The Extent of Job's Affliction

Let's bow for a moment of prayer Father, thank you for today Lord, today is a great day It's a great day, Lord, because you've brought us through this day, and you've allowed us to live for the glory of your kingdom

Tonight, Lord, as we gather together, our prayer is that the Word of God would instruct us in the way that we should go, that we might understand the beauty of who you are, the splendor and majesty of our great King, how you work in the lives of people, that Father, this man, Job, has become the great example for all of us, and as we learn more about this man and how he lived and how he responded to disaster, we can grow so much

Our prayer is that we would grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and exemplify you wherever we go, whoever we talk to, that we might put you on display That's our prayer In Jesus' name, amen Job, chapter 2, Job, chapter 2 You would think that after all that Job has been through, enough would be enough But for Job, it wasn't It really was just the beginning, just the beginning of what Satan was going to do, what Satan wanted to do to destroy his life, that he might defame the true and living God

But the affliction that is about to come upon him is an affliction that none of us can really truly relate to It goes way beyond anything we can ever imagine in this life People have tried to describe the affliction for us, but none of us really knows, and I think that's probably best, because like Paul's thorn in the flesh, we don't know what that was And so like the boils on Job's life, we're not sure exactly what they were, how quickly they came upon him, but we know that he suffered greatly because of them But Satan is vicious, and he wants to destroy Job's life

Now between chapter 1 and chapter 2, we don't know how much time there was We don't know exactly what took place We know that it's silent about Job's life, but we presume that he buried his ten children And we also presume that those nights that he was laying with his wife, there would be much and many tears shed And maybe in the loneliness of the night, she would cry out, and he would have to console his wife We do not know The Bible does not say But you can imagine the turmoil upon Job's wife They were her children too She lost ten children as well

And that was more devastating to them than the material loss That was something they could eventually replace, maybe not as rapidly as maybe they would think they could, but they could eventually replace those things But the children, they were irreplaceable And so the loss upon both of them would be severe And so you would think that as they sat there at night trying to ask and answer the question, what happened? Why? What did we do? Did we do anything? What is God doing? And they would lay there in the silence of the night with no answers

Little did Job know that he would never receive an answer He would never receive an answer to the why question He would just receive an answer as to who, and that would be the Lord God of the universe But he would never receive the answer why, even though he would lay there at night thinking, what has happened? He had no idea what was coming next He couldn't even begin to imagine that something would happen to him physically And so this is the extent of Job's affliction Let me read to you the narrative and then we'll discuss it together

Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord And Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, from roaming about on the earth and walking around on it The Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to ruin him without cause

Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, yes, all that a man has, he will give his life However, put forth your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, he will curse you to your face So the Lord said to Satan, behold, he is in your power, only spare his life Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head And he took a potsherd to scrape himself while he was sitting among the ashes Then his wife said to him, do you still hold fast 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 not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips Now, when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, they came, each one from his own place, Eliphaz, the Temanite, Bildad, the Shuhite, and Zophar, the Nehemiathite And they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept

And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great. I have eight points I want to cover with you this evening They're going to be brief It could be long, but eight points that take us through chapter two The first one is the presentation before the Lord Like there was in chapter one, there was an accounting There was a time when the sons of God had to present themselves before the throne of God

And so this is important because holy angels receive their marching orders We know from the book of Hebrews, the first chapter, the 13th and 14th verse that angels, holy angels are ministering spirits and they're sent forth to minister to people like you and me And that's a great thing We also know from Matthew's gospel that the eyes of the holy angels are always upon the Lord because once the Lord shows concern for anything, they are immediately dispatched to take care of his own But all the unholy angels are accountable too They have to report to God

And so in their reporting, they have to come and realize that they are subject to the sovereign king of the universe Satan must just absolutely hate this That he has to go and present himself to God and be accountable to the holy God of the universe But he is accountable to the Lord And he goes about the earth because Satan is not omniscient There's a reason he roams around because he can't read your mind He doesn't know what you're going to do until he sees you do it, see? Unless one of his minions tells him about your behavior and your activity

