We turn to Job chapter 7. I'm
not going to try and handle all this chapter. Job is still in
a very, very dark place. It's really just a continuation
of chapter 6. What I want to talk about tonight,
and the title of the message is this, is there not an appointed
time. Boy, if we could just live in
reality of that. Is there not an appointed time? We know and believe that all
things are of God. Nothing exists that He did not
create. Nothing happens I mean, nothing moves. I'm talking
about even a gnat. I believe that. Not even a gnat
flies. That our Lord did not predetermine,
predestinate. I'm glad He did. I'm sure glad
He did. That He did not predestinate
to happen and to bring about by His providence. Everything that you and I have
experienced up to this time was ordained, foreordained of
God, predestinated, predetermined, and brought to pass by our Heavenly
Father. Everything. Absolutely everything. I read this to you not too long
ago. Ecclesiastes 3.1 says this, To everything there is a season. Right now, we are going through
the change of the season. There's a lesson going on out
there, you know. There's a lesson that's going on. We see it every
year that we live. We go through the seasons. There's
a lesson in that. There is a season and a time
to every purpose under the heavens. The believer can take comfort
in this, that there's a season for whatever
I'm going through, it's a season. And every season changes, don't
they? If it's a hard trial, there's
an end to it, because it's just a season. And there's a time
limit on it, a time limit on everything we experience, everything. And we can take comfort in this,
that whatever comes our way is by divine Look over in Psalm
31. Psalm 31. This here is a psalm of David,
this psalm, and I want you to look in verse 15. It speaks of
Christ, but this also speaks of every one of his children.
My times are in thy hands. My times are in thy hand. Deliver
me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute
me. But my times, my days, my hours, my minutes, my seconds
are in his hand. And that is very comforting to
me. Very comforting. Now, the first point I want to
deal with is this. There is an appointed time to
man upon earth. We make so much of this earth,
man makes so much out of it, but there is an end to it. There
is an end to it. Is there not an appointed time
to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the
days of a hireling? God has set a time to all men
and women living on this earth. The fact that God created time
I've thought about this several times. The fact that God created
time tells us that there is an end to all this. Time is for what? It's for marking
the beginning and the ending of something. That's what time
does. You go to work, you punch clock. At the end of the day, you punch
out. And you get paid for the time you were there. And that's what it's for, is
to mark the beginning and the ending. And the very fact that
God created time tells us that he marks the beginning of it
and there is an end to it. In heaven there's no time. There's
no time to that life after this. But to this life, there's a time
and there's an end to it. Listen, turn over to Revelations,
I've got several scriptures I want to read, I may just read several
of them to you because I've got them written down, but look over
in Revelations. In Revelations, let me tell you
where, where, Revelation chapter 10. Let me see where I want to start
reading. Let's look in Revelation 10,
look in verse 6. Well, let's look in verse 5.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth
lifted up his hand to heaven 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. It's over with. It's over with. I know there are people who think
we're crazy. That we think this is going to
all end someday. We have God's Word on it. We
have God's Word that there is a time coming when there will
be no more time. When He'll say, no more time.
No more time. And that's the end of it. And
this should teach us also that our time here It's short. It's short. Job said it's quicker
than a weaver's shuttle. You ever seen that? It's like
vapor. It appears for a short period
of time and it's gone. Vapor. Smoke. He says, and the cloud as it
goes away. You know, you see a cloud go
over and it's gone. You won't see that cloud again.
You'll never see that cloud again. It's gone. That's how swift our
life is. I'm about to turn 57. I can't
believe that. I'm telling you, I sit down and
I think, how did this happen? It's like it snuck up on me and
went boom. I was just like, how did this happen so quickly? I
can't believe it. Where has the time gone? I've
already spent the greatest part of my life. I realize that I
spent the greatest part of it. I'm not going to live another
57. No way. I don't know there's
a way, but I don't I don't think that's going to happen. The swiftness
of our lives are to teach us to redeem the time. Make good
use of the time. James says this, I'll read this
to you, James 4, 14, whereas, you know, not what shall be on
What are you going to do tomorrow? You don't know. You might not
have plans. But I have absolutely no idea
if tomorrow is going to come or not. For what is your life? What is
it? It is even a vapor. Do you hear what the Word of
God is saying? It's a vapor. that appears for a little time
and then vanishes away. In probably 30 years, let's just
say 30 years, probably 75% of this congregation
will be gone. 70% of it anyway, you think?
