Job 1:1-12 | Men's Bible Study by Rick Burgess

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome into the Wednesday Bible Study. My name is Rick Burgess,
and we are so grateful that you are either here
in the room, are watching us either live or on
the archive, or listening to us on the archive. Your
timing is great if you're brand new, because we're starting
a new series today and it will be in the
Book of Job. So if you want to go ahead
and turn there, we'll be in the first chapter. We're

(00:22):
not going to go far today because there's so much
to unpack in the first twelve verses, so we'll be
one through twelve today. This will be a very interesting
study completely because there's so much to cover. But I
mean some of the most talked about parts of Job

(00:42):
happen immediately, and we'll unpack that today and see if
we can't give you a little more maybe clarity on
what's going on here, what's not going on here. So
if you are not familiar with this Bible study, it
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(01:06):
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(01:51):
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(02:14):
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(02:36):
are coming from all over the country to those two
conferences as well. So let's open up in a word
of prayer and let's jump right in to our study
in our brand new series on the Book of Job. Lord,
thank you for today. Lord. This is this is some
of the most talked about parts of your scripture. Whenever

(02:57):
people are talking sooner or later, if you bring up
the Book of Job, that always have very very deep questions. Today, Lord,
may you give us the power of the Holy Spirit
to discern this correctly and also take away everything that
you're teaching, but also not embrace something you're not teaching.
So help us Lord, as we walk through this powerful

(03:19):
book in your name, we pray Amen. So who is Job?
That's a good question there No one really knows. There's
who wrote the Book of Job. Nobody knows that either
that it's unlikely that Job himself wrote that. And the
reason why you can almost completely rule him out as

(03:40):
the author of the book is that there's things in
the book that we're going to study today right out
of the gate that we see no indication in God's
interaction with Job that he ever told him about it,
So someone else would have had to have it revealed.
The main part of what we're going to talk about today,
and it's one thing you may not know about the
Book of Job. God never explains to Job what's going

(04:04):
on this conversation he has with the angels and with
Satan himself. Job has never made aware of that, And
so we'll talk. There's so much to do going forward.
But so some people think probably the best candidate is
Moses most likely, but because he does know things that

(04:25):
Job would not have known. Also because Moses lived near
us there and Midian, he was there for forty years
and that was very close to where Job is from,
so that's possible. And the one that probably is the
most likely Solomon. A pretty good case you can make
for Solomon writing it because there's a lot that sounds

(04:45):
like Ecclesiastes in here, but that again no one knows
the other. And he also you know Solomon's role in
the other wisdom books, Elihu, who's actually in here, that
maybe he wrote it to Isaiah, Hezekiyah, Jeremiah, even Ezra.
But that last list you cannot find a whole lot

(05:06):
that would support them. But people just theorized about that.
So so we don't really know. We do know that
the time period seems to be we can kind of
lock ourselves on that. Many think this is the oldest
book of the Bible because Job does seem to know
about Adam, so we know that. Uh. He also seems

(05:28):
to know about the flood. So chronologically we think after
the Tower of Bible, but before Abraham. So somewhere in
there is where this would fall. Where where is us
because we're gonna be told that right out of the gate,
that's northern Saudi Arabia, southern Jordan. In there somewhere it's
south of the Dead Sea. Uh. And you know, one

(05:50):
of the things that you need to kind of keep
in mind here, this is not a Hebrew that we're
talking about here. So so Job is a unique man,
and you're gonna see some great things about this. You're
going to hear that that Job, compared to other people
are as best as you can be with a sin nature.
That he's going to be portrayed us as being an

(06:11):
innocent man. But you're going to find out pretty quick
that that. Lucifer says, well, yeah, there's a reason why
he's so good, and and then we're off and running.
So let's go to chapter one, verse one, and we
find out what kind of man we're dealing with here.
In this man Job, it says there was a man

(06:32):
in the land of us we've talked about where that
is whose name was Job, and that man was blameless
and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
So let's let's talk about Job's piety here. We know
where he lived, we talked about that, we were being
told the type of man that he is from a

(06:52):
standpoint of character. So it says he's blameless and he's upright.
There's been much made about this. What does this actually mean.
It does not mean sinless, Okay, so don't think that
it does not mean that there's no way he's sinless,
because he is falling. But what it really speaks to

(07:13):
is the things that were obvious. They're saying, if you
looked at Job's life, which you did not see. You
did not see perpetual sin. You saw honesty, you saw
marital fidelity. You saw how he treated the people who
worked for him and with him. He was his generosity

(07:35):
to the poor. That didn't seem to be any forms
of idolatry or anything that in his life. So I
guess what we would One of our first takeaways is
if someone looks at us based on that being the
definition of blameless and upright, and that's more of a
correct It does not mean sinless. It means there was
no obvious sign of sin in his life. Would we

(07:59):
be considered to be men who are blameless and upright?
Would would people say, well, I'll tell you, I'll speak
to their character. I can I can speak to that.
I mean, there may be things in their life we
do know that that are imperfect, But as far as
what I can observe, this person seems to to fear
God and seems to to shy away from things that

(08:19):
are evil. Would they say that about any of us?
Would they say that about you if you're you're watching
or listening, whether you're a man or a woman. So
the other thing that we find out this this word upright, Uh,
what what so, so we covered blameless. Let's talk about upright.
Upright means that he acknowledged God and everything he did.
It was obvious that he every he was living this

