Transcript
The book of Job is just in front of the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. Will you take your Bibles this morning and turn to the book of Job, chapter 2? We’ll begin at verse 1 of chapter 2.
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
So the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”
Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Samantha is a seventeen-year-old from Torrance who lives in Los Angeles. But just this past October she was in Cairo, Egypt, and she was apartment hunting with a young Egyptian girlfriend of hers, nineteen-year-old Noah Palsy. They were in a twelve-story apartment building, and they were looking at a second-story apartment which Samantha was considering renting.
Suddenly the unexpected happened. The apartment building literally folded in on itself, and Samantha and her friend found themselves trapped in a hallway that did not collapse. The experience was a little bit like being locked up in a tomb. Everything around them was darkness. They could hear the cries of other survivors. They could hear the barking of search dogs. They could hear the rumbling of the equipment. But they couldn’t see anybody.
Rescuers didn’t come to them as quickly as they hoped. Ten hours passed. Another ten hours passed. When twenty-four hours had passed, the cries of survivors who were near them began to fade away. The two girls were able to hear the sounds of equipment as it moved twisted metal and pulverized masonry and concrete slabs from the area above them.
Then, after twelve more hours had passed, some dogs had been brought to the scene by a volunteer crew of German rescue workers. The dogs located the girls. The dogs alerted the search workers, and the search workers found the girls by following their cries for help. After thirty-six hours in the darkness of that trap, they were rescued and they were taken to a hospital in Cairo.
A doctor in the hospital reported that even though they were bruised, even though they were dehydrated, they were in pretty good shape. The two girls were very fortunate indeed. By Tuesday night the death toll in the collapse of the twelve-story apartment building had risen to twenty-five, and it would no doubt go higher. But these two girls had passed through the whole experience. They were survivors.
Now I think you will agree with me that very few of us are likely ever to be in a building which collapses around us. We should be grateful for that. But it is also true that very few people go through life without having an experience so serious and so severe that it seems to them that their own personal world has collapsed around them, and that they are trapped in a web of difficulties and problems.
And when something like that happens to a Christian, then he or she may be crushed by the experience, or that Christian may become a survivor. And this morning, my friends, as we stand on the threshold of 1997, looking forward into a year where we do not know a single thing that is going to happen tomorrow, it may very well be that in the year ahead we will need to know how to be survivors. How to be survivors.
And this morning I’d like to discuss that issue with you for a little while under the following topic: Satan, Job’s wife, and Job. That’s not hard to remember, is it? And it’s the title of my message to you in the year 1996.
Now I really do not know what you’re familiar with in the biblical story of Job, but I only know it was a very old patriarch. But the Job of today, a very brief and in terms of wealth well off those days. Job lived in over seven thousand feet. He had three thousand camels. He had five hundred pairs of oxen and five hundred female donkeys. He had a very large household. Still, concerns and opinions of all of his wealth, his prized possessions were his family. He had seven sons and three daughters.
Now I’ve known a lot of men, not like Job, which they are not. A man who has no regard for matter. He was blameless and upright. He feared God and he tried to avoid evil. And there was no way that Job could have entered into this fateful year, whatever year it was. There was no way that he could imagine or guess the multiple fatality that lay ahead of him in the year that December.
But the day came in that particular year when one day a servant rushed into the presence of Job, and that’s the dirty fool again. But the others have concluded that, gee, you know, Pete isn’t breaking nearby. Another messenger came in. A man being the one man without bringing in this bad news. He was still talking, and a third messenger affecting your life. And as they invested, reform group of the hired God fallen from terrible cheese. I thought was doable. Another messenger. Rob. And this messenger reports the county in this woman. Belgian with three raiding parties that they had raided the animals, taking them all away. They built the services. Job, who received care of the devil. And the only and it is sultry disasters were not a pork. Messenger alive. While the third messenger was still talking, and the fourth messenger reports to Job. It depends on the food orders that had really flying in the health of their own brother. That’s it. It’s twin five of the wilderness had struck the house, and the house collapses, and all of these children were dead. And all of the servants who were attending, they were dead except for this one man, a Mexican who had now come to Job to report that he’s known that before nobody’s time on his face. It changes him, and he’s worshiped God. And he worked with God. And then he spoke words that are upon the most amazing portent that ever come as a bit of a human being. This is what because the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And those words send shivers down your back. Do we know where the motion picture industry? They aren’t very positive sequels. So we have Jaws 2 and Home Alone 2 and The Dust Off of You. And coming off of this good. And sometimes the nice is a little bit types of opening pictures and post this morning that very, very sorry to tell you that don’t wash was followed by Job 2.
