Job30-31

We're going to be with you. Take your Bibles. Come to the book of Job. Job chapter 30.! Job chapter 30. We've got a lot of verses we're going to cover this evening. We're going to actually get all of the 30th chapter and the 31st.

So Job 30 and 31, which will be a little bit of reading, but I think it is worth our time to take it into context here. Let's just making our way through Scripture, and this is where we have landed.

So Job chapter 30. Before we get into the text, let's get into the presence of the Father and let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for allowing us to gather together.

We thank you for this privileged opportunity that you give us midweek to build a fellowship with one another, to be encouraged by our fellowship, to be renewed in our commitment to following you.

Lord, we pray now as we come to the opening up of your word, that your word would speak truth into our hearts and into our minds. And Lord, as we seek to know your word, may it not just be so that we can gain an understanding.

As always, we pray that there would be application of the truth that we hear, truth that we learn. Lord, application of the reality of who you are. I pray that that application would be lived out in our daily lives for your glory, not just for our comfort, but Lord, that we may be given for the glory of the Savior.

We do pray that throughout this place, as always, our heart cry is that Christ would be magnified. From the youngest of our children to the oldest among us, we pray that Christ is magnified.

So Lord, help us to see you high and lifted up in all ways, in all things tonight. And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Job chapter 30 and 31.

We are really hitting a... I know we keep saying this, but there are just these hinges in which the book of Job turns upon. We're rapidly closing one portion of the book of Job.

We will actually bring it to a close tonight with these are the last words or the final words of Job. So we'll get to the remaining of Job's extended discourse found in chapters 29, 30, and 31, after which Elihu will begin his extended discourse in which he responds to the friends of Job.

He responds to Job. He speaks for the Lord God Almighty. Then we will have the Lord speak. Job will say very little following this. As a matter of fact, what Job will say following this extended passage here in the middle of the book will be in matters of, you know, I repent I was wrong and I put my hand over my mouth.

I don't really have a whole lot more to say, kind of in a nutshell. But tonight I want you to see the final cry of complaint. The final cry of complaint. The very first words we hear from Job himself are words of complaint from his suffering and his misery.

Now we know that in the third chapter, we know that he will not forsake the Lord his God. We know that in the second chapter, he tells his wife that naked he came and naked he will return to the grave and that he will not forsake should I receive good things from the hand of the Lord and not receive the bad.

But the very first extended speech that we hear of him is a lament. And it is a lament that is responded to by his friends after they sat with him for a number of days.

And now the discourse has went on for an extended period of time. And now we have his final grand lament, his final cry of complaint.

We will understand tonight that he has great grounds for that lament and that mourning. In the 29th chapter, Job has declared his previous glory.

He has declared how he used to be. That when he would go to take his seat at the gate of the city, the young men would hush their talking and stand and rise.

The older men would cover their mouths. The princes and the elders would be listening to what it is that he had to say. He has declared his former conduct and how he behaved and how he cared for those around him, from the orphans to the widows, to the hungry, to the needy, to the hurting.

We will again hear of some of that tonight when we get into the 31st chapter, but we will be hearing of it from a different point of view, if you will. Not necessarily, he is not boasting at all in chapter 29.

He is declaring. It is not braggadocious. It is not in any way prideful. Rather, he is just stating, this is who I was. And the reason he is stating that is because of the realities we find in the 30th chapter.

We do not understand the depth here of the sorrow until we understand the greatness of his former glory. So we read that in context, knowing that in chapter 29, he has just declared who he used to be.

And now there is this transition in chapter 30, but now. So we will see Job chapter 30 and 31. But now those younger than I mock me, whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock.

Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me? Vigor had perished from them, from want and famine. They were gaunt, who gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation, who pluck mallow by the bushes, and whose food is the root of the broom shrub.

They are driven from the community. They shout against them as against a thief, so that they dwell in the dreadful valleys, in holes of the earth and of the rocks. Among the bushes they cry out, under the nettles they are gathered together.

Fools, even those without a name. They were scourged from the land. And now I have become their taunts. I have even become a byword to them.

