Transcript

Grab your Bibles and go to James, let’s go to James 5 as we continue to look at the clear and very practical, J. Vernon McGee used t say down to where the rubber meets the road, exhortations of James to a church that, um, in many ways is a, is a younger church, a, a scattered church. Um, James, ah, had members because of the persecution against Christians scattered all over and, ah, certainly suffering saints. As we just sang that song written by Andrae Crouch, it doesn’t seem like 1971, I remember Andrae Crouch. I don’t know where he is today, but, wow, that’s a long time ago. Um, “By His power He has raised me,” and one of the ways he raises us, he raises us above the wisdom of the world. We get, ah, well, let me put it this way, be, we begin in progressive sanctification from this morning, we began to learn to view things from God’s perspective and God’s wisdom. Now we slip and we leak but hopefully as time goes on, we have a more consistent pattern of looking and seeing our own lives from God’s perspective.

He’s gonna talk about them suffering in James 5 and some of the temptations that come when you’re suffering. Now, ah, no doubt the, the main context is suffering for the faith. They’re suffering for their testimony of Christ. They’re suffering because they have submitted to believer’s baptism and joined a local church, ah, and to understand something in the New Testament era, when you were baptized, you became something of anathema to the present culture, both Jews and Greeks. It wasn’t like today where it’s a meaningless going through the motions and, and by the way, in a lot of our evangelical churches and in Southern Baptist churches in particular, I’m grieved over the gimmicks that are being used to make a baptismal service much like a pep rally and literally anyone in these big spontaneous baptism services, they’re having anyone can, um, just come that morning and give a brief testimony and they’ll put you under the water, and, ah, it’s called spontaneous baptism. They base it on Acts 2. The only problem is I’m not seeing anything of the power of the Spirit that we see in Acts, and so until you see God’s regenerate power like they saw it, you ought to be careful with who you baptize because, first of all, you’re giving them a false assurance you must not give them if they don’t know their of God’s, ah, elect, and if they’re truly born again. I didn’t mean to get into all of that but just to say that, um, in this day baptism had a weightiness to it. No, you didn’t have to teach it. They knew what it was. Ah, to go as a Jewish man in particular and James is a pastor to a Jewish congregation, ah, in this day, take the day of Pentecost for example, to be baptized publicly to identify as a follower of Jesus Christ and a member of his called-out ones, his assembly, that is his local church, you can literally put, be putting your life on the line. Ah, some people today argue about, “Well, you know in the Bible they baptized quickly,” etc. etc. but look at the context.” It’s almost like putting you on an airplane and going, um, to, to, to Tehran, Iran and putting you in the public square and you proclaiming that, ah, Mohammad is a fraud and a liar and I’m a follower of Jesus Christ and being immersed in front of all those people. Ah, not too many of us are signing up for that.

So these people are facing lots of suffering just for being children of God. Some are scattered from homes, their relatives, etc. Now certainly there was the other types of suffering, ah, the things that most all mankind faced from disease and sickness and heartaches, marriage problems, whatever it may be, but primarily it’s suffering for the faith, but the truth applies to all types of suffering.

Here’s what James says about it. James 5:7,

7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and latter rains. 8 You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

Let me just stop right there. He tells you to strengthen your heart. You might be saying, “Wait a minute, I, I need the Lord to strengthen me.” Well, he does but you are commanded of God to disciple your heart, disciple your heart to think right and feel right and believe right. If your thinking or your emotions or your feelings are not in line with truth, then talk to yourself, talk truth to yourself and tell your heart, “Heart, get with it and shut up about things that don’t matter.” Are, are you seriously disciplining your own heart? Am I the only one that struggles there? Is your heart just already there? No, you have to disciple your own heart. Sometimes you get worried, you get fearful, you get anxiety and you’ve gotta grab yourself and say, “Listen, this is not true, the things you’re trouble about like a…” I, I, told somebody one time, I said, “You’ve been through a lot of terrible things in your life and some of them actually happened,” because they just in their minds dreamed up every terrible thing that could possibly happen. Some people live that. Talk to yourself. Well, didn’t mean to get off on that.

