40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Job 14:1-22 (Episode 399)

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Man's days are short and full of trouble. Why does God pay attention to us when we are gone so quickly? Job dials in on the gospel before his circumstances overwhelm him again. And what Job needs is a preacher. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Freedom Lessons Album Your God is too Glorious, 2nd Edition by Chad Bird Schweitzer's Psychoanalysis of Jesus Christ: & Other Essays in Christian Psychotherapy by John Warwick Montgomery Free 2023 Advent Resources 2024 NWA Tickets (May 3-4) More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, grab one of the few remaining tickets to the Northwest Arkansas regional event. If you want to come hang out with Chad and myself and a whole bunch of other people, we're going to be talking about grace and peace in Christ, because there's none of that grace or peace outside of Christ. So you want to talk about that grace and peace you get in Christ.

It's going to be a good time. It's going to be very anti-gnostic, and I think you're going to like it. So come hang out in the spring. It's the first weekend of May, and you can get access to that by clicking the link in the show notes or just go into the events page over at the website. One of the things, Chad, I think it's been in the show notes, but I think I failed to bring it up. I feel kind of bad, but not too bad, but like a little bad.

Because it wasn't exactly new, but it was new. And I was in a bookstore and I was reminded, because I saw this book in the bookstore, I don't think we expressly said to our audience that the second edition of your book, Your God is Too Glorious is available in all the places Amazon, on our site

apparently in some bookstores where I was it was there and so there is a link to that in the show notes there has been for a little while but I don't think we've expressly said anything about that that was a book that Chad wrote a while ago and then 1570 said hey we want the rights to that

and so we redid it and Chad added some stuff to it and there's discussion questions in there and all that kind of stuff So if you have never read Your God is Too Glorious, if that's one that you haven't read by Chad, and you've read all his most recent ones, I suggest you go grab a copy of that. I mean, what a provocative title. What does he mean, Your God is Too Glorious? Is it possible? Well, I don't want to give it away, but you should go grab that.

Maybe that's your first book of the new year. You can read Your God is Too Glorious by your very own Chad Bird. All right. We are in Job. Job is—this one says Job continues. I think probably it should say that Job still continues. Job continues on. Job is going to continue talking. This is still his sort of response to Zophar, but it's really his response to everyone. I mean, once he starts responding to Zophar, he starts talking—I think he's talking to everyone, including God. Yeah, everybody's included in his addressees. Job 14, right? Yeah, this starts out with him saying, man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. That may be a pretty good book title, one of these, you know, few of days and full of trouble. Reminds me of Thomas Hobbes' famous quote about the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. I think Job would probably concur with it hey joe it sounds like joe is like sort of shot as he's uh saying this that you know it's almost miraculous that you could fit so much trouble into so few days

yeah that's right it seemed like you'd need more time for this god but no you have you've accomplished this a few of days irony there of course because joe has complained about how he he wants to die but he can't it's the one thing he wants uh and yet it's it's not happening so Even though his life was a few days and full of trouble, it just seemed to keep stretching on, and the trouble keeps compounding more and more. And then he switches to a very common biblical metaphor. I mean, Jesus uses this kind of language. It's in the Psalms.

The prophets use this. Job says, he comes out like a flower and withers. He flees like a shadow and continues not. so the you know the shadow metaphor the flower or the grass metaphor all of those are uh pretty pretty common biblical images of well it can be used different ways i mean it can the flower can be used positively in the sense of you know it's beautiful uh and yet it withers here it's used in the sense of just the the brevity of life so yeah we've all we've all seen this you know maybe it's valentine's day you buy uh flowers for your wife and you bring them home and they're beautiful

and then a week later you know they're if they make it that long they're all withered they're dying and the grass is like that too so these are just pretty common biblical images for how fast life goes by which you know i've probably you too dan the the longer you live the more you realize this is true because the more years you have behind you the faster the minutes uh tend to tend to fly by somebody says something like a year from now we're going to be doing blowball i'll be like well that's going to happen fast well when i was five a year oh dude like it was a decade that took to pass dude do you know this as we're as we are uh this is our first episode of 2024 um and so one of the things that happened in 2023 was in february early part of february