They abhor me and stand aloof from me, and they do not refrain from spinning at my face, because he has loosed his bowstring and afflicted me. They have cast off the bridle before me.

On the right hand, their brood arises. They thrust aside my feet and build up against me their ways of destruction. They break up my path. They profit from my destruction. No one restrains them.

As through a wide breach, they come. Amid the tempest, they roll on. Terrors are turned against me. They pursue my honor as the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

And now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have seized me. At night it pierces my bones within me. My gnawing pains take no rest.

By a great force my garment is distorted. It binds me about as the collar of my coat. He has cast me into the mire, and have become like dust and ashes. I cry out to you for help, but you do not answer me.

I stand up, and you turn your attention against me. You have become cruel to me. With the might of your hand, you persecute me. You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride, and you dissolve me in a storm.

For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house of meeting for all living. Yet does not one in the heap of ruins stretch out his hand, or in his disaster therefore cry out for help?

Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy? When I expected good, then evil came. When I waited for light, then darkness came. I am seething within and cannot relax.

Days of affliction confront me. I go about mourning without comfort. I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help. I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches.

My skin turns black on me, and my bones burn with fever. Therefore, my harp is turned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of those who weep.

I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze at a virgin? And what is the portion of God from above to the heritage of the Almighty from on high? Is it not calamity to the unjust and disaster to those who work iniquity?

Does he not see my ways and number all my steps? If I have walked with falsehood and my foot has hastened after deceit, let him weigh me with accurate scales and let God know my integrity.

If my step has turned from the way, or my heart followed my eyes, or if any spot has stuck to my hands, let me sow and another eat, and let my crops be uprooted.

If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or I have lured at my neighbor's doorway, may my wife grind for another, and let others kneel down over her. For that would be a lustful crime.

Moreover, it would be an iniquity punishable by judges. For it would be fire that consumes Abaddon, and would uproot all my increase. If I have despised the claim of my male or female slaves, when they filed a complaint against me, what then could I do when God arises?

And when he calls me to account, what will I answer him? Did not he who made me in the womb make him, and the same one fashion us in the womb? If I have kept the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morsel alone, and the orphan has not shared it.

But from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, and from infancy I guided her. If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or that the needy had no covering, if his loins have not thanked me, and if he has not been warmed by the fleece of my sheep, if I have lifted up my hand against the orphan, because I saw I had support in the gate, let my shoulder fall from the socket, and my arm be broken off at the elbow.

For calamity from God is a terror to me, and because of his majesty I can do nothing. If I have put my confidence in gold, and called fine gold my trust, if I have gloated because my wealth was great, and because my hand had secured so much, if I have looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon going in splendor, and my heart became secretly enticed, and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth, that too would have been an iniquity calling for judgment, for I would have denied God above.

Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy, or exulted when evil befell him? No, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life in a curse. Have the men of my tent not said, who can find one who has not been satisfied with his meat?

The alien has not lodged outside, for I have opened my doors to the traveler. Have I covered my transgressions like Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom, because I feared the great multitude, and the contempt of the families terrified me, and kept silent and did not go out of doors.

Oh, that I had one to hear me. Behold, here is my signature. Let the Almighty answer me, and the indictment which my adversary has written. Surely I would carry it on my shoulder.

I would bind it to myself like a crown. I would declare to him the number of my steps. Like a prince, I would approach him. If my land cries out against me, and my furrows weep together, if I have eaten its fruit without money, or have caused its owners to lose their lives, let briars grow instead of wheat, and stink wheat instead of barley.

The words of Job are ended. Here we see this final cry of complaint. And we read it in light of its full context, understanding the 29th chapter.

It is better to read the three chapters together, because then we get really the weight of the discourse, in which Job speaks of his former glory, and he speaks of the privileged position, which he once enjoyed, and how he said to himself, surely I will die comfortable in my nest, and my children will always be around me.

And then he contradicts that with his present condition, but now. And after that contradiction of what used to be, but what presently is, then he presents himself for judgment, not before men, but before the Lord God Almighty.

It is here, this last cry. He is not arguing with, nor refuting any of the claims of his friends. No longer is there a discussion going on among his three counselors, for that has ceased sometime prior to this.

