Altar Natives
Job:1:19 “And, behold, there came a great wind †from ythe wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.[1]
I. Conclusion
A. Taught
B. Thought
II. Confusion
A. Trial
B. Trust
III. Communion
A. Together
B. Truth
Introduction: One of the required classes offered at Fruitland Baptist Bible College where I attended and later served was called Church Growth. Kenny Corn was the professor and happened to be the Associate Pastor at Mudcreek Baptist Church in Hendersonville NC.
The assumption was that since it was a megachurch with a weekly attendance of around 5000 back then; we would learn the secrets of growing a church. We did; one Christian at a time. There was a class on Evangelism which was actually taught by Greg Mathis who was the Senior Pastor there at the same Mudcreek Baptist Church. The course called Church Growth was actually a study in discipleship.
It is no secret that my favorite Bible translation to read and study is the New King James Version which was released in the mid 1980s. The original translation authorized by King James was introduced to the English speaking world in 1611ad. You can go to the internet today and attempt to read from that translation. Someone donated a 1634 printed KJV to Fruitland which is under glass. I have held that in my hands and no, I cannot understand it when I try to read it. Our language has changed that much through the years.
Kenny Corn and the other professors encouraged students to read from multiple translations to get to the original meaning of the Bible. Once you sense that the Holy Spirit has given you spiritual clarity on the text then it is OK to turn to commentaries for verification that at least someone before you has derived the same conclusion that you have. Never ever give up on the Holy Spirit’s guidance and cheat yourself by plagiarizing what someone else thinks the Bible says. If you do you give up on one of the greatest blessings of reading the Bible. You also might jump to an incorrect conclusion that you will have to unlearn.
In bringing this message today my deep prayer which I believe is already answered is that my brother understands that this message is in no way a critique of the lesson that he brought last week. If he ever senses the call to preach and attend formal Bible study Jerry will most certainly go through a process where his sermon will be critiqued. Sermon critique is an unbelievably stressful thing to go through and is not my purpose today.
Listening to Jerry last week taught me something that I had passed over. Something that was settled in my mind from childhood was changed in my favorite version of the Bible from the original text. In all the many times of reading it I never noticed until I heard Jerry speak of it.
There are subtle changes in language that are noticeable between the 1900 KJV and the 1984 NKJV. Kenny Corn explained it that the KJV remains one of the most literal translations of the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. While some of the ancient English language in the KJV has been modernized in the NKJV it too is still a highly reliable literal translation. Some of the verses which are hard to understand without having some basic knowledge of the ancient languages of Hebrew and Greek are made easier to understand in the NKJV but you will never get to the place where you can’t learn more about the Bible from the ancient text than from newer translations. Without further confusion, here it goes. The title is a word play or a play on words if you will. Altar Native. Let us always consider the alternative.
Scripture: The scripture today is Job 1:19. Please stand if you can for God’s written word.
Prayer: Please be seated.
Message: Please bear with me as we ask someone to read the same verse from the NKJV. “19 and suddenly a great wind came from 6across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!” [2] Did you catch the difference? What’s the difference in young men and young people? Well it makes a huge difference if you are one of Job’s daughters.
Here comes the rabbit! Lord, don’t let me chase the rabbit too far. My grandfather Stacy was a friend of Harry S Truman. If you go to Key West to Truman’s “Little White House” you are across the street from Grampa’s Key West home. Grampa was an architect and worked for Truman as the chief inspector for the Navy’s Yards and Docks during and after WW2. Anything that was purchased for the Navy was approved by my grandfather. By the way, the two men; they were Masons. We were raised learning and knowing a lot about Masonry.
Masons are mistakenly thought of today as being male chauvinists. I am not here to change your mind about Masons if you already have reached your conclusions. Know this; Masonry’s purpose is to teach the Bible and make men better towards their God, their, brothers and their families. The good they do they understand is God doing that through them so they are taught to keep secret that which God does through them for others in need.
They love their wives. The women have a group called the “Eastern Star.” The daughters of Masons can join a sisterhood that is called Job’s Daughters. You see, the premise here is that Job’s daughters were spared from the calamity that happened to Job as was his wife. His sons were lost to him but not the daughters. It is no surprise when you get to the end of the book that Job’s daughters are mentioned by name but there is no mention of the son’s names. Daughters are special you see! That means a lot when a father has no living sons. It means a lot to me. This is what I was taught. It is not what I had thought or something that I read in a commentary.
Could it be that the KJV is wrong and it was corrected in the NKJV? OK; I am not a Hebrew Scholar. That is why I have books that translate for me. This is what I found. Hebrew and Greek have many more tenses than the languages that we have today. In English verbs or action words there is past, present, and future tense. In nouns there is possessive tense and to some extent there are tenses that tell you whether the noun or pronoun is feminine or masculine. In Hebrew and Greek there are more tenses and they are more pronounced. In looking at the Hebrew for Job 1:19 I believe that the people referred to here are mentioned in the masculine tense. They were males.
Does that mean for sure that the girls weren’t killed too? I don’t know. I only know that the last few verses of the Bible warn against adding to or taking away from the Bible so I’m going to leave that to interpretation and the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
There is another translation for a more literal translation. It is predictably named “Young’s Literal Translation.” This is Job 1:18-19 from YLT, “18While this one is speaking another also hath come and saith, ‘Thy sons and thy daughters are eating, and drinking wine, in the house of their brother, the first-born. 19And lo, a great wind hath come from over the wilderness, and striketh against the four corners of the house, and it falleth on the young men, and they are dead, and I am escaped—only I alone—to declare it to thee.’[3]
Which brings me to the second point of the message today. Confusion happens when something that you thought you could depend on is brought to trial in your consciousness. Confusion is a good thing when a person gets too set in their ways. When a person trusts more in what someone else has told them than what God might use to bless them with it’s not good.
