How to Respond to Disasters

Father, we thank you, Lord, for tonight What a great opportunity you give us to study the word of the Lord And our prayer, Father, is that you would move us in the direction of heaven Lord, we so easily get caught up in the things of the world And Lord, we don't want to do that We truly want to be caught up in the things of glory And tonight, Lord, as we look once again at this great book of Job, we pray that you'd open our hearts and minds to see the beauty of what it is you have for us Truly, Lord, you are great and all that you do is great

So tonight, help us to see how to respond when disaster strikes We pray in Jesus name Amen Job chapter one, Job chapter one, how to respond to disaster Yep, it was a great disaster in Job's life If you were with us last week, we told you that when disaster strikes, it comes uncontrollably It comes unexpectedly It comes incessantly It comes incomprehensibly And it comes always divinely and always purposefully In other words, God is always in charge God is never not in charge In fact, Romans 11, 36 tells us that everything in the world comes from him

It goes through him and then back to him again To him be the glory forever and ever It's all about the glory of the Lord, right? And so God makes sure that everything is focused on him And yet he would challenge Satan with his servant Job to consider him, to go after him and to test him And yet God gave him parameters, right? You can do anything you want, but you can't touch the man's life Can't touch it And so although Satan probably wanted to do that, he could not because he wasn't given permission to do so

And yet he caused two nations, the Sabaeans and Chaldeans, to come against Job's livestock, Job's servants He caused fire to come down from heaven He caused there to be a wind that would destroy his The home of his oldest son and all ten children would die And so that trial was incessant It didn't let up It came one after another, after another, after another And now Job, Job is responding to this And all the holy angels And all the unholy angels are watching to see Job's response Satan is watching to see Job's response because Satan has no idea how Job's going to respond

He thinks that Job will curse God He thinks that Job will turn his back on God because he's not on a mission, right? He doesn't know So he's waiting to see what's going to happen All heaven is But the Lord, he knows exactly what's going to happen That's why he offered up Job And so in three short verses, this is his response And his response sets the tone for us on how we should respond when disaster strikes Now, the good thing, here's the good news Whatever comes your way is probably not going to be nearly as intense as it was for Job

That's the good news, right? So if Job can respond in this way with all that took place in his life in a brief moment on this day How much easier should it be for you and me to be able to deal with the trials and hardships and difficulties and adversities that come our way? That we might give glory and honor To the Lord, here are the verses Job one versus 20 to 22 Then Job arose in Taurus robe and shaved his head and he fell to the ground and worshiped 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 Those three verses revealed to us the character of Job We've told you before that when you read verse number one of Job one and you understand who Job is The character of the man Is what allows him to respond this way And so because he was blameless, because he was a God fearing man, because he was an upright man, because he was turning away from evil, that was his life. OK, when disaster comes, this is now how he responds

And so it's important to understand that character is everything, because character, right, does not is not developed in disaster, but it's revealed when disaster strikes And this is the character of the man, Job So let me give you five words, five words that deal with the response of Job and this disaster Five words that will set the tone for you and me when it comes to responding to disaster, when it comes our way. OK, first word, sorrow Second word, submission Third word, surrender Fourth word, sanctity Fifth word, silence Five words, once you understand them

And how Job exemplified them will help you understand how to respond when disaster strikes your life First of all, sorrow And we would expect that We would expect there to be extreme sorrow. I mean, after all, he lost all of his children He lost everything that he had He had nothing left If he sat back and said, well, you know, we had 10 kids We'll just make 10 more No big deal He could have said that, but he didn't, because all 10 of them were very special to him Or he could have said, you know what? Three thousand camels, that's not a big deal Let's go and buy more camels

But no, if he responded that way, we'd think, you know what? Maybe he's a little insensitive to how things When things happen, or maybe he's really not in touch with reality But there is sorrow because he tore his robes and he shaved his head, symbols for their external symbols for what's happening on the inside of an individual, the pain that he is experiencing And you have to understand that when disaster happens, sorrow is a very real emotion Think about it When Sarah died, Abraham wept profusely and rightly so And when when Lazarus died, Jesus at his tomb would would weep

