Let's go to the book of Job. The book of Job this morning, chapter number 13 in the book of Job. And as I was studying the scriptures and trying to find the mind of the Lord, we're having to preach, these are the verses that God kept bringing to my mind. And so I pray that he'll help us today. Once you've gotten there, we'll stand if you're able to, and we'll read Job 13, verse 15, and verse number 16. That's Job chapter number 13, verse 15 and 16. And of course, Job is writing for us all. And so the Bible says this. Job says to his friends, though he's sweet, yet will I trust in him. But I will maintain my own ways before him. He also shall be my salvation For a hypocrite shall not come before him. Job says, though he swayed me, yet will I trust in him. I want to talk on this little thought this morning, when we don't understand what's happening. When we don't understand what's happening. Let's pray. Father, I pray God for your guidance today. I ask God to fill up the Holy Spirit. I pray God that your Holy Spirit would guide every syllable, every word that will come from my lips today. I pray God to help me to preach the word of God that you had me to preach. Nothing more, nothing less. And I pray God to take your word and speak to all our hearts. Those who are here are similar to worship. Those who are similar to watch by the internet. I pray God to feed our hungry souls. I pray God to build our faith muscles and God give us strength for the journey that we face from day to day. I pray God we leave here today much encouraged because of your presence. And that God will thank you. And Lord, if I left anything, I guess, sir, meet that need as well. Matter of fact, if there's anything between you and I that would hinder you, here's my blessing. I pray God you forgive me, that you cleanse me, use me for your honor and for your glory. And that's it for now. I'm forcing your son's name, we pray. Not a weak Jesus, but mighty Jesus. Amen. Amen. Maybe see it when we don't understand And all of us, as we travel throughout this life, we're going to face certain things that take place, and we're not going to understand what's happening or why this is happening to us. And it just blows our mind. God, what are you doing? God, why are you allowing this to take place in my life? Have I done something, or is this an attack from the enemy? But even then, once you have researched and you have tried to find out the reason why, you still sometimes have to come up to this conclusion, you don't understand. That word understand that we're looking at means to perceive the meaning of. It means to discern or to explain. In other words, you just can't understand this, you can't discern this, you can't explain this, you don't understand the meaning of this, no matter how you wrap your mind and you wrap your brain. That reminds me, this verse holds a place here, but go with me over to Proverbs 3, a very familiar passage. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. He says, don't rely, don't depend, don't support yourself on your own understanding. And that word understanding, that means your own wisdom. So he says this in this verse, what we need to do is trust in the Lord. Don't lean to your wisdom, because your wisdom and my wisdom, it just don't make sense. I mean, why? I'm traveling down the road, I'm trying to serve God, my vehicle breaks down. Boy, I don't understand that. Now I'm gonna miss this meeting, or I'm gonna miss this opportunity to do a blessing to someone, or many other things that take place, and you can't understand it, you try to reason it out, but like the Bible says here, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thine ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. led me to another verse over in Proverbs 33, one that's not mentioned much, but it still has the same impact. He says in Proverbs 33 and verse four, he says, labor not, just gonna mess somebody up. Labor not to be rich. Somebody say, you gonna talk about that? No, we just had this in the verse. Cease from thine own wisdom. But it does say, a lot of folks work to be rich. Don't do that. You spend all your time trying to be rich, and then when you finally think you're rich, you've made it, then you die and go to heaven, and leave everything behind for everybody else to enjoy. He says, labor not to be rich, but watch this, cease from my own wisdom. That means to stop. from my own wisdom or understanding. He says, don't do it. It'll jack you up, it'll mess you up when you're trying to reason out why, and you just don't know why. Of course, yesterday, we were celebrating the life of Kelly. Kelly turned 43 years old while she was in the hospital. She passed away, and now she leaves behind her daughter, 18, and I think the oldest one is 20, I believe, 20 years old. And we could sit and say, but why? Why did this take place? Why did this happen? And you try to understand it, it still blows your mind, you still can't figure it out. We think about Ashley Sampson, and she loves the Lord, she sings for the Lord, but it's like, wait a minute, why does Ashley have these seizures, and why is she having these blood clots, and why, and why, and why, and why, and no matter how much we ask the question why, we still don't understand it. We still can't figure it out. And when we look at Job, Job had a similar situation taking place in Job's life. By the way, we need to remember something. Job is