The Story of Job

2005-01-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

Table of Contents

Introducing the Story of Job
Our Story Begins
A Time For Reflection
The Story Goes On . . .
Now The Friends Are Ready To Talk
Let's Take Some Time Out
Hearing From Bildad
Bildad's Instruction
Here Comes Zophar
The Wilderness and Other Trying Times
Eliphaz Returns
A Man of Sorrows
Job's Faith in God
Bildad Comes Again
Zophar's Interruption
Eliphaz's Last Appeal
Bildad's Last Appeal
Job's Story of His Past
Job's Crucible
Job's Self-Vindication
Elihu: Messenger of God
The School of Suffering
Elihu: The Man
Elihu: The Messenger Again
The Revelation of God
Job is Conquered
Job is Set Free
Final Words

Introducing the Story of Job

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"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be
burdened again by a yoke of slavery."
—Gal. 5:1

"The true worth of a man is to be measured
by the objects he pursues."
—Marcus Aurelius

Sometimes when people give testimony to their life the version they tell will differ depending on the context and content of the audience. There is the version told to a Christian audience. Then there is the version told to non-Christians. Finally, there is the truth.

Job is a book that tells things from the third point of view. We see the life of Job in a way that makes it impossible to pervert the truth into pious pabulum. My personal opinion is that the story of Job does this better than any other book in the Bible, other than perhaps Ecclesiastes.

I began this study in 1984 when my wife was pregnant for our twin sons. We had taken a vacation and were staying in a Condominium on Mackinac Island. The weather was chilly and a little rainy, so we spent the majority of the time inside the Condo. I had read the book of Job many times before and I could not explain why the Lord had so deeply moved me to re-examine this book of suffering during that time. Little did I know what was in store for me in the years to come! Although, after many years of working, editing, expanding and clarifying my writing, I still find new lessons.

To be honest, I cannot believe I have been working on this project for all these years, but in retrospect, it is clear to me what my needs have been for the lessons. The past several years there have been moments where all of hell seemed directed at me. I have seen times of dryness and frustration; times of failure and dissatisfaction; times of emotional and spiritual turmoil. Although I do not limp like Brother Jacob, I feel at times as though I have wrestled with God myself. I will readily admit the sufferings I have endured are nothing compared to the sufferings of Job. In fact, they probably have been nothing compared to the sufferings of many other members of my church or neighborhood. Nevertheless, pain is pain, and at times, my “pain” was enough to drive me to my knees, totally defeated, crying out for relief and understanding. The battles within raged on. I prayed, but somehow prayers did not “work.” I confessed the right things, read all the books and listened to all the tapes. Nothing at all worked, except lying low and gritting my teeth. That is until, for reasons entirely obscure to me, the straightjacket of oppression began to loosen a little—at least enough for me to get on with my life for another day or so before the screws tightened again. What else could I do? How was I to fight this? In retrospect, I can see that a large part of my anguish was rooted in the fact there really was nothing I could do to control what was happening to me. I was helpless, and it is this, perhaps, that is the soul of suffering, this terrifying impotence. Perhaps it is a small taste of what, for some, will be the final and most terrifying impotence of all, which is death.

Christians do not like to think about being absolutely helpless in the hands of our God. With all of our faith and with all of His grace, we still prefer to maintain some semblance of control over our lives. When difficulties arise, we like to think there are certain steps we can take, attitudes we can adopt, or positive confessions we can make to alleviate our anguish and be happy. Sometimes there are. However, anyone who has truly suffered will know that when it comes to the real thing there is no help to ease the pain, at least no human help whatsoever. Simply put, when we are in a deep dark hole we cannot think our way out; neither can we hope, sing, pray, confess, or even love our way out. In fact, there is absolutely nothing either we or anyone else can do to better our situation. Only the Lord Himself can do that, and when he does, as Exodus 6:6 puts it, “Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke.” How will we know? You will know because nothing and no one else could possibly have done it. In this kind of crucible, we come to a new understanding of what it means to be saved, what it means to be snatched away from the brink of destruction. Here we get down to the bedrock of the gospel.

As I read and re-read this story of Job, I see growing within me a brand-new dignity to being human and to all that being human entails. It has given me the freedom to doubt, to be overwhelmed, to fail, to fear, to be angry, to have passions—in short, to be completely myself. This describes the kind of man Job was. What I discovered through my study is that it is all right to be a human being. I found out that mercy is the permission to be human.

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I might confess that I wrote this study not with ink but with blood. I composed virtually every page under great pressure, at odd moments, on little scraps of paper. I did not write this in an ivory tower but in an ebony hole. There are no easy answers to suffering—there is no such thing as getting a grip on oneself or pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. The only bootstrap in the Christian life is the cross. Sometimes laying hold of the cross can be comforting; but other times it is like picking up a snake. Christ Himself found this out when He cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Have I, or do I, get angry with God? You bet. I have stood in the middle of my living room and screamed at Him. I pounded my fists on the floor. Once I slammed a door so hard that the molding shattered. I have gotten far angrier with God than I have ever been with any human being. I do not defend this behavior. Frankly, even as I remember my fits of anger I am lead to repentance. Although, in the course of it, I did learn such feelings are not at all incompatible with faith. On the contrary, faith involves our deepest passions engaged by the reality of God. Precisely because He is more real to us than anything else is, He is able to sound both the top and the bottom of our registers in a way no one and nothing else can. The person of faith is one who, like Job, knows what it is to be torn apart by the enormity of God.

The story of Job brings out the best and the worst in us. In effect, the book says, "This is what faith is often like. Do not be surprised if you find yourself confused, doubting, afflicted, and all but crushed. It does not mean you have lost favor with God."

To drive this message home, the book of Job does more than just address itself to the problems of suffering faith. It also addresses the problem of complacent faith, and it does this in the form of Job's three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Pharisees have trouble with this part of the story because it strikes too close to home. I say this out of personal experience, because as I came to write about Job's friends I found myself increasingly troubled about them. In many ways, the characters of these men began to appear just as complex and puzzling as that of Job himself. What made them tick? I wondered. In addition, where exactly did they stand with God? These were vital questions, I felt, and yet the more I thought about them and tried to reach some conclusions, the more disturbed and even angry I grew. Only gradually did it dawn on me that these feelings had less to do with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar than they did with me. What I mean is this: while I had begun this study thinking that I deeply identified with Job in his suffering, I ended up realizing that I identified just as deeply with Job's friends in their loveless pharisaism. There is no doubt that the Word of God is a two-edged sword! While Job is primarily a tale of one man's pain, there is also an implied sequel to the story. This concerns the peculiar suffering of the man's three friends as they come face-to-face with the treachery of their feelings of authority and expertise.

A friend of mine was going through a time of particular spiritual oppression, when he could not shake the sense that God was implacably disappointed in him. His wife in her interminable wisdom gave him a Valentine card. The card read "You're okay with me, Valentine," and she wrote on it, "To Mike/Love God." Isn't it funny how a person can be a Christian, yet not really know the gospel? Isn't it strange how Christ can live inside us without our really enjoying Him? This gospel, it turns out, is not only good news—it is much better news than any of us has yet imagined.

Our Story Begins

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By faith, Abel offered to God, sacrifice
through which he had witness born to
him that he was righteous."
—Heb. 11:4

The story begins so simply, "There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job." As I hinted above, the story of Job has been misunderstood, ridiculed and even feared. Some have sought to discard the story as mere fiction and fantasy. Many simply ignore or avoid the story because it hurts too much to read. In truth, this is a story that gives us a glimpse into the mystery of suffering; a journey of faith proved to be worth more than gold.

There are times in our lives when we wander through a dark valley without seeing the path out. We question why we are suffering, whether God has a redeeming purpose in it all and how we are to respond. Job's friends will try to explain his problems by appealing to the logic of good orthodox theology. However in the end, Job's almost irreverent appeal to God for an explanation leads to his justification and approval by God. While Job's orthodox church-going friends are rejected, he persevered. Job eventually speaks directly to God about his suffering while Job's friends speak about God to Job.

Traditionally theology has wrestled with how a good and all-powerful God could at the same time allow or even cause (as Job claims) suffering and evil in the world. But the usual abstract arguments, spoken smoothly by Job's three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar—are not only rejected by God and his beloved Job, they are not even the point of the book.

This is not a book of rational, systematic theology. This is the story of one human being—one very human and very righteous being—that loses his possessions, his family and his health. It is also a story that takes place within the household of faith. In addition, it is faith that rebels and a God who loves the rebel that is the surprise of the story.

When you get right down to it, though, there is something raw and wild about the book of Job. It is a book that can hold its own anywhere, whether in the university lecture hall or the beer hall. The hero is one who can strike a chord with people who have never felt drawn to any other Biblical story or figure, including Jesus. The world respects Job with a deep natural affection. In the eyes of the world, Job is less a saint than a comrade in arms. He did not found a cult or a religion, and he has never commanded any kind of following. Who would want to follow him? No, he is not even a religious figure at all. Simply a man, and more than that, simply a man who suffered. To be honest, rather than preaching in favor of religion, Job preaches against it, and this is something every sinner understands. Simply by suffering so enormously, and by hanging on for dear life through it all, Job has won the world's heart.

The greatness of Job's faith lies in the greatness of his mere humanity. Like the Apostle Paul, this man's spirituality did not thrive on covering up his weaknesses. On the contrary, he seems to glory in them. His faith stood up to having all his miserable frailty and human failure exposed and dragged out before the entire world. Right from the beginning Job seems somehow to have known in his bones that God's power is made perfect in weakness.

A Blameless Man

You can sum up not only the book of Job, but also the whole Gospel in the words used to describe Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. In fact, you can reduce it even further with the one word blameless. The central question of religion is "How can human beings get free of guilt?" How can we escape that sense, however vague, of gnawing insecurity that dogs our every step? Jesus asked His disciples, "Why are you afraid?" I don't know about you, but I am sometimes afraid because of my lingering suspicion that it is impossible to please God. Oh, I know that God loves me (maybe)—but how can I be sure He likes me? In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father loved both the rebellious son and his straight-laced elder brother, but in the end, only the younger son pleased him. Only the prodigal delighted his father's heart.

Of course, God loves us. Everybody knows that. But that is precisely the problem we have in relating to God: He loves everybody, indiscriminately, even the people that will suffer Hell. Who needs love like that? The real question is not whether God loves us, but whether He approves of us, whether we are pleasing to Him. One thing is certain, if we are not pleasing to God He will never be pleasing to us. Why should we like someone who is forever condemning us? On the other hand, can we imagine what it would be like to so move and excite the heart of God that He would run to meet us, throw His arms around us and kiss us, dress us in His best robe, and put rings on our fingers? Can we picture the Lord Almighty killing the fattened calf for us and throwing a big party in our honor? Can we imagine having the Creator of the universe say to us, just as He said to Jesus Christ, "You are my son, and you are my delight"?

If we cannot imagine being, as Jesus was and the Scripture claims Job was, beyond reproach in the eyes of God, all our faith is useless. If we cannot get past God's criticism and into His favor—if we cannot be good friends with Him—then what is the point of our religion? On the other hand, if Job really was a living example of blamelessness in his relationship with God, then it must at least be possible. If this is true, we had better pay attention to this man and find out what his secret was.