In 30 years? Probably so. It would be close. Gone. I did a funeral a couple of weeks
ago of someone who was not expected to die so soon. But she did. Unexpectedly. This ought to teach us to number
our days. Says in Psalm 90, 12, So teach
us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Wisdom tells us not to invest all our time in these temporal
things, but in eternal things, eternal matters. Lay your treasure
up in heaven. Set your affection on things
above. You know, the Word of God never,
ever tells us to set our affection on these things on this earth,
does it? Never, not in any place. It never
tells us that. It tells us to seek those things
which are above, set our affections on things above. Where your treasure
is, your heart is. And where is your treasure? It's
in heaven. The believer's treasure is seated at God's right hand. Now, seeing that our time is
so short, How important is it to know Christ? How important is it to know Him, who is going to one day say,
time shall be no more? Knowing Christ, to me, and I
know this is so, is the all-important matter And I have an extra number of
years to live. God knows how many. I don't. And I don't want
to know. But He knows. From my beginning and between
now and the time I die, there's one thing that's important. One
thing. And that's knowing Christ. That
is my relationship, my union to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I tell these young
people as they grow up. The world's so attractive to
them. It's just so attractive out there. But I'm telling you,
it's got a huge lit. It's got a huge lit to it. And sooner or later, if it doesn't
go before I do, I will go. I will go. Oh, how important it is to know
Christ. Everything pales in comparison to knowing Him. Everything pales
in comparison to knowing Him. The Scripture says, In Him ye
are complete. Without Him you perish. Along
with the rest of this stuff. But this also means this. Job
said, Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? It also
has this meaning. Is there not an appointed warfare. That's what it's comparing this
life. It's nothing but a warfare. If they're not an appointed warfare
to man upon earth. This life is compared to a warfare
in that it is a daily battle for the believer now. For the
believer, it's a daily battle with the forces of darkness.
Every day. Every day. If it's not outward,
it's inward. It's a constant battle. Listen to this scripture in Ephesians
6.12. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood. Did you struggle with something
today? Did you have some struggle with
anything today? Well, I can tell you something. There was something
dark behind it. There's something unseen behind
that. Every war that we fight, there's a spiritual war behind
that going on. 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. And we deal with that every day. That's what we do. That's what
the believer deals with. It's a warfare. It is a warfare. Now, seeing
it's a warfare, what are we to expect? If you go to war, some
of you get in wars, what do you expect? Picnic? Expect to go
shoot each other a little bit and leave? No, I'll tell you
what we expect. The first thing we expect is
hardship. Why are we so disappointed when things don't go our way.
Why are we so upset whenever things get hard and the way gets
tough? It's a warfare. It is a warfare. We are taught in the Scriptures,
listen to 2 Timothy 2.3. Paul is writing to Timothy. Thou
therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We should expect to have hardships
and enjoy it when we have rest, when we have a furlough. Enjoy
it. But we should expect hardships.
It's a warfare. And then we should expect disappointments. I tell you, Job, as I said, Job's
in a very dark place. Very dark, very difficult, very
difficult place. Very disappointed. We should
expect contests. We wrestle not against pleasure,
but we do wrestle. It is a contest. We should expect
battles. So why is this happening to me?
Well, why not? Why not me? Am I not in the battle? We're not watching it from a
hill somewhere. We're in it. It's a warfare. We should expect
injuries. We should expect these things.
Injuries. Job says his body is like an
open sore. He says it's an open sore. Let me find this place. Look
in verse five. My flesh is clothed with worms
and clods of dust. You know, Job is saying I have
maggots on my body. And my body's crusted over with
scabs. My skin's broken like a running
sore. It's just all over. And I've
become loathsome. Not just to look at, but to smell. The smell of Him. That somebody's been knocked
down now. That somebody has been knocked down. Injured. We should expect fatigue. You know, we expect our leaders
never to falter, don't we? Well, I'm going to disappoint
you. That's what you expect. Because in this battle, we have
fatigue. It's a warfare. Look over at
2 Corinthians. We're not forsaken, but we do
get cast down. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, look in verse 7. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and
not of us. We are troubled on every side. yet not distressed,
we are perplexed but not in despair, because we know who is in control. Or we would be in despair, wouldn't
we? Persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed,
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
Our Lord said this one time, count the cost. Count the cost. It's a warfare. It's a warfare. And then a soldier who goes to
battle, who fights for his country, is not his own. Boy, I tell you what, you want
to find out what it is to give up, just join the military. You're
told what to do, when to do it. 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. I didn't choose Christ. I didn't choose to be His soldier.
