Now in Job chapter 9, beginning in verse 1, the Bible reads, then Job answered and said,
I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with God?
If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him, one of a thousand.
Now in verse 1, it says that he's answering what Bildad the Shuhite had said in chapter
8.
So let's look at what Bildad had just said at the end of chapter 8.
He says in verse number 20, behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will
he help the evildoers, till he fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoicing.
They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame, and the dwelling place of the wicked
shall come to naught.
And this is the same argument that both Eliphaz and Bildad and his friends will continue to
use, just basically summed up as if you do good, everything's going to go great for you,
and if you do wrong, then you're going to be punished and things are going to go badly
for you, and bad things don't happen to good people, and good things don't happen to bad
people, which is what we today would call a prosperity gospel, where your best life
now and just name it, claim it, and all this kind of nonsense of the TV preachers, who
they have a lot of wealth, and they have good looks and success, and it's because they're
so righteous.
That's what they want you to believe.
It's not biblical.
The Bible says ye, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
The Bible says for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on him, but also to suffer for his sake.
The Bible says many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord
delivers them.
So in this passage here, he's saying God's not going to cast away a perfect man.
You know, God's not going to let bad things happen to you if you're doing right.
So Job answers in verse 1 of chapter 9 and said, verse 2, I know it is so of a truth,
but how should man be just with God?
He's saying, okay, I understand that if I do right, I'm going to be blessed, and if
I do wrong, I'm going to be punished.
There is some truth in what Bildad is saying, but he's saying, how can man be just before
God?
What he's saying is that no one is completely just before God.
No one's completely righteous.
No one is without sin.
No one is what we would think of today as perfect.
Jump down to verse number 20.
It says in verse 20 of chapter 9, if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me.
If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
So here he's saying that if he were to claim to be sinless, if he were to claim to be justified
by his own goodness, that would be perverse or crooked.
That would condemn him.
Now this reminded me of when Jesus says in the New Testament that every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, for by thy words thou
shall be justified, and by thy words thou shall be condemned.
The Bible says that we will be condemned or justified based on our words.
And here he says, if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me.
He's saying he'll be condemned by his own words.
And that God will use his own words against him to condemn him, the fact that he claimed
to be justified by his own righteousness.
And so the way that we would apply that to salvation is that those who are trusting in
themselves to get themselves to heaven, those who are trusting in their own works, their
own words are condemning them because one day they'll be judged by their works and they
will come up short and be found wanting.
Those who have confessed with the mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in their heart that
God has raised him from the dead, they will be justified by their words.
Just like the Ethiopian eunuch was justified by his words when he said, I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
He didn't say, I believe I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person or because I live
a good life.
When we talk about being justified by ourselves or justified by the deeds of the law, justified
means you are declared righteous.
Because if you notice the first four letters of justified are just.
Just is a word that's used in the Bible synonymously with righteous.
When it talks about lot, it says, he delivered just lot vexed with the filthy conversation
of the wicked and the next breath he said for that righteous man.
So you use the word righteous and just interchangeably.
So justified means that you are declared righteous.
We're not righteous of ourselves, we're sinners, but when we believe on Jesus Christ, he imputes
the righteousness of Jesus Christ unto us and so we are there for declared righteousness
not by our own good deeds, but by the righteousness of faith, the righteousness of God by faith.
So justified by our faith in Christ, not justified by the deeds of the law.
It's funny, I was out solvenying today and I talked to this guy and he was apostolic
and so he believed that you could lose your salvation.
I was trying to explain to him, salvation is by faith, it's not by works and he says,
well, it's not by works, but if you just go out and sin, if you don't live the life, this
and that, you're not saved and this and that.
And so I said, do you have a Bible verse for that?
And he said, no, I don't know, it's in there.
I have it written down at home, he said, but I don't have it on the top of my head.
So then he continued along, I tried to show him more scriptures, and he continued with
that and he just kept saying over and over again, he kept saying, I believe you can fall
from grace though.
He said, I just believe you can fall from grace.
I said, well do you have a verse on falling from grace?
No, but you know what, there is a verse on falling from grace.
Go to Galatians chapter 5, and this is so ironic that people would actually use this
verse to try to teach a works-based salvation where you have to keep the law or keep the
commandments to stay saved, because what's the difference if you have to keep the commandments
to get saved or keep the commandments to stay saved?
You're still doing works to be saved.
It's the same thing.
So if you believe you can lose your salvation, that's the same as saying you've got to work
to get it.
That's the difference.
But look what it says in Galatians 5, verse 4, it says, Christ has become of no effect
unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.
So the verse that they're trying to use to say, oh yeah, you live a life from sin, you
can fall from grace, is actually a verse that's telling you that you can't be justified by
the law.
It says those of you that are justified by the law are fallen from grace.
Now let me ask you something.
Is anybody really justified by the law?
No, because the Bible says by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in his sight.
It's not possible for someone to be justified by the law.
So when he says to them, whosoever of you are justified by the law, are they really
justified by the law?
No, he's saying those of you who think you're justified by the law, you know, the ones who
want to be saved by keeping the law, that believe that they are saved by works.
Obviously they aren't really saved.
But he says Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by
the law, ye are fallen from grace, for we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith.
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which
were good by love.
Ye did run well, who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
And so these are people who, as a group, the churches of Galatia, had initially believed
in salvation by faith when Paul originally came and he preached the Gospel to them and
it was all about faith.
Well then other people came in and corrupted those churches and got them to where they're
teaching work salvation, where they're teaching you have to be circumcised to be saved, you
have to keep the commandments of God to be saved.
And so when you say ye did run well, we've got to remember he's not talking to the individual.
Because ye is plural, right?
Thee and thou is singular.
He's talking about it as a group.
It'd be like if I said, man, this used to be a great church and now it's filled with
unbelievers.
I'm not saying that those people used to be saved and now they're not saved.
It would mean that I'm saying the church has become a bad church and plus a lot of these
people throughout the book of Galatians, he thought they were saved but now that he sees
them going into this doctrine, he doubts their salvation.
You know, he's not sure, really, have these people just gotten confused on doctrine?
Did somebody just come in and confuse them?
Or maybe these people just never really understood the Gospel in the first place.
Maybe they weren't even saved.
He says, you know, I'm afraid of you lest I bestow labor upon you in vain.