The secret seems to begin with a solid grasp of the fact that being blameless is not quite the same as being guiltless. If someone is guiltless, it simply means that he has done nothing wrong. If he is accused of wrong, then he is accused falsely and that is all there is to it. But if someone is blameless it means something more mysterious: it means that no matter how horrible his offenses may have been, all the charges against him have been dropped. Absolutely no blame attaches to him, because the very one he offended has exonerated him. In the words of Psalm 32:2, "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him." Once the reality of that sinks in, we will burst out in celebration! God's covenant with us in Christ is not that He will prevent us from ever committing a sin, but rather that He will forgive us our sins. He will be faithful in forgiveness. Our part is to believe this—that is to be blameless not so much in our outward conduct (though obviously we strive for this also), but in our faith, our trust in the Lord's faithfulness. It is with your heart that you believe and are justified. If we are blameless in this respect, then all the credit for our righteousness will very plainly be not ours but the Lord's, who, as Jude assures us, is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault.

The story of Job shows a remarkable man who somehow intuitively grasped and accepted this astounding message. So much so, that even when he was tempted to the very uttermost to let go of it, he still held to it firmly against all odds. Under attack Job groaned, he wailed, he doubted and fell into deep depression, he lashed out like an infuriated animal—and yes, he even sinned. Yet, when it came to this one point regarding the settled fact of his status of irreproachable blamelessness before the Lord, he refused to give an inch. Having placed his trust totally in God, he violently resisted the notion that there might still be some other step he should take. Something else he must "do," to gain God's favor under adverse circumstances.

All of us fall into the same trap. We constantly look at our lives and count ourselves unworthy of the Lord's attention. Or, worse yet, ignore His presence and invitation for relationship. We simply do the "church thing" and never seek anything more of the Father. Consequently, we live empty, lonely, unsatisfied lives. We are never satisfied to sit back and enjoy the love and favor of our Father.

In my own pursuit of Christ, I have seen times when as Brennan Manning has described, “there have been times pockmarked by disastrous victories and magnificent defeats, soul-diminishing successes and life-enhancing failures. I have known seasons of fidelity and betrayal, periods of consolation and desolation, zeal and apathy.

“There have also been times . . .

“when the felt presence of God was more real to me than the chair I am sitting on;

“when the Word ricocheted like broken-backed lightning in every corner of my soul;

“when a storm of desire carried me to places I have never visited.

“Then again, there have been other times . . .

"when I identified with the words of Mae West: “I used to be Snow White—but I drifted”;

“when the Word was as stale as old ice cream and as bland as tame sausage;

“when the fire in my belly flickered and died;

“when I mistook dried-up enthusiasm for gray-haired wisdom;

“when I dismissed cheap slivers of glass tot the pearl of great price;”

Rich and Righteous

The first five verses of this story introduce us to this man named Job and provide a very brief description of his personal character, wealth, position, and size of his family. The passages carry a strong patriarchal flavor. Job was a man like Abraham, a kind of yahwistic sheik so rich and influential that his private estate would have been virtually a self-contained town. In the case of Abraham we know that his traveling tent-city consisted of at least 318 trained men born in his household. This implies a community, including women and children, of a thousand at the very least, and Job's domain appears to have been even larger than that.

Massive wealth is such a common phenomenon in modern civilization that we may easily miss the significance of this inventory of Job's estate. His household possessed ten children: seven sons and three daughters. He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys and a large number of servants. In fact, he was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

In the Western world today even those who are among the top 5 percent of the world’s wealthy are called "middle-class," and most of us who are in this bracket have (not surprisingly) a somewhat schizophrenic attitude toward our affluence. On one level we take it for granted, thinking of it as something to which we have a right or even as a sign of God's approval. Yet, at a deeper level we know that we are only kidding ourselves. We know we live in a fool's paradise.

It is not that there is anything inherently bad about being rich. If God had been an ascetic, He would never have created the world. Asceticism is a simplistic answer to a complex problem. Paul exposes the folly of the "Do not taste! Do not touch" approach when he cautions, Such regulations have an appearance of wisdom . . . but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. There is no spiritual value in poverty, per se, but there is great worth indeed in the godly management of a large number of possessions and affairs.

Perhaps our problem today is that not many of us have the attitude toward our riches that Job had. Later in the story, we catch a glimpse of what Job actually did with his money and with his time and energy. We will see how he rescued the needy; cared personally for the handicapped and the dying; brought orphans into his home; he even took the power barons of his day to court and argued the case for the underprivileged (see Job 29:12-17; 31:16-21). On top of that, all of this was done without any government programs or assistance and without any tax benefits or receipts for charitable donations. If Job did not follow the letter of Jesus' command to "sell everything you have and give to the poor," he did follow its spirit by administering all his resources not for his own good but for the good of society. When Jesus warned how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God, he was pointing to the tendency of lucre first to bury itself in a man's pocket, and then to bury the man. However, Job's wealth did not cling to him—it flowed through him. He was not so much a collector of wealth as a distributor of it, not an owner but a steward. That is why he could say so easily, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away." Job was that rarest of millionaires—one who is not "filthy rich" but rather "clean rich," not "rich as sin" but "rich as righteousness."

With great wealth comes great responsibility, and like the other Biblical patriarchs, Job must have led a tremendously busy life, filled with hard work and practical cares. No hut-dwelling hermit or introverted pietist, he was an active man of the world, continually rubbing shoulders with other people and meeting the challenges and stresses of ordinary life. These will be important facts to remember as we come to reflect on his approaching ordeal.

Job's Prayer life

It is great to see the sketchy details of Job's daily life before his terrible trial. From this point on, every thing we learn about Job will come by the way of conversations. The opinions of others and the stress of his suffering will color our view of him. However, in these early verses we can see Job from a purely objective point of view. We are told how his sons would take turns holding parties in their homes. They even invited their three sisters to eat and drink with them. After the partying had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, 'Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their heart.' This was Job's regular custom.

Earlier we saw Job as a practical man immersed in the whirl of business and management; but in these verses we learn something of his spiritual life in the midst of that whirl. In particular, we see him on his knees praying for his family. Job knew that family gatherings could be hotbeds of vice. Childhood wounds reopen, in-laws are treated like outlaws, and sibling rivalry has not changed since the days of Cain and Abel. Then you have the families get together and try so hard, so frantically, so pathetically, so naively to have a good time when there is anger and resentment in there midst. When you add alcohol to the mix, you can have even worse problems. I cannot think of any sin that is more shameful and scandalous. On the other hand, if a person is able to be sincerely loving toward their siblings and parents or cousins, then you can rightfully call that person loving. If you can get along with the closest people to you, then you can do it with anyone.

In addition, nothing says more about a person than the way he prays. The details about Job's regular early morning sacrifices and praying suggest several important facts about his faith.

First, Job believed in the importance and effectiveness of mediation with God. He had implicit faith in repentance, sacrifice, and forgiveness. He knew that those kinds of things worked. His God was not distant and unresponsive, but compassionate and gracious . . . slow to anger, abounding in love.

Secondly, like other heroes in the Bible, Job apparently served as his own priest. This takes us back to the original idea regarding the priesthood of all believers. Back to the time before the law when all the followers of God set up their own altars and got their own hands bloody and somehow found direct access to the throne of God, just like Christians do today.

Thirdly, Job practiced his prayer and sacrifice not only on his own behalf but also for the benefit of others. Job had a deep and sincere concern for other souls. This shows how joyously confident he must have been in his own salvation. Only when you are secure and happy in the Lord yourself, can you pray effectively for others. Job's devotions were looking outward and for the benefit of others. He took it on faith that his intercession had a practical effect on the lives of those he loved.

Finally, and most remarkably, Job's prayers extended in the murky realm of inadvertent or unconscious sin. Job's faith in forgiveness was big enough that it completely covered not just individual acts of sin, but sin itself and this shows a fundamental grasp of the gospel.

This last point is essential to a proper understanding of all that follows. You see, in the gospel according to Job a person is either righteous or not. You cannot be a little bit righteous any more than you can be a little bit pregnant. Your sin is completely forgiven (including not just sinful behavior but the innate sinfulness of the heart) or it is not. If God accepts us at all, He accepts us wholeheartedly and he covers us completely with the spotless robe of righteousness. This robe of divine acceptance does not come in gray, but only in dazzling white, and you either have the robe or not. You are either righteous or wicked. Anyone who is wicked can have that status quickly amended by a trip to the cross.

The Adversary

Suddenly, without warning or introduction, we see into the very throne room of God. It is as if a veil was drawn aside for us and we are allowed to see into the world of the spirit. We see the Lord seated on His throne and surrounding His throne is His council of Holy Ones. It is evidently some sort of audience day where all of the angels come in to report on their various duties.

Satan comes in along with everyone else. He is known as the Adversary and Accuser. He enters in his capacity as the Prince of the power of the air, who accuses us before our God day and night.

When he enters, he comes in boldly and unchallenged. The Lord asks him, "Where have you come from?" Satan answers, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth." You can almost hear the arrogance and disrespect in his words. Unlike Job, Satan has no responsibilities. All he has to do all day long is go gadding about in the world. He is a restless, shiftless, roving hoodlum. Like the delinquent kid who comes slinking home in the wee hours of the morning. When asked by his father what he has been up to, he answers evasively, "Just cruisin' around Pop. What's it to ya?"

The adversary describes his occupation as going back and forth; walking up and down. The original idea is in the heat of haste. This illustrates Satan's usual intense cunning and planning. He has been hurrying through the inhabited earth, as a roaring lion looking for someone to devour or as an unclean spirit seeking rest and finding none.

You will find this same feverish spirit within everyone under Satan's dominion because the scripture tells us the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest . . . there is no peace . . . for the wicked.

Do not miss Satan's own admission of his character, and note the difference between his feverish heat of haste and the peace that Jesus possessed during his work here on earth. The devil rushes around with restless energy through the realms he has betrayed, causing chaos and unrest wherever he goes. Jesus walked in calm peace through the world he came to save. With it, he brought rest, blessing and life wherever he went.

No feverish heat of haste ever comes from God, and the more you become a partaker of the Divine Nature, the more you will experience the calm restful power that so strikingly manifested itself in Christ Jesus. On the other hand, if you are experiencing unrest and wander in a feverish heat of haste, realize that your confidence is not in the Son of God and in His power.

Since Satan is no longer in his place in the order of God, he is nothing more than a wandering star, aimless and dissatisfied. He has no joy in heaven or earth except in tempting others and bringing them into the same torment as himself.

Here is another interesting point to observe. There seems to be an odd informality about this interview between God and Satan. While it is true Satan must "present" himself to the Lord, as servant to Master, once these two are together, they do not seem to stand much on ceremony. Instead, they come straight to the point. Satan sauces, and the Lord boasts. Even in such a sketchy dialogue we are left with the distinct impression these two individuals know each other—in fact, they obviously know each other only too well. The Lord knows Satan through and through, and Satan too, after his own perverted fashion, knows the Lord like the back of his hand. Is this not precisely the way things stand between archenemies? After all, these two have cased each other since who knows when.

But who, exactly, is this ancient rival of the Lord, and what is he doing among the holy angels before the heavenly throne? From the sound of things, he seems just to blunder in right off the street, almost as if he owned the place! Surely, this is one of the deepest and most inexplicable situations. It is not just that such awesome power and privileges are bestowed with such seeming casualness on this cosmic hooligan, but the man who suffers so monstrously at Satan's hands is kept entirely in the dark as to the very existence of his spiritual enemy. Nowhere in the long and exhaustive dialogue between Job and his friends is the idea of personal, supernatural evil so much as broached as a possibility. The whole subject is a locked room. Satan is mentioned only in these first two chapters, and even here, as elsewhere in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word is not even a personal name but rather a title or office. Literally it is "the satan," a term meaning as I mentioned already, "accuser" or, as he might be called today in a court of law, "the Prosecution."

