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This may be one of the most vital lessons I have taught this year! I just finished meeting with my small group studying through the 52 Greatest Chapters. Here is the video of our study. The Invisible War—when Paul said we are not “ignorant of his (Satan’s) devices” (2 Cor. 2:11) he was reminding us of what the Bible teaches us about the various tools Satan and his demons, employee to perform “mind games” (that is what the Greek word devices or wiles in Eph. 6:11 mean). Peter expands this from our minds to our bodies when he talks about the ongoing military-type campaign that Satan wages against our bodies through the gateway of “lusts” in 1 Peter 2:11. We are sometimes unsure of what Satan and his demons can really do. However, Job 1-2 gives us more clear insight from God on what Satan and his demons can do to believers, saints, and Spirit-indwelt one than ANY other passage in the Bible. Here is a quick summary— 1. BAD NEWS: Satan is always watching our lives and knows all about our health, family, and possessions (Job 1:6-11). Far worse than, the surveillance state we see growing around us with AI, facial-recognition, GPS, and vast databases—are the super-intelligent, aliens that are among us unseen, listening and interfering with both our minds and our bodies. 2. GOOD NEWS: Satan and his demons are limited by God (Job 1:12; 2:6). 3. OMINOUS NEWS: Satan and his demons can move people to kill other humans, steal from them, and destroy things of theirs. Jesus taught that Satan’s goal is to “kill, steal, and destroy” (John 10:10, and this account in Job is the clearest and most powerful illustration of that truth. 4. PERILOUS NEWS: Satan and his demons can stir up bad and harmful weather that injures and kills humans (Job 1:16, 18-19). 5. SICKENING NEWS: Satan and his demons can cause sickness and disease in humans (Job 2:7). Remember how many demon-attacked ailments were in the time of Christ’s ministry? Now, do you see why Jesus said (Matthew 6:9-13), that we are to be asking God our Father each day to “deliver us from the Evil One”? We need to be aware and asking for Him to PROTECT US, and not float along oblivious to the Invisible War.

Transcript

John Barnett here welcoming you to the 52 Greatest Chapters in the Bible. As you see in that picture there, we’re on week 10 and we’re covering Job 1 and 2, but the theme today may be one of the most exciting I’ve ever covered in all the weeks so far with you. That is what I call the invisible war. Let me explain to you what I mean by the invisible war. Up here on the marker board I put week 10, Job 1 and 2, Invisible War. Notice this under- heading, God explains. Remember we’re studying through these chapters to get an overview of the whole Bible, and that’s why we’re jumping, hopscotching between them going from Genesis to Revelation.

In Job 1 and 2, we have the most clearly defined example of this invisible war. What I’m talking about here is Satan and his demons fighting against God in the realm of humans in our lives. In other words, God explains what Satan and demons can do to you today. For most people, it’s very vague when they hear about spiritual warfare when they hear we need to wear armor. What does that mean? I’m not involved in that. I just go to work and, I work out and I have my routine. Did you know, Satan can affect your mind and your body? He can affect the world around you.

Let’s look at what he can affect. See this line. The bad news is that Satan is watching you. I know a lot of people that don’t like being tracked and they don’t want to be on Facebook. They’re worried about all the different ways that surveillance and the government and their medical records track them. It’s just many people are afraid of the police state and artificial intelligence and the whole facial recognition. The bad news is Satan is watching.

We’re going to see in Job 1:6-11 that Satan knows all about us. He watches us. He knows our family. He knows our job. He knows about our health. He knows God’s blessing. That’s the bad news. The good news is Satan and the demons are limited by God. They’re so malignant. They’re so evil, so powerful that they could snuff out all human life on Earth. That’s how deadly demons are. One demon killed the firstborn of humans and animals in the whole land of Egypt in one night. There’s one angel that God led out of the pit that killed 185,000 soldiers in their beds as they slept at night. These things are powerful, but the good news is that God limits them.

Thirdly, ominously, Satan and demons can kill, steal, and destroy John 10:10. We’re talking about that not only being their intent, but they can also use people to steal, to kill, to destroy. That’s what happens in Job and that’s why it’s going to be such a great week studying this with you. Perilous news, Satan and his demons can make violent weather. Satan and his demons make weather so powerful that it knocks things down, we’d call it a tornado. Then sickening, Satan and his demons can inflict disease and sickness and that’s why I’m going to remind you of this all the way through this session. Remember the Lord’s prayer, “deliver us from the evil one?” That’s what the Lord wants to do. Back to your slides.

