In Prosperity and in Adversity

Job 2:9-10 ESV

9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Today, as we finish out this series of sermons from the first two chapters of the book of Job we come upon what may have been Job’s hardest and most severe testing yet.

Now you may wonder how I could say that, especially with knowing what we know had already taken place thus far in our narrative. I mean, you may look at what had happened to Job thus far and think, “Can it get any worse than that?!” But I’m sure that Job, after experiencing all of the difficulties that he had faced knew that things could definitely get worse, because they had already been successively getting progressively worse.

We remember how Satan had told the Lord that Job would curse Him to His face if the Lord let Satan destroy all of Job’s property and possessions, and kill all of his servants and children. But when that didn’t work, Satan came back before the presence of the Lord and said that if Job believed that he would die, that he would lose his life, that then he would publicly curse God.

So, as we read last week, we saw that after the Lord allowed the devil to go out and torment Job, that he did so by striking him with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, all over his body, striking him with unimaginable pain.

But that was as far as he went, for the Lord told Satan that he was not allowed to take Job’s life from him. But though that was the case, the devil likely thought that he wouldn’t need to take Job’s life from him, because he probably figured that Job would just take his own life after facing such intense suffering.

But that didn’t happen. Job didn’t curse God and Job didn’t take his own life, but instead, as we read last week, Job sat upon the heap of ashes that were once all of his possessions, accepting his lot, and doing what he could to ease the pain that he was experiencing.

It was probably at this point that the devil stopped directly attacking Job. But that doesn’t mean that he won’t work through others in an attempt to accomplish the same purpose.

We read a beautiful account in the second chapter of the book of Genesis of how God had first formed man; male and female. But we know that God made the male first, and then later He made the female. God made her, so that she may be a helper fit for Adam.

Ever since, a man’s wife has been called his helpmate. And the reason why that is, is because a man and his wife are to ever be helping one another, especially in spiritual matters. But when your helpmate doesn’t help, how lonely you are!

Throughout the course of my ministry, I have spoken with men whose wives were not spiritual helpmates but were oftentimes spiritual hindrances. And I have certainly spoken with a considerable number of women whose husbands had no interest in spiritual things and thus, they had great struggles with submitting to their husbands. Thus, they wanted to help, but they could not.

Having failed to move Job directly, Satan now changes his approach. The enemy is persistent, but he is not original. When he cannot prevail through open assault, he seeks a more subtle path. When he cannot break a man himself, he looks for a closer voice. And so, he turns his attention to Job’s wife.

This does not mean that she was acting knowingly as Satan’s servant. It means that she, like any grieving soul crushed by unbearable loss, became vulnerable to a lie about God’s goodness. Her words did not rise from cruelty, but from despair. Yet despair, when it is untethered from truth, becomes a powerful tool in the enemy’s hand.

Satan still works this way. He still uses suffering. And he still uses familiar voices. He still seeks to place doubt about God’s goodness into hearts that are already broken.

And now, in the darkest moment of Job’s life, that voice comes not from an enemy — but from his own wife.

We see this as we look at the first verse in our reading, verse nine, which says:

Job 2:9 ESV

9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Augustine, in his book “The City of God” calls Job’s wife “the devil’s accomplice”. The definition of the word accomplice is, “a person who helps another commit a crime”. And what crime had Satan been trying to accomplish? To make Job publicly curse God to his face. And what does Job’s wife tell her husband to do? What did she try to get him to do? The very crime that Satan wanted Job to commit.

Now, we might read this and think that this comment that Job’s wife had made had seemingly come out of nowhere, but we have to keep in mind that Job’s wife had, by this point, suffered almost as much as Job had. She too had lost all of her property, her wealth, and most of all, her children. And now, her husband, who was likely in great health before all of this was a mere shell of his former self.

And so, from what we will read in just a moment about Job’s response to his wife, it would seem as though that typically, in more pleasant circumstances like the one that they were in before all of this disaster struck, that she would typically act in a godly manner, but now, she has become an obvious target, a ripe target for the devil’s temptations.

And so, having targeted her, he tempted her and successfully seduced her into thinking that this suffering and great loss that she and her husband had experienced was an injustice dealt by the hand of God.

And so, the devil having successfully seduced her in this matter, she now comes to her husband and derisively asks him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity?" And so, in great astonishment, and with great ridicule, she basically says, “Are you serious?!” “God has let all of this come upon us! And yet you sit here and act like we just need to trust in Him! How foolish!”.

She says that there is no point in serving and trusting in a God Who lets all of this death and destruction come their way, and so she says that Job just needs to give full vent to his depravity.

But what it seems Job’s wife fails to realize is that Job does not trust in God, serve God, and worship God only because of the blessings that God gives. But it would seem as though she reasons that the only reason why anyone should ever act godly is because God blesses them, and if He doesn’t bless them, then they shouldn’t even pretend like they’re godly.

