Bible Study Chat 10

Guess we'd better get back to Job, huh? Well the next verses: Job 1:13–19, tell us what Satan did to Job to try and make him curse God and stop worshiping Him. Remember, God had given him permission to do anything except to hurt Job himself and Satan attacked everything else! Poor Job. In one day he lost his children, and all of his livestock,which were his wealth. Talk about a tragedy! It's hard to even imagine what he was going through then! How great and deep his grief must have been due to losing all 10 of his children!

One thing to keep in mind as you read Job is that when this happened, although we know what went on in Heaven, Job didn't. He had no idea that anything was going to happen and when it did happen, he had absolutely no idea why it happened.

Here was a good man who honored God and always did his very best to serve God and live righteously. Surely if God was going to bless anyone, it would be Job, wouldn't it? At least we would think so and we would also think that if anyone deserved to be protected from bad things happening, it would be Job! How could God allow such a thing???

Our natural reaction (from our sin nature) would be to get angry at God for allowing such a thing, and we'll see later that's what Job's wife did. Our sin nature would become all indignant and self righteous saying we certainly didn't deserve such a thing so why bother to worship a God who would allow it. We'd think about all the "good things" we'd done and all the times we'd done the right thing when it would have been easier to sin instead, and we'd get angrier and angrier. We'd dwell on all that we'd lost and become full of self pity as well. Such is the way our sin nature works. I'm quite sure that Job was also tempted in these ways, because he too was human, but he still resisted sin. Even after all of this, he continued to guard his heart and take his thoughts captive replacing them with the Truth. Amazing! Let's look at how he did react:

Job 1:20–22 —At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship *and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” *In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. *

Isn't that incredible??? His reaction was to first put on the traditional clothing for mourning and shave his head which was part of that tradition, and then immediately worshiped God!

Instead of going to God and screaming, "why????", and claiming he didn't deserve this kind of treatment, he worshiped Him and gave Him praise for being who He is.

How could Job react this way? Because as I said before, he kept guard on his heart and took captive those kind of thoughts replacing them with the Truth. He refused to be sucked in my Satan and because of that, he proved that God was right about him. He continued to worship God even when all the good things in his life were taken away from him.

Job realized what so many of us have lost. What we just talked about in fact. He realized that God is sovereign and that everything comes from God - both the good and the bad. More then that though, Job also realized something else very important which we have also lost - that he did not deserve anything "good" from God. Even though he'd always done his best, he knew that he still deserved nothing but judgment and hell from God. He understood just how sinful he really was. But, he also understood that God loved him and that he would work everything out for his good. He knew that didn't mean that bad things wouldn't happen, but rather that when they did happen, God would work them out for his good and he trusted God to do that.

That doesn't mean that Job didn't grieve for his children, he did! I'm sure he was torn apart by grief just as anyone would be. But he also knew that one day he would see his children again and took comfort from that. He took comfort also in knowing that God would somehow bring good even from the deaths of his children. But, he still grieved as any normal man would.

Job did not just submit to God in all that happened; he was not just resigned to it. He accepted it. In other words, even though it was painful, he willingly trusted that God loved him, and knew what was best for him. Very much like a little child trusts their parents.

I can't remember if I already pointed this out or not, but in case I didn't, notice that even with all that Satan did to Job, God had limited him. God had forbidden him to hurt Job personally. The reason that's important is because it tells us that no matter what happens to us, that God has placed a limit on our trial. It will last so long and not one second longer. Certain things will happen but not one thing more. That in itself is a tremendous blessing to know, because no matter what we're going through, no matter how long it's been going on, we can know there IS an end to it, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we will reach it if we persevere.

Knowing that God places limits on our trials, and knowing that Satan can do nothing to us without God's permission are two important lessons we can take from Job so far. Other important lessons we can take from this is Job's reaction to what happened - he grieved, but he also worshiped God, and all that implies. He kept guard on his heart and did not allow Satan, the world or his flesh to tempt him to doubt God or think badly of Him.