Podcasts about does job

Does Job fear God for nothing? We started the book of Job being introduced to the man himself. As far as men go, Job is a good man, blameless, upright, fearing the Lord, and turning from sin. Job is blessed by God with wealth, power, and a harmonious family (no small blessing for a family of twelve). But… what if Job had none of these blessings, would he still bless God's name? "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." The passage in Job seeks to stretch our understanding and worship of God into something bigger and fuller. It stretches us to see that God is worthy of our worship simply because he is the sovereign power over all creation. He is the giver and the taker.

What happens when the "great Australian dream" turns into a nightmare? This sermon tackles the age-old question of suffering, not from a philosophical standpoint, but through the raw and practical lens of the Book of Job. Join us as speaker Andy Prideaux unpacks the opening chapters of Job, exploring how a man who was "blameless and upright" faced unimaginable loss. Discover the heavenly drama behind Job's trials and Satan's cynical challenge: "Does Job fear God for nothing?". Learn from Job's profound initial responses of worship amidst devastation and his unwavering integrity even when urged to "curse God and die". This message encourages us to consider how we respond to suffering and reminds us that even in our darkest moments, we can move towards God, who is in control and working for our ultimate good. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Bible Reading: Job 1:1 - 2:10 Bible reading today comes from Job chapter one, verse one through to chapter two, verse ten. In the land of us there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of fasting or feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning, he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them. Thinking perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This was Job's regular custom. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered. Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil. Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied, have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well then, everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. One day, when Job's sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabines attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven, and burnt up the sheep and the servants. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said that the Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels, and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. At this Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said, naked, I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. In all this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. On another day, the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil, and he still maintains his integrity. Though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason. Skin for skin. Satan replied, A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well, then, he is in your hands, but you must spare his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die. He replied, you're talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this Job did not sin in what he said. This is the word of the Lord. Introduction to the Sermon and the Book of Job If someone else is going to do the clicking. If I did it, we'd end up. I'd be putting the news on or something. It'd be. It'd be very awkward. my name is Andy Prideaux. And thank you for your invitation. Or at least for Megan's invitation to come and begin the series that you're going to be doing on the Book of Job. This really challenging, confronting, but I think ultimately encouraging and helpful book in the Old Testament. it's so wonderful to be able to share with you today. I'm really encouraged seeing the reading up in three different languages. I work with international students at Melbourne Uni, with the Christian Union, and, I they would be if they were here now, they'd be very excited to see their language, up on the screen as, as the scriptures are read. I went to a wedding recently. One of the women in our team, a Chinese woman, I said, oh, will there be any translation in the service? And she said, yes, it will be translated from Mandarin into Cantonese, which neither of which helped me. But the English was up on the screen. But it was a good reminder that that's what it feels like for a lot of the students coming along. You know, I got to feel what it's like for my language not to be the main one. I think that was a really good thing. but I'm always encouraged because God is bringing people from every tribe, language and nation into his family. And, just it's like a small reminder of that, I think, which is great. one of the reasons, or maybe the reason that Megan invited me to come and speak is because I recently had a commentary published on The Book of Job. It's my latest book. It's my only book, actually. and I'll be coming back at the end of the series to do a QA on Job after you've heard Megan and other people teaching. and I'll bring some books there to sell. So hopefully you'll have so many questions. You want to buy a copy? If on the off chance you have to be a salesman, if on the off chance you want to buy one today, I can give you one for the special discounted price of $25. They're usually $30. So yeah, what can you do? anyway, I won't be offended if you don't buy today because it's early days. But just put a little planting the seed, planting the seed. but more importantly, let's actually come to God's word, to Job and the opening section of this book. I'll pray as we do that. Father God, we thank you for your amazing love for us in Jesus that we've already been reminded of today, in our prayers and in the reading and in the songs, in everything that's happened. I thank you, Lord God, that the Lord Jesus has been glorified, that he has been lifted up. Father, as we grapple with your Word today in a very challenging part of your word, help us to learn more of your all sufficient love for us so that when we struggle and when people around us struggle, we keep going. We keep looking to to you, holding on to you, knowing that you are the one who holds on to us. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. The Great Australian Dream vs. Life's Realities Well in the not so recent federal elections, not the other election. the made both of the major parties promised to deliver us from our worst nightmares, didn't they? And deliver the great Australian dream. What is what is at the heart of the great Australian dream? Home ownership. But I wonder what is. What is living the dream look like in our lucky country? Maybe we could take a, like a progressive sort of look at that. Maybe it starts with the right birth plan, then the right preschool or kinder, then the the right school, then the right course after school, then the right job, then you find the right spouse, and then you get the right car and you get the home, and then you get the better car, that new car smell. Maybe you even get to enjoy that. You experience overseas travel. You improve your health. Like me. You get to middle age. You realize you haven't done any exercise in the last 20 years. Maybe I should have a look at that. Then you get the better car, then you get the super. Then you got to improve the health again. Then you get the final car. Maybe then you get the retirement, then maybe some more travel, then protect the health. Then you get the right burial plot. That last one, I believe it or not, I was reminded of almost every day when I came into Melbourne Uni because you got on College Crescent, as it's called, you got all the residential colleges and then literally on the other side you've got the Melbourne Cemetery and there was this big fancy sign at one stage up near the sort of gatehouse of the cemetery. what did it say? It said premium spaces available. Reserve your spot now. That's what it said. I kid you not. It was like my FOMO was being fed even as I thought about my own mortality. Now there's nothing inherently wrong, I think, with the great Australian Dream as I've described it there. We actually need education. Having good health is a good thing. Holidays refresh us. Most of us are going to need a car. All of us are going to need somewhere to live. And if we live long enough, yes, we're going to need some kind of plan for retirement. Of course. And as Christians, we actually have something good to say about these things we can say, because it's true that we receive all of them with thanksgiving from God. They all come from the hand of God. We can receive them with an open hand, rather than sort of just clutching them to ourselves and to our families. We can receive them with thanksgiving rather than turning them into helpless little idols like our lifestyle TV shows do. We can worship God with the whole of our life and in every stage of our life. When Plans Are Interrupted: The Question of Suffering But as God's children. What will we do when some of those plans, or maybe even all of those plans, are interrupted in some way? No one plans for suffering in their five year outlook. Maybe we do in terms of insurance, but I certainly did it when I had a very difficult year in terms of mental illness. I didn't sort of say, well, I'm going to work for a couple of years, then I'll have some holidays, and then in about six months I'll have a mental health crisis and spend some time in hospital. I did sort of plan for that to happen. What do we do when God doesn't give us the gifts that I choose, or the gifts that other people around me seem to be enjoying? What about when God chooses to bring other things into our life? Maybe an old car to drive. Maybe a place to rent instead of to own. Maybe a different job to my dream job. Maybe singleness, maybe childlessness, maybe a broken marriage, maybe chronic illness. The philosopher asks if there is a good God and an all powerful God. Why is there suffering in the world? That's the question of theodicy, and it's a good question to ponder. But the question the book of Job asks is actually a practical one. The question the Book of Job asks is, what will I do when I suffer? And how will I respond to the suffering of other people around me? The short answer to that question is that we will either move towards God or away from him. Job's Story: An Unfolding Narrative of Pain and Faith Now, Job was a man who suffered greatly throughout his life. That's probably a little bit of an understatement. And in the prologue, that is the opening two chapters that have just been read. We see him at the beginning of his pain, I guess, and as the narrative, as the story unfolds, Job's words are going to get more and more emotional. They're going to get more and more passionate, more and more confused, more and more raw. Sometimes you're going to wonder, why on earth did God choose to preserve these words? In the Bible, there should be like a Netflix censorship label sort of warning you for what's what you're about to read. But all of these words, these words of lament are words of faith. They're words of hope in God. They're prayers, actually, that God does answer in Job's lifetime, but ultimately he answers them, like with the lament Psalms, if you like in The Suffering Servant, when the Lord Jesus comes into the world. Job is a poetry sandwich. So the meat in the middle. Most of the book is written in a poetic style. Takes a while to get used to that. You sort of got to go with the flow of it. But like reading the Psalms and the bread on either side is written in prose, which just means normal sentence style narrative kind of a thing. So the prologue that we've just heard and which sets up the story and the epilogue which brings it to a close, is written in prose, and the prologue unfolds in five scenes. And we're going to be looking at the first four of those, because the fifth one is a bit like a hinge into the rest of the book. Scene 1: Job Living the Dream And the first scene, I think. Yes. Megan's on the clicker. Thank you. The first scene is we see Job living the dream. and it makes, I think, the great Australian dream look a bit pale compared to Job's life at this point. Interestingly, this guy is a Gentile. He wasn't a member of Israel, and yet he lives a life that is spiritually described here as blameless and upright. He fears God. He shuns evil. That is, his life was consistent in the way that he loved God and loved his neighbor. Maybe we'd we'd sort of describe it in that way. He was a complete man. He was like the whole package. And he lived a complete life. So the number ten or or or multiples of ten keep coming up. That's the number of wholeness. He had ten children, which it was good to have lots of children back then. Ten children. Thumbs up. He had tens of thousands of livestock. He had a great reputation that seemed to be earned when when people looked at him, they said, here is the greatest man in all the East. Great in wisdom, great in faith, great in wealth, great in life. He was concerned for the spiritual health of his family. He offered sacrifices on their behalf. Like like the patriarchs of old. A kind of a priestly thing. He was. He was concerned not just for appearances being religious, but they might have sinned in their hearts. We need to talk to God about this. He lived consistently. Everyone who looked at him would say he is the blessed person. And and we. We read later on, if you read chapter 29 of Job, it fills out the picture that we just get a glimpse of in the first five verses. So if you want to flesh it out a bit over lunch today, you could read chapter 29. And, it was clear that, yeah, everyone sought out his counsel. they they saw him as a wise man, a compassionate man, a godly man who looked after those people who were in need. But how would these same people, how would his friends view him when all these outward blessings were taken away? Will they stick with him? Will they sit with him? Will they pray for him? Will they care for him? Now this picture, this ideal picture is really important for reading the rest of the book, because you're going to hear in the chapters that follow the his friends who come to comfort him. At first, they're like that song you say at best when you say nothing at all. As soon as they open their mouths, it all goes downhill and they're going to see his suffering as evidence of God's judgment. He must have done something wrong. Nobody suffers that much. If they're a good person, he must have sinned. He suffers because he sins. And then they're going to say. And when he complains he's singing his speech, he's still sinning in the way that he speaks to us about God. But that's not true. The narrator says, the Lord says, we'll hear it again. No, he suffers because he is good, because he is righteous. At the end of the book. In chapter 42, the Lord will say his words, unlike the friends, were words of faith. Even his laments, even his angry outbursts, had faith running through them. Back to the prologue. Scene 2: The Lord's Boast and Satan's Lies We're into season two now. The Lord's boast and Satan's lies. Have a look. Let's have a look at verse six. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered, sorry. Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Now we need to remember. And I mean, this is going to become very clear as the book unfolds and certainly in the last few chapters, but it comes up again and again that God is a creator and sustainer of all that is, he is the sovereign ruler, the King over all that he is. And what we discover here is that that includes even the unseen spiritual realm, the realm of angels and demons. Nothing happens that is outside God's direction and control, and that includes even the actions of Satan. So you have this throne room scene. The angels report to him. Satan also comes into their midst. God asks Satan, what have you been doing? And he gives an evasive answer, going to and fro throughout the earth. More accurately, what he's been doing is what we hear in one Peter five and verse eight, your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Satan is prowling around and Job is on the menu on this occasion. And the Lord does something that seems strange at first. In verse eight, he draws Satan's attention to Job. The Lord instigates the action of this chapter. He said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There's no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. There's that description again. But then Satan replies, Does Jo fear God for nothing? Haven't you put a hedge around him in his household? Everything he has. You've blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. It's important to see here the Lord's initiative and the Lord's ultimate control. He brings up the question of Job. Whatever will happen to Job, whatever Satan thinks that he can achieve. It's caught up into God's larger plan, and it has to do with something to do with God proving the reality of Job's faith. The devil cannot escape God's sovereign will. And I want you to hear how much the Lord loves Job. He's. He's gushing over Job. There's no one like him in all the earth, he says. Which is what God does with his people before heavenly beings. Before the universe, if you like. The Lord boasts of his people. He celebrates his church. He writes their names in his book of life. So that so that anyone in the universe can can see it. When one sinner repents. Jesus says he throws a heavenly party. And Zephaniah tells us that God sings over his people. It's extraordinary. We've been singing to God this morning. Listen to Zephaniah 317. The Lord your God will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. That's extraordinary. The kind of love that God has for his people. We need to remember that whatever happens to Job and whatever happens to us, we are actually in the palm of God's hand. Suffering will happen, but it will not be the last word. But of course, Satan is the ultimate cynic. He sees through it all. God, you're deluded. And Job. He's a phony. He's only in it for the money. Come on. He's only in it for the health, the wealth, the blessing. Take all that away. He'll spit in your face. He'll curse you. See, Satan's not only confronting Job at this point, he's confronting God. He's calling into question the possibility that God and a human being could actually have a relationship like this. Satan's deluded, though, isn't he? We know that he's defeated. God will vindicate himself. And his servant and their relationship before these lies. But a key question in Satan's challenge is raised in verse nine of chapter one. Does Job fear God for nothing? Well, the law will allow Job's many blessings to be taken away so that nothing is left. Because he's confident that what will be left is his faith in God by God. Let me say it again will remain entirely in control. Satan only acts with God's permission. Verse 12, the Lord said to Satan, very well, then, everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself do not lay a finger. Scene 3: Job's Life Interrupted Scene three Job's life interrupted. Well, we've heard of. We've seen Job live in the dream. But now we see Job's life painfully, I guess. Dismantled. Pulled apart piece by piece. Each of the material blessings he enjoyed are taken away from him. These foreign invaders have come in and decimated his property, his livestock, everything that he owns. There's a sole survivor left after each disaster, but it's almost like they're only spared so that they can bring more bad news until the worst news of all. Verse 18, when he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine in the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. Job woke up that morning, as he always did. To pray to offer sacrifices on behalf of his children. Completely unaware of the tragedy awaiting him and his wife. By the end of that same day, their seven sons and three daughters were dead. I think it's easy to get used to stories and descriptions in the Bible, so we get used to knowing them really well. Like when people encounter Jesus and their lives are changed around. We're so used to, you know, we don't sort of think about what it would mean to be blind from birth and then be healed. Like, yeah, Jesus healed the blind man. Okay, what's the next thing? Kind of a thing? I think it's the same thing with the weight of what's going on here. And it came back to me at least about a week ago. I was watching the news and more bad news from Gaza. There was a family, a husband and wife, both doctors, ten children, just like Joe and his wife. The wife was working at the hospital at the time. A bomb struck the building where the family was. The building came down and nine of the ten children died, and the husband and the remaining child were in a critical condition. Bodies were taken to the hospital, and it was the mother who was one of the first people attending. Who. These are my. These are my kids. What do you do? What can you do? How do you make sense of it? How do you respond? We need to remember. The Job knows nothing of the conversation. And the heavenly throne room. Stuff's happening on Earth that's affected by what happens in heaven. But he doesn't get to overhear that. And we don't get to overhear those conversations either, do we? We have more information than Joe because Jesus has come into the world. But still we don't. We're not privy to. We don't sort of have God explaining, okay, now all these things are happening, but don't worry, because tomorrow it doesn't work like that. And it didn't work like that for Joe. All he knows is that one day everything was going well, the next day. It's like everything's turned upside down. How do you respond? Well, how did Job respond? Well, the rest of the book will continue to unpack that response, but this is the initial response in verse 20. He got up, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground in worship, and said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised, literally blessed. In all, this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. What does he do? He mourns. Of course he mourns. He tears his robe. He shaves his head. He falls to the ground. And he worships God by acknowledging the reality of who God is and what his life is. No one chooses to be born. Not one person in this room chose to be born. Life is a gift given by God, and God chooses when our life will end, which seems obvious. But in practice, I think even as believers, we sometimes act as if we make ourselves that we answer to ourselves, that we're in control. You know, if I get this situation sorted out and avoid that person and have this experience and adopt this exercise regime, then things, everything should work out. We're in denial of our fragility, our utter dependence upon God, and we're shocked when death interrupts. He'd only just retired. He was going to travel the world. But Job is right. His words are words of faith. Whoever we think we are, whatever we have achieved, whatever others think of us. The truest thing about us is that all that we are and all that we have, and all that we will be, lies in the hands of our maker. It's a famous verse, isn't it? We bring nothing into the world. You take nothing with you naked little screaming, fragile, wrinkly little babies coming into the world, dusty, frail, naked human beings going out of the world. We are really like little babies screaming out into the darkness of the universe in the hands of our maker, who is free. But as the rest of this book will show ultimately, and the rest of the Bible will show is also good, and we owe him our complete worship the Lord gave. The Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. Scene 4: Suffering Intensifies - "Skin for Skin" Well, the optimists amongst us, I'm afraid to say I'm a pessimist a lot of the time, but the optimists amongst us might be saying, well, as long as you've got your health, dear, that's the main thing. Well, suffering came down on Job's wealth, even his children. But now it hits his health. It hits his body, it hits his mind. Opening verses of chapter two. It's familiar territory. The heavenly court is again in session. Angelic beings report to God. Satan intrudes. God questions him. Once again, the Lord draws Satan's attention to Job. Once again, the Lord delights in Job and here exposes the failure of Satan's plans. Job still holds fast his integrity. Although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. What a Job! Say blessed be the name of the Lord. He didn't curse God. He blessed God. But Satan's never satisfied. He's always despising God's good word about his servants. Skin for skin. It's one thing to lose your staff, even your loved ones. But what happens if you feel trapped in the pain of your own mind and body, when your experience is so painful? You just want it to end. Well again, Job's faith will be proven. God's purposes will be vindicated. God allows this terrible interruption to Job's life. The most painful test. But again, notice he's in control. Satan has to answer to God. Verse six of chapter two. Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life. And then we hear something of Job's experience. Verse seven Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it. As he sat among the ashes. The ash heap, the rubbish dump. It's some kind of terrible skin disease that covers his body. He's in constant pain and discomfort. He smells. Even his wife finds it hard to be near him again. Others around him increasingly see him as unclean and cursed. Even children make fun of him. A huge thing in that culture. He has insomnia. His mind, his emotions are in turmoil. And I'm getting that from other little snippets where he describes his situation. So chapter seven, verse five. My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt. My skin hardens, then breaks out of fresh. Chapter 19, verse 17. My breath is offensive to my wife. I'm a stench to the children of my own mother. Chapter 30, verse 17. The night racks my bones. The pain that gnaws me takes no rest. Chapter 30, verse 30. My skin turns black and falls from me. And my bones burn with heat. And spiritually in his relationship to God. It feels like God's just moved further and further away, so we don't hear Job's voice from after the prologue until we get to the to the theophany, the appearance of God in chapter 38. And it's a very long book. That's a very long silence. So Job's going to keep calling out. He's going to keep saying, I can't, I can't feel you. Please speak to me. Why can't I hear your voice? Please show me that you love me. Almost the worst pain for Job, actually, than his physical pain is actually his pain in relationship with God. Because he knows that if he doesn't have God, in the end he doesn't have anything. What he wants most of all is to know that God is for him. Understandably, Job's wife is deeply upset, and I think we need to sit with Job's wife. We don't hear a lot about her, but I think we need to understand that it's her life that's been destroyed as well, isn't it? She bore these children that have died, and this is her husband that she has to watch powerless going through this suffering. And later, as she sits and listens to everyone, just continually throw these, shoot these arrows at Job, she has to hear her, the name of her husband denigrated, and all these terrible things being said about him. I think he or she is speaking out of her pain. She wants it to be over. It's just too much. But we also need to recognize that without knowing it, because she hasn't heard the conversation either. She's echoing the words of Satan when in verse nine she says, are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die. How does Joy respond this time? The last verse we're looking at, you're talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this Job did not see in him what he said. Behind the word accept. There shall we not accept the good and the bad is the meaning. Shall we not make use of? Shall we not profit from not just the good stuff, but shall we not make use of the hard stuff as well? He's trusting in God. He recognizes the good things, and the hard things come from God's hand. They might not fit into our plans, our five year plans, but thankfully everything fits into God's plans for his people. Personal Reflection: God is For You So my illness meant that I was not working for a year I wasn't able to see. People did church online. and I was very grateful for, a handful of Christian friends who were very careful in the way that they rang up to to pray for me or just listen to me, or just sort of to be there. And I remember very clearly a much older mentor who rang up on one occasion and he said, after a very long conversation, said very carefully. He said, do you know, Andy, that, if if God thought that what was happening to you would lead to your eternal damage, he would not let it happen? Andy, God is for you. And that's not just for me, is it? That's for all of us. What does Romans 828 say in all things? Not just the good things, not just the happy things, but the difficult things, the things that other people around us don't understand and aren't sure what to say. In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, not my purpose. My purpose is often interruption, interrupted and frustrated, which I think is probably a good thing. But God's purpose is not frustrated by these things. God doesn't say, well, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with Andy. I guess just taking too long. Is this too. It's just too complicated. His life's too messy. No, he never did that. He never does that. In God's hands, our suffering is not meaningless. In God's hands, nothing is wasted. God is good. Moving Towards God in Suffering When Job suffered and he starts doing it here and he'll keep doing it through the book. Even as he's screaming out of God, he's moving towards God like a little child screaming out in the supermarket. Their parents aren't there. They're doing the right thing. Everyone else is a bit embarrassed how that little child screaming like that in the supermarket had never happened with my children. Rubbish. But anyway. But God, God, he's the best parent, isn't he? He's the perfect father. And Job knew that all, all the thing to do was to run to him. And his words weren't pretty or polite. It's like the kid just screams out. They don't sort of work out this script of how I can be polite to my mum in the supermarket, you know what I mean? His words are passionate. They're angry, they're confused. But in all these prayers, he's crying out to the right person because he's crying out to the one who's in control. He's crying out to the one whose purpose for Job and for his world is good. And we know now. Something the Job didn't know that all those prayers were ultimately going to be answered in Jesus. That in Jesus we see the suffering servant and we discover that in Jesus God has entered into our suffering with us, not metaphorically, but literally. Sharing our tears, sharing our pain. God moves towards us in our suffering. That's the thing that underlies our faith. Before we make any kind of movement towards God, God has already made the first move. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. In Christ. God forgives us all our sins. He takes away all our guilt, all our shame, and will finally heal and transform and restore us when Jesus comes again. But right now, maybe for a long time, it won't feel like it. But we need to remember that God is good and he's working for your good, and he's working for the glory of his name in all the earth. Closing Prayer So my prayer for you and for myself, actually, is that as we hold on to Jesus, as we cry out to our loving Heavenly Father who's not embarrassed, not embarrassed even when we can't say anything at all. Actually, when there are only tears that as we do that we know that he is the one who is holding on to us. And whatever happens, he will never let us go. And when we look to the Lord Jesus and what he has done for us and who he is for us, now we know, don't we, that that is true. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we do thank you that you are the most perfect and patient and kind and holy and loving. Heavenly father, we thank you that you did so loved the world that you gave your son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. We thank you that you do walk beside us in our suffering, and that you do catch our suffering up into your purposes for our lives and for your world. We thank you that nothing is wasted in your hands. Lord God, please help us to keep keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, remembering that your eternal hands hold us up now and forever. That we have nothing to fear because your love is true and strong and good. Please sustain us. Please strengthen us. Please help us just to keep going. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

