Sovereign Grace Chapel, located
at 135 Annabel Lane in Beaver, West Virginia, invites you to
listen to a gospel message concerning Jesus Christ our Lord. If you would, you wanna follow
along, turn to the book of Job, chapter one. Job chapter one. I'm just gonna read three verses.
Job chapter one and verse 20 is where I'm gonna start. Then
Job arose and rent his mantle and shaved his head and fell
down upon the ground Here's the thing, and worshipped, and worshipped. I like that. And said, naked
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this, Job sinned not,
nor charged God, foolishly. Now, my title today is Four Great
Truths. Four Great Truths. I don't know if you've noticed,
and a fellow wrote this down, and it kind of seemed to work,
especially for Job. where it says sometimes a man's
best statements come when he is in deep trouble, deep distress,
and horrible tribulation. The reason that is, it seems
like, sometimes it takes big trouble and hard times just to
show you what you are inside. In the good times, everybody
gets along fine. Everybody's happy, everybody,
it's a good time. That's the definition of a good
time. Everybody's in good shape, everybody's happy. But sometimes,
you need a problem to show you what you're made of. Job had
it. Job had it. Matter of fact, at
one time, Job had it all. and then he lost it all at this
particular time. Not just material things, but
his family and then his health. Job may have been miserable and
heartbroken, but right now, this is just after hearing the rest
of his family had been killed. I'm not gonna go into it, I'm
not gonna read it, I'm not gonna keep you long, try not to. Just
hearing how his family, and his family, not only died, his family
had been destroyed. I mean, destroyed. Lock, stock, and barrel. He made
this declaration of four great truths in one verse, and that's
what I wanna lay a hold of. This is what I wanna try and
preach today, these four great statements from Job 1 in verse
21. But first, before I start, I
do wanna point out again Job arose, ran his mantle, shaved
his head, and fell down on the ground. But that wasn't all. Job worshiped. Job worshiped. Job believed God. Job was a believer. And what happens in great times,
great troubled times, great tribulation, hard times? Pray to God. Worship God. What are you supposed
to do in the good times? Worship God. What are you supposed
to do in the bad times? Worship God. It shouldn't matter, but we're
creatures of circumstance, and it does. But here, this is what
Job did, and he said this. Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return thither. That is so obvious. but we don't
pay much attention to it. That's one of the great truths,
this is one of the four. The first truth of Job 121, I
didn't have anything when I came into this world, and when I go
out, I'm not gonna have anything either. Most people don't wanna
live that way, they don't wanna think that way, they don't wanna
know that. I was shy for a little bit, at least the part coming
out. I am anxious. to be with the
Lord in glory. That's where I wanna be, that's
where I wanna go. It's what I wanna do. But I'm
not really in a big hurry to die. Especially a painful death. Now if I could go in my sleep,
that'd be okay. You think about these things
every now and then. But that's my only way out of this world,
unless Christ comes first, is to die, is to die. And this is
what Job says about it. I didn't ask to be born into
this world, and when I came into this world, I had absolutely
nothing. I was naked. Naked. And that's the same way you're
gonna go out. If you're going to die in this
world, there's that old saying, and it's true, you can't take
it with you. You can't. You can try. Walt Disney, now this is a weird
thing to say on Sunday morning, Walt Disney had his head cut
off and frozen, because he thought somebody might bring him back
to life in the future. I don't know about you, but I
don't need Walt Disney. I still got Mickey Mouse. I mean,
people don't want to die. They don't want to die. Oh, my. But this, I didn't ask to be
born in this world, I had nothing when I came into this world,
and I will return the exact same way. Naked I came in and naked
I go out. Oh my. But now there is a thought
you might want to have right now. Think about it. Don't be naked
now. Don't be naked now. I got to
thinking about it, and it hit me, and I went and looked it
up. It's in Revelations 3 and verse
17. This is what the angel, or the
spirit says to the angel, the church of Laodicea. Laodicea. Because thou sayest, I am rich
and increased with goods and have need of nothing. What's
that? Good times. You're in good times. And knowest not that thou art,
you don't know that thou art wretched, and miserable, and
poor, and blind. Well, not done yet. And naked. And naked. You are wretched, and miserable,
and poor, and blind, and naked. Having a good time. in the good
times. You can be naked and not know
it. Job knew it. Job knew it. Naked I come into this world
and naked I'm going out. What's the message of that? Don't
be lukewarm. I'd rather you be cold or hot.
