Surviving Suffering

Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham. Is your God still worthy of your worship? Is He sufficient? Is He righteous? Does He care?

Is He in control when seemingly everything is out of control? On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about how to survive seasons of suffering in your life.

Now, here's Dr. Graham with his message, Surviving Suffering. Take your Bibles and turn with me please to Job, the first chapter. Surviving suffering is necessary. Because ultimately, every one of us will suffer.

In one way or another, we will deal with crisis, troubles, and even tragedy. The old Spanish proverb says, there's not a home without its hush. And have you noticed that so often, as in the case that we're about to discover in the life of Job, that our troubles come all at once and often unexpected. A business crashes. A marriage collapses.

A child rebels or perhaps a child dies. A loved one is diagnosed with cancer. Or maybe you are diagnosed with some disease. Your wife miscarries. Or your husband leaves.

I know when I'm speaking on the subject of suffering and pain, the message will hit home because everybody ultimately is having a hard time. And so we all know this is a fact. And when it all breaks loose, when it happens, the big question for the believer is the question that we're going to answer in this message today if we're going to survive if our faith is going to survive we have to answer this big question here it is is your God still worthy of your worship is he adequate is he sufficient Is he righteous? Does he care? Is he in control when seemingly everything is out of control?

This is why the story of Job is really the drama of a man who loved God, who served God, and God blessed him, but he served God, loved God, obeyed God, not just because of the blessings, but simply because he loved him. Here was a man who worshiped God, period. And in spite of the crisis, even in the midst of the most indescribable pain, he continued to believe, to trust, and to discover that God is enough. And if we're going to survive when life plays hardball, we need to know something of the testimony of Job and others who have survived. But more importantly, we need to know the trustworthiness of God.

The perseverance of Job is wonderful, but more wonderful is the patience of God as he works with us and moves us through. Is God worthy when it all breaks loose, when life caves in, when it all comes down on our heads? Look, beginning in verse 1, and we read the testimony, the story, the ancient drama, a real story, real people with a ragged edge. What happened to Job can happen to you and to me. There was a man in the land of us whose name was Job.

And that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil. marvelous man this man Job he said he was blameless that's a word in the Bible which means wholeness we get our word integrity integer a man of integrity he wasn't a perfect man but he was a blameless man and he's characterized as being upright and his possessions were 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels and 500 yoke of oxen and 500 female dockings and a very large household so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. He was blessed financially. He possessed a fortune. All of these animals, flocks and herds, a large household, a wonderful family.

He was a great father. Bible tells us in verse 4 that his sons would go and feast in their houses each on the appointed day and would send in and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. The appointed day was their birthday.

So they had great birthday bashes in the Job household. And when they would meet together and feast, notice what Job would do.

So when the days of the feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them. And he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. And thus Job did this regularly, prayed for his family, sanctified his kids. He was known throughout the East.

His fame, his reputation was impeccable. And so one day, according to chapter 1, and we'll not read all of this, but let me give it to you. One day, the angels of the Lord, the sons of God, are in heaven and they're serving and they're at the throne of God. And Satan is there with them. A fallen angel, son of mourning.

Don't think that Satan is down in hell making people shovel coal. God has permitted Satan to be upon the earth. As a matter of fact, he's like a roaring lion prowling about seeking whom he may devour. And so all the angels are attending to the throne of God. And I can just see Satan standing there, you know, kind of swinging a watch chain with his hand in his pocket, just sneering.

God says to Satan, seeing him there, he says, Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And Satan says, God, the only reason this man fears you loves you serves you obeys you is because you paid him off That why in verse 9 Satan answered the Lord and said does Job fear God for nothing He said, Job doesn't serve you just because you're God and because he simply loves you. Have you not made a hedge around him, verse 10, around his household and everything on his side? You've blessed the work of his hand and his possessions have increased in the land. God, the only reason that Job honors you is because you have paid him off.

It's not that you are worthy of his worship. You have to pay your friends to love you, God. And so Satan, as he always does, ultimately is attacking the character and the nature of God. God, you don't have any true followers. Just those that you bless will follow you.

He said, you allow me to get at Job, and he will deny you and curse you to your face. And amazingly, behind the scenes, unknown to Job, God says, all right, to prove you wrong, Satan, and to shut your mouth, you can touch Job. You can touch his possessions, but you can't take his life and don't touch his physical body. And so what happened? The Bible says that when Satan began to work, everything was taken away from Job.

All of his possessions, his flocks, his herds, his animals, his house. He took away his money. He lost his reputation. But then the worst news came. A messenger out of breath approached Job on the day, the same day that he had lost everything.

