Untitled Sermon

"GOLD IN THE MAKING"

This statement comes from the mouth of Job. Earlier his friends had been talking, in earlier chapters they had expressed themselves. Now in Chapter 10, Job speaks for himself.

It is evident to me that Job has a clear and right perspective on his circumstances. Based upon the statement Job makes, I am sure that Job is thinking with a sober mind and he has looked deep into the midst of his own agony.

Job seems to say, I'm going through some things at the moment that I wish I didn't have to go through, but it's all working together for my good because when He has finished trying me, when God has finished testing me, I shall emerge from this crisis and I'm coming out different than I was when I went in.

I'm coming out as gold.

That's what we are! We're gold in the making.

God knows just what we need in our lives to get us to the final product that he desires.

It is my desire to be more than just bronze. It is my desire to be more than just silver. I desire to be the best that I can be for the Lord. I desire to be gold.

Gold has always been that mineral of value and of great value. Gold has always been that substance that has been highly acclaimed and greatly sought after.

Its value is deemed precious and great. Everybody in their right mind wants some gold! None of us, if given the opportunity to come by gold in an honest fashion, would tum it down.

Many of us would jump at the opportunity to get our hands on some gold.

Scripture informs us that even in the days of biblical characters, there were those who knew and highly prized this thing called gold. Scripture informs us that Job is speaking. He’s been speaking since the start of Chapter 23. We are not strangers to Job.

We know that Job is a man fully acquainted with suffering, a man fully acquainted with sorrow, a man who had spent time in the zone of agony, a man who had been under the weight of pain, affliction, of grief, a man who had experienced the loss of much….that was valuable.

His name has become synonymous with suffering. Very few have suffered like Job.

Very few have experienced the multiple problems and disasters and misfortunes as was the case of Job.

He has been visited by friends and they have all given their appraisal of his situation. They have all talked about him in an adverse fashion.

I have to give the friends of Job, some credit. You know some friends…will only talk about you. But I give these friends this credit….all of the adverse things that they said, they at least said them to him.

Job was greatly wounded by the harsh things that his friends had said.

For they had misevaluated Job's suffering. It's easy to misappraise and to misevaluate suffering.

They had said to Job, "Anybody going through as much as you're going through has evidently made God angry. You have aroused the wrath of God and you have brought upon you the anger and fiery of God.

They had misevaluated Job's suffering. Not everybody who is going through a time of suffering is suffering because they have made God angry.

Job had not angered God. For he had been appraised by God as a perfect and upright man. But now after having heard from his friends, Job speaks.

And he wants to give them the “straight” of his situation. He's been in this situation for a good while and he's been doing some serious thinking about his situation.

You know when you are a child of God and you encounter the difficult times of life, God will allow you to look deeply into your circumstances and God will enable and allow you to acquire an understanding of why you're going through what you're going through.

Job would be recognized as a sign, later by men from that day on as a pillar, as a pillar of the godly movement. He would be appraised and acclaimed as a man close to God, as a seasoned soldier, as a seasoned saint.

Now if you’re going to become a seasoned saint, it comes with a price!

If you're going to become a seasoned soldier in the army of the Lord, it comes at a great expense.

Nobody, ends up highly appraised by God and man….if they didn't go through something.

Abraham, labeled as father of the faithful, but look what he went through to be given that title.

He had to leave from a place, that he was doing well in and go to an unknown land, a land that God would later show him. And then he was tested and tried along the way.

He was greatly tested when he was called upon to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering and as a sacrifice to God.

My brothers and sisters, seasoned saints, are tested and tried.

The Apostle Paul, had to endure. We sing his praises even now.

Paul, scripture tells us was in some instances….beaten and left for dead and on one occasion, shipwrecked, snake bitten, locked up in prisons for no true reason, for no justifiable cause.

He was the victim of persecution. He was the victim of great distress. And, finally his head was chopped off in Rome when he went before Nero.

It cost to become a seasoned soldier. But all those who will endure hardness as a good soldier will come out like gold!

I stopped by this morning to tell you…..God sometimes suffers it to be….that in all of His children's lives, suffering comes.

He did not even exempt His own son from suffering.

And, perhaps someone is here, this morning.

Who's in a season of suffering or in a period of pain.

And, you’re wondering…..why things are victimized seemingly from side to side and sometimes we wonder, "Why is all of this happening to me!"

My brothers and sisters, you're just a member of an ancient club. You're just part of a long-standing society. Everybody who walks up the King's highway goes through something. Can I get a witness?

Scripture tells us many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them out of them all.

We go through the problems, the hardships, the distresses of life and the pressures of life because God is developing us and making us better.

For you and I to become better, we got to be hit with some stuff that sometimes hurts us to our hearts and causes tears to flow from our eyes.

I think I ought to tell you that often the enemy, as was the case with Job, is at work. When you're being victimized by lies, that's the enemy!

When you're being persecuted without any right cause, that's the enemy.

Oh brothers and sisters, when traps are being set for you, ditches are being dug for you and harsh, cruel things are being done to you, that's the work of the enemy.

But I thought I would share this, God allows the enemy sometimes to move in, but God stands close by because all of that that the enemy meant for evil, God uses it to work for our good!

God specializes in taking a wicked situation that was meant to destroy you and use it to perfect you!

The enemy puts a stumbling block in the way.

Then he puts another stumbling block in your way.

