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the book of Job, chapter 22. Job 22, and I would like to begin
reading in verse 21. We'll read to the end of the
chapter just to help provide some context, but we're only
gonna be looking at verses 21 and 22. Again, Job chapter 22, beginning
at verse 21. Acquaint now thyself with him
and be at peace, and thereby good shall come unto thee. Receive,
I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in
thine heart. If thou return to the Almighty,
thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from
thy tabernacles. Then shalt thou lay up gold as
dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks. Yea,
the Almighty shall be thy defense, and thou shalt have plenty of
silver. For then shalt thou have thy
delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make prayer unto him,
and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows. Thou shalt
also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee, and
the light shall shine upon thy ways. When men are cast down,
then thou shalt say, there is a lifting up, and he shall save
the humble person. He shall deliver the island of
the innocent, and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands. And again, our text this morning,
verse 21 and verse 22, acquaint now thyself with him and be at
peace. Thereby good shall come unto
thee. Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth and lay up
his words in thine heart. As you can see from your outline,
we're gonna look at four divisions of this verse this morning. First
of all, the exhortation. Secondly, the result. Thirdly,
based on the exhortation, how is it that we can acquaint ourself
with God himself? And then fourthly, rather, your
outline says observations and applications, rather than that,
In thinking through the message again last night, I would like
to replace that with just giving you one example of an individual
who acquainted themselves with the Lord. I think it's a very
telling and a very pertinent example. Before we begin this
morning, just remind you of something I believe you already know, just
by way of reinforcing. And that is to say something
about this topic of the knowledge of God, the true knowledge of
God, or as it says here in Job, acquainting ourself with him. God places a very high premium
on the true knowledge of God. And we'll make discrimination
between knowledge about God and about his ways and knowing him. You're familiar with the Lord's
Prayer in the garden in John chapter 17 in verse three, when
he said to his father, this is life eternal. So he's gonna describe
what life eternal is. And he says that they may know
thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent. The Lord places the knowledge
of God, the true knowledge of God, in the context of this is
eternal life. And that eternal life, the context
will show, is not in the by and by. It begins in our life here. And of course, that well-known
passage in Hosea, where God said that he did not desire excuse
me, he desired mercy, but not sacrifice. He desired the knowledge
of God more than burnt offerings. That that outward worship, as
Tim alluded to, that outward worship that Cain had, God looks
right past that, he goes to the heart. And the true knowledge
of God is what he was seeking. And again, it's very subtle.
we can do this substitution, this exchange, very subtle, to
substitute knowledge about God, facts about God, and doctrine
for the core issue, which is heart-to-heart knowledge with
God, acquainting ourselves with Him on a daily basis. And even right now, you can ask
yourself, you can, in your mind, set a partition, and on one side
of that partition, you can imagine all of the knowledge about God
that you have, doctrine and memory verses and doctrinal truths and
scriptures and the nature of God and his attributes. And then
on the other side of that partition, think about those times when
your heart to heart knowledge of God was so strong and vital
and living and vigorous that you know at those times that
you were meeting with God. I mean, there was this certainty
that you were in Christ. Knowledge of God. Job, we'll
see shortly, did have a knowledge of God. We'll see that Eliphaz
had a misunderstanding, utterly wrong as he was judging Job. We'll see that. Job knew God.
