Have your Bibles this morning and read along with us. We're gonna take a reading from the book of Job chapter 33. Book of Job chapter 33 and I guess this verse has some sentimental value to me or this chapter does. I remember it being a chapter that my dad taught me about And one of the things that I plan to speak to you about this morning was something that I can remember vaguely in that conversation when I was a young man. Him relating to me through these scriptures. And it relates to perceiving the Lord speaking to us. I'm not gonna get into the whole Job world and all the things that are going on here throughout the context of Job. There's certainly a lot that is going on that I don't have time nor the desire to express to you today. But we're gonna begin reading in verse eight, read down to verse 30, but I think we're just gonna take our time this morning and go kind of in sections as the Lord would prompt me to say some things today. To give you a little bit of context on who's speaking, Elihu, I think is how you pronounce his name, Elihu, Elihu. So up to this point, there's been a conversation taking place throughout the book of Job, between Job and three of his friends. And Elihu comes to the conclusion in the previous chapter that everybody's wrong. That the three friends are definitely wrong, and the way they're seeing the world, and the way they're expressing Job's situation to him. But in chapter 32, we read, in just the first and second verse, it says, so these three men ceased to answer Job because he was righteous in his own eyes. And the end of verse two says, because he justified himself rather than God. As much, um, Sympathy no doubt that we can have for Job We can see that he and his suffering Overextended he went too far with his complaints against God and he misperceived he was very He misperceived his situation and Elihu's a young man and he comes to I would say in some ways represent God. He's coming to rebuke what's taken place. I might say from the very beginning that being self-assured and self-righteous is a very dangerous thing for all of us. Self-assured meaning overconfident in what we think or why we think what we think. Ecclesiastes tells us, and the New Testament tells us in multiple places, a fool is known by the multitude of his words. One way we become self-assured is by over-talking something to ourselves, over-thinking something, over-defending ourselves. Perhaps that's what caused Job to linger into the place he was, perhaps it's something else. But like you hear, this young man is aware of his youth. He's aware of the unnatural way that a young man would speak the truth to older men who are off. So he attempts to remind himself and everyone, he's aware that he ought to be humble and and not self-assured, but that there were some things that were wrong that were burning in his heart that he had to express to Job and to these men. And one of the things that he's getting at in this text is perceiving God's voice. What if God is speaking to you? What if we're not perceiving it, But, and I could say that to you this morning if you're lost, what if you have misperceived in your own self-assuredness? What if you don't think God is speaking, but he is? He's just speaking differently or a different message or in a way that you're not looking to perceive And to me, this scripture alludes to some of that, and there's some, I think, application here that we can glean, and so I hope today that the Lord would help us just to see what Elihu said to Job and how it might relate to us today, if the Lord would help us. I'm gonna begin in verse eight. Elihu speaking here says this. Surely thou hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy word saying, I am clean without transgression. I am innocent. Neither is there iniquity in me. Behold, he findeth occasions against me. He counteth me for his enemy. He putteth my feet in the stocks. He marketh all of my paths. I want to pause for a moment. And this is Elihu attributing to Job what Job has been doing in his thought process. And I want you to notice that when a person gets, as Job was, self-assured, it gets everything spiritual turned upside down. The first thing that begins to happen here is Job begins to make a defense that he is doing nothing wrong. And so he's saying in verse 9, I'm clean. I'm without transgression. I'm innocent. Neither is there anything, no iniquity in me. And I'll say this, that very often whenever, as Job has, we're suffering from anything. It can be something that's of a specifically spiritual malady. Maybe today you're lost and you've been seeking the Lord and in your pursuit of the Lord, you've not come to find Him and you've been praying and you're saying, I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm doing everything that I've been instructed to do. I'm innocent of anything. And here, that's what Job, he's finding himself in a difficult place, and he is looking at himself and he's saying, listen, according to my own self-analysis, which is often a very dangerous thing to do, is for us to begin to try and gauge the own state of our heart and innocence before God. But then he doesn't just stop with this presumption of innocence. but he actually in his heart begins to accuse God of wrong. Now, I think very often the way that a person can accuse God somewhat passively is by questioning things. So I think very few people are foolish enough to actually make an accusation in their heart against God and say, God, you are doing this. Because many of us have been taught and instructed in the scriptures well enough to know of God's character and that we would not deign to accuse him overtly of doing us harm because we know that malevolence is not part of his character. But very often where our questioning of God or where our questioning of God's character can come from is in our questions of Him. Why is God allowing these things to occur? And if God is really doing this, then why is this happening? And so we begin to analyze our situation and assume that where we think God ought to act, but He's not acting, that somehow God is doing something wrong. And so here, Job's heart is questioning God. And he's saying, God's finding an occasion against me. He's counted me for his enemy. He's put me in the stocks. He marked all of my paths. Everything I'm doing is not working. As I seek to do right, it seems like pain and suffering comes my way. Why is this the case? And very often