It's been a real joy to be here with you this week, and I know I speak on behalf of my family also. We certainly want to thank all of you for your kindness and love to us, your prayers, and we just want to encourage you to continue those prayers for us as we go back north. We need your prayers. Since I first came to the Park of the Palms in prayers from God's people down in this place. And each time someone is called to go home to be with the Lord, we feel it's like a blow because we know that many of you have held us up through the years in your prayers. And it's for that reason that we believe that God has blessed in our area because Christians have prayed and we want to take this opportunity to thank you for praying for us and for helping us in so many ways. Now, I was in the bookstore this evening, and I noticed they still have a few of these little books on Job left by Mr. Roy Zuck. And I was looking at the bottom of the pages, and I noticed that he has quite a number of footnotes that explain different words. And he does a nice job on the explanation. So if you don't have a copy of a commentary on the book of Job, this seems like a very nice, plain one, and yet he really gives the meanings of words, and it's a help. Let's read tonight in the last chapter of Job, Job chapter forty-two, and we'll begin where we left off last night in verse seven. While you're looking that up, I just might add that those of you who have not, have never known anything about the work that we do, we are involved in seeing new assemblies and local churches. begun and just before I came down here we had a phone call from a family that had moved into a city about forty five minutes to the west of us and the brothers said we're here in a in a city without a good New Testament church how's chances of starting a new one and boy that's that's the best music to my ears because that means that we're going to have to see people saved and people educated in the things of the Lord and gathered together. And Jesus said, teach them all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And that's part of the work that we want to do. So you pray for us as you think of it. Job chapter forty-two and reading from verse seven, please. And it was that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Teamanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends, for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering. And my servant Job shall pray for you. For him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly. in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. So Eliphaz, the Timonite, and Bildad, the Shuhite, and Zophar, the Nehemiahite, went and did according as the Lord commanded them, the Lord also accepted Job. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. Also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all they that had been of his acquaintance before and did eat bread with him in his house. And they bemoaned him and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money and every one an earring of gold. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than at his beginning. For he had fourteen thousand sheep and six thousand camels and a thousand yoke of oxen. and a thousand she-asses. He also had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemima, and the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Karen Hepak. And in all the land were no women found as fair as the daughters of Job, and their father gave unto them inheritance among their brethren. After this Job lived in hundred and forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons even four generations. So Job died being old and full of days. May the Lord bless that reading of his word. Let's just look to him for a moment. Our Father, we thank thee for thy goodness and kindness to us, as thou hast surely been with us, as we have explored this book in thy word. We thank thee so much for the insights that have been shared. by thy grace to each one of us. And Lord, we ask that tonight will be no different, that thy blessed Holy Spirit will seek to take the word and bring it right into the inner man. And then, Lord, we pray that there will be fruit from it for thy glory. For we ask it giving thanks in the worthy name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. We come to the last point in our outline tonight. We looked at the introduction of the problem in chapter one and two, and then we saw how man discussed the problem. And last night we were looking at how God came and broke into the situation and God addressed the problem. And tonight we see the problem is cleared up. It's resolved. And that's the last point in our outline. I have been giving you each night a little key for spiritually mature believers. And tonight we'll do that. In fact, I think it would be nice tonight if we read the whole list and just by way of review reminded ourselves what we've been considering. On the first message, we looked at the spiritually mature believer that he knows how to maintain a relationship with God. And then on Sunday night, I believe it was, we considered the fact that the mature Christian knows the adversary. Our third message, we saw that a mature believer knows how to comfort others And then on the fourth time we saw that a mature believer has a growing faith, I