Job chapter 7. Job chapter 7. The title of the message is this. Is there not an appointed time
to man upon earth? Is there not an appointed time
to man upon earth? I'm basically going to just deal
with the first two or three verses tonight. We may come back later
and look at the other verses, but that's basically what I want
to look at. This is what had my attention.
It is written in Ecclesiastes 3.1, To everything there is a
season, and a time to every purpose. under the heaven. Nothing happens
that the Lord did not purpose to happen and bring about by
His providence. We see that in verse 3. Job says
in verse 3, look at the latter part of verse 3, And wearisome
knights are appointed for me. wearisome nights, he said, are
appointed. They don't just happen. Some of God's children have more
wearisome nights than others, but every night is appointed
of God. Listen to these scriptures, Isaiah
46, 9-11. 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,
and I will do all my pleasure, calling a ravenous bird from
the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country.
Yea, I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it. I will also do it. I have purposed
it. I will do it. Jeremiah 4.28 For
this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black. because I have spoken it, I have
purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from
it." Why? Because I purposed it. And God
will do exactly as He has purposed. And every believer takes comfort
in the fact that whatever comes their way is divinely appointed,
purposed of God. It is for our eternal good and
God's eternal glory. And we say to that, Amen. So be it. Verse 1, he says, Is
there not an appointed time to man upon earth? And what Job
is saying in these first few verses, he's justifying his reason
for wanting to die, because he wants to die. He sees no reason
to live any longer. He says his life is now vanity,
and there's no hope of recovery. And what he said, my life is
useless. Man, it's appointed unto me and
wants to die. He knows that every man has an appointment to die.
And he says, that's all I want to do. I just want to die. I want to die. He wants to die
and go to be with the Lord. He wants to die and be at rest.
And so he says here, Is there not an appointed time to man
upon earth? Are not his days also like the
days of a hireling? Everyone has a set time. My time
is set. Your time is set. Everybody here,
your time is set. God has set it. And I'm glad
it's so. I'm glad it's just not going
along and maybe it'll happen, or maybe it won't, or it may
be today. No, it's going to happen as God
has determined it. Everyone has a set time by Almighty
God to live on this earth. A time to be born, it says in
Ecclesiastes, a time to be born and a time to die. And that time
is determined by God Almighty. We do not determine how long
we shall live. I don't know how long I will
live. My dad always thought he wouldn't
live very long because his dad died at 48 of a heart attack. And up until dad passed 48, he
thought he was gonna die young. He lived to be almost 92. I told him one day, I said, Dad,
you worried about that for no reason at all, didn't you? Look
how long you've lived. In those early years, But we
have a time set, and we don't determine how long we shall live. All you need to do is visit the
graveyard. Every now and then, I walk over
to this graveyard, and I look at dates. You see the dates of
infants, and you see the dates of old people, people who lived
to be elderly. God set those dates. God set
those dates. Those dates were etched in eternity
before God created the heavens and the earth. David says in
Psalm 31 15, My times are in thy hand. My times on this earth
are in God's hands. They're in the hands of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Mediator. Listen to this in Genesis 1,
it says, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now
listen to 1 Corinthians 15.24, Then cometh the end. In the beginning,
then cometh the end. When he shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put
down all rule and all authority and power." And that's exactly
what is going on right now. Jesus Christ is putting down
all rule and all authority. And when He puts it down, when
He subdues it all, and this is way over our head, but when He
subdues it all, He's going to deliver the kingdom, that righteous
kingdom, that kingdom wherein dwells righteousness, He's gonna
deliver it up to the Father. That man, that second Adam, he's
gonna deliver it up to God the Father. 1 Peter 4, 7, but the
end of all things is at hand. And that was nearly 2,000 years
ago when he wrote that. The end of all things is at hand.
There's nothing left to be done except that last, far as I know,
is that last sheep to be saved. And God bring about all that
He bring about in order to save them, to save that last sheep. But the end of all things is
at hand. Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. Revelation
10, 6. and swear by Him that liveth
forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein
are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and the sea
and the things which are therein, that there should be time no
longer." You know, the very fact that
God created time says that there's an end to it. That's what time
is. It marks the beginning of something.
