Foolish Speaking

JOB 2:1-10 FOOLISH SPEAKING 10-6-07

Today we’re going to talk for a little while about Job, and some of the many trials that came his way.

Listen as I read today’s text found in Job 2: 1-10

1Again there was a day when the sons of God [from Job and Psalms,” sons of God” is applied to angels.” came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. [Remember, Satan is a fallen angel himself] ****unclean spirit, etc--

2And the LORD said unto Satan, “From whence comest thou?” And Satan answered the LORD, and said, “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” 1st pt.5: 8Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

What we read now is such as a courtroom scene in heaven, and God said that Job was innocent, and Satan says he was guilty, Satan says the only reason he serves you is because of what you give him, to take it away and Job would turn on God.

3And the LORD said unto Satan, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect* integrity- and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? And still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.”

4And Satan answered the LORD, and said, “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. 5But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.”

6And the LORD said unto Satan, “Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.”

7So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

8And he took him a potsherd*to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.

9Then said his wife unto him, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.”

10But he said unto her,

“Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.

What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

In one day Job is struck with boils from the sole of his foot unto his head. He was stripped of his fortune and his family (seven sons and three daughters). What heart breaking grief he must have experienced.

Other than Jesus Himself I can think of no other person in the bible that suffered more than Job.

All that he had left was his wife, and even she seemed to turn against him. "Curse God and die," she told Job. Her advice was wrong, but when we think about it, she too had lost ten children in one day, and that would be enough to devastate any mother.

The family wealth was now gone, and she is no longer "the prominent lady in the East that she once was. Her husband, once the greatest man in the east was now sitting at the city garbage dump, suffering from a terrible disease. She had nothing left.

Rather than watch her husband waste away in pain and shame, she thought it would be better that God strike him dead and get it over with. "Curse God and die" she said to him.

She advised her husband to do the very thing that Satan had been trying to get him to do: curse God.

Do you suppose that the reason she wasn’t killed like the rest of the family, that Satan thought that maybe she would make life harder for Job rather than easier.

Job was stripped of his wealth. One after another, frightened messengers reported that 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, and 3,000 camels were stolen in enemy raids; 7000 sheep were struck by lightning and killed; and all 10 of his children were killed by a windstorm.

King Solomon said in Ecc. 9:12 12For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

With God’s permission Satan afflicted Job with a terrible disease.

But Jobs answer to his wife was. 10-thou speakest as one of the foolish."

In the Bible we find a number of times where God refers to certain individuals as speaking and acting as fools. But God is omniscient, and He alone is certainly qualified to label these folk as such.