I've been rushed up here and
led to singing. I sure thank the Lord for him.
I really do. He was trying to get me a good
deal on the ladder last night. It wasn't a I want one like his. In fact I got his. So he wanted me to buy my own. They didn't have the one on sale
like his. Well, I want to deal with a serious
subject tonight, talking about Old Testament pictures of Christ.
You've seen the trouble that Job had. Four times, four times,
one thing after another came upon him. Trouble after trouble
after trouble after trouble came upon him. While he was yet speaking,
then someone came. And I want to talk tonight about
four things, four things that we learn only in trouble, only
in trials. And Job was a greatly, greatly
troubled as few men in this world have ever been troubled. He literally
lost everything that he had. Everything, I mean really lost
everything he had. And Shirley and I was talking
on the way to service tonight and I said, you know the only
way Job could have acted the way he did in verses 21 and 22. He said, Naked I came out of
my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And all this Job charged not
God foolishly. Sin not nor charged God foolishly.
The only way he could have done this and faced these troubles
the way that he did by worshipping God was to know Christ. To know Christ. It starts right
out in the first beginning. It says he is a perfect and an
upright man that feared God. Feared God. He eschewed evil. God himself
told Satan, he said, if you consider my servant, you're a perfect
and an upright man. God said that about him. So God let him be tried, and
tried very, very grievously. And the only way anybody can
go through any trial, and another thing we were talking about,
do you ever feel like that you passed a trial and done it really
well? Went through a trial and got
on the other side and said, boy, I look back on that, I really
dealt well with that. I handled that very good. Well, Job, first of all, let
me tell you something about him. He was a man of extreme wealth.
Great, great wealth. He said his substance was more
than anybody in all the East. He was the wealthiest man in
the East. He had more money, more substance,
more cattle, more camels, more service than anybody in the East. And then he turned around and
then he became a man of complete poverty. He lost all of his substance
and his children all in the same day. All in the same day. Everything he owned was just
swept away and gone. And he was a family man. He had
ten children. Ten of them. Seven sons and three
daughters. And all of his children were
killed in a storm. Killed in a storm. And even his
own wife turned against him. Look what he said over here in
chapter 2 verse 9 and 10. Look what he says over here. Then said his wife unto him,
Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die. charge God for this and let curse
God say Lord why did you let this happen to me but he said
unto her you speak as one of the foolish women speaking what
shall we receive good at the hand of God shall we not also
receive evil and all this Job did not sin with his lips his
own wife turned against him And here's a man of great influence.
Not only was a man of wealth and a family man. Here's a man
of great, great influence. He had service. Oh, he had so
many services and so many friends. And suddenly, suddenly, he couldn't
get anybody in that town where he was with all of his power
and all the influence he had. He couldn't get anybody to give
him the time of day. Let me show you that, what I
mean. Look over here in Job 19. He
couldn't get people to give him the time of day. And that's pretty
much the way it is in Job 19. Look what it says here. As long
as everything is going well with you, you've got all kinds of
friends. When things don't go so well, you don't have any.
But a friend indeed is a friend in need. But look what he said
here down in verse 13. This is Job. Now he's talking.
He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are
verily estranged from me. My kin folks have failed and
my family friends have forgotten me. My familiar friends have
forgotten me. They that dwell in my house and
even my maids count me for a stranger. I'm an alien in their sight.
I call my servant and he gave me no answer. I entreat him with
my mouth. My breath is strange to my wife,
though I am treated for the children's sake of my own body. Yea, young
children despise me. I rose and they spake against
me. All my inward friends abhorred
me, and they whom I loved I turned against me." So when he got in really, really,
really, really need, he didn't have a friend. Even the children
made fun of him and mocked him. And there was one time he was
a man of great strength and good health, and now he was so frail,
he was so frail that when his three friends came to comfort
him, look what it says in chapter 2 and verse 12. And oh, look
at that, when they saw Job, they didn't hardly recognize him.
