Job 2:7-9 and Job 1:20-22
The Lord saves the hardest for last.
Most of us want to believe our last years will be the best years but that is seldom how things work out.
During the dark days immediately following my wife’s death two things sustained me: 1) The promise of His presence and 2) the hope of eternal life.
Those truths did not take my pain away, but they gave me the strength to bear it.
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
Job 2:7-9 NKJV
She’s lost everything.
Little wonder that she had a crisis of faith. Little wonder that she encouraged Job to curse God and die.
But Job had a better idea. Instead of cursing God he offered a sacrifice of praise!
“At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.’ In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”
Job 1:20-22 (NKJV)
When hard times come, we have a choice. We can be like Job’s wife who told him to curse God and die or we can be like Job who declared “I know that my Redeemer lives…and after my skin is destroyed, this I know,…in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another!” (Job 19:25-27).
Grief caused me to doubt the reality of eternal life.
Grief taught me that the valley of the shadow of death is a haunted place.
Grief tempted me to doubt the goodness of God.
I am here this morning to tell you the best is yet to come, not necessarily in this world but in the world to come. Romans 8:18 declares, “…the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
The thing that makes heaven heaven is not the streets of gold, or the gates of pearl, or the many mansions. The thing that makes heaven heaven is the Lord’s presence.
In this life God may save the hardest for last but the best is yet to come!