Luke 4:31–37 (ESV) And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.Where are all the demons today? Why don't we see them being cast out as in Biblical times?They Are Common And All Around Us.We Identify Them In Scientific, Medical And Sociological Terms.Mark 9:17–18 (ESV) “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. Luke 13:11 (ESV) And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.Mark 9:17–18 (ESV) “And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.Matthew 17:15 (ESV) For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.Mark 5:4–5 (ESV) for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.Luke 8:27 (ESV) For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs.Supernatural Activity (voices) - Acts 16:16–17 (ESV) As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.”Addicts, Crazy, Homeless, Suicidal, Out Of Control, EvilInstead Of Evicting Them, We Treat Their Host. Counseling. Drugs. Incarceration.We Don't Recognize Our Authority And Lack Power.Luke 4:36 (ESV) And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!”AUTHORITY: the legal right to give ordersEx: wedding officiant, property title, law enforcementFailure to take authority allows presencePOWER: the strength to enforce obedienceSome things are simple to enforce, others harderA persona can gain in power or call in reinforcementsJob 1:9–10 (ESV) Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.Job 1:1–5 (ESV) Jobwas blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. His sons and daughters used to “feast and drink”Job would consecrate them, rise early and offer burnt offerings. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.Mark 3:14–15 (ESV) And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.

Luke 4:31–33 (ESV) And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority2. And in the synagogue1 there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice3,Jesus ministry is often viewed taking place in a field or at a lake but it was daily in the synagogue or templeLuke 19:47 (ESV) And he was teaching daily in the temple. This is important as Jesus/disciples presence and emphasized the importanceActs 2:46–47 (ESV) And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.Hebrews 10:24–25 (ESV) And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.Jesus teaching included the unique ingredients, authority and power (see next week)Jesus came in contact with a man, in the synagogue who had the spirit of an unclean demonThe spirit was active in the life of a follower of Biblical Judaism, in the synagogue, the early version of the churchThe spirit was triggered by Jesus' presence, teaching with authority causing an extreme response.Luke 4:34–35 (ESV) “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus1 of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?2 I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!”3 And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm.4Demons/spirits recognized Jesus. No other names of recognition were mentioned.Demons/spirits recognized Jesus' role in a future judgement or destruction they would face.Matthew 8:29 (ESV) And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”Jesus was demonstrating and implementing an unexpected judgement by kicking them out of peoples lives.Jesus typically told demons/spirits what to do; and refused to allow them to speak.He did not ask the Father to do it, nor did He ask the demon to comply. He commanded.Anti-sensational approach. One time he asked question, “what is your name” but allowing them to speak was atypical.The demon did not harm the man him but did throw him downTypically demons/spirits function was focused on individual limitation or harmMark 9:25 (ESV) And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”Matthew 17:15 (ESV) said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.Mark 5:5 (ESV) Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.This encounter was minimized.Luke 4:36–37 (ESV) And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power1 he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And reports about him went out into every place2 in the surrounding region.Authority and power defined Jesus ministry, the ministry of his disciples, and the function of the New Testament Church.Auhtoirty/Power at work generates good news. I believe that there is deficiency in fact based evangelism that is not partnered with power and authority. This is the Church of America's biggest problem.Key Facts About Demons/SpiritsSpiritual Beings With Unknown OriginsThey Oppose God - demons are spiritual entities aligned against God's authority. They are often associated with Satan, the adversary.Matthew 12:24-26 – “But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, ‘It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.' … If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.”They Negatively Impact People To The Level They Are AllowedMark 5:3–4 (ESV) He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him.Their Presence Is Marked By Self HarmMark 5:5 (ESV) Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.They Cause Physical AilmentsMatthew 9:32–33 (ESV) As they were going away, behold, a demon-oppressed man who was mute was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.”They Lie & DeceiveThey don't just deceive others, they deceive you about them.Most subtle - they are not realEven more subtle - Rosemary's BabyJohn 8:44 (ESV) You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.They Impact Adults & ChildrenMark 7:25 (ESV) But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.They Gain Access By Invitation, Proximity & AttackInvitation - partnering with the spirit world, sex with many peopleProximity - around you and allowed to stay, family tree, things you've agreed withAttack - most ofJob 1:8–10 (ESV) And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.Ephesians 4:27 (NIV) and do not give the devil a foothold.1 Corinthians 6:15–18 (ESV) Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.They Are Alive And Well TodayDemons tend to be a fringe topic for the modern American church and personal recognition tend to be even more so. They are alive and well. We give them medical and genetic assignments and live with them often medicating them. They are present during Night tremorsAddictionsSelf Destructive BehaviorsDiseaseSuicideSelf Harm/Mutilation1 John 3:8 (ESV) The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.Mark 3:14–15 (ESV) And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.Mark 16:17–18 (ESV) And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

February 28, 2025Today's Reading: Job 31:1-12, 33-40Daily Lectionary: Job 31:1-12, 33-40; John 9:24-41“Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!” (Job 31:6)In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. When Christians are confronted with suffering in their lives, they often read the book of Job. After all, Job suffered, and God blessed him. Maybe there's some secret in there for us. At the end, though, most people are confused. They're told this is how you deal with suffering. But reading it gave them no clue on how to deal with suffering. What did we just read? We know Job's friends aren't supposed to be any help to him. But their words are the same as found in Proverbs.Rather, Job sounds like the problematic one. Can't he see that God blesses the good and punishes the evil? Does Job really believe that he has no sin for which to repent? Does Job think that he is on equal footing with God to make statements like these? We come to the conclusion that Job needs to get his act together. Which isn't what we went looking for. Because our lives sometimes look a lot like Job's. We're told to repent of doing good. Those who do wrong are prospering all around us while we suffer. We find ourselves paying the price when we do the right thing. The pain we endure feels meaningless. We cry out as Job did and wonder where God's answer is.Did you know that everything Job lamented was answered in Jesus? In chapter sixteen, Job laments that he is attacked by enemies on all sides. Jesus conquers all of Job's enemies, including the devil who is behind them all. In chapter twenty-three, Job wishes that he could find God. Jesus is our God who became flesh and dwelt among us. And through it all, Job laments that the innocent suffer at God's hand. Jesus, the one innocent man, suffers the wrath of God in order to save us all. He's crucified, the worst death anyone can possibly imagine because that's why He came. That's how he saved Job, you, me, and the world. The book of Job is about a man who suffers even though he is relatively righteous. The whole Bible is about another man who suffers, even though He has no sin of His own but to save all people. The lesson of Job is that there is no such thing as pointless suffering. The suffering we think is unjust does, in fact, serve God's purpose.It isn't as though our Lord gives you no answer. It's that the answer is always found in the death and resurrection of Jesus. All of Job's questions are answered in Jesus. All of our pains, and regrets, and sins, and death, are answered completely in Jesus. For Jesus suffered, and we are given forgiveness, resurrection, and eternal life through Him.In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.God gives me my days of gladness, And I will Trust Him still When He sends me sadness. God is good; His love attends me Day by day Come what may Guides me and defends me. (LSB 756:3)-Rev. Eli Davis, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Grants Pass, OR.Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.What makes a church "good?" Come join the fictional family as they test out eight different churches in their brand-new town and answer this question along the way. Will the Real Church Please Stand Up? by Matthew Richard, now available from Concordia Publishing House.

Transcript:Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective! The Bible presents the devil as a grumbler, always finding fault, always accusing. He's the poster child for the unhappy grump. Now, why is the devil so unhappy? Well, he's so unhappy because he's so ungrateful. He doesn't have a thankful bone in his body. He's utterly discontent. Nothing is ever good enough for him. Heaven and all the joys of God were not good enough for him! It wasn't fair enough. It wasn't equitable enough. It wasn't glorious enough. C.S. Lewis famously wrote: “Hell begins with a grumbling mood….” You see, grumbling is the devil's original recipe. The devil hops from relationship to relationship, from family to family, from office to office, from church to church—complaining, accusing, and grumbling. The Greek term for the “devil” is comprised of two words suggesting the idea to “launch” an attack that “pierces through”. Etymologically its related to the English word “ballistic”. The devil is the one who postures superiority and hurls insults, complaints, and accusations intended to pierce others and bring them down. And so, the devil is always finding fault, pointing fingers, and throwing stones. Slandering, maligning and condemning! He's a backbiter, liar, and malicious gossip—always bringing charges, rehearsing grievances, tearing others down to bring himself up. Not surprising, he's called the “accuser” of God's people (Job 1, Zechariah 9, and Revelation 12) Nothing is ever good enough for devil! Is it for you? Are you walking in the pattern of the grumbler, or are you leaning into an attitude of gratitude? Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective. “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, ‘From where have you come?' Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.' And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?' Then Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.' And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.' So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”~ Job 1:6-12 (ESV)

Be The Strong ManScripture: Luke 11:20–22 (ESV) But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.A Non-Resister Is An Open DoorEcclesiastes 4:12 (NLT) A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.Unbelievers Are UnawareThe Vulnerable Are Overrun - Mark 9:17–18 (ESV) And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”Participators Are Captured - 1 Samuel 16:14–23 (ESV) Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the LORD tormented him. And Saul's servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” One of the young men answered, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the LORD is with him.” Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep.” And Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by David his son to Saul. And David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.” And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.A Weak Man Is Easy To OverpowerLuke 4:13 (ESV) And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.Genesis 4:7 (ESV) If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”Luke 22:31–32 (ESV) “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”Strength mattersWe can grow our strengthWe are stronger in numbersKingdom momentum is hard to disruptA Strong Man Can Be Outmaneuvered And Overcome2 Corinthians 2:11 (NIV) in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.Job 1:8–10 (ESV) And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.A Vigilant Strong Man Is A Locked Door1 Peter 5:8–9 (ESV) Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.2025 Strategic Response2 Corinthians 2:11 (NIV) in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.What Are Three Repeated Effective Strategies Of The Enemy In My Life In 2024?What Are Three Simple Effective Strategic Responses To Thwart His Efforts?What Would 2025 Look Like If I Enforce Those Strategic Responses?

2 Corinthians 2:11 (NIV) in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.2025 Strategic ResponseMy Concerns:We don't respect the reality of our adversaryWe reconcile less than best situations as, “that's just life”We learn to live with the limitations our adversary enforcesWe don't recognize our enemies repeated effective strategy in our livesWe don't recognize how our wins/losses impact the experience of othersYou Have An Active Adversary1 Peter 5:8–9 (ESV) Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.This is universal a universal truthThere is no bufferNot even spirituality.He is continually prowling looking for weaknessesHe functions in many different formsWhispers, circumstances, peopleHe is looking to devour Resistance requires standing firm (strength) in faithStrength has levelsIt can be increased.Your Adversary Takes TopographyEphesians 4:27 (NIV) and do not give the devil a foothold.Give - didomi - give vs surrenderFoothold - Topos - topography, groundYou Can Strategically Overcome Your Adversary - Job 1:6–12 (ESV) Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.This can be done spiritually - Job 1:5 (ESV) And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.This can be done practically - What Are Three Repeated Effective Strategies Of The Enemy In My LifeWhat Are Three Simple Effective Strategic Responses To Respond In AdvanceWhat Would 2025 Look Like If You Enforced That Response?

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked, an argument that runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? Addressing this question, Dominick Hernández gives careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job's first two rounds of dialogue. Tune in as we speak with Dominick Hernández about his monograph on the Book of Job, The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Gorgias Press, 2022) Dr. Dominick Hernández is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and Director of Talbot en Español. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked, an argument that runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? Addressing this question, Dominick Hernández gives careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job's first two rounds of dialogue. Tune in as we speak with Dominick Hernández about his monograph on the Book of Job, The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Gorgias Press, 2022) Dr. Dominick Hernández is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and Director of Talbot en Español. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked, an argument that runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? Addressing this question, Dominick Hernández gives careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job's first two rounds of dialogue. Tune in as we speak with Dominick Hernández about his monograph on the Book of Job, The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Gorgias Press, 2022) Dr. Dominick Hernández is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and Director of Talbot en Español. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked, an argument that runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? Addressing this question, Dominick Hernández gives careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job's first two rounds of dialogue. Tune in as we speak with Dominick Hernández about his monograph on the Book of Job, The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Gorgias Press, 2022) Dr. Dominick Hernández is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and Director of Talbot en Español. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked, an argument that runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? Addressing this question, Dominick Hernández gives careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job's first two rounds of dialogue. Tune in as we speak with Dominick Hernández about his monograph on the Book of Job, The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Gorgias Press, 2022) Dr. Dominick Hernández is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and Director of Talbot en Español. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

(6:57) Bible Study: GAL 4:22-24, 26-27, 31–5:1 What is trust? Father explains what trust in God is. (25:15) Break 1 (26:18) Letters: How do we know the exodus really happen? Why were the bible characters painted in such poor light? Does Job hint at the resurrection? Father answers these and many more questions. (38:38) Break 2 (40:16) Word of the Day: Agape (42:00) Phones: Mary - What is the meaning of Rachel weeps for her children? Gigi - Were there any people in the last supper besides the apostles and the women? Sarah - where sin is grace abounds. What does this mean?

SLIDE THE TRUTH ABOUT: COVERING SCRIPTURE: Job 1:9-10 (ESV) Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.Coverings Protect, Amenitize and ExposeSun glasses; polarization; harmful plasticClothing; fashion; poor constructionHome; air conditioning; breach in roofMilitary; confidence; bought by an interestMatthew 23:37–39 (ESV) “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. Psalm 17:8–9 (ESV) …hide me in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who do me violence, my deadly enemies who surround me.Psalm 27:5 (ESV) For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.Psalm 61:4 (ESV) Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! SelahProverbs 18:10 (ESV) The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.Psalm 32:7 (ESV) You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah.4 Critical CoveringsImpacting Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, Financial, Social Family Job 1:9-10 (ESV) Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.“Church” or religionChurch is your most influential social group that worships somethingChristian ChurchesPeople treat churches like they are stores they shop from, when in reality they are covenantal families that bring covering, amenities and breachesPhiladelphia: Revelation 3:8–10 (ESV) “ ‘I know your works… I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.Ephesus: Revelation 2:4,5 (ESV) …you have abandoned the love you had at first…. Repent… If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place…State/Nation Psalm 33:12 (ESV) Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!Jeremiah 29:7 (ESV) But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.KingdomThe World/Kingdom of HeavenJohn 10:9–11 (ESV) I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.Review Your Current Coverings & AdjustAre you fully engaged in coverings?Are you strengthening your coverings?Get involved in your school district, local city council. Do you have an unintended or unhealthy coveringsCertain negative atmospheres that I can't impact, I limit.Some coverings you tradeYou Are A Covering: Recognize And Adjust As NeededJob 1:9-10 (ESV) Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.Protect, amenities and exposeYou build your coverings strength with spiritual disciplines and obedienceYou weaken/create breaches by your ignorance, lack of discipline and sinBe blessed so they can be blessed

April 20, 2024 - Saturday 8:00AM MPR 1 Speaker   Speaker: Steve Higginbotham   How to Overcome Burnout Quit – (Job 1:9) - Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Move – (Acts 14:2-3) -2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.[a] 3 So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. Withdraw – (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12) -9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Rest – (Mark 6:31) - 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. Delegate – (Acts 6:2-4) -2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brothers,[a] pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Collaborate – (Proverbs 12:15) - The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,     but a wise man listens to advice. Set Proper Goals – (Proverbs 16:3) -  Commit your work to the Lord,     and your plans will be established. Set Boundaries – (Mark 4:36) - And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. Remember This Truth – (2 Corinthians 5:10) - For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.   Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrJ2clY9usQ   Duration 40:06

·      Are you all in?  ·      Do we serve God because of what he does for us, or because we love him?  ·       Job 1:4-5 - 4 His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job's regular custom. ·       If you serve God to cover your bets, do you really have a relationship?  ·       Religion is about being “good enough; ”relationship is about “the with-God life.”  ·       Job 13:20-22 - 20 “Only grant me these two things, God, and then I will not hide from you: 21 Withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors. 22 Then summon me and I will answer, or let me speak, and you reply to me. ·       Job 29:1-5 - Job continued his discourse: 2 “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, 3 when his lamp shone on my head and by his light I walked through darkness! 4 Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God's intimate friendship blessed my house, 5 when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me. ·       Job 30:16-23 - 16 “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. 17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest. 18 In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment. 19 He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. 20 “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. 21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. 22 You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. 23 I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. ·       Deeper faith is being more real with God.  ·       Job 31:7-8 - 7 if my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, or if my hands have been defiled, 8 then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted. ·      Job 31:35-37 - 35 (“Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense—let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing. 36 Surely I would wear it on my shoulder, I would put it on like a crown. 37 I would give him an account of my every step; I would present it to him as to a ruler. ·      Are you all in with God?  ·      Heavenly Father, I am all in. LIFE GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Starter Question: Has there been a time in your life when you were desperate for God?  What was going on?  1.     How do you think Job feels after arguing with his friends? Is his suffering better or worse?  2.      Read Job 29:1-5 3.      Why do you think Job is remembering the “good old days?”  4.      Read Job 30:16-23 5.      This is Job's description of how God has treated him.  Do you feel Job is right?  Is it right to blame God when things go wrong? 6.      Read Job 31:35-37 7.      Does Job sound prideful in these verses? 8.      If you were God, how would you react to Job's demand to answer him?               9.      In your opinion, why has Job reached the point of being desperate for God?

