JOB SPOKE OF THE DEFEAT OF SATAN

Pastor Carolyn Sissom \ August 8th, 2010 (13958 views)

JOB SPOKE OF THE DEFEAT OF SATAN

February 2, 2010

 

 

  In chapter One, satan had accused Job of being mercenary in his goodness.  God had permitted the adversary to test this accusation and Job had stood the test!  Then the enemy was allowed to smite Job’s body.  Job’s disease is thought to have some form of leprosy, perhaps complicated with elephantiasis, one of the most loathsome and painful diseases known to the Oriental world.  Even Job’s wife added to his pain in her human understanding.  Job’s three friends came to him:  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and mourned with him for seven days. Ultimately, he may have suffered more at the hands of these three than by the attacks of the foe, but they did come.  They sat with him for seven days.  In overwhelming sorrows, true friendship almost invariably demonstrates itself more perfectly by silence than by speech.  We can at least commend them that what they thought concerning Job, they dared to say to him, rather than about him to others.

 1: 20-22 – Job’s answer to the sweeping storm had been characterized by heroism and vast breadth of outlook.  There was no affection or stoicism.  Job was afflicted, and showed it in the outward signs of mourning.  However, satan had not been able to touch that inner citadel (“The riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of the Christ. in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col. 2: 2-3)

 Job knew that man is more than the things he gathers about him. (Lk. 12:15) “And He (Jesus) said to them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.

   Pastor Nobel Enemi blessed me last week in his prayer for me.  He prayed, "People do not understand her ministry because of the simplicity of it".  People coming in here who have hob-knobbed with high-profile “wanna be’s” are either humbled or offended by the purity and simplicity of the Presence of the Lord and His precious Holy Spirit.   Those who are humble are humbled before the Lord.  Those who are proud try to usurp the presence for their own glory.

 The darkest days of all for Job now began.  There is a stimulus in the shock of catastrophe.  The very shock and surprise of the strokes create strength in which men triumph.  It is in the brooding silence which enwraps the soul afterward that the fiercest fight is waged. 

 Verse 1 indicates that satan bides his time awaiting another opportunity to try again where he had failed before.  Again we see that satan has an obligation to give an account and before attacking a saint, had to get permission for his activities.

 Verse 2 shows that God did not question satan in order to obtain any information he did not already possess, but to focus attention upon the issue at hand.  The opening words, “”The Lord said to satan, from where come you?”  This gave God the advantage of the initiative by putting satan on the defensive, and compelling him to admit to his activities and expose the nature of his schemes.  Verse 3 introduces three new elements: 

 

 

1. Job held fast his integrity; Job adhered to his moral and his religious code, notwithstanding the severe pressures of his circumstances.
2. Satan had moved God again Job “without cause;” (3b) “although you moved Me against him to destroy him without cause.”
3. Job had done nothing whatsoever to merit this action by God.  But God was obliged to silence satan’s accusations by consenting to means capable of destroying the integrity of Job.

 It was God, who initiated this confrontation, and satan is not manipulating God, but God is just playing with leviathan.  (Chapter 41:5) “Can you draw out leviathan…will you play with him as with a bird?  Verses 4-5:  Satan has a new argument: 

 

 

1. That the limitation previously set by God limited satan to insufficient means in testing Job.
2. That an adequate test would have to include an attack on Job’s body.

 God knows our limits.  1 Cor. 10:13: “There is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.” 

 

 Verses 6-8:  This demonstrates that satan possesses power (delegated by God) to employ physical affliction as a means to turn men not only away from God, but also against God.  Verse 9 – the words of Job’s wife: 

1. She knew that Job’s integrity was under attack, a fact which even Job himself did not know.
2. She unwittingly lent her tongue as satan’s instrument to give Job the final and overpowering blow to destroy his integrity, and thus to aid satan in his battle to triumph over God.

 It is the devil’s perpetual estimate of humanity that flesh is supreme.  Then to Job’s physical affliction was added the new and subtle attack of his wife.  Her “love” was misguided. 

 

Matthew 10:24-42 (Verse28) And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell…(Verse 32) “Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven…(Verse 36) and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household…(38-39) “and he that takes not the cross and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me.  He that finds his life shall lose it; and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it.  He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives Him that sent me.”

