"NOTHING PERSONAL"


by Ivan Maddox
Atlanta, GA


One thing that should cause special concern to us as we read the first chapter of Job is the apparent ease with which God removed His hedge of protection from around Job's family and servants. We can understand this being done to Job's possessions, but seeing it happen to the people is a bit frightening, because in the back of our minds we wonder if that could happen to us as well. One moment Job's family and servants were absolutely safe from harm in God's care; the next moment they were fully exposed to the tender mercies of our adversary, Satan.

What happened to cause this change? Is God capricious, changing His will on a whim? Did He regard Job's family as expendable? Didn't He love Job's family and servants as much as He loved Job?

But before we ask why God removed His protection from these people, we might do well to ask why He was protecting them in the first place. What was their relationship with God, and how, if at all, did it differ from Job's relationship with Him?

As we read through the book of Job, the discerning reader will notice that while Job's righteousness is mentioned again and again, nothing at all is said about the righteousness of Job's wife, Job's children, or Job's servants. This is our first clue that all is not as it should be. Is this just silence on God's part, or were Job's family of different spiritual stock than Job himself?

One of the very few things we do know about Job's children is that they liked to party.

Job 1:2-5.
1:2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
1:3 His 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; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
1:4 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
1:5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

From this record, it looks like Job's children were really big on feasting. It was Job, not them, who expressed a concern about their relationships with God. The nature of his concern should interest us: he sacrificed for them in case they had sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Now people don't usually go around being concerned abut folks doing something that is completely out of character for them. If you have a child who has never to your knowledge stolen before, you don't usually worry about him shoplifting when you go to the store. If you have a spouse who has been completely faithful to you, you don't lie awake at night worrying about that person having an affair. Job's concern here speaks volumes. He seems to have considered his children capable of cursing God in their hearts. He does not seem concerned that they might openly break with God; but he does seem concerned that their outward conformity might be masking inner rebellion.

There is a record in Ezekiel 14 that seems to confirm this assessment of Job's children.

Ezekiel 14:12-20.
14:12 The word of the LORD came again to me, saying,
14:13 Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:
14:14 Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.
14:15 If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:
14:16 Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.
14:17 Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it:
14:18 Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves.
14:19 Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast:
14:20 Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.

The land referred to in this passage is Israel, and the context is the near destruction of Jerusalem, Judah and the Jews by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. God is using an illustration to show the seriousness of the condition Judah had gotten itself in by its continued disobedience. In the past people had interceded for her, and He had listened and turned away His wrath. No more. He uses Noah, Daniel and Job as illustrations of how serious things had gotten. Each of these men walked righteously before God; but God here declares that under the present circumstances even their intercession for their own children would not be accepted.

The case of Noah may illustrate the state of affairs with Job's children. The scripture speaks of the righteousness of Noah before the flood, but not of the righteousness of Noah's children. This record suggests that Noah was the only righteous person on the ark, and that his wife and children only got to go because of Noah. Likewise, what is suggested here is that Job's children were being blessed only because of the righteousness of Job.

(Of the three men mentioned here in Ezekiel, only Daniel was alive at the time of the captivity. He is also the only one of the three who had no children, for Daniel was a eunuch. This passage suggests that one of the reasons that God allowed Daniel to be made a eunuch and have no children was to spare him the heartache of watching his children being destroyed in a climate where Daniel's own righteousness would offer them no protection whatsoever.)

Just as no mention is made in Job of the righteousness of Job's children, so also no mention is made of his wife's righteousness. She appears only once in the book of Job, and that is in chapter 2, after Job has been struck with boils from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.

Job 2:9-10.
2:9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
2:10 But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
At this point in the record Job and his wife have already lost all their children. Job is all his wife has left, and now he is miserably ill. It appears that she loves him enough not to want to see him suffer like this. As much as it would cost her, she would rather that he die than go on suffering. Her words express an anguish of heart and a frustration with God for allowing this to happen to Job and to her. But she does not have Job's stubborn faithfulness toward God. She considers cursing God an acceptable option under the right circumstances. Because of this, and in spite of her love for Job, she has allowed herself to become Satan's messenger to him.

The wonder in the first chapter of Job, then, is not that God removed his protection from Job's family and servants, but that He put them under His protection to begin with. Job's family and, I believe, his servants, did not share Job's righteousness and Job's faithful commitment to God. They came under God's protection only as part of God's protection of Job.

There was a song years ago that said, "Poppa may have, and momma may have, but God bless the child who's got his own." That is certainly true when it comes to a right relationship with God. It may be possible, because of the greatness of God's grace, to coast along on someone else's relationship with God for a while. But when the storms of life come, having your own relationship with God can make all the difference.

God did not remove His hedge of protection from around the individual members of Job's household; he only removed it from around everything pertaining to Job. Around Job himself He kept the hedge. If each member of his household had been walking with God, each would have still been protected by his own hedge. But because they were not walking with God themselves, they were left with no protection when the hedge around Job was narrowed.

Romans 2 reminds us that God's grace is given to us for a reason, and that it is unwise to presume upon His grace, to despise it by receiving it, enjoying it, and continuing to live your life as if God didn't exist.

Romans 2:3-6.
2:3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
2:5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
2:6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

None of us deserves the grace that God gives us. Yet we can show our love and appreciation for God and His grace by bringing our lives into subjection to His will.

Of course there's more to the picture of what happened to Job's household than this. Job himself underwent times so trying that his friends concluded that he must be harboring some secret sin in his life. Loving God and believing God do not guarantee that you will not experience hard times or heartbreak. Even those who walk faithfully with God die, sometimes tragically. But a small part of the picture is revealed for us here, and we would do well to take heed to it.

What was Satan's attitude toward Job's children? There is no indication that he had any interest in them at all, except as a means of getting to Job. And that gives us an especially chilling picture of Satan. He ruthlessly exterminated Job's children and his servants, yet their deaths had nothing whatsoever to do with themselves. Satan wasn't angry with them. There was nothing personal in his attack on them. He just used their deaths as a means of getting Job's attention, and of trying to pry him away from God.

That's the tragedy of Job's children and household: they didn't count. There is no indication that these were particularly evil people, nor were they godly. They were "neutral." And that's a dangerous place to be in this life. Job was a topic of conversation on the lips of both God and Satan. His wife and children and servants never came up. They had not committed themselves to God, nor had they allied themselves with Satan. They were just there. And when they were killed, it was because of nothing having to do with them.

Do you have your own personal relationship with God, or are you coasting along on someone else's faith? Do you count? You can, thanks to the finished work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.


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Created 12/22/97, by Ivan Maddox

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