Audio Transcript
Pleased Reformation Day everybody. I hope you joined our Here We Stand sequence this month and are having fun with it. It’s a exceptional reward to have the Bible in our personal language in order that we are able to learn it for ourselves — and to learn the guide of Job for ourselves, which we start tomorrow within the Navigators Bible Reading Plan.
Right here’s a query in regards to the early chapters of Job, from Lisa, a listener to the podcast. “Pastor John, howdy and thanks for APJ. We frequently give attention to how Job responded to struggling. ‘The steadfastness of Job,’ as James says in James 5:11. However we regularly don’t give attention to Job’s spouse’s response in Job 2:9–10. Are you able to expound on her response and inform us what classes we are able to take about how not to reply to private struggling?”
Each within the Outdated and the New Testomony, amazingly, God makes use of Devil to serve his personal purifying, strengthening, preserving functions within the lives of his valuable youngsters. In different phrases, God baffles Devil by making him the instrument of the very factor he hates — particularly, belief in God and holiness in life. I point out this simply to guarantee that none of us thinks that Devil’s involvement with Job’s struggling is by some means distinctive within the Bible and might be marginalized, as if it weren’t going to occur to us.
“God makes use of Devil to serve his personal purifying, strengthening, preserving functions within the lives of his valuable youngsters.”
Keep in mind how Paul describes his personal thorn within the flesh and why it was given to him in 2 Corinthians 12:7: “To maintain me from turning into immodest due to the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me within the flesh, a messenger of Devil to harass me, to maintain me from turning into immodest.” Now, Devil’s objective in our lives is to not maintain us from turning into immodest. His objective is to make us immodest, make us proud and boastful and self-sufficient. However this thorn was given to maintain Paul humble, maintain him trusting God. It was despatched from God, however the messenger that God used to ship it was Devil.
If we see Devil’s hand in our struggling, it doesn’t imply that the struggling has no good design from our loving Father.
Two Responses to Struggling
So, we’re not stunned once we learn in Job 1:11–12 that God makes Devil the instrument of the horrible struggling that he used to check his servant Job. Devil says to God, “‘Stretch out your hand and contact all that he has, and he’ll curse you to your face.’ And the Lord mentioned to Devil, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Solely towards him don’t stretch out your hand.’” Devil goes out and, with God’s permission, takes all of his oxen, all of his camels, all of his donkeys, after which kills all ten of his youngsters.
Job’s astonishing response that magnifies the value and trustworthiness of God is that this: “Bare I got here from my mom’s womb, and bare shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” He didn’t say Devil has taken away. “The Lord has taken away; blessed be the identify of the Lord” (Job 1:21). He pays no consideration to Devil in anyway. For all we all know, he doesn’t even know what occurred within the heavenlies with regard to Devil, however he goes straight to the last word supply of his ache and blesses God, trusts God, casts himself completely on God.
Devil makes yet another problem towards Job and towards God, and says, “Pores and skin for pores and skin! All {that a} man has he’ll give for his life. However stretch out your hand and contact his bone and his flesh” (Job 2:4–5). After I learn that, I couldn’t assist however take into consideration Eve: “This ultimately is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Might this additionally embody his spouse — his bone and his flesh? “And he’ll curse you to your face” (Job 2:5). God is keen to take this check one step additional and takes Devil at his phrase and says, “Behold, he’s in your hand; solely spare his life” (Job 2:6). So, he goes out and, below God’s sovereignty, he strikes Job with horrible sores. Job 2:7: “So Devil . . . struck Job with loathsome sores from the only of his foot to the crown of his head.”
Then comes Job’s encounter along with his spouse. Job 2:9–10: “His spouse mentioned to him, ‘Do you continue to maintain quick your integrity? Curse God and die.’” Now, that’s precisely what Devil wished Job to say. “I curse you, God, and I’m accomplished with life.” So, Job’s spouse had lined up with Devil and turns into a part of his temptation — bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh turning into a part of what Devil needs him to do.
