He Gives and He Takes Away

Job 1:13-22 ESV

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.

What do we believe about the goodness of God? When do we believe that God is good? And perhaps, most searching of all—how do we believe God is good? Most of us believe God is good when He gives. We believe God is kind when He blesses us with health, family, stability, provision, and peace. We rarely struggle to worship God when life is comfortable. But the real question is not whether God is good when He gives — the real question is whether we still believe God is good when He takes.

Job chapter one does not exist to test whether Job loved God when he was wealthy. It exists to test whether Job would still worship God when everything that God had given him was taken away.

Now, as we read last week in our opening sermon of this series, Job was a very devout, God-fearing man, and God had in fact blessed Job over and over again with an abundance of wealth and great possessions.

And when the heavenly council, that is, when angels of all sorts came to present themselves before the Lord so that they may be given orders as to what God would have them do, we read that Satan also came among them.

After God had spoken highly of Job, saying that he is upright and blameless, how he fears God and turns away from evil, the devil responded by saying that Job is the way that he is, that he fears God and turns away from evil only because God has given Job so many possessions. Thus, the devil says that if the Lord were to allow him to take away all of Job’s wealth and possessions, he would not only cease trusting God, but he would publicly curse and reject God.

God, giving the devil permission to do as he has said, the devil then sets out to do what he desired, as we read at the beginning of our text for this morning that “there was a day” in which Satan’s affliction of Job began.

On this particular day which the devil set out to afflict, we read that the sons and daughters of Job, ten in all, were all in one place, feasting together, as verse four told us they were prone to do.

Now, back in verse four, we said that each one of Job’s seven sons would take a turn hosting this feast in his particular home, and it was on this particular day that it happened to be the firstborn son’s turn to host the feast for his siblings in his home.

Being the firstborn son likely meant that this son held a greater amount of possessions and that he probably possessed a larger estate than his brothers. And so, it was on this what was likely the largest estate of Job’s children that the afflictions which followed took place.

In verses fourteen and fifteen, we read that while Job’s sons and daughters were feasting in the home of the firstborn son, that a messenger, a servant of Job came to him and said first, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them”. Back in verse three, we read that Job possessed 500 oxen and 500 donkeys, and so, this likely indicates all of Job’s oxen and donkeys, 1,000 in total.

And as the oxen and donkeys were peacefully plowing and feeding, we read that the peaceful setting was suddenly interrupted by “Sabeans”, those who descended from Sheba, the grandson of Abraham. In First Kings, we read of the famous visit from the Queen of Sheba to Solomon; it was from here, from the land of Sheba that these Sabeans hailed.

And when these Sabeans had come on the scene, we read that they stole all of Job’s oxen and donkeys, taking a huge portion of his livestock, and then slaughtered all of his servants, besides the one who escaped to report what had happened.

Moving on now to verse sixteen, we read that while this first servant of Job was still speaking to him, another servant came to him. That we read that all of these reports came while the preceding servants were still speaking lets us know that all of these tragic events happened simultaneously. Here, we read that it was while this first servant was still speaking to Job that another servant came to him and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them”.

Now, this is an interesting report given to Job, especially in that the fire mentioned here is described as “the fire of God”, and this fire is said to have “fell from heaven”.

Now, with words like that, it may seem like the author is saying that God Himself employed this fire, as if He was in on this with the devil. But that is not the case at all! But rather, as God has given the devil permission to do with Job’s possessions as he wills, so may it be said that the fire was “of God”. Furthermore, Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air”, and so, it should not surprise us that God allowed Satan to rain fire down “from heaven”, which does not literally mean from the dwelling place of God, but from the sky, or what we may say, “the air”.

And this fire which fell, we read, “burned up” what verse three tells us were likely all 7,000 of Job’s sheep, and all of Job’s servants who were with his sheep, with the exception of the lone servant that was spared from the fire, who now reports to Job what has happened.

