On Job 31, this is the last time that Job answers his three friends.
After this chapter, we're going to get into the section where Elihu is speaking for six
chapters.
But in this chapter, Job is for the last time maintaining his innocence unto his three friends.
His three friends all along have been accusing him of wrongdoing and telling him that all
these evils have come upon him because of sin in his life.
And he's been maintaining his innocence and in this chapter, he for the last time lists
off all kinds of sins and says, I didn't commit this sin, I didn't commit this sin, I didn't
commit this sin, I didn't commit this sin, just trying to let them know that this stuff
is not happening to him because he'd been living a wicked life, because he had not been
living a wicked life.
And we know that Job is telling the truth because in chapter 1 and 2, God very clearly
told us that Job was a perfect and upright man that feared God and eschewed evil, that
he had retained his integrity, and at the end of the book, God says that Job spoke that
which was right and that the three friends had spoken wrongly.
Now if you look at verse 1 of chapter 32, it said, so these three men ceased to answer
Job because he was righteous in his own eyes.
Now again, it's not that Job is claiming that he's perfect, it's not that Job in the sense
of being sinless, he was perfect in the sense of being mature and complete and so forth,
but he's not saying that he's totally and utterly sinless, because we've already gone
through all the chapters of what Job actually said.
He's not saying he's sinless, he's not saying that he doesn't need the Lord to be his redeemer,
he talks about the fact that he has salvation through the Lord and that he has redemption
through the Lord, but he's righteous in his own eyes in the sense that he knows that he
is living a life that's right and he's doing the right things in life and God backs him
up on this.
So in this chapter he goes through a lot of sins that he's not guilty of.
It says in verse 1 of chapter 31, I made a covenant with mine eyes, why then should I
think upon a maid?
So the first thing he brings up right away is that he has not been lusting after other
women in his heart.
You know Job is a married man and he says, I made a covenant with mine eyes.
He doesn't say I made a covenant with my heart or with my brain or anything like that because
a lot of people have this idea that they can look at a lot of scantily clad or even nude
women and they say, well, you know, it doesn't bother me or I can look at that stuff without
lusting.
But Job here is saying, I made a covenant with my eyes.
Why then should I think upon a maid?
So in order to keep your mind and your heart pure, men, you need to make a covenant with
your eyes.
Now what is a covenant?
A covenant is an agreement or a deal that you make.
It's like a contract.
So he's saying that he made an agreement with his eyes that he's not going to look upon
a woman to lust after her.
Of course the famous words of Jesus, whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart.
And that's what the Bible's talking about here in Job 31 verse 1 and that's what Jesus
talked about.
Now, we can't always help what we see.
We live in the world and Jesus said that his prayer was not that we would be taken out
of the world, but that we would be kept from the evil.
God does not want us to withdraw from society and go form some commune somewhere or some
plantation somewhere where we just completely withdraw from the world and don't have any
contact with the unsaved or the ungodly.
That's not God's will for us.
He wants us to be in the world and he wants us to be here to evangelize and to give the
gospel.
That's why we're here.
Not to go isolate ourselves and be a hermit somewhere.
So there are going to be times where you do see something that isn't right.
There are going to be times when you see a woman that is not dressed right and it's really
impossible to just avoid that one hundred percent because you can't control, even when
you go out soul winning.
I mean, somebody could come to the door and they're not dressed right.
Somebody's walking down the street not dressed right.
But here's what you can control.
You can control whether or not you take that second look.
That's what you can control.
And you know, when God, God expects you that when you see something that's ungodly, you
know, you see that maid that is dressed inappropriately, that you do not think upon that maid, as it
says in this scripture, or that you don't look upon her to lust after.
So when you see that, you need to look away.
And that takes self-discipline.
That takes character.
That is what God demands of us as men.
And don't just say, oh that's an unrealistic expectation.
No.
The Bible commands it and I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
We are not to look upon that.
And think about what David said, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes.
Now we can't control if something wicked just comes in front of our eyes, but we can control
whether or not we set something wicked in front of our eyes.
And when we go to television, when we go to Hollywood movies, you know you're setting
something wicked before your eyes.
I mean, you know it's coming, you already know it's going to be there, and you're choosing
to sit down and turn it on and bring it into your home, and that is violation of scripture
when you bring wickedness into your eyes and into your home by setting it before you.
Now it's one thing to be out in the world, you're at the grocery store, you're out soul
winning, you see something at work, and you look away.
I don't believe that you've sinned at that point.
You've done the right thing.
You looked away.
But when you're just at home, just willfully, just turning it on, putting it on the TV,
putting it on the computer, then you are setting wickedness before your eyes.
And you can sit there and justify it all you want and say, oh, you know, I wasn't looking
with lust, I'm just looking.
Get real, okay?
Make a covenant with your eyes.
He didn't make the covenant with his brain.
I made a covenant with my brain that every time I look at scantily clad women, I'm going
to keep a pure mind the whole time I look at them.
No, that's not what he's saying.
He said I made a covenant with my eyes not to look.
You know, look not upon that which is wicked the Bible teaches over and over again.
Don't even look at it, alright?
Now what he does throughout this passage is he actually puts various curses upon himself
in this passage if he had done these things.
So basically he's swearing that he has not done these things.
And he says, if I've done this, then let this happen.
So for example, let's just jump down to verse 9 just because it kind of is connected with
verse 1 in a way.
We'll come back and get the other verses.
Then in verse 9 it says, if mine heart have been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid
weight at my neighbor's door, and what he means by that is that he would lay weight
at his neighbor's door and that he would commit adultery with his neighbor's wife.
That's what he's referring to.
He's saying look, if I committed adultery with my neighbor's wife, which that's a major
sin and that's the type of sin that his three friends are accusing him of, major sin.
He says, if I've done that, in verse 10, then let my wife grind unto another and let
others bow down upon her.
