I had seriously thought about
preaching from 1 Peter this evening, beginning to bring several messages
to us from that first letter of Peter, and the Lord willing,
I hope to do that. But in seeking a message for
us this evening, I believe the Lord has directed me here to
the first chapter of Job. One of the difficult things about
being a pastor, being a preacher, is not becoming, or looking at preaching like
a job. You men who work on a job, you
go in, clock in in the morning, eight o'clock, and get off at
five o'clock, and do that day after day, and that's good. You
do your work and you go home. As a pastor, It would be so easy,
and is so easy, to fall into that trap of looking at preaching
like a job. That I have a job that I must
preach on Sunday morning, must preach on Sunday night, must
preach on Wednesday night, and begin to look at it like that,
rather than to seek the Lord and to seek a message for us.
Not just put in my time and do what my job requirement is, but
to bring a message from the Word of God that will be a blessing
to all of us, that will help us. And I ask for your prayers. I remember hearing a pastor that
I had a lot of respect for. He's since gone home to be with
the Lord, but I heard him say one time, one of the best places
to go to hell from is a pulpit. That may sound strange, but I
knew what he was talking about. To become mechanical and just
look at preaching like a job, my duty, fill in, my place, one
hour on Sunday morning, one hour on Sunday night, and an hour
on Wednesday night. And that would do none of us
any good. Our desire is to hear from God,
and God might speak to us from His Word. If you will, in verse
21 of chapter 1 of Job, we have these words of Job, and he said,
Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return
thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I've read over the years, various
writers mention the fact that God is both a giving and a taking
God. You've heard me make reference
like that. God is both a giving and a taking
God. It's easy to bless. It's easy
to worship a giving God. But our responsibility is to
love Him in all circumstances, to bless Him when He gives, and
to bless Him when He takes, knowing that He works all things after
the counsel of His will, and that He works all things for
the good of His people. Now, I want us this evening to
consider that statement first I want us to think about God
as a giving God to Job and then God as a taking God. And then last of all, I want
us to look at one of the statements that we find here in this book
of Job. First, we see that God was a
giving God. Now consider these four ways
that God was giving God to Job. First, God had given him the
Savior. Notice what it says of him in
verse 1. There was a man in the land of
Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright,
and one that feared God and eschewed evil. God had given him the Savior. Everything that is said there
about Job is true. God said it. It's in God's Word. We know it's true. All that is
said about him in verse 1 is true because God declares it. He was a perfect man. He was
upright. He feared God. He eschewed evil. Now those things, all of those
things can only be said of Job, could only be true of Job because
Job was accepted in Christ. It could only be true of him
because he was accepted in the Lord Jesus Christ, because God
had given him the Savior. God had given him the Lord Jesus
Christ. He looked by faith, as all of
the believers in the Old Testament did, who were the saints of God. They looked by faith to the one
who was promised to come, who would be the seed of the woman
and bruise the head of the serpent, who would destroy the works of
the devil. They looked by faith, Abel looked
by faith when he offered that lamb as a sacrifice He knew that
the blood of that lamb that he sacrificed there could not take
away his sins, but he did picture and he did believe in the Lamb
of God who was promised to come. And the same here is true of
Job. Think about this. He was not
from his mother's womb perfect. He was not from his mother's
womb perfect. Yet the scripture here tells
us that he was perfect. He was made perfect. That is,
he was justified. And he was justified or made
perfect in the sight of God in the same way that all men who
are saved are made perfect. The same may be said about you
tonight if you are one of his children. He's a perfect, she's
a perfect person. Our perfection is not in ourselves,
of course, it's in Christ. He's our righteousness, and the
righteousness of Christ. What is the righteousness of
Christ? It is His perfect obedience in thought, in word, and in deed. When He was here in this world
as a man, He perfectly obeyed God, He perfectly obeyed the
law of God. He pleased his father in everything
that he did. He worked out a perfect righteousness. We refer to that as the best
robe. And that is what is imputed or
given to everyone who believes, who trusts in him. And because
we're given that righteousness of Christ, we are declared perfect. We're declared just before God. He was not from his mother's
womb upright. The scripture says he was upright,
but he was not from his mother's womb upright. No, he was sanctified
by God, the Holy Spirit. He was made a new creature in
Christ Jesus. He did not from his mother's
womb fear God. The scripture here says he feared
God, but we know that that's one of the new covenant blessings,
that God will put his fear in our hearts. God's people fear
him. We don't have that slavish fear
because we've been reconciled unto him, but we do have a reverential
fear of God. And that's one thing that we
see in so much false religion today. There's no fear of God. There's no reverence of God.
