Latest / Chapter and First- Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church / Legacy Series with Dr. Angel Martinez - "How to Survive Trouble" The Book of Job

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Legacy Series with Dr. Angel Martinez - "How to Survive Trouble" The Book of Job · Chapter and First- Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church

0:03
SPEAKER_01: Minister to the first 165 years.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to chapter and first.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: The Bible teaches the ministry of first minutes.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: You'll find our ministry first.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the section of the legacy theories of our chapter and first podcast.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Chapter and first is a podcast that highlights the Bible teaching and teaching the history of First Baptist Church.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: We've been blessed to have incredible men of God as a part of our history.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: And the legacy theory of our podcast gives us a chance to go back and hear some of the godly methods here incredibly powerful and impacting methods.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to listen to a man named Angel Martinez.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Angel was a gifted, God-empowered evangelist, and he did evangelism meetings and rallies around the world and all over the United States.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: In fact, as a high school kid at Briarcrest Baptist High School in the early 80s, when we had a spiritual emphasis in revival, it was Angel Martinez who came and preached at our high school.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: He preached an unholed number of souls.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: And only when we get to heaven will we find out how many people are saved under the evangelism ministry of Angel Martinez.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Angel was a longtime member at First Baptist Church and used this as his home base and was referred to as the staff evangelist.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: And so we are so honored to be able to be a part of his ministry throughout the years, and we are blessed to be able to let you hear this message from Angel Martinez as a part of our legacy series.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Let me repeat that.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: You and I, in our natural abilities and talents, are no match for the problems that surround us.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: Because we need help, we need spiritual help.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: And that's the message of the book of Job.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: If you read it from chapters 1 through 42, the writer is simply trying to say, we cannot make it alone.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: We need divine help.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, Job and his friends try to reason this thing out, and there is no intellectual solution to the mystery of human suffering.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: No matter how you look at it, it baffles you from every angle.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: And therefore, we must learn how to bring into operation the principle of faith and the principle of trust.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: You know, in Hebrews 11:6, the writer said, without faith it is impossible to please God.
3:13
SPEAKER_02: In other words, and he's talking about Christians, not unsaved people.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: He that cometh to God, and we come to God through prayer, through Bible study, must believe that he is, that God is operating, and that is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Now he's not referring to unsafe people there, he's referring to Christians who try to grow in their faith by seeking the face of God and the presence and the power of God.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: And so you and I need help.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: You see, God didn't promise to save us from trouble when he saved us from sin.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: Now he saved us from all of our sins at the point of salvation.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: He saved us from our past sins.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: He forgave those.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: He forgave the future sins because he knows what they are too.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: He knows every sin, every blunder, every transgression that you're going to commit from point now to point death.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: And so at the point of salvation, he didn't just take care of your past sins, he took care of all of them.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: God does not save you from point now back to point birth when you accept him.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: He saves you from point birth to point death.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: You see, that's what it means to when it says in Hebrews 7.25 that he can say from the uttermost to the uttermost.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: Actually, in in uh Greek it's a figure say that used to mean from birth to death.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: That's what it means.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly what God does for every one of us.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah, at the point of salvation.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: If it were not for that, not a single one of us could make it.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: If my forgiveness uh were total from point now to point to birth, and God forgave me, but from point now to point death I was on my own, I'd be lost in twenty minutes or less again.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't make it.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: That's why the grace of God has to move in and operate for you and for me.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: So I want you to catch the message of the book of Job.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: It is trying to show us that man alone cannot face the problem, nor can he understand the problem.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: And that's why we have all those speeches from all those friends.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: And Job answers back, and he's baffled, and they're baffled, because God is trying to show a give us a picture of the way that the human mind operates in the presence of sorrow and despair.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: There is no intellectual solution.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: You say, Well, I don't understand.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: You see?
5:34
SPEAKER_02: And whenever you look up, whenever something happens to you, and you look up and say, Why did this happen to me?
5:42
SPEAKER_02: You're not looking for an answer.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: You're looking for an argument.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: And God is not going to argue with you or with me.
5:49
SPEAKER_02: He's too smart to do that.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: We don't have the equipment to understand the ministry and the decipherings of the grace of God.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: We're going to have to wait and trust and then look back someday from heaven, or maybe even later in this life, and see where certain things fit in.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: You can do that now with some things that ten years ago, twenty years ago, you thought the world had come to an end because of a certain thing that happened.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: And now as you look back, you say, Well, maybe that's the best thing that ever happened to me.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: At that point, at the time, you did not know it.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: But that's the way God operates.
6:24
SPEAKER_02: Alright, so God didn't promise to save us from trouble when he saved us from sin.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: He didn't save the Hebrew children out of the fiery furnace, he saved them in the fiery furnace.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: He didn't save Daniel out of the lion's den, he saved Daniel in the lion's den.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: He didn't save David out of the valley of the shadow of death, he saved David in the valley of the shadow of death.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: You see, there are no big problems.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: There are just little people.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: That's the trouble.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: You know that the trouble is relative.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: You say, preacher, what do you mean by that?
7:03
SPEAKER_02: Or trouble is relative.
7:05
SPEAKER_02: It depends upon your strength, not upon the weight of the problem.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: Take for example, a little baby can walk up to a 50-pound weight, a little toddler, and he cannot pick it up.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Why?
7:17
SPEAKER_02: Is it too heavy?
7:18
SPEAKER_02: No, he's just a weakling.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: See?
7:21
SPEAKER_02: That little boy may grow up later and become a weightlifter in college, and he can come up to that same weight and pick it up with one finger.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: What's the difference?
7:29
SPEAKER_02: The weight?
7:30
SPEAKER_02: No.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: The strength of the inner person.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: That's the difference.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: When I was with you last time, I brought you a sermon on the book of Job, but I took a different direction.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: But today I want to talk about the fact that faith is the answer.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, in the 19th chapter in verse 25, Job looked up and he gave us the total concept of facing problems.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: I know that my Redeemer liveth, that he shall stand upon this earth in the latter day.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: And though let skin worms destroy this body, he was suffering physically.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Yet in my flesh I'll see God, and mine eyes shall behold him and not another, though my reins be consumed within me.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: Job 19, 25.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: And that summarizes the mood of the entire chapter, and the entire book.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: If we're going to win the victory, we're going to have to learn how to look up and say, Lord, you take over.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: It's in your hands.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: It's in your hands.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: I want to say three things about the book of Job and summarize it for you or give you what I call an overview.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we understand the Bible better if we get up high and look at the whole thing instead of trying to go a piecemeal and uh little by little and go gradually.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Let's get an overview.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: All right, let me give you three divisions.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: Number one, chapters one, two, and three.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when things go wrong.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: Now the key word is the word T-H-I-N-G-S, the word things.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when things go wrong.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: That'll be point number one.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Point number two, trust God when people disappoint you.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: And the key word is the word people.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: Because most of the trouble that you're going to have in life is going to come from other human beings, from people.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: In chapters four through 37, three men came to visit Job.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: You remember how these friends came, and they didn't do a very good job of helping Job at all.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: And then in chapter 31, a young fellow who was passing by and heard them arguing, he jumped in and put in four chapters worth of what he thought.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: And he didn't help the situation either.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: And the other fellows were older men.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: He thought a young man wouldn't have the solution.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: But uh neither youth nor old age has the solution for human trouble.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: It has to come from above.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: Unless we have within us that which is above us, we are going to be defeated by that which is around us.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: Alright, chapters 4 through 37, trust God when people disappoint you.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: And then chapters 38 through 42, the last chapter is 42.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when God doesn't talk to you, when God is silent.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: Because there are times when God won't say a word, but he's there.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: Don't ever mistake his silence for his absence.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: He's always there if you're a child of God.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: That's one of the promises and guarantees at the point of salvation.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, God does about 34 things for you the moment he saves you, and one of them is to say, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Now you're born again, your name is written in heaven, you have eternal life, you're baptized with the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: And number five, you're an heir of God, a joint heir of Christ, you're a priest of God, you're an ambassador of God, and on and on I could go.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: Thirty-four things that happen to you the moment you're saved.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: And one of them is, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: Lo, I am with you always.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: So many times he's there, but he doesn't say a word.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: And you want him to talk out and say, Why, oh Lord, tell me something about my situation.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: He says, All right, trust God when things go wrong, trust God when people disappoint you, trust God when God is silent but never absent.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: Alright, let's take number one.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when things go wrong.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, for Job, things went wrong.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: If you read chapter one, the report he got up that morning, a healthy man, a wealthy man, and by sundown, he was broke.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: That afternoon, the stock market crashed.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: And if you read chapter one, the reports began coming in.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: The camels are gone.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: And the camels were very important to Eastern people.
11:43
SPEAKER_02: They were like our 18 wheelers in our day.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: There were the trucks that the transportation for goods of that day.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: And then the cattle, lightning has struck the cattle, and of course, there goes the T-bone stakes.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: And the sheep.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, there goes the new suit for next fall.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: You see?
12:01
SPEAKER_02: And so everything that was represented wealth for a man, everything was gone.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: And by sundown, Job was broke, and economic problems are going to come to us.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: I know I grew up during the depression, and problems have arisen all the way through, and you have the same thing in your life.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: We have to learn how to trust God and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then he's promised that all these things shall be added unto you.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you're facing that today with this crazy economy of ours, the inflation.
12:38
SPEAKER_02: I heard a father the other day say to me, He said, you know, just about a just about the time I make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
12:50
SPEAKER_02: And that's about the story of our life economic from the standpoint of economics.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: And so therefore we're going to have problems in that realm.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: And then another problem that came to Job, things went wrong.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: Another problem, ten children died.
13:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that was a blow.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine seven boys and three girls, the entire family wiped out in one catastrophic stroke?
13:10
SPEAKER_02: They were having a party in the home of the eldest brother, and right in the midst of their party, their festivities, a tornado struck, and seven boys and three girls were wiped out.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine, Miss, that funeral?
13:24
SPEAKER_02: You've been to the funerals to the cemetery to bury one loved one who meant so much to you.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: But can you imagine ten?
13:32
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine coming home after that funeral and all of the laughter and sparkle of young people gone?
13:40
SPEAKER_02: What a tragic time.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: You can sympathize with Mr.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: and Mrs.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: Job at this point.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: And then after that, another problem.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: Had to leave town.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: Didn't want people staring at him.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: What he had, we don't know.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: Some years ago I was making a careful study of the book of Job, and I began to think, what did he have?
14:06
SPEAKER_02: And so I said, I think I'll just lift all the symptoms because he complained about several things, and I picked up seven symptoms.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: Some were lodged in poetry, and you had to wrest them from their literary mooring.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: And I got about seven symptoms, and I sent them to a medical doctor friend, to several medical doctor friends who specialize in diagnosis in internal medicine.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: And you know I got almost as many answers, different answers, as the number of doctors I confronted.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: You see, that's why they call it practicing medicine.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: They're just practicing.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: They don't know everything.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: You see, the medical doctor is at the at the mercy of what they call differential diagnosis.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: The same symptoms can uh obtain, can characterize many diseases.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: When you go to a medical doctor and say my head hurts, that may mean a tumor.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: It may mean uh a circulatory problem, a migraine headache where the where the where the carotid artery is is not functioning properly, and you're having a headache on one half side of your head.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: It may mean uh visual problems, it may mean meningitis, it may mean a fluid imbalance of the brain, it may mean a tumor, it may mean inflammation of the coverings of the brain, the meninges.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: But on and on you could go, see, and the doctors have to face, in fact, one doctor said whenever a patient comes into the office and says, I've got a headache, it may mean one of three hundred different diseases.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: And the doctor has to weed them out and say it's not this, it's not that, it's not the other, and then finally zero in on the right one.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: But these doctor friends, one doctor's friend wrote it back and said he had elephantiasis, a disease of that eastern time.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: Another one said no, he had coccydodomycosis.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: You know how doctors have long names for what's wrong with us.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: Coccidioidomycosis, a fungus disease of the lung.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: Another one said no, he had anthrax, for you have boils and eruptions in the skin, and on and on.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: And so, but uh Job got sick.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've been sick recently, or you're going to be.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Some of you are very healthy and you sit here and say, I haven't had a sick day in my life, but one of these days it's going to happen.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: Some infection will move in, some genetic dysfunction will take over, like a gallbladder or an appendix.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: Maybe, uh, maybe some uh something you picked up from uh the from your background, from your parents, a bad gene as you grow older will begin to show up.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: And then all of the problems of geriatrics, as one ages, all these.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: And so Job got very sick and he left town to suffer alone.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: And then on top of that, another problem.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: Mrs.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: Job had a nervous breakdown.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: She said, Job cursed God and commits suicide.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: And whenever somebody suggests suicide for himself or the other person, he's not well.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: And remember that suicide can happen to Christians.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: Like cancer can happen to a Christian.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: You see, suicide basically is a chemical imbalance of the endocrine system, where deep depressions take over, and the person in the throes of melancholia, in the throes of unsolvable anxieties, or depressions that are beyond the ken of human comprehension or remedy.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: The person gives in, and death becomes better than life.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, in 1 Samuel chapter 28, we have the story of a Christian who committed suicide and went to heaven.
17:50
SPEAKER_02: His name was S-A-U-L, Saul.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: He was a king.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: He'd been saved, but he got away from the Lord in his latter reign, and one day he was fighting the Philistines, and he wanted to talk to Samuel, the old prophet, who was dead, and he went toward the witch of Endor, hoping uh to get some relief, and God allowed uh Samuel to appear, to come back from heaven.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: And if you read the story in 1 Samuel 28, Samuel said, Saul, you're in trouble.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: Tomorrow you're going to lose the battle.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: And in the midst of the fight, you're going to get very depressed.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: And you and your sons will commit, you will commit suicide, and your sons will be killed.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: And by this time tomorrow, you and your sons will be with me.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: Now, where was Samuel?
18:38
SPEAKER_02: He had come from heaven.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: He delivered that message, went back to heaven.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: He said, Tomorrow we'll see you in heaven.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: And surely enough, the next day Saul fell on his own sword, committed suicide, his sons died, and he went to heaven.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: So this can happen to a believer.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: Like a pen, like a pendicitis can happen to a believer, like cancer can happen to a believer, like typhoid fever can happen to a believer.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: Just because you're a child of God, you're not uh immune from the problems of human existence.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, Paul had a thorn in the flesh and God didn't heal him.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Said, tough it out.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: I'll give you strength to bear it.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: So Mrs.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Job broke down.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've never been too severe, Mrs.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Job, whenever I have made a study of this book, because if you notice when the money was gone, this little woman didn't say a word.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: She stood firm.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: When ten children died, and every mother in this congregation knows what that would have meant to you.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: She dried her tears and went right on.
19:58
SPEAKER_02: But when Job got sick, it was too much.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: The human psyche can endure just so much.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: And she went to pieces.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: All right, number one, trust God when things go wrong.
20:14
SPEAKER_02: Chapters 1, 2, and 3.
20:15
SPEAKER_02: And things are going to go wrong in your life.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: You're living in an imperfect world.
20:20
SPEAKER_02: This world can go wrong.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, tornadoes and hurricanes are the world, are the machine, is the machine breaking down?
20:28
SPEAKER_02: The machine can break down.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: The earth and the universe is under the curse of sin.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: And whenever anything is cursed by sin, it's cursed by limitations.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: And tornadoes and hurricanes are deviations.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: Like when your car breaks down.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: Cause problems.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: You're living in an imperfect world.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: And more than that, you're not perfect yourself.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: You make mistakes, and many much many of our troubles come because of the mistakes we willfully made somewhere in the past.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: And then other people make mistakes who love you and whom you love, and when they get hurt, you get hurt.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: So trust God when things go wrong.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: Look up and say, I know that my Redeemer liveth.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: See?
21:21
SPEAKER_02: He shall stand upon this earth in the latter day.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: He controls history.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: He controls my body.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: Let skin worms destroy this body.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: He controls the future, the resurrection.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: Yet in my flesh I'll see God.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: He controls eternity, and mine eyes shall behold him.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: And the word behold in Hebrew means they'll keep on beholding him forever and forever.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: Though my reigns, by the way, the word reigns in Hebrew is a word for kidneys, be consumed within me.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: So trust God when things go wrong.
21:59
SPEAKER_02: T H I N.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Or number two, trust God when people disappoint you.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: Chapters 4 through 37.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: Now here the uh three men move in.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Now they were friends of Job and they were supposed to comfort, but they didn't do it.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: Because the human mind doesn't have the answer to the mystery of suffering.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: And Job, they didn't help Job, these men.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm convinced after preaching for forty-five years that there are some people who should never visit the sick.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: Now they mean well when they go.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: And their intentions are good.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: But they don't understand the psychology of a sick person.
22:52
SPEAKER_02: Whenever a person is sick, he's under the umbrella of a different psychology than when he's well.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: And these men didn't help Job.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: And some people should never visit the sick.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: I have a preacher friend who told me he got sick during a certain part of his ministry, and one day two ladies came to visit him, and they said, Brother Pastor, we're so sorry you're sick, and we have come to comfort you, and we want to sing for you a duet.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: You know what they sang?
23:28
SPEAKER_02: My ladies son is sinking fast.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: My race is almost run.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: That isn't a good song to sing to a sick man.
23:46
SPEAKER_02: I got sick a few years ago and had to go into two surgeries right in a row.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: And you know, sixty-two people came to visit me.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: I counted them.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: And not a single one of them said a thing that helped me.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: Somebody the answer is not to be found in logic.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: The only I'll take it back, one little preacher, a little country preacher who went to the hospital and looked on the register and he saw my name.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: And he had read my books, but he had never met me or heard me preach.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: And he was from the country.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: He said, Well, I think I'll go by and visit him.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: And he came in and said, I've read your books and I've gotten a blessing from them, and I saw your name on the register, and I just wanted to come and tell you that I'm sorry you're sick.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: Can I do anything for you?
24:36
SPEAKER_02: Can I mow your lawn?
24:38
SPEAKER_02: I take care of uh lawns, people's lawns, and preach on Sundays, and I don't have it, they don't I don't make enough money in the little church where I preach uh to support me.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: He said, Can I mow your lawn while you're sick?
24:51
SPEAKER_02: Now that man did more for me.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: When you visit sick people, do something for them.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: Don't just say words.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: Don't try to reason it out and say, well, it could be worse.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: You know.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: And like Job here, they said you've done something wrong, you've sinned, and God's punishing you.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: Or they'll come in with some Lulu's.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: I wish it like Job, they wish they'd just shut up.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't like for people to come and see me when I'm sick.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: After these 62 people came the first couple of days, I just put up a sign and said, no visitors, infection in here.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: That kept them out, bud.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: They didn't come in.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: I told my doctor, I said, I don't want, I don't want folks to come and see.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, when you're sick, you don't look good, and you don't feel good, you don't look good.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: I like for folks to come and see me when I'm feeling well.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: That's what I've never learned while we open the casket.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: Keep it shut.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Let's remember the folks like they were at their best.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: People are going to give you trouble.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes your kinfolks will be the greatest offenders.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: You know your loved ones can hurt you more than anybody else.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: You know Jesus had more trouble with his own kinfolks than anybody else.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: In John chapter 7 and verse 5, it says, None of his brethren, none of his brethren believed on him.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: After he was virgin born, Joseph and Mary lived together like husband and wife.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: If you want to read the record, put it down.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: Mark chapter 6 and verse 3 talks about the family, the little family, and the brothers and sisters.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: It mentions at least four brothers and at least two sisters.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: There could have been more.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: And they didn't believe on him.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that must have hurt.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: Here he was raising the dead, stealing the storm, feeding the five thousand.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: And his own kin folks said, That must have hurt.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: In fact, in Mark chapter 3 and verse 21, they came to take him home.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: They said, You're not well.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: You don't have both oars in the water.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: Or as they say sometimes, you're not playing with a full deck.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: Or as the young people say, you don't have all your marbles.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, the God who made the universe, his own kinfolks talking to him like that.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: Don't let it surprise you when sons and daughters and husbands and wives and mothers and fathers break your heart.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: They can do it quicker than anybody else.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: Than strangers or enemies.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: Your kin folks.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when people disappoint you.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: And they're going to do it.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: And you're going to have to stand firm.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: Learn how to put people in God's hands.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: When children go a different way.
28:03
SPEAKER_02: I've seen pastor friends and preacher friends bring up boys and girls in a beautiful Christian home.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: And then one or two of them took off in just an opposite direction of what they had been taught all their lives.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: And I've seen mothers and fathers say, What happened?
28:19
SPEAKER_02: Why the where did I go wrong?
28:21
SPEAKER_02: I did my best.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: You see, they've got a freedom, and they can abuse it.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: And often they do.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: Learn how to put them in God's hands.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: I have a sermon on the prodigal son, the story of the prodigal son called, Can you wait on the front porch?
