Disaster Strikes

If you got your Bible, Job chapter 1, Job chapter 1, and as we come to the first chapter of Job in the 13th verse, you're going to notice that we're coming from the unseen to the seen, from the unfamiliar to the familiar, from the heavenlies back down to earth We begin the chapter of Job chapter 1 on earth, looking at Job and his life We immediately are transported into the heavenlies to be able to see what's going on in the unseen world And there's a conversation there between the Lord and Satan because Satan and his minions must give an account to God We saw that last week

They can't do what they want to do They're accountable to the living God for all that they do do And so they come to give an account and the Lord asks Satan if he's considered a servant Job because he wants Satan to realize that no matter what he does, Job will never turn his back on the Lord But Satan thinks he can He thinks he can convince Job and get Job to turn his whole life around and against God So Satan departs from the heavenlies and begins his assault on the life of Job That's where we left off last week So let me pick up the narrative with you in verse number 13

We'll read it and then we'll look at it together Now on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said, the oxen were plowing, the donkeys were feeding beside them And the Sabians attacked and took them They also slew the servants with the edge of the sword And I alone have escaped to tell you While he was still speaking, another also came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them And I alone have escaped to tell you

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, the Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and took them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword And I alone have escaped to tell you while he was still speaking, another also came and said, your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house And behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell on the young people and they died And I alone have escaped to tell you

Satan departs only because he has permission from God God gave him permission to do anything he wanted to Job except touch his life, could not touch the man So Satan had permission to do what he wanted to do outside of Job, the man And so you begin to understand, as we talked about last week, that Satan is a very real individual and he's a very relentless person Relentless In fact, the watershed chapter in the Bible about satanic warfare and how Satan operates is Revelation chapter 12 Because in Revelation chapter 12, it takes you through the history of the world from day one to the end

It's quite a chapter if you study it in depth But it begins by telling you how when Satan was cast out of heaven, he took a third of the angels with him Now we know he's cast out He was cast out morally, but he wasn't cast out geographically How do we know that? Because Revelation 1210 tells us that he accuses the brethren day and night before the throne of God So that means he has access to heaven to accuse the brethren, people like you and me But he was cast out morally because of his rebellion against the Lord God Most High But how does Satan operate? Well, Revelation 12 tells you

It tells us in Revelation chapter 12, these words The dragon stood before the woman, the woman is Israel, who was about to give birth so that when she gave birth, he might devour her child Way after Genesis chapter three, and we don't know exactly when Satan fell Baba didn't necessarily tell us the time limit for that or timetable for that But we know that come Genesis chapter three, there's the temptation of Adam and Eve But when you come to Revelation 12, it tells us that at the birth of Christ, when the woman who's Israel is about to give birth to the Christ child

The dragon stands over the child so that he might devour the child So how does Satan do that? Well, he has to have permission, first of all And what does he do? He incites Herod, remember, to kill all the male babies two years and under Thinking that he could kill this king that would oppose him as the king of Israel So he thought he was But the Lord protected the child, protected the parents, sent them to Egypt and brought them back again And then after he was baptized, the spirit of the Lord drove him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for 40 days

Remember that? Matthew chapter four So we see Satan's operation with the son of God trying to devour the child And the temptation came in three different ways But one of them was the fact that he would give him the kingdoms of the world he could bypass the cross if he just fall down and worship Satan Again, the dragon trying to devour the child Then he had the religious establishment They always hated Christ They wanted to kill the Christ, right? But they could not until it was a time where the Lord had predetermined his death There was Judas Iscariot

He also was used by Satan, the son of perdition So when it talks about the dragon being over the child to devour the child, it's all about how Satan incites people to come against the Christ child, to kill him, to keep him off the cross, to keep him from the plan of redemption so he can win But he loses Well, if you read on in Revelation chapter 12, it says he goes after the woman And the woman flees the wilderness because he wants to destroy Israel

See, if Satan can destroy Israel all throughout the centuries, we notice how people have tried to rid the Jewish nation of all the Israelites to kill them So all the Hitlers and all those who have come against the Jewish people way back in the days of Esther and Haman and all of his desire to rid the world of the Jewish nation Satan is trying to kill the Jews off, but God protects them God watches over them It also tells us that there is a war in heaven in Revelation chapter 12 between Michael and the dragon, who is Satan And this is when he was cast out geographically during the tribulation

