This morning, we kind of close out the Friends of Job's argument. I call it the Friends Closing and Bad Argument. I don't know if you've ever watched someone doing something repetitively, and as you're watching them, you realize they're doing it wrong. And then you go to enlighten them, but you get a pushback, right? I've always done it this way. But we always want to say, or at least I want to say, well, you've been doing it wrong all this time. And here's the interesting thing. No matter the evidence, no matter how often you tell them or how you show them, they persist in their own methods despite the clear logic otherwise. Well, that is the one thing that we're going to be able to give to the friends, and that's their consistency. They don't change their mind, even though their theology is bad. As one writer notes, their theological system is intact, as tidy and precise at the end as it was at the beginning, which is shocking when you consider the amount of movement we've gone in the argument. The end of their argument is the exact same thing. Nothing has developed, nothing has moved, they've learned Nothing. See, the problem is their theology is wrong and they're unwilling to grow and learn. And as I mentioned last week, that's why we get to the end of this argument, I don't know about you, and I've read them talk over and over again. And not that we question God's Word, but we start wondering, Well this is redundantly wrong. This is constantly the same thing. And that's kind of the point. We learn how the world locks in and how they'll stick and be consistent with what's wrong. But Job, on the other hand, we've seen him move and grow. We've seen utter collapse, desperation to a light looking for a mediator, to a man who's confident that his Redeemer lives and that he'll see him at the end. We've watched him grow closer to God. We've watched him lean into. And that's the idea of Job is to lean into his Redeemer and Mediator growing in faith and in wisdom. The friends are just stagnant and sadly persist in what is their bad theology. Ultimately, it's a denial of grace and unbelief in the Mediator-Redeemer in whom Job hopes. Because that's the conflict that comes up. As Job is growing, as Job is seeing his Mediator, as he is pointing to his Redeemer, As he's arguing, quote-unquote, his case, but then also proving God's case and what God is going to do, because he's going to send his Son who's going to suffer in an undeserved way, ultimately for us. As he keeps pointing to that and they stick with what they believe, they are rejecting the Redeemer and the Mediator. They're rejecting the truth. So even though they share truth about God at times, they end up being against God, against the cross, and against Christ's sacrificial suffering. And build that in a very short almost inarticulate way summarizes what they believe. Eliphaz did the longer summary and now Bildad just in one chunk knocks it out. And so we look now at what Bildad says, chapter 25. Then answered Bildad the Shuite and said, Dominion and fear are with him. He maketh peace in his high places. Is there any number of his armies and upon whom doth not his light arise? And Bildad starts by emphasizing the sovereignty of God. God is to be revered. That's dominion and fear are with him. God has the absolute control, the victory over the highest of powers. That's what he's referencing. God has innumerable troops. He is, as is frequently noted in the Old Testament, the Lord of hosts. And he says, God is everywhere. There's nowhere you can go where God is not. And he's thinking very temporally where the light shineth. And I want you to realize, Bildad doesn't move really past earth or the temporal. Yes, he talks about him being over the supernatural. We're going to watch Job. take his argument and then expand it to where it should be and showing that God is over everything and sovereign over death and all of eternity and every punishment, anything tied to it. He begins speaking truth about God here because what he says is true. God is over all and God does have the dominion and God does have innumerable troops, but he applies it incorrectly And he does it so horribly that it obscures any good that he says. Because he goes on to four, how then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? And I want you to realize what that statement is. God is amazing and there's no way you can reconcile anything with him. You have no hope, Job. There is no hope. In other words, what he's doing is he's pulling a massive dissonance between God and his creation. Bildad applies the sovereignty of God as a weapon to destroy hope and negate God's plan of redemption orchestrated for creation. You go back to Genesis and God promises Adam and Eve that he's going to send a Redeemer. He's going to fix this problem. That wasn't a surprise to God. God knew that before the foundations of the world, before he created us, he knew that he would have to redeem us. And so Bildad is negating that. He's saying to Job, God is not, there is no reconciliation. God is God in the distance doing his thing and we do our thing and there is no coming together in between. There is no reconciliation. Bildad says no one is justified before God. which we know by ourselves we cannot be justified with God. We don't have in ourselves any righteousness or holiness or worth. And so you see the hint of truth in what he says, but the ultimate takeaway is the lie because we can be justified with God through Jesus Christ. He's ignoring God's plan. He is negating what God has said. He closes by highlighting God's purity, but only to further his erroneous application. In other words, he's saying as bright as the moon is and the heavenly beings, the heavenly stars, as bright as they are, compared to God, they're dull, dim, or not on at all. Yea, the stars are not pure in His sight. How much less man, that is a worm, and the Son of Man, which is a worm. He thinks of humanity in His context, in His application. He says there's God, and then there's us maggots on this world, and that's how it is. There's no reconciliation, there's no love, there's no connection, there's no relationship. God is so bright, pure, and holy that even the brightest of heavenly lights come off as dim and dingy. How much more lowly humanity and all their wickedness and sin? And we are sinful, wicked, we are lowly, a little lower than the heavenly beings. Yet God says he desires to buy us back, by the way, The whole redemptive plan confuses the angels. They look in on this and they don't understand why God wants