Let's get right into this Jerry's gonna come up in just a minute, but let me get this started I kind of put a little question at the first of this that I want to ask and We're gonna read in Job before brother Jerry comes up. We're only gonna focus on the first five verses We're going to read the whole chapter then Jerry's gonna come up he's gonna talk but I want to start with this question before I read it and that's this question would God do that you say what do you mean would God do that well would God do the kinds of things that we read in the book of of Job. I want to read this chapter and I want you to just listen and then we're going to ask a couple more questions and then we're going to jump right into it tonight. So if you have your Bibles you can look to the book of Job. Kind of in the center of the Bible. And let me read, you listen. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil. And seven sons and three daughters were born to him. His possessions also were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants. And that man was the greatest of all the men of the east. And his sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day. I take that to be his birthday. And they would send and invite the three sisters to eat and drink with them. And it came about when the days of feasting had completed their cycle that Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. thus job did continually now there was a day when the sons of god came to present themselves before the lord and satan also came among them and the lord said to satan from where do you come then satan answered the lord and said from roaming about on the earth and walking around on it And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord, Does Job fear God for nothing? Hast thou not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse thee to thy face. Then the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only do not put forth your hand on him. So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord. Now it happened on the day when the sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. Then a messenger came to Job and said, the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabaeans attacked and took them. They also slew the servants with the edge of the sword. I alone have escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another also came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another also came and said, the Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and took them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword and I alone have escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, yet another came and said, your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell on the young people and they died. and I alone am escaped to tell you. Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Through all of this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God. So you can see why I would put the title over the top of this, would God do this? If we just mention the name of Job, if you've been a Christian for any time at all, or if you know anything about the Bible, then you mention the name Job and we get a little uncomfortable. And you say, well, why would we get uncomfortable? Well, because he lived blamelessly, he served God faithfully, he led his family dutifully, and then he suffered, it seems, mercilessly. It's amazing, isn't it? It's almost the opposite of what it seems that the book of Proverbs teaches. Proverbs says that if you work hard and you show diligence and you live generously and you obey the Lord, then you will be blessed and all of your flocks and your herds, basically, you'll be financially, materially, physically blessed in every way. Job is the antithesis of that. And so I wonder how many of us would endure like Job if we were even tested to a tenth as much. And when we say the name Job, it's almost synonymous with the word suffering. So let me not get ahead of myself. We're looking at the book of Job. We want to glean some help and hope for the very difficult times in which we live. I don't make any bones about it. These are difficult times. It just seems things are nuts and getting crazier all the time and at every level, at the personal level and societal level, cultural level, national level, governmental level. It just seems like things are messed up. Well, times are difficult, but yet the opportunities are magnified to testify to God's goodness, especially in these tough times. We're calling the whole series Real Faith for Tough Times, and we really believe that there is faith and there's victory in Christ Jesus for the times in which we live. Now, I wanna show you a book that we're kind of using to launch. Now, we're not actually teaching the book, but a lot of the ideas and thoughts and some of the titles we're getting from the book, it's called Tried, Tested, and Triumphant. It's the Book of Job. It's by Dr. David Jeremiah. I'm not ordering these books and bringing them in here. These are study guides, but they're as close as Amazon Prime. If you'd like to have one, you can have one in two or three days. So I'll just tell you what the name of the book is if you want one. It's fantastic. It's eight lessons in the first book, seven lessons in the second book, and we're going to look at several of these. during this time, so I wanna give credit where credit is due. We got some of these ideas about it. Before Jerry comes up, let me give you just, he's gotta have 45 minutes to 50 minutes for what he's gonna say, and I've got three minutes to say what I'm gonna say, and then you're coming. Here we go. Here's some fast facts about Job. I wanna give you this before we even get started. Number one, it's one of the oldest books in the Bible, if not the oldest book in the Bible. Perhaps the only part of the Bible that's older is Genesis chapter one, verse one through 11. I personally believe that Job was written somewhere between the time of the flood and the time that Abraham was called out by God to be the father of the nation of Israel. It's a very, very old book. Next thing