In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the concept of God's omniscience and how He sees the wickedness of the world. He references the book of Job and the story of Jonah to illustrate his points. Pastor Chuck explains that even though evil men may try to hide their actions, God sees everything and their deeds will be exposed. He emphasizes the importance of living according to God's will and seeking His guidance in our lives.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll come to realize that God does see the wicked As we pick up in Job, chapter 24, verse 1 And now, with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith Why, seeing that times are not hidden from the Almighty Do they that know Him not see His days? Now, there are some that do these things That you accuse me of doing, Eliphaz You accuse me of all kinds of crookedness There are some men who do remove landmarks Now the landmarks were usually little piles of stone At the corners of the property By which they marked the borders of their properties And over in Israel today you can still see Piles of stone that are the landmarks Now, unscrupulous people would sneak out in the night And they would move those piles of stones Over a way into your neighbor's property And thus you would claim more property for yourself The Jews have a legend Concerning the reason for the placement Of the city of Jerusalem And according to their story There were two brothers One of them had many children And a small parcel of ground The other did not have any children But had a very large parcel of ground And their property was side by side Because of the family And so one night The brother with all of the children As he had settled down in the house with his family And was warm and comfortable And thinking how blessed I am To have all of these precious children My heritage My brother, my poor brother doesn't have any children All he has is land And thus he's missing out on all of this Richness and blessing of having children And as he thought about it He got up at midnight And he went out into the field And he moved the stones To give his brother even more property Because that's all my brother has Is just his property And so he should even have more Because he doesn't have the blessing of children However, his brother that night Was thinking I have all this property More than I really need And my brother with his large family And so many children Could really use more property And so he got up about one o'clock in the morning And went out and moved the stones of the landmark On back From where his brother had moved them And in the morning when they went out to work And they greeted each other They were both surprised To see the landmark in the same spot And so that night again As the brother was lying there with all of his children And thinking of the plight of his brother without any children Decided again to go out Into the field and move again The landmark The pile of stones And as he was moving the pile of stones His brother came out to move them also And they realized what had happened And God in seeing this said In a place where there is so much love Is the place where I want to dwell And so God made Jerusalem The capital of his people A beautiful legend That explains why Jerusalem Is the capital of the people of God It has to do with landmarks The moving of landmarks But as a general rule The moving of landmarks was for Nefarious purposes And so Job said hey Now I know there are those that Remove landmarks And they violently take away the flocks And feed on them There are those people who live off of others They drive away the donkey of the fatherless And they take the widow's ox For a pledge By which she Is able to plow and all But they'll take that away from a widow And they're mean, they're cruel I know these people exist They turn the needy out of the way And the poor of the earth Hide themselves together Behold they are like wild donkeys in the desert They go forth to their work Rising betimes for a prey The wilderness yields food for them And for their children There are those who just go out Looking for someone to rob These marauding bands of evil men That go forth like wild donkeys Just looking for the prey They reap every one his cord in the field That is, when they come to the cultivated areas They will steal the corn out of the fields And they gather the grapes out of the vineyards They steal, they live off of stolen goods They cause the naked to lodge without clothing That is, they take clothes for a pledge So that they have no covering in the cold They are wet with the showers of the mountains They live out in the open They just wander around They embrace the rock for the one of shelters They just live in caves They won't work They just live off of others They pluck the fatherless from the breast That is, they'll take a child Steal a child And sell it actually Into slavery just to get the money And take pledge of the poor They cause him to go naked without clothing They take away the sheaf from the hungry These are the things basically that they're accusing Job of doing And he says, I know that there are people that do these things Which make oil within their walls And they tread the rind presses and suffer thirst They allow people to go thirsty They have an abundance themselves But they won't help others I know that those kind of people exist That men groan from out of the city And the soul of the wounded crieth out And yet God layeth not