Four Lessons from Job

Thank you so much, Carol. It's quite a beautiful piece. A lot of musical variety that we hadn't heard before, so really having a treat with her being here. So we're ready now for the message. It's a PowerPoint presentation, just to give you a little more visual while I'm speaking.

So we're going to go to the Book of Job, study a bit more about how he overcame fear, worry, and doubt.

And as many are beset by trials and troubles with a world that's increasingly violent, I've been gauging here the last couple of weeks, and every week there have been shootings with massive killings. It's happening weekly. I wonder when one day becomes daily, because it used to be monthly or even yearly. So the world is increasingly becoming violent, disrespectful, sexual, immoral, and expensive. It's hard to make ends meet. A lot of people and young people with depression and older people in particular are battling illnesses such as cancer and heart disease, which are the two leading causes of death in the nation and around the world. What can we do about these difficulties? How can we overcome fear, worries, and doubts? We have to turn to the Bible, where God answers our questions and needs. Regarding trials and tests, the book of Job offers a lot of guidance about overcoming fears, worries, and doubts. So we're going to cover four lessons in the book of Job that can help us overcome fears, worries, and doubts. So we're going to get right into the subject with the first point, and we know how Job had to suffer enormously. He even had some that were trying to discourage him, as his wife did. He had lost virtually all children, wealth, and health. What did he do? We can certainly learn a lot from his actions and attitude. So we go to the first point. Don't worry about spilt milk. I'm sure all of us have done it in the past. We've dropped that jug of milk, and once it's done, it can't be undone. You can't put the milk back into the carton. You have to learn the lesson and do the best you can. How to avoid it?

So in this first lesson, let's go to Job chapter 3 verse 25. Job chapter 3 and verse 25.

Job said this about his situation. For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet. I have no rest, for trouble comes. There are times in life when we have to face these difficulties. Many dreaded things can happen to us, as it did with Job. He was trying to obey God. He was following him. All of a sudden, instead of blessings, he started facing tragedies and cursings. He was puzzled by this, as anybody would who goes through such negative circumstances. Notice in Job 30 verse 26. Job 30 verse 26. He said, But when I looked for good, evil came to me, and when I waited for light, then came darkness. My heart is in turmoil and cannot rest. Days of affliction confront me. And so here, God placed this book in the Bible to comfort us, to let us know, you know, we're not the only ones that are going through these trials. For thousands of years, people have had to face very difficult trials, whether it's health, whether it's persecution, whether it's losing everything you had invested. All of these things are common in man, and Job realized it.

But he was not in a state of denial. That is one thing that we should not be, where you're saying, well, yes, this happened, but I don't believe it. I'm trying to push it out of my life. I'm trying to just ignore it, because certain things happen that you have to face the music, face the situation, as he did. He was not in denial. He accepted the situation. And basically, he thought that this comes with the territory of this physical life. He said, look, I don't expect everything to just go exactly as I want. And just because I'm following God doesn't mean everything's going to turn out great for me. He knows there are many circumstances in life. Accidents happen. Tragedies happen. And he did what he could, persevering into faith. He didn't give up. He didn't get bitter.

And so the first lesson is when it happens, something negative, something just like spilt milk. Well, you can't undo it. It's part of the past now. The thing is, are we going to overcome it? Are we going to go forward in our lives? Or are we going to just let that situation in the past haunt us for the rest of our lives? When I mentioned this, of course, having had experience in the ministry now in Latin America here, I remember a gentleman many years ago when I was in Columbia as a pretty young minister.

And this gentleman was attending church. He was a church member, but he never looked happy. And so one day I just pulled him to the side and just said, I notice you're just not happy. You never are able to see that joy in you. And he said, well, this happened years ago to me. This is when I just couldn't overcome this. And he had lived in this big farm, and his father worked in a farm in Columbia.

And it was one of these big spreads, and they had a house which had burnt down. And so as the house passed on to other generations, it was just abandoned. And as young kids, he was probably about eight or nine. He was playing with his brother inside this burnt out house. They had already built one farther off, the owners. And so they were playing, and all of a sudden he stepped through the floor, which had rotted, and he fell into this room. And guess what? There was a treasure chest there at the bottom of that room.

And they looked at it, managed to open it, and there were gold coins. So the owners had put this away, and nobody of the family knew about it. And so they just were startled, overjoyed, and so they went and they told their father, look, we found this treasure chest. Unfortunately, the supervisor found out. And so that supervisor came with a gun and told them, if you're not out of here within 15-20 minutes, you know, I'm gonna shoot you all dead.

