*Scripture: Job 21:1-21 (NKJV)* 1 Then Job answered and said: 2 "Listen carefully to my speech, and let this be your consolation. 3 Bear with me that I may speak, and after I have spoken, keep mocking. 4 As for me, is my complaint against man? And if it were, why should I not be impatient? 5 Look at me and be astonished; Put your hand over your mouth. 6 Even when I remember I am terrified, and trembling takes hold of my flesh. 7 Why do the wicked live and become old, yes, become mighty in power? 8 Their descendants are established with them in their sight, and their offspring before their eyes. 9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. 10 Their bull breeds without failure; Their cow calves without miscarriage. 11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. 12 They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice to the sound of the flute. 13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. 14 Yet they say to God, 'Depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways. 15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? And what profit do we have if we pray to Him?' 16 Indeed their prosperity is not in their hand; The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
17 "How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does their destruction come upon them, the sorrows God distributes in His anger? 18 They are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that a storm carries away. 19 They say, 'God lays up one's iniquity for his children'; Let Him recompense him, that he may know it. 20 Let his eyes see his destruction, and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 21 For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months is cut in half?" * Devotion* "Laugh at me all you want," Job seems to say. "Taunt and mock me, but let me speak my piece first. Why is it that the wicked prosper while I have to suffer so terribly?" On top of the ghastly all-pervading pain and loss he is enduring, Job is wrenched by the seeming unfairness of life. But he goes on in verse 26 to say that all men, regardless of their life circumstances, whether in pain and misery or living a life of ease, "lie down alike in the dust, and worms cover them." We whom Christ instructs to love our enemies and pray for them (Matthew 5:43ff) must tremble as Job does when he considers his plight. "The ungodly will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish." (Psalm 1:5-6) Those who die not trusting in Christ, who died for the forgiveness of our sins to give us life and salvation, are like chaff blowing in the wind. Everlasting destruction is their recompense. For them we pray as we reach out with the Word of the Lord. In the meantime, always keeping in mind the suffering of Christ, we pick up our crosses to follow Him in the sure and certain knowledge that--by the grace of God, through faith in Christ--because Christ lives, we too shall live eternally. Call Send SMS Add to Skype You'll need Skype CreditFree via Skype
_______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
