Job chapter 1. Let me just take
some time to read some for us this morning. Job chapter 1. Let's begin reading in verse
1. If you have a pew Bible and you
want to follow along, it's page 605. There was a man in the land
of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was perfect. He
was blameless. Walked in the light that he had.
And one that feared God and eschewed evil, resisted evil. There was
born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance,
his possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand
camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she-asses,
and a very great household, so that this man was the greatest
of all the men of the east. And his sons went and feasted
in their houses every one his day, and sent and called for
their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was
so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent
and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and
offered burnt sacrifices, 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. Thus did
Job continually. Now there was a day when the
sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came
also among them. The Lord said unto Satan, Whence
comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord,
and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking
up and down in it, And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered
my servant Job, that there is none like him in all the earth,
a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth
evil? Then Satan answered and said unto the Lord, Doth Job
fear God for naught, for nothing? Hast thou not made a hedge about
him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every
side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance
is increased in the land. But put forth your hand now,
and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.
The Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand,
in your power. Only upon himself put not forth
your hand. So Satan went forth from the
presence of the Lord. And there was a day when his
sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine, in their eldest
brother's house. And there came a messenger unto
Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding
beside them. And the Sabeans fell upon them,
and took them away. Yea, they have slain the servants
with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell
thee. While he was yet speaking, there
came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from
heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, servants, and consumed
them, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet
speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made
three bands, 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. While he was yet speaking,
there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters
were eating and drinking wine, in their elder brother's house.
And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and
smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young
men, and they are dead. And I only am escaped along to
tell thee. Then Job arose and rent his mantle,
and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
and said, Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked I
returned thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. And in all this
Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Again there was a
day when the sons of God came to present themselves before
the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself
before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan,
From whence comest thou? And Satan said, From going to
and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And
the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job,
that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright
man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? And still he
holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movest me against him, to
destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord,
and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give
for his life. But put forth now your hand,
and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your
face.' And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine
hand, but save his life. So went Satan forth from the
presence of the Lord, and smoked Job with sore balls from the
sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a posture to
scrape himself withal, and he sat down among the ashes. Then
said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die! But he said
unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.
What? Shall we receive good at the
hands of God, and shall we not receive evil? And all this did
not Job sin with his lips. Now when Job's three friends
heard of this evil that was come upon him, They came every one
from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite,
and Zilphor the Naphthite. For they had made an appointment
together to come to mourn with him, and to comfort him. And
when they lifted up their eyes aforeoff, and knew him not, they
lifted up their voice and wept. And they rent every one his mantle,
and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they
sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights,
and none spake a word unto him, for they saw his grief was great." Satan here in chapter 1 and chapter
2, I think there is a good reason why the scripture calls him the
accuser of the brother. He lives. to accuse the brother. Christ lives to make intercession
and he lives to accuse the brother. And he seems to hint here before
the Lord that Job served God out of a mercenary spirit, Harlan. He says he's got reason to fear
you. He doesn't fear you. He doesn't
love you. He doesn't serve you for nothing.
Look how you've blessed him. Look how A large family he has. Look at all of his property.
Look at his sheep and all of his cattle. He serves you because
you've blessed him. Take all of this from him, and
you watch him curse you to his face. Now, Satan ascribed bad
motives to Job. That wasn't Job's motives at
all for fearing the Lord. But having said that, there's
a definite sense in which Satan is right about this. No son of
Adam ever fears the Lord. He never loves the Lord. He never
serves the Lord until the Lord first blesses him. Now isn't
that so? You and I, as Wayne taught us
this morning, were born without the fear of God in our hearts.
