Now, if you would open your Bibles
with me to the Book of Job, chapter one. I started the Book of Job a few
services back and I want to continue in that. Someone asked me if
I was going to switch up because tonight we're going to recognize
our graduates, two young people who who finished one chapter of their
life and getting ready to embark out on another chapter. Matthew
and Missy, we think of you often, we pray for you. And I got to
thinking about this as I was thinking about our service tonight
and what I would preach. And I always like to say some
words of wisdom if I have any. I know I don't have any myself.
It's gotta come from God's word. to these two young people and
all our young people. What Brother Bill there read
is such a great example of words of wisdom to the young. Remember
thy creator in the days of thy youth before you get old. That's basically what he's saying.
Before you get old and you don't enjoy life as much as you used
to. I enjoy life, but not as much
as I used to. Whatever. But I can't think of
a better passage to go to than this passage here in Job. I've
dealt with chapter 1, but I want you to back up there to verse
20 of chapter 1. Most of you know the story of
Job. And here at this time as we look at verse 20, we're going
to see as I entitled the last message, this is the same title,
the righteousness of God vindicated. God honored, God vindicated here
in all that he does. And God has allowed Satan to
take away from Job everything that Job had, all of his possessions,
including his family, his sons and his daughters. And so Job
stands penniless. He stands without any possessions
here. And as we say, we look upon this
book of Job as a test of Job, but really what's happening here
is the grace of God is being tested. That's what's happening. And so we want to look at it
in that light. Job has already gone through
what we might consider the hardest trial that a man or woman can
go through in life. Some of you older people, You
think about all your life and what you've worked for and what
you have your name on as far as being in what we call ownership. Just think about having every
bit of that and your families. Just think about that. Having
all that taken away from you in a day. That's what happened
to Joe in a day. Gone. Here today, gone tomorrow. And so then Job rises up in verse
20, and this is what he says, but before we get there, I wanna
just tell you this right here. There was a story of a father
talking to his young son who had just graduated from high
school and is getting ready to go away, going clear across the
country to go to college, get his degree, and prepare for life
in that way. And the father said this to him,
he said, son, he said, I want to give you some good advice.
He said, he said, I want, I hope and pray nothing but good for
you. Nothing but prosperity for you. But I need to tell you something
that will help you prepare for the evil days, the days of want,
the days of sickness, the days of trial,
the days of trouble. And then he began to talk to
the young man about the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ, and how
we're all sinners, and how we are all equally in need of God's
grace and God's mercy. How we all, without Christ, our
lives in essence are nothing. Now that's true. And I thought
about that story, and that's a good story, but I thought about
it's missing one factor that I think is really important for
you young people to understand. The father said, I hope nothing
but good for you. Well, we know, we know life is
life. You're going to have to deal
with the good and the bad. That's life. But the problem
is the father said, I hope nothing but good for you, but I want
to tell you something that will prepare you for the bad things.
Well, I would probably, I think we ought to put it this way.
I think that story, and that was supposed to be a true story,
I don't know, but it's a good illustration, and I want to say
it this way. To me, it would be better this
way. Not only do I want to prepare you for the bad things, but you
need to be prepared for the good things. Because by nature, we
are not prepared for the good things. It is mostly The, what we call,
what we would put in the category of good things, prosperity, that
are more apt to take you away from the Lord and from the truth
than anything else. I believe it's in the book of
Proverbs. I can't, I didn't write this down, so I can't think of
the exact reference right now, but it's like a prayer. It might
be in the Psalms, but the psalmist or the The wise man in Proverbs
prayed to the Lord and basically his prayer went something like
this. It said, Lord, don't make me poor lest I steal. I don't want to be a thief. But
he also said, Lord, don't make me rich lest I forget thee. Because that's what happens.
Prosperity, I believe, is a greater trial. than adversity. Most people,
when they get in trouble, the first thing they think of, well,
I better pray, I better read my Bible, better go to church.
If you were to find out today or tonight or tomorrow that you
had some dreaded disease and only six months to live, that's
probably what we'd all do. But then if you found out the
next day, oh, I was wrong. You've got the world by the tail
on the downhill slide. and say, well, let's go fishing.
Let's go somewhere else, anywhere but church. And that's the way
people are. Well, here's Job. Job was a very
prosperous man. He was the richest man in his
day. That's what the Lord said here
in verse 3 of chapter 1. He was the greatest of all the
men in the East. He had the greatest possessions.