that's how the heart can accuse God of doing wrong is by questioning why God allows things to happen the way that he allows things to happen. And so here. Elihu is pointing out to Job, listen, you've got the world completely turned upside down. You have found yourself to be in a state of innocence and righteousness, and you have found God to be in a state of sin, malevolently working against you. Before we go any further, Whenever we find our heart in a state where we're a victim to God, something is not right in our heart. We're not seeing the world correctly. In a lie, he was pointing this out to Job. Your world is turned upside down. He says in verse 13, if we continue reading, he says, why dost thou strive against him for he giveth not account of any of his matters? Or here's another way that you could read verse 13. Why do you complain that he does not give an account of all of his doings? So really this is at the core of Job's complaint throughout the whole book of Job is, Lord, I'm suffering all these things. Tell me why. Why are you allowing these things to occur the way that they have occurred? And Elihu rebukes him for that and says, listen, you don't complain against God because he does not give an explanation to you for all the things that God is doing. And then he begins to talk about, and this is really the heart of what I wanna talk about this morning, beginning in verse 14 onward. He begins to detail how that God often speaks, but man does not perceive it. Look at verse 14, he says, for God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not. Verse 15, in a dream, in a vision of the night when deep sleep falleth upon men and slumbering is upon the bed, then he opened the ears of men and sealeth their instruction that he may withdraw man from his purpose and hide pride from man. I wanna stop there for just a minute. Now you'll notice here, one of the ways that God speaks, especially during this time with Joe, because there was no written text available, is through experiences God would speak to mankind. And listen, I believe that God still speaks to us today through our experiences. I think it's a dangerous thing to walk around seeking a sign on one hand, I think very often where Christian people can go astray or even where lost people can go astray is when they're putting out things before God and seeking a specific sign to know how and what they're to do. And so they, and we talked about this some on Wednesday night a few weeks ago, they project something they want to occur, and if it does happen, then they know God's answer is this way, and if it doesn't happen, then it's this way is what they're supposed to do. And I don't think that's a wise or an advisable way through scripture for us to act, but at the same time, I don't think that we should be dismissive of the fact that God can speak to our hearts through the experiences that we have in life. You ever had times before where things were ruminating in your heart, there was something of significant importance that God — or that was, that was just — you were, you were going over in your heart, there was a struggle that you were having, and then In some capacity, there was somebody that brought that to your attention and began to speak directly into the very thing that unbeknownst to them or anyone else was God was causing your heart to be enveloped with. that there is times when you'll be around somebody who's a spiritual person and they'll speak into your life because I believe that God can lead other people to speak into the lives of God's people or to lost people. We find occasion with Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 where he's praying and he's praying and he's praying and he's doing his alms, his good works before the Lord and then the Lord of his own prerogative sends a man, Peter, to come speak into the life of Cornelius and all of his household that he might know further the way of truth. God sent somebody for him to speak to him. Very often, what we can do in our own hearts is to displace that truth as a matter of coincidence. But listen, I believe that the Lord's Providence often is sent to us in a time and in a way with a fingerprint that reveals to the heart of the Christian that it is truly God speaking and not just the desires of our own heart to hear a message of our own choosing. And so this morning I would ask you this question as you go about your day-to-day life. as you observe all the things that you observe, are you ever conscious of or seeking the Lord to speak through whatever means that He sees fit to speak to you today? Here this told us about dreams in the night or visions of the night when deep sleep falleth upon men. Now listen, I don't sit here and express this as a normative that you need to be like Freud trying to interpret every dream that you have, but do I think that God can place our minds upon things even in our subconscious that he might want us to dwell upon for our own good or the good of others? Absolutely God can do that. And God does do those things to us. Here, it says, he speaks to us, and notice the purpose in verse 17 of why often that God speaks to us, that he may withdraw man from his purpose. That's an interesting way of expressing it, right? So, here's how I understand that first part of that verse. You and I have pursuits, things that we're pursuing with great rigor, great diligence, things that by the pursuit of that thing, it may in fact eliminate God's will from being able to be done in our life. But we're pursuing this thing. We want to see whatever it is occur in our life or the life of someone else. And so, with great intensity and with great narrowness of thought and intent, we're pursuing the thing. Young person, you can pursue a relationship. You can pursue a certain course of a career. We can pursue any number of things that according to our own purposes we really want to see occur. And yet all the while God is seeking through various means to dissuade our hearts from the object of our desire. Very often we interpret those interruptions as obstacles and nuisances to accomplishing that which we're wanting to accomplish. When in reality, it's not a nuisance at all. It's actually God's voice trying to restrain the danger that we're putting ourselves in by pursuing something of our own purpose. How benevolent that God is. that when we pursue something for what we perceive to be our good, that he would put things in the way to disrupt