Christian Podcast - What lessons can we learn from Job?

Welcome to episode 255.

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.

Welcome to episode 255. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm continuing to talk about complaining, and I want to talk about how Job handled setbacks in his life. And if you've never read the book of Job, I want to encourage you, it's only 42 chapters, I think, but it is well worth the read. And we are going to get into the first part of this, probably going to be 2 or 3 lessons. On this particular topic, and it's not all going to be about complaining. It's going to be more about just learning from adversity, trying to find how Job handled things, what other people did, how the punk comes into it, all of that. It's very fascinating. If you've never read the book of Job, I want to encourage you, let's dig right in. Well, I want to get right into the teaching, but I really want to first set this thing up because Job and Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are 3 books. They're all part of the wisdom books. I believe this is because these lessons in these books are timeless and they've passed the test of time. And so you can look at these, and when you're reading Job— and I want you to do that, I want to encourage you, I know I can't give homework on the podcast, but it is an important lesson. Job is a wonderful book. I'm going to jump right in. Job 1:1. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil. So right out of the blocks, we have a man that fears God and shuns evil. And there's a couple of things in this story that I just want to— I want to highlight before I read it, and then I want you to kind of picture this. God had this meeting in heaven with the sons of God. I think it's in Job 1:6 where the sons of God are meeting with God, and these are spiritual sons. And when I talk about the Bible being a spiritual book, I didn't write a word of it, and the Holy Spirit is the author. There are many writers, and one of them is not me. What I want to do is I want to dig into this one part because it's important when you're reading this to understand that God has sons. He has spiritual sons and he has physical sons. And I believe Adam and Eve were the physical sons and daughters of God, but Satan, Gabriel, Michael, and a bunch of other angels, they are the sons of God on the spiritual side. So God's got a lot of sons and daughters. God created both of us. He created spiritual angels or beings, and he created physical beings, both of which have the Spirit of God in them. And but the spirit realm, I want you to understand that there is a realm in heaven, or in the spirit I guess is a better way to say the same thing, but it is a realm where that's where God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus now, the angels, all of the demons, that's where they move around in the spirit realm., and then they can manifest. Now, I don't claim to have all this understood, and I can't just describe it all the way out to a T, but we have a physical realm and a spiritual realm, and the devil, Satan, always wants to use the physical realm. And I believe this is important, this is an important lesson, or this is an important key in this lesson, is that God got first pick. God is the Creator. God is sovereign. And we've talked about the sovereignty of God before. He is watching over his word. His word is going to come to pass, and there's nothing that you or I can do about it. But what we can do is we can embrace it, and we can get involved in his word and help bring it to pass. I don't know if we can bring it to pass any quicker. I tell people all the time that if you're listening to this, whenever you're listening to this, Jesus is one day closer of returning today than he was yesterday. I don't know when he's coming back. I think that it's very soon. I do believe— I've been studying this out. I'm not prepared to talk about it, but I do believe the rapture is soon coming, that we are in the last minutes of the last days, if you will. But remember where Peter said, with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years a day. So when you start talking about seconds or minutes in heaven. I mean, you might be talking about an awful long time here on earth. So I'm not even going to try to chase after that rabbit. I've got some other teachings on that that we can link up to maybe, but I just want you to understand there was a meeting in heaven. It's in Job 1:6. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and walking back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And so I wanted to get to that point because in verse 1 it said that Job feared God and shunned evil, and God himself is telling Satan, hey, have you considered Job? And I wanted to get to that because God asked Satan a specific question. He said, where you been? I mean, God knows where Satan was. He's just conversating. God likes talking to his kids. When God asks a question, he's not asking because he doesn't know the answer. God knows the answer. God knows what Satan was doing, but he asked Satan so that he could be involved in the conversation And Satan said, yeah, I've been hanging out on earth, been going to and fro all the earth. And then God said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And I want to stop there. I want you to think about this for a minute. You've got a guy that fears God and shuns evil, and the beginning of all wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And I want you to just picture where Job is. He is fearing God when his sons have a party, he'll go— he goes and makes sacrifices in case they said something bad or did or sinned. I mean, Job is an honorable man, and we learn about that in the first chapter. But Satan is talking to God, and then God says, have you considered my servant Job? So now we're going to read Satan's answer, because yes, he has considered Job, but there's a problem. Satan's got a problem with Job. So Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for nothing? 