My wife had a baby Not our first baby But we had our last baby We had that baby And it is insane That next month That baby is going to be a year old It's insane

It's certainly insane for me Probably even insane for you, Chad You probably think, wait a minute That baby is about to be one It's been a year? I know, it's crazy It just flies by And that's the way life is

I mean, I'm 53. I think back to when I was 40, and it felt like it was five years ago. Not all these other years. So that's the way life goes. You're a flower, and then it withers, leaves like a shadow, and continues not. And then verse 3, he switches. Of course, like you said earlier, he's talking to everybody. He's talking to his three quote-unquote friends, but he's also talking to God.

And, you know, you could say he's talking to us, too. He's speaking to whoever is listening to this. But here specifically, he's going to direct his speech to God, which is, I know I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. One of the differences between Job and his three friends is that Job talks to God and his three friends talk about God. so uh theology most what's the word accurately truthfully uh fully expressed is always taught to god which is one of the reasons that the psalms are so rich this is speech to god and yet at the same time it's uh it's theology that's expressed in this uh direct address to god so do you this is Job speaking to verse 3. And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with

you? And then I'll continue with 4 and 5, 4 through 6 rather. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is no one. There is not one who can do that. Since his days are determined and the number of his months is with you and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass, look away from him and leave him alone that he may enjoy like a hired hand his day so it's got to set us up in verse first the first two verses right uh got this human being few of days full of trouble like a flower like a shadow so if you got somebody like this job is saying we don't live very long and the time that we do live is just act with all of this trouble all this suffering all these terrible things then why do you even look at such a person why do you open your eyes

on such a person as this and uh bring me into judgment with you and then verse four seems to it's a little bit unclear but this is this is the way i read it when he says who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean there is not one he seemed to be using kind of a ritual language here just to talk about the fact that uh listen we're all messed up we're all we're all impure every single one of us is impure. We're born of sinners. We're sinners ourselves. This is the way that we are. Life is short. It's full of trouble. And since the days that we're going to live are determined, that they're like set, they have their limits, then because things are the way they are, because we are the way they are, then it seems as if, this is Job lamenting here,

it'd be a lot easier if you would just simply take your gaze off of us and leave us alone, that we can at least have some enjoyment of our time here like a hired hand has of his day. Yeah, it seems like it's... Job is saying that if you're waiting around for unrighteous people to become righteous, then you're going to be waiting around the entirety of their life because it's never going to happen.

And since that's not going to happen, do you really need to pull all those sinners into judgment when their lives are so short anyway? Couldn't you just look away? I mean, they'll be done soon enough. It seems odd that you would spend any of your time concerned with something so finite. And also, is all of this suffering and trouble

the judgment of them being unable to do something that they could never do? It's kind of like he takes, and I think he's done this before, or he's going to do it sometime in Job. He takes Psalm 8 and he flips it over. And what is man that thou art mindful of him, the sin of man that thou dost care for him? Yet you have made him for a little while lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.

So that is talking about the seeming insignificance of humanity, but humanity actually crowned with all this glory and honor that Saul made. But here he seems to flip that over and talk about how man's seeming insignificance just begs the question of why God would even bother with him. It's not like God is really checking out the life of a mouse somewhere and he's going to call this mouse to account for eating too much cheese or, you know, chewing through wires or something like that. So you don't do that with this insignificant creature. So we, in our insignificance and the brevity of our life, why do you bring us into judgment? Why do you not just kind of ignore us and let us at least have some enjoyment in life?

