That's the one.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I'd like to welcome you all here to our services.
Here at Faith Forward Baptist Church,
it's such a pleasure to have you all here
for our Sunday morning service.
Find your seats, please, and grab a song book
and go to hymn number 296.
We'll begin with our congregational singing this morning.
296, follow on.
Hymn number 296.
Once you find your place, we'll begin on that first now.
Down in the valley with my savior, I would go.
Hymn number 296.
Down in the valley with my Savior I would go
Where the flowers are blooming and the sweet waters flow
Everywhere He leads me I would follow, follow on
When He in His footsteps still looked crowned me one
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus anyway
Everywhere it leads me, I would follow on Down in the valley, with my stator, I would go
Where the storms are sweeping and the dark waters flow
With his hand to lead me, I would never, never fear
Danger cannot fright me if my Lord is near
Everywhere he leads me I would follow on
Down in the valley or upon the mountain steed
Close beside my Savior would my soul ever keep
He will lead me safely in the path that he has drawn
Up to where they gather on the hills of God
Bye!
everywhere He leads me I would follow on. Amen. Good start to our singing this
morning. If you want to go before Lord and ask His blessing on the service, we'll
have asked Brother Corbin Brock if he would please the prayer please. Dear Lord,
thank you for faith. We're Baptist Church Lord. Thank you for ever that came to
church this morning and Lord I...
I pray that you'd give us all spirits to hear the message today, and I pray that you'd all help us to sing joyfully to you and Jesus, and I pray amen.
Amen. Up to hymn number 406, who is on the Lord's side, hymn number 406, who is on the Lord's side, who will serve the king, hymn number 406, sing it out nice and strong, on that first together now.
other lives to bring. Who will leave the world's side? Who will face the fall? Who is on the
It must be
We'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin,
slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one on the inside.
We have our service times.
Sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six, Wednesday nights at seven.
Normally we have our Bible study.
This week we will be having a special guest preacher,
Pastor Bruce Mejia from First Works Baptist Church
in Anaheim, California is gonna be preaching
this Wednesday night.
So even if you don't normally come on Wednesday nights,
Make a point to come this Wednesday night
so that you can hear Pastor Mahia preach in person
and meet him, shake his hand.
And again, that is this coming Wednesday night.
Below that we've got the soul winning times
listed below as well as Salvation and Baptisms.
Across the page we've got the birthdays and anniversaries
for the month of April.
This afternoon at two o'clock right here
we are going to be having the baby shower
in honor of Shannon Betty.
And so cake and punch will be provided.
Please bring a dish to share.
Don't be shy at all if you don't know.
Shannon Betty, show up and get to know her.
It's great to show up at these kind of events
to make friends.
So all teen girls and ladies are invited to that.
On the back, speaking of ladies and teen girls,
we also have the mother-daughter tea party coming up.
There are two different options on this.
One is on April 27th, one is on May 4th.
So whichever of those works out the best for you.
Be sure to RSVP.
and give a detailed RSVP about who's coming
and how old they are and everything
so that we can accommodate everything with that
and follow the instructions there in that.
announcement. Again, we already talked about Pastor Mejia coming this Wednesday,
other upcoming events on April the 25th, which is a Friday night. I'm going to be
preaching in Seattle, Washington. I've never preached in Seattle. I've always
loved Seattle. I've gone there a lot for work, but I've never actually preached
there, but there is a church plant up there.
Sure Foundation Baptist Church has a church plant up there and the guy who
preaches there on a regular basis, Brother Sean Conlon, many of you know him
because he went to our church for a while and his wife is from Arizona and
speaking of Brother Sean Conlon, he just finished up a phenomenal mission
Brother Kenton Knowles and Brother Kevin, so we just had an awesome trip there. They had over 300 salvations
They went to like six different countries
Just hitting all these different stops in the Caribbean
So they did a phenomenal job working really hard long days of soul winning and so great work on that end
So that's that's brother Sean Conlon and he is now preaching on a weekly basis up in Seattle
So, that's a great place for people to go to church if they live in that Seattle area.
And I'm looking forward to going and preaching there on April the 25th.
And then, of course, we have the KJV conference.
Seemed like it was a really far out thing, but it's actually coming up because it's already
happening in May.
So, you can make plans about that.
And then, what's going on?
We're not there yet. Just just slow down. All right, let me get there
I want to talk about Pastor Dylan Oz preaching, okay?
First, on May 25th, is that all right?
From Anchor Baptist in Oklahoma.
No, I'm just kidding.
My wife just wanted me to announce
that there are some leftover baked goods
that she put over there that are like a day old.
And so from her bakery,
so there's some of my wife's stuff's over there.
In case you didn't already, you know,
carboload with all the donuts and everything,
Cheesecakes? Is that right?
Oh, sorry, strudel. This is a strudel, not cheesecake.
Toot me light.
So, um...
Yeah, so anyway, be sure to carbo-load over there after the service.
And that's about it for announcements.
All right, let's sing our next song. Come lead us.
All right, you should find the answer in front of your hymnal
with the hymn entitled, Brought into the Corner.
If you don't have an answer, you can raise your hand.
And we'll sing it out together on that first verse.
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do.
Brine the corner.
Sing it out together now.
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do.
Do not wait to shed the light of awe.
Do the many duties that were given.
I'll be true, white and blood quarter where you are.
you may guide across the bar right in the corner where you are just above our
clouded skies that you may help to clear let the narrow self your way deep are
going to one heart alone may call your song of cheer right in the corner where
Where you are, right in the corner, where you are
Someone far from armor you may guide across the bar
Right in the corner, where you are
Here for all your talent you may surely find the need
Here reflect the bright and morning star
Right in the corner, where you are.
Someone far from over, you may guide across the bar.
Right in the corner, where you are.
Man, good singing, everybody. Take your hymnos now and go to hymn number 244, number 244,
Amazing Grace. Hymn number 244. Let's sing this out together now. Number 244, Amazing
Grace. How sweet the sound. Let's save the wretch like beat 244. Amazing Grace.
the sound, and say the red, white, green, I want one.
It's great
All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Job chapter one.
Job chapter number one, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Corbin Brock
as he reads Job chapter one.
Job chapter one, there was a man in the land of us
whose name was Job,
and that man was perfect and upright
and one that feared God and eschewed evil.
And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
His substance also was 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels
and 500 yoke of oxen and 500 she-asses
and a very great household.
So that this man was the greatest
of all the men of the east.
And his sons went and feasted in their houses
every one his day and sent and called
for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
And it was so when the days of their feasting were gone about that Job sent and sanctified them and rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all.
For Job said, It may be that my sons of sinned and cursed God in their hearts thus did Job continually.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came also among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan, whence cometh thou?
Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
from going to and fro on the earth,
and from walking up and down in it.
And the Lord said unto Satan,
hath thou considered my servant Job,
that there is none like him in the earth,
a perfect and an upright man,
one that feareth God in a shoe with evil?
Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
doth Job fear God for naught?
Has not thou made and hedge about him and about his house and about all that he hath on every side?
