Bible Commentaries

Satan At Work

Job 1:1).

This is a complete character. What more could be added? What need for further vision of God, or supply of grace, or miracle of progress? Have we any character equal to Job"s, as thus described, in the New Testament? Even if Job be but a dramatic personage, the Old! Testament is not afraid to have such a man represented upon its pages. But we must not stop at that point; otherwise we should come to false conclusions respecting the growth of character under Old Testament conditions. The Old Testament makes its men more rapidly than the New Testament does; and we are not to take back the New Testament by which to judge the men of the Old Testament. If men do not grow so rapidly in the gospels and epistles, it is because the spirit of moral criticism has changed, has become more searching, has looked for fuller and wider results, has penetrated beyond and beneath the surface, and asked questions about motive, purpose, inmost thought. Here, however, in Old Testament life, and under Old Testament conditions, is the completest man of his day. What can he do with Satan? What can Satan do with him?

Not only was the personal character complete, but the surroundings were marked by great prosperity, affluence, all but boundless resources, as resources were reckoned in Oriental countries.

"His [Job"s] substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household" ( Job 1:3).

Who could get at him? You must knock at a hundred gates before you can present yourself before the presence of this king. Circle after circle concentrically surrounds, environs, protects him. He is within at the very centre of all circles. We have to leap over tower after tower before we come to the tower of brass, solid, seamless, within which he is entrenched and concealed.

Not only have we a complete personal character, a great substantial fortune, but there is in this mysterious man a priestly feeling. The father of the family was then the priest of the household. His sons and daughters were social; they grasped one another with the hand of love; they exchanged liberally all the courtesies which make up much of the happiness of social life. The father was not amongst them; he was away, but still looking on. He said: It may be that in all their feasting and enjoyment my sons have sinned, and have misunderstood God in their hearts; therefore, I will arise early in the morning and offer sacrifices on their account. Although this is now done away ceremonially and literally, yet there abides the priestliness of fatherhood and motherhood—that strange, never-perfectly-described feeling, which says, There is yet something to be done about the children: they are good children, their fine qualities it is impossible to deny, but human nature is human nature after all, and another prayer for them may do good. That prayer may never be offered in words, it may be offered in sighs, in wordless aspirations, in the strange, never-to-be-reported language of the heart. Yet, still, there is the fact, that in every true heart there is a priestly instinct that cannot be satisfied until it has remembered in prayer some that may have strayed, and others that may need special vision of light and special communication of grace. "Pray without ceasing." Pray often. "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." And the God of peace shall fill your hearts with eternal Sabbath day.

So far, then, we are reading a noble poem. Were the statement to end with the first five verses, it would be difficult to match the paragraph by aught so rich in spiritual quality, so noble in personal character, so sweet, tender, and friendly in social feeling and exchange of love. But where does life's chapter end? An end it seems not to have. Life would rather appear to be all beginnings, new attempts, new mornings, new endeavours, new resolutions, and the end is always far off, making great promises, and exercising a wondrous influence in life by its allurement and beckoning and promise of rest. It is in this way that posterity does much for us, notwithstanding the ignorant gibe concerning it. The end makes us do what we attempt in the present. We cannot work for the past. If we work at all, it must be for the future, for, blessed be God, things are so shaped and set together that no man liveth unto himself, or can so live: even while he attempts that miracle he fails in its execution, and does good where no good was intended. No credit to him. It will not be set down to his credit in the books. Still, as a matter of fact, even the bad man cannot spend his money without doing good in many unintended ways. Where, then, we repeat, does life's chapter end? Certainly it does not end in the case of Job by a description of his personal character and his social status.

In the sixth verse we come upon the inevitable temptation. Every Job 1:10).