And his three friends had came, and it tells who they are in
verse 11. But when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and listen
to this, they knew him not. He was so emaciated and his body
was in such shape and he was so sickly and so ill treated
that they lifted up their voice and wept. He couldn't hardly
recognize him. That's how quick he got over
things like that. And let me tell you something
about Job here that you probably don't know. Job when he shaved
his head and ripped his mantle and fell down on his face before
God in worship. Job no doubt didn't try to hide
his sorrow. He didn't try to hide his sorrow.
He wept before God. A man can't hear what he heard
and deal with what he dealt with and not be broken hearted. Just
cannot do that. He was broken hearted over his
children. Broken hearted over everything
that had happened to him. He wept before God. And God's
people are people with tender feelings. Tender feelings. And when God calls upon us to
go through trials and go through afflictions and go carry great
burdens and to bear the rod that He puts upon us sometimes, we
feel it. Now God, He takes away the stone
out of our heart. But He doesn't turn our heart
into a stone, no. We sorrow, we weep, we worry,
we go through things that people even in the world go through.
But we sorrow, but we don't never sorrow as those who have no hope.
And that's why Job, as sorrowful as he was, he had a hope. He
said, I know my Redeemer liveth. And though He slay me, I'm going
to trust Him. That's the only way he could
have known anything about this. Now look what happened to him.
Here's the first thing when Job's troubles came upon him. here's
the first thing to look at Job's heartbreak and Job's sorrow caused
him to worship God look at verse 20 chapter 1 then Job arose and
ran his mantle his robe shaved his head and fell down upon the
ground and worshiped worshiped now you know Sorrow and troubles
and heartaches should always lead us to worship and praise
God. Always should lead us that way. Where else you gonna go? We sing that song, Sweet Air
of Prayer. You know, when you get in trouble, that's when you
really start seeking the Lord. And I tell you, in all of his
trouble, in all this trial, in all this sorrow, Job never once
spake in a manner against God. Not any at all against God. He didn't dishonor the name of
God. He didn't look at somebody else and say, well, my lot's
worse than that person's lot. I wish that, you know, this hadn't
happened to me or that, you know. He never compared himself to
anybody else. No, no. He fell down and worshipped
God. And that's the thing that this
trial is supposed to do, to cause us to fall down and worship God. And I believe this with all my
heart. I believe this with all my heart. I've seen too many
people go through too many things. That it always, every believer,
I know he never ever gets through a trial and says boy I done good
there. I know he does not do that. But also know this, that
whatever God sends his way, he wants to honor God through it
as much as he possibly can. That's his, I don't want to dishonor
God through what's going on in my life right now. That's what
believers think. I don't want to dishonor God.
Oh my. And he fell down and worshipped.
And if God sometimes he sends you some trials and some griefs
and some sorrows and he presses you down to the ground, worship
there. If trials lay you low, worship
there. Let me, you keep Job, and let
me show you something in Psalm 68. This is one of my, I just
love this Psalm. I could quote it to you, but
Psalm 68. I just love this verse of scripture. I've quoted it
so many times over the years. Psalm 68. Or excuse me, 62. I'm sorry, 62 in verse 8 is what
I'm looking for. 62 in verse 8. 62 in verse 8. Look what it says here now. This
is a wonderful verse of scripture. Trust in Him at all times, ye
people. Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us. And that's
all we can do sometimes. Just pour out our heart to God. Just pour it out. Just empty
it and pour it out. And that's why Job said this.
He said, though He slay me, though He slay me, And sometimes people
get the news that this is it. And they say, oh, He slayed me.
I'm going to trust Him. I'm going to trust Him. And I
tell you, times of trial should always be a time of worship.