So he's saying look, if I've done so, then let someone do the same thing unto me and
violate my wife.
He's saying, if I've done that to someone else's wife.
If I have laid in weight at my neighbor's wife.
But he didn't do it and that's the whole point.
He's trying to express in the strongest possible language to his three friends that he's innocent
and he's just swearing unto them, I have not committed adultery.
If I have, you know, then may this other horrible thing happen to me that my wife would be committing
adultery on me.
He says, for this is a heinous crime.
Yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges, for it is a fire that consumeth to
destruction and would root out all mine increase.
And again, this just goes to back up the teaching all throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation
and that is the teaching that all sin is not equal.
A lot of people have this weird belief and there's no other way to describe it than just
a weird, kooky belief.
In fact, it's borderline insanity when you say all sin's equal.
Because I mean, you'd have to be an insane person to think that, you know, stealing a
piece of candy out of the candy jar is equivalent to murdering ten people.
I mean, you have to be a psycho to believe something like that.
No normal person thinks, okay, mass murder and, you know, stealing a pencil, equivalent
in God's eyes.
I mean, what in the, where in the world would anyone get such a ludicrous idea and I'm sorry
but I have to question the sanity of anyone who actually believes that.
But it's a popular teaching today.
I hear it all the time.
And you just have to ask people, are you nuts?
Because even without the Bible, put aside the Bible, that makes no sense.
It's ludicrous.
I mean, it'd be like if the police just treated all crimes equally.
I mean, you go one mile above the speed limit, that is all one as if you had gunned someone
down.
I mean, you are guilty of the same offense.
That just isn't true.
And here's the thing.
If we look at scripture, scripture doesn't teach that all sin's equal.
In fact, the Bible talks about in John 19 where Jesus told Pontius Pilate, he that delivered
me unto you hath the greater sin.
Now question, how can you have a greater sin if all sin's equal?
You know, and then he told the Pharisees that because they prayed long prayers as they
devoured widows' houses, he said that they would receive a greater damnation.
How can you have a greater damnation if all sin's equal?
How can you have a greater sin?
Okay, if all sin's equal, why didn't God rain fire and brimstone on every Old Testament
city?
Everybody was a sinner.
The reason why God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah is because it says they
were sinners before the Lord exceedingly.
And there's a difference between being a sinner and being exceeding sinful and being
a sinner exceedingly, alright?
For example, who in here is a sinner?
Who in here would say I've sinned and I do sin from time to time?
Every single person, right?
Okay, but are there, there are certain sins where we should throw a person out of the
church because the Bible tells us that if any man that is called a brother be a drunkard
or be covetous or an idolater or a fornicator or a railer or an extortioner, the Bible
says put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
It says with such and one know not to eat, cast them out of the church.
Okay, but does he say just cast all sinners out?
Everybody would be cast out.
There'd be nobody to be left.
I wouldn't be here.
It would just be an empty building.
So there is a difference between a crime and a heinous crime.
Do you see that word there in the Bible if you look down at verse 11?
For this is an heinous crime.
Now that's different than a minor crime.
And the Bible over and over again talks about things being exceeding sinful, being a greater
sin, greater damnation.
Look, the whole Old Testament was based on different laws and different punishments based
on how bad the crime was.
So this whole idea that God thinks all sin is equal is a false doctrine that is not based
on scripture.
There's basically one verse, because I've demanded so many times that someone show me
a verse that says all sin is equal.
Show me that in the Bible.
And nobody can show you.
The only verse I've ever had anyone present is James 2.10.
And James 2.10 says, therefore, whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in
one point, he's guilty of all.
But notice what that verse doesn't say, all sin is equal.
Notice the lack of all sin is equal in that verse.
He says, for if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor
of the law.
What he's saying there is that even if you were to keep the whole law and offend in one
point, you still have sin in your life.
You still are a transgressor of the law.
You are guilty of breaking the law as a whole.
You know, we take the law all, because he says, whosoever shall keep the whole law and
yet offend in one point, he's guilty of all.
Because he's saying, he that said, do not commit adultery, said also do not kill.
Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the
law.
What he's saying there is that the law is a package deal.
It's one unit.
The law.
The law of God.
And he says, if you break it, you broke it.
You know, you've broken the law.
You are considered in God's eyes a transgressor, and you have broken the law in its totality,
because it's a package deal.
You don't pick and choose parts of it.
You can't piecemeal it, okay?
That's all he's saying.
But never did he say that all sins are equal, and never did he say that everyone's going
to get the same punishment.
You know, the guy who keeps the whole law and offends in one point is not going to get
the same punishment as the guy who breaks a whole bunch of really big laws.
And that's why God even has a white throne judgment, where people are judged based upon
their works.
The unsaved.
Those of us who are saved will not be.
It's the dead that are judged.
We're already going to be living, okay?
We've been resurrected.
We're not going to be dead at that point.
But the dead, those that are unsaved, will stand before God and be judged by their works.
Why even judge them on their works if everybody's in the exact same boat?
They're not in the exact same boat.
Now true, they're all going to hell.
It's all going to be fire.
It's all going to be eternal punishment.
But it's not going to be the same for everybody.
You know, and a lot of people think it's going to be identical for everybody.
But listen, heaven's not going to be identical for everybody either.
Because Jesus said, Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me.
To give to every man according as his work shall be.
He didn't say I'm going to divide to all men equally.
He never said that.
He never said, everybody's going to rule and reign in the millennium equally.
Everyone's going to get an equal reward.
No he didn't.
He said, I will give to every man according as his work shall be.
And so that is what the Bible actually teaches.
So adultery is a pretty heinous crime.
It's a major, major sin the Bible says.
And so we need to keep that in mind.
And we should not even get close to committing adultery.
Don't even play around with it.
Don't even toy with it in your mind.