You see there in that day with the angels, they’re all the sons of God. No doubt they called because that was directly created by God. And into their that came the most beautiful weapons and angels of God ever created. The whitest, the most intelligent creatures that are not ever made. And we know the same access pick up sensitive things for where are you time I’ve got a new where you’re coming. Probably one thing this crap. So favorite to God. We’re going to enthrall of the earth and from walking back forth. Walk a little further south familiar. They should do remember that the New Testament tells us these poker be the good for your adversary the devil is walking about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
And even though Satan didn’t put that part of it isn’t work. The reason he was going to and fro on the earth, the reason he was walking back and forth, was because he was sulking though. And he wanted to find someone who he could thrust through or devour, smash. He didn’t say that. God and Satan had it out on Tuesday. There’s nobody like him on the earth, an upright man and blameless and fears God, biting, avoiding. And still he holds fast to his integrity. Although you incited Me against him, it was born without cause.
Even though kill me. Have you seen him? Have you observed him? Do you realize that there is nobody like Job on the earth? And exceeding with five dozen answers that meant something like that. Well sure. You will let me touch it. You wouldn’t let me an active. I can just bring out your hand and touch his inspection pose just hugging his body. And you won’t hurt near third. He will pretty through your foot.
So he wanted an opportunity. He wanted a chance to get at Job again. You see the step of a quarantine is courteous protected his body already loyalty. And he is prepared to prove once again that Job served on Posey out of Job’s personal self-interest. Fergana Valley. Ghana Valley. Time father he goes in half and he trusts those funny and don’t body was covered with painful boils around the edge for women. And they were so painful living at Oxford that birdie is great. The one I break. The one man fell. One of people he lost everything and mouthy and hostage health.
And if you were God, and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Never allow people who experience more than they can bear within strengthened race. And the fact that he allows all this to happen to Job wasn’t comfortable. It was designed complement to Job. He felt that Job to taken any let it happen.
You know something? Don’t like those birds very much the same way. The Warner Byron. I usually do. But the network between Job and his wife was dead. Job okay and do one did not. We give it up first off and oh oh be able to work segment and balance bill apply and they’ll go white if speaking the very work that Satan itself would like to put it the job of Gina and her very distinct.
And ladies will you forgive me for what I have that if you are married to a Christian husband especially through school of the enemy and you can beat your husband over the head when it heard the word. You don’t think I can Apple. They don’t think though about this poses honey time to get ready for church. Why don’t you go to church without a bike? We think is like heaven teach them flat or maybe you’re married to one of the members of the board and the board makes the decision. Then you say this is back to all that stuff. Why did you make that decision for? Maybe your husband trying to be super 82 even preachers like this. You don’t think that happens a victory? You don’t think so? Think again. Think again. Don’t you folks see that Job Weider she was a spiritual loser? And spiritual losers are easily manipulated by Satan. And then in a weapon against valve another fact. Whether you’re a husband or a wife unless you walk close to God, God may turn you easily almost overnight they can’t marry me to the Oval who and I had to a vehicle for his neck for his work for the spirit that he was on death or fears back.
You know if I had been married to Job’s wife you know what I might have said to her? Why can’t you incur? Why are you only? By Job didn’t you notice what through this he said? You were talking like one of the foolish women. Known as he doesn’t say you are. You’re talking like love. Don’t be something my dear wife. Don’t porch or not and then go. And he statement my friend that it’s so critical so important bullfighter and it would be very difficult to overestimate it before and he’s better to lose. Why shall we? Wow. Job takes up hot and we are happy. We use a good thing. We kept oh but not your father to be able to accept all his appointment by the freedom.
Always always. Even I have to go well you want to for him this morning tonight a wonderful illustration of that we have a couple in our church who have been with the church for a long time and their dedication to God is well known to all of us and we have watched that served loyally over many years. But during the past twelve months or so they have baked and Burt realtor’s ISM and they have impressively demonstrated to us they’re continuing loyalty and commitment. I’m talking of course about RC and Carlos. Haven’t they been a child to up over this past year?
You know what I think? I think that the best sermon that has been preached at Victor Bible Chapel in 1996 was not preached by me. It was preached by Marcia and Carlos as they have gone through this year dedicated to Jesus Christ accepting we were unimportant but our be prepared as the missus desaad with death and birth repeat and remains moral and fruit.
I’ve broken 1997 trees back some of us faces back row. But wouldn’t you rather see sickness or in health good for his daughter and maybe a day it would be good for each of us to sing in our heart a work that were familiar with and which the songwriter has sent the web. I don’t know about tomorrow. I just live from day to day. I don’t borrow from its sunshine where skies may turn to gray. I don’t worry all the future or I know what Jesus said. And today he is beside me and he knows what is ahead. Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand. But I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand.
Now Father thank You for Your wisdom, grace and sovereignty. Let You know just what we need in the years ahead and that You are able to lead us through good times and bad with loyalty and dedication. Give us the grace that we will need in 1997. We pray in Christ’s name.