No 48 Job's Ladder
Satan's Lies
One of
Satan’s many lies (installed in the Garden of Eden) is that God blesses you when you are
good and curses you when you are bad. God blesses the righteous with
material prosperity, while He punishes the wicked with poverty, adversity and destruction.
This lie became the Common Wisdom of the Age, meaning, the people, then, and every age since, had
come to tenaciously hold that belief. It was (and still is) well-nigh accepted by
all. No one escaped its ramifications. It was in the conversations of all social
interactions. It guided marketplace activity. It permeated the military. It influenced farming. It grabbed you in church. It
pervaded all man’s thinking.
God wanted
to address this lie head-on. And He did. God confronted the lie by having Moses write
the Book of Job. This book precedes Genesis and Exodus in timing―it
was, in fact, the
first written book of the Bible. And in the Book of Job God addresses the slam and slander
Satan had put on His own (God’s) character. Satan’s lies were calculated to
cause God’s reasonable
and intelligent creatures (angels and man) to mistrust and misunderstand God. And they did
distrust. They became afraid of God. And many decided they didn’t like God.
Satan Takes It to the Next Level
Satan
extended and developed his lie to the point where one’s goodness or badness described
one’s relationship with God. Since goodness and badness can be seen through the eyes,
one could be assumed to be righteous because of their prosperity (prosperity is
observable) or to be wicked (because wickedness is observable).
So. Early
in the history of this world, people had become well-ingrained with the lies
Satan had told
about the character of God. Ingrained was Eliphaz. Bildad, and Zophar. When they decided to go visit their friend Job, there was no doubt about what
they would be saying to him when they got there. The agenda was
set. In concrete.
However, theirs’ had to be an uncomfortable “theology”―the kind that raises as many questions as it
answers. If, in fact, it is true that the wicked were punished in this life
with poverty, adversity
and destruction, why is it then that so many obviously wicked people seemed to prosper more
than the righteous? It was a confusing day in which to sort out truth. Two people could
be standing side-by-side, one could be a prospering
righteous person and the other
could be a prospering wicked person.
These observations certainly muddied the water.
Satan Takes It to An Even Higher Level
Then Satan
extends the lie even further. [When a lie is working, why not promote
it?] People began
thinking that the reason people practiced religion (in the frist place) was to
gain the
righteousness of God. And that the wicked lived their life in defiance of God.
To what
degree was Job influenced by this Accepted Wisdom of the Day? Was he entrenched in its
claws? Was he aware? Was he in disagreement? Did he even care? Was he
practicing his religion
to obtain his righteousness? Was his religion the outgrowth of his
righteousness? We will let
Job himself describe his “theology” as we progress through his responses to the
arguments given by his unfriendly friends.
Certainly, the
blasts from Satan initially knocked him off his feet. His first words were
angry words―After this opened Job his
mouth, and cursed his day (Job 3:1). [Notice, he cursed his birthday,
not his God.] He never did curse God.
It took some time for Job to re-orient
himself to his
predicament. He did have to think through what was happening to him as the
obvious facts were stacked
against him. Then Job begins to tackle the common theology of his day. Job
undergoes some of
the most intense perseverations (thinking about something to an extreme degree) about the character
of God.
Photo by Mike Lewinski on Unsplash
This Picture Symbolizes Job's Ladder
It will have many rounds (or rungs) as Job climbs upward, so to speak, from his miry mess to find his God above. The writer of the Book of Job wants to take his readers upward with Job on the climb.
In comparison to Jacob's famous ladder, which had angels ascending and descending upon it, Job's Ladder, it might be said, has people (the readers of the book) climbing with him. I use this analogy to illustrate that all of us have had to climb out of pits in our walk with God. It takes close reading of Job's words, but it may be seen that he climbs upward one rung-at-a-time. The reader has the privilege of making that climb with him.
We Begin the Climb at the Bottom
3rd
Rung Upward Despair
Wherefore is
light given to him that is in misery,
and
life unto the bitter in soul;
Which
long for death, but it cometh not;
and
dig for it more than for hid treasures;
Which
rejoice exceedingly,
and
are glad, when they can find the grave?
Why is
light given to a man whose way is hid,
and
whom God hath hedged in?
For my
sighing cometh before I eat,
and my
roarings are poured out like the waters.
For
the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me,
and
that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
I was
not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet;
yet
trouble came (Job 3:20-26).
2nd
Rung Upward Anger
After this
opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day (Job 3;1).
1st
Rung Upward Quietness
So they sat
down with him upon the ground seven days and
seven nights,
and none spake a word unto him: for they saw
that his grief was very
great (Job 2:13).
Ground Level The
Evil Day
All
this evil that was come upon him (Job 2:11).
Anger (the 2nd
Rung Upward)
It must be said clearly at the outset―while Job was weary of life, but he was never
weary of his religion. Job would
gladly part with his life, but he would never part with his God. He may have cursed his birthday, but he never cursed his God.
In all this Job sinned
not, nor charged God foolishly (Job 1:22).
In all this did not Job
sin with his lips (Job 2:10).
Satan had
said, All
that a man hath he will give for his life
(Job 2:4). But he
miscalculated when it came to Job. Never man
valued life at a lower value and as
so worthless as Job did at
this moment. His life to him was not worth a plugged
nickel. But never, never did Job stop valuing his God.
This may be said because had Job given up on his God, he would have simply given up the will to live and died. Worse yet, he may have taken his own life. But no. Job wanted his God.
Forget Job. Find God. His life meant nothing. His God meant everything.
Why Do I Give Such Emphasis Upon This Point?
To Illustrate that We Can Trust and Walk
The Book of Job accomplishes this. Were his calamities calculated to make him a better man? No. Were his calamities calculated to demonstrate that he was a good man? Yes. Were his calamities calculated to illustrate that he could trust even when he cannot have all the answers?
Yes. And Job did. Were his calamities calculated to to show that he could walk even when he could not see? Yes. And Job
did.
According to
scholars today
■ The author
is unknown.
■ The date
of the writing is uncertain.
■ The locale
is obscure.
■ The
historicity is doubted.
■ The
literary integrity is doubted.
■ Even whether or not
the book should be in the Bible is disputed.
According to
Will
■ I believe that
the book came to us from God.
■ I believe the story is truthful.
■ I believe God put the book in the
Bible for all readers throughout all time.
■ I believe the book
is valuable to today’s readers.
■
I believe the Book of Job will special significance for God’s people living in
the last days.
Won't you join with me in finding God's special messages He has placed in the Book of Job for His people today?
Please send questions or comments to Will Hardin at P O Box 24 Owenton KY 40359 or use the comments via Google section below. (You must be signed in to Google to do so).