And he doubts them just like he doubted a lot of the Corinthians whether they were even
saved because of the fact that they were so easily moved from the grace of him that called
them unto another Gospel.
And so the whole book of Galatians just demolishes work-salvation.
That's what the whole book is about from chapter 1 to chapter 6.
It just hammers the fact that it's all by faith, that it's not of works, and that it's
not by keeping the law.
And those who believe in work-salvation, they play a semantic game where they say, well
works, that's when you're doing good deeds, that's when you're doing good works, and that
doesn't save us.
But you do have to stop sinning.
And they think stopping sinning is not works.
But in reality the Bible classifies keeping God's commandments as the deeds of the law.
Any time you're following God's law.
So if God's law says, thou shalt not steal, and you don't steal, and God's law says, remember
the Sabbath to keep it holy, and you were, you know, in the Old Testament, you're not
working on the Sabbath.
And the Bible says, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, and you're
not taking God's name in vain.
The Bible calls that the deeds of the law.
Because you're being a doer of the law.
Not just here, you're a doer.
You're hearing the command and you're doing it.
Even if it means not doing something, that is still called the deeds of the law.
And the way that I prove that is in Galatians chapter 2, he actually, let me go there real
quickly in Galatians chapter 2.
In verse number 16 it says, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law
but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might
be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law.
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore
Christ the minister of sin, God forbid.
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
For though I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live, for I through the
law am dead to the law that I might live unto God.
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and
the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me, I do not frustrate the grace of God.
For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
Why did Jesus Christ even die on the cross if keeping the law gets you there?
It doesn't even make any sense.
And it didn't, Jesus didn't just come just to add a new requirement to salvation.
He used to be you're saved by keeping the law, now you're saved by keeping the law and
believing in Jesus.
What in the world sense would that make?
The whole point why Jesus even died on the cross is that no one can live a perfect life.
No one can follow all of the commandments perfectly.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God and we need to be justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
And so over and over again in Galatians, he just hammers this and drives this in that
we're not saved by the law and we're not saved by either good works or by the works of the
law.
Okay?
Being a doer of the law, following God's laws.
And look, Jonah 3.10 just nails it because it says, and God saw their works, comma, that
they turn from their evil way.
And God repented the evil that he had said that he would do anything if he did not.
Look that shows that your works can be turning from your evil way.
That's your works.
If you had a guy, and these people are hypocrites, they'll basically look at it and say, oh that's
not works.
When you turn from your sins, repenting of your sins, that's not works.
But it's hypocrisy because if you take a guy who joins their church and gets baptized,
right, and then he doesn't do any soul winning but if they saw him quit drinking and if they
saw him quit the drugs and quit smoking and if they saw him quit watching filth on television
and if they saw him get all this sin out of our eyes, they'd say, see, this guy's got
the works to back up, you know.
This guy's got faith and works because look how much he's changed.
You know they would.
Because if I said, well this guy doesn't have any works, they'd say sure he does.
He's quit drinking, he's quit smoking, he's quit this.
But then all of a sudden when it comes to salvation it's like, oh that's not works.
But when it's somebody at their church that did it, they'd praise it as works.
Because of course it's works.
I mean it's work to obey God's commandments, whether it's the positive commands or the
negative commands.
But anyway, back in Job, he says, how can man, how should man be just with God?
And then he says in verse 20, if I justify myself, my known mouth shall condemn me.
If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
Verse 21, he says, though I were perfect, saying even if I were perfect, yet would I
not know my soul, I would despise my life.
That's just him sinking back into grief there in verse 21.
So let's back up to where we were in the chapter though.
Verse 3, if he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand, just saying
that God's so much wiser than him that if he were to get in an argument with God, God
would basically make a thousand points that he could not answer and he couldn't even answer
one of those points because God's wisdom and God's knowledge is so much higher than Job's.
Look at verse 4, it says, he is wise in heart, talking about the Lord, and mighty in strength.
Who hath hardened himself against him and hath prospered, which removeth the mountains
and they know not which overturneth them in his anger.
So he asks the question there, who has hardened himself against God and has prospered?
And the hardening of yourself or the hardening of your heart is something that we see a lot
throughout scripture, that term being used.
Of course we think of, of course Romans 1 is an example that pops to mind about God
hardening their heart.
And throughout the Bible there are people who are stiff-necked and hard-hearted and
the opposite of that is when people are tender-hearted.
That's the word that's used as the opposite of having a hard heart, is a tender heart.
Go to 2 Chronicles 34, 26, 2 Chronicles 34, 26.
Now if you think about what it means to have a tender heart, I think that the best way
to describe a tender heart would be a heart that is sensitive to the Word of God.
For example, if I were to go out and injure myself, or let's say I just did something
very strenuous and my muscles became very sore, then that area would be very tender
to the touch.
If I had an injury or a sore muscle, it would be very tender.
And what does that mean?
That it's sensitive.
Because it means that if I just applied the least bit of pressure, it's like oh, ah, ooh
that hurts.
Because it's very tender there.
Now the opposite of that would be something that is hardened, which we would call a callus.
Right?
If you had a callus on you, you could literally touch that callus and not even feel it.
Because the skin has become hardened.
So tender skin might be like the skin that's underneath your fingernail.
You know, if you lost a nail.
Extremely tender, right?
The nail, on the other hand, is hard.
So you know, you can even touch your nail and barely feel it.
And it would take a lot to make it hurt.
Whereas that tender skin, you just barely touch it and it hurts.
Well, when the Bible talks about people having a tender heart, they're sensitive to the preaching
of God's Word.
They hear God's Word preach and it cuts them right to the heart.
And it doesn't take much for them to be moved.
It doesn't take much for them to take it to heart.
The one who is hardened, it's going to take a lot to get their attention.
Look at 2 Chronicles 30, did I say 34?
Let me show you an example here in 2 Chronicles 34, starting at verse 26.
And this is about Josiah and it says in verse 26,
As for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, so shall you say unto him,
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard,
because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God when thou heardest
his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humblest thyself
before me, and didst rend thy clothes and weep before me?
I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord.
Now, let's go back in the chapter and let's see what it meant for him to be tender.
It says in verse 18, Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest
hath given me a book, and Shaphan read it before the king.
And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.
So when he heard it, he got upset because he realized, I'm not doing these commandments.
