I once read an interview with a woman whose home had been reduced to splinters by a tornado. Surveying the carnage, she told the reporter, “God wasn’t in this. God didn’t want this to happen.” Is that true? Is God swept along in the flow of catastrophes such as tornadoes, unable to intervene? Are the tragic events of our lives—disasters, disease, and death—out of God’s control? Those are important questions to answer biblically when you’re caught up in the whirling winds of a calamity.
Many Christians believe that Satan is in control of calamity. In their view, Satan is almost equal to God in power—certainly he excels God in trickery. As you go through life, you always have to be looking over your shoulder, never sure when God might have his back turned, allowing Satan to run you down with some disaster God didn’t anticipate.
Other people believe that you are in control of calamity, making yourself sick or causing a bad month for your business by speaking or thinking negative thoughts. In their view, if you think positively enough and have faith enough, nothing bad will happen to you.
Who is in control: Satan, you, or God? The first two chapters of Job provide a definitive, reassuring, biblical answer. When a tornado flattens your home, a disease your health, or a death your family—when everything seems out of control—God is in control.
Meet Job
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.
(Job 1:1)
Job was a real man who lived in Uz (an area of northern Arabia) during the patriarchal era—the time after the tower of Babel in Genesis 11, but before God gave the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. Job was the epitome of what God wanted an Old Testament man to be. He was “blameless,” morally complete—there were no stains, spots, or blemishes on the garment of his holiness. He was “upright”—straight as an arrow in all his ways. He was a fearer of God; he approached life with a humble, awed devotion to God. And Job habitually turned away from evil. Trying to get Job to do evil was like trying to push together the negative poles of two magnets—when it came to evil, Job always swerved away to the right or to the left. In short, Job was a bright trophy on God’s mantelpiece of grace.
Besides his impeccable character, Job had also been blessed by God in other ways. With ten children, including seven sons to carry on the family name, and a livestock portfolio second to none, it’s small wonder that the Bible calls Job the greatest man in all the East (1:2–5).
Satan, the Accuser
There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.
(1:6)
Among the angelic beings reporting to God was one called Hasatan, literally “the Adversary” or “the Accuser” in Hebrew. Later texts, such as Revelation 12:9, identify this being as the leader of the fallen angels, the devil, Satan, the same fallen angel who deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In Job 1, that lying, murderous Accuser had come for his regularly scheduled report to God.
The 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.” Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 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. But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.”
(1:8–11)
When God lionized Job, the Accuser immediately went on the attack. “Sure, I know all about Job. Why shouldn’t he serve you? You give him everything he wants. But let me tell you a secret about Job that you don’t know, God. Job is only in it for the blessings. Job doesn’t love you; he loves what you give him. Take away his toys, and you’ll see the real Job. Job likes sugar and bubbles, but when you stop giving him what he wants, he’ll toss you aside like an empty soda can.”
Satan was angry because God had thwarted his evil schemes by making “a hedge about [Job]” (v. 10). It was a hedge too high for Satan to climb over, too thick for him to cut his way through. In fact, Satan acknowledged that only one hand could cause calamity in Job’s life: “But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face” (1:11, emphasis added).
Who is in control of calamity? By his own admission, Satan isn’t. Without God’s permission, Satan couldn’t even make Job stub his toe. In verse 12, God gave permission to Satan to attack Job, but he also set strict limitations on Satan’s assault:
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.”
Some Christians believe that God is taken by surprise or is helpless to intervene when Satan is working his evil schemes. However, they don’t get that view from the Bible. Job 1 presents God as completely in charge of Job’s calamity. First, God was the one who pointed Job out to Satan, initiating the whole affair. Second, Satan could not lay a finger on Job’s possessions until he had God’s permission to act. Third, God strictly limited Satan, forbidding him to attack Job’s health at this point. Initiation, permission, and limitation—Satan was completely under God’s control.
Further Evidence
Not just the book of Job, but the whole of Scripture proclaims the fact that God rather than Satan is in control of calamity. For example, Satan is not the source of physical handicaps, birth defects, or congenital diseases. God made that clear when Moses stubbornly resisted God’s commission to lead his people because of his “heavy tongue.”
The Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”
(Exodus 4:11)
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PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com