Sunday, May 6, 2007
“Mrs. Job”
Text: Job 2: 1- 9
This month marks our recognition women who have graced this church with their presence and their service. Life has afforded me plenty of personal examples that affirm that Women are a Gift from God.
Yes I could call the roll of outstanding women who have made good deposits in my life. I’ll not bore you with my reminiscing, but I believe everyone under the sound of my voice has a list of women who are gifts from God.
I plan to tackle this overall theme in two parts. The first part will deal with an example of a woman from the Old Testament and the second part will deal with an example of a woman from the New Testament. From these messages, I intend to outline the essential characteristics of Women who are gifts from God.
The unfortunate reality we must the face that some gifts are of the discount bargain basement variety. In fact some gifts, as soon as you get them you look for the return receipt to take them back to where they came from because they are of little use. In my messages I’m not talking about discount bargain basement variety or return upon receipt gifts. Those are messages for another time.
When I say women are a gift from God, I’m talking about the Gifts from God that are of the Neiman Marcus, Tiffany, Rolex, or Luis Vinton variety. I’m talking about top shelf gifts; gifts so valuable that you need to add a rider to your property and casualty insurance policy when you received them to be certain they are insured.
Are any of those varieties of women in the house?
I would ask you to raise your hand, but I don’t want you to shock the person you are sitting next too, who should have know that you are; but doesn’t know yet.
Women are a gift from God.
In the text, one of the immediate challenges in reading the book of Job is that you must make the personal assessment – is the story real. Scholars are all over the place on this view. I must admit that it is a compelling story that deals with that nature of relationships and seeks to address the question why bad things happen to good people.
A quick review may be helpful for those who don’t know the story. It begins by informing us that Job was from the land of Uz, he was perfect, upright, feared God, and eschewed (which means avoided) evil.
It tells us he has children: seven sons and three daughters. Seven is the sign of completion and three symbolizes the triune nature of God. In other words, not only did he have it together; his family had it together also.
The text discloses that he was very wealthy and that he had a great name in his land. We find that he was a praying man who included his children in his prayers. He prayed for his children just in case they may have done something to sin against God.
That what a parent does; they should be intercessors for their children. Children may not realize that, whether living in the home or not, your parents are praying for you that sin does not overtake you, that you are protected against violence, and that you live in such a way to bring honor to God.
Then the story shifts from Job to God.
It describes a meeting with the sons of God and God and an interesting thing happens – Satan shows up. Let me stop here for a moment. Don’t take the power of Satan for granted. Not only are your arms to short to box with God; you are too weak to wrestle with the devil. He is wiser, older, and stronger than you. The only power you have against Satan is the Blood of Jesus Christ.
When Satan shows up you can carry the biggest Bible, wear the largest cross, quote volumes of scripture; but unless you submit yourself to God, then and only then will you able to resist the devil and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)
In the 19th Chapter of Acts around the 11th versus, a story is recorded of the power of Paul to do miracles in the Jesus’ name. There where also seven sons of Sceva who did not submit themselves to God, but wanted to operate in his power and do the miracles they saw Paul do.
They encounter an evil spirit in a man and they say what they had heard Paul say. The evil spirit looks at them and says; Jesus I know, Paul I know, but who are you? The evil spirit jumps on them and beats them up. In other words on your own you do not have the power to overcome Satan or any evil spirit.
So if Satan has the power to go to a church meeting; don’t you think that he can come to your feeble place of abode? Yes he can.
We are about that take communion and one of the powerful lines in scripture deals with the first communion. Jesus is sitting with disciples, John 13 records, and Judas is lying on his chest. And Judas dips his bread in the juicy substance (which is the sop) and the text says that
after the sop, Satan entered into Judas.
Satan is so powerful that not only will he go to church; but just when you think you are the closes to God he will get into you.
God then engages Satan in a conversation. What have you been doing? Satan says I’ve been walking to and fro doing my job. Satan’s job is to kill, steal and destroy.
And God does something, he calls Job’s name. Have you considered Job? Do you have the kind of relationship with God, that he in conversation with Satan he can call your name?
And Satan says the reason why Job is successful, perfect, upright, fears God, and avoids evil is that you have built a hedge of protection around him. Take down the hedge and let me touch him and he will curse your name! God says do what you will, but you can’t take his life.
Then a series of tragedies come upon Job: his cattle are taken, his servants are killed, and his children die in a windstorm. Job is shocked and immediately goes into prayer, worships God says; “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
And if that was not enough, Satan afflicts his body to the extent that he has boils all over his body and all he can do is sit in ashes and scrape himself with a piece of pottery.
