Good evening, everybody. Let's all stand and we'll start off with a word of prayer. Brother Bob, would you open us with a prayer, please? Amen. Let's all take your hymn notes. Turn on hymn number 288. 288, I Am Resolved. ♪ I am resolved, oh God, when you make a determined demand. ♪ Thanks that I'm hired, thanks that I'm humbled. ♪ Please have a word, my son. ♪ I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free ♪ ♪ Jesus, the greatest I am, I will come to Thee ♪ ♪ I am strong to go to the Savior, He is in my strife ♪ ♪ And if He makes us do Him ♪ ♪ Makes us to put Him free ♪ ♪ Choose God, be free as I am ♪ ♪ I will come to Thee ♪ ♪ I am song to follow the Savior ♪ ♪ Pray for the truth each day ♪ ♪ Be my Savior to all the world ♪ Hey man, let's turn to hymn number 321. Hymn number 321, where he leads us, follow. Sweet are the promises, kind is the word. There are more than any blessed man ever heard. Most of my men cry and sing as I sing. In the great example is the plan, and for me it's the law. Follow, follow Jesus every day. Sweet as the tender love of Jesus I shall, sweeter for the healing of the mortals below. I'll turn the air in what I play and for what I sing, be the great example as the padding for me. Let's do His loving work, come what may. Weary every night and pain I swing this way Trust in His promises, faithful and sure Made upon the standing of my soul, yes He will The way is of God Amen. Thank you. May we sing. My faithful Father, Enduring front, your tender mercy's like a river with no end It overwhelms me, covers my sin. Each time I come into your presence, I stand in wonder once again. Your grace still amazes me. Still a mystery each day I fall on my knees Cause your grace still amazes me Your grace still amazes me Oh, patient Savior, you make me whole. You are the author and the healer of my soul. What can I give you? Lord, what can I say? I know there's no way to repay you. Only to offer you my praise. Your grace still amazes me. It's still a mystery each day I fall on my knees Cause your grace still amazes me Your grace still amazes me It's deeper It's wider It's stronger It's higher It's deeper, it's wider, it's stronger than anything My eyes can't see your grace Still amazes me, your love is still a mystery each day I fall on my knees, cause your grace still amazes me. Your grace still amazes me. Well, amen, it's good to be in the Lord's house tonight and to have each one of you with us. We're gonna be in the book of Job, and so you can go ahead and get there, Job chapter three. I have a few thank yous and stuff I wanna share. First of all, dear Shawnee Mission Baptist Temple, first please allow me to extend our gratitude to you all who cared and thought to invest in the ministry of Anchor Baptist Church as well as our people. We're deeply humbled to know the love and charity that has been extended to us for our work here in Portsmouth, Virginia. And this was the guy that we gave money to help. He's the one that was, ex-Navy guy, and his son was out doing block work, and a guy took a gun, placed it alongside his head, and discharged it, just being mean. And anyhow, that was this guy right here, and he appreciates our help, and so good to be able to help that brother. And then got a letter here. from Nathan Kirkman from Mount Logan Baptist Church in North Logan, Utah. And he says, I want to say thank you for the gift towards our startup costs at Brigham City Baptist Church and for my family's dental need. I'm still overwhelmed at the generosity of God's people during the Home Missions Conference at Heartland and rejoicing that God is still using men and their families to plant independent Baptist churches in America. And so thankful to be able to help that family also. And then I got this letter. And I don't know if you recognize these people or not. They haven't been gone very long at all. But the first missionary letter from the Marino family. And it says, dear pastor and supporting church. You'd think it'd be a little more broken down than that. Like, hey, Brother Metzinger. But anyhow, that's what we get for randomly sending these out, right? It says, thank you so much for giving and praying for us as we transition from Kansas to California. We've been praying to be in our new home by the end of January and we almost made it. We arrived in California on February 3rd. We attended the church playing conference in Oklahoma City during the first week of January. The Lord allowed us to present our need there and used the attending pastors to provide for various needs we had as well as provide some needy monthly support. We give God the glory for his doing exceedingly above all that we ask or think. Our first service was a blessing. I preached from Joshua 1 about moving forward. It was an exciting time as we became members of the church and had a fellowship. They did all the Baptist stuff. I hope they took an offering, right? Because they had a fellowship, they had food, they had preaching. I'm sure they took an offering. And it says there were some visitors for our first service and some guests the week before that. We'll be following up on soon. This week, we're looking forward to getting some connections in Southern California area and receiving the shipping container with our household items. Prayer requests settling into our new home, make contacts in the community, church growth numerically and spiritually, new church location. With love and gratitude, the Marino family. So I called Brother Charles on Thursday, or Tuesday, just checking on him, seeing how things went, you know, and if he preached a good message or laid an egg on Sunday. And so he said things went really good. That was the first