Episode Transcript
It is 10 o'clock, so it's time for us to begin.
Job chapter 1 is our text today.
So if you want to go ahead and find your place there, every year I go to the mountains I come back with a stopped up ear and my trying to lose my voice.
So I've got this going on and a lozenge in my mouth.
So pardon my crudeness for that, but I that's the only way I'll get to finish this lesson and then hopefully lead singing, because Brother Luke's not here.
Last week, we found ourselves witnesses to a challenge between God and Satan.
And it was like a challenge match.
Now we already know who's going to win that.
But God's challenge to Satan was, has thou considered my servant Job?
And Satan's challenge to God was, but put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
And that was verse 11 and where we left off.
Now this week, we begin to look at God's response to Satan's challenge.
In verse 12.
We're in Job chapter 1, verse 12, if you're just now joining us online.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power.
Now this tells us something here God had to give permission to Satan.
If you think that Satan runs around doing exactly as he pleases.
That's no more true than you thinking you can run around and do exactly as you please.
And God had to give Satan this permission.
And back in verse 10, Satan acknowledged that all the things Job had were hedged up by the Lord and therefore from Satan's power.
If you would have interviewed Satan, you would have said unfortun Without God's permission, do you think you can get to Job?
And he'd say, nope, I can't.
I want to, but I can't.
So there's an admission he makes.
We don't see it, but it's implied strongly that not only did God have to give Satan permission to afflict Job as he's about to do, But God tells Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power.
And so God is telling Satan, I've taken down the hedge.
Now you remember last week we talked about the hedge, that protection.
God took down the hedge, and he allowed Satan to have power over all that Job had.
And Satan can't do anything outside of that.
Now, let's be sure we understand here that This doesn't mean that God endorses Satan's wickedness.
But he does allow it.
That's a great mystery to us often why God allows various things to happen.
It's the same permission that God gives when we sin.
Now, God doesn't say, Andy, I'm going to permit you to sin today, and I want you to take advantage of it.
He does not.
He permits it, meaning he allows it.
We are creatures who make choices.
And God gave, in fact, he gave Lucifer a choice in heaven, didn't he?
He gave Adam and Eve choices in the garden.
And we get to make choices too.
We're not robots.
Now our choices that we make are limited to the abilities God gives us.
If I said right now, I choose to fly out of this building, To just levitate and fly away.
I can want to do that all I want, but I don't have the ability to do that.
Now let's look at a couple of passages in the Bible that show us how Satan is still under God's authority In Genesis chapter three, we see a terrible scene for mankind.
And it's one in which Adam and Eve had already eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. after they had been deceived by the serpent.
And in verses 14 through 15, this is Genesis 3, 14 through 15, it says, And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.
Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Now very clearly, if you read Genesis, if you read the first two chapters of Genesis, you will see that God created all things.
That is a foundational truth.
That we have to understand, and I believe everybody in here does, is that God created all things.
That means he created Lucifer. who was the anointed cherub in heaven, but whose name would be changed to Satan when he fell God also created the serpent, particularly the serpent we were reading about in Genesis chapter 3.
And God has the authority.
He had the authority, and he still has the authority over the serpent, over Satan.
Because God created them.
Very simple.
Here are a couple of passages about that.
Now this will have this has to do with God creating the serpent.
It doesn't say serpent, but the serpent is included in this list of creatures.
Genesis 121 And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth.
There you go.
Which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good.
There's the creation of the serpent Well what about the devil who took the form of that serpent?
Ezekiel chapter 28 verses 14 through 15.
This tells us about the creation of Lucifer.
Now in this passage in Ezekiel 28, 14 through 15, there are double reference.
One is to an earthly king, and one is to Lucifer who fell and became Satan.
They're both true.
You see that in the Bible.
We've gone over those things somewhat before.
And he says, thou art the anointed cherub that covereth.
And I have set thee so.
Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.
Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee.
So there's the creation of Lucifer. who was the anointed cherub before he fell.
God made the serpent, God made Lucifer, who later became Satan.
So it's clear that God had to give Satan the authority before he could do anything to Adam and Eve.
And also in our text, he had to give Satan the authority before he could do anything to all that Job had, all of his possessions.
Now we're going to see God put limitations on Satan.