folly to them They are of those that rebel against the light They know not the ways thereof Nor abide in the paths thereof They love darkness Men who live in darkness, as Jesus said This is the condemnation That light has come into the world But men will not come to the light Because their deeds are evil And I know, Job said, these people exist The murderer rises at dusk To go out and kill the poor And the needy And in the night is as a thief The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight Saying, no eye shall see me And he disguises his face That is, they put on a disguise They cover their face And so the evil men at night, faces disguised Go out to rob, to steal To do their wickedness In the dark they dig through houses Which they have marked for themselves in the daytime For they do not know the light In those days That was generally the way of breaking into a house The houses were made of mud bricks Sort of adobe type And the doors would be heavily barred The windows were high and narrow You couldn't climb in a window The doors were heavily barred So they dig through the wall To break into a house Breaking and entering, he comes through the wall And they pick out the house during the day And then at night they go and they dig a hole in the wall And sneak in For the morning is to them Even as the shadow of death And if one should discover them They are in the terrors Of the shadow of death They love the night, they love the darkness Their deeds and works are darkness And are done in darkness They hate the light, it's like death to them He is swift as the waters Their portion is cursed in the earth He beholds not the way of the vineyards Drought and heat Consume the snow waters So doth the grave Those that have sinned Even as these wicked men Doing these things, ultimately they are going to die Even as the drought, the snow waters Are dried up in the summer So their lives Will be taken The graves Cover those that sin, they'll disappear to the graves The womb Shall forget him, that is their mothers That bore them Will disown them, will not want to have anything to do with them And when they die, the worms shall Feed sweetly on him He shall be no more remembered The wicked shall be broken as a tree So Job says, I'm aware of this He has evil entreated the barren that beareth not He doesn't do good to the widow Mocking the woman who can't bear a child Evil entreats them That was a curse, cultural curse, not to be able to bear children In that culture And the wicked Make an issue of that They heap onto the person already Who is going through grief He draweth also the mighty with his power He riseth up and no man is sure of life And though it be given him to be in safety Whereon he resteth Yet his eyes Are upon their ways They are exalted for a little while That is the wicked, but then they're gone They are brought low They are taken out of the way as all other And cut off as the tops of the ears of corn This is interesting because In ancient Egypt The way they would harvest their corn Was to go through and lop off The top just under the ears Of corn And then they would throw the whole thing In the basket And that's the way they cultivated And here, of course Same practice, no doubt In the area where Job lived As was practiced in Egypt As far as the harvesting of corn And if it be not so now Who will make me a liar? Make my speech nothing worth Prove me Things I haven't said Where is there a fallacy in my logic here? Show me where I'm wrong Job is challenging them Bildad, who is A man of few words, then responds to Job In the shortest response of all I mean, Job has just about worn these guys down Now the interesting thing is That the shortest response to Job Evokes the longest response from Job I mean, when Job starts to answer Bildad He gets on a kick and he doesn't quit He goes on and on and on For several chapters So, he begins by talking about God And he said, dominion and fear are with him He maketh peace in his high places Some think that that peace in his high places Refers to the war in heaven That took place when Satan rebelled against God He goes on to say, is there any number of his armies In the book of Revelation As well as In a area, in the book of Daniel Chapter 7 Daniel speaks about thousands of thousands And then ten thousands of ten thousands Which, of course, ten thousand times ten thousand is a hundred million Thousand thousand is a million So, it speaks about those in heaven The numbers of the angelic beings Numbering into the hundreds of millions You remember when Jesus Was in the garden And the soldiers came to arrest him And Peter pulled out his sword and began to swing Jesus said, put your sword away, Peter Don't you realize that at this very moment If I desired, I could call ten thousand angels To defend me The Lord is saying to Peter, look, I don't need your defense I wonder how many times the Lord says that to us As we seek to defend the Lord against challenges Or against things that people say I wonder how many times the Lord says, hey, put away your sword I can defend myself if I desire I can call ten thousand angels if I need to And so, Bildad is saying, who can number his armies? And upon whom doth his light arise? How then can man be justified with God? Again, the idea is God is so vast, so great Filling the universe And here we are Nothing How can we be just with God? Or how can he be clean That is born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon It shineth not That is, the