
Text: Job 2:5-10
Introduction:
Young people, specifically (but maybe some adults would know this as well), have you ever felt annoyed or confused when your professor suddenly told you that you’ll have a surprise quiz today? Okay, take out ¼ piece of paper. Back then, we were all in a rush looking for someone with a paper.
I believe that no one likes surprise testing or quizzes in this room.
Background: Share the narrative
Satan’s (Hasatan) goal is for Job to deny God (be unfaithful and curse him) through trials and suffering. Declaration: God is sovereign and He loves us. We must believe that nothing reaches us without first passing through His hands.
- External (1:13-19)
- Sons and daughters (13-15)
- Sheep and servants (16)
- Camels and servants (17)
- Sons and daughters (18-19)
In an instant, all Job’s properties, possessions, and loved ones, were all gone.
- Internal/ Personal
- Job’s health
- His feelings and emotions
- His wife
- Scrape with a pottery
Understanding these Adversaries
It is important to note here that when Job was asking and praying to God to deliver him from trials and sufferings, God did not take away immediately but was dealing with him through people and even Hasatan. God will not only limit our trials and problems, He will also draw us deeper into relationship with Himself. I am reminded of the following:
- Daniel’s Friends in the fire/ fiery furnace (the King praised their God, and promoted them; Daniel 3:24-25) Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – King Nebuchadnezzar
- Daniel in the lion’s den (Daniel 6:23, 26) – King Darius and Cyrus
- Jonah in the stomach
- Paul in the prison
- Jesus on the cross: A type of Christ (Father, father why have you forsaken me?)
People around us: Job’s friends were in the wrong even though their intention was good. They have given their advice from their words and not from God. They have condemned Job but God acknowledged Job.
Job passed the test, he was found faithful because of God’s anointing. God foreknew his faithfulness and rewarded him twofold from what he had before. Do not be like Job’s friends who depended on their own wisdom, capabilities, experience, or skill, but rather acknowledge that God can bring out good from something bad.
God’s power can draw good out of any evil. Interestingly, with all these events in the life of Job, God was not a bystander, was not someone from afar. He was near, he was involved in his safety, and God was with him and in control.
- Satan’s power has limits. Trials have endings. But God’s sovereign power is everlasting. Believe that God is working something in your life right now.
- 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
- The dark moments of our life will last only so long as is necessary for God to accomplish His purpose in us.
- God assumes full responsibility for our needs when we obey Him. (Job 42:10, 16-17)
Job Worship God and did Not Sin (1:20, 22; 2:10)
Trials and Sufferings are there to lead us to worship. Trusting God means looking beyond what we can see to what God sees. Trust God even when we fail to comprehend why we are suffering.
Isaiah 55:8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.”
May we all be found faithful like Job in the midst of our trials and sufferings. Let me end again with what Job told his wife, “Should we only expect good things from God and not bad ones?”
Questions:
- “How are you responding in the midst of your circumstance or situation?”
- Are you trusting Him or are you frantically looking for a way out of the difficulty without discovering what He wants you to learn?
Pastor John Paul Arceno
UCBC New Jersey | September 24, 2023