Let's turn back there to Job
chapter 1. Job was the greatest man in the
East. The greatest man. He was extremely
wealthy. And yet he had more than worldly
possessions. He had more than family. Before God, his dealings with
God and his dealings with men were full of integrity. He did
that which God said was perfect and upright. It doesn't mean
that he was without sin. It means God looked at Job as
he dealt with men. He saw a man who his desire was
to please God, to do so by serving God and men in a way that God
said was perfect and upright. He eschewed evil. That means
if he saw something that even had the appearance of evil, if
it just looked like something that men would see him do and
they would say, he's going to commit sin when he does that,
he wouldn't do it. He just wouldn't do it. Job had
been a very great father as we saw there. He taught his children.
He wasn't worried about his children sinning in word and deed. He
was concerned about their heart, that deceitful heart. That's
what he was concerned about. And all this was because Job
feared God. Job feared God. He had a reverence
for God. He knew that he was not... These
things of serving God in his house and serving God on his
day-to-day, on a day-to-day basis, it wasn't common. It was not
a common thing. It's a rare thing. And he wanted
to do it with reverence to God, knowing God was present. God
was with him. He reverenced God. And his true
riches, more than anything else that he had, his true riches
was his union with God. His union with the surety, that
was his true riches above everything else. In many ways, Job is a
picture of Christ and everything I just said is a picture of Christ. and his suffering especially.
Then God gave Satan permission to take his temporal possessions,
and take his children, and his sons, daughters, and then he
gave him permission to take his health. This is what God did
on the cross with our Savior. And it says, when news came to
Job, verse 20, Job 1.20, then Job arose and rent his mantle,
and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground and worshipped. These are all parts of grieving
and sorrow. It's alright to grieve. It's
alright to be sorrowful. But he did so worshipping God. He did so worshipping God. And
here's Job's worship. Listen to verse 21. And he 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
and all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly. This just
occurred to me but most of the time you expect to go out of
this world clothed. Christ came into this world naked
and he went out of this world naked. And the Lord gave Christ the
things he gave Job. He hedged him about. and about his house, on every
side, he blessed the work of his hands, blessed the work of
his substance, made it increase in the land, and then on the
cross, God took it away. Took it away, that hedge, and
allowed Satan to touch him. But Christ didn't curse him.
He was faithful to the end. Faithful to the end. And all
this joke, sin not, nor charge God foolishly. Here's what I
want to talk about today. True life, true riches is having
Christ Jesus the Lord. It's having God our Savior. That's
true riches. That's true life. It's not the
riches and the temporal possessions and even family in this earth.
That's not life. Those aren't the true riches.
True riches are having the Lord Jesus Christ, being accepted
of God. That's the true riches. My subject
is our only true possession. Our only true possession. Christ
is our only true possession. First of all, learn that material
things are not lasting things. Temporal things are not lasting
things. Job said, naked came I out of
my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. Now you and
I came from my mother's womb physically, materially, and spiritually
naked. That's how we came forth. We
were born not only physically not wearing anything, but we
were born naked in this sense. We were unable to do one thing
for ourselves. We were totally dependent on
another, totally dependent on others. And then we came forth
materially naked. We didn't have any possessions
when we came forth. We were taken home to somebody
else's house. We were fed somebody else's food.
We were clothed with somebody else's garments. We didn't have
any possessions at all. And all of that, physical and
material, shows you spiritually how we came forth into this world.
