July 16, 2025 • 43 mins
In today’s episode, Pastor Chuck Rains walks us through the powerful dialogue in the Book of Job, exposing a deep misunderstanding of God's nature—specifically, Elihu’s flawed belief that suffering is always a sign of sin. Through careful teaching and scriptural references from Job, Psalms, Malachi, Hebrews, and Romans, Pastor Rains reveals a greater truth: God does not change, and His love is not conditional upon our circumstances.
God’s righteousness, power, and position are eternal—but so is His mercy and nearness. In a world where suffering and injustice often seem to prevail, we are reminded that God's love is not distant or impersonal. He is present. He gives us His Spirit so we can know His heart, access His presence, and be confident that nothing can separate us from His love in Christ Jesus.
Key Scripture References:
- Job 35–36
- Psalm 90, 102
- Hebrews 13:8
- Malachi 3:6
- Romans 8:31–39
- 1 Corinthians 2
- Ephesians 1:13–14
Main Topics:
- God’s immutability (unchanging nature)
- Misconceptions about suffering and divine justice
- The indwelling of the Holy Spirit
- Assurance of God's love
- How to worship God in both His glory and intimacy
Any questions or comments can be sent to legacybiblepodcast@gmail.com
Check out the website at www.legacybiblepodcast.com
Fellowship Bible Church website at www.fbcjoliet.com
Thanks for listening and please subscribe.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Hello friends and podcast listeners and welcome back.
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This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you hear messages from the tape archives
of the Fellowship Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois.
I'm Marcus Onate and I'll be bringing to you another one from the Church's Tape Archive.
This one specifically is from February 17th of 1991 and it's titled The Unchanging God
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and is Unfailing Love.
Alright, that sounds like a good episode.
I think you should hear it.
So let's get into it and I'll talk to you on the other side of it.
So let's listen in.
I take you back to a very different kind of place to start our look into the Scriptures
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and into the mind of God about this, into the Book of Job.
Great book in the Old Testament that really talks about the terrible time that a man was
having through the trials that he was facing and all of the thoughts that he had about why
he was going through it.
You might say in the Book of Job there's certainly not a very lively awareness of the love of
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God through most of the pages of Job but that was the failing of the people in the Book
of Job not the failing of God.
I want to go back there and take a look at some thoughts that one of Job's so-called
friends had.
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He thought he understood God.
He thought he understood man.
He thought he had this thing down pretty well.
You know, I'll say this before we begin, we need to understand God.
One thing we need to understand about God is his love.
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We need to understand God's righteousness but we need to understand God's love.
You're never going to explore this subject to its very end.
You'll never get to the place where you'll be able to say, I comprehend it all now.
I understand perfectly the love of God.
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I promise you, you'll never get to that place.
It's our privilege to let the Lord speak to us from his word about his heart.
From his word, it's our privilege to let him speak to us and speak to us all the days
of our lives.
This man thought he understood man and understood God, Eli who, chapter 35 of Job's book, Eli
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who talks about man and about God.
I'm going to use the New American standard this morning.
Here's Eli who kind of rebuking Job.
He thinks Job has things all wrong.
So here it is, Job 35, verse 6, he says, if you have sinned, what do you accomplish against
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him?
And he means God there.
If your transgressions are many, what do you do to him?
He's saying this, I know God now.
Well enough to know this.
I know man well enough to know this.
Whenever you do in life can't really affect God, whether it's your sin or whether it's
your righteousness, it's not going to affect him.
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God is above all of these things.
He's great.
Your sins down here on earth aren't going to change him.
They're not going to change him from being what he is.
Your righteousness down here on earth aren't going to change, but God is too great.
He's too far above us.
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There's truth in that.
It is true.
God can't be changed simply by what we do.
He can't be changed by our sinning.
He can't be changed by our being righteous.
It is true.
God doesn't change.
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I think we should read some scripture on that to see how strongly that's put into word of
God.
You can't change him because he can't change.
He won't change.
Here's the promise about the Lord Jesus from Hebrews 13, 8.
You know this great truth.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.
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Jesus Christ is the same.
He doesn't change.
Look at Psalm 90 with me.
Do you remember this Psalm of Moses?
This is the famous Psalm that tells you how a long man can expect to live, 3, score and
10, by reason of strength 4 score, but this is a time Psalm.
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But notice where the Psalm starts.
You really want to learn about time.
You have to talk about God.
God is above time.
Here's what Moses says about the Lord.
God, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.
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Before the mountains were born, or thou just give birth to the earth and the world.
Here's the amazing statement now.
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou are God.
From everlasting, and I think that's everlasting past, eternity past, to everlasting.
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Which is everlasting or eternal future.
From the eternal past to the eternal future, you are the same.
Thou art God.
Amazing.
But true.
Stay in the Psalms and go over to Psalm 102 and learn from the Psalmist something there.
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102, I'd like to read it, verse 25.
Through 27.
Of all thou just found the earth.
You know, there's so many statements in the Bible that God is the Creator.
What has come to be from the creative power of God, creative mind of God, creative heart
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of God?
Of all thou just found the earth.
Psalm 102, verse 25 says, and the heavens are the work of thy hands.
Even they will perish.
Even though these are things created by God, the Bible is very clear, they will not last
forever.
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They have only a momentary appearance.
They'll be done away with.
Even they will perish, but thou dost endure.
And all of them will wear out like a garment, like clothing.
Thou will change them and they will be changed, but thou aren't the same.
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And thy years will not come to an end.
See, God does not change.
He's the same.
He will go on and on and on and on for all of eternity.
God does not change.
Malachi, last book of the Old Testament, gives kind of a last statement about this thing in
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the Old Testament.
Malachi chapter 3, near Malachi 3, you're pretty close to the end.
There's only four chapters in Malachi.
Malachi 3, verse 6, there's the Lord speaking.
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For I, the Lord, do not change.
Therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
See, if God says, I've determined that you're going to endure,
then it's going to be so, because God does not change.
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God does not change.
He will not change for all of eternity.
As Moses says, he's been that way from eternity past.
He's not subject to time.
He's not subject to change.
So Eli, who was right, your sins and your goodnesses, your righteousness, whatever will not change God.
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They might, however, maybe have some impact on man.
Let's go back to Job's 35th chapter, if you will.
Can you follow me back here?
I'm glad you bring your Bibles to church.
There are some churches that provide pew Bibles, because the people don't bring Bibles with
them.
They just expect there to be one when they get there.
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And that's okay too, I guess.