They've turned worship services into something altogether different
than truly worshiping the Lord God Almighty. God's people fear
Him. We reverence Him. His name is
holy. Everything about Him is holy. And from His mother's womb, He
did not eschew evil. He was born like all men are
born. As Zophar, I believe it is, later
in this book, says that all men are born like a wild ass is caught. A wild ass is called. Nobody
is going to tell me what to do. I'll live the way I want to live.
I'll say what I want to say. I'll go where I want to go. I'll
do what I want to do. Just like a wild ass is called. But now he eschews evil. He's made a new creature in Christ
Jesus. Look over into Psalm 4 with me
just a moment. I'm saying that the Lord is a
giving God that he had given Job the Savior. In Psalm 4, first in verse 3, notice what David said, but know
that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself. Job
was a godly man. He was perfect. He was upright. He feared God. He assured evil. Who made him then? The Lord. Know that. Know that the Lord,
no man by his own power, by his own so-called free will, no man
can make himself these things that are said about Job. These
are things that were true of him because he was in Christ. He was accepted in him. Know
that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself. God did it. God did it. Now if you look in that Psalm
on down to verse six, this is the thought of man apart
from Christ. There'll be many that say, who
will show us any good? That's what the world says. Who
will show us any good? Lord, lift up thy countenance
upon us. When the Lord smiles upon a person,
when the Lord saves a person, has mercy upon a person, gives
grace to a person, that's when, Lord, lift thou up the light
of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my
heart. More, yes, more than in the time
that their corn and their wine increased. A lost man, he's so
happy at harvest time. The Lord's given him a good harvest. And he's happy about it. The
things of this world make him happy. David said when the Lord
looked upon him, he had more joy, more happiness than the
lost man has when he has a full barn, much goods laid up for many years. So that's the first thing we
see, God had given him the Savior. God is a giving God. All right,
number two, God had given him faith to trust Christ as his
Savior. Faith is a gift of God. And it's
amazing, isn't it? It's a miracle. How that faith cometh by hearing,
hearing the word of God. We know that's in the word of
God in Romans chapter 10. We've heard that so often, but
it's still a marvel. It's still amazing to me how
that men hearing the gospel and then they believe. They don't
make a decision to believe. They just believe. They can't
do anything else. They believe. Faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing the word of God. God had given him faith
to trust Christ as his Savior, and I know that God had given
him this faith, because later on, after everything is taken
from him, in chapter 13 and verse 15, Job said, though he slay
me, though he kill me, Yet will I trust Him. Yet will I continue to believe
in Him. Faith is the gift of God. Our Lord speaking in John, I
believe it's chapter 10, to some religious leaders, actually,
that questioned Him. You know, they always had their
questions trying to trap Him in His answer. But he told them,
you believe not because, here's the reason you don't believe,
you are not of my sheep. That's the reason, you are not
of my sheep. If they had been of his sheep,
they would believe. His sheep, hear his voice, follow
him. They believe. Job knew God is
a giving God. He'd given him his savior. He
had given him faith to trust in him. And then the third thing
we see, God had given him many children. Look in verse two.
And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. God had given him many children. The scripture says, lo, children
are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is
his reward. And I certainly would think Job
qualified having 10 children for that text that says, happy
is the man whose quiver is full of them. Job had been given 10
children. Children are a great blessing
from the Lord. Remember Hannah in the Old Testament. She didn't have any children
and she prayed and sought the Lord and God gave her Samuel. And that's what his name means,
isn't it? Ask of the Lord, Samuel. But God is the one who closes
the womb. He's the one who opens the womb.
