening to your kids, you could make your kids your idols.

If you fear a lack, you could make finances your idol. But God wants to be number one. And we see the enemy's checking stuff out, so God says, Okay, I will allow you to do some things, but don't let a hand on this person. So the enemy comes and is bad. You know, the enemy kills all the animals and the servants, and there was a whole lot of those, and his kids.

Then Job, in chapter 1 and verse 20, Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshipped. What is your response to trials, to things going wrong, to sickness or opposition? You know, it's so strange that sometimes we get in the middle, we get opposition, and we think, Oh, God's trying to speak to us.

Careful. If you start looking for things like that, if you start looking for, you know, Oh, God, speak to me, let something go wrong, let the mail come before 11 o'clock, or we do the silliest diet, you confirm your word to us. If you do that, if you look to circumstances and events and trials for God to speak to you, you will be misled. It's the only question of when, because you will get in the middle of circumstances, and you will begin to trust what you see, instead of trusting what you don't see.

As humans, that's already an issue for us to trust what we see. So Job, in chapter 1, he has this great response, he worships. Let's remember, he doesn't know what we know. He doesn't know there was a conversation between the enemy and God. He doesn't know that the enemy is after him and God is protecting him. And so his summarization, like so many truths in this book, there's some truth in it.

And yet it's inaccurate. In verse 21, and he said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. Check and check.

Everybody comes naked in the world, and that's the way they leave. And then he says, the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. That's not correct. The Lord did give to Job, but we see that it was the enemy, that it wasn't God. And so Job's coming to this inaccurate conclusion, and the shame is, a lot of people think that's the key verse in Job. The key verse in Job is where he gets it wrong and comes to the wrong conclusion.

No, no, that doesn't work. Then in chapter 2, the enemy wants to turn up the heat. The Lord says, okay, well, you know, you can touch him or afflict him, but you can't take his life. And so the enemy does that.

Now we discussed earlier, could there be something that gave the enemy a way in? Is there anything Job did or didn't do or say or didn't say that gives us a clue? We've looked at one thing, and that's in chapter 1, verse 5. It says, For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did regularly. He rose up and did offerings for his kids, saying they may have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. And he did it all the time.

He did it regularly. That's a little strange, and it's in there for us to take note of. But then let's go to chapter 3, verse 25. And again, we understand that there's nothing in this book by happenstance.

There's no filler material. Everything in here is for our benefit and for our learning. And so in chapter 3, verse 25, Job says, For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me. Remember when I said when you fear God is number one. If you fear something else, that could become an idol or it could become a way in for the enemy.

Job was a godly man, a righteous man who handled this stuff with incredible trust in God. And yet I think we may have found our issue. We may have found how the enemy got in.

And again, if it's in there, it's for our benefit and it's not filler. And it's noted that it was the thing that he feared that happened. The two errors that we could go from this, we could say, okay, that's absolute doctrine, and so let's adopt that. That, you know, if any time we have any fear about anything, we're opening up the door for Satanary havoc in our lives. We don't want to do that. But neither do we want to see something like this and go, that's nothing.

No, no, no. I think we're supposed to notice this. Be careful what you fear, because what you fear controls you. What you fear controls you. If you begin to fear this, if you begin to fear that, if you begin to fear losing your job, that will begin to control you.

That can keep you up at night, decrease your function and effectiveness, and then you end up getting fired. Self-fulfilling prophecy. So Job, throughout this whole book, and his friends, and see, this is where they're going so wrong. They're assuming everything that's happened has been God.

So they start from a faulty assumption. Well, this is God speaking to us through what happened to Job, through his kids being killed and him losing the animals and his business. That's God.

What was he saying? It wasn't God. God allowed it.

But we understand there's a huge difference between allowing something and being the cause of something. Amen? You know what's interesting?

Let's go to Job 23. What's interesting is where society will use the name of God. For instance, you can't have the name of God like New York Public School or a post office or governmental building, never mind all our church fathers put them all over the place in Washington, D.C. But when something goes wrong, have you ever heard somebody say, oh, you know those tornadoes, people got hurt? Obviously, it's an act of Satan.

Surely the insurance company use, they use that phrase, right? Act of Satan? No. Act of God. Act of God. He gets none of the glory for creating the universe. But as soon as something goes bad, he gets the blame.

That's not right. And so as we go into these verses and these chapters, the question, and I just really sense that there's people in the body, you're looking into, you're looking to events or circumstances, thinking God is speaking to you through them. And I'm here to tell you a lot of times that's the enemy. And you can be manipulated in your relationship with God if it's based more on that. Is there anything you are blaming God for that was the enemy's fault, an accident, a maiming, a handicapping, a death, a rape, a soldier dying? See, again, we can be guilty of not giving thanks for the awesome stuff that God has done, and yet blaming Him for things that have gone wrong, that may have been the enemy, may have been us planting bad seed. I've seen many people in my life plant bad seed, and bad crops come out, and then they go, God, what are you doing?