Job had a vital relationship with God. Even though at the
end of the book, which we talked about a while ago, you recall
that God gave this revelation to Job, and Job said, I had heard
of you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes seeth thee,
therefore I abhor myself and I repent in dust. But in that
particular case, that extra revelation, That's not discounting his previous
knowledge of God. God was giving him a further
revelation and God was bringing to closure this book of Job and
what Job had gone through and documenting it in his word for
several reasons. Job knew God, not just in a textbook
way, but he knew God. God. If you read chapter one
of Job, that comes through very clearly. All that to say, as
we begin, the true knowledge of God is where we need to put
a spiritual investment, right there in the true, real knowledge
of God. So by introduction, let me just
say something about the context of chapter 22 of Job. Chapter
22 now is the third confrontation that Job's friends are going
to have with Job. And if you've read the book of
Job and you've thought about his friends, you know the scope
of their argument, the scope and the nature of their confrontation. They, believe they're going to
humble Job so that they can bring him into the streams of God's
mercy. They have diagnosed Job's problem. They are trying to convince him
of his guilt, his hypocrisy. And they do err greatly in their
miscalculation of what's happening to Job. And the first 20 verses
of this chapter is Eliphaz's complaint against Job, trying
to prove to him that he is wrong. And of course, as he does so,
he makes two very glaring errors. Which I suppose the error is,
by automatically assuming that because Job has fallen into this
extreme situation, loss of finances, loss of his children, his own
health, everything is against him. And they automatically assume
he's not spiritual, he's in sin. He's done something to violate
his covenant with God, so God is just here to bash him. They're
limiting God and basically saying God only brings chastening or
affliction into our life as a way of divine punishment because
we have sinned, we've grown cold, lukewarm, whatever. And so we're
reminded that we need to be very careful how we judge our brethren. There is one judge and one lawgiver
God will judge on the final day, and it's not our portion. Paul
said, who are thou that judges another man's servant? To his
own master, he rises or he falls. But perhaps all of us have been
the brunt of somebody confronting us when things are not right
in our personal life relative to Job's afflictions, trials,
unsaved children, go down the list. Aha, you've sinned, you're
a hypocrite. God is working in a much more
multifaceted way with each one of us. And he also, Eliphaz errs as
he's judging Job because he basically says Job has not a single ounce
of grace, and he's a hypocrite. It's almost amazing that his
friend who knew him could come to such a conclusion. The second part of this chapter
is an exhortation to Job. And here, Eliphaz, I think, under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, preserved for us in God's word,
gives forth a very precious, true, divine word by way of instruction
and exhortation for all of us. And whether he was ignorant of
what he was saying, whether he was like Balaam, who was ignorant
and thought he was saying one thing, but was saying another
thing to bless God's people. There is this profound divine
counsel, so simple and yet deep, so attainable for all of us here
in this room. All of us are on the same journey,
are we not, to know God. to know him personally, vitally,
vigorously, not knowing about him, that has its place, but
knowing him. And so Eliphaz gives in the second
half of this chapter this exhortation, this exhortation about knowing
God. So first of all then, the exhortation,
acquaint now thyself with him. And again, don't want to be too
redundant, but we're not talking about knowing about God, knowing
about doctrines or church history or methods of prayer or schemes, but knowing God. We're also not
talking about our knowledge of God that was yesterday, things
that we knew yesterday. Knowledge about God can become
a trophy. It can become a test of fellowship. It can become many, many things.
It can even become an idol. Knowledge about God can be elevated
to be an idol. This is what John warned us about.
He said, we know that the Son of God has come And he's given
us an understanding that we may know him that is true. And we
are in him that is true. Even his son, Jesus Christ. This
is the true God and eternal life. Three times, we know him that
is true. We are in him that is true. This
is the true God. And then he says, little children,
keep yourself from idols. Keep yourself from idols. He's
not talking about those who know the true and living God. Now
we're gonna suddenly go off and worship Balaam or some, excuse,
Baal or some false god. Anything that displaces the true
knowledge of God can be an idol. Little children, keep yourself
from idols, amen. So let me, as we think about
knowing God, let me give you three words that we'll look at.
Acquainting, and I'm gonna add two words to our context. We're
gonna add the word experimental and the word relational. First
of all, the word acquaint. Acquaint now thyself with him. We might not understand that
word in its biblical sense. We all have acquaintances, do
we not? We have acquaintances that we
might see once or twice a year, an acquaintance that was introduced
to us through a third party or a fourth party, an acquaintance
that we might have one distant thing in common with that person.
They're an acquaintance. Here, the word to Job is acquaint
thyself with him. Here, this word, it means to
be familiar with in sense of cherishing and in a sense of
a treasure. And God uses this word to focus
on that sense of an awareness of God's omniscience, excuse
me, God's omnipresence, that God is always there. God uses
this word in Psalm 139, and I think this gives us a really good idea
of what he's talking about when he says acquaint yourself with
God. You know Psalm 139, it's that psalm that talks about God's
complete knowledge of you, that thorough knowledge of the individual.
