And so if someone, if anyone is watching the live feed tonight on our end, if you're seeing me, that's good, because we're not seeing anything on our end other than a blank, well, a still shot, still screen. So if you don't mind just an audio service tonight, you can watch the still screen and just listen to the message. And it'll be a short Bible study tonight. How's that, a short Bible study? and a short little bit of ocean, amen. That wasn't the time to say amen. Sorry, you missed that cue, amen. Oh goodness, no, so it's gonna be a lot tonight, but again, our memory verse, continuing in our memory verse series, what a verse, just a simple verse tonight, but a powerful truth, a reminder of a lot of things in the context of the verse, and so we'll look at it tonight, define the terms as we always do, and look at a few other scriptures just by way of amplifying the truth we'll be looking at, and then we'll be finished tonight. But Job 14, Job 14, let's all stand together. I'm just gonna read the first verse, Job 14 and verse number one. is our memory verse for this week. The Bible says in Job 14 one, man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Let's pray. Father, we love you tonight. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for its truth, its power. Father, whether it be simple things or complex things of life, Father, your word always speaks truth. And Lord, I pray tonight you'll remind us of some of those simple things tonight. Lord, may our heart and again our mind be encouraged and challenged and reminded, God, of who you are and who we are. For it's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. You may be seated tonight. Thank you so much for standing. Man that is born of a woman is of a few days, is a few days and full of trouble. Job writes this almost in the center, not quite in the middle of the book of Job. We know his story. Job is a mighty man of the east, the richest man of his day, but he's a godly man, he's a good man. He loves his family, he loves his God, and he's faithful. And then Satan comes before God when the angels come before him, and God says, have you tried my servant Job? And so Job is put through the crucible of testing and trial, and he loses all of his wealth, and then he loses his family besides his wife, and then he loses his wife, and then he loses his health. He loses his wealth, he loses his family, he loses his own health. And so much so that at the end of that, in the first few chapters, he's just sitting in sackcloth and ashes. I mean, he has nothing. And again, imagine going from the wealthiest man of the country, and maybe even the world in his day, because it was a fairly small world in relative size, to having nothing. I mean, having nothing. And yet Job makes these statements. In one place he says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He said, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And he gives us so many powerful truths and reminders. One place he says, though in my flesh, worms. He talks about worms devouring his body. He says, yet in my flesh shall I see God. But as you weave all of those things, all of those events, and then, of course, his three friends, and a fourth one jumps in at the end of the book, but those three primary friends who begin trying to exhort him, that really doesn't go well at all either, because his three faithful friends only come to tell him, you must have unconfessed sin, what's wrong? God never does this to people that he likes, is the essence of what they say, and if you were really a faithful man, if you really, love God and if you're really living right for this prosperity gospel of our day I guess you would never have trouble and you'd never if there's hardship in your life there is sin and uh Job you just need to confess it and get it right and of course it's a back and forth really the bulk of the book until you get to the last I think 10 chapters and this is Job and God in the conversation But the bulk of those chapters before that are just him back and forth with his friends. And he's like, man, you're sorry, friend. You're pitiful. He said, I've searched in the integrity of my heart. There's nothing that I can find that I haven't confessed to God. And God knows my heart. God knows who I am. Well, in the midst of that discourse and in the midst, there are times Job just talks to God. He just cries out to God. And so it's in the midst of those conversations with those friends that he makes this statement that he does in chapter 14 and verse number one. And he says this, man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Again, the things in this verse are very simple thoughts, very simple truths, and so I'm gonna try to deal with them in a simple way, and we'll be done tonight. Again, when I said we won't be long, we won't be long, and Brent will say amen again, all right? But he starts out with a word that seems to be, you know, it's a very simple word, a profound word, and yet in the day in which we live, it's a word that needs to be repeated. Man. Man. That is born of who? Woman. Man that is born of a woman. And so I begin. this study by simply defining what is a man. That seems to be a pretty confusing issue today. It is, it's a mental and intellectual challenge. But a man is defined by Webster as mankind in a broad sense, the human race, the whole species of humanity in a big sense. We know specifically, turn back to Genesis chapter one, Now we know that man, in the broad sense of who humanity is, are all born of a woman. That is for those who obviously can't figure that one out either. That seems to be a prevailing question today. What