All these flocks had been stolen and all these herds had taken off and so on. Man came to Job and said, Job, I hate to tell you this, But a big wind blew where your children were housed together and they were having a party. And the wind blew the house down. And your children were in it. And Job, all ten of them are dead.

It came out of nowhere, didn't it? And then when Job did not curse God, Satan said, let me get at him personally, God, and he will deny you. God gave Satan permission once again to go after Job. And then Job was diseased. He was covered from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet with ulcerated boils.

But these were not just boils. They were foul, rancorous sores. The nerve endings of his skin inflamed. Boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, itching, driving him nuts. It was a living hell.

He was taking the pot shares, the corner of pottery, and scraping his skin just to get some kind of a relief.

So here he is, ten fresh graves of his children. his body wracked in anguish and pain. Everything is lost. And it seems that all the hordes of hell are attacking Job. And there he is.

Now, I don't want us to pass this over. We read this. I've talked about it just a little bit, but let's don't move forward until we just think for a moment the physical, emotional, and spiritual anguish this man was experiencing. It couldn't have been much worse, could it? All he has left is his life and his wife, and his wife told him to curse God and die.

So the question for Job and for you and me, and all hell breaks loose, is this question. Is God worthy to be worshipped when we are plunged into pain?

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Now, let's get back to today's message, Surviving Suffering. Keep your place there in Job and turn with me to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. It's the faith chapter. It's been called God's Hall of Fame or God's Hall of Faith because it describes faith as demonstrated through the lives of men and women who exercise faith and how God delivered them and blessed them and responded to their faith because without faith it is impossible to please Him.

And again and again we are encouraged and challenged by these people of faith. it was by faith they were delivered it was by faith that they subdued the kingdoms and worked righteousness and obtained promises and stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the violence of fire and escaped the edge of the sword and so on all these great men and great women Then he says down in verse 36 of chapter 11 look at it Still others, others, unnamed others, had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth.

And all of these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not, did not receive the promise. Others had just as much faith as Moses and Joseph and Daniel and all these others. But they died in their faith. They did not see the promise this side of eternity. They were destitute.

They were killed. They were martyred. You see, sometimes God gives us the faith to escape tribulations and troubles. And thank God when he does. But at other times, God gives us the endurance to persevere through pain and struggle, the faith to endure.

Sometimes God does not deliver us out of troubles, but through the troubles, not out of the fire, but in the fire. Don't think that because you're a believer that you're immune from problems and perplexities, pain in your life. We're following the one who was called the man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief, who went to the cross and he said, take up your cross and follow me. Remember Elijah? Elijah led a great revival on Mount Carmel when the altars of Baal were smashed and thrown down and the fire from heaven fell and God blessed and answered his prayer.

I mean, he was a national hero. He was just an incredible man of God, a prophet. He was feeling good about God and good about himself. And then the Queen Jezebel heard about what happened on Mount Carmel and what Elijah did. And she said, Elijah, you're going to regret the day that ever happened.

I'm coming after you. You're a dead man. And what did Elijah do? Same man that stood up on the mountain and called down fire from heaven. He was afraid.

he went running out into the desert, 40 miles out into the desert. He fell exhausted at the foot of a broom tree, a juniper tree. He was so depressed and discouraged that he prayed, oh God, take my life. Just kill me, God.

Now he was a hypocrite. He really didn't want God to kill him. If he wanted God to kill him, he'd have stayed right there and Jezebel would have taken care of it. But he's not thinking straight. He says, oh God, let me die right now.

He said, I am not better than my fathers.

Now I wonder who told him he was better than his fathers. Must have been his mother. But he had the idea that he was better than his fathers, that he didn't deserve this. After all, I'm a man of God. I'm a prophet of God.

Bad things don't happen to people like me. I'm God's man. This can't happen to me.

Well, it can happen to anyone. And for reasons unknown, when we're plunged into pain, you should expect to suffer. But then what? Will you still worship God? Will you still trust God, His sufficiency, His greatness?

Is God worthy when you're plunged into pain? Is God worthy to be worshipped when your friends fail you? Chapters 2 and following describe these friends who come to Job.

Now friends are wonderful. And you're blessed if you have dear friends that are loyal and faithful to you. Loyalty is one of the greatest qualities of life. Friends are vital. But sometimes friends let us down.

And Job was alone, you see. His wife isn't of any help. And I used to kind of, you know, pick on Job's wife a little bit. And then I realized one day, you know, Job's wife, she lost 10 kids too. all these things.

She was a part of this. And she's broken and she's hurting.

So when she says, Job, just cursed God and died, she was of no help. She had her own problems to deal with. And Job is suffering. And these friends, they come with all these cliches and all these easy, quick answers. And when they leave, Job feels worse than when they arrive.

