Have You Been Stalked?
JOB 1/2
ACT I
SCENE 1 – in the physical realm:
JOB walks the earth, and in wisdom, deliberately stays away from evil. Shunning evil is the way Job rolls. Despite his wealth and prosperity, he’s a giver and a God-praiser.
SCENE 2 – in the spiritual realm:
ANGELS come to present themselves before God, and riding along with them is Satan, the Accuser of all God’s beloved
The all-powerful, ALL-KNOWING God of Heaven asks,
“Where have you come from?”
HE DOESN’T BOTHER asking Satan what motivates him, ‘Why are you here?’ nor does He question his activities, ‘What have you been doing?’ No, God asks, “Where have you come from?”
Where.
As in, Which of my creation have you been stalking? Prowling.
OR
Is the question a play on words with a reminder of the pride that got Satan kicked out in the first place? Since you no longer live in My presence but suffer an miserable existence apart from My glory, what disconnected, desolate vacuum did you leave to venture a confrontation with My holiness?
Satan, in his calculating & coy manner, offers merely a vague answer. “Just roaming the earth, to and fro.” (He’s well aware God is all-knowing; his pride astounds me.)
Hell and Heaven Both Have a Plan for our Lives – one is DESTRUCTION, the other RESTORATION
PLOT TWIST:
THE OMNISCIENT God, Who knows man’s heart and Who already knew where Satan had been, pinpoints what’s really in the devil’s heart: hatred toward God’s precious one. Our God is forever ready to prove His grace is sufficient and that His love within us conquerors ALL evil around us. Temptations and trials prove where we’ve anchored our faith.
GOD’S purpose-filled response, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him. He is an honest and innocent man, honoring God and staying away from evil.”
Another version says: Have you set your heart on my servant Job?
AHA! His heart-motive is exposed. Satan then accuses God of over-protection. “Duh. Have You not made a hedge around Job…?”
Hatred does not have a lukewarm or wavering heart. Satan sets his heart, his aspirations, on the most innocent and blameless because it disgusts him to the core of his being. His misery craves company.
And the Hater (devil) pushes a step further and tempts God. “ But reach out Your hand, and You destroy everything he has, and he will curse You to Your face!” v.11
God never loses His cool nor steps out of character: “All right, then. Everything Job has is in your hand, but you must not touch Job himself.” v.12
Satan falls for God’s ploy.
SCENE 3: Two realms collide
Job loses everything of value and grieves to a depth few have ever known yet declares. . .
“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. (v.22)
ACT II
SCENE 1: spiritual realm
ANGERED by the fact Job does not curse God, the Hater/Accuser comes again to God. “The loss wasn’t personal enough! A man will give all he has to save his own life. But reach out your hand and destroy his bones and flesh, and he will curse you to your face.”
DID YOU NOTICE neither the Hater nor God bring up Job’s wife? Could it be they both knew her—God looking into her heart, and Satan basing judgments according to what he observes in her daily actions and speech?
SCENE 2: Both realms collide
Satan left the Lord’s presence. He put painful sores [horrible boils] on Job’s body, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
(Note 1: no sickness or disease exists in God’s holy & complete presence)
“Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your blameless uprightness? Renounce God and die!‘”
A BITTER WIFE, instead of turning to God, urges her husband to “curse God and die.” If you just lost all of your children, the babies you nursed, raised, loved, how would you feel? God empathized with her loss and desired her heart, even though she blamed Him for her loss.
Satan tried to use her against her husband.
“But Job said to her, ‘You speak as one of the impious and foolish women would speak. What? Shall we accept only good at the hand of God and shall we not accept also misfortune and what is of a bad nature?’ In spite of all this, Job did not sin with his lips. (vv.9/10)
His lips. But what’s now going on in his heart? Pride? Resentment? You’ll have to read the entire book to find out.
(Note 2: skin boils have a possible spiritual cause – hatred toward a situation, not toward God. Job was overwhelmed with grief, and anger/hatred toward the situation, but he still knew the source of life and blessings!)
EPILOGUE
“For your sake we are being put to death all day long;
we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers…can separate us from the love of Christ.”
Romans 8:36-38
Satan is the slaughterer of sheep.
But Jesus is the Shepherd!
