Scripture Reference: Job 1:1-2, 8 (AMPC); Job 2:1-13 (AMPC); Job 35:16 (AMPC); Job 36:1-4 (AMPC); Job 37:23-24 (AMPC); Job 38:1-7 (AMPC); Job 39:19-22 & 26-27 (AMPC); Job 40:1-2 &4 (AMPC); Job 42:5-15 (AMPC)
Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise You, Lord. Praise You, Lord. Praise You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. I ask You for help this afternoon, Holy Spirit. I ask You to help me minister the Word in the way that You want me to speak it, that it will come out in Your order with Your power, with Your strength. And I will speak under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And I thank You that every mind, every ear, every heart is ready to receive the Word as You want them to receive it, Holy Spirit. And I thank You that there is no interference and no hindrance today as Your Word comes forth in might and in power. In Jesus Name. and you all agree by saying; amen. You may be seated. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Glory to God.
So how many of you were in Witbank yesterday? Most of you. Wow. How about that? Glory to God. Next weekend, Sunday morning, we are building a stage in the auditorium in Witbank over this weekend, this coming week. And we are looking to potentially have extra lights in the auditorium and a smoke machine. You know, if nothing else wows you, a smoke machine should. I mean, it’s the winner of all winners. And it’s, you know you’ve arrived when a smoke machine. It’s like ‘woooow’. We are looking to record eight songs and have a proper video recording of the music that we have created. And we are going to do it next Sunday morning. We are recording eight songs. So, there will be service here on Sunday afternoon, don’t panic. But I do want to invite you all to come and enjoy the recording with us because we are doing this specifically because we want to be able to expand and broaden our options of what we do on TBN, and we want to play our music on TBN. We need to do a proper recording of it with video, with proper lights and everything to make it happen. So in the last couple of days, Thursday and Friday, I was talking with Garth; and Garth had to get some agreement from Denholm; and we had to make sure that we could get all the stage and all that kind of stuff; and so, only after church this morning did they confirm that we could get it all done by next weekend. So we are doing it next weekend. And I think the stage is going to stay there for a week and the following weekend we are going to do another eight songs. So that we have an ability to put whatever we need to, on whatever media platform we choose to put it on with proper video.
How do you like the quality of the visuals and the sound that you’re getting now days, compared to the way we started, right? It’s a whole lot better. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. And so there’s things that we’re learning as we’re going along and things we’re getting better at. Glory to God. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. So I left my microphone at home, so I have to use this old one. But it’s okay. If you can deal with the way it looks on my face, I’m okay with the way it sounds. Praise the Lord.
So what do you want me to preach today? Job? We want Job, we want Job. Oh no, you guys are bad. No smoke machine this afternoon. But we still want Job. We want Job. Oh my word. Where do you guys come from? The ‘Jobes’ from Jo’burg, ‘Johinites’. Praise the Lord. Why on earth would you want to know about Job? You like what you heard about Job? Hey? Is this true? You guys are suckers for punishment, hey. Praise the Lord. Well then, if you want to hear about Job, I’ll preach something else. Itchy to hear Job.
So then, tell me, if prosperity is not about money, what’s it about? It’s about worship. Praise the Lord. Because if you have a life of worship, then money is a result of worship. I mean, how powerful is that revelation anyway? Isn’t it powerful, you know, that if you’re worshipping God and you’re living a life that is dedicated to His ways and His Word and His will, then the life and the light that flows from you will just attract what you are living in, you know. It still means that as part of your walk with God you’ve got to receive the fullness of who God is. So, you know, there is still, and I mean this sincerely, there’s a lot of people, a lot of churches and church organisations out there that receive the God of salvation, but they will not receive the God of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. So obviously, even though they may be completely dedicated to living life in God, there’s some things that they’ve closed their hearts off, they can’t receive, you know. So you still have to receive all of who God is. And when you receive all of who God is, then He can become all of what He is and who He is to you. And so, it doesn’t change the fact that if you’re worshipping God that you’ve still got to receive in worship what He brings to you in prosperity.
And so, you know, there’s a lot of things that I can teach about Job. And, you know, someone was saying I should make a whole Bible School course about the life of Job. And I could, you know. I could really because there’s 35 chapters I skip over and there’s a lot that I could tell you about in 35 chapters. But I only have a limited time, so there is only about so much that I can tell you that the Lord has given me, about 35 chapters, you know. But, praise God we have some different revelation on Job. Don’t you think? I was talking to my wife today. She was part of all of the practice and all of the stuff going on at church after the service today and so she got home at one thirty. I was just getting ready to leave and she said to me, “You know, darling”. You can’t call me darling, only she can. Don’t get any ideas, hey. Anyway, she said, “You know, darling, I’ve been reading the book of Job many years and I’ve read it many times and I’ve never had this revelation before.” And I said, “Me neither.”
And it’s an amazing thing that, you know, when God gives you revelation, it just hits you like ‘wham’, ‘wow’, ‘boom’. And then it’s just there, you know. It’s an amazing, wonderful thing. And so, if you’re a worshipper of God then you will pursue Him and you will pursue His life and when you do that, then you attract what you worship. You will attract what you worship. And if you worship money and if you worship sport and if you worship food, and there are many people that worship many different kinds of things and what you worship you will attract.
You know, I was saying this morning, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and I say to you now, I think that one of the big things that the devil has brought into the world today is sport. And many, many, many people are idolising sports’ heroes. And you watch big stadiums, sporting events that are happening, people go crazy. They virtually lose themselves and who they are, you know. They drink alcohol, they do whatever they do when they go to sports events, and they throw their arms in the air, and they punch, and they jump up and down. I mean punching the air, you know, and they jump up and down and scream, and they wave their hands, and they shout, and go crazy. And sometimes they go over crazy and they get stupid, you know. And so, what do you think they’re doing? They’re worshipping, idolising. You know, if I say they’re idolising sportsmen, it doesn’t sound so bad, well, because they can be a hero to you. No, but, you know, if you do that too much then it’s something that you become almost in a state of worship. Because that’s what you want to, and then you attract that all the time. Then it becomes bigger and bigger in your life all the time. The same with food, I mean, you don’t have to eat a lot to attract a lot of stuff about food. But before you know it, you can be watching every food channel on TV and you can be trying out recipes and you can be buying things and you can be really involved in something like food and then you think; well, this is all good and healthy because I’m living healthy and I’m looking for healthy food. And before you know it, food can be like a god to you. It can. Healthy eating can be a god to you. Exercise can be a god to you. If it consumes your life and it becomes the focus of your attention. Isn’t that what you do when you worship something; it becomes the focus of your attention. Right? And so like everything else, if God is the focus of your attention all these other things have a place in your life but they’re in balance. You know, you can exercise, you can have food, you can watch sports, you can, you know, do things like that but they will be balanced because God is the focus of your attention. Amen.
I’m already preaching good and I’ve covered about 20 minutes of preaching this morning to you in about five minutes under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. How about that? So I’m just about ready to go home already, I’ve preached so quickly You must go quicker, I’m preaching fast. Praise the Lord.
