Wednesday after the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on October 5, 2022 by under
Scripture: Job 2:1-10 (NKJV)
2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?”
Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”
3 Then 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, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
4 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
6 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Devotion
Satan seems to show more respect for marriage than most of the world. In the previous chapter, God says, “Do not lay a hand on [Job’s] person” (1:12), therefore Satan goes and destroys Job’s children, servants, and animals, but he does not touch Job’s wife. He knows that Scripture says the husband and wife “shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). If Job’s flesh is protected, that includes Job’s wife.
In the present chapter, Satan is allowed to attack Job’s flesh. He strikes Job with boils and turns Job’s wife against him, tempting him to curse God. The husband is the head of the wife, and Job is faithful to his vocation when he rebukes his wife for her unbelief. This is the opposite of the sin of Adam, who allowed Eve to tempt him to sin. In this way Job is an example to all husbands, how they ought to teach their wives true doctrine and to protect them from sinning. Moreover, Job can be seen, in a sense, as an image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Savior married Himself to an unfaithful wife, as He says through Jeremiah, “My covenant… they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord” (31:32). But Christ has done what Job could not do: He redeemed His bride with His blood and made her holy. The Christian Church is that redeemed wife of the Christ. Satan cannot destroy her, because she is one with her divine Husband.
Prayer: Lord, we pray Thee, that Thy grace may always go before and follow after us, and make us continually given to all good works; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
