Are You Really There? Am I Really Going To Make It?

How did your day start today? Did you jump out of bed enthusiastically ready to face what this new day held? Or did you rollover with a groan, reaching for the snooze button to silence the annoying sounds coming from your alarm clock? Was this one of those days where you just wanted to pull the covers back up over your head in hopes that the day would just go away? It you fit into the last category, maybe being a night owl has caught up with you – or maybe it is a little more serious than that. Maybe your life is tightly held in the grip of fear, grief or depression. Whatever is going on in your life one thing is for sure the pressure is sucking all motivation out of your life and robbing you of your joy. Perhaps your trust in God has started to cave in under the pressure of your struggle and your prayers of been reduced to simple cries for help made out of desperation. If this is you, then you are probably sick and tired of well intentioned people tossing platitudes at you; “Well, I’m sure it’ll all work out,” or “Remember, God works all things together for the good,” or perhaps the most popular, “You need to go on with your life.” You smile graciously in response but these platitudes do nothing to ease your pain. Your heart cries out, “God, Are you really there? Am I really going to make it through these struggles?” How do we trust God when a trial has swallowed us whole? What do we do when we are overcome by doubt? How do we hold on to our hope when adversity is beating the living daylights out of us? There are no easy answers, not even in the Bible. There is no magic verse that we can wave over our life like a magic wand to make the pain disappear. But in God’s Word we’re given His wisdom – the mainstays of His truth to secure us to Him when it seems the bottom has dropped out from under us. Many consider Job to be the textbook on how to handle suffering. But as Philip Yancey suggest, the point of Job is not suffering but faith. Where is Job when it hurts? How is he responding? In the first two chapters of the book of Job, Job makes an astonishing response to the avalanche of disasters that literally ripped his life apart. Let’s walk beside him and explore five extraordinary scenes from his life.

I. Five extraordinary scenes from Job’s life that resulted in calamity.

A. The first scene gives us a picture of Job’s relationship with God.

1. The opening scene on earth provides us with a detailed description of Job’s walk with God.

2. God has blessed Job with great wealth and a very large family.

3. Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase “The Message Bible” describes Job this way: “He was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion.”

B. Scene two shifts the spotlight from earth to heaven, and we are given a glimpse of the circumstances responsible for Job’s suffering.

1. Job is totally unaware that Satan has wagered that, if pushed hard enough this choice servant would actually curse God.

2. God has designated the man Job as a combatant in this battle against Satan.

3. The first and last chapters make it very clear that Job was unknowingly performing in a cosmic show down before spectators in the unseen world.

C. With the backdrop for Job’s fiery trial rolled into place; let’s look at the third scene – Satan’s all out assault.

1. Without warning, Satan’s fury sweeps into Job’s life destroying life as Job knew it.

2. With three brief events Job’s family, servants and wealth is taken away.

3. However this is just the beginning Satan still has more in store for the man of God.

D. Satan is not satisfied yet so we see him strike Job in this fourth scene.

1. Satan has been allowed to rob Job of his wealth and family and Job’s faith stayed in tact.

2. Satan is convinced that Job will break if God allows his health to be taken away.

3. So Satan states his new scheme to get Job to turn his back on God.

E. In the fifth scene, Satan will destroy Job’s body in order to get him to turn his back on God.

1. As Job tries to pick up the pieces of His life, another disaster knocks the props out from under his life.

2. Satan was convinced that the misery brought on be disease would destroy the faith of even the sturdiest of souls.