We're not doing these commandments.
When he heard God's word and he realized how severely he and his nation were in violation
of it, it made him sad.
It grieved him.
It made him upset to the point where he tore his clothing.
People in the Bible often rip their clothes, put dirt on their heads, just to show how
upset they are.
And that's what it means to have a tender heart.
It means when you come to church and the pastor preaches on soul winning, you're thinking
to yourself, oh man, I need to go out soul winning.
Or the pastor preaches against a certain sin that you've been involved in, he's like, oh
ouch, man, that nailed me.
I need to fix that.
The one who's hardened, they just sit there, preach on soul winning, they don't care.
Been there, done that, not interested.
You know, you start hitting on their sin, just bounces right off of them.
And it takes a lot to get through to them.
It takes a lot to get their attention.
The pastor would really have to preach hard and scream and yell, and even that might not
even get through.
And then God might have to punish them and chastise them in their life to get through
to them, cause some horrible thing to happen in their life, just to get through to them
because they're hardened, they're callous.
They are not sensitive and tender to the Word of God.
When we read the Bible, we should be sensitive to the voice of what God's saying to us.
And when we see something in the Bible, we need to be sensitive to the corrections that
we need to make in our life, and not just be hardened and just not care, just sit back
and just read the Bible and it just, it's like water off a duck's back.
That's being hardened.
And what does the Bible say in Job 9?
Who hath hardened himself against him and has prospered?
No one.
You know, if you want to prosper in the Christian life, you need to be like David who had a
tender heart.
And when you have a tender heart, it means that you have a conscience that will smite
you when you do something wrong.
You're tender to that.
For example, David had a tender heart toward God.
This is why he was a man after God's own heart, even though he made a lot of mistakes.
He cut the robe of Saul's garment, right?
He cut the skirt of his garment and his heart smote him because he had done that.
He had a tender heart toward sin, even just committing the smallest, minor sin in light
of what was going on, cutting off that part of his garment wasn't a big deal.
But even that little sin, he said, oh man, I don't think I should have done that.
So he was sensitive to that, he was tender to that.
The hard-hearted person commits all kinds of sins and big sins and just doesn't even
care, doesn't even worry about it, they become dull to it, they become numb to it.
And we can be hardened to a lot of sin and become desensitized to sin.
For example, if you watch TV every day, at first you're going to find it blasphemous,
you're going to find it to be sensual and devilish.
But as you watch it every day, you just get used to it and you just get so used to it
that it doesn't really prick your heart anymore and you're not really sensitive to the fact
that this is sinful because you become callous.
And when we're hardened toward God, the preaching of God's Word just bounces right off of us,
it doesn't sink in.
When we read our Bibles, we don't apply it to ourselves.
Do you feel pain when you hear the preaching of God's Word and the preaching is on sin
that you're guilty of?
Doesn't that hurt?
It's supposed to hurt.
If it doesn't hurt, then you're hardened.
When you read the Bible and you realize that you're wrong, that you're in sin, that you're
not living up to what God wants you to do, that should grieve you.
That should make you weep and be sorrowful.
That's having a tender heart.
Hardened, you know, you don't care.
So in Job 9, he says, who has hardened himself against him and has prospered?
You can't fight against God.
You want to just harden yourself to say, well I don't care what the Bible says, you know,
I'm just going to live my life and I'm going to do it my way.
If you harden yourself against him, you cannot win.
God is so much stronger and mightier than you.
It says in verse 4 at the beginning, he's wise in heart and mighty in strength.
Verse 5 it says, which removeth the mountains and they know not, which overturneth them
in his anger.
I mean, God could just rip up the mountains and just flip them over like Jesus flipped
the tables in the temple.
God could just, you know, flip over the mountains and you're going to harden yourself against
him and shake your fist at God and say, you know, I'm going to do it my way.
It doesn't, it's ridiculous, it's ludicrous.
We need to humble ourselves before him.
Like the tender-hearted King Josiah who humbled himself and instead of just hardening himself
saying, well, you know, you read me this book of the law, but we haven't been doing that
for decades and that's just ridiculous, that's too hard, we can't do it.
No, he wept and said, man, we should have been doing this stuff, we should have been
following these commandments.
He's just saying, well, so what?
It's just a book.
Well, I know that's what the Bible says, but let's get back to reality.
I mean, have you ever heard people talk that?
I literally, I listened to a sermon a few weeks ago that I downloaded off the internet
from a pastor that I'd heard him preach in the past, I'd heard him preach in person.
And this guy was preaching a sermon on marriage, so, oh, okay, you know, let's listen to the
sermon.
And he said in the sermon on marriage, he said, well, I know that's what, you know,
I know Ephesians 5 says that wives are supposed to submit themselves, but, you know, it's
just not, it's just not real, it's not really going to work that way.
I mean, this is a Baptist preacher, and he said, he literally said, yeah, that's great
theology, but, you know, that's going to work for about 10 minutes.
No, that'll work for about 10 years.
That'll work for about 70 years.
You know, that'll work until Jesus comes.
And to sit there and say, well, I know that's what the Bible says, but let's have a reality
check.
No, this is reality.
You're not living in reality if you think that the world's stupid way of doing things
is better than the Bible's way of doing things.
You need a reality check.
This book is truth.
This book is reality.
And he literally stands behind the pulpit, calls himself a man of God, and says, well,
I know that's theologically correct, but now let's get real.
No, we're never more real than when we go literally exactly by what the Bible says.
That's when you're being real.
And so this is the kind of garbage today that passes for preaching on marriage, apparently.
But the Bible says here that God removes the mountains and they know not, which overturneth
them in his anger, which shaketh the earth out of her place and the pillars thereof tremble,
which commandeth the sun and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars, which alone spreadeth
out the heavens and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
So this is just talking about God's power and God's might and God's greatness.
Now I want to stop and point out something here because there's a verse here that some
people have used to try to disprove the Bible and say that the Bible is not scientifically
accurate.
Look at verse 6.
It says, which shaketh the earth out of her place and the pillars thereof tremble.
And people will say that because the Bible teaches that the earth has pillars that therefore
the people who wrote the Bible thought that the earth was like a flat disc sitting on
top of pillars, you know, and that God's going to knock over those pillars and then the whole
thing's going to come crashing down.
