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Now, in Job chapter 2 verse 1, the Bible reads, Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. Now, I want you to take note of the fact that in this beginning of chapter 2, the scene is taking place in heaven. He asks Satan where he's coming from, and he says, I'm coming from going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it, because this is the Lord's throne up in heaven. The sons of God are presenting themselves before the Lord in heaven. Now, last week we talked about the fact that the sons of God in this passage is not referring to angels. In fact, if you study the Bible, there are numerous passages that tell us that the sons of God are believing human beings, not non-human angels. I mean, it would take too long to go through all the New Testament passages that explain the fact that we are the children of God. That we are the sons of God. And I don't want to re-preach last week's sermon, but let me just give you a few quick points on that that I didn't mention last week, just because this is so important. You have to understand that when the Bible calls us the sons of God, and when it calls Jesus Christ the Son of God, part of that is the fact that we are in His image, okay? For example, someone mentioned to me, they said, well, you know, sons of God in the Old Testament is referring to angels because they are the direct creation of God, and that makes them the sons of God. They say, you know, for example, Adam is called the son of God in Luke chapter 3, and because he was created directly by God, and so therefore, same thing with the angels, they're created directly by God. Let me say this, cows were created directly by God on the sixth day of creation. Fish were created directly by God. Are these things the sons of God because they are the direct creation of God? Okay, what makes Adam the son of God, but not wildlife, not the beasts of the earth? Here's why, because God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion, okay? That is what makes mankind capable of being called a son of God. Now, are all human beings God's sons? No, because the Bible says that ye are all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. The Bible says, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. The Bible says, beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. You see, we as the sons of God, meaning those who are human beings who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, are predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son. We are in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Humanly we're created in the image of God because we're human, but also we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. When we get saved, the Bible says, whom he did foreknow them also did he predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. That's the difference here. Now, if we look at the Bible's teaching on non-human angels, for example, the Bible calls certain types of angels beasts or living creatures. In the Old Testament, the Bible calls the cherubims the living creatures. If you look at Ezekiel chapter 1 and Ezekiel chapter 10, and they have wings, and they have four faces, and so forth, and then when we get into the book of Revelation, the New Testament word is beasts, because one is coming from the Hebrew, one's coming from the Greek, just a little difference in wording between living creatures and beasts. But the bottom line is, no angel, no non-human is ever called a son of God. That is a false doctrine, and I don't believe in it for one second. Some modern Bibles are even just changing sons of God to angels, but that doesn't make it so. When the Bible says here, in Job chapter 2, the sons of God, it is referring to none other than saved human beings that are in heaven. And you say, well what are they doing in heaven? You know, they're supposed to be in Abraham's bosom. But see, this proves that doctrine to be false. And people try to say that there was a place called Abraham's bosom, and let me tell you something, Abraham's bosom is not a place, it's a body part. You know, and if you weren't here last week, you need to listen to last week's story, I went into more detail proving that the angels are not the sons of God. But Abraham's bosom, when the Bible says that Lazarus at his bosom, okay, that's the same as when it talked about at the Last Supper, the apostle John was in Jesus' bosom. It used the same wording. He was leaning on Jesus' breast is what that means. And it's the same thing. You know, if I were to be standing here, okay, Brother Matt, come on up here, Brother Matt. Okay, look, if I had Brother Matt, let's say I'm Abraham, and this is Lazarus. Let's say I've got my arm around Lazarus, now he's at my bosom, okay? And so, go ahead and sit down. So when it said Lazarus at his bosom, that's what it means, he's standing there with his arm around him. So this whole doctrine of a place known as Abraham's bosom, funnily, and here's what's funny, and then the other name for it is paradise, they'll call it. They'll say, you know, they went to paradise, they went to Abraham's bosom. Here's what's funny. Supposedly this is where people went in the Old Testament, right? Here's what's funny, the word paradise is never mentioned in the Old Testament. Neither is Abraham's bosom, okay? So what I'm saying, it's funny how the wording that's supposedly all about Old Testament movies, and if you look up the word paradise, it occurs three times, one of those times equated with heaven. So this whole doctrine, it comes from a misunderstanding of the story that Jesus told in Luke 16. And whenever you're basing your belief on one scripture, that's a great way to end up with false doctrine. You know, when you've got a whole multitude of scriptures of people who are believers dying and going to heaven, and unbelievers dying and going to hell, and you've got a lot