There's no fear of God before their eyes. But when the Lord
begins a work of grace in our hearts, then we begin to fear
Him. He blesses us with forgiveness
of our sins. And what does the Bible say about
that? There is forgiveness with the Lord that he may be feared. Job was a man who had experienced
forgiveness of all his sins. That's why he feared. I love
that passage there in Hebrews 12 that Randy read. Let us have
grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and
godly fear, godly fear. How do we come to fear God? We
obtain grace. Let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. And as soon as the Lord takes
in hand to save us by His grace, then we fear Him, don't we? But
not before. Satan was right about this. Job never feared God for nothing. He feared Him because the Lord
had saved Him. The Lord had mercy upon Him.
And we see that all the way through the book of Job. I know my Redeemer
liveth. That's what He said, wasn't it?
That's why He feared. He had a Redeemer. One who forgave
all His sins. And you know something else?
We never love God. We never love the Lord until
He does something for us. I want you to hold, Joe, because
we'll be coming back to this. Look over in Psalms 116. I often turn here. Some of you may have this memorized
by now. But this shows us here that until
the Lord does something for us savingly, blesses us with His
salvation, we don't love Him, we don't fear Him, and we don't
serve Him. Look at Psalms 116. Look at these first few verses.
I love the Lord. I love Him, David said. Why?
There's a cause, isn't there? Because He hath heard my voice
and my supplication. Because He hath inclined His
ear unto me, therefore will I call on Him as long as I live. Look
at this awful condition he had found himself in. The sorrows
of death can pass me. The pains of hell got hold upon
me. I found trouble. I found sorrow. Then I called upon the name of
the Lord. O Lord, I beg of You. I beseech
You. Deliver my soul. Gracious is
the Lord and righteous. Yea, God is merciful. The Lord
preserveth the simple. I was brought low and He helped
me. Return unto your rest, O my soul,
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. Thou hast delivered
my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. Therefore I will walk before
the Lord in the land of the living." See, when we begin to love the
Lord is when we find out that He loved us first. And He saved
us and delivered our soul from the lowest hell. Satan here,
he prescribed all of these bad motives for Job. Job did not
fear the Lord because of any physical blessings or temporal
blessings, but he did fear Him because of His blessings. And
he loved Him because the Lord at first loved him. Now as we
grow in grace and knowledge, I know we enter another dimension. of our fear in the Lord and appreciating
Him and adoring Him. As we grow in grace and knowledge,
we see more of our triune God, don't we? We learn more of who
He is and His sovereignty and His eternal attributes. And then
we begin to love Him for what we see in Him, for who He is. But you know, when we even do
that, it still comes back to this. We love Him because He's
our Redeemer. We love Him because He's our
Savior. Emmanuel is our eternal God and
refuge, isn't it? And it's impossible to see God
just to know Him without knowing Him in His Son. We can't appreciate
those eternal attributes, the essential glory of God, until
we see Him and as we view Him as Emmanuel, God our Savior and
our refuge. Jesus is our Creator and He's
our Savior. Christ is the everlasting God
and our Redeemer. The Bible says in Him, in His
very body, in the very being of Jesus Christ incarnate. is
all the fullness of the deity of God. And now we can look upon
God and all His eternal attributes and enjoy Him and worship Him
for who He is when we see Him in Jesus Christ our Lord. Isaac
Watts wrote a hymn to this end and this is what he said, Till
God in human flesh I see, My thoughts no comfort find. The
holy, just, and sacred three are terrors to my mind. But if
Immanuel's face appear, my hope, my joy begins. His name forbids
my slavish fears. His grace removes my sins. Tis by the merit of his death
the Father smiles again. Tis by thine interceding breath
the Spirit dwells within. So it wasn't because the Lord
had blessed Job with all these temporal blessings that he feared
the Lord. But it was because the Lord had
blessed him. The Lord had opened his heart and saved him. And
that's why he feared the Lord. Here's my text this morning.
