Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.
Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Let me just say this before we pray. Notice how Job puts this. He doesn't just say my body is weary of my life. If anybody would have the right to say that, Job would. The sickness that Job was stricken with in his body is deplorable. You and I would probably, most would never understand the physical suffering that Job had. But the story of Job is really a reminder that despite things that happen to you physically, nothing is harder to bear than that which happens to you emotionally and spiritually. You know, all the physical pain that Job went through, it paled in comparison to watching all of his children die, losing everything he had. And so he says here, my soul is weary.
Yeah, my body is hurting. My body is physically, I'm sure, almost at the point of death as we know Job was for a long period of time. Yet God told Satan that you can't kill him. But Satan had free reign to come at Job. And I can imagine whatever it was that he did.
And he still does that, by the way. But Job said this, my soul is weary of my life. It's not even the physical stuff Job said I'm going through. I think I've just about had it. And so Job begins this chapter saying this statement, and then he proceeds with some questions for God. And I don't know if you've ever been at the point in your life where you had some questions for God.
Let's think about that this morning. Lord, I love you. I thank you for all that you've done. Thank you, Lord, for how your word reminds us of who we are and reminds us that you remember who we are. And, Lord, it reminds us that you love us in spite of ourselves. And it reminds us that we are to trust you despite whatever might happen. So, Lord, I love you, and I pray that you'd help us this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Let me begin by prefacing it this way, and if I could explain this. I don't know if in your life hearing preachers, if you've ever been told or at least taken what you were told to mean, that you should never question God. And I will tell you this, that that's just not true. God is okay with your questions. God is okay with your questions.
Are you okay this morning if I explain to you why? God is not insecure. God is not intimidated by you.
God is not intimidated by me. Now, it might be that if you come to me in a critical nature and question something I'm doing, pastoring or whatever the case might be, I might be insecure enough that I'm going to take that personal. I might be insecure enough that that bothers me, it intimidates me. I might be insecure enough that I would then begin to point out your faults. Have you ever done that to somebody that came and showed fault to you? Have you ever responded that way?
Why? Because we're insecure. What they said carried enough weight with us that it now put us in defense mode, and we're somewhat felt that that put us in an insecure position, so we must fight back, and we sometimes don't like to be questioned. And we sometimes that, no matter what, if somebody comes at us with that kind of spirit, that we can begin to kind of starting wanting to point the finger back and take it personal and kind of get angry about it and different things. But that's because we're flesh and we're humans, and we don't like to be questioned, and we don't like somebody to say something that would make us think that maybe we have not reached up to their expectation or our own potential or whatever the case might be. But God is not like us.
There ought to be about 100 amens to that this morning. God is not like us. Thank God he likes us and he loves us, but he's not like us. And you can come to God with your questions, and that does not intimidate him. That does not make God insecure. It does not make God think, well, who are you? It doesn't change God one bit that you don't like what he's doing. God's not insecure.
So while there might be some people in your life that you think, you know, I'm not even going to question them because then they're just going to get all bent out of shape and they're going to take it this way and that way or whatever the case might be, and before we judge people like that, you're probably like that too. There always could be a button to push in that angle because all of us are a bit insecure in certain areas, at least by certain people or certain circumstances, but God is not insecure. And therefore, because God is not insecure, God is not offended by the fact that you have a question, and God is not bothered by the fact that you're questioning maybe some things that you think he has done or that he has allowed. So it is literally, it's okay to ask God questions because he doesn't turn away from you and think now you're just a bad child because you're questioning him and questioning what he's doing and all those things. Now what does bother God is when he's not believed, when he's not trusted, but it doesn't mean you can't question. It doesn't mean that you don't have some questions and I don't understand this and I don't see why this is happening and why you're allowing that or why you've done this in my life. God is not intimidated or made insecure by our questions.
In fact, as I started looking at this in a sense, you begin to run down some things and Abraham, he questioned God. He said, God, what are you going to give me? How are you going to do this? I'm childless. You say that my seed is going to proceed and then out of that is the stars of the sky and yet I'm at this age and I don't even have a child.
God, how are you going to do that? Moses had his questions when God came to Moses and called him to this particular capacity. Moses said, who am I that I should do this job and not only that, when God said, hey, listen, I want you to go to Pharaoh and Moses said, why would Pharaoh possibly listen to me?
Why would you send me to him? Joshua had some questions. In chapter seven of Joshua, he says this, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us? Joshua said, God, did you just do this to destroy us? I began to look down through some questions in the word of God and I was kind of surprised by all of that. Elijah, God put him in the home of this widow woman and while he's there, her son dies and Elijah says this, O Lord, my God, hast thou brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn by slaying her son? Have you really just done this?
