THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Job: The Great Lesson Of Submitting To God

Part II: Submitting To God If He Lets Us Lose Our Health Though We Are Righteous

(Job 2:1-10)

I. Introduction

A. The problem of suffering by the righteous is likely one of the biggest theological problems known to man.

B. Of the various sufferings of righteous Job, the loss of his health in Job 2:1-8 with his response in Job 2:9-10 examples our need to submit to God if we lose our health though we are upright (as follows):

II. Submitting To God If He Lets Us Lose Our Health Though We Are Righteous, Job 2:1-10.

A. In his initial trial, Job had submitted to God though the Lord had let Job lose all his possessions, Job 1:1-22:

1. As we learned in our previous lesson in this series, Job was the most righteous man on earth in his time as evidenced in God's blessings of wealth given to him (Job 1:1-3), his devout spiritual oversight of his family (Job 1:4-5) and even in God's remarks to Satan about Job (Job 1:6-8).

2. Satan had replied, saying that if God withdrew His blessing of Job's possessions, he would curse God to His face, suggesting Job submitted to God only for the possessions God gave him and slanderously implying that God could not make people follow Him unless He materially blessed them, Job 1:9-10.

3. To prove Satan's charge wrong and to mature Job in his relationship with the Lord, God permitted Satan to harm Job's possessions, resulting in Job's losing all he owned, including his children, Job 1:11-19.

4. Job had refused to curse God in this severe trial, proving Satan's charges to be wrong, Job 1:20-22.

B. However, in an added trial, Job faced the loss of God's blessing to himself personally, Job 2:1-9:

1. Satan persisted, charging Job before God with heartlessness, claiming he was willing to lose his animals, servants and children in his first trial "to save his own skin," but that if God stopped blessing Job himself, Job would curse God to His face, Job 2:1-5; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Job 2:4.

2. Accordingly, God gave Satan permission to do as he willed to Job's person, but not to kill him, Job 2:6.

3. Satan thus struck Job "with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head," Job 2:7 NIV. A disease matching Job's symptoms is pemphigus foliaceus -- "inflamed, ulcerous sores (Job 2:7), itching (v. 8), degenerative changes in facial skin (vv. 7, 12), loss of appetite (3:24), depression (3:24-25), loss of strength (6:11), worms in the boils (7:5), running sores (7:5), difficulty in breathing (9:18), darkness under the eyes (16:16), foul breath (19:17), loss of weight (19:20; 33:21), continual pain (30:17), restlessness (30:27), blackened skin (30:30), peeling skin (30:30), and fever (30:30)," Bib. Know. Com., O. T., p. 721.

4. Job thus took a "potsherd," a "piece of broken pottery" (KJV, Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Job 2:8) to scrape himself, and he sat down among the ashes, "on or near a pile of dung ashes and garbage outside the city," for "(m)issionaries in primitive cultures have reported that pemphigus foliaceus patients have soothed their sores with ashes," Ibid., Bible Know. Com., O. T.; Job 2:8. Job thus faced personal humiliation as a social outcast, fallen from his former position as a local judge at the city gate (Job 29:7), Ibid.

5. On top of all of this, Job's wife urged him "to forget his integrity (related to the word "blameless" in 1:1), curse God and (as a result) die," Ibid.; Job 2:9.

C. Yet, regardless of this intense trial on his person, Job did not sin with his lips, Job 2:10:

1. Job replied to his wife that she had spoken as a "foolish" woman, the Hebrew word for "foolish" being nabal and meaning "spiritually ignorant or non-discerning," for "trouble (ra, 'evil, calamity') as well as good comes from God (cf. Ecc. 7:14; Lam. 3:38)," Ibid.; Job 2:10a.

2. This view dramatically counters a current popular, man-centered presupposition that "trouble means God's very existence is questionable," Ibid. Job realized that human beings did not live for or unto their own pleasure, but were creatures of God made for His pleasure and glory, truth provided by "revelational evidence (that which comes from God)," Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Job 2:10.

3. Accordingly, in all of this, Job did not curse God, neither did he sin with his lips, Job 2:10b.

Lesson: When God let Job face a dreadful physical affliction that harmed his social and marital life, he did not curse God to His face as Satan had charged that he would, but Job submitted to the Lord's sovereignty in it all.

Application: (1) May we love God apart from what He provides even for our persons that we submit to Him though He lets us lose our health and/or our capacity to interact effectively with other people. (2) May we not view trials using human viewpoint that can err as in the case of Job's wife, but may we rely on Scripture's view as did Job!