Just as the term "Christ" (or "anointed one") does not come to assume personal weight until the advent of Jesus, so only in the New Testament does the shadowy figure of "the satan" step fully out of the wings. The revelation of the personification of evil remained blurred until Jesus met Satan face-to-face in the wilderness, and then proceeded to expose the Devil's dark identity and all his evil works before the world. Ever since then this work of unmasking the face of evil has continued, and is due to climax in the revelation of what the New Testament calls "the man of lawlessness"—that figure who in some unthinkable way is to be the incarnation of Satan, the very "son" of the Devil, just as Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. The whole story of the Bible might be summarized as the gradual unveiling of the profoundly personal character of both good and evil.

What is so very strange about these first verses is that they seem to take us back to a time when Satan presumed to occupy the rightful place of Christ as the favored son. We are taken back to a time when Satan apparently had the very ear of God and could ask Him for whatever he wanted. This picture gives new and pointed force to Jesus' triumphant assertion in Luke 10:18, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven!"

If Job was kept in the dark about these things, it could only have been because the personal knowledge of Satan, this breathtakingly cunning and powerful enemy of his soul, would simply have been too terrifying, too searing a knowledge for any human being to have carried with them. Certainly not without at the same time having the full revelation of the saving victory of Jesus Christ on the cross and of His ascent to the right hand of the Father.

The Question of Jehovah

The Lord knew very well what the adversary's feverish roaming back and forth in the earth meant! And it was not going to benefit anyone, especially any faithful servants of God. He also would not settle for the insolent vagueness of Satan. Yet neither does He lose His temper. Instead, the Lord sharpens the focus of the conversation with a provocative gibe of His own, saying, "Have you considered my servant Job?" Or, as one translation says, "Have you set your heart on my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns anything evil." It is almost as if the Lord addressed the insolent kid by saying, "You ought to try hanging around with Job. Now there's a kid who knows the meaning of respect."

"There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns anything evil." What a testimony of Job! No one like him in all the earth! Did the Lord actually mean what he said? I know I touched on this above, but the Lord declared that Job was the ripest, most mature, and choicest servant of God. From this one statement it is clear the Lord considered Job to be the best among everyone of his time who sought to serve Him in integrity of heart and life.

Praise from your friends or coworkers is one thing, but the praise that comes from Heaven is quite another. We have already seen that Job was great among men, but that is nothing compared to the fact that he is also great in eyes of God. Job would have been in the top ten, perhaps, of the finest human beings that have ever lived, and without this fact firmly in mind, the rest of the story will be out of focus.

This verse leaves no doubt that Job really was a "blameless and upright" man and that this was not simply the subjective opinion of the author of the book. Job's righteousness was a divinely attested fact and from the very beginning it is the Lord Himself—not Job or any other human being—who sets out to justify this man and to establish his innocence. On top of that, this is not a defensive reaction on the Lord's part, but an offensive initiative. The Lord issues the first challenge, the first taunt, by aggressively boasting to Satan about Job.

The impeccable righteousness of Job is the very core of the book, the linchpin if you will, on which the entire plot hangs. God's praise for Job is so open and lavish, and His backing so unqualified, that if at any point in the ensuing struggle we are tempted to question the integrity of Job's faith (as his friends do, relentlessly), it will not really be Job we are questioning, but the Lord.

I don't know about you but I find something shocking about this. Something almost flatly unacceptable—that the holy and awesome Creator of the universe should declare of a mere man (a man obviously flawed) that He doesn't even find the slightest fault in him. Also, that this same God should then deliberately set out to defend this man against any and all detractors. Yet, right here lies the unsearchable mystery of the gospel. The same condition of imputed, impeccable righteousness is an established fact for every believer in the Messiah of God (whether before Christ's actual coming or after it). Moreover, Job, as we will see, was undoubtedly a believer in the coming Christ.

In Christian terms, it is often explained that God "sees" believers as being righteous, even though we are not, because He sees us "in Christ." When He looks at us, He does not see our sin and ugliness, but Jesus. Yet how can this be? Does it make any real sense? Well, yes. Let us consider for a moment the analogy of a garden sown with seeds. No one sees these seeds, they are hidden in the ground. Although, the gardener knows they are there, and so he tends them, waters them, fertilizes the soil, and perhaps even builds a fence around his little plot. Anyone who had no knowledge of plants would think the gardener was crazy, lavishing all his attention on an empty, barren patch of ground. The mystery is that, although the seeds are of little value to all but the gardener, he cherishes them as much as if they had already produced the full crop he is expecting from them. While seeds in their ungerminated state may appear virtually worthless, they are precious to him because he knows their potential. Inside those tiny little seeds contain the blueprint of perfection. So it is in our lives, in the eyes of our Father! I do not fully understand it, but each of us can enjoy it and live life more abundantly because of it.

Considering the Trial

Many people have a real problem with the whole story of Job. Some argue that God never should have allowed the extreme hardships to happen or they claim that Job was the cause of the whole tragedy. Others contend that he was simply a "pawn in the chess game of life." One commentator views it as a cosmic dual of good and evil.

My design in this study is for us simply to examine the story and see what we can learn and apply in our own lives.

As I look around, I see many of God's people in the furnace of trial. And it is not always, as the letter to the Hebrews describes, a trial of mocking and scourging . . . of bonds and imprisonment. All I know for sure is that they are in fiery furnaces made exceedingly hot. Yes, many of these tests and trials could be similar those listed in the letter to the Hebrews or to the sufferings of Job. Then again, they may be an emotional crisis so intense they sweat drops of blood like Jesus in the Garden.

There are times in each of our lives when life does not make sense any more. All of Hell seems to be on our backs. We are filled with guilt, doubt, low self-esteem and defeat. These thoughts occupy every waking moment. During these times we can give up or remember who Jesus is. Hardships will either cripple us or cause our roots to grow deeper and stronger.

My hope in writing this study is to reach anyone who is walking with the Lord in integrity of heart and loyal obedience to what they sincerely believe to be His will and purpose for their lives. This study is to those who are doing everything that they know to do—and yet find themselves in such a fiery trial they are confused and disillusioned.

I am not trying to give you a minute exegesis of the text. I will let the Scholars do that. I only want to give an outline from the experiential standpoint and give it in simplicity to anyone that can be fed by it.

I think the biggest mistake we make with the story of Job is looking only at his physical suffering or his financial loss. As you will see in Chapter 29, his greatest loss, or at least what he thinks is lost, is his relationship with the Lord and his service for the Lord. He barely even mentions the loss of his children.

Forget about his physical suffering. Maybe your trial is internal, focused on your attitudes or emotions. It might be a purging of your will or desires. The Lord will test and try you on your greatest need. Something a friend reminded me of is how the Lord will always test you concerning your obedience to His Word. Satan, however, always tempts you to disobey God's Word.

There comes a time in the life of every fervent believer when the very foundations in our lives are shaken. Times for us to either hang on to heaven or fall into destruction. Times for us to anchor our faith in the Rock of God's Word or to lose all hope. It may come from pressures from without, or tremendous struggles within. These may be troubles and difficulties we did not anticipate, possibly a time of disillusionment when it seems we have given more to God than we are receiving.

Have you ever felt that "it wasn't supposed to be this way!"? "That's not the way my TV preacher told me it would be. If I ever saw him in person I'd cram these tapes down his throat." I am talking about honest, gut-level pain. Please realize, though, there are times when the Lord's answer will simply direct you to be patient. His plan is in place, just trust Him.

Sometimes it may feel as though He is silent, but do not confuse that with indifference or you will really be miserable and miss His best for your life. If you give up when you do not understand, you will reject His caring, steadfast love and cut yourself off from your only real hope of deliverance. That is of course exactly what Satan is hoping you do—give up, pack it in and quit. That was the whole purpose in his attacks against Job.

The Lord said that He will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap, and He will purify His priests and refine them.

What form this refining and purifying takes is totally in His hands. I do not know what He is doing with you or in your life, but I do know His desire is for you to become identified with His suffering and to be conformed to His image. Whatever it is that's standing in the way will be burned away!

I also realize that if you have never tasted of this type of work being done in your life, you may as well put this study down now because it will not mean a thing to you. It may even make you a little mad. Just put it away until the Lord speaks to you to pick it up again. Beware though, if you are lead to consider this study it means one of two things: either He is preparing you for some trials that lay ahead of you, or you are currently in the midst of fiery trials and aren't learning the lesson very well.

The Lord's Evaluation

There was no one like Job in all the earth, according to the Lord and it is obvious that the prince of darkness held a similar opinion. To him, Job was a city set on a hill that could not be hid. Of all men, Job could not live or die unto himself. His fall would be the stumbling block for many. There is no doubt that because of this he became a central target for Satan, someone that he had indeed set his heart on with unceasing thought and fiendish plans to steal, kill and destroy.

Also, understand the attacks had absolutely nothing to do with Job, the man. It was his soul Satan was after. It was his faith and integrity of heart that was under attack.

Satan did not say, "Take away his wealth, because he has too much." He said, "Take it away and he will renounce you." Satan could not care less about Job's wealth, or health, or family. It was Job's devotion and love for the Lord that irritated Satan.

I think the clearest illustration of this truth is seen in Mark 4:14-20. Specifically verse 15, when Jesus said, "Satan comes immediately to take away the Word that was sown." Notice it was the Word he was after, not the soil. In fact, verse 17 clearly says that the adversity comes because of the Word that was sown! You, in and of yourself, mean nothing to Satan. Your devotion and your faith are what he hates. It is the good fight of faith we are to fight.

Proverbs 24:10 says, "if you faint in the day of adversity your faith was weak." One translation says that your faith was shallow (or insincere). The Living Bible says it even plainer when it says you are a poor specimen if you can't stand the pressure of adversity. OUCH!

I have heard it rightly said that you could judge a man's commitment by how much of a storm it would take before he gave up and quit. That being true, we can see the immense confidence the Lord has in His servant Job.

One of my favorite stories is John Bunyan's classic, Pilgrim's Progress. In this story, Young Christian, the hero of the tale, faces many hardships and terrible troubles, yet with undaunted faith and commitment he continues on his journey to the City of Zion. At one point he faces a foul fiend ... named Apollyon. After some discourse between them, they push into a battle.
Finally, poor Christian was wounded, bruised and knocked down to the point that he began to despair of life. Reaching for his Sword one more time yelled out "Don't rejoice over me, O my Enemy! When I fall, I shall arise;" and with that gave Apollyon a deadly thrust.

Maybe we need to have such tenacity. Such boldness. At the end of the story is a poem that was set to music by a former Pastor of mine. He called it The Pilgrim Song and the lyrics go like this:

He who would Valiant be, against all disaster;
Let him in constancy follow the master.
There's no discouragement shall make him once relent
his first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.

Though foes beset him around with dreadful stories;
they but themselves confound, His strength the more is.
though he with giants fight he shall make good his right to be a pilgrim.

Since, Lord, thou do defend us with your Spirit;
We know we, at the end, shall life inherit.
Than fancies flee away, I'll care not what men say,
I'll labor night and day to be a pilgrim.

There's no discouragement shall make us once relent
our first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.

