The Testing of Job Job 1:1; 2:1-10 6.30 pm Sun 4 Oct 09 Linda Hood
There was once a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless – a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil…
One day the members of the heavenly court came again to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them. “Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan.
Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless – a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil. And he has maintained his integrity, even though you urged me to harm him without cause.”
Satan replied to the Lord, “Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life. But reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
“All right, do to him as you please,” the Lord said to Satan. “But spare his life.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence and he struck Job with terrible boils from head to foot.
Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.”
But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.
This is the Word of the Lord. (Thanks be to God.)
Job was a prosperous farmer living in the land of Uz. He had thousands of sheep, camels and other livestock, a large family, and many servants – all of which people would have taken as an indication that he was a righteous man, because God blesses the righteous, doesn’t he! Then one day, Satan the Accuser came before God, claiming that Job was trusting God only because he was wealthy and everything was going well for him. If Job didn’t have things so good, Satan said, he wouldn’t trust God as much. Now, God will always defend his good name – so, believing that Job would stand firm in his faith even under trials and temptations, God allowed Satan to put Job to the test.
This book – said to be perhaps the earliest written book in the Bible – asks huge questions. Why is there suffering – and why do good people suffer? Where is God when we suffer? How can we trust a God who allows dreadful things to happen? Questions like this rise up often in our journey through life – and I have no quick answers. But I may be able to help us think about how we handle these questions.
Our 21st century society is based very much on finding solutions. This view of life may come from a belief that we can use scientific analysis, or benefit from the fruits of research in technology or even psychology – but the overall impression we are given, in this society which reveres science and knowledge, is that we can, if we work at it hard enough, solve any problem that presents itself in life. However, this is not the Bible’s view. The Bible makes it clear that we are by our very nature fallen and flawed, and we cannot always succeed – we have to learn to cope with failure. There is not an answer to every problem – we have to learn how to cope with uncertainty and doubt. We do not always walk in light, but have to go through shadows as well. The book of Job does not give us easy answers – but perhaps it helps us to think about how to ask the right questions.
So what is going on as the book begins? We are introduced to Job – a man of complete integrity, who feared God and stayed away from evil. In other words, someone who because of his relationship with God was able to turn his back on bad choices and decide to do what he knew was right, all the time. Are you jealous? That is not my experience! So maybe the first question has to be, how well do I know God? Am I so close to him that I always recognise what is the right thing to do? Because I love him, will I always choose to do what pleases him?
Love has a great effect on us, doesn’t it! Love helps us to want to bless the other person by putting their interests first, by listening to them, by seeking their welfare, by choosing to honour them. The better we understand what the other person wants, the more likely we are to maintain a harmonious loving relationship – and that is what Job enjoyed with God. There was mutual respect. They appreciated each other. Job honoured God for all that God had done in his life, and God was able to boast about Job and his good way of living. Do you ever think about how much God appreciates you? How he delights to see you choose wisely, speak kindly, act with integrity? It’s worth remembering that we can bless God, just as he blesses us.
But how does a person keep themselves pure? We read of Job (in chapter 1:5) that he offered sacrifices to God in case his children had sinned – he wanted his whole family to be cleansed from their sins. He had a tender conscience, he wanted to make sure that there was no impurity in his life, because he understood that this brought sorrow to God. Perhaps there is a lesson for us, in that Job made it his regular habit to come before God and check that there was no sin intervening between them to damage their relationship. We may have a time of confession in some of our services here at church, but many of us only come to a service perhaps once a week – so it is up to us to examine ourselves and confess our faults individually, not relying on the times we come together. Do we have a habit of looking into our lives and checking our relationship with God, to make sure there is nothing causing God sorrow? Some people spend a few minutes at the end of each day thinking back over what has happened, what they have done, and making their confession. I used to have a Christian friend at school who said she wouldn’t go to sleep until she had prayed, in case she died during the night – she wanted to enter God’s presence with no regrets. A good example to follow!