And so Job 1:1, 1There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and he was a bit like uz. (Pastor John laughing) It’s your fault because you started with the chant, ‘We want Job, we want Job.’ So he was a bit like uz, and that man was blameless and upright, and one who [reverently] feared God and abstained from and shunned evil [because it was wrong] (Job 1:1 AMPC). It’s, you know, it’s worth saying again that he shunned evil. So how did he know what was evil? Well, he knew it in his heart. There wasn’t any written law about what was good and what was right and what was evil and there were no laws about this. It was about God in His heart. And this is a powerful thing that the book of Romans says that God is, through our conscience, He’s given every man the right and the ability to actually connect with God. It’s a fact and so there’s no excuse for any person, no person can ever be excused even though he may have never actually had the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to him because God has put a conscience in every man and he has put all of Himself in the universe. If someone will have a heart they will ask, call out to God and He will answer and He will bring someone to them if they call from their heart. And so this man feared God. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
So, 2There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very great body of servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the East (Job 1:2-3 AMPC). And I’m going to not read any further on in chapter one today because I’m going to go into chapter two and I’m going to talk about the rest of what happens in Job. But it is interesting for us to observe for a moment since you all were in, most of you were in Witbank yesterday then I can just carry straight on or you watched by live streaming. Then we can just carry straight on into the rest of the message, you know. But it is interesting that that the Hebrew word for his substance is increased and his possessions literally mean; spread out like a flood. So you know, if it’s not the guinea fowls then it’s those other stupid birds. And I only really heard them because Willie got up. You know, I’m focused on the word and Willie gets up; oh, the birds are making a noise. Spread out like a flood. You know, have you, I mean you’ve seen these pictures of when flood time occurs anywhere and the river bursts its banks and the waters just lying on the ground for long, long distances, you know. And when you look, even though the waters are not very deep it’s just everywhere, you know. And so his wealth was literally expressed in the Hebrew word that he had so much, so much animals and his substance of all of his agriculture was so, there’s Willie doing his job. (Pastor John laughing referring to Willie chasing the birds away). Slat hulle Willie. (Pastor John laughing) I just heard those birds. (Pastor John making bird sounds and laughing). And then you know Willie and his kettie or something, you know, maybe he took his farmers hoed and he, or maybe they just got a fright at his red hair. (Pastor John and congregation laughing). What are you guys doing to me this afternoon? (Pastor John laughing). Praise the Lord. You guys would be very bad for TBN, you know. (Pastor John laughing). Yeah, praise the Lord.
And so I mean this is a powerful, this is a powerful, this is a powerful perspective that we have that if we have a look at Job and see how much wealth he had. It’s a, it’s an incredible thing to find that this man just had that much wealth. You know, this man lived at a time where there was no infrastructure, there was no science, there was no reproductive knowledge, you know, now a days it’s like they artificially inseminate cows and sheep and they have many ways of trying to increase reproduction and having them lamb or calf or whatever the case, twice a year or in a given period. I mean everybody’s trying to increase, I mean there was none of that. So if you think the guy had 7000 sheep, I mean, anybody even in today’s world if you have 7000 sheep then you’ve got a lot of stuff. I mean, just 7000 sheep never mind anything else, you know. And if you’ve got 3000 camels, I mean, I don’t know who wants 3000 camels but, but those weird creatures but anyways, they wanted them, 3000 camels (Pastor John laughing). Taxi, yeah, he had a taxi service going, Pastor Lynn, that’s what he did. That’s what he did, it was a Diepsloot trip and back. (Pastor John and congregation laughing). Yeah, that’s the only reasonable explanation for 3000 camels. (Pastor John and congregation laughing). He had a taxi service going. (Pastor John and congregation laughing). Pastor Lynn, you may not speak anymore. (Pastor John and congregation laughing). Oh, my word. (Pastor John laughing).
And so, you know, it’s just an interesting perspective that you get of the Heavenly courts. And you know, Pastor Sharon, in particular has got a really good revelation and she has taught about it somewhat about the Heavenly courts, you know. And certainly this, this even here in Job appears to be of sorts; a Heavenly court. Although, although it’s not described as a, as a court, it is obviously a place where God is presiding over the activities of all of the things that are going on in the universe and He’s wanting a feedback from the angels who are messengers and servants sent to go into the, into the broader parts of the universe and come and report back to God about what’s going on. One of which would have been the earth. And so because the earth was in the jurisdiction of God and in the jurisdiction of His angels, I’m sure there was an angel that was reporting back to God on the earth. Not just Satan but an angel that came with a message about what was going on, on the earth. And of course, you know, and we read, 8And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who [reverently] fears God and abstains from and shuns evil [because it is wrong]? (Job 1:8 AMPC).
And so then we know from yesterday that God was actually making a claim that Job was a worshipper of Him regardless of anything that was going on in his life. And so, so the enemy of God picks up the accusation and says, “But it is because You have blessed him that he actually worships You.” And so the Lord says, well, to put it in my words and my commentary, “The earth is your jurisdiction. I will not stop you from taking everything that belongs to him.” This was not a matter of God’s protection or God’s, it was not a question of whether God wanted to see what Job would do. I believe firmly God already knew what Job would do. That’s why when the accuser came up and he said, “But it’s because You’ve blessed Him that he worships You”. The first thing that he wanted to do of course is he wanted to have God actually move His hand against Job. So he wanted God to actually act against His own way. So he wanted to manipulate God into moving against Job and so that in itself should be a revelation that the enemy, the accuser, the one who is standing in wait, who’s eternally waiting to see when he can catch God out, he was trying to use the circumstance to catch God out. So God said, “No, but he’s in your hands and I won’t stop you from moving against him.”
Well of course, you know, that’s quite a lot of hardships that hit Job’s life in a very, very short space of time. Listen, when you lose all of this wealth, all of your stability, all of your houses, all of your children, everything, that’s a fairly, you know, tough place to be, to be sure. And I do say this, I think it’s worthy of stating again; in our modern day life there’s very few people that go through that much trouble. And if Job could go through that much trouble and still worship God and he didn’t have a Bible, he didn’t have a John Bendixen on TBN or in his ear with a message or transcribed notes, or a Kenneth Copeland, or a Jerry Savelle, or a Kenneth Hagin, or whatever it is to encourage him, then we don’t have an excuse. On the contrary, what we need to do is just press into more worship with God and make sure that our life and our words are continually before Him. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
And so, we go to Job chapter 2, 1Again there was a day when the sons of God [the angels] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (the adversary and the accuser) came also among them to present himself before the Lord (Job 2:1 AMPC). Don’t you find this language interesting that God calls all of the angels to present themselves? And the accuser comes and presents himself. Do you think it’s a coincidence that he was there at the same time? No, he was there because he was commanded. He couldn’t help himself. When God called all of the beings in the universe to report back, he had to show up. Even though he didn’t want to, he had to. The authority of God is that powerful.
2And the Lord said to Satan, From where do you come? And Satan (the adversary and the accuser) answered the Lord, From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it. 3And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who [reverently] fears God and abstains from and shuns all evil [because it is wrong]? And still he holds fast his integrity, although you moved Me against him to destroy him without cause (Job 2:2-3 AMPC).
Will you say this with me, “Destroy him without cause.” So, you understand that God didn’t actually do anything against Job. All He did was remove the hedge against him. But God took it personally and you know, you were able to do this against him and there was no cause. What? No cause? You mean all of this stuff happened and, no, it wasn’t about cause, it was about worship. It was about the condition of Job’s heart that was on eternal display here.
