Good morning.

Wasn't sure if anyone was gonna come back after yesterday, but here you all are.

This is a relief.

I said yesterday that I think the Book of Job is trying to answer four big questions.

First, why does God allow Job-like ordeals? And if you remember from yesterday, I, I defined the B-the Book of Job is not universally relevant.

If you had applied the Book of Job to David after Bathsheba, that would have been a misapplication of the text.

It's not talking about that kind of situation.

Twenty-four.

For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

Well, good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

It's a special pleasure and privilege for me to be here with you talking about Psalm fifty-six.

Some months ago, as week one of Keswick was being worked out, I got an email saying, "Would you like to speak on Psalm, on Sunday evening on Psalm fifty-six?" And within about thirty seconds, I wrote back and said, "Yes, pretty please with sugar on top." You know? [laughing] There might have been some other passages that maybe I didn't feel as confident with, but Psalm fifty-six, especially verses eight through eleven, not only there, but especially verses eight through eleven, you just have those verses in scripture that are so special to you.

It's like they've taken residence up inside of you.

Morning.

Happy Thursday.

Can everyone hear me okay? Great.

Okay.

We're gonna be looking at Job's speeches, and I put chapter twenty-three as the text we're gonna land on.

I'm not gonna read that right away.

We're gonna read that at the end because as Job tries to think his way through this ordeal, and he fails, chapter twenty-three is sort of the best he can do to figure out how God was present in chapters one to two.

So Job, in a way, is right to say, "Yeah, this is between me and God, and there's no one else involved." Would that be right?

Good morning.

I'm just gonna be honest and say I don't quite know how to start this seminar.

And I speak on the Book of Job frequently, and every time I do, I'm kinda surprised that anyone shows up at all.

Why not-- Like all the seminar topics this week are so great, why is anyone here? Or why not, like, study a book like Ruth, right? All the bad stuff happens at the beginning, and then it just gets better and better and better for the characters, right? Why turn to Job? Job is easily, in my opinion, the most difficult book in the Old Testament, and in multiple ways.

It's just difficult to understand sometimes.

More than once the characters are arguing with each other a-and I feel like saying, "Can you say that again? I don't think I quite got what you were saying." The book of Job is tiring to read.

Am I the only person I get to the end of it and it's like, "Phew, okay, onto something else," you know?" And the book of Job is morally difficult.

He rose from the dead and is back into glory now, uh, returning as Lord and King and Judge.

Yeah.

Okay, [chuckles] okay, good.

Chapter thirty-eight.

We're gonna look at eleven verses in chapter thirty-eight and just a couple verses in chapter forty-one.

That's it.

So can we all turn to Job chapter thirty-eight, and we'll just keep our finger in chapter forty-one.

There is more going on in Job chapter thirty-eight, verse one than you might think.

Amen.