Thou hast blessed the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land
But put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy face and the Lord sent unto Satan
Behold all that he hath is in thy power
Only upon himself put not forth thine hand so Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord
And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house.
And there came a messenger and a Job and said,
The oxen were plowing and the asses feeding beside them.
And the Saviants fell upon them and took them away.
Yea, they have slain away.
They have slain the servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
While he was yet speaking there came also another and said the fire of God is fallen from heaven and hath burned up the sheep and
The servants and consumed them and I only am escaped alone to tell thee while he was yet speaking
They came also another and said the caldeans made out three bands and fell upon
Cam the camels and have carried them away. Yay and
slain the servants with the edge of the sword and I only am escaped alone to tell thee
While he was yet speaking there came also another and said thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house and
Behold there came a great wind from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the house
And it fell upon the young men and they are dead and I only am escaped alone to tell thee
Then Job arose and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground and worshiped, and said,
Naked came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And all this Job's sin not, nor charge God foolishly.
Well, we thank you for being in your house today.
I just pray that you can fill past Anderson with your spirit,
help us be attentive to the word today.
And I pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.
Men, the book of Job here, starting out in chapter one,
has always been one of my favorite books.
When I was a teenager and I was reading through the Bible,
cover to cover repeatedly,
I remember I had a Bible reading plan where I would be in several books at once because
I found that I read more Bible if I ended up reading what I wanted to read or reading
what I felt like reading.
And so instead of just being on some kind of a strict schedule that told me exactly what
to read, I would have seven books going at a time.
That way I could pick from any of these seven books and, you know, if I would feel like reading
The one thing that was always on that list was the book of Job.
The book of Job was just on repeat for years.
I would just read the book of Job literally every single day because it's just one of my favorite books.
I think it's a fascinating book.
And starting out here in chapter one, we have the opening scene here,
just sort of setting the scene for the scenario that the whole book of Job is about.
It starts out in verse number one.
There was a man in the land of us whose name was Job,
and that man was perfect and upright,
one that feared God and eschewed evil.
Now, the importance of this verse is because later on
throughout the book, Job is going to continually
be accused of wrongdoing.
He's going to be called a wicked person,
and he's going to be criticized heavily.
So right away, the author is letting us know
that these criticisms of Job are not going to be legitimate.
The idea here is not that Job is sinless.
Every single person is a sinner.
The Bible says,
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one.
The Bible says there is not a just man upon the earth
that doeth good and sineth not.
Everyone is a sinner. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
But the idea here, when it says that Job was perfect, the biblical usage of the word perfect,
does not mean sinless, it means complete.
And the idea here is that this guy is the whole package.
He's not just serving God in certain areas of his life, and then in other areas,
he's really sinful or doing wrong.
He has the whole package. You know, today,
We would look at this as Christians in 2025 and say,
hey, this guy's not only reading his Bible,
but he also attends church.
He also prays.
He's also living a clean life.
You know, he's kind of checking the boxes as it were
of living a good Christian life.
And so he's a perfect and an upright man.
He fears God and he eschews evil, meaning he avoids evil.
He turns away from or stays away from evil.
So he does right.
and he avoids doing wrong, he's just a great guy.
In fact, later, God is even going to say
that there's nobody else like him in the whole earth
that fears God in his shoes, evil,
meaning that he is literally the most righteous person
living on earth at this time.
He's the greatest Christian, we could say,
obviously, anachronistically,
we could say that he's the greatest Christian
on the planet, right?
And the Bible says in verse two there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters,
which makes sense because the Bible talks about children being a blessing from God.
And so this guy's kind of got everything going for him because not only does he have seven
sons and three daughters, but verse three, his substance
also was seven thousand sheep and it goes to catalog how he owns all these animals and that is
obviously a sign of wealth animals are expensive and if he has this gigantic operation with just
thousands and thousands of heads of livestock then obviously he's extremely wealthy not only that but
his portfolio is diverse because it's not all in one type of animal or something like that
500 yoke of oxen, 500 she-asses, and a very great household.
And then it says this at the end of verse 3,
so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east,
and greatest in that context is referring to his financial prosperity, right?
The Bible will often use the word great to refer to someone who has a lot of money.
And that's what this is saying.
He has all of this cattle, and no one else has more.
is he the most righteous man, but he's also doing extremely well financially.
He's not the most rich man in the entire world, but he's the greatest of all the men of the east,
so he's got quite an enterprise going here when it comes to wealth.
It says in verse number four, his sons went and feasted in their houses,
everyone his day, and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
And by the way, before I get into this, I want to say this, that we know what's coming.
You know, spoiler alert, but he's going to end up losing all of his wealth.
And this goes to show that no matter what position you're in financially,
you may think that you're invincible and that you have your finances in such a way
where you could never lose everything, but yet Job does lose everything.
And the idea here is that if God wants to, God can take everything from you at any time,
no matter how healthy you are, right?
Like I preached on Wednesday night in that news article,
the so-called healthiest man in the world is being destroyed right now.
Okay, because of his wickedness, because God can take down anybody any time he wants to.
In this case, it's a righteous man, Job, but it's the same thing for wicked people.
God can snap his fingers and your wealth will evaporate.
God can snap his fingers and your health is gone.
God holds our destiny in his hands.
And no matter how great you are, you are not immune from God's judgment.
The Bible says in verse four,
his sons went and feasted in their houses,
everyone his day and sent and called for their three sisters
to eat and to drink with them.
So the idea here is that he has seven sons and three daughters
and they each feast on their day
because there are seven days in a week, right?
So you got seven sons, seven days of the week.
So it's like, we're gonna party at his house on Monday,
we're partying at his house on Tuesday,
we're partying at his house on Wednesday.
And so each one,
his day, they go feast in each of their houses and they sent and called for their three sisters
to eat and drink with them. So here we have the children enjoying the prosperity provided for
them by dad. I mean, dad's really wealthy and so he has provided for them. They're growing up and
enjoying all this.
Bounty to the to where they can just party for the whole week and just Monday we're at his house Tuesday
We're at his house and so forth and then the three sisters are coming and and partying and enjoying and it says in verse
Five it was so when the days of their feasting were gone about that Job sent and sac sanctified them
rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the
number of them all. For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed
God in their hearts, thus did Job continually. So not only is Job interested
in keeping himself right with God and doing the right things for himself, he's
also offering burnt sacrifices on behalf of his children.
You know, he doesn't have to do that, but he's just thinking about other people.
He's just super afraid that maybe they offended God and he has so much baloney and abundance.
He might as well just offer some extra burnt sacrifices just to cover them
in case they're thinking something stupid in their heart.
And obviously cursing God in your heart would be a pretty major sin.
And I don't think we see Job here just taking for granted,
oh, because I'm a righteous guy,
of course my kids are all going to be righteous too.
No, there's still a possibility
that they could have some wicked thought in their heart
or be cursing God in their heart,
which is obviously a horrible thing to do.
And so he's just offering burnt sacrifices,
like preventatively, prophylactically, right?
Offering burnt sacrifices.
So this guy's going above and beyond in his service for God.
And it says he did this continually.
