Job, chapter 10, verse 1, the Bible reads, my soul is weary of my life.
I will leave my complaint upon myself.
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
I will say unto God, do not condemn me.
Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.
This is Job continuing his speech from chapter 9.
And if you remember in chapter 9, for the majority of the chapter, he's addressing Bildad
the Shuhite, the one who had just spoken to him, he responds to Bildad, and he's talking
about God in the third person, and then a few times he talks to God in the second person
in that chapter.
But at this point, pretty much the whole chapter in chapter 10, he ends up directing toward
God.
And he's complaining to God, and he's calling out to God, questioning him on why he's done
the things that he's done.
Now verse 2 is interesting, he says, I will say unto God, do not condemn me.
Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.
His friends have been telling him, this is happening to you because God's angry with
you.
This is happening to you because you've sinned.
And Job is saying, well I wish I could just ask God what I've done wrong.
And that he could show me why he contends with me.
Now one thing that's interesting about the book of Job is that when you get to the end
of the book of Job, God never really explains to Job why any of this happened.
God never tells Job, you were actually righteous, you were actually the most perfect and upright
man in the whole earth, the only reason that I did this is because Satan challenged me
and I wanted to prove how righteous you were, and I wanted you to come out even better in
the end and make you better.
I mean flip over quickly, because I think it's important to note, flip over to Job 42,
just so you can see the end of the story.
And just to keep in mind, in chapters 38, 39, 40, and 41, God answers Job out of the
whirlwind, but it's not much of an answer in the sense that he doesn't really explain
anything to Job.
He just proclaims his own greatness to Job.
He just explains to Job that he can pretty much do whatever he wants and that he has
all power and all wisdom.
And then in chapter 42, look at verse 1, Job answered the Lord and said,
I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.
Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge?
Therefore have I uttered that I understood not, things too wonderful for me, which I
knew not.
Here I beseech thee, and I will speak, I will demand of thee and declare thou unto me.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore
I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.
And he says something similar also at the beginning of chapter 40, you don't have to
turn there, but at the beginning of chapter 40 verse 3, Job says, Behold, I am vile.
What shall I answer thee?
I will lay my hand upon my mouth.
And then if you look at what God says after that, God says in verse 7, it was so that
after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to life as the demonite
my wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends, for you have not spoken
of me the thing that is right as my servant Job hath.
And then of course he tells them that Job needs to pray for them, they need to make
a burnt offering because they've said so many wrong things.
And then after that the Bible says that when Job prayed for his three friends, the Lord
turned again the captivity of Job, and of course Job ends up with twice as much wealth,
he has 10 more children, and he lives 140 years after this whole event.
And he gets to see his sons and his son's sons unto four generations, and he dies being
old and full of days, and it's just a great ending.
God never explains to Job why.
God never tells Job that he didn't do anything wrong in the first place.
He just proclaims his own greatness and his own power, and he just expects Job to be humble
before him, and that's what Job does.
I mean Job just is humiliated before him and never really demands an answer.
At that point Job just says, do what you want in the end.
Now I honestly can say if I were to be able to stand before God right now and ask God
one question, any question, and he would answer me, I would ask God, how am I doing?
And I think that's probably a question that's on a lot of people's minds.
How are we doing?
Is God pleased with us?
Is he displeased with us?
Are we doing a good job?
Are we a great Christian or are we failing miserably and he's just up in heaven just
shaking his head at us, looking down and thinking, you know, you're not even close to what you
need to be.
But what's interesting is that all throughout the Bible we find that God is not quick to
tell us how we're doing.
I mean he doesn't even tell Job how he's doing.
And throughout the Bible we see that people are left to wonder how they're doing.
And I think that that's the way it is on purpose and for a purpose.
Because God gives us all his commandments in his word.
And he expects and he demands perfection.
And none of us can attain unto sinless perfection.
Obviously we're all going to make mistakes.
God will never excuse us for our mistakes and God is up in heaven with a demand of his
word that we do these commandments and that we trust him.
And throughout our lives we strive to do so and hopefully we're trying our best.
Sometimes we might be trying more than others.
But the bottom line is that you're never going to quite know where you stand with God until
you get there, until you get to heaven.
You're never going to quite know how well you're doing or how poorly you're doing.
Now as you read the Bible you find commands that God tells you to do or to not do.
You just have to obey him and just strive to do your best and work hard and perhaps
God doesn't let us know how we're doing because he wants us to be kind of run and scared as
it were.
Because think about it, if I were to stand before God and he said, you're doing great,
I mean what if God would have just told Job, you know, you're the most perfect and upright
man that there is, then he would not have ended up probably being as humble as he was
and he might not have been as righteous as he was if he would have been told, you happen
to be number one right now on the whole planet.
On the other hand if God told us that we were doing poorly we might just give up or
become discouraged or just throw in the towel like, oh man I'm trying so hard and it turns
out I'm in a really low percentile of serving God.
God just wants us to run our own race, not compare ourselves amongst ourselves, not compare
ourselves to other people, but to just love him, want to serve him, want to please him,
be humble before him, not get proud and think that we're doing a great job, not to get too
discouraged thinking that we're doing a terrible job and what's the use, might as well quit.
He just wants us to keep on enduring and just patiently and humbly serving him.
Now God wants us to have supreme faith in him and Job had a lot of faith to be able
to just continue serving God, continue being humble, continue trusting him, he even said,
though he slay me, yet will I trust him, even though God seemingly destroyed him without
cause because he never explained himself to Job and yet Job just trusted God anyway even
though he gets no explanation, even though he has no idea why it's happening.
But of course Job is very human in chapter 10, this is a low point for him and he's got
a lot of doubts in this chapter and he's expressing a lot of his doubts and he's kind of calling
out to God and questioning God in this chapter and the thing he says is in verse 2, I'll
say unto God, do not condemn me, show me wherefore thou contest me, he's saying I want to know
why you're doing this to me and that is a question that is never answered to Job.
And in our life when bad things happen, that question will never be answered.
