JOB & PSALMS

It's Tuesday morning and all is quiet.  My youngest son, Alex is home for college for a few days.  It is a blessing to have him home.  He will be preaching for us this Wednesday and I'm looking forward to that.  He preached to the teenagers Sunday morning, and they were blessed.  I'm finishing up Job today and well into Psalms.  I will be in Psalms for about a week.  Here are a few thoughts for today: 1) God's Cleaning Agents- If you read the Bible carefully, you will see things that science later will back up, but that God had installed all along.  In Job 36:28, we find such a statement.  "Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly."  God has the clouds to purify and distill our water.  Nothing is purer than rain water!  Think of all the muddy rivers, ponds, lakes, mud puddles, and then think how God uses evaporation to draw the water up into the skies, then forms the clouds that carry the water, and then drop it upon the earth.  Now, you try throwing water into the air and see how much stays there.  It all comes down!  But, God draws millions of tons of it each day into the clouds and then cleans it all up and then causes it to rain where He wants it.  Wow!  We take for granted the miracles around us each and every day.  Isn't God good?  YES!! 2) Be a man- In Job 38:3 and Job 40:7, we find the phrase: "Gird up thy loins now like a man:"  God is saying to stand up, as a man, because I have a few questions to ask you Job, and then you answer ME!   God made men to be men!  Men are more simply made than women, but they have a strong drive to be a man!  This is why they are often stubborn and stiff necked, because God made them to be tough.  Be a man!  Dear men of God, stand for right and don't back down!  Be the godly man that God wants you to be.  Gird up thy loins now like a man!  3) God laughs at it all- In Psalms 2:4 it says: "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision."  But just what is God laughing at?  Verse three says that they heathen say to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ: "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us."  Well, they may try, but they will not get anywhere!  Even many Christian today do not want to live with any biblical restrictions upon what they want to do.  The want to revel in their liberty as a believer to do what eve and whenever they want.... but God still laughs!  You cannot go against the boundaries of God without consequences!  They show up!  We cannot manipulate God.  He is in control, and it is best to follow His guidelines, not ours!! 4) God's Words are Preserved!- In Psalms 12:6,7- It tells us that God's Words will be preserved "from this generation for ever."  We can have great confidence when we hold our Bibles that we have the Word of God!  It has been preserved for us! Well, I've got to go for now, have a blessed day!   Pastor Mike Mutchler