This will conclude our present series on Healing. Please see these other posts
There are two passages of scripture that have been brought up as a “yeah, but what about….” objection to the universal law of healing. Paul’s thorn, and Job.
Paul’s thorn I have covered in detail in another post, so see it here.
I’m just like Job
Those that say such things really don’t know the book of Job very well. The instances described took place in less than one year. And if you’re going to be like Job, then after that short period of intense attack you’d have to be miraculously healed and have your prosperity restored to twice what it was before.
Also, Job was ignorant about God. He says so himself in Job 42:3-6.
The book of Job is believed to be the oldest book of the Bible (when it was written, not the period it discusses). Job is supposed to have lived somewhere around the time of Abraham. It contains a lot about what the people believed about God, but much of that wasn’t accurate.
For example, both Job and his friends believed it was God who sent the calamity on Job. But we get an “inside look” and see in chapters 1 and 2 that Job’s attacker was Satan. Job and his friends were ignorant about the existence of Satan, and so believed God was responsible for everything that happened. Job’s friends also incorrectly assumed Job was being judged by God because of sin in his life.
People these days also have confusion over the roles of God and Satan. They attribute to God things the devil is doing.
What types of things do we see that Satan had control over?
- Stirring up men to rob and kill (Job 1:15)
- Fire from heaven consuming property (Job 1:16)
- Destructive weather and natural disasters (Job 1:18-19)
- Sickness (boils) (Job 2:7)
Now this was long before Jesus defeated Satan on Calvary, before he was spoiled and made a show of, and the keys of death and hell taken from him. He had more access and authority back then.
Job’s Hedge
Job 1:6-12 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.
7 And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”
8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”
9 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing?
10 Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
11 But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
There was a day when the “sons of God” – in this case, angels – came to present themselves before God. And lo and behold, Satan shows up with them. It was rather audacious for him to show his face in heaven like that, but I guess he still had his angel pass.
The Lord in essence asks him, “So, what have you been up to?” The devil answers, “From going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down on it.” This was a stab at God – reminding Him that he had free reign on earth to come and go as he pleased, and work his corrupting influence on mankind. That access was given to him by God’s man Adam when he sinned. 1 Peter 5:8 also tells how the devil “walks about”, seeking whom he may devour.
God then begins to brag on Job, as a shining example of someone whom Satan has not corrupted, who fears God and turns from evil.
“Does Job fear God for nothing? You’ve built a force field around him and everything he has, and You’ve prospered all the works of his hands so he’s the richest man in all the east. But take that away from him, and he’ll curse You to Your face.”
From this exchange we can see that Satan had “considered Job”, since he knew about the hedge of protection around him.
We also see the roles of God and Satan in Job’s life. God was responsible for blessing Job and increasing his possessions until he was the richest man in the area. He also put up a hedge of protection around him.
Note that we as Christians also have been provided a hedge of protection – the armor of God and the shield of faith as listed in Ephesians 6 (see my posts on the Armor of God). But the protection is not automatic, we have a part to play in that we must “put on” the armor. [1]
The devil on the other hand, wanted to destroy Job, and to steal the blessings God had given him, but he was prevented by that force field. Why did he want to go after Job? Only because Job was God’s favorite. Satan does not have the power to attack God directly, so he has to settle for going after anything that God loves.
“Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not lay a hand on his person.”
What we see from this is that there are limitations placed on the devil, even when he has access to attack. As Lucifer, one of the three original archangels, Satan would have enough power to reduce the planet earth to rubble. But he cannot. He cannot just reach down and kill people. A demon cannot jump down the throat and possess someone any time they want. They have to be given access, or permission.
Who removed Job’s hedge?
And that brings us to one of the central issues in the story of Job. Job had a hedge of protection that God had placed around him and his stuff that kept the devil out. Who punched a hole in Job’s hedge that gave Satan access to steal and destroy?
The way that most people read the book of Job, we have two cosmic forces, God and the devil, with man as the unwitting pawn in the middle. The scene is more reminiscent of the capricious Olympian gods arguing and placing bets on how people will act when placed in situations.
“Have you seen my servant Job? Nobody like him in the whole earth, a righteous man.”
“Well, no wonder, You’ve got a force field around him so I can’t touch him, and You’ve made him a rich and prosperous man. But I betcha if You take all that away, he’ll curse You to Your face.”
“Yeah? You’re on! You can do whatever you want with what he has, just don’t touch his person.”
I have problems with this at many levels. Mainly, that God would give the devil access to destroy someone’s life – someone who sought after God and was pleasing to God – to steal their goods, and kill their family, just to prove a point and in essence “win a bet” with His rival. If a human king were to do that with one of his loyal subjects, we would not consider him a good king.