And so weeping and sorrow is is is the normal thing that happens when disaster strikes, when tragedy comes, when hardship arises What do you do? How do you respond? And there is sorrow in Job's life simply because of all that he lost And that would be expected if he didn't sorrow If he didn't tear his robes, if he didn't shave his head, then we would begin to wonder why Note Our faith does not make us insensitive to tragedy In fact, it makes us very sensitive to tragedy And yet, while faith allows for the expression of sorrow Our faith does not permit excessive sorrow

While our faith allows and permits sorrow It does not permit excessive sorrow Why is that? Because you see, we don't weep as those who have no hope And that what Paul says in First Thessalonians four He said, I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning concerning the coming of Christ and all what's going to happen surrounding the the rapture and the coming of Jesus Christ For the church We know that those who have died have caused you sorrow and rightly so They would cause you to sorrow But we don't sorrow as those who have no hope because we have hope And guess what? Job had hope

We get to Job 19 We know that he has hope in what? The resurrection He knows that his redeemer will live He knows that once he dies, he too will live So he has hope in the resurrection How does he know that? How does Job have hope in a resurrection? How did Job know about the resurrection? That's a great question Well, if he is a contemporary of Abraham, I do believe he is And Abraham would take his son Isaac up on top of Mount Moriah to sacrifice him, believing that that's what God had called them to do And the angel of the Lord stopped him

Our study of Hebrews tells us what? That Abraham believed that his son would rise from the dead He believed in a resurrection So Abraham, who believed in a resurrection, would be able to transfer that information to those around him that they would understand about the resurrection of the body And so here was Job who had hope in a resurrection He would see his children again He would live again He didn't sorrow as those who had no hope because he had hope in eternal life He knew that this life wasn't the end He knew there was life after death

That's why 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that if we hope only in this life, we are of all men most miserable If all we have is this life, we're miserable But Job didn't have this life He had the next life So he wasn't miserable, but it didn't keep him from sorrowing over all that he had lost Notice he tore his robes and shaved his head That means to tell us that he had care and control over his emotions He would not just rip his robes He would tear them very methodically He would shave his head very methodically to demonstrate the care and control he had over his emotions

You see, he wasn't going bonkers having lost everything, pulling out his hair, screaming, What am I going to do now? No, because he had hope in a resurrection He had hope in eternal life He had faith in the true and living God, as we will see in the statements that he makes He had a firm grasp on God's providence and a firm grasp on God's sovereignty He was able to exemplify that

You imagine the pain? Could you imagine the emptiness that he felt? Well, how about this? The questions that he would have, how, why, who? Why me? Why now? Why all at once? What is going on? You can't imagine all the questions he would have having lost all of his possessions, having lost all of his children And yet, he saw Rome, in Rome he saw But number two, note this, submission The Bible says he fell to the ground And he worshipped He fell to the ground And he worshipped Worship was a priority For Job He wanted to honor his God amidst his pain He wasn't thinking about himself

He was thinking about how he could adore and affirm his God So he bows to the ground and worships He is ascribing worth to the creator of the universe He's not blaming God He's not shaking his fist at God He's not screaming at God No, he tears his robes, he shaves his head, and he falls to the ground He prostrates himself And he worships The only one cursing God is Satan He thought Job would curse God Oh, was he wrong? So the only one cursing God now is Satan

He's thinking, what on earth is this guy doing? He is sorrowing, and rightly so, but now he is submitting himself to the sovereign God of the universe and worshipping his creator He is not screaming at his creator He doesn't speak out against the Sabaeans or the Chaldeans He doesn't seek revenge on them, does he? Doesn't figure out what he's going to do to get them back for what they stole from him That's not a part of his life He's a blameless man He's a God-fearing man He's an upright man who turns away from evil He didn't seek revenge He just simply wanted to worship his God

