Sermon Central
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Heaven's Wager
Contributed by Larry Brincefield on Jun 25, 2004 (message contributor)
Summary: The story of Job continues today. We are all Job. Satan is trying to afflict us, to tempt us, to lure us away from God. We must remain faithful in the face of trials. We must fall to the ground in worship, expressing love to God. But, if we have faile
Preached by Larry Brincefield on June 27, 2004
Title: Heaven’s Wager
Text: Job 1:6-22
Introduction
1. I don’t have much time for “pleasure” reading.
• I do so much reading of Bibles, commentaries, and other materials in sermon preparation,
• I just don’t have the time to read much beyond scanning the newspaper or a magazine.
• But, when I go on vacation, I try to catch up!
• During my most recent vacation, I read 3 books by Ted Dekker (www.teddekker.com)
• He writes Christian fiction that is very entertaining and exciting…
• Yet it also speaks to me on a deeply spiritual level.
• The Lord really blesses me through his writings.
• One of those books was entitled, “Heaven’s Wager”…
• And it is what inspired me to write this sermon,
• Which I’ve entitled “Heaven’s Wager” after the book.
2. I won’t go into great detail about the book…
• It is basically the story of a man who seems to have it all…
• But then, through a bizarre set of seemingly unrelated circumstances…
• This man’s entire world crashed down around him.
• This man wasn’t a Christian…
• But his wife, son, and mother-in-law were…
• And they met every week to pray for this man.
• But then the crash occurs…
• And he seems to slip even farther from the Lord…
• But ultimately, he finds redemption…
• After the death of 2 loved ones…
• After his job falls apart because of 2 conspiring co-workers…
• After he commits a crime…
• And is sentenced to prison…
• He finally comes to his senses and finds the Lord.
• The gist of the story is that unbeknownst to the man…
• Everything that is happening to him is the result of spiritual warfare between God and Satan.
• This short summary hasn’t really done the story justice…
• Get the book and read it for yourself (or you can borrow mine if you don’t forget to return it!)
Read Text: Job 1:6-22
Body
1. The Story
A. Job seemed to have a perfect life…
• A wonderful family…wife, 10 kids
• A good job with a solid income…
• Material possessions…
• He was very wealthy.
B. But then, he loses it all…
• As far as he is concerned…
• These events just happened to him…
• He doesn’t know the cause…
• But his world just fell apart.
C. Behind the scenes, there is God and satan…
• They have made a deal whereby satan can test Job…
• And as a result of satan’s efforts, Job is severely tested…
• To the breaking point.
• And you know the story…Job remains faithful…
• And in the end, the Lord richly blesses him…
• Ted Dekker’s book is an contemporary parallel to the story of Job.
2. But, there’s more to it…
A. The book of Job isn’t just a story about something that happened thousands of years ago…
• And “Heaven’s Wager” by Ted Dekker isn’t just fictional entertainment…
• The story of Job is going on in the world today…
• From OUR perspective, the world is what we see…
• The circumstances that happen to us are just that…
• Circumstances…
• Random events…
• On the surface, we see no reason to think otherwise…
B. But there is more to this world than meets the eye…
• There is more going on than what we can see…
• There is another side…
• A deeper side…
• Beneath the surface…
• A place where, truth be told, there’s much more going on than there is here…
• In our visible world…
• Christians often talk about spiritual battle…
• But I wonder if we really have any idea of the extent…
C. satan’s work hasn’t ended…
• We read about his end in the book of Revelation…
• And those events haven’t happened yet…
• satan is STILL “roaming the earth”…
• Scripture says, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)
• I don’t know if you have ever watched one of those nature shows…
• Where the lions are hunting the wildebeest…
• But if you have, then you have gotten a picture of 1 Peter 5:8…
• satan is like that lion…hungry…looking to devour us…
• We are like the wildebeest…poor…defenseless…
• Do you know how the lion picks out which wildebeest to go after?
• He looks for the ones that are
o sick…
o diseased…
o struggling…
• And just like that lion, satan will look for Christians who are hurt, struggling, and weak.
• I don’t know about the lion, I’m not a zoologist…
• But satan doesn’t stop there…