He can't accuse you because he is our accuser, right? Before the throne of God day and night, Revelation 12 verse number 10, he can't accuse you unless he knows what you're doing and therefore he must see what you're doing or someone must tell him what you're doing because he's not omniscient That's why he goes throughout the earth, roaming, looking, watching And so there is this presentation before the Lord Next comes the proposal from the Lord The Lord offers up Job once again He asks two questions, where have you been? What have you been doing? And Satan tells him, I've been roaming around

The Lord's not looking for information, okay? The Lord knows what he's doing, but he's getting Satan to admit out loud exactly what he's doing So everyone knows that Satan is accountable to the holy God of the universe And then he offers up Job again Have you considered my servant Job? Again, he's called Job's servant This is the second time Job was called God's servant Three times in two chapters, it says that he is a blameless man, he's an upright man, he's a God-fearing man, and he turns away from evil Three times in two chapters, twice by God himself That's God's assessment of Job

This is how God describes Job to Satan And then he says, he's held fast his integrity In other words, this is my servant, and my servant who serves me is a man who is a special servant because there's no one like him on the earth He is a spiritual servant because he's perfect, upright, and fearing God He is a separate servant because he shuns evil And he is a strong servant because he holds fast his integrity Job was a strong man Job was not a soft man We live in a society where men are becoming more and more soft, squishy. I think that's a good word for it

Where are the strong men? Where are the men that are resilient, steadfast? That's why James says, you've heard of the endurance of Job Someone who's able to bear up under all the pressure Where are the men who can bear up under pressure? Why do we have so many men who crumble under the pressure, who can't stand against hard times? Job could stand against the hardest of times, having lost everything And Job has no idea about what's taking place in heaven We do God is so gracious to us to write this down, and so we're able to understand exactly what takes place in heaven

In this conversation between God and Satan, Job will never know this, doesn't know this until he dies and goes to heaven and he finds out these things But while on earth, he does not know anything about the conversation between God and Satan He has no idea what happened and why he lost all of his children He knows how it happened, doesn't know why it happened, doesn't know why he lost all of his livestock, all of his servants except for three, the ones who would come back and report to him, hey, this is what took place, or four

And so he doesn't have the answer to the why question, but you see, he is still holding fast his integrity You know, the marines are looking for a few good men, but the master is looking for godly men The Lord's not looking for good men, because there's none good, right? But he does look for godly men That's why 2 Chronicles tells us that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, looking to strengthen the hearts of those who are fully committed to Him The Lord wants to strengthen your heart

He wants to infuse you with His strength that you might be able to stand strong against the wiles of the devil, stand strong against all the heartache you might face Job is that kind of man The character of Job is crucial Why? Because a holy character is the key to handling any crisis Please mark that down. A holy character is the key to handling any crisis An unholy character can't handle the crisis, but a holy character can And Job was able to endure because of his commitment to his God

And with all the information we have, with the Scriptures in our hands, and the opportunity that we have where the Spirit of God lives within us, we of all people, more so than Job, should be totally committed to the Lord God of Israel and follow Him So, you move from the presentation before the Lord to the proposal from the Lord to the plans of Satan It's a plan Satan never admits he lost He's too arrogant to do that He never says, you know, I tried and I lost Satan, right, was defeated by a mere mortal man Job won, Satan zero He was beaten by a mere mortal man

He thought for sure that Job would curse God to his face He thought for sure that if he lost everything materially, everything financially, all his possessions, he would be so angry that he would curse God But you see, Job is not a material man He's a spiritual man, right? He's not about possessions He's about walking with God And Satan doesn't understand that But he never admits, you know, I tried, didn't work Let me try this No, he's too arrogant to do that Too much pride