night, Monday night was their first night to stay in their apartment. Their stuff doesn't get there till like tomorrow or the next day. He said, so we had this blow-up mattress And he said, about 4 o'clock in the morning, I had to tell everybody, get off the mattress. We need to blow it back up so we can finish sleeping. So, you know, the fun things. Nothing but a blow-up mattress in a two-bedroom apartment. It's good to be young, right? That would not sit well with me. I'd be looking for a holiday inn or something. But anyhow, I'm glad they're young and I'm glad that God's working in their life. They're willing to be used for his glory. By the way, most of you probably saw the post on Facebook. We've got a young couple coming to be with us the weekend, 24th, 25th, 26th of February. This is a young couple I met down at Heartland at the Missions Conference. that he had eight different churches or eight different ministries wanting his attention, four of them he was able to discern and get away from, and there were four of us left, and we've been praying, they've been praying, and he called me Monday and said, I really believe God wants us to come and to look over the church and all that you have going on, so pray for them as they come, you know, it's a two-way street. It's us looking for someone to work with our young people, and we'll be training him so that he can go out and do ministry among Spanish people. He speaks Spanish fluently, and he either wants to go to Mexico and start a work, or he wants to plant a Spanish church here in America. And I told him, I said, we'd love to help you. We'd love to mentor you and get you ready to make that next step. So they'll come work with our young people, kind of like Brother Chuck did. Come work with young people, learn the ministry, and then when God tells them it's time to go, we'll be helping another young man go into the ministry, okay? The only thing about this guy in comparison to Brother Chuck is he's a little bit taller. No, I'm teasing. I'm cheesing. He will be graduating in May, okay, so it won't be immediately. They'll move right here. It'll be sometime in the middle part of May after graduation. They would move here. And so he's going to really be green, okay, really green. So, you know, we like to take our staff guys and preach them to help them develop to be better preachers. And, you know, by the time we sent Chuck out of here, he's a pretty good preacher. Remember those early days, 10-minute sermons? Most of you really relished those, right? So maybe you'll get some of those. The other side of that with a green preacher is they'll preach way too long. So I'm just saying, I don't know what we'll get there, OK? But the plan is we'll have some time on Saturday, kind of a meet and greet thing. And then on Sunday, he'll teach the young people. And Sunday afternoon, he'll preach. And then we have to have the announcement of the vote for two meetings and so we'll announce that Wednesday night and again Sunday morning. We'll vote Sunday afternoon if we get that far in the process. So just be ready. Come praying. We want the perfect one that God has for us. And, you know, things can look good on the outside and on the inside not be good. So we want God to discern all that and give us a leading in that area, right? I'm excited. I don't know about you. I'm excited about having someone here to help share the load. And so please be praying for him. Get magazine, Soar the Lord. It comes free. That's why I get it, I think. I don't know. But every time in Soar the Lord, they have, I don't know, probably 20, 30-page little paper. And about half of those pages, they have columns on either side on the inside index. And they have kind of news stories, things of interest that happen across America. I saw this story. I wanted to share it with you. TikTok, China's Trojan horse in America. And it's interesting, we had a president that said TikTok was dangerous, and they all ridiculed him, made fun of him. But national security expert, Frank Ganefi, is deeply concerned by the inroads China could be gaining through a wildly popular video app and through personally owned drones from a manufacturer, From a manufacturer the Department of Defense has blacklisted. Senator Mark Warren of Virginia joined Fox News Sunday, by the way this guy's a Democrat, admitting Donald Trump was right. I bet that stuck on his teeth as he said it. Donald Trump was right in agreeing with the former president that TikTok is an erroneous threat. National security analyst Frank Gaffey Jr. also agrees, telling America Family News that Warner's statements to Fox as a chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee were spot on. According to Gaffey, TikTok should be banned. The increasingly popular video hosting platform is used to share a wide range of content, from pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, and almost anything imaginable. The platform is particularly popular among adolescents. As Gavi explains, evidence enough does exist, TikTok gathers up the personal information on any device to which it is connected, he notes, such as the retinal scan used to open a phone, stored health information, stored bank account information, a person's location, and more. That ought to be enough to turn it off, throw it away. The app also has the ability to turn on your microphone and turn on your camera as a surveillance collection device, unbeknownst to you, he adds. For Geffeny, the Chinese-owned TikTok, there's only one of many national security threats facing the United States. There was also a balloon that was flying through the air that was a national security threat. Anyhow. Another one includes aerial