We came forth naked. We came forth into this world
without righteousness, without holiness, We came forth without
God, we came forth without hope, we came forth guilty sinners
and with a vile sin nature. Guilty before God's law and with
a depraved corrupt sin nature. Job said, And naked shall I return
thither. And every one of us certainly
are going to return physically and materially naked. Ecclesiastes
5.15 says that man shall take nothing of his labor which he
may carry away in his hand. Nothing. And it says in Ecclesiastes
12.7, then shall the dust return to the earth as it was. That's
how we're going to go, back to the earth. And it says, and the
spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Now that's so of
everybody. There's going to be some folks
on that day that's going to be surprised when they find out
that God really did give the spirit they have. And when their
body goes back to the dust and their spirit goes where the Lord
is, they're going to be surprised that God's real, everything they'd
heard's real, and they're going to meet God in that day. They're
going to meet God in that day. Now, if this is the case, this
is the case, the prince, the king, the pauper, who had nothing,
two men who were never treated the same throughout their life,
they were never treated as equal throughout their life, and yet,
death is going to be the equalizer. They're going to leave this world
both possessing the same thing, nothing. And they're going to
be equal. Stand before God. If that's the
case, what then, as we go through this life, what is the purpose
of our life? What then as we walk through
this world ought we be primarily concerned with? What should be
our ultimate goal? What should be preeminently taking
up our time and our focus and our attention as we walk through
this earth? What should it be? It shouldn't
be seeking power. It shouldn't be seeking position.
It shouldn't be seeking possessions. It should not be seeking a name. It should not be seeking applause.
God never in His Word teaches men to seek any of those things.
And yet we teach our children to seek those things. We've been
indoctrinated by the world to seek those things. And we teach
our children to seek those things. God never teaches us to seek
those things. God teaches us that if we seek
those things, we're going to pierce ourselves through with
many arrows. We're going to commit suicide
if we pursue those things. That's exactly what he's saying.
Imagine if you didn't have the world teaching you. Imagine if
you didn't constantly hear... If you turn on a sitcom, you
watch young people teach young people how to treat their mother
and father. And it's sassing them and treating them with contempt
and treating them disrespectfully. That's how they learn to do that.
And then we teach them. And it's constant teaching, learning
how to treat your husband and your wife, and learning in everywhere,
learning how to dress, learning how to speak, learning how to
walk, learning how to talk. We learn that from the world.
We learn it from the world. Imagine if we didn't have that
constant teaching of the world, and all we had was the Word of
God. Would we know how to act? If we didn't have the world,
would we even know We're like one walking, talking, it's like
a cliche. It's like a, you know, we know
exactly what to say at a funeral. We know exactly what to say when
somebody's happy. We know exactly what to say because
we've just said it over and over and over and heard it said and
know how to, and it's just the same old fake stuff. What if
we just had the word of God? What if that's all we had? We'd be in a world of hurt. More
than because we don't do it. We don't do it. But if that's
all we had and we had God instructing us, it'd be a whole different
story. A whole different story. Try to learn not to seek and
not to be overly attached to any temporal possessions. Sons,
daughters, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, and any temporal thing,
any other temporal thing. Christ is the only lasting possession. God, His Word is all that endures. Nothing in this world endures. Nothing in this world will remain.
Nothing that you and I are so attached to now will remain.
You came into this world absolutely possessing nothing. And we are
going out of this world that way. Absolutely possessing nothing. Not too long ago, I read a book.
It was a true story about a lady in a town close to where I grew
up. I'd heard about this story all
my life. It's the town where my dad grew up. This lady's name
was Maud Crawford. And in the 50s, she was a lawyer. And in the 50s, she went missing. And nobody ever found out what
happened to her. They never solved the case. They
don't know what happened. But they suspect they know what
happened. And the man they suspect, this woman was a lawyer, and
she was going to prevent him from obtaining this huge inheritance. And so they suspect that this
man killed her, or had her killed. But this man that they suspect,
he went on to achieve some pretty high status in the state of Arkansas. But this man spent his whole
life covering his tracks. He spent his whole life bribing
people. That's just known fact. He got this inheritance. That's
known fact. He spent his whole life doing
that. And the whole time I read this book, all I could think
of was he did all of that just for a little brief momentary
life. And then he's going to stand
before God who knew the whole story and knows everything he
did the whole time. That's trading eternity for a
little bitty speck of time. Just for that. I think foolishness. How foolish. How foolish. Our life is just wasted. Just
the same way. Our life is wasted if we spend
it trying to achieve a position and power and a prestige and
a name in this world. Or if we spend our time in this
world having nothing and doing humanitarian deeds and doing
great good things for the world and leave this world without
Christ. We have spent our time and we
possess nothing. Period. Nothing. Paul said in
Colossians, all your works that you're doing, trying to observe
the ceremonies and all those things. All those things perished. All those things are gone now.
