“I have called you friends.” John 15:15
A Bible study by Sam Shamoun
Job never found out why he suffered, but we get to read it. Satan stood before God and said Job only loved him for what he got out of it, and God stood up for his servant. When life falls apart, it’s easy to decide God has turned on us. The book of Job says he hasn’t.
Part 1
Before we get to Job, Peter tells us what Satan is up to.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
1 Peter 5:8–9 (ESV)
The devil is looking for people whose faith he can wreck. He wants someone who loves God, so he can turn them against God. Peter adds that believers all over the world are going through the same thing.
When tragedy comes, Satan is the last one we blame. God is the first. If we bury a child and point the finger at God, Satan has won, and he can say, “Didn’t I tell you? He doesn’t love you. He only loved you for what you could give him.” Satan is smarter and more dangerous than we think. As long as God takes the blame for what Satan does, Satan wins.
Part 2 · Job 1
Something is happening in heaven that Job cannot see. God, the angels, and Satan are all there.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”
Job 1:6–8 (ESV)
The “sons of God” are the angels, and they hear every word. Satan has been roaming the earth looking for prey, just as Peter said. When God asks where he’s been, it isn’t because God doesn’t know. He already knows Satan has his eye on Job.
Then, in front of all the angels, God boasts about a man. There is no one on earth like him, God says. Imagine God saying your name in heaven: “Have you seen my servant? There’s nobody on earth who loves me like he does.” What an honor that would be.
Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”
Job 1:9–11 (ESV)And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
Job 1:12 (ESV)
Satan answers, in effect, “You’re wrong about Job. He loves you because you made him rich. Take it away and he’ll curse you.” He’s after two things. He wants Job to hate God, and he wants the angels to doubt God. Angels are creatures, and they don’t know everything. If God turned out to be wrong about Job, they might start asking, “Was Satan right? Can we really trust God?”
Why didn’t God just throw Satan out? Because the angels would still have wondered. If someone questions your honesty and you angrily show them the door, people start asking, “What is he hiding? Did that hit a nerve?” God is wiser than Satan. He lets the charge be tested where everyone can see, and he decides how far Satan can go.
Part 3 · Job 1–2
Satan takes Job’s wealth and his ten children in a single day. Job’s response proves God right.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Job 1:20–22 (ESV)Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”
Job 2:4–6 (ESV)Satan lost the first round, so he asks for more. Let him strike Job’s body, he says, because a man will give up anything to keep his health. God allows it, and again he draws a line. Satan may not take Job’s life.
So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.
Job 2:7–8 (ESV)Not every calamity is from God
Who gave Job the sores? Satan did. In chapter 1 it was also Satan who sent the raiders, the fire, and the wind that brought the house down on Job’s children (Job 1:13–19). Spiritual powers can cause sickness and disaster. So when someone gets cancer, or a storm flattens a town, we can’t assume God did it. We usually blame God first, and this passage shows that it isn’t always him. Satan could only go as far as God allowed, but the hand that struck Job was Satan’s.
“But doesn’t God protect his children?”
Being God’s child doesn’t mean we won’t be tested. Satan tempted Jesus himself, and Jesus was put to death. We aren’t above our Master. If someone tells you that following Jesus will get you a big house, money, and a life without pain, they’ve been fooled. It has never worked that way.
Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
John 15:20 (ESV)Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job 2:9–10 (ESV)
Job’s wife. She loved her husband, and watching him suffer was breaking her heart. If you’ve sat with someone you love while they died in pain, you may have prayed, “Lord, just let it be over.” She spoke out of that kind of pain, for him. Job still would not curse God, and with that he passed Satan’s second test.
Part 4 · Job 4–37, 42
Three friends come to comfort Job, and they already have an explanation for what happened to him.
Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.
Job 4:7–8 (ESV)Their reasoning went like this. If you were righteous, God would have protected you, so you must have done something evil. Job told them he hadn’t, and that if he had sinned they should show him and he would confess it. They wouldn’t let it go. God would never allow this, they said, unless you sinned.
In the end God gives his own verdict, and it goes against the friends.
After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
Job 42:7 (ESV)The lesson for us. People don’t always suffer because they did something evil. Many suffer because they are righteous, since those are the people Satan most wants to turn against God. Job didn’t turn.
Part 5 · Job 29, 38–41
What hurt Job most was the fear that God had turned against him.
Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?
Job 13:24 (ESV)Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent.
Job 29:2–4 (ESV)This isn’t a man griping about his losses. God had already said Job passed the test. Job is heartbroken because he thinks God has become his enemy: “All this time I thought you were pleased with me. I thought you were my friend and that you loved me. What did I do to make you hate me?” God didn’t hate him. And then God shows up.
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”
Job 38:1–4 (ESV)
For four chapters God asks Job one question after another. Were you there when I made the world? Do you know how clouds form, where lightning comes from, how the stars were put in place, where the snow is stored? What God means is, “I know far more than you do. Why sit in judgment of me? Why not trust that I had a good reason for what I allowed? Why assume I hate you?”
God never tells Job why. We know, because we read chapters 1 and 2. If God had spelled it out, it might have sounded something like this:
Job, Satan came to accuse you. He said you didn’t really love me, and he wanted to slander you and make the angels doubt you. I came to your defense, because that is what friends do. When he attacked my friend, I had your back: “Job is not like that. Don’t you dare slander my friend.”
Who is Job, that God would bother defending him? But God did, and that’s what the book is about. God is a better friend than we know.
Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
James 5:11 (ESV)Part 6 · John 15
Job was God’s friend. Jesus says you can be his friend too.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:12–15 (ESV)Jesus doesn’t call us servants anymore. He calls us friends. It’s as if he were saying, “I’m your best friend. I love you, and I won’t let anyone slander you. Trust me. I’ve got your back.”
So when you’re going through hell, don’t do what Job did and decide God hates you. Listen to what he’d say to you: “Haven’t you learned yet? There is a Satan. There are demons and evil forces that will try to wreck your life to make you doubt me. Don’t you know me by now? I loved you so much that I chose to die for you rather than live without you. What more can I do to show you? Don’t doubt. Trust.”
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 (ESV)Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5 (ESV)For groups and personal study