The Fear of the Lord: Job's Path to True Wisdom

Show Notes

Episode 447: 
In this enlightening episode, Chris and Jeff dive into Job chapter 28, exploring the theme of wisdom and where it truly comes from. They discuss Job's journey through trials and how his fear of God led him to true wisdom. The episode also touches on the importance of surrounding oneself with the right influences and seeking wisdom from God.

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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible guys. My name is Chris. This is Jeff, and we are here here. We made it. That's it. We don't have anything else other than we are here. That is true. Well, today, Jeff, we're going to start out by Desiree actually pulled a few comments from our social media. Oh these are great. See this. So getting to hear out hear our listeners. What is it? Getting to hear from our listeners warms our hearts so much? So let's give a couple of them a shout out there a way to read that heartfelt statement. You're literally our heart felt. My name is Chris. You're literally like this, Chris, You're like, my name is Chris zar Ba. And I want to say, do you remember Wayne's World? He goes off and he goes I never learned how to read. That was me in that moment right there. Okay, So after that heartfelt yes, thank you to these fine folks I couldn't get out. Let's read a couple of these. Go ahead, uh renee b Hi Renee, Renee, we are so glad that you wrote in you say I love your show. Oh thanks. My only complaint, what my only complaint is that I'm sure people think I'm a little loopy based on the big grin on my face as I listen keep up the great work. That's really nice, Oh, Renee, We're sure they don't think that you're loopy just because of the big grin on your face. And what is loopy? Goofy goofy? Okay, right, like like a little out of her mind? Yeah, well lupy. I I would I would always, I would think like lopy is more like a like you're sort of in a trance almost like you, you know, take medicine. It makes you loopy loopy? Okay, anyways, okay, Well this next one is from Lucia C. Thank you for reading it. She says, I appreciate the down to earth discussions and wanted you both to know that I look forward to listening to you every morning. Also, I just need Chris to know that I now sing good morning to my coworkers every day at the office. Not sure how it happened, but thanks a lot, Chris. That is so funny. That's so funny. Thanks, Lucia. Oh that's great, that's really fun. So be careful, Lucia. Why don't you stop at that point? Yes, and don't adopt anything else, Chris says, or does so Lucia's workplace. I think she's a little lot. Yeah yeah, yeah, now they think she's crazy. Okay, and it comes from singing in the rain, by the way. There you go. And then Lynn says, wanted to reach out because I'm new to listening to your podcast. Hey, well welcome Lynn. Yeah, that's awesome, so glad. I really love how you guys talk about the Bible. This podcast is literal gold literal. You love the use of literal in that way. I have a thing about literal. I have a thing about it. It's not literally old. Well, hey, be careful, Lynn is new nice. Oh I wasn't busting on Linn. I was just busting on the word literally. Well, I think it is a little literal gold, Lynn, So I think you're y it says Uh. I've been sharing your podcast with all my friends and family. Jeff and Chris works so well together. Their personalities compliment compliment each other so well. Actually, I'm not sure that it's true, Lynn, I'm mostly carrying Chris most of the time. That's true. That's not true. You're not You're supposed to argue with me just a little bit on that one. Okay. I absolutely love you guys. This podcast always makes my day. Oh well, that's nice. This is amazing, just amazing. I think we both carried each other and took turns with we fall apart with our knees and in our backs. That's exactly right. So that's wonderful. Thank you, Lynn. And by the way, I'm not even kidding when I say this, I'm absolutely one nd percent serious. Uh, you know, we're both busy guys. In fact, people don't even know this, but you literally just this is a this is actually where you can use literally. You literally just landed last night after traveling, after flying how many hours, well, twenty four thousand, six hundred miles and then and that doesn't count the numbers number of as you drove. Oh, you're right right, that's right, right, which means you probably drove and flew the distance where somebody would circle the glowy around the world. Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely. We drove about five or six hundred miles into Tanzania on a part of that trip. So yeah, yeah, it was definitely twenty five thousand miles or more. Yeah, And that's how much distance around the world, right, right, right, So that is just crazy. And so all that to say, you're super busy. I'm super busy. I got home last night and went straight to a birthday party my grandson's five year old. And you're here today in the morning. Yeah, and so so you want to talk about Loopy, let's go. Let's go back to that one. I'm feeling it today. This might be the good time for you to talk about hig Gui Loopy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yesterday, if you were listening on the podcast, I said, I mentioned Haguy, yes, and I meant to say Hosea as soon as we were done on the podcast. Yes, you went, was it ha Guy? Right? I was like, no, it was Hoseiah and I didn't realize I said, ha guy, And so I knew all along it was right. You were thinking Jose right, but I said jose and Gomer. And the funny thing is, the weird part is is that I had a brain, like a brain a brain fund where I just we're sorry for that, like we couldn't come up with Joseiah, and I knew. I knew Gomer. I was like Goomer and Goomer, Gomer, Gomer and you were talking about Gomer pop. So anyway, the bottom line is is, uh, I gosh, this is a thought that went into a thought. My original thought was, even though that we're really busy, we come into record, I think I'm going to do this recording, which we do five days in a row. It takes like four hours. But the only thing that keeps me going is because people say things like this. They say, man, I really appreciate it. It really helps me. Uh, you know, I I enjoy it and I'm learning and uh and I think to myself, well, gee, then we better keep on making time for this. Right. We were talking to a mutual friend a while back, right, and we were just saying, we can't believe people keep listening. It's and I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just I can't believe people keep listening and they say so many nice things, and yeah, it's inspiring. It makes us want to keep going. Yeah, and we're coming up on what almost by the end of the week. I think the last episode of this week is four fifty four and fifty episodes. Yeah, four and fifty those episodes together. How many HG daily episodes do we have? There were like one hundred and seventy of those, so we're over six hundred episodes together. Yeah, well, doing podcast stuff, so it's a lot of fun. Hey, when you do six hundred to anything together, it's yeah, you better like each other, right, right, right, for sure? For sure? All right. Well listen, hey, we're going to dive into Job chapter twenty eight. And this whole entire thing. Job is just working it out, isn't he is? He's working it out. He has thoughts left and right. He is trying to figure out what is happening to him. And by the way, we didn't talk about this yesterday, but picture of this in a pile of ashes, isn't he still in a pile of ashes? He's sitting there in sackcloth. Basically, he's wearing like a grain, a grain sack, you know, and and sitting in ashes and he's right. Yeah. And the reason why, by the way, is because and I've always thought about this, was he in ashes because just because it was the softest thing that existed? Or was he in ashes because it was symbolic like tearing your clothes. Well, I know it's symbolic, yeah, but yeah, it might also been just that it was a make that boils because he was covered in boils, right, and covered boils. He was scraping, scraping his boil. Oh, there you go, drying it out. He was scraping the boils off with broken pottery. Because not only had he had everything taken from him, his oxen and his donkeys and his servants and all his livelihood and then his family and everything was just taken away, but then the next phase, phase two, was an attack on his physical body, and then he was covered with boile. So he's so he's laying there and ashes, you know, talking to his wife, talking to his friends, and then you know, just working out his emotions of what is happening? Is God to blame? How should I react? And by the way, I said this once you last week. But you know what's encouraging about this is never once has Job considered taking his own life. His wife suggested it, you're right, and and die, curse God and die, but no, never once did he ever? He didn't, And thank goodness, they didn't, you know, why because right around the corner are blessings upon blessings, And so when things are the absolute worst and you feel like there's no hope and there's nothing worth living for, just hang on to hope, just knowing that you never know what's around the corner. So we are just going at a at an extremely brisk pace through this book. In we're gonna read Job twenty What chapter are we reading twenty eight? Twenty eight? Yeah, yeah, we're reading twenty eight. But if you go back just a few chapters here he talks about at one point, God knows where I'm going and when he tests me, I'm going to come out as gold. Remember how we talked about he kind of he's up and down. Why you guys being mean to me? Why? Why is God being mean to me? Hey, you know what, God's testing me and I'm going to come out of this fire and I'm going to be like peer gold. And then he goes back to the next chapter twenty four. He's like, how come isn't God paying attention? How come God doesn't go judge wicked people? So Job's recognizing I'm I've done the best I can. I'm a good person, and he was even God recognized Job did not know that God was proud of how good Job was, right, not at this point. But he's like, in chapter twenty four, he's like, I'm a good guy. Why isn't God going on judging bad people? In the whole chapter? It'him going, are you not paying it sent to the bad people? I got pulled over one time for doing three miles an hour over the speed limit. I hate that, right, I hate that I've had that happen once. Now, speed limit was three miles