The Bible reads in verse number 1, Moreover, Job continued his parable and said, O that
I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me.
So Job, of course, we know is in a horrible situation.
His 10 children have died.
He's lost all of his wealth.
He's covered in boils from head to toe.
He's in burning, itching, agony from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
In this chapter, he talks about how things were in the past, just how good he had it
in the past and how great things were before any of this happened to him.
We have three chapters left in the book of Job, of Job speaking to his three friends.
And in chapter 29, he just talks about how great things were before any of this happened
to him.
Then in chapter 30, he talks about how bad things are now.
And then in chapter 31, he just swears up and down to his three friends that he is not
guilty, and that this is not happening to him because of bad things that he has done,
and he swears that he has not done anything wrong.
And then he says, you know, the words of Job are ended.
And that's when his three friends leave.
So those are the three chapters we have left.
So in this chapter, he's just lamenting and just talking about how great things used to
be.
And in chapter 29 verses 2 through 6, he just talks about the prosperity that he had before
any of this happened to him.
He says in verse 2, O that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me,
when his candles shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness,
as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle, when
the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me.
Watch verse 6, when I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers
of oil.
So obviously he's exaggerating there, but it's a poem, so he does exaggerate and talk
in really big language.
But when he talks about butter and oil, he's referring to basically luxury items, things
that denote the fact that he had prosperity, he had money, he could buy luxury foods like
butter and oil and things that are considered dainties.
Now if you look at verse 2, he says, O that I were as in months past as in the days when
God preserved me.
Now if you stop and think about it, God did not preserve him physically, because God allowed
all of this physical calamity to come upon him.
He allowed his health to be destroyed.
He allowed his body to be destroyed, his wealth to be destroyed, his business to be destroyed.
But if you think about it though, spiritually he's still preserved in the sense that he's
still saved, he's still on his way to heaven.
Now his life was also preserved because God did not allow his physical life to be taken.
But we today are also preserved in Jesus Christ and called, the Bible says.
Go to Jude if you would, go to Jude, the second to last book before Revelation.
And while you're turning there, let me point out something else that he said in that part.
He said, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me.
Now we know his children are gone, but he feels that the Lord has departed from him.
He's saying when the Almighty was with me, implying that he's not with me anymore.
But of course God is with him, even though he doesn't realize it, okay?
Now look at the book of Jude here, right before Revelation.
It says in verse 1, Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that
are sanctified by God the Father, sanctified means made holy or set apart, made saints.
He says, sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called.
Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied.
Now flip over to Romans 8, but according to that in Jude verse 1, we that are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, we are preserved in Christ Jesus.
And he also says in the book of Hebrews, he says that God has once for all sanctified
us.
Okay, we're sanctified through the blood of Jesus Christ once for all.
And so we are spiritually declared righteous, declared holy.
We are saved and sanctified and made saints in the Lord Jesus Christ when we believe on
Christ, but also he promises to preserve us unto the end.
The Bible says we're sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption.
So when you think of being preserved, think about preserves.
What are preserves?
I said strawberry preserves.
What am I talking about?
Does anybody know anything about, what?
Yeah, exactly, jelly.
So preserves would be when you take strawberries that normally, strawberries decay pretty fast.
You know, especially if you buy organic strawberries.
They decay very quickly.
I mean if you don't eat them right away, one or two days go by, they're covered in mold.
So in order to preserve those strawberries, they have to be what?
Sealed.
You know, you've got to seal them up.
And so my wife will sometimes do this where she cans vegetables, cans fruit, cans preserves
or jams.
And what she does is, you know, she puts them in a jar, boils it, and seals it up.
And the jars that she uses, they have this little safety seal that pops.
And you know how it is when you buy a jar of something from the store and you open it
and it pops and it says, hey, if this doesn't pop, you need to return it to the store.
Because it's not really sealed, okay?
So what that is is that in order for those strawberries to last, they have to be completely
sealed in.
All the air and everything has to be locked out.
And so when the Bible uses the language of us being sealed, it's talking about us being
preserved.
We are sealed unto the time when we mess up, guys.
Is that what it says?
We're sealed until we sin.
We're sealed unless we start to doubt the Lord.
We're sealed unless we fall into grievous sin.
No, it says we're sealed unto the day of redemption.
And the significant thing about the day of redemption is that the day of redemption,
also known as the day of Christ, is the day when Christ Jesus returns in the clouds and
we shall be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, where this mortal will put on immortality.
And this corruptible will put on incorruption.
And so if we're sealed until then, I mean if we were going to lose our salvation, it
would have to be between now and then.
Because once we get to the rapture, we're never going to sin again.
Once we're caught up with him in the clouds, we're going to be changed.
And the Bible says, we are now the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be.
But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as
he is.
We will be conformed to his image.
The Bible says, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ.
Because once we get to that day of Christ, once we get to that day of redemption, that's
when we're going to be changed, we're going to put off the sinful flesh, and we're never
going to sin again.
So the only opportunity, you know, to theoretically sin and lose your salvation would be between
now and then and God promises, no, you can't lose it.
You're sealed until the day of redemption.
I will preserve you from here until the day of redemption.
You cannot lose your salvation.
Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand.
So we're preserved, we're sealed, we're in his hand, he says nothing can take you out
of my hand.
Look at Romans 8, because remember, Job felt that the Lord had departed from him.
