Satan's Plan for Mankind: Curse God and Die
Job 2:7–10 NKJV
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So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
The Book of Job is one of the most puzzling books in the Bible as it elicits many uncomfortable questions about the goodness and fairness of God. We read that Job was a godly man who scrupled to the point that he was always offering sacrifices to the LORD in behalf of his many children, just in case any of them had sinned. He and his wife were quite wealthy as wealth was measured in those days. He had many herds, servants, and children. In conventional wisdom, we would say that Job and his wife were blessed, and that these blessings were proof of God’s favor. the corollary to this is that evildoers are cursed and come to ruin. So what do we say when we see a good man suffer or an evil man prosper?
The first problem that we have as humans is that we tend to be superficial and want simple answers. We don’t want to think, especially about unpleasant circumstances. We want a simple fix like a pill we can take rather than watching what we eat and learning how we should take care of our bodies. When it comes to our religious values, we want a simple fix to our spiritual problems such as making a vow or some sort of sacrificial act. We also expect God to conform to our idea of righteousness and fairness. If we are wronged, we expect God to bring justice. If we sin, we want god to be merciful and provide a simple means of erasing the bad entries from our account. But the Book of Job challenges all our expectations. So, let us look further into this book.
The Book of Job is apparently the oldest written account in our Scripture, written down long before the LORD had Moses record the Torah. This does not mean that Moses did not have some written accounts to form the Book of Genesis, but the emphasis is that Moses wrote at the command and inspiration of the Spirit. Job was not a Jew but was from Mesopotamia and lived in an age which resembles the time of Abraham, or about 1900 BC. We tend to think that people in those days were primitive. But we should note that the Egyptian pyramids were built several hundred years before Job. The culture of Mesopotamia was also rich. We have written records dating before the time of Job. We don’t know who the LORD used to record the Book of Job, but it was inspired by God and passed down through thousands of years to teach us.
We must understand that Job and all the characters in the Book of Job were real persons and not a myth. This is important. What happened to Job and his family happened to real persons who truly felt grief over the disasters which fell upon Job. In a myth or work of fiction, we might empathize with the characters in the story. A myth might elicit a strong emotional response. But in the end we are comforted by the fact that it was merely a story. By this we might learn some sort of “truth”, but out questions are blunted. The same God is also personally involved in our lives as well. We are not mythical people living in a mythical world. We truly feel emotions, whether good or bad. We experience injustice. We are hurt and we hurt others. We live in a very difficult age. The fact that Job is historical means that the LORD used a real person to speak to us.
The LORD lets us in on facts that were not apparent to Job. Job did not see Satan coming with the sons of God before the LORD. He did not hear Satan’s challenge to the LORD that Job only served the LORD for the blessings he received. If this hedge of prosperity were removed, Job would curse God and die. We should note that if the LORD did not know that Job would pass the challenge, he would not have allowed the things to happen to Job which happened.
The first lesson we should learn from Job is that God is sovereign. God is God. Even in a world in which seems chaotic and evil seems to prevail, God is working all things out for good for His servants and for His glory (See Romans 8:28). Nothing happens apart from His will. He is not the source of the evil which befell Job. It is Satan who brought this all upon Job.
In a short period of time, Job receives reports that all his herds had died as well as all of his children save the messenger who brought these terrible reports. We can only imagine how Job and his wife would have responded to this report. Many would have shaken their fists at God and blamed Him for what had happened. But let us read how Job responded:
Job 1:20–21 NKJV
Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
We must remember that life is a gift of God. We are not entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Rather, whatsoever we have is by the grace of God, for which we should thank and bless God. This is especially true in that we are all sinners, and that death is the penalty for sin. The fact that we take our next breath is by the hand and will of God. Even the righteous Job was a sinner as the Scripture says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This is not to say that these calamities which fell upon Job were caused by Job’s sin. The whole book of Job upholds the integrity of Job, But we see in Job’s answer that he did not charge God foolishly, even though he and his wife had lost everything they had, all their wealth and all their posterity.
