Simple Faith

Bill Henry: Today on Simple Faith, we begin a new series in the book of Job. We need to be those instead who are walking uprightly with God through His Word with the aim to please Him as we read through His Word. Not with what Pastor Bill says or what you say, but what does God say in His Word? What pleases Him?

And be like Job and be encouraged here and be, "Hey, you know what? I've been kind of going my own way. I want to go God's way. I want to make that my aim," even though, again, I'm never going to be perfect. The cool part is as you continue to practice, as you continue to practice righteousness as given to us by His Word, as we continue to be filled with the Spirit of God, you're going to see that you're hitting the target more and more and more.

Guest (Male): So you think you've got problems? Well, we don't mean to diminish anything you might be going through, but when you look at what a man named Job went through, it makes a lot of our problems seem rather small in comparison. Today on Simple Faith, we embark on a brand new journey through the book of Job.

What we're going to experience here is the life of a man who had great faith in God and needed every bit of it. Job was described as blameless and upright by God Himself, and yet Job was put to the test as his world fell apart around him. Join us now as Pastor Bill introduces us to this amazing man from the land of Uz, Job, here on Simple Faith.

Bill Henry: The book of Job. Normally, it would be given a date and all these kind of things. We don't know the date that it was written because there is no date given. There are no real references. It's interesting because there's no real reference mentioned to the law nor to the nation of Israel. Most of your scholars believe it predates that, goes back to the time probably around the time of Abraham. That's what most of your scholars say.

He's in the land of Uz, and we don't know where that is either. It's interesting because you'll look and see some people will say that it's here, some people will say that it's there, but we don't really know exactly where it was, somewhere there in the Middle East, probably in the same area roughly of where Abraham was. Now, it's interesting, we don't even really know who the author is.

A lot of people think it was Job that he wrote it himself. Others say that it might have been Moses or Solomon or one of the friends that we're going to read about—so-called friends, I like to say. So, it's a very interesting thing. As we look at the things, though, we're going to kind of be able to put some pieces together. We're going to come upon dinosaurs that are described here in this book.

We're going to see that as the riches are described here, it goes right along with the time of Abraham. Ezekiel talks about this book. James speaks of Job. So, again, the Bible is clear that this is one of the books of the Bible. Most scholars believe the same thing about the theme of this book, and this is—I'm going to quote—it says, "Why do the righteous suffer if God is a God of love and mercy?"

And then the book clearly teaches the sovereignty of God and the need for people to acknowledge this and submit to it. So, again, it's going to be an interesting study, and a lot of us will have questions. Why do the righteous suffer if God is a God of love and a God of mercy? Let's go ahead and dig in. Here in verse one, chapter one: "There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job."

Now, as I said a moment ago, we don't know exactly where this is. Some think the southeast part of the Dead Sea, others say Northern Arabia. Again, we don't know for sure. We do know that it was also called a daughter of Edom in Lamentations 4:21 and referenced in Jeremiah 25. In Jeremiah 25 there, it's also affiliated with the Philistines. So, again, very familiar characters and people groups.

As verse one continues talking about Job, it says, "And that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil." Now, notice that it doesn't say sinless. It is a very important thing to point out. We can sometimes read into things. He was blameless, he was upright, and again, most of your Bible commentators believe this just means he was talking about before men and women.

He was blameless, he was upright. The word blameless means basically without moral blemish or morally whole. He was upright, he was straight. We know because of what the Bible says in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," that even if on the outside he was morally upright and blameless, if you will, still in his heart, as Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount, we know for certain that he sinned.

Now, what's interesting, notice it also says here that Job feared God and turned away from evil. Beloved in Christ, while we're never going to be perfect in this world, may that still be our aim. A lot of people within Christianity, we don't even have an aim. What's your aim? What's your goal? Well, here upon the earth, it should be to bring God glory, to walk with Him, to share the Gospel, to make disciples of all men, but also to be those who are pleasing God, those who are fearing Him and turning away from evil.

In 2 Corinthians chapter five, verse nine, 10, and 11, it says this: "Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciousness."

To make it our aim, to be those who aim to be blameless, morally blameless, biblically upright. Again, we're never going to be perfect like that. The Bible calls this sanctification, to be walking in Christ. I remember years ago a fellow told me, "I know I can never be perfect, so I'm not even going to try." You're just like, "What? What is that?" It's interesting. I like to shoot. Anybody else out there like to shoot?

Guns are just fun to plink around or do different things. Well, if I get out there and I decide, "I don't need to aim. Who needs to aim?" and you start shooting, guess what? The target's over there, but you're not going to hit it. You might hit part of it by luck or something, but with no consistency. We need to be those who live in a world that embraces evil. It embraces evil with parades and sings songs about it.

It puts evil in cartoons and television shows and movies and celebrates it, teaches evil in our schools as normal and good. We need to be those instead who are walking uprightly with God through His Word with the aim to please Him as we read through His Word. Not with what Pastor Bill says or what you say, but what does God say in His Word? What pleases Him?

