Well, congregation, tonight the spirit sets before us on the pages of his word, the character of Job. And Job is a person who lived, as I said, during the time of Abraham, the time of the patriarchs. He lived in the land of Uz, probably to the east of Canaan. There seems to have been no outward connection or contact between Abraham and Job. And yet, of course, they were both believers. And as such, they were both in Christ. They were bound together in the bundle of life with the Lord Jesus. And there were things that were true for both of them. Both believed. Both feared God, both struggled, both sinned, and both left a legacy from which we can learn so very much. The Bible actually says probably more about Job than it does about Abraham. We have many chapters in the book of Job about Job and his actual words. But many things are not so easily understood, and so we tend to think of Abraham as somewhat more approachable. And yet there are lots of lessons in the character and the life of Job, and we want to see just a few of them from this first chapter. And our focus is especially on Job the worshiper. I wanna look at this whole chapter to some extent under the theme of Job and Job's worship. And we'll see first of all his worship in his family and his worship in the fire. That's how I've put it. So Job, his worship in his family and his worship in the fire. Now the Holy Spirit tells us a number of things about this character called Job. He was a remarkable man. His character, his inner being was such that the Bible tells us that he was a man who feared God. He was upright in his heart and in his life. He was perfect, which doesn't mean that he was absolutely flawless and blameless, certainly not from out of himself, but he was a man of maturity. And he was exercised in the things of God. And he turned away from evil. In other words, when evil was before him, or when he saw evil coming, he turned away. He was someone in whom the fear of God had made him wise to not cozy up to evil, but to turn away from it. He didn't trust himself enough to go in the thick of evil. He turned away from evil. And he was certainly a man of substance. We read about him that his herds and his flocks were numerous. He must have had a large operation with many employees, we would say today, and a well-running organization. There's no other way that you could have this many, this amount of herds and flocks without people to manage this. And Job was over it all. We know that he had a family comprised of a wife and seven sons and three daughters and no doubt many servants and handmaids which in this time were reckoned as part of your household and whom you would call and gather for worship. But rather than focusing on how Job ran his business, The Bible tells us more about how he worshiped with his family. You'll see this in verses three and, excuse me, verses four through five. And it's a snapshot, it's a window into Job's character. It's as if the author here, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wants to draw out the basic portrait of Job. And in order to get a sense of Job, his chief preoccupation, we have there a window on his family worship. There Job calls his family to himself, around himself. Now it focuses on a particular manner of Job. It mentions here that when his children would come together to feast, perhaps on their birthdays, and there were 10 of them, or perhaps on other occasions they came together. But whatever the occasion was, Job would oversee the spiritual and moral conduct and character of his children. He eyed that, he was concerned about that. And perhaps of his servants and handmaids as well, if they were there. And he would sanctify his children. That means he would separate them. He would make clear to them that they were to live separate from the world, that they were governed by different principles, by God's principles. They were to be a separate people. And not only did he sanctify them, but he offered sacrifices. He was truly a prophet, priest, and king in his own home. He was a prophet, no doubt, by declaring to his family the will of God as he knew it. He was a priest in the sense that he sacrificed on their behalf. and no doubt interceded for them. And he was a king in the sense that he would call his family, he would order his family aright. He would rule his family and govern his family as God had called him to do. And this isn't unique to Job, at least it shouldn't be. The Bible makes very clear that heads of households ought to lead and govern their family in the worship of God, in the regular worship of his name. Notice that it says here about Job that he did so continually. He was consistent in his worship with his family. And his worship was not just consistent, it was costly. He sacrificed for each one. He was willing to bear that cost, it was important to him. He was consistent, he was costly, and he was focused on their relationship with the Lord. Look at verse five. For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Job knew the evil of sin. He knew it for himself. And he knew the threat, the damage, and the danger of sin in his family. And Job was very concerned lest his sons would curse God in their hearts. Now that's an unusual expression. We don't usually use that. But here's what it means. He was afraid. He was fearful that any of his children would secretly in their hearts say farewell to the Lord, turn aside from the Lord, depart from the Lord. Curse God, the word actually, it's interesting, the word we usually translate as bless, that they would bless God in their hearts, but it's kind of like when I say goodbye to you, the word goodbye actually means God be with you. So I'm wishing this blessing on you, but I'm leaving you. And he's concerned that his children would leave the Lord, that they'd bid adieu, to the Lord, that they'd say farewell to the Lord. And he wasn't just concerned about his children doing this