If you have your Bible tonight, would you open up to the book of Job in chapter number 42. The book of Job tonight in chapter number 42. It's been a long and a wonderful journey through our study of the book of Job and tonight we come to its end. We're gonna finish this study tonight, the very last sermon. I think I say this probably every time I finish teaching through a book of the Bible, but I really can say that the book of Job has been a life-changing thing for me. I've learned so many things out of the book of Job. So much truth here, so much wisdom here, so much to help us understand things that are difficult. And so I'm so thankful for this wonderful book, and I intend to always visit it again. Don't know that I'll ever preach through it again, but I'm definitely going to visit the book often. And I pray that it's been a help for you. I hope that you've learned many, many things about the Lord, and about walking with the Lord, and about how to view certain things. I hope it's been helpful in that way. So tonight I want us to come to chapter 42, and look with me here, if you will, in the passage. And let's consider tonight the glorious conclusion to this glorious book and this marvelous story of Job, chapter number 42, beginning there in verse number 1. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Hear, and I will speak. I will question you, and you make it known to me. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take seven bulls and seven rams and go to My servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And My servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.' So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Namathite went and did what the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job's prayer. And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him all his brothers and sisters, and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy, and comforted him for all of the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold. And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first daughter, Jemima, and the name of the second, Kezia, and the name of the third, Karen Hapak. And in all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job's daughters. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers, And after this Job lived 140 years and saw his sons and his sons' sons four generations. And Job died an old man and full of days. Well, as we think about the passage tonight, the first thing I want you to notice in verses 1 through 6 is that we come finally to Job's repentance. You come to Job's repentance. Now just think back at what we've been thinking about over the last couple of weeks. You'll remember that Job had had what we could call a double charge against God. Job had been saying that God was mismanaging his life. that God didn't have things in control, He was out of order, that He was not managing Job's life properly. And then of course the second charge that Job had against God is that God was acting in an unjust or an unjust way concerning his case. So injustice as it concerned Job's case. And so for the last few weeks we've been seeing God's response to that as God came on the scene and began to speak to Job. And he started talking to him and we looked at two long speeches from the Lord as he spoke to Job. And the way God handled the situation was to begin to put questions to Job that were unanswerable. Questions that were so deep and so profound and the answers that only God would know. There was no way Job could know the answers to those questions. And so God's purpose in all of that, as He's asking Job all of these unanswerable questions, was to humble Job. He was bringing Job down because in this trial, Job had got a little bit puffed up. He wasn't in the trial because of his sin, but he certainly sinned while he was in the trial. And so God had to deal with that and had to straighten Job out. And so He begins to put all of these questions about the creation to Job so as to humble Job. And as you look here in verses 1 through 6, you see Job's final reply as he responds to the Lord. Now there in verses 1 and 2, you see that Job sort of begins with a summary confession. Job answered the Lord and he said, and here's his confession, it's a summary of where he, the conclusion that he has come to. I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Now this is a confession of Job coming to the point of recognizing that God is the supreme being of all beings. that is true of what the Bible says about God, that He is holy, holy, holy, that there is none like Him, that He is, I like to say, this is the way I like to think of it and say it, that God is the chiefest of beings. This is an expression of what Job is saying. He's recognizing the sovereignty of God, the power of God, the might of God, coming to the point where he recognizes that Job himself is not as big as he thought he was, and that God is far bigger than what he thought. previously. I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." God's power and God's godness is seen in His ability to do what He wants to do. the freedom of God. In verses 3-4 this is interesting because what I think Job is doing now is he's given this summary confession and then he begins to unpack or unfold how he came to this confession. And he's rehearsing that it was God's questioning of Job that brought him to the point of the confession. Because you'll notice there in verse number 3, he's repeating the question that God put to him earlier. You remember when God called Job to attention? He said, dress yourself for action, be manly. And then what did he say to him? Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? That's what God asked him, wasn't it? And I think what Job is doing is he's going back now and he's giving us insight as to how he came to this confession that he's made about God. God questioned him. He put him to the test. He took him to task. And so Job responds to that question from God. Here's his response to that question. In verse 3 he says, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know." Bingo! It's exactly what God was wanting him to get to. Get him to the point where he would make that confession. And Job is just saying, I came to this point because it was God's method of asking me things that were far too wonderful for me. Knowledge that was far beyond my grasp. Knowledge that was secret to the divine mind. Job was saying, I never could get there. I've uttered what I didn't understand. I spoke foolishly. I was out of order. It's not God's fault. He's not the one that was out of order. I'm the one who is out of order. I was speaking things far too wonderful for me. Things that I did not know. Things that were way beyond my pay grade, so to speak. And then the second question that God put to him, you'll remember previously. Here it's stated for us again in verse number 4. Here, and I will speak, I will question you, and you make it known to me. You guys remember that? Remember these two things that God is doing to Job? So here it is. Job once again, he's saying, alright, here's the other thing that God asked me, and I'm going to tell you how I respond to that. Here's my conclusion. This is what I've come to concerning that. And what does he say? I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you, therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. So what Job is getting to here now, if you go back to verse 3, he says, I've uttered what I didn't understand, things too wonderful for me, things I did not know. And then in verses 5 and 6 he's confessing, look I had heard about you but now I see and I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes. This is his response. And so what you could say about Job was that after God worked on Job while he was in his trial seeking answers to his questions, Saying things about God that he should not have said. Things that were sinful as he accuses God of mismanagement of his life and acting unjustly towards Job. Job finally is brought to the point of repentance. That was where God brought him to. Repentance was the end result of God's work. You know, I think a major lesson that comes from this is understanding that the only way that any person is ever brought to a point of true repentance, which is necessary for them to be in the right with God, The only way they're going to get there is for them to be humbled. Isn't that right? And that's what we've seen in these chapters. That God is trying to reduce Job. He's trying to bring him to the end of himself. He is humbling him. And the only way that true repentance happens in anyone's life is to be humbled. Now listen, let me say to you, because many times we can think of that and say, well that, yes, that's true, that applies to the lost. That's how it works with lost people. You know, they're pride, prideful, and they're arrogance, and they, you know, they do what they do and they need to be humble so that they'll recognize their need for a Savior and then repent and call out for salvation. That's certainly true, isn't it? But listen, that's also true in our lives as believers as well. that there's remaining corruption to deal with, and many times we can live our life from the standpoint thinking that the world revolves around us, and that we're the king of the mountain, and that we're on top, and that we're more than what we actually are. And I'm going to tell you, as a believer, God's going to work in your life to rip that thinking out from that carpet, so to speak, out from under your rug, out from under your feet, to bring you to a point of humility, that leads you to repent of those false ways of thinking about yourself. Getting your eyes off yourself and getting your eyes back on God. So this is how it works. True repentance. People have to repent and believe the gospel to stand before God positionally, but it's also true practically that God humbles us to lead us to places of repentance when we have fallen into sin. Now listen. That only happens, and we learned this from Job, that only happens when a person sees himself and God as they really are. You follow what I'm saying? A person only comes to that point of humility and repentance when they see themselves accurately and when they see who God is accurately. When they come to a true understanding of who man is and when they come to a true understanding of who God is. You follow that? And what happens when somebody begins to see from the Scriptures how God sees them, and then from the Scriptures see what God has revealed about Himself so that they can see God accurately, how God wants to be seen. What develops through that is a distance between the two beings. to show how big God is and how small we are, and the chasm that exists between the two. Because when you really see that, that's what brings you to the point of brokenness. That's the thing that brings you to the point of humility, seeing how big God is, seeing how small we are, seeing His attributes revealed in the Scripture, seeing our own sinfulness as God reveals those things. The distance between the two leads to brokenness. In Psalm 50 verse number 21, God said, you thought I was like yourself. And see, we have to be taught and we have to be shown from the Scriptures that no, no, no, God is not like us. God is altogether different. He's set apart. He is the chiefest of beings. And so, I want to ask you tonight, put the question to you, have you really seen subjectively or have you only Have you only seen objectively? You know, Job, here he says, on the one hand, he says, look, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear. I had the objective things. There was so much that I thought that I understood. But then something happened. Now my eyes see you. There's been a subjective opening up and an understanding