He reads like a surveyor; he peruses a memorandum, and gives out the facts in literal lines. "Hast not thou made an hedge about him?" I have walked round that hedge; I have tried it here, there, and at seven other places; I have gone round it in summer and winter, in spring and autumn, by night and by day, when the snow was on the ground and when the sun was in full summer heat, and the hedge is round about him with the solidity of iron; and not about him only, but "about his house, and about all that he hath on every side"—every sheep, every camel, every ox, every ass seems to be hedged about, so that I cannot strike one of them: I have no chance; thou hast shut me out from opportunity in regard to this man: give me the opportunity, and I will bring his piety to ruin—"put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face" ( Job 1:11). The devil did not speak without reason. He is sometimes forced to facts. He could have substantiated this declaration by countless instances; he could have said, I have overthrown kings before today; I have seen the effect of poverty, loss, pain, distress, exile, upon some men who had quite as good an appearance as Job has: their piety has gone after their property: they no sooner were thrown down socially than they were unclothed religiously, and were proved to be, practically, at least, hypocrites: I want to see the same plan tried upon Job; it has succeeded in cases innumerable—it cannot but succeed here. But the point now immediately under consideration is the devil's estimate of the good man's position, and the devil says the good man is hedged about; he is protected on every side; all that he has excites the interest of heaven; there is not a sheep in the flock that God does not account as of value. This is real. This is the very testimony of Jesus Christ himself, who says, The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do we realise this to be our happy condition? We do not As Christian men and women we are just as fretful, anxious, and dispirited, in the presence of cloud and threatening, as are our worldliest neighbours. If that is not true in some instances, let us bless God for the miraculous exceptions; but wherein it is true we affirm the devil's estimate of our supposed security: it is a security which believes in black ink letters, in actual and positive property, and is not a security which rests in spiritual promise of spiritual protection.

This incident destroys the idea that environment can keep away temptation. How often have we said to ourselves, If our circumstances were better, our religion would be stronger; thus men tell lies to their own souls; thus men degrade life into a question of surrounding and circumstance and condition; thus men say that "fat sorrow is better than lean"; and thus men add up the worldly conditions of assaulted life, and say, With such conditions the assault really amounts to nothing. All spiritual history declares against that sophistical doctrine. Every man has his own battle to fight. Job had a deadlier battle to conduct than we can have, because he was a stronger man; there was more in him and about him; he exhibited, so to say, a larger field, and was therefore accessible at a greater number of points. We think of royalty in its palace, see itself upon the throne, and saying, What can reach me here? I am safe beyond the touch of temptation. We think of great influence, as of statesmen and rulers, and we suppose that if we were as elevated as they are we should be out of the reach of the devil's arrow. Sometimes we think of great genius, of the marvellous minds that can create worlds and destroy them, and recreate them, and dramatise the very air, and populate it with images that shine and talk, that dazzle and amuse the very men who created them; and we say, Such genius can know nothing of temptation; only those who are in sordid conditions, driven down to the dust to find tomorrow's bread, men doomed to daily grinding,—only they can know what temptation is and pain and sorrow. Such is not the case. No palace can shut out temptation; no high authority or rulership can escape the blast of hell; and as for genius, it seems to be the very sport of infernal agency. Environment, then, is no protection against temptation. What is the protection? There is none: every man must be tempted, every Adam must fall, every Adam must eat of the forbidden tree; one after the other, millions in a day, on they go, without exception, without break: "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Certainly. If that chapter had not been in his life, the life would have been incomplete, and would have been no gospel to us: we should have said, The reading is very good, but it is like the reading of a poem, or the perusal of a musical composition; we have not yet come to the hell-chapter, the devil-clutch, the fight with him who overthrew our integrity, and chained our spirits to his chariot. So we have Christ's temptation written in plain letters, the whole story told in highly accentuated speech, the articulation distinct, every syllable throbbing with life. What then? Do we rest there, and say, Behold the end? Then were the world not worth making, then had the Creator committed an irretrievable mistake: this is not the end. "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to Job 1:21).