believe. Yes. And last night we saw that a mature Christian allows God to humble him or her when it's necessary. Now tonight we want to see that a mature Christian rejoices in the sovereignty of God. Each time we've met I've tried to take a little time and at the beginning of the message or at the end do a little special extra study. Little extra food for thought. Tonight we'll do the same, only we'll do it right now at the beginning of the message so that when we look at the verses at the end of Job, we can sail right out to the end and come out right hopefully on our time. Tonight we're going to consider for just five or ten minutes the subject of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. And I'll tell you why we're doing that. It's probably very obvious. But just think with me for a few moments about what we mean when we talk about the sovereignty of God. I was studying this not too long ago and a brother made a statement in my hearing and I want to repeat it for you. Listen to this. It's just a single sentence on the sovereignty of God. But listen to this. He said, God has the right to do with his creation as he pleases. He is under no rule or authority or obligation outside himself to do or explain anything. You know, when I heard that statement, explain, I couldn't help but think of Joel. What do you think of that statement? Is that kind of strong? It sure is a strong statement. Are you comfortable with a statement that strong? Well, before you answer that, let's look at four verses. We'll start in Job and work toward the back of the Bible. Just turn with me very quickly to four scriptures, and then we'll have to get into our study for tonight. Now, we'll begin in the book of Psalms, chapter one, fifteen, the hundred and fifteen Psalms. And just reading the second and third verse, Psalm one, fifteen, verse two and three. Wherefore should the nations say, Where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Now on to the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter four. And this is, of course, the famous statement made by King Nebuchadnezzar after God had dealt with him. Daniel chapter four and reading from verse thirty four. And at the end of the days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most high, and I praised and honored him who liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou? Hmm. Interesting. Over to the New Testament, please. Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter one. Reading just verse eleven. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Now finally to first Timothy chapter six. First Timothy chapter six. And we'll read from verse fourteen. Paul is giving charge to his young son in the faith, Timothy. First Timothy six and verse fourteen, and he says, That thou keep this commandment without spot unrebukeable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his times he shall show who is the blessed and only potentate or sovereign, the king of kings and the Lord of lords. That's probably the greatest scripture on the subject of the sovereignty of God anywhere in the Bible. He will show in his times who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords. Now I'm sure you'll agree with me that those verses taken together will substantiate that strong statement that our brother made, and I want to read it one more time to you, God has the right to do with his creation as he pleases. He is under no rule or authority or obligation outside himself to do or explain anything. You know, in times of the trying of our faith, it's great to go back and fall on that rock of the sovereignty of God, isn't it? We can thank God that the doctrine of the sovereignty of God means that God is the one who has ultimate control of all things, even your life and my life to the smallest detail. And we stand on that. And that helps us to understand why God allowed Job to pass through what he did. And it's a great comfort to us, and it must be a great comfort to us to know that should God call upon us at any time to pass through deep waters, we fall back and stand firm on the conviction of the sovereignty of God. No one has wrested control from the hand of Almighty God. He is on the throne, as we are hearing tonight. So we need to just pass on from that. And I want to just say one other thing before we go on. Why did we begin with a consideration of that? Well, obviously it has a lot to say about the Book of Job. But there's another reason why I wanted to begin with that little meditation on God's sovereignty. It's this. We're going to see in a few moments that the Book of Job has a happy ending on this earth. And some of you may have wrestled with that and said, you know, that's the hardest part for me in the book because for Job it all turns out well. But for me it didn't. or for my loved one, it didn't. And you know, that's where the sovereignty of God is so important. Because if we are committed to the sovereignty of God, it means we're committed not only to his power to do his will in our lives, but also we're committed to his timetable, aren't we? And so he has promised it will all come out well. All things work together for good to them that love God. But he doesn't tell us when. And you know, for some of us, it may be in the next life. In fact, it's pretty unusual that we can say that our final