For those who requested prayer, Nancy Rice, Lisa's sister, has been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, which is a double whammy of autoimmune disease. So remember her in your prayers. I seek your watch out for Garret Rich's Memorial Services tomorrow at 1.30 at Longhouse. Remember that family in your prayers also.

Next Sunday's the last Sunday of the month, believe it or not. February's been kind of short. It's the 22nd, the last Sunday of the month, so we will have the Lord's table next Sunday, and no afternoon service. And that's about all the announcements I have. I don't have any birthdays this week, so.

Let's begin our worship service with hymn number 37, How Great Thou Art. Consider all the world I have made. I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder. In chains my soul, my Saviour God, with Thee, Thou break Thou art, Thou break Thou art. In chains my soul, my Saviour God, with Thee, Thou break Thou art, Thou break Thou art. When through the woods and forest glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees When I look down from lofty mountains brand new And hear the birds and feel the gentle breeze In chains my soul, my Saviour, come to Thee! How great Thou art! How great Thou art! In chains my soul, my Saviour, come to Thee! How great Thou art!

And when I think that God, His Son must perish Sinning can die, but scarce can take Him That on the cross, my burden let me bear Him He fled and died Then change my soul, my Savior God, to Thee Thou break Thou art, Thou break Thou art Then change my soul, my Savior God, to Thee Thou break Thou art, Thou break Thou art When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration And there proclaim, Thy God outranked Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! If you have your Bibles, please turn to the 14th chapter of the book of Job, Job 14.

Man that is born of water is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes upon such as one, and bringest me into judgment with thee? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee. Thou have supported his bounds, and he cannot pass. Turn from him, that he may rest, which he'll accomplish as a highly in his day.

For there's a whole of a tree, if it cut down, it will sprout again, and the tender branch thereof will not cease. For the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stalk thereof died in the ground. Yet through the scent of water it will bring forth bud and bring forth boughs like of a plant.

But man dieth, wasted the way. Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and dryeth up. So man lies down and rises not, till the heavens be no more. They shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou wouldst keep my secret until thy wrath be passed. Thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me. If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee. Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands. Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands.

For now thou lumberest my steps, lest thou watch over my sin. My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up my iniquity. And surely the mountain falleth and cometh to naught, and the rock is removed out of its place. The waters wear the stones, Thou wash'st away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth. Thou destroy'st the hope of man. Thou prevail'st forever against him, and he passeth. Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not. They are brought low, but he put the seed of it not of them. But his flesh upon him shall have pain. and is so within him, so more.

Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word which has brought true account of the frailty and weakness and the natural end of every man and woman upon the face of the earth. We are thankful that you tell it like it is. that all our pride and haughtiness is cast into the dust as we consider that indeed our days are numbered and our months are withered and our boundaries are something we cannot pass. We thank you for this book, The Oldest One in the Bible. It teaches us about the sufferings of those who belong to you, who love you. We are thankful that you teach us about the The completeness of this life is going faster than a weaver's shuttle.

It's a vapor, faster than a post. We thank you, Father, that you have given us hope in Jesus Christ. That you have given us hope in Him who died and who approved our sins. Indeed, put Him in a bag and buried Him at the bottom of the sea. We are thankful, Father, that you are our Father, and our God, and our sovereign. We are thankful that you rule in all places, in heaven and earth, the deep places underneath the sea. This universe belongs to you. You created it in the span of your hand. Nothing too hard for you. Help us, Lord, to appreciate what we have in this world. Chaos, we have peace that passeth understanding, that passeth knowledge.

We pray for those who are sick, going through trials and tribulations. I know every case. Pray for those on our prayer list. Pray for Ms. Rice as she faces this future with these diseases. We pray the doctors will be able to help her. Pray for the French family that's lost and that's loved one. We pray for ourselves this day. We're gathered here that you might give us true worship. Give us some sense and glimpse of who you are and what we are. Help us to bow down into the dust where we belong. And remember what you have done for us. Help us in Christ's name.

Amen. Only a self-saved beverage. Oh. This is my story, to God be the glory, I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Wasp virus moving, its skin grew my heart. only a sinner saved by grace I'm only a sinner mercy has saved me this is a story say once more I'm a sinner.