But I think it's good to have your own Bible, your study Bible.
You buy a Bible that you read, the Bible that you study, it's your Bible.
You maybe have to make your notes in it.
And if your mind works like mine does, you see things on a certain place on the page.
And you pick up somebody else's Bible, and it's hard to find things in it.
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It is from my mind anyway.
So it helps to have your own Bible.
Maybe these things will become more familiar to you.
Thank you for bringing your Bibles and using them.
Here it is.
Psalm 35 verse 7.
If you're righteous, what do you give him?
Or what does he receive from your hand?
See, here's man's righteousness.
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What can you add to God by your righteousness?
You can't add anything.
You can't affect or change God.
However, verse 8 says, your wickedness is for a man like yourself and your righteousness
is for a son of man.
What it means is, now actually, you're sin, your wickedness and your goodness, your
righteousness, your perfectness, your holiness.
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That's what righteousness is.
That does affect man.
It does.
It can bring about change and affect man, but it can't change God is what he's saying.
One man, maybe there's some effect.
But before God, no.
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Because he has very definite ideas about God that he's seen.
For instance, in the next chapter 36, he says in verse 5, Behold, God is mighty but does
not despise any.
Isn't that a great thought?
Here's one thing he wants to tell you about God.
He has this great, great, great power.
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He is indeed Lord overall, but he doesn't despise any.
Having that greatness of standing, that greatness of position, that greatness of power, towering
over everyone, he doesn't despise the least, the weakest, the smallest, the neediest.
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Now, he is mighty in strength of understanding, it also says.
Not only does he have power, but he has a great understanding.
And yet he doesn't despise anybody.
He understands everything.
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He does not keep the wicked alive, but gives justice to the afflicted.
He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous.
Now there he steps into his ideas about how God operates.
Here's what he says.
God is not going to be affected by what you are.
He's mighty, and he doesn't despise anybody, even though you can't affect him with what
you do.
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He's way up there, he's high, he's above you.
You can't change him.
He's not affected by what you do, but he does act this way.
Now here's a lie whose idea about how God acts.
First of all, he says, if you're evil, that's verse 6, he does not keep the wicked alive.
Here's the lie whose idea.
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If you're evil, God's going to take care of you in this life.
If you're really wicked, he'll kill you.
See, so if you look around and see these people walking around, you know this.
They have not committed ultimate evil.
That's what a lie who thinks.
That God in this life, when you step out of line, he takes care of you in this life, and
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he does it to whatever degree he has to, and if he has to kill you, he'll do it because
of your evilness.
That's a lie whose idea about God.
I want to tell you that's not accurate.
There are a lot of wicked people in this world still walking around, and there are
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some violently wicked people in this world still walking around.
And really, David even says this in the Psalms.
He was quite amazed.
He saw some of this going on, and he couldn't understand what in the world, how could God
allow this?
In fact, some of the most awful, awful people were still having quite a nice time in life.
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No pain, no sickness, no trouble.
Only wanted to eat, riches, having no very, very wicked people.
Confused, David.
What's back here in the lie who?
He looked at it and he said, it's not that way.
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If you're wicked in this life, God comes down on you, and he'll kill you if you're wicked.
It's not what David saw, and it's not the way it is, but this is his thoughts.
He gives justice to the afflicted.
Do you believe that God gives justice in this life to the afflicted?
That if a man is wrongly treated in this life, he can say, now, I know that if I'm being
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wrongly treated, God will set this thing right.
I know that he will.
I can't bring that message to you in this life.
But what if somebody sues me wrongly at the law and takes me to the court?
Won't God deliver me?
For sure?
No, I can't give you that guarantee in this life because I'm going to tell you, many innocent
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people have been thrown in jail.
Many people have been wronged by the courts.
Many people have had their monies taken from them, and they've been reduced to poverty
wrongly.
Many people have been wrongly accused.
No, there's no guarantee in this life that you're going to be dealt with according to
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righteousness.
Now, I'll tell you why, because righteousness doesn't rule in this world, not yet.
There's no guarantee that you're going to be dealt with according to love.
I'll tell you why, because love doesn't rule in this world yet.
There's quite another thing rules in this world.
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There's quite another prince that's over things in this world.
And it's not the Prince of glory yet.
He's called the Prince of the Power of the Air.
His name is Satan.
No, things aren't quite like this.
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And then he says he does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous.
And I think if I whose ideas he makes sure that the righteous are blessed.
Well this is true.
He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous in the sense that he knows full well what we're
facing and going through.
But there is no guarantee in this scripture, in this book, that God will keep you from
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ever being wrongly treated or suffering wrongly.
Have you enjoyed the 50-day adventure?
What do you think about 1 Corinthians 10, 13?
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.
But God is faithful who will not suffer or allow you to be tempted above that you're
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able, but will deliver you out of them all.
Right?
No, no, that's not what it says.
And will with temptation provide a way of escape?
What?
That you may be able to bear it.
That you may be able to bear it.
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The way of escape is not just to take it away, but to give you the grace, to give you the
means to go through whatever he thinks in his wisdom is best for you to go through.
Now sometimes praise God, it means he's going to take it away.
It's like a sickness.
Can God heal the human body?
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Yes, he can.
Or else we read the Gospels and Jesus is a liar.
And the writers of the Word of God are liars.
They're not liars.
God is the power to heal.
But does he always heal every time a Christian comes to him and says, Lord, I have a certain
sickness.
I want to ask you to please take it away.
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There are those that would teach you that doctrine now.
And they would say, if you don't have enough faith, of course you won't see the healing.
You've got to have enough faith.
If you have enough faith, God will always heal you from your physical infirmities.
People I know want to discourage you this morning, but I don't see that as a promise in the Word
of God at all.
He can heal.
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And when it is his will to heal, if you would believe him to do it, he would delight
to do it.
But there are many, many more times when God just says, no, I'll give you an example.
And it's right out of John's Gospel chapter 9.
Do you know that the first man to ever receive his sight received it?
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Because Jesus healed him from his blindness because right there in John 9.
He tells us that never before had anybody ever received their sight.
It was blind.
It just never was done.
It was one of the sicknesses, one of the ailments in the human race that God never allowed to
be healed until Jesus came.
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Why?
Because he wanted to use it to underscore who the Son of Man was.
And that God was the God of mercy because he could do that and he would do it when it
served his purpose and his will and his glory.
He would do it.
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We need to be tuned to God's heart and to seek what glorifies him and not reduce the
smatter down the zillai who does to these ideas about God that says, you know, you can't
affect God, which is true.