So Job was a man of integrity – but that doesn’t mean he understood all that was going on around him. It seems that God kept some things secret from Job – there is a description of a realm totally unknown to Job, where God holds council with his heavenly court and arranges things which affect people on earth. Job was ignorant of this meeting – but it resulted in him being afflicted greatly. However well we know God, we will never see and understand all that he does and plans – God is so much higher than us we only grasp a small fraction of his works.
In addition, many of us don’t recognise either the work of “The Accuser”, the Satan. He prowls around the earth, seeking to find evidence of doubt and disloyalty among God’s people and to encourage it – because he is committed to the downfall of righteous and godly people. He is a master of disguise, so it’s no surprise that he often escapes detection and is able to carry out his work of spreading destruction, deceit and rebellion against God. But God is higher than Satan, and Satan can only work where God allows him to. And God was so confident that Job would be faithful that God permitted Satan to test Job. And that brings my second question: Am I faithful to God, whatever happens?
You may remember that Job suffered terrible losses – you can check out chapter 1 for the details, but basically he was deprived in one day of all his livestock and his farm workers, his sheep and camels – the source of his continuing wealth - and then on top of that his ten children all died when a storm destroyed the house where they were feasting together. Can you imagine the effect on him of receiving the news, one blow after another, in a very short space of time? If the loss of his livelihood was bad enough, he was then deprived of his beloved children and also his good standing and his future security. Everything was taken away. He was totally bereft. But – 1:22 tells us – he did not blame God.
Most of us, I’m sure, would have collapsed in grief. We have probably all known some losses, and the effects can be devastating. It’s like a knife in the heart, a hammer blow to the head, like having life itself knocked out of you so that you can’t move, you feel you can’t breathe, you are stunned, shocked, bewildered. And I’m sure Job felt all those things. He mourned deeply, he expressed his grief publicly. But he didn’t blame God for his troubles. He understood that all that we have is a gift from God, and when it is taken away we still have God himself. Our family might be taken away, but we still have God. Our livelihood may be destroyed, but we still have God. Our future may disappear, but we still have God. And Job remained faithful to all that he knew of God: “The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” (Chapter 1:22)
Wow! No wonder God was proud of Job! Job wasn’t worshipping God because of what he could get out of it, but simply because God was the source of life itself. His reaction was to turn to God in worship. And even though we certainly can’t understand it, perhaps we should choose to make that our reaction too. When something dreadful happens to us, and it does, do we recognise that God is, and so worship him? Or do we turn our back on God, and thus find ourselves in a shadow of our own making? As long as we are facing the source of light, we won’t see shadows, but once we turn away, the darkness masks our vision so that we see indistinctly. Job kept his face turned towards the light.
Now, I’m certainly not denying the reality of suffering. Loss of any kind can leave us in pain, emotionally, spiritually, even physically. And if we think that because we are Christians we shouldn’t go through tragedy and trauma, we are mistaken – God allows each of us to know suffering, just as he knew suffering in the death of Christ. And it is probably only in the times of suffering, when the heat is really on us, that we are refined – all that is unimportant in our lives can be discarded because it is recognised as irrelevant now. When everything else is stripped away, what is left? Only God himself – the one who deserves our total worship. We brought nothing into the world, and however much we want to cling on to things, to hold on to our family, our reputation, our financial security and our beloved possessions, it will one day be taken away from us. Do we worship those things, or God alone? The only way to find out is when we lose them – as Job discovered, and as we must one day do also. Even if it’s by the fingertips, do I hang on to God when everything else goes? That’s the only security we have in the world. Am I faithful to God, whatever happens?
Then, just when Job must have felt things couldn’t get any worse, guess what! God had such confidence in him that he was willing to let Satan have another go – though still within the boundaries that God set. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” And although this is specifically about temptation, it applies equally to suffering. It could read, “The suffering in your life is no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the suffering to be more than you can stand. When you are suffering, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” My third question is, How can we endure?