I have shown you, and this is a reminder, that we’re on this the 10th week, Job 1 and 2. This very chart that you see right here, is on our Facebook page, you see that address there. It’s also available on our website and you can see that address there, discoverthebook.org. This chart reminds you where we are, week 10. All the other nine weeks before this are posted not only on this YouTube channel, but they’re also posted on Facebook and they’re available on our website. Remember you can start anywhere. You don’t have to go back to week one. You can start with us right now. You can start in week one and just go for 52 weeks so whatever works best for you. Here’s what I tell every class don’t discourage yourself. Some people say I’m going to catch up. I’m nine weeks behind, I’ll catch up this week. Don’t do that. That’s the only thing I’d say don’t do. With this study, you need a whole week to read the chapters, 1 and 2 each day, to take your notebook. I’ve taken the sheet that has all of these chapters listed, all 52 of the key chapters, and put it in the front of this notebook. I put the How to Study in the front cover, and then I’ve made a two-page spread. I wish I had more because I do far more than this and I have to type it into my computer, but I keep it all in this notebook. Don’t try and do multiple weeks in one week.

Next, the invisible war is what every believer needs to know about Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. Why? The book of Job is God explaining exactly what Satan and demons can do, but not vaguely. They can do this to you today. Every believer needs to be aware that there is this cosmological invisible war. Quickly, before we jump into Job, look at the doctrine of the creation of angels. This in theology, and if you look up for a second, is one of the suggested resources that I say, if at all possible for you to buy are Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, see how big and thick this is. I’ve taught through this three times with leaders in churches, where I’ve served over the years as pastor. This book gives the conservative, the charismatic, the reformed, the covenantal, like Lutheran and Roman Catholic view, as well as the author’s personal view. It’s a real treasure to see what Christendom has taught about key doctrines over the years and the other resource is this, the MacArthur Study Bible. Of course, I have it open right now to Job and I check each of his notes. There are 25,000 footnotes in this Bible and it’s a real treasure.

Back to the slides, the doctrine of the creation of angels in Systematic Theology is called angelology, and here’s what the Bible teaches us. God created all the angels and I believe that was during creation week. Among the angels, two-thirds still obey and serve Him, but one-third of all the angels God created rebelled. Of those, some are in prison because they are so malignant, so bad, but God lets some of them out from time to time to fulfill his purposes that we’re going to see in Revelation 9. I’ll write that down here, Revelation 9. That’s the prison that we see opened and God lets these horrific creatures out. It isn’t really clear how many of the demons are in this prison, but most of the fallen angels are not in prison, they’re doing bad things here on Earth and that’s what this lesson is about.

I could summarize everything the Bible says about angels from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation, by these words; angels are supernatural and super powerful creatures. As far as we know, angelic creatures are indestructible, they can’t be killed or destroyed. They travel the universe effortlessly. They don’t need spaceships. They seemingly, and this is everything the Bible says, never rest, never sleep, they don’t even need to eat. Let’s not spend too long on that because the important thing to know, the big picture, is God is absolutely powerful and that’s why angels are such a good picture of the power of God. We should fear not, but the Bible tells us over and over resist the powers of darkness because the battle is already won. Jesus Christ has triumphed and that would be the theme of this entire lesson.

In Job 1 and 2, we see that God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit have triumphed and we’re more than conquerors through Christ. Here’s a key passage a little bit later. I’m going to talk about scripture memory, but if you ever would like to be prepared for the onslaught of the kingdom of darkness, the scriptures say be strong in the Lord in the power of his might, not ours put on the whole armor of God. That’s important, you need to understand it. Each piece is vital, that you may be able to stand against, and there’s that word, Satan’s wiles, his plans. He can attack our minds, our emotions, and our bodies. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Most people’s enemies are other people, things they see, but actually, the real struggle, the invisible war, is against principalities, power, rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. People talk about conspiracies. This is the ultimate conspiracy. All the hosts, the fallen hosts of Heaven are arrayed against us.

