Category: Sermons

What are we going to think and say about God when the tough times do come? This week Roger is looking in Job Chapter 19 which will help us examine our response to challenges in our lives.

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Job 19 (ESV)

19 Then Job answered and said:

² “How long will you torment me
    and break me in pieces with words?
³ These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
    are you not ashamed to wrong me?
⁴ And even if it be true that I have erred,
    my error remains with myself.
⁵ If indeed you magnify yourselves against me
    and make my disgrace an argument against me,
⁶ know then that God has put me in the wrong
    and closed his net about me.
⁷ Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;
    I call for help, but there is no justice.
⁸ He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,
    and he has set darkness upon my paths.
⁹ He has stripped from me my glory
    and taken the crown from my head.
¹⁰ He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
    and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.
¹¹ He has kindled his wrath against me
    and counts me as his adversary.
¹² His troops come on together;
    they have cast up their siege ramp^[a] against me
    and encamp around my tent.

¹³ “He has put my brothers far from me,
    and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives have failed me,
    my close friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵ The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;
    I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
¹⁶ I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
    I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.
¹⁷ My breath is strange to my wife,
    and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me;
    when I rise they talk against me.
¹⁹ All my intimate friends abhor me,
    and those whom I loved have turned against me.
²⁰ My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh,
    and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
²¹ Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,
    for the hand of God has touched me!
²² Why do you, like God, pursue me?
    Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

²³ “Oh that my words were written!
    Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴ Oh that with an iron pen and lead
    they were engraved in the rock forever!
²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and at the last he will stand upon the earth.^[b]
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
    yet in^[c] my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷ whom I shall see for myself,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!
²⁸ If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’
    and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’^[d]
29 be afraid of the sword,
    for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
    that you may know there is a judgment.”

Have we ever got into trouble for opening our mouths? This week we are looking again in the book of Job, Job’s personal suffering and how he is questioning God’s wisdom. Roger explains from this passage how we should not rebel against God’s sovereign rule but rather humble ourselves before him in times of trouble.

Apologies for the intermittent audio issues.

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Job 3 (ESV)

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 of^[a] 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.”

Why did Job fear God? What makes Satan’s accusations false? And for us, why do we stay Christians? Have we come before Jesus to ask for His forgiveness? This morning we return to Job 1 to help answer these questions, and apply them in our lives. Roger explains.

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Job 1 (ESV)

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 cursed^[a] 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 Satan^[b] 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 servants^[c] 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.