He's actually cast out because the brethren are now in heaven There's no need to accuse the brethren day and night any longer So Satan is cast out of heaven and he comes down to the earth And the Bible tells us in Revelation 12, woe to the earth for Satan has come down He continues to pursue Israel to kill her, but he can't get her So the Bible tells us in Revelation 12 that he pursues those who are her offspring Those are Gentiles, that's you and me He goes after them to kill them, to devour them

So Revelation 12 becomes a watershed chapter in the Bible about satanic warfare against the Christ child, against Israel, against holy angels, against Christians, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ And you can read all throughout the New Testament how that happens In 1 Corinthians 7, where he tried to destroy marriages, right? And he wants to separate men from women and destroy marriages because that's the way it's always been from the very beginning, Genesis chapter 3, when Satan attacked Adam and Eve When Adam was alone, Satan never attacked him

But as soon as God gave him Eve, what happens? Satan shows up He's going to destroy that which God has put together He wants to destroy marriages So he does all he can to do that We've looked at Ephesians 4, which tells us not, don't let the sun go down upon your wrath, right? Because you give a foothold for Satan, become bitter and unforgiving and hold grudges, all those kind of things We're told not to love the world, neither the things that are in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes are part of life Why? Because they're of the world, the world's passing away

But Satan uses all those things to lure us into temptation, to deceive us But he is real and he's relentless And the reality of Satan is seen clearly in the life of Job And Job never knows it, never knows Because God never tells him, never tells him So Job has no idea But on this day, as the text says in verse number 13, now on the day, excuse me, that day, Satan now is going to attack and assault Job So the title of our sermon is Disaster Strikes What happens when disaster strikes? Because disaster strikes, number one, unexpectedly Number two, relentlessly Number three, uncontrollably

Number four, incomprehensibly Number five, insurmountably Number six, as well as divinely, yet purposefully Now I'll repeat all those for you as we go But that's our outline for this evening As you will see in the text before us in verses 13 down through verse number 19 First of all, when disaster strikes, it comes unexpectedly Now on this day, when they were gathered together at the older son's house, it was a time of happiness, joy, celebration Disasters are disasters because they come unexpectedly

There wasn't a warning, excuse me, that Job had that on this day, these things were going to happen He didn't have a warning They would come unexpectedly They would come when he wasn't aware of what was going to happen It was a day that was supposed to be delightful But it ended up being dreadful It was a day that was at the outset terrific But ended up tragic It was a day when there was a celebration That celebration would turn to destruction There's a knock at the door Job has no idea who's on the other side

It's like when you get a knock at the door and you open the door and there stands a police officer Unexpectedly Or you receive a phone call in the middle of the night, right? Unexpected phone call And the voice says, I'm sorry to inform you, but your mother or your father or your son or your daughter has passed Disasters come unexpectedly Think about December 7th, 1941, right? The destruction of Pearl Harbor It came unexpectedly No one was really aware that that was going to happen, but it was a disaster

How about November 22nd, 1963 in Dallas? When there was a motorcade with the president, John F Kennedy In great celebration, no one suspected an assassination on that day, but it came How about September 11th, 2001? All those people who got on planes, they got on planes because they were going home from vacation They were going to visit loved ones Little did they know those planes would be driven into the Twin Towers or driven into the Pentagon or driven to the fields of Pennsylvania Those were all unexpected disasters

What about just what took place in Uvalde, Texas? When all those parents sent their kids off to school, thinking they were going to get a great education and have a great time with their friends. I had a very happy day that ended up a very horrific day for those who were shot and killed Disaster comes unexpectedly Job wasn't sitting at home waiting for disaster No, he was doing what he always does He was probably getting ready to offer sacrifices for his children, which he did on the days of his celebration We learned about that in the first five verses

He wasn't expecting there to be a disaster on this day We see Satan is the destroyer, Apollyon, Abaddon, the destroyer Revelation 9, right? He wants to destroy your happiness, destroy your joy, destroy your peace, destroy anything that would make you want to follow the Lord and serve the Lord That's why the Bible tells us in the book of John's Gospel, the 10th chapter, that Satan is a thief that comes to kill and to destroy He steals joy, he steals happiness because he seeks to destroy all that God is doing So disasters come unexpectedly Number two, they come relentlessly, relentlessly

