Have you ever felt anguish? Well let me tell you about Job. Job was an expert on anguish.
What kind of anguish is in your life? Job suffered the loss of his children, his fortune, his animals, his health, his reputation, and his friends, in a short span of time. He lost everything. And why did Job lose everything?
Because Satan asked permission to test Job, and God gave permission.
From this story, we can learn what an extremely faithful servant of the Lord did in a time of extreme anguish. We also learn about God’s true character, his awesome power, and his ability to restore a person’s good fortune. Maybe we can learn something useful from Job’s affliction.
Read on to find out what Job did to restore his life to abundance.
How did Job respond to his horrific situation? He cried out to God from a place of anguish:
“Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
“Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard? When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?
“Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant? If I have sinned, what have I done to you, you who see everything we do?
“Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more.”
Job 7:11-21 NIV
Does any of this sound familiar? I can recall times when I cried out to God in a similar way.
Job blames God for his suffering, and wonders why he is being “punished” with all this suffering. He even thinks it is God who has caused his nightmares, when in reality, it was satan.
In his anguish, Job complains bitterly:
“I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me. Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the plans of the wicked?
“Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me?
“Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.
“But this is what you concealed in your heart, and I know that this was in your mind: If I sinned, you would be watching me and would not let my offense go unpunished. If I am guilty—woe to me! Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction.
“Why then did you bring me out of the womb?
“I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! Are not my few days almost over?
“Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and utter darkness, to the land of deepest night, of utter darkness and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”
Job 10:1-3, 8-15, 18-22 NIV
In his misery, he suspects God is the author of his misery, and begs God to “Turn away from” him. He wishes he had never been born.
Next we see Job begging for mercy:
“Withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors. Then summon me and I will answer, or let me speak, and you reply to me.
“How many wrongs and sins have I committed?
“Show me my offense and my sin. Why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy? Will you torment a windblown leaf? Will you chase after dry chaff? For you write down bitter things against me and make me reap the sins of my youth. You fasten my feet in shackles; you keep close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet.
“So man wastes away like something rotten, like a garment eaten by moths.”
Job 13:21-28 NIV
Even in his anguish, Job blames himself for his suffering. He assumes he brought it on himself somehow, and asks to know what it is he did wrong. He doesn’t get angry at God, or blame God for his misery.
Job is so depressed, he is jealous of trees:
“At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. As the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, so he lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, people will not awake or be roused from their sleep.
“If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed!
“If only you would set me a time and then remember me! If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come. You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made. Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.
“But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place, as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy a person’s hope. You overpower them once for all, and they are gone; you change their countenance and send them away. They feel but the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves.”
Job 14:7-20, 22 NIV
Even in his anguish, Job has faith that God can cover over his sin. Yet despite his faith, he seems to have lost hope.
Now Job is despondent, sarcastic almost, and wishing for death:
“If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness, if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope— who can see any hope for me? Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?””
Job 17:12-16 NIV
Then Job reaffirms his resolution to refrain from sinning:
“As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made my life bitter, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not say anything wicked, and my tongue will not utter lies.”
Job 27:2-4 NIV
But at this point, Job feels like death is imminent:
“Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud. “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest. In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment. He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes.
“I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm.”
Job 30:15-22 NIV
We see Job at the depths of anguish, suffering to the point of feeling near death. He feels like God isn’t answering his prayers. Can you relate?
Then God answers Job – with questions of his own:
“Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
“Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
“Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?
“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,
“that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
“What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?
“Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
“Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
“Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
“Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding? Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?
“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?”
Job 38:2-41 NIV
God continues to question Job:
“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
“Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth? They crouch down and bring forth their young; their labor pains are ended. Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds; they leave and do not return.
“Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied its ropes? I gave it the wasteland as its home, the salt flats as its habitat. It laughs at the commotion in the town; it does not hear a driver’s shout. It ranges the hills for its pasture and searches for any green thing.
“Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
“Will it stay by your manger at night? Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness? Will it till the valleys behind you? Will you rely on it for its great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to it? Can you trust it to haul in your grain and bring it to your threshing floor?
“The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, though they cannot compare with the wings and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain, for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider.
“Do you give the horse its strength or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
“Do you make it leap like a locust, striking terror with its proud snorting? “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high?”
Job 39:1-20, 26-27 NIV
Here, God is reminding Job that there is no way Job could ever fathom the reasons the Lord allowed him to be put through such a hard season. The Lord is reminding Job to trust Him, because He is all powerful and all knowing.
Then the Lord ends Job’s suffering and lifts him out of anguish.
Then we see the happy ending:
“After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
“The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part.
“He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters.
“Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.”
Job 42:10-13, 15-16 NIV
What did we learn?
- Job suffered not because he sinned, but because God allowed Satan to test him
- Job refrained from sinning even in the worst of his anguish
- Job never cursed God or accused God of wrongdoing
- Instead Job cursed the day he was born
- Job called out to God in his anguish
- God answered Job when the time was right
- God reminded Job that He is all powerful and all knowing
- God reminded Job to trust Him
- God’s power is beyond our ability to comprehend
- God restored Job’s fortunes to double what he had before his suffering
- God restored Job’s health so completely that he went on to father 10 more children!
- God can use Satan’s awful testing of us to bless us
- Satan brings suffering to people, and God allows it sometimes
- God is the author of good things in our lives
Job ended up better off overall than he was before Satan afflicted him. Although his faith was tested, he never cursed God. He never gave himself over to darkness, even though he was in a pit of anguish. Job stayed steadfast in his resolve to not sin, despite how hard his life became.
Satan lost this round – Hallelujah! Now make sure Satan loses the round he is in with your life.
Remember how God restored Job, and have faith that he will do the same for you. No matter how sick you are, no matter how poor you are, no matter how much you lost — God can restore, if you are walking upright like Job did.
In times of anguish, hold on tight to your faith. Place your hope in who God is; trust Him completely. And pray like crazy!
Stay humble all!