That's what he said. He said one or the other. Don't
be lukewarm. There's a saying in advertising,
I'm gonna apply it a different way. In good times, you should
advertise, and in bad times, you must, right? Well, in good
times, you should worship. In bad times, you will. Don't wait for the bad times.
Because he'll go on, he goes on to tell that church at Laodicea,
you know, everyone that I love, I chase them. I chase it. You don't want to have to be
put in tribulation in order to have you worship. Worship God. Naked I came in, naked I'm going
out. Then he says this, this is the
second great truth. The Lord gave. The Lord gave. The Lord gave. What's Job saying
here? Very simply, simply as I can
put it, everything you have comes from the hand of the Lord. You
know that scripture, every good and perfect gift cometh down
from the Father of lights, right? Job's going a little further
here. Every good and perfect gift does come down from the
Father of lights. But here's the thing, everything you have
came from God. whatever you have right now,
God gave it to you. Do you have a life? God gave
it to you. Do you have a family? Father,
mother, brother, sister, grandmother, children, uncles and cousins. If you've got them, God gave
them to you. Now, God may give them to you
for a hindrance or he may give them to you for a help. That's
on your family. I'm not gonna go into mine. But
God gave them to you. God gave them to you. Do you
have a home? Ooh, this is gonna be like the
bootstrap thing. I built this house with my own two hands.
Maybe, but God gave you both hands. Wait a minute. The Lord gave you the skill to
be able to build. You know how I know that? Because
I don't have it. You know? I can nail boards together,
sometimes I can use screws, but I can't build a house. As a matter of fact, he gave
you the skill to build, he gave you the strength to build, and
he gave you the materials to build with. The Lord gave. Oh, do you have an automobile?
Well, I bought that truck with my hard-earned money. Where'd
you get that hard-earned money? From a job. God gave you that job. God gave
you that job. He took jobs away from a lot
of people. You understand? I don't want to be a, what is
that, a religiopath or whatever it was, you know? I'll get into
that a little more, you know? Everything comes from God. Everything
comes from God. The Lord gave that money to you
from that job. The Lord gave you that job. He
gave you, may even give you good credit so you could get a loan. This is what Job knew and he
said, right, what? In three words, the Lord gave. And that is a great truth. That is a great truth. Anything
you have, the Lord gave. Everything you have. The Lord
gave. Wait a minute. Do you know Christ? Do you know Christ? Do you believe? Have you been given his salvation?
And that's, I just gave it away by saying that. The Lord gave
it. It's his salvation. And he gives
it to those whom he has chosen. It says it plainly in here. Remember what I said about not
being naked? Now, Isaiah 61 verse 10 says this. I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He
hath covered me, and I love this, with a robe of righteousness.
As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride
adorneth herself with jewels. The Lord gives, gives the garments
of salvation. And not only that, he clothes
you. He clothes you. If you know Christ
today, it's because the Lord gave. And only because the Lord
gave. I like that. Because the Lord
clothes me. The Lord covers me. The Lord gave. The Lord gave. Even his salvation. Now we come
to the hard part. Because this is just as true
as the giving. And this is just as true as what the part that
everybody wants to ignore. That's that religio path thing.