James says, “You strengthen your own heart.” Now he says for the coming of the Lord is near, in other words, it’s gonna all be over soon and Jesus is going to make it all good. Verse 9,

9 Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.

He’s coming back quick. Verse 10,

10 As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. 12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but let your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.

So evidently They were having some problems among themselves, frustrations and anxieties and short tempers and ill-spiritedness one toward another, but what I want to call this is “The Profit in Persevering.” That’s what James is bringing out. You’re going through some tough stuff, some of you sitting here tonight, you’re going through some tough things. Some of you are heartbroken. Some of you have been mistreated. It’s just the truth. Some of you are badly disappointed. And on and on we could go, but God says, “I know what I’m doing. I control all things and there’s great profit for you in persevering on through this.” Someone said mushrooms spring up overnight but they’re often poisonous, but mighty oaks take decades. God’s not growing mushrooms, God grows mighty oaks. Typically he takes quite a bit of time.

In, in verse 11 he uses the word and the New American Standard translates it “endured,” to endure. It means “to remain under difficulties without succumbing to sin.” He verse 10 he uses the word “be patient, for patience.” It means “long endurance that does not retaliate.” Ah, now James actually started the book with these type of exhortations about considering it all joy when you encounter various trials. Well, now he’s coming to the end of his writing and he seems to hit that theme, theme again because, again, these are suffering people.

Now isn’t it interesting about the way the text is bringing out they were really getting on each other’s nerves and they were really beginning to sin against one another under the stress or the pressure of the suffering they’re going through. Ah, yes, suffering does help purify us but that pressure can also bring out the flesh and it spills over in aggravations and sins one to another. One thing we have to remember, brothers and sisters, is God is not going to make everything right in the world. God’s not gonna right every wrong until Jesus comes and some of these social justice warriors who want to now disciple the church into how to fix all the injustice and inequalities in, in the culture, first of all, they, I need them to define what do you mean by social justice and what do you mean by inequality because they keep moving the goalpost. Every other day there’s a new type of, ah, abuse and there’s a new type of victim out there, there’s a new type of inequality out there. That’s why you stay with the old book, it covers that, all this stuff perfectly. This teaches us of what is just and what is unjust.

So not everything’s gonna be fixed in the world. Not everything is going to be fixed in your life. If somebody told you coming to Jesus is gonna fix all the stuff in your life, they told you a lie. These people gave their lives to Christ and they’ve suffered ever since they did it, and you and I cannot even enter into the level of suffering that these folks were enduring for their confession of faith in Jesus Christ. He does continually point them to the coming of the Lord, to look, look to the coming of the Lord. Three times in verses 5, 8, rather verses 7, 8 and 9, he talks about the Lord’s return. In Titus 2:13, he talks about that blessed hope.

I just don’t think we think about that enough today. You know, I talked about that quite a bit in my message this morning that, a, a, a vital aspect of our daily discipleship is he’s coming back. He’s returning and he will right every wrong then, and somehow in infinite, wonderful, marvelous, matchless grace when he returns, I’ll inherit infinite, wonderful, marvelous, matchless blessings as his child. So I may endure a lot now but he’s coming back.

We should not expect everything to be easy and comfortable in this life, even those who do not know the Lord have struggles and trials and disappointments and, ah, they’re victims in some ways, mistreated in some ways, experience persecutions in some ways. At least we can do it knowing it all has to filter through a sovereign God who loves us enough to send his Son to die for us, and that these sufferings have a purpose. There’s profit in persevering through it and not losing your faith, faith, and not falling into ruts of anger and sinning against one another.