But it also ought to be a time to teach us and cause us to consider
things about ourselves and about life. Always should do that. And I tell you, listen, you know
what David did in Psalm 45? He'd done this twice. He said,
looked at himself and talked to himself. David had a conversation
with himself. And he said, why art thou cast
down within me, O my soul? Why are you cast down? What's
wrong with you? And then he told him, he says,
well hope thou in God. He sat around there for a little
while and he said it to himself again, Whoa, my soul, what's
the matter with you that you're so cast down? Hope thou in God. But he talked to himself. He
said, Oh, why, why? And all he wanted, I mean, he,
he said, pour out your heart. That's what he did, poured out
his heart before God. And Job reveals to us that he
was a man that feared God. God had well taught him. And
I tell you what, he feared God more than he feared anything
in the world. One thing that Satan accused him of, does Job
fear you for naught? The only reason Job worships
you is for what you give to him. And that's what the average preacher
is trying to tell people today. God will give you this, that,
and the other if you'll trust Him. I'll tell you what, you
trust God and He might take everything you've got, but you've still
got to trust Him. And that's four things, four
things Job learned in this trouble. First of all, he knew how brief
life was. Brief life was. Look what he
says there in verse 21. Chapter 1, verse 21. He said,
naked came I into the world, naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return there. You know what Job found out here
and he learned? That life Life is... He learned this in life that
it's just a snap of a finger. Just a snap of a finger. Huh?
He said, I came here and I gotta go back where I come from. I gotta go back where I come from.
You know, look what he said here in chapter 14. We all know this
and we've looked at this before. But look what he said. Man that's born of woman is a
few days short in his days. And those days are full of trouble.
He comes forth like a flower and is cut down and flees as
a shadow. He says, my life is just like
nothing but a flower. I preached there and talked about
this in a funeral one time. It was your dad's funeral. And
I dealt with this verse of scripture here. Come forth as a flower
and it's cut out. And one of his nephews got very,
very angry about it. He didn't like it at all. He
said, we're not flowers. Life's not like a flower. I tell
you, I don't care how pretty your flower is, how long does
it last? You bring up the finest lilies and the finest carnations
and you bring them up here and put them up here and they'll
be beautiful in all different colors and you'll set them up
here and within just a very few days the leaves and everything
starts falling off of them and you throw them in the trash can.
He said that's the way our life is. It's just like a flower.
They're beautiful when they're blooming but none of them last
long. And oh, he goes on to say, and I tell you my life flees
as a shadow, like a shadow going by. And doest thou open thine
eyes upon such a one, bringest me into judgment with thee? Oh
my. Then he says down in verse 5,
seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are
with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds, and he cannot pass.
He said, God you set my time, and I can't get out of it. I
got to do it. And oh my. And I'll tell you
something else he learned. He said, you know our life on
earth is compared not only to a flower, but a vapor. James said our life is but a
vapor. It seemed like just a very few
days ago, I was 25 years old. 25 years old. And I married 1,
2, 3, 4 couples that's in this audience today. And you've been
married longer than 25 years. How would that time go? Where'd
it go? And he said our life is like
a weaver shuttle. You ever seen anybody old time
weaver shuttles? It's that fast. And oh my, not only in time of
sorrow but at all times we need to consider the brevity of life
on earth. And I tell you, our length of
life to come and find our joy and our hope in one place, that's
in our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, for me to live is
Christ. But you know what else he also
said? To die is gain. To die is gain. And I tell you,
beloved, that's why Job said this, he said, I know. I know
my Redeemer liveth. I don't know, He didn't say,
I know my Redeemer is going to live. He said, I know my Redeemer
is living right now. I know He's living right now.
And that I shall see Him for myself. He'll stand on the earth at the
latter day and I'll see Him for myself in this body, He said.
After skin were to die of this body, yet I shall see Him in
my flesh. You can trust the Redeemer. You
can trust Christ. And oh my, not only he know the
brevity of life. Oh, what a lesson. What a lesson.
He knew the frailty and vanity of earthly possessions. Of earthly
possessions. When he said naked, came out
of my mother's womb. Here was a man who had immense,
immense wealth. And now he don't even have a
friend. And when the word naked, when
a baby is born into this world, what in the world does he possess?
