In this sermon, the preacher discusses the story of Job from the Bible. He highlights the various trials and tribulations that Job faced, including the loss of his possessions, the death of his children, and the affliction of boils on his body. Despite these hardships, Job maintains his integrity and does not curse God. The preacher also reflects on the current state of the nation and suggests that it may take a similar level of devastation for people to turn to God in worship.

Thank you tonight for that love so amazing and so divine. We ask ourselves in the language of the hymn, How can it be, thou heavenly king, that thou dost us to glory bring? Make slaves the partners of thy throne, decked with an ever-fading crown. We thank you for that love so amazing, that measureless love. The love the apostle prayed that the people he knew that they might know the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of God which passeth knowledge. We know, Lord, that men can take the temperature of the sun today. They can weigh the world or estimate its weight. They've solved many things which were baffling to our fathers. But Lord, we bless you that you have something that cannot be fathomed. That we can experience it, though we can't explain it. This love so amazing. Lord, we think of the world right now seemingly on the edge of more wars. Only because it rejects the Prince of Peace. We see the world so restless because it will not come to the one who said, Come unto me and I will give you rest. The people who think they're free and yet they're in bondage to sin. They think of other people who are in bondage and we're free. Free from the law, free from the power of men. Free from the fear of death. Free from the fear of tomorrow. We thank you, Lord, you hold tomorrow and that's all that matters to us. We thank you for our great King, our great Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, as we sang that moving verse tonight. Face to face, O blissful moment. Lord, we think and know we see all the saints of all the ages. Abraham and Isaac and Moses and the apostles and prophets. And all the martyrs of the ages. A blood-washed throng. Many of them died in their own blood. But Lord, we thank you that they knew the blood of the Lamb. By which they have access to your eternal throne. And we have that access tonight. Lord, we thank you. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life's trial will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will erase. And so by your grace we will bravely run the race till we see Christ. Lord, we think of all your servants through the world tonight. We think of those nations. As Wesley said, fast bound in sin and nature's night. As yet, Lord, nobody has sounded the alarm. Nobody has taken the light into their darkness. Nobody has taken food, spiritual food for their starving souls. We thank you for every missionary. Maybe some lonely missionary up the Amazon today, feeling forgotten. Maybe he hasn't had mail for months. And yet there he is doing the will of God. We thank you for others in isolated places. We think of the saints in Russia, the saints in China, the saints in Albania. Areas we know so little about and very often unfortunately don't care much about. Lord God, we are so overfed and overstuffed and overtaught. Our responsibility at the judgment is terrifying, Lord, as I think of it. And Lord, we ask you to bless your word to our hearts tonight. Again, we thank you for this holy book. Written by the Holy Ghost. And holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And Lord, I'm sure that wherever the Holy Ghost is, there's movement. It may not shatter a community, but it moves individual hearts. We thank you for the Spirit who draws us more and more into Christ, into the deeper things of God. That makes us realize, Lord, everything in this world has death on it. It's all perishing things of clay that are born but for one brief day. But Lord, we bless you again. You've opened our eyes. We remember you prayed on the Damascus, on the road to Emesh. You said to the men, you opened their eyes. And then you opened the eyes of their understanding. And then you opened the scriptures. We ask you to do this tonight. That Lord, in the language of the psalmist, we may say, Lord, we want tonight to behold wondrous things out of thy law. That we may glorify you. Bless all who are absent. We think of the last day's staff away there in Hawaii and ask you to bless them. Grant, Lord, that what they're seeking, they'll find. And come back renewed and strengthened. And God, again, we ask you, quicken us, as the psalmist said again, quicken us according to your word. Not to our ideas, but according to your holy word, quicken us. We give you thanks in Jesus' name. The book of Job. Very interesting book. Book of Job. Said to be the oldest book ever written. I don't know, I'm not smart enough to know that. Do you know about that, brother? It's a wonderful book anyhow. Chapter 23. Chapter 23 and verse 10. But he knoweth the way that I take. And when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Now let's get back to the first chapter. In Job. Let's begin at verse 6. There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. Now notice this, the Lord said unto Satan. I wonder if he said this about you and I today. The Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And then here's the testimony. I missed verse 7, 8. The Lord said unto Satan, whence comest thou? Satan answered the Lord, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down. The Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job? There is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil. It's not a record. The devil had been going up and down in the world all day, and God said, have you considered my servant Job? There's nobody like him, he's one of a kind. Paul