Look what it says in verse 35 of chapter 8 of Romans.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep
for the slaughter, nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that
loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers
nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
He loves us, he will continue to love us, he will love us no matter what we do because
we are saved, we are sealed, and we are in Christ Jesus and preserved all the way up
to the day of redemption.
None of these things can change.
Now is God going to send us to hell?
If he said nothing can separate you from my love, he's not going to send you to hell.
You have eternal life, you shall not perish.
Sending someone to hell is not a loving action.
Sending someone to hell is the most harmful thing that he could do to that person.
Because of the fact that it's too late for them, they did not receive Christ as savior,
they're damned and that's where they're going to be, but nothing can separate us from the
love of Christ.
We're saved, we're sealed, we're protected.
And not only that, but if you back up in the chapter, it says in verse 28, and we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose.
Watch this, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his son.
Now think about this.
God foreknew who would be saved, right?
Does that mean that God chooses one for heaven and one for hell?
Absolutely not.
There's a difference between foreknowledge and basically saying that we don't have free
will and God makes the decision for us as far as whether or not we're going to receive
Christ.
No, God says whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
He's made salvation available to all and it is the decision of the individual whether
or not they choose to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ or receive Christ as Savior.
But the Bible says whom he did foreknow, meaning those he did foreknew would get saved, because
even before the world began, he knew who's going to get saved and who's not going to
get saved.
He already knew that.
He knows all things from the end, from the beginning.
So he says here, whom he did foreknow, it says he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his son.
So what is this verse saying?
God knew in advance, okay, that brother Garrett's going to be saved.
So he foreknew that and then he predestined Garrett to be conformed to the image of his
son.
So what that means is that he decided that those that he foreknew would believe on Christ
and be saved, he's going to give them a destiny of being conformed to the image of his son.
Now destiny is similar to the word destination.
It's where you're headed.
Garrett's destiny, because he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, is to someday be conformed
to the image of Jesus Christ.
That will happen no matter what.
No matter what happens, he will arrive at that predestined end of being conformed to
the image of Jesus Christ.
So it's not that God is up in heaven and saying, you know what, I just decided because of my
own will that Garrett's going to get saved and that this guy over here is not going to
get saved, and this guy's not going to get saved, and this guy's not going to get saved,
but Pastor Anderson, he's going to get saved, but these people are not going to get saved.
That's not what God did.
But when people say, I believe in predestination, that's what they're talking about.
If you hear somebody say, oh I believe in predestination, you know what they're saying?
They believe that God chooses who goes to hell, and God chooses who goes to heaven,
and that's a lie.
That's a false doctrine called Calvinism.
It's also deceivingly called the doctrines of grace, or reformed theology.
You know, whatever stupid name you give it, if you teach that Jesus Christ did not die
for everybody, you're a liar and a false teacher, because Jesus Christ did taste death for every
man, and he died not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
He's the savior of all men, especially of those that believe.
He's the savior of all, but it's not going to do him any good unless they call upon him
by faith.
So if you actually look at what this says, predestination is different than what people
tell you it is, isn't it?
Because here's what predestination really is.
Predestination is that God foreknew who's going to get saved, and he's already decided
how the last chapter in their life is going to be.
They are predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, but it goes further than
that.
He predestined them to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn
amongst many brethren.
By the way, the pope is not the firstborn amongst many brethren as he calls himself.
Jesus Christ is the firstborn among many brethren.
But it says, moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them
he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Now it's interesting because it says them he also glorified, that's past tense.
But if you think about it, that hasn't happened yet.
Because we're going to be glorified when?
We're going to be glorified with him someday.
As we've been in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
One day we're going to be resurrected, or if we're alive and remain unto the coming
of the Lord, we're going to be changed in a moment between you and I.
That's when we're going to be glorified with him.
We're not really being glorified right now if you think about it.
I mean, have we as believers been glorified yet?
But when we get to heaven, the Bible says we will shine with glory like the stars forever
and ever, those of us that are saved.
So if you stop and think about this, God is saying that our glorification is as good as
done.
I mean, in his mind it's like it already happened.
He's saying look, those who he foreknew, so again it shows he knew who was going to be
saved and who wasn't.
He says those people, he made sure that they're basically called, justified, and glorified,
meaning that every single one of them is going to make it to the finish line.
Now some people will call this perseverance of the saints and say it's Calvinism, but
you know what?
Calvinism teaches that basically we're going to keep on enduring to the end and we're going
to stay in church and we're going to keep serving Christ and that's how we make it to
the finish line wrong.
Here's how we make it to the finish line, because we're preserved in Jesus Christ.
So I don't believe in perseverance of the saints, I believe in preservation of the saints.
We're preserved in Jesus Christ, we're sealed unto the day of redemption.
If we do go out and commit sin and go out and get out of church and just start living
a worldly life, we will still go to heaven.
But we will be punished on this earth, we will be scourged and whipped and chastened
as a loving father chastens his sons, but we will not be kicked out of the family.
So these are just some great promises of God in Romans 8, talking about the fact, look,
once He foreknew that you'd be saved, once you're justified, you're going to be glorified.
And what is it called when we're saved?
We're justified, by faith, without the deeds of the law.
And it says, very clear at the end of verse 30, whom He justified, them He also glorified.
So it's not like, well a bunch of people got justified, right?