And of course, they had to flee with the clothes on their back, and they had to just leave that place because that man, because of the greed, was willing to kill all of them. And of course, he was the one that took that treasure chest. And this man, this probably happened 50 years before, and he still couldn't get over it. If I only had kept my mouth quiet, if we had hidden this treasure chest, you know, we'd all be rich, but I didn't.

And he was regretting it, and that was still haunting him. From being happy, because he was living in regret. And people can live from their regrets and not allow things to go forward. And I mentioned to him, I said, look, this is past. You have to get past this. You have to overcome it. God called you. You've got a wonderful future ahead. God is calling you to that coming kingdom, and you're been called and selected by God.

Forget all of that. Who knows? God probably wouldn't have called you if you had just become rich and forgotten about God. Well, I never did see him improve in the short time. We were there two years, basically. But it reminded me how people can just live off of their regrets, their feelings. They can't get over something like that. And so Job didn't do that. He lost it all, but you didn't see him just saying, oh, life is terrible, and I'm just going to kill myself or just forget about everything.

No, it says that he maintained the faith. And that comes to the second lesson we can learn here. Learn to compartmentalize the problem. This is a big principle. When you have a problem, don't let it grow and spread. Keep it limited, just like on a ship. Nowadays, these ships, they have compartments. They're separated. And each one, if they hit a reef or an iceberg or something else, they can close off the place where it's filling with water.

And the rest of the ship can survive. Now, what happened to the Titanic was that it caught it on the edge, and it cut through enough compartments that no longer could it stay afloat. But in this circumstance, you can see here that the ships are divided up so that if they're hit with a torpedo or if they hit the reef, they can close that off, and the rest of the ship stays afloat. For instance, the ship SS Alaska was hit by two torpedoes in World War II but did not sink because of its compartments. They were able to seal off. In the same way, Job said, I'm going to seal this problem, but I'm not going to get bitter.

I'm not going to leave the faith. Notice in Job chapter 2, in verse 3. Job chapter 2 verse 3, it says, Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?

And still he holds fast to his integrity, which we would translate that as spiritual character. He maintains his spiritual character, although you incited me against him to destroy him without cause. So Satan answered the Lord and said, Skin for skin, yes, all that a man has he will give for his life, but stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse you to your face.

And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a pot-shirt with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. Then his wife said to him, Do you still hold fast to your integrity?

Curse God and die. But he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity? In all this Job did not sin with his lips. He didn't curse God.

The Knowledge Bible commentary on this section of Job 2 verse 8 has a good comment. It says, When Job's wife urged him to forget his integrity, the word is related to the word blameless in Job 1.1, which means a morally upright person that is not blameworthy. So when his wife urged him to curse God and as a result die, he called her a foolish, which the word in Hebrew, Nabal, which means spiritually ignorant or non-discerning, she couldn't discern spiritual things. Unknown to her, this advice that he curse God was exactly what Satan had twice predicted Job would do in Job 1.11 and 2.5. When Job needed comfort from her, he received another terrible blow, evidence of her bitterness toward God. Job, in calm confidence in God's ways, pointed out the trouble that Hebrew word ra means evil, calamity, as well as good comes from God. This contrast starkly with most people's views that trouble means God's very existence is questionable. Job knew that we're going to have good and evil. Good and bad happen to us. And if we just want good to happen to us, and that's the way that we're going to stay in the church, we're very wrong. Again, anecdote from the past when I was in the Spanish Pasadena church, young minister at that time, and again, a case of a lady who was from the church, and she had been attending maybe a couple of months, and she'd been baptized recently. And, of course, in Pasadena, you got all these freeways. And in this case, she was driving down the freeway when her car broke down right there on that Pasadena freeway. And she got off, got to the side when somebody didn't see the car and just rammed her car and totaled it. And later she told the minister, she says, I'm not coming back to church because God did not protect my car. Well, of course, she was protected. Hey, the car is just tin and steel and plastic and that. But in her view, she had to have everything go right, including her car to stay in the church. If you're putting those conditions on God, you're not going to last that long. And Job did have that spiritual discernment and maturity to know we are going to be tested. We are going to go through trials and tragedies and difficulties. The Bible knowledge commentary goes on to say, later, Job affirmed to his friends that he would retain his integrity until death. Job 27 5 said, I'm not, even if I die, I'm not going to give up this spiritual character. What I'm developing, it's not going to end. The affirmation in all this, Job did not sin in what he said proved wrong Satan's predictions that Job would curse God. And it vindicated, in other words, upheld God's words in Job 1 22 because he knew Job wasn't in it just for what he could get out of God. He was fully committed. Come what may. And so you have to put your difficulties in compartments and don't let them spread to the rest of your life. That's such an important point because sometimes just like the water can just flood all the places if you didn't close those compartments, even a little leak, if you don't close them, it'll sink the ship eventually.

