Now in Job 35 we continue with the words of Elihu.
There have been three false accusers that Job was dealing with throughout the bulk of
the book of Job, and now this fourth man, Elihu, has stepped in and begun to falsely
accuse Job and he speaks for six chapters.
We're on the fourth of those six chapters.
It says in verse number 1 of chapter 35, Elihu spake moreover and said, Thinkest thou this
to be right, that thou seest my righteousness is more than God's?
For thou seest, what advantage will it be unto thee, and what profit shall I have if
I be cleansed from my sin?
Now this man that's arguing against Job is putting words into Job's mouth that he frankly
just didn't say.
So he says, well you said my righteousness is more than God's.
Of course Job never said any such thing.
Well you know, for thou seest, what advantage will it be unto thee, and what profit shall
I have if I be cleansed from my sin?
Now not only did Job not say anything like that, keep your finger on Job 35.
Go back to chapter 21, you can see that Job actually rebuked this exact thought process
that Elihu is accusing him of having because in Job 21 when he's talking about the wicked
and he's explaining to the three friends how the wicked often prosper and succeed in this
world and they often seem to be getting away with their sins.
He says in verse 13, of the wicked, they spend their days in wealth and in a moment go down
to the grave, saying they live a successful life and then they die a painless, quick death.
He says, therefore they say unto God, depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of
thy ways.
What is the Almighty that we should serve Him, and what profit should we have if we
pray unto Him?
So he's saying that the wicked, they're the ones who say, you know, what profit is there
in serving God?
What good is it to obey the Lord?
What good is it to pray unto Him?
What's the profit?
But look what Job says in verse 16, lo their good is not in their hand, the counsel of
the wicked is far from me.
He's saying that's the last thing I believe.
And in verse 17 he says, how oft does the candle of the wicked put out, oh my Bible
is torn here.
How often is the candle of the wicked put out and how oft cometh their destruction upon
them?
God distributeth sorrows in his anger.
So flip back over to chapter 35.
We see that Job is being misquoted and arguments are being applied unto him that he never even
made.
And this is what is often referred to nowadays as a straw man argument, where basically you
create a fake argument of what the other person believes and then you tear it down.
Well you said this and the person never really said any such thing and that's what we see
here.
But you know misquoting man is one thing.
It's irritating when people misquote you.
And I've often been misquoted.
Pastor Anderson says this or Pastor Anderson preaches this and they put false words in
my mouth.
It's very irritating when someone misquotes you.
But you know what's worse than misquoting man is misquoting God.
Now God is very clear on this in several scriptures.
For example in Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6 he says the words of the Lord are pure words.
Every word of God is pure.
He's a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar.
So the Bible commands do not add unto God's word.
In Revelation of course the famous scripture in Revelation 22, 18, and 19 when he says
you know if any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues
that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book
of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy
city and from the things which are written in this book.
God is so serious about this that he's talking about someone intentionally taking away from
or adding to his word in Revelation 22 that that person will be eternally damned.
He says that that person will lose their opportunity to ever get saved.
Some people have tried to say that that's teaching you can lose your salvation.
Of course we know from many scriptures that you cannot lose your salvation because salvation
is everlasting life.
It's eternal life.
We are sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption.
Jesus said I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand.
The Bible says that he'll never leave us nor forsake us.
He said whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die but what that's referring
to in Revelation 22 18 and 19 when he says I'll remove their part out of the book of
life you know the place where their name would have been is gone.
Their place where they could be in the holy city gone.
He's saying they have no opportunity to be saved sort of like the Pharisees who had blasphemed
the Holy Ghost.
He said you have no forgiveness neither in this world neither in the world to come if
you blaspheme the Holy Ghost.
If you've added to or taken away from God's word you're done.
You're reprobate.
Impossible for you to be saved after that.
That's how serious God is about people adding to or removing from his word.
Now people do this all the time in the day that we live in.
It's not just the modern Bible versions.
Yes they do add to the word.
Yes they do remove from God's word entire verses in many cases.
But even outside of these modern perversions of the Bible people just say things like well
Jesus said and then they just throw out there something that they believe in.
Or well doesn't the Bible say this?
The Bible says here's one of the most common things that you'll hear people constantly
quote and they'll say that it came from the Bible.
Love the sinner, hate the sin.
I mean people will quote that all the time and say well the Bible says you know love
the sinner, hate the sin.
Now even if you believe that's true saying that the Bible says that makes you a liar
because the Bible never says that.
That is a quote from Mahatma Gandhi.
Gandhi is the one who said love the sinner, hate the sin.
Gandhi was not saved.
Gandhi is in hell right now.
Gandhi did not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and so you can't just quote the words of Gandhi
and say thus sayeth the Lord.
That makes you a liar.
And we need to be very careful that if we're ever going to say that this is what God has
said, God better have really said it.
You know I'm irritated by these billboards that just say things and then they put them
in quotes and just put God afterward.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
They'll put up a billboard and just have a man-made quotation, sometimes on church signs,
marquees.
They'll just say something out of their own heart.
Like I saw one that said you know if you must curse use your own name, God.
Like God said that.
God never said that.
And so just putting words in God's mouth, we might not think it's a big deal but it
is blasphemous.
And we, you know, hallowed be his name.
We need to be respectful with the way that we deal with God.
And one way that we could respect God is by not saying that God said things that he never
said or not saying that Jesus said things that he never said.
If we're going to say Jesus said something, we better have a chapter and verse where we
can show that Jesus said that or else just keep your mouth shut.
I mean if you believe that you could say well here's my opinion.
My opinion is, you know, love the sinner, hate the sin.
That's my opinion.
But to say that God said that is a lie because by the way, there are some people that God
hates and there are some people that God tells us to hate, okay?