Let's pray. Father, again, we approach in the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord, King of kings and Lord of lords, the great good shepherd, the apostle and high priest of our confession. Lord, we pray in his name because you have given him freely to your people. And with him, you've freely given him all the things. What we have, we have because you've given it to us. As we return it unto thee, let us do so with joy and thanksgiving, knowing that everything this side of eternal perdition is by your grace and mercy. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. so so and and and Okay.

I'd like to invite your attention back to Job, the 14th chapter. Job is the oldest book in the Bible, the first story, the story of a believer, a man who loved God, a man who worshiped God, a man greatly blessed by God, but a man who suffered greatly. The oldest book in the Bible, beginning of the story of things. The story existed long before Moses told the story of Genesis.

That book is about the believer, and that book is about the believer's suffering. So this is kind of the standard set for all other understanding in Scripture. is that the oldest book in the Bible talks about what we go through every day, the suffering of a child of God.

We are blessed beyond measure by the grace of God and by the mercy of God, yet the believer's life is one that is filled with suffering. We suffer the same as all men do in many ways, but we suffer like no other does because we suffer knowing that we have two natures. We have the sinful nature, a carnal nature, and we have the spirit of God living in us, and there's a struggle.

I often think of what seems to be almost oxymoronic in Romans chapter 7 and 8, as Paul ends chapter 7. He says these words, with my mind I serve the law of God. With my flesh I serve the law of sin and death. And his very next words is this, there is therefore. Therefore, based on that statement, no condemnation. You think a person that confesses that everything he does in the flesh is sin, that is a constant struggle that he never can win while he lives upon this face of the earth, and yet God says there is therefore because of that, because of that understanding. No condemnation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Job suffered the death of all his children. He had 10 children and they all died. He suffered the loss of all his belongings. He also suffered the loss of health and vigor. And ultimately, because he exercised what's in all of us, a bit of self-righteousness, He suffered for that, too. He suffered the onslaught of his friends. To top it off, his wife, his life's companion, had neither sympathy nor empathy for his sad state, but showed that she was not up with all his sorrow and told him to curse God and die. The best thing to do is just die.

Job was a faithful servant. That's how God described him in chapter 1 and verse 8 and chapter 2 and verse 3. He said, this is a faithful servant. He was a man whose faith was greatly tried. At times he showed signs of weakness, frustration, and even unbelief. But even in his lowest times, he worshipped God, maintained his integrity, and believed God. After all was taken from him, he did not sin against God, but said the Lord give us and the Lord take it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, for he states in chapter 19, I know that my Redeemer liveth. My Redeemer, Jesus Christ is the Redeemer. And one day I shall see him on this earth with my own eyes, he said.

And in the midst of his great trials, this man, Job, acknowledged God's total sovereignty in all things and absolute dominion over all things. Shall the Lord give me things and not take things away? He said, The Lord does as He pleases. In the end, God honored Job. Made even his enemies to know that the Lord accepted him.

He condemned the harsh judgment of Job's three friends, the Lord did, and then gave Job the will and desire to actually pray for his friends, which lifted his affliction. In this 14th chapter of the Chronicle of His Sufferings, Job did what all men do when faced with misery and faced with the mystery of the human condition. He had some questions. that he needed answers to. God inspired them to be written down for our learning and they addressed things that are truly worth our consideration.

Was that our look out on this ocean? I see some young people, I'm thankful we see young people here. It's wonderful. And I'm considered many of you young. I see some old hoary hairs too. Some aging wrinkles and some and some backs that don't hold the weight like it used to, and knees that tremble, and fear of heights, and all that goes with those things. And sometimes I have some questions. And Job asks five questions in these 14 verses that ought to be pondered and meditated upon all the days of our life. The five questions are these.

Dost thou open thine eyes to such an one? Secondly, bringest thou me into judgment with thee? Thirdly, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Fourthly, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Fifthly, if a man die, shall he live again? Shall we live again? First he says, dost thou open thine eyes to such a oneness?