Just run screaming in the other direction from adultery because, you know, whosoever
shall lie with his neighbor's wife.
The Bible teaches that under the Old Testament they would have been stoned to death.
I mean that's a pretty major crime right there.
But anyway, let's look at verse 2 of chapter 31.
It says, For what portion of God is there from above?
And what inheritance of the Almighty from on high?
Is not destruction to the wicked, and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?
Doth not he see my ways and count all my steps?
What he's saying there is that if I were to think upon a maid in my heart, God would
know it and God would punish me.
God knows every step I take.
God knows the hairs of my head.
And the Bible says that we cannot have a thought in our mind that God does not know altogether.
God knows all of our thoughts and He searches the reigns and the hearts and He will give
every man according as his work shall be.
And if He sees us looking with lust upon a woman, He will punish us for that sin.
I mean something that we should take very seriously.
He says in verse 5, If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hastened to deceit,
let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity.
If my steps have turned out of the way, and my heart walked after mine eyes, and if any
blot have cleaved to mine hands, then let me sow and let another eat, yea, let my offspring
be rooted out.
Let's jump down to verse 13.
He said, If I did despise the cause of my manservant, or of my maidservant, when they
contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up, and when he visiteth, what
shall I answer him?
Did not he that made me in the womb make him, and did not one fashion us in the womb?
What's he saying?
He's saying that his manservants and maidservants, he didn't treat them bad just because he has
power over them.
He's saying when they brought to me a cause, when they contended with me, when they had
a problem with me, I didn't just despise them and say, who are you to question me?
He heard them out.
He listened to what they had to say.
He gave them respect because he said, you're a human being, I'm a human being.
You're made in the image of God, I'm made in the image of God.
God formed us both in the womb, and so he had respect for his maidservant and his manservant.
Now look, it's okay that he had manservants and maidservants.
This is the way the world works.
There are some people who have to serve other people.
That's life.
I mean, even being an employee at a job, you're being a servant is what you're doing.
You're serving someone else.
But we should make sure that when we're in a position of authority, we don't despise
those that are below us.
And that's what the Bible says here, that he did not despise the cause of his manservant
or his maidservant.
But the Bible also teaches that not only should the boss not despise the servant, the Bible
also says in 1 Timothy 6 that those who work for others should not despise their boss.
The Bible says, let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy
of all honor that the word of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
And he said, and they that have believing masters, let them not despise them.
Because they're, he says, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather
do them service because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the benefit these
things teach and exhort.
And so the Bible's teaching there that sometimes people have a tendency to despise their boss,
especially if he's a brother in Christ.
They think like, oh well you're my brother in Christ so you shouldn't be telling me what
to do, you shouldn't be ruling over me.
But in reality, if you do work for someone who's a brother in Christ, or if you do work
for someone who even goes to the same church, you need to show that person just as much
submission and just as much respect as you would if it were a worldly boss.
Do not expect to get special treatment where you show up at the job and you're not going
to be held to the same standards and you don't have to call him sir and obey and everything
because he's your fellow church member, he's your brother in Christ.
But here's the thing, yes at church we're all equal.
At church we're all on the same footing.
In church you're just brothers in Christ.
But when you walk out that door and you're in a work setting, you need to obey the boss.
And you need to treat it like he's your boss and not just treat it like, well it's different
because we go to church.
No, that's your boss, that's how you need to treat it.
And when you work for family, it's the same thing.
You have to treat it like it's a real boss or else you're going to get into problems
with that.
And it's funny, Brother Jerry was telling me, the company he used to work for, there
were a lot of Mormons there and it seems like some of these Mormons would kind of just get
hired because they're Mormon and they wouldn't really necessarily work that well on the job
or really do that well.
And I think they kind of were getting a little bit of a pass because they're Mormon, you
know, to basically not necessarily work as hard or be as dedicated to the job.
We shouldn't be that way as Christians, just thinking like, oh well you know the boss goes
to church with me so he understands if I loaf around a little bit.
No, you need to be working hard and do service under your, and just be, if you have a boss
that's a brother in Christ or that's a church member, thank God for it.
Praise the Lord.
And you should want to do even more service for him because he's your brother in Christ.
But it's interesting how there's an expectation amongst people who do business with other
church members that's like a one-way deal.
Like for example, you go to work for somebody who's a Christian boss, you assume, oh he's
going to pay me extra or he's going to cut me some slack or whatever.
And then you know what he's thinking, oh well this person's going to work harder, this person's
going to give 110%.
And both of those things make sense in their mind.
But honestly we need to have an attitude that says, you know, outside of church when we're
in a business setting, we work our hardest, we go above and beyond, and we don't expect
favors from people just because they're from church and just demand favors.
Another thing is, for example, sometimes someone at church will hire someone else to work for
them.
For example, they'll hire them to do some electrical work or plumbing or whatever, the
trade, mechanical work or whatever, and they'll hire that person and again, there's kind of
a one-way street mentality that says, oh well if I hire the electrician from church or the
plumber from church or the carpenter from church, he's going to give me a discount because
I'm from church, right?
And in reality, wouldn't it make just as much sense for the plumber, carpenter, electrician,
pool man, whatever, to say, oh, since this customer is someone from church, they're going
to give me a tip.
You know, wouldn't that make just as much sense as to say like, oh I'm going to get
a discount or, you know, I'm going to get a tip.
It doesn't make any sense, folks.
If somebody works for you, pay them the price for the job.
Pay them the price for the job.
Now this is important because you don't want there to be bad blood between people at church.
And this is how bad blood is often created by business dealings within the church.
You've got to be very careful when there's any kind of a business transaction with people
at church.
It's almost better just to do business with people outside of church.
Just keep church, church, and business, business.
But you know what?
If you want to do business with somebody from church, you better be above reproach, you
better not cause problems in the church because you have a weird expectation, okay?