(08:42):
way because it tells us he feared God. That that
was the reason that we found him to be the
kind of man that he was. Uh you know there.
You see, sometimes people will say, well, I'm a pretty
good person because I just I've developed a form of
right and wrong. But if they never acknowledge who is

(09:02):
the standard for right and wrong? Where does that come
from you? If you remove God from the equation, I
could make a case to you that we've just made
up right and wrong. Who says, well, you shouldn't take
something from somebody else that just because you can. Why
if there's no standard for right and wrong? If I
can take what's yours and you can't stop me from

(09:22):
doing it, why wouldn't I take it? You know, if
it really is who finishes with the most stuff, and
I'm looking at for me, why would I not take
from you and keep it myself. As a matter of fact,
we do know throughout history there have been there have
been groups of people. I mean, you look at the comanches,

(09:43):
the Comanches just made the decision that all this farming
and all this keeping up with livestock is a hassle.
So they just said, why don't we just be no
bads and when we need something, we just go take
it from people. And they were outstanding warriors, incredible riders
on horses, and if you saw them coming, you better
start fighting, because they never showed up and said let's trade,

(10:06):
let's try to work something out. If you saw them coming,
they were coming to kill everybody and take everything you had.
And that's just how they survived. And they didn't seem
to have any indication from any higher power that there
was anything wrong with that. They took everybody's stuff because
they could, and if you couldn't stop them, they take it.

(10:27):
So you can see that. Everybody looked at Job's life
and they said, he's not just a man of character,
because that's something he came up with. He's upright because
this standard. He's behaving this way because he fears God
and he's shunning what he knows to be evil. Okay,
so he respects God, he shuns evil, he obeys his laws.

(10:51):
Now think about this, Long before Jesus ever shows up,
we see a man that is basically saying, if I
truely loved this God, I should obey it. And that's
why I live the way I do because I love God.
He's blameless and he's upright now, we do also know
that he's not sinless. I hate to give away the end,

(11:13):
because at the end, Job tells us he's not sinless
through the suffering is matter. It's one of the things
that he realizes through the suffering because he's become so
intimate with God that he sees him in such a
way it reveals his own imperfections. So we know he's
not sinless. So what we really have here compared to
the culture around him, he lived a life compared to

(11:35):
other people that look blameless and it looked upright. That's
what we're talking about. So now in verse two we
find out a little something about his family. Okay, in
verse two there were born to him seven sons and
three daughters. So we know seven sons, three daughters. This
is important to note. Again, I don't want to give

(11:55):
away all the ends of the end, but make a
note that he has children. This is important. I'm not
talking about We're not going to get into what numbers
mean and all that, but it's going to be important
later in this incredible man's life. So it's important that
you'll note that, and you'll see that number play a
row later. It was kind of considered to be in

(12:17):
those times kind of an ideal number if you were
someone who had seven sons three daughters, that was a good,
good mix of ten children. You always want to have
more sons than you had daughters. And and so he's
in good shape there. Now in three we're going to
see that he is, that he's very prosperous to he's
very wealthy. He possessed seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels,

(12:41):
five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and
very many servants, so that this man was the greatest
of all the people of the east. Wow. So there's
a lot going on here. Uh, you do see that
an indication of how many she you have. You could
look at first Samuel twenty five and see that that

(13:05):
having a thousand sheep was a lot. He's got seven thousand.
He is incredibly wealthy, he has many servants. All of
these numbers we see of the livestock and the servants,
it's just telling us that he's extremely wealthy. Now, are
there are people we find throughout scripture that turn out
by this standard to be even more wealthy than Job.

(13:26):
The answer is yes, but he's that we're just establishing
here whoever wrote this, we're dealing with a wealthy man,
especially where he was, and the summary was he was
the greatest man among all the people of the east.
The bottom line is what we're looking at here, and
this is why they say he was the greatest man
in the region where he was is when you look

(13:48):
at Job, you could sum him up by saying he
is godly, he is wealthy, and he is fulfilled. He
wants for nothing. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so uh,
this also means that he's an ideal candidate for what's
going to happen next, because if you if you truly

(14:11):
want to test somebody, you want to test somebody that
doesn't appear to need anything. And now you don't see,
we don't really see anywhere in here any indication that
the fact that he was wealthy and fulfilled, that this
was an issue for him. He seemed to be handling
it all right. Now you're going to see there's going

(14:32):
to be a case made by our enemy that says, well,
there's a reason he's he does everything right because he
hasn't been through any difficulty. Life's easy for him. So
so we'll see that coming up. So, uh, look at
this custom that was that was. This is going to
be a little parenting from Job right now. In four

(14:54):
and five. Okay, his sons used to go and hold
a feast in the ho of each one on his day,
and they would send and invite their three sisters to
eat and drink with them. And when the days of
the feast had run their course, Job would send and
consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning

(15:16):
and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them.
For Job said, it may be that my children have
sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did continually,
don't miscontinually. So we find out in verse four that

(15:39):
there were these special days that led to special parties. Okay.
We also find out that it looks like in verse
five that every seventh feast, Job would summon his children
and he would purify or sanctify them in some way,
some sort of some sort of prayer or sarah of absolution,

(16:02):
and what was he doing this for? What did he
remind them? He was trying to remind them all the time. Look,
we got a lot of money. You guys can kind
of do whatever you want. And you're having these feasts
and you're having these parties, and Job would bring them
in and he would continue to remind them. I don't
know if you do this as a parent, or you've