He says in verse three, after seeing man that is born of woman is a few days and full of trouble. Wayne Land used to quote this to me about every time I'd go see him and ask him how he's doing. He'd say, I'm doing pretty good. And I said, well, I'm thankful. He said, well, man, that's born of woman is a few days and full of trouble, full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, pretty, sound, beautiful. And he's cut down. He fleeth as a shadow and continueth not. A shadow has no substance. And when the light is lifted from it, it disappears. The first question he's asked is, does thou open thine eyes upon such a one? And verse three, does thou open thine eyes upon such a one and bringest me into judgment with thee?

This question is born of Job's consideration of the frailty and the brevity and the utter insignificance of man. We all like to think we're somebody and our lives count and some part of this world depends on us. In a natural sense, of course, certain things are dependent upon us because God has ordered it so. But even in spiritual matters, it is said that certain things depend upon us because God has ordered it so. But once a man's view gets past his own, once he sees that God is the first cause of all things, once he sees that all things are of God, he realizes that before God, he is utterly insignificant.

Utterly insignificant. The Lord does all the things after the counsel of his own will. He rules in the armies of heaven among the inhabitants of the earth. Man that is born of woman is a few days and full of trouble. We ought to learn to recognize the brevity of this life and learn to apply our hearts to wisdom. It says that in the scriptures.

None of us is guaranteed 70 years in this world. And if we do get 70 years, the Lord said everything that comes after that is pain and sorrow, suffering, suffering. None of us are even guaranteed a moment. Those few days that we have will pass quicker than a weaver's shuttle.

Sometimes I think I've got a 54-year-old daughter or a 52-year-old daughter. And my little baby boy is 46 this year. Where does the time go? I've been here since 1978. Sometimes I see young people and they ask me where I live. I tell them I live on Big Cove Road. They say, how long have you been there? I say, about 30 years, four years old. Life is quick.

The word trouble here has many shades of meaning. It might be translated trouble because sin and trouble always go hand in hand. And where there is sin, trouble is sure to follow. Might be translated commotion. Commotion because the lives of men in this world are like a troubled sea and restless. Fallen man is in constant state of uneasiness. The word also might be translated trembling. The reason for man's restlessness is to a great extent the trembling of his soul and is born of the knowledge of our impending demise.

Poor troubled creature whose life is but a blip on eternity's radar is as insignificant as a withered flower after a mountain frost. Considering this, Job was brought to a moment of true lucidity in the midst of trial with the knowledge that the holy, infinite, eternal, omnipotent God should take notice of him.

And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one? David said, who is man? What is man? That thou art mindful of him. And the Son of Man, that thou should visit Him. What a wondrous thing this is that God Almighty, the Creator, Sustainer, Consummator of this universe, should cast His eyes on such a one as I, that He should glance at us. Joe was simply overwhelmed with the thought of it. Does God Almighty open His eyes on such useless, sinful wretches as we are?

According to His word, He does. He watches us all the time. All the time. He does so in electing love that began before the world was, in redeeming grace, in providential goodness and care, in saving mercy, the exercise of His preserving power. He does all that, personally, for every one of His children.

The second question is this, and bringest thou, or dost thou bring me into judgment with thee? This will bring sinful man to a screeching halt. Sooner or later you and I must face the fact of divine justice and judgment if we have not already faced it in the substitute. But everybody understands that. That's why we have so much to give in our life, because we know that judgment is real. We know that reckoning is real. Even those who don't believe in scriptures come up with ideas about things that go around and come around. People talk about karma all the time.

That's an Indian religion idea, but the idea is that you just don't get by with this stuff. And one of the things that bothers me most, and probably it shouldn't because I believe in the sovereignty of God, but it does bother me most, there doesn't seem to be a sense of consequence in the day in which we live. People don't seem to think that if I do something really crazy, it's going to catch up with me.

It's going to catch up with me. There is a day coming. The Word of God teaches it. History illustrates it. Your conscience bears witness of it, and when Job thought of God exercising the rigor of his strict justice, he was no laughing matter. He knew that to stand for judgment in that great day would not be the opinions of men, not the merit that you had achieved in your life, but God himself would be the judge. And he does not say, bringest thou into judgment before thee. That would be bad enough, but his question is, bringest thou judgment? Bringest thou me in judgment with thee? Here are two facts that I hope will get your heart's attention and cause you to sow trouble from which you can find no escape until you flee away to the arms of Jesus Christ.