Now think about that Think about that There are many people who go through hardship and difficulty, not nearly what Job has gone through, and they can't even come to church for weeks, weeks They are so overwhelmed with their sadness, with their loss, they can't even come to church to worship their God They can't even come to be with the people of God who want to support them They can't even be with the people of God who want to love on them and hug them and do what they can for them They just stay away But Job would worship his God He would honor his God

He would lift his God's name on high above his own name because you see, Job wasn't into him Job was into his God Yes, he would sorrow, but he would submit himself to the creator of the universe, the Lord of his life Remember in our study of Daniel, I gave you four principles. I'm not gonna ask you to give them back to me because on Sunday, most of you couldn't even give me the one verse I talked about on Sunday, right? But anyway, here I give you four principles

Job exemplifies all four principles just like Daniel did, right? And the four principles that govern my life, number one is this, to be is more important than to do Remember that? Who I am is more important than what I do That deals with the character of an individual Job was all about character Being faithful is more important than being successful, right? Job was a very faithful man, faithful to his wife He was faithful to his children He was faithful to his God And then I said that the third principle is this, knowing God is more important than knowing anything or anyone else

And Job set out to know his God He wanted to know his God more than anything else But that last principle, it applies to Job like all the other three, and that is what happens in me is always more important than what happens to me What happens in me is always more important than what happens to me, and that was Job What was happening in him was important What was going on in the inside of the man was important It was more important than what was happening to him coming from him from the outside because everything about his life was about the worship of God That was his priority

That's why he would offer sacrifices for his children when they got together, not knowing what kind of sin they might have committed He was there to honor his God He was there to bring his children before the throne of God That's what he wanted to do That's who he was He was a man of supreme worship And so word number one is sorrow Word number two is submission Word number three is surrender, surrender The Bible says in one statement, "'Naked I came from my mother's womb, "'and naked I shall return.'" What a great perspective

Paul would say in 1 Timothy 6, verse number seven, "'For we have brought nothing into this world, "'so we cannot take anything out of this world.'" Excuse me You know, so many times we have such a hard time with the things of the world We love the material of the world We love it more sometimes than the immaterial, the eternal The joke didn't hang on to things, right? "'Naked I came from my mother's womb, "'and naked I shall return. "'I came with nothing,'' excuse me, "'now I'm gonna leave with nothing.'" He knows that What a great perspective

If you understand that, you don't hold on to things in your life too tightly He also says these words, "'The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. "'Blessed be the name of the Lord.'" He recognized that all that he had, God gave him God gave him the camels, and the ox, and the donkeys, and the land, and God gave him his children They were gifts from the Lord, right? But he recognized that Psalm 127 tells us that children are a gift from the Lord They're like arrows in the quiver of a warrior

In other words, we have these gifts that we possess briefly, but we're to prepare them biblically because we wanna use them for the glory and honor of the Lord, but our children don't stay with us forever And Job understood that, but he recognized that the children he had, they were from the Lord All that he had was from the Lord The Bible says, "'What do you have that you did not receive from the Lord?' Answer, everything. "'What you have tonight, the Lord gave you.'" You can say you earned it, you worked for it You might've even worked hard for it

You've climbed the corporate ladder, and you've stressed to get there, and now you're at the top of that rung, and you've done everything you possibly can, but without the Lord, you're not going anywhere And Job understood this. I came with nothing, I'm leaving with nothing The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away Because the Lord gave it, if he decides to take it, he can It's his, blessed be his name He honored the name of the Lord He has a divine perspective He looks backward, naked I came from my mother's womb He looks forward by saying, naked I shall return

But in looking backward and looking forward, he always looks upward Blessed be the name of the Lord Because he gave, and he chose to take away That's who he is So he surrendered everything to the Lord His whole life was a picture of surrender So there's sorrow, there's submission, there's surrender, and then there's sanctity, holiness In all this, and through all this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God He did not sin, nor did he blame God Because you see, blamelessness, and fearing God, and living an upright life, and turning away from evil, was the character of the man