This is Job's lament before the Almighty, and asking the Almighty to finally and fully pass judgment. Do not lose sight of the reality that he is willing to accept the judgment that is just.

But what he is asking is for just judgment. He is not denying that there are some things that are deserving of condemnation, some things that are deserving of God's disfavor, and he is not denying the holy standard of the Almighty, but he is asking God to judge justly.

And then we see this final cry of complaint, where Job brings his words to an end. Now, he is hoping, I would think, and we'll get to why here in just a moment, that he hears nothing in return.

Because by hearing nothing, it would kind of silence his critics, and silence those who stood before him. We do know the rest of the text. We know the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.

We know that Elihu has his time of speaking. But then we also know that the Almighty does indeed speak. He says, this is my signature. Let the Lord answer me. And God does speak.

And in speaking, God causes humility to fall upon Job, and to cover his mouth, and him not come to him with lament, because he hears the words of the Lord Almighty himself.

But, contradictory to what his friends assumed, when the Almighty does speak, he does not speak retribution theology. He does not speak in agreement with everything that the three counselors of Job have already said.

It is something totally different, in which we learn something of the character of God, and the truth of God. So that by the time we get to the end of the book, we, like Job, can say, you are the Lord God Almighty, you can do what you please.

And leave it at that. You do as you please, it is completely at your own discretion. I'm not going to dictate to you the blessings that I deserve, or the curses that I don't deserve.

I'm going to let you do as you please. But before we get there, we need to see this final cry, this cry of lament, and the weight that is there. I want you to notice the depth of his humiliation.

Notice the depth of the humiliation that Job is experiencing. When we begin to speak of the sufferings and the trials of Job, we quite often begin where the trials begin.

We would say, oh, you remember Job. Job, who lost all of his wealth, and all of his livestock was carried away, and the animals were destroyed. And then Job, whose children were all taken away from him.

And then we begin to speak of, oh, you remember Job, who had this illness affect his body. We don't know what it is. We know that he has scabs that are oozing liquid, and he has open sores upon him.

We know that his skin is turning black, and it's not from the sun. So the wording here, if you read in its original languages, is that his skin is literally rotting on his body. We know that all these things, we can kind of get a picture of it.

We have no idea what it is. But that's where we tend to kind of focus our attention. But the one thing that we forget is that that was the beginning of his suffering, not the extent of his suffering.

The loss of his children and all of his wealth happened in a moment, happened in a day. Remember the rapid succession of the messengers coming to him saying that I was in the field and a great storm came, and I was this, and the civilians came and carried away the animals.

I was here, and the thunder struck. And all these things happened in a moment. His health fell at a moment. It progressively got worse, but it happened in a moment. Those matters of suffering were instantaneous because God allowed or permitted the adversary to wage that battle against him.

But my friend, the greatest suffering of Job was not what he lost or the physical pain he felt. Because when he began to speak of the depth of his humiliation, he made no mentioning of the fact that he had lost his wealth, lost his children, and lost his health.

Rather, he begins with his social position. Why? Because if you lose it all and you still have those around you who support you, care for you, and love you, you think you can make it out of it.

But when you lose it all and then you are humiliated among all, you're literally living in isolation. And the greatest attack, I believe that the enemy brought upon Job was the isolation of the individual in the midst of his suffering.

He would say in this text, I have cried out for help, but there is none. I have asked my counselors, but they've given me foolish counsel. And he begins to speak of the depth of this.

Do not lose that because it is not just the losing of the physical means. Because the greatest blessing of the Lord are not necessarily the physical blessings.

And therefore, the greatest suffering we feel are not necessarily the physical blessings. We believe at times in our own American Christianity that if we are going to sacrificially love the Lord God Almighty, that means we must abstain from some physical possession.

Sometimes the sacrificially living means to give up our friends or our position or our social standing or something that cost us so dearly.

It is being different than those around us and standing in a unique position with a different viewpoint of the Almighty that Job has other than anyone else. It is as what Christ experienced that when he came to his own and his own received him not.

And he was mocked and ridiculed by the multitudes. And it is here that we begin to see the depth of his humiliation. Because he begins with the but now.