The psalmist said, oh Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting,
mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off, thou hast
compassed my paths, my lying down, thou art acquainted with
all of my ways." God is acquainted with the psalmist, with all of
his ways, whether he's sleeping, rising up, walking, his thoughts,
his heart, God is always there. And I think what the scripture
is trying to tell us when it says, acquaint now thyself with
God, it's not focusing on an infinite God, and it's hopeless
to know how can a mere individual, mortal like us, how can we apprehend
this infinite God? How can we know this comprehensive
nature of God? It's rather pointing to his omnipresence
in this relational sphere. Knowledge of God that be secured
by dwelling with him on familiar terms in the same house. Job's friends want him to take
this step towards spiritual connection with God. with the God who really
is, as the rest of a lot of the book of Job talks about, the
excellency of his power, his grace and mercy, his sovereign
rule. And he's saying, acquaint yourself with this God. Be mindful that God is always
there. And in every situation, there's
something to learn about God relative to an impact whereby
we can know him on that level. If we acquaintance ourself with
God as a foundation, then even those things that we know about
God take on a new dimension. And we make that connection with
God We're sometimes satisfied to learn about God and not go
deeper and then connect with the reality of who God is, what
he is thinking about, what his heart is like towards his own. So here's an example. Let me
give you a deep theological question. It may not sound like it's deep,
but it's a deep theological question, here it is. What does God think about relative
to the animals and the birds of the world? It doesn't sound like a very
deep theological question. We would think, well, what do
we think about his sovereignty? Or what do we think about this
minutia or that? But the question is, what does
God, from our knowledge of God, what does he think about when
he considers the animals or the birds. We might think in our mind, well,
God created them. They're very intricate. They
have, whether it's a bird with a very strange migrating pattern,
or an animal that takes care of its young, whatever it might
be, we might say, God has created them with wisdom, And they give glory to God, the
creation gives glory to God. But those are all facts about
God. That doesn't answer the question,
what does God think about them? God thinks, God's thought about
animals and birds is what comprises the 88 questions he asks Job
at the end of the book, right? He goes through this creation
thing and he uses many animals and birds to try to get Job to
not just see his power and his sovereign rule over every aspect
of creation, he's trying to get Job to think like he thinks. Let me say that differently.
He wants to get Job to know him so that Job can think like God
thinks. Let me continue this thought
for just another minute. I was listening to a sermon this
past week, and the pastor was trying to, with logical arguments,
prove that Noah's Ark really did happen. And he talked about
the dimensions, and the dimensions were such that all the animals
and all the species and families and orders, or however that works
out, could fit into the Ark. And it wasn't a circus elephant,
it was a little baby elephant, and all these things. And then
he said, but there was a little bit of a problem because they
had to have food for all the animals. And he kind of fudged
a little bit and showed how there could be enough room for all
the food. And after the sermon, and those
were just all facts and logic, right? After the sermon, a young
woman came up to him and said, well, I have a different view
on how God fed the animals. She said, he could have fed all
those animals with a single bale of hay. And after the year of
them being in the ark, there would have been 12 bales of hay
left over. Right? She was thinking how God thinks
on what we would say is such of a low level, how God thinks
about animals and birds. And Jesus did this very same
thing. Remember, he said, a sparrow, two sparrows are sold for a farthing,
a penny. And not one of them falls to
the ground without your heavenly father. There's the fact, that's
a fact. He goes deeper. You are worth more than many
sparrows. See, he went past the fact and
went to the issue. So that is a deep theological
question. What does God think about the animals and the birds?