(16:22):
done this as a parent, or your parents did this
for you. He's basically bringing them in and warning them.
Be careful, be careful. All this needs to be done
in moderation. Don't let this get out of hand. Don't
let it lead to the point of sin. Don't let
it lead to the point that you're cursing God by
the way that you were living. So Job not only

(16:44):
was concerned about his own spiritual well being, he was
concerned continually about the spiritual well being of his children,
and he was intentional about it. I will warn all
parents's out there everywhere. If your plan for your children's

(17:05):
spiritual health is I hope they work it out, that's
a really bad plan. Okay, you want to be intentional.
They need to know what we believe, but they also
need to know why we believe it, and it is
impossible for our children. I know some of you theologically
may disagree with this, but it is impossible for our

(17:27):
children to become right with God because we're right with God.
It didn't work that way. I know. There's some bad
theology that somehow you can be born into the faith.
That just isn't true. Because every person, when they reach
the age of accountability, when they understand right from wrong,
the decision is before them that they need to repent

(17:50):
of their sin. They need to turn from their sin.
They need to turn to God. They need to realize
their unrighteous they need to realize His standard is perfection,
and they need to leave faith in themselves and they
need to put faith in God. And since we're on
the other side of the New Covenant, that faith will
be put in Christ to be made fully righteous, so
that we would be purified and sanctified by Jesus. Now

(18:11):
this is before Jesus. So Job is using ceremonies that
would accomplish consecration and absolution with his children what was
available to him before there ever was a New Covenant. Okay,
so he was doing that. All of this, of course,
you see, is all the foreshadowing of Jesus, because you
need to be consecrated, you need to be sanctified. And

(18:34):
you know this was having to be done over and
over and over, and of course now in Christ it
doesn't it's all been fulfilled. But remember that he clearly
is a patriarch here and he's nudging his children. He's
trying to be wise with it. He's nudging his children
to what holy living holy living. And I know sometimes

(18:58):
as parents we think they're there's just a certain amount
of rowdiness that our kids have got to work through.
That's a very dangerous idea. You know, sometimes I get
around parents and they almost just think it's a given
that their kids will go off to college or go
off into the world when they're young, and they're going
to be sexually impure. They're gonna get drunk and raise

(19:19):
a little hell, and then hopefully at some point when
they get ready to stop having fun and we have
to get our act together before we die, they'll find
faith in Christ. It's a very dangerous idea. It's extremely dangerous. Now,
sometimes your kids, you'll do it exactly the way that
God called you to do it, but you can't make
them make good choices. But what you want to be

(19:41):
able to do is stand before God and say I
nudge them toward holy living. I kept reminding them of
right and wrong. I kept pointing them to you when
they made the decision to turn their back on you,
or they're making their decisions to turn their back on
you right now, they made that decision completely rejecting what
I taught them. So sometimes that does happen. You know,

(20:04):
children who don't act right are not always an indication
of bad parenting. Sometimes they just they're just they're just
stupid people that make bad decisions and won't listen to
what they're taught. You know. So, but I will say here,
we're looking at a man who says, if my kids
turn on God, it won't be because I did or
I set a bad example. I'm not telling them to

(20:26):
do anything that I don't do. I will tell you this,
if you're not involved in the local church, you don't
immerse yourself in the local church. You don't you don't
make it a priority in your life. Good luck, good
luck trying to convince your kids they should. You know,
and now, I remember that vividly. I remember, even when

(20:46):
my kids were tiny and they were all small and
and it was right after I came to faith in Christ.
And I remember that one of the first convicting things
that ever happened to me as a as a as
a dad, and as a husband was that I was
letting my wife spiritually lead the house. And that certainly
has value. But the problem was because of that maternal connection,

(21:11):
men and women equal but beautifully distinct. They and I'll
break I'll break this to you our children or our grandchildren,
whatever the case may be. They expect the women to
try to get them to church. They expect that it's
a maternal thing because we want, we want this to
be for your on good. What they really want to know,
is this guy care about it? What about this man

(21:34):
right here? Does he care about it? Is it a
priority to him? Or is he teaching us to appease
the women. But as soon as we don't have to
appease them anymore and they don't have authority over us,
we're going to be like daddy or granddaddy and go
do our own thing. Because they look a lot more
interested in the stuff outside of the church than Mama
and Grandmama seem to be interested in things inside the church.

(21:56):
Daddy and Granddaddy aren't interested in that. And we can tell,
and remember being convicted of that, that the Holy Spirit
telling me that your children think you do this to
appease their mama. You better make this a priority, and
I mean soon. So I was the first one that
would start showing up in the room. Now, look, I
didn't want to take them responsibility getting them dressed because

(22:18):
Mama won't look good at church. But what I didn't
do is stay in the bed and be the last
person out and then come out like I'm doing this
begrudgingly and say let's all get in the car. And
they've seen mama all morning long on the Lord's Day,
they ain't seen Daddy yet. And then all of a sudden,
I show up at the last minute and we all
get in the car and go. So I got up,

(22:39):
and I went to every single room, and I made
sure they saw me first. On the Lord's Day. Get up,
we're going to worship the Lord today. This is priority
to me, and it needs to be priority to you.
It's a game changer. And so what Job did is
we don't even hear anything about the wife yet Job
did all this. He didn't send his wife to do it.