What’s the solution? Paul, who has so much experience with spiritual warfare says, “take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand.” Then he gives the armor, “stand there for having girded your waist with truth,” everything in our life bound in by truth. We think the truth, we speak the truth, we study the truth, we live the truth. “Put on the breastplate of righteousness.” That means that I guard my heart and I don’t let in things that defile. In this COVID time, we’re all so aware of germs. Some of the most nefarious germs are spiritual falsehoods that can penetrate our minds. The third piece, “shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” What that means is we’re supposed to strap on the peace of God and walk through life with that peace and when people see us, they say we’re different. We say, yeah, here’s why. “Take the shield of faith” by the way, this is the only way to quench the fiery darts of the wicked that Satan is constantly shooting at us. The only way to stop him is to believe the truth of God. “Take the helmet of salvation.” In other words, I call that preaching the gospel to ourselves. Here’s the only offensive weapon, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. That’s an important passage and that takes us to what I call the extra online resources to deepen your study this week.

There’s a whole series you see here at the bottom called Spiritual Warfare and lesson 21 is Satan’s Fiery Arrows. I go through the spiritual armor. I talk about life being like going on a patrol as an American commando and how we put on our weaponry and our armaments and how to extinguish Satan’s arrows.

Look up from your slides for a second. I want to run through, to give you a perspective, as we start diving into the scripture, the invisible war. The bottom line is because we’re more than conquerors we should trust the One seated on the throne. Job opens with this. Look in your Bible, and I’m going to read. “There was a man in the land of Uz,” verse 1, ” whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.” By the way, who wrote those words? The human author, probably Moses, if you read the background material and MacArthur Study Bible, he goes through all the possible authorship ideas. Most likely it was Moses, that’s what the Jewish people think. As he wrote the Pentateuch, he was also writing the book of Job. He was the man in the distant past, who was an example to the children of Israel while there was suffering in the bondage in Egypt. Who really wrote these words? Moses might’ve recorded them. Inspiration tells us God wrote these and look; this is God explaining how He looks on us. He looked on this man who lived maybe 5,000 years ago, 4,500 years ago, a long time ago. He said he was blameless in God’s sight, upright in God’s sight, he feared God. What does fear God mean? It means I know that God is watching so when someone solicits me to do something, or I’m tempted to do something, I say I can’t do that because God is watching me and I want to please Him. I don’t want to displease God. That’s what fearing God is, to know that God is present. He’s here. He’s listening. He’s watching. He’s making a door of escape if I need to flee from temptation, He always makes a way of escape. That’s what it means to fear God, and look at this, “he shunned evil.” Then he had seven sons and three daughters and his possessions and all of this, but look at verse 6. “Now there came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came with them.”

The Lord is presented as the One who is seated on the throne. God the Father is seated on the throne and Satan comes in with the angels. God allows that for His purpose. In Revelation 12, Satan is confined to Earth and can’t do that anymore. In Revelation 20, he’s confined to the pit and can’t get out for a thousand years. God is totally in control. Remember Satan and the demons are limited as we saw over here, but the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. We are to trust the One who is seated on the throne. Why? Because He’s in touch with our lives. Look how He knew everything about Job. He knew all his children. He even knew all of the balances in his finances. Look what it says in verse 3, “his possessions were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys.” That’s detail. God limits Satan’s attacks. This is the purpose of the book of Job, for us to trust our Father who is seated on the throne.

Now back at the slides, just to get the background. You see the book of Job right here? Remember there are two elements we always cover. Sacred history, everything happened sometime and sacred geography, everything happened somewhere. See where the book of Job is? It’s in the first half of the book of Genesis. It’s before Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, all these other books. It’s way up here. Look at this next slide. I would put it right here, right after the flood and before the time of Abraham, and you say why? That’s because the scriptures tell us about Job’s life and he is someone who is just after the flood. He saw dinosaurs and the ice age glaciers. I would also put him right here in this chart, see between Noah, 2,500 BC, and Abraham, 2,000 BC, in that 500 year period. Remember, if you look up, Job, you can read about that in the notes here in the MacArthur Study Bible, he saw two creatures alive that we could only describe as dinosaurs. He also saw what he called mountains of ice and what we would call a frozen sea, the great Arctic Ocean that’s frozen. He saw those things.

Now, let’s talk about geography. If you look over here this is the Roman empire. This is Spain, France, Northern Africa, Western Europe, and the Balkan area. Here is Turkey, but all this in the brown, you can see the entire ring of the Mediterranean, is the old Roman empire. Biblically, when it says Job was the greatest of the east. Remember that with everything in the Bible you always do your directions from Jerusalem. East of Jerusalem, somewhere in this area, anywhere up here is east. These are all people of the east, so Job was living somewhere here. We would call it toward what would be Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent area right here. He’s east of Jerusalem in the desert area, somewhere up there. That’s sacred geography, back to your slides.

