If you would turn with me this
morning to the book of Job chapter 1. Job chapter 1. I want to tell you a true story
that happened a long, long time ago. And oh, what a story it
is. And the story centers around
a man whom God had chosen and loved before the foundation of
the world. He chose this man to do good
to him. And his name was Job. God had prospered him greatly.
And God had determined and purposed to show him mercy, love, and
kindness. If you're a child of God here
this morning, He's purposed the same towards you. And therefore,
we can learn many things from our story. God had blessed him
with a big family. If you look in verse 2, it says,
And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters,
giving him a big family. We also can see from verse 4
that they were a close family, and his sons went and feasted
in their houses every one his day, and sent and called for
their three sisters to eat and drink with them. They were very
close, seemed to love one another a great deal. God had also blessed
Job with great material and earthly possessions. He was a rich man. Look at verse 3. His substance
also was 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 she-asses,
and a very great household. This man had servants. You can
just imagine, just to take care of his livestock, how many people
that he had as servants. He had a very great household
so that this man was the greatest of all men in the East. People
from all around would say, boy, there's a man. over in the east
part of the country that by the name of Joe, that man is somebody. That man is somebody. He's the
greatest of all men around these parts. Rich, well-loved, well-respected. But we start our story this morning
off on a morning that started out pretty much like every morning. We find Job praying and petitioning
God for his children. Look at verse 5. And it was so, when the days
of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified
them, and I won't go into the detail of that, but the last
part of the verse, and rose up early in the morning, and offered
burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job
said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in
their hearts. And thus did Job continually."
This man, as we can see, loved and cherished his family. And
he loved and he cherished God. So he did what he knew to do
before God on his children's behalf and for their spiritual
good. Now, it seems to me, and I think
it would you too, that Job's chief concern in all things was
the glory of his God. I have no doubt that he was a
gracious and a kind man. You know why? Because those to
whom God has been kind and gracious are gracious and kind. That's
just the way it works. And I am sure that his servants
loved him. I'm sure he was a fair man. I'm
sure that he loved them. But then providentially, And
on purpose, I might add, comes a whirlwind of disaster. Like I said, a morning probably
like every other morning. And I might mention here too
that the blessings of God almost always come with some trials,
some suffering. some heartache. That's the way
God does things. God weans us from this world.
God causes us to lean and trust on Christ. But I'm telling you,
very seldom do we ever find anything like this. And I suppose other
than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, no other man that ever lived
suffered like this man Job. Well, let's pick up our story
in verse 13. And there was a day, oh, I like
the way that starts out. And oh, what a day it turned
out to be, when his sons and his daughters were eating and
drinking wine in their eldest brother's house. Now, I made
mention to those first words, and there was a day. May we always
remember, dear friends, that every day, Every day of our lives
is ordained, controlled, and predestinated by God Almighty. Every day. Every minute of every
day. God's never been surprised. He's never been caught off guard.
He's never been required to have a backup plan. God is in control
every minute of every day over the lives of every man and woman
in this world. He controls the universe. He
keeps the earth orbiting. He keeps the stars in their place.
And sometimes at night when you see one fall, God ordained that. Oh, let's don't sell God short.