·      What do you do when life won't fit in the box?  ·       Job 1:1-3 - In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. ·       Job 1:8-12 - 8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” 12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” ·       Do you serve God because of what you get from him, or because you want a relationship with him?  ·      Job 1:20-22 - 20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said: “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” 22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. ·      When life gets messy, your first reaction is not your final reaction.  ·      God will be with you in both the good and bad days. ·      Job 2:4-6 - 4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” 6 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” ·      Things will happen to you and you will never know the reason.  ·      Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ·      Faith must grow so we trust God even when we do not see the “why.”  ·    Job 2:9 :  9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”  ·     When life is messy, don't take advice that makes it messier. ·     When people you care about are in a mess, share their pain and be quiet. ·       When in doubt, shut your mouth. ·       Job 3:1-4 - After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 He said: 3 “May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!' 4 That day—may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine on it. ·      11 “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? ·       Pray ·       Talk ·       Doctor ·       When you are all mixed up, in a messy situation, pray it out.  ·       Our feelings do not determine God's feelings. ·       Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.   LIFE GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS   Starter Question: When in your life have you felt like everything was a mess?  1.      Read Job 1:6-12. 2.     In your opinion, why does God allow Satan back into his presence?  Why does God grant Satan power over Job? 3.      Read Job 1:20-22 4.     If you heard Job utter these words, what would you think? 5.      How do you react to people who dismiss tragedy by saying “It was God's will?” 6.     Read Job 2:3-8 7.      Why would losing your health or being in chronic pain be a challenge to faith? 8.      Read Job 3:1-11 9.      How is this different than Job 1:20-22?  Why do you think Job has changed his response? 10.  If you were there with the three friends and you heard Job speaking these words, what would your reaction be?

With Easter done and dusted for another year, it's kind of easy to forget about the Cross, Christ's suffering, the resurrection and the empty tomb … and just get on with life. What do all those things have to do with what I have going on in my life now? But that sort of attitude can get us into a lot of trouble. THE RIGHTEOUS MAN DESTROYED It's funny how we build rituals into our lives that we repeat year after year. There's Christmas, then New Year's. For those in the southern hemisphere, that normally means some sort of summer break. Then all too quickly, Easter rolls around, but that happens so quickly that if you blink, you miss it. Although for those in the northern hemisphere, Easter is a sure sign that their summer break is just weeks away. That'll always give you a bit of a sense of anticipation. Yeah, Easter is a bit of a marker in the calendar, but for many, that's all it is. It happens and just as quickly as it came. It disappears again. And I think if that's how we treat Easter, then we do so at our own peril because there are some lessons in Easter, there are some vitally important truths in the Easter story that can sustain us and bless us all year round, particularly if that year is not looking like it's going to be a particularly good one. I was having coffee with a young man the other day. He's kind of in his mid-thirties, which may seem young from where I sit somewhere on the other side of fifty, and this young man has it all. He has a successful career as a speaker and an author and a business coach. He earns lots and lots of money, a lot more than me, certainly; and he's a good-looking guy. Emotionally he has it together; he has everything to live for: A beautiful wife, a happy marriage, the ability to travel all round the world to all sorts of fantastic places, and his wife gets to come with him sometimes. We're also friends on Facebook, and forever I'm seeing photos of him white-water rafting in Thailand, and popping up in London and New York, and he doesn't fly at the back of a plane either, I have to tell you. My point is this: If ever there was a guy that you and I would point to and say, ‘Wow! God's blessed that person', it would have to be this guy, without a shadow of a doubt. And yet there's one hurt in his life. He and his wife haven't been able to have a child yet. They've thrown money at the problem; in vitro fertilisation; they've prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and still, nothing. You see, it doesn't matter who we are; where we live; what our circumstances are. It doesn't matter how incredibly blessed someone is; there is always something in our lives that isn't to our liking. There is always something in our lives that we want to be able to change. There is always something in our lives that causes us pain. You and I, we would look at this guy's life, then look up at God and say, ‘Yes, please, Lord. I'll have one like that, thanks.' We keep thinking that if only I could earn a bit more money; if only my husband, or my wife as the case may be, would love me just that little bit more; if only I could find the right job; if only my children would grow out of this difficult stage that they're in at the moment; if only I could lose a few extra pounds; if only I could afford that little bit of cosmetic surgery; if only, if only, if only … then I would finally be happy. That's a lie that most people tell themselves most of the time. Of course, if you had a quick look back at the cross for a moment, and saw this Jesus who'd never done a single thing wrong in His life hanging there, nailed to His cross, hands and feet, gasping for air, slowly dying that excruciating death, we'd realise that bad things happen to good people all the time. Suffering happens. God didn't even spare His own Son from that. And while sometimes we suffer as a result of our own mistakes and stupidity, more often than not, the suffering that hits our lives is completely unfair; no rhyme or reasons. It just happens, and while we're asking ourselves why, while we're asking God why and when will it end, it's in the middle of that place that we need to know beyond any shadow of a doubt. It's right in that dark place that you and I need to be able to declare, ‘My Redeemer lives'. Sure; that's the title of a great worship-song – “My Redeemer Lives”; quite a happy-clappy song as I recall, a great one to sing, but for me, it's way, way more important to be able to mutter through gritted teeth as I'm dealing with pain and uncertainty and fear in my life – ‘My Redeemer lives!' And that's what we're going to be talking about on the programme today and through the course of this week. Those words were first uttered by a man called Job in the Old Testament. Now Job was a wealthy, successful man, just like the one I described earlier. He'd never set a foot wrong in his life, always honoured God, and then one day, whammo! Have a listen to this. One day, the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?' Satan answered the LORD, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down upon it.'  And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.' Then Satan answered the LORD, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house, and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land, but stretch out Your hand now and touch all that he has, and he will curse You to Your face.' The LORD said to Satan, ‘Very well. All that he has is in your power, only do not stretch out your hand against him.' So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. (Job 1:6-12) What a rotten thing to happen to this guy, Job. What a rotten thing for the devil to do. Hey, what a rotten thing for God to do! Right? Everything's going along swimmingly well and then, throughout the book of Job, we discover how he loses everything: Everything – his property, his children, his health, everything – from rooster to feather duster in one fowl swoop. So let me ask you: When you hit a patch like that in your life, as we all inevitably do, when you have that one bit of suffering in your life, how do you react? What does it do to your sense of self-worth, to your sense of wellbeing, to what you think of God? Let's see what else happened to Job, starting in the very next verse:  One day, when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and carried them off and killed the servants with the edge of the sword. I alone have escaped to tell you.'  While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them. I alone have escaped to tell you.' While he was speaking, another came and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword. I alone have escaped to tell you.'  While he was still speaking, another came and said: ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.' (Job 1:13-19) That's the sort of suffering that strikes from time to time, and it's rarely just one thing. More often than not, it comes in groups of three or four, so when that happens, how do you respond? I'll leave that question hanging there for you to consider. We'll come back to that again after the break, because it's right in the middle of a situation like that, that you and I need answers. Suffering happens, wow. Someone should turn that into a bumper sticker, right? Suffering happens. It happens, and when it does, God has answers – some real answers that make a real difference. THE DEVIL'S TRICKERY When your life hits a patch of suffering, as every life on this planet does from time to tome, how do you react? How do you respond? Mostly we go to God and we ask Him why and when is it going to end, right? We desperately want to know why this is happening to us, and we desperately want it to end. Those are the two compelling forces that drive us forward in suffering. It was certainly like that for Job: A good man, a righteous man (whom we meet in the Old Testament), until the devil comes after him with a pickaxe. Let's have a listen. One day, the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?' Satan answered the LORD, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down upon it.' And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.' Then Satan answered the LORD, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house, and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land, but stretch out Your hand now and touch all that he has, and he will curse You to Your face.' The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well. All that he has is in your power, only do not stretch out your hand against him.' So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. (Job 1:6-12) Now this is a fascinating passage of Scripture because it goes to the issue of over-spiritualisation and under-spiritualisation that I mentioned a bit earlier. See, all too often, something bad happens to us and we look at the physical circumstances – the people; the issues; the troubles we're dealing with, and we completely forget about the spiritual realm. The apostle Paul, many years later, put it this way. Ephesians 6:10-11: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His power. But put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Make no mistake about it. There is a spiritual battle going on in the heavenly places for your soul. If we miss that, we end up completely missing what's going on when it comes to suffering that we're going through. But there's something incredibly odd that happens here in that passage about Job where the devil goes to God. Did you pick it? Here it is again. The devil says: But stretch out Your hand now and touch all that he has, and he will curse You to Your face.' So the Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well. All that he has is in your power, only do not stretch out your hand against him.' So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Did you notice that the devil has to go to God to ask Him permission to ruin Job's life? Because according to the devil, God has put a fence around him and his house and all that he has on every side. That Hebrew word for fence literally means a deep thick hedge of protection, like the ones that shepherds used to grow out in the pastures. At night, they would put their sheep in it and they would sleep across the entrance to protect their flock from wild animals and thieves: A thick, dense, impenetrable hedge; a hedge so thick that Satan can't break through it. And with God standing at the entrance, the devil can only enter with God's permission. Listen up. If you love Jesus, then you belong to God, and as with Job, He has put a hedge of protection around you. When the devil attacks you, he can only do it with God's permission. Have you ever felt spiritually attacked? Sure you have; so have I. What do you imagine God's doing when the devil comes after you with a pickaxe? Has God fallen asleep? Has He wandered off somewhere? Has the devil overwhelmed Him? No! None of those things. God has given the devil permission to attack you. Now that may sound crazy to some. ‘What? Why would God do that?' That's something that Job asks God over and over again. He runs the line with God. ‘Hang on, Lord. Aren't I a good guy? Haven't I obeyed You in every part of my life? So why are you punishing me like this? Why are you doing this?' And God's answer to Job is, in effect: ‘Job, it's none of your business.' Years later, James put it this way in his New Testament letter.  My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but pure joy because you know that the testing in your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4) God always has a purpose for allowing the devil to attack us, and to bring suffering: Always. It's not something that He does lightly, and the devil (far from having overwhelmed God) is simply a tool in God's hands to knock off the rough edges and smooth the surfaces, like a piece of sandpaper. And when God's done with him, He'll throw him into the lake of fire. That's the important thing for you and me to know when we're suffering, especially when we have that sense that we're being spiritually attacked. God is in control! My Redeemer lives! That's something that Job knew deep inside in his being because when he lost everything, this is what he did. Job 1:20-22: Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and 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.' In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.” So let me ask you again, how would you react? How do you react? Because how we react say everything about what we believe, and who we are, and our relationship with God. It feels somewhat unnatural to worship God in the midst of suffering. In fact, not somewhat unnatural – completely unnatural because when we're suffering, our hearts and our minds start to turn away from God. We question Him; we put Him on trial; we demand answers, like a prosecuting attorney. And when He doesn't give us any, we give up on Him and focus on our suffering. Fear creeps in; uncertainty and worry creep in, and at that point … Listen to me. At that point, the devil is winning. God opened the gate for the devil to enter to see what we would do; how we would react. God's plan is to test our faith. God's plan is to allow the ravages of the devil to give us the opportunity to exercise our faith. What He's looking for in you and me, through gritted teeth, is to utter those words that Job uttered, ‘My Redeemer lives'. What God's looking for is for us to worship Him; to completely trust our lives into His hands, despite what circumstances are screaming at us. Just like Job, ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord'. We don't really know that our Redeemer lives until we've come to know that in the place of suffering. That's when the unjust suffering of Jesus starts to make sense in our own experience. That's when the empty tomb has its most powerful effect in our lives. That's when our faith, all of a sudden, becomes real. And when we come out the other end of it all, having exercised the muscle of faith, all of a sudden we discover that our faith is much, much stronger for having been through it. So, when suffering comes your way, how will you respond? BEFORE THE STORM HITS I want you to imagine that you're the captain of a ship that's about to set sail. The weather forecast is for storms out there on the sea. You look out at all the shipping containers stacked high on your vessel, and you think to yourself: ‘Hmmm. I'd better make sure that the crew secures them all', so here's my question: Would you make the crew secure them before you left port, or would you wait until the storm hits to send them out there to latch down your precious cargo? The answer's pretty obvious, isn't it? So why is it in life that we wait until the storm hits before we go running to God to ask for help? Why aren't we prepared, just as any good ship's captain would be? We don't want to wait until the storm hits to get close to God. We need the wisdom of God in us before the storm hits. We need to know the truth, because it's not the truth alone that sets us free according to Jesus; it's knowing the truth. John 8:31: If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  You have to know the truth, and you need to know it before the storm hits. The book of Proverbs chapter 1: God teaches us very clearly that we need to be ready for the storm. We need to be in God's Word and filled with His wisdom, and prepared for the onslaught when it comes. Solomon writes this. He says (Proverbs 1:24-29): Wisdom is calling out to us on the street. She stands on the street corners, calling, wanting to make her words known to us. ‘But because I have called and you have refused, have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when panic strikes you; when panic strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD.' Friend, listen to me. God is your strength. He is your counsel, and if you're a man or a woman of God's Word, someone who allows the Word of Christ to dwell richly in you, then when the storm comes as it most certainly will, you in the face of calamity and criticism will be able to declare through the tears and the gritted teeth of pain: ‘My Redeemer lives!' Back when God's judgment fell on Jerusalem because His people had sinned against Him yet again, when He allowed the city and the temple to be destroyed by the Babylonians, when God's people were taken into captivity as slaves, the writer of the book of Lamentations was standing in the midst of this devastation, surveying the complete destruction of the great Jerusalem and the temple of the living God. After lamenting the destruction and the loss, this is what he said (Lamentations 3:20-26): The thought of my affliction, my homelessness, is wormwood and gall; my soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my Portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, the soul that seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. With all the devastation and destruction that we sometimes see in our lives, you and I can know that the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. In fact, they are new every morning, and that's what we would know in the midst of devastation if as men and women of God, we took the time to get ready for it. And as your soul seeks Him and waits quietly for His salvation, know this: He is doing a mighty work in you. He is doing things in you that you cannot begin to imagine. The greatest transformations of your life will almost always happen on those dark nights of the soul, and it is good for you to wait quietly for His salvation.

This time of year is filled with hope, not just for thousands of years ago, but for today and for whatever tomorrow brings. On the episode today we'll be talking about how what seemed like the darkest day was actually the greatest setup for what ended up being the greatest victory. Let's get to it. Scripture References Job 1:6-12 6 One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” 8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” 9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” 12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 “…we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/terry-molinaro/message

Evil is not just a struggle with greed or lust; this is a spiritual struggle with spiritual forces at play. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, to undo what God has done. We see this with Job and we see this in so many ways in our own lives. However, no matter what Satan throws at us: loss, death, pain, etc. we know it is all temporary because Christ has ultimate victory.Job 1:6-12  (ESV)Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.John 10:7-11 (ESV)So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Evil is not just a struggle with greed or lust; this is a spiritual struggle with spiritual forces at play. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, to undo what God has done. We see this with Job and we see this in so many ways in our own lives. However, no matter what Satan throws at us: loss, death, pain, etc. we know it is all temporary because Christ has ultimate victory. Job 1:6-12 (ESV)Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.John 10:7-11 (ESV)So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Job's Second Reply to God: When Suffering Means Surrender | Job 42:1-6 Sometimes Suffering Means Surrender ***For a complete sermon transcript click on the "Notes" icon above*** -------------------------- Sermon Outline-------------------------------- Introduction: Setting the Stage . . . I. Job's Second Reply to God: When Suffering Means Surrender A. Job's Realization: God Cannot be Overcome (vv. 1-2) 1. Two things that Job recognized in v. 2: a. God is omnipotent b. God is teleological B. Job's Recognition: Job Admits Ignorance (v. 3) 1. Job begins by quoting what God said to him in 38:2 2. Note again the Hebrew yada – to know C. Job's Reeducation: Job is Teachable (v. 4) 1. Essential components of discipleship D. Job's Revival: Job Now Sees (v. 5) 1. Revival and living the Christian life with the hope of seeing God in His glory E. Job's Repentance: Job Drops His Legal Case (v. 6) 1. Does Job despise himself or does he retract his words? 2. Two reasons why the NASB reading is to be preferred: 3. The nature of repentance (see all of the above) Concluding Thoughts . . . 1. Sometimes Suffering Means Surrender 2. God Never Gives Up on Family 3. Experiencing God Means We Truly Know Him

At the very beginning of the book of Job, Satan asks God, "Does Job serve God for nothing?" And, honestly, we should all ask ourselves the same question. Do we serve God for God Himself, or do we USE Him to get crowns and gold stars?It is ever-so-easy to serve God for honor-roll children and Facebook likes. It is ever-so-easy to use God's glory for our hidden purposes.In this episode, Gary and Sam share their reflections on Oswald Chambers' February 5 Devotional: Do we serve God to be the Hero, or are we willing to serve God even if it means we'll be a doormat?For more information about Gary or Sam visit their websites: The Noble Heart Exploring Intimate Theology - Beliefs of the Heart.

