Let's open our Bibles this morning to the 15th chapter of the book of Job. As we make our way through, we're beginning the second round of dialogues today. Each of Job's three friends has spoken and Job has responded to them. Job's response to the first round of dialogue ended at the end of the previous chapter. And so now we're starting over. Eliphaz is going to speak once again in chapter 15. So let's give our attention to this, the Word of God. God the Holy Spirit has accurately and faithfully preserved this for us so that we know that it's trustworthy and reliable in everything it says. Chapter 15. Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite and said, should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with unprofitable talk or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? Yea, thou cast us off fear and restrain us prayer before God. For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty. Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I, yea, thine own lips testify against thee. Art thou the first man that was born? Or wast thou made before the hills? Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? What knowest thou that we know not? What understandest thou which is not in us? With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men much elder than thy father. Are the consolations of God small with thee? Is there any secret thing with thee? Why doth thine heart carry thee away, and what doth thy eyes wink at, that thou turnest thy spirit against God, and let as such words go out of thy mouth? What is man that he should be clean, and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints. Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water. I will show thee, hear me, and that which I have seen I will declare, which wise men have told from their fathers and have not hid. Unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them. The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. A dreadful sound is in his ears, and prosperity of the destroyer shall come upon him. He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? He knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at hand. "'Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid. "'They shall prevail against him "'as a king ready to do battle. "'For he stretcheth out his hand against God "'and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. "'He runneth upon him, even on his neck, "'upon the thick bosses of his bucklers, "'because he covereth his face with his fatness "'and maketh columns of fat on his flanks. and he dwelleth in desolate cities and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth. He shall not depart out of darkness, the flames shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away. Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity, for vanity shall be his recompense. It shall be accomplished before his time and his branch shall not be green. He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine and shall cast off his flower as the olive. For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. they conceive mischief and bring forth vanity and their belly prepareth deceit. And thus far we have the reading of God's holy and inspired word. And we look to God himself through the person of the Holy Spirit to be our teacher, to guide us in the way of truth. Now, if you have paid any attention to the news recently, you might've seen that the vice president of the United States of America, a man who is not at all ashamed of his Christian faith, announced that his wife had accepted a part-time position teaching art in a Christian school in Virginia. Now this particular school requires all of its employees to pledge their commitment to the biblical concept of marriage being between one man and one woman. And because of that, this announcement by our vice president drew a heavy criticism from the LBG community, individuals and various organizations that represent the LBG movement. Now, we look at this item of news and we can say, yes, it is news because it happened recently. But you know, in a very real sense, what I just told you is not news at all. Because the Bible tells us this is exactly what's going to happen. It's what to expect. And perhaps even worse, if we are going to be faithful, giving a testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Jesus himself said. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you. For so did their fathers unto the false prophets. That's in Luke chapter six. And the really scary thing is that a lot of the opposition that we can expect for our faith in the gospel and our adherence to it actually comes from people that we know and people that we love. And again, Jesus speaking says this in Matthew chapter 10. He says, for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. Now, why is it this way? Well, it's this way because it's a simple fact that unbelievers do not want the truth. They just say it like it is. That's what the people of Isaiah's day said. They had their prophets and they told their prophets to say something that was more agreeable to them. Isaiah puts their words like this. They said, prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesied deceits, they said, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. That's what they wanted. And Micah, who lived about the same