God destroyed it when He destroyed Jerusalem. And He said, just
like that, you can do all these things men tell you to. And they
may be nice things to do for people. But you leave this world
without God. And it don't matter if you became
a millionaire in riches or a millionaire just in philanthropy and being
a benevolent person. You're still going to leave this
world with nothing and meet God. You came in naked, you're going
out naked. You're going to leave with nothing. Use the time wisely. There's one thing needful and
Christ is the one thing needful. And He's the only lasting possession.
Now here is the second thing. Learn to see that God gives and
God takes away as He will. God gives and God takes away
as He will. Job said the Lord gave and the
Lord has taken away. Now everything between our naked
birth and our naked death is the gift of God. Everything. We like to boast that we are
to praise because we earn things. And we produce things and all
that. And then we like to blame somebody else when those things
disappear. Yesterday, we were at the football
game, up there watching Jonathan play, and Joshua and Will lost
the football. And the first thing Will did
was want to blame his mama, and Joshua was mumbling and grumbling
too. And we got back to the house, and I sat them both down and
had a talk with them. And I said, listen. Learn to own your own mistakes
now. Learn to realize when you're
the one that's at fault. Because as you grow older and
you're confronted with your sin, you don't want to be in the habit
of blaming somebody else. Men blame their environment.
Men blame how they were raised. We blame everything else that's
looking in the mirror and saying, I'm the sinner. Nobody else to
blame but me. And you see that. I saw an interview
with these folks who lost all their money when the stock market
crashed. And they talked about how much
money they had. And they all patted themselves
on the back for the money they had. They said, I earned that
money. I earned it by my hard work, my labor. I invested it. I had done all this right. I
did all this stuff. But now when it came to losing
it, they said it was the investor's fault. It was the president's
fault. It was the It was corporation's fault, it was everybody's fault
but them. That's what we do. Job lost, he had more and he
lost more than all of those folks combined. And Job said this,
God gave it, God took it away. God gave it, God took it away.
Whatever you and I have in this life, the Lord gave it. John
answered and said, a man can receive nothing except it be
given him from above. The apostle Paul said, Who maketh
thee to differ from another? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? And if you received it, why do
you glory as if you did not receive it? Now, when we were conceived
of corrupt seed, just as natural sinners conceived in our mother's
womb, God gave us life. He's the one that did that. The
psalmist said, Thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me
in my mother's womb. A faithful wife. We like to boast
about that, don't we? men, don't we? How we wooed her
and how we, you know, we got to boast about it. And the scripture
says, a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband. But she that
maketh ashamed, rottenness in his bones. Who gave the virtuous
woman? Who made her virtuous? If you have a virtuous wife,
God did that. He did that. Children are a gift
from God. We like to boast about our children,
don't we? We always like to brag about
our children. Scripture says children are a heritage of the
Lord. The fruit of the womb is His reward. That's the Lord's
doing. And in riches, wealth, even ability
to enjoy those things, brethren, is a gift of God. Listen to this
from Ecclesiastes 5. Every man to whom God hath given
riches and wealth and hath given him power to eat thereof, He
gave him the riches and the wealth, and He gave him power to eat
thereof. He says, and to take his portion,
and to rejoice in his labor. This is the gift of God. God
gave it. God gave it. But especially all
spiritual blessings. All spiritual blessings. Now,
go back to our mother's womb and spiritual blessings. The
mercy of God is particular. The mercy of God is particular
to His people. The grace of God is particular
to His people. The love of God is particular
to His people. Otherwise, why talk about it?
If it don't save, why mention it? It saves. In His mercy, the
Scripture says, By thee have I been holding up from the womb.
Thou art He that took me out of my mother's bowels. My praise
shall be continually of thee. God did this for His child in
mercy. And then grace is the gift of God given to whosoever
God is pleased to give it to. That's just what grace is. The
Scripture said, Unto every one of us is given grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ. When God gives grace to His people, when God gives grace to His people,
it's His people particularly that He gives grace to. And that's
what grace is, it's a gift of God. The Holy Spirit is a gift
of God. You can't make the Holy Spirit
come to you. We can't make the Holy Spirit
come to us. We can't make ourselves be born again. The Scripture
says on the Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost Himself is a gift.