Bible Study – Job Class Two: Job 1: 6-12 From the Orthodox Study Bible. Satan is Permitted to Test Job 6.  Then as it so happened one day that behold, the angels of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and the devil also came with them.  7. The Lord said to the devil, “Where did you come from?” So the devil answered the Lord and said, “I came here after going about the earth and walking around under heaven.” 8. Then the Lord said to him, “Have you yet considered my servant Job, since there is none like him on the earth: a blameless, true, and God-fearing man, and one who abstains from every evil thing?” 9. So the devil answered and said before the Lord, “Does Job worship the Lord for no reason? 10. Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side?  You have blessed the work of his hands, and his cattle have increased in the and.  11.  But stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and see if he will bless You to Your face.” 12.  Then the Lord said to the devil, “Behold, whatever he has I give into your hand; but do not touch him.”  Thus the devil went out from the Lord. Let's break this down. v. 6; why were the angels of God presenting themselves before the Lord? Many angels surround Him continually; ·      Anaphora of St. John Chrsysostom.  For all these things we give thanks unto Thee, and to Thine only-begotten Son, and to Thy Holy Spirit; for all things of which we know and of which we know not, whether seen or unseen; and we thank Thee for this Liturgy which Thou hast willed to accept at our hands, though there stand by Thee thousands of archangels and hosts of angels (Daniel 7:10) the Cherubim and the Seraphim, six- winged (Isiah 6:2) many-eyed (Revelations 4:8) who soar aloft, borne on their wings:  Singing the triumphant hymn, shouting, proclaiming, and saying: “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord of Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory'. (Isaiah 6:3) Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest. (Mathew 21:9, Mark 11:9-10, Psalms 118:26) ·      Hebrews 12:22.  But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly,    Possibly – they are part of His Divine Council ·      Psalm 81:1-2a; “God stood in the assembly of gods; He judges in the midst of gods,”   ·      Psalm 88: 9-13 (89:6-8). “The heavens shall confess Your wonders, O Lord, and Your truth in the church of the saints.  For who in the clouds shall be compared to the Lord and who among the sons of God shall be compared to the Lord?” More likely – they are ministering angels ·      Hebrews 1:14.  Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? ·      Psalms 90:11.  For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; ·      Matthew 18:10.  “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. Hesychius of Jerusalem (5th Century - not recognized as a saint): Was there ever a time when the angels did not stand before the Lord? Was it not written about them that “a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him”? (Daniel 7:11)But this coming, in our opinion, is that of the angels who had been sent to serve human beings. Paul actually says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” HOMILIES ON JOB 2.1.6. More on v.6: why was the devil with him? Note – the problem is why God would be talking with the devil, and why the devil could even stand to be in His presence. One way to resolve this is to note that there are other places in scripture when God talks to the devil and demons (temptation in the wilderness, demons at Gardenes). Another way is to say that it wasn't really “THE Devil”, it was “The Satan”, which is a job title, “The Adversary.”  This takes us back to the Divine Council.  As Michael Heiser writes; Evidence for exactly the same structures in the Israelite council is tenuous. Despite the fact that popular Israelite religion may have understood Yahweh as having a wife, Asherah (see Hess), it cannot be sustained that the religion of the prophets and biblical writers contained this element or that the idea was permissible. There is also no real evidence for the craftsman tier. However, the role of the śāṭān (see Satan), the accuser who openly challenges God on the matter of Job's spiritual resilience, is readily apparent (Job 1:6–12; 2:1–6). In the divine council in Israelite religion Yahweh was the supreme authority over a divine bureaucracy that included a second tier of lesser ʾĕlōhîm (bĕnê ʾēlîm; bĕnê ʾĕlōhîm or bĕnê hāʾĕlōhîm) and a third tier of malʾākîm (“angels”). In the book of *Job some members of the council apparently have a mediatory role with respect to human beings (Job 5:1; 15:8; 16:19–21; cf. Heb 1:14). M. S. Heiser, “Divine Council,” ed. Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; Inter-Varsity Press, 2008), 114. However, these are not the tacts that St. John Chrysostom took.  By his time, this Satan had been seen to be the same as the fallen angel in the garden etc. ·      He had a lot to say about how angels and demons are mixed together here on earth (even remarking on the headcover passage 1 Corinthians 11:10).  This has obvious implications for us and our spiritual lives! ·      He also said that there was no way the devil could talk to God in this way, and that this is written for the sake of the story (page 24). Also his comment on being rich already putting Job into the arena. [NOTE: I was kidding/prodding about St. John being woke, but he was/is supremely concerned for the poor and the obligations of the rich. Before the term became altered and politicized, this made him a strong promoter of social justice.] v. 7–8 Where Have You Come From? St Gregory the Great: Satan's “going to and fro on the earth” represents his exploring the hearts of the carnal. In this way he is seeking diligently for grounds of accusation against them. He “goes round about the earth,” for he surrounds human hearts in order to steal all that is good in them, that he may lodge evil in their minds, that he may occupy completely what he has taken over, that he may fully reign over what he has occupied, that he may possess the very lives of those he has perfected in sin. Note that he does not say he has been flying through the earth but that he has been “walking up and down it.” For in fact he is never easily dislodged from whomever he tempts. But where he finds a soft heart, he plants the foot of his wretched persuasion, so that by dwelling there, he may stamp the footprints of evil practice, and by a wickedness similar to his own he may render reprobate all whom he is able to overcome. But in spite of this, blessed Job is commended with these words, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.” To him, whom divine inspiration strengthens to meet the enemy, God praises as it were even in the ears of Satan. For God's praise of Job is the first evidence of Job's virtues, so that they may be preserved when they are manifested. But the old enemy is enraged against the righteous the more he perceives that they are hedged around by the favor of God's protection. MORALS ON THE BOOK OF JOB 2.65.66. v. 1:9–10 Does Job Fear God for Nothing? St. John Chrysostom: Do you see that Job's wealth was a gift from God? Do you see that it was not the fruit of injustice? How Job had to suffer in order to demonstrate to people that his wealth was not the fruit of injustice! And behold, the devil himself bore witness to him from above and did not realize that he praised Job as well by saying that he had not acquired that wealth through illicit trading and through the oppression of others. Instead, Job owed his wealth to God's blessing, and his security came from heaven. You would have not rejoiced if Job had not been virtuous. But the devil praised and covered him with laurels without realizing what he was doing. COMMENTARY ON JOB 1:10. Manlio Simonetti and Marco Conti, eds., Job, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 4–5. Robert Charles Hill.  St. John Chrysostom Commentaries on the Sages, Volume One – Commentary on Job.  Holy Cross Orthodox Press. What we will cover next week: Job loses his possessions, his children, and his health.  Job 1:7-22

Psalms and Wisdom: Psalm 119:1–88 Psalm 119:1–88 (Listen) Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet Aleph 119   1 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,    who walk in the law of the LORD!2   Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,    who seek him with their whole heart,3   who also do no wrong,    but walk in his ways!4   You have commanded your precepts    to be kept diligently.5   Oh that my ways may be steadfast    in keeping your statutes!6   Then I shall not be put to shame,    having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.7   I will praise you with an upright heart,    when I learn your righteous rules.28   I will keep your statutes;    do not utterly forsake me! Beth 9   How can a young man keep his way pure?    By guarding it according to your word.10   With my whole heart I seek you;    let me not wander from your commandments!11   I have stored up your word in my heart,    that I might not sin against you.12   Blessed are you, O LORD;    teach me your statutes!13   With my lips I declare    all the rules3 of your mouth.14   In the way of your testimonies I delight    as much as in all riches.15   I will meditate on your precepts    and fix my eyes on your ways.16   I will delight in your statutes;    I will not forget your word. Gimel 17   Deal bountifully with your servant,    that I may live and keep your word.18   Open my eyes, that I may behold    wondrous things out of your law.19   I am a sojourner on the earth;    hide not your commandments from me!20   My soul is consumed with longing    for your rules4 at all times.21   You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,    who wander from your commandments.22   Take away from me scorn and contempt,    for I have kept your testimonies.23   Even though princes sit plotting against me,    your servant will meditate on your statutes.24   Your testimonies are my delight;    they are my counselors. Daleth 25   My soul clings to the dust;    give me life according to your word!26   When I told of my ways, you answered me;    teach me your statutes!27   Make me understand the way of your precepts,    and I will meditate on your wondrous works.28   My soul melts away for sorrow;    strengthen me according to your word!29   Put false ways far from me    and graciously teach me your law!30   I have chosen the way of faithfulness;    I set your rules before me.31   I cling to your testimonies, O LORD;    let me not be put to shame!32   I will run in the way of your commandments    when you enlarge my heart!5 He 33   Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes;    and I will keep it to the end.634   Give me understanding, that I may keep your law    and observe it with my whole heart.35   Lead me in the path of your commandments,    for I delight in it.36   Incline my heart to your testimonies,    and not to selfish gain!37   Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;    and give me life in your ways.38   Confirm to your servant your promise,    that you may be feared.39   Turn away the reproach that I dread,    for your rules are good.40   Behold, I long for your precepts;    in your righteousness give me life! Waw 41   Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD,    your salvation according to your promise;42   then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me,    for I trust in your word.43   And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth,    for my hope is in your rules.44   I will keep your law continually,    forever and ever,45   and I shall walk in a wide place,    for I have sought your precepts.46   I will also speak of your testimonies before kings    and shall not be put to shame,47   for I find my delight in your commandments,    which I love.48   I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love,    and I will meditate on your statutes. Zayin 49   Remember your word to your servant,    in which you have made me hope.50   This is my comfort in my affliction,    that your promise gives me life.51   The insolent utterly deride me,    but I do not turn away from your law.52   When I think of your rules from of old,    I take comfort, O LORD.53   Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,    who forsake your law.54   Your statutes have been my songs    in the house of my sojourning.55   I remember your name in the night, O LORD,    and keep your law.56   This blessing has fallen to me,    that I have kept your precepts. Heth 57   The LORD is my portion;    I promise to keep your words.58   I entreat your favor with all my heart;    be gracious to me according to your promise.59   When I think on my ways,    I turn my feet to your testimonies;60   I hasten and do not delay    to keep your commandments.61   Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me,    I do not forget your law.62   At midnight I rise to praise you,    because of your righteous rules.63   I am a companion of all who fear you,    of those who keep your precepts.64   The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love;    teach me your statutes! Teth 65   You have dealt well with your servant,    O LORD, according to your word.66   Teach me good judgment and knowledge,    for I believe in your commandments.67   Before I was afflicted I went astray,    but now I keep your word.68   You are good and do good;    teach me your statutes.69   The insolent smear me with lies,    but with my whole heart I keep your precepts;70   their heart is unfeeling like fat,    but I delight in your law.71   It is good for me that I was afflicted,    that I might learn your statutes.72   The law of your mouth is better to me    than thousands of gold and silver pieces. Yodh 73   Your hands have made and fashioned me;    give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.74   Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice,    because I have hoped in your word.75   I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous,    and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.76   Let your steadfast love comfort me    according to your promise to your servant.77   Let your mercy come to me, that I may live;    for your law is my delight.78   Let the insolent be put to shame,    because they have wronged me with falsehood;    as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.79   Let those who fear you turn to me,    that they may know your testimonies.80   May my heart be blameless in your statutes,    that I may not be put to shame! Kaph 81   My soul longs for your salvation;    I hope in your word.82   My eyes long for your promise;    I ask, “When will you comfort me?”83   For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,    yet I have not forgotten your statutes.84   How long must your servant endure?7    When will you judge those who persecute me?85   The insolent have dug pitfalls for me;    they do not live according to your law.86   All your commandments are sure;    they persecute me with falsehood; help me!87   They have almost made an end of me on earth,    but I have not forsaken your precepts.88   In your steadfast love give me life,    that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth. Footnotes [1] 119:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem of twenty-two stanzas, following the letters of the Hebrew alphabet; within a stanza, each verse begins with the same Hebrew letter [2] 119:7 Or your just and righteous decrees; also verses 62, 106, 160, 164 [3] 119:13 Or all the just decrees [4] 119:20 Or your just decrees; also verses 30, 39, 43, 52, 75, 102, 108, 137, 156, 175 [5] 119:32 Or for you set my heart free [6] 119:33 Or keep it as my reward [7] 119:84 Hebrew How many are the days of your servant? (ESV) Pentateuch and History: Job 1 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) Chronicles and Prophets: Isaiah 22 Isaiah 22 (Listen) An Oracle Concerning Jerusalem 22 The oracle concerning the valley of vision.   What do you mean that you have gone up,    all of you, to the housetops,2   you who are full of shoutings,    tumultuous city, exultant town?  Your slain are not slain with the sword    or dead in battle.3   All your leaders have fled together;    without the bow they were captured.  All of you who were found were captured,    though they had fled far away.4   Therefore I said:  “Look away from me;    let me weep bitter tears;  do not labor to comfort me    concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.” 5   For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day    of tumult and trampling and confusion    in the valley of vision,  a battering down of walls    and a shouting to the mountains.6   And Elam bore the quiver    with chariots and horsemen,    and Kir uncovered the shield.7   Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,

Pastor John Ryan Cantu brings this week's message, "Unfair Favor." Key Verse: Job 1:6-12 ESV “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”

