Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Well, everybody, thanks for joining us. Thanks for tuning in. Whether you’re tuning in for the very first time, if you are welcome, or if you are tuning in for the 450th time, welcome back.

Jeff:
Yes. This is the 449th time.

Chris:
Tomorrow is the 450th time. That’s so funny. So you couldn’t possibly be tuning in for the 450th time.

Jeff:
We should do the welcome back Carter theme song whenever we welcome people back.

Chris:
Welcome back. I don’t even know the words.

Jeff:
We are letting people know we’re old. Okay.

Chris:
So today is… The names have all changed since you’ve hung around. That’s all I have.

Jeff:
So if you’re new to our podcast, one of the things that are really important to us is that we bring only the finest news and commentary from the finest sources. Right? And so we searched the internet deep and wide and we continue to come back to the Babylon Bee as both our finest source of commentary and our finest source of news.

Chris:
And we believe it’s just as reliable as CNN.

Jeff:
That’s exactly right. Or Fox or MSNBC or any of the other news for profit organizations in the world. Okay, so here you go. This one today is, I think, super useful for our listeners. This almost feels like a cooking segment on Good Morning America or something, doesn’t it? Or how to choose the right clothes to wear on Memorial Day weekend kind of thing, doesn’t it? Top 10 diet tips. That’s right. So this one is the 10 best excuses to give the pastor when you’re late for church.

Chris:
Which is great. We haven’t read these yet.

Jeff:
No. Okay. So here it goes It says it happens to everyone sometimes despite your best efforts. You end up being late to church Though the grace of God is vast the grace of your pastor may not be So coming up with good excuses for being late for church can be important The Babylon B is here to save the day by providing you with the following list of the best excuses You can give your pastor when you’re late to church number one

Chris:
implying that these are not true.

Jeff:
Yes. Number one, I prayed too long this morning and lost track of time. Yes. Sometimes you end up being late because of how super duper spiritual you are.

Chris:
It happens.

Jeff:
Number two, you could say my children attempted to murder each other. And this typically happens every Sunday morning before church.

Chris:
Which, by the way, that would be true, right?

Jeff:
Yes. Yes. Number three, you could offer this one. We had 32 shoes, but they were all left feet. We couldn’t find any of their matches.

Chris:
With enough children, that’s entirely plausible.

Jeff:
Number four, I was making godly biblical memes about the Bible and stuff.

Chris:
Wow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s not likely.

Jeff:
Right. You know that, you do know that ability to create spicy memes is a spiritual gift, right? Yeah. Okay. Number five, I had to own some libs on Facebook.

Chris:
Doing the Lord’s work.

Jeff:
Yeah, doing the Lord’s work, man. Busing people for being liberal on the Facebook. Okay, here we go. Number six, the last shall be first.

Chris:
Hey, Jesus said it, Pastor. I’m just trying to follow Jesus.

Jeff:
That’s right. And so if you’re going to follow Jesus, then you have to be last one.

Chris:
That’s a good one, by the way. You can use that in almost any setting whatsoever.

Jeff:
It is. The last shall be first. Oh no. Oh no. Here comes the hate mail. Number seven, Greta Thunberg was sitting in the road. Should someone be expected to run over protesters? How dare you? That’s terrible. Number eight. I’m not here this week, but I’m actually getting here really early for next week.

Chris:
That’s really funny.

Jeff:
You’re getting to church a full week before the pastor even shows up.

Chris:
And by the way, because we do four services on a Sunday at Heritage Church, I think it’s really funny how some people, they show up so late, they’re like, well, I’m just, I guess I’m just early for the next one.

Jeff:
Yeah. It’s so funny. Okay, so number nine was, I was caught up to the third heaven. That was in the book of Revelation. The Bible says, yeah, John says that he was in the spirit on the Lord’s day and he was caught up into the third heaven.

Chris:
And the subtitle says, your pastor would be so much in awe that he’ll forget that you were late.

Jeff:
Yeah. Was it John there? No, it wasn’t. I think that was Paul caught up into the third heaven. Okay. And then number 10, I have a wife.

Chris:
Say no more. I have a wife. That is actually pretty brutal. Hey, why are you late? I have a wife. That’s terrible actually. However, there’s a stereotype for a reason.