We could quote verses about them. I'm using that as an illustration
that it's just not about God that we want to get to. Acquainting
is that understanding that he is always there and everything
concerns him, believe it or not. Two other words besides acquainting,
the word experience or experimental. We have to have an experimental,
by way of experience, knowledge of God. Classic illustration,
and every preacher quotes this, it's from J.I. Packer's book,
Knowing God. Remember in Genesis chapter 18, where Sodom and Gomorrah,
their sin was really, really great, that it reached up into
heaven? And God says this in verse 21, I will go down now
and I will see whether they have done altogether according to
the cry of it, which has come up to me. And if not, I will
know. God knew it came up to him, God
is omniscient, God knew, but now he's speaking after the manner
of men and God says, I am gonna go down there And I'm going to
experience firsthand, as it were, by way of observation, what is
happening. And then I will know. And as
you know, that passage, it impacted him, his heart, his righteousness
and holiness so much that it moved him to action. He had to
destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. His knowledge, was not by proxy,
not by third hand. He didn't read a book by a theologian
who had read a book by a theologian and copied him and read another
book by a theologian. It was first hand knowledge. He had to experience, he had
to know it in that way. So we must have that experimental,
that experiential knowledge of God to know him. We can read
books about him all day. Some of those books are good.
We should have our mind filled with doctrine and facts and all
that. That's just step one. We need to go farther. The third
word. So there we have acquaintance,
experimental. Third word, relational. Relational. The type of Knowledge of God
should be based on our relation with Him. Parents know their
children, children know their parents, spouses know their spouse. When I met my wife, Lori, I did
not come to know her by listening to her family members who told
me stories about her. or her friends who told me certain
things about her. I didn't learn about her by looking
at scrapbooks with pictures in it. I only began to know her
when I started to date her. Don't tell Pastor Joe I used
the word dating. I courted her. I didn't come to really know
her until we got married and we moved in together, and I lived
with her 24-7. That was the relationship, and
that's how I started to really know her. It was a relational
situation, 24-7. That gets back to that word acquaintance,
24-7, our knowledge of God cannot be gotten simply through
books or even the Bible apart from or separated from God revealing
himself to us through the scriptures, for example. So now I could sit
down with Lori and look at a scrapbook or a photo album of her past
before I knew her, and in person, she could point to a picture.
And she could really tell me what it really meant and the
backstory and her emotions that were occurring when that happened.
If I just am by myself looking at those pictures, I'm going
to have an idea. But that connection, that heart to heart connection
won't be there. We have this relationship with
God. I mean, he's given us the spirit
of adoption whereby we can cry, Abba, Father, We're brothers
and sisters in the Lord. That type of knowledge qualifies
us to say with Paul, for in him we live and move and have our
being, as also certain of your own prophets have said, we are
his offspring. You know, you have certain rights
and privileges and blessings, being a member of the family
of God. Too often the Christian is pushed in the way of sin and
guilt for past sins and imperfections and fallibility. If the Son of
Man makes you free, you are free indeed. Peter said we're called
to grace and virtue through the knowledge of him. That's a real
living knowledge. So these are these three words,
acquaintance, experimental, relational. Acquaintance, 24-7, his omnipresence. Experimental, different than
head knowledge, relational. He never ceases to be God, but
you are in a special standing with him as a child of God. Your heart is ripe for the revelation
of God. Your heart is ripe for the true
knowledge of God. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness has shown already into our heart to give
us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God where in
the face of Jesus Christ. Already you have been reconciled
to him. He has turned away his judicial
wrath and now that word atonement at one meant, at one, You are
at one with this God that we want to know. So here's the exhortation. Acquaint now thyself with him. And of course, Job is in this
very special condition of suffering and affliction and pain. And that leads us to the second
point. What is the result of this kind of a knowledge? Thereby
be at peace, and thereby good shall come unto thee. there is
this connection with the knowledge of God. Could this exhortation
stand alone? Could it have said, acquaint
now thyself with God, period? I first thought, yeah, of course,
but then I thought, no, there's no way. You cannot acquaint yourself
with God or know God, and it just stops there. There has to
be this overflowing, this bursting. It is impossible to know God
without some result in our heart, in our life, in our outlook,
in all of those things. Two parts, peace. Peace, when