Now, Job was a hard worker. Job was a model citizen. He was
an honorable man. But here's what Job says when
it's all taken away from him. Now listen to this. He says in
verse 20, then Job arose. Now this is after everything's
gone now. Job rose up and he rent his mantle. Now that just
simply means he tore his robe. Why did he do that? Well, that
was the way in that culture that they expressed grief. So Job,
he lost his possessions, he lost his family, everyone except his
wife. We'll find out why he didn't
leave his, why he didn't, why Satan didn't kill his wife later
on. But he lost his children. And he cried, he grieved over
this. And it said he shaved his head.
That was another way, that was an outward sign in that culture
of grief, of sorrow, of great, great sorrow. But listen to this. And he fell down upon the ground.
And what did he do? He worshipped. He worshipped. That was Job's occupation. Worship. That wasn't just a one-time thing
for him. What does that mean? That means he trusted the Lord.
He feared the Lord. He had reverence and respect
unto the Lord. And listen to what he says. He
says in verse 21, and he said, Naked came I out of my mother's
womb. Now that's how you young people
came out of your mother's womb. That's how I came out of my mother's
womb. We didn't have possessions then. We didn't even have the
shirt on our back when we came out of our mother's womb. And
then he said, and naked shall I return thither. That's talking
about death. Now I know that when you die,
they'll clothe you in something when they put you in the coffin,
but that's not you. That's just your body. He said, naked shall I return
thither. Listen to it. The Lord gave. Now do you hear what Job said
there? What's he saying here? He's saying that everything that
he had was a gift. It was a gift! And I often tell
you, and I tell myself this too, I'm preaching to myself too.
Do you know that the next breath you take Couldn't live without it, could
you? It's a gift from God. He gave it to you. And do you
know that none of us have earned that or even deserve it? The
Bible says, the soul that sinneth, it shall surely die. The wages
of sin is death. What am I? I'm a sinner. That
means I don't deserve life. That means I haven't earned life. The Lord gave it. And then he
said, and the Lord hath taken away. That's God's right, isn't
it? He gave the gift. That doesn't
mean God's an ending giver. It just means God exercised his
sovereign right. Oh, he's the creator over the
creature he took away. But listen to this now. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. Now that's an amazing thing.
And I want to tell you something, Job was not a superhuman being. Job wasn't a better human being
than the rest of everybody on earth. He was a sinner saved
by the grace of God. What he says here is spoken,
not by his own power and goodness, but by the power and goodness
and grace of Almighty God. Nobody could say from the heart,
truly. I know we can say religious expressions
all the day long. We can put bumper stickers on
our car. We can do a lot of things like that. But nobody could say
from the heart what Job said without the grace of God. I'm
sure of it. And it says in verse 22, in all
this Job sinned not. That means he didn't curse God.
He was a sinner. We know that because he sacrificed
over here in chapter 1 and verse 5. Job was a worshipper. He worshipped
through sacrifice. And that, as you know in the
Old Testament, now you young people know this because you've
been taught this well here for the whole time you've grown up
here, that those sacrifices were types and pictures of the one
great sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of his people.
the one mediator between God and me and the man Christ Jesus.
When Job sacrificed, what was he saying? He's saying, God,
you're holy and righteous and just, and I'm a sinner, and I
need mercy. Give me mercy. That's what I
need. That's what you need. And you
don't, listen, you don't need mercy anymore when you're old
than when you're young. You need it right now every day.
That's right. You may realize it more when
you're old than when you're young. But the reality of it is you
need mercy right now and there's only mercy to be found in Christ. There's no mercy from God. Anything
that's called mercy outside of Christ to a lost sinner is really,
as the Bible puts it, is the long-suffering of God. It's like
living in a waiting room, or I'll put it to you this way,
here's an even better illustration, it's like living on death row,
waiting for the chopping block. You see, you need mercy, and
Job recognized this. And yes, Job was a hard, you
young people, when you go to school, I hope you study hard. I hope you're the best students.
I hope you make straight A's. Matthew, if you make straight
A's, we'll sing your praises. Missy, same thing. We hope you
do. But I want to tell you something.