us from achieving those things because he loves us and has something better for us. What if, lost person, that the pursuit of achievement would harden your heart to the point or distract your mind to the point that you would never feel the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to seek after God. And so God has put obstacle after obstacle in your way that you might not achieve and pursue and accumulate. And God is constantly seeming to be this thorn in your flesh to prevent you from accomplishing the purpose that you want to, but it's all for your good, despite the fact that you're wringing your hands at heaven, and you're saying, why are you doing this to me, God? It's your fault that I'm not accomplishing something. And God says, yes, it is my fault, because if you accomplish that thing, it's going to lead to a destructive self-end. And so God's prohibiting hand in our life is actually a means of his grace that we then step upon to accuse him of some malevolent intent towards us, but it's really a showering of his grace to us. This is not only to prevent us from the purpose, perhaps, that we're trying to achieve, but also from having a proud heart. Look at verse 17, that he may withdraw man from his purpose and hide pride from man or prevent our hearts from being filled with pride. You know, I think one of the things that was somewhat a novel revelation to me was when I realized that success or I'll just leave it at that. Success, even in the spiritual realm, is as dangerous as failure is to the heart. Because with success, what does that oftentimes make our hearts do? Attribute the success often to ourselves. To become proud. Well, we know the scriptures are very clear that God has no fellowship whatsoever with pride. God resists proud, he gives grace to those that are humble. And so when a people or a person sees good things come to pass, that they plant seeds and those seeds are watered and they produce fruit, and there's rejoicing in that fruit, There's a tempering of the heart that might occur. There's an awareness that might spring up in our hearts. Lord, amidst this season of fruitfulness, protect my heart from pride not to think that it was my own doing or some series of actions that I performed or others performed that led to this season of fruitfulness. Lord, I know the miracle lies solely within you. All I do is plant some seed under worthless dirt, and then miraculously those things grow up and produce fruit. And all of the magic that you've created in this world to produce fruit is all of you completely. But Lord, protect my heart from the pride that can often come from perceived success. What if God's disruption in the life in a significant way is not just to prevent us from the purpose we're trying to achieve, but what if it's more fundamentally to prevent the pride from developing in our heart and thus affecting our relationship with the Lord? Here he says, that very often God is speaking God is working in a way that's preventing these things. I'm gonna keep reading here in verse 18. Keep going just a little further, it says this. He keepeth back his soul from the pit and his life from perishing by the sword. That's the Lord keeping back. helping that person and saving that person. It says in verse 19, he is chastened also with pain upon his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong pain so that his life abhors bread and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away and it cannot be seen and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draw near unto the grave and his life to the destroyer. So I wanna, Mention this in verses 19 through 22. I believe he's talking about deathbed. What the Lord can do on somebody's deathbed. That there are times when God is using even a person's physical conditions. I think very often God is using people's physical ailments. to open their eyes and open their heart to the truth of the gospel. That very often as we see the end of life and terminal existence, very often we're desirous that a person get healed and healthy and for all the right reasons perhaps. But what if this is God, as he says here in verses 19 through 22, that it's God's design. He is actually speaking to the heart of this person by confronting them with their own mortality and by praying for them to be healed. We're actually trying to pull back God's voice, speaking to their heart about the condition of their souls. What if what a person needs is not health and longevity, but what if it's sickness and ailment and the fear that it begets in the heart that it might confront them with their eternal destiny? What if whether a person's young or they're old, what if what you need to realize is what is true about all of us, that death is real and it is encroaching upon our lives at a swift pace, that no one is immune to it, and that all the prospects if you're a young person that lay ahead of you of marriage and children and career and a life full of vibrance, what if all of that is the very illusion that is distracting you from the eternal question that you're gonna have to confront in eternity before God? And what if God in his own prerogative loves you to the extent to completely stop you in your life by making you ill or sick that you might face him and not clasp for life, not run after and claw after getting healthy, but it's to face what it is that you're confronted in those moments of sickness. What if often the tendency of the human heart is to claw for things that is not what God is trying to get us to see. What if we call for life and God just wants us to stare right at death? Here, Elihu is writing and he's trying to say, listen, God speaks to people in ways that they do not often perceive. So I ask you this morning, Are there blind spots? Remember when I learned that term, it was a very helpful one to me. Having a blind spot in life. Are there areas of life that you just don't look at, look for, for God to speak in those places? You've just assumed that it's gonna come from the pulpit, it's gonna come from prayer, it's gonna come from some narrow means when God is broadening the way he speaks to our hearts, and we're just dismissive of those things. Here, he said he speaks to men through their experiences in the first part of the verses. He says he can speak to men through even their sicknesses and the things that happen in their life and their body. Then he gets to verse 23. And he says this, if