It marks the end of something. That's why we have time. In eternity,
where God is, there is no time. There's no such thing as time.
It's always present. We'll never know time again once
time is no more. But time is to mark the beginning
and end of something. And there is a beginning and
end to this earth and everyone that lives upon it, as far as
living on this earth. And our time on this earth is
swift. It's short. It's short. You know, when everyone comes
up to die, and the ones that I've been around, their attitude
is, it went by so fast. It went by so fast. Job says
there in verse 6, "...is swifter than a weaver's shuttle." Have
you seen a weaver's shuttle? It's just that fast. That's my
life. It's my life. It's your life. Listen to James
4, 13-15, Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will
go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell,
and get gain. Whereas you know not what shall
be on the morrow. For what is your life? That's
a good question, isn't it? What is your life? It is even
a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For you ought to say, if the
Lord will, we should live and do this or that, because we might
not be here tomorrow to do this or that. You know how many thousands
upon thousands will not be here tomorrow? They will not wake
up in the morning on this earth. That being so, we should always
pray like this in Psalm 90 verse 10 and 12. The days of our years are threescore
years and ten. And if by reason of strength
they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow.
Aging doesn't bring health, does it? It doesn't bring health. Sin never makes us better. It
never makes us better. But now listen. Yet is their
strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly
Away, we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine
anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So, teach
us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. And you know what wisdom says?
Seek the Lord. Set your heart on things above. Seek to know Him. Wisdom teaches
us not to invest all our time in temporal things. Aren't you
glad? Are you not glad that God has
pulled you out of that kind of desire and hunger and thirst
after the things of this life? Aren't you glad that God has
pulled you away from that? You know, of course, I don't
know the heart of Job. I know Job was a believer. He's
a perfect man. But you know, he was a very rich
man, very rich man. And after this trial was over,
this severe trial was over, God doubled everything he had. But
I guarantee you, his heart was less on the back end of it than
it was on the front end of it. And he had double. God prepared
him for a double blessing. And I assure you, I assure you,
when he got those double blessings, he didn't have a death grip on
them. He was like, I'll enjoy what I have today. God may take
it tomorrow. He may do it. Wisdom teaches us not to invest
all our time in temporal things. I know we have to go to work,
we have to have a place to live, but wisdom teaches us to seek
those things which are above. Set your heart on things above,
not on things of this earth. Over in Matthew 6, 19-21, the
Lord said to set your heart on things above, seek those things
which are above, where your heart is, your treasure is. That's where your heart is, your
treasure is. Now, seeing that our time is short, How important, and I cannot stress
this enough, how important it is to know Jesus Christ. My soul, I can't stress that
enough. How important is my relationship
to Christ? It to me is the all-important
matter. Everything else pales in comparison
to my relationship to Jesus Christ, to knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. It's impressed upon me more and
more how this sinner can know the Lord. You can know the Lord. You can know the God of creation.
You can know the God of redemption. You can literally have fellowship
with Him. You would think we would just crave that. Yet He's got to send trials like
this to bring us to His feet and make us see that we're nothing. Job said, By the hearing of the
ear I have heard of thee, but now mine eyes seeth thee, and
I abhor myself. I abhor myself." Oh, how important it is to know
the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in John 17, 3, And this
is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. That's it. That's it. Now, This here, look back up the first
one. Is there not an appointed time
to man upon earth? Over in my margin, it says, is
there not an appointed warfare? It's an appointed warfare. This life is compared to a warfare. Since Adam fell, this world has
known nothing but war. It's been war and war. Just look
through history. Here we are in 2023, and we're
still killing each other in the human race. You're still killing
each other. It's just amazing. The whole
human race has been at war since the fall. But as far as the life
of a believer goes, we are in a constant warfare, aren't we?