The Scripture says He sealed us and He gave us the earnest
of the Spirit in our hearts. He gave that to us. He gave us
a foretaste of glory assuring us, here's the earnest, here's
the pledge that I'm coming back for you. It's the Spirit in your
heart. And He's given us the spirit that we might know the
things that are freely given to us of God. Not the spirit
the world has, the spirit God gives. And the faith is the gift
of God. Ephesians 2 says, By grace are
you saved through faith and that is not of yourselves. It's the
gift of God. Righteousness is the free gift
of God. Look at Romans 5. Romans chapter
5. Righteousness. You and I don't, we don't make
righteousness. We don't muster up righteousness. Righteousness is the gift of
God. Romans 5.15. Not as the offense, so also is
the free gift. You see, you earn the wages of
death. You earn those, but you don't
earn this free gift. Look, for if through the offense
of one, many be dead. That's how we died. That's how
we became sinners, by one. much more than the grace of God
and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ,
has abounded to many. This gift of righteousness is
by one. It's by Christ. Look at verse
17. He said there in verse 17, If by one man's offense death
reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus
Christ. Righteousness is a gift. This
ministry, this gospel that you hear preached, we wouldn't have
this any other way than God giving it. Paul said, he said, all things
are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Every spiritual
blessing, even our preservation is a gift. Look at 1 Corinthians
1. 1 Corinthians 1. We don't have anything in temporal
possessions or in spiritual blessings that God didn't give. Look at
1 Corinthians 1 and look at verse 5. Paul said, let's begin in
verse 4, I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace
of God which is given you by Jesus Christ that in everything
you are enriched by Him. in all utterance and in all knowledge,
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that
you come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end that you may
be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." What he is
saying there is A to Z everything you have is the gift of God.
Most of all, all of these blessings are ours by God's unspeakable
gift, by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. God gave His only begotten
Son. And when the Lord walked this
earth, He said to that woman at the well, if you knew the
gift of God, if you knew the gift of God, who's that? It's
Christ. If you knew me, He's saying,
who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst
have asked of Him, and He'd give thee living water. He's saying,
I'd give you life. eternal life, because He is the
gift of God. He took bread, and He gave thanks,
and He broke it, and He gave unto them, saying, This is my
body, which is given for you. You mean He knew who He was laying
down His life for? He said, It is given for you.
Speaking to Him particularly, I am giving my life for you.
Christ knew who He laid down His life for, and He gave His
life for His people. And therefore, brethren, because
everything A to Z is the gift of God, eternal life is the gift
of God. He said, the wages of sin is
death. You'll earn that. Everybody that
goes to hell earned it. If they don't have anybody else
to blame but themselves, they don't have anybody else to glory
in but themselves. They get the glory in that for
sure. The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ the Lord. Now that's a gift. Now,
we don't have any room to boast in ourselves. No room to boast
in ourselves about anything at all. Everything is the gift of
God. These spiritual gifts are all
gifts given from above, and they'll never, ever be taken away from
His people, ever. Listen to this. Every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the
Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. The gifts of God are without
repentance. He doesn't take back that which
He's given to His people. But, look at this, Job also recognized
this. He recognized he was God who
takes away when it comes to temporal things. He recognized he was
God who takes those things away. Job didn't blame second causes,
though everything that happened to him was by a second cause.
Satan was used, the Sabaeans were used, the Chaldeans were
used, fire from heaven was used, and a tornado was used. He didn't
blame those things at all. He said, He glorified the Lord. He said the Lord took away. The
Lord took away. Job knew the Lord is the first
cause for everything. He knew that. Every secondary
cause, including Satan, is under the dominion of God, under the
dominion of Christ. Look at 1 Samuel 2. Turn to your
right three books and look at 1 Samuel 2. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. To your
left. To your left. 1 Samuel 2. Look at verse 6. You see somebody die. And maybe it was some wreck or
it was a shooting or somebody mass murder or something like
that. But who's behind it? Who's behind it? The Lord killeth. The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave
and He bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor. Oh, we
ought to do something about all these poor people. You ain't
going to fight against God. Do something for poor folks.