He comes into this world naked. And Job said, listen, when I
leave here, I'm going to leave the same way I came. When a baby,
when he comes into this world, he possesses nothing. He don't
own a thing. And when a man dies, what in the
world does he possess? What does he possess? One of
my neighbors, he's dying. He was dying. I mean, he's on
his deathbed. Take me in the living room. Lay
me on the couch. I want to see my knives and I
want to see my arrowheads before I leave. That's a sorry thing to look
at, ain't it? When you're dying? But oh my! And you know what? He left every knife and every
arrowhead and everything he ever owned and every penny he ever
saved, he left it all by its world. He didn't have nothing
to take with him. And that's the way it's going
to be with all of us. He'll leave this world naked and what that
means is you won't have a possession. Baby comes without any possession
and we're going to leave here without any possessions. And
oh my, old Henry Mahan used to say all the time, don't drive
your tent stake down too deep because you may have to leave
and you don't want to have to duck, jerk, and try to pull it
out. Oh, listen. And the Lord teaches Job, and
I tell you what, God helped us to learn by His example. The
frailty and vanity that all we have in our hands and all that
we can hold in our hands, and we call our own. And the thing
is, when we was baby, we brought nothing into this world. And
when we leave here, we're going to leave just exactly the way
we came. But I tell you one thing we can do, We can leave this
world differently than the way we came into it. We were born
sinners. David said, I was shaped in iniquity
and in sin did my mother conceive me. But by God's blessed grace
and God's blessed mercy, given us in His blessed Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and faith in Him, we can leave this world as one
of His children, as one of His sheep, as one of His elect, justified,
forgiven, accepted, and freely, freely received into God's blessed
presence. through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh my! By Him who believed, He justified
from all things. Oh my! And without Christ, this
is what's so tough for us and our children and our grandchildren,
the people we love. Without Christ, men are going
to die as they were born. Shapen in iniquity, live in iniquity,
and die in iniquity. Oh, I can't think of anything
worse for a person to go through. Tell you something else Job learned. He saw God's hand in everything
that happened to him. He saw God's hand in everything
that happened to him. Look what he said here in verse
21 again in Job chapter 1. He saw the hand of God in everything
that he done. He said, the Lord, the last part
of verse 21, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. The Lord gave. That's what He
said. He said, He just took what belonged
to Him to start with. The Lord gave and the Lord has
taken away. When people read this, they see
that thing about Satan, God turning Satan loose. And that Satan done
all this to him. But Job understood that the Lord
gave and the Lord took it away. Satan didn't do this, the Lord
did this. And I tell you every true believer knows that the
Lord is the first cause of everything that happens in this world. This
pandemic, God's the first cause of it. And when it's over and
done with, He'll be the cause of it. I don't care what man
says or does. God's the one that provides for
this world and everything in it. They got these vaccines coming. God gave them people the sense
to do that. I'm going to give God the glory
for everything that happens in this world. I don't care what
it is. I mean really, did you know either
we believe He has His hand in all things and He's first cause
of everything or He's not the cause of nothing. There ain't
no middle ground. But oh my, Joe Black, everybody
knows that the Lord's the first cause of all things. And that
He uses second causes, yes. He used Satan here. But he can
only do what God, he said, oh listen, have you considered my
servant Job? And I tell you, it's just like
our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter prayed in Acts chapter
4 and said, we know, we know that Pilate, that you delivered
your holy child Jesus up to Pilate and the Jews, only to do what
your hand determined for to be done. You turned them over to
them, but you only determined it to be done. And then look what he said. He said,
Oh, the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away. Then look what else
he said. I want you to really, this is,
this turned me every way but loose today. He said, The Lord
gave. The Lord gave. Job didn't say,
I earned these things. I earned these things. I deserve
these things. I worked hard for all these things.
