Christian Podcast What lessons can we learn from Job losing everything

Welcome to episode 256.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm continuing to talk about Job. I know you're fired up about it as I am, but the reason I'm talking about Job is because I can see myself in Job. And there's a lot of things going on, and I've— one of the things, because I've struggled on whether I was going to tell this story or not, but I have a hard time seeing myself as righteous, not in God, but in the way I live, because I make so many mistakes during the day or during life or during the week. I just feel like— and I hear that voice, that condemning voice inside of my head that's constantly saying, "Well, see, you got a YouTube channel. You've got a podcast. You're trying to say something that you're not." Really what I want to tell you is I am nobody special. I do believe that I am God's favorite, and I've told you multiple times that you are God's favorite. If God had a refrigerator in heaven, your picture would be all over it. God has a lot of favorites. God knows the end from the beginning. God is all-knowing. He's all wisdom. God knows everything, and I believe that God singled out Job on purpose. I don't think anything happens by accident. Some things happen because of man's free will. And I think that man has a way of making God look bad or making Satan look good, or however you want to look at that. But there's a lot of times when you and I do things that we give credit to Satan or we give credit to God when it's really just you and me. And I am just a man. I've told you this before. I am just a guy. I'm an ordinary guy who follows after an extraordinary God. When I fell on that chief cornerstone that Jesus said that he is, the chief cornerstone of this building, that this foundation that's set, that Jesus is the chief cornerstone— if I fall on that rock, then I will be broken. But if that rock falls on me, I will be crushed to dust. And in the previous episode, I talked about how Satan told God that if you would just take away all this blessing, this edge of protection, and you put your hand on him and take all this away, that Job would curse you to his face. And we looked at in the couple episodes ago about Numbers 14 how the children of Israel We're complaining to God, and God heard it. And complaining is not a good thing by any means, and it is what Satan uses to undermine our relationship, I think, with God. Now, you're, you know, the once saved, always saved. I'm not going to chase that rabbit. But the righteousness and the gratitude and the thankfulness, I just believe that it is something that God just enjoys. Every morning I thank God for what he's done for me. I thank him for my family. I present myself a living sacrifice. I've told you this multiple times, but in Romans 12:1, it— where Paul says, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present yourself a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And it is the falling on the altar and dying to self, you know, and it brings in all kinds of other scriptures. But James 4:7 again says, submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. God allows Satan to put his hand on Job's stuff. I want to remind you of God's character. God sees the end from the beginning. So nothing ever takes God by surprise. You're never going to surprise God. God's never going to say, oh, I didn't see that coming. God sees everything. I don't know if you ever watch Marvel, the comic strips. I grew up with the Marvel comic strips, but some of the Marvel movies— and Doctor Strange was a, is a character in the Marvel. If you've never watched the movie, I'm sorry, I'm just going to use this example. But Doctor Strange, in one of these shows— Doctor Strange, in one scene, shows him going through millions of different scenarios on how this end-of-the-world thing could happen, and he finds only one way that it's going to be good, or one way that they could win it, out of millions of different ways. And I just want— and I kind of saw God in that. Not that I saw God in Marvel, but, you know, you can look— if you look at anything, you can look at trees, you can look at flowers, you can look at movies and songs, even if they're not religious or not spiritual, you know, you can see God's hand on that because God relates to people in stories. And he related to me in that movie, and I saw God. He's able to see the end from the beginning, and he's so much more powerful than Doctor Strange ever thought about being. But God sees everything, every choice that you make. God sees where that path's gonna lead. He knows you've got multiple things that you can pick from. As you pick these paths, he sees the end from the beginning. He knows how it's gonna— he knows how it's gonna play out, but he doesn't stop you. Again, this is the dangerousness of God. He gives you free will to make that decision, and I love that about him. And I love that, and I ask for direction. I do. That's part of my prayer is, God, help me. And I— because I need help. I don't know about you, but I make decisions day in and day out that aren't always building God's kingdom. I make decisions that build my kingdom. I make decisions that give me indigestion sometimes, what I eat. All of those things, we make decisions all the time. God did not lead me to eat hot dogs or chili dogs the other day and make— give me a little bit of indigestion because I put onions and I put sauerkraut. You know, I mean, I just do it. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right. I digress. God tells Satan, and we're going to go to Job 1 This is Job 1:12. And the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not lay a hand on his person. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. And if you read the rest of chapter 1, it is amazing what happens to poor Job. And I want you to remember that when you're reading this story, that Job is a person. If you are a husband and have children and have a wife, and if you love Jesus, and I just want you to imagine all of the stuff, because when I drive down a busy highway and people cut me off, I complain, but I don't complain to God. But if I'm talking to his kids, blasting his kids that just cut me off, God's hearing it. And that's my point. We need to watch the the words that we speak. But if you read the rest of Job, one after the other after the other, Satan goes and takes these things. See, I want you to see in Job 1, Satan uses physical things to create this spiritual response. He's wanting this complaining. He's wanting the words. And again, when I said the biggest lie out of the pit of hell is sticks and stones, may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words hurt people. Words hurt more than a bat in some instances. Now, the bat can take— do physical damage, but words just get in there and they're hidden. And I'm not going to chase that rabbit, but let's just read real quick. Now, there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the oldest brother's house, and a messenger came to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them when the Sabeans raided them and took them away. Indeed, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.' While he was still speaking, another also came and said, 'The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.' While he was still speaking, Another also came and said, 'The Chaldeans formed 3 bands, raided the camels, and took them away. Yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone escaped to tell you.' And while he was still speaking, another also came and said, 'Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.' Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, '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! In all this Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrong. And I'm gonna stop there. That is a lot of reading, and I understand that, but I have superior reading skills, and we've already established that. We cannot have a Bible study without actually reading the Bible. We have got to open up the Word of God, and we have got to talk about this, and I want you to understand that when Satan put his hand, or Satan went about what he was gonna do— remember in John 10:10, the thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. It is the abundant life that God gives. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And I want you to picture— I know I've got to kind of sort of picture things. But if you ever see any stealing, any killing, or any destroying, I want you to personally just kind of mentally picture that Satan has got his business card out and said, yep, that was me. Yep, that's me. And when you see all this wars and the rumors of wars, this is Satan. It's his hand doing this. And I want you to— I kind of want you to just get a feel for that. If we don't get inside this Bible— here's your soapbox moment. And let the Bible get inside of us, then we are going to go to and fro based on what's going on in the world. And we cannot do that. We have got to be grounded on this word. We have got to get this word of God so strong in us that we understand that we're not part of this world. And if this whole world goes away, that our kingdom and our world is coming, and we are going to go to another world. And I know that may be a little deep, or that may be a little too spiritual for you if you're just tuning in, but I want you to come into the idea that God knew Job. He saw the end from the beginning, and he loved Job, but he knew that Job was not gonna curse God with his mouth. I just want you to, to think about there was one thing after the other after the other after the other. There was a lot going on, and I want you to see in that scripture— I want you to go to Job chapter 1. And we're not going to go through the whole book of Job in this lesson and these teachings, but chapter 1 and probably chapter 2 we're going to get into. And then we're going to go to the end of Job. And what God showed me a long time ago is when I kept asking, why, God? Why does that happen? Why did this happen, God? I want you to understand that God is God and that he does not have to answer you or I the question why. Now maybe he has answered to you before, but multiple times I have asked God why and I'm still waiting on the answer. And one of the things that God showed me is the end of Job. So we're not going to spoil the ending in this episode, but I just want to encourage you To get into Job, we're gonna look at this. Job did not sin with his mouth. Job did not complain or curse God. Job was— had a foundation of God being good, and he said, look, good and bad come from God. I'm not sure that's scripturally correct, but I do know that I want you to put yourself into Job's place. If all of these things happen to you, you lost all your money, you lost all your wealth, you lost your whole family, all your kids, would you be able to, to not get upset at God? And I'm gonna leave that there. Job, it makes you think. And that's where this wisdom, you know, the 3 books on wisdom— there's Job, there's Proverbs, and there's Ecclesiastes— and those wisdom books in the Bible, they get you to thinking. When you start reading those books and you can ponder, and you gotta slow it down a little bit, and I, you know, I'm big on just taking our time And so I want to do that. I want to let that percolate, and I want you to think about what's going on here and what just happened to Job, because he's a, he's a real person. Maybe this was just story time, but I believe everything in the Bible is true. And I wasn't here, and I don't know, but I believe this happened. I believe that this happened in the Bible, and I believe someone wrote about it, and that Job was a real person. I just believe that. You and I may get to heaven and we go Ah, it was just a story. But I believe that Job was a real person. I believe he had a real wife, and I believe he had real children, and I believe this happened to him because I see God as trying to teach you and I through his word. Well, that's enough for right now. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for the example that you've given us and us to look at, and I pray for this listener God, I pray that if there's anything that I said that have confused him or her, or if there's anything that I've misstated, I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would correct that and you would make it right with them as they go through their day and as they think about Job and all the stuff that happened to him. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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