Jeff:
Say no more is what it literally says here on the page. So just rattle off one or more of the excuses listed above and you’ll be golden. Become a master of the late to church excuse and you can just show up whenever you want.

Chris:
It’s so funny. You know, there are people who intend on being late. They’re just not music people. So they actually purposefully only show up for the message. They’ll time it. Not too many in our church, right? Because our music’s really good.

Jeff:
Because our preaching’s not that good.

Chris:
Our preaching’s not that good. I was going to say the music’s really good. But yeah, that’s funny. It’s funny.

Jeff:
Okay, well, only the finest for our listeners from Babylon.

Chris:
You’re welcome, everybody.

Jeff:
You are so welcome. It’s our privilege. It’s great. It’s our pleasure. Isn’t that what Chick-fil-A says?

Chris:
It’s our pleasure, yeah. Chick-fil-A is the best. Love Chick-fil-A.

Jeff:
I saw in an episode recently, my daughter sent me a clip. She was watching the episodes while I was out of the country. And it was one of the Bible Guys live events. Oh yeah. And we were asking for somebody to mention an overrated restaurant member and somebody shouted out Chick-fil-A. And we just went after them. Yeah, just went after them. That’s Jesus chicken, man. You’re like, you got lightning rod right on top of your head. I don’t think you go to heaven now. It’s really funny. Don’t mess with Jesus chicken. Okay, so here we are, Job chapter 42, after all the things, let me just remind you now, God goes into even more challenges. He tells Job again, hey, brace yourself like a man, I’ve got more questions for you. And he goes, are you as strong as God? You know, can you just speak with like thunder, like my voice? Can you, you know, do all the things I can do? Of course you can’t. And then he starts talking about, one time he mentions, What was the one behemoth, some giant animal? Leviathan. And that, well, this one’s Leviathan.

Chris:
Oh, you’re saying in another place.

Jeff:
Yeah. So, so in a previous chapter in here, he’s talking about this giant creature that God made called behemoth. And then here in Leviathan, you read Leviathan and it sure seems like he’s talking about a dragon, uh, by the way, some kind of a dinosaur kind of a creature. It’s really, really interesting. You can read that yourself if you’d like. And in Job chapter 41, and God’s saying, did you make that? No, no, you didn’t. Let me answer it for you. So finally when it’s all done, Job says this in chapter 42 verse 1. He says, You said, listen, and I’ll speak. I have some questions for you and you must answer them. I had only heard about you before, but now I’ve seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” That is so strong.

Chris:
It’s so strong.

Jeff:
So after he’s all done, the Bible says, I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not spoken accurately about me as my servant Job has.” So Eliphaz, the Temanite, Bildad, the Shuite, and Zophar, the Namathite, did as the Lord commanded them, and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer. When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before. Then all his brothers, sisters, and former friends came and feasted with him in his home. And they consoled him and comforted him because of all the trials the Lord had brought against him. And each of them brought him a gift of money and a gold ring. So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning. For now he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 teams of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He also gave Job seven more sons and three more daughters, and he named his first daughter Jemima, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-hapuch. In all the land, no women were as lovely as the daughters of Job, and their father put them into his will along with their brothers. Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren. And then he died, an old man who had lived a long, full life.”

Chris:
Wow. He lived 140 years after that.

Jeff:
Yeah. It was halfway through. That’s what the Bible says, right? The second half was greater than the first.

Chris:
It said that he named his first daughter, Jemima, and then his second, Keziah. So that means Keziah’s children would have had an Aunt Jemima. Oh no. It’s true. It’s true. It’s true. Come on. It’s true. You can’t argue with the Bible.

Jeff:
That’s true. That’s right. Aunt Jemima. And man, she made good syrup. That’s so funny, man. That’s true. That’s great. Yep. Only Chris Zarba. Let me, let me just say that.

Chris:
Well, you said that a lot. You said Jemima. I did. I did. How do you not think of Aunt Jemima?

Jeff:
Well, I did, but I didn’t realize that literally Keziah’s kids and Karen’s kids. Right. And then the three, the seven brothers’ kids. Right. So it’s a bunch of cousins. They had nieces and nephews and Aunt Jemima.

Chris:
That’s right. Aunt Jemima.

Jeff:
That’s awesome, man.