I want to say is that Job was a real person. Now, that's one of the biggest attacks that is leveled against the book of Job in the Bible is, well, it's just a story. It's just anecdotal. It's something to just, you know, try to give us a point of reference. It really didn't happen. There wasn't a man named Job. Surely all these bad things didn't happen to the same guy. It's not a real person. I beg to differ because the Bible says this. Listen to this. The events described happen. It's not a proverbial story told to teach a point, but it is a historical account. Let me tell you why I know that not only is it referred to in the book of James in the New Testament But listen to Ezekiel chapter 12 14 verse 12 Ezekiel 14 12 says this Ezekiel was God's prophet and he was being told he was being told and warned or he was warning the people about the judgment of God coming and Verse 12 says the word of the Lord came to me again saying son of man when a land sins against me by persistent unfaithfulness I will stretch out my hand against it I will cut off its supply of bread and Send famine on it and will cut off man and beast from it now listen to verse 14 even if Noah Daniel and Job were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness, says the Lord. Do you see that? It names three people. If only if Noah and Daniel and Job, these really righteous people, if they were in the land, they would deliver themselves, but I wouldn't deliver the land or spare the land for all of them. So what's your point? Well, do we think Daniel was a real person in the Bible? Do we think Noah was a real person? Now remember, if Noah's not a real person, then there wasn't a flood. And if there wasn't a flood, we got a whole heap of trouble. Because a lot of things depended upon the truth of the flood in the scriptures. So Noah was a real person. Daniel was a real person. In fact, all of our prophecy that we talk about in the book of Revelation is contingent on what Daniel prophesied in Daniel chapter seven through the end of the book in chapter 12. So it's very important we recognize this is a real person. He went through exactly what the Bible talks about here in this passage. He lived, he was rich, and the land of Uz was a real place because it was named after Uz, the grandson of Seth in the Bible, and it's very, very interesting. We're gonna get launched, get into it tonight. We're gonna start off looking at the man himself, and how was it that God was so sure he could put this kind of man to that test? Why don't you come on, Jerry? Let's listen to what he's got to say. Hey, good evening, everybody, good evening. Well, through this study, Pastor and I are gonna basically be tandemly teaching or sharing the opportunity tonight. I wanted to start with the thought that because this is a very relational book, Job is, because obviously it's pulling back the drapes, not only on heaven, but it's also pulling back the drapes on a man's life as it, in what we would call fall apart. But it wasn't falling apart, it was really falling together. Is everyone with me on that? And the reason why I say that is because God was basically using this man to help us understand that there's a whole lot more going on in the unseen world than what we are aware of. I wanted to start also by sharing with you that if there's one thing that God desires of you and I more than anything else in our lives is trust, It seems like working in the jail ministry, I'm overwhelmed by how many people, because of their life and because of the things that have been hard in their lives, they just don't trust. They don't trust anyone. They don't trust God. And of course, the basis of our growth is trusting God. And one thing Job did was he trusted God, not just when things got bad, but throughout his whole life. And tonight what I want to do is talk about the man, Job, because it's very important to understand that Job just didn't come on the scene in this biblical account and have these things done without a whole lot of life left, lived beforehand. Are you with me on that? You don't just wake up and expect to be a spiritual giant. especially after first coming to Christ, it's a process. And it's a growth process that you're, in a sense, maintaining or controlling. Are you with me on this? I've talked to some Christians that say that we have no free will whatsoever. God is the one, almost like we're, like we're, you know, you know, we're his little puppets and he can do whatever he'd like. But yet I really believe strongly that God gives us free will because that's where love comes from. If I don't choose to love, then there's no real love. If it's forced, then that's not what God has intended for any of us. And so you're looking at a man here in this book, Job, who made an extreme, a lot of decisions in his life that led to where he was at that we're gonna be studying. One thing further is not only is God desiring us to learn to trust him, but how do we get trust? And that's by knowing him well. By knowing him well, and developing an intimacy with him that doesn't just occur when things go bad, but through all of life's ebbs and flows, amen? When it's good, when it's bad, when it's a struggle, when it's a test, we're all developing trust based on looking to him. And it sounds trite, but let me tell you, after 50 years of walking with the Lord, it's not something that you don't intentionally go after. You have to intentionally go after it. It just won't fall in your lap. And so I just really feel that this is real important. Can we read this key verse that I feel like typifies what this man was about and what our Christian lives are often about from Isaiah 48.10. Can we read this? Because this is what God's word is saying that he does. It's on the top of your sheet there if you're wanting to know what I'm talking about, okay? Right here on this sheet at the top. Can we read that out loud together? It says, see, I have refined you, though not as silver, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. And quite frankly, Job is a picture of an encounter that God has, and Pastor just read, that Satan and God