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Right in Job chapter 7 verse 1 the Bible reads, Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling? As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work, so am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? and the night be gone, I am full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day. Chapter 7 of the book of Job is very similar to chapter 3. If you remember in chapter 3 that was where Job initially lamented and just cursed the day wherein he was born and was trying to get his friends to understand just how bad he was doing and just how upset he was and how much pain and suffering he was going through. Then if you remember in chapters 4 and 5, Eliphaz came back at him just with accusations, telling him he's not right with God, he's in sin. That's why all this bad stuff is happening to him. And then Job responds in chapter 6 and he's a little bit angry in chapter 6 when he responds. Well in chapter 7 he gets really angry. In chapter 7, Job later on in the chapter is basically just really laying into Eliphaz. You can picture him that he's probably screaming at him when you read this. He's really mad. And he gets angrier and angrier as the chapter goes on because he thought that his three friends were coming to comfort him. That's what they had planned on doing, that's what they said they were going to do. But again, they're not encouraging him, instead they're giving him false accusations. They're saying, you know, if you would just get right with God you wouldn't be going through all this. And they're giving him basically the prosperity gospel song and dance that hey if you live for God everything's going to go great and it's only bad people who go through this type of suffering so you must be into some kind of sin that we don't know about. So the first thing Job says here in chapter 7 is, is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling? And of course the scripture that this calls to mind is the scripture in Hebrews 927 when the Bible says, and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. So when he talks about there being an appointed time, he's talking about the fact that we're all going to die someday, we're not going to live forever on this earth. And he's saying look, isn't there a day eventually set that's going to be the day of my death? Aren't I going to die eventually? And what he goes on to say throughout this chapter is that he wishes that he would die immediately. Pretty much the same thing he said in chapter 3. He wishes that he would die. He's basically saying he has no purpose to live, he has nothing to live for, every day he just wants it to be over, every night when he goes to bed he wishes that we're mourning, and he says my months are months of vanity, I'm miserable, I hate my life, I loathe it, just kill me now. If I'm going to die anyway, why is God even keeping me alive? So I mean this is really a low point for Job obviously, and I think sometimes we just read over the suffering that he's going through, but if you really stop and think about everything that he's been through, it's pretty crazy that anybody could even handle this. Now remember, in the book of Job, this all started with Satan challenging God saying that the only reason that Job served God was because he'd been blessed and had a hedge around him. And if you remember specifically, Satan's challenge was that if God would take away his possessions, if God would destroy his health, if God would allow Satan to just hurt Job in every possible way without killing him, what did the devil say that Job would do? He said, if you do that, he will curse thee to thy face. So really what's going on here with Job is that he's going through all this suffering. He doesn't understand why. It's not like Job was present in heaven to hear that conversation between, I mean we know that, when we read it, we understand okay, Job's being tested, you gotta put yourself in Job's position. He doesn't understand why any of this has happened. For all he knows, God is angry at him. He doesn't know what's going on. But for Job to succeed, which of course we know he does succeed, he really just has to make it through without losing faith in God, without cursing God, without turning on God or changing his beliefs or anything like that. And that's what he does. He succeeds. And when we look at this chapter, we see Job at his lowest point. If you could even get any lower than chapter 3, we have gone lower. Because in chapter 3, he wishes he were dead, but that was before he knew that his friends were going to turn on him. I mean that was when his wife had turned on him, his kids are dead. Now all of his friends are turning around and adding insult to injury. So at Job 7, he truly is at his lowest possible point here. And what we can understand from this is that when we go through low points, because we're going to go through low points and afflictions. Now hopefully we're not going to go through anything as bad as what Job went through. I don't want to sign up for this job of going through this kind of suffering. But we're going to go through suffering. We're going to go through our own suffering. We all have our cross to bear. We all have hard times and challenges and trials that we're appointed unto. And when we're going through a bad time, what we need to understand is that we're not going to necessarily be perfect. We're not necessarily going to do everything right. But what we need to understand is that if we could just hang on through the bad times like Job did. I mean some of the things Job says here, he's getting kind of angry, he's screaming at people. I mean your behavior is not going to be perfect when you're in your darkest hour. But what you've got to understand is that God expects us to be faithful unto death. And throughout this trial, even though Job gets angry, even though Job is having doubts even, and of course there are going to be times when we have doubts. Even when he's going through the hardest times, he still has faith in the Lord because he says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He says, when I am tried, I shall come forth as gold. He expresses a lot of faith in the