But now, though I used to enjoy this prominent position, the young men, they laugh at me, they mock me. And then he goes, we would almost think he's being a little derogatory here, but he's just being honest.

He said, they're fathers who I wouldn't even put with the dogs that tended my animals. And he begins to speak of the lowest class of society. He goes into this lengthy description of those who eat marrow and they dig up marrow and they eat the roots of the broom tree and they live out in the world.

He said, these are people that don't even have a name. And we get caught up in the description like, man, he's really giving it to these guys. Well, he is. He's saying, these are the people that society has ostracized, that people have run out of town and they're living in holes in the ground.

But notice this, and now I have become their taunt. that is the lowest of society is taunting Job.

He who used to sit in an exalted position at the gate of the city was such a helper to those who were in need.

He is not belittling these people. As a matter of fact, he is showing you how these people are perceived in society and how he is even lower than them. The lowest of the low taunt Job.

Look at the depth of this humiliation. He who thought, surely I will die at ease in my own nest with my children around me and I'm living in this prosperous position and God has highly favored me and I'm praying over my children and I'm setting them apart and I'm sanctifying them and I'm doing everything right.

Now all of a sudden, he is completely humbled. Read an account this, actually it was today, it was Henry Blackaby was speaking of this couple, this couple that had retired and they had a very prominent position in America and they had retired and they had just kind of sensed that the Lord was leading them to go to the mission field so they said, okay, well this is a great sacrifice because they're enjoying their retirement years, they have this really nice home and their kids and their grandkids and everybody's around but they really thought the Lord was leading them to go to the mission field so they sold everything, they moved all the way around, they went to Russia, I think it was, so they left, I think they were in Florida and they went to Russia, I mean that's a contradiction in itself, right?

So they left sunny Florida and they went to cold Russia and they were there and the depth of the coldness and they got to these believers and they were there, it was right after the Soviet Union fell so they were there and communism had just crumbled so they can minister to the churches and there are two groups of believers there and they're thinking, God's calling us to the mission field and we're here to minister and we're going to minister to these believers but as soon as they get and they're in this little kind of dinky apartment, they're in Russia, their kids and grandkids are over there and they're here and then, you know, infighting starts in the church over there and there are two different sects of individuals, this one saying this thing, this one saying this and they all wanted the missionaries to agree with them and the missionaries wouldn't choose sides so wouldn't you know it, both groups got mad at the missionaries and nobody was talking to them and Blackaby was talking about how he and his wife were there and they were praying with a couple and they were sharing this and they said, so Henry, you know, we think we're just going to move back to America and what he said next was really telling Henry said, so he wasn't doubting their sacrifice, he said, I think you might have misunderstood the sacrifice.

He said, the sacrifice wasn't you giving something up so that people would respect you. The sacrifice was giving something up so that you could be with Christ who they didn't respect regardless of how they respond to you and so that couple stayed and that couple labored and a couple ministered.

He never tells me, he never tells how they ended up, it doesn't matter because we would say, oh, so they labored and it became fruitful. What if they labor for years and it never did? Was it still worth it?

Yes. Because Jesus says, they've hated me and they will hate you. It's not about our social standing, it's not about who we are, it's not about how people perceive us.

Sometimes the greatest suffering we go through is the depth of humiliation but it is existing in the midst of that. Even though it's a reality, that is the hardest part. That is the difficult part.

And Job is lamenting here, you say, oh, well, Job gets it all back in the end. Right, he doesn't know he's going to and that's not promised by the way. It's not.

He just happens to. So we notice the depth of his humiliation. also see in the text the desperation of his condition.

If the humiliation is really weighty, then the condition is getting worse. We've already kind of alluded to it here. He begins to speak that, and I notice this, and so we have to be careful in our text and we want to be accurate with it.

If you want to understand the sovereignty of God the way Job understands the sovereignty of God, we know from chapters one and two that it is Satan, the enemy, the adversary, that is permitted by the Lord God Almighty to attack Job.

Right? We know that. You can say, yes, preacher, we know that. We read that. It is Satan that has done that. But Job constantly reaffirms that his attacks are coming to him from God.

