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00:00 Introduction and Snow Update

01:44 Job's Final Call: Reflecting on the Past

03:45 Job's Present Suffering and Isolation

06:02 Job's Final Appeal and Integrity

07:58 Living a Life of Integrity and Final Thoughts

It's Saturday, January 11th, 2025.

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Welcome to another edition

of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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I'm Pastor Rod, alone, still.

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Pastor PJ is still vacating

and leaving me by myself.

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I'm sure he'll be back at some

point, but the question is, when?

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In fact, as I record this, I

mentioned yesterday that it was

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snowing, and it's still snowing

because I'm still in yesterday.

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I'm still recording the same day that

I recorded yesterday's podcast, and I'm

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not sure if we're going to be able to

make it into the office on Saturday.

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In fact, we have two Bible

studies scheduled today, the

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men's and women's Bible studies.

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And I'm hoping that the road

conditions are sufficient so we can

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drive to and from the meeting space.

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And I'm not sure that we'll

be able to do that given how

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much snow that we're getting.

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I'm serious, folks.

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I'm looking out my window.

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I feel like President Biden.

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I'm serious.

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I'm serious.

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Come on, man.

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I'm looking out my window here.

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And there's a lot of snow coming down.

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It's still coming down.

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It's been hours.

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In fact, it started somewhere around

six o'clock in the morning, give or

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take, and it's 2 25 PM the same day.

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So we've been getting

snow for a long time.

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We have several inches.

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This is really exciting new territory

for us, but I'm sure it's not going

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to be easy to get out of this.

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So pray for us.

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If you think about us, that'd be really

helpful and pray that we get to do

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all the ministry that we have planned.

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It would be a bummer to have to schedule.

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reschedule or cancel

things because of the snow.

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But the Lord knows what he's doing.

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In fact, if there's one thing

that we've learned from the

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beginning of job is that God's in

control of the weather department.

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Nothing is happening that God is

not ultimately responsible for.

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There are proximate causes

that God may not be touching,

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but he is the ultimate cause.

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In other words, God ultimately.

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Is ruler over all things, but the

most immediate cause or the proximate

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cause might be evil, or it might be

something else that mankind is doing.

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Maybe we're putting something in the air

to cause it to do this or that, but God

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is the ultimate cause of the weather.

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And for that reason, we can trust him.

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All right.

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We're only covering three chapters

today, but they're a bit chunky.

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There are large chapters,

Job chapters, 29, 30, and 31.

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Let's pick it up.

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Job 29.

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These last few chapters before

Elihu speaks up is Job's final call.

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It's his summation.

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It's the end point to all that he said.

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The ESV Bible puts it like

this, Job's summary defense.

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And in chapter 29, Job laments,

The things of the past things,

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the way they used to be.

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Uh, so he talks about how things

used to be wonderful when God watched

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over him, when his lamp shone

upon his head and by his light, I

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walked through darkness, job says.

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And Job looks back at the past

and his walk with God and how

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much wealth he had and how much

respect and admiration he had.

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And he laments the fact that

now, Things are so different.

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Things are not what they used to be.

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And I want to warn you against this

mentality, because while we can look

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back at the past, and it can be helpful

and instructive, and there's lots

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of benefits to be had, one of the

dangers in looking back to the past

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is that it distracts us and impedes

us from making forward progress.

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Philippians chapter 3, Paul says this, One

thing I do, Forgetting what lies behind

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and straining forward to what lies ahead.

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There is such a thing as

thinking too much about the past.

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In fact, probably most people don't

spend enough time evaluating and thinking

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about the past so that they can serve God

better in the present and in the future.

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But Job here is looking back and saying, I

used to have all of these wonderful things

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happen to me, and now God has turned his

head from me and things are far worse.

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This is a bad kind of looking back.

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This is more like a ruminating.

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It's thinking about the past

in an unhelpful and perhaps

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let's call it ungodly way.

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This is not a good situation.

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And so job chapter 29 is him looking back

at the past and how things used to be.