But in this life he'll take care of the righteous and he won't let you suffer anything.
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Undo he'll deliver you from all your problems.
It isn't what the Scriptures teach.
He'll always let the wicked have it.
You know, he'll take care of them.
Even if he has to kill them, he'll get rid of them in this life.
It's not true.
But this in Job 36 verse 11, if they hear and serve him, they shall end their days in
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prosperity and their years in pleasure.
Here's the sinful man.
He says, if the sinner will get his spouse straight now with God, rather than kill him,
God would make sure that he ends his days in pleasures.
It's going to have a wonderful end to his life.
You know, he's saying this too.
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He's saying it to Job, covered from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet with
oozing boils.
Job, who is declared by God in chapter 1 to be righteous among all men on the earth,
a man that feared God and hated evil, a man who was an example of godliness above all
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men on the earth.
He's saying it to Job, a man in terrible misery, a man that had now suffered the loss of his
sons and his daughters, the sons of, I mean, lost all of his property, all of his buildings,
all of his lands, lost his health.
He's saying it to Job.
He's saying, listen, if a man's a sinner and he gets himself straightened out, then he
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has nothing but happiness and prosperity, Job, and there's Job sitting there in misery.
So what kind of conclusion can you come to?
Listen, if a man's a sinner and gets himself straightened out, he's okay.
He'll be taken care of.
His diseases will be gone.
He'll be happy.
Everything will be fine.
Look at you.
You miserable thing.
Obviously, you haven't taken care of your sin.
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That's basically what the message is.
Well, it isn't that way.
That contradicts the first chapter of the book.
One says, no, that isn't the case.
The law here doesn't understand.
But if they do not hear, they shall perish by the sword.
They shall die without knowledge.
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It's just not that way.
No, it doesn't always work out that way, does it?
Not at all.
He's wrong.
Let's look over about God here in chapter 36, verse 22.
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Here are some things that are true about God.
Behold, God is exalted in his power.
You know what I'm trying to do with you?
I'm trying to take you to what Eli who says about God, and he's all twisted up about
God, how he deals with man in his life, and then see if maybe he has some idea of how
to worship God.
What do people who think God is like this, how do they worship God?
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Well, he's going to tell us.
First of all, in verse 22, God is exalted in his power.
Who is a teacher like him?
Here's God.
He says, God is fantastically, infinitely higher than any of the human race.
He is infinite in his power.
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And furthermore, as far as his knowledge goes, he has all knowledge so he can teach us all
things.
God is exalted in his power.
Who is a teacher like him?
Now here in verse 23 is a statement about God's will.
Who has appointed him his way?
And who has said thou has done wrong?
Who are we to come along and say, now God, I understand more than you do.
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You have chosen to go a wrong way.
You can't do that.
The will is perfect.
God is perfect.
And even though this sounds like somebody is elevating God and trying to say, oh my,
how exalted he is, let us worship him in his greatness and his great glory.
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That if you misunderstand what he is at his heart, you can't worship him in his glory.
I remember, he says in verse 24, that thou should exalt his work of which men have sung.
No man have seen it.
Man beholds from afar.
Behold, God has exalted him.
We do not know him.
Wouldn't that be sad to have this idea of worshiping and exalted, glorious God, but a
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God that you couldn't know?
A God that you couldn't know.
A God that you have to worship as Eli who says, from afar.
You know what that's really saying?
Eli who said, God is one majestic, powerful, exalted, glorious, but you can't know him personally.
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You can't be close to that kind of God.
He says, he says, you have to have one or the other.
You don't have to have this high, powerful, glorious God, or you have to have this God
that's close and personal and isn't so glorious.
Let me tell you something.
Eli who's wrong, God is glorious.
God is exalted.
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God is powerful.
God does know all things.
God is the one you'd have to go to for all teaching, but he can be approached.
He is reachable.
You should not have this idea of God in his glory as unreachable because if you do have
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that vision, you don't understand the love side of God.
He's more than this.
This idea of worship, this idea of praise from afar is not the Bible's teaching about God.
There's Job 41.
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God owns everything.
Who's given to me that I should repay him?
Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine, God says.
That's the Lord speaking.
Do you know the Apostle Paul picked that statement up?
He must have been meditating on Job.
He picked it up.
Would you go to Romans, chapter 11?
God gets picked up in the New Testament.
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What is God like?
He is high.
He is exalted.
No we can't add anything to God.
God doesn't owe you anything.
Romans 11.33.
This is a wonderful little section of praise.
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Listen to it.
Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways?
For who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor?
You see, that idea was in O'Lihu.
In chapter 35, verse 7, that's exactly right from O'Lihu.
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Who has first given to him that it might be paid back to him again?
You see, verse 35.
Right there.
That's coming out of chapter 35 of Job, verse 7.
It is true.
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It is true.
God's mind is beyond us.
It is true that you can't give to God in order to control or bring about some obligation
from God.
You can't add anything to God.
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That's true.
And Paul says, for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory
forever.
Amen.
It's true.
But do you want to know something else about him?
It's more to the story than this.
He's also a God of love because God has opened himself to us.
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He has not stayed a fire off.
First Corinthians, this next book, after this book of Romans, chapter 2, look what it says
in verse 16.
God has opened his heart.
He says, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?
That's the same question.
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Don't you see that the mind of God is great and exalted?
Who's known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?
But look at the rest of that verse, but we have the mind of Christ.
He has given us something that answers that question.
Do you want to know the mind of God?
You can't know it except God gives you the capacity to know the mind of God.
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It's called the mind of Christ.
The mind of Christ?
Yeah, he's given us the mind of Christ.
See back in verse 15, he says it this way, he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet
he himself is a praise of no man.
You want to know how you can understand things?
You have to be what the Bible calls spiritual.
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What?
Yeah, to be spiritual is to have the mind of Christ and to use it.
What does that mean?
God wants us to understand him.
He wants us to know his heart and mind.
Let's go back a few more verses.
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Chapter 2, verse 9.
It's in this chapter, 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 9.
But just as it is written things which I have not seen and ear has not heard and which
have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those that love
him, for to us God revealed them through the Spirit.
You see, he didn't stay far off.
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Everything in his heart and mind, he wanted to open up to you and to me and he did it
through the Spirit.
He didn't stay far off.
So the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
You want to know the depths of God.
He wants you to because he loves you.
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He has given you his Spirit to make it possible for you to know the depths of God.
The Spirit is the key, verse 11.
