A Study in Job - Part 3

Despite the fact that he has lost his children and all his wealth and possessions, Job does not do as Satan expected, he does not curse God. Rather, Job falls to the ground in worship, saying

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."

Satan has been proven wrong, yet as we see in Job Chapter 2, the testing is not over.

1 On another day the angels[a] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him.
2 And the LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
3 Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; 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.”
4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
6 The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

Satan's attack is relentless: Despite his loss in Round 1, Satan is unwilling to concede defeat. He complains that Job was protected, and while Job maintained his faith and fear of God through the loss of family and possessions, Satan believes he will not do so if he is physically afflicted. When Satan speaks of attacking Job's "flesh and bones", he means to attack Job in his physical body (flesh), but also in his inner man (bones), his thoughts, emotions, and his spirit. And attack, he does. Satan holds nothing back! As he did with Job, he will take every inch of ground he is permitted. This makes me realize that I (we) constantly have God's protection around us, holding Satan at bay.

Rebuke with gentleness: As if his losses and affliction weren't enough, Job also loses the support and comfort of his wife, who is also suffering the loss of her children. She encourages Job to do exactly what Satan wants, but Job rebukes her gently. Job's wife believes, as many of us probably do, that God somehow owes us a wonderful life, filled with blessings, and if it is not, we should turn from God. Job tells her she is speaking foolishly, out of her pain. He reminds her that when hard times come, we must continue to love and trust God. What Satan wants most is for us to turn from God.

9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

Just recently, I have felt like I was gently rebuked by God. I had fallen into the trap of thinking that way too much of my security here on earth came from our bank account. Did we have have enough $ to get us through hard times? And then in Nov and Dec of 2010, we got hit with some huge financial bills that wiped out our savings. Ouch! But through this, God reminded me that we are not to store up treasures on earth, but rather, store up treasures in heaven.

Lessons on friendship: The bulk of the Book of Job covers the dialogue between Job and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bilda, and Zophar, or as Stedman describes them, "Eliphaz the Elegant, Bildad the Brutal, and Zophar the Zealous."

11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Job's friends make mistakes in their response to Job's situation, but they do manage to do two things right:

1. They showed up! And this wouldn't have been an easy thing to do. First of all, it would have been some time before the news of Job's troubles reached them, and then they still had to make arrangements and travel some distance to see him. I think there would have been a strong temptation for them to say to themselves "...it's too much trouble to go, and by the time we get there, things will be better...." But, they did take the time and make the effort to go to their friend.
2. They waited for Job to speak: After they arrived, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar sat with Job, waiting silently for 7 days and nights. This is incredible. I don't think I would have been able to remain quiet for 7 minutes. When one of my friends is suffering, the tempation to speak comforting words and offer advice and opinions is overwhelming!

But once Job begins to speak, things with his friends deteoriated. Out of his deep pain, Job laments the day he was born, and wishes he would just die and get it over with. Stedman writes "Few things are harder to bear than meaningless suffering. If we could see some reason for what we go through, we could more easily endure it. But pointless trouble is corrosive to our souls."

Job's three friends have the same basic argument: "This suffering must be your fault Job. There must be something in your life, some sin, for which you are being punished. Admit your sin, and you will be restored." Stedman reasons that the reason they think this way is because if Job's suffering is NOT his fault, the result of his sin, then it could happen to them, and also to us, as well. This is a terrifying thought!

According to Stedman, Job's friends make three major mistakes in how they treat Job and his situation:

1. They respond to Job's words without understanding his agony: Job makes many rash statements out of his incredible pain and grief. He regrets his birth, wishes to die, and asserts that he wants to give God a piece of his mind. His friends argue with him and attack his logic, where they should be looking past that to understand his torment. Job's words aren't the words of a man who is thinking clearly, and he doesn't need criticism or a theological debate.
2. They have an incomplete theology: They speak as if they have all the answers. Stedman writes: "They spoke as if their views were the final word on the subject. They seem unaware that there might be dimensions to God and His plans that they couldn't even imagine. According to their limited view of life, suffering is always caused by sin. It's true, of course, that sin does have consequences in our lives, but trials are not always the result of sin. Their theology was narrow and incomplete." When we dish out Christian platitudes to people who are hurting and suffering, we need to be very careful about what we are saying, and mindful of the fact that here on earth, we will never fully grasp the mind or plans of God. Whatever we might think God is, He is so much more.
3. They never pray! Amazingly, Job's three friends never pray for or with Job, and they never pray for their own understanding of Job's troubles. They act as though they already have all the answers. This was huge to me - the fact that something as simple as prayer was overlooked.
   