the first book in the Bible. Some of y'all might not know that. It's the oldest book in the Bible. So that tells us something. Job didn't have Genesis. Job didn't have the Psalms. So Job did not know a lot of things that you and I know today and that you and I can depend on today, but yet Job makes an awesome statement in these verses. Look what he said, and I go back with it, we'll be done here in a second, but look what he says in verse 15. Though he swayed me, yet will I trust in him. The first thing we see is Job's possible death. Job's possible death. That word here, though, is a hypothetical particle which means if. So Job says, if he slays me, though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. He might kill me. but I'm still gonna trust in him. And just to be a reminder of what's taking place, remember Job has lost all of his livelihood, all that he had has been destroyed, he's lost all of his children, his body is wrapped with boils, and his wife has told him just cuss God and die. All these things have happened in Job's life, but yet Job says in this verse, though he slay me, if he slay me, yet will I trust. in him. Now as you study this all out, you'll find out one thing he's saying too here is this. We read the verses around it. Though I come in his presence. I know this is a dangerous thing. I come in his presence. If he finds me guilty, he might slay me. But you know what? I'll still trust in him. Maybe ask us, do we have that same mindset? We have Genesis all the way down through Revelation So do we still have that mindset when the Bible says in Philippians 4 13 I can do all things through Christ a wish that there's me and the verses go on and on and on. We see how God delivered time and time again. But when we say that same thing, though he slay me, he might kill me. But I'm still gonna trust him. Yeah. That's a hard saying. But here's another thing. He didn't have the influence of the Holy Spirit. You and I, because we're saved, born again, we have the influence of the Holy Spirit, and the Bible says that the fruit of the Spirit, what He produces, will help us as we rely and depend and trust in the Holy Spirit. He'll enable us to have victory. It's as great as He was in us as He was in the world. So you know what? We have the ability to say the same thing. This was a decision that Job made. Job says in verse 15, though he slay me, yet will I, come on now, Job, will I trust in him? He has made a decision to trust in the Lord, and you and I have to make a decision to trust God or not trust God. The question is, which one is it gonna be? We got a friend, one of our buddies, well your buddy too, I can't remember his name, but he is a buddy of ours. Brother McElmore, he's having vehicle troubles, trying to go serve the Lord. You know what? But he still trusted him. You may have situations taking place in your life and you and I, you and I have to make a decision. When you got saved, you made a decision to trust in the Lord. He didn't force you, he didn't make you, he didn't put you in a headlock and say, you're going to trust me? No. He said, whosoever will. And watch what Job says. Job says in verse 15, he says, yet will I trust in him. That word trust here, this is gonna mess somebody up. That word trust here also means to wait, to be patient, hope, expect. Say what, preacher? He said while you're in this verse, he says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him, I will wait on him, I will be patient, I will hope, I will expect. How good is our patience? That's not one of my gifts. Come on. That's not a gift. The Bible teaches us that he can give us patience, but people say this. They say, now, they say, listen, don't you be craving for patience? Do you know what you're saying? What you're actually saying is this. You don't want endurance. You want to quit. But when you say, Lord, give me patience, help me to expect you not to show up, help me to wait for your arrival. Listen, when we go and I order Big Daddy's, or I go over to the fish place, Harold's, when I walk in the door, Harold's, they don't have the fish waiting on me. No, I wish they did, but they don't. But they tell me, they say, it'll be 10, 15 minutes. So I walk, I ain't come back here, no. I go sit in my car and I wait. As soon as the 15 minutes is up, I come walking in and I'm expecting my catfish with the lemon salt and pepper, and I've been doing this lately, putting some mild barbecue sauce on mine. I'm home less though. I'm expecting it to be right. And I have it in here, what's your number? I tell my number, you got the number? Yes, that's me, that's me right there. But you know what? Sometimes we don't have that patience. But John says, you ain't gonna be slaving me, yet will I trust in him, I'll be patient, I will wait for him, I will expect him, I will hope in him. Let me ask us, are we expecting God to show up? Sometimes we don't expect God to show up. It's like the preacher that came to, I think it was Charles Spurgeon, and he says, you know what? I'm not seeing any salvations. Nobody's getting saved. None of these things are happening, you know. And then Charles Purge asked him a question. Do you expect people to get saved every time you worship or preach? He says, no. He says, okay. You're not expecting that. And a lot of times we're not expecting anything to happen. When they expect it, they say, well, you know, I don't know how it's going to