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Guest (Male): Revealing what the Bible says is needed to stand against the enemy. Here's Pastor Tom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: You know in Revelation it says they overcame the enemy by their testimony and the word of God and that they did not love their life unto death. They're not afraid of dying. If you're not afraid of dying, there's really nothing Satan can do to you. If you're saved and you love the Lord, you love the word, and you not afraid of dying, that's what Revelation says. That's what gives you protection. Not afraid to die.

Guest (Male): Someone has said that if you're not ready to die, then you're not ready to truly live. The devil knows this and seeks to use our natural fear of suffering and death against us. But there's a way to defeat this strategy. We'll hear more about this and more as we continue in the book of Job today on Study the Word with Pastor Tom Keller. Starting with being very careful about assigning blame from Job chapter 1 verse 22. Here's Pastor Tom.

Pastor Thom Keller: To all this Job did not sin, nor did he blame God. In all of this Job did not sin by blaming God. Now this is very telling. You may skip over this, but think about what it says. Here we discover that it is a sin to blame God. There are a lot of people that blame God, aren't there? Maybe you blame God for something. I've heard a lot of people tell me they blame God for what has happened in their life. A man that I met, his brother died, and he blamed God, and he and God didn't talk for 20 years.

And it ended in talking to him and suggesting that he asked God to forgive him for having held that against him all those years. And that was the starting point of that relationship. So the takeaway here is when things go wrong, don't blame God because you can dismiss it, but it is a sin. And sin gives Satan an open door in our lives. So just be careful. When things go wrong in your life, don't blame God. And if you've done this, if there's something in your past that you still blame God for, I would strongly suggest you pray about that, confess it as sin to God, ask God to forgive you, and he will, and let God be God, and let him explain to you when you get to heaven why what happened happened.

Because he will have an explanation. You know, God is not in heaven afraid of you getting there because he can explain why what happened to you happened to you. Let's say it again. God is not in heaven afraid of you showing up because he he won't be able to explain to you why what happened happened. You will understand for the first time what was going on, what was really going on in the background of all of that. So try not to to blame God. Then going on to chapter 2, it says one day the angels came again to present themselves before the Lord.

And Satan the accuser came with them. Where have you come from? The Lord asked Satan. Now we don't know the time frame here. Could be an hour, could be a day, a week, a year, several years. We just don't know. And Satan answered the Lord, I have been going back and forth across the earth watching everything that is going on. Now those are the exact same words as in chapter 1 except the angels came again. Except for that, the exact same words. And you know it made me wonder. It sounds like this is kind of a standard question and answer period between God and Satan.

This is maybe a standard exchange that takes place before before God. Satan, where were you today? I've been looking patrolling. The the the Hebrew really means I've been patrolling the earth watching everything that's going on. So what does that mean today if he's patrolling the earth watching everything that's going on? He has a lot of opportunities with all that he sees. Verse 3 it says, Then the Lord asked Satan, have you noticed my servant Job? He's the finest man in all the earth, a man of complete integrity. By the way, these are the exact words from the first chapter.

A man of complete integrity. He fears God and will have nothing to do with evil. Now it changes. This is addition. And he has maintained his integrity even though you persuaded me to harm him without cause. Same words except even though you persuaded me to harm him without cause. And Satan is already for this, isn't he? He's already. He lost his bet with God because he said, if you let me take every all of his possessions away, he'll curse you to your face. So he lost his bet with God. And so Satan isn't the smartest man in the room like he thought he was.

He thought he was going to get God on this one, and Job came through. But Satan is not done with Job yet. In verse 4 he comes back with his reply. Satan replied to the Lord, skin for skin. He blesses you only because you bless him. A man will give up everything he has to save his life. Now this isn't in my notes, but just think about that. This was Satan's thinking then. This is Satan's thinking now. A man will give everything up he has to save his life. You know I'm thinking of this as I'm talking, but I love what I do.