 Verse 9 also shows the effect that Job’s wife and her words must have had on him.  Her seeming infidelity and blasphemous exhortation must have driven him to the brink of despair by adding more inward conflicts to his well nigh unbearable outward suffering.  Verse 10 is Job’s reply to his wife: 

1. He had an unshakeable conviction that present miseries do not obliterate or cancel past mercies.
2. An invincible faith in the flawless exercise of divine providence whether good or evil.

 Again reference is made that Job did not sin with his lips: 

1. Under such pressures, inner failure would at once be signaled by the outward manifestation of uttered words.
2. When Job did speak, he speaks to the defeat of satan and to the delight and triumph of God. 

 This reveals the two hands of God:  “Shall we receive good at the hand of God; and shall we not receive evil?  In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”  He did not know that he had been assigned the task as General over spiritual warfare in a battle between God and satan.  Later, he would give utterance to improper sentiments, and would be rebuked accordingly.   He would even curse the day he was born, but he never did curse God!  Job did not sin.  Job had not sinned.

 Chapter 1:  Bankruptcy and bereavement – “Touch his”…”all that he has” (1:12) – possessions of Job. 

 

 Chapter 2: Physical pain – “Touch him”…”his bones and flesh” (2:5) –person of Job.  1: 11-13:  The arrival of the three friends:  “Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite Bilda the ShuhiteZophar the Naamathite.  Bad news travels fast.  The three were set in their minds the cause of Job’s troubles before they saw him.  The three came from different countries.  Job was an international figure. They had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.  When they lifted up their eyes afar off; and knew him not, they lifted upon their voice and wept, and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.  So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him:  for they saw that his grief was very great. Seven days was the statutory period of mourning for the dead (Ez. 3: 15).   The sign of this "somebody" on the city dump was just too much.  Job had become a "nobody" in a few short days.

 Chapters 3-37 comprise the bulk of the book and take place in the mentality of the outer court.  I probably will not approach those chapters verse by verse, but teach from the Principle of each of his three friends as it pertains to the Kingdom of God. 

 

Job was spoken to in three dimensions:  (3 levels of understanding son ship):

1. 30-fold – Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. (Outer court = natural light)
2. 60-fold Elihu, ( a mixture of wisdom) – The Holy Place
3. 100-fold (the Lord) – The Holy of Holies

 The approach of the three friends may be characterized as follows: 

1. Eliphaz the Theologian – based his arguments on a vision of God’s greatness.
2. Bildad the Traditionalist – based his view on the time-honored concepts of justice.
3. Zophar – the moralist – based his opinions on a consensus of human wisdom.

 If we proceeded to Chapter 38 where the Lord speaks through his messenger, we would miss the forest for the trees, and get bogged down in a philosophical argument that ends in a stalemate.

The Book of Job is a revelation of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven and the journey from the natural mind to the full assurance of that Kingdom. After Job had broken the week-long silence (Chapter 3), his friends one by one spoke out frankly and sometimes harshly, trying to answer his agonized question, “Why?”  Job gave reply to each one, telling why he rejected their reasoning’s.  It is not wisdom to go inquire of men as to “Why?”  Let us inquire of the Lord and let him answer us on the first round.   Then it becomes between a man/woman and the Lord God.  Then no one is invited to give their opinions or comments.  However, that would have taken away the intent of this Book of the revelation of human reasoning versus spiritual understanding.

 In chapter 3: 1-9, Job cursed the day of his birth and longed for death, (10-26).  Silent sympathy always creates an opportunity for grief to express itself.  The out-cry of Job was undoubtedly an answer to their sympathy.  This lamentation of Job is of the nature of a cry for escape.  This cry pulses with the pain and is expressive of the meanings of the most terrible of all sorrows, the sense of mystery, the inexplicability of it all. The state of mind Job displays in this chapter marks his lowest ebb, and the nearest he ever came to fulfilling satan’s prediction that he would curse God to His face.   This attitude resulted from the repeated question, Why? (3:11, 12, 20, & 23).  Although not cursing God, he is certainly questioning God’s sovereignty and wisdom, and for this he was finally rebuked and repents. (40:1-2; 42: 1-6). 

