I asked you to turn this morning
your Bibles, if you will, to the book of James, chapter 5. James, chapter 5. I want to read verse 7 through
11. James 5. Be patient, therefore, brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth
for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience
for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain. This is speaking of a farmer,
a husbandman, who tills the field, he plants the seed, And he waits. He waits and he is patient. He doesn't go out every day and
dig up the soil to see if the seed is germinated. He waits
patiently to receive the harvest. And the scripture says here he
hath long patience for it until he receive the early rain and
the latter rain to mature the crop. He has long patience. Verse 8, Be you also patient,
as God's dear children in this world. Establish your hearts,
for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. So God's people here are
exhorted to be patient, like the farmer is patient, waiting
for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting for the coming
of the Lord. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who surely
is coming back. We believe on the authority of
the Word of God, He is coming back. We believe that. So therefore,
we're told to be patient and establish our hearts in the truth
of the Word, in the truth and the precious promises of the
Word concerning His coming. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Even
so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Grudge not one against another,
brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before
the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets
who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering
affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them blessed
or happy which endure, that is, those who have suffered afflictions
patiently. We count them to be blessed because
they have endured. Ye have heard of the patience
of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord in his life, seeing
what patience brought in the life of Job, that the Lord is
very pitiful and of tender mercy. God is very pitiful and of tender
mercy toward His own that wait for Him as they suffer affliction in this
world. Now, just to refresh your mind,
I intend to speak a little while on ye have heard of the patience
of Job. But let's turn back in our Bibles,
keep your finger there in James, to the 42nd chapter of the book
of Job. And let me just refresh your
mind a little bit. As we get into the message this
morning, I'm going to be assuming that you are familiar with the
book of Job and with the story that is revealed in the book.
I may be off, may not be the right thing to do, but I'm assuming
that you're acquainted with Job and of what happened in his life.
And the Lord turned, beginning with verse 10, the captivity
of Job for his friends, when he prayed
for his friends. Also the Lord gave Job twice
as much as he had before. This is the end of the Lord.
in Job's situation. He gave him twice as much as
he had before. Then came there unto him all
his brethren and all his sisters, and all they that had been of
his acquaintance before all of his trials and afflictions had
fallen upon him, and did eat bread with him in his house.
And they bemoaned him and comforted him over all the evil that the
Lord had brought upon him, all the trial and the test that the
Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece
of money, and every one an earring of gold. So the Lord blessed
the latter end of Job more than his beginning. For he had fourteen
thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen,
and a thousand she-asses. He had also seven sons and three
daughters. Now we know that Job had ten
children before the afflictions came and before they were wiped
out. It says here that he had seven
sons and three daughters in verse 13. I submit to you that his children
were still his children, the ones he lost, and they were in
heaven, so he still had them. And so with the ten here, then
he had twice what he had before. The Lord blessed the latter end
of Job more than his beginning. And I want to talk to you a little
bit about this patience of Job. Because surely you have heard
of the patience of Joel. Now we're instructed in the Word
of God that we have need of patience. I read out of the 10th chapter
of the book of Hebrews in verse 35 and 36 where it says, Cast
not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompense of
reward, for you have need of patience. that after you have
done the will of God, you might receive the promise. You have need of patience. The
voice of wisdom cries out to us as the children of God to
be patient. Be patient. Be patient. The Lord
is at work. in the lives of his people, accomplishing
his purpose, bringing to pass his good end, and the Lord is
pitiful and merciful unto his people. God is good, and so we
need to be patient. It is a high attainment to be
patient. It is no child's play to be dumb
as the sheep before her shears, and to lie still while the shears
are taking away all that warmed and comforted us. Mr. Spurgeon said the mute Christian
under the afflicting rod is no everyday person. It is the Holy Ghost who is ever
patient under our provocations, who calls us to be patient It
is the Lord Jesus Christ, the unmurmuring sacrifice, who charges
us, in the Word of God, to be patient. It is the long-suffering
Father, who is pitiful and merciful, who bids us to be patient. First of all, then, let's say
a few words about the fact that we're bidden to be patient. It
is not an unheard of virtue to be patient because you have heard
of the patience of Job. Now the patience of Job was the
patience of a man like ourselves. He was imperfect and full of
infirmity as we are. It was a man like myself, beloved,
who said the Lord gave And the Lord hath taken away, blessed
be the name of the Lord. It was a man of flesh and blood
such as mine who said, Shall we receive good at the hand of
the Lord, and shall we not receive evil? It was a man of like passions
with myself who said, though he slay me, yet will I trust
him. Now we have heard the patience
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and maybe we tried to copy his patience,
but now, and we could not, we failed to do so, but now we have
heard the patience of Job, one likened to ourself, And there's
some encouragement that we could imitate him. You have heard of
the patience of Job. That is the patience of a greatly
tried man. Job could not have displayed
or exhibited patience if he had not endured trial. And he could not have displayed
a patience whose very fame rings down through the ages, till even
we have heard of it, if he had not known extraordinary affliction."