Think about this None of us can understand the relentless pursuit of Satan like this None of us can Because they come in waves And the waves come one after another without any respite There's no time to cry There's no time to pray There's no time to make a phone call to your pastor and say, hey, listen, the Sabaeans came or the Chaldeans came No time There's no time to hold your wife and hug your wife and say, hey, honey, I am so sorry this is taking place Why? Because one person comes and before he's done speaking, another one comes Before he's done speaking, another one comes

And finally, in the back of his mind, he's thinking at least my children are okay until the next one comes It's relentless There's not even time to take a breath There's not even time to take a nap There's not time to do anything One after another, after another, after another Bang, bang, bang, bang Because Satan is relentless He's going to do everything he can to destroy Job's life and will stop at nothing to make sure he has no joy The Bible says in Psalm 34, verse number 19, many are the afflictions of the righteous That's an understatement when it comes to Job's life

Because he had affliction one after another Another Satan's plan was to destroy Job's life And so Job had no time to take a breath before the next person came It reads so interesting. I alone have escaped and while he was still speaking, another came. I alone have escaped to tell you while he was still speaking, another came. I alone escaped to tell you while he was still speaking, another came Isn't it interesting that Satan always left one alive? Just one Because somebody has to be the bearer of bad news So he leaves one person alive He is a murderer He was a murderer from the beginning

He is the father of lies He's a deceiver He's the destroyer of all things But he's going to keep one person alive so he can bring bad news to Job Because Job has to hear it firsthand that something disastrous has taken place He believes that if he relentlessly attacks Job's life, Job will curse God Job will turn his back on God But Satan's not on a mission He doesn't know He doesn't know what Job's thinking Because he can't know those things He doesn't know how Job's going to respond because he can't see the future All he knows is what God tells him All he can do is what God allows him to do

But he does not know what the response is going to be Because he cannot see the future Nor can he read Job's mind He does not know But he believes that this will be that which destroys the man's life So when disaster strikes, it comes unexpectedly It comes relentlessly Number three, it comes uncontrollably Note, two came from nations Two came from nature Right? Two disasters came from nations Two came from nature Very important We cannot control what nations do And we cannot control what the weather does. I don't care what the Democratic Party tells you about climate change

Okay? They cannot control the weather They think they can, but they cannot Only God controls the weather. I hope you understand that. I hope you know that God causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine Only God does that Nobody else can But they're uncontrollable You have the Sabaeans and the Chaldeans The Sabaeans, from the related word Sheba, which refers to Saudi Arabia, in verses 14 and 15, they steal the oxen and the donkeys and they kill the servants except for one You have the Chaldeans They steal, they slay, they want the camels, they take them

They come in a band, three different bands, three different directions They kill everyone except for one And then there's fire and wind Fire that comes out of heaven Lightning, maybe Fire and brimstone out of heaven coming down and consuming others Others, 7,000 sheep were killed plus the servants It's a big fire And then you have the wind, tornado, hurricane, who knows? It gathers up, destroys the house that falls on his 10 children and instantly kills all 10 of them And one servant is left to come and tell him the story There's no control over that

You can't control armies and you can't control nature God's in charge of all those things Interesting that Satan was given permission to have power over nature, have power to call fire down from heaven He just can't do it on his own He has to have permission because he doesn't have power over those things Only God does But in this case, God allows him permission to do these things Remember what the Bible says over in Psalm 78 verse 26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens and by his power, he directed the south wind That's God

Over in Psalm 89, it says, you rule the swelling of the sea when its waves rise, you still them Psalm 107, Psalm 107 verse number 29 says, or verse 25 says, for he spoke and raised up a stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea Verse 29, he caused the storm to be still so that the waves of the sea were hushed Our Lord is in control of all weather, all seas, all waves, all snow, all rain He's in control of all of it Only rains when God wants it to rain The sun only shines when God wants it to shine He opposed the universe by the word of his power

He's in complete and total control of everything Remember on the boat in Mark 4, when the disciples were there and there was a storm, a storm that made them fear for their lives And when he hushed the storm, they woke him and said, do you not care that we are perishing? And the Lord gets up and I tell the story every time we go to Israel, we're on the Sea of Galilee because it's just such a fantastic story He says, hush, be still, and the sea became like glass instantaneously

And what was the response of the disciples? What manner of man is this that in the wind and the waves obey him? He's from another dimension He's from another universe He's from something that we're not well aware of because the wind and the waves obey him Of course they do He's in charge of the wind and the waves And of course, he rebukes his men by saying, oh ye of little faith