And if you call somebody out and you hire someone to do work for you, you should expect
to pay the going rate.
You know, and if you're called out, you should expect to be paid the going rate.
And if somebody gives a tip or a discount, you know, that's up to them.
But it shouldn't just be expected.
It should be bonus if it happens, okay?
Now another thing is sometimes you choose to do things for free for people and there's
nothing wrong with that.
You know, you might choose to say, hey, I'll fix that for free.
I'll go work on that for free.
You know, as long as everybody understands that going into it, then great.
Do things for free if you want.
Now I remember, cause I know how to do electrical work and so, you know, everybody in the church
that I went to a long time ago would just constantly come to me and want me to do electrical
work at their house or alarm work at their house.
They'd constantly ask me about it.
And here was my, and I'm not telling you that you should do it like me or be like me.
I'm just telling you, this was my mentality at the time.
At the time, the stage of life I was in, the job I had, the time I had, this was my mentality,
my own person.
And here's the thing, you gotta make your own decisions.
You gotta have your own policy and your own mind.
But I had it set in my mind this, anybody who is, you know, somebody who is a soul winner,
who's serving God in that way in the church, if they ask me for stuff, I'll try to just
help them out with it and just do it for them for free.
And I just wanted to do it for them for free.
I didn't want to charge them any money cause I didn't want to create any problems or anything.
Cause sometimes people have an unrealistic expectation about what things cost.
I mean they think that electrical work is cheap or something.
You know, and they think that, you know, paying you a tiny amount is, you know, they'll pay
you less than you're making at your job and you're doing it on the weekend and stuff,
you know.
And the reason is, you know, I just didn't want to get into that and my parents had warned
me my whole life.
My dad had warned me, don't do business with people from church, you know, don't loan money
to people from church.
Don't do, you know, they just drill that in me cause it's just going to create bad blood,
it's going to create problems and all of a sudden.
So I was careful with it cause they'd warn me about it.
So I just said, you know what, if somebody's a soul winner, you know, I'll do it for them.
And if they're not, I would just always tell them the same thing, no, I'm too busy.
Oh, I'll pay you.
No thanks.
I'm busy.
I don't have time.
You know, I wish I could help you but I just don't have time.
If they'd say, I'll pay you, whatever, I just, sorry, don't have time.
Because I know how it works.
You get out there and they pay you nothing, you know what I mean, for what you put in.
So one time, and I use this illustration on soul winning almost every month.
I tell this illustration when I'm out soul winning because it illustrates the gospel
so well, okay.
But one time this guy in my church had me come over to install three ceiling fans at
his house in completely unexisting locations, meaning there's nothing there, there's no
light fixture, there's no box, there's no wiring, there's no switch.
This is a major job, okay.
It was the height of summer in Sacramento which gets about as hot as Phoenix.
It was well over 100.
I'm up in the attic, I'm crawling the attic for hours scorching heat.
This guy was a soul winning Christian that I respected and so I told this guy, I said,
I will do it for you but I will do it for free because remember my policy?
You know, I'll do it for free if you're a soul winner, otherwise I don't have time,
you know.
But I didn't want to get paid because I knew how that works.
My parents had warned me.
So I told this guy, I said, no, no, no, I'll do it for free.
My pleasure.
No, no, no, I'm going to pay you, I'm going to pay you.
I said, look, let me just do it for free.
You know, I love you, I just want to do it for free.
He said, I'm going to pay you.
I said, okay, fine.
And he said, and I pay good.
He said, I'm going to pay you and I pay good, okay.
So I worked, it took me about seven hours to do this.
It was hard.
I mean, I had to run wire to all, I had to fish wire down the wall to switches, install
the switches, install the boxes.
We assembled the fans, hung the fans, I mean three fans in a completely unexistable case.
Now this is a long time ago.
This is about 12, 13 years ago, something like that.
Back then, my dad was charging, I think, because he was an electrician, he would charge $175
each for that job back then.
I mean, it'd be a lot more now.
So I mean, that was like a five, $600 job, what my dad would have charged people to do
that.
I think it might have even been more than that, but it was at least like $175 each because
I used to help them with fan jobs all the time.
So I work hard, I break my back.
I'm sweating, I'm toiling, very skilled labor, not something that anybody just knows how
to do.
And I get it done and he pays me $20, $20, okay.
And I love this illustration out Soul Wedding because I tell people, I say, how do you think
I felt about that?
Now I always tell people, was I willing to do it for free?
Yes.
If he had paid me nothing, would I have been angry?
No, I would have been perfectly happy.
Because I loved him, I was doing it for a friend.
I respect him.
God's perfectly willing to give us salvation for free.
He loves us.
He wants to give it to us.
But here's the thing, when you offer God that $20 bill that says, oh, I quit drinking, I
joined a church, I repented of all my sins, I got baptized, he's going to have the same
reaction I had, which was anger.
And I said to myself, I'm never doing anything for this guy again.
Now I didn't say anything, I didn't want to create bad blood, so I was kind and I just
said thank you and just acted like it was normal.
But I went away enraged.
And I said, I'm never going to do anything for that guy again.
Because it's so insulting, it just shows he has no respect for what you just did, the
work that you did.
He doesn't understand the value of it.
Think about what Jesus did for us.
He died on the cross, he shed his blood, you know, he paid, the Bible calls it the unspeakable
gift.
It says, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
I mean, words can't even express what Jesus Christ has purchased for us, through his blood,
through his death, burial, and resurrection.
I mean, having all your sins forgiven, live forever in a perfect place, and yet, people
expect to purchase it with a filthy rag.
And the Bible says all our rights are filthy rags, and they bring their filthy rags to
God, and God is enraged.
That's why the Bible says God's wrath is appalled.
God's wrath, anger, rage.
God's wrath is upon the unsaved, because they are offering him that which has no value for
his son's life.