You see brothers and sisters, when we face our trials, large or small, we can settle for lukewarm, diluted faith—or we can seek the real thing: the type of faith that never gives up on it's “first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.”

Satan's Evaluation

The Lord asked Satan if he had considered his man Job and Satan's answer proved that he had indeed considered Job at every angle. He was prepared with his answer when he quickly replied, "Does Job fear God for nothing?"

You can almost see the sneer on his face as, true to his character, he throws doubt on the integrity of Job's motives in being "blameless and upright" and "abstaining from everything evil." Satan claims Job follows God because of all that he receives from Him. It has nothing to do with how great God is.

That's nothing new, though. Satan did the same thing to Eve when he convinced her God was being unfair and "holding out" on them when he withheld the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: "Hey, God knows that when you eat that fruit your eyes will be opened. In fact, you'll be like God yourself, knowing all about good and evil." His tactics haven't changed a bit today. He still tells people that there is always a selfish motive at the back of all service to God. "They're all out for the money!" "They're all crooks!" Disinterested and unselfish love and devotion, whether from God toward his people or from his people toward God, is beyond Satan's understanding as well as those under his power. To the world, Christian devotion and commitment is foolishness and His followers are simply a bunch of morons. I have never expected understanding from the world, only judgment and ridicule.

Satan claims to have proof to his accusations because Jehovah had "put a hedge around him (Job), his household and everything he has." You know that the prince of darkness was speaking out of experience because he must have met that Divine environment on whatever side he had tried to attack the servant of God. Satan must have been walking around chomping at the bit for a chance to break through this hedge God placed around this "man of God."

On top of that, Satan also complains that God not only put a hedge around Job and protected him, but He had "blessed the work of his hands, and increased his substance in the land."

In Satan's view, what opportunity did Job have to prove the authenticity and sincerity of his devotion? Sure, the Lord could see his heart and knew he was loyal to the core, but who else could believe it when all they saw was prosperity and blessing on every side?

Very few Christians experience such an outpouring of disasters as those Job has. However, that does not mean an ordinary person, going through ordinary struggles and setbacks of life cannot identify with him. Think about it, Job in his suffering is essentially a figure like Christ on the cross. He is a person with whom everyone can identify with in spite of his absolute uniqueness. We do not have to have nails driven into our hands and feet to know what a cross is. A cross is a cross. To be crushed is to be crushed. Countless people have committed suicide with far less provocation than Job had, and what to one person seems a feather is to another a millstone. Even feathers, when blown about by the Devil, can stir up quite enough trouble of their own.

When Jesus said, "Each day has enough trouble of its own," He was talking about everyone's day. Yet, who hasn't caught themselves wishing that they could fight more glamorous battles than the ones they actually face? As asinine as it sounds, I have. I have foolishly challenged the troubles to come. "Come on Devil, give me your best shot." Glamour is one of Satan's great drawing cards. However, in reality, what good is it to beat the Devil at cancer only to lose out to the common cold? It is just as important to beat him at the corner store as in the concentration camp.

There can also be a dangerous false humility (in other words, spiritual pride) in saying, "I really have nothing to complain about, especially when I think about so-and-so or with all the starving children in the world." The real question is whether I myself, in my own unique set of circumstances, am giving glory and thanks to God from my heart. If I am not, then it does not make any difference whether the problems I face are big or little. Even the smallest of complaints can spoil fellowship with God. Just one. We see this principle plainly illustrated in marriage. Just one unresolved tension, just one episode of stubbornness, just one dirty sock or unmowed lawn can be enough to provoke a bitter argument. The point is not how big or how little the problem is; the point is the quarrel itself, the wrecked relationship. The point is whether one's own particular burden is being borne in the bitterness and pride of the flesh, or in the grace of God.

So, quit being trapped into comparing lots, whether in terms of troubles or of blessings. As Paul put it, "Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load." Whatever our trials are, we are not to begrudge them; but we also should not make the opposite mistake of underestimating or belittling them. Jesus did not sing happy, joyous choruses on the cross; He hung there and suffered.

The Challenge

"But I'll tell you what," Satan continued, "if you stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, he will curse you to your face."

You almost think that he had this challenge in mind when he first entered the Lord's chamber. It is obvious that he had set his heart on Job. He had surveyed that hedge from every angle, going around and around, trying to find a way in. As long as Job had kept his heart right before the Lord and stayed within that hedge, Satan had no way of reaching him. If he could just get that hedge removed, he knew he could make this so-called "Godly man" fall and curse God to His face. If he could just get at him, he could break him one way or another.

This rebel archangel had once tried to exalt his throne above the stars of God. He dared to claim, "I will be like the Most High." However, because of his pride and presumption he was cast down. If he, who had once been "perfect in beauty . . . a daystar and son of the morning," could fall from his high estate and become the archenemy of God, then he knew he could bring down this Son of Adam with him. The fact that Job was able to walk with God in loyal trust and obedience infuriated him and was more than he could endure.

Boldly he challenges the integrity of Job in the full assembly of the council of heaven, saying, "Put your money where your mouth is. You say he is upright and true to you and his devotion is sincere. Well, prove it. Strike everything he has and he will cease to serve you and will renounce his allegiance to you—not in secret—but to your face!"

What else could the Lord do but accept the challenge and allow His servant to be put to the test? To me this proves the Lord's utmost confidence in Job. The council of heaven has heard the Lord's estimation of Job as well as the insinuating sneer of the accuser of the brethren as to Job's integrity. I am sorry if you have a problem with this, but this accusation cannot be overlooked. The Word of the Lord is at stake here. That is what is brought into question now! The loyalty of Job will be proved! All of heaven will know that Jehovah can be loved and worshipped for Himself, even by a Son of Adam.

The challenge of God's Word is the point of everything that has taken place from age to age. Satan started it and took one third of the angels with him. His original challenge took place in the realm of the spirit, and God created the realm of the flesh to prove His Word and love. During Jesus' life in the realm of the flesh, he remained true to God's Word and beat the challenger of God's Word.

With joy, the adversary sees the challenge accepted. The hedge around Job is removed by the words: "Very well then. Everything he has is in your hands,

"So Satan went forth . . ."

The Adversary's Devices

"It all fell on a day . . ."

Those few, brief words give us a very vivid description of the enemy's attack on Job's possessions. His plan had been carefully thought out with all the skill and cunning that he had developed since he tempted Eve in the garden.

Job had to be taken totally unaware and with full guns aimed at once. It would be during the immense pressure of sudden loss that he would be forced to an impulsive renunciation of God. In Luke 4:13 it says, "When the Devil had finished all this tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time." It is the timing of the Devil's attacks, as much as the magnitude of them, that can crush us. The character of man is revealed in the hour of sudden and overwhelming crisis. With absolutely no time for recollection or analyzing, what is in the heart will suddenly break out, especially under the pressure of great anguish and pain.

Also, times of great celebration and rejoicing are times when men are generally off guard, and bad news in the midst of a party is always more appalling.

The time is carefully chosen by the subtle adversary. On a day of feasting, a messenger comes to Job to tell him that the Sabeans have suddenly taken all his cattle away and killed all of the servants with no one left except the messenger.

Before he finishes speaking another man shows up with news that all Job's sheep and servants have been burned up by fire from heaven. Immediately a third messenger arrives to tell Job that his camels were ripped off and those servants killed, too.

I don't know if it has sunk in yet, but all of that news meant utter ruin for Job as far as earthly substance is concerned. His entire world caved in overnight. That is like telling Howard Cunningham on Happy Days that his hardware store burned down and everything was gone. Or telling Donald Trump all of his real estate holdings collapsed. On top of that, I am positive Job was not in the good hands of Allstate.

The coincidence of everything happening at the same time and each group of servants killed except the one to tell the news, should have alerted Job that more than natural causes lay behind these sudden blows. Anyone who walks with God learns to understand and recognize the supernatural powers that lie behind the surface of things in daily life.

There was a time when the Lord instructed my wife and I to move to Ann Arbor to be a part of an Ecumenical Christian community. When we arrived, everything seemed to be going against us: We still owned property in Kalamazoo and our mortgage payments were lost because of "computer errors" several months in a row. We were getting threatening collection notices from a credit bureau for a $15 medical bill we did not know anything about. (It ended up being from a year prior and previously paid by insurance.) We were getting cancellation notices on our car insurance, again because of "computer errors." We paid off a loan from a credit union, and they applied the funds to a different account. Consequently, we were getting overdue notices on the loan we thought had been paid off.

While building a new house, every day brought another problem. For example, after the builder laid the foundation, one neighbor complained our house was too close to the lot line, (9 inches to be exact). The township supervisor settled the matter in our favor, but that was after we went ahead and shortened our house nine inches. Another neighbor brought a lawsuit due to flooding on his property. The flooding was due improper grading on both of our lots and the land surrounding our lots, but because we were the last to build, he held us responsible. The lawsuit brought against us was decided in our favor, but only after spending $3,000 in attorney fees and another $5,000 in attempts at resolving the grading problem. Because of all the re-grading, we had $23,000 worth of damages to repair on our new house.

Later, my daughter became ill with a viral infection and spent 4 days in the hospital. One of our twins developed a large lump on one arm resembling a tumor and required surgery.

That is only the beginning of the problems we encountered. We have lived in this house since 1987 and the end of the year 2002 was the first peaceful period we have experienced. I could list many other examples of problems, mistakes, misunderstandings and torments that have plagued us.

At one point, the situation was so intense and continuous we were ready to give up and move back to Kalamazoo. It is so easy to miss the source of all of our trials, to pass them off as coincidence or happenstance, just bad luck. All of us fall into the same mentality at times. We become so overwhelmed we forget to discern the cause of our troubles and to seek wisdom from our only hope of rescue. Fortunately we realized what was really happening and we strengthened our determination to stay put!

Let me say something right here that is very important. When I say that we strengthened our determination to stay, I am not saying that we simply set our wills to put up with the attacks that were coming against us. We did not simply acquiesce to the storms of life. There is a big difference between Job's situation and our position as believers today. First, we can look back at Job and learn from his mistakes, and he does make them. We can also view our situation from a higher vantage point than Job had. Job was oblivious to the spiritual warfare going on around him. Granted, in this story we will find that Job catches occasional glimpses of that warfare, but it is not a deep-seated reality of his life.

Paul taught that we are not to be unaware of the devil's devices. We are told to stand strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. To put on the full armor of God in order to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. We are also to take up the shield of faith in order to extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

The scriptures compare believers to an eagle. The Bible states "those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength" (with the literal understanding being they will exchange their weakness for His strength). “They will soar on wings like eagles . . ." (Isaiah. 40:31).

I have heard it said that eagles build their nests in the highest places of rocky clefts. Their homes are secure and unmovable, regardless of the storms that come against them. When a storm is moving in, they leave their nest and face head-on into the wind. They will lock their wings in a climb position so that when the storm hits, they are flown above it until the storm passes. Certainly, the storms are going to hit, but the eagle is untouched and his home is secure in the midst of it, too.

In a sense, that's what Patty and I did: we exchanged our weakness for God's strength. We battled with the spirits trying to hinder us and drive us back from fulfilling God's purpose and plan for our lives. However, be aware that this battling is not a "one time and it's over" deal. It is a way of life! It is a daily struggle with flesh and a sincere fight of faith. Yes, many times the battle gets burdensome and frustrating. Decide right now if you are going continue to fight or roll over and let the Devil have his victory? Make what we used to call a "Quality Decision!" That is a decision you will not and can not back down from.