So, he guarantees God that if I do this skin for skin, if I can touch his flesh, if I can touch his bones, he'll curse you That's Satan's plan He wants to afflict Job He wants to hurt Job He is a cruel individual and he is certain that if he does so, that Job will curse God So you move from the plan of Satan to the prohibition from God This is so good Again, verse 6, the Lord said to Satan, behold, he's in your power He's yours Only spare his life You cannot kill him Wow You know what that tells me? That whatever happens to you is controlled by God

You know, remember 1 Corinthians chapter 10, you know it well First Corinthians chapter 10, verse number 13, no temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man Remember that? None of you faces a perosmos, a temptation or a trial that's uncommon to man Did you get that? You're going to face a temptation, whatever it may be in your life, that's extremely common to human beings, to everybody else So that prohibits you from saying, you know what, no one knows the trouble I've seen No one knows my problems No one's been in my shoes, walk in my shoes for a day

See what I have to face every day Oh, no, no, no There is no temptation taking you such as is common to man And then he says, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able God is so faithful He will not let anything come your way that you can't handle through his power, nothing So when you think about Job and God offers up Job to Satan, he says, you can do anything you want to him, but you must spare his life You can't take his life God knows what Job can handle God knows how Job's going to be afflicted because God is omniscient

God knows what Satan's going to do And yet he's not going to allow anything to happen to Job that Job is not able to handle that the power of the true and living God My friends, that's good news for you and me because there's nothing too hard that you can't handle it You should not be crumbling under the pressures and hardships and disasters of life Why? Because God's not going to allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able He'll give you the strength, he says He'll, you know, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also so that you will be able to endure it

There's an escape route that allows you to endure the temptation, that allows you to endure the trial that you might come out the other end shining like gold for the glory of your God But God puts a prohibition on Satan He tells them that there are certain things you can do, but there are certain things you cannot do Now, remember this, God is not interested in pampering you physically, but perfecting you spiritually for the purpose of his glory Please remember that God is not in the business of pampering you physically, but perfecting you spiritually for the purpose of his glory

So whatever trial comes your way, that's a direction God's moving you That's what God wants to do in your life He wants to perfect you spiritually because he wants to be glorified in and through your life Now, imagine your name in this text You can do anything to Lance that you want, you just can't kill him You can do anything to Roger that you want, but you just can't kill him You can do anything to Don that you want, but you just can't kill him Imagine that If that conversation was going on in heaven, we'd never know Just like Joe, never knew

But it tells us that God is in complete control of everything Even the trials that come your way Even the disasters that come your way All the pain that you experience emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, all those things Listen, this recession that we're in, this inflation that we experience, doesn't take God by surprise You're feeling the pain at the pump You're feeling the pain at the grocery store Your taxes are going up So are mine Everything is

But God's not going to allow anything to happen to us that we can't handle through his power, through his spirit, that we might glorify his name God's going to do that Why? Because he has set, Acts 17, 26, the habitation and boundaries of every man In other words, God has set your house and the boundaries surrounding your house of every one of you He's put you in a particular place So that no matter what it is you face in that particular place, he'll give you the strength to handle these things

He put Job in the land of us, that he might experience these things from Satan, and that he might be an example for you and me to understand how to handle them You know, Job had no idea things were going to get worse He's probably thinking, man, how bad could things possibly be? I've lost everything. I've got nothing left Which leads you to the pain, this is point number five, in the affliction The presentation before the Lord, the proposal from the Lord, the plans of Satan, the prohibition from God, and the pain in the affliction Satan wasted no time As soon as he got permission, he was gone

And I don't know how this happened It says, it says, Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head Now, I don't know if it happened while he's in bed, and he wakes up, and he's got a spot on his back, and on his side, and he says, honey, do you see this? What do you think this is? And she's like, I don't know And that throughout the day, they begin to increase As they begin to increase, they begin to spread throughout the day