(23:02):
He did it, and he made sure that they saw him,
and he had the authority to offer these sacrifices. And
he knew nothing of the vitical law that didn't even
exists yet. Okay, he didn't know anything about the law
of Moses. That hasn't happened yet, but he still knew

(23:22):
had some understanding of God that he knew this is
what he needed to do, and he knew God gave
him the authority to do it. So there's just something
different about the man of the house, the spiritual leader,
nudging the children toward the faith. Does Mama play a
big role in that. Of course she does, but she'll
never play our role, and frankly, will never play hers.

(23:44):
I can't give the children that maternal thing that only
she can. So we're distinct. We're equal, but we're distinct.
And what we try to do is let them be
the maternal connection to the kids spiritually and also the
spiritual leader. And that's where we make a mistake because
it just doesn't work. So here's what we know. We

(24:05):
know that that he has done all these things. We
know that he's warning his children about sin, He's warning
his children about holy living. All of this is being done,
and it said that Job did this continually. Can I
just give you a a just a little pointer from
your brother. Okay, this is how I go about this

(24:27):
every day. Some of you have heard this before, but
it's worth hearing again. So when I when I start
my day praying, I start out with thanksgiving to God.
And then when I get down to I'm gonna I'm
gonna run the day. I will take every person in
my family and I will take them figuratively, and I

(24:50):
will start out and I will say, Lord, here is
my wife, and I figuratively lay her at the feet
of the One and only Living God, and that I
will pray for the thing that I am praying for
for my wife. And then I reach and I grab
my daughter, and I take the oldest child of mine,
and I will put her at the figuratively at the

(25:11):
feet of the One and only Living God, and I
will pray the prayers for her. And then I will
take my oldest son and I will place him figuratively
at the feet of the One and only Living God,
and I will pray for the things that are going
on in his life. And now that he's married, his wife,
and I will pray those things. Then I'll go to
the next son, and I will lay him figuratively at

(25:32):
the feet of the one and only Living God, and
I will pray for him and the things that he needs.
And then I'll take the next son, and I will
lay him figuratively at the feet of the one and
only Living God. He too is married now, and I
will pray for he and his wife, and I'll pray
about the things of his wife. None of them have
children yet, but when they do, I'll take my grandchildren
and do the same thing. And then I will be

(25:53):
reminded of the son that is already with his perfect father,
and I will pray and remind I don't know what
Bronner can see. I don't know what Bronner is allowed
to do. Let him know that we love him, let
him know that we'll be there soon. Thank you for
taking care of him, and thank for everything that you've done.
And then I get into my mama, and then I
get into whoever else is on the list. So that's

(26:16):
how there's a lot of things that change in my
prayer life that doesn't That's something I do continually because
and that's what job did. He did it continually, and
so I would just push that to you is and
I have seen God move specifically in each life like
that specifically what was prayed. It's incredible to watch. But

(26:39):
you also got to get to the point where I
think it'll bring you peace. It's just trust God. Sometimes
I think we get frantic about our children and frantic
about our families. It's all right to care, but don't
be anxious about it when I walk away. He's got
different timelines. Things don't always have and the way I

(27:00):
want them to happen in the timeline I want. But
I will tell you this, I trust him. I trust
God with my wife. I trust God with my children.
I trust God with my friends. I trust him with
my mama who's still with us. I trust him and
UH and so and that I hope will bring you peace.
So now here we go. We jump in six through TENU,

(27:23):
and boy, this is going to be This is probably
some of the most talked about scripture in all the Bible.
And I think it's talked about a lot because if
we were honest, we don't like it. We don't we
don't want to do. We just want to think somehow
I've got this wrong. Somehow, this was written incorrectly. This
can't be true. But I would I would challenge you

(27:46):
today not to be bothered by it, but to actually
find a way for this to bring you peace, because
the peace you need is that God is completely in control.
He is, He is completely in troll of this, in
control of this. So here we go. There was a
day verse six, when the sons of God, that's angels,

(28:07):
came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan. Lucifer
also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan,
from where have you come? And Satan gave an answer.
Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and
fro on the earth, and from walking up and down

(28:29):
on it. That's what I've been doing, all right. So
first of all we see that the sons of God,
these are the angels. We don't know their number, we
know it's a lot. These these messengers, these archangels, they
all at some point, when God declares, they all come
before him to give an account, to have a Q

(28:51):
and A with God. And it says that apparently, even
though he's now been cast from heaven already, Lucifer, he
still has act says to come before God. Now we
know in the revelation there comes a time when God
stops this access, but until then he does. Now he's
called Satan here, which means accuser. Remember God didn't create

(29:15):
the devil. God did not create Satan. He created Lucifer,
his most powerful angel, and then Lucifer tried the big overthrow,
and because of the trying of the overthrow, he now
became Satan and the devil, and the Satan part of
the name of Lucifer now means the accuser, and he

(29:37):
accuses everybody in this room and everybody out there, okay.
And then the devil means he's our adversary. Okay, he's
our enemy. But it's Lucifer's who this is, and that's
who God created. And we know a third of the
sons of God, the third of the angels, went with
Lucifer with the attempted overthrow, and now they're doomed with him. Okay,

(30:01):
So but remember two thirds stayed with God and we
got them out numbered. Okay. But but but again they're
not to be taken lightly, as we know. So what
exactly is going on here? So God also is doing
a conversation, has a conversation with Satan. It's almost like
he's making small talk. Does anybody think that God didn't