Seed after its own kind, if you will. Job 23, let's read verse 1. Then Job answered and said, and they're going back and forth, and so this chapter is Job's response.

He says, Even today my complaint is bitter, my hand is listless because of my groaning, all that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come to His seat. Now, Job is one of the oldest books, probably potentially one of the oldest. There's a man named Job mentioned early on in Genesis, and there's interesting things.

We've talked about the weather. There's a lot of mention of snow and ice more than any other Old Testament book, so there could have been some type of either cold snap or even some sort of small ice age or something, I don't know. But it is interesting that in the Middle East, that this book mentions snow and ice a lot, but it mentions His seat. Now, that's a specific term, and it's a capital H in the New King James, which again points to God, that I might come to His seat. The place in the tabernacle and the temple that represented the presence of God was the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant, and you may have pictures of it, then have angels with their wings outstretched. And the Ark were manna, Aaron's rod that had bloomed when folks questioned who God had chosen. In his choosing of Aaron, he calls the rod the butt, and that's an important thing. And that is a good thing.

We can look for spiritual fruit, and God will speak to us through spiritual fruit in our life or somebody else's life. That's not events. And then there was the Ten Commandments that were in there. Over all that were the angels with the wings outstretched. Now, you might think that's part of the Ark of the Covenant.

It's not. That's the top of it, and it's called the seat. The seat of what? The seat of judgment? The seat of annihilation?

You know, like the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies? The seat of condemnation? The seat of lightning bolts? The mercy seat is what it's called.

The mercy seat. You know, it's so awesome of God. You've got this incredible either tabernacle or temple. You see all these incredibly beautiful objects. Only a few people, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, but in the midst of all that beauty, the focal point was the mercy seat. You know, we've talked before about how when grace and peace are together, it's always grace first. There's another interesting little thing like that.

There's another two words that are together, a whole lot. Pastor David will be back in less than one minute as he continues teaching in the Book of Job. A great way to start out each day is with a practical email devotional every morning from Pastor David. Visit crossthebridge.com to start receiving yours for free. If you have a cell phone, you can also text the word ENCOURAGE to 94253 to receive a short encouraging text from us each day.

That's 94253. And now back to the teaching. There's another two words that are together, a whole lot. Mercy and truth.

And you know what's interesting? Mercy comes first every time. Grace comes first.

Mercy comes first. Let's read on verse 4. I would present my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which he would answer me and understand what he would say to me. Would he contend with me in his great power?

No, but he would take note of me. There the upright could reason with him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge. Look, I go forward, but he is not there, and backwards, but I cannot perceive him. Verse 9. When he works on the left hand, I cannot behold him.

When he turns to the right hand, I cannot see him. Verse 10. But he knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. He knows the way I take. When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

That's an accurate statement. Now that may sound strange to say, but let's understand that there's things in the Bible where somebody is speaking and they say something that's wrong that's in error. That doesn't mean the Bible's in error.

That means that that person is in error, like Nebuchadnezzar said some things that were wrong. When he has tested me, I've been walking with the Lord for a long time. I grew up in a Christian family, a religious family, but I did at a young age. I was learning the Bible and had a sense of the presence of the Lord that was very strong. I remember after lunch one day as a kid, I burped and said, excuse me, to the Lord. My mom came around the corner and said, who are you talking to?

I said, I'm talking to God. She got a little worried, but I was aware of the presence of God and grew to love the word. Later on when I came off the road, I went on staff at a couple of different churches and traveled and led that ministry and was teaching.

God was opening doors through the gift of teaching. I felt like I was supposed to plan a church. And it's important if you feel like you're supposed to do something like that, to go to senior pastor of the church and say, hey, I think the Lord might be leading in this way. And then we can help prepare you. We may prayerfully say, hey, you're not ready.

We may prayerfully say, we don't see it right now. And we'll encourage you in it and look for it. But with the calling comes that servant attitude that has to be there. When we step out and begin to serve, the word is going forth. The gospel is going forth. The truth is going forth in a world filled with lies. The light is going forth in a world filled with darkness. So you step out, you begin to serve. Or maybe you change positions and it's a more strategic position and there's a new little group of assaults.

But here's the mistake. I see some people, they step out, they begin serving. Now they're engaged in a ministry that, gang, it's amazing because we certainly do a lot of different things and we try to pour ourselves out. And yet God multiplies that, uses the internet, and there's people getting saved through this ministry literally seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

I mean, praise God. We worked out the timing and looked at the specs. And one group, it was every six minutes for like a 30-day period, every six minutes, 24 hours a day. Somebody was starting to listen to the teaching. So you step out, you begin to serve, you're stepping into that stream of those people getting saved. You become part of that no matter what you do, anything you do. Anybody that sparkles, that's something that the person who's leading sparkle doesn't have to do. The person that's leading sparkle gets to do stuff so then the deacon doesn't have to do certain things and he can be set free to do something else. And then with the deacon doing that, then he sets an elder free to do other things. And then the elder sets a pastor free to do other things. And then the pastor does something that sets me free so I can be able to proclaim the gospel. And so more people get saved because somebody helped sparkle. You see that?

