Good to see you, the last prayer meeting before solo. So let's go ahead and look to the Lord, simply trusting hymn number 342 this evening. We'll sing verses one, three, and four. Let's stand to sing. Simply trusting every year, trusting through the stormy weather, even though the day Trust in Jesus, let Him show you. Trust in Jesus, have faith in His power. Trust in Jesus, don't let Him show you how. Trust in Him, don't let Him go. Rusting with a saddened soul. Since you're in the air, you can't see. Trust in Jesus at His hour. Trust in Jesus at His hour. Jesus had his home. Trusting in the Father's promise, trusting in the glory that he has, till we live the just way. Trusting in his own hand, Amen. Good singing. You may be seated. This coming Sunday, I do ask you to be in prayer as we have after our regular church service. We will have a business meeting to adopt the budget for 2025. So let's be in prayer for that. We will also be having February's Sunday School Teacher. Why don't we just keep everyone in suspense? Actually, no, we won't do it, because it passed up in January. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you short there, Brother Hendrickson. You've got one more week to go. All right. Well, this is our third week where we begin with the Book of Ezekiel, looking at our trio of righteous men. Ezekiel 14 verse 20 reminds us, here is the Lord saying, though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in this place, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter, they would deliver only themselves, and I focused on that last preposition, by their righteousness. These men were righteous men. And of course, this entire chapter zeroes in on the contrast between the righteousness of Noah, Daniel, and Job. I'm trying to combine their names here. Noah, Daniel, and Job, and the wickedness of the countries about them, the wickedness of their homeland, Israel. And so, what we need to understand is that As we look at these men, their righteousness was not just trying hard. Their righteousness came by faith in God. But then they lived out lives that were indeed righteous. And so our final man of this series of three is Job. So turn in your Bible to Job chapter 26. As you can see there under your title, Job is a man whose righteousness was purified and perfected under pressure. He was a man who both God and Satan agreed he was righteous. We saw that in chapters 1 and 2. In Job 1, Job 2, the Lord brings Job before Satan, who has been going to and fro throughout the earth. And have you considered my servant Job? There's none righteous like him. And Satan has to agree, yeah, he's righteous, but the question becomes, why is this man righteous? And Satan alleges Job is righteous because He's doing it for profit. After all, God protects him. God blesses him. Well, take away the blessing. Take away the riches. Take away the children. Take away every good thing he has. And Job still worships. And so Job has some comforters, some friends who are not much comfort. And they go through these cycles of Job lamenting And he starts off in chapter three, cursing the day of his birth. I mean, this is not a happy camper. He is extremely depressed. He's going through all the turmoil, the depression of dealing with 10 children dying in a day, his own physical afflictions, marital discord, and now his friends are calling him a wicked man. How do you deal with something like that? Well, there are three cycles of conversation where Job speaks, and then each of his friends try to read. Refute what he has said and accuse him. And we're now focusing on Job's last speech, Job 26 through 31. It ends in Job 31, verse 40. The words of Job are in there. This is his grand finale, his grand conclusion. What is his conclusion after all this reasoning? Turn in your Bibles to Job 26. We're going to have one point from every chapter, Job 26 through 31. You see in Job 26, righteousness will trust God's greatness when friends and counselors don't help. So there in the blank, greatness. God is great and God is good even when we don't understand all that's going on. You see, Job begins, look at the first few verses here in verses 1 through 4. Job 26, and we'll read verses 1 through 4, and we'll see that Job has had these counselors, these so-called comforters, and he basically responds with supreme sarcasm, you guys are absolutely no help. So the final speech before this, Bildad has begun to talk, you know, God is powerful. God, you know, who can be righteous before him? You know, 25 verse 4, how can man be righteous before God? You know, we're all a bunch of dirty worms, verse six. We're just maggots, we're worms, we're not righteous, no one can be righteous, you know, we're all filthy sinners, amen, Romans one through three. But Job is saying, you know, this is not what I need right now. You know, I am suffering, being reminded of all my terribleness is really not that helpful. So Job 26, one through four. Job answers and said, how have you helped him who is without power? How have you saved the arm that has no strength? How have you counseled one who has no wisdom? How have you declared sound advice to many? To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came from you? Fat lot of help you were. You've just been spewing words, some of them true, but so what? God is good. God is great. No argument. God is powerful. No argument. How does that help me? How does that help me when my kids are dead? How does that help me when I've got nothing? What good are you? Your hot air has done