said in one of his epistles, we have made a spectacle unto the world. In other words, you and I have an exhibition. Why are you working in that office? To be an exhibition of righteousness. Why are you teaching in school? To be an exhibition of righteousness and holiness. And God testifies of this man, that he is upright and he feareth God. Then Satan answered and said to the Lord, that's just like the devil to answer back, isn't it? You know, when people say to me, do you know what Satan said to me today? I say, no, I think he conceited. Why? Satan said something. I don't remember, I didn't check up, but I think as far as I know, there are only three times in the whole of Scripture, the voice of Satan is heard. He was heard in the garden, when he accused man before God, God before man, when he says, you're being told not to do this, not to do that. And he says, hath God said? In other words, he's challenging God. Hath God said? So he kind of mocks God before man, but now he kind of mocks man before God. Hath thou... Satan answered the Lord and said, doth Job fear God for not? Okay. Well, the third time was in the garden, pardon me, in the 40 days of temptation, when Satan came and talked over and over and over again to the Lord Jesus. You know, when people say, Satan spoke to me, I say, I think a bit conceited. I've told you many times, if the devil has a danger list, I want to be one of the most ten famous men on his list. I want the devil to hate me, I want him to fear me when I go preach, when I go pray, wherever I am. I want to be one of the danger men on the devil's list. As I said before, I think the greatest honor in the scripture given to a man is when those demons jumped on a preacher that was trying to cast out demons, and the demons said what? Jesus we know and Paul we know. I wonder how many of the famous big shot TV preachers have feared in hell. How many men and women are feared in hell? They have such a hold on the throne of God. Or as the word of God talks about laying hold of the horns of the altar. That's the only thing that's going to move our generation to God, nothing else. Some holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, it's got to come back to that. Satan answered and said, the Lord and said, doth Job fear God for naught? Now look at the things he says, hast thou not made a hedge about it? Isn't that an admission? Come on, are you a leaf? That the wind blows around? Are you a football for the devil to kick around? I believe that if you live in the will of God, the devil has to get a permit every day to come and touch your life, or get some agency to touch you. We're precious in his sight. I told you about going to Ireland, sometime I told you. I went to see an old preacher up in the hill. When I got there his wife came to the door. I've never seen such a woman in my life, I won't try to describe them, she'd exhaust ten dicks for it. And she said, come to see my husband. I said, well he invited me to come and drink some tea and eat some scones. So she said, you know what, he's a bit odd. I thought, well that's true of you. So we sat down and she said, he's really odd. He spends all the day looking through microscopes and all the night looking through telescopes. He's a wonderful husband. I talked with him, he said, have you ever seen through the eye of a fly? Then I knew he was odd. I said, have I seen through the eye of a fly? No, maybe the reason is I don't believe in reincarnation, I don't believe there ever was a fly. No, he said, let me show you something. So he brought a piece of glass out with a little dot on it. He said, what's that? I don't know, tapioca pudding or soap, I don't know. He said, it's the eye of a fly. Let me magnify it. He said, what do you see? I can see slanting things on the eye of the fly. He said, the eye of that fly, less than the size of a pinhead, has 350 different lenses on it. They're set in every conceivable angle. And the more I looked, the more I wondered. The eye of a fly has 350 lenses on it? I said, you've solved a problem for me. He said, what's that? I said, it's got two eyes. That's 750 lenses. And stupid me, I said, no way. No wonder I can't catch the thing. Then he said, have you seen the wing of a butterfly magnified? No, so he showed me that. He said, you know, a butterfly's wing has 3,000 triangles on it. I remember once in mid-Atlantic flying through the ocean there and we saw a gorgeous butterfly flying about 10 feet above the water. How it made it from New York, we were 1,000 miles away from New York, I don't know. But you build in an angle like that and the eye of a fly has 350 lenses on it. The wing of a butterfly has about 2,000 of those things on it. I said, well, that helps me a lot. He said, why? I said, are you suggesting that God Almighty was the architect of the eye of that little fly on the wall that doesn't mean that much to anybody? And the wing of a butterfly? And yet my life has no design? I'm kicked around this way with sorrow and kicked away the other way so that I can heal when they hate me? Forget it. I said, I believe God Almighty. I believe in the sovereignty of God for the universe, I believe in the sovereignty of God for myself. And this man recognizes this. Satan has to go to God for a permit. Has thou not made a hedge about him? You bless the work of his hands and his substance is increased. What he's saying here, this man is so holy for this simple reason, prosperity. Kick his prosperity away and you'll go flat on his face. He serves you for what he's getting. He doesn't serve you for naught. Nobody serves God for naught. Face to face shall I behold him. Maybe I've got the kind of vision I have to see those millions of people in eternity. You know, if you knew that by investing a dollar today, 20 years from now you get a million for it, you'd stick that dollar down quickly. But