sit. Wait a minute, brothers and sisters. The Bible says we have not because we ask not, but the Bible says to trust him, believe in him. I don't know about you, but I like victory and God knows exactly how to give us victory. And he says in this verse, he says, yea, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. I will definitely wait for him. I'll be patient. I will hope, I will expect his arrival. Where's she got to go? Where's she going to? That little drug, that ain't gonna help me. I'll do some alcohol, oh yeah, that's built many a home. Many a family's been built and strengthened by alcohol. No, they've been destroyed. Look what the Bible says over here in John chapter six. John chapter six. And look what Jesus says to the apostles. And look how they respond, or how Peter responds. Look at John chapter six, verse 66. Just calm down. It's a good verse. The Bible says in John six, verse 66, from that time, the Bible says, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said unto the 12, he said this to them, will ye also go away? Will you withdraw? Will you depart? Then Simon says, in verse 68, Simon Peter, he answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou has the words of eternal life. Where we going? There's no words to go to. You have the words for eternal life. You're the one that we're trusting in. You're the one that we're believing in. And I don't know about you, where's the man gonna go? To the other side? Savior side? No! I want to stay on the Savior's side and I want to stay trusting God and the Spirit of God giving us strength and victory from day to day. What do you say, preacher? Like the Bible teaches us, Peter said, man, where am I going? Where you going? I'm mad at God, okay? Now what? Come on. I don't know what now, but still. I'm upset with God. God's been good to us. God, now listen, and a lot of times we don't like this part here. If God was to show us us in a mirror, you know we wouldn't like it either. How jacked up we are, I ain't jacked up, that's jacked up right there. But I mean in our thinking, the thoughts that come through our minds, the way we behave, how we act, how sometimes, raise your hand, nobody move on this one, how we bark at one another before we get to worship. Praise the Lord. I mean, but yeah, you know what God does? Grace and mercy. Grace and mercy. What are you saying preacher? There's nowhere else to go to folks. That's going to help us. And he makes a decision and in verse, uh, in verse, uh, go back to the Job, uh, verse number 15, he makes a decision. Though, uh, that's a Job 13 verse 15, though he slayed me, yet will I trust in him. And the third thing we see is Job's defense. The Bible says, Job says in verse 15, but I will maintain my own ways before the Lord. That word here, maintain, means to prove or to justify my own ways, my own road before him in his presence. In other words, Job said, I haven't done anything. And Job hadn't done anything. But his friends, you know what that means. to you, you must have did something wrong. And a lot of times when things happen to us, folks go, what's wrong with him? He's trying to be right with the Lord. You know, Mike Miller did something wrong, Shafiq done something that wrong, that stuff happened to him, you know, yeah, yeah. Mason, yeah, you're right. No, no. But nonetheless! And here's Job, these things have happened to Job, and they're both saying, hey, he's guilty of something. And Job said, listen, I will maintain, I will prove that I'm not guilty. I will go before the Lord, and I will ignore, check me out, I haven't done anything. Now, a lot of us can't do that. We go for the Lord, you know, we let the Lord come down with the hammer, because I know I'm guilty. But Job hadn't done anything. And let me show you how you know that. Look what the Bible says. Oh, in Job, chapter number one, in verse one. Look at Job, chapter one, in verse one. Look what the Bible says, Job one, in verse one. The Bible says in Job one, verse one, there was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and this man was perfect, that's not to say without sin, you have to spit that out, and upright, and one that feared God, and the Bible says he eschewed evil. He turned aside from evil. He was doing those things which was right. Then drop down, I'm gonna make a verse in my aid. The Bible says this, and the Lord said to Satan, has thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God and is sure of evil? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear God for naught? He ain't doing it for nothing. And then the Bible says in verse 10, Satan says, has not thou 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, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. You got no hedge on him. I haven't preached this in a long time. I used to preach a sermon called, When the Hedge Comes Down. And sometimes, God has that hedge around us, he's protecting, that's what Satan said, I can't get to him. You've got a hedge around him, I can't touch him, but you pull down that hedge, and let me at him, and he'll cuss you. Oh yeah, because he's serving you for nothing, with the shoulders up, Job hadn't done anything. He prayed for his kids. He made sacrifices and things of that nature. He was innocent. But yet all this stuff was happening in Job's life. All these things were taking place in Job's life. And brothers and sisters, there are some times in our