Years ago, when I was a younger man,
my father died.
And at his funeral, an army chaplain quoted
Psalm 27 5, which states, for in the
time of trouble, he shall hide me in
his pavilion.
And when he said those words, I shrunk
back.
I didn't like them.
Because at the time, my life was all
sunshine and honey blossoms.
And I didn't want to think about entering
any time of trouble.
So I resisted that.
But life doesn't always stay in a time
of sunshine.
At times, dark storm clouds will appear with
a fierce wind.
And whether you like it or not, you'll
suddenly find yourself in a time of trouble.
If you live long enough, that's true in
the life experience.
The title of my message today, friends, is
When Life Gets Hard.
And our text can be found in the
book of Job in chapter 29.
You can turn in your Bibles there now,
friends.
It has been said that there are two
types of preachers in the world, those who
comfort the afflicted and those who afflict the
comfortable.
The majority are in the first part of
comforting the afflicted.
God called me into a revival ministry years
ago of afflicting the comfortable, which is an
unpopular ministry, by the way.
And if you don't believe me, go read
the book of Jeremiah and see how he
made out.
But I feel led today to bring a
message of comfort to the hurting.
We live in a sin-soaked world that's
a sinking ship ready for destruction and ruin.
Life hurts.
Our hearts get broken by the grief of
our loved ones.
We lose them in death, or at times
we lose them to the world.
How many parents exist to raise their kids
in a Christian home and had them in
church ever since they were in diapers, but
now they don't want to have anything to
do with God or church, or perhaps their
lesbian adult daughter has just married another woman,
or their son hates the Bible and the
God of the Bible.
A sudden tragedy can remove the loved one
from us.
I lost my wife to a sudden tragedy.
Perhaps some of you have kissed your loved
one goodbye that morning and they were taken
from you before the sun set that day.
We live in a world of sudden death,
death by disease, death by tragic accidents.
We live in such a crazy world why
you can go to the grocery store and
get gunned down by a madman, or a
drunk driver can go through a light and
remove the life of a family member instantly.
You may have a heart attack like I
did.
I had to undergo quadruple bypass surgery, but
God kept me alive even though my health
will never ever be the same again.
You get some bad news from the doctor
that you have cancer or an incurable disease
that's just going to make your body waste
away slowly.
When life gets hard, what do you do?
Well, in our text today in Job chapter
29, we see that Job had a lot
of time on his hands while he was
in his afflictions, and he had time to
reflect on his life, what it was like
before he lost it all.
I call Job chapter 29, When Job Remembers.
Let's begin reading in verse 1, friends, and
following.
Moreover, Job continued his parable and said, Oh,
that I were, as in months past, as
in the days when God preserved me, when
his candle shined upon my head, and when
by his light I walked through darkness, as
I was in the days of my youth,
when the secret of God was upon my
tabernacle, when the Almighty was yet with me,
when my children were about me, when I
washed my steps with butter, and the rock
poured me out rivers of oil, when I
went out to the gate through the city,
when I prepared my seat in the street,
the young men saw me and hid themselves,
and the aged arose and stood up.
I will stop there, friends.
Here, Job is reflecting on what he has
lost.
He's down in the dumps, and he laments
over things lost.
He lost God's favor, so he's convinced himself.
When we get blue, our faith often falters,
and we allow the devil to convince us
that God is a million miles away, and
he doesn't give a hoot about us, but
that's not true.
God's eyes are continually upon us, but when
life gets hard, our thoughts often get muddled
with depression.
Job speaks of his former prosperity.
The verse that most resonates with me is
when he says, when I washed my steps
with butter.
Oh, how I remember times in my own
life when I too washed my steps with
butter, so to speak.
Then Job's heart begins to break all over
again, as he mourns the loss of his
children, when he says, when my children were
about me.
He cannot hear their laughter now.
He's not laughing now.
All his happiness, like a rug, has been
pulled out from beneath him.
Job then goes on to recall what it
was like when he still had a good
reputation within his community, and he talks about
how the man would respect him as he
passed before them.
They stood up before he became a laughingstock
to some and an object of pity to
others.
For in Job's life, there came a time
of trouble, like Psalm 27 said.
If I were to outline the book of
Job, I would break it down into four
sections, which represent four seasons in his life.
For he had a time of taking, testing,
teaching, and turning.
Job's trial finally ended, and in his case,
God restored not only what he had lost,
but increased it.
But for most folks, it doesn't always have
a happy ending.
Here on earth, our happy ending, if we
are believers, comes when we go to heaven.
Well, that begs the question, when life gets
hard, what do you do?
Well, I'll tell you what I've done, friends.
I've cleaved to my God like white on
rice through faith, and I can say this,
Jesus is now nearer and clearer and dearer
than he's ever been before.
Listen, Jesus will never let you down, and
he will never let you go in times
of trouble or in times of prosperity.
Oh, let us pray.