Twice as Much

The speaker talks about the story of Job and Divine Restoration. Job was a righteous and wealthy man who lost everything due to Satan's attack. Despite his suffering, Job remained righteous and did not curse God. Eventually, God restored Job's losses and blessed him with even more than he had before. The speaker highlights the importance of humility and the need to recognize that our righteousness comes from God's grace. They also discuss the return of Job's friends and acquaintances after his restoration, questioning their absence during his time of affliction. The speaker emphasizes the need for humility and forgiveness in accepting those who have betrayed us in the past. They conclude by stating that humility is key to restoration and that everything we have and are belongs to God. Praise the Lord! People of God, praise the Lord! It's another glorious Sunday. It's a little rainy this Sunday, but as usual, as always, we are happy and delighted to bring God's Word to God's people. Today we are going to talk about Divine Restoration. Divine Restoration and the subject for my message this evening is Twice As Much. I have titled our discussion for this evening, Twice As Much. Our story comes from the book of Job. We are going to examine the life of Job and we are going to learn a few things about Divine Restoration by the experience of the man Job. Our text for this evening's conversation comes from the book of Job, chapter 42, verses 1 to 14. That's Job 42, verses 1 to 14. I am reading tonight from the New King James Version, starting at verse 1. The Bible says, Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do everything, and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak. You said, I will question you, and you shall answer me. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Verse 7, the Bible says, And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Verse 9, So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Namasite, went and did as the Lord commanded them, for the Lord had accepted Job. Verse 10, And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Verse 11, Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him, and ate food with him in his house. And they consoled him, and they comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. Each one gave him a piece of silver, and each a ring of gold. Verse 12, Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. Verse 13, He also had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemima, the name of the second Keziah, the name of the third Karenhapok. That's where we stop for this evening's meeting. This is a very interesting story. This is the story of Job, a righteous man, a wealthy and righteous man, who loved God with every inch of his heart. He was dedicating his time, his money, his family. In Job's life, God was first in everything. He was blameless. The Bible says he was blameless. He was blameless. Not only was he blameless, he ensured that his children were blameless. And so the Bible says that he made offerings for his children because he said perhaps his children may have sinned against God. And so to ensure that his children were also blameless, he made sure to make sacrifices, to cover his children, cover his children, so that his house and himself were blameless before the Lord. As we do, believing Christians, when we plead the blood of Jesus over ourselves, over our children, over our household, asking for mercy, not only for ourselves, but for our children, our household and all that we have, we are sure to cover ourselves by the blood of Jesus so that before God, we also are blameless. When he looks down and he looks at our lives, he sees not us, but he sees the blood because the blood of Jesus is our righteousness. So the Bible says that Job was blameless. Job was a stand-up guy. And Job ensured to cover his children and his household. So God was very proud of Job. God was proud and God made a boast of Job. The Bible said that God said to Satan, because Satan was going up and down, the Bible said when the sons of God gathered, Satan was in the midst of them. And God made a boast to Satan and God said, Have you seen my servant Job? A man so righteous, so upright, I am so proud of Job. And Satan says to God, Well, he will be upright. He will be righteous. You have formed a formidable hedge around him and around everything he has. You protect him. You preserve him. You watch over his children. He lacks for nothing. He is prosperous. He will be righteous. He will be pious. Anybody can do that. And so God gives Satan permission to attack Job. And Satan gets busy. Satan gets busy. And by the time Satan is done with Job, Job loses everything. Loses all his possessions. Loses his honor, his dignity, his health. Every single child. Every single sheep. Everything that made him what he was, he lost because Satan got busy. The only thing he was able to keep was his life. God didn't give permission to Satan to take his life. But God said, Go ahead. Do your worst. Do your worst. I know who I have. I know Job. But you don't know Job. But you need to know who he is. Go ahead and test Job. Test him with everything. But don't take his life. Because his life is hid in the palm of my hand. And Satan got busy. And so in this affliction, Job did all he could to stay righteous. And he did stay righteous because the Bible says he