Be like Job and be encouraged here and be, "Hey, you know what? I've been kind of going my own way. I want to go God's way. I want to make that my aim," even though, again, I'm never going to be perfect. The cool part is, as you continue to practice, as you continue to practice righteousness as given to us by His Word, as we continue to be filled with the Spirit of God, you're going to see that you're hitting the target more and more and more and missing the target less.

It's interesting, the word sin actually means missing the mark, missing the target. So, again, may we be those who are not following after the world but instead turning away from it and living according to how God has shown us as Job was doing. Look at verse two: "There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 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."

So, it's interesting. This reminds us, if you go back and read about Abram, who later became Abraham, it reminds us about how they counted their wealth. It wasn't like, "Oh, he had a million bucks in the bank and he's doing really well." No, he had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels. The first bounty listed here, though, are all their children: seven sons, three daughters. Today, you have more than two or three kids, you start to get really weird looks, even sometimes from people in the church.

It's like, "Whoa, hey, how can you afford that?" You can never afford to have kids. If you're a parent, you know this. I remember years ago a lady told us, "You can never afford to get married, but do it anyway. And you can never afford to have kids, have kids anyway." God told us, it's interesting, to go forth and multiply. So, again, back in these days, they were counted as blessings.

Today, it's such a wicked, wicked scheme of Satan that in a lot of people's eyes, you've kind of fallen victim to that. "Oh, kids are a bane, kids are a curse." Yeah, to the person who's selfish and conceited and self-centered, they are. But to the one who's a Christian and walking after Jesus, they are a total blessing. Now, notice he also possessed tons of livestock. Seven thousand sheep, that would have been for food and clothing.

Three thousand camels, that would have included transportation, and you could also milk the camels. Five hundred yoke of oxen, which actually means yoked together, so that's a thousand oxen, and that would have been food and field workers. And then 500—it's interesting that it says female donkeys—they might have had male donkeys too, we don't know, but that would have been transportation as well as some field work perhaps.

He had many servants, and notice he's called here the greatest of all the people in the East. Verse four goes on to say, "His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send an invite to their three sisters to eat and drink with them." So, we don't know if this is maybe their birthdays, they'd come together and celebrate their birthdays, or if they had a certain day of the week or month that they'd come together.

"Hey, come on, we're getting together. We're going to eat. We're going to drink." To me, this intimates that they were a close family. It wasn't like they're getting together with everybody else. "Let's get together as a family." I really think that's kind of neat. But at the same time, we're going to see later that Job didn't seem to be included with that, which is kind of interesting to me as well, because even there it just says they'd invite the brothers and sisters.

Look at verse five: "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." So, he'd offer at least 10 burnt offerings, one for each one. "For Job said, 'It may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' Thus Job did continually." I love this.

He was afraid that his children may have sinned even in their hearts. In those days, you could make offerings for their kids, trying to, just like the priests and the Levites would lift up offerings to the Lord on behalf of the people. So, Job did this continually, thinking notice we're told here that perhaps maybe they cursed God in their hearts. So, he would continually get up early and offer these burnt offerings to the Lord.

Man, what a great example for us who are Christian parents. The world says, "Raise them and get rid of them. Now it's time for us to go have fun as parents again." I've had people tell me that. It's trippy. Even recently, I have people tell me, "Oh, I can't wait until the kids turn 18, we kick them out, we move on." But as we see here, even with Job, his children were older, but he still went to go out of his way to bless them and pray for them and to sacrifice for them.

Like it or not, I firmly believe this as a Christian, if you're a parent and then a grandparent if you're blessed in that way and a great-grandparent, God wants to use you to bless your children, to bless your grandchildren. And that means sacrifice. Sometimes it might mean sacrificing this or that, but to just seek to give them to the Lord. I have a friend of mine, I just went to lunch with him yesterday, and a couple of his kids have walked away from the Lord and he has grandkids.

Not babies, but they have cell phones now, they're like 12, 13, 14. He goes, "Man, Bill, I love having the cell phones because now I'm planting seeds all the time, every day." He's sending them scriptures, sending them things, praying for them. That's what a part of what a parent is to be doing even with our grown-up children, to seek to bless them but mainly especially to be a godly example of what a Christian man, what a Christian woman is, how a Christian man, how a Christian woman acts.

Not how the world is telling us to do it. Today, they're sissifying the men, they're making the girls into men, and it's just like this whole hodgepodge where they don't even know what's a man, what's a woman anymore. When you have one of the Supreme Court ladies on the Supreme Court, can't even define what a woman is. Well, we clearly can do that, not because we know better but because God tells us. And so we don't have to be confused.

To raise men as God has shown us to do in His Word, to raise women as God has shown us to do in His Word, but even when they get to that point of when they're older, again, we need to love them. We should never outgrow being a mom and a dad. Years ago when I was in college, we always at 11 o'clock made it a point to go watch Love Boat together. A bunch of us people would meet in the cafeteria and they'd put Love Boat on the TV.