He’s right here in history. He is over here somewhere in this Eastern area. See there’s Jerusalem, so due east, out in that area he is living and he’s one of the greatest of all those who live in the east. I’m just reminding you that each day of this week I’m reading the passage in my Bible, but I’m checking the background in the study Bible. That’s what I just showed you. Then I’m recording everything I’m finding. The first thing I do is I write out a title and I wrote as my title The Invisible War, and I summarize these two chapters, Job 1 and 2, as The Invisible War. Then every time I read it, and I’m reading it every day this week, I’m finding as many lessons as possible and I’ve found almost 20 truths and doctrines. I write them down in my own words. This is just for you to grow and learn. Then of course I’m studying other resources, but here’s the most important part. Every week I remind you to write a prayer in which you ask the Lord to unleash a truth you found her a lesson you found into not your wife, your girlfriend, your husband’s life, or your children, or your coworkers. Into your life, into my life.

This is my journal and if you look up, here it is again, I show you nothing fancy. Remember how I prepare it? I have the index in the front and then I’m just writing and I’m writing and writing. I have lots of pages that I’m writing, but up here, the title, all these are the lessons, down here is the prayer. Now, since you can’t read that, look back at the slides. Here’s my journal typed out for you. Week 10, Job 1 and 2, I wrote as my title Job, God and Satan: The Invisible War. Then this is what I sketched out as the summary. There’s an unseen battle that swirls. Job and his family are exposed to the amazing cosmological warfare going on between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. Now, what is the Invisible War? I spent a long time looking, cross-referencing, through other parts of the Bible, and you can use your MacArthur Study Bible. It gives multitudes of passages to look at. Look what I wrote, when Paul said we are not ignorant of Satan’s devices, he said that here, 2 Corinthians 2:11, he was reminding us what the Bible teaches about the various tools Satan and his demons employ to perform mind games.

That’s the Greek word, devices or wiles, we’re not ignorant of his devices. The Greek word means mind games. It’s the word for our mind and it’s used as we’re not ignorant of what he’s doing to our mind. Also, that word is in Ephesians 6:11. That’s what Paul said up here, but Peter now expands it from our minds to our bodies. He talks about the ongoing military type of campaign that Satan wages against our body through the gateway of lusts. That’s 1 Peter 2:11 and the word he uses is strateuō strategy, it’s a military campaign.

Now look, this is most important. We are sometimes unsure of what Satan and his demons can really do. However, Job 1 and 2 gives us more clear insight from God on what Satan and his demons can do to believers, saints, and Spirit indwelt ones, than any other passage in the Bible. As you saw over here, the bad news is Satan is always watching. It’s far worse than the surveillance state we see growing around us with AI, facial recognition and GPS, and vast databases like Clearview. Did you see that this week, Clearview, that’s a company? They have scraped Facebook and Google and they have 3 billion faces that the facial recognition cameras, using AI, can identify with your name as you’re walking through any city that has those cameras. Isn’t that amazing? Worse than that is the super-intelligent aliens that are among us unseen, listening and interfering with both our minds and our bodies.

Look up and I want to go over this seeing you. The bad news is there’s something worse than all the cameras that are watching us and the GPS and facial recognition that everybody’s worried about. Now they’re worried about taking the vaccine and some kind of chip, they’re just, everyone is afraid of the physical world. This lesson is to get you concerned about the invisible world. The bad news is Satan is watching and listening. He knows everything about us. Take your Bible. Let me just read to you. Look what Satan says, verse 7 of Job 1, “The LORD said to Satan, ‘From where do you come?’ So Satan answered the LORD and said ‘From going to and fro on the Earth, and from walking back and forth on it.’ Then the LORD said to Satan,” verse 8, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the Earth?” God gives him this great pedigree we’ve already read. “So Satan answered” verse 9 “and said, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’ “ Verse 10. Look how much he knows the bad news. “Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side?”

Number one, Satan is aware that God limits him. He says I’ve been probing, like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. I’ve been touching the fence and it’s been zapping me. I could not get into him. That’s the good news. Wow. God limits Satan. Like I said over here, trust the One seated on the throne, but listen to what Satan knows. Verse 10 continues “around his household, around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land.” Satan is aware, that’s the bad news. The good news is God limits him, but what we fail to think about is Satan and his demons and what they can do using people. Satan and his demons, using the weather. Satan and his demons, inflicting disease and sickness.