So they’re exhorted here, “I want you to exercise patience and endurance in this thing you’re going through.” Now he tells them, this will be my first main point, “Look around at the illustrations in the world.” Look around at the illustrations in the world. These can help you. And look what he says in verse 7, “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” Here he goes, first illustration, “The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.” I mean, the impatient better not become farmers. No crop appears overnight except weeds. I mean, there could be too much rain and your crop will rot. There can be too little rain and your crop may burn up. There can be too early of a frost and it may greatly affect the harvest. Now the Jews, they farmers, they planted in fall and they needed the early rains to soften the soil and the latter rains to, to help things spring up to maturity and they just had to wait and hope that it would all be good. But sure enough, the law of averages works out and if a farmer will keep doing what he’s supposed to do and all that he can do, he’ll reap a good harvest. Maybe not every year like he wants to but he’ll reap.

What reminded me of the dust bowl, what was that back in the 1940s? Remember the dust storms of the Southwest, Oklahoma. Basically Oklahoma blew away. And I’ll never forget watching a documentary about that. I’m a boring person. You can put on a documentary black and white about the 1940s dust bowl and I’m just stuck. I just can’t get away from it. And, ah, what actually happened was they in that region of the country it’s normally it has very little rainfall but for several years they had an usually heavy rainfall and the old prairie, ah, areas became much more fertile. And so they began to plow up the prairie grass that had long tangly roots that held the soil in place, that old sandy, dry, arid soil, they plowed it up and began to plant wheat and the first year the rains kept coming, they had an abundant wheat harvest and they were making a whole lot more money than they were raising livestock on that land. But the old timers said, “You’re making a huge mistake. This soil’s not fit for farming. It’s only fit for livestock. You need the prairie glass, grass to hold the soil in place.” They didn’t listen and the rains came again and they planted wheat again and, boom, bumper crop. And then sure enough, things turned back to normal, long, hard, dry seasons. All the crops wilted. The prairie grass was all gone and it all blew away in the winds. They should’ve been patient with what was right for the soil they lived on and done what those who’d been there for centuries had learned to do.

So when you jump to other conclusions outside of God’s will, it may work for a while, you weren’t patient, you weren’t enduring, how many people facing trial and facing difficulty or face something troubling, ah, ah, concerning if I want to live with Jesus it’s gonna cost me this and if I honor the Lord, it’s gonna cost me that, and you don’t endure and you bail out and it looks like, “Aha, this is working better,” but there may be a dry season coming and everything could blow away. Look, God has a blessing for us through a season of difficulty. Don’t lose your faith. I heard a preacher one time from the Gospel of Mark preach a sermon called “Stay in the Boat.” Have you ever heard of that sermon? You don’t jump in and swim it on your own, you stay in the boat with Jesus in the middle of these storms.

Well, the harvest you will reap, he says, will be precious and that’s what he’s pointing to. We are spiritual farmers, you see. We are on a coop with God. We’re on a mission with God down here on this earthly pilgrimage. Sometimes we have the cold season and God has to plow before he can plant the seed. Then he sends sunshine and rain to nurture the seed. But we must be patient to wait for the harvest and, of course, we’re in our season right now where we’re getting ready for our True Church Conference and, I, I, I actually text Christie and I said, “How long have we been having the True Church Conference?” She said, “Well, it’s between 11 and 14 years.” And the reason we can’t figure that out is because we had the World Impact Conference before that and then it kind of morphed into the True Church Conference so I’m not exactly sure but that means between 24 and 27 years we had together before we did a real conference to train pastors. We had to be patient and endure to that point, even though we adopted our vision statement to be a biblical church God would use a model for others right at 30 years ago. Now what if we’d given up the, thrown in the towel at year 5 or year 8 or year 15 or year 21 or whatever? Well, it’s like that in your life. “Pastor, I have this difficult marriage. It’s really hard. Pastor, I have wayward rebellious children. It’s really hard. Pastor, they let me go at work and it’s tough.” Or whatever it is. Well, God’s word to you is, “I have not forgotten you.” And just like the farmer may do everything right but the frost come early and kill half of his crop, you know what he’s gonna do? Next spring he’s gonna start over because that’s what farmers do. Well, here’s what God’s telling you, “You just get up the next morning,” and you repent of your selfishness, you repent of focusing on yourself, you repent of being concerned about the circumstances and you say, “God, here I go again to serve You today no matter what happens.” The harvest will come. The blessing will soon come.