But not all of them got glorified because some of them lost their salvation.
No it said, look, the ones who got justified, they got glorified.
And then He also said, nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.
Jesus Christ said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
So even though, go back to Job 29, even though as Job we might sometimes feel like the Lord
has departed from us, or feel like God has left us, He never has really left us.
He will be with us until the end.
Jesus said, lo I'm with you always, even unto the end of the world.
And it says in Job here, verse 2, oh that I were as in months past as in the days when
God preserved me.
In a sense what He's saying is right, obviously, because He's not been preserved physically.
But thank God He was preserved spiritually.
And I'd rather be preserved spiritually than preserved physically.
Because even if God chooses not to preserve me physically, and God allows me to be beaten
or killed or imprisoned or lose everything, at least I know I'm preserved spiritually.
Nothing could ever change that.
So in verses 1 through 6, He just talks about how great things were, the prosperity that
He had, the butter, the oil.
And by the way, butter is good for you, despite what people sometimes tell you, that butter's
not healthy, stay away from it.
There's a lot of weird health advice that's out there, because there are a lot of trendy
diets and a lot of just nutritional fads that come along.
That's why whenever I hear nutritional advice or teaching, some of it's good, some of it
you have to take with a grain of salt, literally.
But when you look at the Bible, it should always jive with whatever you're hearing nutritionally.
If I hear some nutritional advice that doesn't jive with the Bible, I immediately just reject
it.
So for example, that's why I reject vegetarianism.
Because the Bible talks a lot about eating meat, He says, as the green herb, I've also
given you the creatures to eat, their flesh.
Not only that, but the priests were commanded to eat meat in the Old Testament, in fact
Aaron was even rebuked by Moses sternly for not eating enough meat, alright?
You know what I'm talking about, the story where he rebuked, hey why didn't you eat the
sacrifice?
So God commanded those guys to eat the meat, the Levites were commanded, a whole tribe
to eat a lot of meat, and in fact God's people throughout history were shepherding people.
If you look at Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they weren't farmers.
I mean they did plant crops and reap from time to time, but what was their main occupation?
Cattle.
Sheep.
And even when they went to Egypt, they said hey, from our youth, all we've dealt with
is cattle.
Remember all the sons of Jacob?
That's what they talked about.
That was their main occupation.
You know, all the way back to Cain and Abel.
You know, Abel is dealing with cattle and so forth.
So what I'm saying is that, you know, any kind of dietary advice that doesn't jive with
the Bible, I just immediately reject it, and it's probably a fad anyway, and probably ten
years from now they'll be saying, oh wow, it turned out, you know, that wasn't so great
after all.
For example, vegetarianism, even worse, veganism.
And I'm not mad at you if you're a vegetarian or a vegan, you know, that's your loss of
all the sausage and bacon and cheeseburgers and everything like that.
But it's not biblical.
You know, and if you choose to live that life, that's fine, I'm not going to judge you or
worry about it.
I really don't care what you eat.
You can eat or not eat whatever you like, but I'm just saying, me personally, I feel
that the Bible has sound advice when it comes to nutrition.
And it actually talks about Jesus eating butter, and it does not mention him eating, I can't
believe it's not butter.
You know, or, you know, I don't know if these new Bible versions, they're constantly saying,
you know, it probably has him eating margarine or something, you know, when it says, you
know, butter and honey, shall he eat?
Okay, in Isaiah 7.
I get my advice on as many things as possible from the Bible, and since the Bible talks
so much about food, I'm going to reject meatless diets.
I'm going to reject diets that are vegan.
Also the paleo diet, who's ever heard of the paleo diet?
Now here's the thing about the paleo diet, it tells you, oh man, everything that's wrong
in the world is caused by us eating grains.
And what does the Bible say?
Give us this day our daily bread.
So I, you know, I just have to reject that.
You say, oh, but let me show you the paleo diet.
First of all, there was no such thing as paleo, because this earth is only about 6,300 years
old.
So I don't know what these Neanderthal cavemen, mythical figures, I don't know what them eating
meat and fruits and vegetables has anything to do with what I should be eating, because
those people didn't exist, number one.
Number two, the Bible says give us this day our daily bread, so I'm not going to cut out
grain out of my diet.
Now grains are better for you when they're sprouted and when they're prepared a certain
way, and that's obviously a whole other subject, but the point is that don't be carried about
with fads, nutritionally, that are not backed up by scripture.
You know, they tell you that eggs are bad, and remember they let them all out of jail
and say give eggs a break, or was that only a California thing?
Does anybody, who saw that commercial when you were a kid?
All the eggs are in jail, and then they let all the eggs out of jail, and they say give
eggs a break, because they've said for years, eggs are bad for you, only eat, I don't know,
two or three eggs a week, they said.
I eat two or three eggs in the morning and two or three at night every day, okay?
I mean, two or three eggs a week, I eat literally ten times that every week, and I feel great.
No, I'm just saying, I eat as many eggs as I can eat, but they say, oh, it's bad for
you, but what does the Bible say about eggs?
Talks about that's a good gift to give unto your children when you give them eggs.
Remember if you ask bread, will you give him a stone?
If you ask an egg, you got it, give him a scorpion, you know, ask a fish, give him a
serpent.
So basically, Jesus ate fish, he ate honey, he's eaten butter, give eggs, bread, all these
things are good things if you eat healthy versions of these things.
