ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Episode 16 · 2 years ago
SHARE THIS EPISODE
Episode 16 · 2 years ago
RYBD016
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Hello and welcome to read Your Bible devotional with Pastor Brad Reynolds. We are reading through the Bible in a year. This daily devotional will help keep your heart in mind and God's word. Use your phone to download and listen to Pastor Brad Reynolds Audio podcast. You can find a RSS feedlink on our website, www dot do berry baptist clarksbridgecom. Well, welcome back. We are now in the book of Job. Excited about that. We're going to be in job chapters one through four. Today, specifically, will be in job chapter two, versus one through six. You may want to turn there as we start our devotion today. Have you ever wondered why babies done? You ever wondered why infants, whether in or out of the WOMB, die?...
Why is such precious life snuffed out before it ever begins? Why is the God of all creation why does he allow that to happen? I have with me today picture of means a lot to my wife and I. This is baby Jason Matthew after he died twenty weeks old in the womb. That's my hand that I'm holding him in, and, of course, this is Jason Matthew in the room and yeah, so well, WHO's Jase Matthew? Well, April and I were at the doctor's office. She was pregnant with our third son and we went there and she was about twenty weeks pregnant. We just been the doctor two weeks earlier. We had gone through everything, seeing...
...the heartbeat, saw all the ultrasound. Everything was great. And on the way to the doctor's office that day, Celton and late we're in the back, April and I we're in the front. I'm driving and we're talking about names and we were going to find out the gender that day and we were talking about whether it was going to be a boy or a girl. And we get there and they bring us in and they take us to a room and everyone's excited. We're excited. The nurse comes in, she knows an ultrasound and she slips out, doesn't say anything. That was just unusual. That had never occurred before with any of our pregnancies and I could tell the way she slid opped out something was wrong. I prepared myself for the doctor, the nurse to come in and say we're seeing an issue there, this is perhaps special needs child, and I prepared my sell for that and we...
...were great. Still, the life is alive. Nothing prepared me for what we would hear a few minutes later. The doctor comes in, the nurse comes in behind you and the doctor says, MR and MSS Reynolds, I'm sorry to tell you we don't see a heartbeat today. I could still remember those words as if they were yesterday. All life within me just evaporated. There was just emptiness and I I think back about the rush of that day and what occurred next. They said we need to go ahead and do slabor so that she can deliver that still born, and so they scheduled us for a wake mad immediately we went to wake mad hospital, we got a room, they induced labor and things just happened so quickly. I remember how,...
...after April delivered, holding the Little Jas Matthew, my little boy, in my hand and keeping my Bible by my side, and knew I'd need my bible and I know why. I didn't understand why God was letting this happen, but I knew I would need it. Now remember, after spending some time holding him and talking to him, counting his fingers and toes. I remember it was just difficult, just the difficult time and wondering why. Why? God? And after a season I got up and I left and I walked out and I went down the Lord there and saw the different rooms there...
...in the maternity area. That saw the little pink ribbon for the girls and the little blue ribbon for the girl for the boys, and I got back to my room and I saw the little black ribbon symbolizing to the nurses just to be sympathetic as they come in. But it was a tough time in what made it really difficult as I didn't get an answer for hours in the hospital. For days after that, I read, I pray, went on a mission trip a few days later because the church I was out was going on a mission trip. Spent that time reading, praying God, why, and that was the hardest part. No answer. To this day I don't know why and that was what was difficult on Joe at times. The most...
...difficult part of tragedies is not that they occur but that we don't know why they occur and Heaven is silent and we cry out to God, God, why, and it's silent. How much ease there such tragedies would be if, when you why, we know God's good. But if, when you why he let that happen, okay, they would be so much easier. It is the absence of that knowledge which troubles the soul. It's trying to understand how our good father would allow such evil pains in our lives that tests our faith. It is this ignorance of why God lets it happen which, if not superseded by faith, lead to many, many dark knives of doubt.
Job Experience that we find ourself and job chapter two versus one through six. I'll read this. And on another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan als who came with him to present himself before him. The Lord said to Satan, have you where, if you come from, and he said from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Joe? There is no one on Earth Liking he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil, and he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him, to ruin him without any reason. Skin for skin, Satan replied. A man will give all he has for his life. Stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones. Then he'll curse you to your face. And the Lord said to say, very well, then, he is in your hands, but you must spare he is life.