I mean, think about it, the life of his son versus their good works, ooh.
And they're not even that good.
Oh God's enraged, my friend, and they will split hell wide open.
Take it seriously.
And that's what, that story illustrates that.
But there's the illustration of, oh, it's a guy from church, young guy, give him $20.
You know what, that's less than minimum wage, I mean, that's like $3 an hour.
This is like a sweatshop in India or something, give me a break.
I mean, you know, it was hard work on a Saturday, sacrifice my whole Saturday.
I was angry.
You know, here I am still talking about it years later.
I'm not bitter, I forgave him.
I forgave him, and I remained friends with him.
I remained friends with him, and to this day, I love the guy, and I don't have a problem
with him.
But it's a great story to illustrate people trying to work their way to heaven.
It shows that, look, just because somebody's willing to give you something for free, doesn't
mean that they're willing to give it to you for 20 bucks, because those are two different
things.
And you know what people call us when we talk about salvation being by faith alone?
Cheap grace.
Who's ever heard that term?
Oh, you guys are teaching cheap grace.
No, we're teaching free grace.
There's a big difference between, you're teaching cheap grace, you work-salvation-peddling heretic,
because cheap is by works.
Cheap is baptism.
Cheap is repent of your sins.
Cheap is join a church and do a bunch of good works and deeds that God says a filthy rag.
That's cheap grace.
What I'm talking about is free, and cheap and free are two very different things.
Sometimes very valuable things are given unto you for free, but they don't come cheap.
And so that's what he, you know, it doesn't have a lot to do with Job 31, but in Job 31
he's talking about, hey, don't despise your servant.
Don't despise your employees.
And then over in 1 Timothy 6 we see the opposite, hey, don't despise the boss.
So whatever that working relationship, whatever side of that equation you're on, you better
treat people like you would want to be treated, and you better not treat brothers in Christ
worse than you would treat the world.
Treat brothers in Christ better.
You know, if you're a worker and you go to the home of a brother in Christ to do work,
you should do the best possible work that you can do, because you're doing it for your
brother in Christ.
It should be your best effort.
And you know, if somebody comes over to work for you, you should treat that person with
the highest respect and you should pay them an honest wage for an honest day's work and
not try to just sit there and pay them as little as possible because you're just using
people from church.
Now if somebody wants to do you a favor and give you a discount, that's up to them.
If somebody wants, but you can't just sit there and expect that, that's not right.
You know, we need to treat people with respect.
The Bible says in verse 16, if I have withheld the poor from their desire or have caused
the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morsel myself alone and the fatherless
have not eaten thereof, for from my youth he was brought up with me as with a father
and I've guided her from my mother's womb, if I've seen any perish for want of clothing
or any poor without covering, if his loins have not blessed me and if he were not worn
with the fleece of my sheep, if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless when I saw
my help in the gate, then let my arm fall from my shoulder blade and my arm be broken
from the bone, for destruction from God was a terror to me and by reason of his highness
I could not endure."
So he's saying, I've spent my whole life helping the poor, he said.
The fatherless, the widow, I made sure they were, if I saw somebody freezing, I gave them
a coat.
I gave them something to at least cover them.
If I saw somebody starving to death, I gave them food and they blessed me because I took
care of them in their time of need.
See, I didn't just ignore them, I didn't eat my morsel myself alone, I shared what I had
with others.
And look, sharing what you have with others is something that God wants us to do.
What's wrong today is when people try to tell you that you must be forced to share.
This communist, socialist philosophy that we have today.
That's not right.
We should be forced to share.
But you know what, if we don't share, then we're in sin.
If we're just greedy and selfish and just holding on to everything, God commands us
to be generous with what we have.
If we have two coats, we should impart to him that hath none and so forth.
We're supposed to give of that which we have to those that are in need.
That's what God tells us to do.
So we want to make sure that we don't make the mistake of the liberals, you know, political
liberals, which is to say, oh yeah, force everybody to share.
Force them all.
Because then you just destroy society.
The Soviet Union tried that.
It was a disaster.
The People's Republic of China tried that.
It doesn't work.
Oh, but it sounds so good.
It doesn't work.
It's never worked.
You know, somebody said, this is just kind of a funny quote, somebody said, you know,
if you're not a socialist when you're 20, you have no heart.
And if you're still a socialist when you're 30, you have no brain, you know, is what they
said.
Basically, you know, it's just a joke.
But basically, they're saying, look, you know, it sounds good to a young person who doesn't
know much.
It seems like a great idea.
Let's all hold hands and share and live in a commune.
But when you get older, you realize that it's all a fraud.
It's a lie.
It doesn't work.
It destroys everyone.
It does make everyone equal, equally miserable, equally poor, equally failing, okay?
And even things in the Soviet Union weren't equal.
There were all kinds of people living high on the hog in the Soviet Union and everybody
else is suffering and starving to death and all this stuff that's going on.
So we don't want to make the mistake of the liberal, quote unquote, which says, hey, force
everybody to share.
But then we don't want to make the mistake of a lot of the conservatives, which is to
say, well, I'm just keeping everything for myself and I'm not going to share with anybody.
See, we should share of our own will, of our own volition, because we want to, out of love
for Christ.
Okay, so do you see how both of those things are wrong?
Because I've heard a lot of conservatives, I remember when I was in high school at a
public school, our economics teacher was a right-wing conservative, actually, and he
played a video for us about how greed is actually a good thing.
You know, and how greed is good for America, it's good for the economy, and it's all these
rich people that are really greedy, like justifying their greed.
Look, see, that's not right either.
And look, just because socialism and communism is wrong doesn't mean that we should play
videos about how great greed is.
Greed is wonderful.
No, greed is evil, okay?
So we need to get an understanding here that says we should be free to do what we want
with our own goods, that's what these people over here are missing on the left, but then
we also should be generous and kind because we want to, and that's what some people on
the right seem to be missing, okay?