We can never really know for sure why bad things happen in our lives and that's why
it's very foolish to interpret what is right and wrong based on what happens in your life
and a lot of people think, well I'm getting away with it so to speak, whatever they're
doing, whatever thing that they're doing that the Bible says not to do, they say well I'm
doing it and nothing bad is happening.
So God must not mind that much or God must not be that upset, but that's very foolish
because often God's judgment is delayed and prolonged.
Or in another case we might be doing all the right things and then bad things start happening
and then we say, oh God's mad, I need to quit.
For example, if we were to have that mentality, what if someone were to go start a church?
Like Brother Dave just started a church, I talked to him earlier today by the way and
Brother Dave's doing great and Brother Dave Burson's in Prescott and the church is going
well and he's doing a good job, but what if you were to go out and start a church and
all of a sudden a bunch of bad stuff started happening and you said, oh this must not be
God's will because God's not blessing it because there's all this opposition and I'm running
into all these struggles and trials and problems.
This must not be the will of God and then you'd quit, but in reality that could just
be trials and tribulations that you have to go to.
That could just be the labor pains as you travail in birth that a new church will be
born.
It's going to be painful.
There's going to be suffering and struggle involved.
I mean a woman who's giving birth goes through pain.
Does it mean that something's wrong?
Ladies, if you're giving birth and there's any pain, something's wrong.
No obviously not.
I mean having pain during childbirth is normal.
That's a normal part of the birth process and just like anything else in life when we
strive to serve God there are going to be times when bad things happen.
The Bible talked about with Apostle Paul there was a great door opened unto him and effectual
but he said there are many adversaries and a lot of times bad things happen in your life
while you're doing the best work that you've ever done because the devil's on the attack.
The devil's got his eye on you.
That was the case with Job.
What if he just looked at his life and said well you know I've been serving God.
I've been worshiping the Lord and look how bad things are going for me.
I need to switch and worship some other God or I need to totally switch denominations.
I just need to completely change what I need to rethink my whole lifestyle.
That wouldn't have made any sense.
He's already upright.
We can't go by circumstances.
God is not going to tell us how we're doing.
We're not always going to know why things happen the way that they do.
We just have to be content to not know and to just say you know what I trust the Lord
whatever he decides to do whether that be losing my job or whether that be a health
problem that we have or the death of a loved one or whether that be any catastrophe that
happens in our life.
We just have to trust God and to know that all things work together for good to them
that love God and to them who are the called according to his purpose and you know we're
never going to be perfect.
He goes on to explain how we're never going to be perfect.
Look at verse 3.
He says, Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest suppress, that thou shouldest despise the
work of thine hands and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?
Hast thou eyes of flesh or seest thou as man seeth?
Are thy days as the days of man?
Are thy years as man's days that thou inquirest after mine iniquity and searchest after my
sin?
Thou knowest that I am not wicked and there is none that can deliver out of thine hand.
He's saying are you just looking for something wrong with me or are you just searching for
my sin and he says like man would do because there are some people who are like that.
They try to find fault in everyone and everything and they they dig around and they just try
to find some way to criticize anybody.
And if you want to find a way to criticize people that are good people, that are righteous
people, that are godly people, you're always going to be able to find something wrong with
them.
I mean if you want to find something wrong with me, you're going to find plenty of things
wrong with me because I'm a human being.
And Job is saying to God, come on God, are you just searching for my iniquity?
You know that I'm not a wicked person, but are you just searching out every sin and every
iniquity that I have?
He says, well flip over if you would to Psalm 130, keep your finger in Job 10, but flip
over to Psalm 130.
So God knows that we're not going to be perfect.
If you remember when Noah was saved with his family on the ark, God had destroyed the whole
earth and God was very clear on why he destroyed the earth.
In fact I was just reading it and he says repeatedly why he destroyed the earth, over
and over again.
He says that the earth was filled with violence, that was the reason.
He said the whole earth is filled with violence, all flesh has corrupted their way before me
and violence is brought up repeatedly as the main offense.
God's anger is all directed toward man, not angels, no mention of angels, there's no talk
about God being angry with angels, punishing angels, none of that.
It's all just I'm repenting that I created man on the earth and my anger is kindled against
man and man is wicked and man has created violence on the earth.
But if you remember, when Noah gets off the ark, Noah makes a burnt sacrifice unto the
Lord and when he makes that burnt sacrifice unto the Lord, he's a sweet savor in the nostrils
of the Lord, that smell, and God is entreated of Noah and he says, I will no more curse
the ground for man's sake because, and let me just turn this so that I can quote it correctly.
He says, I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake for the imagination
of man's heart is evil from his youth, neither will I again smite anymore everything living
as I have done.
So God there just says, I just realize that man is evil, I just realize that man is wicked
and I know that man is sinful, but that shows that even a sinful man can still find grace
in the eyes of the Lord, like Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
God said, look, I realize that man is sinful from his youth, I'm not going to just wipe
out the whole human race, I'm not just going to destroy everybody.
Look at Psalm 130 and look at verse 3, it says, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.
He's saying, if God were to keep track of our sins, we're all doomed.
And that's what God's saying in Genesis 8 when Noah gets off the ark is that man is
a sinner from his youth and that if we were to be judged by our works, all of us would
be doomed, no one would be able to stand before God, no one would be able to be saved.
And this is why it's so foolish for people to think that they could be saved by their
works, because the Bible is so clear, whether it's in the Old Testament or in the New Testament,
that there's none righteous, no, not one.
That's why it says, as it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one.
That's why the Bible even says in the Old Testament, for there's not a just man upon
the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
There's no one that is without sin, it says the same thing in 2 Chronicles.
We've all sinned, we all come short.
So you can't go through life thinking, well, I'm never going to be perfect, therefore God
is just out to get me and he's mad at me every day.
And you know, Brother Richard Miller preached a sermon about Joyce Meyer's new book, God
is Not Mad at You.
Okay, and since you did the research, Brother Miller, is the premise of the book that God's
not mad at anybody?
Like whoever's reading the book, God's not mad at you, is that the point?
Or is it just he's not mad at believers?