time as Isaiah, saw exactly the same thing. Listen to what Micah wrote. He says, if a man walking in the wind and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink, he shall even be unto thee a prophet of the people. That's what they wanted. They wanted liars and deceivers who would say the things that they wanted to say. Now, if this is what the people of God are asking for, how can we expect truth? How can we expect that we can speak the truth without any criticism, without any opposition? And we can't. And things have not changed any since Isaiah's day or Micah's day or Job's day because there are preachers all throughout the world who cater to the spirit of the times and preach more for popularity than they do for accuracy. They preach to men who want those smooth, deceitful messages. And when they hear those messages, they say, here is compassion. Here is open-mindedness. If there is anything that is rightly called religion, this is what it ought to look like, not Orthodox Christianity. In the book of Job, We see that Job spoke more truth than all of his friends. And because he spoke the truth, his friends mocked him. They ridiculed him. Yes, they even told him to stop. They said that whenever he opened his mouth, that the words that came out only confirmed his guilt. and the rightness of God's punishment, inflicting him with so much pain and suffering. And you see, congregation, that's exactly what we see in this morning's text, where we look at Eliphaz's second speech in the book of Job. Now, this speech is a little bit different than his first speech. His first speech is way back in chapters four and five. And if you go back and read that again, you'll see that there he was very polite. He was very courteous. We might even say he was gentle there. But by the time we get to chapter 15 and he had spoken and Job had spoken, the other two friends had spoken and Job had responded to them. Eliphaz is getting kind of irritated. He's really bothered by what's going on here and he hates the fact that Job is maintaining his innocence while all of his friends are saying, no, Job, you got it wrong. And so the main thrust of this second speech in chapter 15 is that Job was an impious fool for not listening to his friends. Now, why did Eliphaz consider Job an impious fool? Well, it was because Job had claimed to have at least as much wisdom as his friends did. We see that in chapter 12, verse three, and then again in chapter 13, verse two. And Eliphaz heard those words. And he disagreed with Job. And look at how he responds to that claim in verses two and three of our text today. He says, should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with unprofitable talk or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? You see, what Eliphaz is saying here is that everything that Job had said up to this point was a waste of time. And that comes out in a couple of different ways in these verses. First of all, look at that phrase, vain knowledge in verse two. In the Hebrew, it literally says knowledge of wind. In other words, Job was engaging in speculation about something that had no substance to it at all. It didn't matter, it didn't fit anything. And then notice not only had Job speculated about this knowledge of wind, but Eliphaz also said that Job's belly was filled with the east wind. The east wind here is the wind that blew in from the desert. And when it blew in, it was hot and it dried everything up. It made people irritable and listless. In the same way, Eliphaz is saying here that the thoughts that came out of Job's inmost being were nothing but dried up and useless thoughts. Or to use more modern terminology, Eliphaz was calling Job a windbag who was filled with stifling hot air. Now, assuming that Job had spoken foolishly, Eliphaz draws a couple of conclusions out of this. One conclusion that he drew out of it is in verse four, where he tells us that Job is not only foolish, but he's also dangerous. Why is he dangerous? Because he cast off true religion. Because you see, that's what the word fear in verse four is talking about. As you read through the book of Job, the word fear is used in reference to him. Go back to chapter one, Job is described as a man who feared God. In fact, we not only read it once in chapter one, that phrase actually occurs twice in chapter one and then once in chapter two also. Job was a man who feared God. And then later on in the book of Job, when we come to chapter 28, we find a little bit more information about this fear. Where there, Job reminds his friends that God himself had said that the real fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. That's Job 28, he said, behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. And to depart from evil is understanding. But according to Eliphaz, Job's words betrayed his lack of godly fear. It exposed an underlying impiety. And therefore God's displeasure rested upon Job as it rested also upon anyone who would listen to Job. Now, of course, we know that Job was neither impious nor a fool. And to insinuate that he was is actually a denial of the positive work of God in his life. And I really believe that one of the reasons why verse four is included in our Bible is to remind us to be extremely careful when we are judging the faith of professing Christians. Our judgments are far from perfect. And when we