   

A Study in Job - Part 2

As a reminder, I want to recap some of the insights I gleaned from studying the book of Job, using Ray Stedman's book 'Let God Be God'.

• Being blameless is not the same as being sinless: The book of opens with a description of Job as blameless and upright, fearing God, and shunning evil. Job was not described as sinless, but rather, "blameless". Stedman writes that the Hebrew word used here is "tam", which means complete, lacking nothing. Job was complete because he confessed, repented and turned from his sin; he dealt with his sin as God requires. And when we have truly repented and confessed our sin, God is faithful to remember it no more. As Psalm 103 tells us,
  

8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Job shows us that if we repent and confess, we can be blameless, and freed from our sin.

• We need spiritual help when things are going well: Chapter 1 of Job describes how Job's sons would have parties and feasts to celebrate their birthdays and after their partying was done, Job would send for his children and have them purified, and would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them. Job didn't know for certain how, or even if, his children had sinned, so this was somewhat of a precautionary measure. Stedman also noted that Job did not make sin offerings for his children, because a sin offering cannot made be made by someone on another's behalf . Job made burnt offerings, expressing his desire that his children would belong wholly to God. I found it fascinating that Job's fear was that his children had cursed God in their hearts, which is exactly Satan's goal for Job.


• Satan roams the earth, he definitely has power, and yet God is in control: The name Satan means "the adversary", and in the Book of Job, while Satan is clearly and adversary of Job and God, he is not consigned to hell as some believe. In fact, he has access to the throne room of God! According to his own words, he roams the earth, presumably looking for someone to devour (1Peter5:8), but Satan is clearly accountable to God, and is explicitly constrained by God in what he may and may not do to harm Job. As Stedman writes:

"Some people seem to think that there are two gods in the universe, a good God and and evil god named Satan, and they struggle against each other on equal terms. The book of Job shows us right from the beginning that God is in control of all things. All the forces of the universe are His to command. All of time and space are under His authority. Nothing ever takes God by surprise. There is nothing beyond the reach of God's will, not even Satan."

Stedman goes on to say that while some people have suggested that the book of Job describes a "war" between God and Satan with Job somehow caught in the middle, this cannot be the case, as in war, one side does not have to get permission from the other side to act. Rather, what's going on here is a test. Satan is testing God and His creation (man) through Job, and God, in His sovereignty, permits this test.

• Satan's philosophy revealed: Satan reveals his philosophy in how he interprets Job's behavior and how he expects Job to respond in crushingly difficult circumstances. Stedman reminds us that Isaiah 14 tells us Satan's desire is to raise his throne above God, "...to be like the Most High." Satan believes that all Job really cares about is Job, that he (Job) is his own god. Because things are good for Job, he fears God, but if Job was to be put in painful circumstances, he will choose bitterness and resentment, and his heart will grow cold towards God. Job, Satan believes, is really no different than him. Satan's goal is not to turn Job against man, but to turn Job against God.
  
• Satan does have power: Shortly after the first conversation between God and Satan, all manner of calamity befalls Job. In four catastrophic events, his children and servants are killed, his flocks and herds are destroyed, and he is left with nothing but his wife and his grief. In two of the four events, "natural disasters" strike (fire and wind) whereas in the other two, Satan uses people, the Sabeans and the Chaldeans, to strike Job. The fact that Satan can act using natural forces was not something I had really thought about before. There are many places in scripture where we can see God controlling the natural world, but apparently Satan can do so as well, with God's permission. Stedman made a fascinating observation about the incident described in Chapter 8 of Matthew, where Jesus calms the storm on the sea of Galilee. Stedman writes:

When Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, he rebuked the wind and the waves. This doesn't mean that Jesus spoke to air and water. Rather, he spoke to the forces behind the wind and waves, the satanic power that stirred up the storm.

Stedman goes on to say that "Disastrous forces such as earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and droughts are often called 'acts of God.' Yet we need to realize that Satan, the god of this world, is at times given permission to bring these terrible events about."

• God does not need a defense: It's troubling to think that God allows suffering, especially suffering as brutal as that experienced by Job. We know God is just and loving, and yet God does allow bad things to happen to people, so we often come up with superficial answers to the difficult questions about suffering, to try and reconcile our anguish about why such things happen. As a Christian, sometimes I feel compelled to give a defense for God in times of tragedy. But Stedman reminded me that God does not need anyone to defend His actions; He is not subject to some higher moral authority. He IS the highest moral athority! Stedman believes that this is one reason the Book of Job was written - to show us God's deeper reasons for permitting tragedy and suffering. The Book of Job will reveal to us that God is not cold and indifferent towards us, and he does not inflict us with pain for his own pleasure, but rather, He is merciful and compassionate.
  

Much more to come...