Well, this is the secret of this kind of patience and endurance in our lives is realizing that God’s plowing and God’s sowing is his active work in our lives, and then he’s nurturing us through the troubles and the trials so that he might produce a fruit in us. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I’ve never seen a person who radiated those attributes in genuineness or with any consistency who had not walked through some fires. God produces a harvest and really a blessing.

Well, not only look around at the world, you can learn God’s ways from looking at the world, but he says very strongly, I’ve alluded to it already, “Look to the coming of the Lord. Look ahead to the coming of the Lord.” In verse 8 he says, ah, “You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is soon.” Strengthen your hearts. Focus on what God is doing. These things in your life didn’t just happen, God’s doing something.

Now the Scripture does not allow us to assign evil to God but even the devil is God’s devil. Things even Satan is able to do, God limits him and only allows him to do what God wants him to do so that you are eventually being done good, or good is brought to you and God’s glory is brought through you. So focus on what God is doing.

I got a call from a pastor in Illinois that been working with for some time. He partners th with us now and he just celebrated his 20 year and I’ve been talking to him about all those 20 years and he said, “You know what, Brother Jeff? You’ve told me over and over and over, don’t give up, don’t give up, keep going, keep being patient, keep enduring, keep doing what the Bible says,” and it just wasn’t working. Now he wasn’t gonna quit but he wanted to quit many times but he just told me, he said, “It’s like we’ve come over the bell curve now and we have the sweetest, most blessed fellowship now.” Twenty years. Of course, every pastor I work with, I tell him, “You’d better have a 20 year vision. Don’t you think you gonna get this thing turned around in three or eight. You’d better have a 20 year vision because about the time you think in year three or year eight, ‘Wow, this is going great. We got this thing done,’ wham, the dust storm will come and it’s like everything blows away again and it just devours you with discouragement.” Well, what in your life is devouring right now? You get through one challenge and you get through one trial and you get through one heartache and it’s like there’s another one. Please, child of God, remember God loves you. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what he’s doing.

Now it’s not in this text but, um, the Bible supports ask God to remove it. Say, “God, if it’d please You and glorify You, I’m asking you to remove it.” Now I wouldn’t demand him to remove it, I wouldn’t name it and claim it, but I would plead with my Lord to remove it.

I remember the story of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He had a lot of illnesses, must of them brought on by the stress of his work, but he had gout in his knee. I’ve never had gout but some people have told me it’s very painful. And one day he said he was sitting in his study and his knee was just aching, just killing him, and he said, “At one point I just was hurting so bad I cried out to God and said, ‘God, if I’m Your child and if You love me, would You remove this pain from me?'” He said, “I forgot about it but about 10-15 minutes later I realized the pain was greatly subsided.” You never know, ask the Lord about it. Cry out to the Lord but don’t lose your faith in endurance that God knows what he’s doing.

He says focus on what the Lord is doing and in Revelation 22:12 the Bible says, “Behold, I’m coming quickly and My reward is with Me.” No wonder he brings up the Lord’s return three times in this. Now the reward of the Lord when he returns is a two-sided coin. When he returns, he’s coming with wonderful blessings for his children. Look, when we get with Christ and finally we’re purged of our old, fallen, unredeemed nature, the pleasures we will enjoy in God’s presence will be if you wrapped all the pleasures of all people of all time together, all of that pleasure would not measure up to one second of pleasure when we see Jesus. He loves you so deeply he is going to immerse you in glorious pleasure when you see him. So he says, “Child of God, look this but just a little passing shadow.” Matter of fact, the Bible says your life’s a mere breath. It’s over. But you have eternal joys in Jesus Christ just around the corner. Hang in there for Jesus.

