Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Good morning. We're going together looking into this book of Job, part of the wisdom literature of the Bible. And you might want to be finding the book of Job. It's not quite as familiar. It hides in a little place that isn't turned to maybe quite as often as the Psalms or some of the Gospels or some of the New Testament books. But we're going to be visiting and revisiting the story of Job.

I'm going to take eight messages based on the book of Job. And being of a somewhat more morbid and pessimistic nature, I have thoroughly enjoyed delving into this book. I have learned many, many things for my own heart's good. And trustfully they will last me in good stead when trouble visits my door and my life.

Not least, I've learned that this is a book about belief in a sovereign God, who is totally good and totally gracious. Now, this book obviously is about one of God's heroes. I say obviously, maybe it isn't very obvious to you and some of you say, "Well, if that's what it takes to be one of God's heroes, I'll just do for one of the little people and forget the accolades that might come to me."

But there is no question about it, Job was one of God's special favorite people. In Ezekiel 14:14, he is mentioned along with Noah and Daniel as a man of righteousness, of goodness, of perfection in the sense of maturity, of as near a perfect example as you can get with a sinful human being. And this man is mentioned by God through the prophet Ezekiel.

He was a real man, for some commentators would have us believe this is a storybook, an allegory, a tale of somebody that didn't exist. And yet scripture itself testifies to the fact that he was a real person. He was an actual historical character. But the biggest thing about Job was that he delighted the heart of God.

In Morris Inch's book, *My Servant Job*, he says this, "We learn much from God's excited estimate of this sage, Job. We will want to look over the Almighty's shoulder to see where his finger points, to appreciate what provoked his enthusiasm, God's enthusiasm, to benefit from his direction concerning this man." And so, I'm inviting you to look over the Almighty's shoulder as he talks about his servant, Job.

Now God, in the presence of heaven's angels and Satan, as we will see in a moment when we read the scriptures, asks a question. He asks the question of Satan, but in the ears of all of the angels of heaven. And this is the question, "Have you considered my servant Job? There's no one on earth like him. No one who fears God like this, no one who shuns evil like him."

Now, if God would have heaven consider his servant Job, he would certainly have earth do the same. He would have you and I. There are few heroes out there these days. Our heroes are tumbling off their pedestals like pin men, like skittles in an alley. And yet we can come back to scripture and hear God say, "Well, do you want to hear about one of my heroes who did not fall off his pedestal?"

So, let's do what we're going to do each time. Let the scriptures speak for themselves. And I'm going to be reading a lot of Job to you. It's something that I don't usually do in my studies, but we are in a wisdom book, we are in poetry, and it can speak for itself so many times, certainly far better than I could speak for it.

But we're going to read the first and the second chapter of the book of Job together because this is the story. And as I said at the beginning, we're going to revisit it eight times, over and over again, and take out of the story, here and in the last chapter, aspects of suffering. Of Job's suffering, yes, but aspects of things he learned. Eight things that he learned that we can use as tools when our turn comes.

Let's start with chapter one. In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless; he was upright; he feared God; he shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their sisters to eat and drink with them. And when a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Job's regular custom.

One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. And the Lord said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" And Satan answered the Lord, "From roaming through the earth, from going back and forth in it." Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There's no one on earth like him. He's blameless, he's upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

"Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You've blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." The Lord said to Satan, "Very well then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself, do not lay a finger." Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

One day when Job's sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the older brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I'm the only one who's escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, "The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I'm the only one who's escaped to tell you."

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, "The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties, swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I'm the only one who's escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, "Your sons and your daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the older brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert, struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead. And I'm the only one who's escaped to tell you."

At this, Job got up, tore his robe, shaved his head, and he fell to the ground in worship and he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised." In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" And Satan answered the Lord, "From roaming through the earth and from going back and forth in it." Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There's no one like him on the earth. He's blameless, he's upright, he's a man who fears God and shuns evil."

"And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason." "Skin for skin!" Satan replied. "A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face." And the Lord said to Satan, "Very well then, he's in your hand. But you must spare his life."

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. And then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. And his wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die." And he replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

Well, I guess he had some sort of a day. I bet it was Monday, right? I don't know about you, but I've never had a Monday like that and please God you will never have a Monday like that. And yet here we have a true story, a true account, a historically accurate story of a catastrophe that happened to a man who was an innocent victim of his situation and circumstances.

