Job – Pain Outside and In

I hate torture. I can’t stand to see it in movies or on the news. You can ask my family…

Physical pain is considered by most the ultimate suffering. It’s one thing to lose your money or the extras in live.  I lost a son-in-law to cancer which still is hard, but I can’t imagine if I had lost him with all my other children in one delft blow. Emotionally it would be so painful.

Job had lost it all and still stayed true to his God.

But then Satan and God have another conversation, very similar to their first. God is proud of Job and how he is making it through everything Satan has thrown at him and still has his integrity, holding firm to his faith.

Satan believes his ace is in physical torture.

I wonder how God felt at that moment? He had already seen Job suffer and be faithful. Could he put him through more? Would he put him through more?

I don’t know why God gave Satan the go-ahead. To me, it seems like too much. But God knew Job. He had created and blessed Job. He saw his heart every time he brought a sacrifice, every time he prayed. He knew his character, and he knew Job’s strength, even when Job didn’t know it.

So Job received the lash of Satan’s fury, causing sores from his feet to his head. They hurt so much, the only relief he found was scraping them with broken pottery, as if the external pain was easing the internal pain. He was an oozing, bloody mess, his wife could not even stand being with him. She begged him to curse God so that he would be out of suffering and maybe her suffering would also end. His response:

Shall we receive the good from God, and shall we not receive evil?
In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

As miserable as he was, he didn’t flinch. His God had a purpose in all of this. Suffering didn’t change the character of God or Job’s faith. And if he had to scrap boils for all long as he lived, he would do whatever God asked of him. 

At this point, Job is a broken man, emotionally, physically, financially, socially. He’s gone from a prince at the gate to an outcast outside the walls.

But he refuses to sin.