In Psalm 139 for example, David, speaking by inspiration of the Holy Ghost said, Do
not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?
I hate them with a perfect hatred.
I count them my enemies.
So to sit there and just say love everybody is not even a biblical teaching.
You know, there are 19 scriptures that I've identified in the King James Bible that specifically
talk about God hating people.
And there are several places where God tells us that there are people who are so wicked
and evil and depraved and reprobate that they're haters of the Lord that we should hate those
people.
That's what the Bible says.
Now you're like, oh, hate speech.
Look, we shouldn't base what we believe on what's popular.
We should base what we believe on what the Word says and that's what the Word says.
End of story.
But when you start quoting stuff that Gandhi said and attributing it to Jesus Christ, then
you can have a little bit of a conflict there.
You know, when you're quoting unbelievers like Gandhi.
You know what Gandhi also said?
He said, I would be a Christian if it were not for Christians.
Oh, isn't that a great quote?
No it's not because that quote sent him to hell.
I mean saying, I don't believe in Christ because of Christians, that's just an excuse.
Because what is he saying?
He's saying that all Christians are hypocrites and therefore I'm not going to be a Christian
because I don't want to be a hypocrite.
But that winded him up in hell because he did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And let me tell you something, Gandhi himself was a hypocrite.
Gandhi was a pacifist, but he actually wrote a pamphlet for the government.
The government wanted him to write a pamphlet to try to enlist people to join the military
and to get involved in warfare.
He wrote a pamphlet for the government enlisting people to go to war and fight in a war when
he says, oh I'm against war, I'm a pacifist.
But it's funny, you want to sign other people up to go bleed and die.
What would that be called if it's not hypocrisy?
When you say one thing and do another, oh I'm a pacifist, oh here let me write some
government propaganda to get people to join the military and go enlist in a war that's
going on right now.
So really the Bible actually teaches that all unbelievers are hypocrites.
Because when Jesus Christ talks about the unprofitable servant getting his portion with
the unbelievers in Matthew 24, he uses the same language in another Gospel, but instead
of saying his portion with the unbelievers, he says he'll have his portion with the hypocrites.
Because God puts the unbelievers and the hypocrites in the same category.
So saying that somebody's not going to be a Christian because of hypocrisy, well you
know what?
Unbelievers are even more of hypocrites than Christians are.
And anybody could be a hypocrite.
But we need to be very careful that we do not take man's word and try to put it in God's
mouth.
We should always make sure that when we say that Jesus or God said something that it actually
came from the Bible.
And so I find these blasphemous billboards to be offensive because they're adding to
the word of God.
Yeah well it's just a joke.
Well it's not funny.
Let's joke about something else than what God said.
That's not something you should ever joke about because we need to have reverence for
God and his word and not joke about it.
So he's being misquoted here in Job.
We don't want to misquote man, but we definitely don't want to misquote God because God gets
very upset about that.
He says in verse 4, I will answer thee and thy companions with thee.
Look unto the heavens and see and behold the clouds which are higher than thou.
If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him?
Or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him?
If thou be righteous, what giveth thou him?
Or what receiveth he of thine hand?
So what he's saying in these three verses is that God doesn't really care whether we're
righteous or unrighteous.
Basically it's no skin off God's back.
This is what Eli is basically saying.
If you're wicked, it's no skin off God's back and if you're righteous, it doesn't really
profit him.
It doesn't really help God if you're righteous and it doesn't really harm God if you're unrighteous.
This is what Eli is saying.
Now what's funny about this is that in verse 4, he claims that this is an answer to Job
and his three companions.
He's going to straighten out Job and his three companions with this line of reasoning that
says look, if you do right, that doesn't profit God and if you do wrong, that's no
skin off his back.
But you know what's funny?
This is the exact example or the exact kind of reasoning that was made by the three friends.
Go back to chapter 22 verse 3 because remember Eli is coming in acting like he's got something
really different to say.
He's going to bring something different to the table.
The three friends have been accusing Job of sin.
What has Elihu done so far?
Accused Job of sin.
And now Elihu, he's got this great new argument that he's going to make and yet it's just
something that's recycled from the words of Eliphaz.
Look at chapter 22 verse 3.
Actually look at verse 2, it says, can a man be profitable unto God as he that is wise
may be profitable unto himself?
Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous or is it gain to him that thou
makest thy ways perfect?
So isn't he saying the exact same thing that Elihu was saying like, you know, does it really
help God if you do what's right?
Does it any profit unto him or is it any pleasure unto him?
But yet the Bible does teach, if you just flip over, you can keep your finger there,
flip over to Ezekiel 33, the Bible does teach that it does bring pleasure unto God when
the wicked turns from his wickedness.
It actually does bring pleasure to God.
Look at Ezekiel chapter 33 verse 11.
It says, say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.
Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Now let me just point out something about the grammar of this verse in verse 11.
When it says, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and then it says, but that
the wicked turn from his way and live, that the wicked turn from his way and live is not
a standalone independent clause.
That is a dependent clause.
It is not a complete thought in and of itself.
If I were to just say, the wicked turn from his way and live, that is not a sentence that
makes sense, because I'd have to say the wicked turns from his way, or the wicked is
turning, but to just say that the wicked turn from his way and live is not a complete thought.
That is a dependent clause, meaning it depends on something else in the sentence.
So what this means when he says, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in
the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live, that's referring
back to the not having pleasure.
Here's what he's saying.
I just want you to understand this important point.
He's saying, I don't have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, but I do have pleasure
that the wicked turn from his evil way and live.
Do you understand that?
Because that dependent clause is pointing back to the first part of the sentence.
He's saying, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from
his wicked way and live, he's saying, does bring me pleasure.
Does everybody understand?
The contrast with the word but there, that's what that's referring to.
So what we see from this scripture is that God does have pleasure in people doing what's
right.