There he stands, a naked Job 1:5

Many persons do good occasionally.—It is easy to be good outwardly on ceremonial occasions: it is to be in the fashion; it is to be running along the rut of custom; not indeed to appear to be good under such circumstances would be to incur opprobrium.—Church-going may be an occasional exercise; prayer may be an intermittent enjoyment.—The characteristic excellence of Job's worship was that it was permanent, continuous, unbroken, proceeding with the regularity of life, and completing itself from time to time like a piece of concerted music.—We are exhorted to pray without ceasing.—The apostle desires us in everything by prayer and supplication to make known our requests unto God.—Exercise in such holy worship is like exercise in everything else: it strengthens the faculties; it encourages the soul; it tends towards perfectness.—We should read the Bible continually, that is to say, it should be the man of our counsel, the companion of our day-march, and the enjoyment of our solitude; it is not to be read here and there, intermittently, eclectically, but is to be studied throughout in all its proportion and harmony.—People do not get good by going to church once: a single shower upon the earth is of little consequence; the great rain consists in shower upon shower, the water coming down for the time being continuously, copiously, and as it were hospitably, feeding and nourishing the earth.—It is by patient continuance in well-doing that we are to achieve glory, honour, and immortality, and to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, showing that our good-doing is not a spasmodic feeling or action, but is the very breath and energy of the soul, the sweet and gracious necessity of the new life that is within us.—To be irregular in sacrifice, in worship, in devotion, in service, is to be irregular in the heart-beat of love towards God.—Who does not regret the irregular action of the heart, even from a physical point of view? What, then, shall be said of irregularity of heart-action in reference to spiritual loyalty and continuity in the exhibition and enjoyment of a holy life?—But there is no continuance in ourselves; "we all do fade as a leaf;" our poor little life plays itself out: what, then, is to be done? Underneath, our life must be connected with the Fountain of all being; it must be identified with God in Christ and through Christ, as the branch is part of the vine.—Hear the Lord Jesus: "Abide in me... without me ye can do nothing;"—hear the Apostle Paul: "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me."—All the passages which exhort to godly life exhort also to its continuance: "Be thou faithful until death, and I will give thee a crown of life:" "He that endureth to the end shall be saved."—The Bible is full of such animating and encouraging speech.

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Whence contest thou?"— Job 1:7

This, indeed, is the great puzzle of metaphysical and spiritual life.—There is a certain degree of comfort in the fact that it was the Lord himself who put the question to our great enemy: "Satan, whence comest thou?"—We know that it was not because he was ignorant of the origin and purposes of the enemy, but we may accommodate the question to express our own feeling and wonder in relation thereto.—Who has not dwelt upon the origin of evil? How the question has taxed the resources of the philosopher and the theologian!—The enemy himself refers to locality and action upon the surface of the earth, and thus even in his reply to God he would seem to evade the profoundest relations of the inquiry.—We do not ask, Whence comest thou? as inquiring into the last place of visitation or the last instance of assault or seduction: we ask concerning the very origin of evil, the root and core, the very beginning, the genesis of all that is false, impure, corrupt.—Let us be on our guard lest we press this inquiry too far.—Undoubtedly it is an inquiry of profoundest interest, and may therefore profitably occupy reverential attention for a time.—There Job 1:14

As a matter of literal interpretation this was simple enough; but regarded suggestively the thought admits of large and useful expansion.—Messengers are always coming to men; if not living messengers, living messages—impulses, words of exhortation, encouragement, warning, the whole ministry of truth and light.—A voice came to Samuel in the darkness; we have seen already in earlier studies how many anonymous ministries there are in life,—men coming in the darkness, figures appearing in visions, voices heard in dreams, events forcing themselves upon religious attention.—There are many practical messengers coming to the cry of the heart every day: messengers of poverty, pain, bereavement; men requiring intellectual help, spiritual comfort, commercial direction: children needing to be trained, nurtured, directed, stimulated in right paths, protected from diabolical assaults.—"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."—Providence itself is a great messenger and a great message.—If we choose to play the fool we can deafen ourselves to every voice and blind ourselves to every token: we can go up and down the earth saying that we hear nothing, see nothing; that we are practical, and that we pay no attention to the emotions of the soul, the peculiar actions that stir the inner being.—That certainly is one way of living; it is the poorest, meanest way of all; it is the way of the flower that has but a small root, and because there is no deepness of earth it will soon wither away.—He who dwells in daily communion with God fears no messenger who can come to him, even with evil news.—The fear of God takes away all other fear.—The surprise of the saintly soul is but a superficial or transient wonder; it does not affect the fountain and reality of his faith.—"If thou forbear to deliver him that is drawn unto death, God will judge thee; if thou sayest, Behold, I knew it not, he that searcheth the heart will bring thee to the judgment seat."—To the man who listens there is many an appeal; to the man who is wakeful there is many a passing vision from which he can learn abiding truths.—A messenger has come to every one of us to declare the everlasting gospel. He flies abroad in the midst of heaven; he proclaims his truth regardless of age, condition, or estate; his message is to every creature under heaven: it is a message charged with good news, meant to redeem and save and bless the heart.—Happy is the man who sees this messenger, and hears him, and provides for him a guest-chamber in his heart.