I mean, this isn't a one-time thing.
There are other times when he worried,
hey, what if my kids are wicked in their hearts?
What if they're going the wrong way?
Let me offer these sacrifices
and just try to get God to be merciful unto them, right?
That's what Job did continually.
It says in verse 6,
Now there was a day when the sons of God
came to present themselves before the Lord
and Satan came also among them.
The Lord said to Satan, when's comeest thou?
Now that means where did you come from?
So Satan shows up and the Lord asks him,
hey, where'd you come from?
Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
from going to and fro in the earth
and from walking up and down in it.
And the Lord said to Satan,
has thou considered my servant Job,
that there's none like him in the earth,
a perfect and an upright man,
one that feareth God and escheweth evil?
Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
doth Job fear God for naught? And of course, Satan loves to ask questions, right?
Instead of just coming right out and saying something wicked,
he'll often start out by just phrasing it as a question, right?
Because if we go back to the very beginning of the Bible in the Garden of Eden when Satan tempts Eve with the fruit,
he asked this question,
yea hath God said?
You should not eat of all the trees of the garden.
You know, I mean, did God really say that?
Are you sure?
And then he's asking, you know, did he say that?
And then he's like, well, you know, you're not,
you're not surely going to die.
He doesn't even say you're not going to die.
He just says like, you're not for sure going to die.
If you eat in the fruit, so the devil's kind of subtle in his little jabs and criticisms and temptations that he does
And so he just kind of puts this question out there. Well, is Job
fearing God for nothing?
Does Job serve God for naught?
Is he doing this because it's the right thing to do?
Is he doing this because he loves you, Lord?
Or is he perhaps just doing it because you're blessing him so much?
I mean, why not be thankful to God and serve God when things are going great?
I mean, if things are going great for you,
of course you're going to be thankful to God and serve God and praise God.
Job's doing it for the wrong reason, according to Satan.
Just like a quid pro quo, if I do this good thing, God's going to give me this good in return,
and he's not really doing it out of love from the heart.
Now, this is a stupid argument anyway, because frankly, if you're doing the right things and
you're serving God, you're following God, you know what? I don't really care why you're doing it.
If you're doing right, that's better than doing wrong.
You know I mean like like different people could be motivated in different ways because what if somebody says well
You know what? I love God, and I'm serving God because I'm scared that if I don't he's gonna cloud up and rain on me
That's a pretty good reason to serve God all throughout the Bible the Bible admonishes you to serve God
Because if you don't he's gonna kick your butt
Right? And really, that's where serving God starts for most people.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding.
Obviously, we should graduate to a place where we're doing things more just out of love
and we're moving more away from fear and more toward love.
But there's nothing wrong with serving God because He said so.
And because you know, if I serve God, I'm going to be blessed.
And if I don't serve God, I'm going to be cursed.
If that were a bad reason to serve God,
then why does God just spend chapter after chapter
telling the children of Israel in the Mosaic Law,
these are the blessings that are going to happen if you serve me.
And then these are the curses that are going to happen if you don't serve me.
And then they come along and say,
well, the only reason that they're serving you is because they want to get those blessings.
That's a pretty good reason.
Well, I mean, they're just serving you because, you know, they don't want anything bad to happen.
Yeah, you better know I don't want anything bad to happen, so I'm going to keep serving God.
So this is a, in my opinion, this is a very foolish criticism from Satan.
And so as we're reading the book of Job and we read the words of Satan, we want to remember, this is Satan talking.
So, we don't want to take what he says too seriously, we want to understand all of the
subtle things that he's trying to do here with his evil speech.
He is a liar, he's the father of lies, and when he's speaking lies, you know, that's
the most natural thing in the world for him to be doing.
And so, his criticism ends up, of course, not being legitimate.
Because newsflash, the guy who's doing the right things because God's blessing him for it is also the same type of guy that's going to keep doing the right thing even when things go bad.
Because guess what? Your average Christian, when things go really well for them, they actually get more backslidden.
You know so to sit there and say oh of course Job's serving you everything's going great for him
Well, that's funny because what I've seen a lot in my life is that when people have everything going good for them
That often makes them get back slidden and start thinking less about the things of God because they get all puffed up and high and mighty in themselves
Because just as easily Job could have just looked at all his flocks and herds and said you know what I have so much wealth
I have so much go. I'm untouchable
I'm indestructible.
You know, I don't have to do all these sacrifices to God and stuff.
I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps.
I mean, what does the Bible say in Proverbs 30?
Give me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee, and say,
Pshh, who is the Lord?
Or, lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain.
The Bible is saying here that when you get rich as a Christian,
you could have a tendency to start thinking that you don't need God anymore.
And then when you're poor, you could get a tendency of getting really bitter because you don't even have food to eat and you're struggling and you get mad and get upset at God.
And so that's why the author of Proverbs 30 is asking for that middle way of neither poverty nor riches.
But in this passage, this is what Satan has to say against Job.
Notice that Satan is not actually bringing up some concrete sin in Job's life because there really isn't one.
There isn't some big glaring sin for him to bring up.
Again, not to say that he's sinless,
but there's not some huge thing that Job's doing wrong.
So he has to just come out with this weird accusation of,
well, does Job fear God for not?
Like, is he really doing it for nothing?
I mean, you're rewarding him.
Of course he's working, he's getting paid.
Okay, what's wrong with that?
Has Thou not made, verse 10,
a hedge about him and about his house
and about all that he has on every side?
Thou hast blessed the work of his hands and his substances increased in the land,
but put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face."
And of course Satan is completely wrong about this because God's gonna do just that and what's Job gonna do?
He's gonna keep on serving God keep on praising God and he's not gonna break
So so the devil is a hundred percent wrong here. His argument is wrong. His accusation is wrong. His prediction is wrong
Everything he just said there ends up being wrong. Okay in his analysis
Now keep your finger here in at Job chapter 1 and go to Revelation chapter number 12 Revelation chapter number 12
I heard probably over the last week or so,
I heard probably the dumbest,
one of the dumbest things I've ever heard,
one of the dumbest doctrines that I've ever heard.
And this doctrine is so weird that like,
I felt like it was almost like Mormon
or Scientology levels of weirdness.
But the gently led mister, you know, if you know, you know.
He preached and said that this confrontation between the Lord and Satan in Job chapter 1 is not taking place in heaven but that it's taking place on earth.
and that there's just a place on earth where the Lord is physically there present on earth
and the sons of God, the saved Christians are just coming and presenting themselves before the Lord
and that's where Satan shows up.
I mean, it's got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
And then he's explaining how, oh, even all the way back in the days of Cain and Abel, there was a tabernacle.
You know, because remember, the tabernacle goes back to Moses and Mount Sinai.
Right? Moses, Mount Sinai, build the Tabernacle, and so forth.
He claims that, oh, no, the whole time there's a Tabernacle,
and that, you know, that's just when it gets kind of transferred over to Moses and Aaron.
But it was already just always there.
