I have been thinking about storms and as a sister was saying last night, it is just part of the journey, we encounter storms, we do not ask for them, we don’t want them, we don’t like them but they come. Storms are a part of life whether we are serving the Lord or not, it comes in the way of affliction, tragedies, persecution, adversities, and sickness. A couple of things about storms that make them so unwanted and frightening and discouraging is for one, we often times do not know how long the storm is going to last. Sometimes a storm comes and we feel that it is going to be like this for the rest of our lives. Then the other side that frightens us is that we do not know how intense the storm is going to be before it is done, maybe it is something that is going to destroy me. Storms are often a testing time, a proving time, and maybe some here; we don’t know might be going through a little storm right now. There are different degrees of storms, some are light ones, some heavy ones, and a few years ago I went through a very heavy storm, the worst in my life, very few people knew about it. I had an old coworker who told me that if you ever get up against it, talk to me, and I just happened to be at a convention when the storm hit and he was there. I reminded him of his word, as I thought that he would give me some good encouragement, but he looked at me and said, “It will do either of two things, it is either going to weaken you or strengthen you, “ and he walked away, so I said to myself, “Thanks a lot.” It was okay because I was determined that this storm was not going to beat me, it helped me to pray. I am thinking of a few storms in the Bible and I don’t know if it is going to be a help to you but it has been some to me. The first one I would like to talk about is Job; Job’s storm is unusual because of its intensity. Job bore this testimony, he was perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed evil, he stayed away from evil, and because of this he became a target. I believe that when we begin to serve the Lord, we become a target for Satan. He doesn’t go after anyone but after the Lord’s people. Job became a special target because of the testimony that he bore, he was perfect and upright, we don’t usually use that word perfect in describing one another because in our mind when we think of perfect we think of Jesus the sinless one who never made any mistakes. In this case the word perfect, it seems like the Lord had nothing against Job, he was very pleased how Job was doing. A brother in Canada, before he died, was asked by another brother, that if he could go over life again, would you do anything different, would you have any regrets. He thought for a little while, and he came back and said I would have to say no, the reason why is, I did what I could with the understanding I had at the time. He realized that when he was a young worker he acted in a certain way and perhaps in a way that he would not have 30 years later but at that time the understanding that he had he did what he could to please God. I think of some very fine young workers to my right and to my left and I feel that if they’re anything like me, in 30 years time, if God spares them, they will look back and say, did I say that, but they are doing the best they can with the understanding they have today. If I am spared for another 20 years I will likely say the same thing to where I am now. Job bore a testimony very like Jesus, Jesus is so important, think of this now. Heb 1:9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. That is the testimony that Jesus bore, he loved righteousness, he eschewed evil, he hated evil, you will eschew evil, get away from evil if you hate it, if you learn to hate it. Paul when he was talking to Timothy, said endure hardness as a good soldier, he gave him good advice for a soldier, you think of a soldier and he is strong, and in that very same chapter, he told him, you flee youthful lusts, that’s a good soldier. You would think that that was a very brave soldier, but that is a wise soldier and he will live to fight another day, to flee youthful lusts does not lose the battle, there is nothing you can do about it, the way you gain the battle is just to flee. Our master was the example when he multiplied the loaves and fishes they wanted to make him king and he fled that, he went up the mountain, climbed the mountain to be alone with God, so that is the direction we want to flee, flee to the Lord from iniquity. He feared God, that is a wonderful attribute, we had a very nice searching testimony from one of our saints in the last convention, she said, I was thinking that if I fear God less than I did last year I am going in the wrong direction, because that is the direction of the world. We want to do the opposite, we want to fear God with all our hearts and that would be governing our decisions in life, to please God. Job had this testimony and the book of Job is very unique in many ways, and one of the ways it is unique is that we read more about a conversation with God and Satan than in any other part of the Bible. It was like an exchange, it was not a pleasant one, it never is between God and Satan, but there was Satan appearing before the sons of God, and the Lord asked him, where have you come from? He replied that I have been going to and fro and then God asked him have you considered my servant Job, the Lord knows why Satan was going forth to and fro, he was like a roaring lion, so have you considered my servant Job in all your