So we're in the book of Job. Please go to Job chapter 1. But we're in the book of Job tonight and what we've done so far is we have, if you look at your outline, we've gone down into Roman numeral 2. And let me grab one of the outlines that you're looking at so that I can make a good comparison. Here's what we've talked about so far. We started at the beginning talking about Job and his character. And then we talked about Satan's accusations that is of improper motives on Job's part. And we're not going to re-preach those sermons because we did spend some time talking through those. And then we got into Roman Numeral 2, Job's test, removal of benefits. And last week we talked about the two tests that Satan proposed and that is take away his possessions, his wealth and his family and he would curse you. And that did not happen. and then take away Job's health and he would curse you. And that did not happen. Well, tonight we're going to get into more of a focus on Satan's power and his hatred. And last week we covered point number one under capital letter B. And that point one is he can influence the actions of people. So, we went through that last week and we touched a little bit, I think, on the weather and his ability to do that. But that's where we're going to pick up tonight just to make sure. And then we're going to move forward. And I want to say that there are two main things that I want us to pull out of this study. One of them is Job's godly character. I want us to see and to be encouraged by what we see in regards to Job's character. Because Job went through tremendous trials, and we may get into those tonight. If not, we'll get into them next Sunday night. But I want us to see that in spite of these tremendous trials that he went through, he had a trust in God. If you can see at the heading, it's called Job's Unconditional Service. And so Job has this commitment to God and this faith. that is so strong that God even mentions him in the book of Ezekiel. Those of you who have been here on Wednesday nights, you know, God mentions Job in the book of Ezekiel as being a man of righteousness. And so I want us to see that because it provides for us an example of how to go through trials. And I would dare say, and I know I'm going out on a limb because I don't know everybody's life in here for all the period that they've been alive, but I would dare say that there is no one in this auditorium that has gone through the extent of trials that Job has gone through and still be able to maintain a faith and trust in God. As a matter of fact, not only does the book begin with this great commendation of Job, and God gives him a four-fold commendation. He calls him perfect. which we believe would be representative of his spiritual maturity. He was an upright man, that is, he did what was right. He was one that feared God. He had a holy respect and a reverence and a fear of God in his life, knowing that God was always present with him. and he eschewed evil. That is, he avoided sin. And so God begins the book of Job with that fourfold commendation of Job. But at the end of the book, after all the events happened, and Job's friends come, and the discourse that they have back and forth, and all of those things, and you get to the end of the book, and God says to Job's friends, you did not speak the thing that was right about me as my servant Job did. And so in the midst of all of the trials that Job went through, God at the end of the book says, Job spoke the things that were right about me. Job had an understanding of God and God's character probably better than anybody alive at his period in his time. And if we can look at Job's character and look at his life, you and I can be challenged by that, right? And when you think about the book of Job, sometimes we wonder why God allowed Job to go through these things. And if he did it for no other reason, he did it so that for thousands of years, probably 4,000 years, up to the point where we're at today, approximately 4,000 years. People have been able to read this book and be challenged and encouraged by the faith and righteousness of Job. And so if God allowed it for no other reason, he allowed it for you and me. And so we need to take advantage of that and to study the book. But that's just one thing. The second thing I want us to pull out of this and take away from us. And my guess is we'll probably be a couple more Sunday nights after tonight and then we'll be done with this study. But the second thing is this. I want us to see the hatefulness of Satan. I want us to understand. that Satan is hateful, he is wicked, and if he could, he would do to every one of us what he did to Job. And to every individual that places their faith in God, if he could do it, he would treat us the same way and try his best to break us. And I want us to understand that. We need to be fully aware of the fact that we have an enemy, and that enemy is Satan, and he's not sitting idly still. And let me say this, the closer you walk to God, the bigger target you are. But the closer you walk to God, the better reward you have, too. And I'm not talking about in heaven. I mean, just in this life, the richness of walking with God and understanding the spiritual understanding that we talked about this morning. So that being said, let's go to the Lord in prayer and then we'll jump into tonight. Our Father, we want to thank you for the opportunity to study your word. Lord, we want to thank you for giving us the record of Job. Father, we As we read through this, Lord, our heart goes out to this man and we see the things that he lived through and the way that Satan attacked him and the hatefulness of Satan and, Lord, all that he went through. But we also understand that you are in control ultimately. And God, You allowed these things to happen. And Father, You didn't necessarily tell Job why he went through these things. You just told him to look at You and to exercise faith in Your sovereignty. And Lord, we want to do the same. So Father, would You teach us these things? Lord, we ask that You would allow us to learn and Lord, to be encouraged and be challenged. Father, these things we pray in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Let's begin looking at verse number 13. And now Satan has already proposed one attack and he's going after Job. And we've already talked about his ability to influence people. But let's back up to verse number 13 just so that we can get the context. And there was a day when the sons 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 and the servants, and consumed them. And I only am escaped alone to tell thee." And we don't know if that fire, he calls it the fire of God fallen from heaven. We don't know exactly what that looked like. It could have been lightning. It could have been actual fire. We don't know. Verse 17, while he was yet speaking, there came also another and said, the Chaldeans made out 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. It's pretty bad so far, isn't it? 