Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas
Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, October 18, 2026 Route 66 · Book 02 · Job 28:28
► Watch this lesson on video (37:03)
THE ONE POINT: God does not ask us to figure out WHY we are having the trouble we are having — God asks us to keep turning away from evil, even in the middle of that trouble.
Why We Open in Proverbs
Now you remember our homework from the last time we were in Job — a chapter a day in Proverbs. And I meant it . . . a chapter a day, and when you get to the end, don’t quit — start back over at chapter one. A chapter a day in Proverbs for as long as we live would not hurt a single one of us.
I said we were going to take a deeper dive into Job tonight, and we are — but there is a REASON we open in Proverbs . . . hold that, and you will see it before we are done. Notice Proverbs 4, verses 14 and 15:
Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.
In our daily walk of life there are only two directions we can travel — we can go on in the same direction the world is going, the path of the wicked — or we can turn clean around and avoid it. Now I am not talking about taking a stumble every now and then . . . I am not talking about whether we can live a wicked life . . . I am talking about the DIRECTION we have pointed our lives.
And do you remember the three lies we found over in 1 John 1, verses 5 through 10? One lie said, “I can have fellowship with God and still walk in darkness.” The second said, “There is no sin in me — I have arrived.” And the third looked back and said, “I have always been in the truth — I have never sinned.” Those three lies are exactly what grows up in a life that will NOT avoid the path of the wicked — we deceive ourselves . . . we deceive others . . . and in the end we flatly contradict God, for He tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Wisdom Has to Be Dug For — in the Right Place
Last time in Job we saw the miners — men who turn the mountains over by the roots, who dig in the dark places of the earth. And the point was this: a man can dig to the very center of the earth hunting for wisdom and never find it there. Wisdom is found in the Bible. Now it is true that wisdom CAN be found by searching — but only if we search in the right place. Notice Proverbs 2, verses 1 through 5:
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
Seek her as silver . . . search for her as for hid treasures. Keep digging.
The Key Verse — Two Halves
Every book in the Bible pretty much has a key verse — one verse that opens the meaning of the whole book. The key verse of Job is chapter 28, verse 28. And notice it falls into two halves — and now you will see why we started out so heavy in Proverbs:
And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
The fear of the Lord — that is the first half . . . to depart from evil — that is the second half. And right there is the ONE POINT of our lesson. God does not say, “Your job in life is to figure out WHY you are having all this trouble.” Our job in life is to depart from evil — He has handed us a shovel to dig for wisdom, and He wants us NEVER to lay that shovel down.
Job Was Already Living the Key Verse
Now when we first meet Job, we find a man who was ALREADY living this key verse, long before any storm ever came. Notice the very first verse of the book:
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
Now “perfect” does not mean sinless — it means mature in wisdom and understanding . . . a man who had spent his whole life searching for wisdom the way you would search for silver and gold. And “eschewed” — there is a word we do not use anymore — “eschewed evil” means he TURNED AWAY from evil. When Job saw evil over here, he did not do the way you and I so often do . . . ease a little closer just to see what all the fuss is about . . . no, when he saw evil, he turned, and he went the other way.
And those are the very two things we just read in the key verse — fear God, and turn away from evil. Even God said the same two things about him. Notice chapter 1, verse 8, when Satan claimed Job only served God for the blessings:
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Proverbs says the same thing in chapter 3, verse 7:
Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
This is the great commandment lived out — to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Notice Matthew 22, verses 37 through 40:
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Job had settled that love in his heart BEFORE the storm ever came. He did not wait until the storm lifted to love God — he loved God before the storm, in the storm, and after the storm was over.
The North Star — a Word of Testimony
Now when I was in college there was every temptation you could think of, every single day. My dad always told me that a schoolteacher could not out-teach what a child learned at home. And having been there and bought that t-shirt, that is one of the few things I will have to respectfully disagree with my dad about. I had classmates raised in the same kind of God-fearing home I was raised in — and when they got to college . . . living a Christian life was not even under consideration anymore.
I can say with the psalmist, “my feet were almost gone.” Notice Psalm 73, verse 2, and then verse 17:
But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.
Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.
I did not survive college by any superior willpower — I made it through by FAITH in Proverbs 4:14 and 15. I saw the end of that kind of life . . . and I was not particularly righteous, I just did not want the scars. I had seen enough of a garden to know that if you plant onions it is foolish to stand there expecting tomatoes. Notice Galatians 6, verse 7:
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
So when all those temptations came knocking, I had a choice — I could look at God’s word as a CAGE, or I could look at God’s word as PROTECTION. And I am living proof that we do not have to be sinless to be guided by God’s word. Those two verses were my north star. Now being guided by the north star does not mean we travel a dead-straight line — we get caught in a current, we get blown off course, we trip, we stumble. But the whole goal is this: when we DO stumble, we stumble in the direction we are already traveling.
Job Lost Everything
Now Job lost everything. Notice chapter 1, verse 3:
His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
And in ONE DAY it was gone — every possession, and ten children dead. Notice what he said — right in the middle of the worst set of circumstances a man could humanly be handed — chapter 1, verses 21 and 22:
And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
So what is the one point of our lesson? God does not ask us to figure out WHY — God asks us to keep turning away from evil, even in the midst of those circumstances.
Never Lay the Shovel Down
He has given us a shovel to dig for wisdom, and He wants us never to set it down. Think of a man with a metal detector out on the beach. He is covered in sand . . . the sun is hot . . . he is thirsty . . . he has carried that silly thing all day long — and it is getting HEAVY, and he has not found a single thing. “I was saved, preacher — I have been trying to do right — and I still did not get that promotion, and I had two flats this week.” You see the comparison? Sometimes the metal detector gets heavy — but the patience of Job teaches us: do not EVER lay the metal detector down. Notice Job 23, verse 10:
But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
God knew the direction of Job’s life — Job was just a man, he may have drifted a little to the right or the left — but he never changed DIRECTIONS . . . and in the end he came forth as gold.