dialogues about what Satan was about his journey throughout the earth, and he was going to and fro to find someone that he could test. And of course, God allows him to deal with Job and gives him specific guidelines in that. But the point is, is that all of us, if we want to become what God desires of us to be, something that shines, something that has endurance, something that will last, then we have to go under often the furnace of affliction. You show me somebody that's never had a trial, never had a heartache, never had a burden, never had anything go wrong in their life, and they aren't very deep. But you show me somebody that's gone through a lot of hard things in their lives. Oftentimes, those folks have a reference to a lot of things that others can learn from and grow, amen? And that's why I believe our greatest ministry is often out of our suffering or out of our struggles, amen to that? So I bet in your own life it wouldn't take you only a few minutes to think of some things you've gone through that were very hard or that you'd consider suffering. And I think that's why we can identify so closely with this man Job. Well, many fail to realize that Job is the first book ever written to deal with the topic of suffering and depression. It's the original self-help book. Have you ever thought about how everybody wants a self-help book? and it was written under the inspiration of the creator of the universe, so this book has authority, because it's God's word, of course, unlike those self-help books that crowd the popular bookstores, the Bible offers three metaphors that teach us God's view of life, and this is very important, okay, very important. Life, first of all, is a test. Life's a test. It just seems to me that about the time I think I've grown, God ultimately brings something to find out for Jerry to know, have you grown? And that's called the test. Those tests might come in different ways, different forms. It could come through a person. For instance, when, oh, our son Jared, he's 42 now, when he was about, oh, eight years old, He got extremely sick to where he just would not couldn't stop vomiting and this went on for a couple of days Patty's in our end so we don't go to the doctor in the hospital that quick well when she finally took hold of him and said Let me get you in the bathtub and get you a bath, because you just need to relax. I mean, he couldn't keep anything down. And I'll never forget going in there and looking at his frail body. He was thin to begin with, and he was really thin, probably totally dehydrated. And I ran out of the bathroom, ran into the bedroom, fell on my face before the Lord, and said, Jesus, please, please, please don't take his life. And if you don't, Lord, you can have whatever you want of mine. And I remember that as a defining moment. So test can come, everyone, and not necessarily be something bad, in a sense, toward you directly, but it can be somebody else around you that you care for and love. Does that make sense, everyone? And so that was one area that God tested me in, and there were many other areas. And I bet money that you could sit here and think of areas in your life where God tested you just to see what you would do. Well, also, life's a trust. And why I'm bringing these three metaphors up is because we're gonna see so clearly in Job's life that there was a test, And also, he was trusted with much. And we're gonna look at that in just a few moments. Pastors read it, but we're gonna look at it in more detail. But there was a trust imparted to Job because of his character. You don't get what Job got. by not having something, and I'm talking about there are all kinds of evil people that have all kinds of stuff, so don't misunderstand what I just said. But what I'm saying is godly men and men of God or women of God get the blessings of God because of the way they live. That's what I'm trying to say to all of us, that there's a trust, life's a trust. And then last of all, life's a temporary, assignment and ultimately as God used this whole process in Job's life of reduction of destruction, and then replanting it all, or replenishing it all, the point of the matter is, is that it was an assignment from God, because ultimately, how would He know that for all of time and for all of history, His story would be recorded for all of us to learn from? So do you all understand that there's often temporary assignments that God is going to use that can have an impact on the body of Christ or on others, that's for sure. Or that God wants to develop us and prepare us for an assignment to go to the Polk County Jail or to do whatever you might be doing to serve him. So Job's life represented time. It was a time of preparation. That's what I read when I read about Job. This man, I don't know how old he was, but he was no young man. And the point of the matter is, is that he had time in his preparation. God was using all of his life to prepare him for this moment. Anyone God uses has a time-tested faith, a time-tested faith. And that's why I started out with trust, because really, ultimately, we won't pass those tests from God if we don't have trust. We gotta trust Him. So A, the man Job and his testimony, that's what I wanted, as Pastor and I talked about that, I wanted to focus tonight on just his testimony or the man, because there's so much more that we wanna get into as we talk about the test or test in our lives because there's so much to talk about in regards to that. And I think it would all help us to know how to respond or how we haven't responded. For instance, another one of my personal stories is Lydia, our eldest daughter, her first baby was eight pounds, eight pounds and two ounces and beautiful baby boy, beautiful baby boy. But when he was born, he never cried or never opened his eyes. And so he was born brain-dead. Lydia had no idea, but the umbilical cord had wrapped around Finnegan's neck and he was born brain-dead. And so as he was born, this was clear up in Canada, and Patty called me and said, because she had went to be with Lydia because she was going to have this baby naturally, and it