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 you can imagine at that point in the sentence that Job was anticipating what was about to come. 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 alone to tell thee. Isn't that amazing? In all this, Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Let me say that in order for Job to go through the trial the way he did, This had to be something that he understood before he went into the trial. So this was a truth that he embraced. And notice that he didn't blame God. He literally worshipped God. And this attitude of Job's was extremely important. We mentioned it last week. Here it is. These things were God's to give. They are not deserved. We don't have a right to them. God gave them. God has the opportunity, the right to take them away. And that attitude by Job gave him the right perspective before the trial. So as he went into the trial, he understood, God, this is all yours anyway. Let me tell you this, this evening, church, don't embrace the world and the things of the world too tightly because they really don't belong to you, do they? They belong to God. They are God's. God is the one that gives them to us. God can take them away if He wants to. If He sees that it's better to serve His purposes, He can do it. Now, last week we talked about the fact that Satan, number one, can influence the actions of people. And we mentioned here the Sabians and the Chaldeans. We talked through that last week and we said this, we said, don't be one of those people that Satan can easily influence. And that we pointed out last Sunday night. Well, that brings us to the point, too, in your outline. He can influence weather. If you look at verse 19, it says, 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. Satan can influence weather. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, we cannot completely understand the ability of Satan versus the permissiveness of God in this situation, or even in our situation, if you are going through a difficult situation. But I want you to know this, the shield of faith is what protects us. IT PROTECTS US AGAINST THE FIERY DARTS OF THE WICKED. NOW, KEEP IN MIND THAT STATEMENT FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT THAT THE SHIELD OF FAITH, WE ARE TO HAVE THAT SHIELD OF FAITH WHICH PROTECTS US AGAINST THE FIERY DARTS OF THE WICKED IS THAT WICKED IS THE SAME PERSON, THAT SAME SATAN THAT WE SEE IN THIS CHAPTER AND IN THIS BOOK ATTACKING JOB. And so those fiery darts of the wicked are not necessarily the evil things that he does, as much as it is the doubts that he puts into our mind. That's why God calls it the shield of faith. That shield of faith means that we exercise faith in God and His sovereignty, just like Job does right here. He worshiped God and said, the Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That shield of faith says God is in control, God understands, and when Satan begins to throw those fiery darts to cause your mind to begin to waver a little bit, and okay, maybe God is holding something back from me, like he attacked Eve. Yea, hath God said. And he began to place doubt in Eve's mind as to God and His goodness toward her. God's holding something back from you. The day that ye, thereof, ye shall be as gods. You see, God's holding something back for you. He's not giving you everything that you deserve. He's not treating you the way that you should be treated. And those fiery darts of the wicked begin to put doubts in our mind, and those kind of doubts cause us to begin to question God and His goodness, or it may begin to question God's forgiveness in our lives. And before long, we don't want to be around God, and we don't want to be around God's people. Job had that shield of faith. You and I need the same thing. Now go with me to Psalm 135. Keep a hand in the book of Job because we're coming back to it multiple times tonight. Go to Psalm 135. Psalm 135, and look at verse number six. It says, Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, and in the seas, and all deep places. He caused that the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth, He maketh lightnings for the rain. He bringeth the wind out of his treasures. Who controls the weather, church? God does. So back in the book of Job, go back there with me. Back in the book of Job, where this great wind came and knocked the house down. in such a way that it killed Job's seven children. Obviously, God had allowed it to happen. Look at verse number, chapter two, verse number three. Job 2 verse 3, Now I'm not even going to begin to tell you that I understand how that God's permissiveness and the devil's attacks, where the line is drawn. We know that God controls the weather, right? We know that God controls the weather. So what I can say is this, take comfort, God is in ultimate control. But at the same time, we know that Satan is the one that sent the attack on Job. God said, you go ahead, you do it, just don't touch him. And so we know that the attack came from Satan. Somewhere in here is the line between God saying, you moved me against him, and Satan being able to control the weather. But the bottom line is God is in control. You know, when negative things happen in our lives, we usually see three different possibilities for them. Number one, natural consequences due to living in a sin-cursed earth. We live in a sin-cursed earth, and there are consequences that just come with living