Of course, keep in mind, this is Job speaking as lament always does with just kind of brutal honesty. This is him just kind of laying it out there. This is where I'm at. So God, you already know what I'm thinking. So I'm just going to put it out there. I'm going to put it in words so that I can express. So it's not bottled up inside me and, you know, in risk of becoming even more embittered. I'm just going to turn my agony into prayer, turn my pain into petition, which is, of course, what the Bible is always urging us to do anyway.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's almost like you're saying, you could judge me when I'm dead. Is it really necessary for you to be like, have your gaze concentrated on me in this finite life and make this horrible too? Yeah, yeah, precisely. and speaking of that i mean he's going to switch in verse seven to uh some different images and he's going to bring in death and sheol and this is uh this coming up is when it's been one of my favorite sections so far just to to reflect on because job you know there's been a lot of negativity understandably a lot of negativity in job and you know right off he's like i just wish i

had died i wish i'd been a stillbirth wish i hadn't lived past infancy all that kind of stuff now you know he vacillates between what seems to be despair and now this is going to emerge at least some some glimmers of hope he's going to think here in these next few few verses about hey what if what if there's actually hope of life after death what if there's hope of god actually he doesn't use this precise language it's almost like missing me you know what if what if god were to miss me and then remember me and bring me up from the dead and give me life and hope again it's really it's it's it's it's it's kind of it's got some negativity mixed in with it but overall all there's kind of a a beautiful message that's coming up here so he's going to begin with a

little poem about a tree so verse seven where there is hope for a tree if it be cut down then it will sprout again and that it shoots will not cease though its root grow old in the earth and its stump die in the soil yet at the scent of water that's kind of a cool image like just the very smell of water like you smell rain in here at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant but a man dies and is laid low man breathes his last and where is he gonna stop there he's gonna he's gonna switch a different image here in a minute of course we've seen this uh we see this elsewhere this uh idea of you know you cut down a tree and all that's left is a stump and it seems to be dead and yet all of a sudden you have little branches that come

out of it of course we've all seen this either in the forest or in our own yard you cut a tree down you're like wait i thought the tree was dead no here comes some uh some branches isaiah 11 1 uses this this famous uh prophecy of the messiah there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit so there you have the image of you know seems like the Davidic line, the Davidic tree has been chopped down. All you have left is the stump of Jesse, the father of David. And then what happens? Well, you have life springing up from it. You have the messianic branch begins to shoot forth from the stump of Jesse. Kind of the same idea here that this is what happens to trees. But then he poses the question, a man dies,

is laid low, man breathes his last, and where is he? So it's kind of, he's kind of like leading us to think about is there hope for us can we be like that tree that's chopped down and then sprouts forth from the the stump once more trees are crazy like that too i had i cut down several trees in my backyard um and you could tell which ones i had guys that cut down trees for a living so they don't come back cut down and which ones i cut down because uh they have like Yours are resurrection trees? Yeah, mine are, like, my trees are believers, apparently. And so the trees they cut down, they got the stump grinder out.

They grind that thing down into the earth. They put some kind of thing, you know, they put some kind of... Tree killer. Yeah, some kind of chemical something on the stump. And those ones have remained flat to the earth. however i cut mine real low but i don't own a stump grinder and i don't know what these chemicals are and i'll tell you what uh it does not take long before one day you look out there and you're like what in the world and uh there's some huge branch growing out it looks like it's growing

straight out of the ground and then i'm back out there yeah it's it's hard to stop a dead tree They got resurrection that's rooted in their roots, literally. It's a great image here in Job, too. I mean, apart from Job, it's kind of a pretty cool image of the resurrection in and of itself. Yeah, because it can look like, absolutely, like I've taken care of this. Look at this thing. I've got it all the way down to the ground. It's done.

Surely this cannot come back. And false. I mean, it's a cemetery image, right? You go to the cemetery. You can imagine all those gravestones as kind of just stumps. Yeah. There's just stumps everywhere. It's too late.

It's already gone. It's already dead. Yeah, when the trumpet sounds and Christ returns, there's going to be a lot of branches that are appearing out of those seemingly dead stumps. I think what Job is getting here is that he's looking at trees and saying, man, there's been a lot of trees or just nature in general that you think is dead and gone that comes back. And finding hope in that, Luther talks about this, where he says just the way that the seasons work tell you this. I mean, every year, a lot of things, things look pretty, I don't know how things look in Texas right now, but everything looks pretty dead here. I'm looking out the window right now and every tree looks dead. There's no leaves on anything and everything's kind of, you know, gray and all the bushes have died and stuff.