We find it in verse 10. Satan provided us with a text. Ain't it something now the Lord
even uses Satan to provide us with a text of Scripture. Hast
not thou made a hedge about him? That's what I want us to think
upon a little bit this morning. Now a hedge is a fence, isn't
it? That's all it is, a fence. When they used to plant their
vineyards or gardens, They sometimes put a hedge about it. It's a
wall. And they put it around something
that was valuable to them. Something that they loved and
cared for. They put a hedge about it to
protect it. I've got an old outhouse out just out in the back of my
garage. It's been sitting there for years,
an old outhouse. And I wouldn't care if the wind
came and blew it away. If I caught somebody trying to
steal it, I'd go back in the house. I don't care a thing about
that old outhouse. And I don't have a fence around
it. I'm not enclosed in it, because I care nothing about it. It's
an outhouse. But I've got a wife that I love,
and I've got grandbabies that are precious to me, and I have
a house. to protect them. And I've got
windows that lock and doors that lock. And I've got a little pistol
under my bed if somebody sneaks in to do harm to those that I
love and precious to me. I've got a garden that I like.
I've got some varmints sometimes that come around. I was out this
morning and I got a little rabbit there in the garden. He's an
old rabbit but he's got so used to us being around we can't run
him off. And this morning I shot at him three times. I shot over
him, I shot under him and to the side of him. And the last
time I said, you rascal, you're not eating any more of my beans.
That's my garden and you're not welcome in it. And I turned him
on his back. He probably won't be back in
my garden again. Why did I do that? I have a garden and I love
my garden. You know something, the Lord's
got a garden, doesn't He? He's got a garden. It's His church. And He loves His church. He has
a bride. He has a wife. And He loves His
wife. He has children. And He loves
His children. He loves His children with an
everlasting love. God has objects of divine grace. And you know something? They're
precious in His sight. And He's got them hedged in.
He's got them fenced in because He protects them and He cares
for them. And unless I've missed my mark,
the Lord Himself is the hedge that He has about His wife, His
bride, and His children. This is what He said to Abraham.
He said, Abraham, I am thy shield. I'm thy shield. And you know
the Lord's everywhere, isn't He? And He's everywhere as a
shield. He's in the front of His people.
He's behind His people. He's on the right hand and the
left hand of His people. And He's a shield. Listen to
what He said about a shield. The angel of the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them. That's the
Lord's presence. The Lord's presence is our shield. Listen to what He said again.
For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous. With favor wilt thou
compass him as with a shield. What a shield then! That's all
around us. And what is it? It's not only
His presence, but it's His favor. I tell you, if the Lord favors
a man, He favors a woman. That's a shield around us. And
who can do a man any harm if God favors that man? Here's what
Zechariah chapter 2 verse 5 said, Jerusalem shall be inhabited
as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein. Now listen to this, For I the
Lord will be unto her a wall. The Lord Himself is the wall.
He's the shield. And listen to this, I shall be
a wall of fire round about her and will be the glory of her
in the mist. A wall of fire. No wonder Satan
says I can't get to Him. There's a hedge. And who is the
hedge? The Lord is the hedge. The Lord
is the hedge. here's what he said in Isaiah
27 3 Christ speaking of his vineyard the Lord I the Lord do keep it
I will water it every moment lest any hurt it I will keep
it night and day I will keep it night and day well he watches
it doesn't he he's got his eye upon it he's careful with it
he's protecting it And why does he do that, brothers and sisters?