of clear scripture about the sons of God being believers, you know, you base it off of one scripture of Luke 16 because you say, well, you know, the rich man's burning in hell and Lazarus is right there with him. So it must have been a two compartment hell, a good side and a bad side. And the good side's called paradise and the bad side's called... But the problem with that is that, you know, the Bible does not say that he was right there. The Bible says that there was a great gulf between the rich man and Lazarus, okay? And that great gulf is the gulf between heaven and hell, okay? It's not that they were just right there next to each other. And you say, well, but they were able to talk, they were able to do all this. But hold on, do you actually believe that that conversation is just constantly going on? I mean, people are taking that story a little too far. It's not that the people in hell are just constantly conversing with the people in paradise all throughout the world. They're just begging for water, begging for water, and they keep telling them, no, leave us alone, no, no, we're not coming. Obviously, that was a miraculous event because the Bible describes hell as a place of total darkness and, you know, for them to be able to see and be, you know, seeing Abraham and talking to Abraham, obviously that was just a miraculous thing that God allowed to take place just to make that point. You know, perhaps that's something that he does for a lot of people when they go to hell or all people. Or maybe that was just something that he did for him, just basically telling him, this is why you're here, this is what's going on. Now you're in hell. But to just think that the people in heaven, or, excuse me, what they want to think, you know, this paradise Abraham is supposed to be, are just right there just, I mean, I guess they just sit there and just watch people burn in hell all day. I mean it doesn't make any sense, obviously, in order to even hear. I mean hell is this place of screaming and wailing and, I mean, even to be able to have that conversation across a great gulf doesn't make any sense. Obviously, the story is a supernatural event. That's what I'm trying to say. That was a supernatural, miraculous event. There's no place in that story that says that Lazarus is also in hell or that Lazarus is in the heart of the earth or anything. The great gulf is the gulf between heaven and hell and the proof of it is all the Old Testament scriptures that talk about people going up into heaven. Because the whole doctrine of paradise or Abraham's bosom is based on the fact, well, nobody in the Old Testament could go to heaven because Jesus hadn't died yet, which is false because Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven, Enoch went to heaven, and in Ecclesiastes in general it says that the spirit of the beast goes downward. It says the spirit of man which goeth upward or the spirit of the beast which goeth downward into the earth. So right there it talks about at death man's spirit going up, the animal's spirit going down. So those are just a few scriptures that highlight the fact that yes, people did go to heaven. And I don't want to spend the whole sermon on that, but I just want to touch on that. But when we look at Job 2 and when we realize that the Bible consistently from cover to cover teaches that the sons of God are believers, here they are presenting themselves before the Lord in heaven. So how can you say they're stuck in some quasi-hell compartment limbo called paradise if they're right here in heaven? I mean, to me, this is conclusive. But when we combine this with all the other scriptures about it, and again, I could spend a whole sermon on it, I don't want to spend a bunch of time talking about that, but I just wanted to kind of briefly touch on that. Just this thing of, well the angels are created by God, therefore they are the sons of God. God created a lot of things that are not in His image and the angels are one of them. He never said unto them at any time, thou art my son, or I will be to him a father and he'll be to me a son. Never said that, okay? So anyway, Job chapter 2 verse 1, it says again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. Now that's not saying that Satan is one of the sons of God. That's why it says Satan came also among them, okay? So the sons of God come and then Satan also comes. He's not in that group. The Lord said unto Satan, from whence comest thou? Meaning where did you come from? And Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it. Now flip over, keep your finger here, go to Revelation chapter 12. You say, what is the devil doing in heaven? Why is he showing up when the sons of God present themselves? Now first of all, while you're turning to Revelation 12, let me remind you of the famous verse in 1 Peter 5, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. So when he's on the earth, his goal is to find people that he can devour. He is seeking whom he may devour, and the Bible says, whom we should resist steadfast in the faith. And the Bible says, draw an eye to God, he'll draw an eye to you. He says, resist the devil and he'll flee from you. So the devil is walking up and down as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, and if we resist him, he'll flee from us. And that's why the Bible tells in 1 Peter to resist him steadfast in the faith. The Bible talks about taking on the whole armor of God. He says, above all, taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. The devil is out to attack believers. He will try to tempt us, remember how he tempted Jesus? He will try to, he tempted David in the Old Testament to number the people. So he will try to tempt us, he'll try to resist us, and then what he does in heaven, if you look at Revelation chapter 12, because we know what he's doing on this earth. He's behind all the false religion. He's behind Catholicism, he's behind