The third point as we go forward is don't regret the hand of cards you have received, but rather seek to maximize them. Job again, he wasn't there playing the past card. Oh, woe is me. I'm never going to be able to do anything because of this that happened to me. Woe is me. And he didn't regret. He sought solutions within his grasp to the problem.

In Ecclesiastes 9-10, we know that scripture quite well. Ecclesiastes 9-10. It says, Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. For there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. Do your best while you are alive. Put all your energy into solving this. We know God can do His part, but we have to put all our effort. We do that, don't we, when we have a cavity in our teeth. We don't just go out there and just say, well, I'll just wait. And maybe God will take care of that cavity for me. And pretty soon that cavity will spread and will affect the second tooth. And people can lose all their teeth eventually. But if we go and catch it in time, we can save the tooth. We can save our dentures. But we have to do it in a timely manner. So do what you can to improve the situation while looking with hope to God. Notice what Christ said in Mark chapter 2.

In verse 17, we're dealing with sickness. Mark chapter 2. In verse 17, when Jesus heard it, they were accusing Him of being a wine bibber and glutton and all of this. And verse 17, He says, when Jesus heard it, He said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. So He was there to be a good example to the publicans and the sinners. But the point is, He said that if you're sick, then you have a need of a physician. He didn't say you can't go to one, you can't be treated by one.

So physicians have a place. Just as the priests, God instructed them to diagnose those that had skin diseases and to quarantine those people, keep them isolated. So these diseases would not spread to others. So it wasn't just a matter of, well, I'll just wait and have God do it all for me. At the same time, don't just rely on physicians. Rely on God. You can do both things at the same time. In 2 Kings chapter 13, 2 Kings chapter 13, we see the case of the prophet Elisha, who even resurrected dead people. But notice what it says in 2 Kings 13 verse 14. It says, Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die. So even Elisha, with all of the miraculous powers God gave him, eventually he couldn't heal himself. He eventually died of that disease. So don't regret the cards that you have received, but rather seek to maximize them. Do what you can. Show God you're going to be diligent, you're going to maintain your faith, your prayers, and you got to do your part as well.

And fourthly, oh, I wanted to bring up the example here at the point three before going to the point four. The example in sailing, how you sail when the wind is completely against you, when it's blowing forward. And here you're on this sailing ship. You don't have motors. How is it that you can go forward if the wind is hitting directly in front of you? Well, it's called tacking. You zigzag. You trim your sails so that you go sideways forward and then the other way. So this is called tacking. So find the possible solutions and apply them to the problem. Sometimes we don't ask counsel. We decide it can't be solved. Or there are many things that we could do that we haven't done. Again, God places our responsibility on doing what we can. He gave us the brains. He gave us a body. And we've got people that can help us. If I have a problem in my car and it's pretty serious, I go to a mechanic. I go to someone that knows more than I do. I'm not going to try to fix things by my own self, not having the tools or the understanding of it. There are experts out there that can be of big help. And now we can go to the fourth and final point is that through it all, Joe maintained his faith and integrity. He thought God would provide. And in the meantime, he would not give up on God.

Even if he died in the faith, he was willing to do that as well. It's a world of good and evil. Health and sickness. And this world is a testing ground, especially for those called by God. It's a way of proving spiritual character under duress, under trial. Will we retain our faith despite the circumstances or end up, as Satan wanted Job to do, denying or cursing God?