efforts, and in deed he had, he knew him well. Satan said to the Lord, does Job fear you for naught? And this is what he said about him. Job 1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substances is increased in the land, but put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. So Satan understood, he went after Job and he could not get to him because he saw that there was a hedge. So any temptation that Satan put to Job did not have any effect because he kept running into this hedge. Then imagine Satan, who is so much smarter than we, he did not understand that hedge, he thought that hedge was made up of material, natural blessing, so that is why he said to the Lord, you take away that hedge and he will curse you to your face. That hedge was not made up of material, natural blessing, that hedge was made up of a spiritual relationship that he had with God, it had nothing to do with natural blessing. Satan does the favor of weeding out the loaves and fish disciples, because if that is our hedge, it will prove it every time, if that is why we are serving the Lord, Satan will be able to take that hedge away, a good storm will take that away. You will get offended, or some temptation, if that is our hedge we will not last, but that wasn’t Job’s hedge and God knew it. It would seem as though God took a gamble, we would hardly think of God taking a gamble but he said to Satan, you take away those blessings but don’t touch his life. This would seem to be so abnormal or out of character for God to take a gamble like that, for a man’s soul but I do not believe that there was any gamble in it because Satan did not understand that hedge but God did. There was a relationship between Job and God that Satan did not understand and I do not believe that he understands your relationship; you have with God, nor mine. So it was not a gamble, for God knew how Job was going to come out of this because he knew that the natural blessings were not the hedge, that was not why he was serving God and that is not why you are serving God.
One of our friends faced some very rugged storms in her life, she lost her husband, she lost her son suddenly, he had cancer in the brain, then she was talking to her daughter in her house which was across the field from her house, and there she sees her house burning down, too late to do anything to save the house, she did not save one thing in the house. They showed me a picture of the house, it was all charred metal, ashes but I looked at that picture real close and you know what I saw? I saw a stack of metal chairs, she had the meeting in her home, that was just the one thing that remained, they were charred but they were still standing and that spoke loudly to me. The way she spoke about it, was that this is just another bump in the road, it did not bother her because that was not the hedge, she went on serving the Lord, she said that the people will have to meet somewhere else until I get my house rebuilt and then the meeting would go on in
her home because the material blessings were not the hedge. We know that Satan was allowed to take quite a bit from Job, all his wealth and then he took his 10 children and that really hurt and it is hard perhaps for us to understand all that was going through Job’s mind, the trauma, the mental anguish, the pain in his heart, and maybe not very sure where his children ended up. It says that he would sanctify his children because he knew that they were feasting in their homes and I wonder how he sanctified them? I expect that he told them, you keep God first and don’t be carried away with these feast days, birthdays, keep it simple, keep it small, that is how he sanctified them. Then he offered a burnt offering for them and he looked out for himself too, maybe he was just concerned, where did they go in Eternity. In all that, he did not curse God, he recognized that this is just part of life. So then Satan is before the Lord again and the Lord said to him you have tested him and he has come through, then Satan was not satisfied with that, you would think that he would give in, but he is not fair, he is not honest. Job 2:4 And Satan answered the Lord, and said, skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. So the Lord told him, you can have him but save his life, so we know that Satan smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. This is what would hurt Job the most immediately, that would cause him the most difficult pain, so Job took him a potsherd to scrape himself all over and he sat down among the ashes. Imagine the pain that must have been in him, now there was not just mental anguish, and now he just does not have emotional anguish, but now he has physical pain to add what he had. The storm is intensifying and that is why his wife said to him to curse God and die, the storm is hitting the hedge the leaves are dropping and breaking some of the branches off but the root was there. Job said to his wife, that you speak like the foolish women, we don’t just receive good from the hand of the Lord and shall we not receive evil. Then we do not read about Satan conversing with God anymore, in fact, we do not even read his name in the rest of the book but he was there. Job’s three friends came from different parts and they made an appointment to come and comfort Job, that was their purpose, so they picked a day and they came together and it is good to remember this. When they saw Job afar off they did not even recognize him, it says they wept, they had feelings for