And so when tragedy strikes, that character now is revealed at the most opportune time And that's how you're able to understand the character and nature of the man, and who he is Because it's revealed at the proper time At the time you need it most, he reveals it Because that's who he is You see, he understood, now remember, Job did not know about what was happening in the heavenlies He did not know that he was chosen to be a battleground for Satan He did not know that And he never knows that He had no idea He could not even begin to comprehend it

He's as caught off guard as anybody ever would be caught off guard by disaster that comes upon him suddenly, quickly, unexpectedly He had no idea, but it wasn't about questions. I'm sure he had them, but at this point he had no questions He just surrendered to God, and submitted to God Even though there was great sorrow over all he had lost, but he did not sin He did not blame God He recognized that God is not unwise, God is not uncaring, and God is not unloving He never blamed God for anything And this totally took Satan by surprise He had no idea

But unless God had given him the opportunity to do what he did, Job could have never taken these things, or Satan could have never taken these things from Job Remember that story when Christ is before Pilate, and Pilate speaks to him, and Christ doesn't answer? And Pilate says to him, you don't answer me? Do you not know that I have authority over you? And Jesus is responsible and says, you have no authority over me, unless it's been granted to you from above This is a great statement You have no authority over me It's like when your boss says, I'm gonna fire you

Say, you have no authority over me, unless it's been granted to you from above What a great, that's how you respond when your boss says, I'm gonna fire you, okay But no, you have no authority over me, unless it's been granted to you from above Now, he might fire you, but that's because God gave him authority from above, right? But the fact of the matter is, is that Pilate was used by God, but he could only be used in so many ways, right? Because God is the ultimate authority God's the ultimate authority over Satan and all that he does And Satan unleashed on Job a fury of adversity

And this is how he responds, which leads me to this, the fifth word This is where we're gonna spend the bulk of our time Silence, silence You hear nothing from Job, that's it These are the only words he says He tears his robes, he shaves his head, and he makes the statement as he worships his God, naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I shall return And Job understood that the Lord gave him everything and blessed his name and never did he sin against his God

But the fifth word, silence is so important because the silence from here on until the next episode, you see, this is just the beginning And he doesn't even know it yet This is just the beginning of his adversity Wait till Satan ramps it up when he afflicts him physically And then he has no comfort from his wife or no comfort from his friends or no church to come around him and support him and take care of him No morphine to take when he's in pain No Darvocet or Percocet or oxycodone or whatever it is you're gonna take when you're in pain You have nothing

So Satan's gonna ramp it up, but he has no idea it's coming yet But until it comes, there's nothing but silence The scripture records nothing because I think that this is what made the man the way he was, to wait, to trust, to depend upon his God, to live by faith Doesn't call anybody, doesn't write anybody, doesn't talk to anybody, he's silent The Bible says these words in Psalm 27, verse number four, wait for the Lord Be strong, let your heart take courage Yes, wait for the Lord

Now, when you see that in scripture, understand, the word wait comes from a Hebrew word which simply means to twist or to stretch The noun form refers to a line, a cord or rope And the picture is very clear that the twisting and turning of the twine or the rope is to strengthen it And when the person waits upon the Lord, he is twisting his life around the Lord so that the Lord's strength will infuse him

So when someone is waiting upon the Lord, they are sitting in silence, waiting upon God, twisting themselves around him, tying themselves to him so that they're able to be strong enough to handle whatever comes their way So that's why the psalmist says, wait for the Lord Tie yourself around the Lord Be strong and let your heart take courage Yes, tie yourself around the Lord That's what you do You've heard so many people talk about the exchanged life, right? This is what the exchanged life is. I'm exchanging all that I have for all that God is And I'm tying myself to him

