Sermon Central
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To And Fro On The Earth: Born To Trouble Series
Contributed by Amiri Hooker on Oct 2, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR B Well, you’ll have to look elsewhere for a complete answer to that question. But it is our contention that the book of Job deals with some profoundly difficult questions in the life of faith, and it does so without easy answers or simplistic cliches
MAIN TEXT:
One day the heavenly beings[i] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan[j] also came among them to present himself before the LORD. 2 The LORD said to Satan,[k] “Where have you come from?” Satan[l] answered the LORD, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” Can we stop right there I know a lot of you want to get all excited about Job and his loss and what he is going through, however, I want to focus on the enemy you can learn a lot about the suffering and drama you are going through if you check the cause? One of the main things I learned in the past few years working in the Poor People’s Campaign is that the root cause of most of the poverty we see is not the individual poor but the systems that have caused individuals to be Poor. Rev Barber said this week as he is preparing to speak in Rome at the Vatican on one of our conference calls “The Pope gets it. They (the Vatican) are very clear that poverty occurs not because people are immoral, but because of immoral systems that have been created.”
The Issues that Job faced did not begin with Job they begin with Satin. And this day on World Communion Sunday I’m Going to Give yawl this one and won’t even charge for it, Satin is not a person, Satin (hear me now) is a mindset. I said Satin is Not a Noun it’s a Verb being Satin is not what you get into it's what gets into you. So many folks waiting on the Devil to show up and Satin already using your sister.
As is often pointed out, “satan” here is not so much a name as it is an office or function as the Accuser. In the Hebrew of Job, this is clear in that “satan” always includes a definite article, ha-satan, “the satan.”
The fact that most English translations ignore this is either the result of reading too much of the Devil into the text, or misplaced fear of confusing the reader. Regardless, the meaning of the text is easily obscured.
Maybe this will help put the whole “Satan” thing in perspective: “the satan” in Job works in much the same way as the angel of the Lord who appears to Balaam’s donkey, blocking his way “as his adversary” (Numbers 22:22). What I’m saying is “The Satan” Job is to get in the way, Put its Ass (oops I meant Donkey) in between your work and God. “The satan” is one, usually an angel, who serves as an adversary or “prosecuting attorney” on God’s behalf. A Good Prosecutor is able to get you tripped up, and that’s the Job of the Satan!
And What is the Satan doing in our text he is going TO AND FRO. TO AND FRO is an ADVERB that means being in a constant movement backward and forward or from side to side.
Secondly, I’m going to go ahead and give it to you, you can’t do any good going back and forth. If you are Hot today and cold tomorrow, you are not going to help anyone. If you are On the Lord's side today fired up and ready to praise him today and tomorrow, you are ushering the devil around town you are not any good for anybody.
The Lord nor the Church, need folks that play both sides.
ILL. I must admit that I struggle with making decisions. I don’t know why, but I will let someone else decide rather than put myself through the agony. Perhaps part of me is afraid of disappointing others. Or maybe part of me doesn’t want to deal with the flack if I make a “wrong” choice. Sometimes it’s just easier to follow the crowd.
Unfortunately, my struggle with choices is not unique. There is a long history of God’s people being wishy-washy. Crowd followers.
In the Old Testament, God instructed the Israelites to love Him only and to place no other gods before Him (Ex. 20:2–3). The Israelites didn’t listen. All through the pages of the Old Testament, we read that God’s people split their allegiance between the Creator and pagan gods.
That’s the same discussion we see in the intro to Job. Today is no different. The message is still the same. We can’t serve two gods. Even though many choices vie for our attention, if we choose to follow God, we must serve only Him.
Cast aside temptations and choose to follow God.
God doesn’t have time for you to be wishy-washy if you going to be in heaven then be in heaven if you going to be earthly or worldly then be of the world.