later in life, that they would leave this assembly, that they would leave this worship, that they would not necessarily go in his ways, that they'd go in different ways. He was concerned about it at the level of their hearts, because that's where all departing from God begins, in our hearts. And he was concerned that they would sin and that they would curse God in their hearts, that they would begin to backslide and stray from God in their hearts. See, here was a man who knew how departure from God worked. He understood that the earliest risings of apostasy, as we call it, are in our hearts, and that those should be searched out. that they ought to be smoked out if you will. They need to be seen for what they are and that we need to search ourselves and ask God to search us. It's sort of like you read in Hebrews chapter three where the apostle exhorts believers, beware lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Job knew what it was when we say in our Psalms to live apart from God is death. It is good his face to seek. And he wanted all his children to know and love the Lord. He would have been able to say with the Apostle John, I have no greater joy than when I hear that my children walk in the truth. That's what it means to be a father of our children in truth, to be a head of our household. to gather our children, gather all those who are entrusted to us in family worship, to bring them into worship. Yes, we cannot convert them, but it ought to be our singular and our supreme desire that those who are entrusted to us and who are under our spiritual care, that we would be vigilant. First of all, of our own heart, with having preached unto others, we ourselves would be a castaway. but also that those entrusted to us, that we would warn them in season and out of season, lest there would be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief. And this occupied Job. Amazing, isn't it? With all his herds, with all his flocks, with all his operation, what consumed this man was the spiritual well-being of his household. Oh, may God give us men like Job. May he give us fathers in Israel, mothers in Israel, and may he raise up you young people to be a generation that is concerned lest there be in you a heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. And that we would exhort one another while it is today lest any of us would be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And so we see in Job a remarkable solicitousness regarding the spiritual welfare of his children. No doubt he looked them in the eyes and threw his eyes into their hearts. Is it well with your soul, son, daughter, Are you seeking God? Are you vibrant in the things of God? Are you imploring God for the needs of your soul? Don't veer from God an inch. It's not worth it. Don't be like those who say, if I just go over here just slightly, it won't, I can always run back. No, you don't know what you can do or not do. Don't depart from the living God. Don't depart from the worship of God. Congregation Job was truly a prophet, a priest, and a king in his own home. I just want to say a few more things before we go on to the next lesson from Job, and that is that family worship ought to be cherished, highly prized, and ought to be in consistent exercise in our families. What do I mean by family worship? That the head of household would call those under him, those for whom he is responsible usually, or in the absence of a father and husband, the wife would take this, but that there would be this consistent worship of God in the home. You see, we need private worship. Each of us should seek God on our own. We should have the closet as Jesus speaks about it. Enter into your closet and shut the door behind you and pray to your Father in secret. Times in which you go apart, no one knows about it, no one enters into that, and you read and you pray and you seek God. for the needs of your soul and for your life. That's the food and drink of your soul. If you don't do that, you're starving your soul. Most of us would not think about going without a meal, three meals a day. Certainly not at least one meal a day. But you go without a meal for your soul. If you do so, you're starving your soul. But, besides private worship and corporate worship, which is this, with the assembly of the people of God, under the proclamation of God's word, there is also worship in families, in which heads of household, as I said, should call their family at least once a day, and they ought to read, they ought to pray, and it's advisable to sing. Now it's not absolutely necessary to sing, but singing is a way to take the truth of God, the Psalms, and to bring them, in a certain sense, deeper into our hearts and souls. There's a marvelous verse in Deuteronomy 31 in which the Lord instructs Moses to teach the children of Israel a song because he says, this song will testify against them as a witness for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed. In other words, take my song book, the Psalms, and put it into their mouths because song has a way of sticking with you. Many of us have found that to be true. That when we've wandered, all of a sudden, something we learned as a child will come back to us. Or in old age, when we can't even read anymore, we can't retain sermons, that happens. But that the songs of Zion that we've learned when we were young, they stay with us. So that about song. But certainly reading and praying. And regarding the reading, there ought to be the exposition and the application of it. Now it doesn't need to be long and it doesn't need to be fancy. It needs to be fresh. It needs to be vibrant. It needs to be relevant. It needs to be understandable. So if you have young children you read a portion of scripture and you explain it in such a way that they can understand at least something of it. And you apply it. to them as best as you are able, as you are ahead of the household. So application