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit, a man who is in him?
And so the thoughts of God know no one except the Spirit of God.
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If you want the key to knowing the heart of God and getting close to God, you have to
have the Spirit.
That's the key.
Without him, you'll know nothing about the personal side of God.
You'll know nothing about the love of God.
You'll experience none of it.
The Spirit is the key.
You need the Spirit.
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But verse 12 says this, now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
who is from God that we might know the things really given us by God.
You need the Spirit and here's the wonderful, wonderful message.
God has given his Spirit.
He's given us the Spirit that we might know the deep things of God.
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That's how much he loves us.
He wants us to know the depths of his heart and he's made it possible by giving us his
Spirit.
So how does that happen?
And I guess I'll tie it together from the first chapter of Ephesians, the book after
2 Corinthians, right here.
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He says, I'm going to go to verse 12 of Ephesians 1, to the end that we who were the first
to hope in Christ should be to the praise of his glory in him.
You also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having
also believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as
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a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to
the praise of his glory.
What God says, this is how it happened.
This is how you got the Spirit.
You believed in my Son.
And when you did, I gave you the Spirit.
He says, and I've given him not only to come into you, but to seal you and to be the seal
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upon you that you belong to me.
I've given you the Spirit because you believed in my Son.
Here's God high and exalted, but he has not stayed a far off.
He has opened his heart to us and he's made it possible by his Spirit.
Okay, I need the Spirit.
He's given the Spirit to every one of his children.
How do I become a child?
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How do I get his Spirit?
How do I believe in his Son?
I am given his Spirit.
His Spirit seals me.
His Spirit dwells in me.
His Spirit's alive in me.
And it says he's God's down payment or proof that his love will never fail me.
He's there and he's God's assurance as a down payment that he's going to come and take
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me and fulfill in me and through me and for me all the things that his love is provided
in heaven.
His Spirit is my guarantee.
His indwelling presence in his Spirit is my guarantee that the love of God is never going
to be taken away from me.
That God has drawn me close, made me his, and I'm going to know the love of God forever
and ever because his Spirit dwells in me.
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I can know the heart of God.
His Spirit reveals it to me.
I can experience the love of God every minute because his Spirit won't leave me.
He's faithful.
And I have his Spirit because I have believed in his Son.
That's God's message of love.
That's God's promise.
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What's it done for me?
I'm just going to read the verses.
Ephesians 2, 18, for through him we both have access in the one Spirit to the Father.
The Spirit has given you an open door into the presence of the Father.
It's 222 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit, by being in you, assures that there's this ongoing relationship with
God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit.
As he dwells in us and we dwell in him, the Spirit makes that possible.
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Okay.
One last thing we're going to read from Romans 8.
The last several verses, if you know these verses, you know how it brings it all together.
Tell us about how great the love of God is for his children.
Verse 31, Romans 8.
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Then shall we say to these things, it's just like, wow, this is so fantastic.
There's just nothing I can say.
What could I add to it?
If God be for us, who is against us?
My, how great his love is.
My, what he has done for me, that I should be a part of that love, that redemption that
he has given to me and his Son, who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for
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us all.
How will he not also with him freely give us all things?
God love if he loved you so much he didn't spare his own Son.
Now what's to keep him from in his love, giving you every last expression that that love could
possibly ever give?
And he's really saying nothing could keep God from doing that for you.
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Who will bring a charge against God as a like, God's elect?
God is the one who justifies.
Who is the one who condemns Christ Jesus as he who died?
Yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for
us.
Here's the love of God working for you.
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Jesus not only died for you, he's been raised, he's gotten the victory over death.
He's given it to you and he's standing in the presence of God at the throne of God at
the right hand of God to be the one there to answer for you, to intercede for you, to
plead for you, to guarantee that you will not be cut off from the love of God.
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Why?
You can't get any closer than at the right hand of God.
In Christ you can't get any closer than to be there in his Son and to have his spirit
in dwelling and sealing you.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakenness or parallel sword?
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This is as written for the eye's sake or we being put to death all day long.
Now there's what the Scripture says even about some godly ones.
They're not kept from death always.
Sometimes they're sacrificed.
Sometimes they died terrible deaths.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him.
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Who loved us?
You see, it's built on that.
You can go through those awful, awful, awful things.
Whatever you're going through in this moment.
Right now, today, whatever you're going through and it may be awful, you can go through it
conquering it because you have victory in the Lord Jesus and he's given you that victory
because he loves you.
All the grace of God that yours is because he loves you.
(39:07):
For I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principality nor things present
or things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other created thing.
She'll be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can take away that working of that love.
Not only now, but for eternity.
And just because you suffer doesn't mean he doesn't love you, or lie who you're wrong.
(39:31):
Just because you see some that claim righteousness going through difficult times doesn't mean
God loves doesn't love you.
He hasn't set his love upon you for nothing.
He claims you as his own and the proof is that you have the spirit, the proof is that
you have access to his throne, the proof is that he hears your prayers, the proof is that
he ministers through you and gives you the grace to deal with everything in life, the
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proof is that he's coming one day to take you home and the proof is going to explode
in all the wondrous proof of his love to you in eternity future.
You will not be separated from him.
Don't get such a high and exalted idea about God and think that you have somehow attained
to some new understanding about God's glory.
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Don't get such a high and exalted position or thinking about God's position and glory
and majesty that you have taken away that he is totally accessible.
He is totally intimate with us.
He is in us and loves us and we have access to him.
That's the story of his love.
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You hear his and he is ours and he doesn't change.
We have that in Jesus.
He loves us and his love will never fail.
Now you serve him in that love.
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Give him your heart.
Give him all that you are.
He loves you.
Praise him for that.
And then you'll have a true picture of God as he really is.
Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus and for your love.
Thank you for how grand it is, how great it is.
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Some have misunderstood.
Some have tried to exalt you and worship you in your glory and have left out this great
message.
The Lord, we don't have anything without this personal relationship with you.
We don't have anything without this intimate walk that we have with you.
We thank you for the spirit that entwels all those that have put their trust in thee.
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We thank you for Jesus this morning.
We thank you for our life and him.
We thank you for your love.
Lord draw us ever closer.
Help us know that we can draw on that grace because you've provided it because you love
us.
You've provided grace that we need to deal with every trial and every day life.
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We praise you in Jesus name.
Amen.
Thank you, Pastor Raines and the people of the Fellowship Bible Church for allowing me
to use these tapes so I can bring them to you.
So what if you want to do something?