Lord and everything. So when we're going through bad times, sometimes we just have to understand that if we can just hang on and just not quit. Maybe you're going through a really hard time and it seems like the whole world's against you. Just drag yourself to church. Maybe you're not even getting that much out of church. Just drag yourself to church. Maybe you don't feel like reading your Bible a lot. You know what? At least read it a little bit. At least pray a little bit. And just hang on, do what you can. You're going to go through low points like that. You have to kind of just dig in like Job did. I mean Job really digs in. He will not quit. He will not back down. He will not lose faith in God. He says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. And he just maintains his integrity even before his friends who are accusing him of sin. And so life's not always going to be a race where you're just running full bore and you're feeling great. You're going to go through hard times and low points. And you know what? A lot of people quit the church when they go through a hard time. And I've seen it. People get real excited. They're serving God. Everything's going great. And then they go through a hard time, a tribulation, an affliction, and then that's when they quit church because they can't handle the pressure or the strain. What we've got to learn to do is in those really hard times, sometimes we might need to slow down a little bit. But just don't stop. Just don't quit. And you know I preached this sermon a while back about running. You know I was talking about how life isn't a sprint. It's not even a marathon. It's an ultra marathon. You know we're talking about those hundred mile races and likening them to the Christian life. You know there are going to be times when you're not running full speed ahead. Now if you're feeling good, run. Usually there are times when we should be pushing ourselves, running, reading the Bible more than ever, soul winning more than ever, praying more than ever. But you're not always going to be able to maintain that all the time. You know push for that when you can. But there are going to be times when you're just at a breaking point or on the verge of quitting where you just need to slow down but you need to get your carcass in church no matter what condition it's in. You know you need to just force yourself to read the Bible a little bit, pray a little bit, and just stay away from sin, don't turn to the wrong friends, don't turn to sin. Just hang on and I guarantee you that if you'll do that, you'll come out of it. You know you'll hang on like that for a few weeks, months, whatever it takes. You know what, the excitement will come back. The joy will come back. You know the zeal will come back. It's just like frankly when you're running. You know you'll be running and you'll get tired and you can't run anymore, but you just walk. Instead of stopping, you just walk, right, and then you walk for a while. Many times I've been on a really long run and I'll get to a point where I can't run anymore and I'll start walking and I'll even think to myself, okay I'm done running today. I'm just going to walk for a while. But you know after you walk for a while, you'll feel the urge to just start running. You just find yourself just running again. And that's how it is in the Christian life too. But if you stop, you're done. You know once you take that shower, once you stop, you're done. You're not running anymore. You don't feel like running. You don't want to get up out of the chair again. But if you just keep moving, you'll get the second wind. And the Bible says, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. You know there are going to be times when you have to slow down your Christian life to a walk. And understand that it's an endurance event and you know what? It's better to walk than to stop. You know let's all run as much as we can. I mean if we want to win the race, we're going to have to do a lot of running. Okay and we want to run to win the prize that's set before us. But it's much better to slow down to a walk than to just stop. And you know to me, slowing down to a walk is you're still showing up to church. You're still showing up to the services. You're still doing some soul winning. You're still reading your Bible every day. You know maybe you're just not going 100 miles an hour. But you know what? You slow it down and you stay in the fight. And you weather through the hard times. I mean I'm sure Job is probably not doing his greatest works for God right now while his skin is covered in sores. You know while he's going through the mourning of the loss of his family and everything like that. But you know what though? He's still preaching. He's still staying strong. He's still hanging on by the skin of his teeth as he coined the phrase that we use today later in the book of Job. So anyway I just want you to understand the book of Job. In order to win this battle, all Job really has to do is not quit. I mean is God expecting Job to do a major soul winning campaign or a major... I mean really all he has to do is just not quit. Just hang on, stay with it, and don't quit. And you know it's the same thing whenever I tell people that are starting a church. The only way to fail is to quit. You know when you start a church you've got to come out of the gate running. You know you've got to go soul winning every single day. You've got to really push it hard and get that thing off the ground. You're not necessarily always going to be able to maintain that. But you've got to go nuts at the beginning and get going and you know you start out strong. But you know what? There are going to be low points. There are times when you just drag through it. But you've got to just keep going and as long as you don't quit, success will come. You know God will bless you. You will renew your strength. You will run and not be weary and walk and not faint. So that's something that we can get from the book of Job. Even when things are going horrible. And you know what? I've been there where I just felt horrible. I was upset. I was going through our times. But you know what? I just got to church and I just sat down and I folded my arms like