Job Chapter 40:9-24

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 40. Now, here's Pastor David.

And we have most of the setup here. Job has been through some challenges, some trials. His friends show up and say this and say that. Maybe it's a picture of how we are to be the church.

In a moment when he really needed compassion, love, mercy, he got the rule book. There's a time for you should, y'all should, we should. But there's also a time for me too. I understand what you're going through.

Job, I can relate somewhat to the pain you're feeling. And sometimes when we're supposed to be doing the me too, we do the you should. And sometimes when we do the you should, we should do the me too. Let's look at this. I'm reading verse 1. 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. At first he was just defending himself. He slipped into talking about his goodness. And he couldn't talk about his goodness without addressing the issue of God's goodness.

And what he began to represent there was that his goodness was above God's goodness. Not good. Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile. I'm the problem. I'm the issue is what Job is saying here.

I am vile. He's no longer holding on to his self-righteousness. Just let it go.

Life lesson here. Prayer is not so we can tell God what to do. Prayer is not so we can tell God what to do. The second life lesson going with this one is prayer is often not to change the situation, but to change our heart in the situation.

Another way you could say that, prayer is not to change the relationship, but to change our heart in the relationship. So Job says, Behold, I'm vile. What shall I answer you?

I laid my hand over my mouth. Good idea. I mean, really, we should do that more often. Verse five. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer.

Yes, twice. But I will proceed no further. God is doing a deep work here in Job. Then the Lord answered Job. Out of the world went and said, Now prepare yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me.

Prepare yourself, Job. Verse eight. Would you indeed annul my judgment? Would you condemn me that you may be justified?

In the New Living Translation, verse eight reads, Will you discredit my justice and condemn me just to prove you are right? People do this all the time. I've shared before that years ago, I put a rock in my pocket, kept it in there. Well, I found a rock, I took it into the service and had it in my pocket. And there was a guy that I just didn't get along with.

Very well. I mean, some of it was legit. So he was over, he had his eyes closed. And I kind of had an attitude towards him. And I had a rock in my pocket. And I was a young believer. And I thought his eyes were shut. I could hit him with that rock. He wouldn't know who did it. And this is just what I'm thinking now.

I'm being honest. Not that any of you ever saw anything like that. This is just your old pagan pastor. When it happened, the verse came to mind. He who is without sin, throw the first stone.

And I was like, oh. And I carried that rock in my pocket for a couple years while God dealt with me about my judgmental heart. Because that's the first thing we do. When we get busted by the Holy Spirit in wrongdoing or by a believer coming to us, what's the first thing we do? Blame somebody else. That's been going on a long time, friend.

You're not the first one to do that. There was God and Adam and Eve. And God comes to Adam and says, you messed up the whole thing. And what did Adam say? I was completely my fault. I'm so sorry.

No. There were three people in the universe. Adam blames the other two. It was that woman you gave me. You guys are the problems. Let me assure you, somebody else is not your biggest spiritual problem. Somebody else is not your biggest spiritual problem. Your carnality is your biggest spiritual problem. Again, don't try to make yourself feel better by putting other people down. Go to Jesus.

Jesus, forgive me. Another life lesson here is when we focus on our goodness and we focus on what's wrong with others, we're choosing the road of the Pharisee. We're choosing the road of the Pharisee. That's exactly what they did. They thought about how good they were and how bad other people were. They forgot they were supposed to help the other people elevate, if you will.

So Job went down that path. And it presents that here. Are you focused on your goodness or on the goodness of God? Are you focused on your goodness or the goodness of God? Let me put it another way. Are you bothered by your wrongs or the wrongs of others?

It can be a real trap to start to be bothered by others since. Watching them tell, oh, look, that's so wrong. They're doing that. Why are you watching that? There's a little bit of hypocrisy in observing something they shouldn't be doing. Change your channel.

Probably not doing that. We're doing that on the Christian channel, amen. And we have to be bothered by our wrongs. That's what drives us to Jesus over and over again. We can start to get so focused on somebody else that we don't look to see our hearts.

We're getting hard. I realize this as a pastor, this can happen to me. As a matter of fact, I may be more susceptible to it of getting a hard heart. My biggest spiritual problem is not y'all. It's my own life.

It's my own humanity. Those things bother me. My failures bother me. Praise God. I hope your failures bother you, too.

