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THE MIGHTINESS OF GOD
Tabernacle Sermon by Rev. Len G. Broughton, D.D.
£7 -1 1 » ! ' ’ Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for. *
TEXTS: Job, 36:5, “Behold, God is
mighty and despiseth not any; he is mighty
in strength and wisdom.” Heb. 7:25,
“Wherefore he is able also to save them to
the uttermost that come unto God by him,
seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them.”
ERHAPS never in the history of
the world has there been present
ed to man so many problems, and
problems of so great a character
as today. Some one has said that
we live in the midst of the most
gigantic problems of the world’s
history; every department of life
is feeling the force of its prob-
P
lem. There are, for example, problems in
business such as the world of business never
saw before. There are problems in govern
ment such as the world has never seen. We
can see something of the character and im
port of these government problems in the
session of Congress just passed; where half
is holding allegiance to one party, and the
other half to another party, and both con
scious of the fact that in the near future we
are to elect a President and neither is will
ing to take hold of any real live vital issue,
lest in the taking hold of it he may get hold
of something that he could not let loose of
during the coming election. It is not an easy
thing for a man to be a member of the pres
ent American Congress, for he is confronted
with so many grave questions: he is con
fronted with his own conscience in the mat
ter of his duty to his constituents, and he is
concerned with the great question of public
opinion that he will soon have to answer for
when his party comes before the nation in
the near future.
Then there are problems in society—how
can we protect society? Sometimes it looks
like society is about to go to pieces. How
to protect ourselves and our families, our
children and our people in the midst of such
awful ravages of sin. It is a great problem
—this problem of the protection of society.
But my friends, hear me when I say to
you that these things fade into absolute in
significance by the side of the great and
weighty problem presented in my text —the
mightiness of God. Sometime ago a preach
er in this city was traveling with a very dis
tinguished lawyer. They got to talking about
the lapse of faith in our present day, and
this preacher said to this lawyer, “How do
you account for the lapse of faith among our
people”? and the lawyer was quick with his
answer, “You preachers have failed to em
phasize the might of God; men cannot be
lieve in something that they know nothing
about; you have preached everything else
in the world but the might of God.” It was
this testimony of this lawyer that led me to
thinking on the line I am trying to present
to you tonight—the mightiness of God. I
agree with him in his conclusion, absolutely.
There was no such lapse of faith in the
experiences of Job; the first half of our text
is taken from the experience of this great
man. In his experience there was nothing
but the simplest faith, the faith like that of a
child. Job lived in the very earliest period of
the world as we know it today. The book of
Job is said to be perhaps the first book ever
written, and in those days there was nothing
but the simplest form of faith. They believed
in God; they believed in the mightiness of
God; yes, in the almightiness of God, and the
story of Job as written is one of the most
remarkable and full of interest that I know
anything about. There is nothing that sur
passes it in literature in my judgment. I
was thinking only this afternoon, if some
The Golden Age for May 25, 1911.
Grand Opera singer should take this story
of Job and interpret it in music, what a great
story it would be, and how thrilling would
be the opera.
The purpose of the story from first to last
is one thing; it is to reveal to the world for
all time to come the mightiness of God. Look
for a moment at the main characters in this
story. First the introductions are given;
first Job is introduced; “There was a man
in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and
that man was perfect and upright, and one
that feared God, and eschewed evil.” Then
the second character is Satan, and here is
what was said of him, “And there was a
day when the sons of God came to present
themselves before the Lord, and Satan came
also among them.” Then the introduction
of the third character and the most import
ant character; here it is, “And Jehovah
said”. Mark you, it isn’t said here of Jeho
vah as of Satan that He came; He was al
ready there. The devil is not omnipresent;
he can only be in one place at a time; he
can send his ministers, but he cannot be
everywhere himself; he must be in one place
at a time and no more. God is omnipresent;
while the devil had to come, God was there,
and simply “said”, He already being on hand.
Take the story for a moment and get the
lesson. As the sons of God came together
to worship God, Satan came also. Satan
sometimes goes to church. He goes to
church sometimes I think more regularly
than the church members do. There is but
one kind of church that Satan never attends,
and that is the church that never does busi
ness. He has no time to waste with the
church that isn’t interfering with his job, but
the moment that a church wakes us to do
business for God and begins to interfere with
the work of the devil that moment Satan
begins to attend services there.