But you know that come March, April, that all this stuff is going to come back. And Luther says this is how things are set up, right? Is that all of this stuff screams that there is hope, that it testifies to the resurrection. And Job, of course, not knowing about the resurrection of Christ, he doesn't have the stuff that we have, but it does seem like he's tapping into that a little bit, where he's like, you know, I look around and I see things that look hopeless,

But then something happens, and so maybe that says something to me. Yeah, if God so arranges the natural world with its seasons and the coming back of life from stumps and whatnot, then why can't it be like that with us? Maybe there's something more to death and life after death than I realize. so he that's the tree metaphor he's going to switch now kind of halfway through uh not halfway through at inverse 11 to a different image he says as waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up so a man lies down and rises not again till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep so he got the tree going on now he's talking about You get a lake, dries up. You got a river, dries up. And that becomes the image that he at least

finishes this section on. He says, well, that's the same thing. You got a guy, he lays down. He's not going to rise up again until the heavens are no more. He will not awake or be roused out of his sleep. I don't know if Job intends this or not, but there's a wink here of actually the way things will be. He says a man lies down and rises not again until the heavens are no more. He will not awake. You're exactly right, Job. I don't know what Job intends by that, but he is exactly right. So when the earth and the heavens, current earth and heavens, pass away, then all those people who have been laid in the grave and been resting there will indeed be roused out of their sleep, and they will rise again. I think Job is much more kind of negative at this point,

but there's a wink of truth in what he's saying. Yeah, because what Job is saying is like, you know, in his mind, when will the heavens pass away? Never. Yeah, it's kind of a stock biblical image for, yeah, the everlastingness, we might say. Yeah. He doesn't realize, though, it's like, no,

there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth and a new you. Yes. And then, this is the part that I was talking about earlier that I really like. So he said all this. He's got the tree stuff going on and the stump stuff and now the lake and the river imagery.

But listen to this. This is verse 13. Oh, that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be passed, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me. If a man dies, shall he live again?

all the days of my service, I would wait till my renewal should come. You would call and I would answer you. You would long for the work of your hands, but then you would number my steps. You would not keep watch over my sin. My transgression would be sealed up in a bag and you would cover over my iniquity oh he's tapping into it now that's some good stuff there yeah he is yeah so he's he's like accepting the the he's accepting okay life is short few of days full of trouble yep got that um the is accepting the inevitability of death yep that's gonna happen chainsaw is gonna come in chop the tree of life down yes i'm i'm with you on all of that job says but then he begins verse 13 here's what i really wish would happen oh that you would

okay i'm going to shill keep in mind of course shill is just the place that people go when you die you go to shill just it's just a place this is the grave i mean it's just a grave yeah yeah right i mean so there's there's no idea here that uh that when you when you die you cease to exist you transition into the grave we would say oh that you would hide me in the grave that you would conceal me

until your wrath be passed because of course Job now feels like he's living under this heavy oppressive wrath of God so he's envisioning a time when God's wrath is passed it's done it's no longer this oppressive weight

it's been removed and then when that happens that god would appoint me a set time and remember me that in hebrew by the way that uh that word for set is used uh back in verse five for god has appointed his limit like the limit of his life uh that he cannot pass so here the same word is god is appointing job is wishing that god would appoint this set time this limit this whatever whatever the day is going to be. And at that point, when Job has been in Sheol, and God's wrath has passed, that God would, in this beautiful Hebrew verb, zakar, that God would remember me. Man, yeah, he has tapped into it there. That's some crucifixion, that's some atonement, that's some resurrection language there.