to do it. So as Bildad is looking to the heavens, God has told us that we're a little lower than the angels, but we are his plan. We are his people. We are chosen. He's going to redeem us. And even the angels look in and wonder at it. You see, Bildad refuses to see the Redeemer. And what a horrible theology to have. He closes out the friend's main point, almost shouting to Job. And you can think about this little short six verse statement. He says, there's no hope. Humanity cannot be right with God, period. That's it. You need to be careful not to take their point to heart. It's easy in the depths of despair, we look at the pressure from the world, we look at the wickedness in the world, and we look at what's going on, we think this, there's no hope, there's no opportunity, there's no solution, and it's easy to buy into the theology of the friends, and we need to make sure we don't buy into it. We must, like Job, reach constantly for the Redeemer and the Mediator. I'll go a step further. We live in a world that is rampant in wickedness. We have some of the worst going on. We have still some of the worst crimes against humanity being perpetuated. And we look out there and say, what hope is there? I always read, that's the voice of the martyr. And again, it's not that every ounce of theology and it's going to be right, but I read about people and persecuted nations. And I wonder how they can lovingly preach the gospel to people that beat them, that attack them. Why do they see hope? And the reason is because there is hope in a Redeemer, that those people can be redeemed, that they can be saved, that there is hope for them. And so they preach the message of Job. They say out loud and often with their lives, there is a Redeemer, there is a mediator, there is a way. don't get sucked in to the point that the world loves to say, and that is, there is either no God or no way to connect to God. So, build that in a few words, wraps up he and his friend's argument, but the ever-growing Job answers now from a position of a teacher, and you see that kind of in how Job responded, chapter 26. But Job answered and said, How hast thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no strength? And by the way, he's being sarcastic when he says this. How hast thou counseled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is? To whom hast thou uttered words and whose spirit came from? And it's a whole four verses of sarcasm. He begins confronting the overall uselessness of Bildad's and the Friends' advice. Their theological system offers no saving wisdom. It's no wisdom at all. That's what 28 is going to kind of show us. Job employs a nice dose of sarcasm to make that point. Oh, you've helped the powerless. You've saved the weak. You've counseled those with no wisdom and made everything so clear. Where in the world did you get your spirit? Where did all your wisdom come from? And Job now gives his view. his in-depth view of God's sovereignty. And obviously he's being sarcastic when he says, they're help. And he goes now and shows how God is sovereign over eternity. And he begins with the realm of death. He says, dead things are formed from under the waters and the inhabitants thereof. Hell is naked before him and destruction hath no covering. And here's the idea. When it says dead things are formed, it's talking about the dead tremble. The place of the dead, shul, or as listed here, hell, is exposed. And then the word destruction. And if you look in some different translations in the Septuagint, you have Abaddon, which is speaking of the angel of the bottomless pit. So when you look at the word destruction, it traces back to looking at the one who guards the gates of hell, so to speak, or death. And here's what Job is saying right out the gate. Bildad says, God is sovereign over the earth. And Job says, let me give you a correction and go a little deeper. God is sovereign over all eternity. And so he's saying this, the dead do not escape God. There is no hiding place in the grave, the place. It's uncovered, so to speak. And then even the supernatural power guarding it is without covering. And it points to something. What Job is saying is there is no other God. There is no secondary power that exists apart from God. He says God is over death. And notice it's death It is hell, it is the keeper of hell, so to speak, and it's figurative language that shows you there is no second God battling against God that has any sway or any power. They don't exist apart from God. And so he just took God's sovereignty, in a little nutshell, that Bill Detted said, on earth, and he just expanded it way beyond their imagination, says God is the God of all eternity and is the only God, nothing else. could matter. And then he moves from death to earthly life. He says, he stretched out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing, which is fascinating in the sense of, if you look at the earth, it seems to be floating in space. The insight that is given to the Holy Spirit, he bindeth up the waters and his thick clouds and the cloud is not rent under them. He holdeth back the face of his throne. He goes on and spreadeth his cloud upon it. He hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end. Now, north in the Old Testament oftentimes, but especially in this type of literature, is equivalent to the heavens. So God reigns over all the heavens and created the world from nothing. And the world hangs in his control, which is one of the things I mention sometimes when we talk about our world, and we talk about a lot of the emphasis people put on it, and I think I've said this multiple times, we're to treat our earth correctly, use it properly, but no, I do not believe that we can knock the world out of God's hands, that we can do something that God would not permit, because He sustains it, He holds it. And Job, here in the Old Testament, is telling you that. God reigns over heaven, and He hangs the earth in His hands. It is in His control. We're not going to suddenly take control of it and then knock it off his hand so it's going to be spinning off into space. He has control. The world hangs upon God. It floats under his power. We see the clouds holding water. The water is above and they're kept there. Think about how much water is up there. God keeps that up there. His glory on his throne is kept out of sight. That's why the clouds hide his face. God controls his creation and has given the sea its boundaries. The sea is where it is because God said it's going to be there. Everything is completely controlled