No, yeah, it says on the jacket, on the dust jacket, Richard couldn't get through every
word of the book, you know, admittedly.
But anyway, you know, the dust jacket says, you know, no matter what, God's not mad at
you.
Now first of all, if you're not saved, the wrath of God's abiding on you, nonstop.
I mean that's what the Bible says.
Okay, now we realize that God still loves you, okay, and wants you to get saved, you
know, he's provided Jesus Christ, he's waiting with open arms, but you know, the Father's
wrath is upon you.
The Bible says, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth
not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
And wrath is anger.
So if you're not saved, God is mad at you.
Okay, Jesus Christ is there to offer salvation through his blood, but the justice of God
the Father is compelling his wrath upon you, number one.
Okay, but number two, even if you're saved, God gets angry even with his own children,
you know, as was illustrated in that sermon.
But at the same time though, although we know that God is mad at some people, that doesn't
mean that God is just mad at all of us all the time just because we're not 100% perfect.
Okay, because God's wrath was not kindled against Job, although I'm certain that he
had sinned and was not sinless.
So yes God does get angry, yes God does punish, it's like saying that I never get angry at
my children, or that if I do get angry at my children ever, then I'm a bad parent.
Well that's not true, because of course there are times when anger is the appropriate response
to your children, just like God has an appropriate response of anger toward his children from
time to time.
For example, was Moses saved?
Was Moses a child of God?
Did God get angry at Moses?
Absolutely.
I mean, but Joyce Meyer would just be like, well here Moses, you know, read this book.
God's not mad at you, Moses, alright?
Forget what that burning bush told you.
That's what she would say, but she's a lying, short-haired, false prophet from hell, okay.
But anyway, so what I'm saying is that God's wrath is not abiding on us.
We're saved, we're not His enemies any longer, we've been reconciled by the cross, and we're
in good standing with God, we have redemption, forgiveness, nothing can separate us from
the love of God, but yet God can still get angry with His children if we do something
stupid or say something stupid.
Like Moses, he said something stupid, God got angry at him, but was God just through
with him?
No.
God still loved him, gave him another chance, then he messed up again with his home life.
He had his wife out of control, and his wife doesn't want to circumcise the kid, and then
God basically sent the angel to destroy Moses, to literally kill Moses, and only at the last
minute is that intervened in that story, in Exodus 4, I believe.
So we do see God getting angry, just as I would get angry at my children, but does that
mean that I'm just angry at my children non-stop, like they're just not 100% perfect all the
time, I'm just mad at them.
One little mistake, and it's just, ahh!
No, the Lord is slow to anger, keep that in mind.
So you have to really irritate God to get him mad at you.
Like with Moses, he kept arguing with God, then God got angry.
So God is not, what I want you to know is that trying to please God is not a lost cause,
is the point of what I'm saying right now.
Because if we felt that pleasing God were just a lost cause, we might just stop trying.
I mean what if my children did their best every day and I was just still mad, just wouldn't
accept it, they might just get to a point where they just say, forget that man, he's
never going to be happy no matter what I do, why even try?
God is not difficult to please.
God is not up in heaven just ready to snap at us and ready to just smash us at the drop
of a hat because of a small mistake that we made.
The Bible says that his mercies are great and that he is slow to anger.
But at the same time we do need to be careful that we do not incur his anger and incur his
wrath.
We need to try our best to keep his commandments, to obey him.
He's not going to tell us exactly where we stand with him, unfortunately for us, but
we just need to try our hardest, do our best, love him, and just communicate with him in
prayer and just tell him, Lord, I'm doing my best, Lord.
Like David prayed, he said, cleanse thou me from secret faults.
He said, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there
be any wicked way in me and lead me in the path everlasting, I believe it says.
He's saying, God, show me how I can do better, teach me, help me, I want to do right.
And you know when God looks down at you and he sees you trying and he sees that you love
him and that you want to do what's right, he will overlook small mistakes that you make.
And the proof of that is with the kings of Judah, because if you remember, the kings
of Judah, when there would be a good king, they still made some mistakes.
And God would always look down and say, well, he didn't take away the high places, nevertheless,
his heart was right before the Lord is God, his heart was perfect before the Lord is God,
nevertheless he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.
Remember Hezekiah, when they did the Passover, they didn't purify themselves exactly the
way they were supposed to.
And basically Hezekiah prayed and said, God, we're trying, he said, the good Lord, pardon
everyone that didn't do it perfectly, I'm just paraphrasing, and basically God wasn't
treated of him.
So I'm not giving you a license to be sloppy about the way that you obey God's commands
or not to be, but I do want you to know that it is doable to be in God's good favor as
a Christian.
And so we should all strive, do our best, there should be a healthy dose of fear there,
we should be kind of running scared as it were, but we shouldn't just give up and feel
that it's a lost cause.
God loves us, he is a father unto us, and he is patient with us, and he is kind and
gracious to us, and he gives us some slack, thank God, because otherwise we'd all be in
trouble, right?
And so it says here in verse 4, this is where Job is asking God, you know, hast thou eyes
of flesh, or seest thou as man seeth?
Verse 6, that thou inquirest after mine iniquity and searchest after my sin?
Now when he says, does God see as man sees, how does man see?
Well the Bible says, man looketh on the outward appearance, but God knoweth the heart.
And the outward appearance of Job right now, to his friends anyway, looks like he's in
sin, even though he's not.
And that's why he says in verse 7, thou knowest that I am not wicked, and there is none that
can deliver out of thine hand.
He's saying if anybody knew that I were wicked, it would be you.
Now he says in verse 8, thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about,
yet thou dost destroy me.
Remember I beseech thee that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me into
dust again?
So he's talking about the fact that God has created him and that he is God's creation,
he doesn't understand why God is destroying him and why God would do this to him.
Now verse 8 is interesting because it says, thine hands have made me and fashioned me
together round about.
It reminds you of Psalm 139, where God goes into great detail about forming and fashioning
every child in the womb.
And it's interesting that he uses the word, I like the fact that he uses the word round
in verse 8, because every child starts out round.