look at those who call themselves Christians, unlike Eliphaz, we must approach them with charity and with humility, something that Eliphaz did not do. The second conclusion that Eliphaz drew is that because Job defended himself so vigorously, Eliphaz said that Job's own words condemned him. And if you look at verses 5 and 6, you see constant references to Job's mouth and his tongue and his lips. Now keep in mind something very important here. And that is that up to this point, Job's friends kept telling him over and over that he had sinned, but they couldn't put their finger on the exact sin that Job had committed. They couldn't tell him, they couldn't point to anything in particular that Job had done that would merit God's displeasure against him. And so what Eliphaz is telling us here is he finally has something. He can finally put his finger on something that Job did. And what did he find? He found Job's impious speech. But there was just one problem with this. And that is that Job's speech could not possibly have been the reason for his earlier suffering because he hadn't spoken it yet. In fact, when you go back into the first and second chapters of Job once again, you see that they clearly tell us that Job did not sin with his lips and he did not charge God foolishly. So this cannot be what's behind Job's trial. Now we say, well, Eliphaz didn't have the first and second chapters of the book of Job in front of him when he accused Job like this. And that's true. And that's also all the more reason why he should have exercised even greater care in the way that he spoke of Job. Because you see, not only did he condemn Job unjustly, he also called God a liar. proving essentially that everything that he had said about Job was really true of himself. It wasn't Job who condemned himself by his words, it was Eliphaz. It wasn't Job whose words exposed his impiety, it was Eliphaz. And that's what we see here. Let's also be sure that we don't become like Eliphaz. Let us make sure that we guard our speech very carefully because just as our Lord Jesus Christ said, God is going to hold us accountable for every idle word that comes out of our mouths. How much more then is he going to require us to answer when we purposely misuse our tongues and by doing so injure the cause of Jesus Christ or bring harm to one of those dear individuals for whom our Lord Jesus Christ died. Eliphaz wasn't interested in being careful though. In fact, as we make our way through this chapter, his incriminations only get worse. Look at verses seven and eight and see how he dug the hole a little bit deeper for himself as he engaged in an unrelenting sarcasm. His question, he asked four questions here and they go from bad to worse. The first question he asked in verse seven is, was Job the first man who was born? Well, where did that come from? What he was asking is, had Job lived long enough that he could actually claim to have wisdom greater than they did? Wisdom greater than old men who had been around for a while. And Eliphaz knew the answer to that. No, Job hadn't lived that long. In fact, he reminded Job in verse 10 that at least one of the three counselors that stood there with Job was as old as Job's father. And so these men had combined wisdom much greater than Job's, so to speak. The second question that Eliphaz asked is if Job existed before the hills. But here, I think when he talks about the hills, he's probably talking about the whole of creation. He's asking if Job is older than the universe. Did he have some kind of a special status, perhaps, as the very first creature that God made? Sort of the way that Arians and Jehovah's Witnesses think of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, that's not true. Job wasn't there. And then thirdly, Job questioned whether Job was privy to the secret thoughts of God as he decreed his plan for the universe. That is, was Job so important to God that God actually consulted him? He asked Job, what would you do if you were creating a universe? How would you set it up? How would you structure it? No, that didn't happen either. And then finally Eliphaz asked Job at the end of verse eight, dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? That is, is it confined to you? Are you the only one? Are you the exclusive possessor of all wisdom and truth in the universe? And are therefore you greater than God himself? Job didn't deserve this. This is absolute madness on the part of Eliphaz. And that's often the way it is when sinners contradict the gospel, they end up in madness. Only God has the wisdom that Eliphaz is talking about here. And later on the book of Job, God is going to open his mouth and he's going to show how it's true. But Eliphaz wasn't interested in God's wisdom. He was interested in convicting Job. Why? Because Job was an unclean man. He was born of a woman and therefore under God's curse. Yes, Job, like all other men who lack wisdom from God, drank iniquity like water. You can't trust a word that comes out of this guy's mouth. And yet ironically, you could trust everything that came out of Eliphaz's mouth because he was part of that older generation. He spoke for God. That's what he's telling Job here. Now we began today by citing one of the woes that Jesus gave. Jesus not only gave beatitudes to his disciples, he also gave a number of woes. And that woe is very