by God. from order. So he said, God is over eternity and over death. You're never going to leave God. Even the one that rejects God and dies in Hades and the supposed power over Hades is all under God's control and exists only through God's permission. And then he moves here and he says, the earth is all in control and ordered. The sea has its boundaries. The clouds don't burst forth. The earth is hanging under God's power. And then he switches and he says that God can shake that order himself. He can rock the world, so to speak. He says in 11, the pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His reproof. When God speaks in rebuke, the whole foundation of the world trembles. This is a complete affront to their system. Their system is built on a specific set of rules. Good? Blessing. Bad suffering. That's their world. Put the coin in, punch the button, get what you deserve. And Job is building to God's sovereignty. They're using God's sovereignty to say there's nothing you can do to affect God. Remember Eliphaz? You're not gonna, God doesn't care if you're wicked or good. He's gonna punish you or reward you, one or the other. You are the driving force behind everything. Bildad says you can't be right before God. You're just a worm, you're a maggot, you're nothing. And there's no connection you can make. And Job starts saying, yeah, God is sovereign over eternity. And he set the world in order. And then he flips a script on them and says, yeah, but God himself, he can shake that order. Everything doesn't fit a system, you don't put God in a box. And that's one thing you learn from Job, is that God is not your tame lion in a cage performing for you. God is never tame in that sense. God is not under our control, nor is he moved by our tricks. Why? He goes on, he divided the sea with his power. And oftentimes when you see the sea, sea refers to chaos and disorder. He goes on, and by his understanding, he smited through the proud. And some of you might hear the word Rahab there, which is an evil spirit or a false god in that world, in the Canaanite faith. Here, as Ash notes, is storybook language that speaks to God's control over all supernatural evil. This would have been understood by those living in that time. They would understand exactly what he's saying. The sea is chaos and injustice. God splits that. The proud speak of Rahab, a sea monster that typifies all those against God in the universe. God has subdued the chaos, garnished the heavens. He destroys Pierces is the better word instead of form the servant. So he pierced the crooked serpent. He didn't form the crooked serpent. And Job notices something about the destruction of evil. It will shake the core of the earth. It will rock this world and its systems. It will change everything. And again, Ash notes this, Job sees hazily Jesus Christ on the cross, the innocent suffering Redeemer. And I want you to think about what happens when he dies. The earth does quake. The dead rise up when he rises up. There's darkness at noon. God shakes the foundation of his world when Christ comes and dies. Job is seeing the Redeemer, though not as distinctively as we can. Job concludes his official response, speaking of the deep, unknowable or undetectable or observable aspects of God. Lo, these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him, but the thunder of his power who can understand. See, Job clearly and concisely confronts the simplistic, tidy system his friends have developed. And I'm going to throw this caution in there because we oftentimes as believers get really tidy and organized in our theology. And we make our logic supreme over God. We say, well, God, you better fit the box of my logic. And even some of the best thinkers and theologians, and I'm not going to get into names and descriptions, but they do this, their brain, and then they put God in the box of their brain and they're brilliant. And so we look at them and we think, wow, but the problem is they're still doing the same thing. They're containing God and he's not to be contained. And Job is confronting this simplistic view of God. And I know in my own life, I fall into the trap of making it too organized and my logic. Oh, it fits my logic. If I can hang it on the nails in my shed, I'm happy. Notice how I didn't make my brain a mansion, it was just a shed, right? So it's hanging there and it works, but that's not who God is. See, he answers their Christless theology and system with a look forward to the cross and the Redeemer's work on it. Bildad aptly wraps up what the friends think, a tidy little world that follows their rules and leaves no room for a savior because it doesn't have a need for a savior. Because it doesn't have this idea of being redeemed from sin because in his mind he's perfect and he doesn't need God to do anything but reward him for his good. He doesn't see a sin, he doesn't see a need for redemption. It is a powerless system that gives no hope. Job responded with a picture of an unboxed God set to shake the world's foundation as he redeems his children. Because guess what? It doesn't make sense for the God who created all of us to send his son to die for us. That doesn't make sense. That's an unboxed decision. And this tells us that God's thoughts are above our thoughts. One system ignores the need for a saver, the other seeks him with every ounce of energy. And I put here, let's be sure we're the ones seeking the Savior, our Redeemer, with the same fervor as Job. Now, typically, that would be the end of the sermon, but I've used up all my short sermons in Vacation Bible School. So there's no 20-minute sermon here, because this closes out Job's argument or response to Bildad. However, Job now goes into five chapters of what's called a summary defense. He's gonna give his proclamation, his public pronouncements, and they're really broken into two. One of them is to the friends, which is 27 and 28, and that's actually split in half in the sense of it has two different topics. And then 29 through 31 is really towards God. It's Job talking about his former life, talking about his woes, and then emphasizing his integrity. In other words, he's gonna prove As he talks to God, and of course the friend's still listening, that he does fear God and he does shun evil. So actually 28-28 is going to carry, or 24, is going to carry us into his conversation with God as he says, I do fear the Lord and I do shun evil. But we're going to get there in 27 and 28 in what he responds to the friend. And so as we're carrying forward, I look at this on how Job