He chose me to be His soldier. I mean, let's get the order up
straight. I'm not my own. I'm not my own. I belong to Him. He tells us,
especially those who preach, you just cut loose all this other
stuff. You're mine. You're mine. You're in my warfare. And in this warfare, God has
fixed how, when, and where we shall live, fight, and die. He's fixed it. He's chosen it.
And as it says in Ecclesiastes 8.8, there is no discharge in
this war. There is no age where we sit
down and we say, it's over. I'll tell you when it's over,
when they put you six feet under, that's when it's over. But until
then, there's no discharge in this war. Let me give you, thirdly, the
believer's desire in this battle. I mean, it gets wearisome, doesn't
it? It gets tiresome. It gets tiresome. The believer's desire, as Job
states here, is like that of a servant looking for the shadow. He's worked out there in the
sun all day. The sun has beat down on him.
He's worked. It's been a long, hard day. And like that servant that longs
for that shadow, he longs for that rest. That's where God brings us to.
We long for that rest. We long to be with Christ. You know, when you're young,
you've got your children, you raise them up, and you want to raise
them up. You want to be their parent. You want to bring them
up. But I tell you what, as life goes on, as life goes on, that
shadow starts looking pretty good. That shadow over there,
that tree over there that's casting that big shadow. Man, that looks
good. To the believer now. It doesn't
look good to the unbeliever, but it does to that believer.
That shadow looks good. Oh, it's so desirable, so desirable. And it's like the hireman who's
worked all day. At the end of the day, he's looking
for his pay, looking for his reward. We're not looking for a reward
because God is our reward, but we're looking to be with him.
We are looking to be with Christ. As a servant earnestly desires
And that word earnestly means this, gapeth, gapeth, just craving
it. As a servant craves, desires
the shadow and as a hireling looks for the reward of his work. That's what the believer looks
for. As he goes through this battle, he or she, as they go
through this battle. But in closing, in closing, I wanted us to have some encouragement by looking at the time that Christ
spent on this earth in his battle, his battle. You know, it is said
that the reason the Greeks fought so hard for Alexander is that
Alexander marched with them. They didn't carry him. You didn't
have these soldiers carrying him on a throne through the battle
to where they were going to fight. No, he marched in front of that
army. He took that army into battle.
He took that army into battle. He fought with them. That's why
they fought so hard for him. Let us look here for just a little
bit closing, our Lord's time in his battle while he was here. The captain of our salvation
has already, he's already fought the battle and won. We're in
a warfare, but we're not going to lose. It's a battle that's
already been won. But it's still a warfare that
we must go through. Well, first of all, we have His incarnation. Just try to imagine that God,
I mean, our imagination really can't go there. There was a time
that it was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And it says over in Proverbs
chapter 8 that Christ, the wisdom of God, was daily His delight.
His delight. And for him to come into this
world and to clothe himself in human flesh, the same kind I've
got, the same kind Job has, for him to do that is astounding. It's astounding. It says in Galatians
4.4, but when the fullness of the time was come, God had predetermined
this long before the world began. that His Son would come into
this world and redeem sinners and ungodly people. That God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law. There was
a time set for Christ to take upon Him flesh and come into
this world and do battle with the Prince of Darkness. To deliver
from the power of sin and the curse of the law. And this battle,
the Scripture teaches us, is the Lord's battle. It's the Lord's
battle. And that's a battle that can't
be lost because it's his battle. He doesn't lose battles. And during this time, he preached
the gospel. He healed the sick. But also during this time, he
had no place to lay his head. He suffered. When you read, if
you really read Take your time, read through the book of Job,
especially chapter 7 here, and what he's saying. I mean, what's
suffering? What's suffering? Christ suffered
more. Job was not suffering at the
hands of justice. He's suffering the chastening
of the hand of a loving father. God allowed Satan to touch him.