Yeah, I mean, what's interesting about this is that Job starts it with, you know, oh that you would this is in fact a sort of um he's not he's not saying this is what's going to happen uh or i build this is what i believe but more that i wish it were like this and it turns out that that is how it is right come true yes yeah that's how that's how it reads like well Well, I know it probably doesn't go this way, but wouldn't it be wonderful if this was the way it went, though? And you're like, well, Job, here's the thing about that, is that is how it goes. It's exactly how it goes. Your wish actually comes true.

Yes, yeah. And this remembering, I mean, we've talked about this a ton, though. Yeah, but Job knows, apparently, something that we've been saying over and over again for many years now, that God remembering you, that means that something's going to happen. He doesn't just, like, you don't just pop into his mind. He's like, oh, Chad. Anyway, back to what I was doing. That's not what happens. Right.

Yep, remembrance in action, for sure. so yeah i mean it's just this this verse 13 of job 14 is uh some beautiful stuff a wish a dream that actually becomes reality that after we've been hidden in the grave god's wrath has passed it's been taken away in the death of christ and and a set time has been appointed when god has uh has and will remember us remembers us in christ already has brought us into the life of Christ, and then we'll remember us, remember our bodies when He comes again, when that set time comes again, and the stump of our life will become a flowering tree once more. Yeah, I mean, in verse 14, you know, Job asked this question, and I think it's—this question,

I think, is a question that is asked with—this is sort of like daring to hope, because the answer to this question in the mind of most people is, of course, no. Job doesn't know for certain that the answer to this question is yes. In fact, he probably thinks it isn't yes. But he asked this question and it's got this sort of daring to ask

this kind of question, which is if a man dies, shall he live again? And the answer to that question is emphatically yes. Yeah. I mean, that is the universal human question. We struggle with life, we struggle with death and wonder, okay, what's after this, right?

So if we die, shall we just pass into non-existence? If we die, shall we go, you know, heaven or hell? If we die, shall we become something else? I mean, these are all kind of universal, philosophical, religious, human questions, right? Well, you know what Job knows, though? Job knows that if, let's say you hope against hope, and you ask this question, and you say, when I die, is it possible for me to live again?

then you have to wonder this. Well, let's say that it is possible. Let's say it's possible for you to live again. Well, the only way that that is a good thing, because I don't want to end up back in this exact same situation. I don't want to repeat this. I'm over here longing for death. So, I mean, if I'm going to live again, something's going to have to change.

And the thing that's going to have to change is that I'm going to need you to not watch over my sin. I'm going to need my transgression sealed up in a bag. I'm going to need all my iniquity covered. The only way that a resurrection can be good news and not the worst news ever is if all of this stuff is included. Because what Job is certainly not looking to do is be raised from the dead and then put back on the trash heap with a bunch of pottery. He's not looking for that. And so he's like, I would love to have this hope of a resurrection, but in order for it to be desirable, there would have to be something to do to be done about this keeping track of my sin and watching over my transgression and all my iniquity, and something will have to be done about this in order for this to be good news. yeah which is why reincarnation is such a terrible soul-shattering teaching oh

you can come back and your sins will follow you yeah it's just yeah oh what a what a what a terrible message let's talk about joe bonce he doesn't want to just come back to life and then have to live through a life which is few of days and full of trouble again who would want to do that. Instead, yeah, much better if God wouldn't watch over his sins. I mean, just kind of let him go, or not let him go, but put him in this bag and seal it up and cover over his iniquity. And again, I mean, this is exactly what he gets. I mean, that's exactly what we get in Christ. God has like bagged all our sins and sewed it shut and wrapped it around the neck of Christ, and that's where it stays he doesn't watch over our uh our sins and i just i just realized this by the way

so uh uh what is that psalm 130 uh out of the depths have i cried unto you oh lord lord hear my voice and and then it talks about how god doesn't uh keep track of our sins right can our yeah that verb that's used there is the same one that's used here for he would not watch over it shamar in hebrew which means to to to keep to pay careful attention to to watch so oh lord if you kept a record it's shamar it's there oh lord if you shamar our sins who could stand and that's the same thing here then you wouldn't shamar over our sins you wouldn't watch over them rather they'd be sealed up in a bag yeah this is some of the that sort of book language that we talked about a couple episodes ago like uh the idea that that books will be opened is the is the