of who you really are. You know, we talk about it many times that people can have head knowledge, but it hasn't made its way to the heart. It hasn't brought them to the point of being transformed by the truth. And it takes both, doesn't it? I mean, for us to know God intimately, you have to have both. You have to have the revealed, objective truth about God. But there's also this experiential work that God has to do by quickening that to you and making it real to you. Which is why Jesus, when He's speaking to Nicodemus, what would He say to Nicodemus? You must be born again. Something has to happen to you experientially, subjectively, something individual to you. Nicodemus knew all kinds of truth, didn't he? He knew the Scriptures, he knew the Word of God, but he needed this other thing. And here, Job, it's almost like it's a revelation. He says, you know, I've had it. I've had a lot of truth, I've known a lot of things, but now I really see. There's this subjective understanding now, and you marry the objective reality and the subjective. reality, and there you have what you need to know God intimately. And the question is tonight, have you really seen subjectively, or has it only been objective up until this point? You've got to have both to know God intimately. You could say it this way, you must really see the difference and the distance between you and God. Not just in your head, but also in your heart, subjectively, having it exposed to you and revealed to you. And that's what's happening here with Job. And so finally, Job is seeing these things. Job is being brought, he's being humbled, brought to a place of repentance. And so he shuts his mouth, he stops all of the foolish talk that he's been engaged in, and he repents before a holy God. So this is Job's repentance. Now notice, in the second place, that God doesn't just leave it at Job, but God moves along to deal with Job's three friends. And here you see God's rebuke. You have Job's repentance, but now you have God's rebuke. Back here in verse number 7, notice this. After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, now notice this. Here's how God is thinking about these three friends as they've dealt with Job. My anger burns against you, and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has." Isn't it interesting that even through this whole ordeal and through this whole trial, there's still God giving commendation to Job. and he is letting Job's friends have it because they've misrepresented God. We talked about that all through the different speeches of the friends, but they continued to just pounce on Job and to beat Job down and kept saying to Job, you know, you have sinned. There's some hidden sin in your life. God is going to get you. What's going on here? You're hiding something. And they're preaching this retribution theology all the way through the book. We've talked about all of those things. And here in verse number 7, God finally is rebuking those friends for that folly. He's coming straight ahead at them. But you know, God is gracious. You see the grace of God here not just towards Job and bringing Job to a place of repentance, but these men who have acted so foolishly towards Job and have not been wise, helpful counselors and comforters for Job. You know, Job said, you're awful comforters, you're terrible physicians, you haven't helped me at all. And God is gracious to these men as well. Notice what God does. Verse 8, Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. In other words, you men have sinned. And you're in need of something as well. And it's amazing the grace of God here because God lays out the necessary requirements that have to be met if they're going to be forgiven and if they're going to be accepted by God. And it's interesting in verse number 8 that there's two things. You have sacrifice and intercession as necessary to be set right with God. He tells them, he says, you've got to take these animals. There needs to be a sacrifice. That needs to take place. But notice how Job is a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ as a mediator or as an intercessor because what does God say? What does Job have to do on behalf of the friends? Job is like the middleman. Job is an intercessor. He says, Job's got to pray for you. And here's the sacrifice. There has to be sacrifice for sin. But here, Job, he's going to pray for you. for you, and I will accept His prayer not to deal with you according to your volley." Amazing. All the way back in the book of Job, you're seeing shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sacrifice is needed if there's going to be atonement, if there's going to be setting sin right so that God can accept a man. But also the theological concept of an intercessor or a mediator. Again, thinking forward to the New Testament, there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And here's Job that's functioning as a foreshadow or a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 9, So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Namathite went and did what the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job's prayer. And so what's being demonstrated here is the human responsibility of the whole thing. Because now Job's three friends, they make the proper response to the requirements that God puts before them. Isn't this amazing in verses 7 through 9? Because what's going on here is you have the fullness of the gospel being foreshadowed right here at the conclusion of the book of Job. It's an amazing thing. God is angry against sin. I mean, this is all throughout the Scriptures, isn't it? That God is a holy God and man has sinned against God. And God is angry against sin. Furthermore, He's angry against sinners. He doesn't send sin to hell. He sends sinners to hell. The anger of God's wrath burns against sin and against these sinners. The Gospel, the need for sacrifice and