important. Woe unto you when all men speak well of you. Well, you know, the last half of Eliphaz's speech in Job 15 is a woe. It's a woe to the wicked. And the theme of verses 17 through the end of the chapter is very clearly stated in verse 20. Look at what it says. It says, the wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. Now you look at this and you say, well, why did Eliphaz think it necessary to introduce this lengthy woe, this lengthy description of a wicked man right here? Why did he do it at this particular point? And he did so for one reason. He did so because he was still talking about Job. Job was the wicked man who could experience nothing but pain. Job was the oppressor or the tyrant who stood in the way of God. And Eliphaz wanted Job to see the extent of his rebellion before God with the hope that Job would turn away from it. I want you to keep something in mind as we work through this long description of the wicked man here. And that is that Eliphaz is not speaking for God here. He's offering his own skewed view of reality, which is no reality at all. So look at what Eliphaz wrote about the wicked in verses 21 through 24. First of all, he says that the wicked man hears terrifying sounds. And you ask, well, was he paranoid? Was he schizophrenic? It's true that sometimes wicked men imagine dangers that don't actually exist. Even the Bible talks about that in Proverbs 28, it says, the wicked flee when no man pursue it. But in this case, we need to understand these terrifying sounds that Eliphaz spoke of were not imaginary, they were real. at least in his mind, because he tells us what they are. They were the sounds of the destroyer who comes and devours the wicked at the very moment when he thinks he's most safe and secure. And that realization, that constant threat, those sounds that are ringing in the wicked man's ears make it impossible for him to ever relax. Verse 22 says that he can only imagine one thing, and that is that death lies in front of him. And the wicked man expects to die violently by a sword. That's probably because of the way that he's treated other people. And having lost all of his wealth, the wicked man is eventually dragged down to the place where he's just wandering around in the streets and begging for bread and yet never finding any. He thinks he's going to starve to death. Indeed, this verse 24 tells us that every trouble that the wicked man experiences in his life He perceives as if it were some great earthly monarch swooping down upon him with a massive army just to take him away. Now, I don't know about you, but I read those verses and the way that Eliphaz describes this wicked man, and I find that extremely depressing. But what do you expect from Eliphaz really? Would you expect anything other than this? You see, when a man's worldview insists that good and bad are dispensed solely on the basis of personal merit, There's no other way to look at it. A good man always receives good things from the hand of God and a bad man always receives evil things and can expect nothing but evil in his life. Then we come to verses 25 through 27. After getting this description of the evil man in the preceding verses, here we start to examine the attitude of the wicked man, particularly his attitude toward God. And it's, as we read here, an attitude of rebellion. As the wicked man lives in one of his stronger moments, he thinks, I don't need the Lord. In fact, he goes to the other extreme and he makes himself purposely God's enemy. Eliphaz tells us that he raises his hand against the Almighty. He charges at him with his neck sticking out. He's got a shield in his hand. You see, the wicked man in his own mind has mustered everything that he is and everything that he has to defeat the King of heaven, believing somehow that he's actually going to win. One commentator describes the attitude that we find here as insane hostility toward God. I think that's a good description. That's exactly what we find here, insane hostility toward God. But don't you be insane. Don't imagine, beloved, that you can sin against God and outmaneuver Him like Eliphaz is presenting here. Because you see, when the kings of this earth set themselves against the anointed Son of God in Psalm 2, it was God who had the last laugh. He put His Son on the throne. And the truth is that the Son of God is the only answer to man's insanity, because the Son of God is the word and wisdom of God. He's the way, the truth and the life, and there's no way to get to the Father apart from Him. Only His blood and righteousness give us access to a God who is supremely holy. It's never on our own merits. And if we're going to be saved, we have to believe that with all of our hearts. But going back to the wicked man, this wicked man shakes his fist at God and holds up his shield. And you know what he does? He becomes overly confident. We see that in verse 27, it talks about him growing fat. He's so fat, in fact, that his little cheeks become all nice and chubby, Eliphaz says, and he acquires these massive love handles, which the King James caused collapse of fat on his flanks. The New English Bible says that his sides bulge with fat. I like the translation of John Wycliffe a little bit better. He says, and of his sides, Greece hangeth. That is the wicked man can't fight against God anymore because he's become too pudgy. He