If you have even the capability of doing that and the energy
to do that, I'll tell you who gave that to you. God did. And
you know as well as I do, he could take it away just like
that. I've seen it happen, haven't
you folks? We hope you prosper. We hope you do well. We hope
you find good jobs, good vocations, and find good spouses who will
make you happy in that way and grow up and be prosperous. All
of those things we hope for you, we pray for you, but the most
important thing that we want for you is to realize what Job
is saying right here. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh
away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's the most important. Without that, all this other
stuff is just fleeting by. Now Job, as I said, he lost everything
he had in this world. But let me tell you something,
he didn't lose a thing eternally. He says here, First of all, Job
knew that God was in control of all things. You know, he lost
everything he had, all of his children and everything, but
he didn't say, well, God's not in control, this thing's out
of control. No, he knew God was in control. He knew that the
living God, who is sovereign over the forces of nature, as
well as the enemies to the east, who attacked him and his family
and killed his children, he knew that his God was supremely good,
even though these things happened. He knew these things befell him
only because the good and almighty God had either brought these
things to pass or permitted these things to occur for his glory
in some way and for the good of Job. And he says, naked came
I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return. As far
as this physical world, that's the way it is. That's true. You
know, in reality, And I talk about, you know, Job
lost everything he owned. You know what this proves is
he really didn't own it. He just had it for a little while.
It's kind of like those storage centers, you know. They might
put them in a storage center for a while, but they're not
supposed to stay there for a long time. God owns the cattle on
a thousand hills, the scripture says, but Farmer Brown claims
them. Those are my cattle. But they're
really God's. So as far as this physical world
and its possessions, you may have them and we hope you have
them. And we hope and pray that you realize that they are gifts
from God. We hope as the writer of Ecclesiastes
said even before chapter 12, that you use these things to
glorify and honor God. And spend your life in occupational
worship, thanking God for the things that he's given you. We
hope that for you. But they are soon going to be
gone, sooner than you think, aren't they? Sooner than you
think. But let me tell you something,
let me tell you something that you can't lose. Job, as naked
as he was when he came into the world and as naked as he was
when he left this world, he stood before God clothed in the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that can never be taken away.
He stood before God in Christ. He knew that Christ is his only
hope. He says that later on in the
book, several times. The book of Revelation chapter
16 and verse 15 tells us this. This is talking about the end
time of the world. When Christ said, behold I come as a thief.
In other words, he's going to take this world by surprise.
Now, he won't take his people by surprise. We don't know the
day he's coming, but we expect him to come. Well, what's going
to be my state and standing when Christ comes again? Well, it
says here in Revelation 16, 15, blessed is he that watcheth.
That means stays alert and awake. and keepeth his garments, holds
them dear to his heart, lest he walk naked and they see his
shame." What garments is he talking about? He's talking about the
grace of God in Christ. Standing before God, washed in
the blood of Christ from all my sins, clothed in the righteousness
of Christ, imputed, charged, accounted to me. And as Paul
said in Philippians chapter 3, that I may know him and be found
in him, and not having mine own righteousness which is of the
law but that which is through the faith of Christ that's what
we need that's the clothing symbolically that cannot be taken away and
then Job said the Lord gave and the Lord taketh away as far as
this physical world that's true it's going to be gone but in
eternal life when the Lord gives salvation by his grace through
Christ It can never be taken away. That's something that can
never be taken away from you. That's what Job's saying here.
You can lose your house. You can lose your car. You can
lose your family. You can even lose yourself. But you cannot lose salvation
by the grace of God. Now, here in chapter 2, I want
you to see this now. Now, I can see some smart aleck
coming up to Job and said, well, Job, at least you've got your
health. Well, read chapter 2. Look at it. Verse 1. Now here's
the same scene we saw the heavenly court. He said, again, there
was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves. Those
are angels. That's the heavenly host, the messengers of the Lord,
agents of God's providence, his governance of this world. They
present themselves before the Lord. There's the word Lord again.
That means Jehovah. This is the God of salvation.
Whatever's taking place here takes place as it relates to
the God of all grace, the God who saves sinners by grace. And
he says, and Satan came also among them to present himself
before the Lord. You can't tell it in the translation
of the King James Version here, but the idea here is that God
summoned him. He didn't just show up and take
God by surprise. He don't take God by surprise.