substitution, the need also for compliance and obedience to God's directives concerning the Gospel from the human responsibility side. So you have the Gospel here in its being accomplished, foreshadowed by the picture of a sacrifice and an intercessor, but also the Gospel being applied from the human responsibility side. Where men are called upon to respond, to repent, and to believe what God has revealed to them. It's an amazing picture of the Gospel, isn't it? You think about this again tonight for your own life. and asked the question, what about the gospel for you as it pertains to you personally? Have you ever come to the point in your life where you've actually seen God's anger against your own sin? Have you ever experienced that? Has the Holy Spirit of God ever convicted you of the fact that there's a controversy between you and God? That sin is that which separates you from God so that He will not hear? That that's the obstacle to you being right with God is sin? Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen your own sin? The fact that you're a sinner and that God is angry with that and that He must punish sin. He must deal with sin because His holiness demands that He would do so. And also, have you seen your need for a sacrifice if you are to be forgiven, if you are to go free? For a sacrifice and a substitute and an intercessor and someone to stand in the gap for you, someone to mediate your cause. Because being a sinner, the only way that your case can be dealt with by you is for you to bear the brunt of that through condemnation and punishment. You know, there's a lot of sinners that pay for their own sins, but never in a salvific way. That's what hell's all about. It's an eternal situation of the sinner constantly paying for their sin. A man can pay for his own sin, he just can't be saved by that payment. And the message of God is that you need something to be in your place. You need a sacrifice, you need a substitution, you need intercession, you need mediation if your case is going to be dealt with satisfactory before God so that God can accept you and bring you. That's what's going on here in Job. Job is a gospel book. The gospel is right here in the book of Job. Have you had that? Have you seen your need for that? Have you seen that all of this has been provided for you by the benevolent hand of God? By the way, who is it that's making the provision right here in the text for these sinners? It's God who's doing it. It's God the one who is revealing it. You know, we have to perish the thought that man is ever going to be set right with God by anything that he does himself. Man cannot make the provision. You know, that's really all religions in the world. They really boil down to those two views, don't they? It's that you have Christianity where the deity satisfies himself, and then you have all of the other religions in the world that say you have to satisfy the deity by what you do. That's really it. All of the religions can be built. You have Christianity that says, done, or you have all of the other religions that say, do. Do. You do it. You get it done. You satisfy the deity. And here you see that that doesn't work with God. All the way back from the book of Job, it's God Himself who has to make the provision that satisfies God. God says, I will accept them. I'm going to accept them if this goes through. This is the clear teaching of Scripture all the way through the Bible in Ephesians. You know the text very well. The Bible tells us, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of what class? Of works, so that no one may boast. And I love in the prophetic books in Jeremiah chapter 17 beginning in verse 5, listen to this, Thus says the Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. Meaning, he's trusting in the arm of the flesh and his own abilities, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He's like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come. You ever seen those old westerns where the tumbleweed goes, you know, down, yeah, through the wind, the tumbleweed goes down there right as the two guys are about to shoot each other? That's what he's talking about. He's like a little shrub in the desert. You're not seeing any good. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land. Cursed is the man who does that. But then on the other side, blessed is the man whose trust is in the Lord. Whose trust is in the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. You see the contrast? All the way through the pages of Scripture, over and over and over and over and over and over, the message is always, if you're going to be right with God, it has to be according to His plan, to what He has provided, to what He has said is true. And the question for us to ask tonight is, have you complied with God's directives and instructions for taking part? The Lord Jesus Himself would say it best when He said, the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the Gospel. Turn from your sin and put your faith in what God has provided. That's the message of the Gospel. Listen, I'm going to say it to you tonight because I care about your soul. I care about you, the people that God has given me to shepherd. I'm going to tell you tonight. If you trust in anything at all other than the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ that God has provided, you will go to hell and be damned. There is no other way out. There is no other solution. There is no other salvation. There is no other plan for you to come back to be reconciled to God where He will accept you. And if you've heard that message over and over and you know that, you say, well I've heard that over and over. Yeah, it's one thing to hear it, And it's another thing to believe it and trust it and to depend on it. Because people in their natural fallen sinful condition, they hear that message and the first thing they do is they start looking