Praise God, man. That also works in reverse. If somebody signs up for sparkle, they're on the schedule and they don't show and they don't call, the leader has to take up the slack. When he's doing that, a deacon has to pick up the slack. And then when the deacon's doing that, the elder has to pick that up.

And in the past, you get the idea. So here's what some folks do. Step out, they begin to serve. They're now serving in a ministry of people getting saved, people being discipled, the words going forth. And they get a couple of attacks.

Now if they're mature believers, they just say, hey, this is part of it, man. I'm getting shot at because people are getting saved. The enemy's not going to waste his bullets. There's a whole lot of churches he doesn't have to bother here in town. He's going to mess with the ones that are being effective. So you begin to be set up because you're reaping those rewards.

But then the attacks set in. And some people go, oh, this is the Lord telling me that I need to not be involved in ministry, that he said I should have more me time is actually what he's saying. Jesus is not telling you you need more me time. That's not Jesus. If you're hearing that, that's not Jesus. Well, the Lord, you know, he laid on my heart to, you know, I know I'm on the schedule, but the Lord laid on my heart to break my word and to leave people hanging and not to honor my word.

And yeah, boy, it just sounds like the Lord, doesn't it? No. And worse yet, a person gets in the trial and they leap out of the trial and they don't learn from the trial. It's like if you put something in the oven and it's supposed to be in there for 30 minutes and you leave it in there for 15 and you pull it out, it's not going to look good. It's not going to be done well.

It's going to be what? Half baked is what we call it. And see, sometimes we get in the middle of the trial and we bail or we run or worship. We think that's God speaking to us.

Same mistake they made in the Book of Job. We pull out of the trial. The pain of a trial or a test is usually in the beginning.

The payoff and the pleasures at the end. If we stop it in the middle, we repeat the pain without getting the blessing. If we endure, we get the blessing. So you're supposed to endure when those things happen. Not think, well, it's God speaking to me.

No, it's not. Here's a life lesson. God uses trials and situations to grow us. When we run from these things, we go through much of the pain, but don't get the gain. And we don't grow from it. We go through much of the pain, but don't get the gain. God uses trials and situations to grow us.

When we run from those things, we go through much of the pain, but don't get the gain, and we don't grow from it. I was asking this pastor about the way the board functions and stuff, technical kind of thing. And he said, well, you know, basically they'll get together with the board and do presentations and stuff. And he says, and it really comes down to this. They just, you know, I meet with them and they make sure that I'm not quitting and we carry on. I said, okay. I said, so you know what? You feel like quitting?

He said, well, I haven't today. And can't we all feel like quitting at some time? Oh, not you, Pastor Baker.

Absolutely. Because, gang, if you can imagine the battle that you feel sometimes on coming here or coming here to serve, and then you think of all those battles and all those people here that are listening, all the people online, all the people on the radio, and that's the battle that I go through. Now I'm not, oh, woe is me. So, you know, please cry for me. No, no, no.

You pray for me. Because, I mean, that's a heavy thing. You know, they asked Billy Graham, they said, what's it like to share the gospel to so many people?

So many times it's like energy running out of my body. Because as you share, there's like a spiritual training. It's an awesome thing. It's a beautiful thing. And we really all want to go through that pouring out and the refilling. You know, what's interesting is how many times the Bible talks and encourages us not to quit, not to lose heart.

Here's just a few. Luke 18, 1, Jesus is speaking. Then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 1, therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. God's given us a ministry, you and I, if you're part of this. It's our ministry. This is what God has entrusted to us. And I think sometimes we think, oh, you know, yeah, but, you know, if I don't do my part, somebody else will pick up my slack. I mean, if I don't give as much, somebody will give more and make up. You know, if I don't serve as much, somebody else will serve.

It'd be okay. No, no. There's hundreds strike back. There's thousands of churches that close their doors every year.

And those people, that's what they thought won't happen here. You know, if God's not in a work and it dies, thank you, Jesus. Praise God. Another dead church. You know, but fellowship, sadly, some of those fellowships are good fellowships. They're fruitful fellowships and they go through some kind of battle and people lose heart. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 16 says, therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. What a great reminder. Galatians 6, 9, and let us not grow weary while doing good.

For in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. You've been listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge, Weekend Edition. Tune in again tomorrow afternoon as Pastor David continues teaching on most stations. If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our livestream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our livestream link. There you will experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com.

Remember that you are not alone and you are loved. Also, don't forget to visit crossthebridge.com to discover more resources provided at no charge to help you learn more about the Bible. If you'd like to help us share God's word with others, click on the donate button and support this program with your regular gifts. And tune in to Cross the Bridge Weekend Editions each Saturday and Sunday on this station or on the crossthebridge.com website. God bless you and have a great day!