Probably the biggest unanswered question that men ask is this, why does the God of love allow suffering in the world? Have you heard it? And believers always like to throw this one at us, say, yeah, you say he's the God of love, then why does he allow all the pain and suffering that goes on? Now many people try to answer this question using their favorite theological viewpoint. And actually there's only two main stands that you can take. So I'm going to mention these at the beginning.

Today we're going to look at the book of Job, who is a perfect example of somebody who was serving God and suffered. And there's a lot of questions asked on the book of Job and a lot of confusion. And I hope to try and answer some of those today.

See, there's two main theological viewpoints. And the first one goes like this. There are those people who believe that our sins result in the judgment of God and that suffering is a punishment from God.

Now, there are others who believe that God is sovereign and chooses what he's going to do in this world. And he decides what he's going to allow in our lives. Now, if you overemphasize the first view, you're going to end up living a life trying to earn God's favor.

You're trying to make an effort all the time to please the Lord. The second view brings a kind of fatalism. It says, well, you know that old song, whatever will be, will be.

And I don't think people seem to think that, well, you know, God has allowed this in my life, so he must have a purpose in it. And so I won't try and argue or reason what's going on. Obviously, God has reason for letting me suffer and go through this thing right now.

Now, you've probably been in either or both of those camps at different times in your spiritual experience. The book of Job actually displays both of these viewpoints very clearly. And although we're not going to have time to go into a lot of detail today, I'm just going to give you some of the highlights.

We will continue to discuss Job in some of our weekly study groups in our school. But for now, I want to give you a breakdown, an overview. Now, what is the origin of suffering? You see, if we look at the original creation that God made, the scripture says that God pronounced it as good.

There was nothing evil, nothing bad, no pain, no suffering in the original creation. Evil was unknown. And then God created his man, Adam, and his beautiful wife, Eve.

And he handed over to them the full authority in the earth. He said, dominate the earth, control it, exercise authority over all of creation, and be the rulers of this world. God said, I've done my part to you now.

Whatever happens from now on is in your hands. And I'll come and visit you every day in case you need a bit of help and advice on how to do this. And so God met with them every day.

And Adam could say, God, those lions, they're tearing into each other. What should I do here? You know, those plants are just growing a bit wild there. How should I handle this? Adam never ever said, God, please, would you do something? If he did, God would say, I told you it's in your hands.

You've got that authority. See, Adam effectively became the God of this world. And God designed us as human beings by putting inside of us a piece of himself so that we can act just like him in this world.

Adam had the full authority in the earth. And then he did something really stupid. He handed that authority over to Satan by submitting to his lies and the temptation, partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and opened the door for evil to come into this world.

And now instead of Adam being the God of this world, Satan became the God of this world. And he began to change things to suit what he wanted. Now, until then, everything was blessing.

There was no such thing as a curse. But now suddenly blessing was not automatic. Curses and bad things began to appear in the earth.

Now God made man to be sovereign in the earth. He gave Adam and Eve full control. And since that time, there's one thing that God has not changed.

God has decided and set it in order that whatever he does in this world, he's going to do it only through human channels, because he's put man in charge of this world. Now in the heavens and the universe and everywhere else, God rules and he reigns and does as he pleases. But in this earth, God said, I'm not going to interfere in what I put into the hands of my creation.

Okay? For God to work in the earth, man must invite him and give him license to work. He will never impose his will on us or force on us what he wants to do. Now, those who like to boast in the sovereignty of God, they like to say, well, God is God and God can do as he pleases in this world.

Therefore, if there are bad things, then God chose to let them be. If there are good things, God chose to bless. And the confusion lies in the fact that we think that we are like little puppets, that God has decided our future and what's going to happen to us.

And we must just somehow get in line with what he has decided. We don't have a choice, but that's not true. God will never overrule the will of a person ever.

Okay? Now, when Satan handed over that authority, sorry, when Adam handed over that authority to Satan, his descendants continued to do the same thing. And if mankind will not invite God and allow him to work in and through them, they block the power of God's blessing in the earth. God wants to bless.