Bible says later in Psalm 37, I'm sorry, Psalm 37, verse number 34, wait for the Lord and keep his way Wait for the Lord and keep his way As you tie yourself around the Lord, stay true to him Keep going the way he wants you to go Psalm 40, verse number one, I'm sorry Psalm 62, verse number one, my soul waits in silence for God only Excuse me, my soul is twisting itself around God only From him is my salvation He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold. I should not be greatly shaken Verse number five, my soul waits in silence for God only For my hope is from him

He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold So how does the psalmist have a stronghold? By wrapping himself, twisting himself, stretching himself around the Lord and all that he has to offer That's why the Bible says in Psalm 130, verse number five, I wait for the Lord My soul does wait and in his word do I hope My soul waits for the Lord, more than the watchman for the morning Indeed, more than the watchman for the morning My soul waits My soul is engaged in tying itself around one person and one person only

The one who is my stronghold, the one who is my rock, the one who is my shield, my fortress, my rampart Now, let's get real practical How do you do that? How do you do that? Here is Job waiting in silence And the next time we see him, there's going to be a severe affliction that comes his way But before that happens, he is waiting in silence He is depending upon his God He is trusting his God There's no conversation recorded between he and his wife Was there? Probably so We don't know But there's no conversation between he and his wife There's just silence

And I think that's a very important principle we need to understand in our own lives on how to respond when disaster strikes, that we wait upon the Lord in silence, tie ourselves around him, focus completely on him, no one else and nothing else So the question comes, how is it that happens? I'm going to give you six principles, okay? I gave you five words Now I'm going to give you six principles You knew it wasn't going to be that easy Realize your Savior's provision Realize your Savior's provision Why would you tie yourself around him? Because of what he's provided

And what has he provided? He's provided not just himself, but his grace Philippians 4, Paul says these words, my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory My God shall supply all of your needs He's a provider, not just a protector, he is a provider So you need to realize God's provision And his provision, his provision is the grace Remember over in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul had been given a messenger of Satan, right? A thorn in the flesh It came from Satan, right? And God allowed that to come from Satan to afflict Job And none of us knows what that affliction was

But in that affliction, it says, God answers and says, my grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected in weakness Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me The Lord says, Paul, my grace is sufficient You don't have to go around trying to go after Satan or rebuke Satan or anything like that Just listen, Paul, my grace is sufficient He asked three times for that thorn to be removed God said, no, it's not gonna happen So he had it his entire life Excuse me, his entire ministry And what it was, we do not know

But we do know that God's grace was sufficient God's grace is overwhelming We are saved by grace We serve by grace We are sustained by grace Everything that we have is because of the spirit of grace Zechariah 12, verse number 10 speaks about the spirit of grace Hebrews chapter 10 speaks about the spirit of grace The spirit that we have in us is the spirit of grace It infuses us with the grace of God to get us through the time That's God's provision He provides us with his grace

And we sit there and say, you know, how would I ever handle what Job handled? Well, listen, you don't need loss of 10 children grace until you lose 10 children, right? You don't need the loss of 3,000 camels grace until you lose 3,000 camels It's like the person who loses a child in infancy How do they handle that? God gives them the grace to handle that And we say, I don't know how you ever do that Of course you don't, because you haven't lost an infant You don't need infant loss grace until you lose an infant You don't need the loss of a spouse grace until you lose a spouse

You don't need the loss of job grace until you lose your job God doesn't give you grace for that You don't need that grace for that You need something else But God always provides In fact, the Bible says over in 1 Peter chapter four, 1 Peter chapter four, verse number 10, these words, he says, as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God The manifold grace of God Same word used in James chapter one, when it says, consider all joy, my brethren, when you fall into manifold trials Maybe your text says various trials

But it's the same word It's a word where we get an English word, polka dots You see, as there are different trials that come in different shapes and sizes, God's grace is there to sustain you for that trial, and it comes in different shapes and sizes It gives you everything that you need So the manifold grace of God fits the manifold trials that come your way In fact, 1 Peter 1.6 says the exact same thing about the various trials that have come your way, the manifold trials, the polka dots of trials that have come your way

