So, let's keep reading here.
This is the only thing that he really says that points to material position.
In verse number 6, he says, when I washed my steps with butter and the rock poured me
out rivers of oil.
That's really the only hint that we have of, you know, that he kind of misses the luxury
of his former life.
But the main thing he's bringing up is the presence of God, his children.
But you know, hey, the butter is pretty nice too, right?
Buttering the toast is pretty nice.
And so the butter and the oil.
Verse number 7 says this, when I went out to the gate through the city when I prepared
my seat in the street, the young men saw me and hid themselves and the aged arose and
stood up.
So we see the next thing that's important to Job that he misses having is people's respect.
Having a good reputation.
Having people respect him and that he has a good name.
You know the Bible says a good name is rather to be chosen than silver.
And here we see the young men hiding from him.
Why are young men running and hiding from him?
It's not because he's so scary, but it's rather because he's so important and he's so respected
that they don't feel really worthy to just kind of walk up and hang out with him.
They're too respectful.
They realize like, whoa, this guy's on another level, okay?
And then it says that the old man, the aged man, stood up.
You know, basically they stand up just showing their respect for him and deference for him.
The princes refrained talking and laid their hand on their mouth.
The nobles held their peace and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
When the ear heard me, then it blessed me.
And when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me.
He's talking about having respect from other people.
Now why does he have respect from other people?
Is it because he's such a big shot and such a big spender and he throws down so many Benjamins?
Look what the Bible says.
It says because I delivered the poor that cried and the fatherless and him that had
none to help him.
The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widow's heart
to sing for joy.
I put on righteousness and it clothed me.
My judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame.
I was a father to the poor and the cause which I knew not, I searched out and I break the
jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
Now here's the right way to get respect in life.
I think all of us as human beings have a certain desire to be respected.
Now obviously one of the major sins that we're supposed to watch out for is the pride of
life.
Right?
Remember the things that characterize this world?
When God says love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man loved the world, the love of the father is not in him.
Therefore all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and
the pride of life is not of the father but is of the world and the world passed away
and the lust thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
So what are the three big things that this world is going to try to use to get us sucked
in so that we don't serve God and bring forth fruit as Christians?
He's going to use the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
So this is a bad thing, the pride of life.
What does that look like?
The pride of life.
You know this is your rock stars and Hollywood stars and millionaires and billionaires that
are full of themselves.
They think they're so cool and they think they're so great.
Or you can even look at televangelist type preachers that are filled with themselves
and full of pride.
The pride of life.
Because some people aren't just interested in just gratifying the flesh, the lust of
the flesh, or just gratifying their eyes with the lust of the eyes, but you know for
some people it's just about puffing themselves up and having fame and glory.
You know you look at politicians, obviously a lot of what they're doing is for financial
reasons.
They go into Congress and the Senate or President or Vice President in order to enrich themselves
through dishonest gain, through insider trading in the stock market, through just other shady
backroom dealings, taking of bribes.
That's why these people they go into Congress and you know they come out, they go in with
a normal income and then they come out like a multi-millionaire and it doesn't really
add up on paper like where did you get all this money.
It's because they're thieves.
But I'll tell you a big motive for these people isn't just financial.
They get into politics for personal glory.
I mean why do these rock stars want to be up there on stage?
It's not just for the money, it's also for personal glory.
They want to glorify self and obviously we're not on this earth to glorify ourselves.
We're here to glorify God and we should be giving him the praise and the glory and you
know this I know that people don't like to necessarily hear this but this is one of the
big things that I didn't like about President Trump is that he's so full of himself and
I don't care if you're the biggest Trump fan ever, I don't care how Republican you are
or whatever, you have to admit that Trump is full of himself.
Come on.
The guy is prideful.
He's arrogant and full of himself.
Now here's the thing about Donald Trump.
You know he crashed and burned a couple weeks ago.
You know I mean his name is Mud now and look honestly watching the media just go after
him and just destroy him and seeing his own friends and associates just throw him under
the bus and turn on him and trash him.
You know if you look at just that one incident you'd say like man this guy's not getting
a fair shake but what you have to understand though is the big picture that this man has
lived a life for decades and decades of sin and not glorifying God.
Think about that.
This guy spent decades and decades worshipping, not the Lord, worshipping money and teaching
other people to do the same thing.
That's what he did for decades and when he was elevated to the highest office in our
land when he's the leader of the free world, the President of the United States of America,
I didn't see him giving the glory to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ but rather bragging
and promoting himself and not giving God the glory.
I mean he makes Nebuchadnezzar look humble in Daniel chapter 4.
I mean the guy is praising and glorifying himself and so you might look at what happened
to him and say that wasn't fair.
The election was stolen from him and you know everybody threw him under the bus and the
media just lied and mistreated him and they covered up everything about Biden and everything
But you have to understand that at the end of the day though, America got what they deserved.
Creepy Uncle Joe is what we deserve.