Obviously an egg that's from a chicken that's living in its own dung that's never even seen
the light of the sun, that's stacked on top of other chickens, fed genetically modified
corn is not going to be the same as an egg from a free-ranging healthy chicken is going
to produce.
Same with the bread.
Obviously it's not saying give us this day our daily ultra-white, ultra-bleached Wonder
Bread.
The loaf is this big, but you can squeeze it the size of a Super Bowl because it's all
fluff, you know, it has about a teaspoon of nutritional value in it.
So anyway, I just want to point that out about butter.
Job was a guy who ate butter, you know, I mean he ate butter, he was washing his steps
in butter.
I mean this guy was bathing in butter, I mean he loved butter.
Anyway it says in verse 7, we kind of change gears in verse 7 and we get away from talking
about the prosperity that Job had just to talk about how much respect he had, how much
people respected him.
Look at verse 7, it says, 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.
What he's saying there is that young men, just men of low degree, they were afraid to
even face him because he was just so respected by them, they had so much awe of him, they
just were embarrassed to even get in a conversation with him, they just whoa, they just backed
up.
They were not worthy to even be around him or talk to him.
It says the aged arose and stood up.
So basically when Job shows up, the young men just get out of there.
And the aged men stand up out of respect.
See, standing up when someone enters the room is a great sign of respect.
The Bible also says that we should rise up before the hoary head, hoary means gray haired,
rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man.
So the Bible teaches that we should respect those that are old by when they walk in, we
stand up to greet them and not just sit in our chair.
Now, you may say, what does that have to do with respect, but let me see if I can help
you understand this.
Just imagine, if you would, a teenager, because that's who's usually disrespectful, right?
So let's say there's a teenager, right, and he's sitting there and he's just playing a
video game, right?
And then mom or dad walks in the room and starts talking to him and it's just, yeah
mom, okay, uh huh, right.
Wouldn't you say that's very disrespectful?
And don't you see stuff like that all the time?
This is the respect, or even maybe not that extreme, but just when you're seated and you're
sitting down and your mom and dad come in the room and talk to you, you should stand
up and talk to your mom and dad.
That's just polite, that's just respect, and it's a sign of disrespect when you're just
staying real seated, staying real comfortable, maybe you don't even turn your body toward
them when they come in the room.
Somebody comes in the room and you just go, oh hey, kind of over the shoulder, hi.
Respect is where you would stand up, face that person, and greet that person and look
them in the eye and talk to them.
And honestly, we live in a society that in many ways is without respect of people that
should be respected and treated with respect.
You see a lot of children that are disrespectful toward their parents, and even if it might
seem like a minor thing, body language really communicates a lot about what's going on in
your heart.
I read a book about body language and it explained in the book how when you're talking to somebody,
they can actually read all your body language and they're doing it subconsciously.
It's not like everybody read a book and they're like, oh wow, his eyes went this way and that
means that you don't even have to read a book on body language to read people's body language.
Have you ever been around somebody and you just felt uneasy around that person, you couldn't
figure out why?
Or have you ever been talking to your spouse and you just knew that there's something wrong,
your spouse is upset at you, there's a problem?
And even though they haven't said anything, even though their tone of voice is fine, you
just feel like something's not right.
People are just shifty or they're just not looking you in the eye.
It's because our minds are very sophisticated and they can read people's body language just
subconsciously.
One of the things that this book that I read emphasized was that your posture has a lot
to do with how you're perceived by other people.
For example, it said you can tell when someone's not really interested in a conversation that
they're having because basically their feet will be pointed away from that person and
they'll just kind of turn their body like this, kind of pretending to be in the conversation
but their feet are telling a different story like, I want to get out of here, I'm ready
to talk to somebody else.
I don't want to be here.
You know, it's just a little thing.
So the reason I bring that up is just to show you that we communicate a lot with our bodies.
Just hand gestures, looking people in the eye, not looking people in the eye, just whether
we face toward people.
And so God is saying communicate respect unto those that need to be respected, the old man,
the grey head, but we could also apply this to other people that God commands us to honor
and respect, like for example, our parents.
Like for example, wives are supposed to reverence their husband.
So probably if the husband walks in the room, the wife should probably get up out of the
chair and greet her husband and not just be, oh, hi honey, your dinner's in the oven.
Right?
Oh, it's getting kind of quiet now, huh?
But you know what?
Wives are supposed to reverence their husband.
And that to be with body language that says you're the boss and you just got home and
so therefore I'm not just going to call over my shoulder that dinner's in the oven, I'm
going to come to the front door, I'm going to open that door, I'm going to greet you,
I'm going to stand up and say hello to you.
And parents need to be treated that way by their children.
Husbands need to be treated that way by their wives.
Bosses at work.
You want to keep your job?
You want to get a raise?
You want to get promoted?
Stand up when the boss walks in the room.
Look him in the eye.
Face your whole body toward him, not just over the shoulder talking.
No.
Get your lazy bottom out of that chair and point your feet and your chest and your face
toward him and look him in the eye and talk to your boss.
And your boss even just subconsciously will feel like, here's somebody who respects me.
Here's somebody who takes me seriously.
Here's somebody who actually is looking at me, attentive on me, out of his chair, he's
not just lazily, oh hey, what's up?
It's yes sir.
Okay, this is good teaching from the Bible just about Job, how he was respected.