We're going to use one of Job's own words. Today, it's going to be "Shall we accept good from the hand of God and not trouble?" The reply to his wife. We will take one verse from Job and burn it into our minds so that we can begin to work on it in our experience. Then we'll be using illustration. First revelation, then illustration. Illustrations in the scriptures are like windows.

I'm going to build a house for you. I'm going to build the structure of a talk. And then I'm going to put windows in it. And windows are intended to let in the light to the talk so that the talk isn't too dull. And we'll find those illustrations from scripture, from other places and other people's experience in the scriptures, from church history, and from modern day experiences of people that have suffered trouble.

Revelation, illustration, thirdly, application. We're going to apply the principles that we've learned to our own lives and our own experience of suffering. And many of you here are not suffering. But there will be, unfortunately, a cold, dark winter ahead for us sometime in each of our lives. And maybe then something from these talks will be a lifeline for you.

Revelation, illustration, application. Today we're going to talk about accepting adversity. Shall we accept good from the hand of God and not accept trouble? Now, if you're going to accept trouble, there's a clue right front up in this verse, upfront in this verse. If you don't know how to give thanks and receive from God good things, you will not know how to receive trouble when it comes.

In other words, there's a correlation. Shall we receive good from the hand of God and not receive trouble? Receiving good in the right sense prepares you to receive trouble in the right way. Man seldom recognizes the source of good gifts. The Bible teaches that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning.

And yet we don't know how to receive the good gifts of life. I have been so conscious after my trip to Asia of coming back to a complaining nation. Everybody's complaining about something. And as far as I can see in our society, everybody is complaining about nothing, having been where I've been and seen what I have seen. And yet I know in my own heart my nature is to gripe and to complain a lot.

When Jesus, God incarnate, God in Galilean cloth, walked our earth, he came upon 10 lepers one day and he healed them all. And he sent them away to tell the priest, "Let the priest declare them clean." One of them, and that a Samaritan, came back. One of them, only one. And Jesus wonderingly said, "Where are the nine? Where are the nine? Where are the nine?"

I often hear him say that to me, "Where are the nine?" And I find myself one of the nine far too often. If we know how to give praise where it is due, we will not be too quick to complain when trouble comes. It's a funny correlation. But we need to start to prepare to accept trouble by accepting the good things God gives us and not taking them for granted every day of our lives.

I would prescribe five minutes of praise. Keeps the devil away. And it doesn't keep trouble away, but it prepares you for trouble. It's a great idea. We live our lives with hands outstretched to rudely grab God's gracious gift, but soon we clench those same hands into fists which we shake at heaven when something we desire is withheld.

Now in Job's wife's view, God was to be roundly condemned for his failure to honor the debt of gratitude he owed to her husband for being such a godly man, for living such a godly virtuous life. She supposed the Lord God was put under an obligation by this life that he lived. Hadn't he obeyed God's law? Hadn't he been faithful? Hadn't he had integrity? But she overlooked this fact and Job had to remind her, "Well, we've received good all our life, nothing ever bad has happened till now. Shall not we receive trouble?" He had to remind her of that.

Now, listen to this for a minute. A true gift isn't given under compulsion but out of grace. If you're going to give something to someone, a true gift isn't wrested out of your hands. You give it out of your heart. You give it freely. And all God's gifts: the gift of life, the gift of health, the gift of food, the gift of harvest, the gift of air, the gift of environment. All God's gifts are gifts of grace. He gave them freely, but they're his gifts, and he has given them.

So, the bestowal of wealth and life and bodily health must lie within the prerogative of him who bestowed the blessings. It's up to him to give or to withhold. In *My Servant Job*, an excellent book on this difficult book of the Bible, the writer says this: "We would do better to assume Job's perspective, to discern the implication of accepting all of life as potentially instructive, enriching, and edifying, rather than angrily shaking our fists at God. We should open our hands to receive all he means to provide for us through the vicissitudes of life."

In other words, he who is quite free to give is quite free to withhold. They're his gifts. But then who but a masochist, you might say, opens his hands to accept suffering? Who's like Job? I'm not. In fact, I remind God every day, I'm not like Job, so don't use me for an example. But this is a book definitely about believers for believers. This does not mean that the book of Job is not for unbelievers.