It says you won't give God whether you give God all the credit for
the good stuff, but you don't blame him for what's bad. Well,
we don't. We don't. Because the Lord takes
away. The Lord takes away. What the
Lord has given, sometimes and some things, he takes away. He takes away. It can be family,
it can be health, it can be home, it can be job, it can be money,
and the Lord can take it away. He can take it all away. What
happened to Job? I don't want what happened to
Job to happen to me. I really, really, really do not. And I
don't want to make light of your loss. And I don't want anybody
to make light of my losses in my life. But here's the thing. I gotta say this, I have to say
it. The scripture says it, the Lord takes away. He takes away. He gives and he takes away. Sometimes, and I'm gonna tell
you something else that's kind of hard to say. Sometimes I need something taken
away. And I may need someone taken
away. I don't want to say it, I hate to say it, but it's true.
It's not, like I said, the truth is hard sometimes, but it's still
true. It's still true. Sometimes you
need something taken away. I know I do, and I suspect maybe
you do. Earl used to say it, and it's
true. Hold loosely. to the things of
this world, and that means people too. Hold loosely, loosely to
these things that are in this world, these people that are
in this world, that are in your world. God may take it from you. And what he used to say was,
don't be too dependent on anything or anyone. God'll take it from
you. Why? Because we're to be dependent
on him. Remember that naked, naked you
come in, naked you go out. Who's important in your life? If Christ ain't number one, you
might be asking for some troubled times. You might be asking for
some hard times if Christ is not number one. Number two's all right, you can
have anybody else you want for number two, just don't lean too
much on them. Listen, what we have, God has
given, okay? And he knows better than you
and better than me what you need. And he knows better than you
and better than me what needs to be taken out of my life. I
may not like it, I may grieve. I may be broken, heartbroken
like Job, rent his clothes and bow down. But I hope that I can
say the Lord gave and the Lord took away. Oh, I hope I can say
that. Because listen, when God takes
something away, this is what people don't understand, this
is what people don't like, this is what they won't wanna have,
he's doing right. He's doing right. When God takes
it away, It need to be took away. I don't know if that's bad English
or not, and I don't care. Because it's true. Sometimes
some things need to go. And I don't know what it is. And you don't know what it is.
But trust me, please, if you don't trust anything else, I'll
tell you, God knows. God knows exactly what he's doing.
As a matter of fact, everything I have is far more than I have
earned. It's far more than what I deserve.
I don't want what I've earned. You wanna get into that? I don't
want what I've earned. He can take that away. The wages of
sin is death. Please take that away. He did
in Jesus Christ. Oh, I like that. But yeah, I
mean, I have a home, and I have a wife,
and I have a car. I have a job. I got a little
money. I can buy a biscuit at Hardee's
if I need to. And thank God for that. And I
need to thank God for that, for all of it. But here's the thing. This is the fourth great truth,
OK? The fourth great truth. Naked
I come into this world, and naked I'm going out. That's one. The
Lord gave, that's two. And the Lord taketh away, that's
three. But here's the thing that ties them all together. Blessed,
blessed, blessed be the name of the Lord. Oh my gosh. That's the fourth great truth
here in this verse. I'm gonna tell you something.
He saved the best for last in this one. Here, when God gives,
blessed be the name of the Lord. When God takes away, blessed
be the name of the Lord. That's the truth of it. Are you
sure? Yes, I'm sure. You know why?
