Job Chapter 39: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 chapter 39. Now, here's Pastor David. Was the ambulance to show up with the EMTs? What he got was the police looking who to blame. They really should be his friends and offer him comfort and compassion.

There's a time for us to play either role, but I think far too often we play the police when we should play the EMT. Chapter 39, verse 1. Do you know the time when the wild mountain goats bear young? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth?

Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they bear young? They bow down. They bring forth their young. They deliver their offspring. Their young ones are healthy.

They grow strong with grain. They depart and do not return to them. Or in the New Living Translation, verse 4, says their young grow up in the open fields, then leave home and never return. So the first four verses are about mountain goats, but God is underlying a difference between him and Job. Let's read on, verse 5. Who set the wild donkey free?

Who loosed the bonds of the owner, Job? Whose home I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling. He scorns the tomelet of the city.

He does not heed the shouts of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searches after every green thing. So now he starts talking about wild donkeys for four verses, and verse 5 in the New Living Translation reads, who gives the wild donkey its freedom? Who untied its ropes?

It is so amazing. Every chapter of the New Testament, every single chapter of the Hebrew Scriptures has Jesus in it. You just got to look. Who set the donkey free? You know, God is God, and he doesn't need anything. That's one of the definitions of God.

I am that I am. He's self-sustaining. He doesn't need us. He wants us.

He loves us. He doesn't need us, because he's God. Nowhere in the whole Bible does he ever need anything, because he's God, except for three times. In the Bible, it says God, Jesus, needed something. When he sent the disciples to go ahead in Jerusalem and get Passover ready to get the donkey, Jesus said, tell them the Master needs the donkey. It's the only place in the whole Bible where God himself needs anything, but he doesn't need it.

We need it. He needed to show the disciples that even though things were about to get really scary, he was still in charge. That's what prophecy does. It lets us know God is not getting caught by surprise. He knew thousands of years ago who would be our president now. He already knows who's going to be our president next year. He's not telling, but he knows.

It's a serious source and point of prayer for this election. So it speaks about the donkey for four verses, and in verse 9, it starts about the wild ox. Verse 9, will the wild ox be willing to serve you?

Will he bed by your manger? You know, these little phrases that we say and we have are kind of interesting. I know of one songwriter who takes these little phrases and makes mega hits out of them, but one of the things that's interesting is that phrase. I used to say it. I don't say it anymore. When somebody comes in and they leave the door open, we say, were you born in a barn?

What's wrong with you? Well, I said that one day to the kids. You know, they came in and left the door open. It was a hot day.

AC was on. They came in. Were you born in a barn? And then it occurred to me, who was born in a barn and why?

And I thought, what a weird thing for us to say, to say something derogatory when somebody leaves the door open. What, were you born in a barn? Meaning you're way down here on the totem pole if you say that. You were born in a barn. The Melekh-Melekhim, the king of kings, Lord of lords was born in a barn for you, for me. Verse 10, can you bind the wild ox and the furrow with ropes or will he plow the valleys behind you? Will you trust him because his strength is great or will you leave your labor to him?

Will you trust him to bring home your grain and gather it to your threshing floor? So again, we have four verses to the wild ox. Now you can do a little digging and find some interesting things about the goat, donkey, and wild ox.

But let's move on because there's some interesting stuff in it. Verse 13, the wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are her wings and pinions like the kindly storks? For she leaves her eggs on the ground and warms them in the dust. She forgets that a foot may crush them or that a wild beast may break them. She treats her young harshly as though they were not hers. Her labor is in vain without concern because God deprived her of wisdom and did not endow her with understanding.

When she lifts herself on high, she scorns the horse and its rider. Now verse 12 in the King James brings up an interesting word. Wilt thou believe him that he will bring home thy seed and gather it into that barn? It was just the word seed right there that would have brought your attention back to something. But now in verse 13 we have the ostrich.

He's larger and faster so he gets six verses instead of four. But notice what it says. Why is the ostrich not wise?

And it's the first one that says this. These other animals didn't say, well they're good about this, but boy they're not so sharp about this. But it says that about the ostrich and it goes on to tell you. And it keys back to verse 12 because here's the life lesson. The ostrich is not wise because she does not take care of her seed, her offspring, her eggs. She doesn't care for them.