Secondly, this seems to me to be a violation of James 1:13:
James 1:13 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
Tempt:
- To entice to do wrong by promise of pleasure or gain,
- (Obsolete) to put to the test or try
- To induce to do something, to cause to be strongly inclined.
God cannot be tempted by evil. Satan is “the evil one”. And the things that were done to Job can certainly be classified as “evil” – robbery and murder. The idea that Satan says “I bet if You destroy what he has he’ll curse You”, then God says, “OK, you’re on, you can touch anything he has but keep your hands off him” and then opens a hole in Job’s hedge of protection to give the devil access – that to me smacks of Satan tempting or enticing God to do something and God going for it.
In the New Testament in Matthew 4:1-4, Jesus is led out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (yes, it was God’s purpose for Jesus to be tempted. There were tests He had to pass in order to qualify to be the mediator between God and man. Specifically in this case, that He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sinning, Hebrews 4:15). Satan suggests that Jesus turn a stone into bread. Now Jesus had been fasting for 40 days. His body was crying out, “Feed me! Feed me!” Was it wrong for Jesus to want to eat? No. Yet He would not follow Satan’s suggestion, because He followed a higher principle – God’s word. So we see that Jesus would not allow Himself to be enticed by the devil, why do we think the Father would?
So, back to Job: the devil goes out, motivates the Sabeans to attack and kill the servants, and steal the oxen and donkeys. Then he rains fire down from heaven and consumes the sheep and the servants watching them. Then he motivates the Chaldeans to steal the camels and kill the servants watching them. Then he causes a great wind to strike the house where his sons and daughters were having a party, and bring it down on them and kill them. And this all happened in one day.
Anybody seeing all this happen would conclude that somebody was out to get Job. You could reason that the raiding parties were the acts of men, and that the wind that knocked the house down was a natural disaster, but fire falling from the skies? That was an undeniably supernatural occurrence.
And because no one understood about the existence of Satan, every single human in the book of Job assumed all this was the work of God.
Job 1:20-22 20 Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped.
21 And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
22 In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.
Could you do what Job did, and still worship God after having everything you own and your family destroyed in a single day? He truly was an extraordinary man. And he utters those famous words, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” But those lines had an untruth in them: it was the Lord who gave, but it was the devil who took it away. Job was not charged with sin over uttering that untruth because he was ignorant of it.
God has been taking the blame for things the devil does for millennia. It is still happening today. It is a fallacy to believe that God is responsible for everything that happens in the earth.
The next argument that usually follows is, “Well, maybe He doesn’t cause everything directly, but He allows it.” That is true, He allows things to happen in that He doesn’t prevent them. But that does not mean He commissioned them or wants them to happen. He will allow a person to go to hell, but He doesn’t want them to. He will allow you to rob a convenience store, but that doesn’t mean He had anything to do with you doing it.
Job 2:3-6 3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
4 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
5 But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
6 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”
If you take a surface reading of Job 2:3, it almost looks like God is saying, “The devil made Me do it.” But it brings up another problem: “… although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
God has done some pretty drastic things in the past – like destroying the entire population of the earth except for one family – but there was always a just reason, a cause.
God sent angels, and what most scholars believe was the pre-incarnate Christ, to Abraham to discuss what He was going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 18:20-21 20 And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave,
21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”
It is interesting to note; the Omnipresent God would know exactly what was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah without anybody telling Him. But He is acting as a Judge and following legal procedure, and gathering evidence. Another pattern you see is that when God is going to judge a group for their sin, He always discusses it with someone first – perhaps a prophet, who will preach to the people, or an intercessor, in the case of Abraham. We have scripture that states this:
Amos 3:7 7 Surely the Lord God does nothing, Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.
Ezekiel 22:29-31 29 The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger.
30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.
31 Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord God.
God searches for an intercessor to “stand in the gap” for a land that is under impending judgment. This is part of His legal procedure. He would rather show mercy, but He needs a legal reason to do so. A righteous man interceding in behalf of the wicked is one of those legal reasons. That is why He had to talk to Abraham, who was His covenant partner on the earth, about Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 18:22-25 22 Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord.
23 And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
24 Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it?
25 Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
Abraham in essence issues a challenge to God: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” That was a pretty audacious thing for him to do, to stand before the Lord and advise the Lord what was the right thing to do – but they had that kind of relationship. And the Lord accepted what Abraham said.
God always has a cause for bringing judgment. By human standards some may not agree with His cause, and think His judgments are excessive. But that is because we do not have the same viewpoint as Him. We are so steeped and so used to sin that we do not see it as the horror and abomination that God does. So to condemn a soul to an eternity of suffering, or to order a whole nation including women and children to be destroyed or dispossessed from their lands and properties seems to us as harsh and over the top. But we are not the Judge, and it is not human standards that make up the law.