All scripture is valid for all men and women, believers and unbelievers alike. But suffering is the biggest stumbling block to faith in the world today, isn't it? Suffering. The innocent suffering is the biggest stumbling block of all to the unbeliever. They can generally make no sense out of some of the things we're going to be sharing from the book of Job.

And yet some believers react like unbelievers when trouble comes, as Job's wife reacted. He said, "You're talking like a foolish woman." And the word means like an unbeliever. She was a believer. She was talking like a foolish woman. In fact, it's stronger than unbeliever. It's a blasphemer. That's the word. You're talking like a blasphemer. You're reacting to the innocent suffering, to the suffering victim like an unbeliever would react.

Satan had taken everything from Job, we read about it, except his wife. Have you ever thought about that? "Mm, I'll take his children, I'll take his houses, I'll take his land, I'll take his food, but I'll leave her. Yes, I think I can use her. She can make Job a whole lot more miserable and she will do very well for me." It doesn't say much for the poor lady. And you have to remember she was suffering the loss of her children and her home and her husband and everything else as well.

But the unbeliever reckons anyone who's good and trusts in a God they believe is good and then gets clobbered like Job should blame God for it, should curse God for it, should charge him with wrongdoing. "You're not a good God if you let this happen." He should curse God and die. And this is how non-Christians tend to react to the sight of the innocent suffering.

The believer, however, is supposed to think rightly, to act rightly, and to speak rightly about God in the midst of suffering. God expects the believer to think rightly, to act rightly, and to speak rightly about God. Right at the end of the book of Job, God addresses his comforters, his three friends. And he says, "You have not spoken rightly about me and this subject like Job has."

So Job is an example of thinking rightly, acting rightly, speaking rightly about God as he suffers in the midst of his suffering, in the face of suffering. Now, when I was first converted, I was taught to ask questions of the text and the text would answer me. Who, why, when, what, where? And this is a great method of Bible study. All of us can apply it.

And just to get the facts out of the way, I'm going to do that. Who was this man? Well, we've learned a little bit about him, one of God's heroes. You've got to realize this was the first book of the Bible. This is the oldest book in the Bible. The oldest book in the Bible. And the man who was chosen to be the hero of the very first book of the Bible has to be somebody special. Even Genesis was written by Moses. And this predates Moses.

So we have the greatest man among all the people of the East. Famous not for being famous as some people are today, famous for good reason. Who was he? We know. When did he live? Around the time of the Egyptian captivity. When the children of Israel were in captivity to the Egyptians, Job lived in another area of the Near East. But he was ignorant of Abraham. He was ignorant of the children of Israel. He was ignorant of the history of the Hebrews.

He didn't know anything about the covenant between God and Abraham. And that's a surprise when you think about it. He was a man whom God revealed himself to, as God revealed himself to Noah, as God revealed himself to Adam. There were people, we mustn't presume that God only revealed himself to the children of Israel and their prophets and their people.

There were many people that God was showing himself to. Little pockets of belief, of true belief. People that understood God as deeply and wonderfully as Job understood him. Who had no synagogue, no church, no scrolls, no Bible, no Moses, no Ten Commandments written on slabs of stone. Now some people say, "Well, isn't the Bible revealed bit by bit in ever-increasing revelation? Isn't it a gradual revelation that people at the beginning didn't really know too much and then we got more and more and more?"

No, scripture says the opposite. Scripture says the opposite. God is perfectly able to reveal himself to who he will. How is the record presented to us? In the genre of the day, which is poetry. One reason poetry was used so much, proverbs were used so much, is they're easy to remember. And in a day when there were no written records of the law, the wisdom literature which was a theology in itself—its theology was based on the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, that was the theology of wisdom theology and religion—all of that came down to people, passed on by word of mouth.

And it's easier to remember free verse or poetry than it is to remember a whole chapter of just words. So one of the reasons we have this wisdom literature is so much of it is so ancient and it was the genre of the day. In the Egyptian writings or inscriptions, there is much about this. There was a farmer who was very eloquent and an unprincipled nobleman had deprived him of his donkey and his wares on the way to market.