this. And I just sat there and I was just there. And you know what? Usually church will encourage you. But even if it didn't, you know what? I just showed up and I just did it anyway. You'll get through times like that. Now when you're the pastor you can't just sit there and cross your arms. You actually have to get up and preach the sermon and everything. I'm feeling pretty good right now by the way so I'm not having that problem. But I'm just telling you in the past I have felt that way where I didn't want to go to church. But I came to church anyway. I didn't want to read my Bible. I read it anyway. I didn't want to pray. I prayed anyway. I didn't want to go soul winning. I went anyway. You know you've got to just keep moving, keep putting one foot in front of the other even when you're at your darkest hour and just hang in there. You'll get through it. You'll be fine. Okay? Don't quit. I mean imagine if Job would have quit. He still went through all the suffering. I mean think about it. What if you're Job? You go through all the worst suffering and then you don't even get a book of the Bible named after you. Nobody's going to read your story because if Job would have quit it wouldn't even be in the Bible. We wouldn't even be reading it. The whole reason that we read it is to see the end. You know God's teaching us that if we hang in there and that's how your life is. Your life is a story. The Bible says we live our lives as a tale that is told and you know the story of your life is either going to go down in failure or success. Now you may not win every single round but you can win the fight. You know if you'll hang in there you're going to have low points. You're going to have failures. You're going to fall seven times and rise up again. But if you hang in there you can't lose. You will get the crown if you're faithful unto death. If you endure to the end. And so don't give up. Don't quit. Whatever you do. No matter how bad it looks, hang in there and have the faith to know that it always gets better. Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning. You know you might quit right before that joyful time comes. You know I think of the children of Israel murmuring and complaining against God. He brought us out into the wilderness to kill us. There's no food. There's no water. And right after they complained and God had to punish them, right around the corner there was that place of Elam where there's the what was it, 70 palm trees and 12 wells of water. It was all right there. And then they quit. It's like they lost faith right before God was about to give them what they wanted. And so we've got to hang in there is what I'm saying tonight. But anyway, let's read this. It says, is there not an appointed time to man upon earth, are not his days like the days of an hireling? And then if we compare that to verse 9, it says, as the cloud is consumed and vanished at the way, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. So of course he's talking about death in all these verses. And the Bible also says about our life, what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanish away. And what is a cloud? It's vapor. I mean, it's water vapor. The Bible's always meteorologically and scientifically correct. So it talks about the fact that our life is like a vapor, it's like a cloud that appears for a little time and then vanish at the way. In the scheme of things, our life is very short. And that's what Job is mentioning here. Now he says that his days are like the days of a hireling. And he says in verse 2, as a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as a hireling looketh for the reward of his work, so am I made to possess months of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me. Now what does he mean by the days of a hireling? Well, in the Bible times, there was kind of a set time for a hireling. Basically a typical period that you would work for somebody. And that period is three years. For example, in Isaiah 16 verse 14, he talks about the fact that three years are the days of a hireling. So three years is the time that a hireling would normally work. And then if you remember back in Deuteronomy 15, you don't have to turn there, I'm going to turn there so that I don't get it wrong here. Deuteronomy 15 verse 18, when he's giving the rules for having a servant that is sold unto you, you know a bondservant or someone who is indentured unto you. It says in verse 12, and if thy brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. In verse 18 it says, it shall not seem hard unto thee when thou sendest him away free from thee, for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee in serving thee six years, and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest. So that's consistent with what we see in Isaiah, and Isaiah says, you know, the years of a hireling are three years. When it comes to a bondservant, someone who is sold unto you, he says the fact that they're working six years is worth double that of a hireling. So that, just to give you the time frame of what the Bible's talking about, he says, you know, there's an appointed time to man upon the earth, are not his days also like the days of a hireling? So he's comparing our life to the service that a hireling performs, okay? And a hireling is somebody who's hired, and they sign a contract that says, you know, you're going to work for me for three years, and at the end of that three years you're going to receive a certain reward, okay? Now obviously there are paychecks that come along the way, but there's a reward that comes at the end of that three years. Even a bondservant, even one who is sold unto you, at the end of the six year term would get a reward. They would walk away furnished liberally from the wine press, from the flocks, okay? From the granary. They would get to take with them some of the fruits of their labors. And this is what our life is like, because our life is a life of work. You know, we spend our lives working for God, and at the end of our life we get paid. You know, we receive a reward for our labors. Jesus said, Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. We will be rewarded, not the same for everybody, but rather we will be rewarded according as our works shall be, okay? At the end of our life. So we have a life where we work hard, and then we get the reward in the end. When we go to heaven, God's going to reward us greatly if we've done a lot of work for God. If we've done little, we will be rewarded little. If we've done nothing, we will be rewarded nothing, okay? But we're still going to be saved, as it says in 1 Corinthians 3, it says, Yet he himself shall be saved, yet so is by fire the one who loses the reward, okay? So he says in verse number 2, As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow. And he said, Why would a servant earnestly desire the shadow? Well, if you work outside and it's hot, you earnestly desire that shadow. I mean, most people that are hirelings, they're working outside. 