 

This is the cry of crucifixion! Psa. 22:1:  My God, my God, why have You forsake me? Why are You so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? Matthew 27:46: “And about the ninth hours, Jesus cried with a loud voice…My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? Strangely the soul turns to the thought of death in the hour of deep trial: 

1. Elijah – “It is enough…take away my life.”
2. Moses – “It is too heavy for me…kill me, I pray Thee.”
3. Jonah – “It is better for me to die.”

 To long for death as the way of escape from evil is not the way to bow to the will of God.  Job had known that the furnace was inevitable (3:24-26)   “For my sighing comes before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.  For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come to me.”  Job’s speeches differ from his friends in that he is not arguing a point; he is trying to understand his experience!  Hence Job often talks to himself, struggling in his own mind.  His three friends talk about God while Job talks to God!  This fact makes him the only authentic theologian in the book.  God’s eventual endorsement of Job’s stand does not mean that every theological statement that he makes is correct, or that what his friends say is wrong.  It is hard to find any proposition in this book which is not to some extent correct, taken in isolation.

 Nowhere does Job bewail the losses of chapter 1 nor the illness of chapter 1.  In this he is utterly consistent.  His concern from beginning to end is God and not his wealth or health, but his life with God.  It is because he seems to have lost God that he is in such torment.  It cannot be emphasized enough that the startling sentiments expressed in this chapter do not mean that Job has cracked under the strain.  Self-control is different from one not showing his emotions.  Job is no stoic, striving to be pure mind with no feelings.  The Lord’s testing is not to find out if Job can sit unmoved like some piece of wood. 

 Job’s lamentation belongs with other biblical psalms of grief and all are gathered up into that horrifying dereliction of Jesus, (Matt. 27.46).  This is the true cry of lost humanity trying to fid its lost God. The example of Jesus (Mk. 14:34) should forever silence all criticisms about Job, for His tears make it true (the Logos took a human body in order to weep with it.) “And He takes with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy; and says to them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful to death: tarry you here, and watch.” 

 

 The deep hold that the “stiff upper lip” has taken in Anglo-Saxon standards of propriety and can be traced to the impact of Cicero and others on the Renaissance man.  In our day, the press continues to applaud public figures who are stoical in bereavement.  Job’s friends show a limited capacity to “weep with those who weep.” (Rom. 12:15) Our embarrassment in the presence of mourners betrays a similar failure all too often. 

 Many who preach  the Kingdom need to be reminded that Jesus is the God-Man, all God and all Man.  We must bring this message and ministry out of the invisible realm and translate it to every man.  Chapter 3 is the cry of those sons who have been called to the top of Mt. Zion.  Job did not curse God; he cursed his birthday.  The man-child can only be brought forth in the “night-season".  Verse 8 pinpoints those who can identify with Job’s cry; “they are skilled in rousing up Leviathan (satan) or those “who are ready to tame leviathan.”  (Chapter 41:  “Can you draw out leviathan with a hook… (Vs.9) Behold the hope of him is in vain; shall not one be cast down even at the sign of him?  None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before Me (God)? This is indicative of the endurance and testing of the sons of God, for we are assailed with hellish doubts:  “May it wait for a dawn that never comes” or “see the rising of the morning star.”  

 The genuine sons are being awakened to the reality of life.  Death is an important principle in this book, and never is there a thought that death means extinction.  “There the wicked (lawless) cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.  There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.  The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master.”  Death is the great equalizer; all are “captives lying quiet together, deaf to the slave-driver’s shout.” (3:18) (Moffatt) (Job 20-26): Job longs for death.  “Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; which longs for death, but it comes not; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they find the grave?”  

 

 

 Verse 23:  “Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom Eloah has hedged in?” This closes the complaint of Job.  “for my sighing comes before I eat (“my food”), and my roaring’s (deep, heavy groans) are poured out (tears) like waters. 

  The “rest” of the Feast of Tabernacles and the peace of the Kingdom can only be experienced through much tribulation (Acts. 14: 222-23: Heb. 3-4).  Job was to taste of the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jer. 30:7); Gen. 32: 24-32), and the principle of Gethsemane (“olive-press”).  

 Chapter four begins with Job’s third trial, the judgments, opinions, and conclusions of his friends.  It is an attack of the spirit of religion.

 Taught by:  Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

Eastgate Ministries, Inc.

www.eastgateministries.comScripture from K.J.V. Text from Principles of Present Truth from Job Pertaining to the Kingdom of God by:  Kelly Varner.