no good to me. It has not been a blessing. It has not encouraged. So what? And at this point, most of us would be saying, Amen to Joe. There is no argument that God is powerful. But God does not always deploy his power in ways that we would like Him to, in ways that deliver us on the moment. And so Job says, you know what? Yes, God is great. You notice the second paragraph? He scorns the hopeless faith of building. Yes, God is great, and yes, I, you know, not perfect. He sarcastically says, you know what? You have offered no help with your advice there, as he says in 26.3. And what he goes on to say is, yes, I know that God is omnipotent. There is no argument. In 26.6, he says, God has stretched a shield, is naked before him. Destruction has no covering. He looks into the secret of death itself. And it's an open book. He knows my iniquity. He knows the wicked are there. He knows, you know, the grave has no secrets from God. There are mysteries God knows I do not know. He goes on to say in verse eight, here's a Lord who's controlling the weather, sending clouds about wherever he wishes. He's the one who's controlling the lunar events. Hello, shalom, new year. Verse nine, you know he's controlling the moon. He covers the face of his throne. He spreads a cloud over it. Verse nine, he draws a circular, verse 10, a circular horizon on the face of the waters. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his review. That's verse 11. So heaven itself trembles under the power of God. The sea stands still, verse 12. He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding, he breaks up the storm. I mean, there is no argument at all with Job that God is great, God is powerful, creation is his, he tells it to do whatever he wants. And so, the righteous can trust You know, my life may be a mess. It may be falling apart. And yet, God is on His throne. He is in control of nature. And by the end of the chapter, notice 26 verse 14. In 26 verse 14, thinking about God's greatness, His absolute omnipotence, God Almighty, All these things that he does with nature, these are the edges of his ways. We're catching a glimpse of his fingernails. This is just the very edge of God's ways. When you think of the heavens, the seas, the winds, the clouds, all that he has made, these are the near edges of his ways. in all this power, with what a whisper we hear, the grand display of His power, His glory, and His might. And that's just, as God says when He talks to Moses, you know, I'll show you a bit of my glory, the backside of my glory, but I'll hide you under the rock. I'm only going to show you what you can handle, right? Because you, No flesh can see God and live. That is His greatness, that is His glory. All right, so we've established, we agree God is great. We trust He is great, even when people are, you know, all right, you're just a terrible wretch, you know, you're a worm, you're a maggot, you know. Yeah, next to the Lord's glory, next to The perfection of God? Granted. But it doesn't really help me to have my... When I'm in the dust, I don't need to be ground under your heel. Okay? All right, moving on. Chapter 27. Here is righteous Job. Righteous... Righteousness. One who is righteous will trust God's judgment. when men misjudge God's righteousness and God's judgment. You see, righteousness maintains its integrity. I'm not going to call bad what God calls good. And God is welcome to evaluate as he sees fit. So look at Job chapter 27. We'll drop down to verses Well, we'll just do the first five verses again. Moreover, Job continues, you know, he's just getting warmed up. As God lives, notice verse two, who has taken away my justice? It doesn't seem like God is giving me a fair deal. It doesn't seem like God has dealt justice. This is the way it looks like, you know, I look, I'm the bad guy here, look at what happened to me, right? He's taken away my justice. The Almighty, and remember, as God lives, and yes, He's alive, He's powerful, He is the Almighty, verse two, who has made my soul dead. The way that God has worked, The way that what God has done in my life has left me with no hope. With no... It seems like God is something. I don't know where to go, who to cry to, what to do. My soul is there. I have nothing. It seems like I don't even have God anymore. He knows God is there, but God's presence and God's fellowship seems missing. And if you don't have God, and you don't have people, you don't have anything for help, for deliverance, all that's left is the ashes of bitterness. His plight is bitter, his circumstances are bitter, and I think at this time point, Job has a chip on his shoulder. Right? He's not gonna say that God is wrong because he knows enough of God's character to acknowledge God. God is right, but it looks like, verse two, he's taking away my justice. This seems like God has done me wrong. This seems, it's, He can do whatever he wants, but it feels like an injustice. Because we've already acknowledged God and Satan have both said he's just. No one else believes that. His friends sure don't. His wife has counseled him, just curse God and die. He doesn't have any kids to give him comfort or help him. They're dead. But Job says, verse three, as long as my breath is in, and notice, asterisk, in the breath of God in my nostrils. Who has preserved him this far? You know, he's lost everyone. He's lost everything. His friends are accusing him that I've got breath in my nostrils from God. I yet have my life, and God is a giver of my life. He's a preserver of my life in the