(42:33):
You could comment, share it or you could subscribe or all three.
Subscribing would be a really big help.
It helps get the word out because they podcast, you know, hosts on YouTube.
(42:54):
They seem to put it out more towards other people looking for content if there are more
subscribers.
You subscribe.
You'll be helping the podcast out that way.
Okay, so come back next week.
I have more.
So make sure that you read your Bible.
Make sure you listen to the podcast.
(43:17):
In fact, you can listen to the podcast and follow along in your Bible at the same time.
Wow, what a great idea.
All right, so you can do that.
All right, I'll see you next week.
I'll have some more from the tape archives of the Fellowship Bible Church.
And until then, have a great day.
Hello friends and podcast listeners and welcome back.
(00:15):
This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you hear messages from the tape archives
of the Fellowship Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois.
I'm Marcus Onate and I'll be bringing to you another one from the Church's Tape Archive.
This one specifically is from February 17th of 1991 and it's titled The Unchanging God
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and is Unfailing Love.
Alright, that sounds like a good episode.
I think you should hear it.
So let's get into it and I'll talk to you on the other side of it.
So let's listen in.
I take you back to a very different kind of place to start our look into the Scriptures
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and into the mind of God about this, into the Book of Job.
Great book in the Old Testament that really talks about the terrible time that a man was
having through the trials that he was facing and all of the thoughts that he had about why
he was going through it.
You might say in the Book of Job there's certainly not a very lively awareness of the love of
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God through most of the pages of Job but that was the failing of the people in the Book
of Job not the failing of God.
I want to go back there and take a look at some thoughts that one of Job's so-called
friends had.
(02:00):
He thought he understood God.
He thought he understood man.
He thought he had this thing down pretty well.
You know, I'll say this before we begin, we need to understand God.
One thing we need to understand about God is his love.
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We need to understand God's righteousness but we need to understand God's love.
You're never going to explore this subject to its very end.
You'll never get to the place where you'll be able to say, I comprehend it all now.
I understand perfectly the love of God.
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I promise you, you'll never get to that place.
It's our privilege to let the Lord speak to us from his word about his heart.
From his word, it's our privilege to let him speak to us and speak to us all the days
of our lives.
This man thought he understood man and understood God, Eli who, chapter 35 of Job's book, Eli
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who talks about man and about God.
I'm going to use the New American standard this morning.
Here's Eli who kind of rebuking Job.
He thinks Job has things all wrong.
So here it is, Job 35, verse 6, he says, if you have sinned, what do you accomplish against
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him?
And he means God there.
If your transgressions are many, what do you do to him?
He's saying this, I know God now.
Well enough to know this.
I know man well enough to know this.
Whenever you do in life can't really affect God, whether it's your sin or whether it's
your righteousness, it's not going to affect him.
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God is above all of these things.
He's great.
Your sins down here on earth aren't going to change him.
They're not going to change him from being what he is.
Your righteousness down here on earth aren't going to change, but God is too great.
He's too far above us.
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There's truth in that.
It is true.
God can't be changed simply by what we do.
He can't be changed by our sinning.
He can't be changed by our being righteous.
It is true.
God doesn't change.
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I think we should read some scripture on that to see how strongly that's put into word of
God.
You can't change him because he can't change.
He won't change.
Here's the promise about the Lord Jesus from Hebrews 13, 8.
You know this great truth.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.
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Jesus Christ is the same.
He doesn't change.
Look at Psalm 90 with me.
Do you remember this Psalm of Moses?
This is the famous Psalm that tells you how a long man can expect to live, 3, score and
10, by reason of strength 4 score, but this is a time Psalm.
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But notice where the Psalm starts.
You really want to learn about time.
You have to talk about God.
God is above time.
Here's what Moses says about the Lord.
God, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.
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Before the mountains were born, or thou just give birth to the earth and the world.
Here's the amazing statement now.
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou are God.
From everlasting, and I think that's everlasting past, eternity past, to everlasting.
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Which is everlasting or eternal future.
From the eternal past to the eternal future, you are the same.
Thou art God.
Amazing.
But true.
Stay in the Psalms and go over to Psalm 102 and learn from the Psalmist something there.
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102, I'd like to read it, verse 25.
Through 27.
Of all thou just found the earth.
You know, there's so many statements in the Bible that God is the Creator.
What has come to be from the creative power of God, creative mind of God, creative heart
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of God?
Of all thou just found the earth.
Psalm 102, verse 25 says, and the heavens are the work of thy hands.
Even they will perish.
Even though these are things created by God, the Bible is very clear, they will not last
forever.
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They have only a momentary appearance.
They'll be done away with.
Even they will perish, but thou dost endure.
And all of them will wear out like a garment, like clothing.
Thou will change them and they will be changed, but thou aren't the same.
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And thy years will not come to an end.
See, God does not change.
He's the same.
He will go on and on and on and on for all of eternity.
God does not change.
Malachi, last book of the Old Testament, gives kind of a last statement about this thing in
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the Old Testament.
Malachi chapter 3, near Malachi 3, you're pretty close to the end.
There's only four chapters in Malachi.
Malachi 3, verse 6, there's the Lord speaking.
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For I, the Lord, do not change.
Therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
See, if God says, I've determined that you're going to endure,
then it's going to be so, because God does not change.
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God does not change.
He will not change for all of eternity.
As Moses says, he's been that way from eternity past.
He's not subject to time.
He's not subject to change.
So Eli, who was right, your sins and your goodnesses, your righteousness, whatever will not change God.
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They might, however, maybe have some impact on man.
Let's go back to Job's 35th chapter, if you will.
Can you follow me back here?
I'm glad you bring your Bibles to church.
There are some churches that provide pew Bibles, because the people don't bring Bibles with
them.
They just expect there to be one when they get there.
(09:56):
And that's okay too, I guess.
But I think it's good to have your own Bible, your study Bible.
You buy a Bible that you read, the Bible that you study, it's your Bible.
You maybe have to make your notes in it.
And if your mind works like mine does, you see things on a certain place on the page.
And you pick up somebody else's Bible, and it's hard to find things in it.
(10:19):
It is from my mind anyway.
So it helps to have your own Bible.
Maybe these things will become more familiar to you.
Thank you for bringing your Bibles and using them.
Here it is.
Psalm 35 verse 7.
If you're righteous, what do you give him?
Or what does he receive from your hand?
See, here's man's righteousness.
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What can you add to God by your righteousness?
You can't add anything.
You can't affect or change God.