life where God brings down the hedge, and the hedge is not so much to hurt us, but also to prove that we don't serve God because we got all the money in the world in our pocket. We're not serving God because our car runs all the time. I don't think nobody needed it like that, but nonetheless, amen. It's not because we, see some people, if things go bad, you find just how much faith they have. It's easy to say, oh, I trust God, I believe God, when things are going great. But what about when everything is falling apart? What about when you go into your bank account, I hope this won't happen to you, but you go to your bank account and you find out somebody came by and took some of your, they borrowed your money, took it out of your account. And now you got negative, you know, $10,000. What in the world? What happened here? God, why you do this to me? Number one, God didn't do anything to John. He allowed Satan to do those things. What that tells me, Satan can't touch me. Unless, unless He has permission, He is alive, He can't touch me. And if the Lord allows it to take place, there's a reason, there's a purpose. I might not understand that. I might not be able to comprehend that. But one thing we can all do, brothers and sisters, is say, yeah, He can restrain me. Yes! I trust Him. Amen. I'll continue to trust Him. I will not go away. I won't back away from Him. Where should I go? There's nowhere else to go to. Amen. Yeah, give us a place up in heaven. Watch this. We see that Job gives his defense, but then we see Job's deliverance. Go back with me to verse number 16. We'll read 15 too. The Bible says, Job says, don't beslay me, yet will I trust thee. But I will maintain mine own ways. before him in his presence. He also shall be my salvation. And that's why he's saying he's gonna deliver me. For a hypocrite shall not come before him. Now what that word, what this is saying here in this verse, that word hypocrite also means godless, but it says shall not come before his presence. A person who is a hypocrite ain't gonna show up. You ever enter God's presence and say I'm innocent? No, you're not innocent. It's just like, now see we know God knows all things. He ain't like our parents. So our parents don't know all the things. But God knows all the things. He knows when you're lying and when you're not lying. And I don't forget, my kids were growing up, and I would be like, some of y'all getting the opportunity to tell the truth. I said, are you sure? Yeah, I don't know. So you know, I'm asking you for a reason. Actually, they're trying to figure out now, does he know or does he not know? What do you mean by that? They thought you would see them somewhere and you'd come back and let me know. And they'd say, what? That's Billy the Seeker. Billy used to be all over the place, you know? I said, yeah, I know. I know what's going on here, man. Now, sometimes I'd be not really being honest because I don't know what happened to Johnny. You know, we've got to be detective. We've got to be all that stuff when you're parenting, OK? And I know some of us are like, well, parenting just has nothing to do with it. No! No. Ooh, man, if we had the stuff, the technology, Oh My soul, but you know what our God does know everything will not come before his presence. A hypocrite ain't gonna show up, because he know that he's pretending. He know he's pretending. And to stand before God, he said, no, that ain't gonna happen. But look at the first part of that verse, which is what I'm gonna focus on. Job says this, he also shall be my salvation. He says, God shall be my deliverance. He will rescue me. He will deliver me, even though I don't understand. Even though, I don't understand what's happening or why it's happening. Job did not know. By the way, at the end of the story, God never shows up and tells Job why. Never tells Job why. But watch what the Bible does show us. The Bible does show that God delivered Job. Look at Job 42. And look at verse number 10. Look at Job 42 and verse number 10. And I encourage you to read all these verses before that over Job. But look at verse number 10. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, now just don't say ouch, when he prayed, not for himself, for his friends. Now pause, now these are the same friends that were saying he was guilty. And then God said to them, read the verse before that, God said to them, you go and get Job to pray for you, because I might not accept you, but I'll accept Job. Now, not us, but some of the other Christians, they've been like, I ain't praying for them. Oh, I'm going to pray, I'm going to pray, oh yeah. I'm going to blow up their car and their house. I'm going to let them lose their job. I'm going to make COVID-19. Lord, I miss him. Yeah. Yeah. Y'all know that. It's not me pushing. Not me pushing. Yeah. Man, some of our foes, they know that something happened wrong, and they'll be like, well, you know, they shouldn't have dealt with that. Yeah. But notice something. His captivity was termed. when you pray for them. I wonder, I'm just wondering, I just wonder if our captivity hasn't turned because we haven't prayed for so long. I ain't praying for nothing. I ain't gonna pray. That might be why you ain't having no victory. That might be why you're not experiencing the joy of the Lord, because you refuse to pray for somebody that might have hurt you, that may have wounded you, that may have slandered your