(30:22):
know where Satan's being or what he's been doing. It's
almost like he's just getting the conversation started. Now, what
do we hear Satan say? Exactly what Peter said about it.
He said, you you better be self controlled and alert
because you're enemy. The devil prowls around like a roaring
lion looking for someone to devour. Satan might as well

(30:46):
said that I've been prowling around to and fro looking
for people to devour. That's what I've been doing so
and you need to understand that because there's nothing that
pleases the adversary more. And his third of demons is
to watch human beings turn against God. He's always wanted

(31:11):
our worship and he'll do whatever he has to do
to get it. And you better look into your life,
and I better look into my life and be real
careful of letting anything creep in that leads to worship
of him. It does matter what you do. Would you
like the new numbers? We got new numbers on the
Super Bowl? Mystery? It doesn't matter what I listen to

(31:31):
or what I watch, I'm good. I don't have to
worry about Satan. I don't have to worry about his demons. Hey,
that stuff don't bother me. Did you see the new
numbers for a thirty second commercial on the Super Bowl?
Eight million dollars? You really think these companies pay eight
million dollars for thirty seconds of our time? Do you
think they believe we're not influenced by what we see

(31:53):
in here? They bet eight million dollars we are a pop.
Some of them run more than one. You better watch
what you listen to and what you watch, because Satan's
told you over and over again in the Bible, just
like he's told me, I'm going to and fro. I'm
walking around, I'm prowling, and I'm looking for somebody to devour.

(32:15):
You better be self controlled and alert that you don't say,
come on in here, you're welcome, Be real careful. So
he asked him where he's coming from, and he starts
that conversation and he's, you know what he says, nowhere
in particular, just kind of doing a thing, just kind
of checking what's going on. He doesn't really give God

(32:37):
a lot of details, does he? Just in general I've
just kind of been hanging out. Okay, So let's get
to let's get to verse eight. And the Lord said
to Satan, all right, let's get your pen. Let's underline that,
because for us to understand suffering, we got we got
to get that right. Okay, So does Satan bring job up?

(33:01):
Never does? Who brings Satan's attention to job? The Lord?
You okay with that? Are you okay with the fact
that your name could be in the place of job? Hey, hey, Lucifer,

(33:22):
check out birds down there? Will you think about him?
But I don't think much about him? Why don't we
think about him today? What do you think about him?
I don't know. I mean I see some good, some bad,
some ugly. Do you think he's doing pretty good right now? Well?
I guess so. I mean you're blessing him? No one,
he's doing good. Won't you go down there in rock

(33:42):
his world? See if he'll turn on me? Well, I mean,
we know, first Peter tells us, don't we? First? Peter
says in this you rejoice for a little while if necessary.
You've been grieved by various trials. Why to test the
genuineness of your faith? Who brought the trial on us
God did. Have you ever been in the middle of

(34:06):
a trial and been able to look up and say,
I guess God deems this necessary because do you realize
right now you're going to see Satan can't do anything
to Joe that God doesn't allow. God can't do anything.
I mean, Satan can't do anything to you that God
does not allow or to me. The big question is

(34:28):
why is He allowing it? What is he trying to
teach me? Is it just a test of my faith
to see if I'm really who I claim to be?
Is an opportunity? As C. S. Lewis said, pain and
suffering is God's megaphone for a sleeping world. I have
found that when we struggle that people start listening to us.
I found they really pay attention to what's going in

(34:50):
our life when we struggle. I'm thankful to God for
the blessings. I'm so thankful. I would prefer blessing over refinement.
I would prefer bl blessing over difficulty every single time. However,
I have to admit that I can't recall one person
that I've ever led to Christ and in redemption that

(35:11):
came to Christ because of my blessings. My boy, I've
seen a lot of them come to Christ because of
my suffering. The numbers not even it's not even close.
I've never had people say, well, your business share has
been successful in that show you worked on, and see
what you doing now. I see you take great vacations,
and I see you got nice house, and boy, it's

(35:33):
a nice little farm you got there. That makes me
want to ask you about Jesus. It never has never.
But let me tell you something. When I buried my
little boy, that's all they want to talk about. But
I had to go to war with my own family
and stand on God's standard. People want to talk about

(35:54):
a lot. Well, my daddy was going through Alzheimer's and
we were walking through all that. People want to talk
about that a lot. I wish it wasn't that way.
And there's struggles that that. That God has a lot
in my life that you don't even know about. But
they've all been beneficial and they sure have caused me
to lean on Him as opposed to myself. So here

(36:17):
we go. So God brings up job and I love
that the way God operates here. Have you considered my
servant job? There's none like him on the earth, a
blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away
from evil. There's that there, there's there, there it is,

(36:37):
there's a resume. Again. God agrees with what is being
written about Job. He agrees with it completely. Anybody see
Job doing anything wrong? Now? Sometimes do we do? We
get punished by God because because of our own stupidity
and our embracing of sin, that that choice caused us problems. Absolutely,

(36:58):
But in this particular case, you can't say that God
is making sure that in his Holy Word. And I
don't know why we just won't just just push in
and say I accept this. There's always that little bit
of just not We're a little nauseous about it. We're not.
We don't really feel good about it. With God said,

(37:20):
have you noticed Job? And then God says he agrees
that Job is blameless, he's upright, he fears me, and
he shuns evil. I agree with that, but I'm still
gonna seeck you on it. Wow, And by the time
we get to the end, we'll see that God knows