Look back in the verse there, it says, only upon himself.
Put not forth thine hand.
Satan could do whatever he wanted to all that Job had.
But he wasn't allowed to touch Job.
He couldn't do anything specifically to him.
There's the limitation And when God took away the hedge from all that Job had, he did not take away the hedge from Job himself Now we know Satan would love to have put forth his hand to destroy Job and all that he had.
He would love to have taken away Job's salvation.
But God puts limits on Satan And God kept a hedge around the person of Job, even though he had taken away the hedge around the possessions and the people of Job.
All that he hath includes his possessions and his people.
Remember this.
God is fully in control here.
Don't ever think God lost control of this situation because he very specifically says, you can touch all he has, but don't you touch him.
Satan does not have free reign over God's people.
When people say, well, the devil made me do that.
No, sir, he did not make you do that.
If you are a Christian, you have a power in you.
You have the power of the Holy Spirit who helps you to obey the Word of God.
And Satan not only doesn't have free reign over you, he never has.
You may think, boy, Satan is really attacking my family, and maybe he is Perhaps you've wondered about this matter sometime in your life.
You maybe have known someone who walked with the Lord, who was a valiant soldier of the cross, and then seemingly out of nowhere, a tragedy struck.
My maternal grandfather, Ray Wood, was a retired music minister and pastor.
Who still served God even though he was retired from the full-time ministry, he wasn't retired from the full-time ministry.
And he was the finest Christian I've ever known.
He's the one who taught me how to love old people.
I already loved him, but he took me to the nursing home every Friday that I was there.
And we sang and he preached to those elderly people who didn't have anybody else.
Brother Doug, that's who taught me how to love old people.
Yes, sir.
And He was the same on Friday and Monday as he was on Sunday in the pulpit.
And on April 15th, 1981, he was in his study at home reading God's Word.
And he told my grandmother, I'm going to go outside for just a few minutes.
And about 15 minutes later, she found him on the floor of the garage.
He died of a massive heart attack at the age of 68.
And I was devastated because he was my hero.
He was the one under whose ministry I was saved.
He baptized me in his church.
And I was 15 years old at the time he passed away.
And in the coming days I would wonder why God took him so early.
Perhaps God foresaw something he didn't want my grandfather to experience.
Or perhaps God would use my grandfather's death to do a work in someone else.
Maybe there was someone who came to his funeral, who heard the gospel, and believed.
I don't know.
But I know God's judgment, I now know God's judgment, about the timing and the manner of his death was righteous And I've even thought perhaps Satan was about to attack my grandfather in some way.
And God chose to take him home.
Rather than letting the hedge down for Satan to have access to him.
Whatever the reason, whether it be my grandfather or Job, God limits.
Satan as to what he can do.
And the passage we're studying is proof of that for you Now God could simply have taken Job to be with him.
He could have said, Hast thou considered my servant Job?
And Satan could have challenged God, and God could have said, it's too late.
I'm bringing him home today, like Enoch.
He could have translated him that he should not see death.
But he left him here for a reason. for many reasons.
And we don't always know why God leaves people here to go through suffering.
But we're about to know why he left Job here to go through suffering, because an entire book is written about it.
And we're the beneficiaries of God allowing Job to endure the fiery trials. we're going to read about.
Looking back in verse 12 now.
So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
There was no use for him to stay and argue or ask God for more because God had spoken.
Satan wasn't going to change God's mind.
This may be a troubling passage as you read about why God would let Satan touch all that Job has.
After all, Job is the finest Christian man who lived on the earth in those days, as we've already read.
And you might be asking, well, what could Job have done to deserve this?
Maybe that was it.
Maybe he did something and God was displeased.
Is this fair?
And I hope you'll slowly but very firmly come to the answer to those questions.
As we spend the next few years, and yes, it's going to take that long, studying this powerful book.
You should have been with us for Jeremiah.
It's longer.
And Nelda reminded me of that sometimes.
I sure miss her this morning.
Verse 13.
And there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house.
Now this is the setting.
And as we learned in prior verses, each son had a feast day.
And the sons invited their sisters to those feasts.
And the eldest brother had the honor of hosting this event we're reading about.
And by the use of the words, there was a day.