never cursed God. He lost everything. He lost his family, his children, his sons and his daughters. He lost his money. He lost his health. He never cursed God. He never cursed God. But what did happen was that because he was able to still be righteous, he became self-righteous. He became self-righteous. He forgot now that the strength to be righteous, even that comes from God. Job became self-righteous. And we find in the Bible that his friends, his three friends, they could tell that Job was being self-righteous. And they called him upon his self-righteousness. They called him upon his self-righteousness. They could see that Job was trying to ascribe to himself the ability not to curse God as of his own doing. His friends recognized that even that was a gift from God. But Job didn't see it that way until the Lord speaks to Job. Because you see, Job had been all self-righteous. His friends had been condemning him and judging him. Why? Because you know when a man is down, everybody, he's easy game, easy target. People who can't look you in the eye normally, when you're down, not only do they look you in the eye, they look down on you. Some will even trample on you. That's what happened to Job because when Job was in his elements, these guys couldn't look him in the eye. But when he fell, they could talk to him. Even younger men, he had now fallen from grace and he was now fair game. And so God is silent while all of this is happening, while Job is being self-righteous, while his friends are condemning him and making wrong judgments, wrong calls as to why what's happening to Job is happening to Job. They're blaming Job and they're, you know, because maybe now this is an opportunity for them to say things to Job they couldn't say before, so now they are speaking their minds, telling Job that Job brought the affliction on himself. And God is silent. God doesn't speak until the 38th chapter. God never speaks to Job until the 38th chapter. And by the time God revealed to Job how limited Job's knowledge was, Job is amazed. Job is amazed. Job sees himself really for the very first time. He sees that even as righteous as he thought he was, he really wasn't righteous. It was just grace. Job sees for the very first time that the fact that he didn't curse God was of God himself. It was God who gave him grace to stand and it wasn't of himself, it wasn't of his own righteousness. And that's why we find Job in our text, in verse 3 of Job 42, we find Job saying, I have uttered what I do not understand. Things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Because, you see, when God revealed himself to man, instantly we see our wretchedness, we see our inadequacy, we see that our righteousness is like filthy rags. And so Job owned his role in the predicament, in his affliction. Job owned his role. He was immediately humble enough to admit his error and to course correct. He had the humility and enough self-awareness to see that his righteousness, what he thought was of himself, self-righteousness, was as filthy rags. And that only God, God alone, he is righteous. God alone is righteous. As long as we are in the flesh, there is none righteous. None. Have you ever seen some self-righteous believers? Some because they can pray, and they have some spiritual power, they have some level of anointing. When they pray, God answers, and God is protective of them, God preserves them and their families and keeps them out of trouble, they begin to think it's about them. They begin to think it's about how powerful and anointed they are, and they become self-righteous. They become puffed up. They become proud. But it's not so. It's grace. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory. It's grace. The Christian walk for the believer is grace. We are all, every single one of us, we are all one sin away. One sin away from destruction. But for God, it's God's grace. We have all fallen short of the glory. The Bible says, it's not of him who willeth, nor of him who runneth, but of God who shows mercy. It's grace. As it was for Job, so it is for us even now. Even today, the Christian walk is by grace. We see that Job, in our text, has the humility to recognize his frailties, to recognize where he went wrong, and to repent. And once he does this, God begins to honor him. God begins to instruct him. God begins to direct him to the path of restoration. Even his wife, his wife told him, curse God and die. But he refused to do it, just by God's grace. He refused. And because he was able to survive, he was able to stand, and he was able to weather the affliction, and he was able to receive correction from God, God began to open up to him the blueprint for the next level, the strategy for divine reconciliation. God tells him what to do. God tells him, in verse 7, God begins to speak to Job about the next step. God has asked Job to pray for his friends. Now these are the same friends who, when Job was down, they condemned him, they judged him. They were totally wrong, even though, to them, they were speaking for God. To them, they felt they were right, they were on God's side. But the Bible says, in verse 7, that God was displeased with them. The Bible says, and so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz, so the Lord judged them. These are the three friends now, who were actually, to them in their own minds, they were on God's side against