drones made by the CCP vendor DJI. He explains while they may be considered cool Christmas gifts for us, they're essentially another weapons platform for the CCP. Gaffney fears the CCP can commandeer the drones at any time to survey and gather information in real time or even fly into a structure. That's my warning from Sore the Lord to you. All right, let's go to the Book of Job. Book of Job, this is our second lesson in the Book of Job. We are looking in Job 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Okay, we see Job talking in chapter three, we see Elphaz talking in four and five, and then we see Job giving a defense in chapter six and seven. We begin reading in verse number one of chapter three. After this opened Job his mouth and cursed his day. And Job spake and said, let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, there is a man child conceived. Let that day be darkness. Let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadows of death stain it. Let a cloud dwell upon it. Let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, Let darkness seize upon it. Let it not be joined into the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of months. Lo, let that night be solidary. Let no joyful voice come therein. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rise up their morning. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark, let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the dawning of the day, because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from my eyes. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. And we thank you for our time together tonight, our prayers that you would open our hearts and our minds, make us receptive to your word, allow the Holy Spirit to have power and freedom to move in our lives and our hearts, give us wisdom beyond ourselves, help us to grow in grace and knowledge and truth. As we take time to study here for a little bit this evening, might it spark more study in our lives that we might draw closer to you. We love you and we thank you for your goodness. We ask these things in your name, amen. So Job's come to a point of great despair, okay? We say that Job cursed the day. It wasn't like he began using foul language. He was just looking at the day that he was born saying, man, the despair of where I am in life makes me wish I'd never been born. And he goes through this discourse here in the first 10 verses talking about how that he wishes he hadn't have been born. It just seemed like there was great difficulty all around him. And I would hate to ask for a show of hands of people that are sitting here that might have felt the same way at some point in your life. I know there was a time in my life, a couple of different times, that I faced despair and depression and just felt like, what's the use? You know, as we read through the Bible, we find that Job wasn't the only one, right? Elijah sat there, and he had been up to the mount, he had fought the Baal and Jezebel and all those, and then we find him sitting under a tree, sucking his thumb, wishing that he had never been born, you know, that it was just such great tragedy and despair that was placed upon him. And so we have to realize that in the midst of despair, that we can draw close to the Lord and gain our help from him. And so the first thing we see in Job's despair, chapter three, is I wish I'd never been born. He kind of curses the day that he was born, wishing that it could be blotted off the calendar, wishing that no one would ever mention it again. Then he goes on in verses 11 through 19, and the wish is that I wish I'd been stillborn. Where Job, the next best thing to never being born, would have been dying at birth. He laments that his mother let him live. Boy, I'm telling you, the guy really has to be depressed to be at that point in life, doesn't he? I mean, you talk about low, he has to be low. And then we come to letter C, and it is, why is life given to those in despair? Verses 20 through 26. Job wonders why life is given to the miserable. He has no peace or rest, only trouble. Says, look, I have no peace here. I have no happiness. I'm in this time of despair. I've lost all my wealth. I've lost my children, my family. Here I am at a point that now my own body is suffering through these horrible boils, and I sat here in this great anguish, and I just wish I'd never been born. Never been born. And so we find one of his three friends, Elpas, His denunciations, chapter four and chapter five, Elphaz is basically saying, you need to practice what you preach. Job's encountered the weak in the past, and Elphaz rebukes him for not heeding his own advice now. He's encouraging, look, you need to take your own advice. When things were good, you need to apply those things to your life now. And then the second thing we see is that he says, does the innocent person perish? At verse number seven of chapter four, he says, remember, I pray thee, whoever perished being innocent, or where were the righteous cut off? Even as I've seen, they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same." You know, you're like, man, what kind of a friend are you? You're here accusing me of having done wrong before the Lord. You're accusing me of being full of sin and unrighteousness, and yet we know that Job was a good, righteous man, right? And we want to kind of mark this down and kind of think about this, that sometimes when trials come into our life, It's just stuff that's happening to us. It's not because we're at odds with God, but it may appear to those around us like we are at odds with God. Don't lose your faith because of what others wanna say to you while you're in that time of