below an hour below what I was going. And when he walked up, he said, you know how fast you're going? I was a fifty eight and it was a fifty five. He goes, that's right, And he was going to write me a ticket, right, And I'm like, are you serio, You're going to write me a ticket for three over? And he goes, well, I can you know I have the right to write your ticket. And I said, really, of all the things happening in this city, the single most important thing for you to do is write me a ticket for three miles over. And he goes, three miles and overs against the law, and he wrote me the ticket. Then, so as I thought about it later. He was going to let me off, but then I got mad and challenged to go. Of all the bad things happened in this city, the single most important thing was I was doing fifty eight and fifty five. R dude, go arrest a bad guy. This is kind of of his Now. I had a bad attitude, but in this situation job is fairly justified, saying very very justice. Come on, God, are you paying attention? All the wicked people are prospering, and here I am miserable, and I think it's your fault. You're doing this to me. And so he goes through all these conversations with everybody going I know my life, I know what I've tried to do. By the time you get to chapter twenty seven, he literally says, I'm going to maintain my innocence without wavering. My conscience is clear as long as I live right. I'm not bending on this, and he's talking to his friends at this point. I'm not bending on this. My conscience is clear, and I just don't understand it. But I still believe I'm going to come out like gold. Right. Hey, by the way, before we dive into it, to all the police officer. Listeners out there, don't pull me over for three miles. I drove all the way to North Carolina, Duck, North Carolina, and drove like fourteen hours, and it was four in the morning, and I had three kids sleeping in the back with blankets, like tiny little kids, and I was a mile from the house. And that particular actually was twenty five miles an hour. Okay, he pulled me over for like twenty eight just almost the same scenario at four in the morning. And I said, sir, I didn't know it was twenty five. I'm falling asleep as I'm driving. I just drove fourteen hours to get to this vacation spot. And he gave me a ticket? Did he really? He did? Well, just merciless. Yeah, and you know, yeah, I got a ticket for running a yellow light one time, failure to yield amber. That's the judge threw it out. He goes, where's the officer and I said, he's not here. He said, I wouldn't showed up for this one either, and you just dismissed it. Sometimes, Hey, thank god for the police officers. I'm complaining about two times, and I was only saying it from job's perspective. Yes, so if we complain every once in a while about getting a ticket, we don't feel like we deserve Job was complaining that God wasn't paying attention to the bad guys, right, right, So that's all we were doing. There's the reality is I feel like when I get a ticket, I just go ahead and pay it usually because there's a lot of times I didn't get a ticket, right, I mean, I deserve this one, but I deserved one hundred thousand of them, right, you know, I didn't get them. So anyways, that brings us up to this point where he goes, I will maintain my innocence without wavering and my conscious as clear for as long as I live. And then from this point on, this is his big last speech, his big last prayer kind of thing. As he's going through this and he's going to talk about the technology of the day, and I'm just going to blast through this whole chapter because I think it's interesting. He goes and by the way, he's talking about wisdom. Where does wisdom come from? Yeah, he gets to wisdom. Yeah, but he's talking about how wise people are, and then he goes, God's wisdom is beyond it is where he's going to go with this chapter. So if you're wondering what it's about, that's what he's talking about. So you remember this is iron age or the rate at the beginning of that. So mining was a big deal, right, that was cutting edge technology. He says. People know where to mind silver and how to refine gold. They know where to dig iron from the earth, and how to smelt copper from rock. And they know how to shine light in the darkness and explore the farthest regions of the earth. As they search in the dark for ore. They sink a mind shaft into the earth, far from where anyone lives, and they descend on ropes, swinging back and forth. And food has grown on the earth above, but down below the earth is smelted as by fire. Here the rocks contain precious lappy lazuli, and the dust contains gold. These are treasures no bird of prey can see, no falcon's eye can observe. No wild animal has walked upon these treasures. No lion has ever set his paw there. People know how to tear apart flinty rocks and overturn the roots of mountains. They cut tunnels in the rocks and uncover the precious stones. And they dam up the trickling streams and bring to light the hidden treasures. But do people know where to find wisdom? Where can they find understanding? No one knows where to find it, for it's not found among the living. It is not here, says the ocean. Nor is it here, says the sea. Cannot be bought with gold. It cannot be purchased with