There is a day appointed by God himself when men must appear before his great white throne and be judged. That's spoken over and over again in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 5, Hebrews 9, Revelation 20. In that great and terrible day, the standard of judgment will be God Himself. Bringest thou in judgment with thee? God will bring in judgment with Him.

Someone once said, how good does a person have to be to get to heaven? The answer is this, you have to be as good as God, or you cannot be accepted. He will accept nothing less. He said, of any offering that's made unto him, it shall be perfect to be accepted. And I only hope that somehow we have reached perfection. For we know we cannot do it in and of ourselves. For there's none good, no, not one. There's none righteous and none that seek after God. Our mouth is an open sepulcher. Our heart is dark. No thoughts of God in our mind. So God can bring us into judgment with Himself. As He is the standard, that's the only way He can do it with Himself.

As He is the standard of the judgment. Those who are in Christ can say, I will stand and not be judged because I've already been judged. and considered and declared perfect in the eyes of God. For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified, Scripture said. Grasping both the brevity of life and the certainty of divine judgment, Job asked the next question. If God's going to bring me in judgment with Him, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?

That's verses four through six. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee. Thou hast appointed his bounds and he cannot pass. Turn from him that he may rest till he shall accomplish as a hireling his day. Don't mess with him. He's got an important time to go. Don't try to straighten things out. For there is hope of a tree. It's cut down that it will sprout again and tend a branch and bring forth. Turn from him. Turn from him.

Our translation reads, in response to the question, not one. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. Is God one? He is even called one. There is one God. Can he bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. Not even God. Realizing that man is altogether unclean by imputation, nature, birth, and practice. He must stand in judgment with the Holy Lord God. The question is one which every sensible soul must seek an answer. The number of our days in this world was determined by God's decree before we were ever born.

We celebrate our birthday every year, but we bypass our death day every year. We just don't know when it is. It's on the calendar, friends. It's there, that day marked, that if our death is on that calendar, somewhere in that calendar, next time you look at your calendar, look at that calendar and say, my death day might be in that number. Because it is, in one of those 12 months. Our day's a number. Our day's a number. Now the decree of God, God himself has appointed the boundaries of every man's existence in this world. beyond which none can pass according to the word of God.

I remember many years ago, Henry Mann told me, told of his son who died in the service, Robbie. He's on the Vietnam wall. And a lady came up after service one time and told Henry, I'm sorry, your son was taken before his time. And Henry said, ma'am, He was taken right on time. God had given him a number of breaths to take, a number of heartbeats to have, and he lived every cut and picket one of them. The devil couldn't take one second away from him. Today's a number.

John Gill said, that's the time of man's birth. So the time of his death is according to the purpose of God and all the intervening moments and articles of time. and all things that befall a man throughout the whole course of his life all fall under the appointment of God and are according to his determinate will. And when God requires a man to his soul, no one has power over his spirit to retain it for one moment. When God says it's time, we're goners. We're goners.

Man has no power over his own life and death or even over his own health, it is certain that no man has power to bring a clean thing out of an unclean. No mortal man can give himself spiritual life because he's dead to start with and dead people can't give you life. If you don't think that's true, go to a gravesite and talk to some of them.

No man can give himself faith. That's a gift of God. No man can regenerate himself. That's the gift of the Spirit of God. No man can justify himself. That's the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. No man can save himself. That's the work of the Savior. No man can even put himself in a savable condition. You can't do it. You and I can do nothing. The answer to this question is yes and no. In one sense, God does bring a clean thing out of an unclean. By the marvelous works of grace. Redemption, regeneration, resurrection. Salvation is of the Lord. It's also the fact that God does not bring anything out of us. Well He does one thing, we'll talk about it in a minute. But He doesn't bring anything out of us.

Scripture says He creates a new creature. One that did not exist before. That new creature is that spirit in us. That spirit in us. The power and weight of this question is the recognition that we are an unclean thing. That's what Job is talking about. I'm unclean. I'm an unclean thing and nothing about us that is to say in our flesh is usable or will be used by God.