By God’s own words, the attacks against Job were “without cause”. So I issue the same challenge as Abraham: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” I believe He does; and that is also why I believe that for Him to poke a hole in Job’s protective hedge and sic the devil on him to win a bet is out of His character.
So, I’ve taken a long time to get to this question: if it was not God who let down Job’s protection, who was it? I believe it was Job himself.
I wish to present an alternative to the traditional interpretation of Job that God was responsible for Job’s sufferings. First we have to understand where the protection of God comes from, and what is necessary to maintain it.
God’s protection is available to those who have a relationship with Him – that are in right standing with Him. “right standing” is the meaning of the word “righteous”. Job was a righteous man in his day. You can see that God thought so also in the way He bragged on him. And so Job had a hedge of protection around Him. Sin is something that can knock a hole in our protection, but we know that sin was not Job’s problem, although all of Job’s friends thought it was the issue.
Psalm 91 talks about the protection of God. If you read it, you will see that it comes from relationship with God and trust in God.
In the New Testament, Ephesians 6 talks about putting on the armor of God by which we can stand against all the schemes of the devil, and specifically the shield of faith by which we can extinguish all the flaming missiles he throws at us.
1 Peter 1:5 says we are kept by the power of God through faith. The word kept means to be protected or guarded.
If faith and trust (the Old Testament doesn’t use the word “faith” very often, but it speaks of trust in the Lord over and over again) are necessary for the protection of God, then the lack of faith or trust, or the opposite of it, will compromise our protection.
What is the opposite of faith? Fear. Fear is actually very similar in its operation to faith, but opposite in effect. You might say that fear is faith in the devil and his works. What are the devil’s works? Well of course temptation and sin, but John 10:10 also tells us it is stealing, killing, and destroying.
Remember Peter walking on the water? He was participating in a tremendous demonstration of the miracle working power of God. And what caused that miracle to begin to unravel? Peter started looking at his circumstances and started to fear.
Fear, in all its various forms – worry, anxiety, insecurity, condemnation – can give an entrance to the devil to work in our lives. Just as faith in God and His promises creates a channel that allows God to bring His blessings to us, worry and anxiety and fear can actually draw bad things to us.
Isaiah 54:11-17 11 “O you afflicted one, Tossed with tempest, and not comforted, Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems, And lay your foundations with sapphires.
12 I will make your pinnacles of rubies, Your gates of crystal, And all your walls of precious stones.
13 All your children shall be taught by the Lord, And great shall be the peace of your children.
14 In righteousness you shall be established; You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; And from terror, for it shall not come near you.
15 Indeed they shall surely assemble, but not because of Me. Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake.
16 “Behold, I have created the blacksmith Who blows the coals in the fire, Who brings forth an instrument for his work; And I have created the spoiler to destroy.
17 No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, And their righteousness is from Me,” Says the Lord.
In Isaiah 54:14 the Lord says, “You will be far from oppression, for you will not fear.” Question: what will happen if you are full of fear? Instead of being far from oppression, you will be near to it. Or saying it another way, fear draws oppression.
Isaiah 54:15 NASB 15 “If anyone fiercely assails you it will not be from Me. Whoever assails you will fall because of you.
Attacks may come, but God is not the source of them. In vs. 16 He says that He created the destroyer, but He did not send the destroyer out against us. God created Lucifer, although He did not cause Lucifer to rebel and become Satan. Even so, God takes responsibility for the devil. The whole plan of redemption is God taking responsibility to undo the works of Satan. (1 John 3:8) For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
So back to Job – do we see evidence of Job being fearful?
Job 3:25-26 25 For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me.
26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, for trouble comes.”
According to Job, the thing which he greatly feared and had dreaded, had come upon him. So obviously there was something he was afraid about. And it wasn’t just a worry or anxiety he had; he says he greatly feared it and dreaded it.
There are many things I could think of that I would not want to happen in my life. Becoming sick or disabled, losing everything that I have, family members dying, my marriage splitting up. All these things definitely would be a source of great trial and misery to me – but I don’t greatly fear them. I am not in dread of them happening.
But there was something that Job dreaded. My next question is, can we see any evidence of this fear before the calamity came upon Job? I did find something.
Job 1:4-5 4 And his sons would go and feast in their houses, each on his appointed day, and would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
5 So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer 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 Job did regularly.