him, they rent their garments and then they sat with him for seven days and not saying a word because they saw that his grief was so great. I had a companion one time and maybe he was right, I don’t know, he wondered when they sat there for seven days and said nothing, that Satan wasn’t there sowing thoughts into their heads against Job. The first thing that Job said, he cursed the day that he was born, wishing that he could die and as he went on and finished his little story, you remember it was like in exchange, they turned out like a pack of dogs. One went after Job and then he would answer them and then another one would go after Job and then he would answer them, and what it amounted to is that they all assumed that this was a time of judgment, that this storm amounted to a judgment against Job. Job may have been thinking the same thing, they assumed and they gave a lot of examples how the wicked would be struck down and their children would be destroyed and all their wealth would be taken away in a moment of time. This went on and on, really giving example after example of God’s judgment against the wicked, told him that he had been a comfort to other people, he had strengthened their hands but now it has happened to you. All they would tell Job to do is to repent, because you have done wrong and that is why this storm has come upon you, they had the thing completely wrong. That storm came upon Job not because he was wicked but because he was very, very good, like he was one of God’s best, and he faced the worst storm and so maybe we could remember that when the tests come and you don’t understand why. We need to remember that when we professed we became a target for Satan but we also have one that is looking upon us and that is God. Then because of this Job was forced into a defensive mode and so he is defending and what he is defending is his righteousness, he doesn’t know why God is doing this to him because he was righteous, he never heard the conversation between God and Satan and he did not know that this was a test. There were a couple of things going on here, one was, Satan was saying to God, Job isn’t what you think he is, and even if this was a level playing field, Job would curse you to your face. At the same time Satan is saying to God there is not much to you either because no man will serve you unless there is some natural benefit because you are not fair and you are not good. Satan knew who he was and he knew that God’s judgment is against him, so he set out to prove that God is not fair. This was quite a challenge, when you read the book of Job, there was a lot at stake, it was not a gamble to God because he knew the heart of Job. By the same token he knew the heart of His Son, when he sent Him here to the earth, He was not gambling with His Son. Some have this wrong belief because Jesus never sinned, they say He could not have sinned, and it was not that Jesus could not have sinned, but it was that God knew that He wouldn’t sin, and there is a big difference between the two. Did you ever notice in Isaiah 53, where it says, that he was wounded, it is written in the past tense like it already happened and in a sense it did in the eternity that has gone, because he was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Jesus knew that all this was going to happen and He was saying to His father, I am willing, I’ll go, so when He came from heaven to earth and took on a human body but He still had the heart that He had in heaven and God knew that heart would not betray Him or go against Him. I was thinking about some of the things that came out of the mouth of Job, he said some things that later he regretted in defending his righteousness, it almost seems that he was pushed so hard, we need to remember where he was arguing from, losing all his wealth, losing his children, then in pain and now these three friends only intensified the storm for Job. They did not comfort him and he called them a bunch of miserable comforters they only intensified the storm for Job.
It came down to just a few things that tells us what it was like for Job and he said. Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” That was like his hedge, and even though the branches were breaking, the leaves were falling, that hedge held, this trust and even though Job would make that statement because that is how Job was thinking, that God was against him. Now saying that even if he destroys me I will not stop trusting in him, what a wonderful faith he had. We were hearing about the palm tree that continues to bear fruit till it dies, and that is a wonderful aspect of the palm tree, many of you would know that it has a tap root that goes way, way down into the ground. I labored in this work in Miami, Florida for a number of years and they have hurricanes which they name, and there was the famous hurricane named Andrew in 1992, and it just about destroyed South Miami. In the United States they have categories, one being the least and five being the greatest and this was a number five, several of our friends lost their homes and some of the stories I heard were very traumatic and dramatic for it nearly flattened everything. In a category five hurricane, there is not much that will stand in its path but one of the few things was standing was these palm trees, because their root went right down and they were flexible. Job also said that God maketh my heart soft, and these palm trees would bend, other trees like oak trees, or like your gum trees, they would snap.