we acquaint ourself with God, we know God. Peace comes, often there's this
vagueness, this uncertainty, what's gonna happen? It's so
much better, peace comes when we know what's coming to a very
great degree. This peace is a very nature,
I mean, he's called the God of peace. We would expect that this
peace would be our portion. We, when we don't know him as
we ought, we often have misconceptions about his nature, misconceptions
about how he is dealing with us. We have these temporary disconnects,
and that just leads to unrest all the time. When I'm working
from home, and I'm working away, and all of a sudden I get a banner
that says, you're disconnected from the internet, and I'm wondering
what's wrong, Then 10 or 20 seconds later, I get another banner,
you're connected again, so I could work again, then another, you're
disconnected from the internet, off and off and on and on. I'm
agitated, I'm annoyed. There's no peace when we're connected
with God. That peace, God's peace, rules
our day, it rules our life. Peace is the very first fruit
of justification, Romans says in Romans 5. Jesus said in John
14 that his peace he was going to give us, not as the world
gives us. Nobody can take it away. It's
a peace that passes all understanding. It's a resident peace that should
set the temper of our life. And then he says, thereby good
shall come unto thee, the second part. I'm not gonna go down these
eight promises, but he gives eight promises, essentially one
in every verse, of a result that comes from acquainting with God. And in a nutshell, if you look
at these, they're all spiritual in nature. It's where Job, or
the believer who hears us, that resetting of the heart with God's
heart and everything is good. We're delighting in God. We have
those spiritual blessings. And if God blesses us materially
or in a family way or whatever it might be, it always goes back
to give God the glory and it's seen as a source of joy because
God gave it, not in the thing in and of itself. Thirdly, how or where do we do
this? How do we acquaint ourself with
God? How do we know him? In verse
22, he says, receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth,
and lay up his words in thine heart. Here we see a compass
pointing to the words of God, the word of God, and laying up
his words in our heart, and we see that transformation of when
the word of God becomes that living, spiritual word of God,
as God the Holy Spirit, the author of his word, gives life, gives
heat and warmth to that word. We're talking about, of course,
the revelation, the apprehending, of God. God, since creation, God
has been revealing himself to mankind. This doctrine called biblical
theology is the study of how God, over the course of time,
gives more and more and more revelation, like a door opening
a dark room and a door is opening, letting light in. And by the
time the door is all the way open, that room is flooded with
light. And if you look at the scriptures,
God has built upon revelation of himself more and more and
more. God's law written upon the tables
of man's heart. God giving his word from Sinai,
not just the 10 commandments, but lots of his word, the historic
times of the Old Testament where the prophets would explain and
enforce and illustrate and amplify God's word, the poetic books
highlighting the law and the lawgiver, and then of course
in the fullness of time, God speaking to us by his son, Hebrews
chapter one, And later in the book of Hebrews, God's saying
that this is the reality of what was prophesied. He would make
a new covenant and that covenant would in part be that he would
put his laws in our mind and write them upon our heart. And that people would be a people
of God. Obviously God uses effort we
have to receive his word and we lay it up in our heart, God
alone can give revelation. That connection where the word
of God is not just black letters on a white page, but it's living. And like those disciples on the
road to Emmaus, remember Jesus explained the scriptures and
they said, did not our heart burn? within us, and they constrained
the master to stay with them. They had a hunger and a love
for that word. And when that word comes to us,
of course, we, as humble children of God, we are in submission
to that word. In other words, we're not dictating
what we want God to tell us. we are yielding to that Word. The vehicle of revelation is the
Word of God, Hebrews 4, verse 12. The Word, the written Word
of God, the dynamic of revelation is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we receive that revelation
as God would grant it, God would give it, as we give ourself to
hungering and thirsting after it and searching it out, and
God blessing. In 1 Corinthians chapters two,
the apostle says, talking about the things of God, God has revealed
them to us by his spirit, For the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God. And he goes on to say, for what
man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of man that is
in him? Even so the Spirit of God knoweth no man but the Spirit
of God. He goes on to say, brethren,
you've been given freely the Spirit of God. And the things
which we teach, he said, are not words of men's wisdom, but
the Holy Ghost has taught them, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual things. And there's a discernment and
a judgment. And he says, and we have the
mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. And so God writes them upon our
