HE KNOWS: The Way We Take!

TOPIC: God's Presence
TITLE: HE KNOWS - The Way We Take!
TEXT: JOB 23:8-10

“Behold, I go forward but He is not there,
And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;
When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him;
He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.
But He knows the way I take;
When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

TRUTH CLAIM/CONTEXT:

THINGS ABOUT JOB -

• Possibly oldest book in the Bible; probably pre-Exodus [absence of “the Law” and presence of long lives, 42:16]
• Job asserts and explains a doctrine of divine providence
• More particularly it reveals that even good men suffer affliction
• Job exhorts us to bear afflictions [as does James 1]
• Without murmur or fingerpointing; nor complaint to God
• Job tells us to wait upon the Lord; deliverance and understanding are revealed in and through the storms of life [38:1]
• God’s ways are higher than ours [Isaiah 55:8, 9]
• God must account for His doings to no man [Ephesians 1:11]
• He is sovereign and just in all He does

SELF-EVIDENT THINGS -

• We will not find God on the horizontal
• Forward and backward ... same as east and west
• Likewise, left and right ... Or north and south; it relates to general human orientation
• The mind of that age had the east as its forward orientation, ergo the west was backward ... no great mystery here
• God is everywhere present; we call it omnipresent …
• The most difficult of times to not see God is in the midst of our affliction
• In the morning the sun rising in the east, till NOON we watch and there’s no God to acknowledge
• We then turn to watch a setting sun for another half day; as it's final light lingers on the horizon …we’ve still not seen Him
• Then we look north, nothing; and south … still nada
• Yet we see His works everywhere that we do not see Him
• How do we not see God when we are looking north, east, south, and west?
• You will want to take bibles in hand and follow along in chapters 38 and 39.

I. WE DON’T SEE HIM IN …

• The foundation of the earth [38:4]
• The plot map of the earth [5]
• Its bases and cornerstone [6]
• The doors that hold back the sea [8]
• The garments for the seas [9]
• The boundaries for the seas [10]
• The dawn [12]
• The springs and recesses of the deep [16]
• The gates of death [17]
• The dwelling of light [19]
• The place of darkness [19]
• The storehouses of snow and hail [22]
• The division of light and the pathway of the wind [24]
• The flood’s channel [25]The thunderbolt’s way [25]

II. WE DON’T SEE HIM IN …

• The time of rain or the lack of rain [26]
• The making of grass seeds sprout [27]
• The Rain, dew, frost, and ice [28-29]
• The making of water as hard as stone [30]
• The ice caps [30]
• The chains of the Pleiades … the cords of Orion [31]
• The Constellations’ seasons … e.g., the Bear with satellites [32]
• The ordinances of the heavens [33]
• The making of the clouds to loose their water [34]
• The cause lightening [35]
• The cause of wisdom or understanding to a mind [36]

III. WE DON’T SEE HIM IN …

• The provision of food for the beasts and their young [39]
• Or for the raven [41]
• The time of birthing for mountain goats or deer [39:1]
• The freedom donkeys [5]
• The domestication of animals to serve man [9-12]
• The stupidity of the ostrich or withholding of understanding from her [17]
• The horse’s strength or his mane [19]
• The horse’s leap [20]
• The flight to the hawk [26]
• The eagle’s decision to fly [27]
  

APPLICATION/CHALLENGE: Then Job answered the LORD and said,

"Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.”

Job 40:3-4

In verse 10 of our passage, the conjunction "but" affirms Job's faith in God remains intact in spite of His inability to see Him.

Verse 11 reads,

"Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; Were He to move past me, I would not perceive Him.”

The quick Christian response is, “So?”

For Romans 8:24 says,

“For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?”

Job expressed earnest desire to be in the visible presence of His God [v. 3]. To be permitted to argue his cause in person [v. 4]. But he knew in his heart his earnestness was in vain.

He looked to all points of the compass, N. S. E. and W. where he might rationally and reasonably expect to find God, but in vain.

• It is not with reason or rationality that we find God … we must reach the point that we see God’s passing in the works of His hands north, east, west, or south through the eyes of our heart by faith.
• It is natural for carnal man to look for things on the horizontal.
• It is his habit to look in all the wrong places for evidence of God’s passing
  

Yet, as we saw, the evidence is all around.

James was right, “Count it all joy when …”

When all is said and done, we “shall come forth as gold.”

"The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb."