Having been afflicted emotionally, socially and financially, Job now suffers physically. He is “covered in boils” – or sores, like leprosy. He cannot live in his home any more but takes himself off outside the city, where the ash heaps are, and scrapes at his skin with a piece of broken pottery to try to ease his pain. He who was once rich and respected is now down with the outcasts. He has faced a foreign invasion which took away his cattle; he is destitute, having lost his sheep and camels and his livelihood; he is bereft, having lost not just one but all of his children. And now he is physically in agony. He has reached rock bottom. How can he endure this affliction on top of disaster? It seems beyond all reason, a step too far.
And for many of us, the same seems true today. If we say we are people of faith, who trust in an almighty, loving God, why do so many bad things happen? C. S. Lewis, in his book A Grief Observed, said that he could talk about the ‘truth’ of religion, and the ‘duty’ of religion – but when people mention the ‘consolation’ of religion, he can only assume they have never themselves suffered. When you are bereaved, or in despair, unable to understand why such dreadful things have happened to you or those you love, where is comfort to be found? Not in religion, with its platitudes, nor in a blind trust that denies tragedies can happen to good people. It is not in mental efforts to reconcile faith in a loving God with the experience of suffering, nor in spiritual heroics that pretend there is nothing wrong when in fact your world has imploded or exploded. No, the only way to find consolation is in God himself.
Not even those closest to us can always help. As Job reaches his lowest point, his wife comes up with her own take on events. “It’s about time you recognised that this God of yours is useless, helpless to prevent suffering, or even cruel enough to inflict it. Why don’t you stop pretending that there is anything good about God! Curse God – and it won’t matter if he strikes you down as a result, because you’re as good as dead anyway.”
It is so hard to see someone else suffering! We feel helpless. That leads to frustration and anger on their behalf. Job’s wife is really saying that God – if he is real – shouldn’t allow Job to continue suffering. It seems that her faith isn’t as strong as Job’s. She can’t grasp what he sees, that God permits pain as well as blessings, dark as well as light. And in her despair, she gets angry with God. Just like we do! She is almost shouting – like we sometimes do. “Why is this happening to me? It’s so unfair! I can’t carry on suffering like this! When will it end?” Now, I’m convinced that God doesn’t mind us shouting at him – he would much rather we were talking to him than turning our back on him. And, if we can stop shouting long enough to listen to his answer, God has a way of explaining things to us that helps us to understand what he is doing through the things we are suffering. But sometimes, we make so much noise that we miss the still, small voice of God. And sometimes we are asking “Why?” when we should be asking, “How?” How can I manage to endure this dreadful experience? How can I trust in your love even though my world has been turned upside down? How can I move forward when the path is so rocky? God always has an answer to “How?” questions – because the answer is in him.
How can I endure under so much suffering? By keeping my face turned towards God, by letting his Word dwell in my heart, by meditating on him through the day (and the night when sleep won’t come) – I have to do that or I will sink under the burden. If I look inward at myself, I can very quickly lose sight of God. My experience is that while I am walking – or limping or hobbling – along the journey that God is taking me, there are times when the path seems too rough, the mountain too steep, the waters too deep; but Isaiah 43 offers me a hope: “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God.” Sometimes, Scripture like this is all I have to hold on to.
Our natural human instinct is to want to avoid suffering, isn’t it? But I have come to see that we only appreciate light when we have also seen darkness. Sorrow and weeping may come with the night, but God promises that the light of dawn brings joy, because it is a sign of God’s faithfulness to us. Our experience of suffering will doubtless change us; and how we react to suffering can affect those around us too, to bring light – or darkness - to them. This isn’t to say we should be passive, because to hold on to God is an active choice. But the whole point of the story leads us to understand that God’s faithfulness endures forever. Job recognised this: “Should we accept only good things from the hand of God, and never anything bad?” We can’t understand the “Why” – why we live in a fallen world, where suffering will happen – but that doesn’t mean God has vanished. He continues to offer us the “How” of hope, the hope of a life and an eternity in his presence, strengthened and enabled to offer him the worship due his name.
Amen.