difficulty. We need to learn to draw close to God. He is our strength. He is our bulwark, right? I love that word, bulwark. I like to work that into a sermon wherever you can. He's our bulwark. He is our fighter. He defends us. And as long as we know that I'm right before God and I'm living my life to bring righteousness to him and hard times come, I'm not gonna walk away from the one who loves me and cares for me and watches for me. Elpaz goes on, he says, by the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad." You know, I'm like, hey, El Paz, I really think you need to lighten up a little bit here. I think you really need to consider the whole picture. I think you need to consider that maybe Job is a righteous man, and maybe just because he is not Finding God's blessing at this point in his life doesn't mean that he's become unrighteous, that he's walked away from God, that he's allowed sin into his life. He has stayed close to God. Don't come in here bringing shame upon him. And really, it's bringing shame upon God. It's like accusatory. God, here's a man that's walked away from you, and you're bringing all this judgment upon him. God, why aren't you bringing more? Why don't you just totally consume him? But Job stays, stays true. Elipaz helps him to see that this isn't something I've done. I have remained righteous. I have sought to walk with God. It came in a night vision, the third thing. It came in a night vision, 12 through 17. Elipaz claims to have received his knowledge from a spirit in the middle of the night. I usually say that's bad pizza talking. Seeing a spirit in the middle of the night really doesn't line up with the Bible unless it has to do with witches and the witch of Endor and those kind of things. The Holy Spirit may speak to you at night, but I don't think he's a spirit that appears in the middle of the night. Anyhow, our fourth point is that he's alive in the morning, dead by evening. Elipaz claims that humans cannot be trusted and that they are frail and die in ignorance. Well, there's no doubt, there's a lot of people that are gonna die in ignorance. And they're gonna die in ignorance because they refuse to accept the truth that Jesus saves. I mean, it's gonna happen, right? We're gonna witness the people our whole life, or their whole life, and they're gonna come to a point, they never accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, they're gonna die, and when they stand before God, they'll have no excuse. They'll say, well, I was ignorant, I didn't know. But God's gonna say, wait a minute, did you not see the stars in heaven? Did you not notice the sun? Did you not notice the beauty that I placed around you? And oh, by the way, I sent that guy around to talk to you about the Lord, to give you tracts, to share with you the good news of Jesus Christ. I had signs when you were watching your sporting events saying John 3, 16. I had people witness to you and sing good godly Christmas carols at Christmas time. And so no one's going to stand there innocently before God and say, I never knew about you. Because truth is, the Bible talks about that his handiwork show forth the glories of God. The godless are born to grief. Chapter 5, 1 through 7. And again, Job said to be suffering from his sin. He says, call now, verse number one of chapter five, call now if there be any that will answer thee, and to which of the saints wilt thou turn? For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one. I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation. His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robbers swalloweth up their substance. Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring up out of the ground, yet man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. Boy, isn't that the truth? We're born to trouble. I mean, just, it happens. Life happens. Has anyone had a perfect life? Anyone here never had any trouble? And I'm telling you, we had our house robbed one time, and then I had my motel room robbed one time. I've had my car broken into and robbed. It's just life. What happens, it's kind of the odds are stacked against us. We've had health issues. I'm sure you've had health issues. We've had flu, we've had sick kids, we've had sick kids that stayed up and prayed over all night long, praying that they would get better. We share those things, right? Why does that happen? Because that's what life is. But isn't it good to know as a child of God that we can turn to him in the midst of our need? And then man will fail us, and the depravity of man is all about us and wants to pull us down, and yet God is good. We're born to trouble. Trouble's gonna come our way. Hard times are gonna come our way. Hey, if they haven't come yet, they will come. And that's why you're staying here tonight, to just be reminded, be a Job. Don't turn and walk away from God just because difficulty comes. Draw closer to him. Draw closer to him. I was reading a book just this last week and it was talking about the need for adversity in our life and it ever surrounds us and we need adversity because it's through adversity that we grow. If the Christian never has adversity, he never grows in faith. But when we have needs and when we have issues that come into our life, our faith is stretched and we develop more faith and more faith and more faith. And we look back one day and we go, man, how did I get all the way from there to here? And you begin to look back over and you say, oh, there was that trying time there and it took faith and there was that trying time there and it took faith and there was that trying time there and it took faith and it took faith and it took faith. And as long as we continue to