Mormonism, he's behind the Jehovah's Witnesses, I mean he is behind false religion, he's transformed into an angel of light, and his ministers are transformed into ministers of light. You know, when you look at a religion like Islam, that has about a billion followers, probably wasn't started by man. You know, if you think about it, there probably was some satanic influence there when you think about the fact that Mohammed started the religion because an angel came to him, grabbed him by his throat, lifted him off the ground, and told him what he was to teach and what he was to preach. And that angel could have been Satan himself. You know, he's pretty smart to create the religion of Islam. He sucked in about a billion followers. You know, and when you think about the story about Joseph Smith, you know, being visited by the angel Moroni, and this angel Moroni, you know, came and visited Joseph Smith, and it was telling him about these golden plates, and he kept going and trying to dig up the golden plates, and the angel kept telling him, no, you're too greedy, you just want to sell the gold, and he's going back and forth with the angel, and finally after three or four years, the angel finally lets him take home the plates, and then he's putting his face in the hat, and he's seeing all the words light up in front of him, and he's telling somebody to write it down, and his face is in the hat. Okay, look, it's possible that he was visited by the devil, or one of the devil's minions. It's possible that he made the whole thing up. But Mormonism has about 14 million followers today. That's what they claim. I don't know exactly how many it really is, but you know, they claim to have about 14 million followers. Now, if you talk to Mormons, one of the biggest reasons why they believe in the Book of Mormon, because if you look up information on the Mormons, you know, you wonder why do they believe this stuff? And they'll give you their evidence for the Book of Mormon, and here's one of their biggest pieces of evidence, if you ever watch anything that BYU puts out or anything, their big evidence for the Book of Mormon is to tell you this, they say, look, Joseph Smith was an uneducated farm boy, he did not have the knowledge and the education and the ability to write a book like the Book of Mormon, therefore it had to have come from God. That's one of their big pieces of evidence. Now, first of all, I'm not that impressed with the Book of Mormon, you know, to put it past that Joseph Smith could just write the stupid thing, okay, but honestly that doesn't prove that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, because he could have gotten it through Satan. I mean, look, Mohammed couldn't even read or write, did you know that? But yet he was given revelation probably through the devil, okay? And if you think about it, maybe Joseph Smith didn't have the education to write the Book of Mormon, maybe when he had his face in that hat, maybe he really was seeing those words lighting up. Who knows if the devil was manifesting the Book of Mormon unto him? The bottom line is, the devil's activity on this earth is involving himself in deception, promoting false religion, we know that's the case, and we also know that he is about to corrupt and tamper with the Word of God, and we know that he is about to tempt believers into sin. Christians, believers, just like he tempted Jesus, just like he tempted David, he will come to us and tempt us with sin. He will put opportunities in front of our eyes and he'll put a carrot in front of the nose and try to get us into sin like stealing. He'll try to get us to want to steal something or maybe to want to commit adultery or fornication or to look at something that we shouldn't look at. You know, it's funny, you know, the devil came and offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would worship him. You know, one time I got a phone call asking me to be on the game show, Wife Swap. They said, we're looking for a really fundamental Christian family for this TV show, Wife Swap. I'm like, no thanks. And they said, but we'll give you $10,000. I was like, if you're going to call me and ask me to sell my soul, can you offer me more than $10,000? I mean, you're insulting me, you know. First of all, I'm not going to go on that stupid show for any price. I don't care if it's a million dollars. Not going on a show called Wife Swap because you know what, their money can perish with them. My integrity is worth more to me than any amount of money on this earth, okay. But you know what though, it's just funny that they, this woman's just like, I don't know, it's $10,000. You know what, it's just funny how people just think that everybody's just going to be bought with $10,000. I mean, good night. But you know what, isn't that the same way the devil operated back in Matthew? Here you go, Jesus, I'll give you all the kings of the world. And he looks at that and says, I don't need that. I don't need $10,000, I don't need the kings of the world. You know what, you hear people talk about this rock star sold his soul to the devil, right? Or I think there's even a rock band that had an album called We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll. Okay, there's an album like that. And let me tell you something, I believe that there could be truth in that. People talk about Led Zeppelin selling their soul to Satan or these other bands. Who was the band that did Sinners? Who was the band that had the, who was it? Alright, yeah, so ACDC, Led Zeppelin. You know what, maybe they really did sell their soul to the devil. Why not? I mean, he offered it to Jesus. I mean, look, there are people out there who obviously Satan has tempted into all kinds of wickedness and bad lifestyles. But he doesn't just walk around on this earth, he also goes back and forth to heaven. So what's he doing in heaven? The same thing he's doing in the book of Job. Look at Revelation