closed with his friends, how he ended his conversation with them. Because they're not going to come on the horizon again at all in speaking to Job. Actually, God is going to say to Job, you need to pray for them because otherwise I'm done with them. And so Job is going to have to intercede for his friends at the end of the book. What happens after Job talks is Elihu talks for a long time. Being short-winded was not a problem they had. And then we go into what God says, which will tie a lot into chapter 28. So we're going to dive into how Job closed. This is the first summary speech. with two distinct components. Chapter 27, as Ash notes, insists on his right standing with God, and it's a prayer for God's judgment on those who persist in contradicting God's verdict of him, warning his friends not to set themselves against God. Chapter 28, We are drawn into this search for wisdom and have heard that a life of repentance and reverence is what wisdom means for Job and for us. So we begin with chapter 27. This is what I call the statement of integrity to his friends. Job here now turns and addresses all of his friends. If you look at the pronouns and the language, it switches to a plural. So when he's answering, build that, it's singular. He's talking to build that and to them both, but it's really centering on his response. Now he shifts gears and he's just talking to all three friends at once. And he's saying this, I'm in a right relationship with God. I'm justified. And that they are the ones falling in line with Satan, the accuser of God's children. He's making a broad accusation to them. It's a true one. So as we see him praying for their judgment, it is a proper prayer. It is a correct prayer. because they are now functioning as Satan's agents. And so we begin now with this confident assertion of his standing with God. He says, Moreover, Job continued his parable. This tells you that he's switching. It's a new speech he's making. And said, As God livid to have taken away my judgment and the Almighty who hath vexed my soul. In other words, I'm swearing on the God who has punished me and the God who has tortured me. But he's putting all of what he's saying on God's character, not his own. All the while my breath is in me and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils. My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. God forbid that I should justify you. Till I die I will not remove my integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me as long as I live. And he begins his speech to them, taking an oath of innocence, an oath based on the highest power. He just finished telling Bildad, there is no other God, there is no other power, there is nothing that has its existence apart from God. And that we swear on that God, and just to make sure there's no confusion, he says, I know it's the God that's vexed my soul, and the God that's judged me, but I am swearing on him my innocence. And he says, I'll never speak evil nor be deceitful, I can't say you're right because he knows that he is blameless and that's not sinless. He is genuine, the same on the inside as the outside. He has a clear conscience and he has no plan to let that go. He then turns to God and prays for righteous judgment on his accusers, which is a bold move in all honesty because he's in front of them. And he says to them, I'm innocent and I will not justify you. And then he prays aloud to God to judge them. for what they've done. Now, I just want you to know this. You're going to read this and it's going to sound like what the friend said to Job. And context is important. They were using it to be vindictive against God, or against Job. Job is using it to warn them of what's actually gonna come. And so he prays this, and I want you to realize, these friends are standing in Satan's stead. They've stepped up. Where Job is representing God's glory, and the answer that we worship God because he is God, the friends have stood up and said, let's argue Satan's case. Let's push His charge. Let's push His way. And I want you to realize something about this prayer, because we can easily say, well, I'm going to pray this against everyone I don't like. Boom. You say something bad about me, I'm going to pray Job's prayer. That's not the context here. Job is praying this prayer because these people represent Satan. they are the accusers of the brethren." And so he says, "...let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that rises up against me as the unrighteous. For what is the hope of the hypocrite that we have gained when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God?" And what Job prays for is a terrible fate, for that fate will come down on those who condemn God's children. They rightfully face the fate of the unredeemed. They have no hope, even if they've gained the world. God is not going to hear their cry, especially as they only called to him to get out of a jam. Does that sound familiar? Look at our country and how godless it is. But when a plane flies into towers and things crumble, what does everyone do? What do all the politicians do? They pray to a God they don't believe in. And Job tells you something. God is not listening to that. And I know even myself, I remember that thinking, oh man. And you think to yourself, do they all believe? Of course they don't. And what Job is saying, what a farce. It's not going to work. How often do the wicked cry to God when the world puts them in an impossible situation? Boy, we turn to God when we can't figure it out or we can't find an excuse or something else. And let's understand a little bit about God. That's not the little magic potion you put in the pot to suddenly get what you want. Job has kind of exposed that. He goes on and moves about being their teacher. He says, I want to warn you what's coming. I will teach you by the hand of God that which is with the Almighty. Will I not conceal? And look, there's some truth in that. You look at this prayer and you say to yourself, man, he's really being harsh. He's going right at them. And here's the reality, there's nothing more hateful than to not share the truth that is in front of you. It's nothing more hateful than to not say what God has said. And so Job tells them, basically, you're not gonna like it, but I'm not gonna hide what's there. Behold, all you yourselves have seen it. Why then are you thus altogether vain? He says, I'm going to let you know about the Almighty and how He'll act and how He'll use His power. You've seen the evidence of my innocence. You've seen the proof. So why