And because she scoffs at her husband’s integrity and because she urges him to give full vent to his depravity, she then suggests how he should give vent to his depravity by telling him to “Curse God and die”.

Now, remember, Satan had told God that this is what Job would do; he said that after destroying Job’s property and ravaging his health that Job would “curse God to His face”, that is, publicly renounce God and put away all regard for Him. And so, yes, in this regard Augustine is definitely right when he calls her “the devil’s accomplice” for she is telling her husband to do the very thing that the devil was so confident he would do.

She says, “Curse God, forget about Him, life isn’t worth living anymore and death is surely more preferable to the life that we now live, so just curse God, for when you do, He will strike you dead!”.

Again, this may have been the hardest part of Job’s testing, for now, in the hardest time of his life, when he needs help, comfort, and encouragement the most, his helpmate will not help him, but instead, she magnifies his trials.

Yet Job responded by telling his wife:

Job 2:10a ESV

10a …“You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”

Considering the circumstances, if Job wasn’t a believer, it would be easy to understand if he did follow his wife’s advice, but because he is a believer, because he follows and loves the Lord, not because of His blessings, but because He is God, he then did not take up her suggestion.

Rather, we read that he told his wife, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak”. In saying this, Job essentially tells his wife, “You are supposed to be a believer! And yet, you are thinking and speaking like one who is godless! As if serving God should only happen when everything is going well!”.

That, he says, is foolish. And indeed, it is foolish, for one is not to serve and love the Lord only when we can feel His blessings, only when our world isn’t falling apart. God is God, and thus, we are to serve Him and worship Him because He is indeed God. And so, serving and loving God only when we feel His blessings and when our world isn’t falling apart is synonymous to saying that we will recognize God as God only when He does what we want Him to do. And yes, that is certainly foolish, and because his wife is reasoning this way, Job rightly says that she is speaking like a fool.

And so, recognizing the truth, knowing that God is ever to be revered, honored, worshiped, and loved, no matter the situation in life, Job asks his wife, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”.

Now, here is another instance in scripture that we may look at and say that it appears as though God is causing evil, but that isn’t the case at all. Rather, as we have said in previous messages throughout this series, in all of creation, nothing comes to pass unless it comes to pass in accordance with the will and foreordination of God. In other words, nothing happens unless God lets it happen, and because it happens, God ensures that somehow, someway, He is glorified in it.

In his book, Chosen by God, R.C. Sproul said, “If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.”

But in fact, there is not even one single molecule in all of creation that is free of God’s sovereignty and control. Job knew this, and we need to know this, so that when tragedy strikes, rather than becoming angry with God for letting tragedy strike, like Job, we can say, “It is of the Lord, we must receive it”.

God does not commit evil, nor delight in it, yet He sovereignly ordains that even evil acts occur under His rule, never outside His control, and always for His own holy and glorious ends. And so, Job is not accusing God of wrongdoing, but confessing that nothing — not even his suffering — has escaped the sovereign hand of his righteous Lord.

And so, Job asks his wife, and so must we ask ourselves, “Shall we only love and serve God when He gives us those things which we enjoy? After all, even if He does foreordain evil, He is nonetheless the same God. Is He to be worshiped and revered only when we enjoy what He gives us? Is He not just as deserving of reverence and worship when He foreordains evil to come our way?” Of course He is! God’s worth is not contingent on what He does or does not give us!

I hear people say it all the time, “Why would a good God let evil exist in the world?”, but who are we as depraved creatures to say that? Everything in this world, Paul tells us, God works together for the good of the believer. Everything in this world comes to pass for the glory of God, which is good.

And so, why does a good God allow evil to exist in this world? Because in one way or another, He takes all of that evil, works it together for the good of His people, and is glorified in doing so. God allows evil to exist because He is glorified in condemning evil. And God allows evil to exist because He will be supremely glorified, when at the establishment of the New Jerusalem, He destroys and expels evil forever.

And so, like Job, we are left with a question that each of us must answer in our own hearts: Is God worthy of our worship only when He gives, or is He worthy because He is God?

Job teaches us that faith is not proven in prosperity, but in pain. Faith is not shown in abundance, but in ashes. True worship does not merely sing when the sun is shining — it bows when the storm is raging.

Beloved, there will be times when God’s providence will confuse you, when His purposes will remain hidden, and when His ways will seem unbearable. But even then, He is still God. He is still righteous. He is still worthy.

May we, by His grace, never curse Him in our suffering, but cling to Him. May we receive both joy and sorrow from His sovereign hand, trusting that the God Who wounds is also the God Who heals — and that the God Who allows the cross is the same God Who brings resurrection.

Amen?