chapter 12. It says in verse 7, and there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. Now what's funny, remember a few weeks ago when I preached about the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God? And I proved to you that they're the same thing, because they're used interchangeably. Well these people that believe in that weird doctrine, these hyper-dispensational followers of Peter Ruckman and Sam Gipp and those type of people, they say, well, you know, the kingdom of heaven cannot be the same as the kingdom of God. And they use this verse that says, from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. Therefore the kingdom of heaven has to be on this earth, because it suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. Okay, first of all, if we look at Matthew 14 when Jesus said that, what kind of a violent fighting was even going on from the days of John the Baptist until Jesus said that in Matthew 14, on this earth? Here let me help you, none. I mean the only person who was basically put to death at that time was John the Baptist himself. But was the kingdom of heaven being taken by force? This is just a bizarre doctrine because in Revelation 12, what do we see? War in heaven. So you're not going to believe this, but maybe the kingdom of heaven is actually referring to heaven, despite what Peter Ruckman or anybody else says. And so in Revelation 12 we see that there is a war in heaven. Where's the war being fought? In heaven. Between angels and devils. The dragon and his angels are fighting against Michael and his angels. And if you are back in Daniel, you'll remember this type of spiritual warfare taking place between angels and devils all the way back in the book of Daniel. Because you remember how Daniel prayed and he prayed for 21 days? And when the angel shows up and speaks with Daniel, he tells him that from the first day he started praying and fasting, God had already sent the answer to his prayer, but that it took 21 days for the answer to get there because the prince of Persia had withstood him. And often these devils are called, angels and demons are called principalities. And so these princes fought against one another and then another one had to step in. So there is a spiritual battle going on. When I read that, it makes me think, I need to pray. Because when we pray, we can basically get God's help and if we don't pray, we're basically just going to be assaulted by all these spiritual forces and the devil and everybody who's out to get us and out to stop us when we want to serve God and preach the gospel and do something for him and raise our families for him and so forth. So we need to pray because the battle is a spiritual battle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers. So we see here that there's a war in heaven. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent taken by force. It says in verse 8, And prevailed not, neither was there place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. So what's his job while he's on this earth? To deceive the world. He deceives them through false religion, he deceives them into committing sin, he deceives people through the religion of atheism and evolution. But in this point, he's cast out into the earth. Now in Job, he's already in the earth, but what's happening here is that he no longer has access between heaven and earth. In Revelation 12, at the beginning of the tribulation here, he's basically being cast out into the earth and he basically has only access to the earth now. He's been confined to just the earth. Look what it says in verse number 10, And I heard a loud voice saying, In heaven now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. So what's he doing in heaven? He's accusing the brethren before God day and night. What's he doing in the book of Job? He's accusing Job. He lies about Job because he says, Job is only serving you because you've put a hedge around him and prospered him. God took away the prosperity in chapter 1. God took away the hedge of protection in chapter 1. He lost everything. Did Job still serve God? Did he still worship God? So was the devil right? No. The devil was a liar. False accusation made against Job. And we should be very careful about making false accusations. You know the Bible talks about false accusers. If you're going to accuse somebody of something, you better have evidence. You better be an eyewitness. You shouldn't just make railing accusations against people. And just say, oh yes, I mean, you know how many people have made false accusations against me? Like, here's a huge false accusation that's made against me. He's just in it for the money. People said that before I was even getting paid. I mean, for the first four and a half years I passed here. I didn't get any pay. And it was like, yeah, this money, he only preached on tithing because he's in it for the money. And then, you know, we put out the After the Tribulation movie. Yeah, you know, this prophecy stuff sells, yeah, he's making money, he's in it for the money. I didn't get paid a dime off that movie. And you know what is so stupid? The filmmaker, Paul Wittenberger, he ought to make money, he worked on it for thousands of hours. Why should he not get paid? I mean, look, people work and they get paid. And by the way, pastors work and should get paid. Whether you're a preacher, whether you're making a film, whether you're cutting grass, sweeping the floor, doing plumbing, doing carpentry, doing electrical, look, there's nothing wrong with getting paid for the work that you do. But it's just funny how somebody's just quick to say, oh, you're in it for the money, Pastor Anderson. Yeah, you're making these movies, you're selling these movies. I'm not even selling them. I'm giving it away for free. Not that there's anything wrong with someone selling it, but we would never sell anything in God's house, because God's house is not a house of