did not occur after, I think, she was almost in labor for a whole day. I know it sounds long for women. And I'm not exaggerating, check with Patty. And she just couldn't have the baby. And so she went to the hospital and then that's when it was delivered. And Finnegan never opened his eyes or cried. Patty called me and I flew up there. And three days later, he died when they disconnected him from all of life support. So that's how we started with grandchildren. So what I was trying to refer to or give you an example of is that we all have tests. I remember going back to the hotel that night, not after he died, but the first day that we were up there together, and I said to Patty, I said, I'm not trying to sound insensitive, but God has just expanded ministry in our life by what we're going through with our kids and with our grandchild. And so how do you respond to things that are hard? How do you respond? One of the keys to what I have learned early on in my Christian life is to give praise or thanks. In all things, give thanks and praise, no matter what it might be. That, to me, it seems to be the key to help soften the blow of what can often cause bitterness, right, or anger, because we don't like what's going on. So, James 5, 11, I don't have it written down, but I wanted to read it real quickly. A pastor referred to it just a moment ago, but James 5, 11 tells us that, actually, what happens is James refers to Job, and I wanted to read it real quickly, it says, You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. But the point of the matter is Job persevered. He did not quit, he did not give up. He continued to trust God even though He didn't like what he was going through. Do y'all understand that? Because he didn't. So, he was blameless. The first thing we read about was Job was blameless. It says right there in the very first verse that the man whose name was Job, he was blameless. Blameless and upright. And so, when it refers to Noah in Genesis 6-9, and I'm going through the Bible in a year, I'm in Genesis already and up through that portion of scripture. Genesis 6-9 says Noah was a righteous man. Noah was one picked by God because of the way he lived. Now, I don't know about you, but don't you want to be picked by God to do things here and now for him? Huh, don't ya? I sure do. I don't think Noah and Job has to be the only ones on the block. I know Pastor and I and many of you, you want to be used, amen? And that's the kind of heart that Job had and that's the kind of heart that Noah had. He was blameless and upright, a man of complete integrity. They say a definition of integrity is what a man or a person does, a woman or a man does when no one else is around. what they do with their thoughts, not just their actions. Let's go a little deeper on that, huh? Because sometimes we need to manage our thoughts more than oftentimes our actions. Right on that? And so, by the way, I sure like your feedback. If you want to shake your head, throw up your hand or whatever, I'm sure good. I hate talking to the dead, amen. All right, Pastor. So, I'm just teasing you guys, if you won't get used to it, come to jail. Anyway, B, he feared God. He feared God. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I've listened to a lot of Tony Evans teach, and Tony Evans has a great definition of fearing God. He basically simplifies it by saying, the fear of God is taking God seriously. Now, that helps me when I'm reading Proverbs and Psalms and it says, fear God, fear God, fear God. And then when I insert taking God seriously, boy, does that put real emphasis on the fact that when God says something, if I fear him, I'm gonna do it. And I think that Tony helps me with that thought, taking God seriously. Well, Job took God seriously. He took him so seriously that we're gonna read about what he did for his children because he took God seriously. Isn't that interesting? In fact, all these things that we're talking about, his character, blamelessness, uprightness, integrity, it all is reflective in his business realm, in the way he handled business, in the way he handled his servants, in the way he handled his children, in the way he handled his wife. Do you understand? All of these character-developed abilities in his life and character skills were all infiltrated throughout his life that people knew of his reputation. Well, see, he shunned or avoided evil. He avoided evil. Now, I think that has to do with self-control, right? In other words, he didn't look at what he shouldn't look at. He didn't think about what he shouldn't think about. In fact, the Bible in the list of the fruits of the Spirit, Paul emphasizes throughout the scriptures in the New Testament, in his writing, self-control. Self-control. I don't know about you guys, but it seems that in our day and more and more that people are out of control. Even believers, amen? And I think that that's going to have a lot to do with how we'll handle things as it comes. In other words, will we give up or will we persevere? Self-control, self-control. Well, number two, Job's family, Job's family. This is verses one, two, and four and five. I wanna read it again if I could, please. I know Pastor did, but he had seven sons, three daughters, and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels. I wanted to read four and five, forgive me. His sons used to take turns holding festivals in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send for them and then purify them. early in the morning and would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them thinking perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This was Job's regular custom. What a habit to have. Now I know that many of us here have children, many of us have grandchildren. Well I think we can learn a lot from this section, so please listen, please listen, it's very, very important. Large family had 10, let's fill in the blank, had how many sons? Boy, you guys passed, at least three of you did, amen. How many daughters? Three, oh good, all right. Well, a sign of God's blessing is a large family and from what we gathered from our