Help poor folks. But I'm telling you, you're not going to stop
poverty because the Lord makes poor. The Lord makes poor and
He makes rich. He brings low, and He lifts up.
He raises up the poor out of the dust, and He lifts up the
beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes and to make
them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth
are the Lord's, and He has set the world upon them. He will
keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent
in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail. Good comes
to men. Men say, Oh, I'm blessed of God. God did this. God gave me this.
I'm blessed of God. Or they pat themselves on the
back. Say, I did this. I did that. Evil comes and men say, God wouldn't
do this. God didn't do this. God didn't
have a hand in this. How could God let something like this happen?
How could God do this? Would you rather Satan be in
control or God? That's your choice. Either Satan's
in control or God's in control. It's one of the two. If Satan
is in control of your God, your God is Satan. God is in control
of Satan. Satan is his devil. God said
in Isaiah 45, 7, I form the light and I create darkness. I make
peace and I create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. You can find that in Isaiah 45,
7. He said in Amos 3, 6, shall there
be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it? Now, is the
Holy Spirit of God charging Himself with sin? This is God's Word. Is He charging Himself with sin?
No. He's not charging Himself with
sin or evil. The instrument He uses is Satan and sinful men. But it's God who's ruling everything.
It's God who's ruling everything. Since everything we have is the
gift of God, God can take away His temporal gifts when He will.
And it's good when He does it. He's doing good when He does
it. He said, is it not lawful for me to do what I will with
mine own? Is your eye evil then because
I'm good? That means if God takes something
from us, brethren, if it's that woman I love dearly sitting right
there, or those children I love dearly sitting right there, It's
good. And my eye can't be evil toward
God because of it. They're His, and He can do with
them what He will. That's easy for me to say right
now. And I'm sure if it happened, I'd take the grace of God to
keep me. But it's so. It's true, brethren. That is true. In the second chapter,
look at there Job 2 and verse 9. His wife came and she said
to you, this was after he was turned into a leper, and she
said, Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest
as one of the foolish women speaketh. He said, You speak as an unbeliever.
Listen to this. What? Shall we receive good at
the hand of God and shall we not receive evil? And to assure
us that Job's not speaking sinfully here, the Holy Spirit says, in
all this did not Job sin with his lips. It wasn't sinful for
him to say that. Not at all. Turn to Acts 4. The worst evil ever committed
on the face of this planet was whenever wicked hands and Satan
nailed God the Son to the cross and crucified the Lord Jesus
Christ. Who was in charge there? Was it Satan in charge or was
God in charge? Look here at Acts 4 verse 27. Of a truth against thy holy child
Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel determined
before to be done." Now, everything that took place to Job, God determined
before for it to be done. He's the one that called Satan
when Satan came to a place just like this with the children of
God. They didn't see him. God did.
We don't see him. God does. Right here now. If he's here. He's not omnipresent. He's not everywhere. But if he's
here. But God said to Satan, have you considered my servant,
Joe? You can touch him. But here's
as far as you can go. God did that. God did that. Why? I don't know. I don't know why
He did it. God said here's a man that's
perfect and upright. He's full of integrity. He runs from evil. And in Christ's
surety, He's perfect, holy, righteous. There's no sin in Him, in Christ. Why God did this? Because it's
God. He can do what He wants to. And
it's good. It's good. He can do what He
wants to. Why do you preach it? Does it rejoice your heart? Listen
to this. If there's somebody sitting here
and this doesn't rejoice your heart, you got a heart problem.
