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Scripture Reading: Job 2
In this message we will continue to consider the trials of Job.
A council was held again in heaven concerning Job (2:1). It was not easy for God to gain a person like Job who feared God and turned away from evil. Yet what Job had attained was altogether vanity. It did not fulfill God's purpose, and it did not satisfy God's desire. Thus, God was lovingly concerned for Job and held two councils in heaven concerning how to deal with Job (1:6-8; 2:1-3).
The second council was also held by God with the angels, the sons of God (v. 1a).
Satan came again as one of the attendants, presenting himself before God (v. 1b).
In verses 2 through 6 we see that again God checked with Satan concerning Job.
Jehovah said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered Jehovah, saying, "From roving the earth and going about in it" (v. 2).
According to verse 3, Jehovah said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, though you have moved Me against him to destroy him without cause." Here God admitted that what was done to Job was without cause.
Satan answered Jehovah, saying, "Skin for skin! Indeed all that a man has he will give for the sake of his life. But stretch forth Your hand, and touch his bone and his flesh; and he will surely curse You to Your face" (vv. 4-5). Apparently, Satan was challenging God. Actually, Satan said exactly what God wanted, and God was pleased with it.
Jehovah told Satan that Job was in his hand. Only Satan was to spare Job's life (v. 6).
Satan, in his cruel nature, would attack God's lovers to any extent to damage them, if God did not draw a line to preserve His lovers for their existence that they might gain Him to the fullest extent for His fullest satisfaction. The Bible shows us that although after God judged Satan, God still allowed him to be free to accuse, attack, damage, persecute, and martyr His saints that God may use him to a certain extent for the fulfillment of God's particular purpose, God always restricts him in the limit of His permission.
In verses 7 and 8 we see that Satan attacked Job and that Job suffered the trial in his body.
Satan went forth from God's presence (v. 7a).
Satan attacked Job by striking him with severe boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head (v. 7b).
Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and he sat among the ashes (v. 8). The boils that covered his body were extremely painful. As he sat there in pain, he had nothing to say.
In verses 9 and 10 we have Job's reaction to his trial.
In her mocking reaction to Job's trial, his wife said, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die" (v. 9).
In answer and reaction to his wife, Job said, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Should we receive the good from God but not receive the ill?" (v. 10a). It seems that Job's thought here was not according to the commercial principle of gain or loss. In a sense, he was willing to suffer loss. However, his physical pain was unbearable.
In all this Job did not sin with his lips (v. 10b).
Here we have a significant, instructive, and unveiling scene, a scene that involves both the earth and the heavens. Because the heavens were the origin of the scene, what happened to Job on earth began in the heavens. Today, through the help of the Bible, we can see both the scene on earth and the scene in the heavens.
At the end of Satan's first series of attacks, Job did not pray but blessed God without sinning or charging God with unseemliness (1:20-22).
At the end of Satan's second attack, Job was suffering very great pain in silence (2:13b).
In their visit Job's three friends lifted up their voice and wept, tore their clothes, cast dust over their heads toward heaven, and sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, but none spoke a word to him (vv. 12-13a). They could not speak anything because they had no knowledge, no understanding, concerning the purpose of what had happened to Job.
Eventually, Job cursed the day of his birth (3:1). Instead of complaining to either God or man, Job cursed himself in cursing his birth.
Such a scene indicates that Job and his three friends were all ignorant concerning that most painful and most terrifying occurrence and were puzzled in their godliness, unable to figure out what the reason was, what the purpose was, and what the result would be.
Job's experience was a step of the divine economy. In this situation God took a step to accomplish something with Job.
The occurrence was undoubtedly planned by God. This should not be a problem to us. In His plan, God held a council twice and checked with Satan twice concerning Job, and Satan fell into God's plan.
This step in God's economy was to carry out the consuming and stripping of the contented Job in his seeking after Him. Before Satan's first attack, Job was a person of contentment. He was fully content and satisfied with his attainments in everything. Eventually, Job's possessions, health, and integrity were stripped away and consumed.
God's intention was to usher Job into a deeper seeking after Him that he might gain Him instead of His blessings and his attainments in his perfection and integrity. Job was contented in the realm of success in his gaining of material things and in his ethical attainments, but he had nothing of God. Therefore, God ushered him into another realm that he might gain God.
Satan was an ugly tool used by God to accomplish a dishonorable commission.
The scene in Job 1 and 2 shows that Satan, who had been judged by God, still remained free to be purposely used by God as an ugly tool to execute God's cruel dealing with His loving ones.
Satan's commission in executing God's dealings with His loving ones was altogether dishonorable.
Satan's attacks on Job in two steps laid a mysterious and glorious foundation, or base, for God to accomplish His glorious transformation on Job and for Job to experience the mysterious transactions in his relationship with the mysterious God.
The mysterious and glorious consummation is that we would reach the standard and level of God's eternal economy regarding His chosen ones, as revealed in the New Testament through the apostle Paul's writings (2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 3:9).
God is very mysterious not only in His person but also in His purpose, in His desire. However, today we have the New Testament, especially the writings of the apostle Paul, who completed the divine revelation (Col. 1:25). If we humble ourselves before God and empty ourselves and if we are poor in spirit, admitting that we have nothing and know nothing concerning God's person, God's purpose, and God's desire, and come to Paul's writings with the help of the Life-study messages, we will see something regarding the divine revelation in a clear, explicit, complete, and impressive way. In particular, we will see something concerning God's dispensing of Himself in His eternal economy.
The ancient book of Job is mysterious, and we need to study it in the light of Paul's writings. Without the Epistles of Paul it would be difficult for us to understand the book of Job because the conclusion of Job does not give us an explicit view concerning the purpose of God's dealing with His people. However, in the view of the New Testament, it is very clear that God's purpose in dealing with His holy people is that He desires that they would be emptied of everything and to receive only God as their gain. The desire of God's heart is that we would gain Him in full as life, as the life supply, and as everything to our being.