He wants to pour in abundance. He wants to recreate what was in the garden of Eden where everything was good. He wants to do that, but he's waiting for a man or a woman to invite him and give him license to be a channel of his blessing in this world.

Now, Satan wants us to give him license. And when we give him license, he brings bad things and he brings curses and he brings destruction. All the evil that is in this world does not come from God.

It comes from Satan. And it's not because God stood by and said, okay, devil, go ahead. God didn't make that choice.

Actually, man made that choice. Adam made that choice at the beginning, and we still make that choice today. We give Satan license in the earth and allow him to act and to destroy.

Now, back in the old covenant already, God always looked for a man or a woman. He chose specific people, those who approached him in faith. If you want to see a list of them, go read the book of Hebrews chapter 11.

And you read a list of all the heroes of faith of the old Testament who did amazing things with God working in and through them. And his blessings on them was based on faith. Because if you read the chapter, you'll see it says by faith, each person did something by faith.

See, God is a faith God. And if you want to please God, and you want to involve God in your life, it's going to require faith. And none of these people earned God's favor by what they did by the goodness and their righteousness.

God entrusted his power to those who had faith in him. And he offered his blessings in place of the curses that were coming from Satan. Now, it's very easy to see when there's a blessing.

And it's very easy to see when there's a curse. Sometimes we take blessing for granted. And we don't identify the good things that God's given us.

And we've got so many things that we take for granted. You know, just our ability to see and hear and smell the senses alone, we take it for granted. We don't really see that as a specific blessing.

Well, that's what we have. But if you want to understand blessing better, let's look at what a curse is. And we've seen that there are three main signs of when a curse manifests in your life.

The first one is theft. Things get stolen from you. The second one is destruction.

Things start to break. It can be as simple as you're knocking a glass over and it smashes. To when you're driving along and suddenly your car packs in.

Things start to break down. And the third sign of a curse is conflict and strife. Suddenly your relationships with other people turn sour.

You find yourself struggling, getting into arguments. And there's just no peace. If you see any of those in your life, pick up your spiritual ears and say, hold on, this is not blessing.

God doesn't steal from us. He doesn't destroy. You know, the Bible says the children of Israel walked for 40 years and their shoes didn't wear out.

Now, I know most women wouldn't like that because they'd like to get a new pair of shoes every now and then. But, you know, I could say that's a lot of money. You know, us guys, we could wear the same shoes forever.

Imagine if your shoes never wore out. Wow. That's the blessing of God.

Everything that God does is good, you see. But when destruction comes, God is not the author of that. He's not the author of a curse.

Now, one of the biggest things that comes with a curse and another one of the signs that you may have a curse in your life is when suddenly you are overwhelmed with fear. You see, that happened right in the garden from the moment Adam and Eve sinned and they lost all the blessing. They were immediately filled with fear and then went and hid away from God.

Fear is one of the first signs that there's a curse operating in your life. And fear actually is faith in reverse. Fear actually licenses Satan and opens the door for him to bring havoc into your life.

Now, when Jesus died on the cross, he reversed the sin of Adam. As a result, we can now have a new reborn spirit and become a partaker of the power of God's Holy Spirit, which Adam didn't have. Believers now move to a much higher level than what Adam had.

Well, you know, if Adam had control of this world, I wouldn't mind getting back there. You know, hey plant, you're growing too fast, slow down. Automatic pruning, didn't need a shears.

I reckon that's the kind of authority he had. Hey elephant, stop your roaring and your noise and you're fighting with your fellow elephants now in the name of Jesus. He didn't say in the name of Jesus, we would.

Yeah, peace. He had authority. But you know, God's given us more because of Calvary.

Because now he came to give us a new spirit. Well, Adam's spirit was pretty good already, had terrific power in it. Now God's given us a new spirit, which has got even more power and has given us the power now to overcome some of that evil that came in.

And then he gives us the full power and anointing of his Holy Spirit. And that takes us to an even higher level than before. If you want to see what that looked like, look at Jesus.

Jesus came to show us what man should look like. Jesus came to show us what God looked like. Yeah.