silver. It's worth more than all the gold of o fear greater than precious onyx or lappi lazuli. Wisdom is more valuable than gold and crystal. It cannot be purchased with jewels, mounted and fine gold and jasper are worthless, and trying to get it. The price of wisdom is far above rubies. That's a common phrase in the Book of Proverbs. By the way, Yep, precious paradot from Ethiopia cannot be exchanged for it. It's worth more than the purest gold. But do people know where to find wisdom? Where can they find understanding? It's hidden from the eyes of all humanity. Even the sharp eyed birds in the sky cannot discover it. Destruction and death, say, we've heard only rumors of where wisdom can be found. God alone understands the way to wisdom. He knows where it can be found, for he looks throughout the whole earth, sees everything under the heavens. He decided how hard the winds should blow and how much rain should fall. He made the laws for the rain, and laid out a path for the lightning. And then he saw wisdom and evaluated it. He set it in place and examined it thoroughly. And this is what he says to all humanity. The fear of the Lord is true wisdom. To forsake evil is real understanding. Oo. Yeah, you know what a what a conclusion? Yeah right? So he starts out talking about we are people who know how to find things, and we find things that even animals can't find. And yet when it comes to finding wisdom, we can't. We can't find it, yeah right. And then and then he goes on to talk about where is it and how valuable it is, and then concludes that only God knows the path to wisdom and has and is the source of wisdom. Right, and then he says, the fear of the Lord is true wisdom. You know that one comment the fear of the Lord is wisdom. Uh, there's a life application of study Bible note, and it says the fear of the Lord is a key theme in the wisdom literature of the Bible, like Job or Psalms, or Proverbs like Ecclesiastes in the Song of Solomon, which by the way, are all wisdom books, wisdom books written by all, all by Solomon except for one. Right, Psalms and Job were not. But proverb Psalms is David, mostly David. Yeah, yeah, And but Proverbs Ecclesiastes. That's right. So it says it means to have respect and reverence for God and to be in all of his majesty and power. This is the starting point of finding real wisdom. And in Proverbs chapter one, seven through nine, it actually lays out and says that the fear of the Lord is the being of all wisdom and actually says this is the purpose of the book. It lays it out that way. Yeah, that's right here, Oh good, you got it, ye, Proverbs one seven through nine, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and destruction. And then it goes on to say listen, my son, to your father's instructions. Do not forsake your mother's teaching. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge or wisdom. This is written by the wisest man who ever lived. And then he talks about the value of it, and he says, wisdom is more valuable than anything that you could possibly have. Written from a man who had everything. Yeah, there is nothing that he did not have. Yeah, So I think this is what he's highlighting here is why he made it through this test. So well, this is what I think he's doing is he does fear God, and he does believe that God is in control, and he recognizes, you know, at the end here he's talking about how God made laws for rain, lays out the path of lightning. He determined when the when the wind would blow, and when the rain is going to fall, and throughout the whole earth God set laws up. There's all these laws of nature. And he said, look, how wise God is that he could assemble the laws of nature. And then he said, you know, we feel pretty wise. We can go find gems and we know how to plant, you know, food, And that lappy Lazuli, for instance, was a gem. It's really deep blue. Have you ever seen one? They're really deep blue. They've been mining them in Afghanistan for six thousand years, right, stunningly beautiful. You got all these different different gems that he mentions gold and silver. And you know, we spend a lot of our life and we develop wisdom with regard to or smarts let's say street smarts. Street smarts to make money, to build wealth. We develop technologies to hopefully make our lives a little bit better. But that doesn't make us wise. You know, I was in a meeting a couple of days ago about the use of I've had two meetings about this recently, about the use of AI artificial intelligence in ministry, right, And one of the conclusions, you know, we were talking about is, hey, if you use it as research assistant, fantastic, this is really good. You know. I used to have i still do, thousands of books and I'd have to go through and find them and I'd make markings, and for a little while in my life, I was actually keeping a catalog of all my best ideas that I found in different books where I could find them, you know. And my plan always was to put together like a digital index, and I never did, but now I can with AI. There's different ministry ais out there that I can search all of the books plus ten thousand times more all that knowledge in seconds that I can go find the information that But that doesn't make me a better human just because I can find information