Our attention is drawn to a particular day, not just any day, but a particular day at the eldest brother's house.
All the siblings were eating and drinking wine at this feast.
What was our recent memory verse?
Wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise?
And this very well may have been one of the reasons Job burned offerings every morning in case his sons had cursed God in their hearts.
Verse 14.
And there came a messenger unto Job and said, The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them Now this verse reminds us that Job's possessions, all that he hath, Job's possessions were about to be touched by Satan.
So from verse 13, where there was a scene of festivity among his children, to verse 14, where we have a scene of tranquility and peace among the oxen and the asses. were about to be startled from that tranquility by the next verse, verse 15.
And the Sabaeans fell upon them and took them away.
Now this was the first part of bad news that was going to get worse.
Now the word Sabaeans comes from the name Sheba. possibly referring to a descendant of Ham, one of Noah's sons, through his son Cush.
That's actually, if you follow that genealogy, there is a Sheba there.
And then you may remember the queen of Sheba who came to Solomon to hear of his wisdom.
And that event occurred many years after our text, the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.
But you remember the hedge Satan spoke to God about, the one that was supposedly the cause of Job's reverence of God?
Well, that earthly hedge had been taken away.
The hedge that previously kept the Sabaeans from falling upon Job's oxen and asses and taking them away.
That hedge had been lifted.
Now Job's possessions, those oxen and asses are gone.
From peace and tranquility, plowing oxen and feeding asses, there's now invasion and robbery.
The hedge had kept the oxen and the asses from running off, and it had kept them from being stolen as well But the next bit of news in this verse is even worse.
Look back in the text, it says, yay.
They have slain the servants with the edge of the sword.
Now the hedge has not only been removed from the livestock.
But also from the great store of servants Job had.
They were called the household in the first few verses of the chapter.
That great store of servants, that household, was one of the proofs of Job's earthly greatness in the land of us.
And the hedge God had around those servants kept those servants loyal.
It kept them numerous.
And it kept them from defecting or from being harmed or taken away by an enemy.
And just as the hedge around the oxen and the asses were taken away, so now the hedge around the servants has been taken away.
And the Sabaeans were the instruments Satan used to accomplish his will.
Now let's not miss this.
Did you realize that Satan uses people to accomplish his will, just like God uses people to accomplish his will?
In fact, Satan uses both righteous and unrighteous people to accomplish his will.
Remember how God used Nebuchadnezzar or the Assyrians or other enemies of Israel to punish Israel?
God used unrighteous people.
To punish the children of Israel.
Now here's a verse that will show us how Satan used a righteous man to accomplish his evil plans.
It's in 1 Chronicles 21 verse 1.
1 Chronicles 21, verse 1.
And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel.
That's right, King David.
And going down to verse 7 in that same passage, the Bible says, and God was displeased with this thing.
Therefore he smote Israel.
Now Joab, who was David's servant, his right-hand man, had tried to talk David out of this sinful order that he gave.
But David's word prevailed.
David, the Bible tells us, was a man after God's own heart.
But in this case, Satan used him.
It says he provoked him.
Satan used him to accomplish his will So Satan does use righteous people to accomplish his will.
And he also uses unrighteous people to accomplish his will.
And we'll see it in Luke chapter 22, verses 3 through 4.
Luke 22, verses 3 through 4.
Then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.
And he went his way and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them Now we know Judas Iscariot was an unrighteous man.
The Bible doesn't leave that to our imagination.
And although he hung around Jesus, went to church with Jesus, kept the money bag, and even appeared at the Last Supper He had already been selected by Satan to betray Jesus.
And that plan to betray Jesus came to fruition As told to us in John chapter 13, verses 26 through 27.
John 13 verses 26 through 27.
When Jesus was asked by his disciples who it was that should betray him, Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it.
And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
And after the sop Satan entered into him, then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
So in our text, in Job, it should be no surprise to us that Satan used the Sabaeans, these unrighteous Gentiles.
To do evil to Job by taking his possessions and then killing his servants.
Look back in verse 15.
And the servant said, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Satan allowed one servant to escape from that chaotic event for the sole purpose of telling Job About what the Sabaeans had done to the oxen, the asses, and more importantly, to the men who took care of them.
And if those men were good shepherds, they very likely gave their lives fighting for the livestock They were assigned to protect those oxen and asses.