What Job’s Spouse Teaches Us
What’s the writer’s objective in telling us about Job’s spouse’s obvious despair? I feel it has a double objective. One is to point out that, in our struggling, our most valuable buddy or beloved one might flip towards us (not less than, it could appear so). Our flesh and bone, a part of our very self, might grow to be a part of Devil’s check.
“If we see Devil’s hand in struggling, it doesn’t imply that the struggling has no good design from our loving Father.”
The opposite objective, I feel, is that we not let exams embitter us — to point out that Job didn’t let the check embitter him — however reasonably carry out of us a responsive hope to the very beloved one who has grow to be a part of the satanic temptation, and that we carry readability to that beloved one about God. And I feel that’s what Job fashions right here. He says, “‘You communicate as one of many silly ladies would communicate. We could obtain good from God, and we could not obtain evil?’ In all this Job didn’t sin along with his lips” (Job 2:10).
So, he says two issues. One, let’s be clear about God. He has the suitable to carry consolation and calamity into our lives. He owes us nothing. We don’t deserve something from him. We are able to’t negotiate with him. He has accomplished us no improper, spouse. His methods are excessive. We’ll perceive by-and-by, even when we don’t now. And the opposite response is hope — hope that his spouse will not be settled in her opposition, however solely weakened for a second.
4 Tips that could Hope
Now, I feel that the writer of this guide needs us to see this. Individuals don’t at all times catch this, however I feel the writer suggestions us off in a number of methods. I see not less than 4 tips that could the hopefulness of her scenario that Job sees first.
1. Up so far within the story, despite the fact that all ten of her youngsters had died, there’s no point out of her despair or bitterness when Job says, “The Lord took away” (see Job 1:21).
2. On the finish of the guide, when Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are rebuked, she’s not amongst those that get rebuked (Job 42:7).
3. When Job explains to her that God has a proper to carry good and evil, consolation and calamity, there’s no pushback.
4. Most significantly, Job doesn’t say, “You’re a silly lady.” He says, “You communicate as one of many silly ladies” (Job 2:10). In different phrases, he’s not but keen to place her in that class. “I don’t see you but, pricey spouse, as one of many silly ladies, however as briefly giving manner below the horrible losses you will have endured.”
So, I feel the explanation Job’s spouse is launched on this story will not be primarily to sentence her however to spotlight once more the triumph of Job’s religion and hope and love.
Belief God and Dwell
You might bear in mind, Tony, and possibly a couple of of our listeners do — I doubt it, however possibly — that I wrote a cycle of 4 lengthy poems about Job. I attempted in the second one to seize this hope. It was all in regards to the encounter with Job’s spouse. I believed it is perhaps good to finish this APJ by crawling inside Job’s head in an imaginary dialog along with his spouse to see how they may have resolved this collectively. So, right here we go — only a few strains from this poem:
He pulled himself up from his place,
And by some energy of grace, he stood
Beside his spouse and mentioned, “I’d,
Little question, in your house really feel the identical.
However, spouse, I can’t curse the identify
That by no means handled me unfair,
And simply at the present time has answered prayer.”
“What prayer? What did you bid him do?”“That I ought to bear this ache, not you.
O Dinah, don’t communicate like these
Who can’t see, as a result of they shut
Their eyes, and say there is no such thing as a God,
Or fault him when he plies the rod.
It’s no sin to say, my love,
That bliss and ache come from above.
And if we don’t perceive
Some dreadful stroke from his left hand,
Then we should wait and belief and see.
O Dinah, would you wait with me?”
“I’ll attempt,” she mentioned, “I didn’t imply
That you must die. I’m extra unclean
Than you with all of your sores.” She knelt,
And located, between a boil and welt,
A spot to place her kiss. “Is there
Some proof that God might care
For similar to me?” Job touched her hair:“You might be one other answered prayer.”
