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Life Lessons

Why do Bad Things happen to Good People? (Part three)

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Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?  Part Three. 

                                    Job’s Further Trial.

     In the second chapter of the book of Job, we now have a another picture of the council of God meeting, with Satan present once more. Once again God asks Satan “What have you been doing?” with the answer that he had been roving backwards and forwards over the earth. We can rest assured, that just as he was doing that then, he will still be doing it today, and with all the crime and violence that is going on, it is obvious he is not idle!      God said to him, “Have you taken notice of Job? He still holds firm to his convictions in spite of losing everything he had.” “Ho ho,” replied Satan, “You touch his health and it will be a different story!” “Alright,” God replied, “He is in your power, but you are not to take his life.”

    We see from this conversation that Satan can only go so far in touching God’s people. We know that God allows certain things to happen to us to correct us and teach us more of His comfort. Paul said that his affliction (whatever it was), was a messenger of Satan to keep him humble and dependent on God  (2 Corinthians 12:7)    This answers the age old question of “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” We see from Job’s reply to his wife’s comment, that he too, thought this disaster had come on him from God. We all tend to blame God when some circumstance  outside our control brings disaster to us. Rather, we should look on these things as corrections and times of growing in His knowledge.

   Satan went out from God’s presence thinking he had Job this time, and chose the worst thing he could think of to torment him with….being covered with boils! There was no rest for Job with this….he could not sit or lie comfortably anywhere!    In spite of Job being such a devout and godly man, yet there were still things for him to learn from this experience, so this trial had a double point. It was showing Satan (and his cohorts) that there was a man who would remain firm in his convictions, no matter what happened to him, and at the same time teach him (Job) more valuable lessons about God’s faithfulness.

   This time Job’s trial really begins. His three friends heard about all the calamities that had befallen him, and how he was now in worse straits than ever with his health having given out. So they all came to visit him, to sympathise with him and show their support.    When they arrived, they were shocked at just how bad he was! They hardly recognised him as the person they knew! They showed their shock by weeping loudly and tearing at their clothes. Each of them sat down with dust on their heads, and then just sat there with him not saying a word! They stayed like that for seven days before they started talking….Job’s pain was so great with the boils that covered him, and he made matters worse by scraping the tops off them with a scraper of some sort. But even that, as they began to talk to him, paled into insignificance against what they had to say. It would have almost been better if they had all kept their mouths shut!

   What a lesson for us to learn! For those in deep grief it is some times better to say nothing than to even say “I know what it’s like for you!” Even when we’ve been through some traumatic experience, no-one else can step into your mind and know how you feel, as everyone is different.   

     So next time we will look at Job’s friends’ advice and see what we can learn from it all…..

Life Lessons

Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People (part two)

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     Last week we saw God calling His council together and how Satan also attended it. God challenged Satan to find a man who was better than His servant Job. Job was as righteous as a man could be, and he followed God with a  perfect heart. Satan said to God, “Isn’t he following You for what he can get out of it?  You protect him from everything bad, but if You let me get at him, he will curse You to Your face!” But God knew His man, and He gave Satan permission to do his worst to Job without touching Job’s person. This is how it happened…..

The next day, Job got up early as he usually did, and made the morning sacrifice for himself and his wife. Then he made another sacrifice to cover each of his children. As he did this, he prayed for each of them, as he did every day. “Lord”, he said, “Please help the boys to stand firm for you; help them to resist temptations, and always be helpful to their mother and sisters. I pray for the girls, Lord that they will not be vain with how they look, but that they will try their best to be beautiful with their minds and their speech.”    Job knew that his eldest son was putting on a party that day for his brothers and sisters, and he hoped that everything would go well for them all. While he was sitting there after breakfast thinking about them, he saw one of his servants rushing up the path. He could tell something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” he called out as the man got close enough to hear. “We were out in the field ploughing with the bullocks and the donkeys were there beside them when a marauding tribe from over the hill came and rounded them up, killing all the herdsmen, and I’m the only one who got away!” With that, he fell down on the ground panting with the run, and fright at what he had seen.