This is what is going to enable us to hold in the storm, if we have a root system, and what Job did every day, putting his life on the altar, offering his life is developing a root system, there was a relationship between Job and God that Satan did not know anything about. Even though Satan is clever because he belongs to a kingdom that is higher than ours, he did not understand that hedge. Another thing that Job said, he was begging to his friends, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me, why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh? He was begging them for pity, and they were not giving him any. Job 19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Then Job said to his friends, You should say, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? That was Job’s faith, he did not expect anything more in this life, maybe that storm is going to go on for the rest of my life, he was looking forward to meeting his redeemer, and though he did not understand, if he had understood it would have made things so much easier. Many times in life we don’t understand, when we go through storms we don’t know why I am going through this and many people in the world will blame God, they will curse God but God’s people don’t do that, it is a test on them. They say I don’t know why God is letting me go through this, why God took my little baby, why did God take my son, why has he afflicted me, why my health is broken down, there are lots of things that we don’t understand but we can take a wonderful comfort that we have a redeemer that will take our part and will plead our cause and we can trust that God does care for us. At the end when God spoke to him out of the whirlwind and I remember an old brother worker speaking of the 38th chapter, saying that it wasn’t God in the whirlwind, it was Job, that storm had twisted him all around and he was in a whirlwind but then God started dealing with him. The things that the Lord said are very telling as to where Job was. Job 40:8 Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? That is where Job was in defending himself he would say that God is wrong and I am right in all of this because he assumed that this was a time of judgment and it wasn’t, it was a time of proving and it was a time of improving. Job said at one time that when I am tried I shall come forth as gold, years ago when I was a younger worker I was studying this with an older coworker, and I said to him that what you read in the first chapter would make you think that Job was gold already, and he replied quickly, yes that is right but now he is purified gold. That is what the storm has for a child of God, it is a proving but it is also an improving so that we come forth as gold. So in those last chapters the Lord began to ask Job a lot of questions, around 80 questions. I remember when I was in school and you had a quiz with maybe 80 questions you could only miss about 10 of those and do all right, you could still come out with a C or something. In these 80 questions, you know how many Job got right, zero, so he flunked the test miserably, God was asking him about things he did not know about, about nature and it had a humbling effect upon Job. Like what someone has said, that life is just one long lesson in humility. God spoke a whole chapter on the leviathan and that is a picture of Satan, he asked Job can you grab him by a hook? Job could not but God could and he was kind of telling Job that’s who you have been facing, it’s not me, it was Satan that has given you this storm but the end of the Lord he was very pitiful and he blessed Job twice as much as he had before. In all this storm Job hung on, as James said to have patience, Job had patience and this hedge protected him against Satan.
The next storm that I would like to mention is Jonah and Jonah had a little different storm, and the reason it is different is that Jonah caused the storm, it did not come because of Jonah’s good testimony, it came because of his disobedience. In the beginning of that book the Lord asked him to go to this city, a principal city of Assyria, the enemies of Israel and preach to them and Jonah did not want to do it. He went down and got a ship going in the opposite direction, paid the fare and did he ever pay, he got into that ship, and the Lord sent the storm because of Jonah’s experience of disobeying the Lord. One thing that we can say about this is, that if we disobey God we can expect a storm, it will come, it may come in the lack of peace, the lack of joy and the Lord will be pushing his hand against us, it will come. Another thing that we need to be careful about in our defiance and our stubborn will, we can cause others to face the storm too for all those men in the ship were in that storm. Later they knew who was causing the storm and it was Jonah, so they said what shall we do, and then we see repentance coming into the heart of Jonah, very Christ like he said, throw me overboard, but they knew that this was certain death, and they didn’t want to do it. Throw me overboard, I am going to die for you and that storm will stop and it did. All those men made vows to the Lord, I don’t know whether it meant their salvation but it saved their lives. God prepared a fish, God prepared the storm and he prepared the fish that could somehow swallow Jonah, and remain alive for three days and nights. There he prayed and did he pray, from the depths of hell have I prayed unto thee, one of the things he said in that desperate prayer, he knew that the Lord was hearing him. Jonah 2:8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. Lying vanity to me is like saying that I can disobey God and get away with it, that is a lying vanity, that I will not face these consequences. That I can get away with this and it won’t be so bad and when we practice lying vanity we are forsaking our own mercy and he came right around from that and then he said. Jonah 2:9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay that that I have vowed. What did he vow? I am sure that he vowed that I will obey you Lord no matter what you ask of me, I will obey you, so the Lord commanded that fish to spit out Jonah and the next thing we read that the word of the Lord came to Jonah and asks him to do the same thing that he asked before and Jonah obeyed this time. He went to Nineveh and said that in 40 days the Lord is going to destroy the city and somehow the King had a fear of God and he commanded everyone to fast and be in sack cloth and ashes, to repent, who knows but the Lord may show us mercy. They believed Jonah, and one old worker said that Jonah walked into the city with whale spit all over him, and maybe he told them what he had been through and it had weight and they repented. Now Jonah is angry, so then the Lord had to deal with Jonah again, he prepared the storm, he prepared the fish and now Jonah is sitting up there to see what is going to happen getting angry and builds him a little booth and God prepares this gourd. Giving Jonah some shade for it was very hot, and he was exceedingly glad for the shade. Then the Lord prepared a worm to eat that that gourd and it was destroyed and so here Jonah is angry again, very angry because he lost that gourd. God spoke to Jonah and said you showed a lot of mercy towards that gourd but you have not shown any mercy towards these people, 60,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left. It just seemed that this experience of the whale taught Jonah obedience, but somehow he still had to learn the lesson of mercy. He told God that this is the reason why he did not want to go and preach to these people because I know that you are a merciful God and they will repent and they were Israel’s enemies. He was giving them a New Testament message way back in the days of the Kings and he just did not like it, the Assyrians were their enemies, that was in his mind to destroy them and you tell me that they need to repent. The Lord was trying to teach him the depth of his mercy and the Lord is still seeking to teach me and to teach you the depth of his mercy, sometimes we go through storms that you could have avoided if only you had shown more mercy.