You have done this. You have done this. Also notice from the text that God never says, I didn't do that. And this is where the sovereignty of God has to be a reality in our lives.

Did God attack Job? No, Satan attacked Job but was permitted by the Lord God. Therefore, in his sovereignty he permitted the attacks.

Why? Well, it's ultimately for Job's good and God's glory. It builds his faith, it builds his understanding of who God is, it gives greater glory to God through that suffering and through that misery.

It's not necessarily for Job's blessing but it's for his good. The world understands that retribution theology falls on its face, that we need a relationship with God, not necessarily a reward system with him.

We don't need him to give us a good mark when we do good and a bad mark when we do bad. No, we need to know him. Our relationship with him is so much more important than our living and our activities before him.

So it is for our good in God's glory. But he constantly, as a matter of fact, he uses a word that's really, really, really close here where it says, you have attacked me.

And the word there, let me find it for you, okay? I put my glasses back on so I can find it for you, okay? In verse 16, now my soul was poured out within me days of affliction have seized me at night, it pierces my bones within me.

So here we begin to see the desperation of his condition. He says that his bones are crying out, his affliction, it's always there. All these things are coming against me.

All these things are happening. He says, by a great force my garment is distorted. He has cast me into the mire and I have become dust and ashes. I cry out to you for help but you do not answer me. I stand up and you turn your attention against me.

You have become cruel to me. That word there, that is the word, you have become cruel. That become cruel is you have become my adversary. And it's very close to the word Satan in the original language.

And so we would look and go, oh, that's heretical. And there's no heresy here because it's just the wording. Satan is our great adversary but God in his sovereignty has permitted the adversity to be existing in our life.

Why is this important? It's one thing to know the adversary. It's a whole other matter to understand where the adversity must get its permission from.

And if you really know that you are the apple of God's eye, that he has loving kindness for you that is new every morning, that his compassions never cease, and it is he who permits the adversity, we are receiving it from the hand of a loving father, not a vengeful enemy.

We need to be on guard against our enemy that we do not permit him in. So if there are matters in our life in which we have let Satan have a foothold, we need to do as 2 Corinthians chapter 10 does.

It says, take every thought captive and destroying every lofty thought up and destroying all the enemy's fortresses that are in our mind. Sometimes Satan has a fortress built in our mind and we need to tear that down because we've allowed him to take residence somewhere in our mind and in our heart and so then the enemy has room to operate.

Tear down his outpost in your life. If that means there's things you've got to get rid of, then get rid of them. And if you know, if you've searched me and tried me, know my desperate ways, help me to understand all my thoughts, Lord, and when you stood before him in transparency and all of a sudden things are still going wrong, then understand this, the adversity has a source and don't give the enemy more power than he deserves to have because he is the son of God who has to stand before the Lord God Almighty.

And when we understand that those trials and temptations come from the throne of a loving father, now all of a sudden we're like, well, this must be for my good and his glory.

No matter how miserable it is, my bones are reeking with pain, I have no despair, I'm full of despair, I get no rest, he says.

All of this affliction is constantly around me, my skin is turning black. You notice, this is real suffering. This is real misery.

But it makes a difference if it's passing through the hands of a loving father. One of the hardest things I ever had to do as a dad, Hunter got really sick when he was two years old.

He actually got the rotovirus. Carrie and I, we went to church that morning. I was not a pastor then, so I was just a regular church member. It's kind of cool. You got to go to church and then, you know, you went home and you went back to church that night.

That was really cool. So anyway, I'm sorry, I couldn't miss that one, but we went home and he just started getting sick all day. I mean, man, it was, you know, I'll spare you the details, but it was coming out everywhere and he just really just wasn't looking good and we're like, we were trying to go back to church that night.

You're like, man, you're hardcore. We love the church. So we're like, hey, we're going to go back to church and we're like, eh, he doesn't look too good. So we went to the ER instead and they said, he's completely dehydrated.

He has nothing. We're going to have to put an IV in him. It's okay. And so I remember at that time, I was a young dad, so we'll put it together. I was 20. Okay, so if he was two, I was 20.