Because he cares for it. He cares for his vineyard. I
think Satan is much more aware of the preciousness of the Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ than the Church herself is. It's difficult
and I've never been able, I'm still trying to get my hands
around this personally, to think that the Lord loves me. You've
got a world out here and they have no problem saying, God loves
me. God loves everybody. They've
got no problem with that, do they? And here the poor children
of God stand amazed at it. And we're still trying to get
our hands around this, that we're precious to Him. That He nourishes
and cherishes me of all people. While we cast contempt upon our
own pride and we say, Oh, wretched man that I am, we have to look
at it from the Lord's perspective as He looks upon His church and
all her members. And here's what He says about
it. You're precious in My sight. I cherish you. I have a hedge
built about you. I'm compassioning you about Myself
as a wall of fire. I wish we believed it as strong
as Satan believed it, because he believes it, doesn't he? Why
can't you get to the church, Satan? There's a wall. There's
a wall. You really believe that? I believe
it. I know it. Oh, God give us grace
this morning to believe this as much as Satan himself does. What does this suggest to our
minds? The church must truly be precious
to the Lord. Because you don't fence in a
common place, do you? You don't fence in an outhouse,
do you? You fence in something that's precious to you. How precious,
then, the church must be in all her members to the Lord, to hedge
her about, to protect her. This texture suggests something
else to our minds also, not that she's Precious to the Lord only,
not that He loves her only and cares for her and protects her. But this suggests something else,
what Satan said here, that our enemies must be formidable. Boy, they must be mighty enemies
that the Lord would see fit to hedge His church in with His
hedge. I sometimes wonder, brothers
and sisters, if the Lord doesn't let some in the visible church
fall, that others may see the dangers that we really face.
And it has a tendency to waken us when the Lord pulls His hand
back and lets a man fall. Judas, the apostle, can you imagine
how it affected the other eleven apostles when Judas fell? They said, How much danger is
around us? We've been too flippant. Look,
this man has fallen and he's hanged himself and his bowels
have gushed out. My goodness, we're in danger,
they said. The danger that's around us.
We need a hedge, don't we? I wonder when Timothy heard that
Demas had fallen. That Demas, the one that Paul
called his fellow servant, had left Paul. Have in love this
present evil world. I wonder if Timothy, young Timothy,
heard that message and got the news and he thought, my, the
danger that must be around us. That here a man of Demas's caliber
could fall. Oh, the Lord knows the danger
that is around His church. If you and I this morning had
eyes to see around us, What would we see in the air that's inside
this building but demons? We would see a black fallen spirit
that's like a roaring lion walking through the air seeking whom
he may devour. If you and I had eyes to see
as we should be able to see and we looked at this world, you
know what we'd see? We'd see a vanity fair. as old
Bunyan used to call it. Remember going to the fairs and
you have the fellows standing there in the little booths wanting
you to come and play their games? And in some of the fairs they
have the tents where they had the striptease women in there
and they were standing out wanting people to come in? That's all
this world is. It's enticing people. It's pleading
with people. Come in to our tents. Come in
and play our games while you lose your precious soul. All that's in the world is the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
And you know if you and I had eyes to see it this morning,
we would say, My, the danger that I'm in. All of these demons
in the air, This world alluring me to itself. And then think
of this if we had a mind and eyes to really see the flesh
that you and I are in. How vile is our flesh that we
pack around with us all the time. The potential that it has to
sin and stoop and fall into the most immoral sins that can be
imagined. And then it grows old and wrinkles
and decays, rots in the dust. You and I have enemies, don't
we? And I think the very fact here that Satan himself said,
you build a hedge about them, indicates to us that boy, there's
danger around on Abraham. Here's what an awakened believer
says. How are they increased that trouble
me? Many there be that rise up against
me. Many there be that say to my
soul, there is no help for him in God. Oh, these enemies are
mighty and they are malicious. They are deadly and there are
many of them. But thank God David did not stop
there. He said this, O Lord, Thou art
a shield for me. from these enemies, these formidable
enemies. And thou art my glory and the
lifter up of my head. Boy, God knows, doesn't He, that
we need a hedge about us. The enemies are stronger than
we are. I often read Adam Clark. He's the spokesman for the Armenians.
