Hi friends, You might want to scroll down to the Red text to a related Simey Story if you find my observations from Job a little tedious. 
 


 Study of Job Section 2--------------------------------------------1-14-14 and 1-15-14
Dear fellow students of the Word,
Hi,
I was thinking that unless you know that I totally believe this scripture from II Timothy, you may find my interest and fascination with Gods' Word a bit off the wall.  Actually you may find it so anyway.  But I am OK with that.

This is the basis of all I believe.

II Tim.3:15-17

  "…15and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work..."


 

Continuing on with the first chapter of Job....

     I find myself not able to just quickly read through this. I think because here we have a picture of God Almighty in conversation with Satan.

    Although I struggled to finish the book ‘The Shack’ by William P. Young,  and cannot imagine Jehovah in so small a form as depicted there, the imagery has somehow enabled me to imagine the following scene more comprehensibly than I might have otherwise.

I try to read this thoughtfully as though I had not heard it before....

Job 1:6-11

      6Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, 
and Satan also came among them.

 7The LORD said to Satan,

“From where do you come?”

 Then Satan answered the LORD and said,

 “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.”

 8The LORD said to Satan,

“Have you considered My servant Job?

For there is no one like him on the earth,

a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.

” 9Then Satan answered the LORD,

 “Does Job fear God for nothing?

 10“Have You not made a hedge about 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.

11“But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has;

 he will surely curse You to Your face.”

12Then the LORD said to Satan,

 “Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.”

So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD.

This is an amazing moment in the Universe, that encompasses all time, and all people and answers in a few sentences several of the questions we ponder as we search for our own understanding of doctrines.

I don’t want to be sacrilegious or in any way take from the Glory of God by my words, but I am imagining that God set the scene here, using the ego and pride of Satan to trick him into admitting several things for all creation to hear, which Satan might not have wanted us to know.

Maybe God called a press conference. He, Our God, The creator, He who So Loved the world…could do that...

 I am going to take some liberties here and present my musings of what this might have looked like.

       Were these ‘sons’ good?
       I assume they were. In other translations they are referred to as angels.
       Perhaps when presenting themselves they spoke to God of their frustrations in watching over creation and mentioned that it seemed apparent to them that people on earth did not know about the plan of Satan to hurt God by destroying the bond between God and man. 

       Of course God knew this, but to remind all of heaven of His Omnipotence, he winked at them and said   "Fear not, watch this!"
       Then leaning over the podium he starts the conversation with Satan.
        And Satan, his ego stoked by the attention, lets escape from his own mouth statements that declare the greatness, love, protection, and power, that God holds over wee Man, and the constraining power God holds over Satan himself.
       This amazes me.
        I never realized this before.  

And I used to think that the book of Job was about the patience of Job.!

I imagine the sons of God are sitting there smiling….the Word is getting out, the cameras are rolling and here we have it. I never realized the wealth of information that these few verses hold...
What was revealed in this conversation?

1. Satan is real
2. He is cunning as we are warned, but not too cunning for God
3. He is walking around among us
4. He is considering us….and not for good….He is trying to get us to curse God. See vs.11
5. He understands our financial standing,
6. He knows our family circumstances
7. He understands our influence in society
8. He knows about the hedge…ahhhh the hedge. Had we heard of that before? Hmmm

OK, what else?

(I am thinking God gave the sons a big thumbs up about now.)

We also learn from this interview that

1. God knew about Job
2. Knew his commitment
3. His financial standing,
4. His family circumstances
5. We learn what it is that impressed God. That is amazing too. (we are not talking about salvation here, we’re talking about what God thought of what Job thought of God.) That’s how I see it.
6. We hear  that being perfect and upright impresses God,
7. that fearing God and turning away from evil impresses God. ( Perhaps that is the meaning of ‘fear God’, acknowledging that He is everything that is good and loving, and  in response choosing good over all that isn’t good.) More about that later….
8. We learn that God blesses…puts His blessing on a person, their finances, all that they put their hand to
9. We learn about the hedge…. when I hear that word and think of that concept, picturing the reality of it in my mind, I am inclined to sit back and smile. I first heard of the Hedge when I was in Bible School at Fairwood. I am getting off track again….
10. We see that Satan is not in ultimate control at all.

Truthfully, there are issues that I don’t understand still, but I am so glad to be reminded again today, as I sat with His Word, of these realities.

And in my heart I am reminded that it is very naïve to blame God when bad things happen.

I wonder how far across the globe Satan had walked before he smacked his forehead in realization that once again he had been outplayed.

Did the sons of God shout for Joy?

Did God chuckle?

　
There is a little family story, generated by our Simon. 
Yes, it’s Simey again!

He was six, we were sitting outside having a snack at the table after school. Of course we were using cloth napkins, and yes, it is important that you know that.

I was wanting a little order from the bickering between the three of them and announced that it was time to pray. All the details are not so clear to me anymore, but for sure he chided me for “always talking about ‘God and stuff“. And basically asked me for my reasons and authority for doing so!

I was a bit amused for that was pretty much out of character for Simon, so I supposed something was going on in his heart.

Well anyway, I told him I “always talked about God (and ‘stuff’)” because the Devil was always trying to make us not think about God (and ‘stuff’)

“Well, what does the Devil do?” he asked

I told him briefly what I knew about that based on this passage and II Peter 5:8. I used the term ‘walking around’ in my description…that I remember clearly because Simey screwed up his face and looking over his shoulder he exclaimed “well he’s walking around here ‘cause he just walked by me!”

I have to tell you it was difficult to keep objective at this point, I may have even looked around too.
 Anyway, I feigned deafness just so I could hear it again and sure enough it was repeated verbatim. 
Holding myself together on the outside, I asked the boy why he thought that the devil had walked by him.
 He replied, “because I was just gonna put something dirty from my nose on the napkin…so he must have told me to do that…but I didn’t!”

Now do you suppose it was about the time I suggested prayer that he changed his little boy heart about defiling my table napkin? I like to think so…..

Well, I didn’t get too far in Job again tonight but that’s it for today.

Walk confidently in that which you Do Know: That Jesus Christ, in another great moment in time, laid down His life in response to the Great love of God for Humanity, he died there, but came alive, having paid forever every debt we had to the Law of Sin and death. He sits at the right hand of our Father in Heaven, He intercedes for us to the Father. He left behind a gift, the powerful Spirit of God to dwell in us and lead us and enable us to hear and follow and Live and be....complete, perfect, upright....

Well, those are a few of the things…

Sitting back smiling…

Charlene