God has pleasure.
Look, it's not that God's just up in heaven saying, you know what, I don't care if you
get saved or not.
I don't care if you live right or not after you're saved.
I mean, that would be like me saying, as a father, I don't care whether my children live
right or live like the devil, I just don't care.
What kind of a parent would I be if I said, well I have no pleasure in my children doing
right, and you know, it's really no harm unto me if my children do wrong.
I mean, that doesn't make any sense, does it?
So what Elihu is saying doesn't make any sense, and what Eliphaz said doesn't make any sense.
Job was right, they're wrong.
They're saying that God's just kind of up in heaven not really caring.
You know, I mean, he's just, you know, you believe you're going to heaven, you don't
believe you're going to hell, but God doesn't really care.
Now I don't believe that for one second.
The Bible says God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance.
The Bible says that God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge
of the truth.
So it's not that he just doesn't care, or as the Calvinists teach, well he gets just
as much pleasure and glory out of damning people as he does out of saving people.
That's not true.
God has right here no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but he does have pleasure.
The Bible says precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
You know, God wants people to get saved, but not only that, after we're saved, God gets
delight and pleasure from his servants that serve him.
You know, all throughout the Bible we see that.
Even when Noah gets off the ark, and Noah makes a sacrifice unto the Lord, and he offers
up that burnt offering, that burnt offering of Noah was a sweet savor in the Lord's nostrils.
You know, God likes to be worshipped by his children.
God likes it when they do what's right.
God likes it when they obey him and serve him and turn from their wickedness.
So first of all, number one, it's God's will that people be saved, and then after people
are saved it's God's will that they live right, and that they serve him.
Third John says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
Now obviously God would feel the same way.
If we feel that way about our children when they walk in truth, as it says in Third John,
I think verse 3 right around there, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children
walk in truth.
So this idea that God has no pleasure in you doing right, and God isn't harmed or pained
when you do wrong.
You know, God is grieved when we do wrong.
The Bible says grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.
And the Bible says I was grieved with that generation and said they do all way err in
their heart and have not known my ways.
You know, God does care about what we do.
So what Elihu is saying, go back to Job 35, not only does it not make sense, not only
is it not biblical, but it is a recycled argument from Eliphaz, even though he's claiming that
it's this new idea, he's really going to tell Eliphaz how it is, he's saying the same
thing that Eliphaz said.
If thou be righteous, verse 7, what giveth thou him?
Joy, pleasure, that does bring him happiness.
It says, or what receiveth he of thine hand?
Verse 8, thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art, and thy righteousness may profit
the son of man.
So he's saying the things that you do are going to profit or harm the people around
you, but they don't affect God.
God just doesn't really care.
Well God does care.
But let me say this, Elihu is right about one thing.
Our wickedness definitely does hurt the people around us.
A lot of times people have this attitude that just, well it's my life.
You know, I know what I'm doing is wrong, but I don't really care, and what I do doesn't
affect anyone else anyway.
This is not a biblical concept.
This idea that I can sin and that no one will be affected except me is not biblical.
Yet it seems like everybody has that attitude.
People will often say this, well if they're not hurting anybody, if these people aren't
hurting anybody, who cares what they do?
Who cares if some guy walks down the street wearing a dress being a sodomite?
You know, as long as he's not hurting anybody, if that's what he wants to do.
But listen, every time a person sins, they harm the people around them.
Now that's an extreme sin that is extremely harmful because Romans 1 is very clear that
the queers, the homosexuals, the faggots, they are violent people according to Romans
1.
No way around that passage.
In Romans 1, he says that they are filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness.
He says murder, malignity, you know he talks about the fact that they're full of all wickedness,
that they're full of murder, that they are implacable and unmerciful.
So by definition, they're violent people according to Romans 1.
Every time you see them in the Bible, what are they doing?
Being violent?
They're always violating someone and when you see Genesis 19, they're violent.
They attack Lot.
They want to assault the two angels and then when they can't get to the angels, they assault
Lot and they almost break the door when they attack Lot.
And then in Judges 19, they're violent with the concubine there in that story.
So they are violent people, so to sit there and have this attitude, oh you know two guys
who love each other, they don't harm anybody.
Well according to Romans 1, they're violent.
According to Romans 1, they are full of other types of wickedness and every story in the
Bible that involves them, they're always hurting someone, always molesting someone, attacking
someone.
I just don't believe that.
Oh okay, maybe you should go home and turn on your TV and watch a little more TV then.
If you want a little rosy picture painted of these filthy sodomites, then you know what,
just go home and turn.
You say, what channel do I turn to?
Any channel.
Just go home, flip on the TV to whatever channel you want, but you know, when you come to church,
I'm not going to get up here and play this game with you that Hollywood's playing.
I'm not going to get up here and lie to you like the TV and Hollywood lie to you every
single day about these homos that just love each other and they just want to get married
and they just want to adopt children.
They are filthy, vile molesters and that's what the Bible, you will not find anything
in the Bible that paints the picture of them being nice people.
Never.
It's not in scripture.
Yet this myth continues, even, it's funny, even if you just look at the scientific research
on it and studies that they've done, they've done studies that show that they have an average
of 500 partners each in their lifetime and they say this, monogamy does not exist among
them.
These are scientific, not a right wing group, not a Christian organization, just centers
for disease control, just surveys that have been done.
They said that monogamy doesn't exist and even when they do get married and they're
in their little mock marriage ceremony, they still go out and just have all kinds of bizarre
encounters on a daily, weekly basis.
That's just the science, that's just the reality.
You'll never hear those statistics quoted in the news.
You'll never see them on TV, why?
Because the devil has an agenda that he's pushing of trying to make it seem normal to
people and make it seem wholesome.