90% of people throughout history have been farmers. So these hirelings, they're out there, they're plowing the field, they're sowing the seeds, they're reaping the harvest. They want that shadow. They like to be in the shade because it's much cooler in the shade, especially in Arizona. It's a lot cooler in the shade. That's why Brother Jerry, he brings an easy up with him everywhere he goes. Like if he has to dig a hole, he's a plumber, and if he has to dig a hole, he sets up an awning and then works under that awning and just takes it with him everywhere he goes, you know? He's like a sultan or something, you know? He's got this canopy that he brings with him everywhere he goes. So anyway, because, you know, it's just so much nicer to work in the shade. So he's saying, As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as a hireling looketh for the reward of his work. He's waiting for payday. So am I made to possess months of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I rise and the night be gone? And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin is broken and become loathsome. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are spent without hope. Oh, remember that my life is wind. Mine eyes shall no more see good. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine eyes are upon me and I am not. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Jump down if you would to verse 15. It says, So that my soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life. I loath it. He's saying, I hate my life. I loath it. I loath my life. I loath it. I would not live all way. He's saying, look, I would not want to live forever. I don't want to live all way. Let me alone for my days are vanity. So I read all that to put it in the context to help you to understand what he's saying here when he's talking about the servant desiring the shadow and the hiring he wants his reward. He's saying that's how he desires death. He desires to die. He wishes, and he talks about in chapter 3 that he would almost desire death as much as those that would dig into the earth to find hidden treasures. He's just trying to find death. He just wishes that it would be over, that it would die, that he would go to his reward is what he's saying when he says the servant seeks the shadow. The hireling wants the paycheck. I just want to die. I just hate my life that much. Now why does he hate his life so much? Look at verse 5. It says, my flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin is broken and become loathsome. Let's try to understand the skin condition that Job is going through here. Now if you remember earlier on in chapter 2 it talked about that he had boils from head to toe. You know, boils are basically a pus-filled sore on your body. He had boils from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet and he's scraping himself with a pot-shirt. Well, as we read chapter 7 here, when he says that, you know, his flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin is broken and become loathsome. Basically now his skin is like cracking open. And have you ever had a sore like this where sometimes, you know, I've gotten this before one time where I had like a, between my toes, you know, where something just cracked open or between your fingers you'll sometimes get, who knows what I'm talking about? Where it'll just like, it'll just open and it just won't shut. You know, you'll, somehow you hurt your, who's ever had that happen before? All right, so I'm not, okay, I'm not crazy up here. More than half the outdoors put their hand up. And you'll, you know, you'll get this opening. So he's basically got this condition all over his body where he's got these open sores. What happens is your skin gets real dry and that's where it cracks open like that, either between your fingers or between your toes, you know, if you've ever had that happen. And it's cracking open all over his body. And when he says that his flesh is clothed with worms, I can think of at least two different things he could be talking about. First of all, in these open wounds and open sores, some kind of a creature could have laid its eggs in there, you know, and he could actually have some kind of worms or maggots coming out of the wounds in his body. I mean, I'm just trying to just expound the Word of God to you. I'm not trying to be gross. I mean, that's what the Bible says. But then I also thought that could he be talking about like a ringworm, okay? Because also, who knows what a ringworm is? Have you ever seen that condition? You know, a ringworm is something that you see under the skin, right? A parasite that's living under the skin called a ringworm, okay? Who thinks he's talking about the little crawly worms? Like maggots or some kind of little worm? Okay. Who thinks he's talking about a ringworm? All right. My ringworm theory is not getting a lot of votes, but anyway, I don't know. I really don't know one way or the other. I mean, I think it could be either one. Either one, it's nasty. Either one, it's gross. Now think about this. Just put yourself in Job's shoes here. Your 10 children are dead. They're all dead, all of them. Okay, your wife has told you, curse God and die, all right? Your three friends have shown up to comfort you. They're just telling you, you're wicked, you're in sin. If you'd actually get right with God, things would get better. And your body is covered in pus-filled sores. Now