That's basically what people would have you to believe.
Now I know that when I met my wife, she had been raised Catholic but she was probably
what would be referred to as an agnostic when I met her.
And she had never spoken to anyone in her entire life who did not believe in evolution.
I mean every person that she'd ever known, I mean the Catholics, I was doing a fire alarm
one time in a Catholic school and they were teaching evolution as fact in the Catholic
school.
So she had never even heard anyone before me tell her that the Bible is without error
and that evolution is a fraud.
Never even heard it before until I said that to her.
And she always thought that there's no way the Bible could really be perfect or God's
word or truth because of the fact that it contains these scientific inaccuracies like
she thought that the Bible taught that the earth was flat and that it had like a dome
above it and all these crazy things.
She was just taught yeah this is what the Bible says, this is what Christians believe,
but now with science we know that it's different.
In reality the Bible is always far ahead of science.
Now people will often tell you that everyone thought that the world was flat before Columbus
in 1492 and everybody thought he was going to sail off the edge of the earth when he
set sail.
That's just simply not true.
People have always known that the earth is round, always.
From the beginning of time, all throughout history, all throughout the Dark Ages, whatever
period of time you want to pick, people knew that the earth was round.
Now just because there was this huge class of people who did not know how to read at
all, could not read anything, illiterate, living in their own filth, living in their
own dung in medieval Europe because they're kept in darkness by the evil Roman Catholic
Church, just because there are people that thought that the earth was flat just because
they're uneducated and ignorant, that doesn't mean that that's what the scientific world
or scholars of that time actually believed.
Were there some people at that time who believed that the earth was flat?
But throughout history, the majority of thinking people and educated people have always known
that the earth is round and there was even a Greek philosopher who measured the size
of the earth and he was only like 100 miles off and he did that around I think 100 BC.
I forget the guy's name and he measured that.
That's pretty advanced, to not only say it's round but to know exactly the size and everything
like that and you can show, there are quotes from scholars all throughout the Middle Ages,
whenever you want, that'll tell you that the world's round.
People knew that the world was round throughout history and they say well the Bible teaches
that it's flat and the Bible teaches that it's on pillars and back when people believed
the Bible, that's what people thought because they got that from the Bible but then once
science came along it fixed that.
But really people just got that just from being dumb and just being uneducated.
They didn't get that from the Bible.
That teaching was never found in the Bible.
Now if you would, flip over to, keep your finger in Job 9, flip over to 1 Samuel 2.8
because there are two verses that talk about the earth being upon its pillars.
The other one is in 1 Samuel 2 verse 8.
So we saw it in Job 9, let me read it for you again, which remove at the mountains and
they know not, which overturneth them in his anger, which shaketh the earth out of her
place and the pillars thereof tremble.
Okay now let's look at 1 Samuel 2.8.
It says he raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dung
hill to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory for the pillars
of the earth are the Lord's and he hath set the world upon them.
So let's see, look, the pillars of the Lord and he set the earth upon them, okay?
Now go back to Job and let's see if this holds water because this is one of the major things
that they'll point at to try to find scientific inaccuracy in the Bible.
Even though the Bible is usually rebuking their pseudoscience, like for example the
fact that doctors have washed their hands in basins of water for hundreds and hundreds
of years, now they wash it in running water.
Like the Bible said, you know, over 3,000 years ago to wash your hands with running
water, they, until 200 years ago, and in many cases even much more recently than that, just
had a little basin that all the doctors would just, they'd work on somebody, then go wash
their hands, and then work on the next person, do surgery on the next person, wash their
hands in the same water, spreading germs, making their hands dirtier than they were
before.
So many things where the Bible is so far ahead.
The Bible clearly teaches, even within the same book of Job, where did I have eternal?
Are you in Job?
Flip over to Job 26.
Even within the same book of Job, so we don't even have to go to a different book of the
Bible to prove that the Bible does not teach that the earth is flat and that it's setting
upon pillars the way that they would describe it.
Go to Job 26 verse 7.
It says, and actually let's start in verse 6 just to get the context.
It says, hell is naked before him and destruction hath no covering.
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
So right here in the exact same book of Job, the Bible says that the earth is hanging upon
nothing.
Does that sound like he thinks that it's a flat disc resting upon pillars?
Because how could you look at a flat disc resting upon pillars and say it's hanging
on nothing?
That wouldn't make any sense, would it?
And I'm going to explain to you what the Bible means when it talks about the pillars and
such, but just right there, that just shows you that their interpretation is wrong.
Because here in Job 26 it says he hangs the earth upon nothing.
For sake of time I'm not going to turn there, but in Isaiah chapter 40 it says it is he
that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are like grasshoppers.
Also in this passage in Job 26 it says he stretcheth out the north over the empty place
and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Now the empty place is a pretty interesting statement because that's what space is.
What is space?
If I said I like this apartment because it has a lot of space, what am I saying?
Empty places.
That's what space means.
If we're out of space, if I said okay, we had to get a new minivan because we were out
of space, what are we out of?
Empty places.
And so this shows an understanding of the concept of space all the way back when the
book of Job is being written because it's God's word.
Because God's going to get everything right, he's going to nail the science, he's going
to nail the history, everything's going to be right because it's out of the mouth of
God.
It's an empty place or space.
That's what the Bible says.
It's hanging on nothing in space and it's round, it's a circle.
But if you would, go to Deuteronomy 32.22.
So let's stop and think about this.
Let's look at all the evidence here.
We've seen Job 9.6 which says that God shakes the earth out of her place and the pillars
thereof tremble.
So what does that verse tell us about pillars?
Well it just says that when there's an earthquake, it shakes.
Now the verse right before it says this, which removeth the mountains and they know not,
which overturneth them in his anger, which shaketh the earth out of her place and the
pillars thereof tremble.
Now if you've been reading the Bible a lot, and especially if you read the poetic books,
which the poetic books are which, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon,
you'll notice how the poetry of the Bible works.
This is how it works.
It says things twice using different words.
Have you ever noticed in Proverbs how it'll say it one way in the first half of the verse
and then say the same thing another way in the second half?
Well the book of Job does that a lot and that is something that you'll see in the poetic
books of the Bible a lot and even in a lot of the other books of the Bible.
Very common feature in the Bible.
To say something twice in a row, two different ways, this is a poetic device that the Bible
frequently uses.