and there was a day. We're told in 1st Samuel, a very
familiar passage of scripture, that it's the Lord that killeth
and the Lord that maketh alive. It's the Lord that bringeth down
to the grave and bringeth up. It's the Lord that makes poor
and maketh rich. He bringeth low and He lifteth
up. It's the Lord that raises up
the poor out of the dunghill and sets them among princes and
makes them inherit the throne of glory. You know why? The pillars
of the earth are the Lord's. He holds it all in place. And
He set the world on them. This whole world. Nothing happens
in this whole world that God is not the first cause of. I
think about Galatians 4. It says, When the fullness of
the time was come, God sent forth His Son. You know that God has
never been early and God has never been late. He's always
right on time. God controls time and every minute,
as I said, of man and woman's life, and it's all under God's
sovereign control. And the Scriptures here say,
and there was a day, and it was God's day. I'm Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, saith the Lord, which is, which was,
and which is to come. the Almighty. The Lord of hosts
hath purposed, and who shall disannul, and his hand is stretched
out, and who shall turn it back?" Our God is sovereign and in control. Okay, verse 14, And there came
a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the
asses were feeding beside them, and the Sabians fell upon them,
and took them away. Yea, they've slain the servants
with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell
thee." Now here comes the first trial of Job. Remember, it was
just another day at first. Job's servants were plowing with
the oxen that the she-asses were eating, grazing next to them
as usual. And out of nowhere comes the
band of thieves and drove the cattle out into their own country
to serve them in their own lives. Then on top of that, they killed
the servants of Job with the edge of the sword. Horrible! There they were, plowing in the
fields, watching over the she-asses, and all of a sudden, this comes
upon them. And I can assure you by what
I said earlier, being a gracious and a just man, God said to Job
there was none like him in all the earth. He said he was a perfect. Now that doesn't mean he was
without sin, but it means he was mature and he was sound in
the things of God. He loved God. He was a man of
integrity. He was upright. And I'm sure
that he loved his servants. While some of them had been born
in his house, others he had purchased. But I'll bet you that every one
of them loved him. And you'll see that's the case,
I think, as we see all these servants come to Job as our story
unfolds. Now look at verse 16. While he
was yet speaking, the servant that came and told him that all
the cattle and all had been stolen and that his servants had been
murdered. There came another and said,
he was still telling him the story. I mean, here he come riding
up before the other ones even finished. And he said, the fire
of God, which I believe was lightning, that's neither here nor there,
has fallen from heaven and burned up the sheep. and the servants,
and consumed them." And that word consumed there means destroyed.
And he says, I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Now here
comes another messenger, one of Job's servants from another
part of his fields where his sheep were grazing. And I'm sure
this man being one that kept them. And he comes with another
piece of what we would call bad news. It's bad news. Even before the other servant
had finished telling him the whole story concerning the cattle
and the beloved slain servants, Here comes another. Over 7,000
sheep and all the servants that kept them were destroyed. Look at verse 17. And while he
was yet speaking, there came also another and said, the Chaldeans
made out of three bands, which means three divided troops, and
fell upon the camels and have carried them away. Yea, and slain
the servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped
alone to tell thee." Now, what provenance is there? God spared,
so far, three of His servants, and each one of them said, and
I only have escaped. And they came to Job to tell
him that he might know firsthand what's happened. No guessing,
no finding out days later. God providentially laid these
on him, one by one by one. Now you keep in mind, within
just minutes, of each other, 500 cattle, 500 she asses, 7,000
sheep, 3,000 camels, all gone. And more of his beloved servants
killed, murdered. Now you just try to get hold
of that in your mind. You try to imagine that. And
let me say this, the worst is yet to come. The worst is yet
to come. Look at verse 18. While he was
yet speaking, there came also another and said, Thy sons and
thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest
brother's house. And behold, there came a great
wind from the wilderness. and smoked the four corners of
the house, and it fell upon the young man, and they're dead.
And I only am escaped alone to tell you." God, as I said, delivered
one servant in each trial to come and be a witness to Job.
He said, In the house it fell upon the young men, and they
are dead. Now this was not only upon Job's son, but also upon
their daughters. The language here used really
takes into account both. And it's probably better translated,
the house fell upon the young folks. All your children are
dead. All ten of them. Well, let me
ask you again. Can you get your mind around
that? Can you imagine such sorrow and
affliction? This was the sorest affliction
of all. And it was reserved to the last. All the other trials came and
they were bad enough, but then this? Losing ten beloved children? Oh my! Make you think twice about
feeling sorry for yourself. Someone might ask, well, how
could all these things be by the sovereign purpose of God? That's what you said in the beginning
that God is sovereign control of all things. Well, we'll answer
that question in just a moment. But let's see how these things
came about. Look back at verse 6. Now there
was a day, and there's that term again, it was a day appointed
to God. It was God's day. When the sons, here meaning angels
of God, came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came
also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan,
Whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord,
and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking
up and down in it. Peter says in 1 Peter 5, 8, He
says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil
is a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may divide. That's
what he was doing. And the Lord, verse 8, said unto
Satan, now pay close attention to that. The Lord said unto Satan,
Have you considered My servant Job? You're seeking whom you
may devour. Have you considered My servant
Job? There's none like him in the
earth. He's perfect and upright man. One that feareth God and
escheweth evil. And Satan answered the Lord and
he said, Does Job fear God for nothing? There's a reason that
he reverences, respects, and loves you. He said in verse 10,
you made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all
that he hath on every side. You've blessed the work of his
hands, and his substance is increased in the land. You've blessed him
above all. He's the greatest man in these
parts. Satan says in verse 11, but put forth thy hand now, and
you touch all that he has. You take away all he's got, and
he'll curse you to your face. And the Lord said unto Satan..."