How is it you of all people have no faith? Why is it you are cowards? Did you not read Psalm 78? Did you not read Psalm 107? Did you not read Psalm 89? Don't you know I control all these things? And yet you sit here in fear Why? I control them. I'm in charge of them And yet you had not enough faith to believe that I could hush the sea Because he does At the same time, we realize that the Lord says in the book of Lamentations, third chapter, these words, who is there who speaks that comes to pass? Unless the Lord has commanded it

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth? Both good and ill go forth Why should any living mortal or any man offer complaint in view of his sins? In other words, what mortal man can complain to God about what he does because he's filled with sin? And God has no sin Our Lord is in control of everything Isaiah 45, verse number seven. I am the creator, he says, of calamity Amos 3, verse number six If there's calamity in the city, it is I who did it Now you have to understand that But yet God allows Satan to have control over nature on this day

So that he could destroy or potentially seek to destroy Job's joy And destroy his family Because it was Satan who caused the wind to blow It was Satan who caused fire to come down from heaven This was his, his plan God says, I'm going to give you permission, but you cannot touch Job That allowed Satan to do what he wanted to do, except he couldn't touch Job Now, if he wanted to touch Job, he still couldn't Because God didn't give permission That's later on in the story, right? Because Satan can't do anything without permission He has to ask for permission

He has to be granted permission to do what he does And so, sure enough, when difficulty comes, it comes unexpectedly, relentlessly, and uncontrollably It also comes incomprehensibly Comprehensibly Incomprehensibly All of his possessions, gone His business, gone All of his material substance, gone His family, gone For the first time in he and his wife's lives, they're without children They're dead They're gone In a moment, maybe he says to himself, if I just wouldn't have answered the door, none of this would have happened But I had to answer the door. I had to open the door

Get all the bad news We just put our head under our covers and just set off the world We think nothing bad will ever happen, but it does And so, incomprehensibly, comes the loss that he faces Interesting, Satan doesn't touch his wife Interesting God didn't say you can't touch his wife They just can't touch him But it's very interesting that Satan didn't touch his wife He let her live In fact, she loses everything Job loses We can't be too hard on her. I know sometimes we want to be Curse God and die But remember, she loses everything Job loses, except she doesn't lose her health

And Job will, but she doesn't But instead of being the comforting wife that she could have been, instead of being the loving wife that would come alongside of her husband and be with him, she just wanted him to curse God and die and just be done with it But Job wouldn't do that When disaster strikes, it comes unexpectedly, relentlessly, uncontrollably, incomprehensibly, insurmountably Insurmountable Devastation The emotion that Job must have been going through Just for a moment, put yourself in his house, opening the door and hearing the news about your business About your children

About all that you possess, gone All your offspring, gone Everything that allows you to make money, gone It's all gone In a moment On a day that began so joyously, but ended so tragically No explanation No one comes along and says, let me tell you what happened Let me explain to you best I can No, no explanation, no comfort Right? And the worst, silence from heaven Silence from heaven Silence that will last almost for eternity in Job's mind Because he will sit for a week, as we will see in days ahead He will sit for a week in silence

With his friends gathered around him, just watching him sit in an ash heap With sores all over his body and no one says anything The silence is deafening No comfort, no explanation, no silence The emptiness all at once in a brief moment of time Everyone is absolutely devastated, except Satan Satan's delighted This is his plan This is great Everything is gone The man has been, has been devastated He has nothing left Satan sits, watches and waits for Job to curse God But it says in verse 20, this is next week's sermon Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head

And he fell to the ground and what? He worshipped, he worshipped He said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return there The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord Through all this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God Satan wasn't expecting that He was expecting a totally different response That never came, but that was Job's response In tragedy and disaster that came unexpectedly, uncontrollably, insurmountably, incomprehensibly, but it came divinely and purposefully Divinely and purposefully

Job would say, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away But did the Lord take it away or did Satan take it away? Did the Lord cause the wind to blow or did Satan cause the wind to blow? Did the Lord formulate the Sabaeans to come against his possessions, the Chaldeans? Or did Satan do that? This is a very, very important topic Questions you have to answer There's a realm in theology called theodicy Theodicy And theodicy deals with the defense of a just God who allows evil to happen in the world That's called theodicy. A term that was born in 1710 by a German philosopher Theos, God