But is God enough? Is he worthy of worship when we have no one and we have to stand alone and suffer? Alone? Students. Maybe you're standing for Jesus Christ in your school and in the community and you've got some Christian friends.

You go to church with your friends on Sunday and you all are excited. You're sort of banded together and you've made some commitments and promises and vows and then you're at school one day and somebody says, hey, let's go do such and such.

some of your friends that maybe don't know Christ. And you say, no, you know, I don't want to go there. I'm not going to do that because you have some convictions. But some of your friends at church, they say, hey, we're going. And your friends forsake you and run with them.

What are you going to do? You still going to live for Jesus when your friends forsake you, when your family's not there for you? Are you going to worship God when you're plunged into pain, when your friends forsake you, and when you're draped in darkness? You see, Job's problem was that he couldn't see. I mean, he had no clue as to why he was dealing with this.

It was dark. Everything was dark. He didn't understand. There are times that we don't have the answers to our whys, but when answers aren't enough, is God enough? But don't demand to understand.

Now I didn't say don't seek to understand. I believe it's legitimate and biblical to ask God for wisdom and to ask God to help you. But don't demand to understand.

And as the great British preacher Spurgeon once said, now been beautifully arranged in a song when you can trace God hand trust his heart Job couldn't see. Everything was dark. But when you don't understand and you can't see his plan, when you can't trace his hand, trust his heart. And we do pretty well when we've got the answers and everything's working and things coming together in our lives. And boy, we've got a clear picture of our future and we've got a vision and we're hitting home runs of the business world.

Our family is just a superb family. I mean, we're doing great. We've got answers for everything. But what happens when life caves in and you're draped with darkness, when it's just you and God, when it's just God? Is he enough?

Will you still worship him? Will you still trust him? When you're persecuted, when you're martyred, do you know there are more Christians in the world today that are being martyred, imprisoned, and even killed for the sake of the gospel than at any time in history?

So how do you survive? You do what Job did. When you survive suffering, you reaffirm God's character. We know whether or not we can see it or feel it or not, we know God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.

And do not doubt in the dark what God showed you in the light. Let God be God. Job discovered, God, you are God and I'm not. And when I can't figure you out, I'm going to faith it and believe it because, you see, the Bible says God's ways are not our ways. And his thoughts are above our thoughts.

God's playing in a higher league than any of us. and so reaffirm the character of God, trust in him and then rest in the love and in the sufficiency of God. Remember that he went to the cross. He entered into our pain and our suffering. He bore our sorrows and our griefs and our sins upon the cross.

He was buried and on the third day he arose and thank God we can say that the sufferings of this present time because of what Jesus has done for us, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glories that shall be revealed. Yes, we will suffer. But I believe that God is sufficient, that God is enough, that Jesus never fails. And that when you come to the place in your life when he's all you got, He, Jesus, is all you need. world.

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To sign up, just text CROSS to 59789. Again, text CROSS to 59789. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? Suffering really is inevitable. One way or another, we will each deal with crisis, trouble, even tragedy.

Sometimes troubles come and they go very quickly and we handle them. But sometimes trouble comes with a vengeance and seems destined to stay. The clouds roll in, thunder crashes, lightning flashes, it rains so hard we barely know what time it is, what day it is, what even hit us. Job was someone who experienced this kind of suffering, great suffering. Satan believed that if this successful man lost everything, he would surely stop believing and worshiping God.

So he told God, if you allow me to get at Job, he will deny you and curse you to his face.

So amazingly, behind the scenes in eternity and unbeknownst to Job, God allowed Satan to take away Job's possessions. He took away his flocks, his herds, his house. He took away his money and his reputation. And then worst of all, Satan was allowed to destroy all ten of Job's children. But to Satan's displeasure, Job did not turn away from God in spite of everything he had lost.

And even when God allowed Satan to touch Job's physical body with terrible boils, Job continued to trust God and to believe that he was more than enough to meet him at the point of his deepest need and struggle. It's nearly impossible to describe the physical, emotional, and spiritual anguish that this man endured.

So, what happens when life caves in on you? Will you find, as Job did, that God is still enough? Will you still find him worthy of your praise? Will you believe that he's in control even when it seems that everything's out of control? In times of suffering, it's good to know the testimony of Job's faithfulness.

But it's even more important to know the trustworthiness of God, the faithfulness of God. And on those days when you can't trace God's hand, then trust his heart. God wants the best for you. He is a good God. He is a gracious God.

And you will discover in life's most painful moments that God is enough and more than enough for your every need. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift of $10 or more to PowerPoint, we will send you Dr. Graham's book, Living Hope in a Hostile World. Just text FEB to 59789.

And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about how God can help you resist even the strongest temptation. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.