readings that this is evident of a family that was godly because of his care and his leadership over them. And the obedience of the children, as you can read between the lines here, He had a good family. B, he had a good family. It seemed to be functional, not dysfunctional. Now, I don't know how many of you in here could raise your hand that your family is dysfunctional, but I know that in my life, I grew up with a dysfunctional family. How many of you could raise your hand? That'll make you feel a whole lot better, amen. It's almost everybody in here, Pastor. So to find a functional home like this one, in my opinion, was really a prize thing that stood out from the rest, and Job was a man of integrity because he lived it with his family, and his family knew it, and that had an impact. The thing that's interesting to me, and I think Pastor would agree that for his wife's response to what Job went through was not very good on her part for her character. Are you with me on that? She said to him, why don't you just curse God and die? It's interesting that we all can have our weak moments when we're going through things, can we not? Especially if we have tragedy going on, and maybe that was the reason for her, I guess you could say, just sort of, her thought of self maybe more than Job and what he was going through. But the point of the matter is, is Job's, his home was a godly home. They gathered regularly at these festivals, or appointed days, as some of the Scripture might read. And they believe, or the biblical writers believe, or those that give us some history accounts, that this is talking about birthdays. They were regularly together as a family. That's why they were functional. They enjoyed being together. Those of us that raised our hands that are in dysfunctional homes, we have siblings that don't even care to be with us or they don't want to be at the same location with us. In this case, these young people enjoyed each other and celebrated each other's lives. And that's a big deal. Have you ever been around a family that celebrate really well and enjoy each other? It's sort of like a mystery to me, like what happened to them that didn't happen to me? Well, I think a lot of it was leadership with moms and dads. Don't you guys agree? But anyway, I just think that there's a lot to learn from Job's life about this area in his raising a family that was functional. Number C, the boys included their sisters highly unusual during this period of history. In other words, often women were isolated. They weren't respected as men were. And of course, in this case, they esteemed their sisters just as highly as one another. They were really basically valuing women in their families and that's a real testimony to Job and his family because it displayed their integrity and their walk with God. In other words, they understood that God created male and female and that God created both and that both are special before God. Amen to that, ladies? All right, at least we have one lady that's, amen, all right. Number three, number three, Job's fortune. Again, we can learn a lot from this. I have told my sons in their lives, not that they're all extremely successful, but I think they're fairly successful as young men, I've told my sons that success is the greatest test. You might want to write that on your paper. Success is your greatest test. Now, can I share this with you? Success doesn't mean that you have the most in the bank. It doesn't mean you have the most cars or the most whatever possessions that there are. I'm not talking about that kind of success. I'm talking about even spiritual success walking with Christ. And you get to a certain point, obviously, Jesus Christ has asked us to humble ourselves as we walk and to still be as needy and as broken, as hungry as ever before in our lives. Is that not true? And so, A lot of times what we can do is we can get to the place where we feel we've arrived or that we have a certain amount of information that we can really feel more important than others. And God is wanting us to make sure that we maintain humility. And I just feel like it's very important to understand that Job was someone who stayed humble with his success. because of the way he responded to his friends that we're gonna learn about in the next few weeks as we go through this. Because if you are better than others, or if you think you've arrived and they haven't, then you're sort of condescending, and I didn't catch any of that with Job as I've read through it. In fact, he was more open to discussion about what they thought, but at the same time, he was guarded about where they were directing him because of his own personal walk with the Lord. And so, I really feel like that's a very important part as well, success. Well, Job had a lot of it, of course. Job was a wealthy man, he owned how many sheep? 7,000, 7,000, how many camels? 3,000, how many a yoke of oxen? 500, and then 500 donkeys. And so, is there anybody here that's a farmer at all in our crowd tonight, at all? But my father-in-law's a farmer with 120 acres of ground, and I think at one time he had about, Oh, 300 cattle and maybe 500 hogs on 120 acres. He fed most of those things with that amount of acres. But what I'm trying to say is Job had to have a lot of ground and a lot of servants to be able to take care and maintain all of this that he had. And so in those times, wealth was calculated in terms of land, animals, and servants, and Job had all three in abundance, all three in abundance. A large number of servants. I'm sorry, I did not get that. Thanks, Wilma. He had servants, a large number. He'd have to have a large number of servants to maintain all those animals. You just, you couldn't feed them and you couldn't change pastures. You couldn't do any of those things without servants. And he cared about his servants because a part of what Job went through was reports about his servants being killed. And I think he cared about all of them as well. In those times, again, wealth was calculated with those things. So Job had all three in abundance in his day. He was known both as wealthy and