And Peter says, God's grace is also polka dotted, because it deals with every situation you come in contact with That's God's provision We need to realize, number one, your Savior's provision Number two, you need to recognize His sure and swift Protection You need to recognize His sure and swift protection God's protection is sure You can count on it It's also swift Say, well, wasn't too swift for Job? I mean, he was sitting in ashes He would sit there for a week before he may have said anything Remember, God lives outside the realm of time, right? He's the eternal God of the universe

There are no clocks and calendars in heaven He runs on His own schedule He runs outside the realm of time But listen to what the Bible says in the book of Jeremiah, the book of Jeremiah, the 20th chapter Jeremiah had just been beaten by Pashur, the priest, who threw him in the stocks and beat him And Jeremiah, oh no, he doesn't feel the Lord's presence He never doubted that God was with him There are times we don't feel that God is present among us It doesn't mean He's not there He's always there He's on the present He says this, the Lord is with me like a dread champion

The Lord is with me like a mighty warrior The Lord is with me He is so mighty He is so strong He puts fear into everyone else Jeremiah knew that God was with him He says, therefore, my persecutors will stumble and not prevail They will be utterly ashamed because they have failed with an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgiven Yet, oh Lord of hosts, you who test the righteous He was the righteous one The Lord of armies is the one who tests the righteous Jeremiah knew He knew But yet God's protection was sure and God's protection would be swift

And so it says, verse number 13, sing to the Lord, praise the Lord Just like Job in the midst of being beaten and thrown in the stocks, he worshiped, sang praises to his God because he had a proper perspective on who God was and what God did It's imperative that we realize our Savior's provision and recognize his sure and swift protection Number three, we need to rest in his sovereign and specific plan Rest in his sovereign and specific plan Listen, Psalm 138, verse number eight The Lord will accomplish what concerns me The psalmist said

Job would say in Job 24, right? He performs what is appointed for me Psalm 57, verse number two says, I will cry to God most high, to God who accomplishes all things for me In other words, God has a divine plan for your life And so everything happens on a divine timetable So you learn to rest in the sovereign and specific plan that God has for your life Like he did for Job, like he did for Jeremiah, like he did for the apostle Paul, so he does for you and for me God has a detailed specific plan for your life

And you need to rest in the fact that that sovereign specific plan runs right on course That's why Paul would say, being confident of this very thing, that he performed a good work in you, we'll complete that work until the day of Jesus Christ He who began the work is gonna complete the work Why? Because a sovereign God has a specific plan for your life You know, to rest in that, knowing that God has a specific place for me to live, a specific person for me to marry, a specific home for me to buy, a specific church for me to attend and to serve in God is sovereign over every detail of my life

And I rest in that sovereignty That's what Job did He would begin to rest in that sovereign specific plan Naked I came, naked I leave The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away That's a specific sovereign plan of God He rested in that That's how he could tie himself around the Lord and wait in silence upon the Lord because he could sit back and rest and say, you know what, Lord, blessed be your name You gave and you've taken And all this Job did not sin because he realized his Savior's provision he would provide He recognized his sure and swift protection

He would rest in his sovereign and specific plan And therefore he would rely on the Spirit's presence And peace How do you wrap yourself and twist yourself around the stronghold of God? You need to rely on the Spirit's presence and peace Remember Isaiah chapter 26? In that day, what day? Well, the day of the Lord Isaiah is talking about the coming day of the Lord He says, open the gates, the righteous may enter The one that remains faithful, the steadfast mind, you will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you The steadfast mind Not the double-minded mind, but the steadfast mind

Not the mind that's a compromising mind, but the mind that's completely focused on God That wraps itself around him He's gonna trust in him, why? And he will keep him in perfect peace In fact, the Hebrew says he will keep him in peace, peace It's a reiteration of the word peace because he didn't know how to state it in such a way that you would recognize the incomprehensible peace of God that surrounds those who have their minds focused on God alone What a remarkable thing The steadfast mind, he will keep in peace, peace Perfect peace, unhindered peace Peace beyond all comprehension