and, exposition and application. This is very important also in our day. Reformers and Puritans spoke about the fact that Satan wants to undermine the cause of Christ however he can. And when he can't get at the pulpit, and when he can't get at the sacraments, he aims his weapons at those things for sure. But if he can't get at them, what he does is he aims at family religion. Thomas Manton, a Puritan, wrote in his preface to the Westminster Standards, he says, the problem of much of the trouble in churches is the great and common neglect of the governors of families in the discharge of that duty which they owe to God for the souls that are under their charge, especially in teaching them the doctrine of Christianity. Families are societies that must be sanctified to God as well as churches, and the governors of them have truly a charge of the souls that are therein as pastors have of the churches. He goes on to talk about families as a seminary of church and state, a thriving nursery of young plants whom ministers and parents should train up while they are yet pliable and like wax, capable of form and impression in the knowledge and fear of God. And as goes family worship, so goes the church. Spurgeon says the practice of family prayer is the castle of Protestantism the defense of Protestantism without this bulwark everything God preventing it will fail and so Let us hear the voice of the Spirit as he brings before us the character of Job, and especially his diligence and his heart in family worship. The picture I get about Job is, take my camels, take my flocks, take all of this if you must, but don't take away from me my time with my children in the worship of God. Well, that first of all then, worship in the family. But secondly, we see here worship in the fire. You see, congregation, the day did come when not only his flocks and his herds, but also his family was taken from him. And this is a very solemn account. And we're given here a view into the court of the Almighty God. We're not usually afforded that view. It's constantly going on. The Bible tells us that Satan goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And we know also from the Bible that Satan often requests or he desires that he might sift God's people as wheat. He wants to put them in his threshing floor, as it were, and trample them underfoot and prove, that's his design, that there's nothing there. It's just husks, just shell, that there's no wheat, there's no truth, there's nothing really, truly there. And in this particular instance, he goes into the throne room of God, and how to imagine this, we don't know, but we believe and we submit to the word of God. And I want you to notice two things. God knows his worship and his life. And Satan knows his worship and his life. And I want us to think about that. Because when you are worshiping God in private or in your families, you might think that no one sees, no one regards, no one knows. But I can assure you that at least two audiences see and know. The one is God and the other is Satan. That's a solemnizing thing. God's verdict of Job is remarkable. He says, hast thou considered my servant Job that there's none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil. He takes the life of Job, which of course he has worked by his grace to be what it is. Job has nothing to boast of himself. What does he have that he has not received? It's all of grace, lest Job should boast. But the Lord sees his work in Job, and he takes pleasure in his saints. He delights in the work of his hands, and he sees it. To this man will I look, to him that is of a contrite heart, and trembles at my word. He looks to Job, for Job is such one. And Satan also sees the exact same scene. And notice how he is the father of lies. And he says here to the Lord, doth Job fear God for not? He doesn't dispute the fact that Job fears God, that Job has religion, that Job has a God-fearing mind and heart. But he challenges God and Job through this, whether this is true. He's basically saying to God, he's fearing the Lord because there's a hedge around him. The Lord has given him so much. So much substance, so much prosperity. And if that would all go, Satan says, then we would all know that it's not real with Job. He's just into religion for what he can get out of religion. And that's it with Job. Well, think about this congregation as it concerns ourselves. God knows, God sees the thoughts, the imaginations of our hearts. He sees all that we do. He knows our inmost thought and heart. And Satan sees us as well. He doesn't know us, of course, like God does. He cannot. He's not omniscient. He does see. He does register. And he is powerful, but not all powerful. He knows a lot, but he's not omniscient. And he is a liar from the beginning. But people of God here tonight, you have an arch enemy, the enemy of your souls, who is out for your demise and destruction. and he will do whatever he can to make you to fail and to fall. Beware, the apostle says, beware. Flee from him. Don't dilly-dally with Satan. He's up to no good whatsoever. He wants nothing less, young people, than your utter destruction. He knows that he is going to hell. He knows it. One occasion, a demon-possessed man, the demons actually cry out, don't send us to hell before our time. They know where they are going. But while they have a season, in these days, in time, They're seeking to take as many people as they can with them. And they are making double effort, the Bible says, knowing that they have but a short time. None of us are excluded from Satan's devices. How we need to lie low to the ground and beseech God to help us, to cry out for God's help. And he is ready to help those who are buffeted and oppressed and tormented by Satan. But my friend, don't go it alone. Don't go it alone. Especially during these weeks before Halloween, as it's called. Satanists make no secret out of this that they are doubling