Satan Uses Pain

HoHum:

When speaking about Job, one time I said, “Satan can do nothing without God’s permission.” This opened up a whole can of worms. If God is good and all powerful, then how do we explain the existence of pain, suffering, and evil in our world? There are no easy answers.

WBTU:

Take for instance the war in Ukraine- innocent people are suffering- whose fault is this?

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12, NIV.

Satan uses pain to misfocus God’s people.

Thesis: How Satan uses pain

For instances:

I. Satan used pain against Job

Think about Job. Satan’s challenge to God was, “Stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”” Job 1:11. Satan believed Job would curse God.

Satan’s angels brought pain to Job by taking his herds, killing his servants, and murdering his children- all in one day. “Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” Job 1:22.

With the next wave of attack, Satan “afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.” Job 2:7, NIV. His wife broke under the pressure, showing her weakness and anger at God. But “in all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” Job 2:10, NIV.

Finally, Satan’s schemes brought 3 of Job’s friends to finish him off. They attacked Job’s righteousness, leading him to become proud and defensive. When nothing else worked, this almost did, bringing God’s chastisement upon Job for his questioning (chapters 38-42).

Those avenues of attack that the evil forces used on Job so long ago still work quite well today. Satan and his forces want the same today: “Maybe they’ll curse God to His face.”

II. Satan uses pain to make us angry with God

If I were Job, what would I have thought when all these bad things occurred? Would I have questioned why God let them occur? Would I have been angry with Him? Oh, most definitely.

Joe Beam- Once I asked a Bible class if any of them had ever been mad at God. One brother said, “If I were, I’d never tell Him.” Another person said, “You’re not supposed to be mad at God.” Of course, but that wasn’t the question I asked; we do many things we aren’t supposed to do. The question is whether God’s people ever become angry with God. What about you?” The psalms display all kinds of emotion. Notice the upset and anger at God in these verses. “Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Psalms 10:1. “I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”” Psalms 42:9. “Why, O LORD, do you reject me and hide your face from me?” Psalms 88:14. Notice the disappointment and anger at God in these questions.

C.S. Lewis married when he was older to a woman named Joy. Joy got cancer and died just some years after they were married. Lewis, being a writer, wrote down his thoughts after she died in a journal. He turned that journal in a book called, “A Grief Observed.” The first few pages are somewhat disturbing. Look at this quote from early in the journal, “Where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms... When you are so happy then you are tempted to feel God’s claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows.... What can this mean? Why is God so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?” Toward the end of the book things become better, somewhat. Listen to this quote: “When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question (off). Like, ‘Peace child; you don’t understand.’”

Was listening to a podcast of a man who has 3 forms of cancer. He angrily asked the question, “Why?” as most of us would do. After a period of time, he asked a different question, “How?” He says that we should not park at the Why question but instead move on to the How question. But how do we do that?