But what does God look like? He put himself in man. Man should be showing what God looks like. And Jesus came as a man, the way man was supposed to be.

And he showed us what both God and man should look like. Well, you know, we can't all be like Jesus. Well, yeah, Jesus said, greater things than these shall you do.

Yes, you can. You can. So now we have his fullness inside us.

You have the fullness of him inside of you. That means you can overcome Satan and his demons. It means you can overcome this world system that's pushing you into sin and forcing you to live a life that God doesn't require.

You can do all of that. And you can even overcome your own sinful desires, which the Bible calls the flesh. You know, we should be living a life of victory.

But the things that we believe mess it all up. Things we believe. And one of the first things that we believe is that my fate has been determined by God.

He's decided what's going to happen to me and there's nothing I can do about it. Yes. I'm afraid that's just not true.

That's not what the scriptures teach. And then we say, well, both good things and bad things can come from God. Well, then would you trust him? Would you trust somebody who might give you something bad? Hey, imagine a child coming to a parent, hoping that maybe today they may get something nice or maybe they'll just get a smack.

Yeah, I know some parents are like that, you know, but that's not the way it should be. When we come to our heavenly father, we come to receive his hand of blessing. We don't want something hard, something painful.

God is not the author of bad. There was no evil in the world that God created. It only came in when Satan was allowed to take control.

Okay. Bad things in our life come from the enemy, not from God. Another mistake that we learn is that we need to earn the right to the blessings of God.

I've got to do the right thing. I've got to avoid sin. I've got to live a good and holy life.

And if I do that, God will bless me. You see, I've been faithful doing what I'm supposed to do, but I've got to keep avoiding those things that are forbidden to me. If I fail in that, God's not going to be happy and he's going to withhold his blessings from me.

You'd be surprised how much of that thinking is riddled in human nature. And we'll see it illustrated in the book of Job when we get to it shortly. Now, how do we respond? Things are going great and we're happy.

Oh, isn't the Lord wonderful? Isn't life great? And bam, out of the blue, something goes wrong. And what's our first response? Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one? Oh, you know that song? It's a stupid song. Why me, Lord? Why did this happen to me? It's not fair.

Everybody else out there thinks they're going great, but me? Lord, I did nothing wrong. I didn't deserve this. I don't deserve this in my life, Lord.

Come on, we've all been there. And then the other one is, I must have done something wrong. I did something wrong.

I upset the Lord. What is God punishing me for right now? I must have done something. I must have missed it.

Maybe I failed to do what he told me to do. And he's angry with me and he's punishing me now. Oh, what must I do to fix it? We start examining ourselves and going totally introverted and trying to see, where did I go wrong? And Satan's laughing all the way to the bank, because what you did, it's what he did.

And he's getting you to blame God for it. Oh, he really won. Okay.

Let's look at the model of Job. First of all, let's understand Job. Job lived under the law.

He lived in the time of the old covenant, after Moses had given the law of God and the offering of burnt sacrifices for sins was Old Testament covenant. Okay. And under the old covenant, people were given commandments to obey.

And in the terms of the covenant, the terms of the covenant were that if you obey, you will be blessed. And if you disobey, you will be cursed. Those are the conditions of the old covenants.

See, and then if you sinned along the way, God would bypass your sin for a year. If you brought a burnt offering to atone for your sin, your sins are not taken away. God's just going to bypass his judgment on you for a temporary period of time until you bring another sacrifice.

Okay. So the old covenant had blessing if you kept it, curses if you didn't keep it, and other sins were dealt with by blood sacrifices. Now let's look at Job.

Job was faithful to the laws of Moses. He kept all the commandments and all the extra stuff that the rabbis and everybody threw in, which God never gave. He was totally faithful to the system of that day in every way.

He made regular burnt offerings for sin. He took care of every aspect of his life that may interfere with his relationship with God. And he was very generous and caring.

He was wealthy, but he took care of the poor. He helped people in difficulties in life. He was a very generous, open-hearted man.