And I've kept him around for that reason. I often see in his writings where
he says, the believer is on probation. God saves him and puts him on
probation. And one of the things Mr. Clark
doesn't seem to grasp, if God just saves a man and doesn't
protect him, and just puts him on probation and says, now I've
delivered you, I'm going to see if you can make it, his enemies
are too formidable. They're too mighty. And this
text tells us that God knows it. And if He doesn't protect
us and keep His eye upon us and care for us and guard us, then
these enemies will devour us. They'll not only kill our comfort,
they'll kill our souls. Everything around us is enemies,
isn't it? Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death. Death is all around us. He prepares
a table before me in the presence of my enemies. That suggests to our mind that
our enemies are formidable. And thirdly, this text suggests
something else to our minds, and it's this. They that have
this hedge about them are safe indeed, even from their chiefest
of enemies. They that have this hedge about
them are safe indeed, even from their chiefest of enemies. And
who is the chiefest of our enemies? Well, the text here suggested
Satan himself, isn't it? I was listening to John MacArthur.
I think Larry gave me some CDs by him. And there's a huge charismatic
church in the same community where John MacArthur pastors
there. And he was telling about some
folks that came over and wanted to know if it was all right for
them to start coming there. They were leaving the charismatic
church. And they says, all right, if we come here and sit and listen
to the gospel. And MacArthur met with him and he said, ìWell,
yeah.î I said, ìThatís fine. Youíre welcome here.î But he
said, ìWhy are you leaving the Charismatic Church?î And they
told him a story. They said, ìWe had a man that
called himself a prophet and he came to preach for us. And
he got up in the pulpit and prophesied that our pastor was a man that
God was going to mightily use. Heís going to bring a revival
through this man. And while he was preaching, the
pastor died. He fell over dead. And they were
asking him, what happened? John MacArthur went to the funeral
and said, what happened? This man prophesied that God
was going to mildly use this man. They said, well, the devil
got scared and killed him. And you know why they said, we're
tired of the charismatic, we're coming over here to hear the
gospel? You know the reason that they gave John MacArthur for
coming there? We're tired of hearing about the sovereignty
of Satan. The sovereignty of Satan. Is
he sovereign? He's a pawn. He comes and peeps
over the hedge. But he can't get through it. He's afraid to try it. And he knows that he's not sovereign. Oh, he's proud. He's such an
arrogant, fallen, black spirit. The Lord asked him what he'd
been doing. And you notice the arrogance.
He almost popped his calluses. Oh, I've been walking up and
down through the earth. I've been going to and fro, looking
at my kingdom. He reminds you of old Nebuchadnezzar
walking out on the balcony. Look what my hands have done.
He's not free. He's on a chain. It's a chain
of judgment. When the Lord cast him out of
heaven, He put him on a chain. And He's bound him to the day
of judgment to punish him. He can't do anything without
God's permission. On Calvary's tree the Lord Jesus
gave him a wound that he'll never recover from. And it won't be
long he'll put him under his feet, even the feet of the church. He's not sovereign. The Lord
is sovereign. The Lord protects His church.
And He knows it. Those folks who are preaching
the sovereignty of Satan, they don't even know what Satan knows.
Why don't you get through the hedge? You're such a mighty prince. Why don't you go around it? Why
don't you go under or over it? I can't. How's that? I can't. I can't get through, Joe. Why?
There's a hedge. Well, you proud prince, you can't
get through it? No, I can't. He knows who he
is. Jesus subdued him in his own
humanity there in the temptation and the wilderness, didn't He?
In His weakest hours, He defeated him. He's a defeated, fallen
angel. That's all He is. There is one
sovereign, brothers and sisters. And when He takes to protect
His people, to put a hedge about them, nothing, even their chief
enemy, can get through that hedge. I will keep it, I will keep it,
and nothing shall hurt it, saith the Lord. I want you to look
with me at another place. Look in Jeremiah chapter 17. I love this. Jeremiah chapter
17 and look in verse 12 and verse 14. Jeremiah chapter 17. The Lord's work, the Lord's protection,
the Lord's hedge is effectual. Look here in chapter 17 of Jeremiah. Look in verse 12. A glorious
high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. O Lord, the hope of Israel, all
that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from Thee
shall be written in the earth. Because they have forsaken the
Lord, the fountain of living waters. Now look at this. Heal
me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved,
for Thou art my prey. I love His shalls, don't you?