There needs to be a balance there.
And so he talks about here just everything that he did to help people, and he said, look,
if I'm lying, if I didn't help people the way I'm saying I did, then he says, then let
my arm literally just fall off my body right now.
I mean, he's just trying to use extreme language to say, just let it just rip out of the shoulder
blade right now and for my arm to just rip off and fall off my body right now, God.
Let my wife commit adultery, let my arm fall.
He said, look, I didn't do this stuff that you're accusing me of.
He says in verse number 24, well first let me point out verse 23, he said, for destruction
from God was a terror to me.
What's he saying?
He's saying that he feared God.
He feared the Lord.
He feared his punishment.
He says in verse 24, if I've made gold my hope or have said to the fine gold, thou art
my confidence.
If I rejoice because my wealth was great and because my hand had gotten much.
Now that right there is somebody who, again, is putting their trust in riches.
The Bible says, charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded,
nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us richly all things
to enjoy, that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing
to communicate.
The Bible's warning of people who are just greedy and just keeping everything for themselves
and trusting in riches and also just getting prideful about it.
Remember Nebuchadnezzar is not this great Babylon that I've built and God had to humble
him.
And so a lot of times people who get wealthy, they start getting prideful and arrogant.
Like oh man, look at all the money, look how smart I am.
Look how good I am in business.
Look how much money I've made.
All these poor people, they're all idiots.
That's a wicked philosophy.
And that's what Nebuchadnezzar said and that was his downfall.
He says in verse 26, if I beheld the sun when it shined or the moon walking in brightness
and my heart hath been secretly enticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were
an iniquity to be punished by the judge for I should have denied the God that is above.
Now what is that?
You know, beholding the sun or the moon and his heart being secretly enticed or his mouth
kissing his hand.
I think this could be referring to one of two things.
I think one thing this could be referring to is those who worship the sun and moon because
there are people in the Bible who worship the sun.
For example, in Ezekiel, chapters 8 through 10, there's a story where Ezekiel has shown
a lot of the iniquities of the house of Israel and in that story in chapters 8 and 9 of Ezekiel,
it talks about people just bowing down and just worshiping the sun and they're just,
you know, and God even warned them about it in Deuteronomy, about worshiping the host
of heaven, worshiping the sun, moon, and stars.
So we do know that that has existed and so, you know, if we look at this about beholding
the sun and the moon and then it talks about him, you know, denying the God that is above,
it's like he's, you know, looking at them as a false god.
The other way that this could be interpreted is if we're still continuing on the same
thought about him having his confidence in gold and just thinking about how wonderful
he is and that basically his mouth kissing his hand would be just more of like another
patting himself on the back, just more, you know, maybe just a continuation of the thought
of him just patting himself on the back for how wonderful he is and how he's accomplished
so much.
So, you know, I think either of those could be the interpretation, but let me just say
a word briefly about the worshiping of the sun.
We do know that it's out there.
We know that in Ezekiel we have a clear example of this, but a lot of people today, they take
this too far and if you would flip over to Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament,
and they go off the deep end on this thing of claiming that everybody's worshiping the
sun.
Now, look, are there bad people who worship the sun, moon, or star?
Yes.
But there's this thing where everybody just accuses everybody of just always worshiping
the sun all the time.
You say, what in the world are you talking about, Pastor Anderson?
For example, they'll say, like, oh, you have church on Sunday?
You're worshiping the sun.
Now, do we worship the sun?
I mean, do we go outside?
I mean, the people who worship the sun, they were going outside and literally bowing on
their knees toward the east and as the sun rose, they're, like, going, like, oh, sun.
They're literally, like, bowing down to the sun and prostrating themselves on their faces
as the sun rose.
Is that what people are doing to go to church on Sunday?
Now, it's this whole Hebrew roots, the Judaizers, the followers of the synagogue of Satan, this
whole, you know, Judeo-Christian thing where they're trying to bring us all back to Hebrew.
That movement is a fraud.
It's wicked.
And you know what I'm hearing more and more from this wicked Hebrew roots movement?
That the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew.
Who's been hearing that?
It's a total fraud.
Because you study the New Testament, it is clear, it is obvious that it was not written
in Hebrew.
Because it constantly explains, you know, hey, somebody said something in Hebrew.
Let's make a big deal out of it.
If it was all Hebrew, why does it make a point to bring up, hey, somebody said this in Hebrew.
Hey, look, he's speaking Hebrew.
You know, if it was just all Hebrew.
It's ridiculous.
Why would you write an epistle to the seven churches, or I'm sorry, the book of Revelation
to the seven churches in Asia and put it in Hebrew when people there don't speak Hebrew?
It's ridiculous.
Why would you write the epistle to the Thessalonians in Hebrew?
It makes no sense, folks.
It's a fraud.
They say, well, you know, some of it was written in Hebrew.
Well, the book of Matthew was written in Hebrew.
They make all this stuff up, but guess how many ancient Hebrew manuscripts there are
of the New Testament?
How many ancient Greek manuscripts are there of the New Testament that are still in existence
today?
About over 5,000.
So we have over 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament written by hand, handwritten
copies, and we have zero in Hebrew.
But it was written in Hebrew, I swear to you, I'm telling you.
But they think when God said, let there be light, he was speaking Hebrew.
He was speaking modern Hebrew.
I mean, he said it exactly the way that that rabbi is saying it.
I mean, these people are way off the deep end, and you need to beware of their false
doctrine.
And I don't think it's something that we should just think, like, well, it's okay.
You know, especially this doctrine about the name, and you know, I preached a whole sermon
about it on Sunday night, but there's Yahushua, Yeshua, you know, I do not suffer it.
I say, no, it's Jesus.
Jesus.
And I will not, I do not want to hear anything about Yahushua and Yeshua and Yahweh.