Somebody told me, and I haven't watched TV in over a decade, but somebody told me there's
a TV show that's all about sodomites that's called Modern Family.
Is that right?
Some worldly person can confirm that?
But anyway, you like how they put family in the name, like oh, it's family, they love
each other.
It shouldn't, Obama or whatever saying like, it shouldn't matter who you love if you want
to serve the country you love.
You know when he was trying to bring all the homos into the military.
It shouldn't matter who you love, it has nothing to do with love, it has to do with 500 strangers.
I mean that's the reality of the sodomite lifestyle, as filthy and disgusting as it
is.
I don't even want to talk about it, but somebody's got to tell you the truth.
If I don't tell you that, if I don't get up here and tell you, hey look, it's been scientifically
shown through all kinds of studies and all kinds of surveys that this is the lifestyle
that they live.
I already believed it when I read it in the Bible long before I'd ever seen any of that
research.
I already believed it.
But if I don't get up here and tell you that, you'll never hear those statistics anywhere.
You'll never hear the truth about it.
Somebody's got to tell you the truth.
But they're not hurting anybody.
But you know what, wicked people, they hurt the people around them.
And the more wicked they are, the more people they hurt.
The more people they injure, the more people that they are detrimental unto.
He says in verse 8, thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art, and thy righteousness may
profit the Son of Man.
He's right about that because our wickedness does hurt the people around us.
Now you say, well that's an extreme case because you're talking about these really vile, reprobate
sodomites that are actually recruiters because we know they're not reproducers.
But you know what, even smaller sins can still harm the people around us.
For example, if you start drinking, that's going to hurt the people around you.
You get into drinking and pretty soon you're drinking up the family's money that could
be used for something that could benefit the family.
Or for example, you drink and then you might go out and commit adultery and destroy your
marriage.
Or you go out and drink and then usually you end up driving.
And then you could hurt other people that way through drinking.
By the way, everybody I've ever known who drinks, drinks and drives.
I've never known anybody who drinks and doesn't drive.
Now I'm sure it's out there, but I've never known about it.
The people that I know who drink, they also drive under the influence of alcohol.
You name whatever sin you want, it's going to hurt people.
You say, well, you know, pornography, but you know what, that's going to hurt your wife
if she finds out about that.
And even if she doesn't find out about that, it's going to hurt your marriage because you're
defiling your own mind.
That's going to carry over into your relationship with your wife.
And plus, it could lead you to even commit adultery, which is going to destroy your marriage,
destroy your children.
It could hurt all kinds of people.
You know, it could hurt the church because it could give the church a bad name.
Or you could lead other people in the church into sin with you.
I mean, you think about when Peter quits on serving the Lord and goes back to fishing.
When Jesus had told him, you know, you need to be a fisher of men, and he told him to
follow him, and he forsook the ship, he forsook the net, and Peter followed Jesus.
But in John chapter 21, when he decides to go back to fishing, contrary to what Christ
had told him, that from henceforth he would catch men, what happens?
The other disciples that are with him, you know what they all say?
We're going with you.
You know, so when he says, I go with fishing, he takes half the disciples with him.
And when you quit the church, you might take other people with you.
When you quit soul winning, you know, other people might think, well, you know, I'm not
going to go soul winning either.
You know, when you get backslidden and start accepting a lot of sinful things that in the
past you had thought were wrong, you know, other people are going to accept those sinful
practices with you, and you're going to be an influence on them.
You know, everything that we do affects the people around us.
The more righteous we are, the more of a blessing we're going to be the people around us.
The more blessing God, I mean, look, is God going to bless our church more if it's filled
with sinful people or if it's filled with godly people?
You know, God looks down at our church and if he sees a church that's filled with sin,
he's not going to bless it as much as if he sees a church that's filled with people that
are trying to live right and live in a clean life.
So when you live a sinful life, you know, you could also just be hurting God's blessing
on our church.
Think about a guy like Achan, who in the book of Joshua committed a sin of covetousness
and stealing of the spoil that he was supposed to give unto the Lord, and he took that and
he hid it under his tent.
And what happened?
God was angry with the whole congregation, the Bible says, because of Achan's sin.
Remember when Jonah sinned and would not go to Nineveh as God told him to?
And what happened?
The whole ship is in a storm.
And you say, well, they all got out of it alive.
Everybody ended up okay.
Yeah, after they threw all the cargo overboard, I mean, they're not making any money.
I mean, think about it.
These guys are sailors, they're trying to make money, they've got a bunch of cargo,
they're trying to get it from point A to point B, they threw it all overboard.
So yeah, they got out with their skin, but they lost all their goods.
And why did they lose their goods?
Because of Jonah.
Jonah sinned and caused them to lose all their stuff.
Lose all their money, you know, and be harmed by anything.
Because all sin is damaging to both the person who's sinning and to the people around them.
And you know, we can name any sin, but any time you sin, just realize you're harming
other people, especially if you're a father or a mother, because you've got people following
in your footsteps and people that are looking at you and your children are more likely to
turn out the way that you are than the way that you teach them to be.
You know, you say, do as I say, not as I do, but you know, you may smoke and tell your
children like, you know, it's too late for me, you know, it's too late for me, but save
yourself.
But you know what they're probably going to do?
Grow up and smoke.
I remember I had a friend and he smoked.
And he wasn't a real serious smoker.
He only, he smoked very moderately.
Like he would only smoke about maybe five cigarettes a day.
He didn't do the whole, you know, pretty much everybody you know who smokes usually goes
through a pack a day.
That seems to be the standard.
But this guy smoked a little more moderately.
Like he could go the whole work day without smoking.
He could do it, but he'd usually have one or two cigarettes.
So he'd have like five cigarettes a day and the reason why is because he would hide it
from his wife, which is pretty hard to do because guess what, when you smoke, you smell
like a smoker, you know, and pretty much everybody ends up knowing it.