I don't think that you need me pointing out all your failures for you to run to Jesus. The other thing that we can get into is if you're reading in the book of Acts, Peter is a Jew. First of all, it says he's hanging out with Simon the tanner. Tanner is a skinner. He works with skins of animals. Do you know what their houses smell like? Dead animals.

Do you understand dead animals are unclean or not kosher to a Jewish person? But Peter was hanging out there. That's not just thrown in there. No filler in there.

Peter is staying with the tanner. He has this dream where the blanket comes down filled with unclean food. Hot dogs, sausages, I don't know what it was, but it was unclean food. There were kosher foods and non-kosher foods. Some things were unclean, you weren't supposed to eat shellfish or pork.

And so this had things, shellfish and pork and whatnot. And Peter says, I can't eat that. That's unclean.

And God says, Peter, do not call unclean what I've called clean. So does this happen once? Nope. Twice?

Nope. Three times. So Peter gets it. The next thing Peter does in the book of Acts is he goes to minister to a Gentile who he would have considered unclean before that dream and vision. And he ends up leading Cornelius to the Lord. It says that Cornelius' prayers and giving had come up before the Lord.

He noticed him for that. Visits his house, whole household gets saved. Revival breaks out among the Gentiles. Peter goes back to Jerusalem and starts talking about awesome things that are happening because he did not call unclean what God had called clean.

That's my point. When you look at another believer and you call them unclean, you're calling something that God says is clean, unclean. Now I'm not talking about those times when we're helping to restore somebody and we're dealing with them about, no, no, no. I'm talking about gossip and tearing down and accusing the enemy as the accuser of the brethren. And see when we look at what's wrong with other people, we can start to feel good about ourselves. When what we should really take a note of is how good God is, how pure, how holy, and how we're not. The closer I get to God, the more aware I am of my shortcomings. That's the way it was in the Bible.

Jesus would do something awesome and then one of the disciples would say, what? Man, get away. I'm an unclean man.

I'm not even worthy to see this. So as you get closer to the Lord, you don't start to be bothered more about other people's sins. You become more and more bothered by yours.

That's where Job missed it. And God says, are you going to call me wrong just so you're right? In verse nine, have you an arm like God or can you thunder with a voice like his? Then adorn yourself with a majesty and splendor and array yourself with glory and beauty. He can't do that. God continues, disperse the rage of your wrath.

Look on everyone who is proud and humble. You know, that's something God does, but Job can't do it. Can you do that? No. Can God do that?

Yeah. Look on everyone who's proud and bring him low, shred down the wicked in their place, hide them in the dust together, bind their faces in hidden darkness. Then I will also confess to you that your own right hand can save you. What is that about?

I will confess to you that your own right hand can save you. God is saying, Job, if you can do all these things, yeah, you're probably good. Could Job do those things? No. How many of them?

None of them. Could you do any of those things? No. Could I? No. Can God? Yes.

Why? He's God. Look at verse 10 again. Then adorn yourself with a majesty and splendor, array yourself with glory and beauty. Again, he can't do any of this. Disperse the rage of your wrath. Look on everyone who is proud, humble him.

Can't do that? God can't. Look on everyone who's proud, bring him low, shred down the wicked in their place, hide them in the dust together, bind their faces in hidden darkness. Then I will also confess to you that your own right hand can save you.

But since he can't do any of that, he can't save himself. Verse 15, look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you. He eats grass like an ox. See now, his strength is in his hips and his power is in his stomach muscles. He moves his tail like a cedar.

The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. Now, we could spend a lot of time on this, but it's still conjecture of what this animal is. Some say it could be an elephant. Some say a hippopotamus.

But verse 17 says it's got a tail like a cedar, which an elephant and a hippo don't have. Some people think it could be a dinosaur. And Christians do believe in dinosaurs, by the way. Well, some do. And a lot of scholars believe that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time. Part of that over something they found in Glen Rose, Texas, which was fossils from both at the same time. But we're not sure. And again, you know, you can have a lot of fun researching that stuff, but it's beyond the time and the scope of this study.

Because when we do studies, we always have to balance. It needs to be, you know, long enough to get the dust off. Amen. But not so long that we're here all night and during the week. Now, sometimes you might think it goes longer when you're not perhaps as hungry.

