Word of Salvation – Vol. 20 No.19 - February 1974   What Is Your price?   Sermon by Rev. J. De Kievit, Th.Grad. on Job 1:9 Readings: Job 1; Luke 14:25-35 Hymns (afternoon): 361:1,2,3; 204:1,3,4; 210:1,2;             462:1,4,5,6; 361:4 (doxology)   Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, "Every man has his price.” That's a very cynical way of saying that no man can be trusted.  And that especially those people who talk most about allegiance and selfless service can be trusted least of all.  Their service is nothing but striving for fame and possessions.  Their allegiance can be...

Word of Salvation – Vol. 54 No.1 – January 2009   Bildad’s Speech: Smoke Implies Fire   A Sermon by Rev Leo Douma on Job 8 Sermon 6 of 9, on Job Scripture Reading: Job 8   Brothers and Sisters in Christ. In a previous congregation that I served in, I heard of a conversation between two middle aged women. One was praising God for how richly he had blessed her. She was a faithful churchgoer who was doing well financially. But her fellow churchgoer felt irate at the first one, or was it that she was upset with God? You...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.41 – November 2008   Job's Response to Eliphaz A Sermon by Rev Leo Douma Sermon 5 of 9, on Job Scripture Reading: Job 6-7   Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Imagine a person who goes through a stage of listening to beautiful music in the car that would lead to him breaking out into sobbing. What is wrong with him? Well, nothing! He is acting perfectly normally — normal, that is, for a person whose father had died a few weeks before. He is simply going through the typical reactions of grief. There are now...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.37 – October 2008   Eliphaz's Speech: Repent & All Will Be Fine(??)  A Sermon by Rev Leo Douma Sermon 4 of 9, on Job Scripture Reading: Job 4-5   Brothers and Sisters in Christ. I remember years ago in my first church a conversation with an 80 year old woman. We had been talking about all her ten children and her numerous grand- and great-grand-children. At one point she was in tears as she told me about one of her boys who had died of an illness as a young child. She had asked her...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.33 – September 2008   Job's Curse and Lament  A Sermon by Rev Leo Douma Sermon 3 of 9, on Job Scripture Reading: Job 3   Brothers and Sisters in Christ. I think as Christians we recognise that for someone to commit suicide is a terrible thing, not only for the family left behind, but also in the sin against God. If we accept the sovereignty of God we realise our life is not our own. It is a gift from God and it his right, and his only, to give or take it. However, if...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.29 – August 2008   Job’s Second Test A Sermon by Rev Leo Douma Sermon 2 of 9, on Job Scripture Reading:  Job 2 Brothers and Sisters in Christ. A Jewish rabbi wrote a best selling book called, “Why do bad things happen to good people?" Some of you may have read it. The title implies that something is not right if good people suffer. If bad people do stupid things and create their own suffering, we can understand that. But suffering that (randomly) strikes good people doesn’t seem to make sense — it’s not fair....

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.25 – July 2008   Job's First Test A Sermon by Rev Leo Douma Sermon 1 of 9, on Job Scripture Reading:  Job 1 Brothers and Sisters in Christ. There is a well-known theory in psychology called the Attribution Theory. Simply stated the theory says that we human beings need to be able to attribute a cause for why things happen. Especially if something bad happens in our lives, we need to know why; we need to be able to attribute it to something, something that caused it. The theory says we have great difficulty, even...

God Speaks - Rev. Leo Douma   Text: Job 38-39   It has been said that that you need to be careful what you pray for, because God may grant you what you ask. Too often we have little idea of the ramifications of what it is that we request from God. Job certainly found that to be the case. As we know by now, Job suffered enormously even though he was a righteous man. Even God had acknowledged that Job was righteous in the first chapters of the book. And so Job has been demanding to know why he has...

Elihu Speaks - Rev. Leo Douma Text: Job 32   I remember being at our national Synod one year. We were involved in a tense and difficult debate, when we got to a stalemate. All the delegates were quiet, when a young man in his twenties asked to speak. He was either a theological student or very young minister. I could see he was just bursting to have a say in the debate. I got the impression he was one of those young up and comers, one of those who has an answer for everything. Where all the (wise) men of...

Word of Salvation – Vol. 54 No.5 – January 2009   The Eye of the Storm: Where is Wisdom Found?   A Sermon by Rev Leo Douma on Job 28 Sermon 7 of 9, on Job  Scripture Reading: Job 28   Brothers and Sisters in Christ. In recent times we have seen the devastating power of hurricanes, like the one in northern Queensland that destroyed the banana crop. As a result, having a banana was like having gold in your lunch box. The thing about hurricanes is that while their winds are ferocious and devastating, the eye of the storm is...

Word of Salvation - November 2015   When the Going Gets Tough - by Rev. Dr. Steve Voorwinde Text: James 5:11b Scripture Readings: Job 1:1-2:10; 42:1-17; James 5:7-12   “You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”   Introduction It’s the middle of WW2. A baby girl is born into a deeply religious family. Her mother has all the gifts and graces of a mature Christian woman. Her father is a hypocrite. He has affairs with different women and when his daughter is a teenager he...