Job: Reverent in Suffering
Job 1:1-2:10

• by John Piper (de aici)

One of my duties as your pastor is to preach and pray in such a way that you are prepared in mind and heart not to curse God in the day of your calamity. But even more—that instead of cursing you might worship God and bless him as your free and sovereign Father no matter how intense the grief or deep the pain he brings into your life.

Let’s stand back and draw out from the text four theological truths and three personal implications.

Four theological truths.

1. Satan’s aim is to destroy our joy in God.

He uses two weapons: pain and pleasure. He uses pain to make us feel that God is powerless or hostile. He uses pleasure to make us feel that God is superfluous.

He had failed to turn Job away from God in the days of his pleasure and prosperity. So he attacks Job’s God-centered joy through pain. He fails again. But there is no doubt what Satan is after in our life: his aim is to destroy our joy in God and to replace the treasure of God with the earthly treasures of wealth or family or health.

2. God aims to magnify his worth in the lives of his people.

The great aim of God in creation and redemption is to preserve and dis­play the infinite worth of his glory. The way he does this is by redeeming a people who love him and cleave to him and cherish him above all earthly treasures and pleasures. The mirror he has chosen for the reflection of his worth is the indestructible joy of his people. They will not trade him for anything this world can offer.

3. God grants to Satan limited power to cause pain.

In 1:12 God says to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only upon himself do not put forth your hand.” And in 2:6 God says, “Behold, he is in your power; only spare his life.”

God sets the limits of Satan’s power to cause pain. Our God is not frus­trated by

the power and subtlety of Satan. Satan cannot make a move with­out the permission of God almighty. He may be a lion. But he is a lion on a leash. And God reins him in or gives him slack according to God’s own sovereign purposes.

William Henry Green, in his great book, THE ARGUMENT OF THE BOOK OF JOB UNFOLDED (1874, reissued 1977, James and Klock, pp. 63f) says of Satan:

With all his hatred of God and spite against His people, he cannot eman­cipate himself from that sovereign control, which binds him to God’s ser­vice. In all his blasphemous designs he is, in spite of himself, doing the work of God. In his rebellious efforts to dethrone the Most High, he is actu­ally paying Him submissive homage.

In moving heaven and earth to accomplish the perdition of those whom Christ has ransomed, he is actually fitting them for glory. Fiend as he is, full of bitterness and malignity, and intent on every form of mischief, he is constrained to be that which he most abhors, and is furthest from his inten­tions and desires, helpful and auxiliary to the designs of grace.

Like the sons of God who assemble in the presence of the Infinite Majesty to receive the commissions of the King of kings, prompt to do his bidding and to execute his will, Satan is, though most reluctantly, and in a different sense from them, yet as really and as truly, in the case of those who, like Job, steadfastly resist his insidious assaults, a ministering spirit sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation.

4. Satan’s work is ultimately the work of God.

Did you notice that in the two heavenly scenes God handed Job over to Satan’s power. But when Satan had done his work of taking Job’s wealth and family, Job said in 1:21, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Job says that it was ultimately the Lord himself who took away his family and wealth. Then the inspired writer of the book makes a comment to avoid a misunderstanding. Lest anyone say that Job should not have attrib­uted Satan’s work to God, he writes (v. 22), “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” It is not sin to say that what Satan did, God ulti­mately did, because God rules Satan.

Similarly in the second heavenly scene God says (2:6) to Satan, “Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life.” Then verse 7 makes it very explicit that “Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and afflicted Job with loathsome sores.”

But again in verse 10 Job says, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In other words Job again goes all the way up to the sovereignty of God over Satan and says that his sickness is from God. Satan may have been the nearer cause, but ultimately it is from God.

And again the inspired writer warns us not to criticize Job here. He writes at the end of verse 10, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” It is not a sin to say that a sickness that Satan causes is “from the Lord”.

Job’s rock of refuge and hope when everything else seemed to be crum­bling was the absolute sovereignty of God. Which leads me finally to

Three personal implications.

1. Let us join with Job and affirm with all our hearts the absolute sover­eignty of God.

Let us say with the Psalmist (115:3), “Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases.” Let us say with Daniel (4:35), “He does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, `What does thou?'” Let us make the absolute sovereignty of God the rock on which we build our lives and our church.

2. Let your tears flow freely when your calamity comes.

“Job arose, rent his robe, and shaved his head, and fell upon his face” (1:20). The sobs of grief and pain are not the sign of unbelief. Job knows nothing of a flippant, insensitive, superficial “Praise God anyhow” response to suffering. The magnificence of his worship is because it was in grief not because it replaced grief. Let your tears flow freely when your calamity. And let the rest of us weep with those who weep.

3. Trust in the goodness of God, and let him be your treasure and your joy.

Even if God had let Satan take Job’s life we know what Job would have said. He would have said Psalm 63:3, “The steadfast love of the Lord is bet­ter than life.”

When your calamity comes may the Lord give you the grace to affirm the sovereignty of God, let your tears flow freely, and let God himself be your treasure and your joy. Amen.

Categories: Studiu biblic