Why would you possibly do this? David had a lot of questions. In Psalm 10, David said, God, why are you standing thou afar off? Why standest thou afar off?
Why are you so far from me? And he says this, why hidest thou thyself in time of trouble? David said, God, I'm in trouble. Why are you hiding now? Why don't you hide, God, when you're coming after me and disciplining me? Why do you hide, it seems, when I'm in trouble?
And yet, you know, all of a sudden you show up to let me have it. He said, well, that's not fair. Yeah, but that's how David felt. He had questions. Isaiah had questions. Isaiah comes to God in chapter 6. He said, God, how long am I supposed to keep preaching? This isn't doing any good.
They're not listening. Isaiah said, wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace and afflict us very sore? He said, God, are you just picking on us? Ezekiel had some questions. He said, God, are you just going to destroy all the residue of Israel, he calls it, by pouring out thy fury upon us?
Can I say this? None of you, or us, have ever had God's fury poured out on us. If you had, you wouldn't be here. I know some people, well, God just, it seems, unleashed everything on, oh, no, he hasn't. You think Satan can cause some damage, unleashing everything he has, wait till God unleashes everything he has. Paul had some questions. He had a thorn in the flesh. And he comes to God on three different occasions. I said, God, would you please remove this?
God didn't. You say, well, yeah, there's a lot of, yeah, but do you know in the Bible, Jesus had some questions? Jesus even looked to his father and said, my God, my God, why? Hast thou forsaken me?
Anybody feel like you're better than Jesus? As I looked, I realized that Jacob had questions, Gideon had questions, Manoah had questions, Samson had questions, Solomon had questions, Habakkuk had questions, Amos had questions, and can I tell you something? This morning, Daniel Hartree has some questions. Any of you ever get to a point in your life where you got some questions? And maybe we think that, you know, maybe I'm just a horrible Christian and a rotten child of God that I even question him, but let's be honest, he certainly knows our heart.
We're not hiding anything from him. We sometimes have questions. So in Job chapter 10, Job brings a list, and if anybody I think had the right to ask some questions. In Job chapter 7, you don't need to turn to it, the verse is going to be on the screen, but once the initial blow of everything that Satan threw at Job, he begins this process, which is a difficult one, almost as bad as all the stuff that happened to him in literally two days time. I mean, his friends come, so-called friends, and they're so judgmental and condescending and telling him all that, you know, why God did this, it's because you've done this, and all these things. But in Job chapter 7, verse 20, and this verse will be on the screen, I want you to see first that Job brings the question of removing. He says this, why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? In other words, God, why have you almost pitted me against you?
I mean, even God said he was a perfect man, Job eschewed evil, and now Job says, really, I don't think that I've done a lot of wrong here, and yet it seems now we're against each other. Notice what he says here, so that I am a burden to myself. You see, Job's very existence was a burden to him. He was in so much pain and suffering and mental anguish that being alive was a burden to him.
It would almost have been less of a burden to Job if he just could have died. He says this, and why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity? Job questions, God, why won't you remove this?
In other words, God, if you've done this, like my friends say, because I've done wrong and I've sinned, God, I've apologized and I've asked you to forgive me, so why are you not pardoning me from what I'm going through? Why are you not taking this away? Have you ever questioned maybe why God didn't take something away from your life that was such a burden to you? In Job chapter 10, beginning in verse 3, as Job describes in verse 1 that I'm just my soul's weary of my own life, he brings up secondly the question of method. Look if you would at verse 3, Job comes to God and he says this, Is it good unto thee that thou shouldst depress, that thou shouldst despise the work of thine hands?
Look at me, I want you to get this. He says, God, I don't know that you have the right methods here. Is it good unto you? In other words, Job is almost saying this, Do you think this is a good thing to do to me?
What's happened? God, I don't understand this method that literally that you are taking the work of your hands, which was me. I'm the work of your hands, God, and you're taking it away. You're literally taking what you've created and you're destroying it. I don't understand that method.
I don't understand why. Why is this good to you? I mean, God, do you really think you're doing a good thing here? In verse 8 of Job chapter 10, he brings up the question of motive.
Why are you doing this? See, first he says, I don't really agree with what you're doing and then he says, I don't even agree with why you're doing it. Look at verse 8 of Job chapter 10, verses are on the screen. He says, Thy hands have made me and fashioned me together round about, yet thou dost destroy me. What is your motive if you've built me up just to destroy me? What is your motive if you've made me into the person I am just so that you can judge the person I am? Verse 9, he says, Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me into dust again? Job gives God glory the fact that, hey, we're all the work of your hand, as the Bible says, but now you almost are getting pleasure by just destroying the work of your hand.