Then we encounter Mrs. Job in a conversation with her husband. “Do you still retain your integrity, why don’t you curse God and die” Job responses by saying, “you are speaking like a foolish woman.”
I thing I am clear on that when you come to understand the nature of the relationship between Job and Mrs. Job you will quickly discover she was anything but foolish. She was a Gift from God. She was a top shelf gift all the way.
Care must be taken that as you read this today’s text you do not fall victim to what I’ll call a literary sound bit.
As we look at this text we must recognize immediately that Mrs. Job is a victim of a literary sound bite. You know what a sound bite is; it’s a pithy statement usually made for media consumption that seek to communicate an idea in a limited amount of words; largely because media only allocates seconds to statements from persons.
You may be aware of a sound bites – The Women’s Basketball Team of Rutgers became the target of a sound bit by Imus. And, we know the results of that fiasco. Sound bites can be damaging, but sound bites can also be uplifting.
A sound bit can come from a literary statement like a speech and that seeks to capture the essence of a message: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”; “I have a dream;” “we hold these truths that all men are created equal” – are all sound bites that come from literary statements that have caught the imagination of people.
The literary sound bite in this text, I believe, miss communicates the essence of Mrs. Job.
The text portrays a dialogue between Job and Mrs. Job where she says to her husband, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die?
Job replies, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? Consequently the literary sound bite that he has for Mrs. Job is her being described as “talking like a foolish woman.”
I use to make the mistake in reading this text to mean that Job called his wife a foolish woman. NO he didn’t. He says that at this moment you are speaking foolishly. There is a different. Simply because you may say something foolish on an occasion, doesn’t not mean that you are foolish on every occasion.
Do I have a witness to that? Foolish statements seem to come from not thinking through your statements and they just slip out. Excuse me, just because I misspoke doesn’t mean that I’m totally foolish.
Mrs. Job was by no means foolish; she was a gift from God.
If you look closely Mrs. Job, you will learn these four things:
1) She was forceful. Beside every successful man there is a woman. Job’s success in life can be attributed to Mrs. Job’s forceful commitment to be true to him. Job didn’t have to worry about Mrs. Job. She was forceful in her commit and maintained the household. Just like Job had a reputation in the community, Mrs. Job was known throughout the land. Why did I say she was forceful, because Job had the resources to have had many wives and even concubines; but he obviously dared not entertain that thought around Mrs. Job. She was forceful in the management of visitation. She didn’t allow his friends to charge in a see him. Many times I’ve gone on hospital visits and the sign outside would say two visitors only. But, when I enter into the room with my pass, I discover that the room is filled to capacity with visitors exceeding the limits set by the hospital.
Not so, with Mrs. Job, she was forceful. So Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu have to wait in line and wait their turn to visit with Job.
2) She was faithful. She stuck by Job in good times and in bad. She felt that sting of lost just like Job. She lost houses, cattle, servants, and children; just like Job. But she was faithful to Job and to God. She stayed on point when it would seem that all was lost. She never gave up hope in her man or in God. Even when Job was searching himself for God; she stayed by his side. She was faithful. She was so faithful and understood God word so clearly; that even her remark to curse God and die was scripturally based. She knew the greatest sin was the sin of blasphemy. When one cursed God from that there was no appeal. The justice of God required the offending persons to receive a swift and cruel death. She had reached a point and her love was go great that she felt that the only remedy was a Dr. Kevorkian solution. It was not a statement of disrespect; her appeal was a statement of faith.
3) She was frugal. It’s one thing to go shopping with an unlimited account balance on your ATM; it’s another thing to go shopping when you have to make every penny count. When you have to go to the check out line and ask for a sub-total and then take items out of your cart because you don’t have enough to pay for what you need. Even in the midst of lost, Mrs. Job was still frugal enough to provide health care and food for sustenance.
4) Finally, she was fruitful. Not only did she bear Job ten children in the early stages of their relationship; but her love was so strong, her life was so blessed, that God permitted her to bear Job ten more children.
I can imagine that after all she went through; she knew how to have a little talk with Jesus and tell him all about her troubles. The song is correct, he will hear your faintest cry and he will answer by and by.
Life not only turned around for Job; it also turned around for Mrs. Job. Mrs. Job was a gift from God. She was forceful, faithful, frugal, and she was fruitful.