The courts of Heaven were actually observing what Job’s heart was going to say. Isn’t this something? This really ties in. So because I’m not making up that much ground because of TV and all of that stuff, this really ties in with Hebrews where it says that we are encompassed by a great cloud of witnesses that incorporate all of these angels. But they incorporate all of the people that have gone before us; men of faith but they also, these angels, these very same angles are in the same cloud of witnesses watching what we do. Come on now, so we need to be worshipful in our lives.
Without cause, without cause, in other words, this man is still blameless and upright and God says to him, “Have you considered My servant that he still holds fast his integrity; still holds fast his integrity.” In other words, he was not moved by the conditions that came against him, he still stayed in the place of giving God honour and worshipping God. 4Then Satan answered the Lord, Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has will he give for his life. 5But put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse and renounce You to Your face. 6And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life (Job 2:4-6 AMPC). In other words, his clay body, his body is open for you to go after. “So you’re telling me that you, first of all I’m not going to move against Job, but he is in your hands and people don’t just worship Me because of what I do for them, they worship Me because of Who I am to them.” And so he says, “Okay, but now I’ve taken everything and I’ve killed everything that he loved, but the thing that nobody can withstand is skin; if you touch his body.” 6And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life (Job 2:6 AMPC). In other words, you can just about go after him in anyway, but spare his life.
If you get caught up in this whole exercise, in my view, if you get caught up in trying to answer the question of what did Job do, then you have to go through all 35 chapters of what was discussed with Job by his 3 friends. And then I, there’s a lot to learn about that, which is why I say I could do a whole Bible School subject about this. There’s a lot to learn about our lives if you go through the 35 chapters because there’s a lot of thinking that we would do as people that we will try and justify and we will try and find reasons why things happen. And all of the 35 chapters that are talked about is a debate and a conversation that happens between Job and his friends, and it’s all a question about accountability of what’s happening with man and what’s God’s part; what God’s doing and what man’s doing and what man’s not doing.
And so this whole thing and so; I have certainly been part of the Christian debate, and certainly the faith debate for a long time about why this happened to Job? And I think that is actually the wrong question because the minute you say; why did this happen to Job, you have to figure out what was in the mind of God for this to be allowed. But one thing I have seen is that God Himself actually reveals to us that it was about Job’s heart that he was upright and that he worshipped the Living God. And this was all about Job continuing to worship the Most High God.
So you’ve got to take everything that I said yesterday about the time frame that he was born in, the gods that were worshipped at that time, all of the things that were part of Job’s life. 7So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with loathsome and painful sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself, and he sat [down] among the ashes. 9Then his wife said to him, Do you still hold fast your blameless uprightness? (Job 2:7-9 AMPC). Do you still hold fast your blameless uprightness? Do you still hold fast your blameless uprightness? In other words, are you still holding onto the fact that you’ve done nothing before God even though this thing continues to happen to you. Surely you must have done something wrong. Do you still hold fast to your blameless uprightness?
Okay, I think you’ve heard this question somewhere else before? It came from Satan directly; will you eat of this fruit and will you die? Surely you will not die. The reason God doesn’t want you to eat of this fruit is because you’ll become like Him. Surely you can’t hold onto your blameless uprightness? Surely you can’t still be holding onto it? It came from another woman, another wife, another partner, another spouse, another someone close. 9Renounce God and die! (Job 2:9 AMPC). Why would any woman want to do that to her husband? Go figure. Maybe she felt let down because she was part of the 7000 sheep, and the 3000 camels, and the taxi service that brought a lot of money in, you know, all the multitude of servants that were all gone, and maybe she married him because of what he possessed. Who knows what her things were that were going on in her. But it’s a harsh thing to say, “Renounce God and die.” Wow. “Why don’t you just curse God, renounce Him and die. Just die, what value have you got left on the earth because you’re obviously not the blameless and upright because you must have done something wrong because how can all these bad things happen to you and you say that you didn’t do anything wrong? There must have been something you did for all these things to happen to you, so the best thing for you is curse God and die.” Quite a thing, hey?
10But he said to her, You speak as one of the impious and foolish women would speak. What? Shall we accept [only] good at the hand of God and shall we not accept [also] misfortune and what is of a bad nature? He wasn’t speaking about the nature of God; he was speaking about his worship of God that he was going to do it regardless of his circumstance. 10In [spite of] all this, Job did not sin with his lips (Job 2:10 AMPC). I wonder about us, if God just doesn’t come on time with our money for rent or something that we are believing God for, what we say or sin with our lips. Well then of course Job’s three friends arrive, 11Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, for they had made an appointment together to come to condole with him and to comfort him. 12And when they looked from afar off and saw him [disfigured] beyond recognition, they lifted up their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe, and they cast dust over their heads toward the heavens. 13So they sat down with [Job] on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief and pain were very great (Job 2:11-13 AMPC).
Well, I, if I have to focus on one thing I would say, I would focus on this one thing. It’s obvious that Job was in a very, very bad way. Would you agree? I think if the Bible says that his friends from a very far distance saw him in such a bad way that he was disfigured beyond recognition, then the attack that came on his body was so severe. You know, I’ve, I’ve, done quite a lot of endurance activity in my life. From military to endurance sports. And I’ll tell you, as crazy as I was riding from Joburg to Cape Town, and that was a bit crazy and I’m allowed to say that about myself, you can’t say that about me. You know, I mean, I got sore in places and in ways that it’s hard to describe how sore it was. From your neck, to your shoulders, to your back, to your bum, to your bum, to your bum, to your legs, to your calves, to your ankles, to your toes, to everything, to your skin because some days it was so hot and so dry and so dusty and everything and we suffered. But I’ll tell you what, when I was in the military, one day as part of, part of their final test of whether we had the mental strength to, to put those wings on our chest and jump out of airplanes, no actually that was afterwards. Now it’s a bit of a haze to me but one of the final tests that they did, ja it was afterwards right at the end, and they said, “Okay, you guys think you, are strong, we’re going to really test how strong you are in the head.” And so they gave four of us full kit, four of us to a, to a telephone pole. And they said, “Now the four of you, you run with this telephone pole 60 km’s back to camp. So the only food that you carry is one day’s rations,” what they call rat packs those days. “One day’s rations pack of food and you’re going to carry this pole all the way back. And so if you’ve got to climb fences and you’ve got to get over, whatever you’ve got to do, you’ve got to make your 60 km’s, and we expect you to be back by sundown.” So it’s not like you could just say, “Well, I think we’ll put the pole down and sleep for an hour and then carry on”. You had a, you had a time that you had to get back. I don’t know if you have ever tried to run with a pole. You can run maybe 10 km’s with a pole, that’s bad. You run 60 kilometres with a pole, let me tell you, you hurt in ways you never thought you could hurt. Because they, you know, they put different guys, different heights, different body shapes and sizes together. And so some guys carry the pole more than other guys. And so we, you know, we took our, we took our, some of our clothes out and put it around our shoulders, and put it into our shirt, on our shoulders to act like pads. But by the time we got back the next morning there was not one person in the whole, in the whole company that wasn’t absolutely blue around their shoulders, black and blue around their shoulders, into their backs and every part of you was just hurting; blisters on your feet and all of, I mean you can’t imagine the stuff that, splinters in your hands, holding on to the pole, doing stuff. It’s just, I don’t know how I did it when I’m talking about it now, I think I was crazy even then. Really.