However, verse 8 says, your wickedness is for a man like yourself and your righteousness
is for a son of man.
What it means is, now actually, you're sin, your wickedness and your goodness, your
righteousness, your perfectness, your holiness.
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That's what righteousness is.
That does affect man.
It does.
It can bring about change and affect man, but it can't change God is what he's saying.
One man, maybe there's some effect.
But before God, no.
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Because he has very definite ideas about God that he's seen.
For instance, in the next chapter 36, he says in verse 5, Behold, God is mighty but does
not despise any.
Isn't that a great thought?
Here's one thing he wants to tell you about God.
He has this great, great, great power.
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He is indeed Lord overall, but he doesn't despise any.
Having that greatness of standing, that greatness of position, that greatness of power, towering
over everyone, he doesn't despise the least, the weakest, the smallest, the neediest.
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Now, he is mighty in strength of understanding, it also says.
Not only does he have power, but he has a great understanding.
And yet he doesn't despise anybody.
He understands everything.
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He does not keep the wicked alive, but gives justice to the afflicted.
He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous.
Now there he steps into his ideas about how God operates.
Here's what he says.
God is not going to be affected by what you are.
He's mighty, and he doesn't despise anybody, even though you can't affect him with what
you do.
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He's way up there, he's high, he's above you.
You can't change him.
He's not affected by what you do, but he does act this way.
Now here's a lie whose idea about how God acts.
First of all, he says, if you're evil, that's verse 6, he does not keep the wicked alive.
Here's the lie whose idea.
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If you're evil, God's going to take care of you in this life.
If you're really wicked, he'll kill you.
See, so if you look around and see these people walking around, you know this.
They have not committed ultimate evil.
That's what a lie who thinks.
That God in this life, when you step out of line, he takes care of you in this life, and
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he does it to whatever degree he has to, and if he has to kill you, he'll do it because
of your evilness.
That's a lie whose idea about God.
I want to tell you that's not accurate.
There are a lot of wicked people in this world still walking around, and there are
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some violently wicked people in this world still walking around.
And really, David even says this in the Psalms.
He was quite amazed.
He saw some of this going on, and he couldn't understand what in the world, how could God
allow this?
In fact, some of the most awful, awful people were still having quite a nice time in life.
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No pain, no sickness, no trouble.
Only wanted to eat, riches, having no very, very wicked people.
Confused, David.
What's back here in the lie who?
He looked at it and he said, it's not that way.
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If you're wicked in this life, God comes down on you, and he'll kill you if you're wicked.
It's not what David saw, and it's not the way it is, but this is his thoughts.
He gives justice to the afflicted.
Do you believe that God gives justice in this life to the afflicted?
That if a man is wrongly treated in this life, he can say, now, I know that if I'm being
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wrongly treated, God will set this thing right.
I know that he will.
I can't bring that message to you in this life.
But what if somebody sues me wrongly at the law and takes me to the court?
Won't God deliver me?
For sure?
No, I can't give you that guarantee in this life because I'm going to tell you, many innocent
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people have been thrown in jail.
Many people have been wronged by the courts.
Many people have had their monies taken from them, and they've been reduced to poverty
wrongly.
Many people have been wrongly accused.
No, there's no guarantee in this life that you're going to be dealt with according to
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righteousness.
Now, I'll tell you why, because righteousness doesn't rule in this world, not yet.
There's no guarantee that you're going to be dealt with according to love.
I'll tell you why, because love doesn't rule in this world yet.
There's quite another thing rules in this world.
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There's quite another prince that's over things in this world.
And it's not the Prince of glory yet.
He's called the Prince of the Power of the Air.
His name is Satan.
No, things aren't quite like this.
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And then he says he does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous.
And I think if I whose ideas he makes sure that the righteous are blessed.
Well this is true.
He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous in the sense that he knows full well what we're
facing and going through.
But there is no guarantee in this scripture, in this book, that God will keep you from
(17:05):
ever being wrongly treated or suffering wrongly.
Have you enjoyed the 50-day adventure?
What do you think about 1 Corinthians 10, 13?
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.
But God is faithful who will not suffer or allow you to be tempted above that you're
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able, but will deliver you out of them all.
Right?
No, no, that's not what it says.
And will with temptation provide a way of escape?
What?
That you may be able to bear it.
That you may be able to bear it.
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The way of escape is not just to take it away, but to give you the grace, to give you the
means to go through whatever he thinks in his wisdom is best for you to go through.
Now sometimes praise God, it means he's going to take it away.
It's like a sickness.
Can God heal the human body?
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Yes, he can.
Or else we read the Gospels and Jesus is a liar.
And the writers of the Word of God are liars.
They're not liars.
God is the power to heal.
But does he always heal every time a Christian comes to him and says, Lord, I have a certain
sickness.
I want to ask you to please take it away.
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There are those that would teach you that doctrine now.
And they would say, if you don't have enough faith, of course you won't see the healing.
You've got to have enough faith.
If you have enough faith, God will always heal you from your physical infirmities.
People I know want to discourage you this morning, but I don't see that as a promise in the Word
of God at all.
He can heal.
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And when it is his will to heal, if you would believe him to do it, he would delight
to do it.
But there are many, many more times when God just says, no, I'll give you an example.
And it's right out of John's Gospel chapter 9.
Do you know that the first man to ever receive his sight received it?
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Because Jesus healed him from his blindness because right there in John 9.
He tells us that never before had anybody ever received their sight.
It was blind.
It just never was done.
It was one of the sicknesses, one of the ailments in the human race that God never allowed to
be healed until Jesus came.
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Why?
Because he wanted to use it to underscore who the Son of Man was.
And that God was the God of mercy because he could do that and he would do it when it
served his purpose and his will and his glory.
He would do it.
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We need to be tuned to God's heart and to seek what glorifies him and not reduce the
smatter down the zillai who does to these ideas about God that says, you know, you can't
affect God, which is true.
But in this life he'll take care of the righteous and he won't let you suffer anything.
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Undo he'll deliver you from all your problems.
It isn't what the Scriptures teach.
He'll always let the wicked have it.
You know, he'll take care of them.
Even if he has to kill them, he'll get rid of them in this life.
It's not true.
But this in Job 36 verse 11, if they hear and serve him, they shall end their days in
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prosperity and their years in pleasure.
Here's the sinful man.
He says, if the sinner will get his spouse straight now with God, rather than kill him,
God would make sure that he ends his days in pleasures.
It's going to have a wonderful end to his life.