I don't want to hear about it because, you know what, that movement, to me, it reminds
me of other false religions like Islam, like Mormonism, where they basically, you know,
like the Seventh-day Adventists, where they basically come along and it's like, oh, everybody's
been wrong all this time.
Everybody's been wrong.
The Bible's been wrong.
That's what they're saying.
I mean, if they're saying that the Greek New Testament is wrong, you might as well just
throw out the whole religion.
I mean, think about it.
Because I mean, every Bible in English is translated from a Greek New Testament.
Every Bible in every language in the world is translated from a Greek.
If you're going to sit there and just throw out and say, well, the Greek New Testament
has been corrupted.
It was originally from Hebrew.
And it's a, oh, well, God has really preserved it, hasn't he?
Good job.
But you know, when you're going to sit there and have somebody destroy your faith in the
Bible, they want to be your leader.
And that's like a cult.
That's like the Book of Mormon or something.
I mean, that's what Joseph Smith said.
Your Bible's wrong.
Let me give you the true story.
And these bunch of weirdos, and one of them is called Michael Rood, and the guy like,
he goes real showbiz.
So he has like this really super long beard, long hair, and he wears a dress.
He looked at way too many Sunday School flannel graphs.
He thinks people wore dresses back then, like women.
So he wears a long dress, he's got long hair, long beard, and the guy is just constantly
saying that, oh, this part of the Bible's false, this part of the Bible's a fraud.
He said that John chapter 6 verse 4, he's like, that's been added.
That's not part of the Bible.
Anything that conflicts with what he teaches, he doesn't have a single, all the 5,000-some
manuscripts and then all the other Bibles in other languages.
They all have that verse, John 6, 4.
And I'm not talking about John 5, 4.
I'm talking about John 6, 4.
It's not even a verse that usually people would argue about.
He says, oh, John 6, 4, it's been added, it's a fraud, it's a later, oh, I guess they added
it to all of them.
To every Bible on the planet, it's been added.
But that's who people are getting this Hebrew roots garbage from, is not just him, but people
like him.
People who go, a bunch of people who call themselves rabbi, a bunch of people who wear
dresses as men, a bunch of people who have long hair as men, a bunch of people who say,
hey, this verse should be removed from the Bible, this verse should be removed.
Look, every English Bible says Jesus.
So an attack on the name of Jesus is an attack on every English Bible.
It's an attack on the Greek New Testament, which says Jesus.
It's an attack on every Spanish Bible.
It's an attack on every German Bible.
It's an attack on every Bible and we're supposed to listen to these bunch of, you know, Shalom
saying, you know, Torah, touting, whatevers, when they want us to just reject every Bible
and just listen to them on YouTube, you know, or whatever.
Don't be deceived by these people.
How in the world did I get off on that?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, look at Malachi, yeah, look at Malachi.
Because they're saying like, ah, you're worshiping the Son on Sunday.
You know when the apostles met to break bread Sunday?
You know when the apostles always had church in the book of Acts and in 1 Corinthians 16,
the first day of the week?
You never see them assembling together.
You know what you see them doing on the Saturdays?
They'd go to the synagogue and basically do soul winning there.
They would basically preach to the unsaved people at the synagogue.
Then they'd get together on the first day of the week.
It says that they took up the offering on the first day of the week, 1 Corinthians 16
1.
It says that they assembled together on the first day of the week to break bread, Acts
20.
And then also even after Jesus was resurrected, He met with them a few times on the first
day of the week, first day of the week.
We meet on Sunday for a reason, okay?
And the Sabbath is done away in the New Covenant.
Colossians 2 makes that crystal clear if you're not part of the Hebrew roots cult following
one of these weird teachers, okay?
You'd see that crystal clear in Colossians 2, that the Sabbath and the holidays and stuff
are done away in the New Testament.
And that, you know, one man esteemeth one day above another, another man esteemeth every
day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
But look, what the Bible says, I mean, I don't know what to tell these people who just accuse
anything of the Son is pagan to these people.
But what does the Bible say in verse 2 of Malachi 4?
That unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righteousness arise with healing in
His wings.
Now, who is that?
Who is that?
The Son of righteousness that's going to arise with healing in His wings.
Who is that?
That's Jesus Christ.
And what is, and doesn't that say S-U-N?
So what, so I mean, I guess Malachi is pagan.
Malachi is a son worshiper.
Obviously not, because here's the thing.
The Son actually is representative of Christ in some ways, because, you know, the Son goes
down and then it rises up again.
You know, and so there could be a symbolic picture there, like the Son arising is sort
of like Jesus died and then rose again.
So what?
You know, but does that mean we worship the Son?
No.
But could the Son represent God symbolically or represent Jesus symbolically?
Of course.
Now think about something else that represented Jesus symbolically.
What about the brazen serpent that Moses was instructed to put on a pole so that those
would be, that were bitten by the fiery serpents, they could look upon that brazen serpent and
be healed.
And what does it say in John chapter 3, right before the famous verse, John 3 16, most famous
verse in the whole Bible, if you actually get the context of John 3 16 and read up on
leading up to it, it says in verse 14, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish but have eternal life.
What's he saying there?
That serpent upon the pole was a picture of Christ.
And you say, why would a serpent represent Christ?
A serpent is of sin.
A serpent is of the devil.
But here's the thing, Jesus Christ became sin for us.
The Bible says, he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him.
So Jesus Christ took upon him the sins of the world.
That's why it was pictured by that serpent representing sin and put up on a pole.
That's why it was a brazen image of a serpent, which of course making brazen images is sin.
So that brazen serpent was a picture of Jesus Christ with the sin of the whole world upon
him and as Moses lifted up the serpent, I mean look, I'm preaching the Bible right now.
Is everybody listening?
This is what the Bible says.
It says in verse 14, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up.