We need to reflect then, if you will, that he was tried, Job
was, in his estate. All of his wealth was taken away.
Two or three servants were left only to bring him the evil tidings. They said, I only am escaped. alone to tell thee. And beloved,
we can be sure of this, that if there's anything calamitous
or any evil words spoken about us anywhere in the world, there
will always be one or two who are left alone to come to tell
us about it. There will be somebody escaped
to tell us if there's anything said about us, ill said about
us, in the world. now that his children and his
flocks and his herd were all gone. This princely man, we're
talking about Job, of us, sat upon a dunghill, and there was
none so kind to him as to do reverence to him. You see, his
estate was all gone, but God was his portion still. Now, you've
heard of the patience of Job under personal affliction. It
is well said by one who knew mankind cruelly well that we
fear the afflictions of other people or we bear the afflictions
of other people very easily. But when it touches us, our bone
and our flesh, trial assumes, does it not, a very different
form. And we have need of unusual patience
when hard, cruel trial affects our lives. From the crown of
Job's head to the sole of his foot, he was covered, you remember,
with irritating boils. He had mental distress. The conduct
of his wife must have grieved him when she tempted him to curse
God and die. However, her words may be translated,
she spoke like a foolish woman when her husband needed consolation. Beloved, you can abuse with words
the same as you can with a stick. And then those miserable comforters,
how they added to his misery. Cold-blooded mortals they were. They fretted him with arguments.
They worried him with accusations. They rubbed salt in his wounds.
They cast dust in his eyes. Their tender mercies were cruel,
however well-intentioned they might have been. world to the
man who in his midnight hour is hooted at by such owls. Yet the hero of patience sinned
not. He was patient under all this. You've heard of the patience
of Job. Job was in all respects undergoing real, real, and I
want you to underline that word, real trouble. You know there's
imaginary trouble, And then there's real trouble. Well, Job was undergoing
real trouble. He was no mere hysterical inventor
of imaginary problems and evil. He didn't imagine this. This
was real in his life. His was no fanciful losses nor
minor calamities. He had not lost one child out
of a big family nor a few thousand out of a vast fortune, but he
was brought to sad bereavement, object poverty, and terrible
torment of body and mind. But despite it all, beloved,
you and I have lived to hear of the patience of Job. We have heard more of his patience
than we ever heard of his afflictions, have we not? What a mercy to
have heard of such a man and to know that one of our own race
passed through the seven times heated furnace and yet was not
consumed. He stood up under it. The meaning
of the word patience is to abide under. to stay under the load,
and regardless of the pressure, to stay under, to abide under
the load. The patience of Job was the patience
of a man who endured up to the very end, no breakdowns. No breakdowns. He endured. He
said, but he knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried
me, I shall come forth as gold. He has become a great power for
good, I believe, in the lives of the children of God throughout
the centuries. You have heard, the ages have
heard, heaven has heard, even hell has heard of the patience
of Job. What God has done For this man
he can do for all of his people. He can bear them up. He can give
them grace sufficient in the hour of test and in the hour
of trial. And he can enable us to stay
underneath the road and not break and run. Now let me say in the
second place that this is not an unreasonable virtue to be
patient. First of all, we are told that
we are to be patient. We've attempted to exhort you
in the light of Job and his patience to be patient. And I want to
say that it's not an unreasonable virtue in a child of God to be
patient. We have seen in Job's story,
if we've regarded it, or if we have regarded it aright, that
is, that the Lord was in it all. The Lord was in it all. The devil
is not the sole actor in the story of Job. The Lord was ruling and overruling
in all that took place. He was not present as a mere
spectator in this situation with Job, but as master of the situation. He had not turned over the reins
to this situation to Satan. Every step that the enemy took
was only by express permission from the throne of God. He allowed
him to strip his servant, but he set the limit only upon himself. God said, Put not forth thine
hand, saith God. And the dog of hell is allowed
to snap and snarl, but his chain is not removed, and the collar
of omnipotent restraint is still on him. Still on him today, isn't
that a glorious thought? that God restrains Satan and
he's not left to do what he would do otherwise. You remember Satan
desired Peter that he might sift him as wheat and our Lord said,
but I prayed for you, I prayed for you, I'm here with you Peter
and I'm going to pray for you and hold you up. Remember, beloved,
that God, whatever your sorrow is, that God is in your sorrow
ruling it to a desired end, checking it that it should go no further
than according to the divine will. And you neither have suffered
nor in the future will suffer any more than he in infinite
love permits. Is that a true statement? It's
so in my life. Next, the Lord was blessing Job
by all of his tribulation. You say, you mean that preacher?