But this guy successfully hid it from his wife for a year and a half, he said.
And he would just really just, I mean she wondered I guess why he kept his breath so
fresh because I mean this guy's just, you know, after work he'd smoke at work and then
he's brushing and you know and he'd take a walk and then he's brushing chewing gum and
everything and then he'd smell a little bit like cigarettes and then she'd confront him
about it and he would just say, oh, you know, I just, I work with the guy that smokes.
You know, it's him.
He's smoking around me and I'm bringing it home.
But anyway this guy smoked and I got to talking to him and he's telling me how his dad died
of lung disease.
And I said to him, I was like, so did, I was like, did your dad smoke?
And he's like, yeah, oh yeah, he smoked.
And I said, do you think that has anything to do with the fact that he got lung disease?
No, no, no way, no, no, there's no way.
Real defensive, like no, no, no, that's not why, that's not why.
So here's a guy who, you know, obviously if his dad's dying of lung disease and he's a
smoker, 2 plus 2 equals 4, but he, you know, he didn't want to admit that, but you'd think
that, wouldn't you think that if your dad smoked and died of lung disease, you'd be
like, wow, I don't want to die young, I don't want to die when I'm 50 years old.
You know, I better be careful, this might even run in my family, this, you know, propensity
toward lung disease.
But yet it's such a powerful example from your parents.
You end up doing a lot of things just because your parents did them, even if they're stupid.
Even if you see how they ended up, if you smoke, your kids are probably going to smoke.
If you drink, your kids are probably going to drink.
I mean it's just, these habits get passed down to the children.
And so we need to be very careful what we allow in our lives because our children will
grow up to be like us in most cases.
Obviously there are exceptions to that, but you know what, most of the time children end
up doing a lot of the things that their parents do, and the example that we live with our
lives is often more powerful than what we say.
So these are, I'm just giving you a lot of different ways that your sins can harm the
people around you.
Bringing God's wrath on the whole congregation, you being a bad example unto them, or you
just physically harming people with your actions by your stealing or by your committing adultery
or whatever the case is, whatever sin you commit, it will harm others.
Now let's keep reading this because he develops this thought a little further.
He says by reason, let's go back to verse 8 just to get the context because he's a little
bit tough to understand sometimes what he's saying, but it says in verse 8, thy wickedness
may hurt a man as thou art, and thy righteousness may profit the son of man by reason of the
multitude of oppressions, they make the oppressed to cry.
They cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty, but none sayeth where is God my maker who
giveth songs in the night, who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh
us wiser than the fowls of heaven.
There they cry, but none giveth answer because of the pride of evil men.
Now this part is a little tough to understand, there's so many they's being thrown around,
the word they.
Some of them it's kind of hard to figure out who are the they that he's referring to.
But what he says in verse number 9, by reason of the multitude of oppressions, they make
the oppressed to cry, they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty.
So what he's saying is there are wicked people who are oppressing other people, and those
oppressed people are crying out by reason of the arm of the mighty.
Okay so these people are crying out and they're being oppressed, they're suffering at the
hands of others.
That's what it means to be oppressed.
They're suffering at the hands of someone else.
And so they're crying out because of that oppression, verse 10, but none sayeth where
is God my maker who giveth songs in the night, who teacheth us more than the beasts of the
earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven.
So what's he saying?
He's saying these people are crying out, but they're not crying out unto the Lord.
They're not crying out unto the God of the Bible, you understand?
They're crying out, help us!
But they're not really crying out to the Lord.
They're not really seeking after God.
He's saying these people, when they are being oppressed, they should be seeking God.
They should be seeking to the Lord.
He's saying they're not looking for God.
They're crying out, and it says in verse 12, there they cry, but none giveth answer.
Nobody's answering their cries because of the pride of evil men.
Only God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.
Although thou sayest, thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him, therefore trust
thou in him.
So here's what Elihu is saying, and remember, whatever Elihu is saying is not gospel, okay?
So I'm not saying that I agree with Elihu here.
This is just what Elihu is saying.
And there are things that are right about what he's saying, and there are things that
are wrong about what he's saying, but we know that in general he's wrong.
For example, at the end of the chapter, he says in verse 16, therefore that Job opened
his mouth in vain, he multiplieth words without knowledge.
We know that everything Job said was spoken through the Holy Ghost, and that it was the
word of God, and that he's a prophet.
So this guy Elihu is wrong about a lot, but some things he's right about, so we need to
examine what he's saying.
So let me first explain to you what I believe he's saying, and then we'll talk about whether
it's right or wrong.
But basically what he's saying is that people are being oppressed in this world, and it's
not necessarily turning them to the Lord, or turning them to God.
They're crying out in misery, but they're not seeking toward God, they're not seeking
toward the Lord, and therefore when they cry, no one's giving them an answer, verse 12,
because of the pride of evil men.
Now when it says because of the pride of evil men, I think what he's referring to here is
the evil men that are oppressing them.
They're the ones who are filled with pride.
Another way you could look at it, I guess, would be that the people who are crying out
are too prideful to seek the Lord, and that makes them evil.
That's not what I think he's saying, but that's another possible interpretation.
You say, which one is it?
Well I don't really care because Elihu's wrong about so much, I'm not really that worried
about figuring out exactly what he meant here.
But if you think about this, and it's saying, look, God's not going to hear vanity, neither
will the Almighty regard it.
Now first of all, let's ask ourselves this question.
Is it possible for people to cry out and God just doesn't regard them and ignores them?
Is that possible?
Well go to Proverbs chapter 1, just for example, because we want to examine what Elihu's saying
and figure out, okay, is Elihu right, is he wrong, what's he saying?
Because we know he's been wrong about a lot of other things.