So maybe now he's got them on his legs, and on his stomach, and on his back, and he's thinking, what's going on? What is this? She says, I don't know And he goes to bed, wakes up, and now they're even worse And now there are more of them Now they're from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet Now think about that You can't sit without pain You can't lay down without pain You can't walk without pain You can't even hang from a tree without pain There's absolutely no place you can go to relieve yourself from the pain that you're experiencing

And that's why he sits in the ash heap, to somehow get some kind of relief from all of these sores that are on his body, or maybe not the relief, but to redirect the pain that he's experiencing You ever done that? You have a pain in one part of your body, and now you want to redirect it because that pain is too unbearable to bear So let's do something else to hurt the other side of my body so I can redirect my pain Well, Job can't do that because his whole body's in pain He can't redirect the pain anywhere because there's nothing he can do because every part of his being is in pain

Think about this If you go through the text, you're going to realize that he has all these inflamed sores on his body, Job 2 verse number 7 With that comes persistent itching That's why he takes the potsherd and scrapes himself In the scraping of the boils, two things happen One, he wants to relieve some pain He wants to remove the pus that's there At the same time, make himself more presentable to those who might see him because his whole body becomes disfigured That's why when his friends came to see him, the text says they didn't recognize him

Why? Because of the swelling of his face, his body, he was disfigured So you read on and you realize that in Job 2 verse number 12, there's disfiguration of his facial skin In chapter 3 verse number 24, there's the loss of appetite Chapter 3 verse number 25, there are fears and depression In chapter 7 verse number 5, there are sores that burst open, scab over, crack, ooze with pus Chapter 7 verse number 5 again, worms that form in the sores themselves Chapter 9 verse number 18, he has difficulty in breathing Chapter 16, he has a darkening of the eyelids Chapter 19, foul breath

Chapter 19 again, verse number 20, loss of weight Chapter 30 verse number 27, excruciating continual pain Chapter 30 verse number 30, a high fever with chills and discoloring of skin as well as anxiety and diarrhea That's Job None of us have ever been there, thank God But by the time you get to chapter 30, many, many days have passed, many weeks have passed He said to bear up under this continually without ever knowing why You think you got it bad? You think your life's in turmoil? Oh no Just read about Job Just bury your face in the book of Job for the next 60 days

Then you'll realize my problems are nothing compared to Job's problems And yet Job was a God-fearing upright man who turned away from evil and lived for the glory of his God He maintained his integrity He is the personification of misery There's no one in Scripture that personifies misery more so than Job He was rejected and isolated That's why he went to the ash heap Warren Wiersbe talks about it this way in his commentary He says, there the city garbage was deposited and burned, and there the city's rejects lived, begging alms from whomever passed by

At the ash heap, dogs fought over something to eat, and the city's dung was brought and burned The city's leading citizen was now living in abject poverty and shame All that he humanly had left were his wife and three friends, and even they turned against him Again, measure your life against this environment, and you begin to realize what we're facing is nothing compared to what Job faces Which leads us to our next point, and that is the pessimism of his wife, the pessimism of his wife, truly pessimistic she is This is the only thing she says, and the only time she appears in the entire book

This is it This is all she says None of it's like, you know, honey, what can I do for you? Can I sit with you? Can I get you something? Is there something I can do? I wish I could No No Nothing like that Instead, she says, then his wife said to him, okay, do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die Every man needs a wife like that. I mean, curse God and die What are you doing? Now remember, and we can be really hard on Job's wife, right? But remember, she lost everything as well

But on top of that, she loses, to some degree, the strength of her life, her husband, the pillar of her life The one who's always there to walk her through the pain that she's experiencing The one that's always been there to offer up sacrifices on behalf of the children The one that is the greatest man on the earth But by the testimonies, you have to want in the East, but now all that greatness is gone All that they have is gone All the children she bore, she nursed as they grew, she carried in her body for nine months, they're all gone

So her pain is great, as great as Job's, except she doesn't have the physical pain that Job has So maybe she says it to relieve herself of misery You can relieve yourself of misery, and as you do, you're going to relieve me of my misery because you're going to be gone And after all, I could probably marry somebody else, I could probably have more kids. I don't know what she's thinking, but I'm going to tell us But this is the only time she's mentioned, and the only thing she says, in Job, all right? Leadership at its apex Leadership at its best He indicts her, and then he instructs her

And the way that he indicts her, he says, you speak as the foolish women speak He doesn't say you're a fool, but you're speaking like the foolish women speak, the people who don't believe there is a God You're speaking to me as if God doesn't exist, but he does because you want me to curse him and die What you're saying is not wise So he instructs her He simply says, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks, shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips Wow

That's leadership. I don't know what kind of definition you have of leadership. I don't know what books you read on leadership, but that's leadership, leading through and in adversity, leading so much that you're able to instruct your wife into the importance and priority of God over everything What a man of God He could have lashed out at her He could have screamed at her, and who would have blamed him, right? But that's not what he did He indicted her and then he instructed her in the ways of God Leadership at its best

When everything is crumbling around you, what do you do as a man in your family? Do you lead your wife into the ways of God? Do you lead your children into the ways of God? Do you move them through the crisis and show them God is in charge? Shall we accept prosperity, but never accept adversity? Can we actually live that way? No He instructs her in the providence of God He instructs her in the sovereignty of God He instructs her in how it is God is at work in their life, even though there's pain that's there This is leadership at its highest level You can't ask for a better leader than this

So, gentlemen, measure your life against Job's life He becomes the example He becomes the standard by which you lead your wife and your children No matter how bad things may be for you, they're not as bad as they were for Job, and yet he kept a biblical perspective through it all It's an amazing testimony to the grace of God in his life That's why we can tell you that there's no temptation taken from you but that it's coming to man, that God will provide a way of escape God knows what you can take He knows what you can handle He knows that we are but dust We're very fragile beings

He knows that And he knows his name is at stake, right? He knows that his glory is going to be put on display through Job's life like it is through your life God knows that And so God wants to shine through clear and bright, and he does with Job Matthew Henry says, if Satan leaves anything that he has permission to take away, it is with a design of mischief Remember, he could take anything away he wanted from Job, but he left his wife, right? Because it was his design for mischief He was going to use her to be his greatest temptation More about that in a minute

But he's going to use his wife as his greatest temptation, like it was in the beginning with Adam and with Eve And so there's this great temptation that comes his way through the person that's supposed to be your greatest comforter, your greatest lover, your greatest friend tempts you And it says, curse God and die But Job is so committed to turning away from evil, he turns away from the temptation He shuns evil and says, shall we accept only certain things from God and not others? Or do we accept everything that's from God? Which leads us to the presence of his friends

His three friends show up They come They come from a distance How long did it take him to get there? The Bible didn't tell us They're with Job for seven days, right? Seven days Did it take him a day to get there? They came from different areas, but they were his friends Maybe it just took him a day to get there Maybe it took him two days to get there And then when they see him, they see he's in great pain, the text says Great pain, tremendous pain

And it says that they didn't even recognize him when they saw him. I mean, think about that. I've been to the hospital where people have been in car accidents, and their bodies and heads are so swollen, you can't recognize the person that you knew before the accident because they're in such bad shape Well, Job's face began to swell His body began to swell There were oozing sores all over his body, and they didn't even recognize him So they came And they came with the purpose of comforting Job And that's a good thing

And for seven days, they sat in silence. I would like to think they sat in silence because they wanted just to be there for him. I think they were chomping at the bit to say something, and we'll see that as we go through the rest of the book They have to say something You know, sometimes when people are suffering, it's just good just to sit there and not say anything, just to hold their hand, just to put your arm around them To weep with those who weep That's always a great thing to do You don't have to always say something