And it says, And the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest
thou? This, again, we dealt with that over in chapter one. He's
not asking for information here. He's exposing Satan for what
he is. You see, put it to you this way. The Lord Jesus Christ, He was
one sent from heaven. He's of the heavenly. He's of
God. But Satan, look here, it says,
And Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in
the earth and from walking up and down in it. That's the kind
of language that indicates that Satan is of the earth. The fallen,
cursed, sinful earth. That's his occupancy. That's
his nature. He's a fallen angel. And so it
says in verse 3, And the Lord said unto Satan, now he repeats
this again. This is for emphasis. Hast thou
considered my servant Job? The servant of God. Job, the
bond slave of Christ. Serving God, not in order to
pay a debt, but serving God as a willing, loving bond slave,
whose debt has already been paid. Who paid the debt? Well, in Job's
time, it was by a future promise of one to come, the Lord Jesus
Christ, upon whom all the debt of the sins of God's sheep were
laid upon him. And he says that there is none
like him in the earth. Now, what distinguished Job from
the rest of them? The grace of God, that's it.
He says he's a perfect and an upright man. Perfect there means
complete. He's a complete man. What is
a complete man in the scripture or a complete woman? It's one
who is in Christ. Colossians 2 and verse 9, in
Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, verse
10, and you are complete in him. You see, without Christ, man
and woman is nothing but incomplete. That's what sinfulness is. But
in Christ, we're complete. He's our complete wisdom, Christ
is our complete righteousness, He's our complete sanctification,
and He's our complete redemption. And upright means He's straight.
What does that mean? That means He's come the straight
and narrow way, which is Christ and Him crucified and risen again. There's a crooked way, there's
a perverse way, but there's only one straight way. And that's
Christ. He's one that feareth God. This
proves that he was a man of faith. He was born again by the Spirit.
He feared God not with a legal phobia or a legal fear that stirs
people up to get religious, but he feared God with a reverence
and respect that only comes from God. And he escheweth evil. That means he departed from evil.
He hated evil. And again, now we know that Job
was like the rest of us. You're either a sinner lost in
your sins or a sinner saved by grace. Job was saved by grace.
He hated every false way, proven by his way of worship through
sacrifice. He came the way of Abel, not
the way of Cain. He came with the blood. And still
he holdeth fast his integrity. Now Job's integrity, now I believe
Job was an honest man. I believe he was a man whom people
looked at and said, now if Job says it, he's going to keep his
word. I believe that. But his integrity here is his
faith in Christ. That's his integrity. Now we
ought, you young folks, I hope as you get older and you deal
with people, I hope you're honest. I hope you're people of your
word. I hope that when they look at
you, they say, well, don't believe, I hope they don't say, well,
you can't believe a word he or she says, you know. But the real
integrity here in the eyes of God is our faith in Christ. That's what that is. And he says,
although thou movest me against him, to destroy him without cause. Now, I won't get into all that
means right now. I'll do that later when we get
into Job's three friends. But this right here, this statement
right here proves that Job was not suffering or being tested
because of any specific sin in his life. God himself, without
cause. You see, there's There's no reason
for this in Job. What he's talking about is Job
didn't do anything to bring this on himself. This is for the glory
of God. And people who don't understand
this, you know, they look at God, well, my soul, why would
he do? There's a reason, and you'll
see it as it develops through, but it's for his glory and for
Job's good. But God preserves him now. And
he says in verse four, and Satan answered the Lord and said, skin
for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
And what Satan there is saying, it's kind of like a way of saying,
well, well, you know, Job, you know, I've gotten to do all these
things to him, and he's not cursed you, as I said he would, but
Satan is basically saying that that's not enough. Skin for skin,
all that a man hath, he will give for his life. Give away
all of his possessions for his life. So he says in verse 5,
But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh,
and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto
Satan, Behold, he is in thy hand, but save his life. Now here's
what he's saying. Take away his health. Say, well, Job, at least you've
got your health. Oh, hold on. He said, you touch his health.
He said, you have that permission. He said, he's in your hands.
That's what God told Satan. This is Satan getting permission
from God now for this. God's in control of this situation,
folks. He said, but you can't touch
his life. You see, Satan doesn't have that kind of power over
life and death. And so here's what happened.
Look at verse seven. It says, So went Satan forth from the
presence of the Lord, and he smote Job with sore boils from
the sole of his foot unto his crown. We don't know exactly
what it was. It was just open sores, or some
say it was leprosy, other things. I know this. I don't want it,
and it hurts. From the top of his head unto
the soul of his feet. Job was stricken with this great
disease. It says in verse 8, he took him
a potsherd. You know what that is? That's
like you break a pot and you get a little shard off, a little
piece of that broken pot, and he scraped himself with all.
