The Ongoing Test in Life: Learning from Job's Test

What Satan knows about God

Job 1:10 NASB95

10 “Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

God protects His children, their home and even their property.

God causes man to prosper.

God is accessible to Satan.

What Satan thinks about Job

Job 1:11 NLT

11 But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”

1. When God causes Job to loose his possession he will stop being a good person and stop honoring God. FALSE

2. God is Job’s gatekeeper. TRUE

It is God that allow or disallow for any affliction that Satan will inflict in our life.

Job 1:12 NLT

12 “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.

3. Job will give up his faith the moment you will attack him physically. (FALSE)

Job 2:5 NASB95

5 “However, put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You to Your face.”

Job 2:6 NASB95

6 So the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life.”

4. God holds the life Job - he controls HIS LIVING AND DYING. TRUE

The Test

All animals were stolen and farmhands killed.

Job 1:13–15 NASB95

13 Now on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 14 a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans attacked and took them. They also slew the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

2.All sheep and shepherds were burned.

Job 1:16 NASB95

16 While he was still speaking, another also came 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.”

3. Camels stolen by Chaldeans and servants killed.

Job 1:17 NASB95

17 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and took them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

4. All his children died from a storm that toppled the building they were in,.

Job 1:19 NASB95

19 and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

5. His wife tempted him to curse God and commit suicide.

Job 2:9 NASB95

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

All the calamity was stacking up on him.

He lost his business.

He lost his children.

He lost his possessions.

His wife was not encouraging.

Test Results

v.20 Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship.

With regards to material possessions - he viewed everything as belonging to God and that he is just a caretaker.

Job 1:21 NASB95

21 He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

3. v.22 despite of it all HE DID NOT SIN BY BLAMING GOD

4. While responding to the wife’s challenge to curse God and die, Job said in Job 2:10

Job 2:10 NASB95

10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Responded with reverence, humility and self-control.

How Job’s Friends Responded

Three of Job’s friend went out of their way to visit him to comfort and console him.

Job 2:11 NASB95

11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him.

How do you comfort and console someone who the most upright man at that time?

How do you console someone who is the most richest man at that time?

How do you help someone who went from the richest to the poorest?

How do you comfort someone who ones live in luxury and health but now struck with terrible boils from head to foot? (v.7) (Boils are like bad case of pimple yet bigger and all over the body.)

As a rich prominent person at that time how come only three friend came to minister to him?

More from his friends

Job 2:12–13 NASB95

12 When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. 13 Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

What can we learn from Job’s friends:

Three things they did right:

First, they came to him when he was suffering.

Second, they empathized with him: “they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads” (verse 12).

Third, they spent time with him. Verse 13 ....they were with him for seven days before they offered their advice. Sympathy is best expressed in person by being in their midst and keeping silent.

Job’s Opens to his Friends (3:1)

This another side of Job, that were not all too familiar what.

It is important that we need to understand what Chapter 3 is about.

Has Job succumbed to the trial and given in to the wife’s suggestion to curse God and die?

Is Job 3:1 a continuation of Job 2:13?

Read Job 2:13 again:

Job 2:13 NASB95

13 Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

after seven nights what happened?

Job finally had the strength or sense to respond by asking his friends about his predicament and the following is what he told them… what he wished about his birth.

A. What he wished about his birth.

He wished that he was never born.

He wanted the day of his birth to turn to darkness

He wanted the night of his conception & the day of his birth to be seized by darkness—erased from the calendar.

He wished Leviathan (a sea monster) to swallow that day.

He wanted the morning stars of that day to become dark & the first rays of light (dawn) to never be seen.

He did not cursed God but he cursed that day when he was born.

B. He wished he were dead to escape from the suffering he was going through.

He wished he died at birth.

He wished that if he were born alive that his mother were to abandoned him to die. That way he will be at peace. That way he would be at rest.

He wished he died before birth - stillborn!

He question why people where allowed to live just to be in misery.

He was just dying to die.

He wished God would tell him why He allows one to live just to be destined to suffer.

Application

Today we see the life of Job in true clarity, from two sides. After all he was still human capable of being angry and express it but not sin at all.

Where was his anger directed?

Not to God

To his predicament

He hit rock bottom but if there was an underside to bottom, that’s where he was.

A situation like his led to despair. How did it feel like? It is all expressed and put to life for us to read in the whole Chapter 3.

How does Job’s lowest point life line up with God’s plan for his children to have an abundant life?

John 10:10 NASB95

10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Jeremiah 29:11 NASB95

11 ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

At the height of bankruptcy how will you explain Psalm 1:1-3?

Psalm 1:1–3 NASB95

1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. 3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.