I love being a pastor. It's such an honor to sit with people when they're going through life threatening illnesses and talk with them and pray with them about that, to anoint them. It's such an honor. But to think about the fact that when these illnesses hit them that Satan's strategy is that a man will give up everything he has to save his life. That when someone comes down with cancer, Satan looks to that man and says he'll give up everything he has to save his life. He'll do anything he has to to save his life.

And so you know if that ever happens to you, what a challenge that is for us to live a a godly life through that trial. Because you know what he's thinking. You know what he's thinking. You know in Revelation it says they overcame the enemy by their testimony and the word of God and that they did not love their life unto death. They're not afraid of dying. If you're not afraid of dying, there's really nothing Satan can do to you. If you're saved and you love the Lord, you love the word, and you not afraid of dying, that's what Revelation says.

That's what gives you protection, not afraid to die. And then verse 4 again, skin for skin. Commentators talk about that what no one's really sure what that means, skin for skin. Does he mean the skin that he's going to take away, the the blisters of boils he's going to get on his skin? But to me it always made sense, skin for skin. He blesses you only because you bless him. A man will give up everything he has to save his life. Take away his health and he will surely curse you to your face. And Satan knows us so well.

We'll talk about that in a moment. You know when this is seen as taking place here, I picture Ebenezer Scrooge being put to the test on this one. Imagine Ebenezer Scrooge converting all of his assets to gold coins. And he's holding them in a box in his arms. And Satan comes up to the table. And Satan says, Ebenezer, would you give up all that you own, all of your gold for your job? No. Would you give up would you give up your gold for your brothers and sisters? No. Would you give up all your gold for your children?

No. Would you give up all your gold for your wife? No. Would you give up all of your gold for your life if you're going to die in 1 minute? Probably yes, right? So Satan's attack here is pretty accurate. You know, you take a greedy man and he probably wouldn't give up his assets for anything but this to save your life. There's a lot to this. And it's true. It's true for us too. A loss of health, a threatening life condition causes and I have seen this being a pastor, it'll cause you to ask questions you've never asked before.

It will. It'll cause you to go places you've never been before, dark places. It'll cause you to question things you never questioned before. And Satan knows this. But once again, Satan cannot touch your health unless God allows it. Remember that. Satan cannot If you're a believer, Satan cannot touch your health unless God allows it. But can you get sick otherwise? Can you get sick without Satan creating it, organizing it, masterminding it? Of course. As an example, let's say there are 50 people in a room. And you knowingly put yourself in that room for 48 hours and all of those people have the flu except you or something else that might be going around at the present time.

So 50 people have the flu. You're in the room for 48 hours with them. Will you get the flu? Probably. Why? Did God Did Satan send it? Well he might have sent the idea to go into the room, but he didn't send it. No. You you made a choice to go into a place you shouldn't have gone into. He didn't need to. Did God give you the flu? No. You exposed yourself to the flu. And here's the truth. Because we are human and because Adam sinned, you and I are exposed to death and illness and decay that entered the world the day Adam and Eve ate of the fruit.

That's a part of the curse. In fact that's called the curse. And cancer is a part of the curse. You can get cancer passively without either Satan or God giving it to you. But the trump card is on this passivity. On this passivity getting cancer is Romans 8:28 trumps the cancer, right? Romans 8:28 trumps the cancer. If God can't use the cancer for your good, he won't send it. If God What does Roman 8:28 say? All things work together for good to those that love the Lord and enter the call according to his purpose. All things.

Some people say that's a little too all inclusive. It's totally inclusive, everything. All things. Did you ever look up the word all in Hebrew or Greek? You know what it means? All. All things work together for good. So you get cancer. God can use this for my good. And And again I've often said this to people, and here's here's the proof of that. If the word of God is true, and it is, and that means if you get cancer and you die at the age of 45 or 35 or whatever that age is 5 or 10 years from where you are right now or 95 in my case, and you die and you go to heaven and you say God, you said all things work together for good.