I’m just trying to say that can’t compare to what happened to Job. I mean Job was in such a bad way, he was, he was disfigured with all the sores and all of the boils and all of the things that disfigured him completely in his body. He had all the stuff against him, and yet he would not sin against God with his lips. And when somebody came to make a suggestion, the closest person to him who had bore his children, who had lived with him in all those years in his life and said, “You can’t, how do you keep your blameless uprightness before God? Why don’t you curse God and die because you can’t be telling the truth. There’s something that you’ve done to actually attract this kind of attention from God. You must have done something bad. So curse Him and die. Because it’s not getting, how does it get any better for you? The only place that’s, that you can get relief from what you’re doing is die”. That’s pretty bad, hey. To get relief from your circumstances; die. Pretty bad.
So now I go to Job chapter 35 verse 16, so 16Job uselessly opens his mouth (Job 35:16 AMPC). This is Elihu speaking. Okay, so I got to tell you about 35 chapters. Basically 35 chapters in the, in, in, between chapter 2 and chapter 35 of the book of Job is about these three friends that sit and have a debate with Job. And basically I’m going to just very broadly tell you that what they say to Job is the same almost as what his wife said. “There must be something that you did Job that was wrong. There must have been something that you in your life that you’ve done that’s bad. Something that you treated somebody,” and there is this whole ideological debate and philosophical debate about the quality of life and the behaviour of man and what God does to man if they behave a certain way, and that Job must have in some way done something wrong to attract this kind of attention from God. So they’re blaming God and they’re blaming Job. And so Job, in his part, basically for 35 chapters has a debate with them about his view of God and how he is blameless. And he justifies himself, and he gives them every kind of reason why there is no way that he could have done anything wrong. And who is this God that would do this to him when he did nothing wrong. Are you with me? So for basically, for 35 chapters they have this debate. So these 35 chapters spans a period of about nine months, more or less. So it wasn’t like they all came and they sat for a day and they started having this conversation. You understand that this whole period of time is Job is sitting with all this attack on his body, it’s not going away. And he’s having these guys debate with him why he’s in this condition and this time period of about nine months is, is in this condition. It’s not like this condition was for a day and then he started getting better. He lived with this painful condition for nine months. That’s quite something, hey.
And so now all of these powerful, wealthy leaders, elders, kings, counsellors of all of this, this north and east land region, all of these men, there’s a young man that arrives; his name is Elihu. And he just sits and listens to them because he doesn’t feel like he is of their stature, and he has their insight and their counsel and their wisdom. So he has nothing to say to Job and he just keeps quiet because he’s listening to these men talk. But eventually Elihu says, “I can no longer keep my tongue, I must speak.” Are you with me? And so he speaks and he says, “Job, ” and there’s a few words that come before this but I’ve kind of gone to these verses so that we’re not here till tomorrow. ‘We want Job. We want Job.’ I’ll remind you in about 15, 20 minutes; ‘We want Job.’
16Job uselessly opens his mouth and multiplies words without knowledge [drawing the worthless conclusion that the righteous have no more advantage than the wicked] (Job 35:16 AMPC). So here is his synopsis of what Job has been saying to his friends all this time that the righteous have no advantage over the wicked. In other words, the wicked and the righteous on the earth, there is no difference between them. It sounds like why I read Malachi chapter 3 yesterday.
Chapter 36 verse 1, 1Elihu proceeded and said, 2Bear with me and wait a little longer, and I will show you, for I have something still to say on God’s behalf. 3I will bring my knowledge from afar and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker (Job 36:1-3 AMPC). So he’s saying, “Even though you say there is no difference between the wicked and the righteous, I will say that my Maker is righteous and there’s a difference. So Job your words are multiplied uselessness.” You, and you might say, “But wow, you know, this is a pretty damning report on Job. So how come that God still favoured Job?” The difference is, is that although Job had lots of reasoning, he still did not accuse God. He was talking about the life of men. He still was worshipping the Most High God. 4For truly my words shall not be false; He Who is perfect in knowledge is with you (Job 36:4 AMPC).
Chapter 37 verse 23, 23Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out; He is excellent in power; and to justice and plenteous righteousness He does no violence [He will disregard no right]. 24Men therefore [reverently] fear Him; He regards and respects not any who are wise in heart (in other words) [in their own understanding and conceit] (Job 37:23-24 AMPC). In other words if there are people that think that they are rich and wealthy and have all the great counsel and all the understanding of life, and they do not recognise Him and do not recognise His righteousness, He gives absolutely no respect or regard to them. Their opinion is of, of no value to God. 1Then the Lord, so after Elihu gets speaking and he just sets the scene right, and he’s basically coming up for God and he’s saying, “Job, you’re wrong. And all of these men that are supposedly counsellors and have got all these things to say about God with all their wisdom, God has nothing to say about them because their knowledge is just ridiculous.” You know, I’m just putting it plainly. “What they think they know, because they’re rich and they have a status and they are, they think they have knowledge and understanding, they don’t know God. And it doesn’t matter what they say, if they don’t reverently fear God and worship Him, then they have nothing that God considers to be of any value.” So He just ignores what they say. And I tell you what, even today, this is the story; people think they are very smart, they are very knowledgeable, they have all knowledge. You know, knowledge has increased on the earth and they have lots of information and basically you can be in your home and you can almost get yourself a degree on any subject you like, just using a thing called Google. No, I mean it, you know, between Wikipedia, Google, YouTube and that is about it, maybe one or two other places, you can just about get a degree in medicine if you need to. Right? I mean, information is available. And so, that doesn’t mean to say because you have knowledge you reverently worship the law. And if you use your knowledge to actually predict the outcome of your life and that is actually what you worship, then that’s what you are going to be worshipping, that’s what you’re going to attract. Okay, 1Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 2Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Gird up now your loins like a man, and I will demand of you, and you declare to Me. 4Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare to Me, if you have and know understanding (Job 38:1-4 AMPC).
Okay, so there’s a point I just want to make here; Heavenly council number one, the angels of God appear, sons of men appear to God and Satan comes along. And there’s a council and there’s a whole thing that goes on, and God allows Satan to go back to the earth and have a go at Job’s possessions. There’s another day in eternity that happens when all the angels come back into the counsel of God, there is another event; Satan comes again and He says, “Now you may touch his body but you may not take his life.” You all with me? After this event happens the Bible doesn’t reflect that there is any other eternal event that happens. Everything that happens from that point is a debate between men on the earth. And it’s the opinions of men and men talking between men about God and about the pro’s and con’s of whether being a righteous, blameless man has got any value and what is considered to be righteous and whether you’ve done anything that is unrighteous that has caused this trauma to come upon your life.
And in all of this time, Job defends himself with a multitude of words and he says, “I did nothing wrong and who is this God that would come and do this to me when I did nothing wrong.” And you can see his perspective in one way, I mean he, I mean Job was reverently worshipping the Lord and I mean there was obviously, God was boasting about him almost in the council of Heaven about who he is, and yet now Elihu says, “Job, you’ve had a multitude of words without knowledge.” Well, I suppose the condition of Job would explain some part of what he was feeling.