God don't say to you because somewhere you got some talent to play the guitar. I remember people used to say, Oh, if Elvis had only believed what a witness he would have had, you know, but the Lord had only saved Elvis. Elvis's talent had nothing to do with anything, except he was a good sign. That's about it.

The worst thing that has to be considered concerns death. It's found in verses 7 through 13. Well, there is hope of a tree. I was watching a documentary about how the British colonization of certain parts of Africa, they went through in order to build huts and forts and things like that and had firewood.

They cut down every tree in a forest and turned it into a desert. And so people said, well, we're going to plant a million trees there. And so they dug up the ground, they put the trees in the ground, they all died. And one of the locals was walking by one day and saw right out in the middle of nowhere a little bush. And he went and looked at that bush and he said, that's the leaves of a tree.

And so he cut all the limbs off except for the middle one. And it grew into a great tree. Life was underground. Roots, but because they didn't, because the main root of a tree always gives forth this certain chemical that causes a steady growth of a single branch before it comes out in boughs. Because they'd cut that off, they didn't have it, so it came up as like a little bush.

But once they took their machetes and started cutting limbs off their bushes, now, 20 years later, it's a forest again. Our Lord said, There's hope for its fruit, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

For though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stalk thereof die in the ground, yet through the sin of water, it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant. Now he says that to compare it with what happens to man when he dies. But man dieth, and wasteth away. Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, floods decayeth and dry up. So man lieth down, and riseth not up, till the heavens be no more. He shall not awake, but be raised out of their sleep.

Oh, that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep my secret until thy wrath be past, that thou would appoint me a set time and remember me. Here's the hope of a dead man. God remembers him. And that what the thief on the cross said to the Lord Jesus Christ, He said, Lord, remember me when thou comest unto thy king. He knew he was about to die. When the wicked die of their sins, their bodies are in the grave. Scripture says they are in hell. They are in hell. Read the parable of the rich man, Luke 16.

If you die without Christ, as soon as you close your eyes in death, you will lift up your eyes in hell. tormented in flames of the dam, forever imprisoned in darkness with Satan, the fallen angels, and in company with you all your brethren, all the wicked who have lived and died in rebellion against God. I don't talk a great deal about hell. The Bible doesn't talk a great deal about it, but it does talk about it. The reason I don't talk about it is because I'm such a vindictive old sinner that I'm not going to get pleasure out of saying you're going to hell, and I don't want to be that way. There, in eternal misery, forever banished from God's, all goodness is gone, all righteousness is gone, usual sum of the wrath of God, forever and ever.

But when the righteous die in faith, though their bodies are in the grave awaiting the resurrection, they are with Christ in heaven. That's what Paul said, to be absent for the bodies to be present with the Lord. And as soon as the righteous close their eyes in death and the world, they open their eyes in glory, in heaven, in the paradise of God, in Abraham's bosom. And they shall be forever in the presence of Christ, the Holy Angel of God, the Father God, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of just man made perfect. Free of sin, perfectly righteous, serving Christ in that house, not begging hands until the resurrection of our bodies. Natural death is for the believer, a matter of hope and expectation. Lord, keep my secret. Remember me. Remember me. Natural death is for a believer a matter of hope, dread, or fear.

Job prayed for the Lord to be gracious, to take him out of this veil of tears and keep him, hiding his body in the grave and his soul in heaven until the days of his wrath and judgment against men. So he could say, I know my redeemer, my mother, that one day I shall see him Though the grave worm shall eat my bones, I shall see it with these eyes. I shall behold him.

The fifth question that must be considered is this, if a man dies, shall he live again? Most people, that's the one question they'd like an answer to, even those who don't know God. When they think about death, is there something on the other side? Everybody wants to know. Well, a child of God knows, but he knows by faith, not by experience. Only one man died and rose from the grave other than the Lord Jesus Christ and said something about it. The Lord didn't say anything about what's on the other side. Paul the Apostle, I believe, was killed in Lystra when they stoned him to death. That's when he talked about going to the third heaven and seeing things that could not be uttered. Perhaps he saw Providence working. Providence is tough business.