And the Bible here points out that that's a sign of lack of wisdom. I've actually got to meet ostriches. When we travel around the nation, there was a precious family in California that God used our ministry to really touch. So one of the times we were in California, they said hey when you're in the area if you guys want to come by and park your RV here, that'd be great. So we went out there and they had like a mini zoo out there.

Well not so many. They had horses and llamas and ostriches and chickens and roosters with the big plumes and stuff. And of course the roosters, they woke up very early every day doing their job. But the ostriches, it was kind of interesting watching them. I tell you what, you have to respect the power of the ostrich and the speed. These things have some serious claws on them.

And that's one of the things they do. It brings out in verse 18, she is much faster than a horse and a rider. But again, notice it's because she doesn't care for her young, her offspring, her seed, because God deprived her of wisdom. So when God said brains, the ostrich thought, he said trades and took off running another way.

So didn't get any. But again, the concept of the seed. Please don't just think finances when I talk about the seed. That's one of the many symbols, if you will. But let's remember, let me remind you, the very first thing God said to man, be fruitful and multiply.

We are still under that. Spiritually, we are to be fruitful and multiply. It's interesting, we're studying the book of Ephesians.

It talks about the armor. The first thing it says is to grow up your loins. So here's another life lesson, kind of going with that. Be very careful with your seed.

Make sure your ground or your heart is a good place to receive. Because while we think about finances as seed, and they can be, the word of God is also called the seed. As a matter of fact, we're told in the parable of the sower, Jesus gives us great secrets in that. He not only tells this parable, but he also explains it, the parable of the sower, and explains what the seed is. And basically, he says the seed is the word of God, and that four different people he gives the seed to. Three of them, the seed doesn't work with them, and it's their pastor's fault.

And then there's one, did you catch that? And then there's one who the seed falls on good ground, which is symbolic of their heart, towards the seed, and the seed hits the ground, it takes off, and be fruitful, and it multiplies. When we talk about reproduction and seed and the Bible, we need to remember, because occasionally I hear this, and look, whether it's this church or another church, it applies. Tonight I'm reading the whole chapter of Job 39. Every midweek, we go through a whole chapter.

On the Sunday mornings, we go through a few verses, but we have somewhere between 50, 75, sometimes as many as 100 verses on a Sunday morning. Now some of you are very gracious and encouraging, oh man, I just got so much out of that teaching last Thursday or last Sunday. And friend, whenever somebody else comes up here and teaches, please encourage them. Send them an email, text, something, hey, sure enjoyed your teaching. If God lays on your heart to send one to me, praise God. You ladies who sit with my wife, Nora, send her a text, email, hey, appreciate the word, because teachers need that. They're being attacked all the time.

We need your prayers. It's interesting, because somebody says, oh man, I received so much from that teaching. Have several people say that. And then there's one that says, I didn't get anything out of it. Well, help me with this.

If there's three people sitting on the same row that got something out of it, and you didn't, where's the curve? If somebody is reading scripture, I mean, let's just say somebody is not anointed as a teacher, but they read scripture, you should receive from that. It's the same sort of thing as people, every now and again, over here, somebody, or, hey, worship wasn't very good tonight.

What do you mean? You mean your worship wasn't very good? Because there was somebody two rows from you that was in tears in the presence of the Lord. Why was worship not very good?

Because the condition of the heart. I can worship to a pipe organ or acapella group. I mean, it doesn't matter. If my heart is in the right place, it's possible to receive. And one of the things that ties in with this is our hearts have to be tender to evangelize. If our hearts aren't tender, we're not going to care if anybody is lost. We're not going to care how many people get saved, how many people get baptized.

When you think like that, be careful. Your heart's in a bad place. If it doesn't matter to you that people are getting saved here, that people are getting baptized, that people are being discipled. If that doesn't stir your heart, something's wrong with your heart. The life lesson here is if you or someone or anyone says they are not receiving from the word of God, there's something wrong with their heart.

That's pretty vague, isn't it? No, it's not. If you or someone or anyone says they're not receiving from the word of God, there's something wrong with their heart. Part of the reasoning, Isaiah 55, 11 tells us that so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void. It shall accomplish that what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

Your attention, please. God says my word's anointed. It goes forth powerful.