And that when Cain, you know, departed from the presence of the Lord
and went east of Eden to dwell in the land of Nod,
he was leaving like a, he was probably leaving like a physical Tabernacle,
where there was like a house of God, physical Tabernacle.
And this is because of his weird obsession
with this stupid hole in the ground that they call Temple Zero.
Now, this is what this is, is that they claim that the Temple Mount is not the actual location
for the Temple, which it is the actual location for the Temple.
But they're claiming, no, no, no, it's this other place down south here in the city of
David and they dug up this really ancient Temple Zero, the Temple of Melchizedek.
Temple of Melchizedek, it's a bunch of made-up, nonsense, garbage doctrine that's not in the Bible,
Temple Zero. And this is how they know it's Temple Zero. They have this archaeologist pointing at
a hole in the wall and saying, this is where they had a metal ring here because they tied animals
here. It's just a hole in the wall. It's like, oh, this hole in the wall, tied animals here.
And then there's just like a long
There's just like a little channel in the floor that's like a rectangular channel like few inches deep few inches wide
And they're like oh, this is the channel for all the blood to run out when they kill the animals
Okay, and then there are like these V's in the ground and they're like oh
This is where they set up tripods to skin animals
And then they have like a little round thing and they say oh this is an olive press to press olives
And I'm thinking to myself like okay
So you found this tiny little structure of a couple rooms underground you dug up a couple rooms underground in Jerusalem
And what do we have here? We have an olive press
We got three tripod areas for skinning animals
We have supposedly a blood gutter and another place to tie up animals
It's all just like food prep related stuff. It could be a restaurant for crying out loud
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Hmm, I wonder where they skin animals, kill them, and make olive oil, and all this stuff.
It could be a restaurant, it could be some kind of a food prep area, a kitchen, or even
if it were a temple, which I don't believe for one second that it was any kind of temple,
but let's say it was a temple.
How about it could just be some pagan temple, because didn't the Bible say that they were
setting up their shrines to their false gods on every street corner?
in Jerusalem and just constant idolatry.
Every street corner has a thing.
So you did, and this is how archaeologists always are.
They love to just tell stories,
hole in the wall, oh, let me tell you exactly what that is.
Little ditch in the ground, it could be anything.
Oh, let me tell you what it is. Oh, look, they killed animals there. And this is what bro says also
He says he says, you know, oh, you must have an olive press in the in the house of God because you know
You annoyed to the house of God with oil and and you cannot wait with olive oil olive oil must be used immediately
You cannot wait with olive oil and this is why they have to have the olive press right there
Has this guy ever seen the inside of a kitchen?
Because, you know, you ladies out there, you know that olive oil is pretty stinking shelf stable.
I mean, back then and now, olive oil,
yeah, eventually it'll go rancid,
but it could last for months and months and months.
It's been a trade good throughout history.
People selling big barrels of oil.
He's acting like you just gotta just smash the olives
and just quick, quick, use it quick.
You gotta have a break with olive oil.
Like he's just some kind of a Gordon Ramsay
in there or something.
Is that that guy's name?
He's just like, you waited too long on this olive oil.
You took 15 minutes.
It had to be used in seven minutes.
Like, what is this, but it's, again, it's just people just making things up.
You cannot wait with all of a, whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah.
Interesting.
Now, Bro's just trying to make a bunch of money because he dug up a restaurant and it's not
that cool, so now it's got to be Melchizedek's Temple.
It's in and out burger.
But because they have this weird obsession with this location, this temple zero, the true location of the temple,
then it's like, I guess just literally everything in the Bible happened there. And so the gently led mister said,
you know, this place where Job 1 took place, where Satan and the Lord faced off, he said,
I've been there.
He said, I know this happened on earth because I've been there.
I stood where Satan stood, and confronted the Lord.
This is madness, because guess what?
Everybody, I've never heard anyone teach this weird doctrine
of just like continuous tabernacle from Adam and Eve to Moses,
or this idea of just like, I guess,
pre-incarnate Christ, just being on earth
for thousands of years continually,
and Christians, or God's people just showing up
and just presenting themselves.
It's madness.
But let's show some biblical proof that this actually took place in heaven.
Besides just the obvious plain reading of Job 1,
we actually have a clear example of this in Revelation chapter 12.
Look at Revelation chapter 12.
It says in verse number 7, Revelation 12, 7, it says there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon,
and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not,
neither was their place found anymore in heaven."
So you have this war going on in heaven.
between Satan and his angels, right?
The fallen angels, the one-third of the angels
that went with Satan, versus Michael, the archangel,
the good angel, and his armies.
And they're fighting and battling in heaven.
And it says that the devil, the dragon,
prevailed not, Versaite.
Neither was their place found any more in heaven.
So notice, they were located in heaven.
The war's going on in heaven.
But then, when Satan is defeated,
now his place is no more in heaven.
And it says in verse nine,
the great dragon was cast out.
So he's cast out of heaven.
That old serpent called the devil and Satan
which deceived the whole world,
he was cast out into the earth
and his angels were cast out with him.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,
now has come salvation and strength
and the kingdom of our God
and the power of his Christ
for the accuser of our brethren is cast down
which accused them before our God day and night.
Now notice.
The devil is up in heaven accusing the brethren before God day and night.
So this thing where he comes and talks smack about Job and says,
oh, well, you know, Job's serving you, but it's for the wrong reasons, right?
Is that something that's taking place in heaven just with Job and no one else?
Or is that something that Satan is doing to all of us all the time?
Think about it.
and he's accusing the brethren before God day and night,
then that means that this thing with Job is not an isolated incident where he says,
oh, you know, well, Job's doing it for the wrong reasons.
He's obviously bringing up stuff about you.
He's bringing up stuff about me.
Just all Christians are continually being accused by the devil up in heaven.
So if it's taking place in heaven in Revelation chapter 12,
why would we think it's taking place on earth?
in Job chapter one, aside from the giant elephant in the room,
that God is just hanging out on Earth,
and people are just coming up and talking to Him on Earth,
back in the Old Testament.
Continually, that makes no sense.
But it's clearly happening in heaven
because here's the thing,
once the devil's cast out of heaven, it stops.
The point is the devil's up in heaven accusing the brethren before God day and night now. We're excited. We're rejoicing
We're happy why because he's not doing it anymore because he's now cast out
Okay, now this might surprise you or shock you, but this is a future event in the book of Revelation
This has not happened yet
Okay, the devil is still today up in heaven accusing us before God day and night even right now
Okay, and here's the thing when he is cast out the Bible says that he has great wrath look at verse 12
Therefore rejoice she heavens and ye that dwell in them
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the devil has come down unto you, having great wrath,
because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." So when he's cast out of heaven,
he knows he only has a short amount of time.
Okay, so this didn't happen thousands of years ago.
This is talking about a short amount of time that he is cast down to the earth.
And during that time, he does activities that the Bible describes as taking, you know, 1260 days, 42 months, right?
Because it's actually a total of seven years.