And here's why. Because we daily battle with
the forces of darkness. We live in a very, very dark
world. We live, now we live in an evil
world. I'm not exaggerating. I didn't
even begin to scratch the surface on that. We live in a very evil
world. The whole world, the Word of
God says, lieth in wickedness. We live, we battle with darkness. It's a daily battle with sin,
not only without, but within. The battle that I have to deal
with every day in me. You see, there's an old nature
called in the Scriptures, an old man in me that just battles
against me. Paul said, when I would do good,
evil is present with me. That which I would do, I do not.
That which I would not do, that's what I do. Oh, who shall deliver me from
this body of death? Gabe, I heard Gabe say this on
a message I listened to him last week. He's talking about death
and he said, when we die, we're laying down death. We're laying
down death, we're laying down his body of death. And I thought
that was a good statement. We're laying death down and we're
living. We're finally living without
it, without that body of death. But this life is a warfare. Listen.
Ephesians 6.12, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. We wrestle with things we can't
see. We wrestle with demons, we wrestle with darkness, we
wrestle with that which we cannot see with these eyes. Satan's always after your mind,
he's after your heart, he's after what you love, get you away from
Christ. And that never stops. That never
stops. I mean, on every turn, it's just
something there to pull you away, something. But being in a warfare,
what must we expect in this war? Well, we expect the battle. It wouldn't be a war if it wasn't
a battle, would it? It wouldn't be a war. We expect battles. We no more come out of one, we
go into another. You know, more battle of thought
and another one pops in your head. We expect fatigue. We're not happy all the time,
happy all the time. We do joy in the Lord even when
we're sad, but I'm telling you, it's... Job, I'll tell you what,
I just read verse chapter 7 to you. Right now, that's not a
happy man. That's a man that's broken, hurting. And we expect injuries. Injuries. Yet, in this warfare, we are
more than conquerors in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Paul
said. First of all, this warfare that
we are in has already been won. That's the first thing that gives
us comfort and joy. It's already been won. I have
learned over the years that when I go through something, you know,
when Vicki's gone through something as a, you know, as a family,
I know this, that the outcome's already determined. The battle's
already been, the battle won. Christ got the victory. The outcome's
already, I've just gotta go through the waters. I've gotta go through
the fire, but the outcome's already determined. And that gives me
real comfort. I get great comfort out of that.
I can rest in that. We are more than conquerors in
this warfare. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4,
8, listen to this, we are troubled on every side. No matter where
I turn, he said, we're troubled on every side, yet not distressed.
Because Christ is our hope. He's our deliverer. We are perplexed. And I think it's chapter 10,
Job says, I'm full of confusion. Perplexed, but not in despair,
because I know that God's not perplexed. God's got a handle on every bit
of it. This is the absolute purpose of God that I'm going through.
Of course, Job, I think, learned that a lot better after going
through this. That's what trials do for us. They teach us. They are teachers. They're not
just hard times. They are instructors. These are
God's instructors, along with His Spirit and His Word. They
are instructors. But he said, we are troubled
on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down. You have
a bad day? Last time I was at the doctor,
he asked me if I've been depressed. I said no, because I knew what...
I should have said no, just cast down every once in a while. Every once in a while I'm cast
down. But not destroyed? Not destroyed. You who believe
and I, we who believe, we are indestructible. In Christ we're
indestructible. Are we not? You can't destroy
a child of God in Christ. It's not possible. You have to
destroy God. You'd have to destroy Him. So
in Christ, even though we go through these things and we're
cast down and perplexed, yet we're not destroyed, we're not
distressed, we're not in despair. This is of our God. I'll tell
you the truth now. I mean, of course, I know the
answer to it, but I was going to say, I don't know how people live
without knowing this. But they do because they're dead.
They're dead in trespasses. They're just spiritually dead.
It's not a reality to them. It's just not real to them. But
here's what a soldier must realize. A soldier realizes this. He's
not his own. 2 Timothy 2.4, No man that woreth
entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please
him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. God has chosen you
to be His sons and daughters. He has chosen you in Christ.