Now that we have all the technology and we can look at the microscopic level, the child
begins as a round thing called a blastocyst.
This is the scientific term.
Before it becomes a fetus, it is a blastocyst.
And the blastocyst is, once the egg has been fertilized and then it starts multiplying
and growing in the womb, eventually it takes on the shape where you see that kidney bean
shape, where there's the head and the body and so forth in the womb.
But it actually, believe it or not, starts out just perfectly round.
So it's a circular object.
And of course today many people will say, you know, that's not even a human being, it's
not even alive, and they just want to just terminate it or kill it.
Here's a better word, kill it.
And they look at that.
But it's amazing how God always has his facts right in the Bible, scientifically.
It starts out being fashioned in a round way.
And the interesting thing about it, let's flip over quickly to Psalm 139 and look at
it.
We'll come back to Job 10.
But flip over to Psalm 139, right in the middle of the Bible, the book of Psalm, Psalm 139.
And let's start reading in verse number 13.
It says, For thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.
My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in
the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members
were written, which in continuance were fashioned, same wording that Job used, when as yet there
was none of them.
Now there's so much in these verses, but he's talking about his substance or the matter
that makes up his body, the cells of his body, and he says that God saw that substance when
it was yet unperfect, and the word perfect means complete.
Unperfect means incomplete.
And of course in James it defines that in James 1 when it says that you may be perfect
and entire, wanting nothing, lacking nothing, perfect and entire, complete.
And God says here that David was being formed and fashioned even when he was unperfect,
meaning he was not complete.
He was still in the process of developing in his mother's womb.
And then at the end of verse 16 it says, and in thy book all my members were written.
And members is a reference to body parts, because remember in 1 Corinthians 12 it talks
about the different members of the church, or like members of the body, the nose, the
ear, the foot, the hand.
So he says, in thy book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned
when as yet there was none of them.
So even before certain body parts, even before there was the hand, even before the foot or
the ear or the nose existed, God still knew those things and was forming and fashioning
those things.
And so obviously the Bible is clear in this passage and many other passages that a baby
inside its mother's womb is very much alive.
Now obviously anybody with any normal definition of what life is, and if you were to just look
up life in the dictionary or ask a scientist to define life, you know, before you tell
them what you're asking about, and just say define for me life, what does it mean to be
alive?
They'd give you all kinds of definitions about, you know, cells replicating themselves and
by every single definition that child in its mother's womb is alive.
By every definition, from the moment of conception, from the moment of the fertilization of that
egg when it begins to grow and multiply.
And the Bible is clear that every child in its mother's womb is not an accident, because
the Bible says that they are in continuance fashion.
Now the reason that the word continuance is interesting there in verse 16 is that it shows
that God doesn't just start the ball rolling and then just take his hands off, because
that would not be in continuance fashioning the child.
Because it could be said that, well, God created the seed and God created the egg and God put
all that DNA and God put all that design into it and when they come together then it just
does it on its own.
But that's not true, because actually the Bible teaches that God continually fashions
and forms the child in the womb.
So God made us the way that we are.
By the way, that's why we should be satisfied with the way that we are.
Whether we're tall, short, big, small, whatever we look like.
That's how God created us and he created us that way for a reason.
Now of course my wife was recently pregnant with twins and this is obviously a sensitive
subject for my wife and I, but my wife was pregnant with twins and one of the twins passed
away.
One of them is still alive and is doing well.
So we're obviously praying and hoping that there will be a safe and healthy delivery
of the second child.
But the reason why one of the children passed away is because obviously identical twins
are something that's a fluke in the first place.
Science cannot explain to this day why identical twins happen.
Because what happens is it starts out as just one life there.
I mean that egg is fertilized and it begins growing and developing and at a certain point
it just splits for no apparent reason.
Now with fraternal twins, and when I say fraternal twins that means twins that are not identical.
Usually more often than not they're a boy and a girl.
But sometimes it can be two boys or two girls but they're just not identical.
They're fraternal twins.
My brother has fraternal twins.
They don't look anything alike.
They look completely different from one another.
He doesn't even think much of them as twins, they're just more like brothers because they
look so different.
But fraternal twins are just based on the fact that the woman just had two eggs come
down the pike that got fertilized and boom, fraternal twins.
Pretty easy to understand how that could happen.
Whereas with identical twins there's no understanding of why it happens.
Now they can split early in development or they can split later.
Now if they split really late, sometimes they split imperfectly and then you'll get
Siamese twins where it doesn't split all the way and they're still connected.
Or they can split at various stages of development.
Well when the twins in my wife's womb split, they did not split equally.
The splitting was unequal.
So what happened was the two twins are identical but one of them ended up with like 80% or
so of the placenta and the other one ended up with like 20% of the placenta.
As far as how much nutrition and how much of a lifeline it's going to get through that
umbilical cord.
And then they also developed what's called twin to twin transfusion syndrome where the
blood vessels in the one twin went up the umbilical cord and then the blood vessels
from the other twin went up the other umbilical cord into the shared placenta because they
shared one placenta and they became networked with one another.
So their blood was actually shared between the two twins.
So what happened was one of them that was getting the 80% share was getting way too
much blood which is also harmful to id and then the other one was getting too little.
So that's why my wife had that laser surgery in order to separate the twins because one
of them was getting way too much and the other one was getting way too little and it'll kill
them both if you do nothing.
So they were separated, the blood vessels were separated by that surgery but even though
they were separated, well that completely fixed the problem of the one that was getting
too much because now he's doing his own thing blood wise.
But the other one still had the problem that he's only networked into 20% or so of the
placenta, maybe even less.
Basically his cord's going into the very edge of the placenta.
One of them has a cord into the dead center of the placenta, the other one has it to the
very edge.
So he was getting very little nutrition because there's just not enough placenta to sustain
it.
In the earlier days of development it was enough for him.
But once they reach a point of 18, 19, 20, 21, they start needing more and more nutrition
from that placenta as they get to important stages of development.
And so when he was at 19 and some odd weeks, that small share of placenta that he had could
not sustain him any longer.
