TITLE: How to Handle Tough Times (1 of 4)

TEXT: Job 7:4-7
PROPOSITION: Each life will have some tough times.
QUESTION: How?
KEY WORD: Responses
SCRIPTURE READING: Same

INTRODUCTION:

1. I began to prepare one sermon on Job.

2. I started to study – I learned too much.

3. I could not get it down into one sermon.

4. 4 sermons this month – are about Job.

5. I am leaving out many items that could be discussed – date, author, real or story?

Outline of the Book of Job

1. Introduction – 1-2

2. Job's opening speech – 3

3. Three cycles of speeches – 4-27

   1. Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, each speak and Job responds

   2. Except Zophar does not make a third speech

4. Interlude: Praise of Wisdom – 28

5. Job's final declaration of innocence – 29-31

6. The young man Elihu speaks – 32-37

7. God speaks to Job – 38-41

8. Conclusion – 42

Background Story

1. Job has 10 children, rich, honor, prestige

2. Family gets along, love each other

3. Job is deeply spiritual

4. Satan challenges God - “hedge about him”

5. Job loses all – children, herds, flocks, servants, houses

6. He also loses support of his wife, then his health

7. Job does not curse God; He blesses God

What was wrong with Job?

1. Painful boils (inflamed eruptions) – 2:7

2. Scraped himself (Intolerable itching) – 2:8

3. Friends did not recognize him (Disfigured appearance) – 2:12

4. No rest – 3:26

5. Pain is heavier than the sand of the seas – 6:3

6. Sleeplessness – 7:4

7. Flesh is caked with worms (Maggots in his open sores) – 7:5

8. Pus is breaking out of his skin – 7:5

9. Terrifying dreams and nightmares – 7:14

10. Withdrawal and Depression – 7:16

11. Running tears which blind his eyes – 16:16

12. My breath is offensive to my wife (Putrid breath) – 19:17

13. Emaciated body (nothing but skin and bones) – 19:20

14. Pain in bones, pain will not allow any rest – 30:17

15. Clothes don't fit right (Disfigured appearance) – 30:18

16. Skin black, falling off his body, bones are burning with heat – 30:30

How to handle the tough times in our lives

1. Job 1:20 – Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped.

2. Job 1:21 – And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
   I came into this world with nothing, I still have most of it.

3. Job 1:22 – In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.

4. Job 2:3 – Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”

5. Job 3:3; 10:18 – Job is in terrible pain, wishes he had not been born

6. He wants to die – to escape the pain – Job 3:11-12

7. He questions “Why?” (4 times) - Job 3:11-12 – ¹¹ “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb? ¹² Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?