You mean that God was blessing Job by all of his tribulation? We see that the Lord in mercy
brought him out of it all with unspeakable advantage. Brought
him out of it all. He who tested with one hand supported
him with the other. You've heard of the patience
of Job. Whatever Satan's in, might have
been in tempting Job, God had an end that was above that of
Satan's. God had an end in it all. God
was going to manifest himself as the God of pity, and the God
of mercy, and the God of grace, and the God of strength and power,
the God who can uphold his people. And from the first loss, which
happened among the oxen to the last talk of his three friends,
There was never a question in the heights of heaven as to the
ultimate issue, how it would all come out. There was never
a question. in heaven. And such is the case
with all afflicted and tried and storm-tossed children of
God. God knows how it's all going
to come out. You say, well, Preacher, I don't
know whether I'll live long enough to see how it all comes out or
not. You may not, but that's all right, because God ever lives,
and He will see it through. Whether you live to see it through
or not, God will see it through to the end. We may be patient
under trial. We're expected to be patient
under trial. For the Lord sends our trials. These trials come from God. And we need to believe that.
And we need to understand that that is the teaching of the Word
of God. And He is ruling in all their circumstances. He is blessing
us by them. He is blessing His people by
their trials, and He is waiting to end them at an appointed time. At an appointed time, the end
shall come. Now, beloved, I believe you can
wait on the Lord surely. God is faithful. You can surely
wait on the Lord. You say, well, the devil's involved
in it, but you know He that is in us is greater than he that
is in the world. And the Lord is God over all. He is in heaven above, and none
can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest thou? None can
slap His wrist. Satan is God's devil, and God
rules over Satan. So the Lord sends these trials,
and he's ruling, and he's blessing us by them, and he's waiting
to end them at the appointed time. And he has pledged to bring
us through, shall we not submit ourselves to the Father of our
spirits. Thy will be done. Is that not
our deepest wish as the Lord's people? Thy will be done in our
lives. Thy will be done. The Lord Jesus,
we need to copy Him. And He said, I've come to do
thy will, O God. I've come to do your will. All
I want is the will of God to be worked out in my life. That's
all I want. Every waking hour of my life. My desire is that I might be
submissive unto the will of God, to submit myself to what He wants.
And if He would bring us through trial, we'll wait. And we'll
trust whatever the trial be, whatever the affliction be. We
must wait upon the Lord. Now let me get into something
here that I'd like for you to pay particular attention to.
Job's life might have ended before the trial, but it didn't. Why? Why did not God take Job out
of the world before he afflicted him? Why did he just not take
him out of the world so that he wouldn't have to go through
all this, see all of this, witness all of this? The death and destruction
of his children and of his herds and his fortune. Why didn't God
just take him out? Well, he didn't. Now, beloved,
if Job had perfect knowledge of all things, and could have
had his choice, would he not have chosen to endure the trial
for the sake of all the blessing which came of it? Now, beloved,
we would have never heard of the patience of Job if God had
taken him out before all these calamities fell upon his family,
and upon his livelihood, and upon his farm, and so on. We
would have never heard of the patience of Job. Now we could
have heard of his camels and his sheep and his servants and
his children, but the rare sight of all of this, brethren, is
it not, is the patience of Job. That is the rare thing. We can
see camels and we can see sheep anytime. We just look around
and we can see them. But the patience of Job, that's
the rare thing, that's the pearl in this situation. Brethren,
it was pitiful of the Lord to permit sharp trial to come upon
Job for his good. There was more tender mercy in
subjecting him to this trial than there would have been in
screening him from it. Screening him from it would have
been, I think, false pity. False pity would have permitted
the good man to die in his nest, but true pity put a thorn into
his nest, and it was great mercy, after all, which took him out
of the state. in which he would wash his steps
with butter and cast him into the mar, for he was thus weaned
from the world and made to look more eagerly for a better portion
in the Lord here and also in the hereafter. And brethren,
it is true that our trials wean us from the world. They wean
us from this world and they make it easier to die. Sometimes we
view people who seemingly have no trial and are blessed with
the world's bounty, seemingly or just doing so well in the
world, and we wonder when time comes to die, how hard is it
going to be for those people to die? Well, believe you me,
it will be hard for them to die. But you take a poor afflicted
soul, someone who's tested and who's been dragged through the
bramble, and devil-dragged day by day in this world, allowed
to be dragged by the Lord, allowing Satan to, in a measure, try us
and to sift us in this life, and those people, when it comes
time to die, they're ready to go. they're ready to leave the