So it'll say it in different words.
So he says in verse 5, which removeth the mountains and they know not, which overturneth
them in his anger, which shaketh the earth out of her place and the pillars thereof tremble.
He's restating the same shaking kind of a cataclysm involving the pillars of the earth
and the mountains.
Now look at Deuteronomy 32 22.
It says in Deuteronomy 32 22,
Now this is not using the word pillars, but it's using the word foundations.
Something that is underneath the mountains, holding them up.
So the pillars of the earth, the foundations of the mountains.
Now go to Jonah 2 verse 6, Jonah 2 verse 6.
I'm just trying to show you all the evidence here so you can understand what God's saying.
Because he says in 1 Samuel 2 8,
Okay, in Job he talked about the pillars of the earth in regard to the mountains and the
foundations of the mountains being shaken.
In Deuteronomy 32, we saw that the foundations of the mountains were set on fire when God's
anger burned under the lowest hell, okay?
Now look at Jonah chapter 2.
And Jonah chapter 2 is when Jonah is inside the belly of the whale and he's praying to
God from the inside of the belly of the whale.
And of course Jesus said in Matthew 12 40,
So Jonah was in a whale's belly.
Jonah was not in the heart of the earth, was he?
Okay, was Jesus in a whale's belly?
No, Jesus was in the heart of the earth.
But it's symbolic.
Jonah being in the whale's belly signifies Jesus being in the heart of the earth.
Now look what it says in Jonah chapter 2 verse 6.
And actually let's back up, let's get the context, verse 2.
Now is Jonah literally in hell?
But basically this is a prophecy of Jesus.
This is like when David said,
Was he talking about himself?
No, he was talking about Jesus.
He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell,
neither did his flesh seek corruption.
And in Acts 2, Peter explains to those from Judea that David wasn't talking about himself.
They said look, his body is there, it's decayed, it saw corruption, but he whom God has sent,
you know, saw no corruption.
So a lot of times when the prophets are speaking, they're not talking about themselves, they're
prophesying of Jesus.
So when David said thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, it's not about him, it's about
Jesus.
What about the Ethiopian eunuch?
He's driving down the road in the chariot, and what does he ask Philip?
Because Philip says, Understandest thou what thou readest?
And he says, How can I except some man should guide me?
He said, Tell me.
And I'm paraphrasing, but he said, you know, is the prophet speaking of himself, or is
he speaking of some other man?
And it was Isaiah 53, and of course it was speaking of some other man, Jesus.
And that's what Philip used.
So, David talked about Jesus, but he said, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, it's
actually about Jesus.
Isaiah, when he talked about things, and Isaiah was referring to Jesus, even though it seems
as if he's referring to himself, like when he says, I gave my back to the smiters and
my beard to them that plucked it off.
Okay?
Those are things that are referring to Jesus.
Well, in Jonah here, when he says in verse 2, Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou
heardest my voice, he's not talking about himself, he's in the whale.
He's prophesying of Jesus.
Okay, keep reading.
For thou hadst cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas.
Is that him or Jesus?
That's him, in the midst of the seas.
And the floods compassed me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
Everything in verse 3 is literal to his situation, whereas verse 2 was prophetic of Jesus Christ.
It says in verse 4, Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward
thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul.
The depth closed me round about.
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
Now, does that sound like Jonah or Jesus?
Seaweed wrapped around his head, he's in the waves, he's in the ocean, he's in the water.
Okay, but now look, he transitions back to prophecy of Jesus because he says, I went
down to the bottoms of the mountains.
Now, is that true of Jonah?
No, he didn't go down to the bottoms of the mountains, he's in the ocean, he's in the sea.
The earth with her bars was about me forever.
Now does that apply to Jonah?
Did Jonah go anywhere forever?
Did he go to the whale's belly forever?
No.
Was he inside of the earth?
No, he was in the water.
So this is about Jesus.
See, this is compatible with verse 2 where he says he's crying out of the belly of hell,
and when he says, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth with her bars
was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
That's the resurrection.
Do you see that?
How can you be in the heart of the earth forever and be brought up from corruption, be resurrected?
So that's the miracle, obviously, God is able to dwell outside of time, that Jesus
Christ could suffer an eternity of punishment for all of our sins in a finite period of
time, three days and three nights.
And it says he's been brought up from corruption.
So the reason that I point this out to you is because the key verse is verse 6.
It says, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth with her bars was about
me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
So when you go down, according to the Bible, to the foundations of the mountains, to the
bottoms of the mountains, to the pillars of the earth that basically are holding and stabilizing
the bottoms of the mountains, the earth is about you.
Now what does it mean when he says the earth with her bars was about me forever?
Well the word about, we would use what word in modern English, in contemporary English,
what's that?
Around.
But about is the word that the Bible uses for around.
Okay, when it says, you know, it's, you know, I'm trying to think of a good example of a
Bible verse, there's a lot of Bible verses that use about to mean around.
You know, we're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, it means we're surrounded
by witnesses.
So according to the Bible, when you're at the foundations of the mountains, when you
went down to the bottoms of the mountains, when you are at the pillars of the earth that
are holding up the mountains, the earth is about you.
The earth is around you.
Does that teach that it's a disk on pillars, like stilts?
No.
So what I'm trying to say is that the pillars of the earth or the bars of the earth are
something that is within the earth.
And you say, well, I want to see those pillars.
I want to see those bars.
I want to see if those are really there.
Listen, science man, you've never even been ten miles below the surface of the earth,
so how do you even know what is down there?
How do you know what bars or what pillars or what kind of foundations exist underneath
the crust?
I mean, think about it.
The earth is ten thousand miles in diameter.
The crust is less than ten miles thick.
And man has never penetrated the crust.
Forget Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Somebody needs to write a sci-fi book called Journey Through the Crust.
And you know what, if somebody wrote a book called Journey Through the Crust, the exciting
tale of going ten miles downward in the earth that is ten thousand miles across, that is
five thousand miles to the center, man can't even go ten.
Did you hear that?
Five thousand miles to the core.
And what does core mean?
Heart.
The word core means heart.
If you speak French, that's how you say heart, core.
Five thousand miles to reach the center, we can't even go ten.
But they'll tell you about the inner core and the outer core.
The inner mantle and the outer.