is a woman? The Bible says, Job says, man that is born of a woman is a few days. Man that is born of a woman. Genesis chapter one, verse 26. The Bible tells us something about man. God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fire of the air, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. So when we speak of man in a scriptural sense, there is the broad and there is the specific. There is man that is made in the image of likeness of God, and it is the them. In other words, man or mankind refers to all of humanity in a broad sense. But when you get down to the specifics of what God created, God created within that image two individuals or two different sides of that image. There's male and there is female. Now, he's going to define them a little further. Look at verse 28. God blessed them. God said of them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. So again, let's think about man in the broad context, man in the bigger picture. Man revolves or involves all of humanity. Man is made up of male and female. How do you define those? Well, male and female are those parts of humanity that God created unique and different in their abilities, but He made them as one unit so that they can reproduce and replenish the earth. So again, for a generation that is confused about those things, it's important to know that there are only two. There's male and there's female. And the one that is male is male. And the one that is female is female. Okay, how do you know the difference? Because when you put a male and a female together, they can naturally, by God's design, reproduce. If you have something that says it's a male and says it's a female, but when you put them together, they cannot replenish somebody messed up. God's always clear. God made mankind, humanity, man in His image, but within man in the broad sense, He made male and He made female. Now He goes on to define those in the specific. We've looked at the big picture. Look over in chapter 2 in verse number 18. Chapter one is the broad picture of creation. Chapter two zooms us in to the creation of man specifically in this final God's final command. He says in verse 18 of chapter two, and the Lord God said, it is not good that the man singular, that singular part of his creation be alone. I will make him and help meet for him. So now he's speaking not of the broad humanity, but he's speaking to one part of man, that being the man, all right, the male, the man. But that man alone was lonely. That man alone could not replenish. That man alone was really not fulfilled. He had all of creation. He had the beauty of creation. He had the animals, the flowers, the trees. He had all the stars in the heavens. He had all those things, but it didn't have a help for him. Verse 19, Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam, the first man singular, not broad, but singular, the male, to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the fowl of the air, to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found in the hill meat for him. No one's suitable for Him. They're just animals. There was no one who was like Him that could fulfill Him, that could complete Him. That's the thought of meat for Him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, the singular, the male, made he a woman, the female, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She should be called woman because she was taken out of man. So what is a woman? A woman is that part of God's glorious and beautiful creation that is the completer of man. Without woman, man is empty. Man just does, he's not completed. He is not completed in an emotional, mental, a moral, a physical sense. He ain't gonna have fellowship with God, he can love God's creation, but he cannot know that true love and fulfillment and completeness without the woman. So God gave man, the singular, the male, a woman, female, to complete him. And by the way, it was not just emotional, oh look at that, oh wow, she's beautiful. She completed him in every way. In every way. And so we see, back to Job, Job says man, that is born of a woman. Scripturally, there is no issue. Scripturally, there never is any confusion about that topic. If there is any confusion, it's not on God's part. And it's not God's fault. Satan is the master deceiver. Satan relishes in the realm of confusion and uncertainty. God wants you to know the truth. That's why Jesus said in John 8, you shall know the truth. If you look at that last verse, you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. Satan wants you to be bound by confusion and uncertainty because if you live that kind of life, you're always uncertain of no foundation, not knowing, and when that happens, you're a mess. So Job makes a statement that again in his day, was very easily understood. In our day, it needs to be easily understood. Man that is born of a woman. All of us, we're approaching Mother's Day. You know, that used to be one of the big days, you know, back east. It was Mother's Day and Easter and Christmas. Those were the three big days when everybody would come to church. You know, you want to show up on Easter because everybody's celebrating. Sometimes they have food, amen? You want to show up for Mother's Day because everybody loves their mama, you know? They may not love daddy, but most everybody loves their mama, you know? So you want to honor Mother. And then, of course, Christmas, everybody likes the celebrations that go on there. It's about gift time and those things. But there's something about mothers. There's something about the love of a mother. There's something about a woman. And by the way, the beauty