for foxholes. Where can I go to hide from this? Let me do what I can do to prop up this other way. And you know what you do when you do that? You walk around with spiritual crutches. Spiritual crutches. And for you to be saved, those spiritual crutches have to be kicked out from under you. And you have to come to the place just like Job. Therefore, I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes. Think about it seriously tonight, because the Gospel is right here in Job. Well, let me show you one final thing from the text. We see Job's repentance, we see God's rebuke against his three friends, and then now we see an amazing restoration in the life of Job. This is a glorious part from verse 10 to the end of the chapter because it's here where the whole thing turns back around and where Job is in a position even better than what he was when all of the terrible things first happened to him. In verse number 10, I want you to see first that Job's fortunes are restored. Remember early on in the book? Remember how rich Job was? Remember his businesses and all of his property? Just a wealthy man. Look at this, verse 10. And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends. Now get this, and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. How about that? Again, all you've got to do, we won't do it, but all you have to do is go back to the opening chapters of the book of Job and see his wealth and then multiply it. and you'll see what God is doing in his life. Also his family is restored. Then came to him all of his brothers and sisters, and all who had known him before. So now you have family members who had abandoned Job during the time when he had gone through all this trouble. He's sick, he's scraping himself, he's got boils, he's oozing out of those boils, sitting on the ash heap. And imagine, I mean, he's being brought to the end, Everybody abandons Him. Everybody who was around Him before and all the friendships and all of the fellowship and all of the family, all of that had gone away during the time of His trial. But now He's restored. God is bringing everyone back. His brothers and His sisters. On down here in the text it talks about He has children that's given to Him again because all of His kids had died. So His family is restored. Also His friends are restored. Not only His brothers and His sisters, but verse 11 says, and also all those who had known Him before. And they all came along and they ate bread in his house. So here's the picture of fortune and family and friends. And as they're eating together and spending time together, they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold. As I read that and thought through that, Seeing the family and the friends all gathered around Job as he's put back in an estate, in a place, his fortune restored. I'm seeing the picture here of fellowship. Aren't you? Friends and family all gathered together, eating, spending time together, fellowshipping. It's a beautiful picture, isn't it? We're supposed to be seeing that God has worked in Job's life to the degree that's brought him back all of this temporal joy now that he is experiencing once again. And then in verses 12 to 17, right on top of all of that, you have the fullness of that joy restored to him. And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than its beginning. 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, 1,000 female donkeys. And then look at this, back to the family thing. He had 7 sons and 3 daughters, 10 children. Remember before he looked out and he saw the freshly marked graves of his children who were killed in all the calamities. And now God has restored, given him more children. And his daughters, there's comment here on his daughters is that they're beautiful. Women so beautiful. None in the land that were as beautiful as Job's daughters. And they received an inheritance among their brothers. Now get this. Again, the fullness of Job. After all of this, Job lived 140 years. Can you imagine, as the years went by, the different times that Job would be sitting around the family dinner table or hanging out with friends and people would say, hey, tell me about your ordeal that took place way back. 80 years past, 90 years past. Can you imagine? massive impact on the rest of Job's life, but just imagine the stories, imagine the conversations, 140 years after this terrible experience, and God's given him this fullness of life, and the text tells us, look at this, he's seeing his family, the generations coming after, for four generations. And then his final statement to close out the book, and Job died an old man, and here's what is to be seen, full of days, there it is, It's the picture of Job being restored. You see all that? Fortunes, family, friends, fellowship, the fullness of his life restored, added to. God has done an amazing thing as He closes out the story of Job's life. You know, as you think about this, what are we supposed to get from this? As you try to tie all the story together, I think from this text, in verses 10 to 17, we're supposed to see that the end of Job's story is also the end of our story. The end of Job's story is also the end of our story. Go back and think in your mind at the beginning of the story. Satan comes to God. God says, have you considered my servant Job? And you'll remember as we set that up way back a long time ago, talking through that, that Job is, or excuse me, that Satan is seeking to sift someone on the earth. And here's Job, a righteous man, a godly man, and God says to Satan, why don't you have at him? Have you thought about him? And of course, Satan's intention is to do what? To someone on the earth who follows God. He's wanting to get that person to turn away from God and curse God and basically say that God is not worth following. And who better as a choice than Job because Job had been blessed with so much from God. And Satan says to God, he