reward, it's not only unusual, it's impossible that we could say our final reward is here. Now, I think there's a reason why God had to work the story out with a happy ending in this life for Job, and we're going to try to look at that. But I just want to go over that because anyone might say, well, you know, Job had the blessing of a happy ending in his story, but my story didn't end so happily. The story isn't over yet. And we need to remember that. Okay, let's go on. Tonight we're going to look at Job's restoration, and I want to cover it under three parts. Verse one through six, the repentance, and because we looked at that last night, we'll only just mention a couple of things by way of review. Verse one through six, Job's repentance. Verse seven through nine, Job the mediator. And then verse ten through seventeen, Job's prosperity. And we'll take a look at how God brought prosperity back to Job. Now let's just consider for a few minutes, verse one through six. Last night we were considering the skillful way in which Almighty God worked with Job, and he brought him to that place where Job could say those wonderful words, once he saw the Lord, once he was confronted personally with God, then he says, I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. And God brings them to the place that he wanted them to come to. And we said at the close of the hour last night, God could say as it were to Job, now you have been enlarged. Remember we've been talking about the enlarging work of God. Job, you have a new understanding of me that you never had before. And you have an understanding of yourself that you've never had before. And God was able to do by his word what Job's friends never could do by their arguments. What a lesson to us as we witness for Christ. Amen. It is an argument that's going to win anybody to the Lord. It's the Word of God that has the power. And we need to remember that. It's a good lesson that comes out of this passage. Some of you, I'm sure, have been struggling with the fact as to why a man of Job's caliber had to repent at all. God says he was a perfect man. And why would repentance be needed? Now, Job was not repenting as a law sinner. Job had a relationship with God. We've seen that. Job was repenting as a man who was growing in his Christian walk, his walk of faith. And I read a paragraph written by a man named George Williams, and it was so good. It just kind of summarizes this. And before we go on to our next point, I want to read this paragraph to you and ask you to listen to it. He says, it is plain to all that a wicked man should die to self. But that a perfect man should also need to die is not so clear. And yet, this is the offense of the cross. All that goodness and beauty which men recognize in themselves and in others must be nailed to the cross, and the only man that is to live must be the risen man, Christ Jesus. Isn't that good? I just enjoyed that so much. Because you just have a picture there of Job, and because he has such a special relationship with God, and as he clings to God through all his trial, and we look at him and we say, how could God improve on that? How could he get any closer to God who's hanging on to God? I think the Lord says he couldn't get any closer. We had a great relationship. I just had to come into his life and brush off some of the trappings that was hanging on, some of the self. I just only wanted Job himself to hang on to me. Not Job plus his goodness or his value of himself. What's the hymn say? Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. And some of us maybe are holding on to the cross and there's something in our hand. And God says, that won't do. I've got to work with you so that when you say, nothing in my hand I bring and I look in your hands, they're empty. All you have is the cross to hang on to. And that's what he was doing with Job. What did Job repent of? Well, as we can say with Paul in the book of Romans, maybe we could say he repented of trying to establish his own righteousness. And God tells us we're sinners, we have no righteousness, and we spend a long time trying to prove it's wrong. And we discover in the end that it isn't wrong. We don't have our own righteousness and we need His. And so Job comes to the place of repentance. And may I say tonight, many people are excited about studying restoration. That means whatever they mean by that, getting their life in order, getting their family in order, or whatever they want by that word, restoration. There's no restoration until there's repentance. Let's make sure that we have repented first. We have come to God first. And then he can begin to put things back together. But if you want him to bring peace before you experience his grace, remember the order. Grace be unto you in peace. Grace has got to come first. Now, secondly, we want to look at Job the mediator. Verse seven through nine. I have been interrupted in these three little verses, how God works in his sovereign way to meet the need of everyone who is present. Remember, we're still out there on the ash heap. There's Job. There's the friend sitting there. There's the people from the town going by, passing by. And here's this whirlwind cloud storm, and God is speaking and dealing out of the storm. And we have to review our minds as to what we're looking at. And we come