Heal me. I shall be. Save me. I shall
be. Hedge me about. And no enemy
can hurt me. I shall be saved. I shall be
saved when you hedge me about. When the Lord takes an hand to
hedge His people about, it's effectual. It's effectual. And Satan believes it and we
should too. We should too. Now, fourthly, this suggests
something else. to our minds. How far-reaching
is this hedge? How far does it extend? Now look
back over in my text again. Look back over in Job chapter
1 and look in verse 10. I want you to notice how far-reaching
this hedge is. Look in verse 10. Hast thou not
made thine hedge, first of all, about him? It extends to him. Everything about him, his body,
his soul, his health, his well-being, everything concerning the very
person of Job, the Lord had hedged him in. Satan can't get to him. But look at this about his house,
his household. Who did that include? Well, that
included his wife, didn't it? That included his children. His
business, His dwelling place, and look at this, how far it
extended, about all that He had. Every servant, every inch of
property that He owned, every animal. Satan couldn't even touch
a donkey. That's how far the hedge extended. And notice this, this is important,
on every side. There wasn't a gap for him to
get into. Job, his soul, his body, his
wife, his children, his property, his servants, everything was
surrounded by this hedge. How far does God's protection
of his children extend? Everything. Everything. This raises a question, doesn't
it? How does this harmonize with experience? Because look what
happened to Job. Look how much he lost. He lost
his cattle. He lost his children. He lost
his servants. Finally, he lost his health.
So how does this jive, how does this harmonize with what we've
been saying here this morning? Well, there's no doubt that Job
had a hedge. I think that's proven. and that
Satan couldn't get through this hedge, I don't think there's
any doubt about that. But there's something else here
that there's no doubt about either. The Lord sometimes removes the
hedge. He opens the hedge, but remember
this, when the hedge is removed, the Lord still regulates the
extent into which the evil can touch His children. He may remove
the hedge, but He doesn't remove His protection, does He? Look
in verse 11 and 12, and you see this. Look in verse 11 and 12. Put forth your hand now, and
touch all that He has, and He will curse you to your face.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that He has is in
your power. Only upon Himself put not forth
your hand, So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
All that he has, even his children, his cattle, his servants, is
in your power. Now, Bud, that hurt, didn't it? That hurt. I mean, he could have
tucked the walls of the cattle and probably even the servants.
But boy, when it touched his children, He ripped his clothes
and he fell down on the ground and said, it's like I'm naked.
It's like I'm naked. But then he said, the Lord gave
these things to me and the Lord has now taken them away. Blessed
is the name of the Lord. But there was something that
Satan wasn't allowed to touch. And that was His person. That
was His person. You take every temple thing I've
given you, but don't you take His person. Don't you touch even
His body. That may sound cruel, but what if when Job lost his
cattle, he lost his soul? What if when he lost his children,
he lost his person? That would be awful. See the
need of the Lord regulating how far the evil can go? All these
things that we possess in this world are temporal. And their security is never absolutely
promised. You have a house today, the Lord
ain't promised you that house tomorrow. You have a job today,
that's not promised you tomorrow. You have good health today, that's
not promised you tomorrow. The Lord gives and when it's
His will, He can take these things away. And boy, sometimes that's
heart-wrenching what He does. Taking His children. Taking His property. Oh, Horatious
Thetford lost his business there in Chicago through that great
fire. sent his wife and his daughters over to England and lost his
daughters on the way over there. But what did he say? It is well
with my soul. That's all that matters, isn't
it? If the Lord does not let evil
come and touch our soul, if He removes the hedge and removes
all the temporal blessings, Yet He will not allow Satan or any
other enemy to touch that which is most precious to us as well
as to Him. And what is that? The soul. And
you know something, brothers and sisters, when we leave this
life, that's all we're going to leave with. Our carnal relationships are
temporary. our family, our children, our
spouse. These relationships are reserved
for this world only and not for the next. Your relationship is
husband and wife, that's in this world. There will be no husband
and wife in that world. Women will not bear children
and raise them in that world. There will all be as the angels
of God. All these temporal relationships
will be over. All that ultimately matters in
this lifetime is the protection and preservation of the soul. That's true life. And look what
he goes ahead to say here in chapter 2. Look in verse 3. And the Lord said unto Satan,
Hast thou considered My servant Job? There is none like him,
a perfect man, upright, One that fears God and eschews evil, though
you move me against Him to destroy Him without cause. And Satan
says, skin for skin, all that a man hath will he give for his
life. But put forth your hand now and
touch his bone and his flesh, and he'll curse you to your face.