says, you know what? Job only worships you because of what you give him. Job doesn't worship you just because you're worthy of being worshipped. Job has subscribed to a prosperity gospel. And if you just take everything away from Him, if you just take away all of His goods and health and all the rest, He is gonna curse you and He will turn away from you because you are not worth following. That's Satan's goal, isn't it? God says, have at it. Only don't take His life. And now you fast forward to the end of the book, through all of the ordeal, through all of the trial, Job is still intact as he walks with the Lord, isn't he? Oh yeah, he sinned in the trial. He sinned as he walked along. But he's still a man who is following after God. Kind of reminds me of David, man after God's own heart. David wasn't a perfect man, but David was a righteous man. David had a heart for God, and so does Job. And so what we learn from this, which is true of our story, if you're truly a Christian tonight, as it concerns your life, at the end of the day, Satan loses because he cannot overthrow true faith. On the other side of that, God wins because God is worshipped for who He is, not just what He gives. And the believer is blessed. Why? Because true faith never fails as God keeps His people in His hands forever. That's what you learn at the end of the story. Job's story. The end of Job's story is also our story. If God has granted you the gift of faith, brethren, listen to me. If you're truly a Christian here tonight, You have been given a faith that ultimately Satan cannot overthrow. Be encouraged by that. Because you're going to mess up along the way. You're going to be attacked along the way. You're going to struggle along the way. And there's all kinds of fears and doubts and traps and snares and landmines that the enemy tries to throw at you. And you may stumble sometimes. And you may give in to those temptations sometimes. But at the end of the day, if you have the real thing, Satan cannot touch it. And God wins. And God's worthy of worship. And true faith that's gifted to the believer will always respond to God in true worship of God. In the high times and in the low times. On the mountain, in the valley, and everywhere else in between. God saves us and by His grace we see the beauty of His grace and it turns us into worshipers, doesn't it? And your faith will not fail. God preserves you, and so you will persevere to the end. He will keep you forever. He will not lose you out of His hand. What a tremendous encouragement. What a God. What a God. What goodness. What gifts. What a giver. Amen? Well, as we close out the book tonight, I really got to thinking about all the time in these chapters in the book of Job, and I thought, you know, aside from what I just told you, kind of closing it out. What could I say to sort of wrap the whole thing up? Like in other words, if you left the book of Job and needed a practical takeaway from the book of Job to summarize the value of the book of Job in your life, what would sort of that one lesson be? Because You know, I was tempted to go back through the whole book and pull out tons of major lessons that we'd learned all along the way, but I thought that probably wouldn't be helpful because we would forget by the time the car door slammed tonight we went home. But perhaps if I could nail one thing to your mind and pin it to you, maybe you would remember and be able to hold on to it. So, let me set it up for you and explain to you what I want you to take away from the book of Job. Just like Job. Just like Job. Maybe not to the same degree as Job. But all of us are going to go through great difficulties in our journey through this fallen world. It's just a truism, isn't it? That all through your life you're going to go through difficulties. And as it was for Job, there will always be the why questions behind your difficult circumstances. So I'm going through this trouble, this thing has happened, that thing has happened. Why? Why? Why? Why? You've all done that, haven't you? Everybody has asked the why question. Now sometimes it is in the plan of God to reveal to you the answers to your why questions. Sometimes He does reveal that. Maybe you've had that happen. You end up going through a difficulty, and you get through it on the other side, and God begins to show you, oh yes, I see why that had to happen now. And He gives you the answers. He gives you peace about that past situation. And when God does that, make sure you thank Him for that, and praise Him for that, and worship Him for it. and grow by it, and use it to be a benefit to other people, to encourage them when you perhaps see them going through the same thing that you have gone through. But then on the other hand, sometimes it's not in God's plan to reveal to you the answers to your why questions, which is why we have a whole book in the Bible that addresses that. It's the book of Job. He doesn't always tell us that. He doesn't always explain. Now listen to this carefully. Even though the answer to the why question may not be revealed to you, you must understand that there is always an answer to it. To your questions. You have questions, the why questions, you may not have the answer to those questions, but there is always an answer to those questions. And what I mean by that is that when you think of God, there is nothing in this world, in the universe, that is left to time and chance. There is absolutely nothing that happens that is outside of the decrees and the sovereign providential control and working of God. Listen to me. Everything, everything has a purpose behind it. Even suffering. In time, good and glorious, godly, wise, righteous, and just ends will be revealed. It may not happen on this side of glory, but at some point it will be revealed. Because the Bible tells us that things are working out for good. Things are working out for a purpose. God has purpose and