(37:42):
what he's doing. Do you trust that? Then Satan answers
the Lord and says, well, does Job fear God for
no reason. Now you think, right here, there's gonna be
a good lesson from Lucifer, But there's not. He's gonna
be He's gonna be deceptive about this very comment. See

(38:03):
what you would think is that what he's trying to
say is he has so much fear of you, that's
why he acts the way he acts. That's not what
Satan's gonna say. That actually makes sense. Remember the Bible
tells us that if we fear God, it shows we
have wisdom. But Satan's not gonna go down that road.
He's not saying he fears your authority. He's saying you're

(38:24):
spoiling him. So that's different. See, you gotta watch Lucifer. Okay,
he's he can chuck and jive. What we go back
to the Garden of Eden and what's his play? He
never said that God didn't say anything. He just want
to know if they knew what he really said? Did
he really say that? See, that's what he's gonna do

(38:44):
to you, and he's gonna do to me. You know
the scripture is pretty good, don't you. And then he
quotes a scripture just seeing if you'll pick up that
he changed it just a little bit. We see that
happening all the time too. Have you ever seen that
where people will say something and they're just certain us
in the Bible and you're like, that's not in the Bible. Right.
There's so many of those, right. God never gives you

(39:06):
more youngon handle. I don't know about y'all, but he
has for me several times. Okay, Now, that's a scripture
that says we can't make an excuse about temptation. That's
what that verse is about. It's about that we can't
make an excuse that the sin was so overwhelming and
the Holy Spirit was so inadequate that we couldn't help

(39:27):
but sin. That's a verse about don't make excuses about sinning.
God never has allowed us to be tempted beyond the
ability to resist it. It does not say that bad
things aren't going to happen to you that will overwhelm you,
be more than you can handle. You know what Satan's
doing right there is trying to teach us self reliance.
That's what he's doing, which is sinful. He wants us

(39:50):
misinterpreting that verse because he wants us to think that
we really don't need God. Well, He'll never put more
in youngon handle. Oh okay, so I'm good, and we
all know that's just a lie from help. But listen
what he says, does job fear God for no reason?
Verse ten? Have you not put a hedge around him

(40:11):
and his house and all he has on every side?
You have blessed the work of his hands, and his
possessions have increased in the land. But I'll tell you what.
You stretch out your hand and touch all that he has,
and he'll curse you to your face. He loves you
because you spoil it. Let him have some difficulty, and

(40:31):
let's see what happens. Well, he details in Satan's view
why he loves him. I mean, come on, he loves
and he serves you because you protect him. You protect
everything that he's had. He is living a life of
no risk. Of course he loves you. And then eleven

(40:53):
and twelve was he say, I'll give you a challenge.
Satan throws down the gauntlet and he says, strike everything
he has, which is what that means when he just
stretch out his hand, strike everything he has, and he'll
curse you. See, you got to remember what Satan calls
for the first time, is he wants the all out

(41:14):
assault right out of the gate. I love the fact
that though more's coming, God will not allow Satan to
go all in all at once. Don't miss that. There's
grace in that even though God's about to allow Satan

(41:37):
to touch him in a certain way, God will walk
Satan through it, and he'll do it in sequences. That's
actually gracious to job, because, let's face it, if you
can't find comfort, see what we do. Because we're human beings,
we still have a sin nature. Instead of us looking

(41:59):
at this historic event, but we do, we want to
just dissect where God is and all this hung is God? Really? Look,
I have people that I love a lot, and I
have people that I'm going to spend eternity with. They
don't agree with me on this, and they don't agree
with me on this because they just don't like it.
You don't have to agree with me. Do you agree

(42:20):
with the Bible? I didn't come up with this. I
don't find this to be all that hard to understand.
I might find it hard to digest, but I don't
find it hard to understand. I see exactly what's happening.
It's just whether I'm going to have faith in God
and trust him and say you are who you are.
You know, I always get commentaries out and look through

(42:40):
this from various people. I love one that I've got
this time, and it's as soon as I saw it,
I said, I got to have that one. And you
know what it says, Let God be God. Let God
be God. If there's nothing else we find here, we
got to find this. So here's what happened. God now

(43:00):
responds in verse twelve, and the Lord said to Satan,
behold all that he has is in your hand only
against him. Do not stretch out your hand. So Satan
went out from the presence of the Lord. Can't you
just see that evil? I mean, he's like, that's all
I needed to hear. Ill saw this quickly. So remember

(43:25):
God is not going to allow Satan to do three
things now. Eventually throughout, when we get through it all,
it all will happen. But there's three things that Satan
wanted to do. He wanted to go after him, he
wanted to go after his household, and he wanted to
go after everything that he has. God only grants the
last two. He says, I'm going to limit your power.