It's two halves.
that are three and a half years each that are described and so when the devil is cast out,
you know, then he goes out to persecute God's people, he puts the antichrist into power,
you know, when is the antichrist going to come into power? Well, Satan being cast out is what
triggers those. He knows he only has a little bit of time, so then he mobilizes all the forces of
evil, puts the antichrist power, and I'm not going to make this a big revelation sermon,
but I'm just giving you the basics here of Revelation chapter 12 that where
Does the devil accuse the brethren before God?
It's in heaven and when he's cast out of heaven,
it stops happening because that's where it happens.
Now let's go back to Job.
Obviously we could just party in Revelation
for the rest of the service,
but we need to go back to Job and stay on task here.
But in the book of Job, it says in verse six of chapter one,
now there was a day when the sons of God
came to present themselves before the Lord
and Satan came also among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan, whence cometh thou?
Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
from going to and fro in the earth,
and from walking up and down in it.
So Satan walks into the halls of heaven
to accuse the brethren before God
to talk a bunch of smack about God's people.
Okay?
And then God suggests to him,
well have you considered my servant Job?
I bet you don't want to talk about him.
Right because he's probably talking about you know, whoever usually and and maybe even bringing some legitimate criticisms of God's people
But then God says oh, let's talk about Job
There's none like him in all the earth that fears God and issues evil
But notice where did the devil say that he came from when the death went when God asked him
You know, hey, where'd you come from? He says I came from going to and fro in the earth
because they're not in the earth, they're in heaven.
And he's saying, well, here's where I came from.
I was in the earth going to and fro
and walking up and down in it.
And so, no, the plain reading of the text here
is not that this is happening on earth,
but that it's happening in heaven.
And then Revelation chapter 12 seals that
beyond any shadow of a doubt.
And now we don't need to come up with some weird doctrine
about some weird situation where the sons of God
are constantly presenting themselves
before the Lord on earth.
Because he's saying that the sons of God are saved Christians, God's people, you know, children of God,
which is true, that's what the Bible does to each, that we are the sons of God, we are the children of God.
But guess what? When you're in heaven, you're not going to believe this. Saved people are up in heaven.
Sons of God are up in heaven.
And they can easily come and present themselves before the Lord in heaven.
Hey, I can't wait until, well, I can wait, and I will wait, but I can't wait until I'm up there in heaven.
And you know what? I'm going to be face-to-face with Christ my Savior!
But no, there's no place on earth where you can go do that right now.
And in Job's day, you couldn't go do that then either.
You didn't just go to some, you know, you just got to go to the guy on spring and go to temple zero
You know Melchizedek's barbecue and go there and and you know just hang out with the Lord on earth
It just doesn't work that way. That's a made-up weird doctor
And like I said, it's almost like Mormon level
Scientology level weirdness to add all these layers of things in the Bible that just aren't there all this exotic teaching
So in Job chapter 1
The devil is accusing Job.
Well, here's what the Bible says in 1 John.
It says,
But, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.
So you could think of this as a courtroom analogy, where God the Father is the judge,
Satan is the prosecutor.
He's the accuser of the brethren, which accuses them before God day and night.
And then we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.
So Jesus Christ is the defense attorney.
I mean, talk about having great representation when Jesus is your lawyer.
And here's the thing, if you go into court and you have a great lawyer,
you feel pretty good, you feel pretty confident, don't you?
And when you're just kind of stuck with the public defender,
you know, you're a little nervous and you don't know,
hey, is this guy really going to go to bat for me?
Is he going to work hard?
Is he going to phone it in?
But when you shell out the big bucks
and you got Mark Victor and associates or whatever in there
and you got somebody in there that's a bulldog attorney,
you're like, hey.
I don't have to worry too much because I've got the best attorney and we've all seen attorneys
get people even that were super guilty off the hook.
Well guess what?
We're all super guilty and Jesus is getting us all off the hook.
So we're like a spiritual OJ over here and we got, well I don't want to compare Jesus
to Johnny Cochran or anything like that but I'm just saying, hey we got the ultimate lawyer.
We're so ridiculously guilty and yet we're getting off the hook through the blood of Christ
So and obviously I'm being facetious
I'm joking a bit, but I'm not kidding about the fact that the devil is the prosecutor up there
Accusing us before God and that Jesus is our advocate with the Father and Jesus is defending us
before the devil's accusations and
so
The devil says has not thou made a hedge about him in verse 10 and about his house and about all that he hath on every side
That was blessed the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land
But put forth thou thine hand and touch all that he has and he will curse thee to thy face
And, of course, this isn't true, but this is the accusations that's made.
And you know, the only true thing here is that God really does have a hedge around Job, like
God really is protecting Job, because you know what the Bible says?
The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.
And so when you fear God, the Bible says you are under divine protection.
And people talk about guardian angels, well guess what, guardian angels are biblical.
because the Bible says that the angels are ministering spirits
sent forth to minister for them who shall be the heirs of salvation
and the Bible says the angel of the Lord in campeth round about
them that fear him. And so if I fear God, I love God, I serve God
then I do have a guardian angel or guardian angels
protecting me and keeping me safe. And I wouldn't want to go through life without that.
I wouldn't want to get on the road and drive the car without that.
because I want to be safe, I want to be protected,
I want that hedge around me,
I want God to bless everything that I do,
I want everything that I do to prosper.
And that's what Job had going for him.
Satan is begrudging him that.
So what is the Lord's response to this?
Verse 12,
The Lord said unto Satan,
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power,
only upon himself put not forth thine hand.
So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and so the idea here is
you can take away everything that belongs to him
but you can't actually touch Job himself
because remember Satan saying well he has all this stuff
he's not doing it for nothing he's got all this wealth he's got all these
possessions if he loses that stuff he'll curse you to
your face
And so the Lord gives him permission to take away everything that Job has, but not to touch his physical body or to touch him personally or harm him in any way.
That's the initial agreement here, okay?
And Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and then as we go through the rest of the chapter, we see that actually carried out, we see that actually happen, okay?
And the idea here is that the devil is on a leash, right?
The devil doesn't have the kind of power that God has.
is allowing Satan to do something bad that he wants to do.
But if God doesn't give him permission, he can't do it, right?
So, you know, God has to give Job, or Satan permission to hurt Job and say,
okay, here's what you can do.
You can take away his wealth, but you can't touch him personally.
and then Satan goes and does only what God has given him permission to do.
And so here's the thing, we shouldn't be scared of the devil or fear Satan
because God is the one who ultimately is worthy of our fear
because, you know, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Whereas if you're in Satan's hand, because what does he say?
In verse number 12, the Lord said to Satan,
Behold, all that he has is in my power.
And then later on, look what he says in chapter two, verse six,
the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in thy hand,
but save his life.
So would you rather be in the hand of the devil
or the hand of the living God?
You know, here's the thing.
If you're in Satan's hand, if God says,
Okay, Satan, insert your name here is in your hand.
Only mess with his stock portfolio, you know?
Only mess with his bank account.
Only mess with his family.
Only mess with this or that.
Or maybe even, well, mess with his physical health,
but don't kill him.
There's always a limitation, but here's the thing.
If God is upset with you,
there's no limit on what God could do to you.
If God decides to, he could make you lose everything
or he could even kill you.