Then, moving on to verse seventeen, we read that while this servant was still speaking, another one of Job’s servants came to him, and told him, “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 so, these Chaldeans were organized, they formed three groups and came upon Job’s 3,000 camels mentioned back in verse three, and they steal them. In addition to this, we read that these Chaldeans struck down, slaughtered every one of Job’s servants that were with his camels, except for this one who escapes to deliver the bad news.

And so, by this point, Job learns that he has lost all of his livestock; in addition to this, he learns that he has lost all of his servants. And having lost all of his livestock and all of his servants, he has then lost all of his wealth and possessions.

But that wasn’t everything that Job loses here, for as we will now see, Job will also lose his dearly beloved children. As the last servant was still speaking to Job, we read in verses eighteen and nineteen, that yet another servant of his came to him and said that while the same feast which was spoken of in verse thirteen was taking place, suddenly, “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”.

It was bad enough that Job had lost all of his possessions, all of his wealth. Job loved his children dearly, so much so that as we read in our text from last week, he would consistently make offerings to God on their behalf. But now, even these most precious children of Job had perished. The man who was described as “the greatest of all the people of the east” is now without possessions, without wealth, and without offspring.

If even a fraction of that happened to you, how would you respond? And of course, I know that anyone who would lose anything near this would be extremely saddened, I know that; but how would you respond toward God?

You know, if you rightly believe that God is in control over everything, then you will of course also believe that He could have stopped all of this from happening, but because it did indeed happen, you are forced to acknowledge that it was God’s determination to not keep it from happening, though He could have kept it from happening, if that is what He wanted to do.

So, having this conviction, if this happened to you, if in one day, indeed, if in just a couple of minutes you lost everything, every possession, every bit of wealth, all of your kids, grandkids, and you believe that God could have stopped this, but that He did not stop it, and therefore it shows that He did not want to stop it, how would you respond to God Himself?

Well, let’s look at how Job responded in verses twenty and twenty-one. We read that Job arose from the place in which he was sitting when he received these reports, and he “tore his robe and shaved his head”, both demonstrations of great grief, indescribable sadness.

And indeed, it is very understandable as to why Job would be so grieved by so much loss and destruction, that doesn’t surprise is; but what may in fact surprise us is that after tearing his robe and shaving his head, after showing his grief, we read that he “fell on the ground and worshiped”.

Think about that… you have the orthodox understanding that God is in control, that nothing happens apart from His sovereign will, and so, after realizing that you have just lost everything and therefore, God has in fact, agreed to let you lose everything when He could have stopped it; at that, many people may get angry with God… as Satan said, many people may have cursed God to His face. But not Job… Job worshiped the Lord.

And as he worshiped, 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”.

What a magnificent display of piety! Job recognizes that he came into the world with nothing, that everything which he has accumulated on earth has been given to him by God. Now he says that if it be God’s will that all is taken away from him before his death, then His will is good and perfect, and He should be worshiped and praised all the more as Job sees the good and perfect will of God coming to pass.

Imagine that! Job does not curse God for letting everything, even his own children be taken from him. Now that doesn’t mean that he likes it, but he does not curse God. But rather, as he sees the good and perfect will of God coming to fruition, even though that will of God is not something that he is comfortable with, he responds by worshiping that same God.

And so, as verse twenty-two, the last verse in our reading says, unlike the assumptions of Satan, Job “did not sin or charge God with wrong”. He didn’t say, “Well that’s not fair! That was my stuff! And God, because You didn’t stop this from happening, I’m through with You!”.

In the New American Commentary, Robert Alden, who writes commentary on the book of Job in that series of commentaries says, “Thus the chapter ends with “the greatest man among all the people of the East” destitute, childless, and broken. In the space of less than a page and in a brief span of time, he went from being the greatest to being the least of men.”[1]

And through it all, Job worshiped the sovereign God.

He, beloved, is worthy of our worship in any circumstance.

Amen?

[1]Robert L. Alden, Job, vol. 11, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1993), 62.