You know, he's saying this too.
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He's saying it to Job, covered from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet with
oozing boils.
Job, who is declared by God in chapter 1 to be righteous among all men on the earth,
a man that feared God and hated evil, a man who was an example of godliness above all
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men on the earth.
He's saying it to Job, a man in terrible misery, a man that had now suffered the loss of his
sons and his daughters, the sons of, I mean, lost all of his property, all of his buildings,
all of his lands, lost his health.
He's saying it to Job.
He's saying, listen, if a man's a sinner and he gets himself straightened out, then he
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has nothing but happiness and prosperity, Job, and there's Job sitting there in misery.
So what kind of conclusion can you come to?
Listen, if a man's a sinner and gets himself straightened out, he's okay.
He'll be taken care of.
His diseases will be gone.
He'll be happy.
Everything will be fine.
Look at you.
You miserable thing.
Obviously, you haven't taken care of your sin.
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That's basically what the message is.
Well, it isn't that way.
That contradicts the first chapter of the book.
One says, no, that isn't the case.
The law here doesn't understand.
But if they do not hear, they shall perish by the sword.
They shall die without knowledge.
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It's just not that way.
No, it doesn't always work out that way, does it?
Not at all.
He's wrong.
Let's look over about God here in chapter 36, verse 22.
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Here are some things that are true about God.
Behold, God is exalted in his power.
You know what I'm trying to do with you?
I'm trying to take you to what Eli who says about God, and he's all twisted up about
God, how he deals with man in his life, and then see if maybe he has some idea of how
to worship God.
What do people who think God is like this, how do they worship God?
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Well, he's going to tell us.
First of all, in verse 22, God is exalted in his power.
Who is a teacher like him?
Here's God.
He says, God is fantastically, infinitely higher than any of the human race.
He is infinite in his power.
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And furthermore, as far as his knowledge goes, he has all knowledge so he can teach us all
things.
God is exalted in his power.
Who is a teacher like him?
Now here in verse 23 is a statement about God's will.
Who has appointed him his way?
And who has said thou has done wrong?
Who are we to come along and say, now God, I understand more than you do.
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You have chosen to go a wrong way.
You can't do that.
The will is perfect.
God is perfect.
And even though this sounds like somebody is elevating God and trying to say, oh my,
how exalted he is, let us worship him in his greatness and his great glory.
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That if you misunderstand what he is at his heart, you can't worship him in his glory.
I remember, he says in verse 24, that thou should exalt his work of which men have sung.
No man have seen it.
Man beholds from afar.
Behold, God has exalted him.
We do not know him.
Wouldn't that be sad to have this idea of worshiping and exalted, glorious God, but a
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God that you couldn't know?
A God that you couldn't know.
A God that you have to worship as Eli who says, from afar.
You know what that's really saying?
Eli who said, God is one majestic, powerful, exalted, glorious, but you can't know him personally.
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You can't be close to that kind of God.
He says, he says, you have to have one or the other.
You don't have to have this high, powerful, glorious God, or you have to have this God
that's close and personal and isn't so glorious.
Let me tell you something.
Eli who's wrong, God is glorious.
God is exalted.
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God is powerful.
God does know all things.
God is the one you'd have to go to for all teaching, but he can be approached.
He is reachable.
You should not have this idea of God in his glory as unreachable because if you do have
(26:32):
that vision, you don't understand the love side of God.
He's more than this.
This idea of worship, this idea of praise from afar is not the Bible's teaching about God.
There's Job 41.
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God owns everything.
Who's given to me that I should repay him?
Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine, God says.
That's the Lord speaking.
Do you know the Apostle Paul picked that statement up?
He must have been meditating on Job.
He picked it up.
Would you go to Romans, chapter 11?
God gets picked up in the New Testament.
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What is God like?
He is high.
He is exalted.
No we can't add anything to God.
God doesn't owe you anything.
Romans 11.33.
This is a wonderful little section of praise.
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Listen to it.
Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways?
For who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor?
You see, that idea was in O'Lihu.
In chapter 35, verse 7, that's exactly right from O'Lihu.
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Who has first given to him that it might be paid back to him again?
You see, verse 35.
Right there.
That's coming out of chapter 35 of Job, verse 7.
It is true.
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It is true.
God's mind is beyond us.
It is true that you can't give to God in order to control or bring about some obligation
from God.
You can't add anything to God.
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That's true.
And Paul says, for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory
forever.
Amen.
It's true.
But do you want to know something else about him?
It's more to the story than this.
He's also a God of love because God has opened himself to us.
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He has not stayed a fire off.
First Corinthians, this next book, after this book of Romans, chapter 2, look what it says
in verse 16.
God has opened his heart.
He says, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?
That's the same question.
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Don't you see that the mind of God is great and exalted?
Who's known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?
But look at the rest of that verse, but we have the mind of Christ.
He has given us something that answers that question.
Do you want to know the mind of God?
You can't know it except God gives you the capacity to know the mind of God.
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It's called the mind of Christ.
The mind of Christ?
Yeah, he's given us the mind of Christ.
See back in verse 15, he says it this way, he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet
he himself is a praise of no man.
You want to know how you can understand things?
You have to be what the Bible calls spiritual.
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What?
Yeah, to be spiritual is to have the mind of Christ and to use it.
What does that mean?
God wants us to understand him.
He wants us to know his heart and mind.
Let's go back a few more verses.
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Chapter 2, verse 9.
It's in this chapter, 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 9.
But just as it is written things which I have not seen and ear has not heard and which
have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those that love
him, for to us God revealed them through the Spirit.
You see, he didn't stay far off.
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Everything in his heart and mind, he wanted to open up to you and to me and he did it
through the Spirit.
He didn't stay far off.
So the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
You want to know the depths of God.
He wants you to because he loves you.
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He has given you his Spirit to make it possible for you to know the depths of God.
The Spirit is the key, verse 11.
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit, a man who is in him?
And so the thoughts of God know no one except the Spirit of God.
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If you want the key to knowing the heart of God and getting close to God, you have to
have the Spirit.
That's the key.
Without him, you'll know nothing about the personal side of God.
You'll know nothing about the love of God.
You'll experience none of it.
The Spirit is the key.
You need the Spirit.
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But verse 12 says this, now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
who is from God that we might know the things really given us by God.
You need the Spirit and here's the wonderful, wonderful message.
God has given his Spirit.
He's given us the Spirit that we might know the deep things of God.
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That's how much he loves us.