on this earth. OK, you stump your toe. Ow, that hurts. OK, it's a sin-cursed earth. We grow old. Right, Brother Kenny? We can't stop it. I don't know why I'm picking on your age today, but there it is. It is just part of living on a sin-cursed earth. The second reason that we can see or second possibility when negative things come into our life is they may be consequences due to our own decisions, right? You drive your car recklessly, you're liable to wreck. Brother Earl Pill had told us yesterday in men's Bible study. that he had smoked when he was younger. He gave it up, but he believes the cancer that he's dealing with, Earl's not here tonight, is he? He believes that the cancer that he's dealing with is the result of him smoking years ago, the consequences of his own choices. And I'm not saying anything that he hasn't already said. And the third possibility is that God allows circumstances into our lives for His own purposes. And that's what we're seeing here in the book of Job. God withheld that hedge. Go back to verse number one, and look at chapter one, verses nine and 10. Then Satan answered the Lord and said that Job feared God for naught. Hast thou not made an hedge about him and about his house? Verses nine and 10. God has this hedge that He places around His children, and at whatever time He chooses to pull that back or to remove that, to allow circumstances into our life, even to allow Satan to do things like he did to Job. We understand that God is in control and He has control of all of those circumstances and He allows them to happen for His own purpose. Our lives are not our own, we are bought with a price, right? And so we belong to Him, take comfort Christian. So whether it's natural consequences due to living in a sin-cursed earth, sometimes that even includes consequences because of decisions that others have made that are out of our control, but it's because living in a sin-cursed earth. or whether it's consequences due to our own decisions, if we make bad decisions, or whether it's God allowing circumstances into our life and they're completely out of our control. Whatever the case may be, God, just like this and the situation with the weather, God is in control ultimately. And you and I can take comfort. We'll look at point number three in your outline. He can influence health. Okay, verse number six of Job 2 says, And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand, but save his life. And so now God has allowed Satan to affect Job's health. Now, we're going to talk more about that further down the outline, but for now, we're just going to state this. Satan attacked him in the area of his health. Again, this is because God allowed it. God had a great purpose for Job through this trial. God did. If he would have remained healthy, If Job would have remained healthy, we may never have heard of Job and his godly life. Job was a godly man, period, before he went through the trial, as he went through the trial, after he finished the trial. But if he would have remained healthy, we may never have heard of Job, his godly life, and we may never have been challenged and encouraged by Job's life. But because he went through this terrible trial, we can read his story today and we can see God in his life. You and I know why Job went through the trial and Job didn't. He does now. He's in God's presence, right? I'm gonna read something that I've read to you all here a couple times while preaching similar topics. And it's written by Charles Spurgeon. Now, Charles Spurgeon wrote, he wrote a lot. There's a lot of sermons out there by him, a lot of books by him. But one of the masterpieces, one of the best books that he left behind is actually, well, I have it as a five volume set. It is written on the book of Psalms, and it's called the Treasury of David. And Charles Spurgeon wrote that, and he drew from authors that go back into the 1500s. And so as he wrote about every single Psalm, 150 Psalms, and he wrote pages about each Psalm, and he drew from these authors from the 1500s all the way through to the 1800s. And he drew from these authors and incorporated them in his collection, The Treasury of David. And still today it is the classic commentary on the Psalms. And I want you to hear what he said as he writes the introduction or the preface. And he writes this in 1869. He said, it may be added that although the contents, talking about the contents of the books that he wrote, were the work of my health, the rest of the volume is the product of my sickness. When protracted illness and weakness laid me aside from daily preaching, I resorted to my pen as an available means of doing good. I would have preached had I been able. But as my master denied me the privilege of thus serving him, I gladly availed myself of the other method of bearing testimony to his name, the pen. Oh, that he may give me fruit of this field also, and his shall be all the praise. Charles Spurgeon said, if I'd had my choice, I'd have been preaching. And you know what? If he'd had the strength, I'm sure his preaching would have been good like all the other sermons that he preached. But we wouldn't have today that great commentary on the Psalms that is probably on the shelf of every preacher who studies the Psalms and has been for over 100 years. You see, God has a purpose. sometimes in allowing circumstances into our life that are greater than just you and me in the moment. Am I making sense to y'all? And you know what, sometimes that's hard to take when we are the one going through it, right? Well, go with me to Genesis 50. We're in Genesis 50. I'm going to remind us of a passage of Scripture that you're probably familiar with. It's the end of Joseph's life. His brothers had betrayed him. They had sold him into slavery. Joseph, by the sovereignty of God, became second in the kingdom of Egypt. And because of that, many people were saved because God allowed him to interpret the vision of the of the dream that told of the seven years of good harvest and the seven years of famine. And now we're getting down near the end of his father's life. And we get to verse number 18. Well, his father had just passed away. We get to verse number 18, and it says this. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we be thy servants." Keep in mind, they sold him into slavery. Verse 19, And Joseph said unto them, Fear not, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me. See, he didn't excuse their sin, he forgave them, but he didn't excuse it. Joseph had this amazing attitude, even though his brothers had sold him into slavery. And Joseph went through this difficult time and ended up being in Potiphar's house and then lied against him. And Potiphar's wife assaulted Joseph's character and lied against him. And Joseph ended up in prison. And all the things that went about in Joseph's life, he ended up now being the second in the kingdom. And God worked through all of that. And Joseph was able to look back and see God's hand. And he said to his brothers, God meant it for good. God took your evil act and brought about what you see today with all of these people, their lives being saved. God put me here. You sold me into slavery. You meant it for evil, but God took it and turned it into good. And my friend, that type of attitude is the attitude that can look at wicked circumstances, evil circumstances, bad circumstances in our life and say, God, you may be serving a greater purpose here. I place my faith in you. Job did. Now look at your outline, point number four. Point number four, his power is limited. God's permission. All right, go with me to Job 1 and verse number 10. Job 1 and verse number 10, Hast thou not made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, his substance, and it is increased in the land. What is this about this hedge? Now a hedge would simply be like a fence row made of shrubs and oftentimes they would use it, thorns, they would use thorns to create this hedge so that animals would not want to pass through it and neither would people. And so the idea here is Satan is saying there is a hedge around Job, I can't get to him. Verse number 11, but put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy face. Oh, Satan didn't understand Job's character. Verse 12, And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power, only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and then the rest we've already read. And so it is all within God's permissiveness. God allowed it. Now, when God said all that he hath is in thy hand, only upon himself put not forth thy hand, Satan couldn't do it. Within chapter 2, verse number 6, the Lord gave him that permission. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand, but save his life. And then what we see is this wicked attempt that Satan made to break Job. And so Satan is limited to God's permission. God protects His own, and He can remove that hedge of protection if He chooses. You and I have no idea We have no idea what God has kept from happening in our lives. We don't understand how Satan wants to destroy us, but God understands it, and you and I are protected by God. And if God were to choose to remove that hedge of protection, Satan would do to us what he did to Job. There are times, I don't know if God does this to y'all, but there are times where God lays certain people on my heart to pray for them. I used to just think, oh, that's just, you know, they popped into my mind for whatever reason, until my family moved to Kenya. And when Lynette and Nathaniel and the family moved over to Kenya, I prayed for them more often. Lori and I pray for them every morning, every evening, so at least twice a day, we pray for them. But throughout the day, if God replaces them on my heart, I will pray for them. And there are times where I will text Lynette and say, Lynette, I'm praying for you, the Lord laid you on my heart. And sometimes there are things that are going on, and she'll text back and say, Dad, at the time you were praying, this is what we were going through. Sometimes she says, I don't know of anything, Dad. And when she gave birth to the last baby, Tirza, And over there in Africa, in Kenya, in a third world country, needless to say, you know, we were on pins and needles, you know, as she was going through that. And the night that she gave birth, I was unaware of the fact, we knew that she was, they had gone to the capital city, Nairobi, because they had better hospitals there, but she wasn't in the hospital. They were at a house that somebody had allowed them to use and they were just close to the hospital. Well, she gave birth in that house. And that night, God would not let me sleep. All night long, I tossed and I turned, and I prayed for them, and I prayed for them. And about three o'clock in the morning, I finally had peace, and I fell asleep. Lynette, the next day, had texted that she had had the baby, everybody was healthy, everything was good. Lori responded to the text. Leanna responded to the text. I was sleeping. I didn't respond to the text until later on in the morning. And she said, Dad, I wondered where you were. And she gave birth right about the time God gave me the peace to go to sleep. So all through that night, God allowed me to pray for her and them as they went through that. My friend, God can protect his own, right? And at one point she actually said to me, Dad, I just wonder what you pray out of our lives that that would happen if you weren't praying for us. God has that hedge of protection and everything that happens to you and me has to go through God's permission before it can reach us. Isn't that a comfort? Our Father in heaven, we want to thank you for the truth of your word. I pray, God, that as we look at Job and what you've done in his life, Father, that you would help us to understand your character better, the need for our character to be more spiritually mature as Job's was, and Father, help us to understand the wickedness and the hatred of Satan. And Father, not discredit the fact that He is our enemy. And Lord, He's out to get us, and He will do it in any way that He can. And Father, help us to be aware that we have an enemy, and he is as a roaring lion, and You have given us the armor of God to protect ourselves, a shield of faith in Your Word and in Your sovereignty. Now, Father, help us to respond to Your Word this evening the way that You would choose for us to. It's in Jesus Christ's name that we pray. Amen.