And with all the technology and everything else that we have
in this day, it is still the Lord who gives children. I've read recently several biographies
of preachers. I mentioned that this morning
back in the 1700s, 1800s in England, most of them. Not all of them, but many of
them. And many of them had a great
number of children, but many of the children died. They didn't
live very long in this world. They opened their eyes in this
world and closed them and then looked upon the face of Christ
in eternity. They were spared. I know it's
sad to lose a child. I've never lost one myself. But when you think a child that
is taken to be with the Lord, what all they miss, bad things,
right? The things in this world. You
have to believe it's a blessing. And the writer of Ecclesiastes,
didn't he say better is the day of one's death than the day of
his birth? But this man was given 10 children,
seven sons and three daughters. We watched a documentary, I guess
you'd call it, just recently of these three cousins, girls,
who were adopted into the United States from China. But over 250,000
children were adopted out of China in a certain time period,
and they were all girls. The government said you could
only have one child at that time. That was the law. And so many of these girls
were just taken, just babies, and left on the street and taken
to an orphanage and then adopted into other parts of the world. But children are a blessing of
the Lord. And children are a great responsibility
too. You know, as a father, as a mother,
to set an example before your children. I think especially
of being faithful in worship services. You know, that's one
thing that parents should really consider, to be faithful to the
house of God, raise up their children to know on Sunday morning,
you don't have to ask, are we going to church? Yeah, that's
our custom. That's what we're going to do.
Same thing on Sunday night. And I've noticed this, that parents
who generally, believing parents, I'm talking about generally,
who do not set a good example before their children, they raise
children that do the same thing. They're just not faithful in
attending the house of God. Here's the fourth thing, the
last thing I would point out, that God had given him great
wealth. In verse three, it says, his
substance also was 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels and 500 yoke
of oxen and 500 she-asses and a very great household, so that
this man was the greatest of all the men of the East. God
had given him great wealth. And God is the one who gives
wealth. In Deuteronomy chapter 8 in verse
18, God through Moses told the Israelites, but thou shalt remember
the Lord thy God, for it is he, it is God that giveth thee power
to get wealth. Now I've named these things in
this order. God had given him a savior. God
had given him faith. God had given him a large family. God had given him wealth. And
I thought to myself that it's sad that most people reverse
that order. And the number one thing in their
list of priorities is number one, wealth. Second, their family. And third, faith. And fourth,
the Savior. When our Lord said, seek ye first
the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, all these things shall be added
unto thee. All right, here's the second
thing. We see that God was a taking God. I know that some might think,
well, preacher, you say that God is a thanking God, but it's
Satan. It's Satan who took these things
from Job. Well, Satan might be considered
as a second cause, but remember the first cause of all things
is God. And Job knew who had taken what
had been taken, for he confessed the Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now I jotted down these few things
that we know about Satan. We know that Satan is a fallen
angel. Some people believe, if you turn
to Isaiah chapter 14, some people believe that this is speaking
of Satan. Others are convinced that it's
not. It was speaking of, I believe,
a prince of Babylon. But maybe it's a type of Satan
at least. In Isaiah chapter 14 in verse
12, how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in
thine heart, I will ascend unto heaven. I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God. I will set also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Yet thou shall be brought down
to hell to the sides of the pit. Some people, as I said, are convinced
that refers to Satan. I'm not sure, but at least it
is a type of Satan, no doubt. He is a fallen angel. He was created holy, righteous,
but he fell from that estate. And maybe his sin was to set
himself up as God. A second thing we know about
Satan is he's a liar and a murderer. The Lord Jesus Christ said that.
From the beginning, that is, the first time he appears in
the Word of God, Genesis chapter 3, he was a liar. Thou shalt
not surely die. And he was a murderer, involved
in the murder, the death, the spiritual death of Adam and Eve,
tempting them to disobey God and eat of that forbidden fruit. We know that he is transformed
into an angel of light. That is what the Apostle Paul
tells us in 1 Corinthians 11, in verse 14. You know, most people,
or many people, they think Satan's out here a bartender in some
beer joint, no. That's not his work. He's in
some beautiful cathedral dressed up in the most beautiful robes
and has a hat on and a staff in his hand and maybe doesn't
have that, but still he's hiding behind some pulpit spewing out
lies about God and about our relationship to God. He's transformed
himself into an angel of light. And we know that he has another
name. He's also called the devil. And that name means that he is
an accuser. And that's what we see him doing
here in this passage in Job. He is accusing Job to God, accusing
Job of only serving God because of what God gave him. He's not
serving you, if I could paraphrase this, God, he's not serving you
out of love, out of thanksgiving. No, no, he's only serving you
because you've blessed him, because you've given him all these riches,
this large family, and the health that you enjoy. That's the reason
he's, he accused him. We know that he is the accuser
of the brethren. Thank God we have an advocate
with the father. When we are accused, when God's
people are accused and his accusation is true, we've sinned, but we
have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. We know this last thing, he is
not sovereign. There's only one sovereign. There's
only one sovereign and his name is Jehovah. His name is Yahweh. There's only one sovereign. Satan could act only as second
causes in taking these things, but it was God who took them.