Eliphaz responds to Job, and he has a lot to say. What has Job done to deserve this? Does Job reject the discipline of God? Has Job considered taking all this to God? These and other unhelpful words are spoken. Have a listen.  Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube  What's New from 1517: Free 2023 Advent Resources 2024(May 3-4) NWA Tickets are Now Available! Join the 1517 Academy All Charges Dropped, Vol. 2 More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Jesus came to heal our sin-sick hearts. The essence of our salvation is perfect righteousness and, ultimately, perfect obedience to the two great commandments. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - As we make our way through the Gospel of Mark, we've seen again and again the evidence for His greatness, His person as the son of God. The primary evidence given, if we've been alive, as recorded in the pages of the Scripture, are his miracles of healing, the incredible healing power of Jesus Christ. He healed a leper with a touch, restoring his diseased and destroyed flesh instantly. He instantly and effortlessly healed a paralyzed man with just a word, and that man got up and walked and carried out his mat in full view of them all. He healed a man that was possessed by 6,000 demons with a word. The demons left that man and fled. He healed a blind man with a touch, with a small measure of his saliva. He healed a deaf man by putting His fingers in the man's ears and by breathing and saying, “Ephphatha", and instantly, his capacity for hearing was restored. There was no disease He could not cure. At that point there in Mark 7, they said He's done everything well. There was nothing He couldn't do. Every diseased human organ, Jesus understood and drove away the disease instantly, effectively, powerfully with a word-restoring health. In that word, “health", we're looking at the original purpose of the organ of the eyes to see, not to be blind, of the ears to hear and not to be deaf, of the legs that they would walk and not be paralyzed. I. The Greatest Disease Diagnosed and Healed The greatest organ of all, if we could use that word, is the inner self captivated in the words of this first and greatest commandment. The heart, soul, mind, strength, that inner self is the greatest organ. Therefore, also we would say the greatest disease of all is the inability of that organ to do what it was designed to do, to love God. Sin is defined as lawlessness, a violation of God's law. We have before us as we've had for two weeks now, this is the third week, the first and greatest commandment. This text tells us what God demands of us. What He demands is to love Him with all of our hearts, with all of our souls, with all of our minds, with all of our strength. And we don't. We don't. Jesus, the great physician of the human condition has ultimately come to heal that disease as well. Luke 5:31-32, “It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” This is the healing, the ultimate healing work Jesus came to do. But unlike those physical cures, this cure will not be instantaneous in this world. God has willed to heal us from our greatest disease gradually, to heal us from our failure to love Him, to heal us gradually over a lifetime. Now if that healing has begun in you, if you are a Christian today, you already do love Christ, though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him [1 Peter 1:8], so that healing has begun. You do love God and you do love Christ, but you also know you don't love Him as you should, not yet. You want, you yearn for that healing to continue. That's what this sermon is all about. "God has willed to heal us from our greatest disease gradually, to heal us from our failure to love Him, to heal us gradually over a lifetime. Now if that healing has begun in you, if you are a Christian today, you already do love Christ, though you have not seen Him, you love Him." Back on April 15th, 2022, I began a long and, for me, arduous journey, the journey of memorizing the book of Ezekiel, probably the hardest book I've ever tried to memorize. Those who know me well and are close to me know that, in many ways, it eluded me. Don't ask how much it eluded me, but it did. It was hard work. Today, October 22nd, I complete that journey. I won't recite Ezekiel anymore after today. As I have immersed myself in this complex book, friends have asked, "In these 48 chapters, what has made the greatest impact on you?" There are many possible answers. Right away, in Ezekiel 1, we have a vision of the mysterious majesty and glory of God, really of the pre-incarnate Christ. We have cherubim, wheels within wheels, big huge wheels with eyes all around and just lightning moving back and forth among these holy creatures. They're almost indescribable. High above them, an expanse like ice, separating them from the throne of fire that's high above that expanse, and on that, a man as if on fire, the pre-incarnate Christ. That could be an answer. to this question. Ezekiel 1, a manifestation of the image of the likeness of the glory of God, that almost defies language. Or I could speak of Ezekiel 10, the moment when that glory rose up symbolically and departed the temple because of all the wickedness of the people there, moving out of the temple and out of the city of Jerusalem, making way for the Babylonians to come and destroy it. Or perhaps Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones in which the nation of Israel is depicted as long dead, very dry bones. Suddenly, by the ministry of the Word, by the ministry of the power of the Word in the Spirit, the bones start to assemble, and then flesh and skin comes on them, and they're up on their feet, but they're not alive yet. Then Ezekiel prophesizes again to the wind and the wind comes, and the breath comes by the Spirit and the pieces come alive, a vast army. It’s an incredible picture of resurrection. I could say all of that. But for me, I would say again and again, the most impactful experience I had in these 48 chapters of Ezekiel was in chapter 16. There’s some danger in me relating because it's just such at the core of my heart as I went over those verses. For 100 consecutive days, I went over Ezekiel 16; I was marinating in it. In that chapter, almighty God speaks of his marriage to Jerusalem and that the city represents his people. Ezekiel was in exile with the Jews in Babylon because of the nation's idolatries, the grievous idolatries. God gave Ezekiel a powerful word picture of His love relationship with the city of Jerusalem, representing the Jews, representing His people really in all time I think. God says that He found her a forsaken waif out in the field kicking about in her blood. As He walked by, He looked on her and said to her, "Live," and she came alive. She stayed alive and she began to grow. Later, He passed by and saw that she was of an age to be married. She was ready for love. God says, “I spread the corner of my garment over you and I entered into a covenant with you and you became mine.” Now what does that mean? You became mine. I married you, loved you. Then God lavished gifts on her. He gave her a beautiful robe, beautiful sandals for her feet, jewelry for her neck and for her wrists and her fingers, a beautiful crown on her head, and He fed her with the best of wheat and most delicious of honey and oil and all of the best things. She rose to become a radiant and a beautiful queen, but she trusted in her beauty and she used her beauty to become a prostitute. She was totally unfaithful to God, her husband, the lover of her soul. She plied her favors with anyone who passed by, anyone at all.Her fame spread far and wide as this beautiful queen, and people came and ravished her and used her. This went on and on. As her beauty was degraded, she eventually had to begin paying her lovers to come to her. Unlike any other prostitute, she didn't receive wages, but she had to pay out for them to come. God spoke to her in Ezekiel 16:32, "You adulterous wife, you prefer strangers to your own husband." God spoke judgment on her. He said He would bring those nations back to her, the ones that had ravished her, the ones she had whored with, and they would hack her to pieces and burn her to the ground. So as I was reciting that chapter day after day for 100 days, a basic principle that I take to the scripture that I would commend to you is this: whenever there's any revelation of the wickedness of any people in any passage of scripture ever, you should assume God is talking first to you. You should not say, "I thank you God. I'm not like those people." Don't do that ever. Instead say, "God, how am I like that?" Imagine going over that for three months, day after day after day. "How am I like that?" I believe that God was saying those words, not just over Jerusalem or over the Jews, but over all his people for all time. God is a jealous God. He tells us that again and again. He's a jealous husband who yearns after the affections of his wife. I have the same corrupt and wandering heart that that princess wife had in Ezekiel 16. I also realize, above all of that, what God wants out of this universe. What is the big picture? What do you want, God? "I want you to love me." That's what He's saying. "I want your love. I want your heart. With all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all your strength. That's what I want. That's what I'll have. I want you to love me above all of my good gifts and all of the pleasures of this world. I want you to love me above anything." Now, as heavy as that is, the incredible good news of the gospel is someday He will have what He wants. He'll have what He wants in me and all of you who are His children. We will be pure and faithful to Him in our affections. We will have a perfect marriage to God, to Christ forever. That's the good news. Despite the fact that we have not loved God, but have lusted after idols and we have given ourselves to them again and again, God has chosen to work salvation for us in Christ. He has chosen by our simple faith in Christ to pay for all of the idolatries of our entire lives, all of the corruption, and by simple faith in Christ to credit us with Jesus's perfect obedience to these two commandments. Justification by faith alone apart from works, complete forgiveness of sins just by believing in Jesus to give me that, and then to work in me progressively that I would more and more and more love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength and sanctification. That's what this sermon is hoping to do for you. I said that the transformation, the healing of our hearts is not instantaneous. That's not entirely true, at some point, it will be. At glorification, He will do in an instant what we couldn't do in a lifetime, and He will make us pure and we will love Him. I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, we have sermons like this one. We have the opportunity for God to work a healing work in us, a progressive healing work in us so that we will love Him. This tendency in Ezekiel 16 is not alone there in that chapter. You see it in Job as well. What was the accusation that Satan made against, frankly, both Job and God? "Does Job fear God for nothing? Haven't You put a hedge around him in all his possessions? Doesn't Job basically love You for his prosperity and his good gifts and not for You? If you take away all that, he'll curse You to Your face.” Isn't that the same message in Hosea where he had to marry a prostitute, Gomer, representing God's relationship to unfaithful Israel? At some point, Hosea had to buy Gomer's time, and God said, "That's what you, oh, faithless Israel are like. I have to block you in with thorns so you have no other option but to come back to me, your husband.” What was God saying there? Our hearts are consistently idolatrous. We're consistently going after and worshiping and serving the created thing rather than the creator who's forever praised [Romans 1:25]. That's what we go after. Augustine put it this way in his Confessions, confessions are written to God. This is what Augustine said, "He loves you too little who loves any created thing along with you, which he does not love for your sake." In other words, putting it in simpler terms, if we love any created thing more than we love God, we do not love God enough and we love that created thing too much. The problem is the Bible says this is what we do all the time. This is what the nature of idolatry is. Our hearts are prone to wander. Having been converted by the sovereign power of the spirit and to faith in Jesus Christ into a genuine love for Him, or you're not converted, we then continually regress from that love assaulted by the world, we go after other things and we don't love Him like we should. We repent and we come back into a healthy relationship with Him, and then off we go again. This is the regular pattern. Our hearts wax and wane in and out of love for Christ. In the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, the hymn writer said, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above." The central doctrinal concept here, this sermon, is that God alone has the power through Jesus Christ to heal our wandering loveless hearts. God alone has the power through Jesus Christ to heal our wandering and loveless hearts. Another hymn writer put it this way, "Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, wean it from earth, through all its pulses move. Stoop to my weakness. Mighty as Thou art and make me love Thee as I ought to love. Teach me to love Thee as Thine angel's love, one holy passion filling all my frame. The kindling of the heaven-descended dove, my heart and altar and Thy love the flame." Augustine, again, in Confessions, put it this way, "Give what you command, then command whatever you will." God, if You impart to me the thing You're commanding, then You can command me to do anything. If you just give by Your sovereign grace and power the thing You command, then command whatever You will.” In other words, “God, if You would work in my heart the ability to love You as you're commanding here with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, then You can command that. Give what You command. But I see that apart from Your sovereign working in me, I cannot obey this command. I will not obey it. So would You please work this in me?” God has the power to do it. There are numerous examples of God commanding something that can't be done, and then giving supernatural power to his servant to do it. Certainly commanding Peter to walk on water would be a good example of this. The clearest example for me is the apostle, John, on the island of Patmos. His feet are there on that rocky island, that tiny island of exile off the coast of modern-day Turkey. In Revelation 4, it says, "After this, I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven and a voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, 'Come up here and I'll show you what must take place after that.'" How are you going to obey that command? I mean, God, You could as easily command me to fly. Wait a minute, you are. "Come up here." “At once, I was in the spirit and there before me was a throne with someone seated on it". Wow. Do you not see the rhythm of that? Impossible command, power of the spirit, fulfillment. This sermon is not about some legalistic list of dos and don'ts. You do this and don't do that, you will have a love relationship with God. It's not that at all. It is, “I see the command, I understand what you're asking, but I can't do it. Would you please work this in me by Your sovereign grace?” That's what we're talking about. Ezekiel 36:26-27 says, "I will give you a new heart and I'll put a new spirit in you. I'll remove from you your heart of stone and I'll give you a heart of flesh and I'll put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws," which Jesus says are summed up in these two commandments. "I'll take out that dead unresponsive heart of yours and I'll give you a living heart. And then by my spirit, I will move you to obey these two great commandments." Oh, God, do that, so these two Great Commandments are clear. Of all the commandments [Mark 12] which is the most important one? Jesus answers, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength." The second is this, "Love your neighbors yourself." There is no commandment greater than these.” When we're converted to faith in Jesus Christ, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit along with that new nature. The Holy Spirit works together with our new nature to fulfill the commands of God, to begin to fulfill those commands, and so we do love God. But what's the problem then? What's the problem? The problem is Romans 7. Are you familiar with that? You don't need to even know the words. You're living it every day. Romans 7:14 and following, we know the law is spiritual. The two great commandments are spiritual, Paul says. But I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. “I do not understand what I do for what I want to do, I do not do. And what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,’ the law is good as it is. It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.” So Paul is speaking as a converted person. “It's not me that does it. I have a new nature, but I still have this problem. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” That is the healing that we need. That's the problem. That wretchedness that we need deliverance from, Jesus has come to give it to us. That is the healing that the physician of the soul must do. The essence of our salvation is perfect righteousness, total conformity of the laws of God, and Jesus came to work that healing in us. Now, for me, I cannot do this heavy work today, this convicting work, this therapeutic work without thinking again and again about our hope in heaven. What is it going to be like when, at last, our hearts will do what they were designed by God to do? What will that be like? Heaven will be as Jonathan Edwards said, “a world of love”. This is what he wrote, "There in heaven, this infinite fountain of love, this eternal three-in-one is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested, shines forth in full glory in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, ye even in rivers of love and delight. And those rivers swell as it were to an ocean of love in which the souls of the ransom may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment in their hearts as it were be deluged in love." That's where you're heading. You're heading to an ocean of love and you'll be immersed in it and that's what you'll be and do forever. What that means is every bit that you can fight lovelessness and disobedience to this first and greatest commandment will be successful and rewarded. Don't give up, don't get discouraged, but just keep fighting for delight and for joy. Last week, I defined love... That has basically been three sermons on this first Greatest Commandment. The first is just tracing out how it relates to justification, sanctification, glorification, first week. Second week, what does it mean to love God? This week is therapeutic. What do I do if I don't love God enough? How do I love God more? It's a therapeutic sermon. Last week, leaning on Edwards’ Religious Affections, it said the soul has two great capacities. One is the ability to comprehend or understand something that it sets its attention to, to understand the world, spiritual and physical. Secondly, to be inclined or disinclined to everything it studies such as liking or loving or hating or disliking and hating. I saw it in terms of magnetic attraction, the heart is magnetically attracted or repulsed from things to a greater less degree. I laid it out in my mind and it's a number line of affection. That was last week. I ended briefly with five applications, all of them began with A: awareness is just seeing God's nature, seeing Him in creation, seeing Him in the word awareness, could just say knowledge, but it didn't begin with A. So I went with awareness. Secondly, approval. Unlike the demons who are aware, we approve of God, we are attracted to God. That would be another word we could use. Approval. Thirdly, worship and delight is amazement. There's a sense of wonder and amazement at the greatness and the majesty of God, a response. Fourth is ardor. A sense of burning, a passion, a fire. Then the fifth is action or obedience to God's word. So that was last week. II. Ardor: Fainting and Feasting: Psalm 63 insights Now what I want to do is I want to zero in on ardor. Turn to Psalm 63, and I want to look at that psalm and talk about ardor. We see two aspects of our pilgrimage in terms of loving God. This is mostly diagnosis at this point. Look at Psalm 63, which I mentioned briefly last week, but I want to dig into a little bit more now. Psalm 63:1-5, "Oh God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You. My soul thirsts for You. My flesh faints for You as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory because Your love is better than life. My lips will glorify You. I'll praise You as long as I live and in Your name, I'll lift up my hands, my soul be fully satisfied. As with the richest of foods with singing lips, my mouth will praise You." David presents himself as if in the desert; David had many desert experiences, literally physically in the desert. Here it seems to be more like a spiritual desert for him. He's in a spiritual desert situation. He's struggling in his relationship with God. He feels distant from him as a physical person is in a desert where there is no water. He's getting parched spiritually. It may well be many of you are feeling the same thing. You are in a spiritual desert right now. You feel distant from God, you feel dry. It's been a long time since you felt any sense of elevation or joy or delight in your relationship with God, and you're in a spiritual desert. Maybe you're going through a trial, maybe a medical trial, maybe a financial trial. I don't know. It could be a relational trial, and you feel like you're in a desert. You're wondering, "Where is God?" We have the word “fainting”. There's a fainting in the soul here. He says, "My flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land." You've got a faintness to your relationship with God. You feel dry, you feel distant, but then you've got, also in the same psalm, a feasting aspect. Look at verse 5. He says, "My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food." Some translations even use the word “feast”. When God draws near and pours his love into David's heart and gives him a sense of his glory and a sense of his greatness, he feels like he's feasting at a banquet. How is God both water in a desert and rich and fair, as in a feast? David says in verse 3, "Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You." “I have a sense that your love, God, feeling Your love, that you love me, and that you're pouring that love into my heart is better than anything else in the world. I'd rather have that than anything else, even than life itself. Your love is better than life.” What that means is, according to Augustine and to the things we've been saying, God is better than his gifts. He's better than the good stuff He gives you that satisfy your five senses. Those are good gifts. Every good and perfect gift comes from God, but God is better than all of them. Even if we were to take them all away, if God would pour his love into your heart, that would be enough for you. David has had, in his old covenant way, a spiritual vision of the greatness and the glory of God. Verse 2 says, "I've seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory." So much of this is a spiritual vision to have a sense of the greatness of God. And so he said, "I've seen that and that is deeply satisfying to me." Then in Psalm 63, we have fainting to feasting, then back to fainting again and feasting. You're going to be that way the rest of your life and be like... I just want you to know that's normal. That's what we're talking about here. When you feel faint and weak, go after him like in Psalm 63, say, "I yearn for you. I'm hungry and thirsting for You. I want You, oh, God." That’s Psalm 63. III. Diagnosing Versions of Our Heart Disease There are various versions of our heart disease, and I want to talk about those different versions because you're going to be different in different places as you struggle in your walk with the Lord. The fundamental issue I've been asserting this morning is idolatry. The fundamental issue here is idolatry. John Calvin said the human heart is an idol factory. What does that mean? All of the problems that we're having in our relationship with God, our sinful tendency to stop loving God is not because your heart has stopped loving. Period. That's not why. This magnificent internal organ, your heart, soul, mind, strength inside of you is going to keep functioning in some way. But if you're not loving God, you're going to be loving some created thing. You're going to go after some creature. That's the essence of idolatry. When you love that created thing and not God as the giver of that created thing, that's idolatry. That's where the problem tends to come from. When we go after self or money or sex or pleasure or achievement or anything earthly, that's when the problem starts coming in our relationship with God. We have to see like, "Where is that happening for me? Where is the idolatry occurring?" It will then have an impact on you in different ways. It'll be different spiritual phenomenons that you can see. "That's the essence of idolatry. When you love that created thing and not God as the giver of that created thing, that's idolatry." The first I want to mention is drifting. You will drift in your relationship with God. This is Hebrews 2:1, "We must pay more careful attention therefore to what we have heard so that we do not drift away.” What is drifting? It's a gradual process whereby your heart is less and less in love with Christ. Your heart is less and less drawn after spiritual things, you're drifting. It's not immediate. It's not over across a weekend, but little by little by little through bad habits and the failure to do good habits through that, you are in a much worse place now than you were spiritually, a much worse place than you were a year ago. Little by little we love Christ less and less. Sometimes it's imperceptible, but it's always because of the same thing. The next chapter, Hebrews 3, tells the reason why. Hebrews 3:12-13, which says, "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage one another daily as long as it is called today so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.” Putting all that together, the drifting happens when we are slowly hardened by sin's deceitfulness resulting in a heart state that's gradually turning away from the living God. All right. What's the remedy? Hebrews 2:1-4 says, "The remedy is we must pay more careful attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away." That's getting back into the Word, specifically the Gospel. Pay more careful attention to Matthew or Mark or Luke or John. Pay more careful attention to who Jesus is. Pay more careful attention to Romans 1 through 8. The power of the gospel is the power of God for salvation. Look at how Romans 3 diagnoses sin. Look at Romans 3:21-26, which is the glowing heart of the gospel. How Jesus died under the wrath of God to take away His wrath and that we can tap into that only by faith. Justification by faith alone. Walk through that. Pay more careful attention to the doctrine of your salvation so that you do not drift away. Remedy one is draw close to God in the word. Pay more careful attention to what he's heard. Remedy two is the church. "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God." We're surrounded by people. Without looking, you can use your peripheral vision and know that there are people near you. You're surrounded by people. This is the benefit of a local church. This is what the local church is for. In a good, healthy local church, we will notice changes that are happening in each other. We'll notice that people are behaving differently than they were three months, six months, nine months, a year ago. We will see to it that we don't let that happen. This is what it means in our church covenant. We'll watch over one another in brotherly love. We will go after people that we haven't seen in a little while. I mean, tonight, God willing, you're going to have home fellowship. This would be a good chance for you to say, "How are things with you? How are things in your walk with God? How are your quiet times? How's your heart? Do you feel like you're closer to Jesus now than you were a year ago? Are you growing closer? Do you feel like you're drifting away? What's going on?" "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart." How is sin's deceitfulness hardening each other's hearts? It's very hard to see. You got to know each other. That's knowing and being known in the local church. We get to know each other. It's like, "What is going on with you?" We should care enough. That's the remedy. The third remedy is in the next passage, Revelation 2. Revelation 2 and 3 are Christ’s letters to the seven churches, as He's moving through the seven golden lampstands. Whenever you see the plural word, churches, you're talking about local church. He doesn't have many brides. There's one bride, the church. But they have churches and those are local churches. Jesus is moving through the seven lampstands representing local churches. The first is the church at Ephesus and He says good things about them, they’re doctrinally strong, they’re active, energetic. They're discerning. They're able to discern false doctrine. They have been persecuted and they haven't given up. “All that's good. But I hold this against you. You have forsaken your first love,” and then He gives the remedy right away. In the next verse, Revelation 2:5, "Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent from the sins that cause you to fall from that height of affection and renew the things you used to do." Remember, repent and renew. What was it like for you when you first started walking with Christ? What was your heart like then? That's your first love. What was it like when you first started walking with Jesus, when you first realized His death for you, and you trusted in Him? What was that like? That was a height of affection that you're at, a height of emotion. Remember how that used to be? That height? Now look at you. You've backslidden. You're in a colder, more distant place. Remember how it used to be. Repent because He uses the word “forsake”, you have forsaken your first love. This wasn't an accident. I don't know how it happened. You forsook Him. You chose something else. So repent of that and do the things you used to do. How did you used to show affection for Christ back in those days? Then the distance and formalism, the coldness in Mark 7, quoting Isaiah, "Jesus said, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain.'" What is that? That's just going through the motions. It's going to church because you go to church. It's what you do on Sunday morning. You're here, you're going through the motions, you're going through the patterns, but your heart is far from God. "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." He's looking at your heart. It's not just a lip thing, it's not a whitewashed tomb thing. It's what's really going on in you. We can get into that machine, can't we? We're just going through the motions week after week. What is actually happening? Part of it is we begin to think of the things of religion. Daily quiet times, weekly church attendance, Bible studies, different things we did to express our relationship with God as a burden. They start to be annoying. Malachi 1:13, it says, "You say, what a burden and you bring me injured and diseased animals, and offer them as sacrifices." It's the animal sacrificial system, but what do we learn? You don't bring me your best anymore and you think the whole thing's annoying. So you start cutting corners in your quiet time. You start finding a reason, maybe not to go to church from time to time. What's going on? You know what's going on, your heart is drifting. There's a dying aspect of your relationship with God. Those are three. Drifting, that forsaking the first love, and then there's that cold formalism where you're going through the machinery. IV. Fight for Joy in the Lord Finally, as we finish, I want to walk through probably the most clearly applicational passage you'll ever find on this topic. Turn to James 4, and I'm going to give you step-by-step on how to renew your heart affection for Christ. Again, keep in mind, you're going to see it in the verses themselves. This is not 7 steps or 10 steps to a right heart. That's not what's going on here. It's a deeply spiritual process in which you understand only Christ can heal your heart and give you love. Let's walk through it, James 4:4-10. It begins right away with this statement, "You adulterous people." That image is from Ezekiel 16. We're spiritually adulterous if we're going after the world, going after the things of the world. He says, "You adulterous people. Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture says without reason that the spirit that He caused to live in us envies intensely, but He gives us more grace?" That is why scripture says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up." Let's walk through these as we finish. Step one, admit that love for the world is the reason why you've stopped loving Christ ardently. Something in the world has captivated you instead of Jesus. Admit that. Step two, understand God's burning jealousy over your wandering heart. God is a jealous God, the spirit He caused to live in you envies intensely." He's jealous over it. He wants it. It is what He sent Jesus into the world to save us so that we would love Him with our hearts. That's what He's going after is the heart, and He's jealous over it. Understand God's jealousy [Ezekiel 16]. Step three, seek more grace for your hearts. He gives us more grace. If you're a Christian, you have already received saving grace, but you need more grace. The language here is very clear. He gives us more grace. So you had grace for justification, but now you need more grace to stay in Christ. So seek. Say, "God, my drifting, wandering, hard heart needs more grace. Would you give me more grace?" I really believe this is why Paul uses his formula in all his epistles. “Grace to you” at the beginning of the epistle and “may grace be with you” as you leave the epistle. You're entering the grace zone in Paul's epistle and you're going to have grace with you as you leave the grace zone. You need more grace through the Word of God, especially. Step four, humble yourselves before God to seek that grace. This is humbling. It's humbling for me to tell you that in 48 chapters, the most impactful was Ezekiel 16, and 16:63 ends with “you ought to be ashamed." It's like, "I need shame like I need pain. I won't need it in heaven, but I need it. I need to be ashamed in the way that my heart is wandering and drifting in idolatries, and it's powerful for me to feel that." This is humbling. Humble yourself before God concerning this, to seek that more grace. Step five, submit yourself fully to God. Submit yourself to Christ's kingship. Say, "This has not just been an optional thing that I've gone after idol. It's not any big deal. It's been rebellion." We've rebelled in our idolatry, so we should submit ourselves to God and to Christ. I have found, I don't know if you have, but I think you have, idols die hard. If your heart is wrapped up in some idol, it will not go easily. The only way you're going to kill it is if you submit to the kingship of Christ and grab the sword of the spirit and go kill it. These idols die hard. Step six, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Now, that's an image. How powerful is that? Say no to him. Tell him no with his temptations. His allurements, resist him. Put on the armor of God [Ephesians 6] and stand in the day of testing and resist and send him to flight. He's not fleeing from you. He's fleeing from the spirit of God in you, but he's going to flee from you. If you'll resist the devil, he will flee from you. Step seven, draw near to God in humble faith. The moment that Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Jesus has opened a new and living way into the presence of God. Hebrews 10:22 says, "Let us draw near to God in full assurance with a sincere heart and with full assurance of faith, having a heart sprinkled that cleanses from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water." Draw near to God, draw near to him, or again, Hebrews 4:15-16, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Step eight. This may be the least applied verse in American evangelicalism— Grieve, mourn, and wail. “Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” Nobody wants to do that. But you understand the moment you sin, the Holy Spirit is grieved by it. If you're not, you're out of step with the spirit. Galatians says we should keep in step with the Spirit. If He's grieved over your idolatries, you should be grieved too. It should hurt you. It should make you sad. You should grieve over it. You can't repent without grief. There is a grief for sin. Step nine, humble yourself before the Lord, again, He says it twice. Grieve and come back to God in humility. Step 10, the good news, He will lift you up. What does that mean? He will lift you up into a healthy love relationship with Christ. He'll restore you. He'll feel your heart with joy and peace. That's the process. Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the remedies that you give us in scripture. We thank you that Jesus is the physician of the soul. We thank you that He looks at us honestly and tells us truthfully what we really are. He tells us what we have been, what we are, and what we will be. Lord, I pray that you would help my brothers and sisters here. Help us at home fellowship tonight, ask real questions and have that genuine fellowship that is so rich and powerful and needed. Help us, all of us, who have been drifting to get back into the word in ways that we haven't been recently. Help us to find ways that idols have crept into our hearts. Help us to repent from them and turn away. And above all, Lord Jesus, present yourself to the soul as a lover of our souls, the one who shed his blood for us and who loves us in ways that no one else can. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Old Testament: Job 1 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 43 Psalm 43 (Listen) Send Out Your Light and Your Truth 43   Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause    against an ungodly people,  from the deceitful and unjust man    deliver me!2   For you are the God in whom I take refuge;    why have you rejected me?  Why do I go about mourning    because of the oppression of the enemy? 3   Send out your light and your truth;    let them lead me;  let them bring me to your holy hill    and to your dwelling!4   Then I will go to the altar of God,    to God my exceeding joy,  and I will praise you with the lyre,    O God, my God. 5   Why are you cast down, O my soul,    and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,    my salvation and my God. (ESV) New Testament: Luke 7 Luke 7 (Listen) Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant 7 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2 Now a centurion had a servant1 who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 3 When the centurion2 heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,' and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,' and he does it.” 9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” 10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well. Jesus Raises a Widow's Son 11 Soon afterward3 he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus4 gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country. Messengers from John the Baptist 18 The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, 19 calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 20 And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?'” 21 In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. 22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers5 are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” 24 When John's messengers had gone, Jesus6 began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings' courts. 26 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written,   “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,    who will prepare your way before you.' 28 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” 29 (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just,7 having been baptized with the baptism of John, 30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.) 31 “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,   “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;    we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.' 33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.' 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” A Sinful Woman Forgiven 36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. 37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” 40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among8 themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Footnotes [1] 7:2 Or bondservant; also verses 3, 8, 10 [2] 7:3 Greek he [3] 7:11 Some manuscripts The next day [4] 7:15 Greek he [5] 7:22 Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13 [6] 7:24 Greek he [7] 7:29 Greek they justified God [8] 7:49 Or to (ESV)