Job. But they were wrong, and God was angry with them. So the Lord speaks to them, and he tells them, my wrath is aroused against you and your two friends. And God tells them to take for themselves seven bulls, seven rams, and go to Job, and offer up for themselves burnt offerings. And my servant Job, this is God speaking of Job now, can you imagine, these three guys were fighting Job for God, and God is judging them, and asking them to go to Job to go get prayed for. Otherwise, he would judge them, he would deal with them. Isn't it funny, sometimes, we think we're fighting for God, but we're actually doing the wrong thing. We think we're so zealous for God, and we begin to judge people, we begin to judge situations, we don't have the full picture. We don't even know what's going on. Only God knows what's going on. Why? Because we're in the flesh, we're human beings. The Bible says we know in part, we see in part, we prophesy in part. We don't even know. And that's why we must never judge. Judgment is for God, and God alone. We must never judge, we shouldn't judge, because we could be wrong. So Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zohar the Namatite, went and did as the Lord commanded for them to do. This is verse 9. So they go to Job with the seven bulls, and they go and ask forgiveness for Job. And the Bible says Job prays for them. Job, in his humility, Job goes ahead to pray for them. Job obeys God, and he humbly prays for his friends. And God restored Job twice as much as he had before. That's in verses 10 and 11. Now, this is what I find really interesting. I find this really interesting. I am in verse 11. In verse 11, from verse 11, the Bible says, Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him, ate his food in his house, and then they consoled him, and comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. My question is this. Where were they before? All his sisters, all his brothers, all his acquaintances, where were they when Job was in affliction? Where were they? All, they came to his house. Now that he was restored, they came all to his house to eat his food. When Job needed them the most when he was languishing in affliction, where were his brothers, sisters, and his acquaintances? The Bible said all those who had been his acquaintances before. That suggests to me that they deserted him in the day of trouble. They vanished. And so when the news got to them that all was now well with Job, Job is now restored, Job is no longer sick, Job is no longer poor, Job is now back on the up and up, they show up. They returned without shame to eat his food in his house. But when he needed them the most, they abandoned him. Isn't that like people? Is that not like people? You see, success has many, many friends. Failure has a few, if any. When you're doing good, you'll have lots of family, lots of friends. Once you begin to fail, everybody runs away. I remember the story of a podcaster, his name is Rich Roll. Rich Roll is a lawyer, well he was a lawyer, he's a trained lawyer, but now he's a podcaster and he's a motivational speaker and he's a thought leader in the U.S. So Rich Roll tells the story of his failure. He tells the story of how he hit rock bottom. I mean, he failed. At one point in his life, he failed so bad that his first wife abandoned him on their honeymoon. And his friends left his life one by one by one. One after the other, they all left. And so at some point, he had to look himself in the mirror. He had to tell himself the truth. He had to tell himself the truth because now everybody was gone. There was no one now to tell him, look Rich, things need to change. So he had to encourage himself. He was humble enough to say to himself, I need to make a change. I need to change my life. And he did. And today, he's one of the best podcasters in the world. And because he's now obviously remarried, has a wonderful supportive wife, he has children, he's in his 50s now. But he failed so bad that everybody left his life. But he tells the story of how when he went into rehab because he was an alcoholic, I mean, everything was wrong. So he went into rehab, he cleaned himself up, he got his life together, and everybody came back. Even his parents had to leave his life at that point because they realized they were enabling him. They said to him, look son, we need to cut you off at this point. You need to go and get yourself straight. Once you're clean and you get your life back, we'll always be here for you. So even his parents left his life. But when he got himself together, everybody came back. Just like Job. Because the Bible says that when Job was restored, everybody came back. And yet when they came back, Job accepted them. Job didn't say, oh, you know, where were you when I needed you? I'm sorry now, you know. So Job accepted them. And the Bible says that they came back, but they didn't come back empty-handed. They didn't come back empty-handed. They each brought with them a piece of silver and a piece of gold. And this they gave to him. But the question is though, that means when Job lost everything, they had this piece of silver and this piece of gold, but they didn't give it to Job at that time. They only gave this piece of silver to Job when he was restored. When he lost everything, that would have been a good time to give Job all this silver and all this gold. They didn't give it to him