And he passed away at 19 and some odd weeks.
The thing is, if he would have made it to 21, 22, 23, he would have needed even more.
You know, and it just wasn't going to be there.
And so honestly you have to understand the fact that obviously we don't know everything
but based on our knowledge of this, and we've done a lot of study on it and spoken to these
experts and so forth, it appears that he was basically a lost cause from the beginning
in the sense that the moment, this is our understanding of it, the moment that that
split occurred in the blastocyst, the inequality was just inherent at that point.
Just the way it split, it just split unequally.
And it was just basically before ordained that he's just going to have a small share
of the pie and it's just not going to be enough, it's just not going to happen.
And my wife was eating plenty of nutritious food but it didn't even make it past 19 weeks
because of the fact that there's just not enough there for it.
And it was predetermined by the way that it split.
Now still thankful that we did that surgery just because of the fact that it, otherwise
when one dies, it'll usually take the other one with it.
Because remember, I mean can you imagine having your blood vessels networked in with someone
who dies?
You know, then the blood just starts flowing out of your body and it's not coming back.
So that could kill the other twin.
So we thank God that the one is still alive and hope that you'll continue praying that
it will survive.
And so far, you know, went to the ultrasound recently and everything looks healthy, everything
looks great.
And so we thank God for that.
But the reason that I say this is because that is something that God allowed to happen
and really he chose to do.
I do not believe that it was an accident that it split.
So you say, well why in the world would God cause it to split if he knows that one of
them is going to die anyway and that only one of them is going to make it?
Why would he even cause that?
Why didn't he just allow her to just be pregnant with one child in the first place?
Why even cause it to split?
Why not just have one and just have it grow and survive and then we wouldn't have even
been upset or had to go through all the suffering of just having to lose that child and having
to go through all the complications and just all the headaches and, you know, the financials.
But you know what though?
I guarantee you it was something that God did.
Because God says that he forms and fashions in the womb.
So therefore he fashioned it in such a way where that child was going to be sacrificed.
I mean that child was not going to make it.
It just didn't have enough placenta to even sustain a life inside the womb.
But you know, God does these things.
God chooses to allow one to survive and one not to and he has a purpose behind what he
does.
And there's a reason why he does the things he does.
It's not by accident.
And we have to just trust God and just believe that what he does is for the best and that
there's a reason behind it.
And it would be very foolish for us to get upset at God, you know, to get angry at God
and to start saying that God's not fair and God doesn't love us and God's mad at us and
because of the fact that we've already had seven healthy children that were all born
with perfect health and she had seven uncomplicated pregnancies.
Everything went smoothly, all seven times.
Six of them were born at home with no painkillers, nothing.
I mean just perfect, smooth births, seven times in a row.
And then you're going to turn around and get mad at God when something goes wrong.
Obviously that wouldn't be right.
Obviously we have to understand that God has a reason why he caused us to go through trials
and tribulations in our life and there's a purpose for these things.
And you look at all the other women who've had miscarriages and other women who've lost
a child or even worse had a stillborn child that he carried all the way to the end and
then it perished right before it was born.
I mean there is a reason why these things happen and God will cause things to work together
for good to those who love God and to them who are the called according to his praise.
You know Joseph didn't like the fact that he's beaten and thrown in a pit and sold into
slavery.
Things are going to happen.
I mean Job is going through horrible misery but we need to just trust God no matter what
comes through our life.
We need to just be thankful and just praise God for it and just understand that these
things are his will and it didn't happen by accident.
I mean God is there in the womb forming and fashioning and he ordained it to be so.
You know and there's nothing that we can do about that but to just thank God for the children
that we do have and for the children that he's blessed us with and just continue to
love him and serve him and trust him.
And you know I could already see how God has already used this in our lives and in
the lives of people around us and so if that be his will then amen.
You know thank God for what he's done.
You know sometimes God doesn't want us to have too much money or God doesn't want us
to have too many children or God doesn't want us to get too high and mighty or whatever.
You know he humbles us.
Job was a perfect upright man who knows maybe if he hadn't gone through this maybe he would
have eventually gotten proud or maybe he would have eventually turned away from God.
I don't know but this definitely brought him to a whole new level of spiritual development
in his life.
So back to Job chapter 10.
I just wanted to show you the interesting comparison there between Job 10 and Psalm
139.
A lot of similarities there between the language that Job used and the language that David
uses about being formed and fashioned in the womb and that God is in control.
And of course we have six ladies in our church right now that are expecting and those six
ladies that are expecting should understand the fact that God is in control of what's
going on in the womb.
Now we should still do everything that we can to take care of ourselves and so forth
but God is ultimately there and he will do according to his will.
And the Bible says that we know not, according to Ecclesiastes 11, we know not the way of
the spirit and we don't know how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child.
And the more you study the science behind this you'll understand that scientists have
a lot of things about the reproductive process that they still don't understand and possibly
never will because God is the one who creates life.
Man can't create life and a lot of people are so deluded by sci-fi movies they actually
believe that man can create life because they saw Jurassic Park or something and they
think that man can make dinosaurs.
Man has never created any living thing.
All man can do is just pervert that which a God has created.
You know they can genetically modify and pervert God's creation.
They can take something that's already alive and swap out the DNA and make it turn into
something different but they cannot create life.
They cannot even create a single-celled organism.
They can't even bring it to life.
And what's amazing is that they want you to believe that life came into being by itself.
But they, even with their minds and their science and their, and they explain well you
know when the earth was first formed there was a good environment to create life.
You know there were the right chemicals in the atmosphere and there were the right chemicals
on the earth and it just happened.
You know those amino acids and everything and it just happened, you know something just
came to life that you know, quit showing me that picture of a chimpanzee evolving into
a human being.
I want to see nothing evolve into that chimpanzee, in fact I want to see nothing evolve into
a paramecium.
Show me nothing or just show me just substances, show me amino acids, show me whatever building
blocks of life you want turning into a single-celled organism.
Because a single-celled organism is extremely complicated.