And the court was so impressed with his impassioned defense of himself—it was so poetic in style, this ignorant farmer—that the governor persuaded his agents to keep him protesting for many days so that all this wonderful poetry that he was using in his defense could be inscripted by the Egyptian writers. And then when he was satisfied he had the man's words down, then he went on with the trial.

Now the point of that is in that culture, even arguing a legal case was argued in free verse. And that of course is very strange for us. But perhaps poetry is used in the book of Job for a bigger reason and that is that poetry is the language of love. And I think that's the best language to use for the message of the book of Job. Before Job suffered, he knew God as a God of power, wisdom, and justice.

But until he suffered, he did not know him as the God of loving grace. And I would like to say that it's been my little experience with the small amount of suffering God has asked me to receive and accept, it's been my experience too. That before those sufferings came, I have known God as a God of power, wisdom, and justice. But when the suffering arrived, I have come to know him as the God of loving grace. And poetry is the language of love.

With my English background and my English literature heritage, I think of Elizabeth Barrett Browning falling in love with Robert Browning, both of them poets par excellence. And Elizabeth Barrett Browning used to write him love letters which fortunately for us have been collected. And one of the most famous is this little love note she penned to him: "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach when feeling out of sight. I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

Now then, doesn't that say it better than "Hi honey, I'm home. What's for supper?" The language of poetry is the language of love. And the message of the book of Job is that God is a sovereign God of power and wisdom and justice, but he is a God of loving grace. And somewhere in this book, there is a little verse that Job says, "I am hearing the whispers of his grace." Among the clang and the clash of suffering, he's hearing the loving whispers of God's grace.

So, here is a man who did not have theological training. And yet he is right with God, does right with things, and puts things right with others. How can this be? He lived in the land of Uz. It's a shadowy land whose existence is confirmed by ancient history, but it's a wild land too, a very wild land. It's a land that's on the frontiers of the inhabitants of the people, and Job chose not to live among civilization but out there.

And he calls God *El Shaddai*. Somehow God has so transmitted knowledge of himself to this man. He knows him as the one who supplies his every need. That is a very special name for God. The nourisher, the supplier. And when you're suffering, that's what you need. You need a God who's going to nourish you. You need a God who's going to supply you what you need. 31 times, Job calls him *El Shaddai*.

*El*: creator, power, wisdom, justice. *Shaddai*: nourisher, supplier. Actually, it's a feminine term—the breast. The breast. The one that I can snuggle up to. And I was reminded of Corrie ten Boom's little phrase, "Don't wrestle, nestle. Don't wrestle, nestle." *El Shaddai*, the God who is enough, the nourisher. And you know Job's three friends—you're going to hear a lot about them—they talk about God. They talk about him.

A lot of words, a lot of good stuff, a lot of true stuff. But Job talks to him. And there's a difference. And that's what suffering does. When you're celebrating, you talk about him. But when you're suffering, you talk to him. And Job knew God, not just about God. Do you know him? He was able to say, "I know that my redeemer lives." Can you say that? Or would you have to say, "I know that her redeemer lives, but he's not my redeemer." He was able to say that.

And I think it's absolutely tremendous that God can reach out of heaven and say, "Here I am, look at me, I'll tell you who I am, I'll help you to know me," even to a man like Job. That really encourages me because I've been in parts of the world this last summer where there are no Christians and there are no churches and the gospel has never ever once been presented to these people. And yet I know that God can do for those people and for individuals among those people what he did for Job and present himself—who he is—to those people.

In Job 31:26 and 27, we learn that there were people all around Job who were polytheistic. "Poly" meaning many, "theo" meaning God. Polytheistic. And yet he and his friends had their own monotheistic culture that they had created and perpetuated. Job said, "If I had regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor, so that my heart was enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged for. I would have been unfaithful to my God on high."

But he says, "I didn't regard the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor." This is a reference to the god of the moon and the goddess of the sun. All around them people were worshipping these sort of people. And yet Job had come to know there was one true God and that a God who could supply his every need. God said, "Have you considered my servant Job? He's a righteous man. He's a righteous man."

And that means he's right with God. He's all right. God looks at Job and he says, "He's all right. He's straight." The word is straight. He's blameless. Doesn't mean sinless. Blameless means completely fair. He's honest with himself. He's mature, he's upright, he fears God. He abhors above all else the violation of the known will of God in any particular because of his utter devotion to God in his life.