In the case of Job, this touching of his possessions did not end his torment. The devil reserved his keenest blow for the last.

Job hardly had time to realize that all his wealth was gone when one more messenger arrives to tell him that in the midst of a party. A strong wind struck the house his children were in and killed them all.

"They are dead!"

This is the hardest blow of all, and its effect on Job is what the subtle foe has been counting on. How would Job react? All of his wealth stripped away and then, suddenly, his children swept away without warning!

"Then Job got up . . . fell to the ground and worshipped the Lord."

Job could never have realized the cloud of witnesses looking on! What sympathy and joy there must have been in the heart of God for Job's faithfulness! In all of this adversity, Jehovah was not the adversary. He was not the one that afflicted Job. Yet, Job had stood the test. The adversary was defeated. Instead of rebellion, Job had worshipped God. All hell broke loose against him but still Job was firmly fixed on God. In one moment, his anchored soul clung to the only refuge he knew. He had torn his robe and shaved his head to show his deep sorrow and horrible grief, but in his hour of trial, his spirit worshipped the God who had given him life!

"In all of this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing." Job instantly confessed that he did not really possess anything of his own. The Lord had given him his wealth. By making the continual burned offerings for his children, he was, by faith, laying his children before the Lord. He had nothing except what the Lord had given him; he was born with nothing and would take nothing out. The Lord had given him everything and the Lord had the sovereign right to take it all away! Whichever He did, Job would bless the name of the Lord.

Everybody wants to criticize Job. Some feel he is self-righteous, lacks faith, or had a defeatist attitude. Some charge that Job did not have any faith otherwise this would never have happened to him. Yet, it was because of his faith that all these things happened to him. The Lord had already declared there was "no one on earth like him; . . . blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." In addition, we know that without faith it is impossible to please God!

The most amazing thing about this is how worship is the initial response of Job; it is the spontaneous reaction to tragedy that simply wells up out of his heart. This type of response is foreign to us. Under similar circumstances worship does not come to a person naturally or spontaneously, it is a practiced response, the fruit of a long faith and discipline. Job could never have reacted as he did unless he had been practicing for this moment all his life.

I wonder if we would have fallen on our knees and worshipped the Lord. There are some who waiver and are ready to renounce the Lord if their BMW stalls on the highway. Some feel they are going through great testing because they do not have enough money to pay their monthly bill for their cable TV or are angry with the Lord because they cannot afford a microwave oven. Yet millions of people cannot even afford one meal a week, let alone the luxury of watching MTV or I Love Lucy reruns.

How much of a storm will it take to make you fall? Job lost everything and still worshipped the Lord! Not only that, he did not have the insight as to the accusations made by Satan concerning his integrity. He had no idea he was being put to the test. All he could feel was the pain in the aftermath of the attack.

I know people who feel they are going through great testing because they do not have enough money to pay their monthly bill for their cable TV or are angry with the Lord because they cannot afford a microwave oven. Yet millions of people cannot even afford one meal a week, let alone the luxury of watching MTV or I Love Lucy reruns.

Take careful note of the attitude of heart in which Job's words of worship were offered. In the midst of this turmoil and grief, Job certainly did not have a peaceful spirit nor was he filled with some kind of spiritual joy. No, he was as broken and cast down as a man can be. Granted, he apparently had the presence of mind to shear off all his hair and then take a straight razor and drag it across his scalp (no easy task, I can imagine). However, if Job's hand was uncannily steady, it certainly was not from being cool and collected. Rather, I believe from being in a state of shock.

I am puzzled. Can true worship really transpire when the heart is broken and the mind shocked and dulled with horror? Is there any place in worship for bitter tears and wailing? Just one chapter later we will hear Job groan, "May the day of my birth perish." Has his worship ceased by this point? Has mere self-pity overtaken him? On the other hand, can groaning be a part of worship too?

Think of Mary at the foot of the cross: was it a sweet and mystical experience for her to stand there and watch her son die? Maybe years later, looking back on the day, she had more tender feelings. However, at the time, surely, it was hellish. I believe that is how it will be for us whenever we make, in our daily lives, direct contact with the cross. It is marvelous to meditate on the cross and to be flooded with peace and joy. Although, that is the Holy Spirit showing us the effects of the cross; it is not the cross itself. It is wonderful to be filled with mystical rapture at the thought of Calvary. My question, though, is how will it be for us the moment the rough wood touches our flesh and the nail bites. Real worship has less to do with offering sacrifices than with being a sacrifice." Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God," urges Paul, "for this is your spiritual worship."

A Time for Reflection

2005-01-06T12:56:00.000-05:00

". . . he was commended as one
who pleased God . . ."
—Heb.11:5

Once again there was a day when the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and once again Satan appears in their midst. He is not at all abashed over his failure to prove his accusations of Job.

You hear a discourse between the Lord and the adversary that is similar to their previous one. This time, however, the Lord adds that Job "still maintains his integrity, even though you incited me against him to ruin him without reason."

That alone should silence all of the Bible commentators that charge Job with the blame for his troubles. Jehovah declares before His entire council that all of these trials were sent on Job "without reason." His confidence in Job's integrity, and faithfulness to Him, had been justified. His servant had stood the test! It was fully proved to the accuser that his sneering insinuation as to Job's motives in serving God was unfounded.

However, as is always the case, the adversary was not satisfied. He had a new argument: All the things that had been taken away did not really touch Job himself. They were external things. Now granted, the children were of his bone and of his flesh, but he knew they also belonged to God along with all the wealth he had received. Therefore, he surrendered them to Him, although it was with great pain and sorrow.

If you will remember, though, the Lord prevented Satan from touching Job, himself. Therefore, as the advocate argues, the case was not proved. The test had not been sufficient because it is easy to let go of things as long as they do not really touch the individual.

As much as I hate to admit it, I have to be honest and say I can certainly understand his argument, and I am sure the heavenly hosts standing by could, also. If someone loses a home in a storm, such as a tornado, they are shocked and dismayed but they go on, possibly to rebuild. I have heard about many who made bad financial investments and literally lost everything, filed bankruptcy and left with nothing. Despite their loss, they maintained their general health, recovered their losses and went on with life.

Certainly, many weak individuals have taken their lives over less, but most would recover, pick up the pieces and move on, usually stronger and wiser than before.

Howard Ruff, in his book Making Money wrote this in a chapter entitled Going for Broke:

"We hear a lot of pitiful stories in the 'War Room' from people who have been forced into bankruptcy or who have been defrauded out of large sums of money . . . They are devastated. Their self-image is shattered, their morale is destroyed and they feel scarred for life . . . I have learned that failure is not only not the end of the world, but that, when properly managed, recovery and rehabilitation can become an exhilarating, even euphoric, experience. There is nothing more exciting than picking yourself up and proving that your failure was merely a freak happenstance, one of those things that doesn't need to be explained or excused."

In the introduction of the same book, Ruff also confessed that after losing his business, accumulating a debt of over a half million dollars, and suffering the death of his 21 month-old son, that "it was at times like that you find out whether or not your beliefs are bone-deep or skin-shallow."

This is certainly true when your health is maintained. However, when someone's health is taken from them, it is difficult (although not impossible) to stand. It is so easy to be strong and confident when you are without any pain, but it sure is hard when your flesh is crying out in agony. Think how listless, and burned out you feel with something as simple as a head cold. Can you imagine being attacked with sore boils from head to foot?

When it comes to the topic of physical pain, when you are not the one actually experiencing the pain, you can entertain all kinds of noble theories about it. As long as it is happening to someone else, pain is just an abstraction, an unfortunate blight on an otherwise tolerable world. But, boy, oh boy, as soon as the Devil so much as touches your own body the whole picture changes. At that point suffering becomes an enormous, concrete reality so overwhelming that it has the power to engulf every thing else.

There are all kinds of examples describing what happens when strong, intelligent, self-assured people are suddenly caught in the grip of acute pain. Many believers are able, by God's grace, to bear enormous burdens of physical pain with dignity and even with joy. On the other hand, when a smaller degree of pain is applied to another believer, who may be just as godly, it can be enough to plunge them into depression or make them lose all control and whimper and scream for mercy. When King Hezekiah was struck with sickness, he "turned his face to the wall" and "wept bitterly." He simply could not take it.

Just as in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, the Devil quotes God's own law to Him: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and "skin for skin." It is almost as if Satan overheard Job's lofty thoughts concerning man's humble status of utter nakedness before the Lord. Then determines to take him at his word and make him more naked still, tearing off even his bare flesh and flaying him alive.

Therefore, Satan proposes a deeper test. "Just touch Job himself and see if he will still cling to you! See if in the furnace of suffering whether he will renounce his allegiance to you. Maybe he didn't serve you because of the gifts you gave, but he still has a clear conscience of a life void of sin, the inward peace of your presence, the reward of other people's respect. You take those things away and he will have nothing left. And he will curse you to your face."

The Lord looks around, maybe a little disgusted with the accuser's persistence, but says "Very well, then, he's in your hands; but you must spare his life."

The Second Attack
Well, he got the permission to attack Job, "So Satan went forth" and used his license to the limit.

Actually, I think that during a time of prosperity, when things are going well, you do not know how much you really are able to endure. I believe people are able to withstand and even conquer more than they give themselves credit. I have seen my wife, Patty, endure many demands that have been placed on her by raising our extremely active twin sons and one daughter, who was born when her brothers were 18 months old. I've seen her hold up under other pressures: Many times she had to return to our hometown, all of the children in tow, to find tenants for some rental properties we owned. Another time, I tended things at home while my wife spent several grueling days with our little girl who, when she was 8 months old, was hospitalized for a serious viral illness (you don't know pain until you have to stand in the hallway, listening to one of your children scream, while the doctors take a spinal tap).

We have often had people say, "How did you ever do it? I could never have survived." We have also said similar things to people when we found out they had two or three sets of twins, or worse yet, triplets. (We even met a woman who had four sets of twins!) The truth is, you never really know how much you can handle until you are thrown into it. Job was about to find out.

Always remember that grace is available when you need it. One error that is propagated among Christians is the idea that nothing will happen to you without God giving you the strength to endure it. That is not totally accurate. He will always make it available to you, but you have to appropriate it. That strength is His grace, which is always available in abundance, but you have to obtain it. He tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace to find mercy and obtain grace in your time of need. It does not just come automatically when the time of testing comes. It is always available for you, but you have to go get it from the Father.

In Job's case, the adversary could have hit him with a little Influenza, or maybe some tennis elbow —perhaps even some lower back pain—but no, he attacks him with a most repulsive, loathsome disease: sore boils from head to foot. He was covered with one universal inflammation. Some believe it was a form of leprosy called Black Leprosy or Elephantiasis, because the feet swell like those of an elephant. Without attempting a medical diagnosis of Job's condition, just listen to what he says about it at various stages: "My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering;" "My gauntness rises up and testifies against me” . . . “my face is red with weeping, deep shadows ring my eyes;" "My whole frame is but a shadow;" "Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest” . . . “My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever."

Because of the blistering, "Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes."

Let me try to explain the scene for you: in the Middle East, as I understand it, the dung is not mixed with straw as it is here in the west, but instead it is carried in baskets to a place outside the village where it is usually burned once a month. The rains eventually reduce the ashes to a solid hill of earth, and the place is used for a watchtower, or a place where people might congregate for discussions.