If you’ve had nine months of pain in your body and people talking to you for all this time about what they thought about God, perhaps you would have said the same thing. And maybe you would have had some things to say that weren’t right either. Right? But it would be about your understanding and your knowledge, it wouldn’t necessarily be that you’re not worshipping God. May I say, just as I’m moving into this next phase and you know, coming to the conclusion of Job, that we have the Holy Spirit in us, we have the life of Christ in us and if you have the very energy of God within and the worship that is coming from within is already in you to want you to worship and still your words can be against God. How do you say your words are against God? That’s why I read you Malachi three, is because you say, “There is no difference between the wicked and the righteous, there’s no difference between those that tithe and who don’t tithe. Those people that don’t tithe also get very wealthy, and those who tithe may or may not get wealthy. So there’s no difference between whether you tithe or you don’t.” In that way your words are against God. If you even think that, come on now, and that might just be one condition, it might be a condition of the people of the world go to doctors and get well and the people of the church go to doctors and get well. And the people of the world may pray to God and get healed and may not get healed and the church people get healed and sometimes they don’t get healed. And so you might have a condition that says, “Uhm, I don’t know the answers of why this is happening or why this is not happening.” Has it changed the fact that you know that God is God? Has it changed the fact that actually you have a reverence and a worship for God in your heart that wants to worship Him? That worship is still in your heart, right? It still wants to take you to that level of worship.
Well, Job found himself in that same place. He was debating about the advent of God’s moving among men and stuff on the earth, it didn’t change in his heart, he still believed God was the almighty God. He still worshipped Him. Are you with me? So now I want to just show you that there was this activity that was happening in the Heaven’s and there was this angels coming backwards and forwards from the earth and there was Satan coming backwards and forwards on the earth, and there was this activity on the earth and now after the multitudes of words have been spoken both by Job’s friends and by Elihu, who speaks on behalf of God, clearly because he said so, “I speak on behalf of God.” After Elihu gets speaking, watch what happens. 1Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said (Job 38:1 AMPC). He’s not sent a messenger anymore. There’s no more angels involved here and there’s no more Satan involved here. There is God Himself coming to appear to Job and He speaks with his own voice out of a whirlwind. So you might say, “Well, why did He not appear to Job? Because if He did, Job would die because no man can see God and live. So He came and He appeared to Job in a dramatic fashion of a whirlwind that was standing in front of Job. And out of this whirlwind God speaks to Job and He says, “Now Job I’m bypassing the councils of Heaven, I’m bypassing all of the messengers, both in everybody that appears before Me eternally, I’m bypassing them and I’m speaking to you, Job. Are you listening, Job?” “Yes, Sir.” I mean if a whirlwind comes and stands in front of you and it just stands there talking to you, I think you’re going to listen, you know. I mean, listen a good taxi service is worth something but when a whirlwind comes and speaks to you, that’s a whole different story. Maybe sometimes the taxi services are like the whirlwind; ‘whishoo, whishoo, whishoo, whish’. And just appear in front of you from nowhere and then they’re gone.
See what you did to me Pastor Lynn, you ruined me. I will forever think about the camels in Job as taxis. And so the Lord comes to Job out of the whirlwind and says, 2Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Gird up now your loins like a man, and I will demand of you, and you declare to Me (Job 38:2-3 AMPC). So now He’s having a conversation with Job and He’s saying, “Job, I’m talking to you. Stand up on your feet, behave like a man, don’t behave like a wimp, I don’t care what you’ve been saying, I’m not here to have a debate with you like you debate with your friends, this is God speaking. Come on, come and address Me like a man.” Huh. 4Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare to Me, if you have and know understanding. 5Who determined the measures of the earth, if you know? (Job 38:4-5 AMPC). Like, it’s Me if you don’t know. You know, but who else do you think it is, Job? This is Me talking to you, so who else do you think could have determined the foundations of the earth? I mean, God has a way of speaking and putting you in your place in a very short sentence. You know, like tell me where, who determined the measures of the earth if you know? Like hello, I’m here speaking to you. I know and you should know that I know and so who else do you think, and if you didn’t know this before, then why do you have any other conversation if you already know. You get it?
Or who stretched the measuring line upon it? 6Upon what were the foundations of it fastened, or who laid its cornerstone, 7When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:6-7 AMPC). In other words, from the beginning when the morning stars were put into the sphere and the sons of God, the angels of God all sang for joy because God created the universe, where were you? When all the Heavens were rejoicing with joy that God had created, where were you, Job? Uh, you think I should answer? Hold your tongue, Job, enough words, sunshine.
Verse 19 of chapter 39, 19Have you given the horse his might? Have you clothed his neck with quivering and a shaking mane? 20Was it you [Job] who made him to leap like a locust? The majesty of his [snorting] nostrils is terrible. 21He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons [of armed men]. 22He mocks at fear and is not dismayed or terrified; neither does he turn back [in battle] from the sword (Job 39:19-22 AMPC). In other words, this mighty beast, did you have anything to do with his making, Job? Did you figure out how to make him or were you present when he was made? And who could make such a beast other than Me? Yes?
Verse 26, 26Is it by your wisdom [Job] that the hawk soars and stretches her wings toward the south [as winter approaches]? (Job 39:26 AMPC). I don’t know about you, I love birds, I just love birds and especially, raptors, you know, they have a way of catching the thermals and they’re effortless in their majesty of the way they just glide and they can glide long distances. And God’s asking Job and He’s asking, “Where were you when the hawk was designed and made, it soars in the sky?” 27Does the eagle mount up at your command and make his nest on [a] high [inaccessible place]? (Job 39:27 AMPC).
There is something I want to answer, I want to show you here. I didn’t get a chance to say this in Witbank this morning, but there is something I want to show you here. God appears to Job, how? In the whirlwind. He speaks to him about what? Stars. He speaks to him about what? Horses. He speaks to him about what? Birds. He speaks to him. You’ll see everything God is talking about, the natural world that Job is living, He’s connecting Job to Himself in the natural world and He’s saying, “Job, I’m speaking to you through the natural world that you live in because I want you to understand that everything you had to say is so pathetic. But I’m going to give you an answer of the power of My might and who I am by connecting you to your natural world that you have no control over. And that all of this great natural world that you are living in that you have enjoyed the beauty of until this thing happened to you; I made it. And you wouldn’t actually exist and live in this natural world if I didn’t make you. Where were you, Job?”
The reason I’m pointing this out to you is that God is about to do something magnificent for Job at the end of this discourse, but I’m wanting you to understand that God, when He sees you in worship and reverentially fear Him, He understands the world that you live in. And if you do not wait too long, He will begin to show you the majesty of who He is, by showing you that He is in everything around you for your best interest. He’s directly connecting Job’s life-force in a clay vessel and all of the stuff He created for that clay vessel. And He’s deliberately connecting Job to the clay stuff of the earth to demonstrate His glory which speaks for an amazing end to our discourse about Job.