can't hardly get out of his own chair. And so all of this arrogant boasting that he's made is just entirely wasted. Now, if you're wondering what happens to such a person, at least as Eliphaz sees it, that's what the rest of Eliphaz's speech is all about. And the main point here is that the wicked man always reaps what he sows. And it's fleshed out beginning in verse 28. He eventually and inevitably loses everything that he has. He's forced to go out and live in an empty town that's on the verge of collapse. And it's possible here that this is sort of an anticipation of what we would read in Deuteronomy chapter 13, where towns that go after other gods are cursed by God. The wicked man also loses his wealth, he never regains it. He's paralyzed by darkness. That's another way of talking about death. He's terrified of it. He becomes dried up like a tree that the Lord breathes on and the whole tree is just burnt to a crisp. You see, it's very different kind of a tree that Eliphaz has in mind than what Job had in the previous chapter. Remember, Job spoke about cutting a tree down and the tree would spring to life at the first scent of rain. But a tree that's been burned up by the breath of God doesn't come back, it's gone. And then finally notice how Eliphaz concluded this in verse 35. It's not with the language of death as we might expect, but it's oddly with the language of birth. And he's probably sort of implying here that Job had been born only for trouble, especially if he continues in these ways that he seems to persist in. But Eliphaz says more than that. He says that just as an animal or the offspring of an animal resembles its parents, so a man who conceives trouble can only bring forth vanity. And that's Job's life, a vain life. That's what happens to the wicked who defy the true and the living God. And you know, there are two things that stand out in verse 35. One is the word vanity, because it's really talking there about self-deception. It's talking about a man who devises trouble for others, thinking that he's going to benefit from it. But at that very moment, when he thinks he's going to benefit from it, it all disappears right in front of his eyes. It's not real, it's not there. The other thing to note in verse 35 is the word belly, because that's the same word that Eliphaz used back in verse two to talk about Job, when he said that his belly was filled with the east wind. And Eliphaz is once again returning to that thought, reminding Job that he is nothing but hot air and lies. That's Eliphaz's response to Job. That's his second speech. Now let there be no doubt about what we have here. Eliphaz's first speech may have been gentle, but this one was anything but gentle. It was cruel. It was vicious and heartless and unjust. Today, we would say it was fake news, and it was. But you know, the hostility against Job that we see in this chapter is the same hostility that we see against believers in every generation. It's only grown worse since the day that Eliphaz spoke the words of our text. And why is that? It's because you'll remember that Job did not have the full revelation of Jesus Christ that we have today. He only had a small part of it by way of anticipation. And so Job could only tell the little bit that he knew. And that's what Eliphaz is mocking, this little bit that Job knew. But we have the full light of the gospel of Jesus Christ today. We can talk about his life. and his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension into heaven, his session at the right hand of God. And we can talk about these historical events because that's what they are. And we can give all the details about how things happened with these events. We can talk about our Lord's miracles and his teaching, and we can give them in great detail. But you know, to a world of unbelievers out there, it all sounds like a Marvel comic book. Some kind of an imaginary superhero with made up stories about superpowers and great might. It sounds foolish to them. And from the perspective of a different worldview, other than Orthodox Christianity, it does sound just like Eliphaz said, impious. Now, what does this mean for you? It means that you must never expect others to listen to your testimony without resistance. By the grace of God, not everybody that you talk to about the gospel is going to turn away and fewer yet are going to become violent and punch you in the face. But if you go out into the world and talk to people about Jesus, expecting that everybody out there is just going to hang on your every word and is going to embrace everything you say, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Would be better for you to keep silent, to not say anything, knowing that opposition is out there. No, that's not an option. You're called to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And part of what that means is that God tells you to proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Your only job is to be faithful. You're not responsible for the results, just to be faithful. Your only job is to glorify and praise the Son of God who suffered far more injustice than Job did at the hands of Eliphaz so that you might be saved from your sins. And you know what? If you go out there and into the world with this understanding, it's going to be a lot easier for you when people turn their backs against you, amen.