Job had to endure stressors in his life because of his faith. With faith; his life was balanced, he was content, prosperous, and had hope. Hope is the outcome of faith. Whenever a faithful man doubts, his hope is diminished. Job was made to doubt; Was he faithful because he was prosperous our could he suffer and still maintain his faith? God was “betting” on the latter, whereas Satan on the former. Of course, God knew the outcome of the test. However, if it was to be, Job could have failed.
Satan and his demons were allowed to test, and were given some ground rules. At first, they could not even touch Job, but God allowed the test to be made more difficult; they could touch but not kill.
Thereupon, Job received many stressors from Satan: he loses property, children, health with painful boils, and finally his wife. With those; Job’s property, family, flesh, and companionship were tested. In a biblical sense, all that he had were his “prosperity.” Theologians often misinterpret “prosperity” as those types of things; things of mammon. The true prosperity that Job had was spiritual hope. That was what Satan was after; to take away Job’s hope by attacking his faith.
All Christians can be attacked in like manner. Perhaps their stressors are not as severe, but they are indeed stressors. “Stress, either physiological or biological, is an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition. Stress is the body's method of reacting to a condition such as a threat, challenge or physical and psychological barrier” (Wikipedia; “Stress”). There is another type of stress omitted by that definition: responses to spiritual challenges.
Satan will give up when Christians submit. Sometimes believers feel better when they sin because there is a reduction in stress whenever the stressor desists. No longer are those people Christians when they submit, but belong to another master. Those in iniquity often live a stress-free life because they have never been faithful. They go with the flow so to speak and are even content in their eternally lost condition. That was Satan’s hope for Job, and his hope for us.
Satan went into his bag of stressors and pulled out several, one after another. Job was bombarded with stress. In psychology, it is well-known that the more the stressors, the more vulnerable the stressed person is to psychosis. Although neurosis has been eliminated from the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual as an abnormality, what Job suffered was not delusional at all. He suffered from reality. His psychological state of mind was neurotic (chronic stress). Satan was trying to cause so much distress in Job that he would be willing to give up his soul in exchange for relief from his stressors.
Not many have been psychotic, but most people have been neurotic. Perhaps it is so common that it is considered normal. Stress, indeed, is a normal situation because it is human nature. In fact, the consequence of sin in those with a conscience is stress, as is written:
Cursed is the
ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto
the ground… (Gen 3:17b-19a)
That was the curse for sin, but Job had been blameless. Everyone suffers the curse because of original sin. To be saved, requires that Christians endure the curse until the end. God allowed hardship and stress to test faith. Because of original sin, everyone faces hardship. The environment in which our antecedents were cast out into is the source of all stressors. Inside the Garden, there had only been bliss, and there was no stressors! The hope of Christians is a return to the bliss of the Garden for eternity. Jesus defined those who will regain a states of bliss:
And he (Jesus)
opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the
poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they
that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the
meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the
merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the
pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the
peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they
which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
Blessed are ye,
when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be
exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the
prophets which were before you. (Mat 5:2-12)
First off, Jesus defined “blessedness;” it is in the kingdom of heaven. It is the true prosperity of the Abrahamic Covenant to which the faithful would be rewarded. Relief from stress can be found with hope. The ultimate hope is in the Lord’s Prayer for the faithful: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Mat 6:9b-10). Surely the reader can see that the well-being of people is dependent on doing God’s Will! Satan’s tactic was to get Job to do his own will and not God’s. The stressors were to crack his faith; to do what will relieve the short-term stress, which is to deny God and relent to the ultimate sin – to exchange allegiances from God to Satan.
Psychology is “the study of the soul,” but those who practice psychotherapy mostly consider spiritual matters as only a burden to normalcy. There is some truth in that; if Job had cracked, he would be what is “normal” in the eyes of the world. Examine normalcy: seeking riches, fame, lasciviousness, guiltlessness, and acceptance. Satan was offering those things that normal people have. Job was not normal; he lived in the same normal environment as everyone else, but he remained peculiar, as is written, “The Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself” (Deut 14:2), and likewise Christians are God’s chosen and peculiar people (1 Pet 2:9).
Psychologists see that peculiarity as a psychosis, the difference between it and neurosis being in the delusions and hallucinations that psychologists perceive in them. [1] They see any interaction with God as either delusional or hallucinations. God and Satan really had conversations about Job’s well-being. Psychology would call that delusional. However, a personal God and His Adversary is the spiritual normative. “Science,” as psychology claims to be, dismisses anything spiritual. Neither do they claim that they can fix anything, but only relieve the stressors. The only way that psychologists can help is by relieving the stress by counseling patients not to feel guilty about the sources of their stress.
Note that Satan did not tempt Job with the usual things: beauty, pride, and lust. He offered no rewards but only relief from stress. Job was blameless and had fidelity to God, thus eliminating those things from Satan’s bag of tricks. Christians are often attacked with hardships because Satan knows how well we love our families and provision for them. Satan has most often attacked me through familial relationships because he knows that my family is my pride and joy!