And what this group of Sabaeans did was a serious crime.
And by sending one messenger to tell the story, Satan made sure Job knew that he'd been the victim of a crime, one that took away his oxen and asses.
One that resulted in the deaths of all but one of his servants.
And the loss of the animals was bad enough.
But the loss of human lives was devastating.
And it gets worse.
Verse 16.
While he was yet speaking, that is the servant, there came also another.
And said, the fire of God has fallen from heaven and hath burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them Now let's break this up a little.
The phrase, while he was yet speaking.
Job had not heard the complete version of events. that took place regarding his oxen, his asses, and the servants attending them, when the second servant apparently interrupted the testimony to give more bad news.
And before we get into the content of this bad news, let's take a moment to consider how this sort of chaos Takes place in our own lives.
You've probably heard the saying about negative events or tragedies.
They come in threes.
They come in threes.
And that can be kind of a superstitious saying, but it keeps us looking for the next one, doesn't it?
And our study has shown.
That one tragedy does not wait on another one.
It doesn't wait on us to heal from the first one before the second one comes.
And we don't understand why that happens either, but it does I responded in the course of my secular job, I responded to a death at a residence a few years ago in my county.
And the deceased man there was a 50-year-old principal and coach at a Christian school.
And as I later learned, he was a fine, fine person.
And his, when I arrived at the house, his wife and his young daughters were inside the house, and they were visibly upset, just like any of us would be.
And what I didn't know is that that terrible event in their lives came on the heels of another one that had already taken place.
And as I met with that deceased man's wife, she told me she was in stage four of cancer.
And I felt so sorry for her and for her daughters.
And just a short time later, that dear lady passed away from cancer.
And I'll tell you something that her friends did when when they came to the house, we secluded them from the room where the gentleman had passed away, but we left them in the house.
There was no it wasn't a murder or anything, it was a natural cause death.
He had a heart attack.
And her friend hugged this woman and said, let's get in the word.
And they went to the couch and took a Bible and opened up and started and I left them alone.
I thought you don't need me there.
You got God.
But their daughters had just lost their father.
And that was after they found out their mother had stage four cancer.
And then their mother passed away a short time later, and they had to go live with relatives.
Which meant they had to leave the home in which they grew up.
And what's a person to do when.
Bad things like that happen one on top of the other.
Before you've even come through the trial that had consumed you.
Well, thankfully God's word tells us how to do that.
And you need to remember this one.
Because there's a pretty good chance you're either going through something like this or you're about to.
Psalm one sixteen, verses one through six.
Psalm one sixteen, verses one through six.
I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got a hold upon me.
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then called I upon the name of the Lord, O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.
Gracious is the Lord and righteous.
Yea, our God is merciful.
The Lord preserveth the simple.
I was brought low, and he helped me.
David experienced a lot of tragedies in his life.
He lost an infant son When he, after he had that adulterous affair with Bathsheba, he lost a grown son, Absalom, who hung himself by the hair in a tree.
His troubles and sorrows were overwhelming, and so strong that a valiant man such as this, who had killed tens of thousands of people in conflicts, That somebody like him couldn't handle them on his own.
So he did what we have to do He called on the name of the Lord for his grace and his mercy.
And if you haven't already needed that advice, you will Look back in the text as the second servant continues delivering this terrible news.
He said, the fire of God has fallen from heaven.
That's what the messenger said.
And let's see what that could mean.
The word fire is referenced many times in the Old Testament.
Looking back at God's judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis chapter 19, verse 24, Genesis 19, 24, we read.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
So this gives you a reference to what the servant was saying.
Now what this servant didn't know is that it wasn't God who was the one to send fire down upon the lives on the sheep and on the servants.
It was Satan.
And remember what Satan wanted God to do back in verse 11?
He told God, But put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath.
Satan wanted God to afflict Job.
So in this verse, I'm certain that this, that Satan was pleased That the servant attributed this falling fire as being sent down by God from heaven.
He could say, I didn't have anything to do with this.
Now the word heaven can mean the visible sky or the expanse above it or the abode of God.
It's used widely throughout the Old Testament.
And so you have to define it based on the context.
In other words, based on everything before and after the verse that you're reading.