I got cancer. How did that work out for my good? And he's going to show you how that worked out for your good. And you know I've said this before. I think that's one of the reasons we're going to fall down on our face and worship the Lord in heaven because I believe I not saying I'm right in this. It's just what I believe. I believe in heaven all those things that we don't understand why they happen they're going to be made clear to us up there. And we're going to be so sorrowful for doubting God, questioning God, not believing that promise when we see what he did.

Well so let's say you die at the age of 55. You have children, grandchildren, and you get to heaven and you say God, why? I never really got to enjoy my grandchildren. Why? And God says, well let me just show you how things would have played out. And he runs this side and he runs that and runs out and he says as a result of you dying at 55 and your children, your grandchildren being at your funeral service, your one daughter, your one son accepted Christ at the funeral service, we were going to lose them.

They were going to become so prosperous and so wealthy that they were they were headed down that track and they were never coming back. This was the moment. Now here's the question. If Jesus says this to you, here's a question. Are you glad you came at 55 or would you rather them have made it to 80 and know that your son and daughter in hell? See he'll have that for everything we don't understand. There's a reason all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and have the call according to his purpose.

He will have a reason. And if I'm wrong, if I'm wrong, then God's going to owe people apologies in heaven. Oh I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was so afraid of the day you were coming. I I You know the angels said it was in a month, and then it was a week, then it was 3 days. I thought oh what am I going to say when he gets here? Cuz man back in 2014 that thing happened to you and I tell you what happened, I was I was in Spain. There was this uprising in Barcelona.

It was horrible. And And I had to be there to to put this thing down. And I saw you in trouble and but I was in I but I had to do this thing in Barcelona. I saw you in trouble, so I settled it real quick. I was flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Top speed. I got to New Jersey. And bang, I missed it. I missed you by 38 seconds. I'm sorry. I just couldn't get there in time. You think it's going to happen? You think God's going to owe anybody an apology? No. We're going to owe the apology.

And that we doubt it and that we question cuz all things work together for for good. And as I said, cancer is a part of that curse. And I believe that this would be any illness that could eventually take you out. I did add something here on anointing. So some of you have not heard this before. I thought you know this is a good place to do this because this could save your life someday. It could save the life of your child. It could save it could heal you of cancer someday. While we're on life threatening illnesses, this is a good place to cover this.

And this is from James chapter 5. Some of you know right away where I'm going with this. And this is anointing with oil for healing. So listen to what James chapter 5 says. It says James chapter 5 verse 14, are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. And their prayer offered in faith will heal the sick. And the Lord will make them well. And anyone who is committed sins will be forgiven. So just listen closely then.

Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and they will anoint them with oil and pray for them in the name of Jesus. This is the only scriptural remedy God gives in the New Testament for healing. Is it? There's no other There's no other prescription for healing. James chapter 5. Now before we dig into this, I want to ask you a question. Do you think there's anyone that's ever been anointed with oil that was healed that would not have been healed otherwise? Do you think that's true? Or do you think everybody would have been healed anyway?

Well if you think everybody would have been healed anyway, then why is it in there? Right? It serves no purpose if everybody would have been healed anyway. So we know logically there are some people that get healed physically healed from James chapter 5. What it also says is that they should call for the elders of the church. What's really cool about that is this is not a gift of healing given to a person. Uh someone doesn't run around and say I have the gift of healing. I can heal you. No. It comes with an office in the church just by being an elder.

That office has the ability to anoint with oil. And what I've said, and some of you heard this before and I apologize, but what it does is it brings closure to what your responsibility is to before God. Remember I said when you get sick, you ask questions you never asked before. It'll take you places you've never been before. Here's one of the questions you ask. Probably you will say God, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? Because what's my responsibility before God with this illness? Will we go to the doctors?

We should. That's why babies die of burst appendixes because they pray to God and don't go to doctors. You should go to a doctor. You should pray. But you should also consider James chapter 5 because what I started with was that understanding there are some people that would not have been healed. There are some people that were cured of cancer that would not have been had they not been anointed. We have anointed a lot of people through the years. We've anointed a lot of people through the years. And we just had within last 2 weeks a woman came up and said we anointed her.

