Part Four - Chapters Two and Three
 

Satan comes a second time before God. Again, God asks if Satan has seen His righteous servant Job and noticed Job’s integrity during his affliction. Satan replies, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.” 2.4-6

Job is afflicted physically. His wife tells him to curse God and die. Job asks his wife, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks (five virgins?). Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Then Job’s three friends come to comfort him, but sit in troubled silence for seven days and nights before speaking. 2.9-13

Job refuses to curse God. He knows that “man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (5.7) and will remain faithful. Every day that Jesus walked on this earth during His ministry someone wanted to kill Him. Jesus faithfully carried out the will of the father in spite of this. The Lord laid down his life for the brethren. Jesus knew what trouble was and He dealt with it on a daily basis. Our troubles hardly compare.

It is natural for us to want to escape our troubles and problems. We all desire to have a “comfortable” life with as few problems as possible. The good news is that we don’t have to go looking for problems--they will find us! God is telling us through Job that we need to trust Him when troubles arise in our lives. We need to trust God to work into us that which is needful--His character. That is what trouble is designed for. Once we understand this and begin to turn to the Lord and allow Him to work in our lives through this--our lives are transformed into His image.

It is not pleasant, but it is purposeful. This is the message of chapter two. Remain steadfast, always abounding in the Lord. We share in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. The Apostle Paul understood this concept and embraced all that the Lord had for him to experience. He knew he was being prepared for a greater glory. Men will taunt us and tell us we are fools to believe (2.9-10) but we will soldier on. The Millennial Kingdom is our reward!

Chapter Three...After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job spoke, and said: “May the day perish on which I was born, and the night in which it was said, ‘A male child is conceived.’ May that day be darkness; may God above not seek it, nor the light shine upon it.” 3.3-4

Job is really saying, “Why me?” He is an extreme example. He didn’t curse God but he cursed the day he was born. He did not understand why this was happening to him. This is usually the same way we react when unpleasant things happen to us. It takes awhile for us to begin to understand that God is using these things to work His character into us. Job is in the process of working through this. In verse 3.25 he says, “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.”

Here God is telling us we need to learn to break the family and self inflicted curses that are often allowed to afflict us. Many things which have happened to us or been drilled into us by family or friends can become curses that hinder us from moving forward. God wants us to renounce and repent of these things. Then we can embrace the promises of God and move forward in our lives. When I was teaching my wife to drive a four speed manual shift car she kept saying, “I can’t do this, I’ll never learn.” When she renounced and repented from this attitude, she soon learned how to drive. We need to break the curses in our lives through proper use of God’s word. This will set us free from many “afflictions” in our walk.

Tomorrow: Part Five - Chapters Four and Five