    The man had hardly finished telling Job this when another servant came panting up. “Oh!,” he said, “There was a massive lightning storm over the paddock where the sheep were, and they have all been struck dead as well as the other servants there. I’m the only one who managed to get away to tell you!”   

A third servant came panting in from another direction and said, “The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yes, and killed the servants with swords; and I only am escaped alone to tell you.”

Job hardly had time to take all this in when another servant came rushing in from the direction of the oldest boy’s house. “Oh, oh,” he wailed when he saw Job, “Your sons and your daughters were eating their meal and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house when there was a terrific gust of wind rushing in from the desert like a tornado, and the roof was lifted off and the whole thing collapsed on everyone else in the house, and they are all dead! I’m the only one to  escape and tell you!”

   Job had been sitting down all this time, and now he stood up and tore his long robe off his shoulders. He went inside and shaved the hair all off his head to show how upset he was. His wife and servants wondered how he would cope with all this bad news and the disasters that had happened. But he didn’t curse or swear, or even complain. It didn’t even enter his head to ask God why this had all happened.   

Instead, he got down on his knees and prayed in front of everyone left in his house, and said, ” I was born naked with nothing, and I will go back to God the same way, with nothing. The LORD gave me these things, and the LORD has taken them away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”     In all these disasters Job didn’t sin or complain and blame God foolishly. He had truly shown a godly attitude to a disastrous situation, just as God had known he would.

    What a lesson this is to us today!  Here was a man who had just received bad news about his family and all his livestock and servants. All he could do was to say that God was blessed in all that He does! He didn’t blame God for these disasters that had befallen on him, he took it all on the chin as it were.

     But that is not the end of the story of Job, and we will see next time what happened next to Job and why it came about.

Life Lessons

Why do Bad things Happen to Good People?

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                                  Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

    A good friend of ours was ill for a couple of weeks and in the end she went to the doctor when her breathing became difficult. After numerous tests, she was told that she had an aggressive type of lung cancer. Needless to say this left everyone who knew her in a state of shock. “Why her?” people were asking, “She did so much good around the place!!”    People often ask this question….it just seems that life isn’t fair!! We do the best we can and then things go wrong for us! I got to thinking about this age-old question and then thought about a man in the Bible whose name was Job (pronounced Jobe). He was a good man who always did the best he could and then he lost everything. But reading this story  will give us a picture of why this happened which will help us to see things differently and put them in a wider picture when things go wrong for us too.    Let’s turn to the book of Job in the Bible and see what it says about him….

  In chapter one, verse one, we read….”there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, one who feared (respected and reverenced) God and who hated evil.” So we see that Job always did his best and as we read down the chapter, we see the things that he did for himself and for his family. Let’s turn it into a story……

   One day, God’s team of angels came to report to Him. God noticed a shiny, glistening, sneaky looking one among them who  didn’t usually come, and recognised him instantly. “Where have you come from, Satan?” He asked. “I’ve been walking up and down all over the place,” Satan replied shiftily. “Have you seen any person as good as My servant Job is?”, God asked, “No-one else is as good in the whole world as he is….he loves Me and hates everything evil! He makes me an offering every day, not only for himself but also for his family.” “Ho”, sneered Satan looking at God, ” No wonder he is so good! You look after him on every side, and have given him all he’s got! I bet if you took it all away from him it’d be a different story! He would curse You to Your face if that happened!!”     God knew His man, and He knew He could trust Job to do the right thing. “OK,” He said to Satan, “We’ll see. I’m allowing you to take away everything that he has. I know he will stand firm for Me.”  Satan chuckled gleefully. ” I’ll make him sorry for following God’s ways. I can beat him!”    So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD…..

So you can see that more goes on behind the scenes, than we know about, and next time we will see what happened.