world. So it's a mercy when God prepares
an individual to leave this world. It's a mercy. And so Job, the
Lord tried him and blessed him not only in this life but prepared
him for the life to come. Job by his trials and the grace
of God was lifted up into the highest position of usefulness. All the ages had this man for
their teacher. Just think about that. All of
the ages have had this man for their spiritual teacher. Remember, you've heard of the
patience of Job. Brethren and sisters in the Lord,
we do not know who will be blessed by our pains. and by our afflictions
and by our sufferings, by our bereavements, by our crosses
and losses, if we have patience under them, that is, especially,
I think, as James mentioned here, the prophets. And he said, take
my brethren the prophets who have spoken in the name of the
Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Look to them. And so especially,
I think, for preachers, they can be a blessing, a greater
blessing, if they endure trial and if they're patient under
their affliction. Now, beloved, if we're to comfort
God's afflicted family, we must first experience affliction ourselves. Tribulation will make our wheat
fit to make bread for the saints if we're patient. Job makes a
good comforter and preacher of patience, does he not? He makes
a good preacher. I tell you, you can afford to
listen to what old Job's got to say and you can afford to
pay attention to how it all came out in the end. Because God is
good and He's going to bring His people through to a good
end. Nobody turns to Bildad and Zophar or Eliphaz. These were the miserable comforters
of Job. And the reason, nobody looks
to them for a teacher. Nobody says, well, I learned
something from them. No, no, no, no. It's because
they had never been miserable themselves that they made miserable
comforters. Mark that down. If a man has
had no trial, no affliction, never been made miserable himself,
he can't comfort somebody who is miserable. He's unable to
do it. He don't have a word. He can
sympathize and say, well, you know, I've been here, I've been
there, but have you been where I am? The miserable person says,
no, you've not been there. Well, then you don't have a word
for me. But the miserable can be comforted
by somebody who has been miserable. Yet let us all remember that
affliction will not bless us or others if it be impatiently
borne. ...must be borne patiently. If
we rebel against God's dispensations, we may turn his medicines into
poison and increase our griefs by refusing to stay under the
load. refusing to endure them. But
be patient and the dark cloud will drop down a wonderful refreshing
shower to everybody around you. Be patient. Be patient. Wait. Wait on the Lord and be patient. You have heard of the patience
of Job? Just imitate it. Imitate it. You say, I'll stay
under the load. I'll not take that way out or
that way out. I'll turn neither to the right
or to the left. I will go straight on. I have
but one way to go. That's trust God every day I
live and to be patient as I've been taught of old Job. He is very pitiful and of tender
mercy. Yield yourself up to God. Yield
yourself up to Him. God knows where you're at, He
feels what you feel, and He is able to succor you. And so may
the Lord plant in us the pearl of patience for our patient Lord's
sake, our patient Savior's sake. May the Lord plant it in our
hearts. There's one old writer who said,
to lengthen my patience, is the best way to shorten my troubles.
There's some wisdom in that. Another man said patience must
not be an inch shorter than my afflictions. That was Thomas
Adams. Thomas Adams again said patience
to the soul is as bread to the body. We eat bread with everything. We must hope with patience. We must pray in patience. We
must love with patience. And whatever good thing we do,
let it be done in patience. Let it be done with patience. Henry Smith said, Mercy hath
a heaven, and justice has a hell to display itself to eternity,
but patience has only a short lived earth. We only can demonstrate
patience here in this world as we live out our days here. May
God help us to endure. The Bible says that they that
endure to the end shall be saved. I think that's speaking about
God's people persevering. And whatever the crosses are
that God places upon them, they are to take that cross up daily
and to bear that cross and to stay under it. In your family,
in your human relationships, you have many crosses. We have
many crosses to bear, which we must bear. We cannot get out
from under it. It's there. We must be patient
and trust God for the outworking of all things, whatever they
be. In your material things of life,
your financial situations and all, be patient. Trust God. Don't take a way out. That's
going to get you deeper in trouble down the road. Be patient. Wait
on the Lord. Pray. Seek the face of God. Call
upon the Lord. As you very well seen in the
end of Job situation, God is pitiful and God can give you
twice what has been taken away. God can give you twice. He can give you anything that
He deems good for your life. Be patient and trust the Lord. Well, I was much impressed with
these thoughts in my own heart. I needed to reflect upon them
again and to think about these things. And I do believe that
as we really get into this in our hearts and meditate, meditate
upon what we've heard, and we've heard of the patience of Job,
that it will do us all good to eternity, bound to do us good
to eternity. May the Lord bless you.