the dividends for serving Jesus Christ God is no man's debter, the word of God says. And we're not collecting the answer here, we're collecting the answer when we get into eternity. When he said that your servant Job, so what? Let's say this is Job, he says you put a hedge around about him, take it away. He said no, I'll bring it a bit nearer to him. So what happens when you get a series of wonderful things? Verse 11, he says, put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy face. Again, he's tied up with his prosperity and that's why he's so pious. In verse 12, the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power only upon himself. That is upon his life, put not forth thy hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. There was a devil, there was a day when the sons and daughters were eating and drinking. Verse 14, there came a message and said to Job, the oxen were ploughing and the asses feeding beside them. You usually find that. Verse 16, while he was yet speaking there came another and said the fire of God is fallen from heaven and have burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them. While he was yet speaking there came also another and said the Chaldeans what we sing a hymn sometimes when sorrows like sea billows roll and these things are falling out over each other. We're going to ship this man. We'll dislodge him. We'll drag his anchor. Before we're through with him he'll curse God and die. He'll be an embarrassment to God. And so the Lord says do as you like with him. So what's the first blow he gets? The first blow is bankruptcy. He lost all his possessions. The second blow is bereavement. He lost his children. The third blow is boils. He got boils all over his body. And yet despite his world has fallen apart. The walls have gone out. The roof has gone in. And yet he doesn't curse God and die. Verse 20 says then Job arose and rent his mantle and shaved his head and fell down on the ground and cursed God. No, no, no. He worshipped. Do you know what he worshipped when he got lost rid of all his property? It doesn't mention him worshipping until he was bankrupt. He didn't have to run after his cattle. He didn't run after his investments. He didn't run after this, that and the other. Everything had gone. And there's a hymn, you know Jesus, you lover of my soul Charles Wesley wrote that in the 1700s. And in that hymn he says other refuge have I none hangs my helpless soul on thee. And you know, God wants to get us all to that place of total responsibility on him where we've nothing to lean on. He's going to pull the rug from under us before very long in America and elsewhere. But if we're safely grounded in him it won't make any difference. It was for him I was thinking of earlier tonight. I'm going to have it now for tonight. What was for him as he sat on the rock? Yeah. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus. On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand. When darkness veils his lovely face does it do that? There's been an eclipse of the sun today. There's an eclipse of the sun S-U-N and an eclipse of the sun S-O-N for many people. And if he's not always smiling and handing out blessings they get disturbed. It's a day of prosperity. There's so many people prosperous religiously but not truly spiritually. It's time to worship now. He said naked I came out of my mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly. Let's look at another chapter now. What was it? 22. Remember Job's gone through a lot of confusion and trial and testing. He's lost his material possessions. He's lost his family. Can you imagine the grief? He goes out a millionaire and wakes up in the morning and they have a penny to his name. He goes to the funeral of what 7 or 14 people all in the same day. The devil mocked him and scorned him. He was torn up materially was torn up emotionally. He was torn up spiritually. Look at the beginning of chapter 23. Job answered and said even to this day is my complaint bitter my stroke is heavier than my groaning. In the bewilderment he said in verse 3 all that I knew all that I knew where I might find him that I might come even to his street. Verse 8. Behold I go forward be it is not there and backward but I cannot perceive him. There's a poem that's written on this that says I went forward and couldn't find him backward I couldn't find him. Is there anybody there? Have you felt sometimes as though God's forsaken he's a million miles away? That's not unusual. In fact it's par for the course. I go forward he's not there and backward but I cannot perceive him. On the left hand where he doth work but I cannot behold him. He hath himself on the right hand and I cannot see him. But here's the crux of the thing that he knoweth the way that I take and when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold. When he hath tried me. You know we say the devil's doing it. People say well are circumstances handling you how are your circumstances? Circumstances shouldn't brush around. If people say well how is the world treating you? I remember I was about 16 a man asked me one day he said Leonard how's the world treating you? I said it doesn't treat me I treat it. You see either you kick the world around or it kicks you around. But we don't rise and fall with circumstances. We're hoping to get a change of weather this weekend I am. I detest this hot weather. I'm going to import some English weather this weekend. But you know there's a thermostat on the wall there. If you open that door and it was freezing outside it wouldn't do a thing for this room. That thing would fight back and fight back. A thermostat is there to control the atmosphere. You put a thermometer outside the window and it goes up and down with the weather. Well all of us ride a thermostat to thermometers. Either we have control or circumstances