You got a problem with God, I'm telling you. This rejoices my
heart. You know why? God's absolutely
sovereign over everything. He's controlling everything that
happens in this world. I'm not worried about ISIS. Somebody
said he is he is they fix they're gonna be was was They are gonna
be when God gets done with them, and I'm not worried about him
at all I'm not worried about things with God's in control
of every bit of it if it's coming to pass it's for good He said
this and this what it means it means he's gonna bring his salvation
to pass for his people and nobody's gonna stop him That rejoices
my heart. He said, Remember the former
things of old, for I am God and there is none else. I am God
and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and
from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying,
My counsel shall stand. I will do all my pleasure, calling
a ravenous bird from the east, a man that executes my counsel
from a far country. I've spoken it. I will also bring
it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also
do it. You mean God could use a raven
if He wants to? God can use a raven if He wants
to. Yes, sir. He is in control of everything.
I read a story that Spurgeon gave on, I thought it was a good
illustration. There was a gardener and he was
working, he was a servant of a rich, rich master. And he worked
in the garden and he planted the roses and he took care of
the roses and he was meticulous about these roses. And he knew
wherever Rose was, every place they were and knew their condition
and knew everything about them. He cared for these roses. And
one day he's walking along and he looks out across the garden
and somebody has clipped off some of his roses off one of
his rose bushes. And he was fired up. And he went
around asking everybody trying to find out who cut the rose
bush. I want to know who cut the rose bush. I planted those
roses. I'm responsible for growing those
roses. I, I, I. And they said, The master of
the house walked out here and cut those roses. And he said,
okay then, it's fine. It's fine. He bought the roses. He's the one that paid to plant
the roses. He's the one that did everything
to grow the roses. He's the one that servant wouldn't
even have a life if it wasn't for the master. And that's true
with us in God, brethren. He can cut the roses when he
gets good and ready to. He can cut the roses. Alright,
here's the last thing. Learn to thank God at all times. because Christ is our only lasting
possession. This is true for a believer only.
But learn to thank God at all times because Christ is our only
lasting possession. Job said, Blessed be the name
of the Lord. Now Satan had made the accusation.
He had said that the only reason Job worshipped God is because
of what God did for him. And here's what God did for him
in verse 10. He said, Has not thou made a
hedge about him? Yes, God had made a hedge about
him. Satan couldn't touch him, couldn't do a thing to him. Don't
you rejoice, God's sovereign believer? That's true of God.
He made a hedge about his people. And he said, And about his house,
and about everything that he hath on every side, it can't
be touched. And he said, Thou hast blessed
the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the
land. That's why Job had what he had. God gave it to him. He
said, but you put forth your hand now and you touch everything
he has and he'll curse you to your face. And God said, go touch
him. I'm taking the hedge down. I'm
going to give you permission. Go touch him. He's not going to curse
me to my face. Go touch him. It wasn't merely
that God gave things to Job and that's why Job worshipped him.
That ain't why Job worshipped him. It wasn't merely because
of that. It wasn't merely because God
hedged him about. And that's not it. God, Job worshipped Him
because He was God. Because He was His God. Because
He was alive because of His God. He said, blessed be the name
of God. Those who rejoice in God, I mean
rejoice in God, rejoice in Christ because He's God. Because He's
who He is. He's holy. He's righteous. He's
just because of who He is. They'll continue worshiping Him
when every other temporal blessing is gone. They will. They'll continue blessing Him.
They worship the Lord Himself, not for what they can get out
of Him. I'll tell you what a believer will say. If He slaves me, I'll
trust Him. I want Him to have the glory.
I want Him to have the glory. I mean, honestly, this is the
way I feel about it. If I'm not His, and I'm not going
to bring glory to His name, I want Him to cast me out. I want Him
to cast me out on the Day of Judgment because I want Him to
have the glory. I want His Son to be honored,
not me, Him. And God's people would sooner
honor Him in His glory and have Him glorified than have anything
else in the world. Because we're not worshipping
what we can get out of Him. The unbeliever wants all you
hear them talking about is streets of gold. If they're gold, why
are they streets made out of gold? Because it's not valuable.
He's the one valuable. I don't want a reward. You're
going to sit down sometime and if you think men are saved in
heaven and get rewards in heaven, you sit down and you try to figure,
okay, which one of the saints are you going to put first? And
which one are you going to put last? Put Abraham first or put
him last? Put David first or put him last?
That's foolish. I wouldn't want to try that.
I wouldn't want to dishonor one of them doing that. We're getting
everything the same, brethren. We're getting an eternal inheritance.