midst of all this. My goodness. My lips will not speak with this. He continues in verse four. I mean, think of just the intensity of what is, my lips will not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit." In what? In saying you're right. For me to say, far be it from me that I should say you're right. You've been calling me a wicked sinner, a maggot, a moral maggot, a worm, unrighteous because no one can be righteous. Now we understand it's true that We have no righteousness of our own, but God can give righteousness in you, and with God's Spirit, you are able to be righteous, I think, and to do that sanctification for us as believers. Right? This is really simple and complicated, because no one's The sowing of the wicked is sin, but believers do right, and they do it every day with God's help. All right, so what we're saying is that we're trusting God's judgment. People will get it wrong. No one knows the heart but God. And sometimes, you know, we fool others, or we fool ourselves, but God gets it right. God knows your heart. God knows where you are right, and God knows where you are wrong as well. And you see the quotation from Dr. Bob Jones Sr. Righteousness So here, righteousness, the righteous man is determined to do right until the stars fall. He's not going to misrepresent or twist the truth so that he can have an agreement with Bildad or Elephant. No. His conscience before God declares he is right. And so notice that Job still accepts that his life, as bitter and as hard as it is, is given by God, who's put his spirit in his nostrils, verse three. And so as you read on through this chapter, Job 27, Job is sure that ultimately it is the wicked who will be judged for their sins. And so you read on. And he's basically saying, may my enemy be like the wicked. And what happens to the wicked, verse seven? Well, the hypocrite may be rich, verse seven, verse eight, but he can lose his life. No one lives forever, righteous or unrighteous. There comes a point of where you enter eternity. And the wicked? Will the wicked delight in God? Verse 10. Will the wicked have fellowship with God? No. He says in verse 11, I will teach you about the hand of God. What is with the Almighty, I will not. Now remember, he's just said you're not a good counselor. You're not a good teacher, Bill Dadd. None of you have taught me helpfully. Well, let's talk about God. Yes, He is Almighty. But verse 13, this is the portion of the wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors received from the Almighty. He has kids, verse 14. And what happens to them? Ezekiel 14, the sword, the famine, the pestilence, the same Symptoms that we saw in Ezekiel 14 for the past two weeks. Verse 14. Children are multiplied for the sword. The offspring not satisfied with bread. It's famine. Those who survive him shall be buried with death. Their widows shall not. And so here's pestilence and early death. Notice verse 15, their widows shall not weep. Their wives are glad they're finally out of the picture. Wow. So God does justly judge. The wicked are not going to prosper forever. There will come a day of reckoning for the wicked. Now they can heap up riches like dust, it says there. in verse 16, but it's all going away. As Psalm 73 says, riches of the wealthy are only for a moment. We have to understand the end of the wicked, not the now of the wicked. If we get our eyes on the now of the wicked, we'll go astray. We'll become envious of them instead of mourning for their eternal fate. All right, so that's the second principle. We want to trust God's greatness, verse 26. We want to trust God's judgment, even when people misjudge us, in verse, chapter 27. We come down to chapter 28, and we see that the righteous will trust God's wisdom when we lack understanding. And here we have the treasures. Here's a contrast. People can find treasure. Miners will dig for metal. They will dig for jewels. They will carve up the earth. They will make a way to the treasure. That's Job 28, 1 through 11. And it's awesome. I mean, people are so driven for wealth, for the beauty of these metals. gems, the value of them, and they will build dams, they will dig, they will scrape, they will alter the landscape, they will dig deep mines, and they will find these treasures. These treasures are findable. Birds don't find them. Beasts don't find them. People do. We're made in the image of God. We have been given dominion over that. And so he makes the point of that in verse We're in chapter 28 now. And so in verse 7, the birds don't have this wisdom. They don't see this stuff. The falcons, with the awesome eyes of the falcons, still don't see the metals underground. And then verse 8, the beasts, the proud lions. So birds and beasts are not seekers after treasure. They don't discover, they don't find these metals and all the rest underground. Okay, so people find this treasure. How about the greatest treasure? Wisdom. From 12 to the end of the chapter, we have a search for wisdom. And once again, birds and beasts don't find this wisdom. We see there, I think, verse 22. No, it's not 28. Death there. We find the search for wisdom throughout. Even destruction and death have heard a report about wisdom, but they don't have it. That's verse 22. And this seems unfathomable. Everyone's looking for wisdom, but so much foolishness prevails on earth, doesn't it? It's a lot easier to find gold or silver or something underground than it is to find wisdom. Where do we find it? God is the source of wisdom. And so we find that God, you see there