We deserve that evil pervert as our president because our country has turned away from God
and we have representative government and that's who represents our nation right now,
Joe Biden.
So did America get what they deserved?
Yeah.
Did Trump get what he deserved?
If you look at the big picture of him loving money, folks the love of money is the root
of all evil.
Loving money, glorifying himself, prideful, arrogant, I mean have you seen those montages
where people just put together minute after minute of him saying that he knows more about
every subject.
I know more about nuclear power than pretty much anybody.
I know more about this than just about anybody.
Oh, you want to talk about, I know more about that than everyone.
I know.
Oh, believe me, I know everything.
I mean the guy is full of pride and arrogant.
So look, when we talk about having the respect of other people, we're not talking about being
a prideful, arrogant guy who's trying to glorify himself.
That's not what Job's saying.
You know, Job was someone who was respected not because he made a bunch of money or successful
in business or something.
He did those things.
Job did have money and Job was successful.
But why was he respected?
He was respected because he helped people.
You know, why?
Because he said he delivered the poor.
He delivered the fatherless.
He was eyes to the blind.
He was feet to the lame.
He did good deeds.
He did good works.
And he was a blessing to people and he actually helped out the downtrodden and people that
were having problems.
He figured out what their problems were.
He helped them out.
And he broke the jaws of the wicked.
You know, he fought for what was right.
He fought for good.
He fought against evil.
And that's why he had the respect of others.
So you know what?
We should never become prideful.
We should never seek to glorify ourselves.
But here's the thing.
We should want to have a good reputation among people that actually matter.
And we should want to actually have a reputation for good and not evil.
The Bible says that as Christians we're going to be lied about and slandered and people
are going to say all manner of evil against us falsely for Christ's sake.
But you know what the Bible says in 1 Peter 2?
It says look, if you suffer for your faults, there's no glory in that.
If you do good and people lie about you and attack you and criticize you, then you know
what?
There's glory in that.
You get a reward for that.
So what I'm saying is, you know, we should strive to have a good report, a good reputation
by doing good and eschewing evil.
I mean think about people that have a bad reputation.
Why do they have a bad reputation?
You know, there are people that have a bad reputation for going out and getting drunk
and doing stupid things.
There are people who have a bad reputation because they get drunk and they get on the
road and they get the DUI or they get in an accident or they have a bad reputation for
taking drugs or for stealing or because of the fact that they sleep around or because
they cheat on their spouse.
Aren't these things that would give someone a bad reputation?
Or someone has a bad reputation because maybe they stole money on the job or they slack
off at work, they're constantly cheating at school or cheating on the job, fudging their
time sheet, doing bad work, doing a poor job, right?
Just doing things that are not done in a workman-like manner, as the code book says.
And so, you know, these are things that spoil your reputation.
And you know, you young people, you don't want to get a bad reputation when you're 16,
17, 18.
You know, that might follow you around for a long time.
You want to get a reputation as a thief?
You want to get a reputation as a liar?
You want to get a reputation as a drunk?
You want to get a reputation as someone who doesn't care about the things of God or doesn't
love the Lord?
No!
You want to have a good reputation of being clean and sober and a hard worker.
You know, some people have a reputation for knowing the Bible.
Some people have a reputation for not knowing anything about the Bible.
You know, some people have a reputation for being a good electrician.
Some people have a reputation for being a bad electrician.
You know, some companies have a good reputation on Google or whatever because they get all
the five-star reviews of everybody saying, hey, you know, the food was good and everything
was great and I had good service and whatever.
Other people have a bad reputation on Google because, you know, they cooked it with margarine
instead of butter.
Folks, it's right here in the Word of God in verse 6.
Because he didn't say, I washed my steps with margarine.
He said I washed my steps with butter, alright?
And the thing is, you know, some restaurants, look, when I go to a restaurant, I typically
check the Google reviews and usually they're pretty spot on.
You know, if something has four and a half stars or higher on Google, it's probably a
pretty good restaurant.
And when you see something with a look, now look, our church doesn't have a very good
Google rating.
You know, I don't know, I don't think Verity does either.
You know, Verity Baptist Church, I think it got down to like 1.3 stars at one point or
something like that, okay.
But that's for a different reason.
But what I'm saying is, you know, reputation matters.
And look, it's good, look, if your reputation gets spoiled because people are attacking
you because you preached the Word of God or won souls to Christ or stood up for the Word
of God, that's good.
Happy are ye if that's what happens according to the Bible.
But if you have a bad reputation because you're an idiot, because you're lazy, because you're
immoral, because you're criminal, hey, there's no glory in that, that's not what you want.
You want to be like Job where you have a good reputation because you typically help people
and you're generous and you're kind and you're loving and you're knowledgeable and you do
the right thing.
You know, these are good things to do to get a good reputation.
And you know, Job cared about his reputation because one of the things that he emphasizes
in chapters 29 and 30 is that his reputation is destroyed.
Everyone thinks that he's bad now, everybody thinks there's something wrong with him.