Old Testament: Job 1 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) New Testament: Philippians 4:2–23 Philippians 4:2–23 (Listen) Exhortation, Encouragement, and Prayer 2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion,1 help these women, who have labored2 side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness3 be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned4 and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. God's Provision 10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. 14 Yet it was kind of you to share5 my trouble. 15 And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. 16 Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. 17 Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.6 18 I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. 19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. 20 To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. Final Greetings 21 Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. 22 All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. 23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Footnotes [1] 4:3 Or loyal Syzygus; Greek true yokefellow [2] 4:3 Or strived (see 1:27) [3] 4:5 Or gentleness [4] 4:9 Or these things— 9which things you have also learned [5] 4:14 Or have fellowship in [6] 4:17 Or I seek the profit that accrues to your account (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 43 Psalm 43 (Listen) Send Out Your Light and Your Truth 43   Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause    against an ungodly people,  from the deceitful and unjust man    deliver me!2   For you are the God in whom I take refuge;    why have you rejected me?  Why do I go about mourning    because of the oppression of the enemy? 3   Send out your light and your truth;    let them lead me;  let them bring me to your holy hill    and to your dwelling!4   Then I will go to the altar of God,    to God my exceeding joy,  and I will praise you with the lyre,    O God, my God. 5   Why are you cast down, O my soul,    and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,    my salvation and my God. (ESV) Proverb: Proverbs 21:23–24 Proverbs 21:23–24 (Listen) 23   Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue    keeps himself out of trouble.24   “Scoffer” is the name of the arrogant, haughty man    who acts with arrogant pride. (ESV)

Morning: Job 1–3 Job 1–3 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Satan Attacks Job's Health 2 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. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 3 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”4 In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job's Three Friends 11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job Laments His Birth 3 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3   “Let the day perish on which I was born,    and the night that said,    ‘A man is conceived.'4   Let that day be darkness!    May God above not seek it,    nor light shine upon it.5   Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.    Let clouds dwell upon it;    let the blackness of the day terrify it.6   That night—let thick darkness seize it!    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;    let it not come into the number of the months.7   Behold, let that night be barren;    let no joyful cry enter it.8   Let those curse it who curse the day,    who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.9   Let the stars of its dawn be dark;    let it hope for light, but have none,    nor see the eyelids of the morning,10   because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,    nor hide trouble from my eyes. 11   “Why did I not die at birth,    come out from the womb and expire?12   Why did the knees receive me?    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?13   For then I would have lain down and been quiet;    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,14   with kings and counselors of the earth    who rebuilt ruins for themselves,15   or with princes who had gold,    who filled their houses with silver.16   Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,    as infants who never see the light?17   There the wicked cease from troubling,    and there the weary are at rest.18   There the prisoners are at ease together;    they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.19   The small and the great are there,    and the slave is free from his master. 20   “Why is light given to him who is in misery,    and life to the bitter in soul,21   who long for death, but it comes not,    and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,22   who rejoice exceedingly    and are glad when they find the grave?23   Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,    whom God has hedged in?24   For my sighing comes instead of5 my bread,    and my groanings are poured out like water.25   For the thing that I fear comes upon me,    and what I dread befalls me.26   I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;    I have no rest, but trouble comes.” Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 [4] 2:10 Or disaster; also verse 11 [5] 3:24 Or like; Hebrew before (ESV) Evening: Acts 7:1–19 Acts 7:1–19 (Listen) Stephen's Speech 7 And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” 2 And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.' 4 Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. 5 Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. 6 And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. 7 ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,' said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.' 8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs. 9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. 11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. 13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. 14 And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. 15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, 16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. 17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt 18 until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. 19 He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive. (ESV)

Job 1–3 Job 1–3 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Satan Attacks Job's Health 2 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. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 3 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”4 In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job's Three Friends 11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job Laments His Birth 3 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3   “Let the day perish on which I was born,    and the night that said,    ‘A man is conceived.'4   Let that day be darkness!    May God above not seek it,    nor light shine upon it.5   Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.    Let clouds dwell upon it;    let the blackness of the day terrify it.6   That night—let thick darkness seize it!    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;    let it not come into the number of the months.7   Behold, let that night be barren;    let no joyful cry enter it.8   Let those curse it who curse the day,    who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.9   Let the stars of its dawn be dark;    let it hope for light, but have none,    nor see the eyelids of the morning,10   because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,    nor hide trouble from my eyes. 11   “Why did I not die at birth,    come out from the womb and expire?12   Why did the knees receive me?    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?13   For then I would have lain down and been quiet;    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,14   with kings and counselors of the earth    who rebuilt ruins for themselves,15   or with princes who had gold,    who filled their houses with silver.16   Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,    as infants who never see the light?17   There the wicked cease from troubling,    and there the weary are at rest.18   There the prisoners are at ease together;    they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.19   The small and the great are there,    and the slave is free from his master. 20   “Why is light given to him who is in misery,    and life to the bitter in soul,21   who long for death, but it comes not,    and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,22   who rejoice exceedingly    and are glad when they find the grave?23   Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,    whom God has hedged in?24   For my sighing comes instead of5 my bread,    and my groanings are poured out like water.25   For the thing that I fear comes upon me,    and what I dread befalls me.26   I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;    I have no rest, but trouble comes.” Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 [4] 2:10 Or disaster; also verse 11 [5] 3:24 Or like; Hebrew before (ESV)

Job 1–3 Job 1–3 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Satan Attacks Job's Health 2 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. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 3 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”4 In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job's Three Friends 11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job Laments His Birth 3 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3   “Let the day perish on which I was born,    and the night that said,    ‘A man is conceived.'4   Let that day be darkness!    May God above not seek it,    nor light shine upon it.5   Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.    Let clouds dwell upon it;    let the blackness of the day terrify it.6   That night—let thick darkness seize it!    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;    let it not come into the number of the months.7   Behold, let that night be barren;    let no joyful cry enter it.8   Let those curse it who curse the day,    who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.9   Let the stars of its dawn be dark;    let it hope for light, but have none,    nor see the eyelids of the morning,10   because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,    nor hide trouble from my eyes. 11   “Why did I not die at birth,    come out from the womb and expire?12   Why did the knees receive me?    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?13   For then I would have lain down and been quiet;    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,14   with kings and counselors of the earth    who rebuilt ruins for themselves,15   or with princes who had gold,    who filled their houses with silver.16   Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,    as infants who never see the light?17   There the wicked cease from troubling,    and there the weary are at rest.18   There the prisoners are at ease together;    they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.19   The small and the great are there,    and the slave is free from his master. 20   “Why is light given to him who is in misery,    and life to the bitter in soul,21   who long for death, but it comes not,    and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,22   who rejoice exceedingly    and are glad when they find the grave?23   Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,    whom God has hedged in?24   For my sighing comes instead of5 my bread,    and my groanings are poured out like water.25   For the thing that I fear comes upon me,    and what I dread befalls me.26   I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;    I have no rest, but trouble comes.” Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 [4] 2:10 Or disaster; also verse 11 [5] 3:24 Or like; Hebrew before (ESV)

Does Job prophecy the resurrection of Jesus? While these verses have come under attack, they continue to provide enormous comfort to us.

Does Job prophecy the resurrection of Jesus? While these verses have come under attack, they continue to provide enormous comfort to us.

