Lesson two in the Job series. It is time to focus on God, Satan and Job.
Job, the servant of God was described by God as "blameless, upright, fears God and turns away from evil." Did you know that these same words describe all Christians? You may not feel blameless, but if you believe in God and put your faith in Jesus, then God says you are blameless too! That is because when you become a Christian, God takes all of your sins and records them in Christ's ledger book and then he takes all of Christ's righteousness and records it all in your book!
Job, as the servant of God, was the most blameless man in all the earth. One day, when all the sons of God came before the throne, Satan appeared with them. The sons of God were most likely angels. God and Satan got to talking and God said, "have you noticed my servant Job?" God did a little bragging about Job and it got Satan all irate. It just so happened that Job was also the richest man in town and he had a big family too. So Satan said something like this to God, "He doesn't really love You, You know. He just loves all the stuff You give him. But if you take it all away, he will curse you to your face."
What did Satan mean by that? Today, when we think of cursing, we think of swearing at someone or using foul language, or threatening them or maybe even delivering some kind of incantation designed to bring them harm. But the Hebrew word for curse [barak] is the same Hebrew word for bless. That means you have to look closely at the context in order to see how you should interpret it. So to curse literally means to not bless. A good example of this is in Proverbs 30:11. In Hebrew poetry things are often stated two times in two lines that give an expanded meaning. This verse says, "There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers." Do you see the correlation between curse and do not bless?
When we bless God, we acknowledge him, we honor him, we give him glory, we praise him, and we obey him. When we curse God, we do the opposite--we deny him and disobey and dishonor him by breaking his commandments. Any sin that we commit, no matter how insignificant it seems to us, literally curses God by putting Jesus under God's curse. Jesus was "pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities." Here is another way to look at it. If Jesus had failed to keep the law in just one teensy little point, all of us would be condemned to hell for all eternity. That is how egregious sin is. Any sin is the equivalent of cursing God.
Satan thinks he can make Job curse God by taking away all his stuff. And God gives him permission. First, Satan takes away all Job's wealth--all of his oxen and donkeys and sheep and camels. But it wasn't just the animals--all Job's servants were killed as well. And then the final blow came when all of Job's ten children were killed by a whirlwind. God only knows how many people died that day--maybe as many as a hundred. So Job lost everything. Did Job sin? No. He said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Did you notice the word blessed? Job did not curse God; he did just the opposite, he blessed God.
So God won that bet and the score was God: 1 and Satan: 0. But then Satan came back another day and he said, "Well, maybe Job didn't love his stuff more than You, but he certainly loves himself more than You God." So God gave Satan permission to destroy Job's body--his bones and flesh--but not to kill him. Poor Job was covered from head to toe with extremely painful boils. The boils pierced his flesh and began to decay and maggots were crawling all over him and even his bones and teeth were rotting. Some folks say his teeth were even falling out. That was when his wife joined the conversation and told Job to "curse God and die." Yet the Bible says, "In all this, Job did not sin with his mouth." Once again we see the contrast between curse and did not sin. And the score is God: 2 and Satan: 0. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
In part three, we will look at Job's persecutors.
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