He turns away from evil. That's the essence of conversion. You're going in this direction, and God meets you and turns you around and you go in that direction. He turns away from evil. "He's walking towards me, he's keeping his face towards the things that concern me." Yes, Job is a rare man, says God. He's risking his righteousness against the lawlessness of this eastern frontier where he lives. He's earned the reputation of the greatest man.

Now, he links that with his riches. For to be right with God means that you do right with things. His righteousness is linked to his riches. He became wealthy by trading, and everybody in the whole of the East knew he was a fair man, he was an honest man, he was a good man. And that the riches that are measured in animals in those cultures were something that people had bought from them in an environment of integrity.

McKenna suggests in his book on Job that being right with God should help us in doing right with things, so we don't suffer from "affluenza." I like that. Because we do suffer from affluence and from affluenza in our society here. And yet being right with God helps us to do right with things. And it also helps us to put things right with others. Righteousness is a responsibility.

Righteousness, being right with God and all that comes to us because of it, is a responsibility. In Uz there were no professional priests. He as father was the priest, the spiritual giver of instruction to his family, the prayer for his family. And we'll talk a lot about that in studies that are ahead of us. At the end of the story, he prays for his friends. He puts things right with people, with the people that haven't helped him very much.

And he wants his children to stay right with each other and to stay right with God. And so righteousness means being right with God, doing right with things, and putting things right with others. Job is an example of all of this. And this tells us the sort of person that he was. And yet the sky fell on his head. And I have to ask another of my questions: why did the sky fall on this good man?

Now, in *A Sage Named Job*—great book, I've enjoyed tons of books on Job—I saw this little quote: "No comprehensive answer is given to the problem of suffering since theodicy, which is *theo* God, *dicy* is justice—God's justice, God's law—is not the book's major theme. This book is not about 'Is God a just God?' It's not its major theme. We'll be looking into that, but it's not its major theme."

"So, no comprehensive answer is given to the problem of suffering in that sense. Nevertheless, considerable light is afforded. The vision does not reveal the 'why' of the particular sufferings of Job or any other believer, but it does present the servants of God with a framework of hope." There are questions that you have not asked about suffering that you should have asked and I should have asked that will be answered in these studies.

The bigger questions. We do not ask the right questions. So often in our American society all we want are the right answers. And the whole of the educational system is set up like that. You guess it; all that matters is those multiple choice, not the reasoning or the content of the question, but should I put yes, no, or maybe. And what happens when you come to something as big as this subject of suffering and the book of Job, there are answers to questions that nobody is asking.

And yet the questions that people are not asking are the questions that should be asked. And those are the questions that God will answer in this book. Not specifically defending himself against charges of wrongdoing because he allows the innocent to suffer, for that is not the theme of the book. But questions certainly about his doings and his ways and the greater scheme of things.

And so there are two things that we will learn as we go along: that there is hope and light without having to have the answers. There is hope and light without having to have the answers. Some of us will never have the answers to some of our questions concerning some of the tough things that happen to us. But you can have the answers of how to have hope when there appears to be no hope.

And you can have the answers to how to have light when everything seems so dark you never think you'll see light again. You can have hope and light without answers. And the second thing that you'll discover is that you will realize the importance of the distinctive of being a Christian in the midst of suffering. There will be a development of your distinctiveness as a Christian.

In other words, the world watches how we respond to suffering. When I lay in a hospital bed at the age of 18, I watched a Christian suffer. Her name was Janet. And I watched her suffer very, very, very, very dreadfully with a back operation that went wrong, that came apart on her. She was in agony, absolute agony. But I watched a Christian handle that. And that's why I'm teaching you this book today.

She won me to Christ, basically because I saw a distinctive. There was something different about Jenny than anybody I'd ever seen going through something like that. There was a Christian distinctive. Like one of my friends in England who had a little handicapped child, challenged by his atheist mates at work, who said to him, "What sort of a God have you got? We don't have a God and we have perfect children. And you've been talking about this God of yours, and he gave you a handicapped child. What sort of a God is your God?"

And he simply said, "I'm so glad that my God gave this child to us and not to you." Now, that's different. He had accepted that child. "We have accepted this child. Shall we accept good from the hand of God and not accept trouble?" I'm so glad God gave us this little bundle of trouble. And they accepted the suffering in that sense. And so we see Job accepting the trouble that God gives him.