I thought we'd begin this week with a bit of Trivia. You want to know what this is? This is considered the oldest known complaint in the world. It's 4000 year old Akkadian cuneiform tablet written by a man named Nanni who complains about a substandard ingot of copper he received by the hand of his servant and in the letter he demands a refund. Complaining, as it turns out, is one of the oldest art forms in history. We can complain about anything from copper ingots to cold weather to people cutting in line, to poor customer service, our unreasonable boss to a boring movie to an overpopulated city and its traffic, and the worst of all, not being able to connect to Wi-Fi. But sometimes our complaints center on things that are much less trivial. Sometimes our complaints arise out of deep suffering. When we are pinned down in an uncomfortable situation, we complain by demanding an answer to the why question? Why am I suffering? Why this betrayal? Why this death? Why this injustice? Why this financial hardship? Why my marriage? Why are my children like this? Why am I here? Lord, why don't you change things? Last week James gave us three commands on how to be righteous in the face of suffering and not complain. Be patient, trust God and don't complain. Now this week James is going to work that out through EXAMPLES. Examples are helpful because examples are simply commands applied in real life situations. He says, let me point you to some biblical examples of people who did a good job of being patient, trusting God and not complaining in their impossibly hard situations. So James give us the prophets and God's servant, Job. So let's start with the prophets. Now the prophets are amazing. The prophets have been given the most unrewarding of all possible jobs. Let's first consider Isaiah. Isaiah When we open up the book of Isaiah we see God's assessment of the nation of Israel. God says, my people have not heeded any of my warnings. They don't even know me. And for the rest of chapter 1 and into the next chapters he outlines the many ways in which Israel has turned away. Now in Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah has a vision of God and it's breathtaking. It really just knocks Isaiah on the carpet. And the Lord says, Isaiah, will you go to my people and preach who I am? Will you preach what you just saw? And he said by all means. Yes, I'll go! Send me! But here's where it gets interesting. Isaiah, I'm not sure you're going to like your mission. I'm going to send you to preach the gospel to my people for the next 20 or 30 years and no one will listen, believe or respect you in any way. Ever. You will never see fruit in your ministry your entire life. You will live your entire life without witnessing a shred of evidence that anything you ever said or did mattered. I'm letting you know in advance that they will never respond no matter how much you beg and plead. They will persecute you, marginalize you and basically make your life miserable until you die. - In fact your job is to harden hearts by speaking truth and being rejected. - The more you try to show them truth the blinder they will become. - The more you try to get their attention the heavier their eyes will become until they just fall asleep. - The more you talk the more plugged up with wax their ears will become. Look at Isaiah 6:9 And Isaiah responded, "Well that doesn't sound like much fun? How long do I have to do that Lord?" Preach the truth until everyone is judged. Preach until a foreign nation obliterates them and they are utterly destroyed. Okay, now get going. That's hard. God, why? Why would you want me to do that? Why do you want me to beat my head against the wall with ZERO results? You want to talk about a job that might require a little patience? You want to talk about a situation in which you might be tempted to complain? Isaiah can relate. James says look at the prophets. What do you think was motivating Isaiah? What caused him to go year after year after year, watching the horrible hard-heartedness that led to destruction? What enabled him to keep going? What enabled him to keep preaching to this stiff-necked rebellious people? What made him able to not complain and to be patient? Think about it. CAN YOU GUESS WHAT IT IS? Jeremiah Consider Jeremiah. Jeremiah preaches during the Babylonian invasion of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar is steaming forward. Jeremiah, go tell Jehoiakim that I'm going to use Nebuchadnezzar as a rod to discipline the nation of Israel. You have disobeyed me; therefore you will be destroyed by him. - Jehoiakim sees Babylon assembling for battle and they are scurrying about like ants trying to prepare for battle and God says, "Jeremiah, Go up to the king and here's what I want you to tell him to his face. Prophesy over him and tell him that he is going to lose this battle." - Tell Jehoiakim, "The right thing to do is to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar and to submit to him." Okay, that's your job. Now go. Jeremiah argued to God. God I'm only a child; I don't know how to speak to kings. But God says, "That excuse doesn't work. I'll give you the words. Get yourself ready!" Jeremiah says, "Are you kidding me? Everybody is going to think I'm a traitor! You really think he's going to listen to this message: Hey, Jehoiakim, you know that pagan overlord, Nebuchadnezzar? Yeah, well, God wants you to give up and let him take you into captivity. They're going to think I'm a traitor." And that's exactly what happened. They did think he was a traitor. In Jeremiah 11 we read of all the friends in his hometown (these are his elementary school classmates, those who grew up together), they all assemble and say, we have to kill this guy. He's spreading the language of sedition. We read of the temple prophets conspiring to kill him. Jeremiah discovers the plot to kill him and he complains to the Lord about his persecution and the Lord responds by telling him. "Oh, don't worry, it's going to get way worse." And sure enough. Jeremiah is beaten and put in stocks. He is thrown into a cistern where he starts sinking in mud. They are starving him. We call Jeremiah the weeping prophet. He writes a book in our Bible called Lamentations. But he can't stop speaking. He just keeps speaking. You want to talk about a job where you might be tempted to complain? How about Jeremiah? God why? James says, look at the prophets. What do you think was motivating Jeremiah? What caused him to sit in that muddy pit and trust God? What do you think motivated him to keep on speaking despite the terrible suffering and persecution? Think about it. CAN YOU GUESS WHAT IT IS? Hosea Then you have Hosea. God comes to Hosea, and he says, "Hosea, you're never going to be any kind of prophet until you understand what the betrayal of the nation of Israel feels like to the heart of God. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to marry a prostitute. I want you to marry a woman who will never be faithful to you. I've given her a fitting name, Gomer. You're going to marry Gomer, and she's going to continually be unfaithful to you." God says, "She's going to continually commit adultery. It's going to just absolutely gut you. You are going to love her to death and she's going to have affair after affair after affair. You're going to have to continually forgive her and go get her and buy her back and carry her back to your home. And you are going to love her again even though she hurt you so badly. And you are going to have to go through that difficult process of rebuilding trust. That's the training routine you are going to need to suffer in order to be a usable prophet in my hands. So I just want you to live that life on repeat for the next 30-40 years. Cool? You good with that? You want to talk about a job where you might be tempted to complain. I think Hosea can relate. God why? James says, look at the prophets. What do you think was motivating Hosea? What caused him to go year after year after year, watching the unfaithfulness of his wife. What enabled him to forgive time after time after time? I mean can you imagine the sorrow? Just horrible sorrow all the time. God says to all these prophets, "Get going." Hosea. Get going. Jeremiah. Get going. Get going, Isaiah. Their lives were suffering. They never had answers. Nothing ever went right for them. God says, "I want you to obey me. Be patient and don't complain." What do you think caused the prophets to be so patient? What do you think motivated them to keep serving the Lord despite terrible suffering and persecution? Think about it. CAN YOU GUESS WHAT IT IS? I'm baiting you aren't I? You want to know. Be patient. I'm helping you practice patience. We are supposed to look at the prophets. The prophets are given as an example. But we are also supposed to look at Job. Job Let's think about the patience of Job. Man, this is so good. Now to understand the lesson of Job you have to understand the structure of the book and the structure of the book of Job is a little odd. The story is found at the beginning and the end. In the middle you have these long speeches. When we open the book we read of the integrity and character of the man Job. - He was a man who feared God and turned away from evil. - He was an upright man. - He was blameless in all his ways. - He was a devout man, and he also was an extremely wealthy man. Now Satan comes and says, "I see this servant of yours, Job. I see how he's kind of your poster child. He's pretty hot stuff." Well, he's amazing for a reason. The dude's filthy rich. Job has learned not to bite the hand that feeds him. He's wise. Does Job serve you for nothing? The only reason he's serving you is because you've blessed him. In other words he doesn't love you. He loves your blessing. Take away his cash and he'll curse you. You can prove where his devotion lies by taking away his assets. So God allowed it. One day Job was standing in his home, and a messenger comes up and says, - "I was herding your donkeys and plowing with your oxen, and plunderers, those wretched Sabeans, well they came and attacked and took them all and killed the servants, and I alone have escaped to tell you. " Well there goes his food supply. - And while the words were still in his mouth a second servant comes running up, and he says, "I was with your sheep, and lightning came down from the sky and destroyed all the sheep and all the servants, and I alone have escaped to tell you." - And while the words were still in his mouth another comes and says the Chaldeans came and formed three bands and took all your camels and killed all your servants. This is basically the equivalent of saying your entire retirement portfolio has been wiped out. Your stocks gone. Your houses burned down and insurance won't pay and even your bars of gold you buried in the ground were dug up and robbed. All of his earthy capital is gone. He's financially ruined. He's now poor. That's a lot to absorb. - And while the words were still in his mouth another servant came up and said, "I was in the home where all of your grown children were feasting and drinking wine together, and a wind came out of the wilderness and the house collapsed, and all of your children are dead, all ten, seven sons and three daughters, and I alone have escaped to tell you these things." Now after the first stroke from Satan, we are told that Job howls in sorrow. He rips his clothes, shaves his head, falls to the ground in ashes and says, "Naked I came into the world, and naked I will return. The Lord gives. The Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord." In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing. That is pretty stinking impressive. Now that introduction and the initial commentary has caused many people to misunderstand the book. Some people use this as the interpretive key for the book. Okay, Job was a righteous man, blameless. Satan attacked him and he didn't crack. So they read everything through that lens. True enough. Job was righteous. Job was blameless. There was not a better man on the earth. He was the top tier. He was the upper crust. But the story of the book of Job is that trials crush even the righteous. Trials wear you down. Trials cause even the finest poster children to crack. Trials are too much for all of us. All of us will crack eventually. There's a saying in the Navy Seals about fear of water. "All men panic. It's just a matter of when." And so it is with trials. All men eventually doubt God. All men eventually sin. All men crack. It's just a matter of when. Show me one who does not? At the first stroke, his self-control holds. Job hasn't cracked, yet. So the pressure turns up. There was a second stroke of Satan. Now Satan attacks his health. We're told he was afflicted with these running sores. He sat on an ash heap, and he scraped himself with pieces of pottery, scouring the pus off. It says he was afflicted with these sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. I mean that has got to just be terrible misery. I've run into poison ivy several times in my life and I just absolutely hate that stuff. It's just so itchy. The sores just run for weeks. It's so gross. From the top of the head to the sole of the foot. Head to toe. Can you imagine? Some people after funerals get consolation cards, meals cooked for them, phone calls. Job buries his 10 kids and loses his entire retirement portfolio and to boost his spirits he's given head to toe bleeding sores. Now that's bad. That's really bad. But I think the absolute worst comes next. I think what made him crack was not: - The loss of money. - Not the loss of children. - Not the loss of health. - It was the loss of being believed by his closest friends. Along come four terrible counselors. The first was Job's wife. She's a piece of work. Here Job is suffering. He's covered in sores and she looks at him and says, "Curse God and die!" Obviously this is an indication of where she's at. She's mad at God. She's lost all her kids. She's convinced God is evil. She's cursing at God. And she wants her husband to do the same. She's trying to drag him down with her. Look at his response. It's remarkable. You see he is still barely holding on, but he is still holding on by the tips of his fingers. He says, "You are talking like a foolish woman." He doesn't say, "You are a foolish woman." He says, "We've been around foolish women. You and I have both agreed what foolish behavior looks like. What you're saying feels awfully similar to that." It's a very kind response to someone who says to you, "Curse God and die!" Next up were Job's three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Now Job's friends come along and take a totally different approach. They say, "No, God's not the problem. God can't be the problem. God is perfect. God is holy." And that is like a breath of fresh air to Job. "Yes, I was just trying to tell my wife that. That's so comforting to hear. Thank you for saying that. I agree, God can never be wrong. He is all wise! He's always good." But what comes next is like a baseball bat to the knees. Job's friends say, "So if God is good. If God is not to blame, the only one left is you. Job, you're the problem." They say, "I've never seen an innocent man perish like you. Obviously, you're to blame. God doesn't judge the righteous." Oh man, that hurts. That's deep. He cries out. He yells. He screams. So Job's wife says: "God's the problem. God is to blame." Job's friends says: "You're the problem." And I think he cracks. Right there. And in his agony for 35 chapters he basically asks two questions: - Why didn't I die at birth? - Why is God not answering me? He says, I am an innocent sufferer. I am righteous. I have done nothing to deserve this. This is senseless suffering. Why? Why won't God talk to me? Why are the heavens as bronze? Why? In Job 23 he says, "If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out the reasons, and consider what he would say." You see, Job is just like us. He's asking, "Why?" And what's the answer? Silence. Be patient. He gets nothing. He gets silence as a response. Why are you allowing this to happen? It would be one thing if I could see a reason. If it was because I had sinned, that would make sense. Okay, this is punishment for my sin. Or there was some greater purpose. I could handle that. It would be one thing if I could discern a reason. This trial will accomplish this purpose. Okay, now I have a reason to suffer. But I am innocent and you are silent. Why? Why am I suffering? To be patient and not complain and live in great suffering is among the hardest places in the world to be. Wait. Trust me. Now, here's what I want to point out. By the time we get to chapter 38, Job has officially cracked. Here the most righteous man on the face of the earth has cracked under suffering. He's cracked. He's doubting God. He's angry. He's questioning God. Everyone cracks. Listen, the prophets cracked too. - You don't think Isaiah cracked when he watched innocent children being slaughtered because of the hard-heartedness of Israel? Of course he did! - You don't think Hosea cracked when he got the news that his wife was sleeping with another man? Of course he did! - You don't think Jeremiah cracked while his feet were sinking in the mud? Read Lamentations. That's a poem written by a broken heart. Of course he did! - And here is Job. Cracked! And yet James says, "Consider the prophets. Consider Job." What does that mean? The lesson to learn from the prophets and Job is NOT how NOT to crack. It's what to do when you do. Or even more accurately, the lesson is what God will do for you when you crack. We looked at Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and asked what do you think motivated them to keep on serving God in their terrible suffering and persecution? What did they do? CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THEY DID? Here's the answer: They did nothing. God did something. In all these cases, what happens is that his beloved children crack and God shows up and puts them back together. And how he shows up to do that is shocking. The Rebuke Since we are in Job, let's just keep going here. In Job chapter 38, near the end, God shows up. Job is not doing well. And God appears in this great storm and whirlwind. Job has been asking the why question for 35+ chapters. And finally God shows up and here's how he answers. There are two things here that are just absolutely astonishing to me. First, God doesn't give Job a reason. He doesn't tell him why? We might have ideas as to what God is up to but he doesn't say one thing about it to Job. Job has been asking for chapters and chapters why, and God says not a thing about it. He gives no explanation. So first, He doesn't tell him why, but secondly, he doesn't give him any comfort. We don't read God saying, "Job, I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry that you lost your wealth and your children and I see those terrible painful sores. It must have been so terrible to go so long and not understand. I am so, so sorry." We get none of that. The absence of that language is so shocking to me that it almost makes me want to throw away the book. How cold can you be? It's like God just has ice in his veins. Are you kidding? Not only does he not give Job comfort, he goes on the offensive. He goes on the attack. Over and over God says, "Who are you? Who do you think you are?" I mean the language is so harsh, I just shrink back. God says to Job, “Surely, you know Job, Surely, you were there. You're talking like you are so old. You're talking like you are so wise.” So surely, the lightning bolts report to you. They come to you and say, "Here we are. Which way would you like us to go, Job?" They do that for me, so surely they do that for you too, since you seem to have so much knowledge of the way things ought to be? Surely you understand how to make stars. That's easy, right? Like billions of them, right? Surely, since you know so much about how your life should go and how it fits into my great plan of redemption, surely you know about these petty small little details. Right? Oh you don't know? You don't have understanding about these things? Well, then maybe you should trust me. That feels like the opposite of compassion. And we think, God, what are you doing to this broken man? We feel like God is making a mistake here. But let's not commit the same sin that Job just committed telling God how he should instruct his children. God you don't know how to discipline your children. You're too harsh. You haven't read the positive affirmation books at Barnes and Noble. What God says totally works. Look what comes out of Job's mouth. Job stammers out a first response. You know what comes out? Repentance. The great theme of the book of James. Repentance. Job was written NOT to tell you how to NOT crack. It was written to tell you what to do when you do crack. In fact, it was written to crack you and then put you back together. And how does Job help put us back together? Through the beautiful, wonderful work of repentance. What a gift. What a healing balm. To just repent. To just say, "I thought I knew what was best. What a fool, to ever question you. I repent, Lord." Listen to Job's repentance. And you think, man, okay, Job really learned his lesson. Okay God you can be done. Do you know what God says? "I'm not finished. I'll tell you when I'm done." "Job, you think I am unjust? Must I be condemned that you be justified? Is that how this should be? It doesn't make sense to me, so I should be the one who is repenting to you? Does that make sense, Job? Either I am competent to judge God or God is competent to judge me. Which is it? Job, you're suffering is 1000 times worse simply because you assume you can understand all these things. How could that be? Were you there when I invented the molecular structure of the universe? Were you there when I invented snow? Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth? Were you there when I said to trillions of stars, come forth? Job, you weren't. How could YOU know? Who do you think you are to question me? Either I'm God or you are. Either I'm right or you are. Either I know what's going on or you do. I'm appealing to you. Think. It's not possible, Job, that you are wiser than me. You want justice, Job? You think this is unfair. Try your own hand at justice, Job. Look at every proud man and bring him low. Crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them in the dust, and then I will concede that you are in a position to be the determiner of justice." Now all of this is too much for Job. Think about the phrase, don't obscure my counsel without knowledge. When you throw up complaints against God, you want to know what that does? It obscures God's wisdom. All of a sudden something that should never be questioned, comes into question. It's like a thick fog descends and now all of a sudden that mountain range in the distance is no longer visible. I'm confused which way is north. You know this is no different than Isaiah. What happened to Isaiah? He's brought into the throne room of the Lord of Hosts. And he sees the Lord high and lifted up and the cherubim on the throne screaming Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is filled with his Glory. And Isaiah smashes his face into the dirt and says, woe is me for I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips. How dare I ever question the Lord? Who do I think I am? That turbulence inside Isaiah is put to rest when he sees God. The turbulence inside of Job is put to rest when he sees God. The anger goes away. That pride evaporates. They are changed men. They don't have all the answers, but they have what they need to be content. To trust. To not complain or grumble. The thing that so upset me is it seemed like God came and did all the wrong things to Job, and yet, look. Sometimes God asks for trust without a reason. God asks for trust without compassion. Why? Because now the trust is complete. It's the highest form. It's the most complete form of love. Is that hard? Yeah, of course, it's hard. When you have cancer or your spouse just left you or you lost everything, or whatever, we are just bawling our eyes out. We are cracked. We are laying on the ground, cracked in a million pieces. Can you listen to God in that moment? God is no more distant from you than he was from Job. God is no more distant from you than he was from Jesus when he cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Even Jesus asked the why question. Conclusion Remember, Job and the prophets are not here to tell you how not to crack. They tell you what to do when you do. And what should you do? Run to Christ. That's what Job did. At the very end of the book of Job, God commends Job. He says, "My servant Job did the right thing." Job had some pretty low days. He had some pretty ugly moments. He cursed the day he was born. He accused God of injustice. He ranted and raved. He was filled with self-pity. It was terrible. He cracked. But what did he do right? He repented of thinking he knew better than God. He went looking for the WHY. He never found it. But you want to know what he did find? He found the who. He found the who and that was enough. He was satisfied. He found someone he could trust with the why. Remember the cross. Those in Jesus day said, "THIS MAKES ZERO SENSE." Why God? Why would you allow this? God what are you doing? I'm guessing many lost their faith when they watched Jesus hang on the cross. They said, "How in the world could this be?" And yet God turned that into the greatest act of mercy in the world. Can you trust him with the unknowns in your life knowing he has done that?

With family: Genesis 34; Mark 5 Genesis 34 (Listen) The Defiling of Dinah 34 Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. 2 And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. 3 And his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. 4 So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, “Get me this girl for my wife.” 5 Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah. But his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob held his peace until they came. 6 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. 7 The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done. 8 But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your1 daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. 9 Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. 10 You shall dwell with us, and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it, and get property in it.” 11 Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give. 12 Ask me for as great a bride-price2 and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman to be my wife.” 13 The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. 14 They said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. 15 Only on this condition will we agree with you—that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised. 16 Then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to ourselves, and we will dwell with you and become one people. 17 But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter, and we will be gone.” 18 Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor's son Shechem. 19 And the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob's daughter. Now he was the most honored of all his father's house. 20 So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, 21 “These men are at peace with us; let them dwell in the land and trade in it, for behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them our daughters. 22 Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us to become one people—when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. 23 Will not their livestock, their property and all their beasts be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will dwell with us.” 24 And all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city. 25 On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. 26 They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. 28 They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field. 29 All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered. 30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.” 31 But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?” Footnotes [1] 34:8 The Hebrew for your is plural here [2] 34:12 Or engagement present (ESV) Mark 5 (Listen) Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon 5 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.1 2 And when Jesus2 had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. 14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed3 man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus4 to depart from their region. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled. Jesus Heals a Woman and Jairus's Daughter 21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?'” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” 35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing5 what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus6 saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. Footnotes [1] 5:1 Some manuscripts Gergesenes; some Gadarenes [2] 5:2 Greek he; also verse 9 [3] 5:15 Greek daimonizomai (demonized); also verses 16, 18; elsewhere rendered oppressed by demons [4] 5:17 Greek him [5] 5:36 Or ignoring; some manuscripts hearing [6] 5:38 Greek he (ESV) In private: Job 1; Romans 5 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) Romans 5 (Listen) Peace with God Through Faith 5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we1 have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith2 into this grace in which we stand, and we3 rejoice4 in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Death in Adam, Life in Christ 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men5 because all sinned—13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass6 led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness7 leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Footnotes [1] 5:1 Some manuscripts let us [2] 5:2 Some manuscripts omit by faith [3] 5:2 Or let us; also verse 3 [4] 5:2 Or boast; also verses 3, 11 [5] 5:12 The Greek word anthropoi refers here to both men and women; also twice in verse 18 [6] 5:18 Or the trespass of one [7] 5:18 Or the act of righteousness of one (ESV)

Psalms and Wisdom: Psalm 119:1–88 Psalm 119:1–88 (Listen) Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet Aleph 119   1 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,    who walk in the law of the LORD!2   Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,    who seek him with their whole heart,3   who also do no wrong,    but walk in his ways!4   You have commanded your precepts    to be kept diligently.5   Oh that my ways may be steadfast    in keeping your statutes!6   Then I shall not be put to shame,    having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.7   I will praise you with an upright heart,    when I learn your righteous rules.28   I will keep your statutes;    do not utterly forsake me! Beth 9   How can a young man keep his way pure?    By guarding it according to your word.10   With my whole heart I seek you;    let me not wander from your commandments!11   I have stored up your word in my heart,    that I might not sin against you.12   Blessed are you, O LORD;    teach me your statutes!13   With my lips I declare    all the rules3 of your mouth.14   In the way of your testimonies I delight    as much as in all riches.15   I will meditate on your precepts    and fix my eyes on your ways.16   I will delight in your statutes;    I will not forget your word. Gimel 17   Deal bountifully with your servant,    that I may live and keep your word.18   Open my eyes, that I may behold    wondrous things out of your law.19   I am a sojourner on the earth;    hide not your commandments from me!20   My soul is consumed with longing    for your rules4 at all times.21   You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,    who wander from your commandments.22   Take away from me scorn and contempt,    for I have kept your testimonies.23   Even though princes sit plotting against me,    your servant will meditate on your statutes.24   Your testimonies are my delight;    they are my counselors. Daleth 25   My soul clings to the dust;    give me life according to your word!26   When I told of my ways, you answered me;    teach me your statutes!27   Make me understand the way of your precepts,    and I will meditate on your wondrous works.28   My soul melts away for sorrow;    strengthen me according to your word!29   Put false ways far from me    and graciously teach me your law!30   I have chosen the way of faithfulness;    I set your rules before me.31   I cling to your testimonies, O LORD;    let me not be put to shame!32   I will run in the way of your commandments    when you enlarge my heart!5 He 33   Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes;    and I will keep it to the end.634   Give me understanding, that I may keep your law    and observe it with my whole heart.35   Lead me in the path of your commandments,    for I delight in it.36   Incline my heart to your testimonies,    and not to selfish gain!37   Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;    and give me life in your ways.38   Confirm to your servant your promise,    that you may be feared.39   Turn away the reproach that I dread,    for your rules are good.40   Behold, I long for your precepts;    in your righteousness give me life! Waw 41   Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD,    your salvation according to your promise;42   then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me,    for I trust in your word.43   And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth,    for my hope is in your rules.44   I will keep your law continually,    forever and ever,45   and I shall walk in a wide place,    for I have sought your precepts.46   I will also speak of your testimonies before kings    and shall not be put to shame,47   for I find my delight in your commandments,    which I love.48   I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love,    and I will meditate on your statutes. Zayin 49   Remember your word to your servant,    in which you have made me hope.50   This is my comfort in my affliction,    that your promise gives me life.51   The insolent utterly deride me,    but I do not turn away from your law.52   When I think of your rules from of old,    I take comfort, O LORD.53   Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,    who forsake your law.54   Your statutes have been my songs    in the house of my sojourning.55   I remember your name in the night, O LORD,    and keep your law.56   This blessing has fallen to me,    that I have kept your precepts. Heth 57   The LORD is my portion;    I promise to keep your words.58   I entreat your favor with all my heart;    be gracious to me according to your promise.59   When I think on my ways,    I turn my feet to your testimonies;60   I hasten and do not delay    to keep your commandments.61   Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me,    I do not forget your law.62   At midnight I rise to praise you,    because of your righteous rules.63   I am a companion of all who fear you,    of those who keep your precepts.64   The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love;    teach me your statutes! Teth 65   You have dealt well with your servant,    O LORD, according to your word.66   Teach me good judgment and knowledge,    for I believe in your commandments.67   Before I was afflicted I went astray,    but now I keep your word.68   You are good and do good;    teach me your statutes.69   The insolent smear me with lies,    but with my whole heart I keep your precepts;70   their heart is unfeeling like fat,    but I delight in your law.71   It is good for me that I was afflicted,    that I might learn your statutes.72   The law of your mouth is better to me    than thousands of gold and silver pieces. Yodh 73   Your hands have made and fashioned me;    give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.74   Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice,    because I have hoped in your word.75   I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous,    and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.76   Let your steadfast love comfort me    according to your promise to your servant.77   Let your mercy come to me, that I may live;    for your law is my delight.78   Let the insolent be put to shame,    because they have wronged me with falsehood;    as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.79   Let those who fear you turn to me,    that they may know your testimonies.80   May my heart be blameless in your statutes,    that I may not be put to shame! Kaph 81   My soul longs for your salvation;    I hope in your word.82   My eyes long for your promise;    I ask, “When will you comfort me?”83   For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,    yet I have not forgotten your statutes.84   How long must your servant endure?7    When will you judge those who persecute me?85   The insolent have dug pitfalls for me;    they do not live according to your law.86   All your commandments are sure;    they persecute me with falsehood; help me!87   They have almost made an end of me on earth,    but I have not forsaken your precepts.88   In your steadfast love give me life,    that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth. Footnotes [1] 119:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem of twenty-two stanzas, following the letters of the Hebrew alphabet; within a stanza, each verse begins with the same Hebrew letter [2] 119:7 Or your just and righteous decrees; also verses 62, 106, 160, 164 [3] 119:13 Or all the just decrees [4] 119:20 Or your just decrees; also verses 30, 39, 43, 52, 75, 102, 108, 137, 156, 175 [5] 119:32 Or for you set my heart free [6] 119:33 Or keep it as my reward [7] 119:84 Hebrew How many are the days of your servant? (ESV) Pentateuch and History: Job 1 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) Chronicles and Prophets: Isaiah 22 Isaiah 22 (Listen) An Oracle Concerning Jerusalem 22 The oracle concerning the valley of vision.   What do you mean that you have gone up,    all of you, to the housetops,2   you who are full of shoutings,    tumultuous city, exultant town?  Your slain are not slain with the sword    or dead in battle.3   All your leaders have fled together;    without the bow they were captured.  All of you who were found were captured,    though they had fled far away.4   Therefore I said:  “Look away from me;    let me weep bitter tears;  do not labor to comfort me    concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.” 5   For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day    of tumult and trampling and confusion    in the valley of vision,  a battering down of walls    and a shouting to the mountains.6   And Elam bore the quiver    with chariots and horsemen,    and Kir uncovered the shield.7   Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,

