Summary Book of Job Chapters 1 to 22
Job was a man of God, a righteous man who feared God and who
turned away from evil. He was blameless and upright before God. And he was also
a wealthy man with many material goods and animals and servants, as well as he
had a wife and seven sons and three daughters. But one day Satan came before
God and God said to him, “Have you considered my servant Job?” Then Satan gave
his response to God, and the Lord gave Satan permission to inflict Job by
touching all that he had, but to not touch him.
So, in one day all Job’s animals, and all his servants, but
a few who escaped to tell him, and all his sons and daughters were struck down,
and they all died. Then Job grieved his loss, he fell on the ground, and he worshiped
God. 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.”
In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
But Satan came back a second time, and he and the Lord had a
similar conversation as they had before, and Satan was given permission this
time to touch Job’s body. And so Satan struck Job’s body with loathsome sores
from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Then his wife said to him, “Do
you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But Job responded, “Shall
we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did
not sin with his lips.
Then Job’s three friends came to show him sympathy and they
sat with him on the ground in silence for seven days and seven nights. Then Job
broke the silence by cursing the day of his birth. He lamented that he had even
come into the world, for his suffering was so great. And then his friends began
to respond, and they had a back and forth conversation with Job, but they
assumed that Job’s suffering was because of some sin in his life, but Job tried
to assure his friends it was not, but they would not accept that.
Job 23:8-9 ESV
“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there,
and backward, but I do not perceive him;
on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him;
he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him.”
Have you ever been where Job was? Maybe your suffering was
not as severe as his, and maybe you had friends who supported and encouraged
you, and who believed you, but still you were suffering. But the more severe
the suffering the harder it is to endure. And then when you don’t have any
support and encouragement from others, and when your friends or your family or
your church family then accuse you falsely of what you did not do, and they try
to convince you that you are in the wrong, that is tough!
But then, have you felt like God wasn’t there? All of a
sudden you are not hearing him like you did before. He seems silent and
distant, and so you just wish he would say something, even to rebuke you, just
so you know that he is there, for you need to know that, otherwise you feel
totally abandoned. Have you been there? I have. I hate those times when I can’t
hear the Spirit speaking, when he seems silent, and especially if Satan is
attacking me.
But I believe God allows even these times of silence to test
our faith. This is when we definitely have to walk by faith and not by sight
and not by our feelings, for our feelings don’t feel so well in these times.
And if we don’t sense the comfort of God’s love, and if Satan is attacking us
in our minds and in our emotions, it is doubly hard. But this is when we must
persevere and just go on what we know to be true even when we can’t see it.
Job 23:10-14 ESV
“But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.
My foot has held fast to his steps;
I have kept his way and have not turned aside.
I have not departed from the commandment of his lips;
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.
But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back?
What he desires, that he does.
For he will complete what he appoints for me,
and many such things are in his mind.”
One of Satan’s fiercest weapons he uses against us is his
lies and his false accusations. He especially will attack us in our minds when
we are the most vulnerable, like when we are lacking sleep, or when we are not
feeling well, or when we are being oppressed by our opposition, by our enemies.
And he will falsely accuse us of wrongdoing when we know we are not doing
wrong. But he will try to put doubt in our minds and to confuse our minds.
He will lie to us about God, and about the Scriptures, and
he will lie to us about other people, and he will try to make us fearful or
paranoid about things that may or may not even exist in reality. But now we do
have the Holy Spirit who speaks to us, too, and he does speak words of
conviction and correction, as well as words of encouragement and hope, so we do
need to make certain that the Lord is not trying to point out error in our
lives before we just automatically ignore what we are hearing, unless it is
something very obvious. For we don’t want to ever quench the Spirit.
And we have to remember that Satan is a deceiver, and he
disguises himself as an angel of light, so he isn’t always going to sound like
the devil, but he may masquerade himself as the voice of the Spirit with a
gentle whisper in our ears. So we have to be discerning, and pray for
discernment, especially during times when we are lacking sleep, and we are
sick, and we are worn out, and even our minds are tired. And he may use a
preacher to do his bidding who will try to say we are in the wrong when we know
we’re not.
So, just make sure you are in the right before you claim you
are, for God could be taking you through a time of suffering in order to prune
you and in order to cleanse you of some things that he doesn’t want in your
life. I generally make it my practice when I am going through such times to ask
the Lord to teach me what he wants to teach me through my trial and to convict
me of any wrongdoing if I am unknowingly doing something which displeases him. And
sometimes he does, and I needed that correction.
But when your conscience is clear, and you have prayed, and
the Lord has not shown you any error in your life, then you can confidently stand
up to Satan and to his lies and you can proclaim the truth. But just make
certain that your truth is the truth, for many people today are believing lies
that they have been convinced are the truth. But they are twisted truth, and
often they come from Scriptures taught outside of their context.
For example, many people today, when they are sinning against
the Lord deliberately and habitually, they are being taught to cast off any
kind of conviction and to assume that is Satan accusing them of the wrong that
they are doing. And they are being told to just “Claim who you are in Christ,”
which they may or may not be, and this is in order to ease their consciences so
that they can continue in their sin without guilt. This is of Satan!
So, this is why I say, make sure that you are in the right
and that you are not fooling yourselves, and when you are certain that you are
on the right path, according to Scripture (taught in context), then you can
refute Satan’s lies with the truth, and you can stand up to him and not let him
bully you. You can be strong and courageous in the strength of the Lord to
state what is truth and to hold on to the truth of what you know and to not
waver and to not falter. And then you will be able to withstand the devil’s
attacks.
Hopefully you will be able to say with Job that when your
trial is over that you know you will come out shining like gold. And that you
can say with full humility and confidence in the Lord that you have held fast
to the Lord’s steps, that you have kept his way, that you have not turned aside,
and that you have not departed from his commandments (New Covenant), but that
you have treasured the words of the Lord more than your portion of food.
And hopefully you will have the same understanding as Job
that God is absolutely sovereign and in control over all that he has made, and
that whatever comes into your life is there because God has allowed it for his
purposes, and that your trials were appointed by God for you to make you into
the person he wants you to be for his glory. And then you can rest in the Lord
and trust him with whatever he brings into your life, as Job did.
[Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1
Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; Matt 5:10-12; Lu 21:12-19; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb
12:3-12; Jn 15:1-11]
Courageous!
An
Original Work / December 24, 2013
Based
off Various Scriptures
The Word of God throughout taught.
Some people heard but did doubt.
Still others had faith in Christ.
By grace He purified them.
They turned from sin
And they obeyed Christ.
He opened up their blinded eyesight;
Turned them from darkness
To the true Light;
Forgave their sin by His might.
He strengthened them in their faith.
He said, “Remain my faithful.”
He called them to obedience.
By faith, they were so grateful.
By faith, they were to follow Jesus;
To daily sit and listen to Him;
To have such faith
That mountains could move;
To love those whom He gave them.
Be on your guard; courageous.
Stand firm in faith. Be thankful.
Take up the shield of your faith;
Protect against all evil.
Do not move from
The hope that you have.
Your faith in Jesus let it endure.
Hold to the truth;
Your conscience be clear.
Endure with perseverance.
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