God’s Safety

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, no other ground is sinking sand.

All other ground is sinking sand. How blessed assuring it is to know of a certainty that we who are in Christ Jesus are founded on that rock of ages that shall never be moved. I am missionary Richard Yerby, speaking this in Japan.

Previously, I invited you to check out my website, which contains some of my Bible teaching and preaching, both written and audio. I want you to sample my written autobiography, titled We Are Journeying, in the book section on my website. That URL is Christisall.us. Separate those three words with two dashes.

Christ-is-all.us Now, I want to preach my third sermon to you on the perfect and upright man named Job. I ended my previous sermon in this series by saying, may God help each of us believers to declare, I care not for my own safety. I exist to work the work that my heavenly father has ordained for me, no matter how dangerous it is.

My physical life belongs to my creator God. He can do anything with it that he desires. He may take it anytime he wants to.

I'll gladly lay down my life for him anytime he wants me to do so. When it comes to doing God's will, my personal safety is of no importance to me. And if and when you and I can reach that point, God will be just as proud of us as he was of Job.

Oh, to be like Job, who declared, I was not in safety. Let's pray. Lord God, I do desire to be like that.

Please help me not to be a spiritual coward. Please strengthen my inner being, making me strong and courageous. Help me to completely trust my life into thy loving care and be willing to serve thee with all my heart, no matter how dangerous that may be.

Amen. Look at the biblical record from the time that Cain slew Abel all the way through the Bible. The record is a river of blood as believer after believer gave his or her life in standing for right.

Many of the men that God used to pen his inspired words of the Bible were martyred for God's cause. And when our Savior came to this earth, it was no different for him. His holy, righteous presence cost him his life.

The angry mob that killed him did not get together and say, let's go ahead and nail him to the cross so that he can give his life for the sins of the people. They did not believe that he was the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. They didn't believe that he was God.

The reason they killed him was because he pointed his finger in their faces and call them hypocrites, serpents, whited suppickers, and such. And each time he did so, hatred, anger, and envy swelled up and burned within them. They could not tolerate his godliness among them.

They could not tolerate his holy condemnation of their sin and hypocrisy. Thus they killed him by adamantly condemning their wickedness. Job was not in safety.

Neither was our Lord and Savior in safety while here on earth. Now you and I are to follow these examples and not be in safety either. True, it was a plan of the Godhead that Christ come to this earth to give his life a ransom for us.

But looking at it from the viewpoint of the ones who had nailed him to the cross, they killed him because he stood for and fought for truth, holiness, and righteousness. And we servants of God are certainly not to be above our heavenly master. We are no better than Bible martyrs or the many more who have given their lives for Christ these 20 centuries after the word of God has been penned.

And if God calls on any one of us to lay down our life for him, we should gladly do so. Our life is a possession of God who gave it for him to do with it anything he pleases. If we as Christians consider our lives to be our own, then we are guilty of the sin of coveting something that belongs to God himself.

We need to pray, Heavenly Father, please help me not to commit that sin. Help me to totally place my life into thine hands for thee to do thy will with it. Help me not to be fearful of doing so.

Help me not to be in safety. I pray this for Brother Richard and all other Christians also. Amen.

In Revelation chapter 12, verse 11, we read this about the overcomers. And they overcame him, the devil, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto the death.

End of that reading. And that is what made them overcomers. They loved God much more than they loved their own lives.

Anytime that God desired it, they would gladly lay down their lives for his sake. They were like Job. Their own safety was of no consideration.

What profitable servants they were. May God help us to be like them. May God help us to be like Job who declared, I was not in safety.

We can pray again. Lord God, please help me to be an overcomer. Help me to love not my life even unto death.

Help me to love thee, my God, with all my heart. Help me to commit my life into thine hands. And please assure me of how safe I am when I am completely trusting in thee.

Amen. The captain of this spiritual army, the Lord Jesus Christ, calls on us to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. As a young soldier and an officer in an earthly army, I went through many stages of intense training aimed at making me a good soldier and a qualified leader on the battlefield.

The training was rugged and accurate. Records were kept on me to determine how I measured up and how valuable I would be as a fighter against the enemy. When I was in advanced pilot training, there in the squadron operations office at Cherry Point was a large board on the wall with each phase of our training listed horizontally across the top of it.

The names of us pilots were written down on the left side. And as we qualified in each phase of training, it was Xed in by our names as completed. Navigation, formation, night formation, air to air refueling, bombs, rockets, strafing, air to air tactics, dogfighting, air landing, nuclear weapons qualification was last.

After many days of rigorous and specialized training, I became fully qualified as a pilot to do battle with the enemy, even to deliver a nuclear bomb onto him from the sky above. After one receives Christ as his savior, no doubt but what God is constantly watching him to see how much he is growing spiritually and how valuable he is or is becoming to God. If the new convert will read his Bible regularly, that's one mark in his favor because he will grow spiritually by doing so.

If she is a prayer warrior, that's another point in her favor because that will give her spiritual growth also. If she prays for others, then she is valuable to God as an intercessor. If he will assemble himself regularly with other believers when church meets together, that will show the saved and lost world alike that it's important to go to God's house.

If he will give tithes and offerings to the Lord, that is being profitable to God because God gets to use in his kingdom a portion of what he has bestowed upon that person. If that person will witness and spread the gospel to others, he is valuable to God, bearing fruit for him. No doubt there are many areas like this in which God keeps records on us and evaluates our spiritual growth and usefulness in his kingdom.

Possibly the climax of all this evaluation may be the question, will he or she give his or her life for me? And if God can put yes to that question alongside your name, then he can use you to accomplish most anything he has for us to do here on this earth. Let's pray. Precious Lord Jesus, please instill within me a burning desire to become thy most profitable servant on this earth.

Amen. God has missions that can only be accomplished at the cost of the life of some believer or believers. The Lord is a man of war.

Exodus chapter 15, verse three tells us, he desires that each of us believers become a soldier of his and fight with him in the spiritual battle against the devil, sin and evil. And in any war, we can expect soldiers to get killed. To be a soldier, one must be willing to lay down his life for the cause for which he is fighting.

And if you are willing to be such a committed soldier of the cross, then God can use you anywhere to accomplish anything he desires to be done for his great glory. During the last half of the 20th century, we heard Christians say things like, well, we cannot take the gospel into Russia through the Iron Curtain. We cannot take the gospel through the Bamboo Curtain into China.

And as one after another country fell to wicked demonic communism, people would say, now we cannot get into that country with the gospel. Another door is closed. God has now closed that door.

Lies, that be, that is not true. This whole world is just as wide open to the gospel truth now, to God's truth now, as it has ever been since Cain slew Abel. You can take the gospel through any border, into any nation, to any people, anywhere on the face of this earth.

You may not come back, but God never promised you a two-way trip. And the most powerful gospel message one can preach to any people on the face of this earth is that it is worth my life just to try to get the gospel to you also. You seriously consider that as you consider Job? Are you willing to lay down your life for lost souls as Christ did? Are you willing to be perfect and upright like Job by not being in safety? Let's pray again.

Almighty God, by Thy power, please help me to be like that. Please help me to be willing to lay down my life for Thee. I thank Thee, Lord Jesus, that Thou wast willing to give Thy life to provide eternal salvation and blessedness for me.

Please create in my heart a perfect love for Thee so that I will be willing to give my life for Thee any time Thou desirest that I do so. Help me to be a mature, courageous soldier that Thou canst use for any mission, no matter how dangerous it may be. Help me to never fear danger.

Help me to only fear God. Lord, I pray all this for Brother Richard and all other Christians also. Amen.

Regretfully, we are more concerned about our immediate safety than we are about the eternal safety of billions who are now without salvation in Christ. We are concerned for the safety of our own skin. Most of us are just the opposite of Job in this matter.

Listen to Satan in Job chapter 2, verse 4. And Satan answered the Lord and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. Satan knows fallen man plenty well, doesn't he? What he said there is so true of many of us. But God had a golden servant made of pure gold named Job who proved the devil wrong on that point and thereby greatly glorified his creator.

Job would sacrifice his safety, even his life, to honor God in heaven. That is one reason God called him perfect and upright. Oh, how the devil detests seeing a saint like that.

God wants you and me also to prove the devil wrong on this point concerning our lives. And if we will, God will delight just as much in us doing it as he did in Job doing it. I was not in safety, Job declares.

Let us present-day believers strive in almighty God's power to be like Job so that our creator can take such pride in us also. Let's pray it. Lord God, I too want to prove the devil wrong on this point.

I want him to be absolutely wrong about me when he says all that a man hath will he give for his life. But I am weak and do not have such courage within myself. It must come from thee, almighty God.