And we're getting Christ. He's the Lord's people. He's our inheritance and we're
His inheritance. That's what the Scripture says. And wherever He is, that's where
I want to be. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care what I'm doing there.
I just want to be where He is. He's the inheritance. Do we praise God the same when
He takes away as when He gives? That ought to be our aim. Praise
Him when He takes away just like we do when He gives. Praise Him. We ought to thank God when He
takes away health the same as when He gives it. We ought to
praise Him when He takes away our gain, the same as when He
gives us gain. We ought to praise Him when He
takes away our success, the same as when He gives us success.
When He takes our life or our loved one's life, the same as
when He gives us a new baby or a new believer, praise Him the
same. Why? Because first of all, blessed
be the name of the Lord because He's bringing glory to His name.
Whatever He's doing, He's bringing glory to His name. You want Him
to be glorified? Look at the cross. What did He
do there in that most evil thing? He declared Himself to be just. When He put sin on His Son, He
wouldn't spare His only begotten Son. He shows us how just He
is. He poured out justice on His
own Son. And at the same time, he declared he's the justifier.
Romans 8 said, it's God that justified. It's Christ that died. He laid down his life for people.
For somebody to be justified, he had to die for somebody. And
he said he justified them. He justified them. That's what
He did. Here's why we bless God when
He takes something away. He's doing something good for
His people. He's always doing something good for His people
when He takes something away. If He takes away our loved one,
if He takes away our health, if He takes us away, He's doing
something good for His people. Look to the cross. There's all
that evil taking place. Did He do something good for
His people? He obtained eternal redemption for us on that cross.
Yeah, He brought glory to His name and He did something good
for His people. And so every lesser evil that takes place
in this world, He's doing it for the good of His people. I'm
so sick of hearing people on television go, well, I know everything
happens for a purpose or everything happens for a reason. I know
that, you know, all things work together and all this. They just
quote these things and none of those things are true. None of
them are true. Here's what's true. We know that
all things work together for good to them. that love God according
to God's purpose. That's true. That's true. And
here's why. Because whom He did foreordain,
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son. And who He did predestinate,
He also did justify. And whom He justified, He also
did glorify. What shall we say then to these
things if God before us Who can be against us? If He did not
spare His only begotten Son, but He delivered Him up for everyone
that He foreordained, and everyone that He predestinated, and everyone
that He justified, and everyone that He glorified, if He delivered
Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us
all things? You think any... He said He keeps
the feet of His saints. That's why we bless God when
He takes something away. We bless Him when He takes something
away because it's the gift of God for you and me to suffer.
Did you know that? Listen to Philippians 1.29. Unto
you it's given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on Him, but also to suffer for His sake. It's given. That's
a gift of God, to suffer. Peter said this, Rejoice in as
much as your partakers of Christ sufferings. When His glory should
be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. Happy
are you when you are reproached for the name of Christ, for the
Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. On their part He is evil
spoken of, but on your part He is glorified. If any man suffers
as a Christian, he said, let him not be ashamed, let him glorify
God on his behalf. You mean if I suffer as a believer,
I haven't done any evil, I haven't done anything wrong, and yet
I suffer, and harm comes to me? If I'm nailed to a cross and
I suffer being burned like some men have, if I suffer being torn
asunder from limb to limb like some men had, you mean that's
of God's hand? That's of God's hand. Yes, sir.
Because it's a privilege given to me to suffer for Christ's
sake. Preacher, you sound like you're talking big, standing
in that pulpit. I'd be shaking like a leaf if
it happened. I'd be depending entirely upon God's grace to
make me stand with Him all the way through, just like I am right
now. That's just so. I don't have any strength. You
don't either. Here's why we thank God. We bless
His name. Here's why. Because He gives
us thorns, just like He did Job to teach us we don't have strength
in ourselves. Christ is our only strength.