Psalms 19:9-10

Homiletics, Job, Preaching, Sermons

JOB: Full Sermons

The following are links to full sermons, preached at FBC La Verne (FBC/LV) in Southern California or at San Carlos Community Church (SCCC) in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico ...

14:14

BETWEEN HEAVEN & EARTH – Four Reasons for Our Sojourn!

23:8-10

HE KNOWS - The Way We Take!

Expository, Homiletics, Job,
Outlines, Preaching, Sermons

JOB 14:14 - Between Heaven & Earth!

TOPIC: Coping; despair, endurance, light, patience, perseverance, purity, suffering, submission, trials
TITLE: BETWEEN HEAVEN & EARTH – Four Reasons for Our Sojourn!

TEXT:

If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait,
Until my change comes.

FOUNDATIONAL INQUIRY: What is the purpose for our protracted stay?

TRUTH CLAIM/CONTEXT: Job may be the oldest book in the Bible. Chronologically, Job probably lived closer to the flood and creation than Moses (who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament); which means his understanding of God was at least as good as Moses, if not better!

The book has sweeping application ... we all reap heartache and toil in this life, thus a universal need exists among men. It's a reminder:

1. of man's inability to cope with suffering alone,
2. of man's inadequacy to earn approval through effort,
3. of man's impaired understanding of the things of God, as-well-as a reminder that ...
4. man's pride widens the gulf between himself and his God.

Man's word increases despair in the midst of need, God's word is a timely answer for every need; man’s word increases darkness, God's word is light.

Job's friends embody the widely accepted notion that struggle indicates something is wrong with the person or their life!

God answers the need of Job's heart, spreading light in the midst of his suffering.

Redeemed man is caught ...

• somewhere between heaven and earth,
• somewhere between the temporal and the eternal,
• somewhere between the natural and the supernatural

... still in this world but not of it ... and so the redeemed of God live by and on His grace, longing for certainty concerning an after-life. [cf. Philippians 1:21]

Man fears death because of uncertain future. When we cut down a tree, it may sprout again. When we're cut down, will we sprout again? If so, why doesn't God take us home at the time of our rebirth?

Job makes two points in v. 14: first, the promise of resurrection (he says: 'until my change comes,' in answer to his own question 'will he live again'); second, the purpose for our hiatus here ('all the days of my struggle / will wait').

Let's address the latter ...

FOUNDATIONAL INQUIRY: What is the purpose for our protracted stay?

I. OUR STAY MAKES HEAVEN MORE HEAVENLY!

A. Nothing makes a time of rest as sweet as healthy toil
B. Nothing makes safety as desirable as exposure to threat
C. The polluted streams here only sweeten the promised nectar of glory
D. Our pock-marked paths pale in the radiance of heaven's golden highways and
E. Our battered armor only renders more wonderful the victory to come, when we are welcomed into the congregation of overcomers.

[GOLD] Purity comes with time and toil. The higher the quality of gold, the more
trying has been its journey. In the jewelry industry, worth is based on purity.

II. OUR STAY ALLOWS US TO EXPERIENCE FULL FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST!

Fellowship with Christ is so desirable the worst sorrow is a small price for procuring it. Our fellowship with Jesus would not be full or complete fellowship if we were not to tarry awhile.

He was baptized with a baptism of suffering among men (He bore our stripes); thus, we likewise must be baptized with tribulation, if we would share a sense of His kingdom. [cf. Philippians 1:29]

III. OUR STAY IS FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS!

Why would we want to enter heaven before our work is finished? It may be we're yet commissioned to bear the gospel-light to one who yet cowers in the midnight of their own wilderness.

IV. OUR STAY IS ALSO FOR GOD'S GLORY!

Paul said we are God's workmanship, in which, by our trials in service, He will be glorified ... that we hold out against the testing of our faith with joy is His glory.

[SPURGEON] "A tried saint, like a well-cut diamond, glitters much in the King's
crown." Nothing honors a man as much as the testing of his work. [cf. James
1]

I believe it is the Westminster Catechism which says, "The chief end of man is to glorify God."

APPLICATION/CHALLENGE: Each man must surrender his concerns to the glory of Jesus, and proclaim, "if lying in the dust of this age elevates my Lord by so much as a micron, let me remain choking and prostrate until the end." Or, "if living on earth forever would procure more glory for Him, then let it be my heaven to be excluded from heaven." [Charles Haddon Spurgeon, paraphrased]

Expository, Homiletics, Job 14:14,
Outlines, Preaching, Sermons, Trials