have their control. And I refuse to let the devil control. I say I've got a thermostat within I've got the presence of the living God. Notice he says all that I may knew where I may find him he doesn't say I wish I could find a place to recover my prosperity. I wish I could get my children back. I wish I could get my material. He isn't concerned about that. I've been thinking so much this week of the psalmist when he said my flesh and my blood my flesh, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. For God. You know people are seeking blessing today they're seeking prosperity. We've got a utility God. He's not the one who staggers us with his majesty. Often we sing Friday nights immortal, invisible God only wise in light inaccessible. Or we sing Oh worship the king all glorious above whose robe is the light whose canopy is space. The earth is his footstool the clouds are the dust of his feet. We've lost all sense of the majesty and holiness of God. We don't tip people don't go to church to meet God they go to hear a sermon about him. They don't expect to be stunned and leave the place staggering with the revelation of God's holiness and majesty and glory. No we have a utility God praying he'll send you this asking me he'll send you that. I'm convinced today to most people they have a utility God in the church convenience store. They just come up weekends for help for this. Ask the pastor to do this. The lady comes and says do you think the deacons would pray for my hangnail. Mostly honest we've just destroyed the majesty of God and holy things. He says he knows the way that I take and when he hath tried me. Isn't that wonderful? Not when circumstances have tried me not when the devil has tried me not when the restless friend of mine God himself has done his work in me I shall come forth as pure gold. We have a lady friend who often says to us I'm going for the gold. Remember when they were in the what was it they had the other week other month other year I got it straight now. The other year they had the Olympics we're going for the gold we're going for the gold. I noticed in a newscast a man had been in a tremendous race with a million dollar automobile and what not he came in second and they said oh you did a marvelous job you came in second he said that doesn't count. If I'm not first I'm not happy. I've been training this machine costs a million dollars we worked on it all the night through instead of going to bed to get it in prime condition. You know those people are so jealous for the things of the devil but this man isn't asking again that he may be restored in wealth restored in health restored socially. He says oh that I may find him. The man who has no God is derelict. I saw something on TV last night I don't often watch it but some of you saw maybe that what was that was it Admiral Dunwall anybody see that show? Well it was in 2020 it's one of the admirals that isn't in the American Navy he's retired now. He was the one that gave the order for that aid orange to be spread over defoliating all the trees and when the machine went over with that orange stuff his own son was in a boat there an American Navy boat and as it went over some of the stuff came on him but daddy gave the order the boy is crippled he's going through his he's gone through his second surgery he's had two kinds of cancer the marrow in his bones has dissolved his sister was there to give him some out of the bones and I thought as I looked at that I thought what a man will go through then they showed a couple of middle aged couple adopting a baby most hideous thing you ever saw physically and the doctor says the head of the child will grow but not its body it will be retarded and with all its twisted body the precious little thing is blind on top of that and the couple said we took it no one else wanted it well somebody has suggested now you hand it over to the state no no no no the man said I'd rather die he said this precious little one needs so much love and so and I thought what amazing compassion the child will never respond they said it was born without brain it has a cavity instead of a brain it has no sight it has no sense it has no strength it's about as neutral or empty as a creature could be but he says we love it we're going to hold on to this child he said I'd rather lose anything than lose my child well I thought you know that's just about the way God found us smart as we are with all your university degrees you weren't a bit of use to God empty headed with all your degrees empty hearted no strength no power no moral courage nothing and he took us derelicts and that verse I quoted tonight comes to me so often he makes slaves the partners of his throne I love that hymn that was written in England of course a good hymn by what an amazing grace how sweet the sound and the man that wrote that remember he used to take boats and raid the coast of Africa and drag women out of bed and their babies and separate them and load the ships with slaves and one day he became a slave on a ship and he had to row a boat but one day God came in amazing grace to him when you think of those you know those guys used to those guys sorry that's American saints that's English you know those men used to meet in the morning John Newton the hymn writer and William Cowper the hymn writer and George Whitfield maybe the greatest preacher ever and George and John Wesley and Charles Wesley about six of them used to meet in what they called a holy club you know those men weren't really born again and they used to meet for prayer at four in the morning it didn't take John Wesley long to realize he was in the kingdom of Jesus Christ and from that time on his life was totally totally transformed we didn't sing it Charles' hymn tonight and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood you know people talk as though