in verse verses 23 through 27, God knows wisdom. God is wisdom. Verse 23, God understands the way of wisdom. God knows its place. He knows all this, the creation He has made, that He has made by wisdom. Verse 27, God saw wisdom and declared it. He prepared it, He searched it out, and then He gave it to man. Look at verse 28. To man, God said, Behold the fear of the Lord. This is wisdom. Alright? To depart from evil is understanding. Alright? So what do we see here in chapter 28? Righteousness will trust God's wisdom. Fear of the Lord, that's the beginning of wisdom. I don't understand, I don't have all knowledge, I don't have all wisdom, but I know who does. And God promises to give me his wisdom if I fear him and trust in his word. All right, we're moving right along now. Chapter 29. Notice in chapter 29 that righteousness remembers God's past favor when present circumstances are hard. You find this in the psalmist too, don't you? The psalmist remembering going to the temple to worship. The psalmist remembering the pleasure of fellowship with God with things when he feels separated from God. The psalmist remembering the pleasure of company with others. Well, Job does the same thing. Job remembers the way things used to be, and he particularly remembers, in verses one through five, God's favor in relation to himself. Well, Job 29, verse two. Oh, that I were as in months past. Now, he's looking to the past, as in the days when God watched over me. When his lamp shone upon my head, when by his light I walked through darkness, he knew where to go. He had a sense of God's leading direction. Verse four, just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent, God was my friend. He was offering advice that you guys are not doing. He was offering helpful, friendly counsel. You're my friends, but the counsel you've given me has not been a blessing. When the friendly counsel of God was over my tent, he was at home with God in his tent. Verse 5, when the Almighty was yet with me, he does not now sense that presence, but he remembers that fellowship. He remembers that friendliness. He remembers God was with him. That was so good. He misses that. But he knows that that was real. And that memory of God's work, that past fellowship, that past joy. And his memory that, you know, there was a time when friends were helpful, when friends were a blessing, when friends encouraged him. And so in verses 5 through 13, we've got, you know, people showing the man respect. And it's been, it seems like forever. You know, all these chapters, people have been saying, okay, you might be okay. No, you're terrible. Right. And for all of these chapters, his friends who came all this distance, who kept their mouth shut the first seven days, stop being quiet. And it wasn't a blessing when they opened their mouths. It's been a continual quarrel, a continual accusations. And it just one right after another, you try to review what the first guy said and the next guy jumps in. It's like, you know, it's just, Enough already. I mean, before verse 11, they bless me when they hurt me. When they looked at me, they approved of me. And you know, I was dressed right. I was healthy. Right? It's not like that anymore. He's all black and blue, he says. Not the blue, but the black from what all the physical suffering. Verse 21, people listened. And after I spoke, they kept silence. Whoa. After my words, they didn't speak again. You know, that was enough. My speech settled on them as due. They waited for me as the rain. And they opened their mouth wide as for the spring rain. It was like I was watering them and they were panting for my wisdom. It ain't like that no more. Terrible grammar, but he's in a terrible situation, right? Double negatives and everything. I mean, it's just, so he remembers his, and really this favor, don't think of our moment. In Jesus' youth, Luke 2, what was Jesus saying? He was growing in favor with God and man, as he grew in the New Testament, And here was Job, there was that time when he had that favor with God, he had favor with men, and then just like Jesus, it all went downhill, right? When he attracted the evil. And actually, before this, as you look at verses 14 through 20, people recognized Job's righteousness. You know, before they approved of his appearance, his wealth, and all this, but they recognized, here is someone who is morally upright, who has integrity. And he was someone whose wisdom was also recognized by the rightness of his words, as we just read. What a past. What a contrast to the present. Speaking of the present, what's it like in the present? We go on to the next chapter, verse 30, or chapter 30. Chapter 30, we see righteousness trusts, trusts, that God uses man's injustice for his purposes. You remember, before this, we were in Romans, Romans 9 and 11. We've seen in Romans that God uses man's wickedness to glorify himself. Well, here in Job 30, so before these people respected him, treated him right, and some of these people that were fawning over Job with flattery, were people who themselves were not that good. A bit of an understatement there. He says, there are people I wouldn't trust my dogs to. Verse 8, sons of fools, sons of vile men, scourged from the land. All right? These were basically cavemen whose depravity and wickedness had ended up being, they were treated as thieves in verse 5. So these were people that Job saw, and they were sinful, and Job and society rejected them. Okay? Now these people deserved their bad reputations. And so in chapter 30 verse 