Everything about Job was perfect. You'll find in later scriptures, like in Ezekiel, where Ezekiel looks for a model that he can give of men who were really righteous before God. He picks people like Daniel and Job.

He's a model of somebody who was perfect in the sight of God in every way. However, Job was not a man of faith. Now scripture says without faith, it is impossible to please God.

Job served God with his good works, but his heart was filled not with faith, but with fear. How do I know that? Because when things started to go wrong, he says in Job chapter 3 in verse 25, For the thing that I greatly feared has arrived, and what I was afraid of has come to me. Job was so afraid that maybe one of his children would unwittingly curse God in their hearts and be judged, that he'd offer extra sacrifices for all of his kids, just in case.

He lived in fear all the time. He didn't live in total faith. He was a good man.

He was righteous according to the law, and he deserved the blessing of God because he obeyed the law. But he had this one little weak link in his relationship with God, and that was his lack of faith. Now, let's look at the stages of Job's agony and what he went through.

Job knew nothing about Satan at all. At that time, people were ignorant about the works of darkness and the spiritual realm. And so he took the fatalistic approach that so many people take, that God is sovereign and God has a purpose in what happens.

When things first started to go wrong, he made that favorite statement, which people like to quote, and it's actually wrong. He said, The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Oh, what a great man of God. He still blessed the Lord, even though God took away from him. But who was it that took away from him? It wasn't God.

It was Satan. But he blamed God for it. And even though he could see that God was probably allowing this in his life, he still continued to say, I will trust God and I will serve him.

Well, that was bad enough when he lost everything he owned and all of his kids. Then when he got afflicted with boils, you know how painful a boil is? You know, one boil on your body can keep you in agony. And he had them all over.

You know, and then when he tried to sleep, Satan attacked him in his dreams. So he couldn't even sleep properly and escape the pain. Oh, this was another story.

Now Job said, I wish I was never born. I wish I was never born. Lord, I would rather be dead right now than to live the way things are.

Oh, you know, God had such a powerful purpose in allowing Job to be filled with boils, to humble him and to bring him down. Did he? Now, God didn't cause that. Satan caused it.

But because Job knew nothing about what was going on in the spiritual realm, he assumed like everybody else in this world who doesn't know God and doesn't know the realm of the spirit, we assume that God is responsible for it. And many well-meaning Christians, their theological viewpoint says God is sovereign and will do as he pleases. And therefore God is in it.

Oh dear. So Job begins to question God. He begins to argue with God.

He wants answers. Lord, I want answers. Why is this happening to me? And he has some wonderful friends.

They're known as Job's comforters, but that's the wrong term because they didn't comfort him. Job's friends came to make it clear to Job that obviously the reason things have gone wrong in his life is because somewhere along the line, he must've sinned. God doesn't judge somebody who's walking in righteousness, but God judges the sinner.

You see the theology there? So Job, Job, you missed it somewhere. And Job says, you know, I'm not aware of where I've ever failed. I've been faithful to the Lord.

I've kept the law. I've done everything that's required of me. And you know, no, no, you know, I will gladly if there's a sin, I will admit it, but there's no sin in me.

Job says this didn't come because I failed. And then he begins to argue with God and challenge him. Have you ever been in a situation where things go wrong in your life and you look around and you see other people are doing great and you say, Lord, you've got favorites.

Lord, that's not fair. Why have you picked on me? Why don't you allow me to be blessed? Why can't I prosper financially? Why do I have to be alone when everybody else is going out and having tons of relationships? Why have I got to suffer with sickness when everybody else is in perfect health? Why Lord? Why? Oh, it's such a big question. Why Lord? Why did this happen Lord? Why did you allow this Lord? Yeah, we've been there.

And eventually, after everybody is spouted backwards and forth, God reveals himself to Job in his glory and his majesty. And effectively, the message came through to Job. Hey, Job, do you think that you have a right to my blessings? Do you think that you deserve my blessings? Job, don't you realize it's only my grace that gave you what you had.

It had nothing to do with you, Job. Don't boast in your righteousness and what a good man you've been. And when Job finally sees that he didn't understand God's grace, he repents.