they've done God a favor oh you know what I've done for the Lord this week forget it you've done nothing do you know that I gave up for Jesus hell I totally gave up oh I was going to be a singer well I I wonder what went wrong with the voices I was going to do this nothing of the kind no man ever living has ever done God a favor I don't care whether it's the Apostle Paul or Moses or John no man has ever done God a favor God does all the favors he got Charles Wesley a gentleman a scholar a man of impeccable morality and it was he who wrote the hymn and can it be that I should gain I'd like to have Jacob sing it for you but he's tired and I want you to stay in the room as well I like that standard of his in which again remember this man isn't dragging a record of crime and impurity and immorality and drugs he's been a a worthy I was going to say I guess it's to say a worthy partaker in the Church of England all his life and then he says in the second standard long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night thine eye diffused a quickening ray I woke the dungeon flame with light my chains fell off you know the story about a woman here down in the south who didn't hear that slavery had been abolished and she was scrubbing the front of a great big mansion and a man came up and said lady what are you doing oh I have to do this for a living how long have you worked here oh the boss is good I work here all these years do you get tired of it yes well why do you do it because I'm a slave he said didn't you hear that slavery is abolished no she said I didn't know that oh it's been abolished for a month and now she's working and all the time slavery had been abolished of course it was abolished before that in the British Empire as you know and it was abolished by Christians it was abolished by Wesley and Wilberforce and those great men of God they were the ones that got all the crime stopped in England they got the we talk in England about when the people are going mad a bedlam and there was a bedlam in which they put people who were insane and half insane there were people living in terrible depravity and darkness and these men got legislation they prayed and they worked Wilberforce was built like a frog and I'm not some kind to say that he had a short body and extra long legs extra long arms but when he stood up he'd jump on on the dispatch box or the table in the middle of Westminster not Westminster Abbey Parliament there and he'd stand up there and he'd start with all the authority he had speaking about the bondage of sin and about these slaves and men said he was transformed by the time he finished preaching you didn't see his extra long arms and legs there was a radiance about him of another world you know I'm realizing more and more the awesomeness really of preaching the gospel of the grace of God the difference between the Puritan preachers and ours is that ours go golfing and goofing all the time and then at the last minute want to make a sermon for Sunday the Puritan preachers lived in eternity six days a week and came down on the seventh day loaded with the majesty and awesomeness of God and it's got to come back to that I read again before I came out tonight to make sure of it there's a little book by Colson dare to be different dare to be a Christian in it he asked this question how is it that Japan is a heathen country how is it in America a Christian in quotes Christian country has a hundred times more burglaries than Japan which is a heathen country why do people want our Christianity why should they want more divorces than anybody else American Christianity is rubbish like English that's why the world is in a mess sin we've transported American Christianity to other countries English Christianity but not Bible Christianity there's going to have to be a revolution God Almighty is going to do it people aren't praying and traveling and weeping and fasting for nothing I think of that word often in revelation what are these under the altar the prayers of the saints prayers never die let me skip over here quickly before I wind this up let's go to chapter 29 I'm going to skip through this quickly because I want us to pray tonight chapter 29 verse 1 verse 2 all that I were as in months past as in the days when look at the when when God preserved me when his candle shone upon my head verse 4 when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle verse 5 when the Almighty was yet with me when my children when I washed my steps with butter verse 7 when I went out to the gate when I went and prepared my seat in the street in other words he sat with the judges he said in those days the princes verse 9 refrained from talking you see this is the time of his affluence the time of his acceptance the time of the claim he was number one man in the world in the sight of God there's nobody like him in holiness and righteousness and here he has all everything's going his way again verse 9 the princes refrained from talking and laid their hands on their mouths the nobles held their peace verse 11 when the ear heard me and it blessed me and when the eye saw me it gave witness I delivered the poor and cried and the fatherless to him the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused widows to sing skip quickly down the other part verse 14 I put on righteousness and clothed me my judgment was a robe verse 15 I was eyes to the blind verse 16 I was a father to the poor verse 17 I break the jaws of the wicked then I said and he goes on again with his achievements but now look how he starts chapter 30 but now they are younger than I everything's changed for him verse 19 I am their song I am a byword they abhor me they flee from me they spare not to spit in my face verse 13 they mar my path and set forward a calamity they set forward a calamity they set forward they set a they they