are you persisting in your accusations of guilt? And with that, Job now turns to warn of the fate more specifically listed, the fate of the wicked who attack God's justified yet suffering servants. As one writer notes, the judgments here are laid out in five stages. First, their families will be destroyed, verses 14 and 15. Then the righteous will inherit their wealth, verses 16 through 17. Third, their security will be lost, that's 18 through 19. Fourth, their destiny will be swept away, 20 through 21. And finally, they're gonna be the ones mocked and laughed at, 22 and 23. This is the portion of the wicked man with God and the heritage of the oppressors which they shall receive of the Almighty. This is what's going to happen to you. This is how God sees you. He said, I won't conceal what the Almighty is saying, what the Almighty will do. And this is how God sees you. This is what's going to happen to you. And I don't think you need much explanation. Your whole family will be lost whether in war or starvation. There's not going to be anyone to mourn you or your family at all. going on, that we heap up silver as the dust and prepare raiment as the clay. He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on and the innocent shall divide the silver. They may accumulate wealth and luxurious lifestyle, but ultimately they will not enjoy it or live it. And again, it sounds a lot like what they said about Job. He's now applying it to them. I want you to remember, when he looked at the sovereignty of God, he looked all the way into eternity, like you should. And so when he's looking at their fate, he's also looking deep into eternity as well. It goes on, he buildeth his house as a moth and as a booth that the keeper maketh. The rich man shall lie down, but he shall not be gathered. He openeth his eyes, and he is not." And here's the idea. You build strong houses, big, secure, defended. But really, they're going to be like temporary shelters built by watchmen for the harvest. So when they're harvesting their grain, when their crops come ready, they would hire a watchman to stay out there so thieves wouldn't come steal the harvest. And so the watchman would build a booth and stay underneath him. He says, your house is like a temporary shelter. It's like a tent in a field that's put up for a season to be watched. He goes on, you're going to go to sleep secure. You're going to go to sleep and your bank account's going to be full. Your investments in the stock market are going to be peaking and going great. And you're going to wake up and it's going to be gone. It's going to have disappeared. It's going to be vanished from sight. Then he goes on. Terrors take hold on him as waters. A tempest steals him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away and he departeth, and as a storm hurleth him out of his place. And this is, it's just intensifying, right? There's a complete loss of family and won't be remembered. All that you earn, you're going to see the righteous use ultimately. You're going to think you have a secure place. And think about that. Christ talks about that, that the wise man builds upon the rock and the foolish man builds upon the sand. And that is the same idea in the houses. You think you've built something secure, but it's just gonna go away. It's not secure at all. Then he goes and says, you're gonna be overwhelmed and swept away like a flood, like a tornado in the night. Basically, you're gonna be pushed completely out of your place. for God shall cast upon him and not spare. He would fain flee out of his hand. Men shall clap their hands at him and shall hiss him out of his place. They will not escape God's punishment, and ultimately they will be the ones that are the example. Now again, so many similarities to what they said of Job, but again he's teaching from a framework of God's theology. He's saying to them that ultimately when you are against God and you reject his Redeemer, reject his mediator, you go against his children, in this way you will face ultimate punishment from God. They gave a vindictive prescription. You've lost everything, so you're a wicked person. And Job says, no, this is a biblical warning that you will lose everything because you've attacked God's justified servant. I put, let's be careful not to miss the seriousness of falsely accusing and attacking God's children. How easy is it for us to be vindictive? How quick do we see somebody? And look, I'm not talking about your friends. You don't say this about your friends. You feel sorry for your friends. But when somebody who irritates you a little bit walks through a little bit of suffering, how vindictive do we become? And how quickly do we use God in the explanation? And God says, be serious about how quickly you accuse His children, how quickly you hurl things at them. God is not pleased with that, and will hold those responsible. Let me broaden the look now. We look around the world and we see how Christianity is oppressed, and it is. What we see in the states today is really nothing compared to what's around the world, but it is an intensified version of it. What we find is that our country hates truth and they're against it. That's why they zero in on Christianity, because it is the truth. And so we see that and we wonder, what's going to happen? And we start quaking and shaking because we think we're defenseless here. And it's a reminder to us, this world may arrogantly attempt to hurt and oppress God's bearers of truth, which is us as believers. Recognize they will not always stand so confidently. They will be held accountable for that wickedness. God is not pleased by that, nor will He condone that, nor will it be left unattended to. What we have to learn is to rest in His timing. And that's what's hard for us, because we want to say to God, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, and God says, I'll handle this. You serve me. Now, the conversation turns from chapter 27 to now chapter 28. And it's, if you've walked through, which we have, through all of these arguments and all this intense passion, and the emotions of the moment are vested in every conversation. We read it in scripture, and so we distance ourselves. We start losing connection with it. But the reality is that these are passionate speeches of the moment. Now 28 is in the same moment. It's in the context of his conversation to the friends, but it's almost like Job steps back a little bit. And it's more of a thoughtful, reflective chapter that closes out Job's final response to his friends and leads into his