As you go through the text of the book of Job, we're going to show you what not to say, how not to say it, and what you should say Because these men, although they say truthful things, things that are really true, they misapply them to Job And they become, as the Bible says, his miserable comforter So much so that God makes them beg for forgiveness at the end God makes them ask for forgiveness because they were wrong But they came and they sat, and they listened and watched, thinking about what they would say

And the belief was, if you suffered in those days, you suffered because you were a great sinner And so they're thinking, what sin did Job commit that made him lose everything that he has, and for this affliction to come upon his life? He must have really did something really bad And maybe they're thinking about maybe the bad things he did because they get him to try to confess that, but there is nothing he does because God says there's nothing he did wrong He says, you incited him without cause In other words, there was nothing that he did that would cause this to happen to him

You just did it because that's what you wanted to do, Satan There's nothing that Job did that caused this That's chapter 2 So point number 8 are the principles What do we take away from this? Let me give you three of them Three principles that will help guide you through this First one is be advised Second one is be wise And the third one is be mesmerized Number one, be wise Be wise about suffering and trials We need to be wise about them because trials are, listen, ever inevitable, never enjoyable However, always purposeful and profitable

Did you get that? They are ever inevitable, never enjoyable, however, always purposeful and profitable because God's in charge Be wise about suffering and trials The Bible tells us very easily in Job 5, verse number 7, man is born under trouble lest sparks fly upwards Job 14, verse number 1, man is short-lived and full of trouble Peter says, if necessary, and obviously you have these trials because they must be necessary for you, you suffer various trials James says in James 1, consider all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various trials

Not if you fall into them, but when you do because they are ever inevitable You're going to face them and they come in different shapes and different sizes and in different degrees, but they're always going to come That's why they are ever inevitable, but they're never enjoyable Nobody wants a trial, nobody wants a test You go to school and you know you mark on your calendar when the tests are going to be, but sometimes the teacher gives you a pop quiz or a pop test and you start to sweat profusely and you get all nervous and you don't know what to do

Why? Because no one likes tests, no one likes exams, but when they come in a spiritual realm, they're difficult The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says we are afflicted in every way We are perplexed, we are persecuted, we are struck down, but he never gave up, he endured Peter says in 1 Peter 4, 12, beloved, do not think it strange or don't be surprised at this fiery ordeal that's come upon you Not just an ordeal, it is a fiery ordeal, and you should never be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes, but we are That's because we're not wise concerning suffering and trials

All those who live godly in Christ Jesus, for certain they will suffer persecution Christ said if they persecuted me, they're going to persecute you If they hate me, they're going to hate you So realize that trials are ever inevitable, never enjoyable, however, always profitable and purposeful because God's behind them

It doesn't tempt you to do evil, not at all, but the Bible says in the book of James, and you know this well, James chapter 1, makes it very clear, consider all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith, the proving of your faith, right? So when the trial comes, it's going to prove the genuineness of your faith It's going to produce endurance and let endurance have its perfect results so that you may be perfect, that you may be complete, lacking nothing In other words, the reason the trial is there is because you're lacking something

But when the trial comes, it's going to fill in that which you're lacking That's why you consider it all joy, because there's something in your life that's lacking Now think about this, what could possibly be lacking in Job's life? He's upright, he's blameless, he turns away from evil, he's God-fearing, right? And he's maintained his integrity when he lost everything What could possibly be lacking in Job's life? But you don't find that out to the end When he says, I've heard of you with the hearing of my ears, but now, for the first time, I see you

He needed to see God in all of his splendor and glory and majesty And so God was going to make sure all that took place in this man's life, that he might be able to experience the beauty of the Lord So principle number one, be wise about suffering and trials Number two, I'm sorry, that's be advised Number two is be wise about Satan's tactics. I guess I got my words mixed up, I'm sorry Be advised about suffering and trials and be wise about Satan's tactics You need to be wise about this Why? Once you're advised about trials, be wise about Satan's tactics