So I beg thee for it. Please give me thy supernatural courage and boldness, making me into a steadfast and unmovable Christian who will never flinch nor waver, even in the fiercest battles with thine enemy. I ask these things for Brother Richard and all other Christians also.

Amen. You fellow believers, please pray them for me. I need these prayers from you.

For us Christians, there should be some things dearer and more precious to us than our own physical lives. Love for and desire to obey our Lord should be one. Concern for lost, condemned souls should be another.

Sadly, most of us Christians fall far short in these areas. That is one reason that two billion or so souls worldwide now are without Christ's gospel. If any place is somewhat dangerous to enter with the gospel, we are likely not to even think of trying to take it there.

That is a large mass of human souls. In Romans chapter 10, verse 14 and 15, it asks us, And then how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Are you ready to say, Here am I, Lord, send me. If those without the gospel are ever to hear it, someone has to be like Job, laying aside his own safety and take the words of life to them, no matter what it might cost him to be a preacher.

Here am I, Lord, send me. Who can sing it from the heart? Some Christians naively think that the age of Christian martyrdom is long past. Not so.

In our present day, large numbers of fellow Christians worldwide are being martyred each year, murdered because of their faith in Christ and because they spread the good news to others. From 1978 through 1984, I preached much in public on Guam, going there twice or so a year from Japan. Preaching in public there at times, I got threats on my life, especially while preaching at night down on the strip, a place of bars and other such dens of iniquity.

Once a man yelling and cursing at me, mad as could be, he pulled a pistol on me, threatening me. There were other similar close calls. So once a kind Christian brother gently pleaded with me not to preach outside nighttime bars, saying it's dangerous down there.

And I thought, though I didn't say it, I thought, brother, I would be ashamed to confess that to others. If you belong to Christ, there is nothing dangerous to you. Your safety is ensured forever.

You have eternal safety. That is the reason you can be like Job and lay aside your physical safety. You are safe forever.

Christ is your resurrection and life. He will go with you through that valley of the shadow of death and bring you out on the other side in glorious resurrection power. And because he lives forever, you will also live forever.

So don't ever fear the one who can only destroy your body. Fear the one who has power over your soul and body to destroy them. Fear him and obey him.

I wasn't the one in danger, as I preached in front of those dens of iniquity. I was safe in Christ forever. The ones in danger were the ones who were cursing me and threatening to harm or kill me.

One heartbeat away from an eternity of torment, inhale fire. God's wrath hovering over them like a consuming fire because of their wickedness. Separated from eternal retribution by only a whisper.

Then thread a physical life in them. Any second to have that thread snap apart and plunge them into a Christless eternity of never ending torment. They were the ones in danger as I stood there and preached to them.

As for me, I was enveloped in eternal safety. The only thing truly dangerous for a Christian is for him to disobey almighty God, his captain, his commander. How dare you fear the devil and his crowd? How dare you consider your own physical safety when God commands you to go and tell? How dare you selfishly love your own life when God the Son freely gave his life for you? Give no thought to your own safety.

Be like Job instead, I pray. Colossians chapter three, verse three tells us, for ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. God help us to believe that truth.

Death became a past event for us Christians when Christ died on the cross in our place. Such a painless death that was for us. Thank thee, Lord Jesus.

And now we are risen with Christ. Colossians 3, verse one, because he lives forever, we believers also live forever, never to die again. Thus we can easily be like Job and give no thought to being in safety.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, help me to fully comprehend, understand and believe this truth because I have put my trust in Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. Thou has conquered death for me and I have eternal life.

Therefore, I will live forever no matter what wicked men may do to me. Please give me the assurance of this truth. Grant me the boldness and courage to be like Job and to not worry about my own safety, but rather to be completely desirous to serve thee no matter what may happen to me.

In simple trust, help me to completely place my life into thy hands. Knowing that it is thine own creation, trusting in thy tender loving care, help me to totally believe that my life belongs to thee for thee. Help me to never be fearful of thy commands and help me to never balk at obeying them.

I pray this for brother Richard and for all other Christians also. Please help them to be perfect in these matters, I pray. Amen.

God bless you for praying for me. My time is about up today. I want you to remember that Jesus loves you.

He died for you and he's coming again. He's watching over you every moment. He wants to take pride in you.

He loves you as much as he loves anyone else. He wants you to glorify him to the greatest extent. Let's cooperate with him in these things and may our Lord really bless you ever so richly as you do so.

Until the next time. You