He wants us to know the depths of his heart and he's made it possible by giving us his
Spirit.
So how does that happen?
And I guess I'll tie it together from the first chapter of Ephesians, the book after
2 Corinthians, right here.
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He says, I'm going to go to verse 12 of Ephesians 1, to the end that we who were the first
to hope in Christ should be to the praise of his glory in him.
You also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having
also believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as
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a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to
the praise of his glory.
What God says, this is how it happened.
This is how you got the Spirit.
You believed in my Son.
And when you did, I gave you the Spirit.
He says, and I've given him not only to come into you, but to seal you and to be the seal
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upon you that you belong to me.
I've given you the Spirit because you believed in my Son.
Here's God high and exalted, but he has not stayed a far off.
He has opened his heart to us and he's made it possible by his Spirit.
Okay, I need the Spirit.
He's given the Spirit to every one of his children.
How do I become a child?
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How do I get his Spirit?
How do I believe in his Son?
I am given his Spirit.
His Spirit seals me.
His Spirit dwells in me.
His Spirit's alive in me.
And it says he's God's down payment or proof that his love will never fail me.
He's there and he's God's assurance as a down payment that he's going to come and take
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me and fulfill in me and through me and for me all the things that his love is provided
in heaven.
His Spirit is my guarantee.
His indwelling presence in his Spirit is my guarantee that the love of God is never going
to be taken away from me.
That God has drawn me close, made me his, and I'm going to know the love of God forever
and ever because his Spirit dwells in me.
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I can know the heart of God.
His Spirit reveals it to me.
I can experience the love of God every minute because his Spirit won't leave me.
He's faithful.
And I have his Spirit because I have believed in his Son.
That's God's message of love.
That's God's promise.
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What's it done for me?
I'm just going to read the verses.
Ephesians 2, 18, for through him we both have access in the one Spirit to the Father.
The Spirit has given you an open door into the presence of the Father.
It's 222 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit, by being in you, assures that there's this ongoing relationship with
God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit.
As he dwells in us and we dwell in him, the Spirit makes that possible.
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Okay.
One last thing we're going to read from Romans 8.
The last several verses, if you know these verses, you know how it brings it all together.
Tell us about how great the love of God is for his children.
Verse 31, Romans 8.
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Then shall we say to these things, it's just like, wow, this is so fantastic.
There's just nothing I can say.
What could I add to it?
If God be for us, who is against us?
My, how great his love is.
My, what he has done for me, that I should be a part of that love, that redemption that
he has given to me and his Son, who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for
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us all.
How will he not also with him freely give us all things?
God love if he loved you so much he didn't spare his own Son.
Now what's to keep him from in his love, giving you every last expression that that love could
possibly ever give?
And he's really saying nothing could keep God from doing that for you.
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Who will bring a charge against God as a like, God's elect?
God is the one who justifies.
Who is the one who condemns Christ Jesus as he who died?
Yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for
us.
Here's the love of God working for you.
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Jesus not only died for you, he's been raised, he's gotten the victory over death.
He's given it to you and he's standing in the presence of God at the throne of God at
the right hand of God to be the one there to answer for you, to intercede for you, to
plead for you, to guarantee that you will not be cut off from the love of God.
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Why?
You can't get any closer than at the right hand of God.
In Christ you can't get any closer than to be there in his Son and to have his spirit
in dwelling and sealing you.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakenness or parallel sword?
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This is as written for the eye's sake or we being put to death all day long.
Now there's what the Scripture says even about some godly ones.
They're not kept from death always.
Sometimes they're sacrificed.
Sometimes they died terrible deaths.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him.
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Who loved us?
You see, it's built on that.
You can go through those awful, awful, awful things.
Whatever you're going through in this moment.
Right now, today, whatever you're going through and it may be awful, you can go through it
conquering it because you have victory in the Lord Jesus and he's given you that victory
because he loves you.
All the grace of God that yours is because he loves you.
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For I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principality nor things present
or things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other created thing.
She'll be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can take away that working of that love.
Not only now, but for eternity.
And just because you suffer doesn't mean he doesn't love you, or lie who you're wrong.
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Just because you see some that claim righteousness going through difficult times doesn't mean
God loves doesn't love you.
He hasn't set his love upon you for nothing.
He claims you as his own and the proof is that you have the spirit, the proof is that
you have access to his throne, the proof is that he hears your prayers, the proof is that
he ministers through you and gives you the grace to deal with everything in life, the
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proof is that he's coming one day to take you home and the proof is going to explode
in all the wondrous proof of his love to you in eternity future.
You will not be separated from him.
Don't get such a high and exalted idea about God and think that you have somehow attained
to some new understanding about God's glory.
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Don't get such a high and exalted position or thinking about God's position and glory
and majesty that you have taken away that he is totally accessible.
He is totally intimate with us.
He is in us and loves us and we have access to him.
That's the story of his love.
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You hear his and he is ours and he doesn't change.
We have that in Jesus.
He loves us and his love will never fail.
Now you serve him in that love.
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Give him your heart.
Give him all that you are.
He loves you.
Praise him for that.
And then you'll have a true picture of God as he really is.
Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus and for your love.
Thank you for how grand it is, how great it is.
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Some have misunderstood.
Some have tried to exalt you and worship you in your glory and have left out this great
message.
The Lord, we don't have anything without this personal relationship with you.
We don't have anything without this intimate walk that we have with you.
We thank you for the spirit that entwels all those that have put their trust in thee.
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We thank you for Jesus this morning.
We thank you for our life and him.
We thank you for your love.
Lord draw us ever closer.
Help us know that we can draw on that grace because you've provided it because you love
us.
You've provided grace that we need to deal with every trial and every day life.
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We praise you in Jesus name.
Amen.
Thank you, Pastor Raines and the people of the Fellowship Bible Church for allowing me
to use these tapes so I can bring them to you.
So what if you want to do something?
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You could comment, share it or you could subscribe or all three.
Subscribing would be a really big help.
It helps get the word out because they podcast, you know, hosts on YouTube.
(42:54):
They seem to put it out more towards other people looking for content if there are more
subscribers.
You subscribe.
You'll be helping the podcast out that way.
Okay, so come back next week.
I have more.
So make sure that you read your Bible.
Make sure you listen to the podcast.
(43:17):
In fact, you can listen to the podcast and follow along in your Bible at the same time.
Wow, what a great idea.
All right, so you can do that.
All right, I'll see you next week.
I'll have some more from the tape archives of the Fellowship Bible Church.
And until then, have a great day.
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