I’m going to conclude our session in a little while with one of the greatest applications. Remember the Lord’s prayer? The Lord’s prayer is addressed to our Father on the throne, and He wants us to pray that He would deliver us from the evil one. If you have to tune out now, and I know many of you do because I watch on YouTube and most people only make it halfway through any of these classes sadly. If you have to leave, trust the One seated on the throne who limits the devil. He is the One who wants you to ask Him to deliver you from the evil one.

Back to the slides. The bad news is Satan’s watching, the good news is that God is limiting him. The ominous news is that Satan and his demons can move people to kill other humans, to steal from them, to destroy things of theirs. Jesus taught us Satan’s goal is to kill steal and destroy, John 10:10. 10. The account of Job is the clearest and most powerful illustration of this truth. The perilous news is Satan has the ability to stir up bad and harmful weather that injures and kills humans. We see that in Job 1:16,18,19. The sickening news is Satan and his demons can cause sickness. Do you remember how many demon- attack ailments were in the time of Christ’s ministry? The demons attacking people, and they had all these ailments. Now, do you see why Jesus said in Matthew 6 the Lord’s prayer? We’re to be regularly asking God our Father, every day to deliver us from the evil one. Here’s the lesson. We need to be aware and ask Him for protection and not float along oblivious to the invisible war.

Here’s what I found in my Bible, here are the lessons. Job was a godly man; God describes him that way. Job was wealthy, had a large family and they were very close. He’s a great example of a praying dad. He went before the Lord on behalf of his kids, verse 5. Look at these doctrinal lessons we learn. Satan is an adversary. Remember śāṭān in Hebrew means adversary. Satan can accuse us before God. Look up from your slide for a second. That’s something probably that motivates me more than anything else. To know that God the Father is seated on the throne and the Bible says that Satan can come and look up at God and say, Do you see what one of yours, what John Barnett is doing or feeling or thinking today? Because Satan knows those things or his demons. Satan isn’t omnipresent, he travels between places. Rarely would I think I’ve ever had any contact with him, but often I’m very aware of demonic oppression, flaming arrows, and resistance from his demons. The lesson here is Satan accuses God the Father on the throne and says, That’s one of yours. Look what they’re doing!

Do you remember when David sinned and what Nathan, the prophet, told David he did? Nathan says, David you’ve caused the enemies of the Lord to rejoice. You’ve caused those demons and Satan, who get to come in front of God’s throne, to remind God of your unfaithfulness and sin. That’s a big motivator for me. When I start out my day, I say, Father in Heaven, I want to hallow your name today. I want you to rule my life. As much as possible I want to, look at verse 1, shun evil, Job, 1:1. My goal going through today, with all that I’ve done, everywhere I’ve been, I want to shun evil. Big question: do you shun evil or do you make Satan have lots to point at and accuse you of? Now, there’s good news. At the right hand of the Father is Jesus Christ, our advocate. He is the One who, when Satan comes looking up at God and saying, Did you see what your servant, your supposed shunner of evil, is doing? As Satan’s doing that, Jesus Christ comes and goes, woah, I paid for that one. They belong to Me. He intercedes for us. He’s our advocate. He is the One, our Great High Priest, who ever- lives to make intercession for us. It’s good. He comes between the accuser and the Father. Why not give less for the accuser to accuse us of? That’s our job.

Back to your slides. Satan is an adversary; he wants to accuse us before God. If you want to study this, Hebrews 7:24-25 talks about Jesus ever- living to intercede for us. Look at the doctrine here. Satan is mobile, he’s not omnipresent. Satan has this hedge that stops him so he’s not omnipotent. Satan thinks Job would abandon God so he’s not omniscient. Satan’s not omnipresent, he’s not omnipotent, he’s not omniscient and God always limits his attacks. This is something neat, this hedge the Lord puts around us. We can pray. Lord, thank you for protecting me. Deliver me. That’s what the Lord’s prayer is, “deliver us from evil” is asking for that hedge.