closing defense to God that we find in 29 through 31. So 28 is a transitional chapter. And actually the end of 28, 2828 is a critical turning point even in the whole book because it's setting up how God is going to speak to him in chapter 38. how God is going to address him. And I'm going to say this up front and then later on. You see, God doesn't give Job any answers to the questions he asks. He actually gives Job chapter 28, which Job is preaching to his friends right now. So ironically, God preaches the same message Job preaches in 28, again to Job in 38, letting him know. This chapter calls on us to be honest seekers after wisdom, and so we move from a statement of integrity to a search for wisdom. That's what 28 is about. It is a diligent pursuit to the why question. So 28 addresses this big why, not the why that two-year-olds ask that you can potentially answer if you feel like it, but the why of life, that question that you run into that you can't answer. Because that's where Job's at. He's at a huge why to God. Why? Why this suffering? Why this problem? We know why. He doesn't know why. And so it is your big why question. And Job begins that answer, this sermon, with a mining analogy, which looks to the ingenuity of humanity. This is to emphasize what humans are capable of. Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where they find it. Iron is taken out of the earth and brass is molten out of stone. He setteth an end to darkness and searcheth out all perfection. Notice we're down in the deep under the earth and we're finding these things. We're searching. It says, the stones of darkness and the shadow of death. The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant. It's dangerous. Even the waters forgotten of the foot, they are dried up. They are gone away from men. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread that speaks of agriculture. But under it, and under it is turned up as were fire. That's the mining operations. The stones of it are the place of sapphires and have dust of gold. There is a path which no foul knoweth and which the vulture's eye hath not seen. The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by. He put forth his hand upon the rock, speaking of humanity. He turneth the mountains by the roots. He cuteth out rivers among the rocks, and his eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the floods from overflowing, and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light. So let me wrap this up in a nutshell. He shows the length to which we've gone to get precious jewels and metals. He's showing how smart we are to accomplish it and then the danger associated with it. It's not an easy thing. We've gone underground and braved the inherent risk because finding precious jewels is not easy or riskless. We've heard of umpteen mining disasters, right? It is a battle into which we've entered with the possibility of death. We've harvested the top side of earth, which is the agriculture. It's very organized and straightforward. You plant, you grow, it looks right. You sow crops, typically a nice line. It's very neat and organized. But we go underneath and we've turned the whole world upside down. It looks like a building that has been ravaged by fire. That's how we chew up the earth underneath. We do that because we're in search for the earth's wealth. Here's the big thing. It is a pursuit that is unique to us. The animals have not and do not engage in it. The sharp-eyed bird is not flying into the mine to see where gold is. The lion is not coming. This king of beasts coming to get gold. And even the serpent, the slithering serpent, is not mining for gold. In other words, Job is setting something up. We are unique. Again, if you're looking for the false theology of today, that lumps animals with humans and equates them This is a very clear argument against that. The Bible has always been clear that humans are unique in God's eyes, created in His image. We go all the way from Genesis. You see it highlighted here. Because animals don't care about finding precious jewels, gold, or anything else. It is something unique to us. We pursue this. We uniquely search and find the jewels. We change the movement of water and the lay of the land in doing it. Job is extolling what we are capable of. He is looking to our technological advances of his time. He's looking to the risks we will take. We'll dangle in a cave to find these things. Then he turns it to what we cannot seem to find. We find all this, I mean, we are underground. We are ripping the world apart underneath. We're moving the roots of mountains. We're diverting rivers and waters so that we can attain the precious things that everyone, and he lists all these things he lists are gonna lay out all the precious metals and jewels that come from around their world there. But he says this, but where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith it is not in me, and the sea saith it is not with me." No matter where we go or how smart we become, we cannot seem to grasp that all-encompassing wisdom. We can't seem to answer the big why of life. And if you're into philosophy and reading philosophers, I challenge you to read the end of their life. Read what they say when they die or some of their later books. It's an absolute desperation. Some of those arrogant people in the world who have written from Voltaire to Freud and all these guys, they're all super confident that they know the meaning of life and they tell humanity that. And then on their deathbed, they're screaming in desperation because guess what? They never found wisdom. They never found the why because they ignored the source of the why. And it's not because wisdom lacks value. It's something he says now that cannot be bought. He's showing it cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. You can't have enough silver to buy it. It cannot be value with the gold of Ophir with the precious onyx or the sapphire, the gold and the crystal cannot equal it. And by the way, that's the only use of that word in Hebrew in the whole Bible. So they're guessing at crystal because it's not used anywhere else. So Job references precious metals that no one else talks about, just to show you how amazing this guy was and how intelligent he was. And the exchange of it shall not be for jewels or fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold. What he's saying is this, the best riches cannot be used to purchase wisdom. And I want you to understand the takeaway. The wealthiest and most influential person in the