They allowed him to touch him. But God, through this, is teaching
Job. He's instructing Job. And there's
some chastening going on in this. There's some chastening that
goes on in all of our trials. There's some lessons, some discipline
that we are taught. But our Lord suffered. And listen,
He suffered temptation at all points. as we, yet without sin. Now he suffered, listen, the
full brunt of it. I mean the full brunt of it. He hungered 40 days, 40 nights
with no food. He thirsted. He cried on the
cross, I thirst. His tongue was cleaving to the
roof of his mouth. You know, Job says over here
in verse 19, How long wilt thou
not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my
spittle? Some of the men that I was reading
said Job was so inflamed, his body, insides and out, that he
couldn't even swallow. He couldn't swallow his own spit. Our Lord can identify with Job.
I can't identify with that. I've never been there. But there's
one who can. He was weary. He bore our grief
and he carried our sorrow. There was a time he did all this.
He went through this. And there was a time for him
to die. Now, you and I have a time to die. Everyone here who believes
the gospel, we have a time to die, and what a day that'll be.
Really? I mean, that's right. What a
day that'll be. That was a terrible day for him.
It was the wrath of God. Job did not feel God's wrath. I mean, as much as he felt like
God was against him, You know, when we go through
hardships, we feel like that at times. We feel like, is the
Lord clean gone? No, I tell you, the Lord, God,
was against Christ. His justice was taken out on
Him. You ever stand, and some of you
worked at Armco, you stand in front of those furnaces and that
heat, that searing heat that comes off of there, can you imagine? I can't even imagine the searing
heat of God's white, hot holiness burning down on him who was made
to be sin for us. God's absolute hatred. I mean,
you and I can hate somebody. We can hate something or hate
somebody, but that's, you know, we can cause us some trouble.
But for God to hate sin and to take out his wrath
on it, and Christ being made sin, We can't put that into words.
Can't put it into words. And there was a time for him
to be forsaken and a time for him to die. 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. Put to death. But the good news is there's
a time for Him to rise and be raised again the third day. That's over with. He's not going
to suffer for sin no more. That's over with. And that time is right now for
Him to reign. You know, He's not going to rain
somewhere down the road. He's doing it now. In 1 Corinthians
15, 25, for He must rain till He hath put all enemies under
His feet. He's raining right now. And He's
going to put all enemies under His feet. And when He does, after
He does that, then He's going to deliver it all up to the Father.
Done. Finished. And there's a time for him to
come back. We look for our Lord's return,
don't we? We look for his return. I don't know when he's going
to return, but I am confident of this. He's coming. He's coming
again. The world can think I'm a fool.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if a fool thinks
I'm a fool. What does that matter? God says He's coming again. The
Word of God tells us He's coming again. Jesus Christ is coming
again. And there is a set time for that,
just like there was a set time for Him to come the first time
and become incarnate and come into this and take flesh upon
Him and redeem us. There is a set time for Him to
come back, put an end to all this, and receive us into everlasting
joy. There's a set time for that.
Set time for it. So when you get weary of the
battle, when battle fatigue sets in, when battle fatigue sets
in, consider him, Hebrews 12, 3, consider him that endured
such contradiction of centers against himself, lest you be
weary and faint in your minds. He'd gone through the same thing, except at a greater degree. at
a much greater degree. What have we learned? Well, we've
learned there is a point in time. There's an end to all this. And
we've learned that we are going to go through this life and we're
going to have some disappointments and some hardships and some heartaches. And they're appointed. They're
appointed. Job says in verse 3, he says,
So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights
are appointed, appointed for me. Sleepless, wearisome nights. When you think you might have
some rest, you're up all night. Those are appointed. Those nights
are appointed. There'll be times our bed will
bring us no comfort. He said, when I lie down, I say,
when shall I rise? And the night be gone, and I'm
full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day. Those
are appointed. Our beds bring us no comfort
at times. But we've learned that our days
are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. And the best thing for us to
do is to apply our hearts to wisdom, to know Christ, to know Him, to have fellowship
with Him, union with Him, and recognize that all these
things are going to be gone. All these things are going to
be gone. There is an appointed time to man upon earth. And when
that time comes, if the poor little man wants to die, he'll
die, and it'll be over. And those who believe will be
with Christ, and those who don't will be in hell.