He started scraping these open sores with that shard of a pot. Now you'd think that hurt. Well,
apparently the sores were hurting even worse. and he sat down among
the ashes. You know where that was? That
was outside the city of Uz. That's where Job lived. And that's
the ash heap where they threw the trash and the human refuse,
the human waste. That's where Job took up his
abode. He'd hit rock bottom. He's forced
now to live in the town trash heap, both a dump and a dung
hill. When I read that From some of
the commentaries, I thought about Hannah's prayer, how God lifts
the beggar off the dunghill. That's what he does when he saves
us. He lifts the beggars off the dunghill of false religion
and self-righteousness and puts us in the palace of the king.
Cleans us up, washes us in the blood of Christ, and puts us
in the palace of a king. And look at verse 9. Then said
his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity?
Do you still trust God? That's what she's saying. Do
you still have faith in him? Curse God and die. Now you know
the reason why Satan didn't kill Job's wife. She was an ally. Do you still trust God? Look at
what he's done to you. Curse God and die, but now look
at verse 10. He said, but he said unto her,
Job said unto her, thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. Now foolish there means unbelieving. It's like in the Psalms, I think
there's two Psalms that say that the fool hath said in his heart,
no God for me. That's what he's saying here.
And he says, what? Shall we receive good at the
hand of God and shall we not receive evil? Evil not being
that God is the author of sin, but in the sense that God is
in control of all things that happens to us, these disasters,
these diseases. And it says this, in all this
did not Job sin with his lips. In other words, literally, it's
saying here, in all this Job did not curse God. He did not
deny God. He did not dishonor God. Now, that's the last time you
hear from Job's wife until, by implication, at the end of the
book. But think about that. What Job's wife did and said
is what is natural to us. Isn't that right? That's natural.
You go through all that. Curse God and die. What Job said
is not natural to us. It's the power and the goodness
and the grace and the mercy of God. So let me just close with
this. Let me give you this. First of
all, in this matter, Recognize the grace of God in Job's life
and in Job's heart. Praise God. Unlike Adam, you
know, Adam in the garden, this man Job, this sinner Job, he
came forth triumphant. How? By the grace of God in Christ. Righteous Adam failed. You know,
Adam in his creature righteousness, he still failed. That's the best
that man could ever be on his own. But in Job's victory here,
we see that there is a righteousness superior to Adam's that can stand
the greatest assaults of Satan. It's the righteousness of God
the Son incarnate. It's the righteousness of Christ.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died. Secondly, recognize this. Saving
faith will be tested. You see, the righteousness of
God is vindicated here. God's grace is vindicated here.
Not by man's feeble reasoning and opinions and goodness, but
by God himself. He preserved Job. And then thirdly,
and this is important, you young people listen to this, you cannot
judge a person's spiritual standing and condition by outward circumstances. Don't make the mistake of simply judging that just because
if you are prosperous in this life, that that automatically
means, as somebody said, you must be doing something right.
And that because if something happens in a disastrous way,
well, you must be doing something wrong. Let me tell you something,
we're all sinners. We're all in need of the grace
of God. And here's the fourth thing in
line with that. These things of this world are
fleeting, they're perishing, they will not last forever, but
the blessings of God's grace in Christ are forever. And they will last you through
life, through death, through judgment, and throughout eternity. And then one more thing. Recognize
Job as a type of Christ here. You know, when our Savior was
at his lowest point in life, as God-man, hanging on the cross
of Calvary, you know what I believe? I believe it started in Gethsemane,
you know, when He sweat great drops of blood. He was acting
as our substitute even then, having our sins charged, accounted
to Him. The sins of His sheep, His church,
God's elect. And He went through that suffering,
And the lowest point had to be, I believe, when he said, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You know, at the whole time of
his suffering, in his lowest point, he did not curse God and
die, he blessed God and died. He said, Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit. And he didn't curse his heavenly
Father, and he did not forsake his people. He said, Father,
forgive them, they know not what they do. And that's the kind
of righteousness that we need to stand before God in inner
glory, right there. And that's the only way we can
get it, by the grace of God in Christ and in Him alone. And
so it's our prayer for you that God will bless you and grace
you in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. All right.