very much implies that well what's in this book well this books at this time are records that's what this is and so he's saying you know you can't keep if you're not really watching over my sin carefully counting them uh you're probably not writing them all down for it to be used against to me at a later time, all of that is ending. I need all of that to stop, right? And instead, you're going to cover over all my iniquity. And yeah, it's an interesting thing that Job, he doesn't have, this is the thing that's cool about the Bible, is that, I mean, Job doesn't have all the information we have, obviously. He doesn't know the things that we know. He doesn't, You can't just flip over to Romans and have Paul explain, well, theologically, here's how it works, Job.

I've got good news. There was this guy, Jesus, and this is what happened, and then let me tell you what all that means. He has none of that. But he's a good enough theologian that he does know this, that resurrection is possible for God, because all things are. But in order for it to be good news, something has to happen. It can't just be you simply being brought back to life. Something else has to take place. Yeah, there's got to be some kind of radical break in the chain of cause and effect, sin and punishment,

and bring a sinner and enduring all of the pains and heartaches of this life. Well, it all goes back to him recognizing this. Can an unclean thing make himself clean, or can something clean come out of it? And he's like, I mean, if I'm in the grave and then I come popping out of this grave, I'm not going to pop out clean all on my own. I'm not going to be able to do this. Yeah, there are no clean slate second chances when you come back and all of a sudden, oh, now I'm a pure person. All I got to do is stay pure. It doesn't work that way.

Man who is born of woman is not only unclean, but few of days and full of trouble. So you need something different. Now, so we've got trees, we've got lakes and rivers. Now he's going to switch. He's got a lot of nature in this chapter. Now we're going to talk about mountains and rocks. And here, so we're going to switch, I think, now from the optimism and actually the wish that becomes true to kind of the more negative side of Job.

Well, I think, and I do think that what this tells you is really instructive, is that the gospel, which is really what Job is wishing for here. I mean, he's wishing for the gospel. He's wishing for the promise of resurrection and the forgiveness of sins. He knows that resurrection is good news if it's possible for sin to be taken away. Well, you're just wishing for the gospel. That's what you're wishing for. And the gospel, of course, is the ultimate thing that is too good to be true, but is in fact true.

And so while Job can wish for it, it's almost like he catches himself and says, what is it is basically like what an absurd hope this would be right like like it's like he came back to reality suddenly and was like well that's all that's all sounds nice but uh obviously that's that's too good to be true that will never happen and so i must now uh come back to reality here i am on my trash heap and i'm scraping my sores and uh and i just really want to die uh but it is like there's this like shot in like all this darkness of like, but what if this were true? And you're like, dad, that's the truest thing there is. In reality, what you get in the gospel is more true than anything that you're suffering, because anything that you're suffering is temporal,

and like the gospel endures forever. The promise you get of eternal life and the forgiveness of sins becomes a concrete identity and a concrete reality that never gets overturned and is where and is the reality in which you will spend the vast majority of your existence right but in this moment for job it seems like an absurdity yeah and i think that that well that still holds true when you're uh in the midst of darkness and suffering i mean the gospel always seems too good to be true, right? Yeah. Uh, I mean, if, if you're hearing the gospel, if you're hearing something that's supposed to be the gospel and it doesn't sound too good to be true, it's probably not the gospel. It's probably, you know, a partial gospel or a watered down gospel or whatever you

want to call it. But if it sounds too good to be true, if it's, if it actually is just kind of even like, uh, offensively, offensively true, like really in your face, that's probably the gospel. If it's not, probably not. But of course, when you're in the midst of grief or suffering or any kind of just trouble that this life throws your way, then the gospel becomes even more challenging to believe. And that's why you have this back and forth in Job's own heart. And he goes from this, this wish now to kind of this negative view of reality once more in verse 18, where he says, but the mountain falls and crumbles away and the rock is removed

from its place. The waters wear away the stones, the torrents wash away the soil of the earth. So that's called all the lead in the mountains falling and tumbling, the rocks removed from its place, the waters wearing away the stones and the torrents washing away the soil of All of that is a lead-in to the very close of verse 19. So, you destroy the hope of man. Yeah, all this hope he just spouted out. It's all flooded away now.