a man of integrity. So then we get to the next point, which was Job's friends. Again, we're still talking about the topic of man, the man Job, and his testimony. Well, his friends, Job's three friends, made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, to comfort him, because he was suffering so. Again, we're gonna get into that in more detail as time goes on, but they came to mourn with him, and to comfort him. Job's three friends ultimately hurt him deeply because of their philosophy and because of their theology, because of what they were trying to do with what he was suffering and going through, and blaming him for it all because, in their assumption, he's only getting what he deserves because he had to have sinned to go through what he was going through. and Job knew that he hadn't, and so there was a great despair between these friends and him. But in the end, this is where it really comes into play for you and I, because we have people that intentionally come to our side and try to help us, try to speak into our lives, try to give us their view of things from their perspective, And that being limited, of course, because they're not in it. And oftentimes what ends up being the case is we have to do what Job had to do, and that is the next blank. But in the end, we discover that Job's forgiveness of their wrong was one of the prerequisites of his own recovery. Now that's found in Job 42.10, which I'm going to read real quickly here. Job 42.10 tells us about... After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before." So, the point of the matter is, is Elias and the Timite and Benidad, the Shumite, and Salafar, the Nemanite, did What the Lord had told them and the Lord accepted Job's prayer basically God's rebuked these three men and said you better have Job pray for you because You're not on safe ground in this. I'm just using my terminology because of what they had how they had defined God's movements in Job's life as inaccurate and not what God had wanted them to say. So the point of the matter is, is Job forgave them. Now I don't know about you, but I can think of people that were trying to give me good input, reasonable input, but it wasn't from God. It was their perspective, it was fleshly, it was carnal. It wasn't of faith, it wasn't of trust. I'll give you an example. I remember when I was first considering being a missionary, just a missionary to the jail, raising my own support. that I remember coming so excited to church about it and I found an individual here that I thought that individual would be excited too and I remember sharing and that individual said it'd probably be one of the biggest mistakes you'd ever make because those missionaries, they only get about $10 a day. in a check or maybe two. In other words, he was putting it all on the area of finance. In other words, you won't be able to live if you are a missionary. I remember walking away from that discussion thinking, God, I have no intention of listening to that because that wasn't from you. You've laid this on my heart. I know it's of you. I know that's what you're calling me to do. And I'm gonna walk through. And I'm just trying to tell you that then my response was not necessarily go to that person and explain how I think they were all wrong. I just had to forgive and pray for them, amen? And so I think that's the whole point of what Job's story is about, is not only the integrity of this man with his family and with his servants, but with his friends. A real friend is someone that that you can be hurt or you can hurt people, but they'll still forgive, amen? And what should we be expected of as believers but to forgive? There are a whole lot of bitterness going around with things that were misunderstood or things that really hurt. Well, there's a couple of things I wanna share with you in closing, and that is, I wanna share with you about the, at the bottom there at the sheet, can you read that with me please? It says, the proof of faith is not success or answer prayer, but an endurance. You ever thought about that? A lot of times as Christians we're running to get an answer to prayer and grab a hold of that. We're running after success in our walk with Christ and thinking we can get a hold of that. But what God wants us to get a hold of is that we endure. that we endure, that we keep going even when God seems silent or distant or away, or that when people are not there for us when we think they should be, especially the body of Christ. Whatever it might be, God wants us to understand how important endurance is. So in closing, I want to turn to Revelation 3 and get the words from there about, from Jesus himself about the actual aspect of endurance. This is chapter three, verse 10. It says this. Since you have kept my command, and this is Jesus speaking, to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial. This is to the Church of Philadelphia. Sorry. So since you've kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth. Now isn't that where we're headed if we're not in it? And the point of the matter is endurance is huge to Jesus Christ because he didn't call us to a soft life. In fact, if you want a soft life, just stay carnal or an unbeliever. It's a soft life. You become a believer and you're going upstream on a current that's rushing towards hell, amen? And to go upstream with Jesus Christ is not fun, is right. It takes endurance. It takes patience, waiting on God to give us the light that we need each day to keep going, to give us the hope we need each day to keep going, to give us the faith we need each day to keep going, because that's all, that's all that really counts is one day at a time and one step at a time, amen to that. I know when I walk in the morning, sometimes I just can't get over that the mile seems so long, but when I take one step at a time, it seems so short. But believers, we must be willing to take the one step, amen? We must be willing to step out and trust Him, no matter what comes our way, because it's for our good. That's what He's promised, right? For those who love Him. And so the key to this whole study tonight