Then he puts a third stumbling block in your way!

And then God takes the stumbling blocks that the enemy desired to use to block you and hinder your progress and God stacks those stumbling blocks on top of each other and turns them into stepping stones….so you/we can climb higher than we ever were before.

Job here speaks out and he says in essence, "I've heard the harsh things said by my friends, Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz, you've all had some mean things to say but I want to just report that I've got this thing clear".

And when you understand that what Paul said in Romans 8:28 is true and when you live your life standing on the foundation of God's word that all things, all things…..EVERYTHING, is working together for the good of them who love the Lord, and who are called according to His purpose.

It's working, it's working! For my good!

Even though I'm hurt sometimes, it's making me better! It's working for my good!

The report is Job speaks out and says here that, "The Lord knoweth the way that I take". In other words, "Bildad, Zophar, Eliphaz, you all don't know. You've got a lot to say but in reality you don't know.

You don't know the purpose behind my difficulty.

You don't know the purpose and the designed plan behind my affliction. You don't know."

But, I can hear him saying, "The Lord knoweth the way that I take".

That's one of the things that comforts me greatly is that I don't have to convince God of anything…..he already knows!

I don't have to convince Him that my heart was in the right place, that my intentions were good even though they were misinterpreted, and misunderstood…..God already knows!

Job says, "He knows the way that I take." He's aware of who I am, He's cognizant of who I am. He knows.

My brothers and sisters, leave here this morning comforted by the fact that when you have done your best, when you have given your best in the Master's service, the LORD ALREADY KNOWS.

He says, "This stuff that I'm dealing with; I've lost all my livestock, cattle and oxen, camels are gone.

All ten of my children are gone and now my health is gone.

And now my wife is acting kind of cold towards me, but he knows." He says, "And now you've come with some harsh things, highly critical things to say.

But I want you to understand all of this that I've gone through and that I am still dealing with is just adding up to this; it's only a test! I'm being tried!

I'm now being pressed by suffering and hardship, distress and difficulty and under pressure, a whole lot of things are perfected and developed under pressure."

But I want you to know that when He has finished trying me, when He has finished with this testing situation,

When he has finished, healing me.

When he has finished giving me another job…since I lot laid off from the first one.

When he has finished making a way out of no way…….I shall come forth."

He speaks with absolute certainty. "I shall" is not the terminology of a doubting person. "I shall" comes from someone with confidence, with faith, somebody who knows what the outcome is going to be.

"I shall come forth as gold."

You know gold, before it becomes gold that is acceptable, gold that is true of greatly value, precious gold, it must become pure gold.

Gold that is made pure gold.

I've come to discover first comes out with a lot of impurities, it comes out with a lot of things wrong with it.

It comes out with a lot of things that defacing and defiling.

It's true beauty cannot be realized because of the things wrong with it. Can I get a witness?

And so when the gold is taken, it is taken to men who are experts and that gold is put into a furnace of fire.

A fire, to keep on raising the temperature, keep on raising the heat.

It becomes hotter and hotter and hotter.

The gold is inside….where the heat is …..but in the process of undergoing the heat, the impurities and the imperfections start dropping off. Can I get a witness here?

(Closing)

There is value in going through the fire.

In that furnace, those things that deface it and those things that defile it's beauty, fall off.

That's all that God is doing for us and that's all that God was doing for Job.

When we run into a difficulty time, sometimes we end up in some hot circumstances.

Sometimes we end up in some hot situations.

In the furnace…..in there it's uncomfortable, in there we're uneasy.

In there it's painful and distressing, and it's frustrating.

But in that furnace God is perfecting you and he’s perfecting me.

When we come out of the furnace of hardship, of the furnace of heartache, of the furnace of pain and difficulty, we come out different.

We went in with some stuff on us!

Went in, with some problems in our character.

But when we came out, we come out with a twinkle, we come out with a glimmer, we come out shining, because pure gold always shines.

The Lord wants you to shine.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father which is heaven!

All the Lord is doing, yes, is causing us to shine.

"When He has tried me", that means when He has finished doing with me what he 's got to do.

Some of us want to jump out too quick…..but you stay in there until God is finished.

"When He's finished, I'll come forth, as gold!

You know…every so many years I watch the Olympics and looked at the Olympic games and as I watched the various athletes compete, when the competition was all over.

There was a winner.

Third place didn't get the gold, third place got the bronze.

Second place didn’t get the gold, second place got the silver.

But first place got gold!

God is getting us ready for the gold medal?

God is not through with me yet!" For when God gets through with me, I shall come forth, I shall come forth as pure gold.

"Sometimes, my burdens get heavy

Sometimes talked about

Sometimes lied on

Sometimes my way get so dark

"When He has tried me"

"When He's finished, I'll come forth, as gold!

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy, I said joy, cometh in the morning.

Hold on! Hold on! He'll fix it.

He started fixing it…over 2000 years ago.

When he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

He went around doing nothing but good.

He made the lame walk

He made the dumb talk

They accused him of evil

They beat him

They spit on him

They took from judgement hall to judgement hall

Pilate said, “I wash my hands of him”…I can’t find no fault in him

But they took him up a hill called Cavalry

Hung him high and stretched him wide

And he died.

The sickness is gone, the boils have left. He's got more children than he ever had. He's got more riches than he ever had. Got more livestock than he ever had!