Since abundant living was our creator’s intention then we need to read his definition of “ABUNDANT LIVING.”

When Adam and Eve’s actions altered the course of what life should have been, we missed and longed for God’s original plan. At was then that the meaning of ABUNDANT LIVING was extended to include sufferings.

The key is revealed by Paul in a familiar verse: Romans 8:28

Romans 8:28 NASB95

28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Does God’s blessing come in nice packaging only? What about the phrase “blessing in disguise?”

Since we live in an evil world and are always subjected by it and cannot escaped it, God’s idea of abundant living has been extended when we experience another form of gift and that is GRACE.

SOMEONE CAME UP WITH THE DEFINITION OF GRACE using the word itself as an acronym:

G- God’s

R - Riches

A - At

C - Christ

E - Expense

Experiencing, receiving and realizing ABUNDANT GRACE has been been the other side of ABUNDANT LIVING.

The full picture of GRACE was given in Calvary but is continually at work in our life today.

It is by the grace of God that you are alive today.

Are you undergoing trials in life today? It is by the grace of God that you are a child of Him and it comes with benefits here on Earth and all the way to heaven.

It is by the grace of God that He is in control of everything, even if at times we doubt and is willing to forgive us of our shortcomings.

It is by the grace of God that when we sin Christ does not have to come down again to pay the penalty because His life paid for it all, past, present and future.

It is by the grace of God that when we sin as a child of God that we will never loose our identity with Him.

Our employment security is always based on our ability to perform well.

With our relationship with God, our eternal security is not based on our ability to avoid sin but in Christ qualification as the only who can pay for our sins.

3. Did he stay angry? Did he stay depressed? Here some of his positive words in following chapters: IT’S CALLED “REALITY CHECK!

Eliphaz spent the whole Chapter 4 in giving Job a reality check. As long as you are here on Earth, expect trials! You could be the encourager or the comforter today but tomorrow you could be the comforted. We to be informed of this reality so that we are able to prepare for it.

But before I read a section of Eliphaz’s counsel, I want to inform you that apparently God want him to do more. This were God’s words to Eliphaz found in Chapter 42:7

Job 42:7 NASB95

7 It came about after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.

Some of the counsel from Job’s three friends include many inaccuracies, primarily involving why God allows people to suffer. They made the mistake of concluding that Job was suffering because he had done something wrong. As a result, they repeatedly encourage Job to admit his wrong and repent so that God would bless him again.

But some of the things they got right is found in Chapter 4.

REALITY CHECK IS APPLYING OUR FAITH NOT ONLY IN GOOD TIMES BUT ALSO IN TOUGH TIMES. Read Job 4:1-8

Job 4:1–8 NLT

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job: 2 “Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out? 3 “In the past you have encouraged many people; you have strengthened those who were weak. 4 Your words have supported those who were falling; you encouraged those with shaky knees. 5 But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart. You are terrified when it touches you. 6 Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope? 7 “Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed? 8 My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same.

Understanding why bad things happen to us will help us cope with trials. Coping is knowing who to trust, coping is knowing to continue to trust because at the end something good will happened.

Understanding specially that not all suffering is a result of Sin.

The trials Job endured were not related to his behavior. Instead, God used the sufferings as a test and as part of His sovereign plan in Job’s life. Following Job’s time of suffering, God blessed Job with twice as much as he had before (Job 42:10).

4. Did he stay broke?

Job 42:10 NASB95

10 The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold.

Job 42:12 NASB95

12 The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys.

Compare it to:

Job 1:3 NASB95

3 His possessions also were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants; and that man was the greatest of all the men of the east.

5. Did his lineage stop with the death of his children?

Job 42:13 NASB95

13 He had seven sons and three daughters.

Job 42:15 NASB95

15 In all the land no women were found so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.

Previously

Job 1:2 NASB95

2 Seven sons and three daughters were born to him.

Here are some concluding thoughts after Job’s ordeal: What did Job learn, what did we learn?

1. Bad things can still happen to upright Christians.

Job 1:8 NASB95

8 The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.”

2. Never loose hope in God.

Job 13:15 NASB95

15 “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.

3. God’s words are always the right counsel.

Job 19:25–27 NASB95

25 “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. 26 “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; 27 Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!

Here’s what Job had to say about some of his friend’s advise to him:

Job 16:2 NLT

2 “I have heard all this before. What miserable comforters you are!

4. God maybe silent at times but He is never absent in our life.

With all the why’s that Job asked about his suffering, he mustered these words;

Job 23:10 NLT

10 “But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.

5. God is always in control.

A short declaration with profound implications says it all and it’s enough for me to trust Him

Psalm 23:1 NASB95

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.