That is also where any outcasts with horrible diseases go at night for shelter among the ashes, which the sun has warmed. In other words, it was a dump.

Job, who was once the greatest man among the people of the East, is found, along with the beggars and outcasts. His wealth is gone. His children are gone. This is a man who once had servants to minister to his every wish, and now he has to take a piece of broken pottery and scrape himself because the sores were too repulsive to touch.

Who could recognize the princely Job, who once sat as chief, who people once looked up to as the most noble of the men of the East, sitting there among the ashes as some loathsome object?

On the Ash Heap
Let us think about this some more. Anyone who has ever had a severe skin disorder will know that it is a sort of thing that can drive a person half-crazy. How pathetic and heart-wrenching to read about Job having to use a piece of broken pottery to scrape his boils! Scratching is pointless activity; it only makes the infection worse. Everyone knows this, and yet we cannot help scratching, almost as if we were condemned to tear ourselves to pieces. This reminds me of one of the most terrible prophecies: "This is the plague with which the Lord will strike the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet" (Zech. 14:12). There isn't anything more personal to us than our skin. When skin is diseased, it can be a kind of living death, almost as if the body had been turned inside out. This is certainly how it used to be viewed. Disease of the skin was equated with disease of the soul, and anyone afflicted with a skin disease was automatically judged spiritually unclean. The Hebrew word for “leprosy” was applied not to leprosy alone but to a wide variety of skin infections, and also more generally to anything that was ceremonially unclean.

This is why, as you will see, when Job's three friends come to visit him, even before Job opens his mouth they have already formed a clear opinion as to what his problem is. In their minds, it is obvious to the whole world that if a man's body was visibly rotting away, he must be a sinner! Job's physical condition puts him in the same class as modern day AIDS patients. The torment was not just a private one but a public one as well. As terrible as the pain is, even worse is the shame. Listen to Leviticus 13:45-46: "The person with . . . an infectious skin disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' as long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp."

This is exactly what happens to Job: he is banished from society, run out of town on a rail, treated as an outcast. That's why the verse makes a point to tell us that he was sitting "among the ashes" and scratching himself with "broken pottery." As I said above, where does one find heaps of ashes and broken pots? At the garbage dump, naturally. Job was not lying at home in his own comfortable bed between crisp white sheets and being waited on by private nurses; no, he was where all the other lepers and pariahs would be found, quarantined in the town dump. At least there, rather than being a burden on society, such people could take care of one another and scrounge around for their own food; besides, there would be lots of broken pottery to scratch themselves with. For all we know, even Job's wife and his friends would have treated him as untouchable, keeping a safe distance and talking to him through the stench and drifting smoke, like the poet Dante visiting with the shadows in the Inferno.

As the dialogue between Job and his friends unfolds, we will have to keep in mind this horrible picture of a reeking dump as the setting in which the long and rather abstract theological debate takes place. They are not sitting in some elaborate conference room with a multi-million-dollar church complex. They are not even around a kitchen table. Instead, they were right in the middle of heaps of ashes, smoldering fires, stench, buzzing flies, scampering rats, piles of rubble, and all the other junk you find in a dump—not to mention the human ruins.

Job's Integrity
Evidently, the only one left to Job is his wife, and she must have followed him to the ash mound outside the village. Do not overlook the pain of Job's wife; she has also seen all of their wealth stripped away. She has also experienced the horrible grief of her children's death.

When a husband and wife are united, they find a measure of strength and mutual comfort that holds its ground against almost any amount of trouble. Now, with the additional pain of seeing her husband's sufferings, she unknowingly lends her mouth to the adversary. Angrily she says the exact same words that actually passed between the Lord and Satan in the council room: "Are you still hanging on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"

Many times Satan will plant a thought in someone's mind. They will make a comment that in effect attacks you at your weakest spot. You may be making a stand on a particular word that the Lord has given you, a particular promise that you need to apply your faith on. They come up and, unknowingly, try to make you give up or waiver from His promise to you.

How could she know that Job's integrity was in question? You know Satan must have had his eyes peeled on Job right now! He was watching to see the effect of this attack.

"Curse God and die!" We never read of anything she said when all the wealth was lost or of any rebellion over the loss of her children, but now it seems too much to see her husband suffer. "It would be better for you to be dead than to be in such suffering. The God you have served so loyally must have forsaken you! Are you still going to persist in blessing the Name of the Lord? You should rather 'renounce' Him—say some word against the Lord—and die."

Sound familiar? Many times we hear people say, "God can't be the 'God of Love' if He is going to let someone suffer." "When the Bible says that God will 'rescue you out of all your troubles,' that really isn't what it means." "Obviously God has abandoned you."

Is it a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of God? Can He be trusted? Why would God stand back and allow the enemy to bruise His children? "Lord, it isn't supposed to be this way!"

Others will ask you why you keep praying, "you know God's not listening." "You're forgotten, you're nobody, He doesn't care about you." "You were better off before you met God." Satan specializes in lies, confusion, desperation, and depression. He will move into your greatest weakness or need and throw his worst in our faces, then sit back to see what will happen.

But Job stood the test!

"You're talking like a foolish woman," he says to his anguished wife. "Those words should never come out of the lips of someone who worships Jehovah. I may not always understand what's going on around me, but as far as I'm concerned, it's lawful for Him to do whatever he desires with His own. Have we served Him only from selfish interests? Are we going to cling to Him only in times of prosperity? Shall we not accept from His hand sorrow and suffering as well as joy? Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"

Just as when Satan was tempting Jesus in the wilderness, when one approach didn't work, he tried another, then another, steadily increasing the pressure, the seductiveness, and the subtlety of his strategies. Since it did not work to kill off Job's kids wholesale, when it comes to his wife, Satan adopts a different tactic: he sows strife and succeeds in turning the couple against each other. She ridicules his religion, and he calls her a fool. A degree of alienation sets in which, just in itself, would very likely have been the worst trial these two had ever passed through in their married life.

It is so easy to blame all of this on the woman and to react to her conduct with horror—as if it were something surpassingly strange and appalling. Yet, it looks to me to be pretty close to real life. Most spouses will graciously support their partner through certain degrees of misfortune, but when the hardships and the complaints drag on and on, even the most saintly love will reach a breaking point. In the very best and strongest Christian marriages there will come times when either partner may view the other (however temporarily) as no longer a lovable or godly person at all, but as a sniveling and self-centered little worm. Married couples make the vow "for better or for worse." Then, when it becomes worse and one's spouse has a nervous breakdown or contracts some lingering terminal illness, there are few wives or husbands who will find in themselves a natural desire to keep on being smilingly supportive. Notice I said a natural desire. There is always an abundance of grace for those who reach out for it. And at times, that is what Job finds for himself.

Job was in reality a thoroughly surrendered man. "In all this, Job did not sin in what he said," because his will was wholly yielded to Him.

The horrible truth is that many who call themselves children of God, in one way or another, do indeed serve Him for the good they get in this present world and in the world to come. Rather than serving Him for Himself alone, and would curse Him to His face if they experience any trial of significant proportion.

I don't think anyone has said it better than John White:

"Our quest must be the quest of a suitor, a suitor too blinded by beauty to descend to calculating self interest; too intoxicated with love to care about the cost or the consequence of his suit. It must be the love of Mary, sitting at Jesus' feet, enchanted by his words and grace, but deaf and blind to the frustration and fuss of her resentful sister (Luke 10:38-42). An enchantment of that sort will not be broken, nor its pleasures denied.

"It is time we threw spiritual pragmatism out of the window. We come habitually to God carrying shopping baskets and armed with a checklist of needed purchases when all the time He wants to put His arms around us and draw us to Himself. We know no other way. Custom and tradition have drilled us in the art of celestial bargain hunting. It is time we forgot about our spiritual performance and our spiritual needs and gave ourselves up to passion."

Job is a true man of God. Blow after blow had come on him, but his integrity had stood the test.

He proved by his surrender, and his confidence in God's faithfulness, that he did not serve Him for all that He had given him. Whether the Lord gave, or the Lord took away, he still blessed the Name of the Lord!

The awful thing is that God was not the one afflicting him. Now, in one sense I admire Job's devotion, however, I really regret his lack of knowledge of God's loving care.

As we go on in this study, you will see some flaws in Job's character. Don't misunderstand me, the Lord's testimony of him still stands strong. Nevertheless, after the pain and suffering continues Job naturally forgets that the Lord is not the one causing the affliction. He is Job's deliverer. Job becomes very indignant and self-righteous. He actually becomes more concerned about declaring his own innocence (and in doing so unwittingly prolongs his suffering) than acknowledging the great character of God. One thing to realize is that this story really is not a story of how to endure suffering, but rather of how desperately we need redemption on a continual basis.

Alienation
By the second chapter of Job's story, we begin to notice that there is a pattern to the trials of Job. It is a pattern that is like the tightening of a noose as the Devil's onslaughts grow more and more personal, closer and closer, to Job's heart. First, buildings and servants were attacked; then Job's children were taken; next, his body was struck with disease; now his wife has been alienated from him. Soon his closest friends will unwittingly become tools of the Devil as they assault him with cold comfort and shallow theology. From this point on Job's trials grow increasingly lonely and interior, for Satan is directly attacking his personal relationships.

The plain fact is, if you follow Jesus with serious intent, there will be times when you will find yourself absolutely alone, cut off from everyone. In spite of the unity and love that are ours in the Body of Christ, there are bound to come times when you have to stand utterly alone before God. Why is this? Because there are some traits of the heart, some spiritual qualities, that can only be acquired and perfected in solitude—and not in the comfortable solitude we call "time to ourselves" and of which we all crave a certain amount. No, I am referring to a grueling solitary confinement of real loneliness and desertion. There is just no way around it. Without tasting this experience, no Christian can become fully Christ-like. The Via Dolorosa, the path of the cross, must be walked alone. Like the dock before the very judgment-seat of God, this is a narrow place, wide enough for only one abreast. There is no marriage in Heaven, Jesus taught. We go through the pearly gates one by one.

Trouble from God
Unfortunately, from the outset Job blames no one but God for his problems. I remember listening to a trainer for fighter pilots speak on this very subject. He was sent to the Arab States to train their pilots for combat flight. During the training, whenever a pilot bounced off the runway during a landing, or missed a particular maneuver, they would blame Allah. "Allah willed it," they would state. It became very difficult to teach them if they were not willing to accept responsibility for their mistakes, don't you think?

I do like Job's attitude in that he refuses to get bogged down trying to figure out all the "reasons" for his troubles. God knows the reasons; he does not. To "accept trouble from God" implies the acceptance of a certain illogical dimension to life.

However, we need to stop blaming God for all our troubles. Even insurance companies call natural disasters "Acts of God." If I, being a father of four children, were accused of doing to them all the things God is blamed for doing to his children, I would have been in jail years ago for child abuse. Can you imagine a parent willingly and joyfully giving their children cancer, pneumonia, and diabetes? What about cutting their legs off to teach them humility? I am sure you have heard the saying, "Experience is the best teacher." Now imagine a parent teaching a child the importance of looking both ways before crossing the street using the "Experience" method of instruction. How about a parent saying to the kids, "Alright kids, today I am going to teach you the importance of not putting your hand on the flame of a stove." What kind of insanity would that show? Yet throughout history, we have accused God of doing just that.