to verse seven, and after Job makes his confession, his final and his really heartfelt confession, God speaks. And God speaks about Job's friends. And he says, I am angry. My wrath is kindled. Scripture says that judgment begins with the house of God. And we've looked at a lot of judgment that was rolling over Job. But that's finished now because God has achieved his purpose with Job. And now God turns to the friends. And now he's going to deal with them in their need. And I think these friends, well-meaning as they were, are good examples of people. whose salvation depended not on faith but on works. Up in our area we have gotten involved in one of the assemblies in the evangelism explosion program. It's been quite an interesting experience. We weren't seeing a lot of people come to the Lord in the church and that's not hard to understand. And we wanted to reach out and reach the lost people. So we had some folks trained in EE as they call it. And we've learned a lot about sharing our faith. We've had a good number of people come to the Lord in the past couple of semesters. And it's been exciting. But one night I was in our little chapel office and I heard the brother who kind of heads this work up. I heard him talking and someone asked him how a visit turned out that he had gone on recently to a family. And he said, oh, he said the guy is still in the Savior business. And I said, Bill, what do you mean by that remark? He said, oh, it's just a little expression that we use. He said, just kind of kiddingly, he said, we present to them Christ as the Savior. But he said, some families we meet or some individuals we meet don't want to receive Christ as Savior. They feel they can make their own way to heaven. They can earn their own salvation by their good works. And he said, we're sad about it, but we could see that they still think that they could be their own Savior. And so we say, well, he's still in the Savior business. And, of course, no one can save themselves, but some people think they can. And he said, in time, we'll go back and see if God has worked in their hearts. Many times, God has. And Job's friends here, well, they were depending on their good deeds and their works, not on the Lord, as far as we can tell. And God says, you have not spoken of me the thing that is right. To condense it down in very simple terms, they had held that prosperity was the evidence that someone is God's child, or these are God's people, if there's prosperity. And the lack of prosperity is the evidence of God's wrath. You know, if you'd have been a spectator that day and come through that town and looked in the ash heap and you'd have seen three or four very well-dressed men sitting there, And then one poor, wretched soul covered with sores and boils, and someone said to you, who do you think is the righteous man in that crowd? We might have had the wrong answer. Good lesson that God judges by the heart, and we have to be careful not to judge by outward appearance. And God knew the heart. And if we look at the end of verse seven and verse eight, We'll see something that must have been real music to Job's ears. Four times over, God says, My servant Job. You notice it? My servant Job. Now remember, at this point in the story, Job is still covered with boils. God doesn't say, well, now let's take care of this mess that you're in first. Then we'll talk about these other issues. God goes right on with the restoration of the individual's presence And Job is still sitting there in boils. In fact, it's interesting. God deals, first of all, with the relationship with himself. So Job repents and is restored to full relationship with God, fellowship wise. And then he deals with Job's friends. And last, he deals with Job's physical needs. How interesting. Shows where God's priorities really are, doesn't it? Well, here's Job sitting there in boils. And God invites the man who cried out for a mediator. He invites him to be a mediator. Isn't that interesting? He tells Job's friends to go and take some animals and bring them to Job and offer up a burnt offering. And Job would pray for them. Job would act as a mediator on their behalf. My. What a blow this must have been to their pride. Here they were, possibly very sophisticated men who just finished a long series of very intellectual scholarly arguments sitting there in their fine clothes. And here's this man and his rags covered with sores and boils. And God says, you bring your offering and my servant Job is going to pray for you because my wrath is kindled against you. What a lesson in appearances and the heart condition, isn't it? And so they did it. They came and they brought their sacrifices and so forth. And Job did pray for them. And God did accept them. Thank God that he was willing to do that. As I thought about God's words here of Job, where he kept saying, my servant Job, my servant Job, it was ringing a little bell in my mind, in my ears. And I said, where have I heard that before? You know where it is. Back in chapter one, when God said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? Why do you think God said it four times here? You know, I don't think it was for Job's friends. I don't even think it was so much for Job. I think the adversary was nearby and he was listening. And this is the triumph of the book where God says, write, in