name, or any of these things right here. But the Bible says that when Job prayed for his friends, God turned his captive. Now watch this. In the Bible it says something else happens. The Bible says in verse number 10, it says that when they turned the captive of Job when he prayed for his friends, also the Lord gave Job, Job, Job, Job twice. The Bible goes on to say this, verse 11. Then came and bade unto him all of his brethren, and all of his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, 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. Every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. And so the Bible says, so the Lord blessed the latter end of Job. More than his beginning. For he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels, and 1,000 yokel oxen, and 1,000 she-asses. He had also seven sons, and three daughters, and the names of his children there. And in the Bible, it says in verse number 16, and after this, Reb Joel watched it now 140 years. And so his sons, come on, and his sons and sons, even four generations. So Job died being old and full of days. All that stuff that happened to Job. The Bible says God gave him double back. Then he lived what was 140 years after this. He saw four generations of his family. Now I don't know about y'all, but I'm sure them grandkids and them great grandkids, And then great-grandkids would come back, and they would want to talk to their papa. They want to talk to him, and he would tell them about what happened. You know, you had seven uncles, and you had three aunts, but they all died. They was killed. I had a whole lot of stuff, and I lost everything. But God gave me more children, because y'all are the offspring of this. who have grandchildren and great-grandchildren, so on and so on, God gave you victory. But now watch this now. There's one thing he wasn't able to tell them. What was that? Why? He couldn't say why it happened. But he could say that God gave him victory. And that God blessed him even more so in his latter days than the beginning. You think about some of your grandparents. Now they've talked to you about how God blessed them, how God made a way out of nowhere, how God came through once again. And what does it do? It encourages you and it builds your faith. When I think about my mom and my grandmother and how they would talk about how God did this and how, and I saw God do a lot of great things. And I'm going to tell you what, those things inspire you. They motivate you. The continuous herd, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Even though we may not understand why it's happening, we can trust him. We can believe him. We can lean upon him and not bring enough of our own understanding, but trust in the living God. Amen. A lot of people get depressed and they can't figure it out. They cannot figure it out, so they get depressed. Wow, I'm trying to figure this thing out. I'm doing the spiritual math. I'm doing the English. I'm doing all this stuff, but I still can't figure it out. He said, just trust Him. Just trust Him. Because you ain't going to understand it a lot of times. It says again in Romans, in Proverbs 3 verse 5, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not. I thought I don't understand it. You don't understand this. After years of being together, after years of having children and then having grandchildren, they just up and leave and gave me no explanation of why. I don't understand it. But you know what he says? Trust him. But then I go worship and I, something like Job, because Job worshiped. But yet these things happen to Job. Let me ask us a question. Will we continue to trust him? Like Joe said, even though he slayed me, I want to trust him. I've got two questions for you. First question is this. What is happening in your life at the moment that you just don't understand? Why? What is happening in your life at the moment that you just don't understand? Why? The second question is this. Will you make a decision, like Joe, to continue to trust him? Will you make a decision like Joe to continue to trust him? And I'm asking a simple statement. Let's come this morning and cry to him like never before. Father, I don't understand what's happening. I can't comprehend it. But Lord, help me to trust you. Help me to trust you. Father, thank you for your many wonderful blessings. I've done my best. I will try to give out more as you have me directed to. Now, perhaps, Before I pray them when life doesn't make sense help us God to trust you. Perhaps God there's some brothers and sisters in here today that need to talk to you about some of these things or maybe something else that's taking place in their life at the moment but they need to bring it to the throne of grace today. I pray God they come and bring it to you because you know what to do with it. You know how to handle it. You know how to get peace. Pray for someone who they care so much about, they love them. And they woke up that day to me. I pray, God, they come this morning. We got whatever the needs are, but I just might get this lost. I said, preach, I need to trust Christ as my Savior. I pray, God, they come forward, talk to me or someone they have come and say, and we show them from the word of God how to trust Jesus. Father, we heard the songs, we heard the sermon. Now it's time to respond. Of course, if you're a son of David, you pray. I'm not a weak Jesus, no sir, but mighty Jesus.