Look at it, verse 12. Is that what your Bible says?
"...And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in
thy power, only upon himself, but not forth thine hand. So
Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord." Now, can you see
who's in control here? Now, we in ourselves are no match
for Satan, as you can see from what happened to Job. And I give
this advice to all devil-chasing religionists that think they
have some kind of authority over Satan. Jude 1.7 says, Michael,
the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about
the body of Moses, did not bring against him a reeling accusation,
but said, the Lord rebuked thee. Friends, we're no match for Satan.
But I'll tell you this, Satan is nothing more than a dog on
a chain of a sovereign God. And as I told you a moment ago,
someone's going to ask, if God being love and good and sovereign,
how can these things be? It's all for the glory of God. Never forget that. All things
work together for good, of them that love the Lord, who are called
according to His purpose. All things are for our good,
and all things are for God's glory." Verse 20. Then Job arose, he rinsed his
mantle, he shaved his head, and he fell down upon the ground
and cried and kicked and screamed like a little baby. No, he worshipped. He did what? He worshipped His
sovereign God. When I saw that, I about fell
out of my chair. I had never seen that. He worshipped. Oh, what does a chosen child
of the living God do in horrific times of trouble and trial? He
worshipped His God. He worshipped His God. Mr. Spurgeon used to say, some of
the greatest pearls are found in the deepest waters. Some of
the most glorious worship comes when God's billows, God's waves,
have been made to roll over us. Now here in my text this morning,
and oh, what a glorious verse and text it is, let's consider
verse 21. After all these things that had
happened, Job said, notice his words, naked came I out of my
mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave
And the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the
Lord." I have two brief observations that I desire to give you from
this story. Just two. The first is the Lord's
hand is in everything. The Lord's hand is in everything.
The Lord's hand is in the giving of everything. And the Lord's
hand is in the taking. Everything that Job received
was of the Lord. It was the Lord that gave Job
his children. It's the Lord that gave you yours.
I remember a man wisely telling me years ago, he said, your children
just don't belong to you, they belong to God. The Lord gave
Job his children. It was the Lord that gave Job
all his wealth. It was the Lord that gave Job
the 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, the 500 oxen, the 500 she-asses. And it was the Lord that gave
him a great household. Who gave it to him? God did. Know what he said? The Lord giveth. The Lord giveth,
dear friends, all that you possess, whether great or small, belongs
to God. He gave it and He has the right
to take it away. It was given to you by Him and
He has the sovereign right to do with it as He pleases. Oh,
if I could but believe like Job. He just lost everything. Can
you imagine his distress and grief? But he knew something
that few men know. He knew that the Lord gave and
the Lord had taken away. God had made this man realize
and confess that naked he had come from his mother's womb and
that he was going to return the same way he came. Naked. What did he come in with? Nothing. What's he going to leave with?
Nothing. That's right. Nothing. Some men
and women may come to this realization years after trials and struggles. Some never come to the revelation
of it at all. But Job, by divine revelation,
was made to trust, confess, and believe it the very minute that
it happened. Oh, what grace that is. It was
obvious that what God had said about him was so. There wasn't
another man like him on earth. Bam, bam, bam. One servant after
another. You've lost all your cattle.