And this fire could be lightning or it could be fire without lightning.
In a vision God gave Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 1 verse 13, Ezekiel 1 verse 13, we read.
As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire.
And like the appearance of lamps, it went up and down among the living creatures, and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
So in that case, lightning came out of fire.
But the point here is that the servant Believed that this fire was God's fire falling from heaven And the servant continues in verse 16 about this fire and hath burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them.
What a sight that must have been!
You're standing there with your fellow servants.
Again, that peaceful scene of the sheep feeding.
And all of a sudden, you're the only one standing there who hasn't been completely consumed by fire.
Unfortunately, I have seen a person's body consumed by flames in the course of my secular duties.
And the one that was the most vivid to me. was a man who had been involved in a head-on collision with a loaded 18-wheeler, and he was decapitated mercifully.
But the remainder of his body, along with his car, was on fire.
Now can you imagine Seeing an entire group of servants and a whole flock of sheep consumed by fire in an instant And that word consumed in the verse is normally translated as the word eat, E-A-T.
So the people didn't just get burned, they were eaten up literally by the flames.
And that's what happens in cremation.
When a body is cremated, all of the bones and the tissues, everything is reduced to ashes.
And then the servant continues with a similar testimony from the first servant, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Just like the first servant, the purpose of allowing this servant to escape was to tell thee.
He wasn't allowed to escape because Satan is merciful or gave him a mulligan or a free pass.
He was allowed to escape so that he could immediately bear bad news to Job in all its gore.
While it was still fresh on his mind, and while Job had not yet heard the full story from the first servant.
Maybe this servant had the smell of burning flesh or soot on his clothes.
I don't know.
But this traumatized servant gave his testimony to Job, having first interrupted the first traumatized servant who was giving his testimony to Job.
Verse 17.
While he was yet speaking, there came also another And said the Chaldeans made out three bands.
So before the second servant could finish interrupting the first servant, A third servant interrupted him with more terrible news.
And this news involved another group of enemies.
Whom the Lord had previously restrained from afflicting Job.
It's the Chaldeans.
Now we've studied about the Chaldeans, whom we also know as the Babylonians, in our studies in Daniel and then the latter part of 2 Kings.
And what we ought to learn here as we see the one servant followed by the second one, followed by the third one, and all of these bad things that happen.
What we ought to learn is that Satan has no mercy.
He has no grace.
One tragedy, two tragedies, and yet three are not enough for him.
He hates God so badly that he would completely destroy all of God's creation if God took the hedge down.
It says these Chaldeans made out three bands.
The word bands would be a company or a group.
It's a military term. of these raiders.
And those three bands of Chaldeans, look back in the text in verse 17, it says they fell upon the camels.
And have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword.
So they did similarly as the Sabaeans did That we read about earlier.
They stole camels and they killed the servants with a sword.
And as the first two servants said, so this one said, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Verse 18 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Now before we look at what he said, We might note here that it doesn't appear that he interrupted the other three.
It doesn't say while he was yet speaking.
It says while he was yet speaking, there came also another and said, but it looks like this was because this was the fourth and final servant.
He had to be heard.
In his fullness.
Because nobody's coming behind him to interrupt him.
We can look ahead and see that.
And this is going to be the worst news of all.
Because it begins with these words, verse 18, thy sons.
And thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house.
The most dreadful words That a parent may hear are similar to these words.
This is kind of the introduction to the bad news.
Brother Fulton and I have knocked on many doors in the middle of the night.
And asked a question such as this, was your son Brian driving a blue Ford Ranger pickup tonight?
And when we've confirmed that it was him and that he was, then we deliver the news That this servant is going to deliver.
Not with the same words, but with the same terrible import And it says in verse 18, here's the news.
And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men.
And they are dead.
And next week, when we gather again We'll pick up right there and see what we can learn from it.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for the good attention given to your word today.
And Lord, I pray that as devastating as all of this news was to Job That we're looking for your hand.
We're looking for your mercy and your grace.
Because we know it's there.
We know it's around the corner for him.
And we know that by your grace and mercy, just as you walked him through these terrible events, so you're also with us And we can claim what David claimed in Psalm 116.
And may this be a comfort to us in Jesus' name.
Amen.