He has chosen you also to be a soldier of the cross of Christ. We are not our own. We belong
to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been redeemed, we have
been purchased, we are His, and we serve Him. We are His servants,
aren't we? We are His servants. And the
servant does not pick his place of service, the servant doesn't
pick the battle. He don't pick the battle. He
does. He picks the battle. But Job says here, look, I'll
go back to verse 1. Is there not an appointed time to man
upon the earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hireling? You know, he has an appointed
warfare. But he says here, even a servant here, you know, as
I said, he's justifying his reason for wanting to die. He said,
a servant earnestly desires a shadow. You don't deny that from him. He's worked hard all day in the
hot sun. He desires a shadow. And as a hireling, he looks for
the reward of his work. At the end of the day, he looks
to get paid. All I'm looking for is to die. That's all I'm
looking for. That's all I want. Job's looking
for death as a servant looks for the shadow and to hire him
his wages. And he says, you don't begrudge
a servant for wanting the shadow, do you? You don't begrudge the
servant for wanting to rest or the worker to be paid for his
wages. Then why begrudge me for wanting
to die? That's all I want to do. Paul said, I have a desire
to depart and be with the Lord. I can count on one hand. I don't
even need the whole hand to count. And I know believers want to
have that desire to depart and be with the Lord, but I mean
believers that wanted to die. Not because they were in pain,
but they wanted to die and go and be with Christ. They just
wanted to go ahead and die. And Paul said, I wanted to die.
I have a desire to depart and be with the Lord. Job says, I
just want to die. I want to die and leave this body of pain and
suffering and death behind me. He felt like he was useless.
Useless. You know, sometimes a battle
is so hot that the soldier, he just drowned in fatigue. He just drowned in battle fatigue. Man, he's going through it here. Job said, but he said, I'm made
to possess months of vanity, wearisome nights are appointed
for me. You know, this is a hint at how
long I think his physical suffering had been going on. He said months.
Months. I'm made. God is making me do
this. This is of God. God is putting
me through this. So am I made to possess months
of vanity, futility. My life is useless, and wearisome
knights are appointed for me." You know, God had to make Moses,
you see, He took Moses and for 40 years He put him on the backside
of a desert. And when he was 80 years old, you know, when
you're 80 years old, you don't think about leading an army.
or leading a people or you know, you're like, you know, the ministry
is for somebody else now. I'm too old. And that's when
God used him. And God made Job feel useless. He made Job realize his uselessness. And I thought about this today.
We have to become useless when it comes to the ministry, when
it comes to serving the Lord. We have to become useless before
we can become useful. God's got to make us useless.
And then when he uses us, we realize that the power is of
God and not of us. It's not of us. Now, in the closing, let's consider
Christ in times of hard trials, like Job's going through here.
Of course, none of us have gone through what Job's gone through.
But let's consider Christ in these times. In our heaviest
trials, let's consider the Lord Jesus Christ and His battle,
lest we be weary in our minds and faint, because that's what
it says in Hebrews 12.3. For consider Him that endured such
contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied
and faint in your minds. When it's just so difficult,
turn to Calvary. Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ
and consider what He went through. Consider the time He spent on
this earth. See, there was a set time for the Lord Jesus Christ
to come into this world and do battle with the Prince of Darkness.
I cannot say that I have ever done battle with Satan. I'm a
little peon. Satan, why would he personally Be concerned with me." But the
Lord Jesus Christ met him head on. He met the full force of
darkness as a man. God-man, but as a man. Forty
days and forty nights he was in the wilderness. He did not
eat anything, and at the end of those forty days and forty
nights, Satan came at him, and came at him hard. Came at him
hard. And he came here and he did battle
with the prince of darkness and defeated him. Defeated him. Satan bruised our Lord's heel,
his human nature. But our Lord bruised his head,
his power. Satan does not have power. He
only has what God allows him to have. That's all he has. And then there came a time for
him to stand before the justice of God and take the punishment
of all His elect. He stood before God's bar of
justice." Now listen, guilty. Guilty. I can't imagine what
that's like. I can't imagine to hear that
gavel come down and say, Now it's one thing for a judge
on this earth to say that, but when God of heaven and earth
does that, that's something else now. But He stood there before
the bar of justice, and He stood there being made sin for us,
and He stood there guilty. My guilt, but guilty. And then there came a time for
him to die. He's the only person who came on this earth on purpose
to die. He came here on purpose to die,
suffer and die. It says in Matthew 16, 21, From
that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that
he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders
and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and rise again
the third day. He had to die. Peter said, No,
not so, Lord, not so. I'm glad He died. I'm glad Jesus
Christ died. He's the only one who could suffer
and die and rise again and save us. Without that, we're lost. We perish. Then there came the
time for Him to rise from the dead. As He said there, the third
day, He must rise again. He can't stay dead. We're not saved by a dead Christ.