the hearing of the adversary who's brought all of this on and waited for Job to curse God. And God says, My servant Job. This is a grand statement of triumph and victory. God has had the victory. The adversary has not had the victory. Job has not cursed God. He remains faithful and God acknowledges it. How wonderful. Well, we notice, too, that in verse eight, a burnt offering is mentioned. And that's interesting because the book ends just as it started. You remember that Job was in the habit of offering burnt offerings in case his children had sinned. And now at the end of the book, here's the burnt offering again. The lesson that teaches me, if anything, is that Job did that formerly unasked. We do not read that God asked him to offer burnt offerings for his children. Job did that out of heart conviction. If it's true that the law of Moses was not written at this time, then it just shows that Job had a spiritual depth and discernment to him, and he understood that the shedding of blood and the sacrifice of the, but the point is he did it on his own for his children. And now at a time of need, when there's a true need for the offerings, God chooses a man who's been accustomed to doing this anyway. And I would apply that to your life and mine. Be in the habit of serving God on your own initiative. Anything that you can do that you know in your heart will please God. Do it for him. And when he needs a servant to do that function, chances are very good that he'll call on you. And many people wonder why God doesn't use them. Well, they may sit around waiting for a loud voice. All we have to do is see the need and ask God to help us. Roll up our sleeves. Many times God will bless our ministry. And then in verse nine, we read of the obedience of these men and the little phrase, the Lord also accepted Job. God, I believe God held Job in a special place as a great saint of faith. You know, Job has mentioned two other times in the Bible beside here in this book. One of those times is in the book of Ezekiel. And God says to Ezekiel that the sin of his people Israel is so great that he says, if Noah and Job and Daniel stood before me, in other words, if three of the greatest men of Old Testament history came and begged me on behalf of this people, he said, they would only save their own selves by their righteousness. Wow, that just shows the depth of the sin of God's people in Ezekiel's time. If Noah and Job and Daniel joined together before God, he said they would only deliver themselves. That's a solemn thought, but it also shows us the greatest demon which God held his servant, Job. Well, we want to pass on finally to our third point, Job's prosperity, verse ten through seventeen. And you'll notice in verse ten it says, the Lord turned the captivity of Job. Job indeed was a captive. And even at this very point, here we are only six or seven verses from the end of the book, and Job at this point has been in Satan's captive bonds. And the Lord now chooses to turn that captivity around and remove those chains, those bonds of Satan that held them. And it's an interesting observation how he chooses to do it. You notice it says, when he prayed for his friends. I would not have guessed that method. I would not have thought of that. But God chose to work it that way. And you know, if you were with us last night, I'm sure it crossed your mind more than once that here was Job and he was wanting to be vindicated and shown to be righteous and he wanted a verdict of innocent. And God comes to him and he talks about nature. It makes me think of that scripture, my ways are not your ways, doesn't it? But how wonderfully God accomplished his purpose. And all we can say that even though God's ways are not our ways, God sure knows how to get the job done. And here God again does something that we might not have expected. He allows all of this to transpire this You know, it took some time. These men had to go and get these animals. They had to make the fire or gather the stones for the altar, whatever they did and offer them up. How must have Job felt sitting there in his boils? And then Job prays to God. Job prayed to God, and it's in prayer for his friends that God just turns the whole thing around. The boils are removed. His wealth is restored. In fact, we read in the end of verse ten that God gives him twice as much as he has before. That shows you, I think, the power of prayer, doesn't it? God intends, I think, through this passage, to highlight the power of prayer. I believe far more chains are snapped through prayer than through argument. There was no chain snapped through all the arguments of the book. And God comes to Job and Job prays. And it turns his captivity. Someone has said, success and prosperity form the only language that the world understands. And so they all flocked back to the man they had abandoned in the hour of his bitterest need. The old writer Matthew Henry says that Job's friends are like the swallows. In fact, he calls them swallow friends. They leave in the winter and they come back in the spring. Do you have any friends like that? Swallow friends? As soon as the going gets rough, they don't want to know you. Then when things start going well, they're your friend again. We don't need friends like that. God doesn't want us to be his servants like that. But that's