the skin is getting dry and cracking open, okay, and now there are parasitic creatures living in your skin. I mean, just how gross, how disgusting, I mean, obviously his wife doesn't want to be around him. His friends are probably keeping their distance, probably nobody wants to be around him. He's probably grossed out by himself and he's just sitting here asking himself, why am I even alive? I mean, why am I alive? I mean, isn't there an appointed time for man to die? I mean, don't people die at some point? Why don't I die? I mean, why would I just be left alive so I could just be covered in worms and sores and maggots and whatever else and just itching and burning and inflamed and miserable? And he explains over and over in this chapter how the nights are the worst time for him. He prefers day to night because notice he says in verse 4, when I lie down, I say when shall I rise and the night be gone. So when he lays down at night, he's waiting for it to be over. He just wants to wake up and he lays there and it says he's full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day. So you'd think nighttime would be a time where he could go to sleep and have some comfort, but even at night he's in so much pain he can't even sleep. So he's just tossing, he's turning, he's just wishing for morning. Somehow he's more comfortable in the morning. When you really stop and think about it, it's worse. You've thought about Job, but have you really thought about it that deeply? I mean, when you really stop and think about what he's going through, you can understand why he wants to be dead and why he doesn't understand. We're going to get to some times in our life, hopefully not this bad, but maybe you could think back on this and realize, hey, I don't have it so bad when you're going through your darkest hour. But when you're in those dark hours, you might stop and think, you know, why am I even alive? Why does God even keep me here? What's the point? But yet, Job is going to be used by God greatly after this. I mean, if you looked at one person and said, like, he's done, I mean, this guy is done. It would have been Job. I mean, he's just filthy, dirt, dirt covered. I mean, he's sitting in the dirt, scraping himself with dirty, I mean, it wasn't a sterile potsherd. He's scraping himself with a dirty potsherd. He's infected. He doesn't even care. Worms, whatever. I mean, if you looked at him, you'd say he's done, but yet God's going to use him greatly. He's going to father 10 more children. He's going to raise them for the glory of God. He's going to preach the word of God. He's going to be used as an example for thousands of years of somebody who endured patiently and stayed faithful and true to God. So Job's in pretty bad shape here, okay? He says in verse 11, therefore, I will not refrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Now, normally, complaining is not something that we should do, and it's not something that the Bible speaks very highly of, but I think in this case, Job is excused. I mean, he has something to complain about. You know, it's like we tell our children, I'll give you something to cry about. He has something to cry about, so I don't even think that he's sinning by complaining here because I think God gets displeased when we complain about minor things, about dumb things. We complain that the meal wasn't our favorite meal ever or that we had to skip one meal or we're complaining because we have a little headache or we stubbed our toe or whatever. I mean, this guy's got a right to complain. I don't think he's wrong to do so. In verse 12, he says, am I a sea or a whale that thou saidest to watch over me? So this is when he really lays into his friends. From verse 12, you know, toward the end, he just really starts just chewing out his friends. Like, what are you looking at, huh? What are you looking at? Because he's saying to them, look, why didn't you come here just to look at me, tell me how lame I am, tell me what a loser I am, you know, why are you just staring at me? Because remember, when they showed up, they were there for seven days. They didn't say anything. For the first seven days, they just sat with him. And at first, he probably interpreted that as, okay, you know, they're just being here for me. You know, they're just sitting with me. They don't want to say anything. They don't want to say the wrong thing. They're just showing their solidarity, they're showing their support. But now he's looking back at that sitting there for seven days thing and he's reinterpreted it now, like, you know, to where it's like, take a picture, it'll last longer, you know. Like, what are you staring at? What are you looking at me? Am I a whale? Am I the sea that thou set us to watch over me? Basically, like, when people go out to sea, they watch for whales, you know. They have a guy up in the crow's nest and he's looking. And what does he say when he sees a whale? One person, one person in the auditorium knew. There she blows, all right, because they see the blowhole, you know. Or they say there be flukes, all right, is the other thing they say. But anyway, he's saying, you know, what are you just looking at me? When I say, verse 13, my bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint. He basically is saying, just when I start to think, okay, maybe I'm going to feel a little better, maybe I can get through this, then thou scarest me with dreams and terrifies me through visions. He's referring back to memory and life as his little story about how in the middle of the night he woke up and the hair on his neck stood on end and the spirit came before him and he didn't know what it was and it, you know, made this really profound statement, you know, which was not really that profound. Shall man be more righteous than God, you know, whatever. I'm paraphrasing. But he's like, you're scaring me with dreams, you know, you're telling me some stupid story about what happened in the middle of the night. I'm covered in sores. What are you talking about? I mean, you can just feel the anger when you read this, right? Thou scarest me with dreams and terrifies me through visions so that my soul chooseth strangling. Basically he's saying I'd rather be strangled