Chris:
And your mama takes her own sweet time.

Jeff:
There you go. That’s great. So here we go. I think Job’s response is phenomenal. Right? Now you gotta remember, all these things we just read, God is speaking from a tornado. Right. A whirlwind.

Chris:
Yeah. Was it a tornado? Could have been just like a little… A whirlwind? You ever see that? You ever see that?

Jeff:
Like air spinning in a circle?

Chris:
But not as fierce as a tornado.

Jeff:
Well, what’s a tornado? How…

Chris:
Like I’ve seen in an alleyway, leaves in a circle that go all the way up.

Jeff:
In a tornadic fashion.

Chris:
Okay. So, okay. So you’re saying the semantics are, it doesn’t matter how strong the tornado is, it’s still a tornado. Yeah. That’s what you’re saying.

Jeff:
Yeah. But of course, God was talking about my voice like thunder also.

Chris:
By the way, did you say in a tornadic fashion? Is that a thing? Yes.

Jeff:
That’s so funny. So God also was speaking and mentions his voice sounds like thunder. Yeah. So I doubt it was a little dust devil with thunder voice.

Chris:
Yeah. Okay. All right. Fine. Whatever. So anyways, the leaf spinning, boom, big voice. Okay. I get it. All right.

Jeff:
Right. So, so I think this is pretty, very substantial. And by the way, his buddies are all sitting there. Eliphaz is there. These are these three guys are there. Man. Right.

Chris:
And how about, how about the Lord? The Lord’s like sort of going back to them and scolding them.

Jeff:
Kind of roughing them up. Well, because they’re, they’re coming from man’s perspective, rather than finally Job shifted around, even though Job was like, God, I don’t understand why this happened. I feel like you’re being mean to me. I think that you’re not paying attention to the other bad people on the planet. I’m a pretty good guy. And he’s frustrated with that, but God is, while God challenged him, there’s a lot of sarcasm in God’s challenge, by the way. He’s pretty biting in the things he says. But Job’s response is, well, let me do this for you, because he does this twice where God pauses. And Job responds, right? So he pauses in the middle and in chapter 40, Job just simply says, I’m nothing. How could I ever find the answers? I’ll cover my mouth with my hand. I’ve said too much already. I have nothing more to say. So Job’s saying, look it, I’ve overspoken. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I’m not going to say anymore. And then God goes, well, let’s go on. Brace yourself like a man. I got some more questions for you. And God just kind of piles on going, dude, you don’t know. And finally, Job’s response is, you can do anything and no one can stop you. And he said, you asked me, you know, who is it that questions my wisdom with such ignorance? He goes, it’s me. I was one that was talking about things I knew nothing about.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s the phrase that stands out to me. I mean, obviously, the one that he says about the ears and the eyes is the strongest one. But when he says, I was talking about the things I knew nothing about, to literally take every bit of I mean, think about how many words have been spoken. Think about all those chapters where Job is just imparting what we would look at and say, yeah, that sounds like good reasoning. It sounds like good wisdom. It sounds like good logic. It sounds like good emotion. These are all reasonable things. And then for Job to literally come to the conclusion and says, I didn’t know anything. I don’t know what I was talking about at all. And what he’s doing is he’s responding and saying, compared to God, I thought I had, you know, a level of wisdom, a level of insight, but come to find out I’ve had nothing. Yeah. Right. And so I think that sometimes we need to recognize the fact that no matter how smart we think we are, when we’re trying to figure out God, you know, the bottom line is, is all of us are in the same camp as Job. Yeah.

Jeff:
I had the privilege of serving with a pretty famous pastor. I was 26, I think I was 25, No, I had just turned 26 when I started serving with him, I think. And I served until just before I turned 28. He was 85 years old. So he’d been in ministry, he and his wife, for 65 years. He had two earned doctorates.

Chris:
Zoinks.