We can take that and apply it to other scriptures that command us to rise up before the old
man, to honor the whore he had, that command us to honor our parents, to have fear and
trembling and respect for our masters when we're servants or employees, and also to reverence
your husband, also to honor your father and mother.
This is biblical teaching.
We can learn from this chapter when Job talks about how people treated him, where they stood
up when he entered.
Why?
Because he's an important person.
Because he's a man of God.
Because he was a prophet of God.
So they're treating him with respect.
Says in verse 9, 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.
Another sign of respect is when you don't interrupt people when they're talking to you.
Now, parents have the right to interrupt their children, but look, nothing is more disrespectful
than when a parent's talking to their child and the child interrupts them and just cuts
them off and starts talking.
But honestly, if we're going to respect one another, we should also not be in the habit
of interrupting people, cutting them off.
We should let people speak.
That's a good sign of respect, is to be quiet and let someone say what they need to say,
especially if they are ranked higher than us, as in a boss at work, a supervisor.
Interrupting your boss at work is a good way to just enrage your boss.
I'm sure you've probably seen people make that mistake, hopefully it wasn't you that
made that mistake, but you've probably seen people make that mistake and you're probably
just looking at that thing like, shut up, let him talk, you're going to get in trouble.
But this is more good teaching in this chapter, it says in verse 11, when the ear heard me
then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me.
Jump down if you would to verse 21, because in verse 21 he kind of comes back to the same
subject of respect, and in verse 21 it says, unto me men gave ear and waited and kept silence
at my counsel.
After my words they spake not again, and my speech dropped upon 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, and the light of my countenance they cast
not down.
So what's it saying there?
It's saying that if Job thought something was stupid, if Job laughed at something, look
at verse 24, if I laughed on them they believed it not.
So if they heard some theory, or if they heard some teaching and Job laughed at it, they
didn't believe it either.
So these people respected him and they thought, hey, here's a guy who knows what he's talking
about, I'm going to get counsel from him, I'm going to listen to him, I'm not going
to interrupt him and tell him how it is, I want to learn from Job.
And that's what we see in this passage, how respected he was.
So first of all we saw he was very prosperous.
Second of all we saw that he was very respected, very respected.
But also thirdly, in the part of the chapter that we just skipped, we see that he was a
man who was filled with good works.
And if you look at who Job did good works for the most, it was the people who could
do nothing for him in return.
Look what it says in verse 12, because I delivered, who?
The poor.
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.
Meaning that those that were ready to perish blessed him because he helped them.
It says, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
So in those two verses we have the poor, the fatherless, the ready to perish, and the widow.
These are the type of people that Job is doing good works toward.
He said, I put on righteousness and it clothed me.
My judgment was a robe and a diadem.
I was the 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.
What's he saying there?
He helped the blind, the lame, the poor, the fatherless, up above it was the poor, the
fatherless, the ready to perish, the widow.
If we were to include other scriptures in other parts of the Bible, we would also put
the stranger on that list.
The stranger, the sojourner, the one who is passing through or visiting or from a foreign
country.
These are the type of people that Job talks about helping and doing good unto.
The Bible says it also in James chapter 1 when it says, pure religion and undefiled
before God and the father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction
and to keep himself unspotted by the world.
We should do good works unto those that can do nothing for us in return and not only save
our good works for the people that are going to return it to us and even do more for us.
Now think about how this would apply in our lives.
At our church, who do we want to be a blessing to and help and reach out to?
The rich, the prosperous.
You look at even just where a lot of churches are moving their facilities to and where they're
even going to knock doors and they want to put an emphasis on rich people and rich areas
and that's where they're going to send their mailers.
If they knock any doors, that's the doors they want to knock because they want to get
that guy that's going to tithe and put money in the plate and it's going to bring in the
good offerings.
Look, I've heard people talk about it.
I've been in church and heard them talk about it.
Man, I know this is a really unreceptive area for soul winning, but man if just one of these
people start coming to church, think about what that could do for our church financially.
It doesn't matter because God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth in every
mine.
God is not short of money and if God wants us to have money as a church, He'll give us
the money that we need.
We need to go out and preach the gospel to every creature and in the parable that talks
about us going out and compelling people to come in that God's house might be filled,
He says, first go find the poor, the lame, the blind, the fatherless, and bring all them
in.
And then once they brought them all in, they said, Lord it is done as thou has commanded
and yet there is room.
Then He said, just go tell everybody.
And that's the biblical order.
You go to the poor first, you go to the helpless first, then you go to everybody.
So our goal, yes, is to knock every single door in the greater Phoenix, Maricopa County
area.
We want to knock every door and present the gospel of Jesus Christ at least once at every
door.
Okay, we've got the map back there and it's all shaded in, but let me tell you something.
On that map, yes, everything gets shaded in as we radiate outward, but guess where we
focus most of our, guess what we did first?
All the poor areas first.
So once we've done all the poor areas, then we say, okay, and we literally hold our nose
and go to the rich area.
And it's a drudgery unto us, but we only do it because we want to get to everybody.
But you know what?
We'll do the poor area twice.
We'll do the poor area three times.
And it will be a cold day in hell before our church relocates out to some super distant
suburbia in some rich, fancy area and say, oh, then we can get a bigger campus and a
better building.
No, our church is staying in the city.
We're not going out to some rich, wealthy suburbia, because guess what?