is, for me, we're talking about a man that loved God. He loved God so much that God said, have you, Satan, thought about my man, Job, because I know this man loves me, not for what I've given him, but for who I am. Do you guys know God on that basis, Jesus Christ on that basis, that it's not always getting good things, but knowing all good things come from him, because it's him, amen? Do you have that kind of intimacy with Jesus? Hey, we're starting a new year. Why not ask God for the greatest closeness and intimacy with him that you've ever had before? I know Kim did in one swipe of a van on her head. What intimacy you get when things get hard. And then she's still in the midst of a cracked skull. She's sharing Christ with anybody that walks along because she might have thought, and I don't know for sure, that she might die. I mean, she's bleeding perversely. The point of the matter is, what are you doing to show others that you love Christ? I think just enduring is a great thing to show people, and Job did. How about you, are you gonna be excited about coming back and learning more about this man called Job, who lived a life of love for God, and he was then the one that God said, test him, because he will stand the test. Well, let's pray. Father, thank you so much for tonight. Thank you for the attentiveness of everyone. Lord, I desire, and I pray everyone here desires, just to love you because you love us. Just to be in your presence, Father, and to sense you. And even when I can't, when I was super depressed at age 40 and all I could do was cry, and you seemed so distant from me at that time, that was a test. Lord, you wanted me to trust you by being in your word every day and knowing that you were there even though I didn't feel that you were there. And Lord, you were there. You brought me through that time and I was able to grow because it was a time of testing. Life truly is a test, Lord, it truly is. It truly is a test, and it's also a trust. And Lord, most importantly, because we've been tested and trusted, we're gonna have temporary assignments that are reflective of our love for you. Father, bless everyone as we go out in the cold. May you get us warm because of your presence. In Christ's name, amen. All right, brother. Yes, sir. Let me ask you a question before you take off here. Do we sometimes have this idea in our head that God is only good to us when everything is just perfect? I mean, if I were to ask you to take out a piece of paper and write down and say, okay, what do you consider the blessings of God in your life? What kind of stuff would we write down as the blessings of God? Just call it out. Just somebody raise your hand. Tell me, what would you write down? This would be the blessing of God. Roof over your head? That would be good. All right, what else? Yes, Sue. That you wake up in the morning. You didn't just keep sleeping and just go to bed. That's pretty good. All right, somebody else. What are the blessings, Jim? Your wife's a blessing. All right, that's good. Job had a little trouble on that one right there. Although, one of the funny things in the story, there's not a whole lot of funny things in the book of Job, but one of the funny things is that she had seven sons and three daughters, And the Lord took them away, and that's when she was young. And at the end of the book, he's gonna get 10 children again, and she's still gonna be there, and she's still, now she's washing diapers and everything, and she's not quite as young as she was the first time. Anyway, but what are the blessings of God? Come on, tell me, right there, Todd. Your son, okay, you got a son, he's a blessing. Anything else? The church is a blessing. Family, having family's a blessing. Fellowships is a blessing, yes. You're still here, just like her, you wake up in the morning, that's good. What else? Food! Having food to eat is a blessing. What else? Yeah, Jim? Okay, to be able to love your neighbor, that's a blessing. to have a friend to correct you, good. Job had three of them. They really did, they poured on some blessings on him. If having a friend to bless you, they really blessed him because they're gonna hammer him. Okay, I mean, come on now, you guys are being real spiritual about this. Here's a conversation I had in my office about six months ago. Pastor, I just don't understand it. So I'm doing everything I know to please the Lord. I love my wife, and I'm working hard, and I give my tithes, and I come to church, and I'm trying to rear my children, but this has just come right out of the middle of nowhere, and I just thought God was gonna bless me. Because he was doing this, and this, and this, and this, and this. He was putting in all the ingredients. He was doing all the right things. For a while, everything was going good, but the next thing you know, one of his kids went berserk, and the next thing, and I'm just, that's just a short term for it, just went off the rails. And then he lost his job, and he lost his health. It all happened in just a very short period of time. And he says, how come God's not still, guess what word he used? blessing me. He said, have I sinned? Let me ask you a question. As we get into the book of Job in the first five verses, do you see any reason for God to bring judgment on this man? Do you see any negative aspects in his character at all in the first five verses of the book? That's what he was talking about tonight. There's not anything negative there at all. Sometimes we get it in our mind that it is God's job, and this is very important for us to understand as Christians, we get in our mind to think that God really can't do anything else than put padding on our life from the cradle to the grave. That's exactly right. That's the teaching of scripture. That's what we should understand as believers. But I'm talking about reality. The reality in the life of many, many people is this is God's job description. I'm going to do these things that I think he wants me to do. And then on the other hand, God is going to make sure that I have a good job, make sure that my kids are all healthy, wealthy, and wise, and