He could do anything, there's no limit.
Whereas Satan's power is very limited.
And, really, this whole scenario, even though what Satan is proposing is wrong, what he's
saying is inaccurate, and what he does is evil and wicked, at the end of the day, all
of this brings glory to God.
Because we've got the book of Job, which is such an awesome, amazing book.
We wouldn't have this book if this hadn't happened.
So, ultimately, even Satan is fulfilling a role in God's grand design.
Not to excuse his wickedness, but just to say it's all kind of part of the plan.
Because if God wanted to, God could just eliminate the devil right now.
And in fact, even in the end times, we know that for a thousand years, the devil's going
to be bound for a thousand years.
He's going to be put into hell and shut up in hell and not allowed to leave for 1,000
years so that he cannot deceive the nations anymore.
then why wouldn't God just do that now, right, if he can do that?
Well, the reason why is because the devil fulfills a purpose ultimately in God's plan.
God allows him to exist because he ultimately fulfills a purpose.
And then at the end of the thousand years, God, he's already got the devil locked up,
he lets him out on purpose.
in order to go out and deceive the nations,
which are in the four quarters of the earth,
Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the battle,
the number of whom is as the sand of the sea and on and on.
So the idea here is that the devil ultimately
is fulfilling a function or a purpose.
He's kind of like a trash collector
to help gather all the trash
and to deceive the wicked and so forth.
And so then we see the execution of this.
It says in verse 13, there was a day when his sons,
Job's sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine
in their eldest brother's house.
And there came a messenger unto Job and said,
the oxen were plowing and the asses feeding beside them.
And the Sabeans fell upon them and took them away.
Ye they've slain the servants with the edge of the sword.
And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
And so there's just all of these catastrophes
all end up happening at once.
Okay, the first thing that happens is
you've got foreigners coming in, right?
The Sabians are coming in, foreign raiders come in,
and they kill all the Job servants,
and they steal their stuff, they steal the cattle,
and only one guy escapes, you know,
just to tell Job about it.
While he was yet speaking, there came also another
and said,
The fire of God has fallen from heaven and had burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them.
And I only am escaped alone to tell you.
Now, this is his perspective.
You know, we don't know exactly what happened.
It could be some kind of a forest fire or something, but there's some kind of a fire.
This is what the servant considers it, fire fallen from heaven.
But honestly, we know that the devil's the one doing this.
And so it's probably some kind of a forest fire.
Who knows exactly how this was physically carried out.
but the sheep end up being destroyed,
the servants end up being burned up.
And then verse 17, while he was yet speaking,
there came also another and said,
the Chaldeans made out three bands, more foreigners,
and fell upon the camels and have carried them away,
yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword,
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
While he was yet speaking, there came also another
and said, thy sons and thy daughters were eating
and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house,
and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness
the four corners of the house and it fell upon the young men and they are dead
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. So not only, because when you're reading
the confrontation between the Lord and Satan, you might think to yourself
that this is only going to affect Job financially because of the fact that
he can't touch Job personally. So he thinks like, you know, you might be thinking as the
reader like, okay, this is just, he's going to lose all his wealth.
but also all ten of his children are killed.
So it's not just that he loses his wealth, he also loses
his children. So God just said, well you can't touch Job.
But he didn't say anything about Job's kids.
And so therefore, the devil ends up, you know,
sending this wind, you know,
he's the prince of the power of the air.
And he obviously does have some powers
over this natural world.
And so he ended up knocking down the house on them
and the house collapses.
And all 10 of Job's children die in one day.
And obviously this is just super extreme, right?
He has all this wealth, he has 10 kids,
so he spends his whole life working and doing all this
and raising kids and building a business and all this stuff.
And it's all just wiped out in one day.
Now, the reason why this is so extreme
is because it's meant to be an example for us.
So that when we go through things, we can always look at Job and say,
okay, no matter what I'm going through, it's not as bad as what Job went through.
Because think about it, let's say this story were less extreme,
then we'd constantly be thinking, well, what I'm going through is worse than Job.
You know, and look, there's been a time in my life when I thought to myself,
you know what?
What I'm going through is worse than Job chapter 1.
I've definitely felt that way, and in many ways I do feel like
I've been through something worse than Job chapter 1.
But you know what? Then you get to Job chapter 2 and you're like,
no, no, what happened to Job is worse than what happened to me.
So, you're totally covered.
You know what I'm saying? Like, no matter what happens to you,
you can always look at the book of Job and say,
okay, book of Job is worse.
Because by the time Job is covered in boils head to toe,
and he's lost his children,
and his wife is cursing him and telling him to curse God and die,
and he's lost all the wealth,
it's just like everything's covered at that point.
You know.
And look, no matter what happened to me, you know, I don't want those boils, right?
I mean, you'd rather lose all your money than to be just covered in, you know, burning, painful skin disease.
That's way worse than some of these other things.
And so, the Bible says here,
At the end of chapter one here, you know, after he hears this news, which is kind of the, the coup d'et grosse, the worst thing, right?
Because losing your money is one thing. Your 10 children just died. Obviously, that's the coup d'et grosse.
That's the worst thing that happens to him in chapter one.
And so this is horrible, and it says in verse number 20 that Job arose and rent his mantle.
So that means he tore his garment.
This is a sign of mourning in the Bible, right?
They would rip their clothes like Hulk Hogan.
And it says, he rent his mantle, shaved his head,
fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, right?
So he's not cursing God.
He's not bitter.
He's not mad at God.
He just says, I'm going to worship God.
You know and he said naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shy returned thither
The Lord gave and the Lord had taken away
Blessed be the name of the Lord in all this Job sin not
Nor charged God foolishly another way of saying charged God foolish foolishly is blamed God
He didn't foolishly blame God.
And let me tell you something.
When you are blaming God when things go wrong in your life
and getting angry and bitter at God, you are wrong.
And not only that, you're stupid,
because the Bible says charge God foolishly.
It's stupid for you to lash out and get angry at God
when things go wrong.
You know, the Bible says the foolishness of man perverted his way
and he fretteth against the Lord.
Right, so so basically people do something stupid and
Then they screw up their way they pervert their way
They make their path crooked and then they get they fret against the Lord right you have women out there committing fornication
It's like I don't know why God's doing this to me, you know giving me this life of a single mom
It's like what you did commit fornication, so there's that
Right, it's just like people bring problems on themselves, right? They go out and they get drunk something bad happens
God, why are you doing this to me?
Take drugs something bad happens. Oh, what's happening to me?
Right when you sin and you reap the consequences of your sin
Then you know, you can't get mad at God or get bitter against God
Right, it's the foolishness of the heart of man that is perverting his way and then he frets against the Lord makes no sense
does it
But how much more
When the Bible is showing us an example where the guy didn't even do anything wrong
Bad things happen to him and he still isn't charging God. Do you see what I'm saying?
Like even when he really did do nothing wrong because most of the time our problems end up being self-inflicted
We you know are like that meme where the guy sticks the stick in the back of his wheel the bike crashes
And it's like oh, why did God do this to me?