God did not afflict Job, however the Lord can use those experiences to teach us and draw us closer. Although, during Job's trials, and those we encounter, there can be rejoicing because those trials bring out endurance, steadfastness, and patience. We have to allow the endurance and steadfastness have full play and do a thorough work in our lives. Why? So that we will be perfectly and fully developed, with no defects, and lacking nothing in our pursuit of His Kingdom (see the letter from James).

When we are in the midst of our struggles and lack the wisdom to handle the situation, all we have to do is ask and our Father will give us the strength, wisdom and support we need.

Here Come the Friends
It is amazing how fast bad news travels. Three of Job's intimate friends hear of his troubles and out of the kindness of their hearts and their deep concern for him, agree to go together and comfort Job.

Think of that. It would be great to have just one friend that would drop everything at a moment's notice, travel any distance, and stick by our bedside night and day for an entire week! Wow! Job apparently did not just have one friend-in-need, he had three.

What a moving scene it must have been. Three friends graciously come to visit Job in simple and quiet dignity, expressing their heartfelt compassion and solidarity.

Well, at least it would be, if that was the way it happened.

Along the way, these three friends do what we would probably do in a similar situation: they discuss the whole affair from every point of view. Then, before they even see the stricken man, come to their conclusions as to the cause of the evil, and settle best how to deal with him.

Now I assume their overall intentions were good. But Isaiah 50:4 says that the Lord "has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary." Another translation puts it this way: "that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." Maybe they should not have been talking to each other so much and instead consulted the Lord. What you are going to see is that they are never able to sustain the weary in this story. Proverbs 15:28 says the mind of the righteous studies how to answer. I suggest that more study should have accompanied their counsel.

I remember hearing one person say that God has not called us to be gap-finders but rather gap-fillers. In other words, it is easy to point out all the areas where someone has screwed-up instead of helping them to overcome or deal the problems. As the story continues to unfold the only thing these friends do is point out where Job may have missed it, instead of coming alongside and comforting him.

This idea of strengthening the weak, or even correcting those in error, is a fine and delicate art. One we must learn if we are to be Christ's ambassadors. We need to learn to minister the true comfort of the Lord and strengthen the grieving person's hand in God. They need to learn to believe their way through their paths of trials, and learn what God's purpose is in their struggles. You won't learn that by listening to your own reasoning.

Most of us know or understand very little about the inwardness of things. We only judge by what we see and hear. Then we end up coming to conclusions which are usually biased by our own limited experience and understanding.

We do not give the counsel of the Lord, but rather the philosophy of men. If you are called upon to give counsel or comfort, do not waste your time consulting with flesh and blood, going to the psychology books and recent programs from Oprah Winfrey. No, draw your help from the counsel and immense wisdom of the Lord.

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the three friends, approach the village. "When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him." Is that Job lying there? The greatest man of all the people of the East? Can this pitiful object be the Job they had known? "They began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads" as a token of their sorrow.

At last, they reached the ash mound, "then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him." What could they say? How could they speak? "Because they saw how great his suffering was." They were dumb in the presence of such unparalleled suffering.

The Friends Dig In
Once Job's friends show up and open their mouths we begin to see what was really on their minds during those seven days of silence. What was really going on was that they were condemning him.

It is a distasteful fact, but a fact nonetheless, that the three friends who came "to sympathize with [Job] and comfort him," fell far short of that goal. Far from actually comforting Job, in their minds they were picking him to pieces. They were analyzing him up and down for faults, loopholes, and hidden sins, casting around in search of reasons for all the terrible things that had happened to him. Although we are told that these discreet men said nothing at all to Job for an entire week, I can imagine that they whispered confidentially among themselves.

The main point with this mission of mercy was there no mercy given. Certainly, Job himself did not find any comfort from his friends. On the contrary, we will watch him grow increasingly angry, to the point where his friends, impatient with his uncooperative attitude, will find it impossible to sustain even the outward semblance of sympathy towards him. Instead of truly identifying with him, they will distance themselves and withdraw. Feeling overwhelmed, and scrambling to get a better fix on the problem, they will do the only safe thing: they will pull back and assume the stance of objective analysts. Naturally, they will go about all of this in a very warm and godly way and with the best of intentions. They are like benign family physicians, kindly old docs faced with a rough case and scratching their balding heads. Yet without realizing it, by their clinical theorizing they are effectively withdrawing their human affections, their friendship, and this is at the very time when intimate friendship is most needed.

Obviously, none of this is spelled out quite so early in the story; but in later chapters, it comes spilling out. Like all fair-weather friendships, and all flawed theology, Job's friends stop short of the cross.

Job Voices His Complaint
Job was the first to break the silence, and when he speaks, he pours out the depths of his soul. He doesn't exactly renounce God. Nor does he actually rebel against Him. However, he does "curse the day of my birth."

There were no words of welcome to his friends,. Nor did he explain anything to them. Formalities and ordinary language really didn't have any place at a time like this.

The words that Job pours out in the anguish of his soul tell us something of the thoughts that have been filling his mind during the silence of this past week.

"May the day I was born perish. That day should never again be a joyous one, instead let it be a day of mourning. Oh that it could be blotted out from the calendar, that it might be forgotten.

"Why didn't I die ... for now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest ... In the grave the weary have rest ... the wicked cease from turmoil ... the prisoners no longer hear the slave drivers shout ... the slave is freed from his master."

It is interesting how in the middle of a deep trial we figure death is the only escape. Elijah said to the Lord in his time of exhaustion under the Juniper tree: "It's too much, I can't take any more . . . Take away my life."

Moses said under the pressure of the responsibilities of leading the Israelites: "The burden is too great! Kill me, I beg you."

Jonah said when the Lord did not fulfill the threatened judgment of Ninevah: "It would be better for me to die."

"I wish I were dead." Those words have been said by many repeatedly in the time of anguish.

Maybe that is what you are saying. Maybe you are not considering death as your escape, but you may be considering divorce, it could even be marriage for some. You might be trying to find an escape in a different job, a new church, running away from your children, ad infinitum. Whatever it is, it is still a lie. Your peace will never be found in a different place, a new "significant-other," only in a renewed relationship with the Lord, and an acceptance of the circumstances in your life that you will have to endure.

With all this talk, Job has not really rebelled against the Lord yet, but he was getting pretty close to it. He had told his wife that we should be willing to "endure unpleasant things" as well as receive "good things" from the hand of God. However, to long for death as the way of escape, is not the way to bow to the will of God.

Yet, it is the cry of nature for escape from suffering, pressed out from the soul in its anguish and pain. It's the same with divorce or, for instance, Patty and I thinking about moving back to Kalamazoo when things got so difficult for us in Ann Arbor because we thought it would have been easier. Whatever it is that you are trying to run away from, you are not only bowing your knee to the confrontation at hand you are also being rebellious and disobedient to the Lord.

Satan is behind all of this language, the same way he moved Job's wife when she tempted Job to speak against God.

The enemy is throwing this cloud on his mind, and pouring into his head these thoughts of escape through death. Some have yielded to such thoughts in the time of deep anguish and despair. They have been driven by the tempter to take their lives in order to reach this place of rest.

If you find yourself thinking these thoughts, take hold of the Lord. Thank Him for the privilege of life. Take authority over those thoughts! Resist and flee the temptation of dwelling on thoughts of peace in the grave—choose life! Even if it is life in the very crucible of fire, right now. It will pass! The sky, not the grave, is our goal! "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

Job's problem is that he keeps dwelling on these thoughts. "Why is life given to the bitter in soul; to those who long for death . . . which rejoice when they reach the grave?" He doesn't realize the cowardice of his language, or that he is opening the door to the enemy even further. He goes on to call himself a man whom God has hedged in. To Job, the hedge is one of his miseries while Satan considers it one of Job's peculiar blessings!

Job concludes this outpouring of grief by saying what has probably become the most quoted, and most misunderstood, words in this whole story: "What I feared most has come upon me."

That one sentence is used as the proof-text that all of Job's troubles were of his own making. "He had fear and instead of faith," I hear them say. Possibly, what he feared was not the calamity, but rather the testing of his faith.

Taught of God as Job was, he knew that the time of testing must come. Now that it had, he found himself shrinking back from it and being afraid of it. He confesses that he had not been at ease in spite of the outward peace of his life. He knew that the furnace was inevitable, and now all that he had shrunk from had happen.

The testing will come! What form it takes for you I don't have any idea. As I said before, it might be physical, maybe emotional. It could be a lying down of your own plans for school, marriage or even ministry, or wealth. For Abraham it was sacrificing his only son and only heir. In fact, it was sacrificing the very thing that the Lord had given him!

Everybody looks at the story of Isaac and thinks that it wasn't so hard for Abraham to offer Isaac. After all, the Lord stayed Abraham's hand and he didn't really have to do it. However, Abraham didn't know that! And you can't have any confidence that when the Lord demands you sacrifice something very important, even something He has clearly given you, that he may not stay your hand and you may never be able to have those plans again.

That shouldn't matter anyway! If something is truly laid on the altar as a sacrifice it is no longer yours! You no longer have any claim to it.

I do not know what words to use to drive the reality of this home. God will accept nothing less than absolute surrender to His will. A.W. Tozer once said that there are three characteristics of a dead man. First, he is facing in one direction. Second, he does not look back. Third, he is not making any plans of his own.

I have met some that were waiting for a call to a nationwide ministry of historic proportions when the Lord wanted them first to finish college. Some waiting for a mate, when maybe the Lord has other plans for them and is waiting for them to stop wanting.

The point of all of this is we must simply lay ourselves, our lives, plans, desires, dreams, ambitions—everything!—on the altar and let the Lord do as he desires.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems in many churches is so many people want to be somebody and not enough people who couldn't care less if they are even noticed. Their only desire is to be true to the Lord and fulfill His will and not their own.

My only desire, if I fall asleep before the Lord's return, is that they can quote Acts 13:36: that Nickolas "served the purposes of God in his generation, then fell asleep." I simply want to fulfill the Lord's plan for my own life, nothing more, nothing less.

Everybody wants to preach and teach but nobody wants to sit and serve. That's what Paul was trying to get people to understand when he was saying that the eye is no more important than the ear -- they simply serve a different purpose.

The hand is no more valuable than the foot. Both serve a very important function but people are able to survive without either. Where is true humility, that which says: "The Lord is the vine and I am the branch. Without Him, I can do nothing! If He sees fit to use me, I will obey with great joy and enthusiasm. If not, I'll obey with great joy and enthusiasm."

I believe it was Broadman who said: "There is no hierarchy in the gifts of God. The ministry of the church does not rest on status but on service. No gift that serves others is little. God uses both stars and candles to light his world."

The issue to God is not who are the stars and who are the candles. What he is concerned with is His light coming forth. Sometimes we are hung up on the stars and we forget that a star only shines at night—one designated time—but a candle can shine at any time and anywhere.

The times of testing will come. Do not shrink back from it. Do not be afraid of them. The result will be a purity of heart and inner strength to endure all things. In fact, as I already reminded you above, you should consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds . . . so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. When you stand the test, you will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.

Paul admonishes us to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” We are to “endure the hardships as discipline because it is for our good that we may share in His Holiness.” He admitted that “no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” “Later, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those that have been trained by it.” However, if you refuse that training “it will cause resentment and misery.”