Scripture say so. Job wrote it right here. The
Lord gave and the Lord took away. He didn't wait four chapters
to come in and say, blessed be the name of the Lord. He said
it right then. After he had just been told of the last of his
dead children. And not only the children, the
sheep and the goats and everything else, and the structures, the
buildings, everything. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. But I'll tell you how I'm sure,
because Romans 8.28 is still in the Bible. Walter hadn't got
that far yet in Romans. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. To them who are the
called according to his purpose. His purpose is for the good of
his people. That's given and that's taken
away. All things. And Walter, this
all things means all things. I've told you this before, I'll
tell you again, and also for the benefit of somebody watching
that's never seen this before. I heard a preacher on the radio,
primitive Baptist preacher, and he was talking about this verse
saying all things work together for good. And he was talking
that all good things work together for good. But not necessarily
all bad things. Listen, folks. It's all things. Because you want to be honest
about it, if Paul's point was that all good things work together
for good, that's pretty much an idiot's point. That's pretty
simple. Of course all good things work
together for good. But here's the thing, when God
gives and when God takes it away, you may think it's bad, but it's
not. It's not. It may cause you grief. It may cause you sorrow. It may
cause you pain. It has me. And you may not understand at
first. But I hope and I pray that God
will give you the wisdom and the grace to learn the lesson
later on. It took me a while to understand
how this works, Walter. It works when I'm not paying
attention. It works when I don't know what's going on. I have, now thank God, for the last 23
years I haven't really been without a job, 24 years. But before that,
every two years the business I was working in went out of
business. And I had to go on unemployment.
You understand? After the third or fourth time,
you begin to wonder if the problem's with me. I did. And I wouldn't be surprised if
somebody else did. He run three businesses into
the ground. And I was just an employee, I
wasn't a boss. But no, every time out of that,
God took care of me. He wanted me out of those jobs.
Now, there's other things he may have been doing at the same
time, I don't know. He may have just run them in
the ground to get me out of there. Well, the Lord has said they started
World War II to get her to America to hear the gospel. Yeah. That's
one of the purposes of God. Yes, sir, because she did. She
came to America and heard the gospel and believed it. The Lord gives and the Lord takes
away and blessed is the name of the Lord. Blessed is his name. Oh my. We think, you know, we
have this point where we think something's good and we think
something's bad. And I'm gonna be honest, you can admit it to
me, I'm the same way. Admit it to yourselves. We think
some things are good and we think some things are bad. Now granted,
there is wickedness in this world. I'm not saying it's not. No,
no, no. And the wicked are gonna have
their own problems with what they do. But I'm talking about
the people of God. The ones who trust Christ, the
ones who know Christ, okay? We think some things may be good
and some things bad may have happened to you. But no, not
in God's sight. Not in God's sight. Just like
Joseph when his brothers put him in that pit. They were gonna
sell him for a slave. Reuben was gonna sneak off just
because they wanted to scare Joseph. Reuben did. He still
put him in the pit and went back to get him and he's already gone.
The slavers already took him down to Egypt. And what did he
say? You meant it for evil. But God turned it around and
made it good. No, that's not what he said.
God wasn't surprised when they put him in that pit. God wasn't
surprised when the slavers got him out of it. He wasn't surprised
when he went in Potiphar's house. God, Joseph said God meant it. Meant it for good. And what do
you say? Blessed be the name of the Lord.
That's it. And he saved his brothers, and
he saved his father, and he saved the Hebrews. Why? Because the Lord gave, and the
Lord took away, and then the Lord gave again. That's what
happened to Job. He doesn't say it at the end,
because he's busy saying some other things. But it says the Lord gave, the
Lord took away, and the Lord gave me some more. God's never through
giving to his people. Never through. Because here it
is. The Lord is all good all the
time. Sometimes we might get a glimpse
of it. Sometimes we might get a glimpse of it. But here's the
truth. The Lord is good. The Lord is good. The Lord Jesus
Christ is good and the Holy Spirit is good. And the work of the
Lord is all good, all the time, even when we don't understand
it. Even when we don't think so.
And that includes giving and taking. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. I like that. And close here. In all this, Job sinned not,
nor charged God foolishly. Ooh, yeah, that's, you don't
wanna do that. I've done it. You don't wanna
do it, though. I don't wanna do it no more. Because this is
what I wrote down here. Well, there's some people give
God credit for everything good and don't blame Him for anything
bad, all right? A religiopath, is that what they
call it? I can fit in that category, that
part of it. Of course, according to Wikipedia,
I'm an antinomian. By their definition, I don't
like it. You believe God saved everybody
totally by grace and not by works at all? Yes, I do.