But there may be somebody beside you that's starving. That needs every minute of a long service. That needs every piece of what we're sharing. So we're not sure exactly what this being is. But the main point, God's saying is, hey, I made you and I made this animal. And you can't control this animal and I can.

And I'm making it and you can't make something like this. I mean, look at verse 18. His bones are like beams of bronze.

His ribs like bars of iron. He is the first of the ways of God. Only he who made him can bring him near his sword. So God says, I brought him in, I can take him out.

But you can't really do any of that. Surely the mountains yield food for him and all the beasts in the field play there. He lies under the lotus trees in a covert of reeds and marsh. The lotus trees cover him with their shade.

The willows by the brook surround them. Indeed the river may rage, yet he's not disturbed. He's confident through the Jordan gushes into his mouth, the Jordan river.

So he drinks with water gushing into his mouth. And when we first, I mean, chapter 41 has some more of this being and even talks about the Leviathan. We can talk about it more when we get there. 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. Verse 24, though he takes it into his eyes or one pierces his nose with a snare. So it's talking about this big animal again.

We're talking about the big animal in chapter 41. Is it important for us to focus on the goodness of God and be aware of our shortcomings? That's probably a better way to put it. Not focus on our shortcomings, but be aware of our shortcomings. Focus on the goodness of God. Don't focus on your goodness.

If you're going to be aware of somebody's wrongdoing, be aware of yours. If God reveals something about someone else to you, pray over it. Many times it's not for you to do anything except pray.

And in prayer, God's going to change your heart, not the situation. Fear is contagious. Faith is contagious. What do you want to be spreading, fear or faith? With what we say, we spread faith. Sometimes what we say, we spread fear.

Now, Joe, man, he's learning a lot at this point. But again, it starts out with I'm wrong, God. And that's how our relationship with God starts out. God, I'm wrong. I want to do it your way.

And we should come back to that often. God, I'm wrong. I got this wrong. I looked at that wrong.

I said this wrong. Can you repent or ask forgiveness for others? Not really. Can you repent and ask forgiveness for yourself?

Yes. So do you and have you. See, if you're so aware of somebody else's sins, you're not going to repent. You're not going to ask God to forgive you because you're so consumed with them.

And gang, this can spread. And here we are in the midst of a fellowship that amazingly is having an influence around the world. How many other churches did God call to do that?

Well, kind of all of them really, because in Matthew 28, he said go and tell. So all churches should be involved with global evangelism. Are they?

No. And I can't answer for that. I can only answer for here. We reach and teach. We take it very seriously the spreading of the good news in God's love. And God is using this fellowship in ways that are just so incredible.

It's so awesome. And yet, you know, it really popped out to me. We're going to close with this. Jesus was limited in what he could do. Before you disagree with that statement, let me share a verse with you. Matthew 13, 58. Now he, talking about Jesus, did not do many mighty works.

Why? Because of their unbelief. So Jesus was limited in his ministry because of the unbelief of the people.

And that's Jesus. As pastor, I have to wonder, how much do we not do because of unbelief in the body? Because of doubters and complainers and... Now I can't do anything about anyone else in particular other than teach the Word and faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? By the Word of God. So when you hear the Word of God, your faith is built up. And then we're all in this together and we can accomplish more. But when you don't hear the Word of God, gang, the Bible says in the last days, people will become lovers of themselves. That's not just the other guy. That's for each of us. Because in our society, there's such a focus on the individual that they will take the rights of thousands, millions of people to make sure the one's okay.

That's not the way the rule of law works. And we're part of a body, the body of Christ. And Jesus says, husbands love your wives the way I love the church. Do you love the church? Jesus loved the church. It's not wrong to say you love the church.

It's a good healthy thing. It's the body of Christ. It would be a strange thing to say you didn't love the body of Christ. Again, Jesus said he loves the body. He loves the church. We're following him. We should love the church.

How? In an unconditional way. Are you dating the church or are you married to it? It's unconditional love. It's a covenant that we make with one another when we come in the fellowship. A covenant to teach the Word and share the Gospel and be a blessing. That's a covenant. Which means as long as I have air in my lungs, I'm going to be teaching the Word of God. And as a body we can accomplish so many incredible things. But friend of the ministry of Jesus was limited because of unbelief.

We have to realize that's a danger here. So we should encourage each other in our faith. And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Thank you for hearing the Word of God. And God will give you faith for setting aside the time for you to hear the Word of God. Let's pray.