Calling a Spade a Spade
Okay, let us consider Job's first outburst some more. He should be commended because for seven days he was silent and showed great restraint. Never once did he sin by saying anything wrong. Then why in the world does he have to ruin everything by opening his big mouth and sticking his foot in it? I don't care how much you try to sympathize with Job's suffering, his expression of it now becomes so dark and shocking that we can't help but ask, What is really going on here? Do we have to hold the whole chapter at arms length, chalk it up to the misguided ravings of a man who has essentially lost control of himself, a tortured mind gone haywire?

Well, think about that a moment. One of the most distinctive impressions we should have as we read the speeches of Job is that he is a man who has not gone haywire. He knows exactly what he is saying and means every word of it. True, at the end of the story he will recant his strong language and "repent in dust and ashes," but that will be given in entirely different circumstances. They come as the result of a direct encounter with the Lord. However, at the moment of his first statements, we see Job at one of his most grimmest points. During his trial he never does teeter over the brink into madness, but instead faces his entire ordeal with eyes wide-open. Even when he is utterly broken, he somehow retains not only his faith but also his sanity.

We have no way of telling exactly how long his trials may have lasted. The events we have looked at so far comprised at the very least ten days, and probably closer to two or three weeks (although the suggestion of "months" in 7:3 may indicate a longer period). The rest of the book could have easily taken place over as short a period as a single afternoon. If that is the case, we might be able to understand why Job, after a lengthy siege of silent agony, would have finally broken down and vented a one-day (or one-hour) outburst. Even Jesus was known to give way to apparent bouts of frustration, as when He complained about His poor scruffy band of stupid and incompetent disciples: "O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Matt. 17:17).

The fact is there is a point at which any man simply throws in the towel. He does not abandon his faith, necessarily; he just gets thoroughly sick and tired of trying to put a good face on things, when the things he is facing do not have anything good about them. This is not sin; it is just plain honesty. It is calling a spade a spade. Job is a forthright and plainspoken man, the sort of person who is not afraid to say what is on his heart. At the very beginning of the conversation with his friends, we have to admit that such uncommon honesty may be one of the greatest virtues a believer can possess.

The third chapter of Job seems to be one of the most depressing chapters in the entire Bible—even more so than Psalm 88, which after eighteen dark and depressing verses ends abruptly with the line, "Darkness is my closest friend." It seems obvious the Psalmist reaches the end of his prayer without receiving any answer, without so much as a crumb of comfort. Yet for this reason, there can be a strange comfort in reading of this psalm in times of deep trouble. It is good to be reminded that such a black outpouring really is Scriptural, that prayer does not have to be upbeat and optimistic all the time. The true believer does not always rise from his knees full of encouragement and fresh hope. There are times when you may remain down in the dumps and yet still have prayed well. What God wants from us is not the observance of religious protocol, but just that we be real with Him. What He wants is our heart.

The Dark Side
It does not matter how you try to sympathize with and rationalize Job's dark mood. From the minute he first opens his mouth, most Christians start to squirm with distaste and turn away in disgust and contempt. (It has been said that Christians are the only army that sacrifices its wounded). The thing we hate the most is all this doom-and-gloom death-talk, this longing not just to die but for total annihilation, not just to stop existing but never to have existed before. Good Christians do not want to listen to this kind of talk. We just feel that Job is wrong—terribly wrong—to "curse the day of his birth." We do not want consider the possibility such ghastly and despairing words could actually come out of the mouth of a believer in God, let alone by someone with a reputation for exemplary sanctity.

So it is not just Job's wife and friends who pass judgment on him; we do too. We are inclined to dismiss and reject him, or else to stick our fingers in our ears, yell "Na, na, na, I'm not listening," and pretend he doesn't know what he is saying. Maybe he is not such a great and holy guy after all. Think about it, as soon as things get bad enough, he starts whining and cursing and crying in his cup. He is just like any old drunk in a bar crying in his drink. Evidently, the Devil was right about him all along. When the pressure gets too great he caves in and loses his faith.

In all honesty, however, as black and turbulent as Job's thoughts are they essentially any different from our innermost thoughts? On the other hand, is the real difference that Job voices his thoughts and we hide ours? It is obvious he states whatever is on his mind, things we feel probably should not be said, although we have the same thoughts gnawing away in our minds. The Story of Job brings these thoughts out into the open. They shockingly appear on the lips of a decent and upright man.

Being a believer in God by necessity implies grappling with the dark side of our nature. However, many of us seem to be afraid of this dark side. Instead of dealing with it realistically, we repress and deny it. If we do this consistently, we have to ask ourselves whether we believe in the healing power of Christ's forgiveness and in His victory over our evil natures. Maybe we have never come to grips with the fact that we, in ourselves, are evil. If not, then we will never be prepared for those times when believing in God is like being awake during open heart surgery. God is not finished with us yet; He is still creating us, still making into His image. As followers of Jesus, we have the strange privilege of actually being wide awake as He continues to fashion us, to watch wide-eyed as His very own fingers work within our hearts. This can be a painful process, and there is no anesthetic for it. Then again, maybe the only anesthetic is trust—trust in the Surgeon. However, trust is not a passive thing, it is only mistrust, fear, and suspicion that keeps silent.

We should not blame Job for giving voice to feelings that in most of us come out in other ways. He says out loud that he despises the day of his birth, and while most of us would never admit to thinking such a thought, let alone voicing it, don't we often live as though it were true? Whenever we grumble and complain, whenever we do anything unwillingly, whenever we say a bad word against someone else—aren't we, in effect, despising the day of our birth? We are being openly and rebelliously critical of God's gracious gift of life. Even in the face of the tiniest frustrations, our reactions may betray the presence of a lingering resentment over the fact that we were ever created and brought into such a hard world in the first place.

Only the person who maintains an attitude of pure and unwavering thankfulness for every precious moment that the Lord has given, has any right to say a word of criticism against Job in Chapter 3.

Depression
Many commentators on the story of Job feel that the sweeping change that overcomes Job, from the top-notch, numero uno believer to king of doom-and-gloom, is not quite believable. Yet, by this stage it should be obvious that an entirely new trial has begun. It is the trial of depression, of deep mental and spiritual trauma. So far, Job has weathered the terrible disasters quite admirably. Now the battlefront has shifted, from outside to inside. It is now Job's inner character, his very spirit that is under direct satanic attack. In the words of Proverbs 18:14, "A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?"

Is it true that God would allow Satan direct access to the very heart of a believer for the purpose of unhindered oppression? Well, Jesus told Simon that Satan asked to sift him as wheat. “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.” And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." Notice Jesus did not say "no" to Satan's request, he simply said that when it happens, Simon's faith not fail. Listen to what John of the Cross says about this: "In proportion as God is guiding the soul and communicating with it, He gives the Devil leave to act with it after the same manner." Elsewhere John states that God certainly does "permit the Devil to deal with the soul in the same measure and mode in which He conducts and deals with it Himself . . . Thus the Devil cannot protest his rights, claiming that he is not given the opportunity to conquer the soul, as was his complaint in the story of Job."

It is important to realize that nowhere in the story are we given any reason to believe that Job's depression, in and of itself, is ever viewed by the Lord as being his own "fault." On the contrary, in view of the clear mandate for unlimited harassment (short of death) that was given to Satan, we have to see that Job's emotional crisis is part and parcel with his other trials. It is just one more of Satan's assaults on his faith. Remember Satan's aim is to still Job's faith in the Lord. Perhaps this attack will drive Job to desperation. Maybe it will cause him to be desperate for wisdom; desperate for freedom; desperate for victory. It has been said that "only the desperate are truly hopeful."

I recognize there are forms of despair and depression that are without hope and full of godless self-pity and destructiveness. There is also a kind of despair that when confronted by certain situations, seems to be the only authentic response that can be made. There is also a realistic, courageous, and persevering despair that is in the highest degree. This is the type a person will have when he knows things are wrong—that they are all wrong—and that they absolutely must get better or else he will die. The reason he despairs, then, is that he knows in his heart that there is a better way, and he has made up his mind that he will not rest until he finds it. He will not settle for anything less. Such a person reaches a point of staggering abandonment, being prepared to live with an inconceivable weight of sensual and psychological deprivation for the sake of holding out for deep spiritual truth.

This is not despair; this is hope. It is like a spiritual hunger strike, an all-consuming protest staged against the world's complacency. A lazy and self-satisfied person will never despair in this manner. Only a person who believes ardently in God will have the courage to endure such despair. Only a person hopes with all his heart, and whose soul therefore cries out day and night to the living God for help, can live with spiritual famine. George Rouault wrote, "I believe in suffering; it is not feigned in me. This is my only merit. I was not made to be so terrible."

What sort of hope do most churchgoers have today? Is it anything more than a grim stoicism, the ability to keep a stiff upper lip in the midst of life's fray? Is it the sort of hope that hides from reality? If the average Christian fell into despair, would he even know it?

Loss of Peace
I skirted this issue a little bit above, but it deserves another look. Job cries out that he has "no peace, no quietness, no rest but instead is only in turmoil. "

The loss of spiritual peace is something that all believers legitimately fear. Jesus said, "Do not be afraid," and in the same breath He promised, "My peace I give you." The two are so inseparably linked that when peace vanishes, it is inevitable that fear will take its place. For the true believer in God, this is the one crisis, the one great calamity. Let anything else happen, but not this. It does not matter if my entire life falls apart, so long as I have peace. Yet, peace is precisely what was taken from Job. This is what he identifies as the greatest of his tragedies and the real nub of his anguish.

As Christians, we should ask ourselves what sort of things we complain about, and what causes us the greatest pain and fear. When we suffer, do we truly know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings? Or is our suffering only that which all the rest of the world experiences: the physical pains of a decaying body, the neurotic fears of a fallen mind, and the infinite gnawing angst brought on by selfishness and sin? Novelist Walker Percy, on the opening page of The Second Coming, says this about his main character: "For some time he had been feeling depressed without knowing why. In fact, he didn't even realize he was depressed. Rather was it the world and life around him which seemed to grow more senseless and farcical with each passing day." In this chapter, Percy has captured something of the essence of contemporary civilization. If only more people would complain and protest bitterly against the absence of peace with God! Unfortunately, even many Christians do not seem to hold peace of heart in very high esteem. Instead we make our peace with the gods of overwork, anxiety, and quiet desperation. Too often, a peaceful life is sacrificed for the sake of other goals: career, worldly accomplishments, entertainment, people-pleasing, the satisfaction of frantic activity, and other frivolities. We get used to living with chronic restlessness, even to the point of mistaking it for peace. What happens is we need to take a vacation—an opportunity to "get away from it all," to relax. Yet, Christ has called us to celebrate the "Year of Jubilee" every day of our lives. You can read the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus to see the significance of the Jubilee year. Think of it, every fiftieth year was a year of Jubilee, a time when all work was to stop, all debts were cancelled, and all property was to be returned to the rightful owner. It was to be a year of celebration and peaceful living. Hey, good news for you, Jesus is the Jubilee!

Now this guy Job was a man who had a firm and intuitive grasp of the principle set out in Isaiah 32:17: "The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever." Since Job knew he was a righteous man, where then were the peace and confidence that were his due? Throughout the debate with his friends Job will repeatedly claim these clear terms of his covenant with the Lord, and yet at the same time he wastes no breath trying to claim anything that the Lord has not promised him. He insists on spiritual rights, not worldly rights, and it is this very insistence that makes of him a great man of faith. He holds God to His Word, and no more.

The Story Goes On . . .

2005-01-06T12:54:00.000-05:00

"Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.
But I have prayed for you,
that your faith may not fail."
—Luke 22:31-32