That's typically what's happening, but how much more in this situation would you expect Job to say God?
I did everything right. Why is this happening?
But you know what Job's attitude is well naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither
The Lord gave and the Lord had taken away blessed be the name of the Lord
You see, even if something bad happens to us,
we can't forget all the good blessings that God has given us up to this point, right?
So I'm 43 years old, and I look back over my life,
I can just count like so many wonderful times,
wonderful days, wonderful blessings, prosperity,
successes, all of the glories, right? So that even if my life just
just went to heck in a handbasket for the next whatever years.
I couldn't really complain and say that I had a bad life.
Because even if my life were just an absolute disaster
from here on out, I would have to say,
well, you know what, I came into this world naked
and look at all these blessings that God gave me.
I mean, here's the thing, most people have never been as rich as Job.
So Job got to spend many many years being rich and having the big family and enjoying everything, right?
And then it's all taken away from him. You know, you know, it said he's just like, well, yeah, but it was a great run
You know, I God gave all this stuff, you know instead of getting mad that God took it away
I'm just gonna be thankful that the Lord gave
You know the Lord gave and the Lord took away blessed to be the name of Lord and here's the interesting thing
You say yeah, but Job lost everything
You will lose everything, not maybe, not maybe, you will lose everything and so will I, it is a guarantee.
I've got bad news for you guys, you're going to lose your wife. Bad news for you ladies, you're going to lose your husband.
Bad news parents, you're going to lose your children. Bad news for you, all your friends are going to die.
Bad news for you, all the wealth that you have is going to be gone someday.
Everything is going to be gone someday.
And here's the thing about Job.
Job has 10 children and Job's 10 children die.
Well, guess what?
Job's 10 children would be dead in 2025,
no matter what the devil did or didn't do.
I mean, it's 2025.
Is there any possible way that Job's 10 kids
would be alive right now?
So weren't they always going to die anyway?
They were always going to die.
They died early.
In the scheme of things, it doesn't really change anything, does it?
The Lord gave, the Lord took away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
You know, and when we go through life with this mentality that we're just going to hang on to everything forever
Guess what? You're not going to hang on to anything forever
The Bible says the things that are seen are temporal and the things that are not seen are eternal
And so, you know, obviously we love our spouse. We love our children. We love our home
We love our job. We love our business. We love our church. We love all these things
But every single one of them
is going to be taken away from us some day, right?
All of us one day are going to die.
You know, unless of course Christ returns in our lifetime,
we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
But even then you're still shedding this physical body.
This physical body is going to be gone.
So here's the thing, let's say you lose a limb, right?
That'd be a tragedy.
I would hate to lose a limb.
I hate to lose my leg or lose my arm or something, but here's the thing, I'm not going to get
oh god why'd you take away my leg?
It's like that leg was going to go eventually anyway.
Nobody from the book of Job has a leg anymore.
You know what I'm saying?
Nobody does.
It's all gone.
And that's what you have to understand is that Job is looking at the big picture of
I was born into this world with nothing,
and no matter how rich I am when I die,
I'm going to leave this world with nothing.
The Bible says we brought nothing into this world,
and it is certain that we shall carry nothing out.
And having food and raiment therewith, let us be content.
And so therefore Job gets the big picture
that we came into this world naked.
And we're leaving naked.
We're not going to bring anything with us.
And so we should just be thankful for the good times.
And you know, here's the thing.
I love my wife.
I'm gonna enjoy as much time with my wife as I can.
And you know, but someday that relationship's gonna end.
You know what I'm saying, but but but we're gonna enjoy it as much as we can while we can you know
And it's the same thing with your children
It's the same thing with whatever things you enjoy physically in this world your friends family church all
These things are gonna come to an end and and you know Job is really wise
Even in an emotional time you'd expect him to just kind of flip out
He's he's he's calmly
looking at things, even though he's upset, he's tearing his clothes, he's on the ground.
Obviously this hurts, but he has the perspective to say,
you know what, I was going to lose all this anyway.
Right?
And obviously don't take the Bible too literally because, you know,
Job is not literally going back to his mother's womb.
Okay, obviously this is poetic language, right?
Naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither?
The idea here is that the womb now is representing the grave, you know, it's going into
Darkness confinement the end, you know physically right because you start out your life
Confined in darkness hidden from the Sun then you're born you see the Sun you leave there
You live your life you labor you travel and then you go back into as it were a womb
in a sense. And then of course you could think of that also as the picture of the fact that there's
going to be a bodily resurrection for the saved. It's almost like, you know, the body is being
reborn from that womb of the earth. Okay. And that's another sermon that shall be preached at
another time. But he says,
Nor charge God foolishly. It says in verse 1 of chapter 2 again
There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and
Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord and the Lord said unto Satan from whence come us thou and
Satan answered the Lord and said, oh, I was just down at temple zero. No, I'm just kidding
and
Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it
And the Lord said unto Satan, hath thou considered my servant Job,
that there's none like him in the earth,
a perfect and upright man, that feareth God and his shoeeth evil.
And still he holds fast his integrity.
Although thou movest me against him, to destroy him without cause.
He's saying, look, even though I brought all of this destruction into his life,
for no reason, he is still maintaining his integrity.
Satan answered the Lord and said,
Skin for skin, all that a man hath
will give for his life.
But put forth, dine hand now,
and touch his bone and his flesh,
and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the Lord said unto Satan,
Behold, he's in thine hand, but save his life.
So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils, right?
So some kind of sores or lesions or whatever
horrible painful itching burning skin
situation from the soul of his foot unto his crown, right, to the top of his head and he took him up potchered
This is a broken piece of pottery
to scrape himself with all and he sat down among the ashes and now of course his wife hits the breaking point
You know his wife already saw him lose all the money. The kids are all dead
Now she looks over at her husband and he's just covered in boils from head to toe
so now she reaches the breaking point and
She says does thou still retain that integrity?
Curse God and die.
Don't you hate it when your wife says that to you?
Curse God and die.
And then Job is still pretty cool.
Yeah, he's gonna really let loose
about a week from now in chapter three.
A week later, he really expresses himself.
But at this point, he's still pretty chill.
He says, though, speaketh as one
of the foolish women speaketh.
I mean, that's a nice way of putting it.
What?
Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil and all this did not Job
sin with his lips like like like
So so we're just only gonna receive the good things from God and not the evil because here's the thing
I bet you we get a bunch of good blessings in our life, and we don't thank God for them
And then when something bad happens we complain to God
So it's just complaining complaining complaining
Right and think about this with your physical children.
How about if your physical children just they're not thanking you for anything?
They're not happy when you take them places or do nice things with them and they just complain about all the bad things, right?
It would make you upset, wouldn't it?
Well, how do you think God feels in heaven when we're not thankful for the good things and then we're complaining about all the bad things?
And then we have this attitude of well, we're gonna take all the good from God, but then we're not gonna take the evil.
Guess what? Life is a mixed bag.