Proper 15 First Psalm: Psalms 131–133 Psalms 131–133 (Listen) I Have Calmed and Quieted My Soul A Song of Ascents. Of David. 131   O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;    my eyes are not raised too high;  I do not occupy myself with things    too great and too marvelous for me.2   But I have calmed and quieted my soul,    like a weaned child with its mother;    like a weaned child is my soul within me. 3   O Israel, hope in the LORD    from this time forth and forevermore. The Lord Has Chosen Zion A Song of Ascents. 132   Remember, O LORD, in David's favor,    all the hardships he endured,2   how he swore to the LORD    and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,3   “I will not enter my house    or get into my bed,4   I will not give sleep to my eyes    or slumber to my eyelids,5   until I find a place for the LORD,    a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.” 6   Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah;    we found it in the fields of Jaar.7   “Let us go to his dwelling place;    let us worship at his footstool!” 8   Arise, O LORD, and go to your resting place,    you and the ark of your might.9   Let your priests be clothed with righteousness,    and let your saints shout for joy.10   For the sake of your servant David,    do not turn away the face of your anointed one. 11   The LORD swore to David a sure oath    from which he will not turn back:  “One of the sons of your body1    I will set on your throne.12   If your sons keep my covenant    and my testimonies that I shall teach them,  their sons also forever    shall sit on your throne.” 13   For the LORD has chosen Zion;    he has desired it for his dwelling place:14   “This is my resting place forever;    here I will dwell, for I have desired it.15   I will abundantly bless her provisions;    I will satisfy her poor with bread.16   Her priests I will clothe with salvation,    and her saints will shout for joy.17   There I will make a horn to sprout for David;    I have prepared a lamp for my anointed.18   His enemies I will clothe with shame,    but on him his crown will shine.” When Brothers Dwell in Unity A Song of Ascents. Of David. 133   Behold, how good and pleasant it is    when brothers dwell in unity!22   It is like the precious oil on the head,    running down on the beard,  on the beard of Aaron,    running down on the collar of his robes!3   It is like the dew of Hermon,    which falls on the mountains of Zion!  For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,    life forevermore. Footnotes [1] 132:11 Hebrew of your fruit of the womb [2] 133:1 Or dwell together (ESV) Second Psalm: Psalms 134–135 Psalms 134–135 (Listen) Come, Bless the Lord A Song of Ascents. 134   Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD,    who stand by night in the house of the LORD!2   Lift up your hands to the holy place    and bless the LORD! 3   May the LORD bless you from Zion,    he who made heaven and earth! Your Name, O Lord, Endures Forever 135   Praise the LORD!  Praise the name of the LORD,    give praise, O servants of the LORD,2   who stand in the house of the LORD,    in the courts of the house of our God!3   Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;    sing to his name, for it is pleasant!14   For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,    Israel as his own possession. 5   For I know that the LORD is great,    and that our Lord is above all gods.6   Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,    in heaven and on earth,    in the seas and all deeps.7   He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,    who makes lightnings for the rain    and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. 8   He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,    both of man and of beast;9   who in your midst, O Egypt,    sent signs and wonders    against Pharaoh and all his servants;10   who struck down many nations    and killed mighty kings,11   Sihon, king of the Amorites,    and Og, king of Bashan,    and all the kingdoms of Canaan,12   and gave their land as a heritage,    a heritage to his people Israel. 13   Your name, O LORD, endures forever,    your renown,2 O LORD, throughout all ages.14   For the LORD will vindicate his people    and have compassion on his servants. 15   The idols of the nations are silver and gold,    the work of human hands.16   They have mouths, but do not speak;    they have eyes, but do not see;17   they have ears, but do not hear,    nor is there any breath in their mouths.18   Those who make them become like them,    so do all who trust in them. 19   O house of Israel, bless the LORD!    O house of Aaron, bless the LORD!20   O house of Levi, bless the LORD!    You who fear the LORD, bless the LORD!21   Blessed be the LORD from Zion,    he who dwells in Jerusalem!  Praise the LORD! Footnotes [1] 135:3 Or for he is beautiful [2] 135:13 Or remembrance (ESV) Old Testament: Job 1 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) New Testament: Acts 8:26–40 Acts 8:26–40 (Listen) Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch 26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south1 to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:   “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter    and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,    so he opens not his mouth.33   In his humiliation justice was denied him.    Who can describe his generation?  For his life is taken away from the earth.” 34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. 36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”2 38 And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. Footnotes [1] 8:26 Or go at about noon [2] 8:36 Some manuscripts add all or most of verse 37: And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” (ESV) Gospel: John 6:16–27 John 6:16–27 (Listen) Jesus Walks on Water 16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles,1 they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. I Am the Bread of Life 22 On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Footnotes [1] 6:19 Greek twenty-five or thirty stadia; a stadion was about 607 feet or 185 meters (ESV)

Old Testament: Job 1 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 43 Psalm 43 (Listen) Send Out Your Light and Your Truth 43   Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause    against an ungodly people,  from the deceitful and unjust man    deliver me!2   For you are the God in whom I take refuge;    why have you rejected me?  Why do I go about mourning    because of the oppression of the enemy? 3   Send out your light and your truth;    let them lead me;  let them bring me to your holy hill    and to your dwelling!4   Then I will go to the altar of God,    to God my exceeding joy,  and I will praise you with the lyre,    O God, my God. 5   Why are you cast down, O my soul,    and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,    my salvation and my God. (ESV) New Testament: Luke 7 Luke 7 (Listen) Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant 7 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2 Now a centurion had a servant1 who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 3 When the centurion2 heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,' and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,' and he does it.” 9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” 10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well. Jesus Raises a Widow's Son 11 Soon afterward3 he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus4 gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country. Messengers from John the Baptist 18 The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, 19 calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 20 And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?'” 21 In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. 22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers5 are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” 24 When John's messengers had gone, Jesus6 began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings' courts. 26 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written,   “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,    who will prepare your way before you.' 28 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” 29 (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just,7 having been baptized with the baptism of John, 30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.) 31 “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,   “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;    we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.' 33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.' 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” A Sinful Woman Forgiven 36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. 37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” 40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among8 themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Footnotes [1] 7:2 Or bondservant; also verses 3, 8, 10 [2] 7:3 Greek he [3] 7:11 Some manuscripts The next day [4] 7:15 Greek he [5] 7:22 Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13 [6] 7:24 Greek he [7] 7:29 Greek they justified God [8] 7:49 Or to (ESV)

Old Testament: Job 1 Job 1 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 (ESV) New Testament: Philippians 4:2–23 Philippians 4:2–23 (Listen) Exhortation, Encouragement, and Prayer 2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion,1 help these women, who have labored2 side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness3 be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned4 and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. God's Provision 10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. 14 Yet it was kind of you to share5 my trouble. 15 And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. 16 Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. 17 Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.6 18 I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. 19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. 20 To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. Final Greetings 21 Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. 22 All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. 23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Footnotes [1] 4:3 Or loyal Syzygus; Greek true yokefellow [2] 4:3 Or strived (see 1:27) [3] 4:5 Or gentleness [4] 4:9 Or these things— 9which things you have also learned [5] 4:14 Or have fellowship in [6] 4:17 Or I seek the profit that accrues to your account (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 43 Psalm 43 (Listen) Send Out Your Light and Your Truth 43   Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause    against an ungodly people,  from the deceitful and unjust man    deliver me!2   For you are the God in whom I take refuge;    why have you rejected me?  Why do I go about mourning    because of the oppression of the enemy? 3   Send out your light and your truth;    let them lead me;  let them bring me to your holy hill    and to your dwelling!4   Then I will go to the altar of God,    to God my exceeding joy,  and I will praise you with the lyre,    O God, my God. 5   Why are you cast down, O my soul,    and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,    my salvation and my God. (ESV) Proverb: Proverbs 21:23–24 Proverbs 21:23–24 (Listen) 23   Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue    keeps himself out of trouble.24   “Scoffer” is the name of the arrogant, haughty man    who acts with arrogant pride. (ESV)

Morning: Job 1–3 Job 1–3 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Satan Attacks Job's Health 2 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. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 3 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”4 In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job's Three Friends 11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job Laments His Birth 3 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3   “Let the day perish on which I was born,    and the night that said,    ‘A man is conceived.'4   Let that day be darkness!    May God above not seek it,    nor light shine upon it.5   Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.    Let clouds dwell upon it;    let the blackness of the day terrify it.6   That night—let thick darkness seize it!    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;    let it not come into the number of the months.7   Behold, let that night be barren;    let no joyful cry enter it.8   Let those curse it who curse the day,    who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.9   Let the stars of its dawn be dark;    let it hope for light, but have none,    nor see the eyelids of the morning,10   because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,    nor hide trouble from my eyes. 11   “Why did I not die at birth,    come out from the womb and expire?12   Why did the knees receive me?    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?13   For then I would have lain down and been quiet;    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,14   with kings and counselors of the earth    who rebuilt ruins for themselves,15   or with princes who had gold,    who filled their houses with silver.16   Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,    as infants who never see the light?17   There the wicked cease from troubling,    and there the weary are at rest.18   There the prisoners are at ease together;    they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.19   The small and the great are there,    and the slave is free from his master. 20   “Why is light given to him who is in misery,    and life to the bitter in soul,21   who long for death, but it comes not,    and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,22   who rejoice exceedingly    and are glad when they find the grave?23   Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,    whom God has hedged in?24   For my sighing comes instead of5 my bread,    and my groanings are poured out like water.25   For the thing that I fear comes upon me,    and what I dread befalls me.26   I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;    I have no rest, but trouble comes.” Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 [4] 2:10 Or disaster; also verse 11 [5] 3:24 Or like; Hebrew before (ESV) Evening: Acts 7:1–19 Acts 7:1–19 (Listen) Stephen's Speech 7 And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” 2 And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.' 4 Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. 5 Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. 6 And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. 7 ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,' said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.' 8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs. 9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. 11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. 13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. 14 And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. 15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, 16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. 17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt 18 until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. 19 He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive. (ESV)

Job 1–3 Job 1–3 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Satan Attacks Job's Health 2 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. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 3 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”4 In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job's Three Friends 11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job Laments His Birth 3 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3   “Let the day perish on which I was born,    and the night that said,    ‘A man is conceived.'4   Let that day be darkness!    May God above not seek it,    nor light shine upon it.5   Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.    Let clouds dwell upon it;    let the blackness of the day terrify it.6   That night—let thick darkness seize it!    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;    let it not come into the number of the months.7   Behold, let that night be barren;    let no joyful cry enter it.8   Let those curse it who curse the day,    who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.9   Let the stars of its dawn be dark;    let it hope for light, but have none,    nor see the eyelids of the morning,10   because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,    nor hide trouble from my eyes. 11   “Why did I not die at birth,    come out from the womb and expire?12   Why did the knees receive me?    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?13   For then I would have lain down and been quiet;    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,14   with kings and counselors of the earth    who rebuilt ruins for themselves,15   or with princes who had gold,    who filled their houses with silver.16   Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,    as infants who never see the light?17   There the wicked cease from troubling,    and there the weary are at rest.18   There the prisoners are at ease together;    they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.19   The small and the great are there,    and the slave is free from his master. 20   “Why is light given to him who is in misery,    and life to the bitter in soul,21   who long for death, but it comes not,    and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,22   who rejoice exceedingly    and are glad when they find the grave?23   Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,    whom God has hedged in?24   For my sighing comes instead of5 my bread,    and my groanings are poured out like water.25   For the thing that I fear comes upon me,    and what I dread befalls me.26   I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;    I have no rest, but trouble comes.” Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 [4] 2:10 Or disaster; also verse 11 [5] 3:24 Or like; Hebrew before (ESV)

The Question of the Ages—Why? Who’s in Charge, Here? Part 2 Job 1:6-12 (NIV) – [6] One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. [7] The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.” [8] Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” [9] “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. [10] “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. [11] But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” [12] The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. 1. Satan has access to God. (v.6) Zechariah 1:10-11 (NIV) – [10] Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, “They are the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.” [11] And they reported to the angel of the Lord, who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have gone throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.” Genesis 6:1-4 (NIV) – [1] When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, [2] the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. [3] Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” [4] The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. Numbers 13:33 (NIV) – [33] “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” 2. Satan has free reign on the earth. (v.7) Colossians 1:12-14 (NIV) – [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. [13] For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 3. God presents Job to Satan as a challenge. (v.8) 4. Satan charges that Job’s love is conditional. (v.9-11) a. Just as humanity was convinced that God’s blessing was conditional upon one’s good deeds, so Satan was convinced that Job’s obedience was based solely upon God’s protection and provision. John 6:26 (NIV) – [26] Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” b. God places hedges around His people for protection from Satan and from ourselves. Hosea 2:6 (AMP) – [6] Therefore, behold, I [the Lord God] will hedge up her way [even yours, O Israel] with thorns; and I will build a wall against her that she shall not find her paths. c. The LORD blesses the work of our hands. Deuteronomy 2:7 (NIV) – [7] The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything. Psalms 90:17 (NIV) – [17] May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands. d. Satan’s assertion is that in the absence of God’s blessing, Job will quickly resort to cursing. 5. God releases Job into Satan’s hands with limits. (v.12) a. God did not strike Job directly but gave Satan the authority to do whatever he willed. b. Even still, God, in his sovereignty, set limits. c. Though God did not directly cause Job’s suffering, He allowed it to happen, and this is the root of our problem of trying to understand why. d. Satan is limited and under God’s supreme authority.

Series Title: The Question of the Ages—Why? Lesson Title: Who’s in Charge, Here? Job 1:6-12 (NIV) – [6] One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. [7] The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.” [8] Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” [9] “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. [10] “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. [11] But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” [12] The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. 1. Satan has access to God. (v.6) a. The angels regularly present themselves before the Lord. b. Satan’s presence before God is not an odd occurrence. Revelation 12:9-10 (NIV) – [9] The great dragon was hurled down-that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. [10] Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” 2. Satan has free reign on the earth. (v.7) a. God immediately recognized Satan’s identity. b. God in His omnipotence summoned Satan and he doesn’t even know it. c. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, the earth is Satan’s dominion. Matthew 4:8-9 (NIV) – [8] Again, the devil took him (Jesus) to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. [9] “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” d. Satan and his fallen angels are an occupying force on the earth. e. The Kingdom of God is a revolutionary army. 3. God presents Job to Satan as a challenge. (v.8) a. It is God who first broaches the subject of Job. b. God reiterates Job’s character qualities, and He is pleased. c. Though Job’s friends would accuse him of sin, God had already declared him blameless. d. Though suffering has been promised, many times we don’t think we are deserving of any kind of suffering. 1 Peter 4:12-13 (NIV) – [12] Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. [13] But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:12-13 (AMP) – [12] Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality, as though something strange (unusual and alien to you and your position) were befalling you. [13] But insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, so that when His glory [full of radiance and splendor] is revealed, you may also rejoice with triumph [exultantly]. 4. Satan charges that Job’s love is conditional. (v.9-11) a. Just as humanity was convinced that God’s blessing was conditional upon one’s good deeds, so Satan was convinced that Job’s love was based solely upon God’s protection and provision. John 6:26 (NIV) – [26] Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” b. God does indeed place hedges of protection around His people and does indeed bless the work of their hands. c. Satan’s assertion is that in the absence of God’s blessing, Job will quickly resort to cursing. 5. God releases Job into Satan’s hands with limits. (v.12) a. God did not strike Job directly but gave Satan the authority to do whatever he willed. b. Even still, God, in his sovereignty, set limits. c. Though God did not directly cause Job’s suffering, He allowed it to happen, and this is the root of our problem of understanding why. d. Satan is limited and under God’s supreme authority.

Job 1–3 Job 1–3 (Listen) Job's Character and Wealth 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed1 God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Satan Allowed to Test Job 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan2 also came among them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Satan Takes Job's Property and Children 13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants3 with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another 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.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Satan Attacks Job's Health 2 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. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 3 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”4 In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job's Three Friends 11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job Laments His Birth 3 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3   “Let the day perish on which I was born,    and the night that said,    ‘A man is conceived.'4   Let that day be darkness!    May God above not seek it,    nor light shine upon it.5   Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.    Let clouds dwell upon it;    let the blackness of the day terrify it.6   That night—let thick darkness seize it!    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;    let it not come into the number of the months.7   Behold, let that night be barren;    let no joyful cry enter it.8   Let those curse it who curse the day,    who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.9   Let the stars of its dawn be dark;    let it hope for light, but have none,    nor see the eyelids of the morning,10   because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,    nor hide trouble from my eyes. 11   “Why did I not die at birth,    come out from the womb and expire?12   Why did the knees receive me?    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?13   For then I would have lain down and been quiet;    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,14   with kings and counselors of the earth    who rebuilt ruins for themselves,15   or with princes who had gold,    who filled their houses with silver.16   Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,    as infants who never see the light?17   There the wicked cease from troubling,    and there the weary are at rest.18   There the prisoners are at ease together;    they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.19   The small and the great are there,    and the slave is free from his master. 20   “Why is light given to him who is in misery,    and life to the bitter in soul,21   who long for death, but it comes not,    and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,22   who rejoice exceedingly    and are glad when they find the grave?23   Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,    whom God has hedged in?24   For my sighing comes instead of5 my bread,    and my groanings are poured out like water.25   For the thing that I fear comes upon me,    and what I dread befalls me.26   I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;    I have no rest, but trouble comes.” Footnotes [1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 [2] 1:6 Hebrew the Accuser or the Adversary; so throughout chapters 1–2 [3] 1:15 Hebrew the young men; also verses 16, 17 [4] 2:10 Or disaster; also verse 11 [5] 3:24 Or like; Hebrew before (ESV)

It's time for another lightning round! We are always thankful for the questions and comments that come in, but it can be tough to answer them all in the program. So, from time to time we gather together some of the questions that can be answered in short form for a lightning round. This week we go back for questions about our recent Taboo Words video as well as clarifications on the concept of guilt, repentance, and lifting hands in prayer. Check the timestamps to jump to some of our other questions as well. 1:39 - What does Christ mean when he references the altar in Matthew 5:23? 6:25 - Rapture, is it a special event or a generic term? 9:31 - Did God create other gods? 13:58 - Is guilt a sin? What is the difference between feeling guilt and being guilty? 18:52 - Looking at Ezra 18, isn't repentance enough to satisfy God's wrath? Was Jesus' physical sacrifice God's plan? 23:40 - Should we be lifting hands in prayer? 27:24 - Does Job predate the writings of Genesis? Scriptures Referenced: Matthew 5:23, Psalm 51:16-19, Hebrews 13:10, 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Colossians 1:15-17, Ephesians 1:21, Ephesians 6:12, 1 Corinthians 10:20, Isaiah 53:10-11, 1 John 3:19-20, Ezekiel 18, Leviticus 17:11, Hebrews 10:4, 1 John 5:16, 1 Timothy 2:8

Text: Job 1:1, Job 1:6-12 Date: 06-15-2021 Speaker(s): Pastor Will and Marie Robinson  The book of Job gives us a glimpse behind the veil that separates earthly life from the heavenly.  9 Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? (i.e Do we only go to church, pray, sing […]

Job 1:1-3 NIV In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. Job 1:20-22 NIV 20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said: “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” 22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. 1. Never let your emotions dictate your actions. Galatians 5:22-23 NIV 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. James 1:26 NIV 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Job 2:3 NIV 3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” Job 2:10 NIV 10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. 2. Your emotions are a result of your thinking. Job 2:10 NIV 10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. 2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 3. What you prioritize will direct your emotions. Job 1:9 NIV 9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? Matthew 6:31-34 NIV 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?' or ‘What shall we drink?' or ‘What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Questions: 1. What are a couple of habits that you can put into place to keep your feelings from turning into actions? 2. Do you have accountability in place for your thought life? How might you do that? What does it really mean to “take a thought captive”? 3. What are the priorities in your life? Does your life show this? How can you begin to make sure that your daily habits truly reflect your priorities?Discussion Questions: 1. What are a couple of habits that you can put into place to keep your feelings from turning into actions? 2. Do you have accountability in place for your thought life? How might you do that? What does it really mean to “take a thought captive”? 3. What are the priorities in your life? Does your life show this? How can you begin to make sure that your daily habits truly reflect your priorities?