the way Job's friends were. Now God has turned things around for Job and they all want to be his friend. They all want to come to the house and have a tea party. They want to have a good time. And poor Job, he doesn't say, where were you when I needed you. And they came and they comforted him. Notice it says the evil that the Lord had brought. Job's testimony has been very powerful. God is sovereign, and he's been behind all of this. It's right here. And they brought some money. Job's wealth was restored, doubled. In fact, God doubled everything. In verse eleven we read about his wealth. In verse twelve we read about his animals. It's interesting, you know, the Lord brought back exactly twice as many of everything. You look it up from chapter one and twice as many camels and twice as many yoke of oxen. Why did the Lord do that? Well, I want to make a suggestion about that. In verse sixteen we read that Job lived a hundred and forty years. That's double seventy and you remember we said we believed that Job lived was about seventy when this took place and God even gave him double seventy back. But you notice in verse thirteen it said he also had seven sons and three daughters. Isn't that what he had before? God didn't double that number because I think this was a gentle communication to Job that he would see the other ten one day. Wasn't that nice? I believe as Job meditated on this and he thought, now why would God double everything in my prosperity? But he didn't give me twenty children. He only gave me ten. Probably the light went on and he said, oh, I see it. I haven't lost the first ten. I'll see them someday. I can't help but think that there may be some of you who have lost a son or a daughter or a loved one. My, a lot of times it seems so long and so hard to wait. I was meditating on that passage the other day in First Thessalonians chapter four, and it said, We shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And we have quoted that scripture so many times, I think we sometimes forget to stop and think about it. It says, We shall be caught up together. You see, there's a reunion of God's people with their loved ones first before we meet the Lord. It's all going to be instantaneous, but there's a principle there. God knows we could enjoy meeting him better if we were all reunited first. And he says, we'll be caught up together, and then we'll meet the Lord in the air. That's going to be a great day, isn't it? Well, I think we need to end at this point. The names of Job's children, Jemima, oh, Job gave his daughter some pretty names, just showed the joy that he had. Jemima means handsome or pretty as the daylight. Kaziah means perfume from the sanctuary. Imagine what Job was meditating on as he named these children. Kiran Hapak means a child of beauty. I want to share with you as we come to the end of this little series in the book of Job, a few final conclusions. We need to draw all the strings together now. Our time is about gone, and I've just jotted down about five little insights here. I want to share with you, and then we'll close. Number one is we have to answer the question, hast thou considered my servant Job? By the grace of God, we could say, yes, in some little measure, we have. We just scratched the surface, but I think someday when we meet Job, we're going to be able to say that we've really enjoyed a little bit of his life and his stand for God. And then secondly, I want to point out that all throughout what we've been studying, it strikes me that Job never knew that he frustrated the plan of the adversary. It's interesting that when Job is all restored and God is giving them back everything, you don't read that God comes from and says, now Job, now I can tell you what I was doing. Here's all the inside. He may, I mean, maybe Job is the true author of this book, and then he would have had to know, but at least as far as what is recorded, Job doesn't find out. And isn't that so much like spiritual warfare for us? How many times have you wondered why God has asked you to do something that you couldn't understand? How many times have you encountered a scripture and your attitude and mine has been, sad to say, when I can fully understand it, I'll obey it. And I think someday we may regret that when we stand before God and he said, oh, here's the reason. Why didn't you do it? If you love me, keep my commandments, period. Not if you love me plus have full understanding, keep my commandments. There's a lot of things that I am persuaded that God has put in his word and not explain them to us. And his motive is to test our love. Are we going to obey for no other reason that the one we love has said, do this. Whatever it is. I mentioned, thirdly, I mentioned the other time that Job was mentioned in the Bible. Of course, you probably know already that that is in the last chapter of the book of James, James chapter five. And there we're told to consider the end of the Lord. And Job is brought out as an example of patience. And he says, the end of the Lord, the Lord is very merciful. The life of Job. is like a prophetic sign pointing forward to all history to the mercy of God. God says in the first recorded book, Never forget that God is merciful. Never forget that God is merciful. I've proved that in my own life. I'm sure you have, too. What a comfort. God's