And we have many, many questions we'll be getting into in days to come. God shouldn't let this happen. The goodness of God is in question. Maybe God couldn't stop it happening. The sovereignty and power of God is in question. And "Why did it happen to me?" You know, like Miss Piggy we stand there and say, "Moi? How could this happen to moi?" We have this incredible Miss Piggy temperament that nothing should happen to moi.

If God is this God of love and he wants this wonderful loving grace relationship with me, then why could he possibly allow this to happen? And actually, this is only a problem for one who believes in a God who is all-powerful and all-loving. I watched people worshipping spirits in Japan. People going to the high-rise executive offices in their Japanese suits—top businessmen who stopped on the way down the road among these incredible buildings where there was a tree growing out of the road and leave a bunch of bananas on it.

And that bunch of bananas was there at the end of the day, nobody would touch it, for it was appeasing the spirit of the tree so the spirit wouldn't be angry with him, maybe his work would go a little bit better that day. But if we believe in a God who is all-powerful and all-loving and not a nasty spirit who wants to do you vindictive harm, then we really do have a problem with why he allows the innocent to suffer.

Elliot says, "Suffering in its mildest forms—inconveniences, delay, discomfort or anything that is not in harmony with our whims and preferences—we will not tolerate. We reject it, we deny it, and stress is the result." One story and I'll finish. I had a friend in England. She's a teenager when I met her. Beautiful girl. And just as I met her, her mother died. It was a terrible thing; she was an only child.

And I found this quote: "To suffer passes, to have suffered never passes. The pain will one day cease, but what we have learned in the time of trial is our treasure forever." And I tried to minister to Anne. And I didn't need to try very hard because God was being *El Shaddai* for Anne. And she said to me one day, "I'm learning what the treasures of darkness the Bible talks about are all about."

Job talks about the treasures of the snow and the treasures of the hail that God has locked up for times of trouble that he unleashes like he did on the Egyptians, if you remember. And he sends his rain and his hail on the just and the unjust. And she was in the midst of the trouble that God had asked her to accept. And she unwrapped some of those treasures of darkness in her trouble.

And she was able to say in her poetry, "Jill, God gave me these little words," and she gave me this piece of poetry: "I'm leading my child to the heavenly land, I'm teaching her day by day. I ask her now as I take her hand to come home by a rugged way. It's not a way she herself would choose, for its beauty she cannot see. But she knows not what her soul would lose if she trod not that path with me."

And she said, "Jill, shall I receive good from the hand of God and not receive trouble?" Stood her in good stead. She married a Belfast policeman. 10 of his mates were the first 10 men killed in the troubles in Ireland. She's had bombs thrown through the front of her house, she's had missiles left in the driveway, she's picked up and there are photos of her children on it and the IRA has said 'We know where they are when we want them.'

And two of her friends have had their children's kneecaps shot off with pistols. And I have watched Anne Allen grow. I've watched a Job-ess. And I've watched God be to her what he was to Job. Accepting adversity is where it begins. And I know from my own experience that as you accept the trouble and quit pretending it hasn't happened, as you accept the messengers, you believe the messengers, you receive the messenger, and as you worship, then the stress goes and you can begin to be strong.

You know what they say in the East? They look at how we in the West look at trouble, and especially Christians look at trouble, feeling we should be exempt. And they say, "Isn't that funny? You look at trouble and say, 'Oh God, get it off my back.' We look at trouble and say, 'Strengthen my back to bear it.'" Strengthen my back to bear it.

And because we live in a sin-sick, fallen environment with sin-sick human natures, there's going to be trouble. What we need to do is say, "Oh God, I accept the good and the bad that you allow in your strange permissive sovereign will. Strengthen my back to bear it." Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for Job. Thank you that there are many, many questions that we will be looking into as we get into this study. And thank you that there are many questions that we have never asked in our life that we should have been asking that you will answer as we open your word and you reveal yourself and who you are for us.

And we ask that you would help us to take a little bit of this truth, begin to mix it with faith, put it into practice in our lives. And above all, dear Lord, help us all to practice receiving good this week that we might be prepared when trouble comes. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.