To Depart from Evil Is Understanding
Now look again at the second half of the key verse — to depart from evil is understanding. This is the road that leads to the casino, and this is the road that leads to church. You are never going to get to the church at the end of this road as long as you are walking the road that leads to the casino — we have to make a CHOICE. To depart means to turn OFF the road we are on . . . to take the detour. And understanding is being able to tell the difference between the right road and the wrong road.
It is like me standing here without my glasses. I can tell there are people out there, but I could not tell you which is which. Wisdom is what brings it all into focus — now I can see without a doubt, THIS is wrong, and THIS is right . . . and I need to avoid the one and give myself only to the other.
The Shadows
Temptation knocks on the door of our heart — and it knocks HARDER the deeper we get into the shadows. Remember we had a lesson not long ago on how God is light. Well, if God is light, what is a place of less light? That is where God begins to lose His influence over those who serve Him. We wander off into the shadows . . . the temptations grow bolder . . . and they knock harder. Now this does not mean we lose our salvation — it simply means we have quit minding our heavenly Father.
Have you ever been bitter when you had no real cause to be bitter? Have you ever been tempted to take a little shot of something just to settle your nerves and sleep a little better? Those are the very shadows a child of God has to turn away from. “Well, preacher, I know my life is not what it ought to be right now — so I am going to wait until things get better, and then I will start coming to church.” Now listen to how that sounds: “I have got a bad pain, and I am afraid my cancer has come back — but I am going to wait and go to the doctor when I start feeling better.” We would never say it about the doctor . . . but we say it about the church and the Lord all the time, and it makes no more sense the one way than the other.
It is like a frog. Throw a frog into a pan of hot water and he will jump straight out — but set him in the pan while the water is cool and then warm it up slow, and he will sit right there until he is boiled. That is exactly how a child of God comes to sin, once he has grown comfortable sitting next to it. Notice Proverbs 4:14 and 15 one more time — avoid it, pass NOT by it, turn from it, and pass away. My mistake in college was that I would not jump into the middle of what was wrong . . . I would just ease a little closer . . . just get close enough to see what all the fuss was about. And that has an effect on a child of God, and it is not a good one.
Job’s Friends Were Wrong
Now Job had some friends sitting there telling him the reason for all his trouble was plain — he was being punished for some sin, and all he had to do was admit it and everything would be fine. I have known a lot of people who look at every hard circumstance as God punishing them for something. But that is simply not so. Notice what God Himself says to one of those friends in Job 42, verse 7:
And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.
Now let me be honest about myself. If every sickness, every broken bone, every lost loved one were God paying me back for my misdeeds, then I would never have a well day — every bone in my body would already be broken, and I would have no loved ones left living. That is not the way God works.
Chastisement is not punishment — chastisement is God teaching us what to avoid. The reason it BURNS when we touch a hot stove is so we will learn to stay away from the hot stove. Pain does not have to be permanent — but it does have to be sharp enough to get our attention. We sang it tonight . . . Jesus paid it ALL. If He had to punish me for every wrong, then He has not paid it all. But He has. So when a hard thing comes, it is not sent to collect a debt that Jesus already paid — it is sent to teach me I have gone too far in one direction, and every time I touch that stove it is going to burn, until I learn to stay away from it.
How the Book Ends
So how does the book of Job end? Job never did get his explanation — not one that we can read. But he got something better. Notice chapter 42, verse 5:
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
He had heard of God all his life . . . now he SAW Him. And his latter end was greater than his beginning. Notice chapter 42, verse 12:
So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.
Now we have to be careful right here — this is NOT a promise that God will hand us more stuff after a hard time than we had before it. Notice James 5, verse 11:
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
Let me tell you about my own big catastrophe — the cancer. On this side of it, after a world of pain, the cancer is cured. But on this side of the cure I did not find a latter end that was richer than the beginning. I had to sell eighty acres. I had to sell what to me was the perfect house — and neither one has ever been replaced. I am in a house with eight-foot ceilings where I hang my head in the ceiling fan. Cancer ruined about every plan I had made for my golden years.
But the latter end of THIS was not more prosperity — the latter end of this, for me, was more KNOWLEDGE and more UNDERSTANDING. I know more on this side of cancer than I knew on the other side of it . . . I am literally a changed man. And is a comfortable present worth more than that? Would we trade good circumstances in this short life for only average circumstances in all of eternity? Notice 1 Corinthians 3, verses 12 through 15:
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
It is possible to enter heaven with a saved soul and a lost LIFE — saved, yet so as by fire. What this unpleasant thing has taught me is worth more than everything I had planned, and more than everything the cancer took.
Keep Digging
So as we close — once again, God does not ask us to figure out WHY we are in the shape we are in . . . God asks us to keep turning away from evil, and keep digging. Our goal ought to be to enter heaven with a shovel worn plumb out — not a shovel that barely had the paint scratched. We get hold of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding by searching for them as for a hid treasure — and hid treasure is always buried . . . always hard to find. They are the greatest gems a man could ever get his hands on in this life.
Use your shovel . . . follow Job . . . and every single day for the rest of your life, read a chapter in Proverbs. That is the only way I made it. I was raised in a godly family — but the world around us can out-teach what mom and dad teach . . . I am sorry, Dad, but that is the truth . . . and a chapter of Proverbs every day can help even the balance. Please consider what you have heard.
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