If it bounces back, something's wrong. Not with the word and not with the proclaimer of the word, if it's the word. If somebody just gets up and talks the whole time and doesn't share any scriptures, then, yeah, you've got to weigh in on what they're saying. I think the first thing to do is weigh in on the word of God. Be familiar with the parable of the sower.

It's important. So verse 19 says, Have you given the horse strength? Have you closed his neck with thunder? Can you frighten him like a locust?

His majestic snorting strikes terror. 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. I'm sure some of you know, some of you might not know, horses are skittish. It says here you frighten them with the locust. They're very, very skittish.

And part of it is they've got an eye on each side of their head, which makes vision different than ours. And I know this because Nora is a horse lover and has kind of put some of those dreams and things up on the shelf to minister here. She was actually younger, earlier in life, has taught equestrian lessons and actually went to the local one, the regional, and then went to the nationals and hunter-jumper rider.

That's where they jump over the fences inside. And one of the first times we went out riding, I said, look, I haven't ridden a whole lot. So, you know, if you can give me a horse that listens, that might be good.

Oh, yeah, I've got just the perfect, well, she's so, she's nice, she's tender, she's, yeah, OK, OK, all right, sweet. So, you know, I get up on the horse and I think, oh, yeah, I said, what's this horse's name? Snake?

That's not encouraging, Snake. But we went riding and the horse was, you know, all antsy and jumpy. And I said, this horse is all jumpy. She said, well, we're to this place in the woods. She said, let me get on her for just a, so she got on the horse and started jumping over trees that were falling down. And it was, it was like poetry in motion. I'd never seen that up close before. And the way the human body works with the horse, it just, it's perfect.

It is just amazing. But horses, they're skittish and a locust can frighten them even, even though they're big. Verse 21, he pours in the valley and rejoices in his strength. He gallops into the clash of arms. He mocks at fear and is not frightened, nor does he turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and javelin. He devours the distance with fierceness and rage, nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet is sounding. At the blast of the trumpet, he says, aha, and he smells the battle from afar, the thunder of captains and shouting. So while the horse is skittish about something like the locust, amazingly enough, they get in a battle and they are steady as a rock. The cannon, the smell of gunpowder, the swords flying around, and yet they'll charge right into the battle. And yet a locust causes fear.

It's not hard to imagine the parallel of we do great battles, but then we get freaked out about a small thing. Verse 26, does the hawk fly by your wisdom and spread its wings towards the south? Does the eagle mount up at your command and make its nest on high? On the rock it dwells and resides, on the crag of the rock and the stronghold.

From there it spies out the prey, its eyes observe from afar, its young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there it is. Now that's where the chapter ends. The chapter divisions came about in 1400s. The verse divisions came actually in 15, about 55. The first Bible that had the verse divisions was the Geneva Bible that we have copies of upstairs. That was the first Bible that had verse divisions in it.

But in this place, I almost wonder about the placement. Go with me to chapter 40 verse 1. It says, Moreover, the Lord answered Job and said, Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer.

Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further. God, in talking about nature, has shown another difference between God. Because you can see God plainly in nature, in creation. You've got things like honey bees that come back to the hive and by a dance show the other bees where food is, where it is, how far it is, what direction it is. Now the mystery is how those bees didn't starve to death while they were involving to do that dance. Or something like the bombardier beetle who actually has a little explosive thing in his body that has a little igniter spark thing and it shoots out this little explosion out back. How many beetles died while they were involved in that little thing? I'm being cynical and facetious.

Those creatures had to be created with that in order to survive. We're planning a trip to the Creation Museum in Kentucky and there'll be some information coming forward. But if you're interested in that, go ahead and start thinking about that.

We're probably looking at July, but that's going to be a great thing. The issue is here, can Job control the animals? No.

Any of the animals? Not really. And we can't either. Not like God can. Can God control the animals?

Yeah. He designed, created the whole bit. So why is God talking about animals here? Well, mentally we're thinking we're halfway through the Old Testament. So let me remind you, we believe the Job that the book is about, is spoken of in Genesis 46, verse 13. It says the sons of Issachar were Tolah, Puvab, Job, and Shemron.

And we believe that could be the very Job. He's the son of Issachar, who's one of the twelve tribes of Israel. That certain tribe was responsible for a certain thing.

What was that? They were Torah scholars. The first five books of the Bible.