than listen to your stupid story about a vision appearing to you in the middle of the night. I would choose strangling over having to listen to you, Eli Faz, and you're here to comfort me? So you can feel the anger when you read this. And death rather than life, I loathe it, meaning he hates life. I would not live always. Let me alone for my days are vanity. What is man that thou shouldest magnify him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him and that thou shouldest visit him every morning and try him every moment. How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone, till I swallow down my spittle. He's just saying, get out of here. Why do you even come here? Staring at me for seven days, watching me, looking at me, telling me your stupid story? Get out of here. I mean, he's just mad. I mean, can you feel the anger when you read this? Just let me alone. How long until you guys leave, is what he's saying. How long wilt thou not depart from me? How long till you guys leave? He says, why do you even care so much about my situation? Why are you even magnifying me? Why do you even want to sit here and put me under a magnifying glass? Why are you even setting your heart on me? Why do you even care? Why is it even so important to you to be here for the last week? Why don't you just leave? Just leave me alone. I don't want you here. I don't want to listen to you. Now later on in the book, obviously, Job, he gets a lot more philosophical, he gets a lot more intellectual as he talks to them, but I mean, this is just his first reaction. This is when he first found out that his friends are not on his side. So chapters 6 and 7 are kind of a venting, just an anger, just telling his friends off, telling them how they're wrong. Later on, he gets more theological and philosophical, but at this point, he's just screaming at them, telling them, I don't even know why you're here. And then he says in verse 20, I've sinned, because remember, that's what they're accusing of. He's just like, okay, fine. I've sinned. Is that what you want to hear? I've sinned. What shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? Now you'll notice Job uses a lot of sarcasm when he talks to his friends, and this is the first time we see him using sarcasm, you know, calling him a name in a mocking way. I mean, do you really think that he considers Eliphaz the preserver of men? He's using it as a sarcastic, O thou preserver of men? Okay, I've sinned, buddy. What do you want me to do about it? Okay, what now? Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? And why hast thou not pardoned my transgression and taken away my iniquity? For now shall I sleep in the dust, and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be. He's saying, look, I'm going to be dead. Jump forward to chapter 12. Let me just show you a little more sarcasm from Job, just to help you understand, you know, how Job's talking to his friends. Job uses some sarcasm in chapter 12, verse 1, it says, And Job answered and said, No doubt, but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you. He's like, you know, and this is kind of like our expression when we say like, you're the man. Right, if we say like, you are the man, that means like, you're just the greatest. So he's like, you are the people. You know, he's making it plural, you know, you are the people. And wisdom shall die with you. Like when you guys are dead, there just won't be any wise people left, because you guys are just the bomb, you know, is what he's basically saying. So anyway, I just thought I'd point that out to you, how Job's using sarcasm. I mean, he's mad. I mean, is there any doubt that he's angry? He doesn't like his friends very much right now? Now why are his friends treating him this way? You know, one of the reasons I think that people are treating him this way, I'll bet you there are a lot of people who are jealous of Job. I mean, you know, when you've got it all, I mean, he's got wealth, he's got 10 kids, he's got a great business, and he's living for God. And if you remember when Daniel was in that situation, people are trying to find something wrong with him, you know, because he's at the top. Daniel was the best ruler in the kingdom, he had everything going for him, and they're trying to find something wrong with him, they can't find it. And then they finally made it illegal to pray, so that they could get him as a criminal, because he's praying. But that's how it is with Job. I think his friends are probably just jealous of him. And they're probably, in a sense, could have been looking for him to fall. Sometimes people, they rejoice at the fall of others, because it's someone that they were jealous of. And so they like to see them go down. And it's almost like, and I think what Job's saying here, you know, you come here, you're looking at me, you're watching me, you're sitting here with me, you're not here to comfort me, you're here to attack me. It's almost like they just showed up to just enjoy seeing him fail. Now I don't know if they did that consciously, because it seems like when they show up at the end of chapter 2, it almost seems like they're there for the right reasons. But even after Job lays into him, I mean they just continue along the same lines. They keep attacking him, they keep talking down to him. And so maybe there's some jealousy going on there, I don't know, where they basically just enjoyed seeing somebody fall. But let me tell you something. If you're living for God, the devil would love to see you fall. We know that. I mean we know that the devil is rooting for Job to fall. I mean chapter 1 and chapter 2 make that clear. Only people also would love to see you fall. I'm sure that many people rejoiced when David committed adultery with Bathsheba because Nathan the prophet said that he had given great occasion for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. It was just an occasion for people to revel in the failure of a man of God, that he fell, that he committed sin like that. So basically we see Job here, he's angry, he's chewing these guys out, he's using sarcasm, he's very upset. Now he says in verse 16, and let's read 15 again, it says so that my soul chews at strangling and