(43:51):
That power is going to be created by God, who
also not only did God create Lucifer, not only did
Lucifer rebel against God, not only did God bring the
attention to Lucifer about job, not only did he let
him have the back and forth and the challenge. But

(44:13):
what God is saying is I, and I alone can
allow you to do whatever you want to do. And
on step one, I'm going to tell you what you
can and you can't do. Now, you can go two
ways with this. You can let that bother you or
you can let that comfort you. I'm gonna go with

(44:33):
the latter, okay, because I know that whatever. Now, Now,
keep in mind there's a lot of things that go
on in our lives. James corrects us a little bit
to be careful that all the things that are going
on in our life that are negative. Be sure you're
careful not to blame all that on the devil. First

(44:54):
of all, you got to understand that Satan Lucifer is
not omniscient. He's not omnipotent, and he's not omnipresent, so
he cannot be after all of us. At the same time,
he didn't have the ability to do that. Only God
has that ability. So we know he's limited, but he

(45:14):
has a third of the angels with him that are demonic,
and that that gives him a little more coverage. Okay,
so so you got to get that right. I know,
I love I love the statement, and I forgot who
it was that wrote this, and I was reading it
and they were talking about how Martin Luther said he
sensed that Satan was near him, he could fill him,

(45:35):
near him, trying to manipulate him, trying to attack him,
and the writer who was writing the commentary commentary said,
you know what, I don't think Martin Luther is exaggerating.
He probably did rank Satan. I don't think I do.
I don't think Satan would go I could go after
Martin Luther. I could go after you. He's probably gonna
spend time with Luther, you know, or some of the

(45:55):
as opposed to me. So what does James warn us?
A lot of times, the challenge that are before us
is because of our sin nature. We're just misbehaving because
of our sin nature. We're not being manipulated by the devil,
we're not being manipulated by demons. We just sinful people.
It's just our own sin nature. So I don't know
about you. One of the things that I try to pray,

(46:16):
and I need to do it every day, I do
it most days, is I ask God to help me
against my biggest enemy. And I don't mention the devil me.
I'm a much bigger problem in my life than the devil.
Is okay, But when you start talking about suffering, you
do need to take away that it is allowed by God,

(46:36):
because the reason why we know it's allowed is because
He could stop it. As my wife, we were talking
about her book a minute ago, and this is just
one of those big calamities in life. And I know
y'all have heard about it, but I think here, when
it fits, I certainly don't want to waste it. I'm
gonna use it. When she's praying at the hospital, she

(46:58):
is praying for our son to live, she's praying for
him to be revived. And she says that she began
to pray that and that was her whole focus of
the prayer. Lord, bring him back to life, let him
be revived. And she said Romans chapter eight at one point,
uncontrollably the Holy Spirit, which Romans eight tells us, if

(47:22):
you're redeemed, you have the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit
at times will correct our prayer when we're praying the
wrong thing, and it'll correct it what we should be praying.
And she said, supernaturally she heard herself praying, not my
will be done, Lord, your will be done. She said,
I couldn't pray that. The Holy Spirit prayed that for me.

(47:43):
And at that point she said, I submitted to the
truth that the Lord could raise this child back to
complete health. He could be revived all this work they're
doing on him. Sometimes people come back and they live,
sometimes they don't. But I am now totally submitting to
the authority of God. You do what you think is best.

(48:08):
And she stopped praying for him to be revived. She
just said, whatever if revivals what you want. If you
want to revive and revive him. If you don't, I understand,
whatever you do will be right. Do you believe that
he didn't get anything wrong? It's how we respond to it.
But he didn't get it wrong. And so in his sovereignty,

(48:32):
William Browner Burgess would live two and a half years
on the earth. And that's not incomplete, that's not short.
That's his perfect that's his perfect time period for that
particular person. And so then we watched him start working
in that. Could he have worked in the other, Hey,
let's go tell our miracle story. I guess he could,

(48:54):
but he deemed that this was more effective. And I
can't really argue with that. And I may not like
what he decided to do, but I can't argue with
the results. They've been unbelievable in my life and my
wife's life and so many others. So that's what you
got to get, because look right here what we see.

(49:16):
And this is the thing that I've literally gotten into
arguments with brothers about because they just don't like it. No,
the devil did this to job, not God. Well, the
devil was the tool, but I don't know how to
break this to you. God did this, all right? Hang on,

(49:38):
So does an eybonny remember the story of David in Bathsheba?
I remember that story, pretty popular story, pretty well known.
Do you remember what happened to the baby? Do you
remember what happened to the baby they produced? Do you
know who killed that baby? God did? And if you go,

(50:00):
when you read that, it literally says that God afflicted
the baby, not the devil. God afflicted the baby. So
we know that David had repented. We know that what
he did was horrible, and he realized he'd sinned against God.

(50:22):
But in God's sovereignty. Now they went on to have children,
you know, we know that, but God's sovereignty said the
child that was produced in this act, I will kill,
and he did. Now that child is with God because
we heard David say, the child's not coming back to me,

(50:42):
but I will go to him. So the child is
living in eternity with the Lord. But for what he
wanted done on earth, he deemed that that child's earthly
life would never get beyond that moment. And it does
not say that anybody else afflicted that baby but God.

(51:03):
That's in scripture. So what we see here is that
though Satan, I use this analogy a lot when I
teach this, and it seems to resonate. If all of
a sudden, right now, I had a chain that had
so many links on it, and I had a crazed
killer dog up here. I'm talking about. This dog would
seek anybody in here that I put him on, and

(51:26):
I can think of some of y'all that I might
do it. I'm just kidding. So you're like, hey, that
dog's trouble. But if I've got the dog under control,
I'm actually your problem. The dog isn't your problem, because
that dog's not gonna do anything. Let's let some chain
out and let's say Todd sitting over here. Sorry, Todd's
sitting over here, and I've got the dog and it

(51:49):
needs five links to bite Todd and attack him, and
I've got him at three links. Well, he can't get Todd.
But what if I just side two more links. That
dog is on a chain. But I gave it enough
chain to get Todd. Who was in control of the
dog or me? I was in control the whole time.