Because listen carefully, Satan will use people that are closest to you to tempt you, to move you Remember Matthew chapter 16? Christ had just got done speaking about that he's going to build his church in the gates of hell, should not prevail against it And all the disciples were excited about that They're up in Caesarea Philippi, up at the very northern part of the land of Israel at the base of Mount Hermon And Jesus begins to foretell his death, how he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him saying, God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interest, but on man's Peter, the leader of the twelve, the one that God would use in a mighty way in the book of Acts Peter hears about the church being built and how the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it Right? And he realized, man, this is great

And then Jesus foretells his death, how he's going to suffer, how he's going to die and rise again And Peter said, no, no, no, you got it all wrong You don't understand your mission You don't know what you're here for You got it wrong And Christ says, you're being used by Satan to distract me from my mission

As Job's wife was used by Satan to deter him from glorifying God, as Peter was used by Satan to deter Christ from the ultimate mission of going to the cross and dying for the sins of man, so too God will use your family members and those closest to you to move you away from God's mission and purpose for your life You must be wise to Satan's tactics because he has a myriad of them It doesn't mean your wife tonight is going to tempt you to turn your back on God. I'm not saying that, but she might

Don't know your wife, you know? But ladies, maybe it's your husband, maybe it's your children, maybe it's your grandparents Maybe it's the guy you admire most at work or in your church, and you must think things through biblically What does the Bible say? What does God want me to do? And be able to differentiate between someone's logical reasoning versus theological reasoning So you think theologically and not logically Think divinely and not humanly because you want to follow God Principle number one, be advised about suffering and trials Number two, be wise about Satan's tactics

Number three, be mesmerized by God's sovereign timing Be mesmerized, be captivated, be enthralled with the fact that God's timing is always perfect Look at Job's life The timing, the relentless timing of the disasters And then the timing on the heels of that, coming to be inflicted with boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his soul This was the perfect storm for a man to turn his back on God But it was in God's timetable That's why Job would say later in his book, he knows the way that I take When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold

He says, he is unique who can turn him in what his soul desires that he does He performs what is appointed for me And many such degrees are with him Solomon, who maybe was the author of Job, we don't know that, says in Ecclesiastes 7, chapter 7, verse number 13, consider the work of God for who was 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, so that man will not discover anything that will come after him

In other words, Solomon says, in the day of prosperity, God made that one, in the day of adversity, consider something, God made them both But the day of adversity comes so you'll never be in control of tomorrow The day of adversity comes so you'll never know what's going to happen tomorrow God wants you to trust him, he wants you to believe him, it's the perfect timing for the trial How many times have you heard him say, you know, I can't, this is not the right time, I've had enough, it's got to stop No

It's in the perfect timing of a sovereign God who has your best interest at heart because that's going to give him the greatest glory It's all about the praise and honor of glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ What you're going through is not about you, it's about what God's going to do in and through you so that he will be ultimately glorified William Cooper, who was a poet and a hymn writer, who, by the way, attempted suicide three times and failed all three times

Talk about the timing of God. I mean, how bad do you have to be to commit suicide three times and fail all three times? The man's a failure, right? He wrote 68 hymns One of those hymns is entitled, God Moves in a Mysterious Way and expresses the mindset of believers Listen to what he says God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm Deep in unfathomable vines of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and he works his sovereign will Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take

The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain Listen, God is His own interpreter and He will make it plain Our God moves in mysterious ways, but He always moves for your good and His glory Let's pray Father, we thank You for our time together this evening

As brief as it is, we are grateful for the Word of the Lord And our prayer, Father, is that we would look at this man Job and realize we have a long way to go when it comes to responding to adversity and trials the way he responded But Lord, it's not impossible because Your Spirit has infused us You live within us Our prayer, Father, is that we would respond to adversity, trials, hardship, difficulty, in whatever form they may come, in a way that puts You on display for Your glory until You come again as You most surely will In Jesus' name, amen.