world does not have an edge up in locating wisdom. because none of your influence, none of your money, none of your power, none of your play, none of your status, none of that will bring you closer to this wisdom. It is as valuable as everything you have. So no matter how much wealth you have, wisdom is more valuable than that, but you can't buy it. So all that money, all that power, all that influence, you don't get at the front of the line. You don't get to go in the back entrance. There's nothing there to help you. It cannot be purchased. So then Job now turns to the seemingly fruitless search to know why. Whence then cometh wisdom? And where is the place of understanding? This is a return to that same question. Seeing it as hid from the eyes of all living and kept close from the fowls of the air, destruction and death say, we've heard the fame thereof with our ears. And I love how he tosses back to death and Hades and other supernatural beings just to kind of emphasize there is only one God. The fact is even supernatural beings of death and Hades can only share the hint of it. It's something they heard from someone else who heard it mentioned on the street. That's the context he's saying. These other power players that you guys seem to worship know nothing. And if Job would end the discussion there, it would be pretty pitiful and hopeless, which is, by the way, where the friends end their thinking. They're comfortably fixed on their wisdom. And Job has just said, you have no wisdom. You can't find it. You've never found it. You never will find it. Because remember what they did at the beginning when Bill died? What we kind of said is that there's no hope. There's no connection to God. There's no reason to seek God. We have a good system. We know what we're doing. And Job had just said, we're geniuses as humans. We're amazing. We've invented the iPhone and all the other garbage we have out there, right? We are super smart, but you've never found wisdom. In other words, you guys have nothing. We have nothing. But he goes on to 23. Because they're fixed in their lack of wisdom. And Job is saying there's no wisdom. There's no answer to the question why at all that comes from this world. But God understandeth the way thereof and he knoweth the place thereof. Now, remember, we're talking about wisdom. God understandeth wisdom that we can't know. And he knows where wisdom is. "'For he looketh to the ends of the earth "'and seeketh under the whole heaven.'" We can't seem to find the location of wisdom, the why. But here, Job is turning our attention to the one who alone knows its location. And don't miss the movement of what he's saying. We're super brilliant, but we don't know wisdom. And we'll never find it. But we're turning to look to the one who knows its location. And by poetry, working through it, what he's saying is he is the source of wisdom. He then describes how God controls a component of nature that seems uncontrollable. What follows next is a conversation about the weather. And let's be fair, with all our technology and all our advancement, Thursday, a vacation Bible school, I look at my phone at three o'clock and it's sunny till the end. If you were here, there was a downpour on Thursday that lasted quite some time. Why? Because we're no good at predicting the weather, because the weather still turns and we're not even controlling the weather, we're just predicting it. Job says, God directs it all. And I think that's something that's carried through all of life. and history is that man keeps flubbing up, predicting the weather. He goes on, he says, God does this to make the weight for the winds. In other words, God tells the wind how hard to blow. That's the force. And he weigheth the waters by measure. He tells the water how much will fall. He is the rain gauge that tells the rain how much. When he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning or the thunder, he sets a limit to it. And it goes on for lightning and thunder. When we see lightning, it seems random to us. That's why when we see lightning, we tell the kids to come inside. We don't know where it's gonna strike. And he says, God sends the path. It tells it exactly where to strike. Then did he see it and declare it? He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. He closes with four verbs describing how God perfectly fashioned or fathomed wisdom. He is the source of that wisdom, while humanity can't even find it. Job is pushing the discussion back to God. He's turning their head and saying, the God you say you can't connect with, that's who you're supposed to be looking to. The God you say you can't get near, he's the one you should be staring at. And then it closes with a word from God, actually. The first time we're hearing from God in that sense, directly speaking, since chapter one. And unto man, he said, this is Job saying, this is what God says to man. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and it apart from evil is understanding." Roy Zook notes this, he says, "...although man is impotent to discover or purchase wisdom, he can know its very essence, for God has unveiled what otherwise would remain hidden from the eyes of all living. That essence of wisdom is twofold, the fear of the Lord and it apart from evil." You could summarize it as this way, adoration of God and obedience to God. See, no matter how smart we humans get, and we think that we get pretty smart, no matter how technical or philosophical, the ultimate why seems to elude us. I can say with confidence, no matter how smart your thinker is that you throw out, they will not answer the question of why. There's a point in your life, there's a why that you hit that you cannot answer, and they won't have a system that answers it either. No matter how smart we get, the ultimate why seems to elude us. Job, in a pause of clarity, sets that up and then points us to where we should be looking, not for the answer to our why. And this is critical. You can say, well, I'm going to pray to God for the answer to my why. And Job's actually saying, stop doing that. Stop chasing your why so desperately, but instead turn to the one who holds the why in his hands. We may not find the answers, and to the deepest things we often do not, but we can seek the giver and holder of those things." And I want you in this moment to, if you get a chance today, go to the clothes of Job and realize that God never answers his why question. What God does is reveal himself. And so understand this as the application from this chapter on wisdom that God is