So I'm a tough 20 year old, right? And I'm going to take care of this. And they said, dad, you got to hold him down while we put the IV in him. That was one of the hardest things I ever did as a dad because he was just looking at me, screaming at me, and it was the whole, you know, daddy, you're hurting me, but I knew it was for his good.

Right? I had to hold him there. And they didn't like it. Sometimes God holds us in a place where we're not going to like it for just a moment, but we have to come to this reality that no matter how desperate, how despondent we are there, that it has to be for our good and his glory because the character of God is at stake there.

which leads Job to go into the 31st chapter. And we want to see it here.

Notice the description of the upright. Why the description of the upright? Two times in the first two chapters, the Lord God in heaven declares that Job is upright.

So it is a testimony of God that Job is indeed an upright individual. There's none like him. He is upright more than anyone else.

He is living blamelessly and fully before me in uprightness. He is living as he should. So we have received at this, up to this point, God's testimony about Job even though the accusations of Job's friends are, Job, you're just a wicked sinful dog, man.

Look at everything that's going on in your life. Surely you've done this. And there's been accusation after accusation after accusation after accusation. And we've said, it doesn't matter what the world says about you as long as God says that you're blameless and upright.

Stand on the testimony of God, not the opinion of man. Be more concerned about your character before the Almighty than your conduct or your acceptance before humanity.

So we understand that. But now we get this description of what it looks like to be upright because Job's going to put himself out there and he's going to state all these things. And I love this, by the way, because again, this isn't boasting.

If you just want to know what his life looked like, he's going to tell you. And he's doing it in the means of saying, God, you are everywhere. You're omniscient. You're omnipotent. And if I haven't done as I should, then bring judgment upon me.

And so everything in the 31st chapter is he says, if I didn't do this, then bring this. If I didn't do this, bring this. He is saying all these things in light of the fact. He says, because God, you know. God, you see.

God, you judge. So what he's declaring is everything here that he would expect God to judge in his life if he had fallen in any one of them. And yet God does not bring judgment because of any of these things.

So he gives us just a description of the upright. Now, I love the description, but it begins in the 30th chapter. And it begins in a place where we really wouldn't think about it much. It begins there in verse 25.

And it's just one verse and he goes back to speaking about his own life. He says, have I not wept for the one whose life is hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy? So we believe that the testimony of the upright begins with their concern for fellow man.

He says, I've wept for those that are in need. I have a concern for those who are hurting. No one has that for me. Why? Because Job alone is upright.

So living according to that standard of God's testimony is to live with a concern for fellow man. Which, by the way, also leads to concern with your spouse and how you interact with people of the opposite sex and how you interact with your slaves because he goes on and he says, I've cut a covenant with my eyes.

I'm not going to look at a virgin. For one, it's not beneficial to her. It's not beneficial to me. He said, I haven't labored. I haven't been enticed by another woman. I haven't stood in my neighbor's house to try to find it white. Why? Because then let my wife grind for another.

And he goes into some very, really, you know, talk to like, can we say that in church? Yes, he does. Let others kneel over her. He said, let it be such an offense to me that it would be so horrendous in the sight of all.

He said, I live with the concern of my own integrity. I live with the concern of how I behave with my spouse and how I behave with those outside of my marital relationship.

I'm concerned about the needy. I'm concerned about my servant. He said, if my servant had come to me and he filed a complaint, I don't disregard him. Say, oh, you're my servant. He makes this astounding statement.

He said, because how could I when God calls me to account? Job says, God's going to hold him accountable for how he treats the people under him. Because did not he who make me and my mother's womb make him as well?

Were we not both fit together in our womb? He says, if I neglected the orphan or the widow, if I did not raise them, if I did not clothe those who were cold. And over and over again, we see his description of what it looks like to live upright.

And if we were to take this chapter, and we won't go through every one of them again, but if we were to take this chapter and lay it out with the entirety of the rest of Scripture, it would be absolutely true.

Because there's this description of having a concern for a fellow man, living faithful in our relationship, and even having a concern for the land. He says, if my land was to cry out against me, and I did not treat it as I should.

So it's the concern for the creative work of God. And yet, nobody denies any of these realities in his life.