Up until then, he was saying, I haven't sinned. I haven't failed. Yes, I kept each commandment.

Thou shalt not, thou shalt not. I kept all of those perfectly. But my heart was filled with fear.

See, that's a failure in the sight of God. I became lifted up in myself and proud. Thought I was a real hotshot.

See, that's selfishness. That's sinfulness. It's a different kind of sin.

And very often we bypass those things and think, I've been pretty good and I've held out good. But when Job stands in the presence of a holy God, he falls on his face and he says, I repented, that's the message. I'm absolutely nothing in your sight, Lord.

Forgive me. Forgive me for not trusting you. Forgive me for questioning you.

Forgive me for thinking that you didn't know what you're doing, Lord. After God just demonstrated him the kind of power that he has. God says nothing's impossible to me.

Job, do you think I got caught? No, Job. Well, Job finally learns what faith is. And he reaches out to God and then God helps him to combine faith with the second most powerful spiritual force, which is love.

The three powerful forces that live inside our spirits, they're faith and hope and love. And now as Job combines his newfound faith in the Lord with love, as he turns to these miserable, rotten comforters who have run him into the ground and condemned him and told him what a miserable sinner he is, he reaches out to them in love and he prays for them because God's about to judge them for giving him all the wrong information. And Job reaches out and he prays for them.

And the power of faith and love, not only breaks him free, the scripture says he ended up with more in the end. And he lived another 140 years. Okay, they lived longer in those days.

Could it be that we could also live a bit longer if we really exercise those forces of faith and love? So what can we conclude from all of this? Let's look at the wrong teachings that we believe, because Job's comforters all believe the same. They were convinced that God only blesses those who do not sin. And they were also convinced that the bad things were God's judgments.

And the only way you could stop them is to repent and to turn from your sin. You see, Job and his friends also believed the same thing, that God was the author of what went wrong. You know, there's a many insurance policies these days, in which they ensure what they call an act of God, like an earthquake or some disaster.

This is called an act of God. You know, men still believe that God causes these things. God is judging this country, because they have turned from him.

You heard these people proclaiming so called prophets. God's gonna judge South Africa, because they turn back on him. Now they're judging themselves.

They've taken themselves out of his blessing. God doesn't have to punish them. Their punishment's coming already from their sin.

You know, if I say to my child, don't put your hand in the fire, it will burn him. And he does it. I don't have to punish him.

He just got his punishment. God's judgment on sin is already set in place. If people insist on following Satan, they're going to reap what he has to offer, which is never blessing.

Okay? Don't ever wonder why God allowed things to happen in your life. Don't ever confuse what God does with what Satan does. Some years ago, a great man of God by the name of Oral Roberts was used mightily by the Lord in healings and other things.

But Oral Roberts coined a phrase that was kind of like his hubby horse. And it went like this. He said, God is a good God, and the devil is a bad devil.

And his catchphrase was, something good is going to happen to you today. They wrote a song about it. Something good is going to happen to you today.

And whenever he ministered, he'd stand up and say, something good is going to happen to you today. And everybody will say, he knows jolly well, that some bad things are also going to happen. See, he wasn't interested in that.

He was interested in what God was going to do. God wants to bless you. He wants you to do good things in your life.

You see? Okay, now, here's where the problem comes. Even when you come to the place where you realize that the blessing comes from God, and the bad things come from Satan. Here is the hinge, the danger point.

And it's this. Why does God allow Satan to attack you? This is the stumbling point of the book of Job. Satan came and he said, Hey, of course you're blessing Job.

Of course he's happy. You put a hedge around him and protected him. Take away that head and watch, he'll curse you to your face.

See? So we all believe that for some reason, God allowed Satan to attack us. God allowed Satan to attack me with sickness, to humble me. He allowed finances to go wrong, to bring me to my knees.

This is so subtle and it's a doctrine of demons. Satan originated this doctrine, not God. Okay.

Did God give Satan permission to attack Job? And does that mean that God sometimes gives Satan permission to attack us? I'm going to go back and explain why I laid the foundation I did for you before we got to this. Okay. Let's review quickly what we looked at.