The last one I want to mention is in acts 27, this is a storm that Paul went through and it was not his fault, he went through this storm because of the disobedience of others and he is at the other end of it. He is going to testify before Caesar and it mentions him getting into a certain ship and they go by Cyprus and the winds were contrary. Acts 27:7 And when we had sailed slowly many days, and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, came unto a place which is called The fair havens, nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea. Now when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, Paul said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives. Nevertheless the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship, more than those things which were spoken by Paul. You can see the mind of the centurion, he said, number one, Paul is a Jew, number two, he is a prisoner, number three, he is a Pharisee so he doesn’t know a thing about sailing ships why would I ever want to obey him but Paul had the message from God. You would think that the ship owner would have been most concerned about the ship rather than the centurion. And because the haven was not convenient to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter, which is an haven of Crete, a place that is more comfortable and convenient. Often the will of God is not very commodious or convenient but it is safe and so it says. When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. So that south wind is blowing them up to Crete, so they thought well, see Paul, this is just the right kind of wind that we want to get us to the west side of Crete. Beware of the south wind that blows softly, we want to do something and the Lord advises us against it and then there comes this south wind that is blowing softly, the door of opportunity is opening, and we say, see this is going to be okay. Maybe like you young people, you may have someone in school that is interested in you, and that is not surprising, some will not have anything to do with you, but some will admire you because you are a noble young man and you are a wholesome young girl. This would be very appealing to a certain element in this world and they want you, and you don’t know if they want me or if they are drawn to the spirit of Christ in me, so what do you do? You pray about it and you bring them to gospel meetings and keep the romance out of it because Satan will let a south wind blow softly, and they will say, oh yes, these are nice people, say all the right things, but just let the Gospel do its work and don’t trust the south wind that blows softly. When they did that, when they set sail, and they thought that they were going to be right, here by Crete comes this hurricane force wind like a cyclone and blew them way off course and almost destroyed the ship, and they were many days without light. It could be a disastrous result if we just trust that south wind that blows softly, when we feel that we have gained our purpose, it is all going to okay. Then the next two weeks they kept lightening the ship and we need to lighten our ship too in the storm, they lightened the ship about three times, some things they would think were very necessary, but when the storm got bad enough they lightened the ship and we need to lighten the cargo in our life too. Now the two seas met and they got stuck in the sand, the sea broke the back of the ship, and then the soldiers wanted to kill all the prisoners but the centurion kept them from their purpose to save Paul, he loved Paul. He commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land, and the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship and they escaped all safely to land. So sometimes in the storm maybe all that we have left is a piece of board, a piece of the ship, like a little nugget of truth, a verse that will come to us and hold on to that with all that is in you. If you feel that you are not getting through in prayer and the Bible is not opening up to you, hold on to a little piece of a board, hold onto some nugget of truth that will sustain you through the storm, and doing so you will reach safely the shore. Storms will not be there forever, they come to pass, they come to prove us, to prove to Satan that we have a hedge about us that is not material but is our relationship with God and it has come to improve us so that we are not just gold but purified gold.
Truth Archive 