merchandise. That's why on the back shelf, After the Tribulation, free. Book of Revelation DVDs, free, okay? That is a false accusation, but do you think God is pleased when somebody makes an accusation like that, that's not founded on reality at all? I mean, you think God just doesn't care when somebody points at a preacher and says, he is doing that for the money, and they have no evidence, no money was received. That's a false accuser, and God doesn't like that. And God calls that a railer, and God says that's one of the works of the flesh. God said that's 11 that will leaven the whole lump, that is a wicked sin, and people need to repent and get right with God if they're just throwing out a railing accusation without foundation and without evidence. You need to be careful that you never are caught up in this, and sometimes you'll hear an accusation and just repeat it without really verifying whether it's even true. And you know, I've heard a lot of accusations against a lot of people that I thought were probably 90% true. I'm not going to repeat that, you know, you shouldn't just repeat stuff that's 90% true. You need to make sure that if you're going to, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with accusing somebody, that you know for sure is guilty, that you have evidence that is guilty when it's beyond doubt. You shouldn't just make false accusations because you think that this may be the case. So be careful with that, because that's what the devil is, he's the accuser of the brethren. He accuses them before God, day and night, he accuses them with a lot of false accusations, and when he's cast out, the Bible says, the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God, day and night, and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives under the death. So according to verse 11, how they overcame him was through the blood of the Lamb. Was it by their own works? Did they overcome him by their own works? No. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. That's how they overcame, and it says they loved not their lives under the death, because the Bible tells us that if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and if you think about the terminology here, the accuser, what would we call the accuser in a courtroom? The prosecutor, right? And then what would we call the advocate? That would be like the defense attorney, right? So basically the Bible's telling us Jesus Christ is like our defense lawyer. He's like our defense attorney, and basically that Satan is like the prosecutor, okay? And so basically Satan is bringing accusations against us, and you know who's going to defend us? Jesus Christ. What do we see in the book of Job? We see Satan making a false accusation, and we see the Lord God himself defending his servant Job, as far as his integrity. Look if you would at Job chapter 2 again, and the Bible says in verse 3, the Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil, and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou moveth me against him to destroy him without cause. So God is saying, look, Job has retained his integrity, he's basically saying, I have proved you wrong to the devil. Now a key point of verse 3 here that's going to come into play later in the book of Job is the fact that God makes it very clear that he was moved against Job to destroy him, those two words are very important, without cause. Because a lot of people, they read chapter 1, they read chapter 2, but by the time they get into the 30s and 40s of Job, they've totally forgotten that Job was a perfect and an upright man that feared God and eschewed evil, and they totally forget that God was moved to destroy him without cause. Because people will even theorize that Elihu wrote the book of Job, and Elihu is one of the ones that's condemning Job, that tells Job that he drinketh iniquity like water, that he goes in the company of sinful men, you know, he blames Job that these things happened to him because of his sin. Look, Elihu was just as wrong as the three friends. He was the one that darkened counsel with words without knowledge. Even though Job applied that to himself, God was saying that about Elihu. And it's clear if we read chapter 1, if we read chapter 2, and if we read chapter 42, there's no doubt that Job was not living in any kind of sin, Job didn't have a lesson he needed to learn and God needed to come and teach him this lesson. That's what people will try to say when they interpret Job. Well, God had to teach Job, you know, this and that, that's why he did this. No, the Bible says he did it without cause. He did it because he was provoked of the devil. He did it because he wanted us to have the book of Job so that we could learn from the patience of Job, so that we could learn from the life of Job. He did it to put Satan to silence, to defeat Satan's false accusation, to try Job and make him stronger, better, and even more righteous than he already was. But it wasn't that Job just had this big problem in his life and he needed to go through this to fix it. No, Job was fine. Job was a perfect upright man. There was nothing like him in all the earth that feared God and eschewed evil. So keep this in mind later on in the book of Job, you know, because you just keep listening to those friends attacking Job and then Elihu starts attacking Job and it boggles my mind that some people actually begin to believe it, you know? And they actually teach this stuff. When in reality, the Bible's crystal clear, when God's talking, it was without cause. There was no sin that caused this to happen. Look at verse 4. But before I move on to verse 4, but let me say this, you know what? Bad things can happen in our life sometimes without cause. Just because something bad happens, we shouldn't just automatically think, oh no, I'm living in sin. God's angry at me. God's punishing me. Sometimes bad things happen in our life without cause. Now God will work things out for our good. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, them that are called according to His purpose, and the latter end of Job is great. Everything turns out great for Job. The patience of Job is there to teach us that weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. So we see here that everything in the end works out for good, but sometimes things happen without cause. It's not necessarily that we've sinned or something of that nature. Remember the guy who was born blind? And the disciples said, you know, why was he born blind? Did he sin or did his parents sin? And Jesus said, neither had this man sinned, neither had his parents sinned. He said he's blind for the glory of God. God was going to use that, just like God's going to use the book of Job. Now you say, well how do I know if something bad happens, how do I know if God's punishing me? Because you're doing bad things. I mean that's how you know. I mean if you're living in sin and then something bad happens, then you know God's punishing you. If you're right and bad things happen, then God's not punishing you. I mean it's that simple. And we need to be very careful that we don't look at the circumstances of our life in order to determine what's right and wrong. We shouldn't look at things like, well I did X and nothing bad happened, so it must be okay. Because you know what, sometimes the punishment or the chastisement doesn't come instantly. So we need to be very careful that we don't do something that's questionable and then nothing bad happens, okay I must be fine. Or do something that we believe is good and then something bad happens and say, oh I guess God doesn't want us to do this. No, use the Bible to determine what's right and wrong. Don't ever use events of life to show you what's right and wrong. If something bad happens you shouldn't just automatically, oh no I must be in sin, let's find the sin. I mean that's what the whole book of Job, these guys are trying to find Job's sin and it just wasn't there. So we don't want to fall into the same trap of like, okay I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong, I've got to figure out what I'm sinning. No maybe you're not sinning, maybe you're just being tried, maybe you're like Job, maybe you're just going through a temptation. So we don't want to ever use the events of life to determine what's right and wrong. Every answer to what's right and wrong is in this book in my hand right here. If this book says it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't care if you're getting away with it, I don't care if you get away with it for a year, for two years, if this book says it's wrong, it's wrong. And I don't care if you're doing everything that this book says and everything's going wrong in your life, you just stay with it and let the Bible guide you, let your faith in the Bible be strong and keep doing what's right. You can't go by the events of life to figure out the will of God. You must let the Bible tell you what the will of God is. But some people, they'll start doing something good. And then something bad will happen and they're like, oh, God's not in this. God's closing the door. Let the Bible make those kind of decisions for you. But he says here in verse 4, Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, yea all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, behold he is in thine hand, but save his life. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown, meaning from the top of his head all the way down to the bottom of his feet. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal and he sat down among the ashes. So get the picture here. He's already lost all of his wealth, all of his money, all of his livestock, all of his servants, his ten children have died. And now he's just got nothing left and all of a sudden he just breaks out in these boils. The devil touches him and he gets all these boils. Does anybody feel that they have a pretty good grasp of what a boil is? Usually a boil is basically, without being too gross, it's like a pus-filled sore. Okay, it's really sensitive to the touch, painful, pus-filled sore. And sometimes the pus hardens and there's just like this hard mass of infected just filth and pus under the skin. Okay, I'm trying to keep it really mild for you. So that's what it means, but here's the thing, the Bible talks about him scraping himself. That tells me that there's an itching involved with whatever Job has here. Now I don't know about you, but itching is one of the worst things. Itching and burning can be bad. You know, some of the worst thing is when you get a really bad sunburn. Who's ever had that really bad sunburn and it's peeling and it just feels like your skin's just on fire and you're like Job, I mean you're scraping yourself with a potsherd. Usually it's not all the way from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, okay. Usually it's just one place, you know, your back, your arms, your legs, whatever. You're putting lotion on, nothing helps, your skin's just on fire, burning. I mean he has this on just every inch of his body, I mean top of his head, bottom of his head, just pus-filled sores, itching, burning, just agony. So I mean what in the world does this guy have left? Children all dead, wealth all gone. Now he's just in pain, burning, torment. Imagine what he looked like and when his friends come to see him they made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. Look at verse 12, when they lifted up their eyes up far off and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and when they see him from far away, they don't even recognize him. When it says they knew him not, they don't even recognize him. And as soon as they realize it's him, his three friends are coming to comfort him. Now when they got the message, they probably hadn't heard about this part, because back then they didn't just pick up the