God gave Adam and Eve and their descendants full authority in the earth. God only does in the earth what he does via human channels. And that's why he looks for someone to be his vessel and to authorize his work in the earth.

Now, some people are uniquely called to this and more powerfully than they are the prophets. And the role of a prophet is to actually release God's will and purpose so God can do things in the earth. And they do that through prophetic decree.

Now that's a whole nother story on its own, but every believer has this rights. And when Adam gave his authority in the earth to Satan, that's when it all went wrong. Since then, the descendants of Adam continue to give Satan license in the earth.

Now, let's see exactly what it says in the book of Job, which appears to fit to teach that God gave Satan permission. Sorry. Yes, God gave Satan permission to attack Job.

Here it is in Job 1 and verse 12. It says, And the Lord Yahweh said to Satan, Look, all that he has is in your power. Did God say, I'm giving you permission to attack him? He said, All he has already in your power, Satan, you're the God of this world.

Who gave Satan permission to attack? Adam, not God. And you, because you allowed him to. And other human beings who are giving him permission.

God said, He's already in your hands, Satan. But God said, I'm not going to give you a license to attack him completely. I'm going to restrict you.

God didn't give Satan license to attack. He actually limited his attack. Can you see that? God said only on him personally, do not put your hand.

God said, You already have full authority in the earth. He's in your hand, Satan. But I'm not going to let you touch him.

You can attack his possessions. I'm not going to let you touch him. God actually gave a protection over Job.

Now, what is our position under the new covenant? We have far greater power and authority than Job had. We can use the name of Jesus against Satan. Job didn't have that.

We have the authority to bind or loose. The scripture says, whatever you bind on earth, you'll be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth, you'll be loosed in heaven.

We have the authority to loose or bind Satan and actually also loose God or block him. That means we can allow or forbid things to happen. And the great thing now is we don't have to like Job say, Lord, you know, if I were you, if I could speak with you, I would argue.

I would present my case to you. God, God, God, God, where are you? Come on God, I want to talk to you. Come on God, I got a few things to say to you.

So you and I don't have that problem because we have two-way communication with him now through the spirit that dwells within us. We can come to God and say, God, what's happening here? Lord, why are things going wrong in my life? And God can speak back to you and tell you exactly what's happening and explain to you and tell you what to do to get out of it. You can get revelation by the spirit of what Satan is doing.

And if you understand the realms of darkness, there are four levels of demons. Paul speaks about principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness in high places. They're all different levels of demonic power.

And we are involved at times with all of these things attacking us. And we can get revelation in the spirit and know what kind of demon we're dealing with and use the authority God's given us and the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome these things and to deal with them. We're in a whole different ballpark to Job.

Don't ever think that you're doing a job because things have gone wrong in your life and God's allowed these things. But that's our first thing, isn't it? Things were going great. I felt the presence of the Lord.

Isn't that beautiful? And then suddenly you get up one morning and he vanished. He vanished. Lord, Lord, where are you? Lord, Lord, I'm still here.

He took a vacation. It's not you anymore. See, that's the position Job was in.

You and I don't have to be in that position. See, there is a way to communicate with him. We've given a lot of teaching on it.

One of the most powerful ways that I use is a process called journaling, where I sit down and I talk to God on paper or on a screen as it were. And I talk to him and he answers me back. And I ask him questions and he gives me the answers.

See, and all of us have actually the right to have that communication with God. We don't have to be victims of Satan. We are meant to be ruling and reigning in life in the name of Jesus, by faith in Him, by flowing out in love and in hope and the power of His Spirit, by standing up and tapping into what He's put inside us.

Because what He's put inside us is the same thing that Jesus had, the power of His Holy Spirit. So in conclusion, God has put everything that you will ever need inside of you to live a life of blessing and victory. I have an entire series that I've completed on this, which I entitled Tapping Your Inner Resources.