But look at Proverbs chapter 1, talks about people who did not seek after the Lord, they
did not believe on the Lord, and he says in verse 24 of chapter 1 of Proverbs, because
I have called and ye refused, I've stretched out my hand and no man regarded it.
But ye have said it not all my counsel, and would none of my reproof, I also will laugh
at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh.
When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress
and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.
They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me, for that they hated knowledge and
did not choose the fear of the Lord.
They would none of my counsel.
They despised all my reproof, therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own way and be
filled with their own devices.
So God is telling us there in Proverbs that there are times when people call out to the
Lord, and it's too late, you know, God's already, he's already tried to reach them, he's already
given them opportunities to turn to him and they didn't do it, so he gets to a point where
he just allows them to be destroyed and even laughs at their calamity and mocks when their
fear cometh, and they didn't want to hear the word of God, it's too late now.
Now there's another scripture in Psalms, we won't turn there for the sake of time, you
can go back to Job 35, but there's another scripture in Psalm where David talks about
his enemies calling out to the Lord, and it says they even called upon the Lord and
he didn't answer them.
So it's not that they were calling on the wrong God, and in Proverbs 1 he's saying they're
calling on me and I'm not answering them.
And then David said they called on the Lord and he wouldn't help them, then did I beat
them as small as the powder, I wiped them out, I destroyed them, these wicked men.
So we do know that God does sometimes ignore the cries of people that are, first of all
if they're not even crying to him by name, you know sometimes God says, well why don't
you go call Baal, you know call upon the gods of Canaan, call upon these false gods that
you were, call upon Molech, call upon Ashtoreth, sometimes that's what he says to people.
But even if people even call upon him specifically, you know the Bible says that a person who
turns away their ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.
So God does not just answer, for example somebody's not even saved, somebody doesn't even believe
on Christ, just because they call out to God it doesn't mean that God's going to hear them.
Now we know that he hears us whatsoever, we that are his children, and also not only just
the fact that we're saved, but also we do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
The Bible says that he'll hear us, he'll answer us, if we ask we shall receive, if
we seek we shall find.
Now let me tell you something, there are a lot of people in this world who today are
oppressed, okay, and what does that mean to be oppressed?
You know when you think of oppression or people being oppressed, you think of people that
don't have any freedom perhaps, or people that are enslaved, people that are being treated
very badly, and we enjoy a lot of freedom in America compared to the rest of the world.
Now the reason that we enjoy freedom in America has nothing to do with the people that are
in power right now.
People that are in power right now in our country are slowly and systematically taking
away our freedom, and they're on a plan to take away more and more freedom from us.
So don't give them any credit, because they will take away as much of our freedom as they
can get away with.
And the fact that people stand up to them, and the fact that people resist losing our
freedoms that we're born with, and going into total tyranny and total enslavement, that's
what keeps them from taking even more power.
Because if you give them a finger they'll take the whole hand.
People who are in power, they want to take as much freedom away from the people that
are not in power as they can, and that's what history teaches us that they always do.
One evil dictator kills 50 million, Joseph Stalin, 70 million, Mao Zedong, whatever.
One evil dictator kills tens of millions, another evil dictator kills 2 million.
Now does it really make a difference whether the guy killed 2 million or 50 million?
Do you think that one guy is way worse than the other?
Because if you think about it, the guy who killed 2 million, he was just in charge of
a smaller country.
And if he would have been in charge of the big country, he would have killed the 50 million.
I mean, it gets to a point when you're just slaughtering innocent people with no regard
for human life, where the number becomes irrelevant to you.
I mean, you're just that evil, you get to a point where you just max out on evilness.
So you can sit there and argue about which evil dictator was the worst.
Was it Joseph Stalin, was it Mao Zedong, was it Pol Pot?
They're all just maxed out on the evil meter.
You just don't get any worse than these evil people.
But people who live in these countries run by the ideologies of communism and socialism,
they actually are oppressed a lot more than we would have ever experienced in America.
And again, the reason why we experience a lot of freedom in America is because our country
was founded by people who did give respect and honor to the Bible.
They did base some of the things about our country's founding on the Bible.
Our country started out with a Christian foundation in many ways, where people, even if they weren't
saved, they at least respected the Bible and at least talked about Jesus and read the Bible.
And we started out by people who did love freedom and liberty and wanted to give us
a lot more freedom than what we have today.
So we can't really get all excited about how wonderful our government is because we have
all this, look at all this freedom we have.
But that's in spite of the people that are in charge right now.
We're still reaping from hundreds of years ago.
Right now we're sowing seeds of enslavement that are going to be reaped later.
Because of course, the more sin we have, the less freedom we're going to have.
God's going to bring that judgment upon our nation.
Righteousness exalteth the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
But people around the world are oppressed to a degree that you can't even understand,
that I can't even understand because we've never experienced it.
I don't know if any of us have ever been to Communist China or to North Korea or to places
like that that are just under these oppressive type of regimes and where people are just
killed en masse, tortured to death, terrorized, throughout history.
But you'll notice that the evil men who oppress people, these oppressive, evil dictators,
they're all very prideful.
They often think that they are God.
They look at themselves as, you know, I'm God and everybody else is scum.
That's kind of their attitude toward the people.
Now part of the reason for that is because man was never intended to have the kind of
power that these men have.
And that's why in God's perfect system of government that he set up in the book of Deuteronomy,
the system of the judges, it did not give a bunch of power to one man.
And it was not this hereditary thing where you pass it on to your son and pass it on
to his son.
God did not set up the nation of Israel as a kingdom.
It was originally set up basically under the judges.
God was their king, God would rule over them, and all the judges would do was just interpret
the law.
They didn't make laws.
I mean, they interpreted the laws.
And they would just be a leader that would lead the people into battle when they would
go out and fight wars.
He would also preach righteousness unto the people.