phone and call him. So they're coming from another country, so when they're on their way there, they probably hadn't heard this part, they probably just heard about him losing the cattle, he's lost his children, and they see him and as soon as they realize it's him, they start crying. The three friends just start crying, they start weeping. Just because his appearance is so depressing. I mean he looked horrible, he looked disgusting, he's in pain, physical pain, not even just the sadness of losing family, not even just being depressed of losing his money, but just now he's just in physical torment. I mean could it get any worse? It couldn't really get any worse, right? His three friends come in to comfort him, all they do is attack him, and he even says to them, miserable comforters are ye, you know, and he says they're physicians of no value and miserable comforters. But look, as if that's not enough, as if it's not enough, his children are all dead, his wealth is gone, he's in excruciating pain, look at the interaction he has with his wife in verse 9. You know, you're hoping, I mean, this is the one person that's going to support him. She's going to be there with him through thick or thin, right? Look what she says in verse 9, then said his wife unto him, dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die! I mean can you imagine your wife saying to you, why do you even retain your integrity? Curse God and die. And even at that, he said unto her, look at verse 10, thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh, what, shall we receive good at the hand of God? And shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lip. He's not questioning God, he's not rebuking God, he says, well, I'm going to receive good at God's hand and evil. Even his wife has turned on him. Now obviously, you know, you can't be too hard on Job's wife here. I mean her husband looks like a monster right now. She's given birth to these 10 kids. I mean, you know, having children is a major ordeal. I mean, first of all, she's gotten pregnant, she's gone through all the morning sickness and nausea and the throwing up involved with that. And then she's gone through all the pain of labor and giving birth. And then she's got that newborn and she loves it and nurses it and raises it. She changes just hundreds and thousands of diapers, feeds it, teaches it, homeschools it, raises it, 10 times. And they're all grown up, they're all adults, they're all serving God, everything's great, and then they're all just dead, all of them. I mean that's a pretty harsh blow to her too. Also, you know, she doesn't exactly have a lot of wealth either anymore. I mean, all the money that was Job's, I mean, that was her money too. So she's lost everything too. She's lost money. She's lost the same children that Job lost. I mean, she's going through a lot of what he's going through. She just doesn't have the boils. She just has to look at the boils, you know. And I mean, she's just like, curse God and die. Now look, I'm not condoning what she's doing. I'm not making excuses for her. I'm just saying, you know, I don't think that she was a bad person in general. I think that probably most women would have had a similar reaction in the same situation. I don't think she was a bad person. I think there's a few things we can learn from this little interaction between Job and his wife. First of all, we need to understand that, you know, as wives you should be more supportive than this, okay. You know, because look, when your husband has bad news, you should be there supporting him and encouraging him, you know, when he loses his job, if he gets in a bad car accident or you know, whatever. You should be there saying, oh honey, that's okay. It's going to be fine. Try to give him some support and love and affection here. You know, Job's not getting that and that just makes his situation even worse. Because you know, sometimes if your wife is really supportive of you and loves you, that can help you get through a lot of hard times. You know, if everything else is going bad but your relationship with your wife is good or your relationship with your husband is good, that's going to help you to get through it. But that's the amazing thing about this story. Job didn't even have that going for him. He had nothing going for him. I mean, he has no one but God. And God is someone that he cannot see or hear. He just has to believe that God is there. And yet he hangs onto that, he clings to that, even though that's all he's got. He has no spouse supporting him. He has no friends supporting him. It's just him and an unseen God. And still he retains his integrity, he's a great example. So first of all, wives should obviously be more supportive than that. But we understand that, you know, that's not always the way life works. And I think another lesson we can take from this interaction between Job and his wife is that sometimes when people are going through hard times or they get emotional, sometimes they say things that they don't really mean. And a lot of times I think that if people in their marriage, if they heard their spouse say something like this. Let's say your spouse said to you something equivalent to, you know, die, okay? Who's been there? No, I'm just kidding. Put those hands down, it was a rhetorical question. You know, just if your wife's ever said to you or your husband's ever said to you, die! You know, or curse God and die or something else and die or whatever. Okay, here's the thing. A lot of people, if they heard that, you know what they'd say? This marriage is over. Our marriage is over, it's all over. But was this marriage over? No, because you know what? They're going to go back and have 10 more kids together, okay? So this marriage was far from over, okay? So what we need to learn from this is just because harsh words are said, just because hateful words are spoken, that does not mean that marriage is