Dike, justice The justice of God that comes during evil disasters How can a good God? How can an all-loving God? How can an omnipotent God? How can an omniscient God who knows everything and controls everything allow these kinds of evil things to happen to people? In fact, the atheists say it this way They have their own doxology That's how it goes Blame God from whom all cyclones blow Blame him all creatures here below Blame him who knocks down church and steeple, who sends the floods and drowns the people That's the atheist doxology They want to blame God for all these things

Well, God can't be God if he allows these things to happen He can't be all-powerful if he allows these things to happen He certainly can't be a good, loving God if these kind of things happen to people such as Job, who was upright, blameless, God-fearing And turning away from evil Ah, but they don't understand God They don't understand the sovereignty of God, right? Or God who consciously permits or directly causes everything that ever happens on the planet and in the universe The sovereignty of God He directly causes it or consciously permits it

Here, he consciously permits something to happen to Job And Satan, can Satan cause mass murder? Can Satan cause volcanic eruptions? Can Satan cause tsunamis? Can Satan cause fire to fall from heaven? Can Satan cause tornadoes, hurricanes, disasters? According to Job chapter 1, yes, he can Only if God gives him permission Only if God grants him permission Because God is still in charge Satan reports to God He doesn't want to report to God He never wants to go to see God face to face That's why he rebelled against God in the beginning Why go see God? He has to go see God

He has to give an account to God He's accountable to God He just can't do whatever he wants to do without asking permission From the sovereign God of the universe Because God who is sovereign directly causes or consciously permits everything that happens in the world, in the universe, for all time Either God's in charge of everything or he's not in charge of anything He's in charge of everything That's so important to understand One other said it this way Theodicy is not to suggest, of course, that God needs our defense

God does not have a fragile ego that is easily bruised by the accusations of atheists The reason we speak of defending God is not to suggest that God is somehow vulnerable to the attacks of human enemies We speak of defending God in a philosophical sense, because in order to advance the gospel of Christ, we sometimes break down the faulty arguments and false ideologies that Satan has planted in unbelieving minds The defense of God that we find in these opening pages of Job could be stated this way Satan is an independent agent with free will He does what he likes

God has given him areas in which he can operate And God sometimes permits Satan to initiate a major disaster, a great earthquake, a volcanic explosion, a war, a mass murder Yes, God is an ultimate sovereign control of the universe But Satan's free will is the force that instigates evil in the world This is why the book of Job was given to us To show that there is a deeper reason that God permits tragedy than the superficial answers that we often give This theodicy, this defense of God's love and justice will be unfolded to us as we press deeper into the book

In the pages of Job, we will see that God is not, as Satan would like us to believe, a cold, impersonal being who does not care about us Nor is he cruel and sadistic God who afflicts us with tortures and disasters for his own twisted pleasure Again, as Satan would have us believe Rather, God is merciful and compassionate Out of the pain and loss and question of Job, a picture will emerge of the mercy and compassion of a loving God And so it is true that our Lord controls everything The disaster was divinely given, yet purposely given for the glory of Almighty God God will always be glorified

God will always put himself on display And God will never allow his glory to be given to another Satan will never receive his glory He tried to take that glory, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, but he could not have it God will get all the glory because the Bible speaks very clearly concerning God's sovereignty Let me share it to you this way, Ecclesiastes 7, verse number 13 Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what he has bent? In the day of prosperity, be happy But in the day of adversity, consider God has made the one as well as the other

Do you get that? God made the day of prosperity God made the day of adversity Why? It tells us that man will not discover anything that will be after him Just so man will never understand anything God keeps you confused Why? He just wants you to trust him, to believe in him That's the whole thing about disasters, natural or physical, wherever they may come God just wants you to trust him through them Job, Job would say it well in Job 23, right? Job 23, what does Job say? He says, he knows the way that I take When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold

My foot has held fast to his path. I have kept his way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips. I've treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food But he is unique Who can turn him? What his soul desires that he does For he performs what is appointed for me And many such decrees are with him This is Job 23 We're down the road in the conversation with his friends, right? And Job knows that God will do what's appointed for him no matter what Because God's in charge