As if this wasn’t enough, Satan claimed that if only Job’s body was afflicted that he would curse God to His face. Again, the LORD for His purposes permitted Job to be afflicted head to foot with painful boils. Only Job’s life was to be spared. He sat upon an ash heap, a sign of grief, and tried to find comfort scraping the sores with a piece of broken pottery. We can only imagine Job’s misery. If anything could have made someone say “Why me, LORD?” Job knew that he had done nothing wrong, yet he was suffering.
The devil as he did with Adam in the Garden of Eden used a woman to tempt Job to curse God. Job’s wife, his help meet, which had suffered the same loss of children and wealth and was deeply grieved by the suffering of her husband tempted Job by calling on Job to curse God and die. This was indeed the most foolish thing anyone can say. This is what Satan wanted. But, this time, the man did not hearken to the voice of his wife which would have brought disaster upon both of them. Instead, Job rebukes his wife. We do realize that Job’s wife had said this under duress, and I wonder if we would have done any better under similar circumstances. But we see the grace of God to her in that she did not die for such a statement. We see at the end of the Book of Job that she would live to have many more children.
This wasn’t the end of Job’s torment. Three of Job’s friends would come and try to convince Job that the only reason he was suffering is because he had sinned. We are told that Job did not sin. At first they sat for several days on the ash heap with Job and saw how much he suffered. They were well-meaning, just as his wife had been, but all they did was to add affliction to Job with their reasoned arguments based upon the premise that God blesses the righteous and curses the sinner. The life of blessing Job had was because he was righteous. the calamity which befell Job was because he had sinned. Another younger man came later with the “new wisdom” which was of no more use than the three friends. It is only when the LORD directly intervenes and confronts Job and his friends directly do we see the resolution to the dilemma. Job’s problem was that he was ignorant of the purposes of God. But the others were called upon to repent, and Job had to make sacrifices to the LORD on their behalf.
We can see the ultimate example of the righteous man who suffers the loss of all earthly things even though He is Lord of all. We see one who wrongly suffered on a cross for the sins of others. Unlike Job, who though a very good man, must have been a sinner, even though he did not sin in his trial, this One never sinned. This man is Jesus Christ who suffered in every way and was tempted to sin in every way but did not sin. It is He who took the curse we deserved upon His cross. We see this in the crown of thorns upon his brow. Upon the cross, he did not curse like others who in their intense suffering would curse gods and men in their pain. It was the composure of Jesus on the cross that convinced a crusty centurion to confess that Jesus is the Son of God. In the atmosphere of rage and fear, Jesus was the only one in His right mind. On the eve of his crucifixion, he called his disciples “friends”, not three but twelve, one of whom betrayed Him. Yet His “friends” had been guilty of giving Him foolish advice. We remember Peter rebuking Jesus when Jesus told them that He would suffer and die on a cross. They did not understand. But, again, they failed out of grief and concern. And Jesus restored Peter who had denied Him thrice.
So, we need to ask the right question. Instead of wondering why we suffer even though we have done nothing to deserve it, when we are buffeted by Satan just because we are Christians and not because we have in some way offended, we should instead ask the question: “Why would Jesus die on a cross for us sinners?” It is indeed marvellous that the very God of very God and very man of very man would undergo the suffering that He did to save wretches like us. We would like to understand the problem of evil and why we have to live here amidst the ash heap of the world. We sing the gospel song: “Farther Along.” We know that all will be made good in the end. “Farther along we’ll understand why.” We are encouraged to “cheer up my brothers.” The mystery will be solved. So let us loo beyond the grief we have to suffer.
The really important question is what God will say when we appear before Him. Will he say “well done” or “depart from Me?” There are so many questions we ask. We can get distracted by them. Satan would indeed like to get us off message. If we take our eyes off the suffering of Christ for us sinners and instead wallow in our misery, we might come to the point where we would desire to curse God and die. Let us avoid such a foolish answer in the light of eternity. Instead, let us bless God and live.
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