No, you know what he said? The Lord gave everything I've
got to me. I didn't have anything God didn't give me. That's what
Job is saying here. He said the Lord gave. You know, and people say all the
time, well you deserve this, you deserve that. It's a good thing God don't give
us what we deserve. And Job didn't say, I earned
them, I deserve them. I worked hard for them. No, he
said, all that I have, the Lord gave me. A man can receive nothing
except it given him from heaven. What have we got that we didn't
receive? And I'll tell you, and I've said this time and again,
and I know you believe the same thing. All that I have physically,
all that I have mentally, all that I own materially, and all
I am and I possess spiritually, every single one of them is a
gift of God. Every single one of them. Even though I have repentance
toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ, those were
given to me. Faith was given to me. Repentance
was given to me through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you,
all of these are the gifts of God. We would not have faith
had not Christ given it to us. We wouldn't have repented had
not Christ granted us repentance. So I tell you, God gave us everything
we have. And I know you're hard workers,
I know you are, and I know you take care of what God blesses
you with. But we know, we know, we know That everything that
you can touch, taste, or handle, or possess in this world is perishing
with the using. Huh? Oh my. So the Lord gave, and
then look what else he said, the Lord hath taken away. Not
only did he say the Lord gave me everything, but he saw the
hand of God in Job, Job saw the hand of God in him taking it
away. You know what, if it had been me or you, we would have
said, them aggravating Sabians. Boy, if I get my hands on them,
we'll go to war with them. He didn't curse the Sabians.
When them Chaldeans fell down there and got all of his camels
and killed some of his servants, he never said, oh, them wicked
Chaldeans. He didn't blame the lightning
that fell and killed all of his sheep. He didn't blame the wind. that had tore down the house
that his children was in and killed them all. He knew that
the Lord controlled all these things. And he knew that the
Lord God had willed it or it would not have happened. And he knew that. We really know
that all things work together. It's like Aaron. When God killed
his two sons Nadab and Abihu, The scripture said he held his
peace. Why? Because the Lord had done
it. The Lord had done it. And then
last of all, here's the fourth thing he learned in trouble.
He declared that no matter what happens, in all things and at
all times, God is to be praised. Look what he said in the last
part of that verse 21. The Lord gave, the Lord hath
taken away. Listen to this. Blessed be the
name of the Lord. Only somebody that Christ has
done something for can do that. Oh my. To be able to praise God
equally down in the valley of trial, or whether you're up on
the mountain rejoicing and your heart's full of joy. It ought
to be the desire of every believer to praise his God and to bless
his God. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians
5.18, In everything, in everything, in loss or in gain, whether in
sickness or in health, whether in success or else in failure,
whether it's summer or winter, life or death, in everything
give thanks. You know what he says? For this,
whatever it may be, if you're in Christ, it's the will of God
in Christ Jesus. I believe it's every believer's
desire that's in this building tonight, and a lot that's listened
to me. God, whatever you do to me, whatever
you send my way, help me to honor you in it, not embarrass you,
not shame you, and to praise you no matter what happens. For
Christ's sake. Amen. Our Father, oh Lord, how blessed
you are. Oh, we read these things, we
deal with these things, And Lord, we know every one of
them is true. Every one of them is true. We
know them. Lord, you've taught us a few
things over life. And so we continue to look to
you, and trust you, and believe you, and attribute everything
that we have in this world to you. to every spiritual gift,
to every material gift, to everything that we own or possess in this
world. It comes from you. You gave it
to us. You gave it to us. And Lord, we pray for our children.
Oh God and our grandchildren. Oh Lord Jesus, please, please
convince them of sin. Convince them of righteousness.
Convince them of judgment. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen. Everybody knows the first verse
I think of. It's well with my soul. I think
all of us know the first verse of it, don't we? When peace like
a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll,
whatever my taught me to say it is well it
is well with my soul it is well with my soul it is well It is well with my soul. Well, good night.