That's why when Paul says, be anxious for nothing, but anything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let all your requests be made known unto God Why? Because that God of peace will guard your heart and mind It'll protect your heart and mind No sense to worry The Lord is at hand Philippians 4, verse number five The Lord is near Therefore, don't be anxious Just wrap yourself around the arm, the mighty arm of the living God Twist yourself around him He goes on to say in Isaiah 26, verse number four, trust in the Lord forever For in God the Lord, we have an everlasting rock

He is an eternal rock, an everlasting rock And therefore, you must trust him and remember him He says, indeed, by following the way of your judgments, verse eight, oh Lord, we have waited for you eagerly We have patiently tied ourselves around you, anticipating your coming again And your name, even your memory, is the desire of our souls Isn't that great? Is the name of God the desire of your soul? Is the memory of God the desire of your soul? Is everything about who you are the desire of your soul? For Job, he would prostrate himself and worship his God amidst all that took place

Why? God was everything to him That was the desire of his soul So he could worship him and praise him So when you realize your savior's provision, recognize his sure and swift protection, rest in his sovereign specific plan, rely on his spirit's presence and peace, then you will remember his steadfast promises His steadfast promises Joshua 23, verse number 14 Joshua says, now behold, today I'm going the way of all the earth And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed

All have been fulfilled for you Not one of them has failed What a statement Not one of all the good words that our Lord has spoken has failed you Not one, why? Because he promised you this land He promised you'd get out of bondage You did He promised he'd bring you through the wilderness He did He promised he'd bring you into the land You are He promised you'd conquer your enemies You did You see, he promised these things and this is what's happening in your life Not one word, not one good word of the Lord His steadfast promises Isaiah 40

It says, do you not know? Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth never becomes weary or tired His understanding is inscrutable He gives strength to the weary and to him who lacks might, he increases power And though youse grow weary and tired and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who twist themselves around the Lord will gain new strength They will mount up with wings like eagles and they will run and not get tired and they will walk and not become weary

If you're becoming weary, if you're becoming drained, you have wrapped yourself around the wrong stronghold You have tied yourself to the wrong anchor because those who twist themselves around the eternal father, the creator of the ends of the earth, the Lord, the everlasting God, never become weary, never tire Youths, they grow weary But no matter how old you are, you tie yourself and twist yourself around the everlasting God of the universe You're never left for strength That's a promise And so you remember his steadfast promises And then number six, I know our time is gone

Rejoice in his sufficient and sensational person Rejoice in his sufficient and sensational person Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always You're rejoicing in him You're rejoicing because of him You're rejoicing because of who he is So when Job says, blessed be the name of the Lord, he speaks well of God's name He rejoices in God's name Why? Because it was that name that gave, it was that name that took away But it was that name that would sustain him and give him the strength to go through the losses that he had just experienced

And yet he had no idea what was going to come on the next day or the next couple of days He had no idea, none, none, but he would be prepared Why? Because he waited in silence and took the opportunity to tie himself around the strength of almighty God Why is it a man like Job who has no theology books to read, no Bible to read, no church to attend, no Bible study to fellowship with other people in, how is Job knew all this stuff? How could he sustain, be sustained in a time of great tragedy and live the life of surrender, submission, sanctity and silence And that's God's word for us tonight

Let's pray Father, we thank you for our time together The chance we had to look into the word of the Lord Our prayer, Father, is that you'd move in and among every single one of us Lord, you are great and you are great to be praised We pray for everyone. I pray for everyone in this room, no matter what they're going through, Lord, that Lord, you would sustain them You take them through it They'd see your hand and they would twist themselves, tie themselves around you and you alone and be so wrapped up in who you are that Lord, they never grow weary They never become tired

They mount up with wings like eagles and they stay steadfast, trusting in their God We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our soon coming King, amen.