Number 10. This is the 10th observation I found in chapters 1 and 2. Satan can move people and armies to harm other people, that’s in verse 15. Look what it says in verse 16, Satan can call down fire from Heaven. He can send what we would call lightning and fire from above. He can send tornados. Wow. Every time it is tornado season I pray that the Lord would protect people I know, in ministries I know, because we don’t want the evil one in all of his rampages to hurt, and we want the Lord to limit as He promised. Look at this, in all this horrible time, Job bowed before God as sovereign Lord. Look at verse 20 in your Bible. It says, “and Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshipped.” Look at number 14, verse 21. That’s Job’s affirmation that God is good all the time, but in spiritual warfare like Job faced, wealth, character, and godliness do not prevent Satan’s attack. Some people think, oh, if I am wealthy, godly character and all that, that Satan won’t attack me. No, Job was all those and Satan still attacked him, but he had to trust God’s limiting power.

God was glorified. We already talked about this; Satan can inflict diseases. Look at verse 10 and let’s talk about this for a second, chapter 2 in your Bible and verse 10. This is really important for all of us. This is one of those times you ought to stop and think about this. You ought to mark this verse, circle it, highlight it. Job’s wife says to him in verse 9, do you still hold fast, curse God and die. Verse 10, “But he (Job) said to her (his wife), ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks.'” That’s a polite way of saying that wasn’t a good idea, Mrs. Job. “Shall we indeed accept good from God?” How many of us, every time something good happens, every time we feel healthy, every time we recover from an illness, every time we excel in sports or our jobs or at academics, we go, oh Lord, thank you for that. Thank you for that blessing. Thank you for my restored health. Thank you for my promotion. Thank you for, answering my prayer and giving me this wonderful wife. We really are into thanking God for the good, but look at verse 10. “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”

Look up here. If you really believe God is in touch with our lives and God limits Satan’s attacks; if God is the omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign seated on the throne, then we should thank Him for not just the good, but for the bad in our lives. God uses the bad for us to glorify our Father in Heaven because He is better than good health. In bad health, we say, Lord, thank you for reminding me I have a body in Heaven that will never be sick and sore and wasted away with cancer. Thank you that I have treasures in Heaven nobody can steal, that nobody can take away from me. Look at this, God allowed Job to lose his property, his kids, his health. Why? Chapter 1 verse 20, so that Job would do verse 20. “Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head and fell to the ground and worshiped.” When Satan, the accuser, saw Job fall on his face and say verse 21, Satan heard him. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” That was the purest, most powerful worship that could come from one of God’s servants that God allowed to lose everything. Are you thanking God for the good and the bad? That’s really an important lesson.

Back to your slides. Those are the lessons I found. Here’s my prayer and I’m going to pray it right now. Lord, I bow before You as my almighty God, who is enough for anything I’ll ever need. As I suffer, I may glorify you. I want you to see me living out the sanctifying life of Christ. I want to be upright, fearing You, shunning evil. Help me not to fear a limited devil, but help me to be aware of his power over people, over the weather, even my health. I want to bow and worship and not give into despair or anger when troubles come so that you can see me not charging You with evil when you accomplish Your plan. Keep me from anger over any loss of health, wealth, or family, so that I can accept both good and hard times as part of your plan for Christ’s sake. Amen. That’s my prayer.

I want to show you something, the word El Shaddai occurs most frequently in all the Bible right here in the book of Job. What else El Shaddai means is the God who is enough. Now look up and think about it. God is the God who is enough when we are facing Satan’s killing, stealing, destroying. When we’re seeing all the violent things he can do in the world around us, when we’re inflicted with disease and sickness. When we see God allowing us to lose things like our wealth and our family, and even our personal health, what the Lord wants us to know is He hears our cries. He heard Job saying the Lord gave and the Lord took away. I accept the good, I accept the bad. I will bless the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Back to your slides, where we’ve got to finish up this lesson. What does the Lord want us to do? He wants us to trust the One seated on the throne. That’s the message of the book of Job. Our Father on the throne stays in touch with our lives. That’s what it says in Job 1:1-5. He knows our children, our family, He knows our finances, He knows our responsibilities, He knows our reputation, all of these things. What’s the lesson? God was tracking with everything going on in Job’s life. Number two, our Father on the throne regulates the adversary, Satan. The truth for us is God prompted the devil’s attacks against Job. That’s all that we can say the Bible says. In verses 9 to 12, Satan wants to make God’s servants dishonor their king on the throne. Remember David’s sin caused the enemies of the Lord to rejoice. That’s what grieves our God, when we willfully sin against His grace offered in time of need. Job doesn’t do that.