And then obviously they’re beginning to, shall I say it this way, get on one another’s nerves. “Do not complain,” verse 9, ” Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.” Ah, the scholars tell us the word “complain” there means “a murmuring and a grumbling.” Have you ever met somebody that didn’t respond right to a trial that came their way and they get bitter and they become sort of [murmuring]? Is that a word? Just kind of a…that’s what this means, just kind of a groaning, just kind of irritable, snap at you a little bit. Well, shall, shall we just all admit we’re all prone to some of that? Some of us have natural dispositions to kind of give into that more than others. Some of you seem to be born that way. But we all can get that way and what he’s saying is, “Don’t do it. Your external circumstance is feeding that and fuel that but don’t do it. Know that though you’re suffering like you’re suffering the Lord has a purpose. His reward is with Him. He’s coming quickly and don’t bite and devour one another.” That’s what, ah, Galatians 5:15 reminds us, “But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another.” Thomas Manton, the Puritan, said, “Fretting against God maketh angry, maketh us angry with men.” Let me say that again, “Fretting against God maketh us angry with men.”

Probably the tensions in the church. Now I would guess, ah, and others agree with me here, that there’s a lot of tension between Jew and non-Jew within the confessing church at this point. When things get tough and when things get hard and you’re stressed and the difficulties are mounting, ah, the, the prejudices begin to arise that maybe were not arising before. So there was some grumbling and some groaning and some complaining one against the other. Somebody said if we start turning the sickles on each other, we will miss the harvest. We can become lambs that act like wolves.

He says something interesting, “Don’t do that. Don’t start treating each other that way because if you do, you’ll be judged.” I don’t know exactly what that means but is it not the same as Matthew 7:1, “Judge not lest you be judged”? Now this means that when you put yourself up as an elitist and you based on your own authority condemn or judge someone else, not on the, God’s authority, the word, but on your authority you judge someone, you’re acting like someone who’s not God’s. You don’t have the humility and the devotion to God’s truth that a child of God would have so you’re putting yourself in a category of those who will be judged. Or another thought is it maybe he’s saying you’re gonna be judged in the sense of punishment, that as you complain and groan against one another and you’re all in the flesh, you’re consuming one another and that is your discipline or your punishment. It’s like the two snakes that grabs each other’s tails and swallowed themselves, and that’s kinda what he’s talking about here.

Then he says in verse 9b, “the Judge is standing right at the door.” The nearness of our Lord and Savior who is the Judge should provoke us to duty like the classroom of children awaiting the immediate return of their teacher. Just think how different it would be if we really thought Christ’s return is just around the corner. It would just make the things that trouble us so much less vital and penetrating to our hearts. In ancient days, you certainly didn’t strike anyone in the king’s presence and that’s what he’s saying here. Remind yourself that the next event on God’s calendar is the rapture of the church and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Remember today if you’re ready to sin, God’s ready to judge. He’s coming soon. Don’t let these trials be a pressure to put you in sin.

Then he says look behind to those who persevered before you. Look behind to those who persevered before you. Look at verse 10, “As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. And you’ve heard of the endurance of Job and you’ve seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.” They didn’t compromise. They walked on with the Lord. They understood the righteous would suffer. 2 Timothy 3:12 says all that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Think about Elijah, he prayed it wouldn’t rain for 3 ½ years but he did have to endure the drought himself too, but God met his needs. Jeremiah was accused by, by professing believers as a traitor. He was thrown in an abandoned cistern and left to die, but God met his needs. Daniel was thrown into a lions’ den but God protected him and he became an agent to bring revival to a pagan Babylonian kingdom. Moses spends 40 years in the Midian desert but God took care of him. He used him as a great deliverer. Joseph had to journey through the Egyptian dungeon before he came to the Egyptian throne. He endured through the suffering. Some of these never saw reward on earth. Many did but some did not, but it will all be worth it when we see Jesus.