We are not saved by a dead Christ. We are saved by the risen Lord
Jesus Christ. We are saved by His blood, His
righteousness, His sacrifice. John said he saw a lamb as it
stood in the midst of the throne, as it had been slain, but it
was standing there alive. Our sacrifice is living. You
know, in the Old Testament, when they killed the lamb, it never
lived again. It was dead. They had to get
another lamb. Our lamb is living. And it's living in the presence
of God on our behalf. How could you not be saved with
such a lamb? And then there's time, listen,
there's a time for Him to come back. I mean, there's a time
for Him to reign. It says in 1 Corinthians 15,
25, For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his
feet. He must reign. He's reigning right now. Jesus
Christ is reigning right now. He sets up one, brings down another. And then there's a time for Him
to come back. Do you believe the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back?
Are you really looking for Him? Are you looking for His appearing?
1 Thessalonians 4.16 For the Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in
Christ shall rise first. But the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout." You know, the first time he came,
it was quiet, wasn't it? It was quiet. There was a few
shepherds who came, a few wise men came. It was very unnoticed. It was very unnoticed. Nobody
else knew about it. I mean, just a handful of people
whom God directed to come and recognize and give us a witness
to His birth. It was very quiet. But not when He comes back. When
the King of kings and the Lord of lords rises up and He comes
back, He's coming back with a shout that will shake the heavens and
the earth. And the dead in Christ shall
rise first. And then which remain shall be
caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Time to come back. Listen, now
close. We will never go through anything
like what our Lord went through at Calvary. We will never go
through anything like what our Lord went through, that Holy
One of Israel, when He was made to be sin. All I've known is
sin. All I've known is sin. But He
never knew sin, and then He was made to be sin. We'll never go
through anything like what our Lord went through. So when we
get weary, remember Him, consider Him. He has won the battle and
is seated at God's right hand making intercession for us. You
know, some of you have asked me, you said, pray for me about
a certain situation, pray for me. And I ask you, pray for me
this week. I got two messages to put together
for this coming Sunday, then we got the conference coming
up, pray about it. Man, I have one that I know prays. We have
one that prays for us in our afflictions, in our trials. He prays for us. Peter, Satan
hath desired thee to sift his wheat, but he said, I pray for
you, not that you'll not go through it, not that you'll be okay. I pray that your faith fail not. I pray your faith. Maybe we ought
to pray like that. Lord, we pray that their faith
won't fail. Keep them in the faith. We are kept by the power
of God through faith. We have an important time to
fight the good fight of faith. You know, I've often think like
this. I have this short period of time that God's given me on
this earth. This is the battlefield. This
is the battlefield where I have the opportunity to glorify God.
And once I'm taken off this battlefield, there's not going to be a battle
anymore. This is it. This is it. What a great opportunity. What an opportunity we have to
fight the good fight of faith. That's what Paul said in 1 Timothy
6.12, "...fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal
life, whereunto thou art also called." And that's professed
a good profession before many witnesses. We have, now listen,
we have an appointed time to fight the good fight of faith,
and we have an appointed time to leave His earth and go to be with the Lord. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4.6,
For I am now ready to be offered in the time of my departure,
not death, Isn't that the way we ought to look at leaving?
It's a departure. You know, you go to the airport,
you depart at 6.45, you're departing. We have a departure time. Every
one of us has a departure time. And Paul says, I'm ready for
it. And by God's grace, I pray he'd make us ready for it. Is there not a time? for man
upon earth. And our times are in his hands.