Paul said, lest I should be exalted above measure. lest I should
be exalted above measure because of the abundance of revelations
God had given me. He gave him all these revelations,
took him up to the third heaven, and then when he brought him
back down, I'd be puffed up about that, wouldn't you? We can't
keep a secret. We'd be calling up everybody
we knew, saying, let me tell you what I saw. And he said,
unless that happened to me, God gave me a thorn in the flesh,
a messenger of Satan to just That's what that word Buffet
means. Just like he did Job. Just like he did Job. And he
said, I prayed for it to be removed and God told me, my grace is
sufficient for you. And He brought me to realize,
to glory, to thank God for my infirmities, to bless His name
that He gave me the infirmities and the reproaches and all the
things He's given to me. Because when I see how utterly
weak I am, that's when I'm the strongest, because that's when
I'm dependent on Christ the most, when I don't have any strength.
So we bless His name when He takes something away. I know
suffering's not easy, suffering's not enjoyable, but we don't want
it. The knee-jerk reaction is we want to get away from it,
and we don't want to have anything to do with it. I know that. That's fine. But brethren, this
is what the scripture says. Every time we suffer, that suffering
is the will of God. It is the will of God. In everything
give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. That includes when we're suffering.
That includes when we're suffering. The Lord said, I'm taking both
your sons. Eli said, it's the Lord, let
Him do what seems to Him good. They came into the Lord's house,
pressing, acting like it was as common as dirt, and not reverencing
God, and acting like it was just as common as walking in off a
beach somewhere. God smote them down and killed
them dead. Aaron just kept his mouth shut. He's God. Let Him
do what He will. Alright, let me end with this.
No matter what we accumulate throughout our days, the bookends
of our life declare what comes from our hand the whole way through.
We're bookended with nakedness and that's what we contribute.
We came in and we're going to leave with nothing and we contribute
nothing. Salvation is of the Lord, everything. And true life is not in having
and it's not in having not. That's not true life. True life
is to live upon Christ the bread from heaven. That's life. True
life is to be clothed in Christ's righteousness rather than in
linen clothes of this earth. True life is to be a sheep of
His pasture rather than count how many sheep you've got in
your pasture. True life is God our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
our only lasting possession. Now, if you don't have Christ,
tell me something. What do you possess? What do
you possess? When you leave this world naked
and leave everything behind, and you enter glory, you know
what you'll have? Nothing. Nothing. I'm saying,
you that don't know it, when you come into God's presence,
you'll come into God's presence with nothing. Nothing. And if you leave this world without
Him, it don't matter how rich you were in this life, you used
all your days on this earth to accumulate nothing. Nothing. Isn't that sad? Isn't that sad? Poor old Donald Trump. I don't
know if he's his or not, the Lord's or not, but if he leaves
this world without Christ, think of everything he owns. Spent
all that time, accumulated nothing. Absolutely nothing. Job was wealthy,
but he had something worth more than anything else he had. He
had Christ. He had Christ. And when he died,
when he lost everything, nothing changed about that. He still
had his only true possession. And when he died, nothing changed
about it. He still had his only true possession.
And brethren, Whether we have or we don't have, we're leaving
it all when we leave here. But this is the truth. When we
die in Christ, nothing will change. We'll still have our only true
position and we'll have Him for eternity. For eternity. While men are across that great
gulf fixed and they're gnawing on themselves because they would
not hear this word when they had the opportunity to, they
will be watching us the whole time while we have not changed
at all. We have our possession in hand
for eternity to enjoy. It shall be well with the righteous.
Well with the righteous. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Amen. We thank you for the word. We
thank you for all the everything, everything you gave us. Thank
you for the air we breathe. Thank you for Christ, the unspeakable
gift. Thank you for eternal life, everything
in between. Lord, we pray that you'll be
with these men as they study this week and give them grace
to preach here Thursday night, Sunday morning. We pray that
you'll be exalted, that they'll get straight to Christ right
away and preaching for your people and comfort your people with
the words that only possess you and that is our comfort. Lord,
teach some young person. Teach these sinners without Christ
the vanity of their life right now. Show them the one thing
needful. Bring them to the feet of Christ.
Ah, what a sad case, Lord. We pray that you'll make them
see the truth. Lord, we pray that you'll be
with us now as we leave here and bring us back safely. In
Christ's name we ask it, for his honor and glory. Amen.