Rich, wealthy suburbanites don't want to come to a church like this because they're too
busy enjoying the world.
Now there are some exceptions to that, of course.
The exception proves the rule, my friend.
And of course there are some, but you know where we're going to get more people saved?
You know where we're going to get more success is with the people that God told us to reach,
which is the poor and the afflicted and the handicapped.
People that can do nothing for us in return because then God will bless us in return.
He says go and invite the poor, invite the lame, invite the blind, the deaf, the fatherless,
the widow.
He said because they can't recompense you.
And he said it's better if they don't recompense you because if they don't recompense you then
I'll recompense you.
And who would you rather be recompensed, by God or man?
I'd rather have God bless me than man because God can bless me more than man can bless me.
And we need to get a heart and a vision for helping the helpless and for reaching the
people that are on this list and on other similar lists in the Bible where God says
the blind, the halt, the mam, the poor, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow.
You know my son Solomon takes a sign language class.
Every couple of weeks he goes to a sign language class.
He's really good at it.
He's been studying on his own and everything.
And I told my son Solomon, I said Solomon, you know you're learning all the sign language.
I said son you need to get a vision for using sign language for the glory of God because
I said there are deaf people in this area and those deaf people need a church to go
to where someone can sign unto them the sermon.
And there are very few Baptist churches that have a sign language interpreter, probably
even fewer that are good independent fundamental Baptist, King James sign language interpreters,
but listen, and no that's not real sign language that I was just doing with my hand, but here's
the thing.
Those are people that God wants us to reach are deaf people and I don't have the ability
to do it.
I mean I could learn.
I'm learning other languages.
I'm doing other things.
I said son, make that a ministry for you son.
And I've been to churches where they had a deaf interpreter and they had all kinds of
deaf people show up for that because they're out there and they're hungry for the truth.
They're hungry for fellowship with other deaf believers.
I mean how would you like to be deaf?
I mean think about how rough it would be to be deaf.
You know you're really isolated in a lot of ways from your fellow man and so it'd be great,
and I don't know what it's like to be deaf.
I'm not pretending to know what it's like to be deaf.
I'm just thankful that I can hear though, but I love deaf people and would want to reach
them with the gospel, and I was trying to give my son a vision and maybe other people
could get a vision to learn those kind of skills.
You know we need to learn the skills that will help us to be able to reach out to the
people that nobody's reaching and that nobody's helping.
Another way that we can reach more people is through Spanish, by learning how to speak
Spanish.
And some people, let me just be honest with you, some people don't have the ability to
learn Spanish.
They're not gifted in that way and it's probably not going to happen for them.
But you know what, if you're young or you are talented in that way or you have skill
in that way, you know what, that could be something that you could use to reach a lot
of people that are not being, I don't know, and maybe I'm wrong, I don't know of a lot
of churches in the greater Phoenix area that are winning people to the Lord in Spanish
door to door, week after week.
But we're doing it.
But only a few people in our church speak Spanish, only a couple people.
But honestly, if we win somebody to the Lord in Spanish out soul winning, we already know
they're not going to join our church, right?
Because the service isn't English.
So if we win somebody to Christ in Spanish, we already know they're not coming.
Oh well then why even do it?
Because they're going to be in heaven.
And that's what matters.
And God will bless us.
Is that person ever going to pay us back?
Are we going to get that tithe coming in the plate because we won that person to the Lord
in Spanish?
No, but we're winning somebody to Christ that's going to be in heaven and it's somebody who
other people are not reaching, not caring about, oh a bunch of illegal aliens.
So what?
They crossed an imaginary line.
So what?
Oh they're undocumented?
Maybe we're all undocumented.
Why aren't we all so stinking documented anyway?
You know, none of us used to be documented before all this communist garbage from the
1930s, all this social security number and all this tagged and identified and serial
number and show your ID, value papers, you know, none of us used to have to do any of
that stuff.
Who cares?
Oh well they shouldn't be here.
Well I want them saved.
If I lived down there I'd probably be coming up here too.
And you know what?
They're not, everybody who came here illegally is not a bad person.
There I said it.
They're not.
Are there bad people who come up here?
Of course there are, you know, drug trafficking type people and criminals, but guess what?
They're American criminals too.
And a lot of the people who come up here are not bad people at all and we should not hate
them and we should not say we don't care about them.
We want them to go back home and all this stuff.
You know what?
Quit blaming them for all the government screw ups.
The government has screwed up our country and you're the one who voted for these idiots
and keeps voting for them.
You're the screw up.
The illegals can't even vote, you can't even blame them because they're not even voting
these retards into power that you're voting for when you vote Republican or Democrat.
You're voting all these fools in power and then you're going to blame some Mexican guy
who came up here, so it's not his fault.
And you know what?
I don't care whether this preaching is popular or not, I'm going to treat the stranger well.
He's going to do my yard work and I'm going to pay him for it under the table, yeah.
No I'm just kidding, but anyway, just kidding, we'll cut that from the sermon.
He's going to pay my house and he's going to do my yard work just like he does for all
the Congress and Senate members.
They're always hiring illegals.
They don't want to pay all these stupid taxes, nobody wants to pay them because they're ridiculous.
But the point is that we need to get a Christian attitude that says, the stranger, the immigrant,
the poor, the foreigner, and you know there are people who hate foreigners, but you know
what, is that a biblical attitude?