He has a firm grasp of God's sovereignty with no Bible to read concerning the sovereignty of God No theological teacher to teach him about God's sovereignty and God's theodicy on the defense of God and his justice over natural disasters No, he just knows that God's in charge of everything He believes that So the Bible says in Isaiah 46 Remember this and be assured We call it to mind, you transgressors Remember the former things long past For I am God and there is no other. I am God and there's no one like me Declaring the end from the beginning

And from ancient times things which have not been done Saying my purpose will be established And I will accomplish all my good pleasure Calling the bird of prey from the east The man of my purpose from a far country Truly I have spoken Truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it Surely I will do it God is speaking to Israel And then in chapter 47 he talks about Israel's future Because the prophecy 175 years down the road How Israel will go into Babylonian captivity and then will be there for 70 years But Babylon will be destroyed Because God had preordained their destruction

Because he knew that Babylon would not take care of his people Even though God put him in there for 70 years And then he destroys Babylon in one night If you're with us in the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 5 We studied that in depth Because God's in charge He's in control of everything Nothing happens by accident Everything is by a God-given divine appointment You must understand that If you miss that your whole life will be a mess Because you're already out of control of your life as it is To realize that you're more out of control of your life is only going to send you into a tailspin

But you got to trust someone Who do you trust? God says trust me Wait upon me Look to me So we can read a verse like Romans 8 28 and says For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God And to those who are called according to his purpose How do we know that? How do we know that? How can we know that? You see there's something about that In the sovereignty of God And how he operates That creates confidence in me That causes comfort in me And cultivates courage in me Knowing that things are done divinely and purposefully It creates in me only confidence

It cultivates only courage And causes only comfort Knowing that someone's in charge It's a good thing that you're not in charge Because you just messed it up all all the more But somebody who can actually do something about it is in charge And that's the Lord God of Israel And that creates confidence in me Confidence not in me But confidence in God Confidence in the power of scripture Confidence in the prayers of the saints Confidence in the provision of the spirit And confidence in the promise of my Savior. I have great confidence Why? Not in me

But because I know that all things work together for good Not that all things are good But all things work together for good Well how can they work together for good? But I'm not putting together God is And it's ultimately going to come to His glory and to His honor So I have to trust Him through the tragedy. I have to believe in Him through the hardship. I have to lean on Him Because of the power of the scriptures Look what it says in in Psalm 34 verse number 19 Verse 15 Listen to this The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry

The face of the Lord is against evil doers to cut off the memory of them from the earth The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles The Lord is near to the brokenhearted Saves those who are crushed in spirit Many are the afflictions of the righteous But the Lord delivers Him out of them all You see there's something about God's sovereignty that creates confidence in me Not because of me but because of the of the power of the scripture and what it says The Bible says in Psalm 37 verse number 39 these words But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord

He is their strength in time of trouble The Lord helps them and delivers them He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in Him Psalm 91 Psalm 91 verse number 3 says this Psalm 91 verse number 3 For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you may seek refuge His faithfulness is a shield and a bulwark Verse 14 Because He has loved me therefore I will deliver Him. I will set Him securely on high because He has known my name

He will call upon me and I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble. I will rescue Him and honor Him With a long life I will satisfy Him and let Him see my salvation See the promise and the power of scripture is so poignant Because it deals with our afflictions It deals with our hardships How God promises to deliver His people Was God going to deliver Job? Yes God had a plan Was Job delivered in his own time? No But he would be delivered in God's time And God would do it the way He wanted to do it How He wanted to do it When He wanted to do it Because He was in charge of all that

But He would deliver His righteous saint Because He promised And the God who promises never lies There's great confidence that we have because of the power of scripture Because the prayers of the saints The Bible speaks of James 5, 16 The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, of Veneth-Much Ephesians 6 talks about praying one for another. I have confidence that people will pray and lift me before the throne of God How about the provision of the Spirit? God provides us with the Spirit Why? To strengthen us To encourage us It's called the Spirit of grace

Without the Spirit of grace, we would never be able to receive the kind of grace that God dispenses to His own But because of the Spirit of grace, the provision of the Spirit, God takes us through these times It creates confidence Plus the power of the Savior to do what He does to deliver His people from their pain While disasters come uncontrollably, unexpectedly, relentlessly, incomprehensibly, insurmountably, they always come divinely and purposely God has a purpose That purpose is ultimately for your good and His glory It creates confidence in me It causes comfort in me We know