heart. God has already shown into our
heart as we saw in Corinthians, and now we have the mind of Christ. And so can we be ambivalent to
the true knowledge of God if we have the mind of Christ and
a heart that is ready to be written on further by God himself? Can we be bored with life? Can
we give up because at first glance, as Job did not do, just give
up because we don't understand what God is doing and we want
an answer. With a heart that's a tablet
ready to be written on and a mind of Christ and the scriptures
of truth and the Holy Spirit to illuminate them to us. we
can make that connection, that true knowledge of God. Jesus seemed to go the second
mile as the dynamic of revelation. He kept trying to tell people
things like, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He said
in Matthew, no man can know the Father except the Son and No man knows the Father saved
the Son, and to whomsoever the Son would reveal Him to him. Jesus said He wanted to reveal
the Father. John 1, 18. No man has seen God
at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. That's the
word exegeted. Jesus has exegeted the Father
in Himself. He said, I and my Father are
one. Scripture says he is the image of the invisible God. Scripture
says in him is the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. Again, Hebrews chapter one, he
was the brightness of his glory and the express image of his
person. It's almost as though Jesus was
laboring to reveal the triune God to man, and back in the day,
as he was dealing with the Pharisees and the scribes, they wanted
to keep not a knowledge of God or a knowledge of the Father,
they wanted to keep their knowledge that they had developed, that
they had learned. Religious knowledge is a very
interesting thing apart from God. Religious knowledge is a
way that you can like, and maybe some of us have known churches
or pastors like this, to maintain control over people. I know something
that you don't know. Let me tell you something and
you just need to obey me because I have this direct connection
to God, but you can't and you don't. And the scribes and the Pharisees,
directly living in a time with Christ and he was confronting
them. And they never asked the question, we have all this knowledge
about God, how could we be so wrong? What are we missing? But
they tenaciously held to their idol of this religious knowledge
that gave them power over the Jews. Jesus said, you know, you'll
compass land and sea to make a Pharisee. You'll put these
burdens on them, but you won't lift them. Or that knowledge about God is
held in reserve. Yeah, there's this knowledge
of God. When we get to heaven, then we'll know, even as we've
known. That's true, but what can we know now? somebody learns some great doctrine
and they wanna get into an argument, in a debate, and you feel their
fury as they try to impress upon you some doctrine, and the love
of Christ, you think, man, this guy's a clanging cymbal, an empty
cymbal. And we can become, the Pharisees
and the scribes became detached theologians. Brains filled, I've
said it before, brains so big they couldn't get through the
door, and they could hold their heart in a little teacup. Sadly, it's easy to have this
knowledge about God, And today the catchphrase is to walk with
Jesus. It's very easy to walk with Jesus,
because if you walk with him, then today I can step aside and
I can do my own thing. Then I can walk with him again.
Where the Bible says you are in him. Do you see yourself as
in him or just with him? Our culture is very comfortable,
churches are very comfortable with the idea of just being with
Christ. We're with him today on Sunday.
The Bible says, no, you are in him. And then we can begin to
see, oh, this true knowledge of God, it's essential, it's
important. That's what I want to share today.
Acquaint now yourself with him. Receive the word at his mouth,
lay it up in your heart. We need this revelation of him,
not about him. We want to direct our hearts
into the word of God, that revelation that the Holy Spirit, we need
to just remember that that is the end goal when we're in the
word or when we're praying. The end goal is to know Him,
not just about Him. We need to understand it takes
a spiritual investment. We need to be reminded God wants
us to know Him. We quoted two verses, there's
more. God wants you to have that true knowledge of Him. We have
to remain guarded that it's the true knowledge that has to be
sought after and preserved, and we have to accept no counterfeits. We have to accept no counterfeits. Let me close by giving you an
example of someone who I think had a true knowledge of God and
what that looks like. And don't turn there because
I'm gonna be talking about four chapters in this book. I'm just
gonna give you just a very brief overview. I'd just like you to
listen to someone who I think exemplifies someone who had a
true knowledge of God. And it's from the book of the
Song of Solomon, which the Song of Solomon, as it describes this
bride and bridegroom, it typifies the relationship that the believer
has with their bridegroom, Jesus Christ. The bride, the church,
the individual, the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. And listen to how
she describes him and try to make a connection. Is that the
way Are those my thoughts about Christ? In chapter three, it
says that she sought him, but she did so in a very lazy way.