Next slide. Our Father on the throne allowed Job to lose his property and his children. Satan can incite terrorists to rob and kill. Satan can send down fire like lightning from the sky. In fact, in Revelation 13 we see that happening in the tribulation and in Job 1:17 Satan can send tornadoes and deadly weather. All of this was allowed by God.

Number four, I love this. Our Father in Heaven on the throne listens to the cries of our hearts. This is what God heard. Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on the ground, worshiped. Do you know what that word worship means? The Greek word, translating this Hebrew word is proskyneō. Do you know what that means? That Job fell on his face and kissed toward the Lord and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and The Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” God was magnified by the cries of Job’s heart.

Number five, our Father on the throne allowed Job to suffer intensely bad times. Bottom line, God allowed Job to suffer. What’s the lesson? Bad things can happen to good people in order for them to glorify God. If you really want to glorify God, let Him put you in jail like Paul, let Him have you beaten like Paul. Be like Job and lose everything and still bless the Lord. Now here’s the big closing lesson.

Number six, pray to the One seated on the throne. This is when I want to show you this resource. This resource is on our Facebook page. This resource is also on our website. These actually are two sides. This is the front and this is the back of a card that fits right in your wallet. It’s actually a credit card size card and you can download it, print it off and put it in your wallet. What it does is it takes the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6, and it has the words of the Lord’s prayer all the way through here. Then it has the application. “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be your name.” What is Jesus telling us to do? I need to ask the Lord to focus me on who You are as God. That you are the One seated on the throne. Control me. “Your kingdom come.” You have a plan for my life instead of me trying to figure everything out. Control me. I surrender to You, lead me day- by- day, step-by-step so I do Your will. “Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” Supply me. We can’t make it unless the Lord gives us what we need for every day.

Why is that so important? So, I can see Your hand in my life. Cleanse me so I keep Your blessing on my life. “Forgive us of our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” My sins, and iniquities separate me from the Lord. I have to ask for His cleansing. Here’s the key from Job, “and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Protect me so I don’t lose Your power in my life. I want to hold up that shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit. Then I love this ending. It says in the end of chapter 6 verse 13 “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” Do you know what that lesson is? Empty me so You’ll get all the credit in my life.

Keep going. That’s the invisible war. God explains what Satan and the demons can do to you today. This next slide reminds you of the profit and power of Bible study. Your words are found, that’s when you take time to read and study. I ate them, that’s when you find truths and start thinking about them and actually making them into the prayer. Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing my heart, that’s when we ask God to work those things in us by His grace. Look at the bottom line of what happens. We grow in this awareness that we belong to the Lord of hosts. By the way, that’s the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lord of armies, the powerful almighty God.

Here are my two challenges I give you every week. Number one, find someone you can share your findings and application prayer with. Number two, start reviewing scriptures. Even take the challenge that I personally do. I put my verses on the back of my phone.

Bonnie and I are your partners in ministry and I would ask you, invite you if you would take time, pray for us. We’re getting ready right now, we just have a couple more things to take care of here in this studio, and then we’re going for another month on the road. Teaching classes, as our prayer card said that I flashed in front of you said. If you look at our card, if you want to know how to pray for us, we are teaching classes. Equipping, which means training and getting back into step, mobilizing, that means helping young people get started, those who reach the least reached peoples of Asia, Europe, and Africa. I just finished a wonderful session with a group of Commonwealth nations, those are part of the British empire. The first two months of this year, January and February, we were teaching in small groups and Bible institutes around the Pacific rim from virtual studios. We’re going back for the next month teaching in more studios, more classes. You can pray for me. Right now, I’m reading the book of Hebrews through every day. I’ve got to teach the book of Hebrews.

Also, you can see over here, and you can see right here, we’re launching the year long virtual study tour, a devotional study tour through the land of the book. I’m going to be giving one lesson a week on site, right where it happened in the land of the book. There’s a lot for you to pray about. Thank you for joining week 10 and God bless you this week as you remember, Job teaches us to trust the One who sits on the throne. Why? Because there’s an invisible war and God warns us what Satan can do, but says we can ask Him to deliver us from the evil one.

Let’s close in a word of prayer. Father, thank you for each one who came to this class. Thank you for the power of Your word. I pray that you bless them this week as they go through Job 1 and 2 every day this week, studying, reading, but most of all learning to trust You. You’re seated on the throne, and You want us to run to You. You throw your arms wide to us and say, come to Me and you’ll find grace to help in times of need. May we find that, and we trust You in the name of Jesus we pray, and all God’s people said, amen. God bless you.