And you could hand a scientist all the chemicals, all the tools, all the, well you know it was
a bolt of lightning, give him all the electricity, give him whatever he wants.
They cannot create life in the laboratory, it's been tried many times and has always
failed.
They can't do it.
Forget evolution, they can't even create the first organism.
And this is what they say, they say spontaneous generation is a fraud.
That's what spontaneous generation means, you know that something can come to life on
its own, right?
But here's what they say, no no no we don't believe in spontaneous generation, we believe
in abiogenesis.
Well I just believe in genesis.
But they believe in abiogenesis and that's just a fancy word for things coming to life
by themselves on their own.
Abiogenesis, just give it a name like that and then suddenly it becomes scientific.
Even though there's no evidence for it, even though they can't recreate it, even with their
minds and computers and science and labs and chemicals, they can't do it but we're
supposed to believe it just happened on its own, by itself.
You know and then it found a girlfriend to marry and reproduce with.
You know because I mean it not only was the first life form coming into existence but
also reproduced itself, amazingly.
You know?
I mean it's nonsense, it's garbage, but today if you don't believe in it you're considered
ignorant if you don't believe in it.
It doesn't make any sense folks, but it's just like so many other things in this world,
people just go along with the crowd.
They don't think about it, they don't look into it for themselves.
If you looked into what the Big Bang actually teaches, if you looked into what abiogenesis
actually teaches, you'd realize it resembles more like Star Trek than it does any real
legitimate science.
It's more like a sci-fi movie.
And so believing that this stuff just came from nothing is total nonsense.
God creates life and not only does God create life, but in the womb he not only starts the
ball rolling of that life, he not only at fertilization creates that life, but he continually
fashions it and stays with it all the way through and forms and fashions it in the womb
all the way to the finish line, all the way to the end, and then of course after we're
born the Bible says even the hairs of our head are numbered.
So his care of us and his thoughts toward us do not even stop there.
So it says in verse number, if we're back in Job 10 it says, in verse 8, thine hands
have made me and fashioned me together round about, yet thou dost destroy me.
Remember I beseech thee that thou hast made me as the clay and wilt thou bring me into
dust again?
Hast thou not poured me out as milk and curdled me like cheese?
Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.
Thou hast granted me life and favor and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit and these
things has thou hid in thine heart.
I know that this is with thee.
And again he's upset and he's questioning God.
Why did you even create me if you're going to destroy me?
Why did you even make me?
What is the point?
Later he says in verse 18, wherefore then, wherefore means why, wherefore then hast thou
brought me forth out of the womb?
O that I had given up the ghost and no eye had seen me.
He says, why didn't I just die in the womb?
Why did you even allow me to live my life if it's going to end up in such a miserable,
horrible way?
Why didn't I just die in the womb?
He says, O that I had given up the ghost and no eye had seen me.
Now look, hold on a second.
Given up the what?
Okay, if that doesn't prove that the child in the womb is alive, I don't know what to
tell you.
Because there are a lot of false teachers out there who will say this.
They'll say, well life doesn't begin at conception.
They'll say, life begins at birth.
And you're like, what in the world, you know, when it's born.
That sounds like politician talk.
You know, I've heard, I saw a debate one time between two legislators in a distant state
and they were Republican and Democrat and they asked them both, when do you believe
life begins?
They both said birth.
Birth!
Not even like, not even, well it's the second trimester, the third trimester.
I mean they said birth.
So a child that's in its mother's womb, 38 weeks gestation is not alive according to
them.
But a child who's born prematurely at, you know, 31 weeks gestation, well that's alive.
Okay.
It makes no sense.
But nothing that politicians say or do makes any sense.
So they just lie because that's what whorish women want to hear because they want to go
out and commit whoredoms and kill their own children, murder their own children.
But they say, you know, it begins at birth.
But I've even heard so-called Christian leaders try to make the argument that abortion is
not murder because the child in its mother's womb is not really alive.
Peter Ruckman is one who made this argument, literally.
And you can, you don't believe me?
Go online, you can download the sermon of him saying it.
And this is what Peter Ruckman said.
He said it's not alive until it takes its first breath.
Because he said this.
He said, you know, God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life and man became
a living soul.
Okay.
That happened once, Peter Ruckman.
Okay.
That's how Adam was created.
But I'm sorry.
All throughout the Bible there's a ton of evidence that children are alive in their
mother's womb.
How do they give up the ghost in their mother's womb?
Because it says here in Job 10 verse 18, if they have no spirit, because the word ghost,
I know that when we hear the word ghost in 2014, we think of, you know, Casper the friendly
ghost or something.
But when the Bible uses the word ghost, it uses it interchangeably with what word?
Spirit.
Like for example, the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost.
You know that those two terms are identical and used interchangeably, right?
Sometimes people will try to explain to you the difference between the two.
There's really not a difference.
It's just an aesthetic difference in the King James Version that it uses the word ghost
in some occurrences.
Usually when it's talking about the power of God, you know, they'll use the word Holy
Ghost.
A lot of times when it talks about the internal workings of the Spirit, it'll use the word
Holy Spirit.
None of that's really consistent and really all of it is just more aesthetic and poetic
than anything.
God uses just synonymous words just to make the Bible sound great.
But in the end, there is no difference between the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit.
It's the same thing.
And throughout the Old Testament, usually Spirit is used, but sometimes the word ghost
is used in the Old Testament.
And look, if the child in the womb, it says, Wherefore then has thou brought me forth out
of the womb?
O that I had given up the ghost and know I had seen thee.
How can a child give up the ghost if it has no ghost?
If it has no spirit.
Therefore this proves that it is a living spiritual being.
And that when a child dies in its mother's womb, the Spirit goes to heaven according
to the Bible.
The Bible is clear on that back in Job chapter 3.
Job talked about this in verse 16 where he said, Or as in hidden untimely birth, I had
not been as infants which never saw light.
There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest.
There the prisoners rest together.
They hear not the voice of the oppressor, the small and great are there and the servant
is free from his master.
So he's talking about a child dying in its mother's womb and going to be in a place where
all things are as they should be, and the servant is free from his master, a beautiful
place, a great place.