gonna re-preach very emphatically to Job and his friends, is you need to seek him, not seek your answer. Because you know what you do when you seek that answer and you put that in front of you, even when you put it in the cloak of God, I'm praying to God for my answer, you know what you're really worshiping? Your answer. And God says, fix your eyes on me. Fear the Lord. Worship me and obey me. Thus, we have now our close of the conversation between Job and his friends, which I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief. We're done talking to these three. I'm not saying that Elihu is short-winded, but at least he just keeps talking and Job never talks to him. Just kind of let him talk. Young whippersnapper, I guess, is what it is. They're just burnt out. So this closes the conversation. It's Bildad gives that final statement. And then Job confronts their lies. Bildad wraps up the friend's talk with a short, dramatic, hopeless message. God is great and sovereign, which is true, but he applies it horribly. Because God is great and sovereign, he will never be reconciled to a worm like you. That's what he's saying to Job. In all honesty, Bildad says none of us will be in a right relationship with him. In all reality, he's saying there's no relationship with God. There's no connection to God. There's no point seeking God. Do right, God rewards you. Do wrong, God punishes you. That's the end of the story. My system works because I feel healthy right now. And it's shocking how well your system works when you feel good until you feel bad. And then you say, wait a second, something's not right. And that's what's happened with Job. He's saying there's no point in chasing an audience with God. And what a horrible outlook that is. And what does it do? It drives us to think about ourselves. Because when you don't look to God for answers, you look to yourself for answer and Build That basically says, look at yourself, there's the answer. That's a great statement from a guy who's comfortable in the moment with a secure house and a healthy family and everything going well. But when real life hits, his philosophy falls apart, and leaves him, and anyone who follows it, seeking themselves for an answer. It pushes us to look temporally instead of eternally. Job, per the usual, refutes that emphatically. He lets them know why they have help, not at all, and then gives an expanded look at God's sovereignty, stands by his integrity, prays God's judgment on those who condemn and attack God's children, and then, in chapter 28, I want you to realize, he obliterates their knowledge and system. They have a system that seems to answer the question why, but in all honesty never even gets close to it. It is human in origin and cannot even connect to real knowledge. Job makes clear that as God's creatures, we cannot quite know all and why. Which again, as I said multiple times, ironically is what God tells Job in chapter 38 and beyond. God shows that man, though quite creative and industrious, has not found the ultimate why answer, and it doesn't look like we ever will. Instead, they're pointed to the source of wisdom, to the Creator Himself, to seeking Him, instead of the answers we seem to think are a must. And I'm going to come back to that. If you miss everything in this message except that, then you've gotten what you need out of the message. Seek him, not your answers. That's what Job is preaching. Job's going to revert back to seeking his answers, don't you worry, and then God is going to speak. But the fact is, in this moment of clarity and proclamation, he's saying, you need to seek God instead of your answers. Job says it in direct contrast to the friends. There is hope and an answer, but that is only in God. And our purpose is to pursue Him and not our logic. Their theology is false because it ignores God instead of making God the main pursuit. True wisdom of man is found in seeking God, not seeking our own answers. So here's kind of a closing question. Are you seeking God or still chasing your elusive why? Wisdom is found in seeking and seeing Him, not in getting the supposed answers we demand. And I know that's hard to hear, it's hard to say, because I like to know why. I like to know the answer. I don't like the idea of not knowing the answer. But then I'm worshiping my answer. See, we're supposed to seek and see Him. Read the end of Job. He doesn't get his questions answered, but he does find true and lasting peace as he sees his Lord and God. I'm going to read Job 42, 5. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. And that is the big moment in his life. And he's going to say, I'm going to repent and dust and ashes. He's actually going to submit his heart at that moment. He's saying, I've heard, but now I really know you. I've really seen you. Let's pray. May Father, thank you for this opportunity we have to gather together to study your word. We're so grateful for the insight that you provide to your children that is then written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we can read and understand. And through this closing dialogue, we've learned a lot. One, you take the wickedness done to your children seriously. that you are not brushing that aside as an acceptable casualty, but instead you hold it dear to your heart and you do bring punishment and judgment on those who afflict your children. We know that you're sovereign, but we're not limiting your sovereignty to this world and to the system that we have, but instead recognize that your sovereignty extends all the way into eternity. You are the unique God. Job makes that very clear. There is no other supernatural power that doesn't exist without your permission, that isn't under your control. You're the only one that's self-existing. And then he drives us to understand something about this life. The why is often left unanswered. Each of us have a different why that we may wrestle with, that we struggle with. And it's not that we have to sit there and say, I'll ask no questions. It's just understanding where does our ultimate peace lie? Where do we find comfort? And Job tells us that ultimately comfort and peace is found in seeking you and to knowing you, and it's the fear of you and then obedience to you. So I hope that as we oftentimes wrestle with difficult questions and difficult circumstances, and though the why pops in our mind, and it's popped in Job's often, we can still come back to the fact that we should seek you and that true peace is found in seeking and seeing you. In your precious and holy name. Amen.