I'll never forget one of the wisest things I ever heard on that. It was this dad was trying to hang out with his son, I think it was, and they're having fun and all his friends were there and there came this whole thing where the dad's saying, "I just want to be your friend. I just want to be your friend." And the guy says, "Dad, I already have a lot of friends. I need a dad." A lot of us, we want to be our kids' friends, and you can be friends with your kids, but they need a dad, they need a mama.

A godly dad, a godly mom. Let me go a step further, a biblically godly man and a biblically godly parent to show them how to live and show them how to be a Christian woman, to be a Christian man. And so don't be afraid. On the other hand, be careful though, too, of not trying to play the Holy Spirit in their lives. Because a lot of times we as parents can, "Oh, I can't let them fall. Oh, I can't let them do this and this."

You know what? If they're out there and they're doing their thing and they're falling, let them fall. Let them fall, just like you and I did at certain times, because God is still there. Don't forget that God is at work. You and I are not the Holy Spirit. So, it can be a hard balance, don't get me wrong. You're praying for them, you're fasting for them, you're letting them know, but at the same time, they have to choose to follow Christ themselves.

They have to repent of their own sins. They need to choose that for themselves. But even if they do, you're still praying for them, still fasting for them, still loving on them for Jesus. So, I just love how he was doing this. Now look at verse six: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them."

Now, the sons of God here would be the angels that are in heaven. These are the unfallen angels, by the way. And it's interesting to note that it says and Satan also came among them. It was not a surprise, but he was kind of not welcomed there because now he is a fallen angel at this point. But we do remember that Satan is a fallen angel. And after the fall in the garden, basically Adam and Eve handed over the stewardship of the world to Satan.

The Bible basically says whoever we obey, that's who our master is. In 2 Corinthians chapter four, verse four, we read, "Whose minds the god of this age has blinded." The god of this age even today is still Satan. He's the false god of this world. And so when you see so many dark things happening today, when you see so many celebrating—what, was it just yesterday I read about how Israel was having these big huge gay pride parades and different things the last few days?

And you see the wickedness. It's around the world because, again, he is the one who blinds the mind and he is the god of this age. He's also what's called the accuser of the brethren. Revelation 12:10 says, "Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down.'"

Now, this will be probably at the midpoint or before that of the tribulation because all of a sudden Satan's going to go crazy. He knows his time is short. But even right now, he's still going coming forth from heaven to earth and basically still falsely accusing the children of God, which is what he's going to do or he's doing here with Job. It's going to be very interesting because we're going to see actually two false accusations from him.

Now, it's interesting though because even in the midst of knowing that right now Satan is falsely accusing us probably before God, we need to remember that we have an intercessor before God. I love Romans 8:34: "Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Remember that more powerful is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

We don't fear Satan. We fear God in a righteous way, in a holy way. We don't fear Satan. We respect him as a fallen angel, but man, Jesus is on our side. Remember that. Now look at verse seven: "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.'"

So, it's interesting that here he is, he's walking to and fro around the earth, up and down on it. We read in 1 Peter chapter five, verses eight and nine, "Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Resist him steadfast in the faith." So, again, we remember that Jesus Christ is so much more mighty than Satan.

Satan isn't even like an ant compared to an elephant to God. That's even a close thing. It's crazy. So, remember that. But he is going around. Be careful because he loves to deceive. He's the father of lies. Do you think it's coincidental that you see continual lie after lie after lie, especially from the people on what we call the far left, because they're of their father the devil, of the lies?

Look at verse eight: "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.'" I have to say that I love how the Lord describes Job here. Notice he calls him "my servant Job." There's a familiarity there. To me, there's a fondness in saying that. "This is my servant Job, bro." And then He goes on and I think He's very proud of Job.

Guest (Male): This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today, we brought you a message from Pastor Bill from his series in the book of Job. It's our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you heard from Pastor Bill today. And if you'd like to share today's message with someone, it's available at our website to either watch or listen, and you can even download an audio MP3 version.

We have a large number of Pastor Bill's messages archived, and you can find them all at simplefaith.org. That's simplefaith.org. Click the media tab. And if you'd like to contact us, just click the contact tab on our website, and there's a tab at the top of our homepage where you can also send us a prayer request. You can also call us at the church at 833-BY-GRACE. That's 833-294-7223.

And if you'd like to write to us, our mailing address is Post Office Box 55, Battleground, Washington 98604. Here at Simple Faith Calvary Chapel, we have two services on Sunday morning at 9:00 and 10:45 and a great time of study in God's Word Wednesday night at 7:00 PM. We'd love to have you come visit us, and make sure you say hi to Pastor Bill and let him know you listen to Simple Faith.

For more information and directions, go to simplefaith.org. And you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to join us next time as our series in Job continues here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry. And be sure to join us for the Saturday edition of Simple Faith and our series in 1 Thessalonians. This program is brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington.