Sermon Illustrations

Not so long ago I was in Cootamundra, a small drought stricken town in the middle of nowhere when I heard a story of a particular farmer. A Christian man who grew wheat, who had survived the drought when suddenly the rains came. And they came hard, so hard in fact that hail came with it. And 20 minutes later, his entire crops were completely ruined. That same afternoon another farmer, from over the other side of town came by. This man hated God and he started screaming at him. “See what your God has done!? He just picked your field to destroy! The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away ptooey!” And the Christian man, all too aware that there would be no harvest for a long time to come, that it would mean even greater hardship for his family, he rises to his feet and tells the other man: “You finish that verse! You finish that verse! The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the LORD!”

It is of course, a quote from Job 1:20, after Job has lost his house, his farm, his livestock and all of his children.