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And now they're no longer that way.

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Don't get caught in the

good old days fallacy.

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Maybe the good old days aren't

as good as they used to be.

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And perhaps God was far kinder to you

in those seasons than we may remember.

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In fact, that's one good reason that you

should journal and capture the events

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as they happen, or at least capture

them with some reflection so that you

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can honestly assess things of the past.

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In Job chapter 30.

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He doesn't only lament the past,

but now he's lamenting the present

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he says it is the men who are

younger than him that laugh at him.

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Men whose fathers I would have disdained

the men who are the lowest of society.

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ungodly, unrighteous.

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Their sons, their children are

the ones who are mocking Job.

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The kind of people who

despise him is revolting.

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Job can't believe it.

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And in an honor shame culture,

this kind of disrespect would

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have been so intensely weighty.

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In an honor shame culture, this would

have been a far more significant

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insult, which is why Job highlights it.

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He says, these people are

the kind of people that he

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would himself have despised.

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But now, this senseless and nameless

brood, he says in verse eight, they

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have been whipped out of the land

and now I've become their song.

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I'm the butt of the joke of people that

have no standing and no place in society.

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Irreputable people are now mocking me.

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I'm being made fun of

by the lowest of low.

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They don't hesitate to

spit at the side of me.

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They don't hesitate to show

me disregard and disrespect.

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They'd go out of their

way to do it, it seems.

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And he acknowledges in verse 11, this

is because of what God has done to me.

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This is God's doing.

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Ultimately, again, God is responsible.

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God is the ultimate cause.

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There are always proximate causes.

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Job laments the fact that he is isolated.

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God has cast him down into the mud

and the mire, the dust and the ashes.

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And so now Job is by himself suffering.

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Again, one of the reasons that this

is especially bad is because Job

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is doing this seemingly by himself.

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He has no one to lean his head

on because his wife is telling

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him to curse God and die.

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His best friends, or I

guess are his best friends.

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Are telling him he's guilty

of sin, he needs to repent.

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And so he's expecting sympathy,

but he's getting none.

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In fact, that's what verses

24 through 31 lament.

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He's looking at the days when he would

show kindness and mercy to people.

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And yet today when he would expect

the same, he gets none of that.

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And on top of that, he's still

suffering some physical maladies.

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We haven't talked about this recently,

but physically, job is still suffering.

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God allowed the devil to afflict

him with physical maladies, and one

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of these maladies is black skin.

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Black skin falling off his body.

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So I would assume here that what's

taking place is that skin is dying.

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He has unhealthy skin, and

this skin is falling off of

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his flesh because it's dead.

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What an awful place to be, and

I bet, what an awful smell.

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Imagine that for a second.

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If you've ever been around rotting

flesh, or the smell of rotting

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flesh, you get a sense of what

Job might be going through here.

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Imagine being in his position.

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Job chapter 31, Job's final appeal.

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It says here in the ESV really interesting

because in this chapter, he goes through

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the Rolodex of his life and it says, if

I'm guilty of this, then God do that.

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He is calling down curses upon himself

based on his character and his integrity.

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If I've been guilty of A,

then Lord, please give me B.

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And so he goes through a long

laundry list of things that he

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believes himself to be innocent of.

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In fact, again, Scripture

would affirm that.

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Job chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 tells

us that Job was an upstanding man.

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He's righteous, he's

blameless, he fears the Lord.

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So all of these things that he's saying,

we'd have to contend with Job and

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say, yes, this is likely true of him.

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Now, again, we're not

talking about absolutes here.

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There's no such thing as a perfect person,

and Job is no exception to that rule.

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We're talking about generalities.

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And in general, Job kept

short accounts with God.

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But that didn't mean

that he was compromising.

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By and large, on the whole,

Job is a man of integrity.

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So he doesn't trust in wealth.

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He's not oppressing the poor.

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He's not rejecting the

cause of his maidservant.

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He's not being unfaithful to his wife.