They had a cat scan, x-ray, something, and it showed a mass. We anointed her. She went back. They took it took the image again. He said this is a miracle. It's gone. There's nothing on your screen. We've seen that multiple times, that same story. So I just encourage you. And the article that I handed out there says anointing with oil may be for you. It says actually the word James uses for sick is a Greek word which means to lose strength. There are many experiences in life that cause us to lose strength, not just physical illness.

There are a wide variety of sicknesses we may experience in life, emotional, psychological, spiritual as well as physical. The brother and this was written by Galen Hackman who's a brother and pastor. The brother and pastor is minister a manual list of variety of times when seeking anointing might with oil might be appropriate when experiencing decline in health, suffering a disease, an injury, illness, when dealing with depression or disillusionment, before a scheduled surgery, before making a weighty decision, after receiving a word of a terminal illness, after a marriage separation or divorce, after a miscarriage or death of a loved one, when losing a job, when there's brokenness in a relationship, when answering the call to a new ministry or making significant commitments of service to lay hold of God's promise for forgiveness when increased faith is needed.

Again it says it means when they're sick to lose strength. So I encourage you to keep this in mind. You have a friend. Listen, when Jesus healed people, did they first have to profess that I put my faith and trust in you Jesus and I'm going to tithe to the 12 disciples after God? Did they have to do that? No. He healed indiscriminately, right? And what did his healing accomplish? It caused them to have faith in him, right? So my point is if I were you, if you work with someone and they're not a believer and they have a son that gets very ill or their wife gets very ill or their husband gets very ill, I would say there's a verse in the Bible that talks about being anointed with oil and that God would use that to heal.

If you want, I could If you come to church on Sunday, I could have one of our pastors anoint your son with oil for healing. You know what that could accomplish in the life of that person to have that done? Listen, you know this. Many of you know this, but some of you might not. If you're in a work setting and there's someone you've worked with for a whole bunch of years and they are openly hostile to the gospel, you can't talk to them about Jesus. I'll give you an example. If you have someone in a work setting and they're close to the gospel and something comes up where there's an illness that's touching them them or a family member, especially a child, that's an open opportunity to pray with them.

Ask them if you can pray. I've never had anybody say no. No one's not hard. No one's not hard. But the anointing is the same thing. You say well they're not even a believer. That was my earlier point. They don't have to be. It's an opportunity for God to get the glory through what happens. Suggest it. Suggest it. It may be the beginning of a relationship with the Lord. Now on the anointing, what it does is it brings closure to what your responsibilities before God. It allows you to say I've done everything God has wanted me to do and now this is surrendered to the Lord.

So I tell people this, can it ever be wrong to pray for somebody's salvation? No. Can't be wrong. That's God's will. You know it's God's will for them to be saved. Doesn't mean they will be, but you know it's his will. Is it always God's will for every person to be healed of an illness? Good answer. Good answer. Some say yes, and that gets him in a lot of trouble down the road. You got to be very careful of that one. But no, you don't know if it's his will. So here's the dilemma. In James chapter 5 we're supposed to pray for healing.

But we don't know if it 's God's will for that person to be healed, right? He may have a a different plan than the healing. So here's here's the reality. So when we pray, I say I say we're going to pray in faith believing that God's going to heal you of this cancer. And we all know he can. He created all that is seen and unseen in 6 days. He can heal you of this cancer. There's no question he can heal you. So we're going to pray in faith believing that he will or allowing him to do something even better if he chooses to do something better instead.

Guest (Male): Some practical guidance there from Pastor Tom Keller on prayer. You'll have more to say on this critical issue. And we'll have that for you next time on Study the Word. Would you like to give this a second listen? Either go to our website at ccleb.com or visit our YouTube page. Simply subscribe to our channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. And you can watch our services live or on demand. For those interested in a CD copy, call us at 717 273 5633. Once again that's 717 273 5633. It takes a team to bring Study the Word to this station and many others like it.

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