God, thank you. Thank you for speaking. Help us to listen. Lord, we thank you that we have this place where we can learn the Word. And Lord, thank you for all the anointed men that you've raised up to share the Word with us to stir our faith. Lord, help our faith to continue to grow, to be stretched.

God, help us to be going in for the next round and not throwing in the towel. God, help us to launch out in the deep waters and not be going into the harbor because we heard there's a storm. Lord, we thank you that this is the brightest and the darkest times that this planet has ever seen. And God is going to get darker and it's going to get brighter.

God, this is our opportunity, the church's opportunity to shine like never before. Lord, people are scared. They're hurting. And they're so desperate for somebody to like them that they'll spend hours online lying about who they are.

So somebody likes a false image. And the whole while you're standing off to the side of Jesus showing us your wounds saying, I love you. Are you looking for likes or are you looking for His love?

Are you focused on others or are you focused on Him? Lord, we thank you. You are so worthy to be worshiped. You are so worthy of our focus. God, you're so worthy of everything that we would ever attempt for you. And Lord, I pray that, Lord, as we get more mature in our faith that we don't get stagnant. God, that we're like Joshua and Caleb.

Caleb is an elderly man wanting to go into the mountains to fight the giants. Lord, we know there's giants out there. And we thank you that you have put your power in us to make us giant killers. Lord, thank you for your power. Your Holy Spirit, life-changing, resurrection power. Fill us afresh with your Holy Spirit, Lord. If you want the Lord to fill you afresh, just lift a hand or both hands.

Lord, you see those hands. Fill those afresh with your Holy Spirit. Fill them to overflowing with your Holy Spirit. And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. Thank you, Jesus. God, you are the only one with real peace.

We have nowhere else to get it in this world. And we thank you that tonight you stand here and you say, do you want peace? Then come to me. He is the Prince of Peace. Friend, if you need prayer ministry, you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit or you want gifts to be stirred up inside of you, you can come up and have these folks pray for you. Maybe you want to spend some time at the altar. Praise God. But we don't want to linger for a few minutes if you're able to linger in the presence of the Lord. So if you need to come forward, spend some time with the Lord. Let's worship the Lord.

Lord, thank you. Thank you for reminding us consistently to love you and love people. And Lord, we ask that when we get impressed with our goodness, that you would remind us of your grace. God, when we get impressed with our strength, we know what has to happen. We have to put less trust into our strength and more trust into you.

Lord Job didn't get any answers and you never gave him one and he needed to be okay with that. God, for the times when you don't give us the why, help us to trust you. That's where we grow big, when we don't know what's going on, when we trust you, when we lose our job, when we trust you, when our spouse says, I want a divorce. We trust you if we hear you have cancer and we trust you in spite of bad reports, in spite of our weaknesses, and in spite of the weakness of others. Lord, we all need you because we're all messed up.

None of us is okay without you. It is in fact like a wounded puppy that a man picks up and heals the wounds, feeds him, sees him, strengthens, and then the dog runs off and comes back with another wounded dog. Can you fix this one?

Can you heal this one? And then he goes and gets another one and another one and another one. That's our ministry, bringing people to Jesus who've been wounded and hurt, who aren't perfect. Lord, thank you for your Holy Spirit.

That's so evident here tonight. Thank you for your presence, which shows that the blood of Christ has in fact washed away our sins. God, we could not be in your holy presence if we had not been redeemed, but we've been redeemed so now we can experience your presence. And Lord, thank you for merit. Lord, just the anointing, God, that you have upon her, leading us into worship.

Lord, thank you. Minister to her and her family, to minister to Scott. Lord, I thank you for their family as you protect them.

You guide them. God, we know they're not perfect, but we know they love you and we know we love them. Lord, help us to figure out in this crazy shook-up world how to love each other.

Others will be drawn and then we will hear, well done. Lord, we thank you that you fill us with the love you ask us to have. You show us the love in your wounds. And Lord, when our hearts are tempted to wander, to think we need a stranger like to somehow feel complete or approved, may we go to you where you're waiting to reveal not your life but your love, your unconditional eternal love. The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord's face shine upon you. May he be gracious to you and you to others. May the Lord turn his face towards you and gives you his shalom, his blessing in the name of Jesus. And everybody said, Amen. Amen. God loves you.

I love you. Love one another. 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.

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