Today you should read: Job 1:1-12
Today we’re starting one of the most well known books in the Bible, although most Christians are familiar with the beginning and skip over the important dialogue between God, Job and his friends that makes up the majority of the book.
The book of Job is troubling to a lot of people. Some don’t understand how God can allow such hardships and tests in one’s life and are confused with the interaction between Satan and God in the first place. After all, if God is holy and cannot be in the presence of sin in heaven, how did Satan get there? In this scene, Lucifer asks God if he can take away all of Job’s earthly gifts from God including his possessions, health and family. He tells God that this “righteous” man only loves and obeys God because of these gifts and that he would surely curse him once they were taken away. God takes this bet. (God in His sovereignty doesn’t gamble and if anything this is a beautiful picture of Him being in control of such trials and tests while giving purpose in suffering.) We’ll see this even more as the story unfolds over our time in the book. For those who are troubled with God and Satan’s interaction in the first place, notice that two things happen when God is around sin or Satan.
- He allows the event to somehow glorify Himself & reveal Jesus as Savior.
- He shows His wrath against the sin.
(1) He gives Satan permission to tempt us, knowing that it’s going to go against Satan’s agenda because it’s going to point back to Jesus as their saving faith from it.
Or
(2) He casts it out from His presence showing His lack of tolerance for it and ultimate authority to destroy it so He can be back with His beloved creation, us.
You also see either of these two things happening in every other interaction between God and Satan whether it’s in the original fall of Satan, Peter being attacked by Satan in Luke 22 or in the Last Judgment.
By: Erik Koliser — West Campus Pastor
JumpstartCPC.com 