just go right down the list. This is what I interpret as the blessings of God. Well, they are. Don't mistake, because you just quoted the verse just a minute ago that every good gift comes down from the Father of lights. You know, God, every good thing that comes to us comes from God in heaven. Everything that happens to us is good. So how do we explain Job? and what happened to him. We're going to get into the book, we're going to talk about this, but let's just have an initial, how do we explain Job when he was so blessed and then all of a sudden? How would you react? How do you think most people would react? It's hard. You get almost a loss of balance. You don't know. without a story like this in the Bible, if we don't have that story in the Bible, lots of people become almost disoriented. Yeah. It's not fair. He was doing everything right, and God, he was doing it, so God said, hey, what about this guy? So Satan went after him and got permission and envy. You know, I started off by saying, the question was, would God do that? And the question is this, is would God Take somebody like Job, who really was, God himself said he was blameless, said that he was upright, and that he hated evil. It goes on to mention that he consecrated his children, which meant he provided a spiritual covering for his children, not because they had sinned, but just in case. I mean, you're talking about spiritual awareness and being worried about your kids and what they're doing in their life. We think it's really something if we check out their cell phone. I mean, God, what this man Joe was doing, he said, I don't even know what they're doing. They're over at Billy's house, and who knows what they did over there at Billy's house, and it just went on and on and on, and God, I don't know, but I tell you what, I'm gonna sacrifice these, for each one of them, I'm gonna sacrifice this lamb, and I'm gonna pray, and I'm gonna confess whatever sins I might have had involved in it. Maybe I failed in raising them, maybe they cursed God. I mean, this man had a spiritual desire and aptitude to please the Lord. And then God says, he's blameless, he's righteous, he's upright, he loves me, he hates evil, have at him, Satan. My question is, what in the world is that about? I'm gonna leave you with this thought before we come to next week. The thought is this, is that there are spiritual wars and battles that are going on that concern us, but that we don't know anything about them. How many of you had things happen in your life without explanation? Had occurrences that happened that, I mean, out of the blue, just completely, boy, I didn't expect that one. I'm not saying it's always the situation of Job, but I can tell you this, I can tell you that Satan is, just like he was in this passage of Scripture, God asked him point blank, we read it, he asked him, Satan, what have you been doing? Isn't it a surprising thing to you that when the sons of God, literally in the Old Testament, that's just a code name for the angels of God, when the angels of God got together that Satan, who had already fallen, still could show up among the sons of God at the assembly of the angels, where God takes record. He says, and what have you been doing? And what have you been doing? And what have you been doing? God knows what they've been doing. He just wants to hear a report. And so he comes to Satan and says, what have you been doing? He says, well, I've been going to and fro throughout all the earth, see if I can stir up trouble. And God says to Satan, he says, have you considered my upright, blameless, servant, Job, that there's nobody like him and all the others. Have you considered him? Have you thought about testing him? And Satan says, no sense bothering with him. You put a hedge around him. Says, I mean, you've blessed everything. He used the word, you've blessed the work of his hands. Everything he does is prospered. He says he's got, he has got sheep, he's got camels, and if you had camels, you were somebody at that time. I mean, that was it. If you had a lot of camels, it's like having Learjets. I mean, this guy, he had, he was blessed. He said, you've given him everything. He said, well, of course he's worshiping you. This is the key of the whole story. What on earth possessed Job to say, naked I came out of my mother's womb, naked I will return, blessed be the name of the Lord. And he fell on his face and worshiped. Wow. There is something in the character of Job and there's something that God was doing there and there's some lesson that he's trying to teach everybody. And you know, God will do things With us in us concerning us That might put us to the test might put us through trials might put us through pain And yet it's a contest not with us, but with the devil himself You know the devil hates us and he'd love to get at us And you just we don't have any idea how much protection god has already given us We think we've been through a lot if god removed the protection we might end up like joe Thank God he doesn't make a Job project out of everybody. Aren't you glad? How many of you would sign up and say, boy, I love Jesus. He died on the cross for me and I'm going to heaven and he's my savior. And I tell you what, I'm going to sign up for that Job list. I want to be on the list. I want Satan to come after me like he did after Job. I don't want to be on that list, but you know, God will do things in our life that we would never plan ourselves. I wouldn't plan these kind of tests. We're going to look at it some more next week. Jerry, thank you for getting us started. If we didn't do anything tonight, we found out that this is an upright man that did things right, and God recognized it. Always remember that. God does recognize our character. He does recognize our integrity. He does recognize our endurance. And if there's anything else we can say that is very important before we leave, God knew that he could trust Job with this test. Does he know he can trust us with some test? Can he trust us? That we will give him the glory and shine for him. We're gonna learn a lot in this story of the book of Job.