over. Because she didn't really mean that, but people say things that are extreme, they get emotional, they get upset, maybe they're going through a bad time, maybe they get angry, they lose their temper. They say things that are bad things that they shouldn't say, but it does not mean that marriage is over. So don't just get in the car, you know, if your husband says something to you, you know, don't just get in the car and go drive to your parents' house or something. Or you know, if your wife says something to you, don't just say that's it, you know, I'm going to get my own apartment. No, you need to just stay married, you go to bed, you wake up, and you move on and you start over. And you push the reset button and you forgive and you keep on living life. And it's not over, you know, until the fat lady sings. You know, it's not over until death do us part, okay? So don't just, when there's an angry fight, just throw in the towel on your marriage, just because somebody says curse God and die, okay? So that's a good example of Job keeping his cool even in this, I mean he doesn't even really strike back. You know, I mean the harshest thing he says is, thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. And that's not really that harsh of a thing to say, considering what she just said. That's pretty mild. So Job showed a good example of patience and staying cool there. So it says in verse number 11, now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. And we're going to get to know these guys very well in the subsequent chapters as they speak unto Job. It says, they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept. And they rent every one his mantle, meaning that they tore their mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great. They didn't even want to talk to him, they don't even know what to say. I mean, what do you say? They came to talk to him, to comfort him, to mourn with him. I mean, they show up and they just are blown away by just how horrific he looks. Just the sores, the pus, the scraping. They just look at him and they just sit there for seven days, they're just kind of there. And they just stay with him and just wait. And then after the seven days, Job begins to speak. He breaks the silence after seven days. And in the rest of the book of Job, we're basically going to be going back and forth between Job and his friends. Chapters one and two are the introduction, what we'd call the prologue. And then chapter 42 is the epilogue, you know, that's the afterward, that's the ending. Chapters one and two are just introductory. Now chapters three all the way through chapter 41 are going to be this back and forth, first between Job and his three friends going back and forth. And then Elihu is going to chime in, and then the Lord himself chimes in for several chapters. And that's the way the book of Job works. This is a very fascinating book, because they go into all kinds of subjects, I mean they go into subjects of science, of zoology, they go into medical, they go into spiritual things, they go into just all different subjects, and they discuss all types of things. Now some of the chapters in the book of Job are Job speaking, some of them are his friends. Now at the end of the book of Job, in chapter 42, God makes it clear that the friends spoke that which was wrong. So when we're looking at the chapters, for example chapter 4 verse 1 where it says, Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said. The entire chapter 4 and the entire chapter 5 is spoken by Eliphaz, that is not something that we can take as gospel truth. Now the Bible tells us clearly that Job was a prophet, and that everything that Job said, according to verse 42, was right concerning the Lord. So whenever we read the Job chapters, we know that what is spoken is God's word, that it's correct. Chapters 4 and 5 for example, any of the other chapters spoken by the friends, they are God's word in the sense that it is an accurate rendition of what Eliphaz said. But just as the Bible records the devil speaking, yet what the devil said was not true, the Bible records Gehazi speaking lies, and that wasn't true. Obviously when we read the chapters from Eliphaz, we can't just take it as truth because we know that there is error in the words of Eliphaz. When we read chapters 4 and 5, we know that there is error. So when we get to those chapters on the Bible study, when we get to chapter 4, when we get to chapter 5, what we're going to do is we're going to go through verse by verse the words of Eliphaz, and we're going to basically examine them in light of the rest of the Bible. Because a lot of what Eliphaz said is true, I mean just because someone's wrong, it doesn't mean that they don't say anything that's right. So when we look at what Eliphaz said, a lot of it is true, and a lot of it's not true. When Job speaks, it's all true. When Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad speak, it's a mixture of truth and untruth. How do we know? Well, because the Bible has 1189 chapters in it. So we'll look at the rest of the Bible and we will weigh and examine the words of Eliphaz, which part is true and which part is not true, and in the process there's a lot to learn. It's a very interesting book. But let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your Word. Please just help us to learn from the example of Job. He's a powerful example of patience and suffering, affliction, and retaining our integrity at hard times. Help us, no matter what happens, to stay true to your Word and stay true to your commandments. Whether our spouse turns on us, whether our friends turn on us, whether we get physically ill and covered in boils, or whether we lose all of our wealth or even lose a child or children, help us to stay true to you and your Word and to always be thankful for what you've given us and what you've done for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.