And the Lord said, look at this, He limits him again. Behold,
he is in your hand, but spare his life. Spare his soul. Take his health from him. Afflict
him with bald all over his body. Make him sick. But don't you
touch his soul. Don't that tell us something?
The Lord has to regulate every move Satan makes. Or he could
even destroy a man's soul. We're no match for him. We're
no match for him. I'm not saying he's a little
puppy. I'm just saying this. He's a Lord's puppy. He's the
Lord's dog. We're no match for Him, but our
Lord is. And the Lord has to regulate
every move He makes when He lets down the hedge. You spare His
soul. Don't you touch His soul. Evil
regulated. The soul protected. This is so
important. The hedge is never moved just
for the sake of suffering. and just for the sake of the
Lord trying His child. But the hedge is removed to eventually
reveal the wisdom of God, and the goodness of God, and the
mercy of God, and the love of God, and the higher purpose that
He has for His children. The Lord didn't just let down
the hedge because He got a good feeling out of watching Satan
afflict this man with wolves. He had a purpose behind it. He
always does, doesn't he? I love the way this book ends,
and I love what James the Apostle says about it. He says, you've
seen the end of the Lord. You've seen Him dealing with
Job, and you've seen Him pulling the hedge back and letting Satan
in, but you've looked at the end of the Lord that He's And what was the end? He restored
him two-fold more than he had at the beginning. That's the
end of the Lord. He allows us to be afflicted
here, not because He enjoys it, but because He has a higher purpose
behind it. And boy, sometimes it's good
for us, is it not? It don't seem good for us when
we're there. And some people suggest that
Job went through this for probably two years, that he went through
this affliction. It don't seem good then. But
when we come through it, here's what David said, it was good
for me that I have been afflicted. The goodness of the Lord is revealed
in the latter end. And Job was humbled about it
all. And we never got enough of humility,
have we? The Lord knows how to give us
some humility. Oh, Peter says, Lord, I just
got a feeling, old James and John, they'll forsake you. I've
thought that. I've been thinking that for a
while now. But Lord, I'll never do it. If anyone makes it all
the way, surely it's going to be me. And the Lord said, Satan
has been desiring you, Peter. And you know something? I'm going
to pull the hedge back a little bit. It's going to be good for
you. You're not going to like it.
You're going to go out and weep bitterly over what He tempts
you to do. But it's going to be good for
you because you need some humility. And boy, He got it, didn't He?
He got it. God does not afflict willingly,
but He has a wise and good design in His affliction. Every child of God will acknowledge
this and praise Him for it. I've got one scripture I want
to read in closing. Look in 2 Corinthians chapter
4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 14. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse
14. knowing that he which raised
up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and shall
present us with you. For all things, all things are
for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving
of many rebound, abound to the glory of God. For which cause
we faint not, but though our outward man perish, Yet the inner
man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory. For we look not at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. The Lord is interested in eternal
things, and sometimes He will take the temporal things to set
our hearts upon eternal things. May the Lord bless His