Watch what He says, chapter 40 verse 1, 1Moreover, the Lord said to Job, 2Shall he who would find fault with the Almighty contend with Him? (Job 40:1-2 AMPC). So Job, this whole environment that you live in, that I’ve just spoken to you about that I created, where were you when I created it? Oh, you were nowhere? Okay, so this person that you think you are, would you contend with Me, Almighty? Do you think your words have any argument with Me? Anything that you think you could say about Me, do you think that there is any value and merit in what you think you could say about Me? Even as a born again Christian, a believer who God makes the mysteries known to us, if we think we know who God is we have only just begin to understand just a glimmer of the awesomeness of who God is. And you know, as people that live in the faith movement, we think that we want an answer to everything that happens in our lives and we want to put it down whether you have enough faith or you don’t. And that’s the whole summon, the whole score of it; you’ve got enough faith or you don’t have enough faith so that’s why everything happens or doesn’t happen. You confessed enough Word or you didn’t, and that is why everything happens or it doesn’t.
Hey man, God’s a lot bigger than that, there is a whole lot of stuff going on in the universe that we have no idea about what is going on. It doesn’t stop me from living by faith, it doesn’t stop me from living in reverential fear and worship of God. But it also says, “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself and become critical about what you’re doing right or wrong; just live in your worship. Just live in your worship, live for Him.” Why be self-critical? Why say it’s not my faith? Why say all of that? Is yourself criticism of your faith ever going to do anything to increase your faith? No, because self-criticism of whether you have enough faith doesn’t give you more faith, neither does it have any value as to whether you think you can measure your faith. So why criticize your faith? The one thing that God can use to actually change your circumstances, don’t criticize it, just grow it. Live in the worship of it, live in the worship of sonship. Come on, I’m preaching good now. ‘We want Job, we want Job.’ Hallelujah.
And then Job replied to Him. 2He who disputes with God let him answer it (Job 40:2 AMPC). In other words, Job, do you want to say something, now? So Job is getting the message. 3Then Job replied to the Lord: 4Behold, I am of small account and vile! (Job 40:3-4 AMPC). You know, okay, I understand Lord, the horse, the stars, the moon, – I’m a little dude, you know. I get it, I get it.
Remember I said to you, many times, I preached this to you, you can’t live in faith if you are not honest first. And when you get to the place of honesty before God and say, “Hey, I don’t have all the answers but I am going to worship You anyway. I’m going to speak money into my hands, I’m going to speak life into my, – because You are my life and that’s the life that You want me to live in. And if You put me in this world then You want the best of this world for me. I’m going to live that way, I’m not going to measure whether I have enough faith or don’t have enough faith. There’s no point in being critical about my faith or whether just,” even if you have to say, “I’m a little bit, you know, tiny. I’m not worth much by comparison to the ages of the man of faith and all that that’s gone on before me, but I worship You. But I’ve got words to speak that are now faith.” Come on, this is a whole lot of better way of preaching about Job than you have ever heard before, and me too.
4Behold, I am of small account and vile! What shall I answer You? I lay my hand upon my mouth (Job 40:4 AMPC). It’s about the wisest thing you just said Job. In the presence of God who’s whirlwinding right in front of you and having a conversation with you. Okay, behold, 5I have spoken once, but I will not reply again—indeed, twice. So he did it once and then he realised, maybe I’ve got something to say here twice. No, no, [have I answered], but I will proceed no further (Job 40:5 AMPC). Smart man. 6Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, saying, Job, 7Gird up your loins now like a man; I will demand of you, and you answer Me. 8Will you also annul (set aside and render void) My judgment? (Job 40:6-8 AMPC). Have you got anything to say about Me as the judge of all the universe? Speak now, Job. What do you have to say? I, the One who created the foundation of the earth and put the stars in the sky where all the angels sang for joy, I the One – you can read it, it is more than just horses and birds and stuff like that, there is a whole lot that God says about Himself. Job, have you got anything else to say about My judgment? Speak now, Job. 8Will you condemn Me, your God that you may appear righteous and justified? (Job 40:8 AMPC). Is that not a way of us getting out of the result that we think we should deserve in our lives by saying, “I’ve confessed the Word but I’ve seen no result, therefore the fault can’t be with me it must be with something else. Why is God withholding things from me that I think I should deserve because I’ve done what I need to do to get what I should be getting?” Shout me down cause I’m preaching good, come on, shout me down. Come on, come on.
You understand what I’m saying? It’s like, why do you want to actually say, “I am righteous and justified and I have lived with reverential fear and worshiped the Lord all my life. Therefore, I cannot be wrong, God must be wrong.” There is something about God, let me tell you, I’ve seen this, that there is a thing inside of us that in the very answering of why we don’t get what we think we should be getting because we have been confessing and because we have been worshipping, because we even think we have an answer for that, we are making ourselves righteous. We are justifying ourselves and giving ourselves an excuse. Do you see that? Let’s quit it, let’s quit it. There is no point in evaluating yourself like that or God or the ways of God, rather let’s just worship. Give Him everything we’ve got. And so if it doesn’t, if something is still going wrong and it’s still going wrong and it’s still going wrong and you don’t get the right thing and you don’t get the right thing and you wonder why it’s still not right and you want to give an answer; Well I wonder if it’s this, I wonder if it’s that. What’s the point? Why do you want to go there? Best for you to just open your mouth and worship. Well Lord, it doesn’t look like things are coming my way yet. I will worship You anyway, because You are pure and righteous and just and all Your ways are right for me and I will dictate my ways according to the Word that I know and I will declare You to be the most righteous God of the universe. And I thank You, Lord that you meet all my needs according to Your riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And I thank You, Lord that You give to me and You will pour into my bosom and it will be so great that there will be no room enough to contain it. Pressed down, shaken together, running over will You pour into my bosom. And I’m going to keep saying it and I’m going to keep worshiping You with that, because that is how I know You are. So, I’m not going to make any excuse neither I am going to have any answers, neither will I have any questions. Because what point will it be for me to have any debate about this?
This is one of the best messages you could get about any economic situation that you might find yourself in whether good or bad, great or not so great. Just worship, just worship with everything you’ve got.
Chapter 42:1, 1Then Job said to the Lord (Job 42:1 AMPC). What Job, you want to talk again? Well yes, he has to talk because God demanded that he had to answer him again. Right? Come on, Job, will you answer Me? I demand an answer, speak now. Will you judge Me? Will you question My judgment? 2I know that you can do all things and that no thought or purpose of yours can be restrained or thwarted (Job 42:2 AMPC). There it is God, You are everything, You are every purpose, You are right in everything. There is nothing about You that can ever be questioned. That’s it, You’re the beginning and the end, basically that’s what he said. Right? Because there is no thought or purpose of Yours that can be restrained or thwarted. So, in other words, whatever is happening here, I’ve got no answer for it but it’s all You, whatever happened here, okay. And I’m okay with You. Because, he says in verse 5, 5I had heard of you only by the hearing of the ear. But now, my spiritual eye sees You (Job 42:5 AMPC). Well, he couldn’t see God naturally, he could only see the whirlwind. But in his spirit he could see God. And all of these things that happened to Job, all of his prosperity, all of his blessing, and all of this council of Heaven where God says, “Have you seen my servant Job; how he worships me, how he has reverential fear and how he’s upright?” All of this had happened because Job had only heard about this God, and in just hearing of who God was, he decided to live this way and worship Him. He didn’t see Him, he hadn’t been able to know who He was, he had only heard about Him, and decided to worship Him. Blessed are you who have never seen Jesus but yet believe. Blessed are you. Blessed are you.