It is a test. We could become bitter, angry, and accuse God of being unfair because of what we're going through. That's not the right attitude. In Christ's words in Matthew 6, verse 25 through 26, I'd like to read it in the Weymouth version. It says, For this reason I charge you not to be over-anxious about your lives. Remember, it says, not to worry. That word in the Greek means being overly anxious. Of course, we should be concerned about what we're going to eat and all our needs. But this over-anxiety, that you're desperate, you forget God is there. He cares for us. He will help us. We have to do our part. If we say, well, no, I'm not going to get a job. I want God to do everything for me, then He's not going to coddle us. He's not going to spoil us. Just like a kid who doesn't want to go out and do some work to earn a living, He wants His parents to just do everything for Him. God is not that way. He will not be mocked. And so we have a part to do. So it goes on to say, for this reason, Jesus speaking, I charge you not to be over-anxious about your lives, inquiring what you are to eat or what you are to drink, nor yet about your bodies, inquiring what clothes you are to put on. Is not the life more precious than its food and the body than its clothing? In other words, we're building spiritual character. We're not just here stuffing us every day with food and doing just pleasurable things and thinking that life is just a picnic and a stroll in the park and we don't have to worry. No, it's a time of testing. Seeing what we're going to do under different circumstances to know if we're worthy of that coming kingdom and of serving under Christ and teaching others to overcome, because we have a job to overcome as well. He goes on to say, look at the birds which fly in the air. They do not sow or reap or store up in barns, but your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much greater value than they? So he says for us to contemplate the flowers and the birds, to see the goodness of God and his care for all things. So I'd like to show you a video now, short video, about the birds and God's care for the birds. And just think these little creatures and yet God spent so much time making sure to provide them so that they could live and eat and do everything right and not starve to death. This is a spectacular machine. A miniature robot designed to stay airborne in a controlled environment for up to 11 minutes. This machine is even more spectacular and it doesn't require perfect weather, a battery, or an operator to fly 18 hours a day. A hummingbird's aeronautical skills are undeniable, but the genius of its biology extends beyond flight. Case in point, the brilliant technology that fuels one of the highest metabolisms in the animal kingdom, enabling this tireless bird to consume twice its body weight in food every day. The Hummer's Tongue is thinner than a fishing line, yet it's designed to rapidly collect and transport nectar with an elaborate system of component parts.

Long thought to work like a drinking straw, science has now revealed that the bird's tongue is actually a nectar trap equipped with a pair of narrow tubes that can reach deep into a flower. These tubes are segmented into rows of elastic flaps, each anchored to a supporting rod. When the bird isn't eating, the flaps align to form two chains of closed loops that fit compactly into the beak. But when it's time to feed, the tongue undergoes a dramatic transformation. While approaching its target, a network of muscles and bones quickly extend the tongue to make contact with the nectar. When immersed in fluid, the tip splits, and the flaps on each fork systematically unfurl. Then, as the tongue withdraws, the flaps close tightly to capture and seal the nectar for instant delivery into the bird's mouth. The entire process is executed flawlessly in less than a 20th of a second, thousands of times a day.

Superb design like this begs an obvious question. In nature, are such levels of engineering possible without purpose, plan, and a creator to orchestrate every step of the process? So that comes from courtesy of the Illustra Media, John Ten Ten Project. I got permission from the author. He lives in Southern California and allow us to show this wonderful video. So when we think about God's care, when we're going through difficult trials, just remember, if he cares so much for the birds, how much is he concerned about our own life? The point is, Job persevered despite it all. Everything went wrong, and he still retained his faith. In God, in his way, as James 5, 11 says, indeed, we count them blessed, who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job, and seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. Remember, that is God's unfailing character. He does not change.

So again, the Knowledge Bible Commentary has a good comment on this verse. It says, the Lord honored Job's perseverance with multiplied blessings. In Job 42-12, it mentions that he gained more wealth than ever, and he also added 10 children to his family. So in the end, God blessed Job with great wealth and 10 more children, and he will greatly bless God's people in this life or, what's more important, unquestionably in the next. Remember, his promise to us is not limited to this life. So this Knowledge Bible Commentary continues saying, Interestingly, James did not say that Job had macrothemia, which is in the word for patience or long suffering, but that he had hypomone, which means steadfastness, endurance, and perseverance. The Commentary says, Job endured and was steadfast in his faith, though he had been impatient with God. So we have a right to be impatient with God sometimes. We can ask him, please lift this problem from me. Help me. All of this, Job continually just questioned God, but he retained his faith and his steadfastness. So those are lessons that we should learn first. Don't worry about the spilt milk. It's already done. We have to deal with it the best way possible and learn the lessons avoid spilling it again. Number two, Job compartmentalized the problem. That problem did not paralyze him or destroy his faith. He did not allow it to spread to his old attitude. Thirdly, don't regret the cards received, but rather seek to maximize them. Seek solutions to the problem. Remember the example from sailing, how tacking you can get, you can solve the problems if you really put your head to solving it. And number four, he maintained his faith and integrity through it all. He thought God would provide, and even if not in this life, he would not give up on God. It's a world of evil and good, health and sickness. It's a testing ground. Remember, approving spiritual character. Will we retain that faith despite the circumstances or end up denying or cursing God as Satan bet Job? And Satan thinks we also are going to deny God. So these are good principles to apply to our lives and maintain the faith.