He would teach the people and he would interpret the laws unto them so that they could know
what is right and what is wrong and people could bring disputes unto the judges.
And there was one main judge, like a Moses or a Joshua, but then there were other judges
that were appointed all throughout the land and those judges would interpret the law.
And when the people wanted a king, it was a great sin when they requested a king.
You remember?
When they said, give us a king like all the nations, and God said, Samuel, they've not
rejected you, but they've rejected me that I should reign over them.
And he said, when you desired a human king on this earth, you're saying, I don't want
God to reign over me, I want man to reign over me.
And he warned them and he said, look, if you have a king, he's going to oppress you, he's
going to take away all your money, he's going to make you work for him, and all that.
And they wanted a king anyway, and they got King Saul.
And they loved King Saul, but then what happened with Saul?
He was a humble man, he was a godly man, but once he got in power, he became a wicked person.
King David, man after God's own heart, but once he got in power, although he stayed right
with the Lord in many ways, look at some of the abuses that he did, you know, committing
adultery with Bathsheba, when he's already got multiple wives of his own, something God
told him not to do.
He went against God's will by having multiple wives, then he also had concubines, other
women that are reserved for his bedroom use, okay?
These are very wicked things that he's doing, and he's in power.
When you give all that power to one man, it goes to their head, and they abuse that power.
Even a righteous man like David abused that power somewhat.
I mean, he didn't even just commit adultery with Bathsheba, he's sending his, you know,
henchmen, go get her and bring her to me.
You know, he's involving them in his sin.
He's using the force of law to go bring her over here.
I mean, what if she says no?
It's just like, no, just bring her.
I mean, that's an abuse of power that King David is using, okay?
And then of course, King Solomon started out a godly, righteous, humble man, but when he
gets in power, he multiplies wives, starts building temples unto false gods just to please
his wives and everything.
I mean, these men were destroyed by their power.
Now, here's the thing, Saul, David, and Solomon were all saved.
Okay, now put an unsaved guy in that position.
I mean, these are guys that are saved.
These are guys like you and me.
They're getting in power, they abuse power.
What happens when you get an unsaved, wicked person and give him that kind of power?
And then what happens when you give them even more power?
They are going to be wicked beyond what you could even believe.
And so all throughout the world, you have men that get in way too much power and they
oppress the people.
And they end up just, I mean, they don't have any qualms about slaughtering innocent people.
They don't have any qualms about people starving to death because of the choices that they
make, killing people, arresting people, torturing them.
You know, they're so depraved and wicked and they have such pride and they're so just
lifted up in their heart that they expect people to literally bow down and worship them.
And we have people running our country today that are like this, okay, that basically they're
in power.
You look at the members of Congress, the members of the Senate, you know, they're in power
and the majority of them are very wealthy.
Very wealthy.
Through abusing their power.
I mean, they're very wealthy.
And they go into Congress, they go into the Senate, and they are men who are not that
wealthy and then they come out millionaires all the time.
And they do it through corruption.
They do it through every bill they tag on something that helps them personally.
Like some bill that, you know, you hear about it in the news as being one thing, but then
there's all these tiny little tagged on things of just like building a really expensive bridge
on property that they own.
You know, oh yeah, we're just some infrastructure, we're going to run the freeway right through
my property so that my property can be worth like 20 times as much.
Also no one in the United States is allowed to do insider trading.
Insider trading is when you know a company is about to make a major decision tomorrow
because you work for that company or you're on the inside and then you say, oh, I'm going
to sell all my stock or I'm going to buy extra stock as a result of that tip.
That's called insider trading.
That's why Martha Stewart went to jail.
But did you know that the members of Congress and Senate are exempt and they are allowed
to do insider trading with no punishment, no penalty.
And they know all kinds of insider information.
Like they know, hey, tomorrow we're going to pass a law that is really good for these
kind of companies and really bad for these kind of companies and they are allowed to
trade stocks on that information.
I mean why don't they just live off their salary?
I mean they get a big salary for being a congressman, they get a big salary for being a senator,
but no, they want to do insider trading also.
Why?
Because they can become millionaires.
And they're just these arrogant, wealthy men who just walk in there and they think they
own us and they just abuse their power, just like everybody who's ever been in power pretty
much throughout history.
That's why the best form of government is the one that gives the government the least
power.
You know, the less power you can give to the government and the more power you can give
to the individual and to the families, you know, the better.
When you centralize power, it always, it's always abuse.
It always goes wrong.
It never works.
But it just seems like people just don't learn from that.
They just always trust their leader.
They just think, oh yeah, well, you know, our leader would never do that.
Our government would never do that.
You know, I am thankful that we live in America because, you know, we aren't really that oppressed.
Compared to the rest of the world, we're not that oppressed.
You know, thank God for that.
You know, we should be thankful.
And don't thank the government, but thank God.
Thank the Lord.
Because, you know, we've been endowed by our Creator with a lot of freedom.
So thank Him.
And give Him the glory.
Because any freedom that we have is through His grace and His blessing.
Don't give the glory to man.
Don't even give it to the founding fathers as much as unto the Lord, okay.
That we, and we thank Him every day that we do have a lot of freedom.
But you know what, we should want to keep that freedom.
And not just be, well, let's just sign over our freedom for financial prosperity.
Or sign over our, you know, not that that ever happens, but some people think that.
Or sign over our freedom just to make us a little safer.
No, don't be a fool, okay.
We need to stay free in our country.
But you know, that's what he's referring to.
A lot of multitudes, being oppressed in the world.
They're crying out to God.
And you know, think about all these millions of people that were slaughtered in the Soviet
Union and slaughtered in China.
You know, I don't think a lot of them really turned to the Lord, did they?
I mean, you know, I don't know.
I mean, I hope so.
But I know a lot of them probably just died Buddhist or atheist or whatever they are,
you know.