What is that saying?
That's saying that that serpent being lifted up in the wilderness was symbolizing or pointing
us to the coming of Christ.
All the teachings of the Old Testament point us unto Christ, okay?
But what happened?
Later, many, many years later, they decide they're going to keep that serpent.
Let's keep it.
And then they started worshipping it.
They started worshipping a brazen serpent.
Okay, and then what happened?
It was destroyed, he called it Nehushtan, and he destroyed that, the righteous king
of Judah destroyed that brazen serpent because of it.
So do you see how the Son could represent Christ or be a symbol of Christ or even be,
you know, just an allegory of Christ, but yet we should not worship the Son itself.
Just like that brazen serpent was a picture of Christ, you don't worship a brazen serpent.
Okay, and so this is where these people go a little overboard that if you say anything
about the Son, you're pagan.
But Jesus is called the Son of Righteousness, S-U-N, so that's not pagan.
But when you bow down and actually worship the Son, yeah, that's pagan.
So the Son's not bad.
You should be like, oh, the Son's bad.
The Son is good.
God looked on all the things he made and he said they were good, and the Son was one of
them, okay?
So, you know, don't freak out if somebody just wants to look at the stars.
It doesn't mean they're trying to worship it.
You know, as long as they're not making graven images, it's fine.
As long as they're not bowing down and worshiping it, it's okay to look at the constellations,
look at the moon, to look at the sun, and so forth.
So I just want to balance you out on that.
You know, this whole thing of, you know, oh, it's Sunday.
They're just hung up on the name of the week, Sunday, Sunday, you're worshiping the Son.
Okay, well, they're worshiping Saturn, Saturday.
They're doing Saturday.
No, no, no, well, you know, that's the same logic.
It's because the name of the day is called Sunday, it doesn't really matter.
And really, I mean, it's not even a bad name.
I mean, Saturday is a weird name, but Sunday is not even really a bad name if you think
about the fact that Christ is the Son of Righteousness that arose with healing in his wings.
You know, that's Malachi chapter 4 for you.
So anyway, let's quickly finish up here in Job 31.
He's just saying, you know, I didn't look at the sun and moon and kiss my hand and forsake
the Lord and deny God.
He says in verse 29,
If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when the evil
found him, neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul.
Again, Jesus Christ's teaching in Matthew 5 was nothing new when he said, love your
enemies.
Do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you.
Job's saying the same thing in Job 31.
And it says the same thing in Leviticus.
If you see your neighbor's ox or his ass fall in the ditch, you pull it out.
You help him.
You help your neighbor.
You know, and it says even if your enemy's ass goes in the ditch, you pull it out.
You know, and you don't rejoice.
The Bible warns us never to rejoice.
In Proverbs it says don't rejoice at the calamity of your enemies.
When your enemies fail, don't rejoice and get happy about that because maybe God will
turn away his wrath from him and be angry at you, the Bible says.
So the teaching of Matthew 5 about not lusting after women in your heart is not new.
The teaching of loving your enemies is not new.
A lot of people misinterpret Matthew 5.
He says in verse number 31,
If the men of my tabernacle said not, oh, that we had of his flesh, we cannot be satisfied.
Those are people that are cursing him and wishing ill upon him, but he's saying I bless
those that curse me.
He said the stranger did not lodge in the street, but I opened my doors to the traveler.
If I covered my transgressions as Adam by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom, did I fear
a great multitude or did the contempt of families terrify me that I kept silence and went not
out of the door?
He's saying, look, I didn't fear anybody except God.
God was my terror.
I wasn't terrified by man.
He said, oh, that one would hear me.
Behold my desire is that the Almighty would answer me and that mine adversary had written
a book.
Surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown to me.
I would declare unto him the number of my steps.
As a prince would I go near unto him.
If my land cry against me or that the furrows likewise thereof complain, if I've eaten the
fruits thereof without money or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life, let
thistles grow instead of wheat and cockle instead of barley, the words of Job are ended.
He's saying, if I've done all these wicked things, then I hope that my field grows thorns
and thistles and that God will cause my arm to fall off and cause my wife to commit adultery
because he's saying I am not guilty.
I did not do the things I'm being accused of.
And then it says the words of Job are ended.
I don't know if that's Job saying that.
That might be Job saying the words of Job are ended.
Or that could be just the narrator of the book telling us that the words of Job are
ended at that point.
Either way.
Because after that, the three friends, they're done talking to him.
This is the end of the conversation.
Now next week we're going to hear from Elihu.
There's a lot of false teaching about Elihu.
Six chapters of Elihu.
There are people who are so deluded that they actually think that Elihu is the author of
the whole book of Job and that Elihu was a godly man who spoke that which was right.
In the next six weeks I will prove you what nonsense that is.
Because Elihu says that Job is a wicked man.
And Elihu says that Job's words were without knowledge.
Is that what God said?
God said Job spake that which was right.
And God rebukes Elihu even though many people want to just ignore that and pretend that
it didn't happen.
But actually everything Elihu says is pretty much what the three friends said.
And he's just as wrong as them.
But at least he is using a little bit different argumentation.
So it's going to be different than what we saw from the three friends.
But he's still accusing Job of wrongdoing and being a fool.
So then we're going to have six chapters of Elihu and then after that the Lord's going
to answer out of the whirlwind.
The Lord's going to speak for several chapters.
So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for Job chapter 31, Lord.
It lists off all the things that Job was not guilty of.
Help us to be sure in our lives that we're not guilty of these things either.
Help us to make a covenant with our eyes not to think upon a maid as men.
Help us not to commit adultery.
Help us not to see people that are hungry and without clothing and not help them.
Help us not to be hardened against our servants or against the poor or the widow, Lord.
Help us not to get prideful or arrogant.
Help us to just be a man and a woman that are like Job.
Help us to be godly people, Lord, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.