16, Job says, these people that are of little worth morally, Well, they, verse 13, are breaking up my path. They're promoting my calamity. They have no helper. They're not helping me. Terrors, verse 15, are turned upon me. They pursue my honor as a wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud. So what do we see here? Joe, verse 16, is miserable. His soul has been poured out because of his blood. He is emotionally, spiritually drained. The days of affliction lay hold on me, he says there in verse 16. And his desperation, instead of being lessened by fellowship with people, is increased by these wicked people. And so now he feels abandoned by God and man. He's utterly alone. He's lonely, he's isolated. Verse 24 says, this man would not stretch out his hand against a heap of ruins if they cry out when he destroys them. So there's no one to pray for him, no one to intercede for him. God would pull back from judgment If someone would just pray. Think about Genesis 19, Abraham. Praying, he talks God down to ten righteous people who preserve that city. We see other scriptures that God wonders if there's no intercession. And there's no intercessor for Job, humanly speaking. And so when Job cries out in praise to God, verse 20, God does not answer me. What do you do when heaven is silent? Now, God will never leave you, but sometimes we lose a sense of his presence. There is a difference. Because God will never truly leave his child. But there is a sense, like the Psalm of Solomon talks about, where the husband or the spouse draws away from the one they love with fellowship. They're still married, they're still together, That sense of presence. That sense of presence is gone, even though he's there. So he feels abandoned, his hopes dashed, and all this is in contrast to how Job had treated other sufferers, even sinful sufferers. We won't look at it, but verses 25 through 31, Job 30. And in all this, Job 30 verse 19, Job recognizes God is in doing. God is the one who has brought him into this situation. He, the Lord, has cast me into the mud. I have become like dust and ashes. And so he laments his unanswered prayers. It seems like God, instead of being his lawyer, On his side is his prosecutor. Verse 21, you have become cruel to me. With the strength of your hand, you oppose me, prosecute me. His persecutor, his prosecutor. Verse 23, he knows it. Even after all the suffering, he's still going to die. I know you will bring me to death, he says. His days are numbered by God. He said, my life is from you. Remember that earlier? Now he's saying my death is from you. Our times are in God's hands. All right, we're almost done. Number six, chapter 31. Righteousness acts righteously when God does not appear to reward righteousness. And so what he says is he gives a series of these eight hypotheticals that you see in your notes. And he says, if I've done a sin, may God punish me or curse me with this result. And the idea is, I'm not worried about this because I haven't done any of these things. I haven't been a liar, I haven't strayed from righteousness, I haven't lusted after a woman, I haven't oppressed my servants, I haven't been miserly, I haven't trusted in wealth, or I haven't worshipped the moon or the sun, you know, I haven't done this. So, you know, it's fine if all those punishments come because I don't deserve that. I have not done this. I'm not going to say I have done this. All right? So righteousness determines to act righteously And even when it seems like there's no immediate reward. And perhaps best of all, number seven, righteousness knows when to stop talking. The last word of chapter 31 is the words of Job. Because you see, when God does show up and satisfies Job, not by giving an answer, but by showing himself. Turn to chapter 4. We'll read verses 1 through 5 and be done. The Lord answers Job chapter 40 verse 1. Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct? Sometimes it seems that Job has gotten pretty close to that, hasn't he? Job knows better than God. He hasn't quite said that. He's acknowledged that he's trusting God and that God is in control. but he sure wishes God would treat him a little bit differently. Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? God, you need to do it this way, not your way. He who rebukes God, ooh, he who rebukes God, let him answer it. And all Job can say is, verse four, behold, I am violent. God has brought him to a place no man could. Behold, I am by him. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, I will not answer. Yes, twice. I will proceed no further. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for Joe, this man that you declared righteous, and yet you weren't done with him. He still had some growing to do. You still had more blessing ahead of him because he endured suffering. Lord, we know that this experience, losing his children, losing his wealth, losing his confidence in everything but you, transformed him so that he was no longer someone who reproached his enemies because he's praying for his enemies by the end of the book. He's no longer someone who is good but weak, but he has, as James said, he's developed patience, the ability to endure in the midst of suffering that he might come forth as whole. Lord, you brought Job forth as gold. Lord, I pray that you would bring us forth as gold. But Lord, lead us not into temptation. Meet our needs. Show us yourself. Help us to run our race with patience, knowing that there is an end in your presence. With the glory of God, in Jesus' name.