We don't know what God's doing. We can't know what He's doing. And sometimes what He's doing does not appeal to us at all. But we don't know the end of the matter. We know that it'll all work for our good for His glory. Sometimes that's hard to believe, isn't it?

Read verses 14 and 15. If a man dies, shall he live again all the days of my appointed time? Will I wait till my change come? He talks about a change. Didn't that Paul talk about that in 1 Corinthians 15? He said, I show you a mystery. We shall be changed. Mortality shall put on immortality. This corruption shall put on incorruption. We shall be changed.

He said, I wait for my change to come, and I shall call I will answer. Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands, for now thou number'st tiny steps. Dost thou not watch over my sin? Reading these verses you'll understand that Job had absolutely no question about the blessed hope of the resurrection of his body. Three things. Joe said in this passage, you put my iniquity in a bag.

I was watching a documentary the other day about the English language and how it's almost all nautical. I mean, I was utterly astonished. The common phrases, I mean, not strange, but common phrases we use every day. Almost all of them are nautical, and I wondered why. And I thought, well, English comes from the British Isles, and they're surrounded by water. Everything they did had to do with the ocean. And nautical, this is nautical language.

I put my sin in a bag. God puts our sin in a bag. What does that mean? Our sins are put away, we know that. By Christ's work, He expiated our sins and put them away, put them in the bottom of the sea, cast them as far from us as the east is from the west, put them behind God's back. This is the language of sin being removed.

But this bag, when a sailor died, out on board and out on the ocean, they put him in a bag, and they sewed him up, and they buried him in the sea. The last thing they did was take the last thread of that bag and string it through his nose. So he'd be sure to stay in that bag when he went down. Sin is put in a bag.

Why? Because God has buried our sins in the bottom of the sea. He's cast us off our little raft and thrown us, our sin, into the sea. The Lord describes a bag for our sins. In another place, He describes a book in our life, not written in a book. Then He describes our life as something to have to do with a ball. Like men buried at sea are sewn up and sealed in a weighted bag and cast into the depths of the sea. So God has cast the sins of His people into the depths of the sea in His infinite forgiveness.

The Lord has written a book, a book for our names. It's called the Lamb's Book of Life. All who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life are there because Christ has redeemed them by His blood. They are His people. Their names are in that book. When the Great Judgment does come, there will be books open according to Revelation 20. And men who don't know God will be judged out of those books. But then another book will be open and that book is the Lamb's Book of Life. And that book was written before the foundation of the world. And that book will not be to be judged out of.

That book will be a roll call. Your name will be on it if Christ has died in your room instead. And you won't be judged by God because 2,000 years ago on Calvary Street, your sin was laid on Jesus Christ and your sins were judged on Him. We do not fear judgment for as Christ is so, we in the world of sins in 1 John chapter 2 verse 17. Take heart child of God, all is well for those whose names are written in the book of God. It says the Lord keeps a bottle in the scriptures. It says He keeps our tears in the bottle. That's Psalm 58. He keeps our tears in the bottle.

Did you know that's the only thing of ours that's kept? The only thing that comes from us that God keeps are his children's tears. Think about that. Oh, how we've cried. And now we do cry. God keeps our tears in a bottle. The only thing from us that God keeps, that was a custom in ancient Egypt, in the funeral for mourners to have small sponge or cloth to wipe away their tears. Then they were squeezed into a tear bottle and placed in the tomb of the dead, symbolizing the care that the mourners had one for another who died. Even so, our Lord Jesus Christ cares for us and keeps our tears in a bottle. Can anything be more comforting? In this world of sin and sorrow and death, the Lord our God has put our sins in a bag and buried them, our names in a book to remember them, our tears in a bottle to show his tender, loving care for us.

Suffering saint, this is your lot in life. You will not suffer as Job did. He was the first book and he's the standard by which all suffering is measured. He lost everything. But after he prayed for his friends, the Lord released him from his captivity. God returned everything to him double. Double. I don't know what glory is going to be like. I don't know if it will be at least twice as good as it has been in a year.