Job had lost his children, his wife ends up turning against him, telling him to curse God and die. He's lost all he's worked for, he's lost his livestock, he's lost all his possessions. All he has left is this relationship with God that he's holding on to and his health. And he cries out to God, and we'll see it through the book of Job, but before he does, God says to Satan, go ahead and in Chapter Two after God gives Satan permission to attack job's health. Now Heaven Silent. We don't see another conversation from heaven until we get to job chapter thirty eight. Job Hears nothing else from heaven until the end of his tribe. Now this silence is what's troubling Joe. There are times from job would even...
...yell at God and shake its fears, trying to get God's attention just so he could hear God. Why? But it's that silence. It's a silence that is troubling job's soul. He's pitching a temperate hand from it times through the book to get God to say something, even if God tells him of his own secret sins. It's okay, just say something. It's that silence when he's in the deepest, darkest trial that just gets to e. God doesn't answer. Heaven is silent all the way until chapter thirty eight, and such silence either deepens one's faith our evidence one's faith wasn't real in the first place. I understand the difficult trials you may go through, I understand how painful it can be and I understand when you cry out to God and all...
...you hear in silence. The temptations say why God, and the temptations say God, are you really there? I understand those temptations. But it is that silence that strengthens our faith. It actually makes us stronger as we look back on it. Faith, by definition, is believing something we can't see, can empirically be evidence, can't even rationally be evidenced. At times, if something is empirically evidence, then there's no need for faith. Faith is believing something which we can see. The whole point of faith is that one believes in things not seen. Hebrews Eleven one, God asks us to trust him precisely when such trust doesn't make sense and we can't see the outcome.
The stubborn me in our faith ignores evidence. Obviously, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Empty Tomb is evidence, but rather it means that we trust God when we don't know all the evidence, when we don't know how it's going to work out, when we don't see the empirical evidence of the truth of God's words. Empirical evidence is one thing, but it doesn't replace God. Given the reason why God might allow a tragedy in one's life, that doesn't comfort the soul holding a lifeless baby in his hand. I knew all the answers of why God and might allow this to happen. I had been a systematic theology courses. I have known why good things happen to bad people. I knew all the answers, but that doesn't come comfort the soul, as only God can. It's set presence of God that's needed during those times.
...and therein is the RUB. When God is silent, our trials are extremely difficult, and yet when we don't know the answers is precisely when our faith grows. We Trust God anyway, not knowing the next step, not knowing why, just trusting, just trusting God. Job's trials would cause him at times to pinch it, pinch attentition, temper Tantrum to get God to speak, and God chose to allow job to suffer in silence, and job's faith grew. By the time you get to the end of job, job would say, my ears have heard you, but now I've seen him. His faith grew, he grew into a relationship with God that he had never...
...experienced before in his life and had meant more to him than anything, as did mine this day. I don't know why we lost Jase, Matthew or other two that we lost in the order, but here's what I do know. I know through those times when heaven was Silah, I said in that hospital room with my Bible and my wife praying to Jesus, that my faith grew and I believed, no matter what the circumstances said, no matter that heaven was silent, no matter that I didn't know why. I grew because I believe. Next time you're in trial, remember this. Next time you're going through a difficult time. Remember this. And when Heaven Silent, you don't know why, that's when you've got to believe. And if you'll do that, God, I believe. I don't hear you, I don't know why. I believe if you'll do that, you'll find that your faith in God will grow so much stronger and you'll look back at that time and you'll...
...say, wow, that's what I agree. What a great lesson from the book of Joe. Well, tomorrow will be in job chapter five or seven, but before we go, let me pray for you. Father. Thank you for your word again, thank you for the power of your word and how it speaks to our hearts, and thank you that even in the most difficult trials, when Heaven Silent, which makes those trials even more difficult, when we don't hear you and we don't see you, you are there and we know you there by faith and you are good and we know you're good. Bye, faith, and you work all things together, for those are those and we know you do. Thank you what Jesus, thank you for...
...joining us again today.
In-Stream Audio Search
NEWSearch across all episodes within this podcast