A lot of people, they just, they die and they go to hell, you know, because they don't turn
to the Lord.
Now some people, when bad things happen, they do turn to the Lord and it does lead to them
getting saved, thank God.
So anyway, I think that's what Elihu's trying to say.
You know, there's some truth in it, but we want to understand it from the rest of scripture.
But he says in verse number 13, Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty
regard it.
Although thou sayest, thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him.
Therefore trust thou in him.
Now Job has already said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him.
So Job doesn't have a problem trusting God, but Elihu's talking down to him like, you
need to trust God, buddy.
And then it says, But now, because it is so, he hath visited in his anger.
Yet he knoweth it not in great extremity, therefore doth Job open his mouth in vain,
he multiplieth words without knowledge.
So what he's saying in verse 15 is that God has visited Job in his anger.
He's saying that God is angry with Job, and yet Job doesn't know it.
And so that's why Job's opening his mouth in vain and multiplying his words without
knowledge.
We know that God's not upset at Job at all.
And that God made it very clear in chapter 2 that he considered Job upright, righteous,
and he was doing this without cause, just to try Job.
He was not angry whatsoever.
So you know, Elihu's words are just, most of them are proven to be false in every chapter.
Chapter 34, chapter 35, he's saying a lot of things that are wrong.
But you say, why do we even spend an evening even talking about this chapter?
Because you know what, we want to preach every chapter of the Bible.
I'm not just going to say, hey, let's just skip the next six chapters of Job because,
we're sick of Elihu.
Because you know what, I am a little sick of Elihu.
But let me tell you something, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable
for doctrine.
Even when it's wrong, we can figure out why it's wrong.
And when it's right, we can figure out why it's right.
But even when bad people are talking, we can learn something and examine the scripture.
And I think that one of the biggest things we learn from this passage is, first of all,
don't misquote God.
Don't misquote your fellow man, but you better not, especially misquote the Lord.
And you know, we need to understand that God does care whether we live right or wrong.
And whether we live right or wrong also impacts all the people around us, and we need to keep
that in mind.
And we need to understand that some people are so wicked that they can destroy the lives
of millions of people.
You know, these brutal dictators destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
Just because of their pride, just because of their personal ambition, just at their
whim, they just have policies that just literally send tens of millions of people to their death.
You know, 38 million people starved to death, and you know, because we're selling all the
food to foreign countries, we can buy nuclear bombs, you know, whatever.
So I mean, there's so much evil and oppression that goes on in this world.
And you know, we don't want to be a part of it.
And so we need to trust in the Lord, stick with Him, stick with His word, stick with
the spiritual battle, don't get too excited about any politics or political candidates
or political leaders, because you know, even you're like, but my guy, if he gets in power,
he's going to be awesome.
First of all, he's probably already a fraud right now.
He's probably already a fraud.
Even if he's a good guy, okay, and you know, once he gets in power, he might not be good
anymore.
Oh, he'd never, you know, well, David, you know, Solomon, I mean, these guys were really
good guys.
So you say, well, what's the answer?
How are we going to fix it, Pastor?
How do we fix our country?
How do we fix the government?
You can't.
But you know, you know what you can fix, though?
You can fix the righteousness of our nation, and then God will fix the government.
You know what I mean?
If you just try to say, well, let's just keep having abortion and slaughtering of babies.
Let's just keep having 40% of couples committing adultery.
Let's just keep having sodomites marching up and down the street.
You know, let's just keep on having churches that won't preach on sin, and let's just keep
on living a wicked lifestyle and blaspheming Christ, but you know, if we could just get
that Libertarian candidate in, he's going to fix everything.
You're living in a dream world.
Because you know what?
As long as our country is sinful, God will punish us by bringing us into bondage.
And God will cause us to lose our freedom.
Whereas if we trust, if we actually were to, you know, turn from our wicked ways, as Second
Chronicles 7.14 says, and pray and seek His face, then you'll hear from heaven and forgive
our sin, we'll heal our land.
So what it comes down to is that going out soul winning, winning people to the Lord,
and then also getting behind the pulpit and preaching against sin, and then you getting
sin out of your personal life, and you trying to influence the people around you not to
live a sinful life, and then you joining a church that preaches against sin and supporting
that church instead of going and putting your time and resources into a church that's not
preaching against sin.
You know, when you actually get behind a man of God that's preaching hard against sin,
you stand against sin in your life, I win people to Christ, you win people to Christ,
that's what's going to make the difference.
That's what God's going to see from heaven, and He'll bless us with a halfway godly leadership,
or at least some semblance of freedom.
But listen to me, if we continue on the course that we're going as a nation, we will lose
our freedom.
Doesn't matter who gets elected, doesn't matter what the politics are, if we continue on the
moral downward spiral, and the spiritual downward spiral in this country, we will be enslaved,
and I think it will happen in our lifetime, where we just have way less freedom, way less
prosperity, way lower standard of living, and even persecution.
We need to take our spiritual lives seriously.
And you know what, if you're into politics, whatever, but you know what, honestly, you
need to emphasize this book more than your political newspaper and your political TV
show and radio show, and you need to emphasize soul winning more than political rallying.
Don't go door to door for some candidate when you could be going door to door for Jesus.
Soul winning.
You know, don't leave some flier on the door of some candidate, you know, leave an invitation
to church.
I mean, think about it.
Why would we go out for things that perish and things that pass away?
The spiritual eternal battle is what's going to matter at the end, and that's what we need
to focus on.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we're even thankful for this chapter
from the Laihu Lord, and please just help us to keep our eyes on the spiritual things
and to serve you with all our hearts and to realize that everything we do affects the
people around us, for better or for worse.
Help us to take our decisions and our spiritual lives seriously, and in Jesus' name we pray,
Amen.