Job 1:6-22--Satan Allowed to Test Job

Satan Allowed to Test Job​
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

Satan Takes Job's Property and Children
13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

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Let's reiterate a few points that we talked about recently when we talked about demons in The Gospel Project (you can see the lesson video here I recorded for my small group here if you'd like:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4aYtHBbcc).  Here's our "Essential Doctrine" from that lesson.  The bold and underlined words were the blanks that the group members were supposed to fill in. 

Essential Doctrine “Demons”: Demons are angelic beings who sinned against God and now continually
work evil in the world today (Job 1:6; Zech. 3:1; Luke 10:18). Demons oppose God and seek to destroy His
work, as seen in the Bible’s description of Satan, the head of demons, who seeks to “steal, kill, and destroy.”
Though demons have power, they are limited by God’s control and can only act within the constraints
of what God permits. In the end, all of the demons will be cast into the lake of fire, for which it was 
originally created.

Here's a short video (about 99 seconds long) from the authors of The Gospel Project about what the Bible has to say about demons.  https://www.gospelproject.com/what-are-demons-99-in-99/ (from their YouTube video series named "The 99 in :99: Exploring the Essential Truths of the Christian Faith")

​​Some of the main takeaways from this are to notice that God is in complete control  He's the one who called the "sons of God" (Hebrew "elohim")--probably the godly angels that had not fallen--and knew that Lucifer was masquerading as an angel of light and had hidden himself among the host of heaven, but God permitted it, called his out of the crowd and had a conversations with him.  God initiates the conversation about God saying that He knows Job's character and integrity because Job belongs to Him at which point Satan takes it upon himself to try to disprove God and say that Job isn't what God says He is and that God made a bad choice and that Job would curse God so God might as well curse Job because Job didn't deserve God's love and blessing (and I would read into this "salvation" based off of some things we talked about last blog and will see later in the book of Job).  Satan operates in the same ways today as "the accuser of the brethren."


Revelation 12:10
English Standard Version10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

Satan wishes to get God's elect to never trust Him for salvation or to somehow disqualify the elect if possible--we know from John 10, John 17 and some other passages that this is not possible though, but it's not going to keep Satan from trying to stop God from saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant....."

So, how does Satan go about this in this passage?  God draws limits and tells Satan that he can touch everything that Job possesses but cannot touch Job and in one day Job goes from a man of great wealth and status to a man who is destitute and poor, or does he?  You see, Job realized that the thing that is most precious to Him is God and that even though He doesn't understand why God is he knows enough to know that God is good no matter what the circumstances look like and that God is worthy of his praise no matter what, and He praises the Lord for for both giving him his material possessions and taking them away.  Would that be our response?  Probably not, and I'd say most definitely not for myself.  Most of us would want to start asking God, "Why?" and demanding some kind of explanation, but Job did none of that.

We'll see in tomorrow's blog the one the ongoing saga as Satan comes back into God's presence and blames God's boundaries for his plan not working and accuses God of "cheating" (essentially) saying that Job only loved God and worshiped Him because God protected his health and life.  We'll also see Satan start to use some of the people left around Job to speak worldly wisdom to him and while Job is going through one of the most difficult times in his life emotionally and physically, he must also be on guard to fight off a spiritual attack that is coming from "within" as his closest relationships and friendships become weapons against him.  We see prophets in the Old Testament imagining that they alone stand for God, but in the book of Job we get to see what that's actually going to look like.  God knew everything that Job was going to go through and knew that Job would come out more refined on the other side and was willing to allow Satan to put Job through this trial, not to see Job fail, but so that Job could learn even more about who God is as we learn much much from our experiences, but we should not let our emotions and experiences trump who we know God to be from His Word (an advantage we have that Job probably did not).

On our worst of days, I doubt that we've had it as bad as Job, and it's important for us to realize that we too have everything we need if we have God and nothing else.  It's also important for us to realize that our personal circumstances don't change who God is or anything about His goodness or faithfulness.  Satan wants us to not trust God and to lean on our own understanding and make our own way because every way that we try to make for ourselves is a path in rebellion to God's sovereignty and leads us away from the gospel and not towards it.  Satan already knew from the moment that he rebelled that he was not going to win, but his goal is to still try to win and take as many of God's "team" out along the way as possible--but God limited Satan's victory to one-third of the angels of heaven (the demons) and Satan will never have victory over God's elect...the sheep that belong to the Good Shepherd.  Oh, we may sin and we may stumble and we may fall, but our salvation and our identity is secure in Christ and Jesus will be both our Judge and our Advocate (our defense attorney) on the day of judgment if we belong to him--you can't get much better than that if defense counsel is the one who is also the judge.


Romans 8:31-39
English Standard Version
​
God's Everlasting Love
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

​37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.