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He is calling down curses on himself

if he's not saying what is true.

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He ends his words by saying, If my land

has cried out against me, And its furrows

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have wept together, If I've eaten of

its yield without payment, And made its

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owners breed their last, Let thorns grow

instead of wheat, Foul weeds instead

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of barley, The words of Job are ended.

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That's all he can say.

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It is the strongest and highest

appeal that he can make.

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In other words, men, I'm so confident

of my standing before the Lord that

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I am willing to call down curses.

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It's like when someone says,

may God strike me dead.

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If they put their hand in the air

and they gesture loudly with their

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limbs, this is what job is doing.

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So confident of his integrity that

he's willing to put it all in the line.

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And I think it successfully

quiets all of his friends.

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To the point where we get introduced

to a new character tomorrow, one who's

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been there the whole time and yet

has reserved his speech until then.

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We'll look at him tomorrow together.

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But for now, let's make a

couple quick observations.

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Number one, looking at our last

chapter in Job 31, I want you to ask

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yourself if you could do the same.

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Now again, I recognize, as

much as the next guy, that

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there's no one who's perfect.

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But could you say, my life is

by and large one of integrity?

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On the whole, people acknowledge

that I am a Christian, they know

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it, and my life testifies to that.

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If you're not that person,

This ought to be something

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that you and I really aim for.

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We want people to think highly of

Christ, our individual lives will

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impact how people think about Jesus.

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And therefore it's worthy of our

time and attention to say, how can

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I live more faithfully to Christ?

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How can I live in such a way

that it is above reproach?

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Assuming that we make it to church

for our men's Bible study, we'll be

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talking about that very topic today.

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God willing.

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So that's the first thing, living

a life of integrity, living in such

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a way where people can acknowledge

that our words match our actions, not

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perfection, but striking consistency.

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Second, I want to encourage you

not to make an idol of the past.

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Job says in chapter 29, man,

things used to be wonderful and

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amazing and how glorious it was.

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And I'm not going to deny

the fact that he was blessed.

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God acknowledged this.

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The devil acknowledges.

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So he likely had a really fantastic life,

but I wonder how helpful this was for him.

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I would suspect that this was not a worthy

exercise of his mind and perhaps it would

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have been better spent acknowledging God's

faithfulness and entrusting everything

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that he had just gone through to the Lord.

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So here's my encouragement to

you, as they observe the fact

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that there's a good way and a

bad way to look back at the past.

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I would encourage you to

make good use of a journal.

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Some people think about the

word journal or diary and they

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overcomplicate it and make it more

significant than it needs to be.

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Something small and simple

is really all it needs.

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A few sentences, a few brief prayer

requests jotted down to mark what God

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has done or even just to thank God for

what he's already doing in your life.

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That would be a great use of your

time and something that would be easy

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to reflect on when the need arises.

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If something, befalls your family

or your life, you now have a record

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of God's faithfulness in your

life that's strikingly accurate

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because you took the time to do it.

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Okay.

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That's it.

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Thank you so much for joining me

again today for another edition

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of the daily Bible podcast.

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If you have any questions or

thoughts, we'd love to hear from you.

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We always do.

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And again, we do have, I think a

couple of questions in the queue,

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but I wanted to wait for pastor

PJ to come back, which I think is

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going to be tomorrow, God willing.

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And so we'll get back to some

of those questions until then.

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Thank you for listening.

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Well, hope you keep reading your

Bible and that you'll join us

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again tomorrow for another edition

of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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Speaker: Hey, thanks for

joining us for another episode

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of the daily Bible podcast.

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We hope and pray this has been a blessing

to you and your time in the word.

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If it has, if you would subscribe to this

podcast, leave a like, leave a comment

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and share it with some friends and family.

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That would be awesome.

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If you need more information about

Compass Bible Church here in North

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Texas, you can go to compassntx.

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org.

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Again, that's compassntx.

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org.

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And we'll be back with you

tomorrow for another episode

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of the daily Bible podcast.