And he's used to being treated with respect.
It's not that he's proud or full of himself or, no, it's just he wanted to be treated
with respect.
And I think we all want to be treated with respect.
We all want to have a good reputation.
You know, obviously we don't mind suffering for the cause of Christ or being falsely accused
because, you know, it's persecution and we glory in persecution.
We leap for joy when we're persecuted, but we don't want to have people disrespect us
because we're dumb or because we're lazy or because we're immoral.
I mean, look, when people insult me, you know the insults that hurt the most is when there's
a little bit of truth in it, am I right?
I mean, if somebody insults me with just some off the wall insult, some crazy insult that's
not even close to being true, I just laugh at that.
The insults that really hurt us are the ones that are actually kind of true or at least
partially true where it's kind of like, ouch, you know, that's a little close to home.
And so Job wants to have a good reputation and be respected.
I think that's normal.
I don't think that's the pride of life when Job just says, you know what?
People used to listen to my opinion.
They used to care what I said.
You know, when I spoke up and gave my opinion about something, it was like people got quiet
because they wanted to hear what I had to say because they respected his knowledge and
they respected his works, his deeds.
They respected his love for the poor and his charity and the things that he did well.
You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to have a good reputation and
wanting people to listen to you.
You know, I remember I had a guy at one point in my life that taught me a lot of good things
from the word of God and he knew that I was going to be a pastor someday.
And he told me and he taught me a bunch of good things from the Bible that I learned
and that I later preached.
And he said, he said, yeah, he said, you know, I'm glad that you understand what I'm saying
and that I'm able to teach you all these things from the Bible because he said, I just have
a reputation that screams don't listen to this guy.
I've just ruined my testimony, I've been in jail a bunch of times, I've done a bunch
of stupid things in my life and so even though later in life I've discovered a lot of good
biblical truths, nobody will listen to me, you know, and I'm disqualified.
But he said, you know, you can preach this stuff because you haven't ruined your reputation.
And you know what, that's a great illustration of what Job's saying here.
You know, he liked the fact that people listened to him.
It's a blessing when people are willing to listen to what you have to say because they
know, hey, this is a good source for information, this is a good source for wisdom.
Or they're willing to look at you as someone that they can respect because they see your
life, they see your work ethic, they see your testimony, they see you on the job and so
they listen to you.
That's the way I interpret this where he lists off, you know, all the people respecting him
because he did these works.
Jump down if you would to verse 21, it says, unto me, men gave ear and waited and kept
silence at my counsel.
After my words, they spake not again.
Basically like, you know, people are debating something, they ask his opinion, he gives
his opinion and everybody's just like, well, there it is, case closed.
You know what I mean?
Like people really respected his view.
They thought like, wow, this guy knows his stuff.
You know, they kept silence at my counsel.
After my words, they spake not again, my speech dropped unto them and they waited for me as
for the rain and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.
If I laughed on them, they believed it not.
So basically when somebody came up with flat earth or something, if Joe made fun of it,
everybody's just like, it's stupid.
You know what I mean?
Like if he laughed, you know, if somebody starts talking about Bigfoot or the Loch Ness
monster, as soon as Job said, no, what a joke.
That's ridiculous.
If he laughed at it, if Job laughed at it, they don't believe it.
They're like, well, if he's making fun of it, it's probably stupid.
If I laughed on them, they believed it not and the light of my countenance, they cast
not down.
I chose out their way and sat chief and dwelt as a king in the army as one that comforted
the mourners.
They that are younger than I have me in derision whose fathers I would have disdained to set
with the dogs of my flock.
He's like, I don't, you know, their dad, I wouldn't have even had their dad, you know,
taking care of my animals, not even take, I wouldn't even have, I wouldn't even trust
him to take care of my dog.
The guy's such a derelict and now his son is making fun of me.
He has me in derision, yea, there too, where to might the strength of their hands profit
me in whom old age was perished for want and famine.
They were solitary, fleeing into the wilderness and former time, desolate and waste who cut
up mallows by the bushes and juniper roots for their meat.
They were driven forth from among men.
They cried after them as after a thief to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys in caves
of the earth and in the rocks among the bushes, they braid under the nettles.
They were gathered together.
He's basically describing people, they're just so derelict, they're driven from town,
they're living outside, they're living out in the wilderness like an animal.
They're just so derelict.
Verse eight, they were the children of fools, yea, children of basemen.
They were viler than the earth and now am I their song, am I their byword.
They abhor me, they flee far from me and spare not to spit in my face.
Basically just the lowest, most derelict, just total losers are basically now they're
too good for Job.
They're spitting in his face, they're making fun of him and singing songs about him and
so forth.
Because he, God, has loosed my cord and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before
me.
They stand, rise the youth, they push away my feet, they raise up against me the ways
of their destruction, they mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper,
they came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters in the desolation they rolled themselves
upon me.
Terrors are turned upon me, they pursued my soul as the wind and my welfare passeth away
as a cloud.
You