Why Job “needed” counseling should be clear: He was under attack for his faith, but his friends did not see it that way! The condition in which they found Job was that he deplored his birth; he wished that he had never been born, and questioned why. His distress was so severe that he would have allowed Satan to end his life, thus becoming as God as people are wont to do. Job would have failed if he had allowed Satan to kill him against God’s Will for him. The test was to demonstrate to Satan that Job was truly faithful to him. All our persecution for Jesus’s Namesake is to test our faithfulness. Psychology, therefore, is not truly the “study of the soul,” but “a test of our faith” – to see in Whom our faith lies.
A man once said, “This one is too hard for God,” in reference to the condition of his marriage. He turned to psychological counseling – to those who admit they can’t fix anything! That’s what Satan offered Job when three counselors came to fix his stress. As usual, they looked for the ontological causes of his stress. They looked for something Job had done wrong to cause his own distress. Surely if they could find the cause, they could find the solution. Little did they understand, that sin is not a cause for misfortune, and neither is righteous a guarantee of prosperity and well-being!
The three friends of Job examined Job’s stress using wisdom. Wisdom is the factual use of knowledge for the best outcomes. It is the use of reason and logic. The first “psychologist” (Eliphaz) [2] was a behaviorist like B. F. Skinner. He blamed Job’s “psychosis” on sin. The prognosis is that Job’s behavior had resulted in his condition. Eliphaz’s diagnosis was that Job was suffering the consequences of his behavior. In this case, Eliphaz did believe that He was God that allowed his suffering. (He gets some credit.) A change in behavior would fix Job!
The second “psychologist” (Bildad) encouraged Job to repent. Repentance is reconciliation. Bildad [3] was more in the mode of the Twelve Steppers which steps encourage reconciliation with self, others, and “god, as you understand him.” He was asking for Job to repent of what he had not done, and to reconcile with God whom he had not offended.
It was Satan who Job was offending, but Bildad wanted Job to apologize to God! That is a tactic of Satan; he points the finger at God for things God did not do, and of course, discredit God for what He does do. When bad things happen to good people, its not because the good people did wrong, but that Satan uses crises to his advantage. Does that not sound familiar? Rahm Emanuel said that they never let a good crisis go to waste. Bildad was pitting Job against God because of his crises, and only Satan could gain by that.
Then along came the “psychologist” Zophar. [4] He questioned whether Job truly knew God or not. Cognitive therapy (developed by Aaron Beck) questions faulty thinking patterns. Most therapists question, not only whether we misunderstand God, but are irrational to even believe in an invisible God. Rather than God’s Spirit being a Comforter, He is a Stressor. Again, there is truth to that; God convicts sinner to induce stress, so that Christians are not comfortable with their sinful existences.
Psychologists teach about what their Antigod wants, and that is to not feel guilty when people do inappropriate things. The thought is to get comfortable with the sin. Those who don’t understand God, indeed, can be comfortable in their misunderstanding. Just examine all the “Christians” in the churches who come to God’s House to magnify Him, but their faulty thinking elevates them above God, and they feel comfortable with that! It is never okay to sin. Even when righteous people lie for good reasons, there are undesired consequences.
Zophar’s type of philosophy shares much with the Twelve Steppers: God as you understand Him. God is not as you understand Him, but Who He Is. Job did not misunderstand God. He seemed to rationally conclude that his faith was being tested, and he became whole again by his understanding of God’s purposes.
Job was stressed out to the point that he was at his wits end. This seemed to be a really tough situation for God to remedy. Job knew that it was beyond him, but God could fix all things. His friends wanted Job to put a band-aid to all the chaos, but that would not have sufficed, and Job would have failed the test of faith.
Why do bad things happen to good people? To test whether they are truly “good” or not. Job was blameless. God wanted to demonstrate the minimal degree of blame that Job had. He had none, but not of himself, but of God. His faith was a gift that Job used in all things, even in his distress. Job endured it all, and God again blessed him. He certainly was poor in spirit, mournful, meek, sought righteousness, did not blame God, was pure in heart, and had peace with God.
Because he was all those things, God blessed Job because his heart was right. Thereafter, in this world, Job lived in bliss as in heaven, and at the rapture, his reward is glorification – a perfect body with a perfect environment without Satan there to wreak havoc; just the way it was in the Garden!
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| Credit: Ashley Addiction Treatment |
[1]
Just think how silly elitists think Christians are when they say, God told
me this!
[2]
Eliphaz’s name means “my god is fine gold.” Is that not ironic?
[3]
Bildad’s name means “to love Baal.” Apparently, he had a false impression of
who the real God Is.
[4]
Zophar’s name means “to chirp or leap.” He leaped to the conclusion that God is
too hard to understand.
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