6Therefore, I loathe my words and abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:6 AMPC). In other words; everything I’ve done till now is a bit stupid. You think? Just a little bit? Yeah no well, maybe not a little bit. Really, I understand this whole debate about who You are, even though I’d heard about you from my ears, I didn’t see you with my eyes, I didn’t know who you were, but now I know you. And now that I know you; wow. Wow. I abhor my stupid words that I’ve said. All my judgments, all of the things I thought I knew about you are so irrelevant, I must repent because You are just so great. You are just so great.
7After the Lord had spoken the previous words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, and He speaks to him. I assume the twisting whirlwind is still operating. Right? Because the Word doesn’t say it stopped. And God is now speaking personally; there’s no angels talking, there’s no Satan involved. There’s now just still God. And so He goes to the most senior, maybe closest, friend of Job, and He says, “You, the most senior one, My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends, that are also Job’s friends, but you brought them with you. For you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has (Job 42:7 AMPC). What? Suddenly, God doesn’t remember anything Job said before. This thing that Job said that Your counsel is right and everything about You is good, and I’ve got nothing to say, okay, the rest is, I don’t even remember those words. Eliphaz, those words that you speak, you haven’t repented of them yet. You have not spoken like this, like Job has.
Hey, come on. Let me tell you God is so amazing, when you just have a repentant heart because, “Sho, you are so great God.” He doesn’t even, let’s go, come on, come on, let’s go, let’s do something. Let’s do something, let’s make something great. Hey?
So, 8Now therefore take 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 (Job 42:8 AMPC).
What is prayer? I didn’t get to talk about this in Witbank, but just quickly. What is prayer? It’s communication with a divine being. So what He’s saying is, “Take your bullocks and your sacrifice, and let Job come and talk to Me about you. Because now my relationship with Job has changed completely. Because him and I, we had a question-and-answer time; we sorted things out. And Job now understands, and he’s My man. He’s always been My man, I actually said it in the throne room of Heaven, he was My man, and now he has proved he’s still My man. And so now not only did he just hear about Me, now he has seen Me, and he’s still My man. So now, I’m going to send you to a man. Not Me – don’t come to Me; you come to Me, you die.” Ja.
8My servant Job shall pray for you for I will accept his prayer that I deal not with you after your folly! (Job 42:8 AMPC). At least what was going to happen to them was what happened to Job. If Job didn’t say, “Lord, stay your hand. They’re okay, they’re with me.” This is the ultimate gangster movie. This is the ultimate Godfather thing, you know. They’re okay, they’re with me. You know. Don’t touch them, they’re alright. Blame it all on Pastor Lynn.
8For I will accept his prayer, that I deal not with you after your folly, in that you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has. 9So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord commanded them; and the Lord accepted [Job’s prayer] (Job 42:8-9 AMPC).
Wow. Hey, I tell you what; there is something very powerful about living together on the earth, where someone who comes and repents, when the judgment of God is supposed to be exercised and they repent; He says, “Let your friend pray, let your friend intercede, and if there’s a friend’s intercession, I’ll stand My hand. If their repentance is genuine, then they can live with Me.” Wow. Come one, we are much more powerful in the world than we think, Church. We really are. We are much more powerful on the earth than we think.
So, after this whole activity, then 10The Lord turned the captivity of Job and restored his fortunes, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they sympathised with him and comforted him over all the [distressing] calamities the Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money, every man an earring of gold (Job 42:10-11 AMPC).
What’s happening? Come on, come on, come on. Just watch this now; what you worship is what you attract. And so because he said, “I’m going to worship the Most High God,” and from yesterday’s message, all the silver and the gold and the earth belongs to God. What’s happening? All men are bringing silver and gold back to Job. I’ll tell you what; when you worship, people will begin to just bring you things, they just bring you things. They will. They will. They’ll bring you things in business, they’ll bring you things, they’ll bring you ideas, they’ll bring you stuff that will turn to silver and gold. They will.
You think I’m preaching this just because I had a revelation? I told you, I’ve had this revelation for months. I told you, I was going to wait for the timing of God to release this revelation. Did I not tell you that? I’m being very specific about this. God told me to release this revelation now because of the economic situation that we find ourselves in, and God said, “Speak it out now.” Hallelujah.
12And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep, he’s got double flood, 6,000 camels, his taxi service doubled. Yes, if you think there are lots of taxis on the road in Joburg today, imagine if they doubled. You wouldn’t be able to move. [Laughing] No, we have our own taxis in Witbank. 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys (Job 42:12 AMPC). I don’t know where the males went, but anyway. The ‘Me Too’ movement is about to jump on me. Do you know who the ‘Me Too’ Movement is? You don’t know? Okay, don’t worry. Me too.
13He also had 7 sons and 3 daughters (Job 42:13 AMPC). What did he lose? 7 sons and 3 daughters.
Chapter 42 verse 15, 15And in all the land, there was no woman so fair as the daughters of Job. And their father gave them inheritance among their brothers. After this, Job lived another 140 years, and he saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, even to four generations. So, Job died an old man full of days (Job 42:15 AMPC).
Because he said, “Hey, that little stuff, that thing that happened to me, I can’t. What do I have to say to you Almighty God, whose judgment is pure? And if I think I must justify myself before You, then it means I’m judging You.” Isn’t that what God said? “You want to judge Me because your justification is good enough for you to think that I’m wrong?” And when we want to defend ourselves about our faith, or about our prayer life, or about our calling, or about our gifts, or about anything, and we say, “Well, hmm, I think I’ve got something to say about this because uh, hmm, well, you know. Hmm, I don’t think I want to take personal responsibility. Uhm, but even if I do, hmm, hmm.”
You know what I’m saying? Best we just say, “You’re it. You’re the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, that’s it. You’re the Great I Am. And You live inside of me. And what did I do to deserve this? Nothing. I just believed You, so I receive it all. And so, I’m going to worship You with all of my words. I’m going to worship You with all of Your words I’m going to speak back to You. So, your words You gave me, I want to speak them back to You.” Essentially that’s what Job said. “After all our conversation, You’re it. I’m going to tell You what You already know about Yourself.” Isn’t that what he said? “I know a little bit about You, and what I know about You is what You already told me about Yourself, so I’m going to speak it back to You.” “Okay, now we got it, Job. Now we got a thing going here. Now you can pray for your friends and I can move, and I can do whatever, and now I’m going to restore to you everything.”
And so, the whole deal about Job is, I wonder what happened to Satan after this? Isn’t that the point of what God was doing all the time? Wasn’t that the judgment of God? “Here’s a man that I know what the outcome is going to be, and it doesn’t matter what you bring against him, he knows that in his heart he will stay worshipping. And on the earth, that gives Me the right, because there is a Job to bring blessing to everybody that Job will touch. And so now, you can’t come into the courtroom of Heaven and say there is no man on the earth that will worship you, for any other reason, other than what you do for him. Cause here’s a man that no matter what you did against him, he still worshipped Me.” Do you know what that means for you and me? That means with the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to worship God no matter what happens to us. We have the ability to worship God no matter what happens to us. And let’s not be stupid enough to try and figure out what’s bad and what’s good and why is it happening and why is it not happening because at the end of the day, we become this, we get entangled in this debate in our head and in our words and in our mind and in our hearts and we get entangled in so many things, trying to figure out why something good or bad happens. In the end God is just saying, “Worship Me, let me be God for you.” But you don’t understand the pain that it has caused me. No, do you think God didn’t understand the pain that it caused Job? Come on now. But if you keep your heart right before Him, restoration will come in the grandest of ways that only God can bring restoration. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus.
