19
Jul 2020
Bildad the Shuhite (Job 8:1) was the second of Job’s three friends to give his “counsel” or “opinion” on what was the reason for all of Job’s suffering. He couldn’t wait for Job to shut up so that he could tell Job that he was nothing but a wind bag! What we see with Bildad is someone with a very black and white view of things. I.e., since God would never subvert judgement or pervert justice (See v.3), there is no way that the things that happened to Job would have happened unless there was sin in......
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12
Jul 2020
Life can be fairly tough! Job described it like a workman’s shift. We feel tired, but at least there is our pay at the end of the day! Some people look forward to their retirement because they have worked hard all their lives and they hope to be able to take it easy in their latter years. In the Bible we are told that God placed a curse upon the earth that would mean that man would have to work and sweat all his life because of original sin (See Gen.3:17-19). That curse......
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05
Jul 2020
This is Job’s first response since we heard from him in Job 3. He admits that he has been ‘rash’ with his words, even though he did wait 7 days and 7 nights before speaking. But he now feels that he has to give a response to the counsel of Eliphaz from Job 4-5. Job reminded his “friends” that he wasn’t made of stone, that he was flesh and bone, and that he didn’t have the strength within himself to endure and hope for a good outcome, such as what Eliphaz had said was......
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28
Jun 2020
Today we began actually with the last verse of the third chapter, in which Job said, “I cannot relax! And I cannot settle! And I cannot rest! And agitation keeps coming back!” (Job 3:25 translated by Francis I Anderson in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary on Job). As you may readily see, this translation is somewhat different from what you may read in the KJV, which is rather odd, or the NKJV. So we are left with Job in a state of agitation and weary. It is at this point that Eliphaz, who may have been......
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21
Jun 2020
It had been 7 days and 7 nights of silence as Job sat in the ashes with his three best friends (Job 2:13). Finally Job broke the silence! What would he say? Would he finally crack and curse God and die (See Job 2:9)? Did he curse God, his enemies, the weather, the disease, or his wife? No! Did he curse himself? No! He just lets off steam and curses the day of his birth, moaning that it would have been better that he had never even been born. The next best thing,......
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14
Jun 2020
In the last chapter, Satan thought that if Job lost all his possessions and those dear to him, that he would surely curse the LORD right to His face! And yet instead of that, Job worshipped the LORD. Now it is Round 2 or Chapter 2, and Satan says that a man would do anything to save his own skin and bones, or his own life (See Mk.8:34-38). So he is permitted to strike Job, which he does with painful boils from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head. We seem to......
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07
Jun 2020
Everything was going well for Job until all of a sudden he is hit with one bad report after another. The only reason why we know what was going on is because we get to see behind the scenes in vv.6-12, but Job didn’t have that insight. Any one of those events that took place in vv.13-19 would be enough to knock the life out of anyone. These were ‘apparently’ natural occurrences in the life of a person living in the Ancient Near East. There was always the danger of being attacked or robbed by......
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31
May 2020
What do we do when things go from being great, blessed, and peaceful, to where the bottom falls out of our world? Was it not for such wonderful texts as Rom.8:28, which states, ‘And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose‘, we might be completely in the dark! The alternatives are ‘bad luck’, ‘karma’, or in the words of Richard Dawkins, ‘The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect IF THERE IS, at bottom, no evil, no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference!’ – Not the most......
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24
May 2020
This is the 6th and last part of ‘The Model Prayer’ series, and today we looked at the last line as found in Matt.6:10 (NKJV), where it reads, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” Amen. When we think of the kingdom we should think about who the King is who reigns as the ONLY Sovereign in the Universe, and look at Scriptures that speak of God’s Free Will. Unfortunately there are world-renowned Bible teachers who have stated that “the teaching of the Sovereignty of God is the worst doctrine in church today.” And this is most......
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17
May 2020
In this sermon we covered Matt.6:13 and Lk.11:4 which says, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (NKJV). However this is a discrepancy with the translations, with some omitting the last line, “…but deliver us from the evil one”, and some which have “…and deliver us from evil”, such as the KJV. This is because that last line is absent from several of the most important early witnesses, representing the text of Matthew in use in various parts of the church from the 2nd Century, which convinces most scholars that......
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