As a matter of fact, he said, those that have lived in my own tent have said, who has not eaten from the meat of Job? This is a good way of saying, that man's fed everybody.

His abundance has been shared with all. That's hospitality. That's loving your neighbor as yourself.

And he does all of this in light of the reality that he has held accountable not to fellow man, but rather to the God who knows. He says, God, you know, you see, I will be held accountable.

So the upright live in a proper relationship with others because of the realization that they will be accountable before God for doing so.

Which gets us to the whole reason and it's the fourth and final thing here is why he cries out this lament anyway. And it is his desire for vindication.

Job is not just saying these things so that he could be boastful or so that everybody would be silenced. What Job is doing is he says, this is who I was, this is who I am.

And now in light of this great change in my life, the man living in the favor of God, man seemingly to live in the judgment of God, everybody has a thought and opinion about why I'm here.

And so since everybody has an opinion and every court is out to session and everyone has passed that judgment, all three of his counselor friends have all passed judgment and Job is guilty of sin. So what does he do?

He appeals to a higher court. As a matter of fact, he's appealing to the highest court because in the 31st chapter what he's doing is now he is appealing to the court of heaven. Which is a good place to appeal by the way because all this began in that court.

And he says, we're going to move this from the court of earth and we're going to take it up to the court of heaven. And he's doing something that was very common in that day. And even Peter himself says it the last and final time that he curses or that he cries down curses upon himself whenever he denies that he knows Jesus before the rooster crows.

What he's calling heaven as his witness. And then the rooster crows and heaven witnesses to him about his own failures. But what we find Job doing here is Job is saying, I'm going to appeal to the courtroom of heaven and I'm going to say, God, answer me.

And if I've done this, I'm willing to accept the punishment that is required. He says, if I've mistreated my land and let stinkweed grow instead of barley, if I've lived unfaithfully before my wife, then let another man have her.

If I've mistreated my servants, then God pass judgment. If I haven't cared for the orphan, the needy, or the widow, then let my arm fall off at its socket.

What is he doing? He's saying, God, I'm giving you the opportunity to display your judgment before everyone if I'm guilty.

And in the thought pattern, if God doesn't answer, now we know this is them trying to control God, but if God doesn't answer, then he's innocent.

Because he says, if these things are so, then let God do this. And it's kind of putting God, saying, okay, God, here's your chance. And if God doesn't answer, if these things do not happen, if his arm does not fall off, then he's not guilty of that.

But what he's desiring is to be, have some form of vindication before his fellow man, because everyone is passing judgment, and he's giving God the opportunity. And it's not a bad way, by the way, to say, I want to stand before the Lord God Almighty alone and let him pass judgment, because God does speak.

And God does humble him, but God never judges him. He brings a revelation of the character of God, not a revelation of the reason for the suffering.

He never reveals why the suffering took place. But if the suffering had never taken place, then God would have also never said, were you there?

Job, can you? See, the greatness of God is what is revealed, not the purpose of the suffering. suffering. So when the court speaks, it speaks to the individual that is suffering, but it speaks of the greatness of God, not necessarily of the suffering of man.

When we cry out and say, oh God, what I want is I want you to tell me, I want you to tell me this, and I want you, and I've cried those prayers so many times, God just tell me why. We need to come to this realization.

If we're going to study Job rightly, then what we need to say is, God, tell me more about you, not more about my situation. What can I learn about you that I don't already know?

Not, what do I need to know about my situation? Because, quite honestly, we don't need to know why. We've said this before, we just need to know who.

And our greatest need in that moment is not to know why bad things happen. We need to know more about God because of the bad things.

And we say, I wish God would just show me why he's doing this in my life, or I wish God would just show me this, this, this, and this. What if our heart cry was, I wish God would just show me himself?

I just want to see him. And would the glimpse of glory be enough for us, like Job, to put our hand over our mouth and say, you know what, I'm not even concerned about myself anymore?

I would dare say that it probably would be. That we would go, wow. I had a lot of complaints, but they don't even matter.

Because look at who you are. Look at all you are. And this is where we see his final cry of complaint.

And God will answer that. But he will answer it in his own way. In Job 30 and 31. Thank you, my brothers. Thank you, my brothers.