I don't understand your motive here. Why would you just make me to break me? How many of you know that God does both things? God can make you and God can break you. Verse 15, number 4, he brings up the question of confusion.
Boy, this is a big one, and I don't know if you've been able to kind of insert yourself in any of these questions this morning. Have you ever questioned why God didn't remove something that was hurting you so deeply? Have you ever questioned why God was doing something? Have you ever questioned what he was allowing in your life? Verse 15, Job says this, If I be wicked, woe unto me, and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head.
Did you hear that? Job said, hey, if I just go out and sin, God's going to judge me, but if I'm righteous, I won't even be able to lift up my head. In other words, I'm getting judged no matter what I do. If I do this, I get trouble.
If I do that, I get in trouble. Any of you ever felt like that? Whether you might know it or not, preachers feel that way a lot. Whatever I do, whatever decision I make, this person don't like it. This person's mad at this. I don't like this, I don't like that. You can't win.
You can't win. Some of you are like that with your family. Whatever I do, whatever I say, I don't do this enough for them, and I've done too much of this for them. Job says, God, whatever I do, if I do right, I get in trouble.
If I do wrong, I get in trouble. Notice what he says here in verse 15, I am full of confusion. I'm just confused, God. Have you ever been confused with God?
Number five, he brings up the question of love. Now he's questioning, does God really love me? Look at verse 16.
Job says, for it increases. He's talking about his affliction. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion, and again thou showest thyself marvelous.
This isn't a good word here. Showest thyself marvelous upon me means you're coming down strong on me. Verse 17, thou renewest thy witness against me, and notice this, increases thine indignation. He says, you're hunting me like a lion. Lions don't hunt animals because they love them.
They hunt them because they love to eat them. Now Job says that God literally has indignation against him, and notice at the end, changes and war are against me. He's like, God, you've literally just gone to war against me. You must not even love me. You're hunting me down like a lion hunts down something that he wants to destroy. You're literally pouring your indignation out on me like you hate me. And you've claimed war against me.
Do you even love me? Now I know that we're all very spiritual. And all of us say, yes, brother, but I've always known that God is a God of love and God loves me. Well, God bless your pea-picking heart. Some of us aren't as spiritual as apparently you may be.
Good for you. But there's been some times in my life I knew God loved me, but I didn't feel loved. Notice next, he brings up the question of existence. Why am I even existing? Look at verse 18, wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?
In other words, God, why did you even let me be born? Oh, that I had given up the ghost and no eye had seen me. Job said it would have been better if I could have died in the womb.
If I could have just died before anyone ever saw me. And this verse proves that life begins at conception. Because Job is saying, I was a person before I even came out of the womb.
Notice what he says here in verse 19, I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb straight to the grave. I don't even know why I'm existing. I don't even know why you even gave me life, if this is what's going to happen. Any of you ever felt, God, I don't even know why you saved me if this is what I was going to go through as a Christian. God, why did you tell me to go to church if this is what I'm going to face when I get to church? Don't look at me with your judgmental eyeballs. You can be honest, maybe you haven't, but if you've ever felt questions like this, would you say amen?
Thank you. Even kids have questions. Seventh, and we're not really far from being done here, but Job brings up the question of process. Verse 10, Job has something interesting to say. He said, hast thou not poured me out as milk and curdled me like cheese?
Now, when I read this verse, I had a little bit of a question. I guess it was a question I'd kind of always had, I didn't know. I'd always thought sometimes, did they have cheese back in Jesus' day? Interesting question, isn't it? Did they have cheese?
I mean, I know they didn't have spam. They could have, but they didn't quite know how to ruin life like that, you know. Or bologna for those in the back that might enjoy bologna.
Interesting question. You know, you hear about wine and bread and olive oil and grapes and feasting and all these things, but do they have cheese? I mean, that could really change life for them instead of that old bread and water. Hey, let's melt some cheese on that baby.
Did they have cheese? And Job is the oldest chronological book in the Bible, and yet Job brings up cheese here. And he literally gives us the process. Job says, God, this is how I feel.
And Job must have known everything about this process, and I'll tell you why in a minute. He said, God, you have curdled me like cheese. That got me thinking. All right, is cheese in the Bible? And it's in three areas.