What goes there?
We certainly know that the body remains behind, but it gives up the ghost.
The spirit of the child, the Bible says, the spirit of man ascendeth upward and the spirit
of the beast goeth downward into the earth.
And so just more piles of evidence in the book of Job that the child in its mother's
womb is alive and that when it passes away, the spirit continues to live.
So the spirit of my wife's pregnancy, the twin that has passed away, the spirit has
departed and has gone to be with the Lord in heaven.
That's what the Bible teaches.
It wasn't just a lump of tissue or an organism or a fetus or a blastocyst, it was a real
living human being.
And so is every other pregnancy, according to the Bible.
So it says in verse number 14, if I sin, then thou mark'st me and thou wilt not equip me
for mine iniquity.
If I be wicked, woe unto me, and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head.
I'm full of confusion, therefore see thou my deflection.
Now Job is very confused in this chapter.
And the whole chapter is pretty much Job asking God, why?
Why are you doing this to me?
Why didn't you just let me die in the womb if this is how you're going to treat me?
He goes on and on about it and he basically just wishes that he could just take comfort.
It says in verse 20, are not my days few?
Cease then and let me alone that I may take comfort a little.
Before I go whence I shall not return even to the land of darkness and the shadow of
death.
A land of darkness is darkness itself and of the shadow of death without any order and
where the light is is darkness.
Now the last few verses there, there's a couple different ways to interpret what Job is saying
here in verses 21 and 22.
Because it could be that what Job is talking about is just physical death of the body.
A lot of times when the Bible talks about death, it's referring to the physical death
of the body.
And for example, the term sleep is used a lot in the Bible.
It talks about people sleeping in the dust of the earth or the dead in Christ or sometimes
called those who are asleep in Jesus.
Now many people mistakenly believe in what's called soul sleep.
You might have heard of that doctrine.
That's where people believe that if a person dies, their body and soul are just asleep
and one day are going to be resurrected.
Whereas the Bible is very clear that for the believer to be absent from the body is to
be present with the Lord.
The Bible says the body without the spirit or without the ghost is dead and faith without
works is dead also.
And so when the ghost is given up, when the spirit departs the body, that is the definition
of physical death.
Now the body sleeps in the earth, whereas the spirit goes to be with the Lord.
That's why Paul said, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
For I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.
He didn't say I have a desire to go into soul sleep for the next hundreds and hundreds of
years until the resurrection.
No.
The moment that the believer dies, their soul is in heaven.
They're up in heaven.
The body remains but the soul is in heaven immediately.
For the unbeliever, remember the rich man in Luke 16?
He died and in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment and he said he was tormented
in that flame.
So instantly for a person when they die, the body remains behind, the soul goes to heaven
if they're saved, instantly to hell if they're not saved.
Now when the resurrection takes place, that is the resurrection of the body and for example
at the rapture.
The Bible says if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep
in Jesus will God bring with him.
Now where is he coming from?
Who is he bringing with him?
He's bringing with him the people that are asleep in Jesus.
But then it says that we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall
not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with the shout and with the voice of God and
the voice of the archangel and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
So notice we have him bringing the asleep in Jesus with him, but then a moment later
we have them rising.
How does that make any sense?
Here's how.
Because they're spiritually, the soul is in heaven.
He's bringing the soul, the body rises, but the body is without the soul.
The body rises and basically they are changed in a moment of twinkling of an eye.
Their corrupted dead body is changed in a moment and created into a new resurrected
glorified body just as Jesus' glorified, resurrected body was different.
It was changed from his body that he died with.
It was the same body but it had been changed.
Now we know that Job speaks to this in verse 14, flip over to chapter 14, I'm just about
done but I just want to show you this quickly.
Again this is where Job is questioning.
There are times in the book of Job where he questioned, and you know you'd be questioning
things too if you went through the things that Job went through.
And it's normal for a person to have doubts.
Even John the Baptist doubted whether Jesus Christ was who he said he was.
Even after he had pointed him and said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin
of the world.
Later when John the Baptist was in prison he doubted and he said, Art thou he that should
come or do we look for another?
Which shows that even the greatest man who ever lived, which Jesus said John the Baptist
was, can have doubts.
And that's normal to have doubts.
And Job is going through some doubts in the book of Job.
It says in verse 14 of chapter 14, If a man die, shall he live again?
This is something that he's doubting but then he says this, All the days of my appointed
time will I wait till my what?
Till my change come.
And of course the Bible says we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a
moment of twinkling of the eye, the last trump and so forth.
And what's interesting is that elsewhere in the book of Job he says, And though after
my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.
So he says even after his body is destroyed by worms he will see God in the flesh.
Again referring to a bodily resurrection.
So Job knew that and understood that.
So in chapter 10, these last two verses, there's a couple ways to interpret it.
Is he just poetically, metaphorically just referring to the fact that he's physically
going to die and his body's going to be dead?
Or is he doubting his salvation?
Could be another option.
And maybe to think that perhaps he's wondering, you know, he's doubting whether he's even
saved just because things have gone so bad.
Now if I were to ask for a raise of hands of who here has doubted your salvation, you
know, don't raise your hand, but I guarantee you that most hands would go up.
And I can even say that there have been times, you know, especially when I was young, when
I was a child, that I've doubted my salvation.
You know, everybody has probably gone through that.
I preached a whole sermon about it a few years ago called Doubting Your Salvation because
even the great men of the Bible often had doubts and so forth.
And so I've heard people say, you know, if you doubt your salvation that just proves
you're not saved.
But in reality, I've talked to a lot of people that were saved that had serious doubts about
their salvation.
Now, for me, that was more when I was younger that I had doubts about my salvation, and
a lot of it was from bad preaching.
Because when I got saved, I understood the Gospel really clearly, that it was just believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
I knew that it was all him, it wasn't my works, I just had to trust him and I knew I trust
him, I knew I believed in him.
But you hear a lot of preaching that puts weird ideas in your head, you know.