of who a woman is is the beauty placed there by God in creation. That nature, that love, that ability to bring forth life. Now, the demonic confusion that's out there over men who are saying, but I'm a woman. Stop. that is mental and moral confusion. You are not a woman. If you cannot bring forth life, you're not a woman. It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter how you feel. God made a woman special and precious and unique. That's why there's such an attack on womanhood. Womanhood. Why? Because they're precious. God designed them to be the nurturers, the bearers of life, the givers of life, the carers of life. And the assault in our country, it started by attacking the family. And then when it was just all out attacking the family and marriage in the 60s and 70s, along comes abortion. So not only are you trying to destroy marriages, now let's kill all the children. Okay, so after generations of trying to destroy the home with, well, you know, you're keeping women under your thumb if they raise children and teach a godly seed, you know, they've got to pursue their careers and, well, me and you need to stay home. Well, read the book. Just read the book. That's not the way God set it up. God gears a mama to bear children and to be a lion, a mama bear. I mean, God just gives women that. Guys will say, oh, I'll go out there and play. Mama says, bring them in. They ain't going to get hurt. And Satan hates it. Satan hates womanhood. He hates femininity. He hates for a woman to be a godly Proverbs 31 woman. He hates that. Why? It reminds him of God. It reminds him of God's design. It reminds him of God's power. And Satan does everything he can to destroy everything that reminds us that there is a Creator and there's a God. But Job brings us back to that same simple foundational thought. Man that is born of a woman. And then he moves on and says this. Man that is born of a woman. Again, Webster defines woman as the female of the human race grown to adult years. A woman. Mature. Female. A female is defined as that which produces young, not male. The Bible says a man that is born of a woman, he makes this statement, he says, is of few days. Few simply means not many, small and dumb. Man that is born of a woman is a few days. Now, when you're young, you don't think about that. You really don't. I mean, 19, 18, 17. You think, wow, man, there's so much of life out there. Man, it's going to take me forever to get to 30 and 40 and 50 Then when you get to 30 and 40 and 50, I'm thinking at this point in my life, I'm not counting up anymore. I'm counting down. I mean, I'm 53. I'm 53 years old. I'm not going to be 100. I don't think I'm going to make it to 106. I'm not counting up. I'm counting down. My dad's dad passed at 76. That's 23 more years. That's less years than our fourth son is old. Now, most mother grandparents lived in their 90s. I'm praying for that kind of longevity. I don't know. But here's the reality. It seems like just yesterday. It seemed like forever ago when I was in high school and elementary school. There's memories. I'm like, wow, that seemed like an eternity. But then on the same time, it was like yesterday. Man is of a few days. I don't care how long you live. You live to be 80, 90, 100 years old. When you get to that point, you're going back and say, where'd the years go? Where'd time go? What happened? No matter how long we live, it's still just a few days. The Bible tells us life's a vapor. It's a vapor. It's a vapor. Well, what's so important about that? Again, hold your finger here in Job and flip over just a few pages in Psalm. Psalm 90. Psalm 90. God tells us in Psalm 90 about our days. Down in verse number 10. Psalm 90 in verse number 10. We can back up to verse nine. For all of our days are passed away in thy wrath. We spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and 10, that's 70, the score is 20. So threescore years and 10 is 70. And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away. Life is just gone. And so Job, as he's reflecting in this conversation with his friends, he again makes the observation, man, that is born of a woman is a few days. And then he says this, and full, full of trouble. I'm like, wow, Job. Again, remember where he's at. Job lost everything. Job's lost everything. He's lost his children. He's lost his herds. He's lost his health. He's alone. His friends ended up coming. His wife told him to just curse God and die. His friends came and accused him of hidden immorality or hidden sin somewhere in his life. That's why God was doing it. I mean, he's lost literally everything that you would think, OK, it's going to be there when the chips are down. At least somebody's going to be there. And nobody was there but God. But as Job begins to reflect on these things again, he makes this powerful, profound statement, man, that is born of a woman is a few days. Guys, no matter how long you live, it's just gonna be a few days. And understand this, it's gonna be full of trouble. That's just the course of life. It's the course of life, the word full, I love. Webster defines it this way, it's replete, it's having within its limits all that it can contain. It's abounding with. It's having a large quantity or abundance. He said those days are going to be full of trouble. Now, when I got to trouble, I thought, well, that is an interesting definition. Webster begins by giving the Latin root. He says trouble comes from the Latin turbo or turba, which is a crowd, and perhaps trova, which is a turn. The primary sense is to turn or to stir, to whirl about as in the Latin turbo terminus or a whirlwind. That's the idea of trouble, a