Jeff:
right? Just incredibly brilliant. He had pastored and built one of the greatest churches in American history up to that point. I say his name, you know who I’m talking about. And so I’m a young man, and he would sit on the front row of the church service after he had a college. He’d sit on the front row of the church service and just let anybody come up and just ask questions after Sunday night church until everybody was done. But he couldn’t hardly hear, so I’d sit with him and I’d help say, you know, what did he say? I’d say a thing. Then he’d just answer, and he just oozed wisdom. Incredibly intelligent man, wise man. But I can remember they would often take my wife and I to lunch, which was weird, you know, two 27-year-olds going out with two 85-year-olds, 86-year-olds for dinner every week after church. And we went because they bought us free lunch and we were poor, so that was great. But I can remember talking about them and their ministry, and I had learned more and more and more about all the things he’d done all over the world, all the things God had helped him do, the thousands of preachers and missionaries that had come out of his school and all this stuff. And Mrs. Malone said, well, you know, you’re seeing us at this point of we’re way more gentle because we’re way more wise. And those two things are because we’re older. And she said, I think our greatest mistakes were how many people we hurt because we were right, but we did it the wrong way. She said, the more doctors we got, the more we realized how little we know. The more educated we became, the more experienced we became, the more humble we became. So when we were younger and we were getting the experience and we were achieving all the things, nothing could stop us. And she said, we sometimes would bulldoze people. And Dr. Malone said, yeah, he said, I had smarts, but not wisdom.

Chris:
Wow.

Jeff:
He said, I was intelligent, but I wasn’t wise. And he said, the older I got, the more wise I became. The more wise I became, the more humble I became. And that caused me to be more gentle towards others. And that’s what it feels like here. Because Job highlights the fact that he’s chosen the wise path. That’s why he lived the life he lived before God allowed this to happen in his life. He’s saying, I chose the wise path. But now what you have is this incredible humility from Job where he’s going, you know, I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me. And I was thinking about a big argument I recently heard between two quasi-theologians, both of them well-read, fairly well-educated, young. And they were arguing with so much confidence. Mm-hmm. Right? You’ve been around that before. Oh yeah, of course. So much confidence. And you know what? Both of them had elements of truth in their arguments, but they were arguing their elements of truth as if they were absolute, total, definitive fact. And so on occasion, I would just inject out, what about, what if, have you ever thought of? And they got frustrated with it. You know, they came back later on, we had a secondary conversation with it and they were a little bit more humble about it after they thought about it. But it’s interesting that confidence sometimes is the luxury of the young and the inexperienced. But here, here’s a guy that he comes out of it and finally he goes, God, your things are too wonderful for me to understand. And I was speaking about stuff I should have kept my mouth shut about. But then I love this. Here’s my favorite part in the whole story. It’s not the restoration of everything that God gives back to him. My favorite part is this. I had only heard about you before, but now I’ve seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance. He goes, dude, I only heard—that’s you and me. We’ve only heard about God. I’ve never had God show up in a tornado shouting in thunder at me, right? I never had that experience. I’ve never had any kind of face-to-face encounter with God. The extraordinary privilege to be Job.

Chris:
Yeah, but you can apply that also, right? Because every truth like this has an application. You can apply it to those people who don’t, like you and I will never probably physically see God until we go to heaven. Chances are pretty good about that. But you can also translate that into witnessing, seeing God working.

Jeff:
Absolutely. I can see God’s work. Yeah.

Chris:
Because, because, you know, when you, when you hear somebody tell you about God and you’re like, Oh God, so amazing. You’re like, okay, I’ve heard about it. But then when you witness God doing a miracle in the, in your midst and he does things in your own life and the lives of people around you to such a degree to where it’s undeniably God. And then you see that you could make that statement. I’ve only heard about God, but now I’ve seen him with my own eyes. Because we have the privilege of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and the evidence of the Spirit is sometimes very tangible, even though God himself may not be tangible.

Jeff:
Well, the fact that God goes back and he uses his own creation as evidence of how great he is, means that you and I can see how great God is just through his creation. That’s right. And then we can also see God when he intervenes and he does miracles and he, you know, casts out demons and he saves people whose lives could never turn around on their own and when God heals and God does so many incredible things. But we have God’s Word completed. Job did not. This is the first book in the Bible, right? Job did not. The first written book. Yeah. First. Why?

Chris:
Were there unwritten books? No.

Jeff:
I’m a little concerned about that because I think the nature of a book is that it’s written.

Chris:
It doesn’t come chronologically first when you open the Bible.

Jeff:
Oh, that’s right. Yeah. The Bible is not in chronological order. Right. But this would have been the first book that had been… Were there unwritten books?