And if you'd like to find out more about that, I suggest you get a hold of that. Because you need to realize that you need nothing more from God, that everything you need to live a life of victory and prosperity and health and wealth and good relationships in this world, all of that power is already contained inside you by the Spirit of God that's living inside of you. And if you're allowed to use that power and release it into this world, Satan will not have a chance.

When it comes to these lies, you can't remember immediately. And you'll run away like a dog with his tail between his legs. But if you believe his lies, and really that's the only power he has over you, is to lie to you and to put the thought in your mind that God's doing this.

You see, remember that? Remember that time when you slipped and you did what you shouldn't do? And you failed God? You're paying the price for that now? Oh, yeah. The Bible calls Satan the accuser of the brethren, because he accuses us, tries to put us down and tell us we failed. See, God will never test you.

Satan is the one who tests. And the word test and tempt is both same words in the original Greek. When God tests, he gives the kind of test where they've made, say, something out of strong metal, and they test to see how strong it is.

See, Satan's kind of test is to find the weaknesses. If he can expose your weaknesses and highlight those, then you forget about your strengths, and you just collapse. And you say, I'm too weak.

I can't do this. It's a lie. It's a lie.

That's why the Bible says, you know the truth, and the truth will set you free, because the truth will destroy Satan's lies. When bad things happen, you need to realize it doesn't come from God, and it was not allowed by God. These things come because we fail to use the resources that he gave us.

And yes, we are sinful creatures, aren't we? We don't get it right. We fail often. But you know, when you fall, you don't have to remain down.

You can get up again, and you can rise up, and you can walk in victory and blessing. Don't ever again use the book of Job as an excuse for saying, well, you know, I did my best. You know, I was okay.

I was serving the Lord faithfully, and now God's allowed all these bad things to come in my life. You know, so I might as well just go and enjoy myself and just sin, because it's not helping me. Things are still, bad things are still coming.

Why? What's the point? What's the point of serving the Lord? Don't ever fall for that lie. Just look deep down inside you and say, I've got the power. I've got the authority.

I have the king of the universe living inside of me. When you face those problems, you reach deep inside, and you grab Jesus by the hand, and you say, let's go get him. Come on, Lord, let's go get him.

You know, when I knew the devil, I'd say, devil, is that the biggest shot you have? Is that your biggest bomb? Is that the biggest whip? You're joking. You're joking. Say, is that the best you can do? Come on.

Come on. Give me your worst. Give me your worst.

I don't have to be afraid of you, devil, because your worst is not even close to God's weakest. I have that power inside of me. So come on, devil.

Come on. You know, Jesus speaks about when somebody hits you on this cheek, go to them, the other one. You say, but that's stupid.

I get hit twice. Jesus said, when you have that kind of commitment and love, they'll never get to hit you in the first place. Though you live in fear, he opened the door wide.

So watch out for the fear. Learn to walk in faith and hope and love. Learn to release the power that is within you.

Go out and you build the life, the abundant life that Jesus spoke about. It is ours to live. And if Job with a little bit that he had under the old covenant could prosper the way that he did, shouldn't we be doing at least the same? No, I think we should be doing more.

And it's time God's people know this truth and begin to apply it in their lives, begin to rise up and live that abundant life that the Lord has for us. I thank you, Father, for your word. I deliver it as you gave it to me.

I pray that it will penetrate the hearts of your people. It'll open their understanding. That they'll see and know what they have in you.

And they'll stop blaming you for the bad things that happen. And they'll rise up in victory and overcome every attack of the enemy. And then gather together with one another.

Instead of like Job's miserable comforters, carrying one another down, that they'd lift one another up and encourage one another and stand together against this common enemy. Lord, may your body arise. May your church arise in glory and power and in magnificence.

May each one feel your touch even now as they watch this and as they stand in your presence. May your anointing come upon them. May they sense the magnificence of what you've put inside them, Lord.

May they pick up the sword they dropped. Pick up the armor and the shield that they dropped. Stand up tall once again and say, okay, devil, bring it on.

I'm ready for you. Shoot your biggest shot. Because I'm going through and I'm going to succeed and I'm going to be victorious in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you for that, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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