whirlwind. Hence the sense of trouble is agitation, disturbance, to perplex, to afflict, to grieve, to distress, to cause, to be much engaged or anxious. I like this, to tease. to vex or to molest. Job said, man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. He just simply said, listen guys, it don't matter how long you live, life's a whirlwind. I mean, there's always something coming at you in life. There's always something going on in life. There's rarely a time that's just peace and calm. I mean, there's always something going on. And really, when we think back of our lives, whether it be young or not as young, that is life. I mean, when you're young, it's peer pressure, it's your friends, it's other things going on in your life and around you, and the influences and the things that are pushing you this way and pulling you that way and that way. Then you hit your teenage years, and you're maturing, and you're growing up, and that pressure just intensifies. It's totally different from the adult world in certain aspects of responsibility, and work, and those types of things. But it's the same whirlwind. I mean, it's the pressures of life. It's the people. It's the world around you. It's the influences that are coming at you. And it's a whirlwind. I mean, it's things that are vexing you. It's things that are molesting you. It's things that are harassing you. It's things that are making you anxious. And that's life. Then you hit your 20s and realize you didn't know quite as much as you did as a teenager. And by the time you're 30, you realize you really didn't know a whole lot. By the time you're 40, you think you're starting to figure it out, but life's passing you by. And by the time you get to 50 and 60, you think you may have an ounce of wisdom, but you ain't got long left. And you're like, whoa. But the whole process, the whole process is wrapped up around trouble. You're either coming out of it or going into it. Sometimes you're right in the middle of it, and there are seasons of life that are peaceful seasons. But they're pretty rare, if we're all honest. I mean perfect, I mean perfectly peaceful seasons. I mean there's nothing going on outside, there's nothing going on around you. Those are really rare. And so Job makes that observation. That man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Well then, what do we do? How do we deal with that? Let me just give you a few things all over in Proverbs. Go to Proverbs 1. How do we deal with that then? Because the Bible is full of statements and exhortations to man about how to deal with life. And of course, no greater place to go than the book of wisdom, the book of Proverbs. And just give you a few quick simple thoughts here, and we'll be done tonight. If our days are few and they're gonna be full of trouble, how do we approach life? How do we deal with the issues of life? Proverbs 1.5 says this, a wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. And I'm pulling off the word man here. I'm just doing some, you can't do a full word search on man, you got thousands of entries, a few, like 800 and some. But what does God say about man? Well, He said a man of wisdom, a wise man. A wise man will hear. Okay, our days are few. They're going to be full of trouble. How do I deal with it? You need to learn to listen. You need to learn to listen to a wise man. You need to learn to listen to a wise counsel. No matter what age you are, you need to listen to that wise counsel. Why? Because you ain't got long. You need to listen as fast as you can. I've always said there's two ways to learn in life. You can either listen and learn or you can live and learn. Listening and learning is the easy way. because you're gaining from someone else's experience, so therefore you don't have to go through what they went through to learn what they learned. But if you choose not to listen, you'll still learn truth. But you're gonna learn it through trial and error. You're gonna learn it through mistakes that are made and hardships and trials and even more trouble. So how do we deal with those troubled times? We learn to listen. We learn to gain wisdom from others. Look over just a page in chapter three in verse 13. Solomon says, happy is the man. You can even be happy in trouble, all right? Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding. Wisdom not only prepares you for the journey, learning to listen, learning to grow, learning to understand, but wisdom is what helps you be happy. I didn't say joy. Joy is unceasing in the Lord. Happiness is an emotion, but you can even be happy when you have wisdom. Go over to chapter number nine. Again, just hitting some verses real quick. Proverbs chapter nine. Some of these may be later memory verses. A lot of them will be a real long time. But chapter nine, verse number nine. Proverbs nine, verse number nine. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser. Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. Again, simply put, in the way of life, in the brevity of life, in the troubles that will inevitably come to life, learn to listen. Learn to learn. Learn to gain wisdom from those who have gone before you. Learn to gain wisdom. Abigail and I were talking earlier today. She was talking about the Bible study they're doing. And she mentioned a book that they had used years ago with our teenagers by Brother Jerry Ross. And please pray for him. He has a very, very aggressive cancer, I think she said. And they're having to attack it very aggressively. But just pray for him. He can't be a whole lot older than I am. He's probably a little bit, but not a whole lot. I'm guessing 60s maybe, maybe that old. But he's written some tremendous material for young people that my kids got when they were teenagers that just impacted their life. And it impacted the way they think. It impacted the way they live. Why? Because they learned wisdom. They were gaining wisdom from a very wise man of God who penned those thoughts into some books and some material. But I'm just saying, in the brevity of life, the more you can learn, the faster you can learn wisdom. And by the way, wisdom is not just knowledge. A lot of people are just after knowledge. And if you don't know how to use knowledge, that's not wisdom. Knowledge is the attainment of facts. Wisdom is the ability to apply those facts to given circumstances in the correct way. Learning how to apply truth. And so to attain wisdom isn't just getting everybody's opinion. When you get wisdom, you're getting truth. You're getting learning. You're getting understanding from a biblical perspective. I was watching part of a video today, one that I watch every now and then, just a creation broadcast. It answers, but it was a different one. I'll give you that address after the service. But he was just talking about evolution and so many holes and so many issues with modern day evolution. And the particular segment that I was watching, he was talking about the fossil record and how the fossil record refutes evolution at every turn and what he was dealing with. is how the evolution teaches that everything has evolved over time. Every species, every individual, we've all been moving, we've all been progressing, we've all been changing and adapting and, you know, dropping off our tails and adding ears and adding this and taking off that. But when you study the fossil record, you can go back, they're finding fossils that are, they claim are 300 plus millions of years old. and yet those same species live today and they are identical. 350 million years later, the species is literally identical to what you see in their supposed fossil record. And I mean, he was just going through example after example after example from ocean creatures, from lizards, from spiders that they find in fossils that they claim are hundreds of millions of years old, but we see them today, and they look exactly the same. What's the problem? We're dealing in a world today that has no wisdom. That should be common sense. I mean, that very evidence should say, boom, boom, evolution done. It cannot be. I mean, when something is proven to be a lie, Guess what? It cannot be true any longer. Right? Is that rocket science now or what? When something is proven to be a lie and an impossibility in theory, then you have to restart because it is untrue. It is invalid. But that's wisdom. It's learning how to perceive that knowledge, whether it be scriptural knowledge, whether it be educational knowledge. It's learning to take facts and truth and applying it correctly. So how do we deal with a troubled day? How do we deal with the time we live? Because the days of man are few. Our days are few. Man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Well, how do you deal with troubled times? How do you deal with the issues of life? You pursue wisdom. You pursue understanding. You pursue God and His Word. And by the way, you have to be careful, another reference I jotted down, we didn't go through their Proverbs. He also says, there's a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death. You have to be careful who you listen to and who you follow. Because there are people who say, oh, but this is the, oh, but let me explain it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, let's follow it to its end. In case you follow it to its end, let's back up and find what its roots are. And so we have to be careful in a troubled time. We have to be careful in this short vapor The short vapor that we have that we seek wisdom and understanding. By the way, that's what carried Job through. It was wisdom. It was wisdom that said, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That was faith and wisdom. when Job's wife says, just curse God and die. I mean, can you imagine the anguish of heart of both of them? I mean, they're burying their children. I mean, this is a time of horrible anguish for both of them. And she was just done. Let's just be over. I mean, she was heartbroken. She was devastated. Job was devastated. But there was something in Job that was like, hey, God gave us all this. God's taken it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Where did that come from? It came from faith. but it came from a great degree of wisdom. Job knew who God was, and he applied that truth to his faith. When he spoke of, yet in my flesh shall I see God, that was faith, but it was wisdom. It was wisdom. And so in these troublous times, and they're here, and they're going to be here, and they'll always be here, let's approach them with wisdom and faith. Let's pray. Father, we love You tonight. God, we thank You for Your Word again. We thank You for this special time together. God, we thank You for Your blessings, Your goodness. Thank You for how Your Word speaks to life. But it speaks to our heart. It speaks to our experience. Lord, though there's no one in this room that has ever experienced exactly what Job went through, And Father, I'm very thankful for that. Yet, Father, Job speaks wisdom to our hearts. Job teaches us about you, about life. And Father, in the midst of our few days, and Father, in the midst of our troubles, Lord, may we always have faith in you, and may we always seek wisdom. For it's in Jesus' name that I pray. Let's stand together with heads bowed and eyes closed.