It's right here. Then as David was a young man and his dad, Jesse, sent him into battle to take food to his brothers that were fighting, and here's Goliath sitting there in the valley. The list of items that the Bible says that Jesse told David to take, it says cheese. Then years later, David is now king and one of his men, and David's running from, you know, those that now he's running from his own son. And one of his men knew where he was hiding, and he was going to bring David supplies. And the Bible says in the list of supplies that this person brought, David was cheese of kind. It was literally like a roll or a brick of cheese. And the only other time is right here in Job chapter 10, verse 10, where Job says, God, what you're doing to me feels like you're curdling me like cheese. So I didn't know anything about it.
So I found out, and it really opened my eyes. You see, the first step in the curdling process, number one, is the process of shocking. You see, to curdle milk in order to make cheese, you take milk, but you have to shock it with something. And there are two ways to curdle milk. You can do it with acids. You could do it with lemon juice.
You could do it with vinegar. But there's an enzyme called rennet, R-E-N-N-E-T. And guess where you get that? It's in the stomach lining of cows or calves. Job had cattle. Job had access to milk.
Probably one of the things that Job did in his, and he was a wealthy man. He had cattle and oxen, and he had donkeys, and he had goats, and he had sheep, and he had all kinds of things, and he had a great household. Probably much of what Job did, even as a living, was making cheese.
He had access to every ingredient in Bible days. And in Bible days, rennet was what they would use to curdle cheese. And sometimes they would use lemon juice or vinegar, and I'll get into that in a minute. But it's a bitter agent. Lemon juice, vinegar, you put it into milk, and this enzyme, rennet, it's acidic, it's bitter, it's a shock to the milk when it's introduced to it.
And that's what you have to do to begin the next process. It must be shocked with something that agitates it. You see, if you're ever going to get cheese, the milk has to be shocked. It has to be agitated. See, sometimes for God to make us what we need to be and to do in our lives what we need to do, he has to shock or agitate our system. You and I get mad when bitter things are entered into our life, but very well just might be part of the process.
Secondly, there's the process of separating. You see, once you shock that milk with something that's bitter or acidic, then all of a sudden what that does, it begins to separate the fat and the protein from the whey protein and the water. You see, milk has a lot of water in it. And in order to get cheese, you've got to get that moisture out of it. So they put this acidic agent, this bitter agent, and when it hits the milk, it agitates it. But it's used to begin to separate the good from the bad, what is usable from what is not usable. And God curdling Job like milk meant that there was some separation that needed to happen in his life, that there was some good things that God wanted to use, but he had to introduce a bitter agent to be able to separate that in Job's life. I'm not saying I've always enjoyed the process. In fact, I don't know that I've ever enjoyed the process, but as I look back, there's been a lot of unusable things that were in my life, shouldn't have been there, and God had to separate that.
And he's still doing it. Third is the process of scalding. You see, when you introduce a bitter agent into milk, it begins that process, but it can't ever fully separate until heat is applied.
They have to heat that milk with that enzyme in it, and as that heat begins to generate that small bit of separation that has taken place, as they heat that milk that now has that bitter agent that has just begun to build curdles, when that heat is applied to it, then it begins to rapidly separate. It can't happen unless the heat is applied. Job is saying, God, you've shocked me by what you've done. You're pulling things out of me that are killing me. You've applied the heat, and it hurts.
Fourth is the process of stretching. You see, this enzyme, rennet, which is probably what Job used, because obviously that's what he had. He had cows to get the milk, and he would use the stomach lining of those calves to get this enzyme, and this enzyme, rennet, it's multiplied, it's produced in bulk now in our day, and they still use this rennet enzyme in many of our cheeses.
You see, there are certain cheeses that lemon juice or vinegar are better for. It produces a different texture, but the majority of cheeses that we use that would melt or be meltable, they're used with this enzyme, and what happens here is that literally by this enzyme, as it hits that milk and it begins to separate, it is what literally, and I didn't come up with this, it denatures the protein in milk. It changes the very nature of that milk.
Interesting. You see, curds are then formed from this enzyme, rennet, and it makes them have a gel-like consistency, and I'm telling you exactly what National Cheesemaker Society tells you has to happen, allowing them to be stretched and molded. See, nothing wrong with milk.
Milk has its purpose. God had a very high opinion of Job, but God saw something that could be even more usable in Job. And God began to stretch, and as these cheeses are stretched and molded, these curds, it makes them into cheeses that melt good, like mozzarella cheeses made like this, stretching.
The last in the process is the process of sitting. Now, all this stuff is hard when you apply it to your life, and Job said, God, you've done this. You've shocked my life. You've separated, literally, my life, and you've gone through all these stages. You've brought the heat. You've scalded my life, and you're stretching me and molding me.
But see, when this process is done for cheese, it'll sit and age, and the longer cheese ages, the stronger it becomes. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192, or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. We'll see you next time.