there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand to show unto man his uprightness, or in other words, what is right for him, then God is gracious unto him and saith, deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. I'm thankful for this series of verses here, because it tells us that God can speak to us in these more vague ways, experiences, through the falling apart of our bodies. But then, praise God, there's also a more clear way that he can speak to us, and that is through a messenger. That sometimes God opens up the mouth of other people to speak truth into our heart directly the way we need to hear it. Verse 23 says, one among a thousand. Not a lot, you know, I think until you go out of these four walls and you start ministering in places that don't commonly have the truth, you can't really understand the gravity of what's being said here. Like until you go into a prison and you listen to the things that are concerns of people in the prison hearing the gospel, and you see the backgrounds of their lives, until you go to a foreign mission field in a nation that's not Christian, and you see paganism, and you see all these things that abound there, I think it's hard to appreciate the uniqueness of having messengers come week in and week out to deliver, or even in your own home, to deliver the truth to you. Until the broader world has seen and understood, this luxury that we have is just difficult to grasp. But listen, it is of the utmost blessing that we have people in our fellowship, in our circles, who know and can articulate the truth to us. That they can be used directly to explain and to teach and to proclaim straight from the word of God the truths of the scriptures. And he's saying that's one among a thousand. I would venture to say that is far more today, perhaps, that one among a thousand people actually have access to those who can express well the truth to them, which makes the rejection of the truth all the more concerning to those of us who can comprehend the blessing that it is to have somebody come and to proclaim the truth to us. because so few people have that blessing here to show man what is right for him. I'm thankful today that God sent his church into the world to be a beacon of the truth, that we can gather in the house of the Lord and listen to things that untruth is Falsehood is less common to us than truth is to the most of the world. That whenever anything says that doesn't set well with us and usually it's on a minor level, our ears perk up and we go to our Bibles and we study it and we think about it and we talk about it because we're living in this place that is so full of God's truth. and to be dismissive of the fact that God is speaking over and over and over in all these different forms to the human heart and that the human heart would possibly reject those things is a sad reality today. It says in verses 24, then he is gracious unto him and saith, deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. I think this is talking about Jesus. I think this is talking about somebody who has a message that can tell people, listen, there is a ransom for sin. Verse 25, listen to this description. It says this, his flesh shall be fresher than a child's. He shall return to the days of his youth. He shall pray unto God. He will be favorable unto him. and he shall see his face with joy, for he will render unto man his righteousness. Sounds like somebody got saved in those verses 25 and 26, doesn't it? His flesh becomes fresher than in his youth. that there is something because the word has been proclaimed, because God's voice has been heard, because there's a ransom that has been found, a substitute for our sins, that a person has placed their faith in that ransom that has been given for our sins, and the person has yielded themselves to it and responded to the voice of God speaking to them, that there has been something that has happened to that person who has responded to the message He says, he shall see his face with joy for he will render unto man his righteousness. Verse 27, he looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profited me not, he will deliver his soul from going into the pit and his life shall see the light. Listen to verse 29 and 30 and then I'll be done this morning. All these things worketh God oftentimes with man to bring back his soul from the pit to be enlightened with the light of the living. Verse 29 and verse 14 are kind of bookends to this truth. Verse 14 tells us, God speaks once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not. It tells all the ways that he speaks, or many of the ways that God speaks. And then in verse 29, it repeats the same sentiment by saying, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man. So this morning, I guess here is the question that I have to ask to you that are lost. What if God is speaking to you and you're not perceiving it? What if God's not just speaking once or twice or three times or four times, but what if God is speaking to your heart and you're being dismissive of God's voice and of the of the inner workings of God in your life, you're casting them off, then all the while your heart is self-assured, saying, you know what? God's not speaking to me, and I'm not perceiving His voice. Something's wrong with God. I'm doing everything right. I can assure you, God loves you enough that He speaks to every single individual in the world. and he draws them to himself. All the people in the world that land blast God for remaining silent among all these catastrophes that go on, I've often wanted to ask, well, what if God is the one speaking through the catastrophe? What if he's not silent? What if that is his voice speaking to the human heart to awaken the minds and hearts of people about things which are of greater importance than the things which we see. This morning, I pray, I ask if you're lost today, that you would be attentive to the voice of the Lord. that you would ask the Lord to speak. I think that's part of why Cornelius, the Lord responded to Cornelius was because as a lost man, Cornelius wanted the Lord to speak to him. And this morning I'd ask, what if the Lord is speaking to you today? Are you being attentive to his voice and perceiving what it is that God would have you to hear this morning? Sister Ashley, if you get for us a song, I'd like us to stand and sing this morning, and certainly if one feels like they need to pray, we want to invite you to do that.