I believe that this teaching has brought healing to many of you. I believe that it has brought a peace inside of you that you are permitted to worship God now, without having to exercise your mind as to why something is happening or not happening; why something did happen or didn’t happen; why something is about to happen or is not going to happen. You have the peace and you have the right to worship God without any consequence of your thinking; without an emotional thing that says, “I need an answer before I can move forward.” You do not. You need to have faith that you just believe Him and He is good. He is good, He is good. He is Almighty, He is the judge of the universe and I’ve got news for you; He’s Judge Jesus for every sin that has ever been committed. So let’s not even go there. Let’s worship Him, let’s just praise Him. Let’s just give Him glory and honour and say He is worthy of praise and He is worthy of all of our affection. And He is worthy of everything that is ours; He is worthy of it. His glory is all over the earth and we will worship Him and praise Him. Hallelujah, hallelujah. He is Almighty God after all and He is our God after all. Hallelujah. Stand to your feet, Church.
Praise the Name of Jesus. Praise the Name of Jesus. Praise the Name of Jesus. Praise the Name of Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. We praise You, Lord. We praise You, Lord. We praise You, Lord. Hallelujah.
I want to tell you. I feel led by the Lord to tell you this that my biggest crisis moment of my life before God; my biggest crisis moment of my life happened in 2004/2005, when a whole bunch of people in the church decided that I didn’t know how to run the church and that they wanted to take the church away from me and they wanted to dictate how I should run the church. And so there were 32 of them that rose up against me, 32. They were having meetings in other people’s homes about my leadership and when Brother Jerry came to this church, to South Africa, for my very first Bible School that we did, the graduation at Mosaic Church, and Brother Jerry standing next to me and he is saying, “John, I am standing in my dream because you and me, together have made my dream come to pass, this dream of graduating people from Bible School.” That very night, those people contacted him and said we have an accusation against John. That very next morning, I had to go and appear before Jerry, with one of my accusers, who accused me of nothing. In his own words, “I don’t know what I am doing in front of you today, Brother Jerry. I must get up and leave, please excuse me.” And he got up and he walked out of the room, after saying, “This is the most spiritual man I have ever had the privilege of working under and working with.” He got up and he walked out. What do you think that was? That was a spiritual whirlwind that came to implode the four corners of my house of faith. My sons and my daughters of faith were killed before my very eyes. No longer, no sooner had that happened and all my camels and my goats and my oxen and my taxi service were decimated. And I had a crisis of faith because my crisis of faith is; my God I have served You all of my life. My God I have been pure and holy before You all of my life. I am a faith man who honours faith men. Why would anybody turn against me? Why, why would people have this idea about me? Brother Jerry’s own words about me, he says, “John, you are too accountable to people.” Well, you know, that is his perspective of the way that Americans, and in America, ran their ministry. I have nothing to say about that. I am just saying, he made an observation. And the implication was this would not have happened if you weren’t accountable and you made yourself that accountable to people. You know. Well, I still take that council and I hold it in my hands, regularly, and I say I have to have this balance of how accountable I must be to people and yet I must be accountable to God. And that’s what I got from His council, going back then.
Can you understand that my whole world imploded because at that time, you guys were there, everybody was there, at that time we had 400/500/600 people coming to church services. Hey, and suddenly I was struggling to make it because all those people left and took half the church with them. And I had a crisis of faith. I’m telling you this because if you think I haven’t faced a death of sorts in my life, besides the things that my father was murdered, besides things that other things that have happened in my life, if you think that I haven’t had to face my own crisis before God as to who God is to me, then you are wrong. I have had to stand before Almighty God by myself and say, “Now what is going on here, God? Why is this happened to me, God?” I had my own Job experiences and in the end I could say, “Well, I have got to worship You and serve You anyway because where else can I go. Only You have the words of life and You are the only one in my life that I wish to serve anyway. And so I am going to just keep carrying on.”
But my own wife had a crisis of her faith to the point where she said to me, “John, please leave the ministry and go back to the corporate world because this kind of cruelty doesn’t exist in the world. I’ve never experienced this kind of cruelty that I experience in the Church, that I’ve experienced happen to you, you never ever had that from the world. Go back to the business world. At least I can deal with that; can’t deal with this stuff that happens in the Church.” Come on now. I am sharing something personal and real with you today. Hey?
Is it any wonder that it is my season for double? Is it any wonder that I am not just got 7000 sheep? I am going to have 14 000 sheep and they are in their making. I am not sure about the 6000 camels but if God wants me to have them, I’ll take them anyway. You know, and I’m going to have a 1000 yoke of oxen and I’m going to have a 1000 donkeys, she-donkeys. And sons and daughters are going to be restored to me and they are going to be the most fairest and most beautiful in all of the land. Hallelujah. Don’t you want in on this? Come on, you can get in on this. You have been with me for a long time, all of you, come on you; it’s your right to be in on this. That’s the reason why God has wanted me to preach this to you because it’s your time to say, “We are not going to speak about anything, about answer anything, have, whether enough faith, enough faith, na, na, na, faith. I’m just going to worship and give all my words that I know back to Him that He is anyway and He is the El Shaddai, He is my provider, He is my protector, He is the Great I AM, He is the only God to serve and if I speak His words, then He is going to bring it all back to me.” Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Do you believe this, Church? You must say, Amen today. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Glory to God.
I am expecting the overflow, the double, the double, the double, the double and the double. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. We only just got started on the restoration process because the first thing that happened was that the silver and gold started to come to his hands. And so then the next words were, and then God restored it back to him, but it took time for all of that to double. Come on, you don’t just have 14 000 sheep happen overnight. I mean, you know, God blessed him but the blessing was obviously there and it just started to work and so there was no more lack and there was no more, but it just kept on happening. And so, in front of Job’s very eyes, all this doubling started happening. Come on now. You know, and so let’s just start by calling the silver and gold into our hands, shall we? Let’s just command the people to come and bring stuff to us. Come on, bring business to us. Bring silver and gold to us. Bring that stuff to us. It’s time for restoration, it’s time for the double to come because our words are no longer against God. Our words are before God. Why do you say that with confidence? Because I pray for you. I have prayed for you that your faith does not fail you. I have prayed for you that you will stand strong in the season that you have been going through, I pray for you that you will come through it. And now God is speaking to you out of your own whirlwind and it’s called, ‘John Bendixen standing in front of you today.’
I am telling you. I’m telling you. Hallelujah. This whole weekend the whirlwind has been speaking to you. Come on. Hallelujah. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Hallelujah. I am done. The anointing has just lifted off me and the Lord just spoke this to my spirit and He said, “You’ve said what you need to say, now be quiet.”
So, I bless you. Good night. Good bye. Hallelujah.
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