faster, it might make me lazier. So we have to be careful not to get lazy and just believe everything that shows up on a screen. That's one. The other one is AI doesn't have a soul. There's no soul to it, so it can't really give It can't really give spiritual insight. It doesn't have wisdom, it has information. There's a big difference between the information it takes to make money and the wisdom to really live a good life. Right, And he says the beginning of wisdom is fearing God, and that fear of God is having a healthy respect and saying, God, your ways are the right ways, your words are the right words, and I'm going to live your way. The fact that he had fear for God caused him to live God's way and even caught the devil's attention, and that's why all of this was happening in the first place was because he had the fear of God. God taught him to live this way. The fear of God taught him wisdom. And so the best way to live is having a healthy respect for God. I think a lot of times what we do is we want God. It's not a healthy respect for God. We want God to be our good luck charm and we want him to bless what we plan to do. But I think what job is sending them here is in spite of all the wisdom and all the knowledge that we have, we're not truly wise people unless we go God's way. Yeah, and you know, all these scriptures pop up into your mind, you know, like His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Trust in the lower with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Right. So, so just the indicators that you know, no matter how wise we think we are, no matter how you know, how much we think we figured things out, God's wisdom is the source of all wisdom. And there's a there's a little graph here at the end of the Life Application Study Bible, and it says work and wisdom be found. I think it's interesting and points out Job's three friends, those with those weird names, right, h what is it a leaf? As as Bill Dad and so Far and Elfhaz says wisdom can be learned by observing and experienced life. That's that's it. That that recaps sort of what he says. Bill Dad says wisdom is inherited from the past, right from his you could learn from wisdom. So Far claims that wisdom belongs to the wise. In other words, it's just gifted. But then Job is the one that says God is the source of wisdom. Isn't that cool? So if you were to summarize sort of what these three friends, you know, believe, it's a really good lesson. You could take that and just have a lesson on friends hang around with those who are going to point in the right direction. So I met with a wedding couple yesterday and I prayed, and I always pray sort of the same thing. I say, Bless them financially, take care of them, provide, bless them, you know, spiritually, surround them with people that appoint them in the right direction, and then bless them relationally, put the right people in their lives. And they always at the end, they always just say thank you for that, you know, because it's just one of those, you know prayers that say like, wow, that's you know, praying that God would watch over us and all these different things, every facet and every facet. But whenever I think of that, that's what I think of when I'm even when I'm praying, I think, I think, surround this couple or surround this person with the right kind of people that will both encourage them emotionally and then also spiritually. And this is this is what Job has discovered, Like these are good friends, but not not when it comes down, they're looking for wisdom in less superior places. Yeah, you can pick up good things from living life, Yeah you can. That's a hard way to gain wisdom, by the way. Yes, that means you touch the you touch the hot the hot stove to find out it's hot. Now you have some wisdom. But that's a hard way to live. Yes, you can learn from the past, right, history teach us. That's incredibly important. You can learn from other wise people, but all of those are less superior to the fact that God is the source of wisdom, and we can learn from God without having to go only with those other paths. Yeah, and it's also worth noting that three friends weren't able to bring Job down, right, right, So Job is stronger than not one, not two, but three influences. And by the way, that's that's pretty rare. Yeah, because if you hang with people that are gonna drag it, you know, if they're there, If you're the one who's setting the bar spiritually, and you hang out with three good friends, uh, oftentimes there you know more than not, you're gonna be the one that's dragged down. Yeah. Yeah, So Solomon, to end things, Solomon tells us wisdom is the principal thing. So with all of your getting, get wisdom and sell it, not trust, he says. And then James tells us if anybody lacks wisdom, let let them ask from God, who gives generously, right, right, And so wisdom is it God's word. The fact that you know you're listening and spending a little bit of time every day listening to God's word, I think that's incredibly important. You just take it in, you're filling your reservoir of wisdom, and then at the right time God will pull those things out. So good job, that's awesome. Well, that is a great place to end, and hopefully we will see you next time. All the Bible guys,