Okay, the best that you can hope for in life is a mixed bag
There's two kinds of people in this world
There are people whose life is just all bad and then there's people who have a mix of good and bad
You know so so if you have a mix of good and bad
Be thankful
Because some people it's all bad and then they go to hell when they die
Okay, so you should be thankful for the good and realize that life is good and bad
You know, the Bible says that there's the day of prosperity and the day of mourning and that God has set the one against the other.
You know, if today's a good day, tomorrow's probably going to be a bad day.
If tomorrow's a good day, then, you know, the day after that's probably going to be a bad one.
And if today's bad, well, tomorrow's going to be good.
I hope it's not bad, you know, sitting and listening to a sermon about Job.
Hopefully that's putting things in perspective for you.
But the thing is we are gonna go through stuff in our life period fact you're gonna go through health things
You're going to go through financial things, you're going to go through family things, period!
It doesn't matter who you are, you're going to go through bad things.
You're going to go through physical pain, psychological pain, emotional pain.
You are going to go through bad times in your life, okay?
Some of those things are going to be self-inflicted.
Some of those things are going to be through no fault of your own,
like Job, right? Job didn't do anything wrong.
Some things are going to be through no fault of your own. So it doesn't matter how godly you are,
you're not immune from this. You're going to go through bad stuff.
Satan's up there right now saying the same thing about us
that he said about Job. And by the way,
I've even heard some of Satan's minions down on this earth saying the same thing that Satan says.
Right and here's what they say. Oh, yeah, you know, I that's I've had somebody say this about me personally
Somebody said well, you know the only reason that he serves God
It's it's not because he loves people or anything. It's just it's just because of the rewards
You know, he just wants the blessing he just wants God to bless him and to be rewarded
Right, this is what someone close to me said and accused me of they were talking crap about me in the family saying
Well, he serves God. Yeah, he does a lot of great works for God, but for the wrong reason. It's just it's just for the rewards
It's for the blessings, but it's not because he has real love in his heart
But here's the thing that's the same exact kind of garbage that Satan is saying
Well, sir, this guy's doing good stuff, but it's for the wrong reason
You know and it's funny when people try to read into the reasoning reasoning of others and
Then they want and then they're and then they're the first people to call everybody judgmental
Oh, you guys are so judgmental you judge so much and then they'll they'll like x-ray vision into your heart and tell you why you're doing things
You know and and here's the thing
have my reasons for why I do what I do you have your reasons for why you do
what you do but you know what at the end of the day you want to know what
matters what you do it's what matters okay so it's like here's the thing maybe
I'm going soul-winning because I'm motivated by the fact that God commanded
me to go and I want God to bless me and I want to get the rewards by going
Right, maybe I'm going because I'm afraid that if I stop God would punish me for disobeying the Great Commission as a man of God
Maybe that's why I'm going maybe I'm going because I just genuinely just want to get people out of hell because I'm worried about them
And I'm scared that these people are going to hell and if I can save them man
I want to pull them out of the fire hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, you know
And hey, maybe I'm just going because I just love the gospel and just enjoy talking about it and just have fun soul-winning
At the end of the day, guess what? These are all legitimate reasons and it really doesn't matter which one is true. Who cares?
But you know a bunch of non-soul winners a bunch of do-nothing or very low-achieving Christians sit around pondering the reasons why
People go soul-winning or serve God or whatever and they're gonna do the same thing to you and pick you apart. It's of the devil
It's of the it's the devil who says oh, yeah, well, of course. Yeah, I just does Job serve God for not him
He's he's getting all these blessings
He's not doing it for the right reason
and all this stuff and look obviously yeah there are wrong reasons for doing
things but there are also a lot of different right reasons and here's a
right reason because you want God to put a hedge around you great reason to serve
God
Oh man, I want God to put a hedgerow on me
and protect all my stuff.
Great reason to serve God.
If not, then explain all the chapters that tell you,
hey, you better do what's right,
because if you don't, all these bad things are up.
Oh man, I don't want those bad things up,
I better serve God.
Oh, yes, the wrong reason.
Hey, if you serve God, you're gonna get all these rewards.
Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man, according as his work shall be."
Oh, just kidding, that's a bad motivation.
Shame on you for taking those rewards seriously.
Isn't that kind of dumb?
Now look, if you want to peer into my heart this morning and see what's going on inside here,
honestly, I'm not really motivated by heavenly rewards that much, the thought never really enters my mind.
I'm kind of more of a here and now kind of a guy to be honest with you, you know what I mean?
The thing that motivates me about soul winning is getting people out of hell. That's the main thing.
The main thing is I want to get people out of hell. That's the main thing.
And then the other thing is I don't want God to discipline me right now.
I want God to bless me right now. I want the hedge. I want what Job had.
the protection, the blessings.
That's the kind of stuff I think about.
But here's the thing, if you say,
well, I'm super motivated by heavenly rewards,
I can't wait to be ruling and reigning with Christ,
and I can't wait to be given authority
over 10 cities or something.
Hey, that's a great reason to serve God.
That's why I was accused of having that reason and unfortunately I almost wish I could say
that it were true, because I think that a person who really thinks that way is really
exercising a lot of faith.
and they really have a great attitude
if their heart is on the things above
and not on the things on this earth.
That's probably like a higher level of spirituality.
I feel like, you know, I feel kind of guilty
that I'm not living up to the criticism here.
You know what I mean?
Because it's like, I guess they're overestimating
my godliness that I'm just that heavenly minded.
I wish I was that heavenly minded.
Maybe I'll work on it.
But folks, there's this obsession with everybody's motives,
and I'll tell you what this obsession comes from.
It comes from, well, you know,
I know he's doing all the right things,
but he started to lean on the pulpit like, bro.
But the thing is, you know, oh, you know,
I know he's doing all the right things, but why though?
Isn't that what Satan's saying?
It's like that meme, why though?
Yeah, I know Satan, I know Job is doing everything right,
Don't be that guy my friend. Don't be like Satan. Don't be accusing the brethren
You know unless they actually did something wrong
Don't be just accusing them because of your evil surmising about what you think is going on in their heart of mind
And the biggest takeaway from this is that, look, no matter what you're going through, Job went through worse, he pushed through, he made it, you can do the same thing.
Well, it's alright, it's not a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great passage, Lord.
Help us to be men and women like Job, help us to be strong, and in the evil day, help us to be able to stand, Lord.
Help us to have Job's wonderful attitude about how we brought nothing into this world and that everything we have is a bonus.
And Lord God, if we have a beautiful day today and enjoy the beautiful weather and enjoy our
beautiful families and eat wonderful food, Lord, help us to realize that this day is
a gift, this day is a pleasure, this day is a blessing, this is the day that you've made,
we will rejoice and be glad in it, and if tomorrow is a disaster, help us to realize
that we had a wonderful day today on April 6th.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen all right ladies and gentlemen take your hymnals please go to hymn number 86 number 86
We'll be dismissed and singing in the garden hymn number 86
Lift your voice together on that first. I come to the garden alone hymn number 86. I
Come to the garden
Still on the roses and the voice I hear
On my ear the Son of God, this flower
He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tear re-bear
None other has that word known
Stay.
And he tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tell
Hey man, good thing in this morning you are dismissed.