The Bible doesn't say we think all things work together for good We hope all things work together for good. I'm not sure, but I think they're going to work together No We know How do we know? Because God said so That's how we know So when tragedy comes, when disaster strikes, be sure to this, that we know that all things work together for good For those who love God, not for those who don't love God, only for those who love God and only those who were called according to His purpose

So if you don't love God, you haven't been called according to His purpose, maybe things don't work out so good for you It'll work out pretty bad for you But those who know the Lord, things work out great because God is in His purpose Control Think about it Joseph would know that all things work together for good because God took him through terrible times He came out the better man because of all the tragedy he faced But nothing like Job That there's no character in all the Scriptures you face with Job face Even Daniel, thrown into the lion's den, threatened with death Nothing compared to Job

None He lost everything He becomes the quintessential example of how to handle suffering in a way that honors God And all of us need to master his life and what God was doing in his life But not only does the fact that God is divinely and purposefully overseeing everything, create confidence in me and cause comfort in me, but it cultivates courage in me Courage The Bible says in Proverbs, I'm sorry Yeah, Proverbs 20, verse number 24. A man's steps are ordered by the Lord Psalm 31, verse number 15 My times are in God's hands

That gives me courage. I'm not out here all by myself trying to live and make it through life Nope God, my times are in God's hands My life is in his hands So I can face each day with the courage I need because of the strength that God infuses in me Job's response Absolutely remarkable We've read it a million times over again Maybe not quite a million Okay But a lot of times, right? Ah, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away Blessed be the name of the Lord, right? And all this, Job, do not sin or blame God But you have to understand the magnitude of this man's tragedy

You have to put yourself in his house, hearing what he has heard for the very first time, facing the tragedy of losing every single thing But he does not know that this is just the beginning of his suffering He does not know because his own physical flesh will be affected unexpectedly, uncontrollably, incomprehensibly, insurmountably, but still divinely and purposefully But he doesn't know what's going to come yet He probably goes to bed at night thinking, wow, I've worshiped the Lord

This is it. I'm glad I never have to relive this day, only to find out that very soon after this, his whole life is afflicted with pain. A pain that we can't even begin to imagine An affliction that we can't even begin to comprehend this side of the book of Job We don't get it To be able to be in pain from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, 24-7, not finding a place to sit comfortably, no morphine to take, right? No drugs, no Percocet, no Darvocet, nothing to ease the pain Constant, unrelenting pain Again, none of us understand the pain None of us understand the loss

None of us can comprehend the tragedy this man faces But through it all, he trusted his God We need to learn from this man He becomes the quintessential hero of the Scriptures This man speaks to us like no other man speaks to us because every one of us goes through tragedy All of us go through, unfortunately, some kind of disaster in our lifetime Things that we cannot control Things that seem so insurmountable Things that we can't even begin to comprehend how we ever handle it And we learn from a man named Job who faced a merciful tragedy But yet, in all this, Job did not sin against his God

What a man But that whole tone was set because the first five verses He was blameless He was upright He was God-fearing and turning away from evil That character prepared him for all the tragedy that would come in his life That's what caused him not to sin against his God, not to blame his God, but to simply trust his God So I'll go back and say it again

Where is your character? Where is your life? Are you an upright person? Are you a blameless person? Are you a God-fearing person? Do you turn constantly away from evil all the time? Are you the kind of person that likes to run to evil? Whether you're upright or not, it makes no difference You don't fear God, but you certainly fear man And you're not blameless, but blameful because you will not live above reproach That's just going to prepare you to be miserable during your suffering All that's going to prepare you to lose the battle

But the character is right, and the character is God-honoring, and the character is where God wants it to be, because God would say the same thing about Job later on in chapter one, right? Have you considered my servant Job? He's upright, God-fearing He's blameless He turns away from evil Satan, have you considered him? Well, some of you might be thinking, well, I don't want to be that way because God might offer me up to Satan Maybe so But better to be that way and God offer you up to Satan than to not be that way and be left alone Let's pray

Father, we thank you, Lord, for today and the opportunity you give us to study your Word So much we had not even covered So much that we need to study So much that we need to understand So much that we need to grasp And yet, Lord, the pages of Scripture go far beyond anything we could ever imagine that happened in this man's life And yet, Lord, you've recorded it all for us to read, to study, to learn, that we might know how to respond in a way that honors you when disaster strikes And so, God, go before us

Give us wisdom and give us strength that we might live for you until you come again as you most surely will In Jesus' name, Amen.