You've lost all your wealth. You've lost your camels. You've
lost all your servants. 7,000 sheep dead. And now all
your children. They were still speaking. One
was still telling him about the last trial when another came
with it. And he falls to his feet and
he worships God. And he said, I came into this
world naked and that's the way I'm going to live. And it's God
that gives and God takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's the title of my message.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now Job didn't say, I've worked
hard to obtain all this. I've worked day and night, seven
days a week. And now it's all gone. He didn't
complain saying, I spent weary, long days, anxious nights in
accumulating these flocks and these herds, and now they've
been stolen from me. While the one fellow said that
a fire came from heaven and burned up my sheep, God, why'd you kill
my sheep?" That ain't what he said. He didn't
ascribe any of his wealth to his own doing or his hard work,
but he said concerning it, the Lord gave it to me. In his mind's
eye, he took an inventory of all that he had once had, and
of all that that he had lost, he said concerning it, it was
all the Lord's gift to me. Now I tell you friends, I worry
and fret about things I hadn't even lost. And I bet you do too. Worry about losing them. Whatever our possessions may
be at this present time, the so-called comforts of our life,
whether they're our life, whether they're our husband, wife, parents,
children, save all of them. There's a great lesson to be
learned here. Save all of them. The Lord gave
them to me. And may we learn the wisdom and
never ascribing any earthly comfort to any earthly source. I haven't
attained, I haven't arrived. I don't want you to think I have.
I'm preaching this to me first and foremost. God can easily
take them all away. If you say Christ is your all
in all, you may be called upon to prove it. For you see, we
must worship the giver. Not the gifts. That's what the
gospel is about. Worshipping the giver. Not the
gifts. Second thing, the last point.
We must learn to bless the Lord's name in everything. Everything. First, we should learn to bless
the Lord's name when He reveals His hand in giving. I heard someone
once say we should ring the bells of His praise both day and night. We get up in the morning, we
have breakfast. We rejoice that we feel good and have good health,
have strength enough to get up and go to work. We go out to
face our day. But I hope that we don't go without
thankfulness to the great giver that's given us our health, our
food, and our arraignment to put on. We're out all day and
we prosper in making fair wages, but I trust that we do not accept
all this as a matter of our hard work. May we praise the Lord
for it, since it was He that caused us to prosper. The Lord
gives. The Lord gives. When was the
last time you really and truly thanked God for your job and
the strength to do it? Was it not a gift from Him? Is
not your health a gift from Him? Is not your job a gift from Him?
And myself and most of the people that I usually talk with complain
more about their jobs instead of thanking God that they have
one. You know why? It's our nature. We're ungrateful
people by nature. I said I'm not excluded. John
Bunyan used to say that even chickens shame us in our ungratefulness
for they don't take a drink of water. without lifting up their
heads just to thank God for it. You watch a chicken, next time
you're around one, drink water. He'll take that drink and lift
his head. I heard another wise man say
once that praising God continually is the best way to keep from
murmuring. Ain't that right? That's so true. Constantly praising
and thanking God leaves us very little time to murmur. And it seems as though it's easy
to bless the name of the Lord when everything's going well.
It's easy to bless the name of the Lord when He gives us the
gifts of life. But it's quite another thing
to do so when He takes it all away. But Job did. And oh, what a lesson God's people
can learn from him. I'd say that many believers who
have forgotten to praise God while He was giving to them have
not forgotten to praise Him when He was taken away from them. Now, I confess to you, dear friends,
and I sincerely mean this, my sweetest communion with Christ,
the closest I've ever felt to Him in communion The fact that
he loved me and cared for me was when I was in my deepest
trials. I bet it's the same with you.
I don't know how thankful Job had been before this trying period
in his life. But I do know that his trials
brought out this expression of his thankfulness. The first recorded
praise to God by Job, verse 21, 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. Do we really need to lie a little
while on a sick bed in order to make us thankful for having
good health? Must we really need to be brought
low in order to make us thankful in the fact that we've been blessed
with so many comforts? Is it not natural or easy for
our flesh and blood to praise God for what He gives and never
for when He takes it away? Painful experiences, dear friends. often wake us up to gratitude. And he who has forgotten to praise
the Lord when he had, just maybe he'll really praise Him when
he doesn't. Lord, give us the heart of Job. Give us the heart of Christ.
Cause us to be thankful for what you give and what you take away.