(52:11):
So we see the one and only living God telling
Satan himself, here's what you can do, Here's what you
can't do. So is it also true that God could
have said to Satan and Satan could have done nothing.
You can't do any of it. Yes, and it gets

(52:32):
ugly quick, and we'll talk about that when we get
back next week. So remember that God created Lucifer, who
rebelled against God, who became Satan and became the devil.
But God also sets the boundaries for what Satan can
and cannot do. Is it true that Satan wants to kill, steal,

(52:57):
and destroy. Yes, is it true he will do that? Yes?
Is it also true he has to be allowed to
That is also true. Now you can be bothered by that,
or you could be comforted by that. I choose to

(53:18):
be comforted by that, meaning there's nothing that can happen
to me that God doesn't allow and if he allows it,
that it is for the benefit of his kingdom, the
benefit for me, and the benefit for others. And You've
heard me say this a lot, and I'll say it

(53:40):
again when people ask me about suffering, I'll always come
back and say, don't waste it. Don't waste it. Start
learning to ask the question, what are you teaching me?
What are you teaching me? What are you teaching me?
I've got things going on right now that I have
said to the Lord, would you please remove this? Would

(54:01):
you please stop this? But then what do I say,
then you will be done? Stop it or don't stop it.
I'm asking you to stop it. That's what I would prefer.
I would like for this to stop. And you know,
I realized that if it's continuing, then God says you're
making the wrong call. This actually needs to go on

(54:22):
a little longer. So you know what I say, Yes, sir,
I'm here to do whatever you want me to do.
I mean, I have know people that have gone through
incredible difficulty and they have survived it and they praise
God for it, and there's no doubt that God delivered
them from it. I've seen them go back in the

(54:44):
situation something similar in the future and it didn't work out.
So it's all about what God is trying to accomplish.
And I want you to understand that the greatest thing
we got to take away from all this is this
isn't all there is. I hope that we want our

(55:06):
lives to have eternal impact, and sometimes for our life
to have eternal impact, the most impact is going to
come through suffering individually but also to everybody else. Right,
And you got you know, just just like Jesus says,

(55:27):
I mean, Jesus is here when all this is happening.
What does Jesus say to when everybody was like, we're in,
we're going to follow you. Jesus said, you have no
idea what you're signing up for. What am I signing
up for? Difficulty? But you know we're working on a
new curriculum for next for the Fall, and it's about

(55:49):
the standard being raised in the Book of Acts. See
the beautiful thing about the fact that we're on the
other side of the resurrection, we're on the other side
of the cross, is that we have access to the
fullness of God, to the power of the Holy Spirit.
And if you ever just want to be inspired, and
the curriculum focuses on this, go look at these men

(56:10):
and women when it even comes to suffering. After they've
received the Holy Spirit, after they've seen that resurrection, after
they have been taught for forty days by Jesus, after
he ascends and he pours out that Holy Spirit on them,
their view of suffering changes completely completely. I mean, think

(56:30):
about it. I'm giving away the curriculum. Adler not working
the yesterday. Just go to when Peter and James are
arrested by Herod. Now, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Okay,
they get arrested by Herod and this is interesting. There's Peter,
there's James. What happens to James dead? Herod kills him

(56:52):
with the sword. I don't know if it's one of
his soldiers just said Herod killed him with the sword.
Maybe Herod did himself, and Herod looked around. He said, Wow,
I killed one of these apostles, and everybody's digging that.
They like that. Somebody go grab Peter. If they love
me killing James, the brother of John, They're gonna really
love me killing Peter, so they go grab Peter. Now

(57:14):
Peter knows that James was just killed like that, and
God allowed that to happen because he could have stopped it.
What happens to Peter at this time? Peter's put in jail,
and then Herod realizes, Oh, no, the passovers here. I
can't kill Peter yet. Let's put give me four squadron
the soldiers, y'all, shackle him, put him into prison. When

(57:35):
the passover's over, I'm gonna kill him too. So Peter
knows he's in jail, in shackles. He's in between two soldiers.
Because Herod knows enough that there's something up with these guys,
you'd think that would be enough for him to leave
me along. Okay, when the angel is sent by the Lord,
didn't send one for James. The only angel James got

(57:58):
was the one that was taking him to heaven. Okay.
An angel goes to Peter and we know in the
Book of Acts, the angel has to physically shake him.
Why to wake him up? He's asleep. He's asleep. You
think he hasn't signed on for your will be done?
Would you be sleeping? He's so asleep. The angel has

(58:21):
to shake him. Get up. He didn't have his shoes on.
He got comfortable. Put your sandals on? Where's your coat?
He's like, hey, I'm sleeping. He has to put his
coat on for the angel to walk him out of there.
You think he doesn't he's not bought in that. God's
in control. But listen, James got killed and Peter's next,

(58:44):
and he's sleeping because God's in control. And God decides
when Satan can put his hand on you when he can.
He's in control, and you rest in that. Let's pray Lord,
thank you, Thank you for today, Thank you for this

(59:07):
journey that we're on right now, studying this incredibly interesting
man job who I know is with you now, and
may he inspire us and we also are going to
find out a lot over the next several chapters. Ord,
will you guide us? And for those that are sitting
here today, may we leave a little more at peace
When it comes to difficulty and the difficulties of life.

(59:30):
In the attacks of the adversary and your holy name,
we pray Amen.