If you're this, you're not saved, if you're this, you're not saved, if you think this,
you're not saved.
And then, you know, the repent of your sins type preaching comes in and then you say,
oh man, you know, I don't know if I really repented or whatever.
So a lot of confusing preaching will hit you sometimes and make you doubt yourself.
But I've talked to a lot of good, godly Christians who talked to me and said, I am just really
struggling.
People have come to me and said, I am struggling with doubts about my salvation, help me.
And I'm showing them all these verses trying to give them assurance of saying, look, here's
what the Bible says, you have to believe on Christ, you know.
And they're like, yes, I believe that, okay, why are you doubting your salvation?
You know, I don't know, I'm still doubting it.
And oftentimes, you know, people are doubting their salvation and in some ways, I mean,
at least it shows that they care about their salvation.
And at least it shows that they believe that heaven and hell are real, that they're even
that worried about it.
Because, you know, people are like, I don't want to go to hell, you know, I'm really worried
about it.
But at least it shows that they believe in heaven and hell and that they really care
about it.
And you know, I just try to assure people that God's a loving God.
He's not just out to just damn people who believe in him.
He said that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
He said that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth to the Lord Jesus and shalt believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Not you might be saved, you shall be saved.
And so, most of the time, doubts about our salvation are irrational.
They don't make sense because the Bible's so clear that it's simple to be saved, it's
easy to be saved, all we have to do is just believe in Jesus, put our faith in him.
It's not based on our works, it's not based on the life we have.
But because we're human though, and we do think foolish thoughts, oftentimes we can
doubt our salvation.
Now, if you're trusting in something other than Jesus Christ, if you think you're going
to heaven because you're a good person, or if you think a person has to be a good person
to get to heaven, or if you think that a person has to be baptized or join a church to go
to heaven, well you know what, you ought to doubt your salvation because you're not
saved.
But if you believe that it's all through Jesus, if you just believe Jesus died for our sins
and was buried and rose again, and you just trust him alone as your savior, and you believe
you're going to heaven because of his grace and his mercy, not by works of rights as we
have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
the Holy Ghost, then you know, you have nothing to doubt.
You have nothing to fear because God's word makes it clear that we are saved by faith
alone, not of works as any man should boast.
And we don't need to have any doubts.
So I don't know exactly what Job is saying here in verses 21 and 22.
I don't know if he's doubting his salvation, acting like he's not going to make it into
heaven there, because elsewhere he talks about the fact that he's going to heaven and how
he's going to a perfect place and how he's going to be resurrected and his body's going
to be changed.
You know, he has strong faith in that, I don't know if he's doubting that in this passage
when he talks about going to a land of darkness and so forth, or whether he's just referring
to just the lights going out physically.
Because with Job, there is a lot of poetic language.
There is a lot of exaggeration and metaphor used.
You know, we obviously can't take it literally in verse 10 when he says he's been poured
out like milk and curdled like cheese, right?
I mean he wasn't literally milk and cheese.
So the rule of thumb when you're reading the Bible, because a lot of people just want to
say, well everything's symbolic, everything's metaphorical.
Here's the rule of thumb.
When God's not being literal, it's usually obvious.
You know, when metaphors are obvious.
You know, if I tell you it's raining cats and dogs outside, I don't mean that literally.
It's obvious.
But does that mean that we can just assume every time we read the Bible it's always symbolic?
Now imagine communicating that way with anyone else.
Imagine if your boss at work, you just assume that everything he says is symbolic.
Because one time your boss at work told you something in a hyperbolic way or a metaphorical
way.
One time your boss at work said, you know, get the lead out.
And so he used that metaphor.
And you basically now just assume that everything he says is a metaphor.
And when he tells you that he wants you to be to work on time every day, you find some
hidden meaning in that.
And you don't show up on time literally, but you find some symbolic, hidden metaphorical
meaning in that.
You know, that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?
Isn't that a ridiculous way to read the Bible?
Obviously when we read the Bible we assume it's literal, except when it's obvious that
it's not.
Okay.
Now here, Job is speaking in parables.
And Job is saying, you know, I'm going to a land of darkness, the shadow of death, darkness
itself.
That might just be a gloomy way of just talking about dying.
Or he could be doubting his salvation.
Both possibilities are there.
Because Job is going through a time of confusion right now.
And he does express doubts elsewhere, like in chapter 14 when he said, if a man dies
shall he live again?
Even though he firmly believed in the resurrection in the next half of the same verse.
So what do we take from all this?
You know, God is going to put us through a lot of things in our life.
Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange
thing happened unto you.
God is telling us over and over again, don't be surprised when you go through bad times.
Don't be surprised when you suffer.
And a lot of prosperity preachers have confused people into thinking that when they suffer
they're doing something wrong.
Not necessarily.
Sometimes you're doing everything right, you're still going to suffer.
Yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And so we're going to go through hard times in our life.
Nothing's ever going to be perfect.
If you expect the finances and your health and your marriage and everything in your life
to just be perfect all the time, well think again.
Because God is going to put us through hard times and struggles and trials and tribulations.
Bad things are going to happen, sicknesses are going to happen, financial catastrophes
are going to happen, even fatalities will occur.
But we need to trust him and realize that he in his wisdom has the right to do whatever
he wants to do and whatever he does, he has promised us, will work together for the good
of those that love him.
Job had firm faith in that, that's why he said, though he slay me, yet will I trust
him.
And he said, when I am tried, I shall come forth as gold.
We need to get the patience of Job and the mentality of Job where nothing can shake our
faith in God.
Nothing can shake our faith in his word and we are ready to go through whatever life puts
us through for his glory.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father we thank you so much for the example of Job, thank you for showing us the patience
of Job and giving us really just an extreme example of a worst case scenario of what a
saved person could go through in this life and then showing the happy ending so that
we can know that all things do work together for good to them that love you.
Please just help us to have the faith and patience of Job and we may doubt sometimes
just like Job doubted or we may get upset and angry like Job got upset and angry but
Lord help us to have just the faithfulness of Job to stay with it and not to quit on
you and in Jesus' name, amen.