moon, the brightest object in the sky at night Is dim, dim, dim compared to him The stars are not pure in his sight How much less man That is a worm And the son of man Which is a worm So how can we be anything to God? How can we be justified before God? How can we declare that we are sinless or innocent or pure? Now, in essence, Job has been maintaining the fact that he is innocent He's not saying, hey, I've never done any wrong But he's not guilty of the charges that these guys are accusing him of being guilty of They're accusing him of taking away the widow's possessions And of all kinds of horrible things And he says, no, I'm not guilty of that I maintain my integrity And so, again, here are the charges And build that as you're saying, hey, you say that you're an innocent man But who can be innocent before God? Who can be justified before God? Even the stars are not pure in his sight And, you know, who do you think you are To say that you are innocent before the Lord? So Job answers him and says How have you helped him that is without power? Tell me, what good are these words? What help are they? How do you save the arm of him who has no strength? Now Job is confessing, I am without power, I am without strength I've been wiped out But, hey, you haven't been any help to me How have you counseled the man who is searching for wisdom? What have you said that I don't know? What kind of wisdom have you provided for me? And how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is? You're wrong, you haven't even declared the truth about the issues To whom hast thou uttered words? And whose spirit came from thee? Who asked you and who prompted you to speak? Job said dead things are formed from under the waters A more literal translation would be Dead tremble from under the waters And the inhabitants thereof The under the waters is thought to be a reference to the Sheol The place of the departed spirits of man And even those in Sheol tremble And the inhabitants thereof Hell, which is Sheol itself, is naked before him And destruction hath no covering He stretches out the north over the empty place And hangeth the earth upon nothing An interesting statement of Job God hangs the earth upon nothing You say, well, who doesn't know that? Well, the people of Job's day didn't know that They thought that the earth was on the back of a turtle Or that Hercules, you know, was holding up the earth Of course, don't know what he was standing on But, you know, they had these ideas that the earth rested on the back of an elephant I mean, the various cultures thought that the earth was setting on something But here is Job way back Declaring that he hung the earth upon nothing Suspended it out here in space We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse venture through the Bible In our next lesson As Pastor Chuck Smith continues his fascinating study of Job And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again, our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience, you can order online anytime When you go to TheWordForToday.org And while you're there, be sure to browse through the additional resources That include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs, and so much more Once again, that's TheWordForToday online at TheWordForToday.org And for those of you who still prefer to write, you can use our mailing address Which is TheWordForToday, P.O. Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California, 92628 And be sure to include the call letters of this station with your correspondence And now, on behalf of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues his verse-by-verse study Through the book of Job That's right here, on the next edition of The Word for Today Now once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith with today's closing comments May the Lord bless and help you And strengthen you And guide you in His love And in His purposes May this week be a week that is Devoted not just to thanksgiving But to living our lives According to His purpose May we seek to know and to follow the will of God As Job declared, may we follow in His steps For the ways of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord And He delights in His ways May God delight in your ways this week As you walk in fellowship with Him Hi, this is Don Stewart, co-host of the radio program Pastor's Perspective with Pastor Chuck Smith You know, lately we've been getting a lot of calls on the program From people who are going through some really difficult storms right now People have lost their jobs They can't find work Marriages are breaking up And if that weren't enough People are calling in asking for prayer Because they were just diagnosed with cancer And I'm amazed when Pastor Chuck speaks right up And he's able to encourage and strengthen a person And persuade them to look to Jesus And not at their problem That's why I'd like to tell you about a book by Pastor Chuck Called When the Storm Hits This book was written for people who are struggling And going through a difficult time And it's a book you'll want to pass on to a loved one Who might be going through a storm of their own And when the storm hits Get anchored on Jesus the Rock And don't let go To order a copy of Pastor Chuck's book When the Storm Hits Please call the word for today At 1-800-272-9673 Or visit us online To read a sneak preview of the book By visiting thewordfortoday.org This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California