their efforts during these days in the service of Satan. They're unapologetic about it. They are so devoted to Satan that they put many professing Christians to shame. They serve Him day and night. One of my colleagues at the seminary had a Satanist sit next to him on an airplane, and the Satanist said, I pray every night that God would make ministers of the gospel to fall into sin so that they would wreak havoc in their congregations and many people would turn away from the faith. Do you pray for your ministers? Do you pray for the cause of the gospel with as much zeal and fervency as many of these Satanists are praying to their Lord? What an evil Lord they have, and yet they devote themselves to Him. Oh, my dear friend, this is serious, how we need, if we are still bound to Satan, to come out of his grasp. that you, my unconverted friend, would be unshackled. Oh, cry to God. He can help you, and he's promised to help you. Cry, my dear friend, and say with that man who was tormented, who had a son who was tormented by Satan, and he cried to the Lord. No one else could help him. He said, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. He went to the right place and the Lord helped him as the Lord has promised to do. Dear friends, how solemn this should make us. Let none of us cast this reality of God and Satan, of heaven and of hell off of us. These things are real. Oh, that the veil would go off of your eyes and you would see things the way it truly is, my unconverted friend. That you would realize, too, the best life to be lived is in the service of God. And just one more application to you who are fathers or heads of household. I read a story of William Ellery Channing. He was a man who grew up in a professing home. He was under biblical preaching. Later in life, he came to deny the Trinity and many other doctrines of the Bible. And when asked what was a turning point in his life. He recalled how as a boy he had listened to a sermon on the terrors of God. And he was deeply moved with a sense of the horrors of hell. But upon returning home he found that his father seemed totally unconcerned about the message of the sermon. In later years, he said, why, my father's cheerful unconcern impressed me exactly as if he had joked and laughed at a funeral. And William Channing was never converted. Oh, my friends, may this truth solemnize us. May we realize that we have a heaven to be gained and a hell to lose, and that things are so very real. Oh, may God give us a mind to seek forgiveness and mercy from the God of heaven, from Christ, who's revealed in the scriptures as the sufficient surety, as the all-sufficient, prophet, priest, and king. And may He make us resolve, even in this very moment, as fathers or whoever we are, to worship Him with ourselves, by ourselves, in our families, in all the days of our life. Because then when trials, temptations, and tribulations come, as they came in the life of Job, then we will be found by grace to still worship. And that, dear friends, is the great miracle of our passage, and I ask you to look one more time with me at verse 20 and following. Job has just heard that his children have all been killed. When we read here, remarkable things. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshiped. And said, naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Job here is no stoic. Job here is not a man who does not mourn and lament and grieve so very deeply. Everything you read of in verse 20 makes clear that he felt this loss, the deepest level of his soul and of his heart. He rent his garment. He shaved his head. He fell down on the ground. He realized how small he was. And in that moment, he lamented. But in his lament, he worshiped. And congregation, in that very moment, he put the knife, as it were, into Satan's design. Because in that moment when he fell to the earth, and worshiped God in his mind and in his heart and in his actions, he proved what the grace of God will do in the life of a soul that leans on God. That in the greatest agony imaginable, Satan cannot prove his own views of things correct. But in that moment Job does more damage in a certain sense to Satan than Satan even intended to do in a certain way to Job. He worshipped. Satan had said take away all these things and forever he will curse God. Quite the opposite happens, as you can read here. Naked came I out of my mother's womb, naked shall I return hither. The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Where's the curse, Satan? He doesn't curse God. He blesses God in this moment of greatest loss and agony. And in fact, he does more. He really says, you know, these flocks and herds and all the rest of that, I didn't come into this world with them. I didn't come into this world with these 10 children. The Lord gave them to me. And shall not he who gives have the right in his time and in accordance with his will, to take away. I am but his servant. I am but his steward. And that, parents, here, applies to you as well. Your children are not your own. They are God's in the sense that he has given them. And he's asked you to steward them for a few years. and the Lord may give, and the Lord may take away. And in the end of the day, we are called to bless God. Blessed be the name of the Lord. You see, what we see here in Job's life is that that posture of worship that he practiced in the midst of his family, with his children all around him, That posture of worship he took with him away from the family altar. He took it within and into the funeral parlor, we could say. It was the same mind of worship, the same heart of worship, the same outstretched arms focused on God in worship. That why are we here on the earth? What is man's chief end? But to know God, and to enjoy Him and to glorify Him forever in whatever He brings my way, whether it be prosperity or adversity, in sickness or in health, in gifts that we are called to steward, and in losses that