exercise, draw closer to God, and we continue to exercise that faith, then when hard times come, if anything, we look back and go, God was there when this happened, and so I'm just gonna keep trusting Him. I'm not gonna turn away from Him. I'm not gonna quit walking with Him. I'm gonna trust God. He's developing my faith. Present your case to God. Chapter five and verses eight through 17, Elpaz urges Job to bring his case before God, who is able to do anything. And aren't you thankful that God is able to do anything? And he's telling him, look, you need to bring your case before God. And I'd say, El Paz, you're right on, man. We do need to bring our hurts before God. He's the only one who can help us. Don't despise God's discipline, 517 through 27. And if we are in need of discipline and God is indeed disciplining us, then it needs to drive us not away from God, but to turn back to God, confess our sins, falling before Him, and seeking to right that wronged relationship. But just because hard times come, doesn't mean that someone's done something wrong. Hard times come because that's life. The third thing we find is Job's defense. So Elpaz has had his chance in chapters four and five to present his wisdom, and now Job in his defense speaks chapter six and chapter seven, and Job responds to Elpaz's ill-informed rebuke. And he says, don't I have a right to complain? Job argues that the greatness of his sorrow gives him a right to complain. Some people will say this. Some people will say, don't ever question God. Why not? Why not? There's been times I've questioned God. Sometimes you get so low that why not say, God, I don't understand this. And God, I'll probably never understand that this side of glory If you can give me some insight, I'd like to have it. I don't understand it, but I'm gonna trust you in it, right? There's nothing wrong with asking God. Why? Why is this happening? I think it is good for us to search ourselves in the midst of trial and testing. And we ought to look back. Is everything really right between me and God? Am I failing in my Bible reading or my praying or my faith? Have I become lax in those things? Have I become accustomed to the world, and I love and embrace the world more than I love and embrace my Savior? It never hurts to ask those questions. God, would you help me to see if this is an issue between you and me? I want to make it right. If not, God, I need your strength to go ahead. I need strength to go ahead, that I might be able to finish this course, and that my faith might grow, that I might be more like you. The second thing we find here is I wish that God would kill me. He makes that statement again in chapter six, verses 18 through 13. Job takes comfort in having never denied God's word, and he still wishes to die. He still wishes to die. I would say this. I don't think it's necessarily so wrong to wish that you weren't alive. The wrong begins when you think about how you're going to end your life. I don't think God ever planned for man to end his own life. God is the giver and the taker of life. I truly believe that. He is the one that sees us as we're being formed in the belly. Can you imagine that? Before wherever that little body, he sees the cells dividing. He already knows what you're gonna be, a male or a female. He already knows if you're gonna have brown eyes or green eyes or blonde hair. He already knows all that stuff while we're being formed in the belly. And he sees us as we grow old. And he sees us and he still loves us and cares for us. Can I just be honest here just a minute? There's some times that I watch people get so old that they've forgotten who they are. I've had them forget who I was. And I love Brother Brewer, he was like my preacher daddy and he had gotten to the point where he forgot who I was. And I'm like, man, all those years we traveled together and we went to Colorado and went fishing together, and now here he is at a point in life where he doesn't remember anymore. That doesn't change his relationship to God. He's still safe and secure. Heaven's his eternal home. He may just forget for a little while. And God's always given me the grace to look at that and go, Man, I'm sorry that's happened. I'll be honest with you, I prayed many times, Lord, don't let that happen to me. I told my boys, I said, you know, if I die any time past this point in my life, just know I had a great life. But I really don't want to live to be that burden on others. I don't want to be that burden. But you know, I have no control over that. It'd be wrong for me to say, well, I've determined this is where I'm gonna end it. I was reading about Abraham today. You know, Abraham, when he first got the promise, as God was making promises to him, he said, I'm gonna give you the land, and I'm gonna give you a seed. And remember, his seed's gonna be like the stars in heaven and the sand on the sea. He's 75 years old. I'm not even close to 75 years old, Bob. Years ago, I went to Abilene. Have you been to Abilene? Abilene's kind of a neat place. They've got the Eisenhower Museum. And we went into the Eisenhower Museum, and it was Thanksgiving weekend, our whole family's together. We went in, and I went to the movies. They had a Eisenhower. film thing there, and they talked about Eisenhower. Do you realize that he was in his 70s when he became president? A lot of great things happen to older people. You know, a lot of great things, because they've got a lot of wisdom that comes along in life. So, you know, if I'd be like, hey, you know, my knees hurt, and you know, I'm just kind of tired of this life, I'm just gonna end it. You know, you might end your life, and God might have had some great plans for