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 possessions have increased in the land. But now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. And that's where I want to kind of stop this lesson. I want you to just ponder this. I'm going to attach this to the other lessons about complaining. Satan wants us with our mouth. Faith is voice activated, but unbelief is voice activated as well. We have this mouth, we have this communication to where we can say words, and words have power. One of the biggest lies I believe out of the pit of hell is sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words are so powerful. The word of God— I've said this multiple times— But I believe the Word of God is the most powerful thing that you can hold in your hand. And if you can take that from your hand and get it inside of your heart, you will destroy the works of the enemy. And that is why it's so fought against. That's why God wants you in this Word and why Satan does not. Because if you have this Word of God in you— okay, this soapbox moment, if you didn't know it— if you get in this Word and allow that Word to get inside of you it will start growing and it will start taking root and it will grow the fruit of the Spirit. And then the enemy is destroyed. And it is an effortless growth, it's an effortless change, but you have to do two things. You have got to do two things. And we're going to find those two things in Mark. And I've got to chase this rabbit. I love Mark 4. If you've listened to my podcast, you know that I love talking about the parable of the growing seed. And he said that the kingdom of God is as if a man scattered seed on the ground and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself, first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. And I want you to see these things. I, I'm going to put them up on the screen, but if you're driving or working out, I want you to go to Mark 4:26-29, and I want you to read it again for the first time. But I want you to see that we plant the seed. And in the beginning of Mark 4, it talks about the sower who sows the seed. Jesus said that parable. We've talked about it multiple times, but Jesus said that if you didn't understand this parable, how would you understand any of the parables? And the parable— the sower sows the word. And we have got to understand that seeds planted in a garden, or seeds planted in a field, or the incorruptible seed planted in your heart acts the same way. It goes into the heart, it goes into the ground, and it dies and then starts growing. And based on the type of soil that you have, seed does not do the growing. It says right here in verse 28, for the earth yields crops by itself. The earth brings that secret sauce that God has placed in, that life inside that seed. The earth brings it out. It, it, the earth brings forth when it connects with that seed. I don't understand exactly how it all happens, The way that earth reacts with the seed brings out— like, if you put a piece of corn in the ground, the earth brings forth the shoot of corn. And it is incredible, it is wonderful. And I want you to just kind of meditate on that. We're going to get in, we're going to stay in Job for a couple of lessons, but I just want you to picture Job as this man who fears God, and God knows it. God loves Job. God loves you. You are God's favorite. But Job is there on earth doing the best he knows to do, and God calls him out. And Satan says, the only reason Job doesn't cuss you right to his— your face is because you've blessed his hands. You've got a hedge of protection around him. And we're going to talk about that on the next episode. But what Satan wants you and I to do And he succeeds more often than not. Sometimes when I'm driving, I'm bringing my imperfect actions into line with this perfect example of Jesus and this word. And that's the whole reason of this podcast, to tell you I'm not perfect. There's nobody that would ever say, hey, Greg Ryan's perfect, that guy right there, he does everything right. And especially, and if you find anybody that says that, have them talk to my wife. Because she knows that I am not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. You and I both do. But again, this is not about perfection. This walk that we're on is not about perfection. It's about correction, and it's about relationship. And who have you declared as Lord of your life? Are you going to declare the punk? By, by denying Christ is really the only way you would do that. Or if you just were just a fool and said there was no God, and then you would serve this other guy. And he is such a lying, thieving punk. I don't understand why anybody would have anything to do with him, but he's so good at what he does. If you are deceived, you don't know you're deceived. So I'm not going to go down that rabbit trail, but I want you to think about Job was being blessed by God. He had a hedge of protection around him. Satan talked about it. In verse 8, I think, what Satan said, hey, take your hand off of him, he will curse you right to your face. We're going to read in the next episode what happened to Job and what his reaction was. But I want you to remember that Satan wants us to complain. We talked about in Numbers 14, the last episode, how the children of Israel, after they saw all those miracles all those wonders of God, and they started complaining, and they started murmuring, and they started doubting and getting mad at God, and it, it upset Father God to no end. He wanted to mash them right then, and Moses stood in between them as the mediator between God and man. Now we have Jesus. The Bible says since Jesus has come and died for you and I, that he is now our mediator But Jesus is our mediator. When we don't have to stand in judgment to God on things that we've done because Jesus has already done it. And I want to encourage you, I'm going to stop right here because I just looked up the clock, and I want to show you in scripture that Jesus is our mediator and he came as a man and he died as a man, but he was all God. He was 100% God and 100% man. He died a death that you and I should have died, and he paid the price that you and I could not pay. And all we have to do is accept his free gift. If you like this video, hit the like button. And if you have not told on iTunes or on some of these other apps that reviews— I haven't really ever asked for reviews, I don't think, maybe at the very beginning— but if you haven't reviewed, if you're listening to this podcast, if you're a fanatic and you haven't reviewed the podcast, I want to encourage you to review, and one of the reasons I'm here on YouTube as well is so that we can have an interaction. If you want to talk to me, I— we— there's actually comments. I've left them open so you can comment on these lessons and we can have a conversation back and forth. But I just want to pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. God, I thank you for Job. I thank you for Proverbs, and I thank you for Ecclesiastes. I thank you for all the books in the Bible, Lord, but right now we are on Job, and I want to thank you for putting this into the Bible and allowing us to look at it and see how you deal with things and how different people see things differently. 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 in the next episode.

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