Chris:
I don’t understand.

Jeff:
Yeah. And so in that, I think it’s incredibly, it just moves me. Like when I read it, I teared up just a little bit. I’d only heard about you before, but now I’ve seen you with my own eyes. And the number of people that I’ve seen who God just radically transforms their lives and they go, I heard about it before, but I never thought it was for me. And it is for you. And then God challenges his buddies and goes, hey, you guys were wrong. Job’s right. You need to repent of that. And then God gives him back everything times two. Right? Yeah. So this was a short season in Job’s life. We are horrified. We talked about this yesterday. If you missed it, you should go back and watch it. It was at the end of the episode. We talked about yesterday that God is more concerned about our character than he is our comfort. And Job had said in the middle of the book here that I know this, that when I come through this, when I’m tried and purified, I’ll come forth as gold. And God is purifying. There’s a way better in you, but the only way that God can get it out sometimes is knocking off the rough spots, right? And that’s what he does is he pulls out the best. I can’t think of a person in the Bible who finishes better than Job. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And he had every reason, every reason in our minds to turn against God. I lost my children, I lost my wealth, I lost… My wife turned against me, I lost my health, my friends are coming after me and just being a bully to me. God, I feel like you’ve abandoned me and it’s your fault, you did it. Right. But I trust you and love you anyways. and he finishes so well. And that’s, I think, one of the big things that your past is your past, but God, if you humble yourself like Job did, God took that as the sacrifice. He made the other guy sacrifice. He didn’t make Job sacrifice. Right? Hey, you guys go sacrifice for your sins, but Job, I’m going to accept that humility as your sacrifice. And there’s something to that.

Chris:
You know, it also reminds me, I don’t know what the deal with my voice is today, so sorry that I’m coughing and everything else clearing my throat, but it reminds me of another scripture later on. What is the scripture that says, comparing ourselves among ourselves and measuring ourselves by ourselves is not wise? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, in the New Testament? Yeah. But it talks about that, and that’s what it reminds me of, too, when I think about you know, somebody who, you know, has hardship and they have hardship come their way. And what they say is they’re saying like, geez, this didn’t happen to all my other friends, you know, like all my other friends are enjoying life. And yet here I am, and I’m better than them. Right? Like, I’ve tried harder than them. These guys don’t even love God. And here I am, I’ve given my whole life to God, and yet I have this lot in life that is, you know, that is bad. And, you know, I just think that there’s some wisdom in the fact that, you know, we shouldn’t compare ourselves. We should just you know, among ourselves and be jealous and envious. I think that that’s a human thought. And I think that God steers us away from those kinds of thoughts, because when it comes down to it, everything that happens to us is all about our relationship with our Heavenly Father, not about those around us. It’s not about the wicked. It’s not about others around us. It’s not about what God chooses to do with other people, right? We should just measure it with our relationship with God and what we know about Him.

Jeff:
Yeah. And then after all the criticism and the bullying from his friends, the bad advice, Job prays for his friends. Right? Yeah. So he’s humble in front of God and he’s humble in front of his friends.

Chris:
Well, God said, if not for Job praying for you, right? Yeah. Like he says, I’ll go ahead and accept Job’s prayer for you. Not your prayer.

Jeff:
Right. Job’s prayer. Right. You guys deserve judgment now because you were so messed up. Your advice was so off.

Chris:
That’ll heighten the value of a godly friend in our lives.

Jeff:
But what kind of humility does it take? So this idea of loving God and loving people. We want to serve God. We want to serve people. But he’s also humble before God. He’s humble before people in this moment. It’s hard. It’s hard to pray with people. I mean, he starts to say, I kind of feel like you guys are treating me like enemies. He actually says that. And Jesus says, love your enemies. And Jesus says, pray for your enemies. Jesus said, do good to your enemies. And this is what we’re seeing. We’re seeing Job live it out. So the whole thing, he finishes so well.

Chris:
That’s great. Well, hey, that’s a great way to wrap up, Job. And we’re going to pick up tomorrow with, geez, I don’t even know what we’re doing tomorrow. What are we doing?

Jeff:
Exodus.

Chris:
Exodus.

Jeff:
We’re jumping into Exodus. Wow.

Chris:
Yeah. Okay. Well, hopefully we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.