then. They gave it to him when he was restored. But you see, that is all God's plan. It was God's grand plan, part of God's grand plan to restore Job, to have all these people bring to Job what they already had. It was all God's plan. And so humility is key to restoration. I'm speaking now to someone who's listening to me. Maybe you've been through a really rough patch and people betrayed you, even your own family left you. They left you for dead. Maybe some spouse who should have been your best friend left you for dead. And God came and picked you up and cleaned you up and restored you. And now you're having trouble forgiving. You're having trouble accepting back in your life people who betrayed you. You need to be like Job. You need to accept them back. Accept them back with understanding, with wisdom, because not everybody who left deserves to come back. Not everyone who leaves your life deserves to be back in your life. Forgiveness isn't necessarily reconciliation, but in some cases it is. So we need discernment. We need light to be able to know what to do, to be able to know who to let back in our space, because everyone who leaves isn't meant to come back. For some people, sometimes when there is affliction, sometimes it's God's way of shaking out of our lives people and things that didn't belong there in the first place. But humility is key to restoration. Humility to assess our human frailty, the humility to look at ourselves like Job did and see that we're not who we think we are. We feel that we are actually really righteous, but we're not. Many of us who are even doing well, we have been doing well so long and we're so used to doing well, we think now that it's about us. We don't need God to test us and correct us by allowing the enemy to take away our provision in order for us to come to the place of realization that it's all grace. We need to be humble right now, right here, and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and acknowledge the sovereignty of almighty God. We need to have humility in our daily dealings with God. We need to come to that place of realization that everything belongs to God. Everything belongs to God. Everything we will ever have, everything we will ever be, belongs to God. We need to come to the place of realization that Jesus Christ is Lord of everything and that Jesus Christ is alive and present in our lives. It takes humility to submit to the authority of Jesus Christ, especially if you're very successful. Because if you're very successful, you're used to being successful on your own terms. You're used to being successful doing things in your own strength. Sometimes when we start working and we don't know how to do what we're doing as believers, we're so dependent on God and we're really trusting God to teach us to excel, especially if our work is depending heavily on results. For example, if you're a lawyer and you need to be a good lawyer, for example, you're a trial attorney and you need to be good at what you do because if you're in open court, you have to be good. Otherwise, you won't practice law for a very long time. And so often the believer, when we begin working, begin our careers, we're learning, we're very dependent on Christ, on God, because we don't know, we don't have the knowledge. But when we begin to learn and we begin to be experienced in the field, we might begin to think now that we don't even need Christ that much. And so we go boldly to do what we do, which is a good thing because in everything we can't do anything without confidence. We need confidence and we have to be of the mindset that we can do what we do and do it well. But there is a thin line between confidence and pride. And once that line gets crossed, that's when you're inviting Christ now to let you know who gives you strength to do what you do. As a business person, you're so successful in your business and you work very hard and now you're very confident in what you do. You're successful and then you forget how you got to be this good, how you got to be this successful. You forget how you're inviting God to remind you. You're inviting Jesus to remind you. And how do you know you're proud? How do you know that confidence is crossing the line now into pride? I'll tell you how. When you go into your office, you don't acknowledge the presence of Christ in your place of business. In your house, you don't acknowledge the presence of Christ in your business. For example, your lawyer, you don't acknowledge that Christ is with you. He said, Lord, I am with you always, even to the ends of the age. Meaning that everywhere you go as a believer, Christ is with you. You don't see him with your eyes, but he sees you. And so, pride in the life of the believer is refusing to acknowledge the presence, the manifest presence of Christ in your everyday dealings. So you are the one who is going to go to church and continue working on your phone in church because you are so busy now. Because you are so successful now. Because your clients are on the other side of the phone. You don't realize that Christ is in church. He's there with you. His presence is there with you. You have now forgotten who is boss. You are in church. Christ is there. And his manifest there. But you are on your phone in his presence, in his sanctuary. You are in your office and everything is my, I, me. You are powerful. You are powerful. You are powerful. You are trying to invite Christ to remind you of how you got to where you got to in the first place. We must be humble. We must be humble before God and our behavior must reflect this humility. True humility. Knowing that everything that we are is from God. We must hallow the presence of Christ in our homes, in our businesses, in our sanctuaries, in our churches. Why? Because he is present. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. And don't be self-righteous. Don't be full of yourself. Be aware that there is a higher authority above you who gives you the grace to do these things. Just like Job had to realize that the grace to be, to stand strong and not curse God came even from God. Job had to learn that lesson. We also have to be aware of this. That all grace is from God. Do you believe that when you pray only God can answer prayer? Regardless how eloquent you are when you pray. Regardless how many scripture verses you know. Regardless what happens when you pray. Realize that when you pray you are only doing what? Praying. You are not answering your own prayer. You are only praying. It is grace. It is grace that answers prayer. By the mercy of God prayers are answered. When we forget these things and become proudful. Become self-righteous and self-dependent. We are inviting God to remind us of what we are. To remind us that we are only flesh. We are inviting God to allow Satan access to test us. So that we can remember only God has power to answer prayer. Only God has power to restore. Only God is sovereign. He is God. We must always remember to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. So that we don't allow room for judgment. And if ever it happens that we suffer affliction. Because it can happen. The Bible doesn't say Job was afflicted because of any wrong doing. In fact he was upright. He was a pious man. But he suffered affliction in the end. He was restored. God restored him. If ever we suffer because we will suffer. From time to time we will be afflicted. God has the power to restore. We must just remember to hold on to God in the place of prayer. And be ever mindful to be humble before God. So I encourage everyone including myself. To humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. And acknowledge that we can't carry our own burdens. We must always lay our burdens down for Christ. Because he is actually waiting on us to do that. That's God's job. That's the job of Christ. To carry our burdens. He died to carry our burdens. So we must learn to let go. Let go. Let go of all the people who have hurt you. Everyone who judged you when you were down. Everyone who condemned you. Everyone who abandoned you and left your life. Leave them. Let them go. I mean forgive. I know it's hard sometimes. Because when you remember, when you cast your mind back. It's hard sometimes to let go and forgive them. But you know you do yourself more disservice and more harm. When you don't let go. You have to do it. And then when you let go pray for them. Pray for them. You don't have to go looking for them to pray for. Pray for them in your house. Release them in your mind. Release them in your heart and pray. Pray for them. And watch God restore to you the years that the locust ate. The years that the canker worm ate. The years that the emptiers emptied out. You just watch God restore you twice as much as you had before. And then watch them come back. Everyone who left. Watch them come back. They will come back. They always do. And when they do come back. Let them in. Like I said before. Let them in with understanding. Let them in with wisdom. Ask God to let you know who should come in and who should stay out. Be wise. But be open. Be loving. Amen. Hallelujah. In Jesus name. Well it's been a wonderful evening as always. But at this point I really want to just talk to someone who is listening. And you are saying. Well you know I like what you said. I understand what you said. But who is this Christ? Who is this Jesus? I don't know about this Jesus. Well Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of the Living God. Jesus died. He gave his life on Calvary's cross. So that we can live. If we would believe. If we would give our life to him. Jesus is on hand. To save us. To help us. To win. And be victorious in this life. And so I want to invite you to say a very simple prayer. And to give Jesus the opportunity to come into your heart. And to show you what life is like in Christ. So if you would just repeat after me. And say Lord Jesus. I thank you. For your finished work on Calvary's cross. I thank you. For your love. And I thank you. That you are on hand to help me. To live a better life. I declare now that you are Lord. And I invite you to come and be Lord over my life. In Jesus name. Amen. So brothers and sisters. Again I thank you for listening. We look forward to next Sunday. And trust God to bring us. Light. To bring us a fresh word. To transform us. In Jesus name. So we'll just close with a short prayer. In Jesus name. Father we thank you. We worship you. We honor you. We ask for your help tonight. To help us to be humble. To help us to forgive. And we ask that you will restore. Bring restoration. In every area of our life. Where we need restoration. We thank you for all you do. We believe in you. In Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening. See you next time. Bye.