Well, he's like, there I was looking around at some tree stumps, and I saw them shooting up, and I thought, maybe, just maybe. But then I looked over, and I saw these mountains crumbling. I was like, never mind. I guess it can't be true. Oh, poor Job. I mean, it's quite, despite the negative overall message, it's kind of a, it's a lovely poem in just the way that he tells it.

You know, you picture, we've all seen, you know, how over time water shapes rocks, right? In certain sorts of ways. And of course it takes a long time, but they're shaping them by destruction. That's what's happening. So the water is destroying parts of the rock in order to shape the stones in a certain sort of way. And Job concludes, well, that's exactly what's happening here.

At one point in my life, I might have a rock-solid hope that everything's going to be okay. And then all of a sudden, the torrents come, and the water rushes over and over and over. And after a while, it erodes my hope. That's what's happening, he says. Verse 20, you prevail forever against him, and he passes. You change his countenance and send him away. his sons come to honor and he does not know it they are brought low and he perceives it not he feels only the pain of his own body and he mourns only for himself so this idea of prevailing

forever against him it's a it's you can fight against god but you're gonna you're gonna lose is kind of where job is at now god is going to prevail against him and uh it's going to change his countenance whatever you know what that means maybe it means he's going to wipe his smile away or just alter his expression to something which is uh you know kind of a your your your your face is fallen your crest fallen whatever that whatever is implied there when that happens then god sends you away he he goes into shul and that's that's it his sons can you got two extremes here as you often have in the Hebrew poetry. So if the sons come to honor, or if they're brought low,

so if they're exalted, or if they're humiliated, he doesn't know it, he doesn't perceive it. Why? Because, of course, he has the dead don't know, they're in show, he's not going to be able to perceive what's happening. He's kind of caught in this web of ignorance. All he feels is the pain of his own body, and he ultimately dies alone, and so he's mourning only for himself.

So Job, who had been looking around and thinking about what ifs and landed on the light of hope, then kind of tumbles from that, finds himself once more in this place of darkness and wondering what's the point of it all. yeah yeah he uh he had he had the moment and then uh yeah and this is this is how it works you know you you you grab on to something but uh but then you're uh the reality of life sometimes kicks back in you're like what am i talking about this is horrible yeah which is why i mean you really need uh you need instead of the three friends yeah you need a preacher you need a preacher yeah take a take away eliphaz and build that and so far get rid of those dudes just bring in a preacher who's gonna be able to give job what he needs same thing that we all need gospel over and over and over and over because i mean these we're not as poetic as job and uh we don't

you know construct our thoughts in such a uh lyrical sort of way but that's the stuff that we all struggle with yeah you know we look around and like what's the point of it all or you know is there any hope for me well that's when you need the word of a preacher to come along and say absolutely there's hope your transgressions have already been sealed up in a bag and god's wrath has already passed and he said a time when he's going to resurrect you and you are forgiven because of because of christ and there's life and there's hope and there's resurrection all these things that we can't generate within ourselves but then are poured into us by God's Word spoken to us by somebody else.

So yeah, Job terribly needs a preacher at this point. Well, yeah, Job, you might be able to come up with a wish on your own, but a wish is not the same as proclamation, that's for certain. So Job can sort of have this hope and have this wish that then his circumstances dash to pieces. What he needs is someone to proclaim to him that this is not just some kind of wish or a hope, but that this is a promise.

And that would go a long way for him. He does not have that. Job just has some real crappy friends. And so we're going to hear from one of them again next week. He's going to come in with the audacious claim that Job's real problem here is that he doesn't fear God. And so we'll see how that goes next week. Chad, I'll see you then.

All right, see you then. We'll see you next time.