They would often memorize the whole thing. So Genesis takes us back and reminds us about the animals, and reminds us about the ark, where God obviously was in control of the animals. No human could have called the animals to the ark. No way.

No way. And if you do not believe in a universal flood, let me encourage you to do some research. Because if you don't believe in a universal flood, that there was a flood that water covered all the earth, you're going to have to explain how there's seashells on top of every mountain in the world. So we've got God controlling the animals. We also have the donkey talking to Balaam. We've got the plagues of Egypt. Frauds of ice that flies the locusts. We have the scapegoats, where they would do Day of Atonement Yom Kippur. The goat would run out. But then they would come back, and the scarlet thread they put on the scapegoat would come back, and it would be white.

Except Josephus, a Jewish historian, records that the scapegoat started coming back with the scarlet thread still red at about 30 A.D. That there was no more remission of sins through the scapegoat, because Jesus had shed his blood for us. Now, let's touch just for a minute before we close on the ark, because there's some stuff in there that's just so phenomenal, and I want you to understand. Genesis 6, 4, and it really shows, it demonstrates God's omnipotence. He's God. There's nobody like him. He has no opposite. Satan is not his opposite. Satan is the opposite of Michael or Gabriel.

He's a creative being. God has no opposite. Genesis 6, 4 talks about Noah. It says, there were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, these were the mighty men who were of old men of renown. Now, that kind of sparks this thing with the Nephilim, there's no way. I'm not going to touch it. Can't do it justice.

So that's something we'll talk about sometime in the future. But here's an interesting thing in Genesis 6, 9. It says, this is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation. Perfect in his generation, wasn't it? In the Hebrew, it's perfect in his genes.

G, G-E-N-E-S, which would seem to indicate that there had been some genetic disruption, perhaps, to the Nephilim. Again, I'm not going there, but here's the interesting thing. We talk about the ark, and we're like, wow, could it really hold all those animals? And so many people just discount the story.

Well, that could never happen. I mean, Christians, they kind of go with it, but they don't really believe it happened, but it happened. And one of the things that's interesting, when you go to measure out the ark, 300 cubits, I think 50 cubits, so that's 450 feet long, 75 feet wide. That's huge. As a matter of fact, that's about 400,000 cubic meters. That's the equivalent of 570 railroad cars. And to give you kind of a modern-day equivalent of 400,000 cubic meters, the huge ocean liner, Queen Elizabeth II, one of the largest boats of all time, measures 480,000 cubic meters of water. So the ark was almost as big as that huge ship.

So, yeah, easily it could have held down. I got two things I want to show you. They're kind of mind-blowing in this delightful puzzle we call the Word of God. Genesis 7, 1 says this, Then the Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Another interesting phrase in the Hebrew. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female, two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female. Okay, so you're supposed to take seven clean animals and then two of the unclean. How did Noah know? The descriptions for the animals that were clean and unclean wouldn't come for hundreds of years. How did Noah know which animals were clean and which animals were unclean? I'm bringing this fresh to you and you're trying to grasp at answers. I've gotten to think about this a little bit.

It's actually pretty simple. If seven of them came up, they were clean animals. If two of them came up, they were unclean animals. Noah didn't have to really decide anything. I don't think God just said the right ones at the right time.

You think about something else. There's another version here. Genesis 8, 4. Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the 17th day of the month on the mountains of Ararat. Whenever you get a question about the Word of God, jot it down in the back of the Bible and wait because God will tell you. This one stopped me for a while, and then one time when we were celebrating Passover, I saw something that had to be planned from the beginning of the world that shows that God is outside of time and space.

He's bigger than all that. We just celebrated Passover, feast of unleavened bread, firstfruits I talked about Sunday. According to the secular calendar, do you happen to recall when Passover occurred? It was in the seventh month on the 14th day. But this isn't the 14th day. This is the 17th day, right. So Jesus was crucified on the Passover. Three days later was firstfruits, the feast of firstfruits.

It was on the feast of firstfruits that Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the seventh month, the 17th day, the exact anniversary of the day the ark rested on the mountain of Ararat thousands of years before. Is God impressive or what? Whatever you're dealing with, God can handle it.

He's a big guy. What do you think God is saying to you tonight, perhaps through the teaching, perhaps through the day? What's he speaking to you? 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. .