mercy. And then number four, Great lesson that we should learn as we part from this book. The German writer Daelich said this, and I really loved it, he said, Suffering for the righteous man is the way to glory. Faith is the way to sight. Suffering for the righteous man is the way to glory. Paul brings that out in Second Corinthians, doesn't he? We had a very pointed example of that. Let me just tell you very quickly. recently in our area. I mentioned the new assembly that started up in Manchester, and when a new assembly begins, we're always glad when people come to know the Lord and others come in because you want a new work to flourish and grow. And a young couple, I say young, they're probably in their early fifties, came in. They had just recently come to know the Lord. They were Roman Catholics and lived quite a good distance away, but they began to come to the meetings and they just rejoiced. They seemed to just blossom in the Lord. And they didn't miss any meetings at all. They'd come midweek, even if we had two meetings midweek, they'd come, they'd come Sunday morning, they'd come Sunday night. And it was such a joy to have them there. They'd come to the Lord's Supper and just loved it. One Sunday morning, the lady, her name was Lorraine, she came to me and she said, I've got quite a bad headache. I wonder if you'd pray for me. So in our little prayer time there, we prayed for her. The next Sunday she came and her headache was so bad, she said, I believe I've got to go to the doctor. So we prayed again and she went to the doctor and we heard that week the doctor had found a very fast-growing malignant brain tumor in this young woman. Well, to make a long story short, it was only a couple of months that she suffered and the Lord took her. But one of the times I was in the hospital to visit her, so I sat by her bed and some of her children were there. They're grown teenagers or in their twenties, didn't know the Lord. And she was telling me one night about what she had suffered. And she said, the pain that I endured was so bad. She said, my husband and I prayed and prayed and prayed. And she said, what do you do when you come to a place where you've prayed for hours and hours and you can't pray another word? Well, I had some tears in my eyes about that time. And I said, Lorraine, what did you do? And she said, well, I said to Bill, Bill, I can't pray anymore. We'll have to sing praises. And she said, so we couldn't pray anymore, so we sang praises. I didn't ask her what praises they sang because I was pretty moved by that. And right to the very moment of her death, she just laid there and praised God. And when I read this little statement, suffering for the righteous person is the way to glory. I just said amen. I saw an example of it in her. The great... Jewish historian Alfred Edersheim said this. And maybe we could just apply this in our own situation, whatever it might be. We cannot understand the meaning of many trials. God does not explain them. To explain a trial would be to destroy its object, which is that of calling for its simple faith and implicit obedience. If we knew why the Lord sent us this or that trial, it would thereby cease to be a trial either of faith or of patience. So one of the conclusions we have to draw as we come to the end of this book then is we have to be very careful when we ask God why. We have to be very careful about that. We have to go back and lean on the sovereign wisdom of God. Then the last thing I want to share is just a little thought that came to me the other day as I was thinking about all of this, and that is I thought what a beautiful picture all of this is of the judgment seat of Christ, isn't it? God made his glory passed by Job, and he purged away everything he couldn't use. And what was left? The man came out like gold. God says to us, a day is going to come, and that's going to be our experience. The fire goes over everything we've lived for. And the things that are going to remain is the gold and the silver and the precious stones. What are you living for tonight? The gold and the silver, that which remains, I trust we are. It may be sooner than we think that we stand before the Lord. And, oh, I don't know about you. Oh, I do know about you. I'll take that back. I know very well about you. We feel the same. We long for the day when the Lord will say, my servant, thou good and faithful servant. That meant more to Job than anything he'd have heard about his boils. When God said, my servant, Job, that's what we want to hear, isn't it? Let's pray. Our Father, we turn to thee again with thankful hearts. Lord, thou hast been so good to us. Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood, brought us into the family of faith, and given us a word that we confess is truly a lamp unto our feet and a light on our pathway. We bless thee for it. And now as we go out and live for thee until our Lord shall come, help us to be those who live for thee as we look up, but as we love one another. We thank thee for this lovely place and all of thy dear people here. Lord, may thy blessing be upon them abundantly. Comfort each heart, we pray, and help us to be like Job in that we may shine like gold in a coming day for thee. We ask it giving thanks in the worthy name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.