What in the world?
How do you know?
Oh, Pastor, you're just ignorant of science.
They have ways of knowing.
Okay, but how do they know that they're right?
How do you test?
Look, any device, any measurement has to be calibrated.
You can't test anything without first calibrating it.
Like for example, when thermometers were invented, they didn't just draw lines on it and just
get, well this must be this temperature.
No, no, no.
You had to calibrate that thermometer.
Here's how they'd calibrate a thermometer.
They'd make a, they'd manufacture a thermometer, you know, this is going way back.
They make a thermometer and then guess what they do?
They get some water and they boil it.
Okay?
And at the point that the water reaches a boil, they can put a line on the thermometer
and say, that's 100 degrees Celsius or that's 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
And then they can get some water and get the freezing point and then they can draw a line
on the thermometer and say, okay, this is, you know, 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
Who likes Fahrenheit better?
So sick of Celsius.
You know, speak English.
No, I'm just kidding.
And get rid of the metric system also while you're at it.
I'm just trying to make every science person mad with this sermon, just every way possible.
There's nuts to it.
So Fahrenheit, you know, 32 degrees, 212 degrees, and then you know, you might want
to put another line on there for the human body temperature.
You know, 98, you know, stick it under your tongue.
Get the human body temperature, 98.6, right?
And I realize this would not be exact, but this would get you in the ballpark and then
you could fill in all the other lines with those three reference points of, okay, here's
98.6, here's 212, here's, you could then fill in the stuff in between.
Okay.
So if I just invented the world's first thermometer, okay, and I just, I just drew lines on it
and I just, I just said, well, right now it's 54 degrees outside.
Say, well, how do you know it's 54 degrees?
Well, my thermometer says it's 54 degrees.
Okay, but how do you know that that thermometer has anything to do with reality?
Because sometimes thermometers are broken and they don't read right.
And the way that you'd know is you'd find something where you knew the temperature.
I know that this water is 212 degrees because it's boiling.
Is everybody understanding what I'm saying?
If I have a thermometer, let's say I were to hand you two thermometers and say one of
these are broken.
Figure out which one's broken.
How would you do it?
You know, you'd go somewhere and say, well, okay, I know that this water is boiling, it's
212 degrees.
If the thermometer says 212 and you know it's 212, boom, it works.
If not, you'll say this thermometer is faulty.
Faulty measurement.
You know, you go to the ice water, do the same thing, go to the human body temperature,
do the same thing.
Okay, these, these dating methods of, you know, this is 2,000 years old, this is 500
years old, this is 2,500 years old, the carbon dating.
How do they calibrate that?
They found objects where they knew how old it is.
And they're like, well, we know how old this is.
We know this is 50 years old.
And then they test it.
You know, or well, we know this is 1,500 years old.
And then we test it.
But here's the thing.
There's nothing that you can have in your hand and say, well, I know this is 60 million
years old.
Let's calibrate this thing.
Because it's impossible to know that.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Now is it possible to know that something's 80 years old?
Yeah, you could say, I know this is 80 years old.
And then you could test it.
And then you know whether your machine is right.
Okay, I could, I could get a measuring tape and find something where I know, okay, I know
the tiles in my house are 12 inch tiles.
And I can see whether my measurement method is right or not.
Okay.
How in the world can you measure a machine and calibrate a machine that tells you what
is underneath the surface of the earth?
I mean, think about this folks.
Nobody's ever seen it.
Nobody's ever been there.
No one has any clue what's down there.
Except Bible believing Christians know that hell is down there.
That's all we know.
To sit there and say, okay, I'll tell you what percentage of what metal is in that core.
Is just man professing himself to be wise and becoming a fool.
No one knows what's even in the mantle, let alone the core.
No one has ever been there.
In fact, I read a scientific article, they say they're drilling down to the mantle.
It's going to take them like 12 years, going to cost billions of dollars and they don't
even know if they're going to make it.
And Brother Romero said they're not going to make it because he used to be in an industry
that had to do with drilling and drilling down into the bedrock and into the earth.
It's so much harder than anyone can imagine and it doesn't work.
It's probably never going to happen.
So to sit there and say, well, we know what's down there is ludicrous.
No one knows what's down there, okay?
The closest thing we could get to it is just trying to piece together the descriptions
in the Bible.
And you see, if I had that thermometer, how does the thermometer work?
The mercury expands and contracts with temperature.
Let's say I marked out the zero line.
Let's say we're doing Celsius.
Let's say I mark out the zero and I mark out the hundred.
You know, the boiling point and the freezing point.
And what if I said, okay, now I'm going to use this thermometer to measure things that
are negative 500 degrees Celsius.
I mean, do I really know that that thermometer is still going to be accurate at those extremes?
All I can really tell you if I've got the freezing point, the boiling point, and the
human body temperature is I can tell you, well, in this range it's accurate.
But guess what?
As you start to go to really hot temperatures, that thermometer might cease to be accurate.
Because what's going to happen?
The chemical can only expand so much.
The thermometer is going to blow its top, okay?
Or it can only contract so small and it might begin to expand or contract at different rates
when you get to extremes.
So therefore we can only use that thermometer to measure known temperatures because it's
been calibrated, okay?
All that to say this, the Bible's teaching on the pillars of the earth or the foundations
of the earth or the bars of the earth or the foundations of the mountains, the pillars
upon which the mountains or the earth rest, none of that is teaching anything other than
around earth because he specifically said that when he was at the bottom of the mountains
the earth was around him.
And he said that the earth is hung upon nothing in the empty place.
So again, this is just a lame attempt for man who knows nothing about what's below the
mountains, who's never been below the mountains, who has no clue.
And look, talk about fire, setting on fire the foundations of the mountains.
They've never been there, they have no clue, the Bible knows way about it than they do,
way more about it than they do.
So I just, who's just going to trust what the Bible said?
The pillars of the earth, the pillars of the earth.
Go back to the book of Job.
Not only that, obviously it's poetry.
Both the passage in 1 Samuel 2 and the passage in Job 9 are poetry, which in poetry often
exaggerations occur, don't they?
In poetry, even in the Bible's poetry, there's exaggeration, there's hyperbole that's used.
And so to just try to just literally take it as like a literal pillar, you know, is
kind of stretching it.
When in reality there's some kind of a foundation to the mountains, we know that.
