I’d venture to say that at least most, if not all of us who have been followers of Christ for very long have faced a deep, dark, painful trial at some point and wondered if satan was attacking us or God was testing us.
And that brings to mind two people in God’s Word who stand as examples to us. First, the one who will foreshadow the second.
Job was blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil.
Sounds like a pretty solid guy to me.
And yet, when satan stood before the LORD, God not only didn’t keep satan from Job, He seems to actually offer up Job to him.
“Have you considered my servant, Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
Job 1:8
Of course satan’s response is like a jealous sibling’s:
“Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
Job 1:9-11
In another story we might read next that a parent would order this evil sibling to keep his hands off his precious son.
But this is no ordinary story, and certainly no ordinary Parent.
Instead, God lets satan loose on all Job had. Still, that wasn’t enough for the enemy of God. He stood before the Lord again, and God offered up Job once more. He gave Job into the devil’s hands with the only guideline being that he had to spare Job’s life.
And of course we know what happened. Satan runs right out and afflicts Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
So, why Job? A man who carefully and thoughtfully acknowledged God in all his ways by living a righteous life. A man described as perfect, meaning “complete, morally pious, undefiled, coupled together.” Coupled together with whom? Job had joined himself with God and was made complete by abiding in Him.
So, was God testing him, or was satan attacking him?
Well, both.
Satan is always looking for a child of God to attack, to accuse, to grab onto with his grubby little bony fingers and bring him or her down from their secure place of faith in God.
But God knows our hearts. He knew Job’s heart. He knew his faith was as strong and secure as it could be and He could trust his faith to remain strong throughout this attack of the evil one and come out the other side glowing with the light of his God.
By the way, the word for God used in the book of Job is the plural word for God – ‘ĕlôhı̂ym – meaning the Supreme God. It’s the same word used in Genesis as the Creator of the heaven and earth and everything in it. Job didn’t just worship a god, but the God, the one, true God in three persons.
Satan thought he would ruin Job, but God showed His adversary the strength of the faith of one who abides in Him. God showed him the power of his faith when that faith is in the One, True God, and that his faith would even grow in the soil of trials because God’s strength and the Living Water maintains and matures it.
In the end, God’s will was done, satan sulked away defeated, and God blessed the latter part of Job’s life even more than the first.
Remind you of Someone else?
There is another One we read about much later whose Father also allowed the unthinkable to take place. He allowed the enemy to give up His own Son to be tortured and nailed to a cross.
Our Lord Jesus lived a perfect life. In the end, of course, satan came for Him, and His Father didn’t stop it.
Isaiah 53 prophecies:
“though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer…”
The original Hebrew translates it as “Yet it pleased (châphêts: to incline to, to be pleased with, desire) the LORD to bruise Him…”
And satan gave it all he had.
Satan might have thought he had the upper hand, but the Father was always in control, and He used the death of His Son to accomplish the otherwise impossible: to save you and me.
On this side of that dark day, we know our Lord Jesus was meant to suffer and die for our sins. Though the enemy attacked Him, God had a plan and only used His enemy to accomplish it.
And on the third day the dark clouds of mourning parted, the sun shone radiantly upon the earth, the Roman-sealed stone was moved away from the tomb, and Jesus was raised up and walked out victorious and triumphant over sin and death.
And like Job, Jesus was even more blessed afterward than before.
“For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:2
For the joy set before Him… With all that lay ahead, all He knew He would suffer, it brought Jesus joy knowing that His sacrifice would forgive our sins and purchase our souls so that whomever would believe on Him would receive His Spirit and, like Him, be raised to new life to live with Him forever in His joy and peace.
There are times in the middle of the trial when stormy clouds cover our world and it seems so much darker than usual that we’re tempted to believe the lies coming from the enemy.
But as we hold onto our God who is Master of our trials, the One who allows only as much and as long as is needed to strengthen our faith and mold us into the image of His Son, we will persevere. No matter what comes, we can say with Christ, “for the joy set before us,” knowing we’ll come out the other side in victory, with increasing faith and hope. We’ll stand forever as a living testimony of the love and omnipotence of our Heavenly Father, and with the eternal joy of having brought Him glory.
As we submit ourselves and our trials to God as Job did, and even as our Lord Jesus did, we too will be blessed immeasurably more in the latter part of our lives, the life after this one, where the treasures of God await us.
As we meditate on our Lord’s death and celebrate His resurrection, may we remember that He is the One who leads us, who shows us the way, in life, death, and finally, in the resurrection of spirit and body. Praise His Holy Name!
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Philippians 3:10-11