intention behind everything that He does. As it's been said before, there is not one rogue molecule in existence that's out of the control of God. Because if there was, God wouldn't be in control. Something else would be in control. You with me? So the encouragement is that even though in this life you may not always have the answer to your why questions, those answers are there. And in time it'll be revealed. In time you'll see the thing that you're going through today. When it's all revealed to you, when you see clearly, you will come to the point where you understand that God was working out good ends. He was working out just ends. He was working out righteous ends with everything that he was doing. So really the lesson, and the lesson that the New Testament picks up on concerning the life of Job, is that while you're in that time in your life, going through those things, not having the answers to your why questions, the Bible's call for us, if we're going to be like Job, is to be patient. Patience. James chapter 5, listen to this. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers. so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed to remain steadfast." You have heard of the steadfastness of Job. And you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. That's what you're seeing tonight at the end of the story of the book of Job. So learn to be patient, brothers. And when you think of the book of Job, the beauty of the book and the value of the book of Job is that it teaches us, among other things, how to live when we don't know the why or the reason or the purpose behind the great storms of our life. That's the idea. So, if I had to focus in on this one major truth or lesson or theme of the Book of Job, what would it be? Here it is. Don't try to write it down. It's a little too long. Go back and listen to the recording later and you can get it. But here it is. Resting in the wisdom of our good creator rather than living in anxiety over the unanswered whys behind the deep confusion that comes as a result of our troubling circumstances is the way that God intends for us to live our lives. And learning to humbly submit, trust, and depend on God no matter what is the apex of living a life of wisdom and is the only path that leads to a life of true peace and rest. Let me say it to you again. I know maybe it's hard to follow, but please listen to this statement. Resting in the wisdom of our good Creator rather than living in anxiety over the unanswered whys behind the deep confusion that comes as a result of our troubling circumstances is the way that God intends for us to live our lives. And learning to humbly submit, trust, and depend on God no matter what is the apex of living a life of wisdom and is the only path that leads to a life of true peace and rest. Maybe I could say it this way. It's not your finding the answers to all of the what's and the why's of life that is the all-important thing. It's in coming to know and trust in the who that is behind everything. And that's the chiefest of ends, isn't it? I pray tonight as we finish this wonderful study of the book of Job, I pray that you've been encouraged. I pray tonight that you can say that you know Him. and that you trust Him and that you love Him, and that you can confidently say that, I know that He is going to be faithful to me to the end, no matter what, and He's gonna be faithful to me all throughout eternity. I hope that's what you can say tonight. And my prayer is that after studying the book of Job, is for us to say, help me, Lord, help me to be faithful to you to the end as the reciprocal response of your being faithful to me. You're faithful to me, help me to be faithful to you no matter what. Listen, and if all of us learn that lesson, what's gonna happen is that God's gonna get glory to himself through our lives and that's the whole purpose by which God made you. Amen? And that is the end of the book of Job. Let's pray. Father, we thank you tonight for your word and for the many, many sermons and opportunities that we've had to think about the book of Job. And Lord, I pray tonight that as we've come to the conclusion of this marvelous book, Lord, that we have seen once again the purpose of why it's here and we've seen the major lesson and the major themes and have been blessed, Lord, to have an understanding of this great book. Lord, we walk away tonight learning that it's okay if we don't always know why. Lord, it's okay if You take us through deep valleys and difficulties that we don't always understand what's going on. But Lord, that You just call us to hold on to Your hand and to walk with You and to trust You and to depend upon You. And Lord, as long as we're walking with You and holding on to You, everything's going to be fine because You always know what's best. You are sovereign, You are good, You are wise, and Lord, You can be trusted. We have no reason at all, Lord, not to trust You. Lord, as we preach to ourselves and argue to ourselves, Lord, if you took care of our greatest need, which was the salvation of our souls, Lord, you can take care of all of the lesser things of life. And everything is lesser in comparison to the salvation that we needed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you've given us Christ, will you not also give us all things? And Lord, help us to trust You for that. Help us to lean on You. Help us to depend upon You no matter the storm, no matter the trial, no matter the questions that remain in our mind, Lord. Lord, we know tonight and are rejoicing in the fact that at the end of the day, Satan loses and You win and we're blessed. And you're gonna carry us all the way through and be faithful to us throughout all of eternity. Father, give us the grace to be faithful to you and to love you because you first loved us. Help us to glorify you in everything that we do. In Christ's precious, precious name we pray, amen.