28:39
SPEAKER_02: That daddy.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: He didn't chase after that boy when he took off.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: But every afternoon he stood and looked down the road.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: May have been 30 or 40 years before he came back.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: We don't have any time.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Indicated.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: Can you wait on the front porch?
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh, let's learn how to wait.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: Let's learn how to be patient.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: That's part of trusting God.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: He's patient with us.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could be as patient with other people as God has been with us?
29:20
SPEAKER_02: What a tremendous world this would be if we could be as patient with others as God has been with us.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: Now may I close by saying the third thing?
29:31
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when God doesn't talk to you.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, for 38 chapters, for 37 chapters, Job said, Where's God?
29:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh, if I could just talk to God, there's something wrong here.
29:40
SPEAKER_02: Where are you?
29:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, he was right there, but he wasn't saying a thing to Job.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: And God has a purpose for being silent.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: He knows when to talk.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: Finally, in chapter 38, he spoke out.
30:00
SPEAKER_02: You read chapters 38 through 42, you know what God did?
30:03
SPEAKER_02: He asked Job 40 questions.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: He said, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
30:11
SPEAKER_02: That's a question in genetics.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: Has the reign a father?
30:15
SPEAKER_02: That's a question in meteorology.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Who controls Pleiades and Orion?
30:20
SPEAKER_02: That's a question in astronomy.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Who feeds Leviathan the great sea monster?
30:25
SPEAKER_02: That's a question in biology.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: And on and on.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: Forty questions.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: And Job realized that anyone who had enough intelligence to ask that kind of a question could take care of him.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: So you see, Job did not get the answer.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: He lost the question.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: Job did not get the answer.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: He lost the question.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: And Job discovered there is more wisdom in the questions of God than there is in the answers of men.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: And Job said, anybody who knows the answer to those questions, and he must he knows everything can take care of me.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: You ever stop to realize the omnipotence of God is on your side if you're a believer?
31:22
SPEAKER_02: No wonder Paul could say, can tribulation, distress, persecution, nakedness, peril, famine, or sword separate us from the love of God.
31:31
SPEAKER_02: No.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: In all these things, not out of them.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: Notice the preposition, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: Let me close with a poem that summarizes everything I've been saying here this morning.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: God works in most mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: He plans his footprint on the sea, and he rides upon the storm.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Deep in unsearchable minds of never-dying skill, he treasures up his bright design, and he works his sovereign will.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: You trembling saints, fresh courage take.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: The cloud you so much dread is filled with mercy and will break with blessings on your head.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Judge not the Lord with feeble sins, but trust him for his grace.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: Behind the mask of providence, God wears a smiling face.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: Blind on belief is sure to err and scan his work in vain.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: Let's learn how to trust God.
33:38
SPEAKER_02: He put us here for a purpose, and then he redeemed us by his grace.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: And he's going to guide us every step from point now to point heaven and beyond death.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: He made the universe, he's reliable.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: He knows everything, he's reliable.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: He loves us with a crucified love.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: That makes him reliable.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: He has all power, he's everywhere at the same time.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: He was here before we got here.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: He'll be here after we're gone.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: He made this thing, he set the stage of human existence upon planet Earth, raised the curtain in the Garden of Eden, and He's going to drop it in the future.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: The show belongs to him.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: Oh, to trust Him.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: Oh, to trust Him.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: Oh, to say, Lord, we're in your hands.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: We can't understand it, and that's where the book of Job was written.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: To show that the mystery of human suffering has no intellectual solution between point birth and point death.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: We're going to have to look up and say, Lord, I need your help.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: With my health, with my children, with my economics, with my friends, with my sicknesses, with my sorrows.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: I need your help.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when things go wrong.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: Chapters 1, 2, and 3.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when people disappoint you.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: Chapters 4 through 37.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: Trust God when God is silent but never absent.
35:32
SPEAKER_02: He's always there.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: The other day a lady said to me, Oh, I'm having trouble.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: When I pray, my prayers don't reach above the ceiling.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: I said, Lady, God operates under the ceiling.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: Why don't we get the idea we have to shoot our prayers so far before God can get a hold of them?
35:55
SPEAKER_02: Tennyson the poet said he's closer than breathing.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: And God is nearer than hands and feet.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Send an email to contact us at ffbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to chapter and first of the Bible teaching ministry of four minutes.