God allowed Satan to take Job's children, his wealth, and then
his health. But even then, God was still
a giving God. For all the patience, all the
patience and all the grace that we see manifested in Job, where
did he get that? Was he different from you? Was
he different from me? Did he just normally, naturally
have this grace and patience by birth? Of course not. As the
scripture says about the Lord Jesus Christ, that from him we
receive grace. He is a fountain of all grace.
He's the God of all comfort. I love his words in chapter two
when he, I believe, spoke these to his wife. Shall we receive
good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? Now, I have showed us that God
is a giving God and God's a taking God. God gave to Job, God took
from Job. Now I want us to turn to Job
19, Job's statement. I'm going to read four verses
here, but I'm only going to speak to us from the first few verses
of that first verse. Job chapter 19, verse 25. For I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And
though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold,
and not another, though my reins be consumed within me." Look
at the first few words. I know that my Redeemer lives. Now we see that in the midst
of all Job's losses, one thing that he had not lost, his knowledge
of Christ. I know that my Redeemer lives. The Apostle Paul could not say
more than what Job said here. When the Apostle Paul said, I
know whom I have believed, he's not saying anything more than
what Job says here. I know that my Redeemer lives. The Apostle Peter, he could not
say more than what Job said when Peter said, we believe and are
sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. He didn't say
any more than what this Old Testament saint said. I know that my Redeemer
lives. And I asked you, I asked myself,
do we know and are we able to say the same tonight? I know
that my Redeemer lives. I know it. I'm as sure of it
as I am of my own existence. I've heard that some philosophers
have taught that this is just all a dream, that there's no
reality, but we know better than that. But can we say tonight
that I'm as sure of my Redeemer, that he lives as I am of my own
reality? I could believe just as easy
that I don't exist, that I don't have an existence as I could
believe tonight that the Lord Jesus Christ does not live. I
believe it. I believe it. I believe that
he is the eternal son of God who came into this world by taking
into union with his deity, that body that was prepared him of
God the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary. I believe that. And I believe that he is seated
tonight at the right hand of God. Having finished the work
which the Father gave him to do, he's exalted to that place
of power, that place of dignity, the right hand of God. That the scepter The reign, the
ruler over all things is the Lord Jesus Christ tonight. We don't say He's going to reign
in the future. We say He's reigning. He's reigning
tonight. I have seen my need of a Redeemer. He taught me. He taught me to
know that I need a Redeemer. that without His redemption,
my separation from God would be for all eternity. And I could
not escape it. I know that. I need a Redeemer. And I know that my Redeemer lives. And though stripped of everything,
if it were God's purpose, if He took from me my health, my
family, my wealth, Everything in this world, I know that I
cannot be separated from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus, my Lord. I know that. You say, well, how
does a person come to know that? And how's a person enabled to
say that? It is only through the word of
God, the word of his grace, the gospel, that we know that there
is a redeemer. That we know that we need a Redeemer.
That we know that His blood really does redeem from all iniquity. And it is only through the Spirit
of truth, through faith, that we are able to call Him mine. I know that my Redeemer lives. One writer mentioned two infallible
evidences of this. That we're not just speaking
words, that this is really truth that's coming from our heart.
I know that my Redeemer lives. Two infallible evidences. Number one, Christ is precious
to our hearts. In 1 Peter 2 and verse 7, the
apostle said, to you that believe, He's precious. May not be precious
to anyone else. But to every believer, he's precious. And number two, Christ is all
our hope of salvation. And by that word hope, I mean
expectation. We expect to be saved, not by
anything that we've done, not by any decision we've made, not
anything other than Jesus Christ. He's all in all. I pray God would bless his word
to each one of us here tonight. And we can sing a hymn and then
we'll be dismissed.