No.
So why don't we treat foreigners well?
Why don't we treat deaf people well?
Why don't we go to the blind and win them to Christ?
They're probably not going to show up.
Let's win them to Christ.
Let's go find the poorest person we can and get them saved.
Let's go find the widow and the fatherless and the stranger and the blind and the down
syndrome and let's win them to Christ and they'll never do anything for us, but you
know what, it's not about them doing something for us, it's about us doing something for
them.
And God will take care of us and God will bless us if that's what we do.
And so that's what Job's life was like.
He said, you want to hear about my good works?
It was for the poor, the blind, the fatherless, the lame, the widow, him that was ready to
perish, the guy who's about to die, he's not going to help, he's about to die, but you
know what, I'm going to give him the gospel.
I'm going to help him.
I'm going to comfort him in his dying hour.
And this attitude that says, hey, let's go reach people that are going to put a lot of
money in the plate.
Let's only win people to Christ who are actually going to show up to the church house and be
a part of our church is a wicked attitude and is unbiblical, is not what Jesus Christ
taught.
And he did not say, go knock whatever doors you want.
He said, go to the poor, then go to everybody else.
And that's what he commanded.
It wasn't an option.
It wasn't just, well, if you like going to the rich, go to the rich.
No, he said, go to the poor, then go to everybody else, then go to every creature.
That is what he taught.
Go first to the poor, the handicapped.
And you know why?
It's just more efficient.
Why go beat your head against the wall in some rich area when there's a poor area down
the street where people are going to get saved?
Now again, I'll go knock the rich doors once, then I'll shake the dust off my feet because
God said that if you go to a town or a city or a house that's not receptive, he said shake
the dust off your feet and go somewhere else.
And you know what?
If these areas aren't receptive, once, one time, done.
Poor area, three times, Guadalupe, let's do it a fifth time.
Let's do it again and again and again and again and we just keep getting people saved.
This is biblical teaching, but look at verse 17.
Let me finish on this.
Not only did Job's good works consist of reaching the poor, the fatherless, the widows, the
blind, and not just giving them the gospel, yes, giving them the gospel, that's the most
important thing, but also just helping them.
Just helping them out, just helping people out.
The best thing you could do to help somebody is give them the gospel, but if you help people
in other ways, God will bless you for that too.
Whatever ways you help people out that need help.
But another aspect of Job's ministry was not just doing good works.
It wasn't just helping people.
It wasn't just a positive ministry.
Look what it says in verse 17, and I break the jaws of the wicked and pluck the spoil
out of his teeth.
You know, Job was also a man who fought against sin and wickedness.
He fought the wicked.
The Bible says, such as forsake the law, such as forsake the law, praise the wicked, but
such as keep the law, contend with him.
The Bible says that a righteous person contends with the wicked.
He doesn't praise them, he contends with them.
The Bible says fight the good fight of faith.
The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places.
He didn't just say, hey, we don't wrestle.
We don't wrestle.
He said we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but we do wrestle against spiritual
wickedness in high places.
We need to be people who don't just help others and just call it good, but also we
need to be those who fight against that which is wicked, and break the teeth of the wicked
and pluck the spoil out of his mouth.
Now I'm not saying physically to go break somebody's jaw tonight, okay?
Obviously, the Bible tells us we wrestle not against flesh and blood, so it would not be
right for me to go out and find the most wicked person I can find and just break his jaw,
slam my fist into his face and just break his jaw.
But it's talking obviously figuratively because it talks about the spoil being in his teeth.
So it's likening him into like a lion with a prey in his teeth.
He's got some kind of a prey in his teeth and basically break his teeth and take it
out.
Sort of like you think of, what was it, David when he's a shepherd boy, right?
Remember how he would save the lambs and save the sheep out of the teeth of the bear and
the lion that would come to devour the flock?
That is taught in the New Testament unto pastors.
He says, hey, grievous wolves are going to come in and they're going to come and try
to take the lambs and the sheep and the flock.
You've got to protect the sheep and protect the flock.
And he also said in Titus, you've got to rebuke them sharply, talking about the wolves and
sheep's clothing, the false prophets, the false teachers.
But a lot of churches today, they want to have a positive only ministry.
Positive only ministry.
And on the surface it sounds good.
I mean we're just so busy helping the poor and helping the stranger and helping the fatherless
and helping the blind and helping the lame.
We're just so busy doing that, we just don't have a negative bone in our body.
You know what, you're going to the devil as a ministry.
I'm not saying that the person who starts that ministry is not saved, but eventually
that ministry will go to the devil and eventually it will be filled with unsaved people.
Because if you look at any church that has that philosophy, any denomination that has
that philosophy, any ministry that has that philosophy of saying, we're going to be positive
only, just watch it degenerate.
Because there always has to be a constant fight against sin and the devil and wickedness
or else all that bad stuff is going to come in and rot it to the core and it will go unto
the devil.
I mean think about it, what if our church, what if I just never preached on sin again?
Think about it.
What if I just preached all these great sermons on soul winning?
I mean is soul winning a great subject to preach on?
Okay.
What if I just preached a great sermon on soul winning?
Great subject.
What if I preached a great sermon on loving your wife?
Is that a good subject?
What if I preached a great sermon on helping the poor?
Is that a biblical subject?
What if I preached a great sermon on being good unto your fellow church member and helping
them in a time of need?