you in the next four or five years, and you cut it short. Who gives us the authority to decide when our life's gonna end? Wouldn't the creator God who created us, wouldn't that belong to him, that authority, to decide when our life is gonna be over and when our usefulness is over? I still remember my Grandma Ollie, sweetest grandma you'd ever want. She had lived quite a life, my Grandma Ollie, and she came to live with us the last, let's see, she moved to Lamar. and lived in a housing area for about three years. She lived with us probably six or seven years, right as I was going through that 14, from 14 till I was about 20, my Grandma Ollie lived in our house. And we took our double-wide garage and we converted it into an apartment for Grandma Ollie. And it was so cool to go in and visit with Grandma Ollie, because she would tell you things like what it was like to travel in a covered wagon. She would tell you what it was like to go to the town square for the 4th of July. Boy, they would really like this today. They'd go to the town square, and they would block off one horse trough so the horses wouldn't use it that day, and they'd put a dipper on it, and that's where everybody got a water fountain. She had cool stories, man. Talking about a covered wagon going across someplace in the covered wagon, and they got ready for bed that night and found out that they had bed bugs in the little rocker thing that the baby was sleeping in. Just all kinds of stories, and I'm just so glad that my grandma lived and lived with us and I could hear those stories myself and to be able to cherish them here in my life and realize, you know, I've had it pretty easy. My life's been pretty easy compared to my grandma Ollie's, and she lived to be mid-80s in her life. And so if grandma can live to be mid-80s, then I just need to suck it up and toughen up, right? God's the giver and taker of life. And so we just need to trust God. Job goes on, fourth thing here, and he says, show me where I'm wrong. Chapter six in verses 22 through 24, Job challenges his critic, Eliphaz, to show him where he's guilty. He said, did I say, bring unto me, or give a reward for me of your substance, or deliver me from my enemy's hand, or redeem me from the hand of the mighty? Teach me, and I'll hold my tongue, and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. He said, This stuff just come upon me. I didn't do anything to deserve this. I'm just gonna trust God. And then he goes on, fifth thing is stop assuming my guilt. Verses 25 through 30, Job maintains his innocence and rebukes his friend for assuming that he's guilty. And then sixth thing is life is long and hard. Chapter seven, one through five. I would hope that I could come to a point where I could say, life is long and it's hard. Otherwise, that means I'm going to die early, right? And I'm not, well, I guess I've kind of lived too long to die too early, right? But, you know, it's kind of a good thing to get through life and go, you know, life's long. And yet, isn't it amazing how fast it is? Does anyone else look at it and go, man, tax season is going to be here like that. I mean, I'm already digging out tax stuff, trying to find where did all my money go, you know? Trying to get all that lined up. And I hate to just tell you this, it's gonna be camp time, like that. And it's gonna be Christmas, like that. And the older I get, the faster it goes. And it's like, can someone just stop this thing? But no, that's the way it is. Life is long, and I look back, and sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's been difficult, but God's been good. Seventh thing is that life is but a breath. Kind of amazing. Chapter seven, verse six, my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are spent without hope. One of the neat things we did in the Philippines was Brother John and Miss Pam took us to a place where they weave rugs. They got these big looms, big old humongous looms, and they take the shuttle, which has the yarn fastened to it, and they go just like that, and it goes sliding down through these different loom thingies. They go sliding down, and then they let their foot off, and a different set come up, and they sing it back and back and forth and back and forth. They're moving those up and down, and they're weaving. They're weaving rugs or whatever it is at that time. And I just sat there and watched that shuttle, and it just flew down through there. And they grabbed it, and they flew it back and back and forth. That thing was going. And I'm like, yeah, that's my life right there. That's it. That's it. Going way too fast. The good days, you want to have them slow down because they're so good. And the bad days, you want them to just hurry up and speed up and go on and get over with, right? Chapter seven, verse 11 through 21, Job's complaining and he says, why have you made me your target? God complains that God has terrified him with nightmares and has made him his target. He asked God, why should he go to all this trouble for no apparent reason and for such an insignificant person? Let's remember we're not insignificant people. God's created us in his image, and he allows things into our life to grow our faith that we might be more like him. Let's not fail in our growth to the Lord. Lord, we love you tonight, and we thank you for your blessings to us. Pray to God that you would go before us, that you would help us to think upon Job this week, maybe to do some review ourself. through the scriptures to think about our relationship with you. Might we draw strength and comfort for the days and the weeks ahead that we might remain faithful to you. We love you and we ask these things in your name. Amen.