death rather than my life. Strangling is not a very pleasant way to die either, it doesn't seem like it would be anyway. But it says in verse 16, I loathe it. He's saying I choose death rather than life, I loathe it, meaning I loathe life. I would not live always, I wouldn't want to live forever, let me alone for my days are vanity. Now he's saying my days are vanity, vanity means worthless. And what's interesting is that if we take the man in the Bible who was the most comfortable man in the Bible, who was he? King Solomon. I mean just, he had money, food, he had a thousand wives, he had just music, men singers, women singers, swimming pools, fruit trees, I mean the best food, peacocks, apes. He had apes and peacocks in his house, I mean whatever he wanted he just had it. Silver, gold, apes, peacocks, music, swimming pools, gardening, thousand wives, food, drink, whatever. And wisdom, intelligence, he could have intelligent conversation and all these different things. The most comfortable guy. Wouldn't you agree this is the most uncomfortable guy? And they both say the same thing, vanity. And they both said I hated life. Because in Ecclesiastes I believe chapter 2 is where Solomon said, therefore I hated life. It's like what? You hated life? You have everything that everybody would want. And then we see Job in the exact opposite, I mean of the whole Bible, a whole spectrum of people, Job is on the extreme end of suffering. Solomon is on the extreme end of pleasure. They're both saved, right? They both believed, they both called upon the name of the Lord, they're both saved, they're both in heaven right now. One of them represents the extreme of pleasure, one of them represents the extreme of suffering. And both of them made the same statement, I hated life. And they both made the same statement, my life is vanity, or my life is worthless. But when we look at how they ended up, they ended up in an opposite way because Job ends up better than he was before, greater. Solomon ends up his life as a failure. He started out good, ended as a failure. Job retained his integrity. Now what can we learn from that? Well, one of the things that we can learn from that is that getting the things that we want in life or enjoying pleasure or having everything we want is not necessarily going to make us happy or enjoy our lives or love our lives. Because Paul said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I'm instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. So Paul said, I've learned to be content when things are going great and when things are going bad. But not only that, in Proverbs chapter 30 it says, two things have I required of thee, deny me them not before I die. Remove far from me vanity and lies, give me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain. So the author of Proverbs chapter 30 said, I want to have the middle state. You know, I don't want to be too rich, I don't want to be too full to where I feel that I don't need God. And that's what happened with Solomon. You know, he got too rich, too much blessing and it destroyed him. And then we don't want to be too poor to where we end up blaspheming God. Now Job is on that poor end of the spectrum, but he did not blaspheme God. But that's what makes Job a unique person. That's what makes Job one of the greatest men of faith, one of the greatest examples of faith in the Bible. But the average Christian in Job's position would curse God, would get angry and shake their fist at God. And unlike Job who said, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord, shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not evil also? Shouldn't we be thankful for all the good things he gave and understand that, you know, we've got to take the good with the bad? This is life. Okay? So there's a lot that we can learn about this. We want to understand the key to happiness in our life. What is the key to happiness in our life? First of all, we have to understand that even when we do everything right, we're not going to be happy all the time. So if your goal is to be happy all the time, that's a misguided goal. Is Job happy right now? But yet he's in the will of God, he's doing right, but he still hates life. He's at a low point, okay? If you want to be happy in life, you know, happy is the man. Blessed is the man. All those types of scriptures, you know, it's going to be found through serving God. It's going to be through living for God. It's going to be through suffering for God. Now no temptation for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous. When we go through hard times, at the time they're painful, but in the end, happiness is found in enduring trials and making it through to the other side, okay? If we try to find happiness in earthly pleasure, it's going to be fun for a while, but everything is eventually going to lose its appeal, okay? You know, I mean, if anybody could have said, you know, I can hasten unto pleasure, it was King Solomon, and I mean look, food lost its appeal for him. I mean even the pleasure that he enjoyed with his thousand wives, you know, if he even had time to get around to them all, I mean even the thousand wives, I mean if anybody could say, oh yeah, as long as, you know, just that's what's going to make me happy, it's just, the problem is my wife. If I could just switch to a different wife, then I'd be happy, wrong, because Solomon did that 999 times, and he still wasn't happy, okay? So you could say, oh, this will make me happy, education, money, women, you know, it all was vanity, okay? So if we seek happiness in earthly pleasures, we'll have fun for a little while, and then it will be empty and vain, and we'll end up our life miserable and hating life, like Solomon, okay? If we seek our pleasure in serving God, the Bible says at his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore, an endless pleasure. Basically what I'm saying is the pleasure of serving God never gets old. Now does that mean that we're always going to be happy? No, because the path that we take when we serve God is a path that involves pain, suffering, sorrow, and hard times. But the difference is that we have joy all along the way, not every day, but from time to time all