Matter of fact, in verse 11 what does he say? “We count those blessed,” or blessed, “who endured.” There is a blessing. You know, the world is miserable in their happiness but we are happy in our misery. To persevere, one has to face trials. I remember a young preacher telling an older preacher one time, said, “Man, I wished I had your wisdom.” He said, “You want to go through what I’ve gone through to get this wisdom?” It is a blessed thing to get through it. You’ve got to understand that a sovereign God that loves you has your good in mind as you face disappointments and as you face trials. Paul saw the third heaven but God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep himself from exalting himself. Remember there are no victories without battles and no peaks, ah, without, ah, without valleys. God balances the privileges with the responsibilities. God balances the blessings with the burdens. He does not want us to be spoiled pampered children.

And then lastly he ends with the example of Job. Just some notes and thoughts about Job. Think about Job again. Notice that Job, there were blessings after he endured. Job lost his family except for his wife. He lost his wealth. He lost his health. Job endured the false accusations of his friends and, boy, that’s tough part of it. That’s tough when those you thought would stand with you actually stand against you. God humbled Job and then God honored Job. Job did not know the behind-the-scenes arrangement between God and Satan. It’s difficult to find a greater example of suffering. The circumstances were against him, his wife was against him. He lost his wealth, his health, his children. His friends turned against him and it seemed like God was against him because he cried to heaven at times and he heard no answer but he never lost his faith.

Matter of fact, um, look over at Job real quick, Job 13:15. Would you do that? Job 13 and look at verse 15. Now I’m not saying Job lived at this point the whole way through, but he fought to this point and he got to this point and that’s what he’s saying. “Strengthen your hearts,” James tells the church he’s writing to. Job 13:15, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.” Wow. “Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him. God, I know this is coming through You but my hope is still You.” The Lord is so full of compassion and mercy. Job was a righteous man but he suffered and Job teaches us that God has a higher purpose for suffering than just the punishment of sin. Now suffering does help cleanse us but it’s bigger than even that. He has more in store for us than that.

In verse, ah, 11b back in our original text in James, James said, “the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” Matter of fact, go to the end of Job and we’re done, Job 42, if you will. Job 42 and look at the end result of Job going through these terrible ordeals of suffering and James says this outta encourage us. Job 42:12, “The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys. He had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first Jemimah, and the second Keziah, and the third Keren- happuch. And in all the land no women were found so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers. After this, Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations. And Job died, an old man and full of days.” Could it be, child of God, that more of us are not seeing rich blessings in our latter days because we didn’t endure through the middle days? We bailed out on God. We lost our faith. I’m not saying you lose, you lost your salvation but you may have lost some of the blessing you were supposed to get and I’m telling you, there’s nothing worse than getting to my age or a little older and think about retirement or whatever you think about, and I don’t plan to retire, I might slow down a little but I don’t plan to retire, and you get to that point and you finally got stuff, there’s a pretty good retirement account, whatever it is, but the stuff you have is not blessed of God. It came at a cost of godliness and righteousness. There was compromise to get there. Don’t do that. That’s what James is saying don’t do. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t cut the corners. Don’t compromise. Don’t lose your ethics. Don’t lose your convictions and values to try to gain a better place in this life. Look at Job. Just stay with God and he can bring blessings you know not of.

Job 42:1, look at that one, “Then Job answered the LORD and said, ‘I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have declared that I did not understand, These things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.” Job says, “I learned something through this trial. I see You.” And I think what he means there is, “I see and understand Your ways now. I see what You are accomplishing now.”

So Job was purified through the trial, God was glorified, but we have to understand that when we go through the trial, God faithfully keeps his hand on the thermostat. God may permit Satan to try his children but he limits Satan’s influence. Satan wants us to get impatient, Satan wants us to get fearful and resort to the flesh. Oh, be mindful, child of God, that an impatient Christian is a powerful tool in the devil’s hands. Endurance through the trials builds character and brings blessings.

Job begins the book by saying, “Count it all joy when you encounter various trials.” He begins to end the book by saying, “Endure and persevere. God’ll see you through it. He knows what He’s doing. He has blessings for you coming.”