We are here to be assembled as a congregation so that God can use our other church family members to enlighten us through our many different experiences as we hear His message through the written Word about The Living Word who is Jesus. His truth is all that matters and we might have to wait for His Judgement Seat before we finally fully realize the whole truth. Until then we must continue to allow our trust to grow in Jesus alone. That is faith. F.A.I.T.H.; Forsaking All I Trust Him.
Here come another rabbit. We discussed much of what Job lost but not so much what he didn’t lose. He didn’t lose his wife. Remember? She was there to encourage Job; right? Curse God and die. The wife didn’t go anywhere. What about his so-called friends? He probably wanted to lose them but they turned out to be one of the real blessings. They didn’t leave and in the end Job learned the prayer of intercession for them. That is a blessing!
Speaking of blessings; even the 1900 KJV is different from the original Hebrew in Job 41:10. “10 And the Lord rturned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord †gave Job stwice as much as he had before.” [4] The Hebrew actually says instead of gave Job twice as much, “added [all that had been] to Job unto the double.” [5]
So let’s do the math. Seven thousand sheep lost, three thousand camels lost, five hundred yoke of oxen lost, five hundred she donkeys lost, At the end, fourteen thousand sheep which makes twenty one thousand in all when you add them up; Six thousand camels makes nine thousand camels when you add that up; a thousand donkeys added to the original five hundred makes fifteen hundred donkeys. Well that’s it for the livestock. Live stock! Animals!
Then verse thirteen is a new sentence. “13 bHe had also seven sons and three daughters.” [6]. I really can’t find spelled out that he got new sons. I have always assumed and concluded that God gave him new sons but this I do know, children are certainly not possessions.
Rachael said it well that God gives us babies to hold for a while but when they are adults they are not ours anymore. I’ll add to that: God takes a part from the father and from the mother when He conceives a child. When the parents are gone the child is still carrying that part that God took from the parents. So no matter where a person might go, they always have their parents. So where is the possession arrow?
That’s probably why they were not listed with the livestock. This nation learned what a tragic mistake it is to not know that people are people and animals are not. Maybe if the daughters did die with his sons and God did replace them all; that would still not make the total number triple. The math doesn’t work out because it’s not supposed to.
So how can we get to a place of communion where we are supposed to be as His church? The dumbest thing that I have ever heard is, “Well we can agree to disagree.” That is not communion! That is not agreement at all. That is saying I refuse to learn from you and I am only going to believe the way I want to.
God takes us through trials. What was the true blessing that Job received from all this? Was it double livestock? No! It’s never about the stuff! God allowed Job to be changed. Once he was bitter toward his friends. Now Job prayed for his friends. Once it seemed that maybe Job favored his sons. Now his daughters are named and they received an inheritance among their brethren.
We hear so many sermons and lessons about how much stuff Job wound up with in the end. What he got that was priceless was a closer relationship with God and a greater understanding of why things don’t always turn out as they first appear.
Thanks to God for speaking to me through Jerry, I learned that no matter how many times I have read the Bible and hear the Bible read to me, behold; God makes all things new. Why does God allow what He allows in my life? Because He loves me.
Prayer:
Invitation: Is God still allowing hardship in this Merry Oaks Baptist Church? You better know it. Why? He loves us. He loves us so much that Jesus died for us. At the beginning of the book named after Job it says he was a perfect man and for the purpose of the book we can understand that when trials come our way it is not because of our imperfection. It is because we are not. It is because God will make us better so long as we don’t consider ourselves perfect. Job was perfect about some things but he was made more perfect.
On the other hand, Jesus is was and always will be absolute perfection. Only Jesus could be the perfect sacrifice for our sin that would finish the requirement for the shedding of blood. So Jesus alone is that perfection. If God did that for us, everything that God does for us as Christians is to make us more perfect because He loves us that much. How much? Infinite much! Nobody can measure God’s love for us. Next month we will observe communion but when we are anywhere as His family we are in communion with one another and He is always there.
Why the trials? For the blessing of God. For being our heavenly Father. As we sing our hymn of invitation … know that He is inviting you to partake of all that He has to offer if only you will ask.
† Heb. from aside, &c.
y Isai. 21:1. Jer. 4:11. Hos. 13:15.
[1] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Job 1:19). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
6 LXX omits across
[2] The New King James Version. (1982). (Job 1:19). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[3] Young, R. (1997). Young’s Literal Translation (Job 1:18–19). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
r Ps. 14:7. & 53:6. & 85:1. & 126:1? Jer. 30:3, 18. & 31:23. & 32:44. & 33:7, 11, 26. Ezek. 39:25. Hos. 6:11. Joel 3:1. Amos 9:14.
† Heb. added [all that had been] to Job unto the double.
s Isai. 61:7. So Isai. 40:2. Comp. Mark 10:30. Luke 18:30.
[4] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Job 42:10). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[5] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version.). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
b Comp. ver. 10. & ch. 1:2 with 2 Sam. 12:23.
[6] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Job 42:13). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