along the way, we experience joy, and then in the end when we get to heaven, we're going to have no regrets about serving God with our lives, because we will have pleasure with him forevermore, and we'll be rewarded with authority and power, and we will reign with him forever and ever, okay? So there's never going to be any regrets about serving God, but living a life that's all about gratifying the flesh and living for pleasure, there are going to be a lot of regrets in the end. So you have to be able to look at this and understand it, okay, you know, if I live for God, I'm going to go through hard times like Job did, hopefully not as bad, hopefully not to this extreme. But all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. We're all going to go through a fiery trial that's going to try us, okay? So we just have to decide which path we're going to take in life. And if we're going to take the path of serving God, there are going to be bumps in the road, but that is where the true joy and happiness is, not in a life like King Solomon's life. He ended up hating life. So what's the point? If I live like Solomon, I'm going to hate life, and I'm going to go down in history as a failure in the end. If I live like Job, I'm going to hate life too, sometimes, but weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning, okay? So these feelings of hating life, sorrow, sadness, are something that most people are going to experience at one time or another. If you live a sinful life, you're going to go through periods where you're miserable. I mean, do you know people who live a sinful life and they're miserable? Do you know people who live for God and go through times where they're miserable? But what's the difference? The one ends up miserable. The one stays miserable. The one has no hope in their misery, okay? And the other one, there's hope. There's joy at the end of the tunnel. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. People that are not saved suffer. People that are saved suffer. People that are living a righteous life suffer. People that are living an unrighteous life suffer. Suffering is part of life, but is your suffering in vain? Is your suffering a waste? Because you're suffering without hope, not if you're living for God. And so what gets you through the hard times as a Christian when you're suffering is that light at the end of the tunnel knowing, you know what, I'm suffering for a reason. I mean, if you're going to be suffering, wouldn't you want to suffer for a reason, not for no reason? I mean, Job's suffering for a reason. He is going to be an example being preached about in 2013, and for thousands of years leading up to this, he has been a source of encouragement, hope. He's been exalted by God as one of the greatest men who ever lived. In heaven, he's enjoying pleasures forevermore. All of his suffering was for a reason. Every worm, every dirt clawed, every sore on his body from head to toe, there was purpose. There was meaning behind it. God's word gives meaning to our suffering. The world's suffering is in vain. It has no meaning. And then they go to hell in the end. The Christian who lives a worldly and sinful life, their suffering doesn't have any meaning. It doesn't earn them any reward. Those who live for God, their suffering earns them a reward. So you might get to a point where you feel that your life is vain. You have no purpose in your life, like Job did. What's the point? Why am I even alive? Hang on. Stay in church. Even if you just have to force yourself to read just one chapter, you know, maybe you're not doing the Bible reading plan that you normally do, but you just say, I can read one chapter. I'm going to force myself to read one chapter. I can drag, and you know what, one of the easiest things to do as a Christian is just to show up to church. I mean, is it that hard to show up to church and just sit in a padded chair for an hour and a half and just listen to me rattle my cage? Because no matter how bad you're doing, you can just sit down and just listen and just, and it's the easiest thing to do, but you know what? It's one of the most helpful things that you can do. Just remember this. When you feel like garbage and you're hating life and you're miserable, just show up. Just drag yourself. It's easier than reading your Bible. Right? I mean, it's easier than praying. I mean, you just sit there. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to read. I mean, just don't even turn to the places I tell you to turn. Just sit there and fold your arms and just listen, and honestly, it will keep you on track. It'll help you. If you just stand and just say, you know what? It stinks. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't see the purpose for my suffering. I feel like my whole life is a waste. I don't think God's ever going to use me again. I don't even know what I'm doing. But just be like Job, where Job just says, I don't understand, but I'm just going to hang on, whatever. And then in the end, he says, oh, my skin's healed. My money's back. I'm having more kids. Everything's great. But you don't see that in chapter 7. You see that in chapter 42. You've got to hang in there through the hard times. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you for this book of Job, a very poetic book, a really interesting book. And there's a lot that we can learn from it, Lord. Help us to put ourselves in the place of Job and really just understand the suffering he was in. Unlike his three friends that did not understand, help us to try to empathize with him and understand what he's going through. And then when we go through hard times, we can remember Job and remember how he handled it. Sure he got angry. Sure he had a little bit of a bad attitude at times, but he still loved you and had faith in you and he kept on doing what was right and he made it all the way to the finish line. Help us to do the same thing, help us to drag ourselves into church and just force ourselves to hang in there and to understand that our suffering is never in vain when we're living for you and when we're maintaining a testimony of faith in you and of living according to God's word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.