we are called to trace back to the Lord. Did you notice something? Job doesn't say the Lord gave and the Sabaeans took away or the Lord gave and the whirlwind took away. He doesn't even say the Lord gave and Satan took away. He leaves all the secondary causes and he goes back to the primary cause and he puts it all there with the Lord and he bows under the Lord's sovereignty, scribing everything to the Lord. the good years and the bad years, the blessings, the things we call blessings, and the things we call evil. He ascribes it ultimately back to the Lord. And with those two arms, he, as it were, embraces his father. And he worships his father, even in the storm and here in the fire. Because here is a man who knew what it was to worship God in season. and out of season in his family. And when he is called to worship God now, he can and he does. Not in his own strength. No, we can never do this in our own strength. And that's where congregation I see behind Job I see one so far more than Job. Job's Lord, Job's Savior, who came in the fullness of time, was made bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Naked came He out of His mother's womb. And the time came when He groveled on the earth as a worm and no man, When not only was everything taken away from him, but he was in the sieve of Satan. And there was no mercy. There was no one praying for him. And he was there on the cross in that moment of utter dereliction. When even the father, his father, forsook him in the sense that his smiling face was withheld. And instead the wrath that is due to every one of God's children the world over, it came upon him. And the cup of the curse was upon his lips and he drank the full of it. And in it all, do you know what he did? He worshipped. He worshipped God in the depths and in the fire in order that People like Job, people like you and like me, who left to ourselves would curse God to our face, to His face. People who would depart from God so quickly, so easily, and you know it, child of God, you would, were it not for the grace of God keeping you. And so, congregation, I see here in Job, I see a greater than Job, and the one through whom this is all possible, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who stands in the midst of his brethren, and he declares God's name unto his brethren. He is the great worshiper, and the great congregation. of people whom he calls brothers and sisters. He's not ashamed to call them brethren. And he leads them in the worship of God. He is our prophet. He is our priest. He is our king. He is one who worships God in his family, his glorious family, and we worship God in him and through him. By him let us offer the gifts of our sacrifices, the praise of our lips to his praise and to his glory. And He is also the One who worshipped in the fire. A fire that none of us will ever know, will ever see, at least as He had it. My dear friends, you must be united to Him. In these final moments, I just want to lift up this Savior, Prince, this Jesus Christ. You know what it says here in this last verse, in all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. When you turn the page and you go on to the next chapters, we see Job's sinful heart coming out. There's a lot of draw still in the heart of Job and thanks be to God that we see that in all its honesty because otherwise I would not think of Job as a man of like passions as I am. But up till here, Job didn't sin outwardly. He didn't sin here in what he said and what he did, nor did he charge God foolishly. But I know of one congregation who never did, who never sinned. Evil was never on his lips and in his mind and in his heart. And he not only did not charge God foolishly, he was the wisdom of God. And he is everything. And he is the one I need. And he is the one you need, my dear friend. If you're convicted tonight that you've been a failure at family worship, you've fallen short of the requirement of God in your family. Or that in the multitude of afflictions that God has seen fit to bring your way, there has been much sin. There has been evil in your heart and upon your lips. Oh, my dear friend, it's all in Christ. It's all, always in the one and all, the Lord Jesus Christ. But you must have Him. My friend, you must have Him. Young people, you must have Him now. Don't delay. You don't know what's coming your way. You don't know what Satan is designing even right now. But one thing is sure, and that is that this Almighty Savior Jesus Christ, He is more than enough for any sinner, whoever you are. No matter how much you stray, no matter how evil your thoughts have been, no matter how long you've gone, without worshiping God, without blessing Him. I pray there would be someone here listening in or here tonight who would have been departing from the Lord. Your heart was straying, but tonight you hear a call. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back, my friend, now, before it's too late. You don't want to go any further. You don't know. When in the darkness and in the nebulousness of life, you'll go off the cliff to that place reserved for Satan and his angels. Come back! Come back. Don't say farewell in your heart to God, but draw nigh. with a pure heart and say, God, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. On thy grace, I rest my plea. My dear friends, if that's in your heart, then your heart is an altar and your prayer is an offering. And Christ is taking his one sacrifice for sin forever. And he's making you, by his grace, He's making you an offering unto God in righteousness. May the Lord give this to his praise and to his glory. And people of God, we don't know what lies ahead. I hope you will be spared what Job went through here. But we do know that fires must come. Some fires must come. God will purge His own work. It must needs be so. Oh, my friend, be close to Christ. Stick close to Him. You're safest with Him because He is everything.