We know that the earth has some type of pillars or some type of foundation.
We don't know what that structure is exactly like.
And we don't know exactly what the core is like, but we know that it's fire and brimstone
and that it's the location of hell.
But let's hurry up and finish here.
It says in verse 9,
Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south, which doeth
great things past finding out, yea, and wonders without number.
So we see that constellations are mentioned in the Bible.
And this shows that there's nothing wrong with looking up at the stars and charting
the constellations.
A lot of times this is associated with astrology and witchcraft, but the constellations or
even the constellations of the zodiac don't necessarily have to serve a sorceress or witchcraft
type of a purpose.
You can still just look at them and use them to navigate and there's a lot of use to looking
up at the sky and knowing where the stars are and spotting the constellations.
We were out soul winning today and we, I, my son and I literally spotted Orion and Pleiades
both.
They're actually visible tonight, even in Phoenix with all our city lights, because
these are two of the most major constellations.
Who thinks that they could look up at the sky and spot Orion?
Pretty much everyone, right?
Only like half the hands are going up.
But anyway, it's pretty easy to spot because there's the three stars right in a row.
The belt of Orion.
And then who thinks that they could walk out there and spot Pleiades right now in the sky?
Alright.
All of my kids and one other person.
Anyway, once you spot it, like if I show it to you, you'll be able to spot it again because
it's really easy to see.
It's this little tight cluster of seven really bright stars and they're all clustered right
together.
And so once you see it one time, you'll be able to spot it again after that forever because
it's really easy to spot.
But you know, he's mentioning these constellations, these stars and so forth, just that God created
these and some of the stars, it's interesting, and I don't want to go into a big thing on
the stars because I'm not really an expert on stars or anything, but I do know this.
When you look up at the stars, it's interesting how if you go to a place that's really dark
when you're away from the city lights, you see so many stars that sometimes it's almost
hard to make out the constellations just because everything's so bright.
I mean, sometimes you just look up and it says billions of stars and there's just stars
everywhere.
But on a less clear night, there are only certain stars that are visible.
And have you noticed that there's a really clear distinction between the really bright
stars that you can see no matter how clear it is and the ones that you can only see on
a really clear night?
Have you noticed that?
And they do seem to make pictures, the ones that are really bright.
There's just the backdrop of just billions and billions of stars, but there are certain
stars that kind of come to the forefront as much brighter on a phoenix city night.
They're the only ones you can see.
And they do seem to form pictures.
And obviously God created it that way and he created these constellations because he
even mentions it as that he made Orion and Pleiades.
And so I do think that the stars are making pictures and that it's not just necessarily
in people's imagination that the stars are laid out that way.
But anyway, that's kind of a deep topic that I'm not really interested in going off on
right now.
But it says in verse 13, I'm just going to hurry up through a few more things.
If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him.
How much less shall I answer him and choose out my words to reason with him?
Whom though I were righteous, yet would I not answer.
But I would make supplication to my judge if I had called and he had answered me.
Yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.
For he breaketh me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause.
He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.
If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong.
And if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead?
So he's just talking about the fact that God's doing all these horrible things to him and
bringing him through all this misery and that, you know, he knows that he's not perfect.
He knows that he's not without sin, but obviously God's punishing him.
I mean, what's he going to do?
He can't really argue with God.
Can't fight against God.
You know, I'm not going to plead against God.
And then we already talked about verses 20 and 21, but it says in verse 22, this is one
thing.
Therefore I said it, he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.
He's saying, look, bad things happen to good people and bad people.
You know, it just, everybody goes through suffering.
Everybody is going to have God's hand against them at some point, which is true.
If the scourge slays suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent.
The earth is given into the hand of the wicked.
Isn't that the truth?
I mean, who runs the world that we live in?
The rulers of the darkness of this world.
The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places.
Our nation is run by the wicked.
Our, you know, the United Nations is run by wickedness.
You know, the whole world is in darkness.
We're of the light.
We're of the truth.
But the Bible says here, the earth is given into the hand of the wicked.
That's why Satan is called the god of this world.
He covereth the faces of the judges thereof.
If not, where and who is he?
Now my days are swifter than a post.
They flee away.
They see no good.
They are passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that hasteth the prey.
Do you notice how he says everything twice?
Every single thing is said twice.
That's a poetic device in the book of Job.
If I say I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness and comfort myself.
I am afraid of all my sorrows.
I know that thou will not hold me innocent.
Who's the vow?
Not God.
Because every time God is referred to in this chapter, it's always he and him about God.
Who's he talking to?
Bildad.
So sometimes it can be confusing.
Sometimes at first glance, I know I've looked at this and I'll think that the vows are
about God, especially back in chapters 6 and 7 when he's talking to Eliphaz.
It seems like a few times that he's talking to God, but if you look really carefully,
usually the thes and the thows is him referring to the person he's talking to.
And he usually talks about God in the third person, unless he says I will say unto God.
Then he'll start saying thou to God.
But usually when he says he, him, his, it's God, and when he says thee, thou, thine, he's
actually talking to Bildad.
Because look what he says in verse 28, I am afraid of all my sorrows.
I know that thou will not hold me innocent.
His friends are not holding him innocent.
And then he says, if I be wicked, why then labor I in vain?
If I wash myself with snow water and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge
me in the ditch.
You know, they're throwing him under the bus.
They're plunging him into the ditch.
That's who he's talking to actually.
If you look at it real carefully, you'll see what I mean.
If you look at all the chapters and notice when he talks about God as he and when he
talks to the friends as thou.
It says in verse number 32, for he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him and
we could come together in judgment.
See that's when he's talking about God.
See how he switches to he?
Now watch this.
Neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both.
Let him take his rod away from me and let not his fear terrify me.
Then would I speak and not fear him, but it is not so with me.
The last thing I want to cover is verse 33 where it says, neither is there any daysman
betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both.
Now you might look at the word daysman and say that is an archaic word.
And I agree that that is not a word that we use today in our modern vernacular.
And of course people are often criticizing the King James Bible for using archaic words
and this would be one that they would point to and say this word daysman is outdated.
And here's what they'll say, nobody knows what it means.
But can anybody honestly say that they've read this verse and they can't figure out
what that word means?
It's pretty obvious, right?
Because what are the last three letters?