What if I preached about loving the poor, the stranger, the fatherless, but what if
I never preached against fornication, I never preached against drunkenness, I never preached
against adultery, I never preached against pornography, I never preached against drugs,
I never preached against stealing, I never preached against lying, I never preached against
covetousness.
What do you think is going to happen?
All of those things will invade.
And the Bible says when iniquity abounds, love waxes cold.
Matthew 24.
Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
So you have this attitude, oh we just love everybody, we're just so loving, we can't
say anything negative because we just love you too much.
You know what happens?
All the sin comes in.
Pretty soon the love's gone.
In order to have real love, you have to also break some teeth.
I mean you've got to break the jaw of the wicked.
And so in order to be in a church that's actually a real loving church, in order to have a pastor
that really loves you and to have church members that really love you, you have to be in a
church that breaks the jaw of the wicked.
And that's what's missing today.
That's why all of the sin has come in and that's why we get the philosophy that says
hey let's go knock those rich doors, you know, week after week.
Let's go to that gated community and let's canvas it again.
Because if we can just get that one doctor, that one lawyer.
Doctors and lawyers are mostly dishonest people.
Now there are good doctors and good lawyers and there are also four leaf clovers and unicorns.
No I'm just kidding.
There are good doctors and good lawyers out there, but I'm just saying a lot of those
people in that rich area are corrupt people and there's a lot of good people in the poor
area.
Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which
he hath promised to them that love him, but you've despised the poor?
So we need to have a jaw-breaking, I mean jaw-breaker Baptist, we ought to have a jaw-breaking
church and a love the poor church and a love the fatherless church.
It should be both.
You must have both.
You know we were driving by, well we were driving in Hollywood because we were working
on the Spanish version of After the Tribulation so we went to the sound studio to record all
the Spanish for the new After the Tribulation in Spanish movie and it's in Hollywood.
And Hollywood is like Sodom and Gomorrah.
So we're driving through Hollywood and there's this big, giant, fancy church building.
Huge giant, fancy church building and it just had the most gigantic rainbow flag hanging
from it.
Huge massive, just big old rainbow flag.
And it's funny because when you think of the United Methodist, if you ever get a brochure
from the United Methodist, if you ever get something in the mail from the United Methodist
or just talk to them, what are you guys about, the thing that they're going to talk about
all day long is like a social gospel of helping the poor, helping the poor.
I did a fire alarm in a United Methodist church one time and it's just all their brochures,
all the posters on the wall, we got to help the poor, we got to end hunger, we got to
help these handicapped people.
Sounds good, right?
But you know what, that church is a wicked and satanic church now that literally just
exalts sodomy.
I mean can you imagine a New Testament church that has a banner of sodomy?
That's the only thing.
I mean no other banner.
One banner, one banner and it's a rainbow flag promoting sodomy.
And literally 10% of United Methodist pastors are open sodomites.
But they're so loving, but they love the poor.
But they haven't broken any jaws in over a century.
And that's why they've just become a cesspool of filth and iniquity.
Think about that.
And you know, there needs to be a church in that area that'll break some jaws, my friend.
And you wonder why TV is the way to, and look, the TV and the movies, that's where they're
coming from.
And you wonder why it's like that.
Go drive up and down the street there and you'll see every single block we drove down,
every single, and I'm not exaggerating, you can ask for the cigarette, every single block
had a sign up or a billboard up or some kind of an advertisement up saying, HIV testing.
Get tested for HIV.
Free HIV test.
Come here for your HIV test, HIV, HIV, HIV, rainbow flag, rainbow flag, HIV, HIV.
Do you see a pattern here?
Yeah, it's a filthy lifestyle that makes you feel with disease.
Why do they have to talk so much about HIV in a sodomite area?
That's why.
Because those two go hand in hand because AIDS is the judgment of God on sodomy.
That is the pestilence that he promised he would send upon the wicked.
And that's what HIV is.
And so we see here that there has to be a balance in our lives between doing good works,
loving people, helping people, getting a burden for people, but also we need to have a sword
in the other hand.
And we need to also break some jaws.
We need to have the sword in one hand and our building trowel in the other hand, like
in the book of Nehemiah, and we build the church through reaching the poor, the fatherless,
the maimed, the widow, and we also have a sword to constantly be fending off the forces
of evil from our church.
Don't get upset about hard preaching.
It's got to be there.
Don't get upset about preaching that rips on sin.
It has to be there.
And don't start yawning when I preach about the deaf and the blind and the poor and the
stranger because you must have both.
Otherwise if it's just all fight, all jaw breaking, that's not right either.
That's going to go the wrong way too.
You've got to have both.
And that's one of the things that we learned from this chapter about Job.
He was a perfect man, it said in chapter 1, meaning he was a complete man, meaning he
had both sides of the coin.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, help us to be like Job.
Help us to love the unlovable.
Help us to love those who are deaf, poor, blind, fatherless, strangers, immigrants.
Help us to just love people that are disabled or that are poor or that are ugly or whatever
they are, Lord.
Help us to just love the unlovable.
Lord, help us not to be like the world that just loves perverts and just loves Satan worshippers.
Lord, help us to hate those that hate thee and to love those that are the poor of this
world, Lord.
Help us to have a balance between the fighting aspect of our faith and the loving, helping
aspect of our faith, Lord.