She was on her bed. She did this very shallow searching
for him, and it says she could not find him. So she determines
that she has to have him. So she gets out of bed, she rises
about the city, and she's searching the city. And the scripture says
she finally finds him. And the scripture says, I found
the one who my soul loveth, and I held him, and I would not let
him go. When we find Christ in that special
place, that secret place, is that the essence of our soul?
And we will not let him go. In chapter four, she says this about
her bridegroom. He has ravished my heart. And that's a word that means
she was transported into this ecstasy of joy. There's this joy unspeakable
and full of glory. We should stop using that verse
until it's a reality. He's ravished my heart. Can you
say Christ has ravished my heart this time or that time or yesterday
or today? In chapter five, he comes to visit
her and she responds, well, it's not convenient at this time.
I've put off my cloak, I've taken my shoes off, I've washed my
feet. It's not convenient now. But he puts his hand to the door,
and she smells this fragrance. And so she's reminded about,
well, this is the one whom I do love. It says, my bowels were
moved for him, and so I rose up. But he had withdrawn himself. And what happens to her when
he withdraws himself? She says, my soul fainted. Again,
she goes about the city and she tells all these people in the
city, like the watchman, if you find my beloved, tell him I am
sick of love. That is, I'm lovesick. When you read her descriptions
about him in the scripture, Throughout this book, these eight chapters,
she has a lot to say about him, but when you read that, she's
describing things that she could only know by knowing him. She knows what he does, how he
acts, what he thinks, what he thinks about her. She's convinced
experimentally of the love that the groom has for her, the bride. And there's all these emotions
and all this action and this reality of the connection that
she has with him. It's life or death, basically. And she sums it up this way in
chapter eight. She talks about her desire. She's
telling him, set me as a seal upon thine heart and a seal upon
thine arm. like tattoo my name into your
arm and your heart so that you will not forget me. And then
she talks about the power. Love is as strong as death. Then she talks about passion.
Jealousy is as cruel as the gray. The coals thereof are coals of
fire, which has a most vehement flame. I think it's a reciprocal
jealousy. The groom is jealous for her,
and she is jealous for him, and she says it's like a fire and
you just can't put it out. And then she goes on to talk
about the power again. Many waters cannot quench love,
nor can the floods drown it. And then she says how priceless
it is if a man would give all of his substance of his house
for love. he would be utterly scorned or despised or contempt. This is someone who knew the
bridegroom. The bride knew by way of experience,
by way of acquaintance, by way of relational, by way of revelation
as he would spend time with her And she would latch on to every
single, not just fact about him, but every interaction, every
truth, every reality. And this is where we as a believer,
despite 101 things that are against us today, even right now, this
is where we need to be. And I think this is the template
the scripture has for us, our warrant where we should be with
him. I close with a single word. I
did not talk about the word, the second word. Acquaint now. Acquaint now thyself with Him. Now. Despite past failures, despite
difficulties, acquaint now thyself with Him, thereby good, shall
come unto thee. If you want any good out of this
world, you're not gonna find it. If you want good from your
relationship with God, it's there for the taking. And it's so rich
and so full, you won't be able to carry it. Let's pray. Father,
thank you for your word. Thank you for this exhortation
that though given under a perhaps false context or pretense, yet
for every believer, It resonates with us. Help us, our Father,
to keep thy word within our hearts. This exhortation, might it be
our reality? Help us even today, tomorrow,
this week. Father, might your gracious spirit
so work this into our heart that it does become that reality,
that standing order and desire of our hearts. We thank you for
this assembly, this hour of worship. Bless us, Father, we pray. Help
us to walk in the light, help us to glorify you, help us to
love the brethren, all for thy glory and our good. We ask in
Jesus' name, amen.
Acquaint Now Thyself With Him
| Sermon ID | 318251419102938 |
| Duration | 54:29 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Job 22:21-22 |
| Language | English |
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