Man.
So we're talking about a person, right?
And we're talking about a person who's going to lay his hands on two people and basically
mediate between them.
Because he says in verse 32, he's not a man as I am that I should answer him and we should
come together in judgment.
He's saying, look, God's not a man in the sense that I could just walk up to him and
sit down and talk to him and God and I could work this out.
Neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both.
And think about this laying a hand on both.
Let's say there's an argument, because basically he's talking about if there's a dispute between
him and God.
Well, let's say there's a dispute between Brother Garrett and Brother Matt, okay?
And they're upset and they're fighting, they're angry, and I want to come in and help them
reach some kind of an agreement.
You know, I might get between them and put my hand on each of them.
Maybe people are fighting, you kind of push them apart.
But not even that, just walk up and just put it, because look, putting a hand on someone
is a sign of what?
Affection, right?
Like for example, the handshake, okay?
It's a physical contact.
You know, sometimes in other cultures people will hug each other or do a handshake or maybe
give kisses on the cheek, right?
You know, sometimes you'll even see men greet each other by, you know, just a different
culture.
But there's some kind of a physical contact.
You know, whether it's a handshake, right, or whether it's like, you know, something
like that, you know, or you don't know all that stuff, all right.
But anyway, you know, whatever it is, it's just some kind of a physical contact.
It's a show of friendship or affection or love.
So basically when he says adage me, he's going to put a hand on both of us, meaning
that he's not taking one side, he's not, you know, siding with one against the other.
But he's somebody who's between the two trying to bring both sides together, trying to be
a go-between or a mediator.
And so our modern word here that we'd probably use would be the word mediator, which is used
elsewhere in the Bible.
He's saying there's not a mediator between us that might lay his hand upon us both.
Of course, Jesus Christ is that mediator because Jesus Christ came to this earth God in the
form of man, bridging the gap between God and man.
And the Bible says there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
It also says in Hebrews over and over again that he is the mediator of the New Testament.
He is the mediator of the New Covenant.
What does that mean?
The Bible says a testament is a force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength
at all while the testate are living.
When someone dies, a lot of times they have a last will and testament, okay?
So let's say I wrote out my last will and testament and I said this money is going to
go to this person and this money is going to go to this person and this house is going
to go to this person, you know, all the stuff that I don't have.
But anyway, you know, I list off all these things and say this is how it's going to be
divvied up.
Well, a lot of times there will be the executor of that will, right?
And that executor of the will will go over that and interpret it and make sure that everybody
understands the terms.
Some families, the siblings might fight each other and hate each other because they're
just greedy of money.
So that's where the executor is there to be an impartial guy, to make sure that everybody
gets what they're supposed to get.
So the testament or the covenant has a mediator and the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the
mediator of the new covenant, or the mediator of the New Testament.
Now Jesus is also described as our advocate, and an advocate is another word for a lawyer.
And the Bible says, my little children, these things write unto you that you said not, but
if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
So what does that mean?
Well if we were in a courtroom, I don't necessarily want to talk straight to the judge.
I know that when I was on trial, I never spoke to the judge myself, nor did I speak to the
jury myself, until after the trial was over.
I sat there and just didn't say a word the whole trial, I just remained silent the entire
time.
I had someone there that was an advocate for me, that was basically a mediator between
me and the jury, and a mediator between me and the judge.
Because I don't know all the ins and outs of the law, I'm not an expert on criminal
defense, so therefore I don't want to just go in there and just start saying stuff, and
say all the wrong things, and make a lot of legal mistakes.
So I have somebody there who's speaking up for me, who's standing up for me, and saying
what I would say.
So when Jesus is our advocate, what that means is that God the Father, the judge of the universe,
in His eyes we're condemned, because we've sinned.
Jesus Christ is there to basically step in and say, it's paid for.
It's under the blood, He's been forgiven, the sins are forgotten.
And the devil is like the prosecuting attorney, because he's called the accuser of the brethren,
which accuses them before God day and night.
So if you can imagine up in heaven, the devil accusing someone before the Father, and then
you can see Jesus sticking up for you.
Stepping in and saying no, wait a minute, here's what's really going on.
And so that's what Jesus says, He's the mediator between God and men.
And He's the only mediator, not Mary, also known as the mediatrix to Catholics.
There is no other mediator, the pastor is not a mediator.
We go directly to the Father through the Son.
He is our daysman, He is the daysman betwixt us.
He is the one who lays His hand on us both.
It's not that He doesn't want to do the will of the Father, because Jesus said I always
do those things that would please Him.
But He also loves and cares for our interests, and He brings both sides together.
And to do that, of course, He had to sacrifice Himself, He had to die on the cross to satisfy
the Father.
He's trying to satisfy both sides.
He doesn't want this side to go to hell, the human side.
He loves us, wants us saved.
But then also, He has to satisfy the justice of the Father, and His holiness, and His righteousness.
And so He did that by sacrificing Himself to pay the penalty, to pay the price that
we owe for our sins, and satisfy the Father's just demands, and also to allow us a free
entry into heaven, which otherwise we would have no way of being saved.
And so it's just interesting that Job brings this up and says, He's not a man as I am that
I should answer Him and we should come together in judgment, neither is there any daysman
betwixt us that might lay His hand upon us both.
But thank God we do have that daysman in the Lord Jesus Christ.
God came and was manifest in the flesh and dwelt among us.
Obviously that had not yet happened at this time.
He had not yet come to this earth.
But let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for the book of Job.
And Lord, thank you that your word is so much more reliable than all this false, phony,
fraudulent science, falsely so called, that's constantly being proven wrong.
And they constantly have to rethink everything because it turns out they were wrong.
Because they make so many guesses and theories and speculations that then turn out to be
wrong, but they like to go around stating them as fact, the pompous, prideful, arrogant
fools that they are.
They state their guesses and hypotheses and speculation as fact, when in reality the book
I'm holding in my hand is fact.
Thank you, Lord, that we can trust it.
And thank you that we have a rock of our salvation, the Holy Bible.
And we know that what it says is true.
And thank you so much for the book of Job that can teach us so many things about suffering
and help us understand that none of us is righteous.
None of us is perfect.
We've all sinned.
And God's going to allow bad things in our lives and afflictions are going to happen.
To help us to be strong and to stay the course of loving and serving you.