He attended service on this occasion, and
as he was there walking about amongst the
crowd the Lord said, “Have you considered
my servant Job? There is no man like him
in all the earth; perfect and upright”; and
Satan said, “Yes, I have considered him; he
is good, but he cannot help being good; you
have him hedged about.” The Lord says,
“Do you think that?” Satan says “Yes; if
you will give me a chance, I will prove that
what I say is so”. And the Lord met the
devil with his own proposition, and said,
“You may take from him everything that he
has, but don’t you touch his person.” The
devil says, “That is all I want”. He goes
out, and the first thing he does is to take
Job’s property; and Job had been a rich man.
Then the next thing he does is to kill all of
Job’s children; and the next thing is to kill
all of Job’s servants, to strip him absolutely
of everything he has—property, servants
and children. Then the sons of God came
together a second time and the devil came
again and God said, “Have you considered
my servant Job?” “Yes, I have been work
ing on him; he is a bit harder than I thought;
he seems more staunch than I had any idea.
I have taken his property; I have taken his
children; I have taken his servants, and he
is still faithful, but if you will let me have
one more chance, I will get him. You won’t
let me touch his body, but if you will let me
have that awhile I will show you what I can
do.” God said, “Alright; try him, but there
is one thing you can’t touch—his
life.” Then he afflicts Job with boils
from head to heel. The third time
the devil came, and this third time he comes
in a strange and very forceful way. Job is
afflicted with boils, cast out of his house,
lying on the ash-bank, scratching himself
with a potsherd, scraping his itching boils,
and Job’s wife, Mrs. Job, comes out. Nobody
had expected the devil to appear to Job
through the person of his wife; she was sup
posed to be standing by him in this trouble.
“Well,” she says, “aren’t you a pretty look
ing thing—my husband! Once the richest
man in the neighborhood, with cattle and
fields and servants and a handsome physique,
and your stubborn religion had such a grip
on you that you would not give it up, and you
lost your property and your children and
your health, and you are out here now on
the ash-pile scratching boils; aren’t you a
pretty thing! Curse God and die! Get out
of the way and let me get another husband!”
And that aroused the indignation of old Job,
and I see him crawling up with that potsherd
in his hand, and he says, “You say I am no
body ! It is true I have lost my property and
my children and my all, but thank God there
is one thing left—l still have my integrity.”
And please God when a man has his integ
rity, never mind about the property, children,
servants nor health; he has something so
stable that the world will bank on it4-his in
tegrity. ’ J'Of:’
It looks like the devil would fie satisfied
and would have let him alone rthen,j but he
did not. Next he comes to him through his
friends. There is Job lying tEeye brostrate
upon his bed, with sores all over hispody, his
health literally wrecked. These friends come
in and they sit down. They do not say a
word; they just look first at him and then at
one another. Fancy yourself like that, sick
in heart and body, and have your best friends
come in and act like that. If there were a
streak of devilment in you, it would show
itself, but Job withstands even that trial.
As we read the story all through at the end
of it we find Job remaining true to his integ
rity. And in the last chapter in the book
there comes the full meaning of the whole
of that experience through which God has
carried this man. In the last chapter it is
said that Job finally came to the place where
he dropped down on his knees and looked
up in the face of God and said: “Hitherto I
have known thee by the hearing of the ear;
now I know thee face to face.” “In a 1 ! this
suffering it has been made possible for me
to see thee face to face.” He was down on
the ground in humility before God, and God
took hold of him and lifted him from that
place and turned his face toward a new life
and in a short space of time we find this
man Job, with twice as much property, twice
as much land, twice as many fields; twice as
many cattle; twice as many servants, and
twice as many children; exactly multiplied
by two is Job’s last condition.
What is the purport of that story? It is
for the purpose of showing to the world at
that time and until the present hour, the
Almightiness of God; that God is mightier
than the devil. This very thing that Job had
revealed to him in this wonderful manifes
tation of God at the close of his life is the
one supreme lesson that this world needs to
day. I call you to note this fact, that a per
fect and complete revelation of the might of
God is the greatest necessity that I know
anything about, for it will save the world
from mysteries that are beyond the power of
man ever to comprehend. What is the con
dition of the world today ? The brain of the
universe for the most part is engaged in the
effort to solve problems absolutely beyond
the power of human solution, save as we fall
back upon the mightiness of God. Take, for
example, the mystery of the creation. In the
first verse of the first chapter of the Bible
(Continued on page 14.)