What we see here is that Job’s conception of God was that He would judge you for a thought. There is an element of truth to that – Jesus said if you hate your brother in your heart you are guilty of murder, and if you look on a woman with lust in your heart you are guilty of adultery. Lord have mercy, how many of us are murderers and adulterers by that definition? But the point Jesus was making was that evil deeds began with evil thoughts in the heart. He was speaking to the Pharisees who had a reputation for righteousness, yet inside they were “full of dead men’s bones and corruption”. And that evil in their hearts did eventually lead to evil deeds, where they conceived and carried out a plot to murder Jesus.
We see throughout the Bible that God only brought judgment on people for their deeds, their works, not their thoughts. Yet Job believed that if his children cursed God in their hearts, they would be judged. Therefore he made sacrifices for them continually.
There is not much said about Job’s sons and daughters, other than they liked to get together and eat and have a party. Now the fact that Job was concerned about them is a good indication that they were not as zealous for God and walking in righteousness as he was. But there is no indication that there was any wickedness going on at these get-togethers; it says they were feasting, it doesn’t say they were reveling. Job’s grown children enjoyed the same prosperity that Job had. There was no reason for them to curse God.
What is the very number one reason that people get mad at, turn bitter, and curse God? Some calamity or tragedy that occurs in their life, that they blame God for. That’s what happened to Job’s wife. Remember everything that happened to Job – the destruction of his wealth, the murder of his children – would affect her equally. Only Job’s boils affected him directly and not her.
Job 2:7-10 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job’s wife could not handle what had happened to her family. And I can’t say I blame her. She was cursing God in her heart. She was incredulous that Job still trusted Him. Remember neither of them had any concept of the devil, and thought everything that happened was God’s doing.
In Job’s eyes, the thing he greatly feared – that his children would curse God in their hearts, and God would judge them – must have happened.
I’ve had someone say to me, “But Job’s sacrifices were just a father’s concern for his children.” No, it went beyond that. A parent can actually endanger his or her children by being in fear about them. Remember fear draws oppression.
Fear over his children was probably not the only thing Job dealt with, but it is one thing that we can see evidence of in the scripture. Job opened a hole in his own hedge of protection. When God said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power”, He was not punching the hole, he was pointing it out. “Behold” means, “take a look”.
Now I wonder why God did that. Actually, I wonder why God pointed out Job to Satan in the first place, since that was the start of all Job’s problems.
Read the end of the story
If you are going to talk about Job, you have to read the whole story. You can’t leave him sitting in the pile of ashes scraping his boils with a potsherd and wishing he had never been born.
Job 42:10-17 10 And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
11 Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. Each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold.
12 Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys.
13 He also had seven sons and three daughters.
14 And he called the name of the first Jemimah, the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-Happuch.
15 In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.
16 After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations.
17 So Job died, old and full of days.
So the end of the story, is that God restored to Job twice as much as he had before materially, and gave him new sons and daughters, and lived to see his great-great grandchildren. Remember most scholars believe that the time period between when Job was first stuck, and when the Lord “turned his captivity” (KJV) was less than a year.
We have an interesting verse in James:
James 5:11 11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord–that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.
“The end intended by the Lord”. What was God’s intentions for Job? Mercy and compassion, which would cause Him to bless Job.
Jeremiah 29:11 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Are you “just like Job”?
So, if you are “just like Job”, this is what you are saying:
- You have great prosperity, and God considers you righteous, and even brags on you. You are a morally upright person.
- You have an inaccurate picture of God, that He is ready to judge even for bad thoughts. Your image of God is formed by things you have heard.
- You are in fear and dread of some great calamity in your life.
- You are superstitiously praying over and over that the calamity will not come upon you.
- You don’t know the difference between God bringing something on you, and the devil attacking you. You blame God for things the devil has done.
- When calamity does come, you behave admirably and continue to trust and praise God in your adversity – at first. But as time goes on, when your friends are urging you to repent for your wickedness that must be there for these things to come on you – you start to complain and think God must enjoy picking on you.
- You get a revelation of what God is really like, and repent of your accusations against Him, and get back into faith.
- After a short period (less than one year) of calamity, God will turn your captivity and you will be twice as prosperous as before. You will lead a long and blessed life from that time forward.
Conclusion
There are other reasons people give why it might not be God’s will to heal them. Another one people use is Paul’s thorn in the flesh. I won’t take the time to go into it here, if you want to learn about it, see my post Paul’s Thorn. But I will say that Paul’s thorn was not a sickness.
It is a fact that often Christians get sick and don’t get healed. And then they look for reasons to explain what they experience. They believe that what they experience is an indication of God’s will. The alternative places too much responsibility on them – that they have a big part to play in whether they are healed or not.
Could we conclude that if a person does not get healed, it is because of a lack of faith on their part? That may be the case, but it is not the only reason. As I said before, sometimes we might not know the reason. Our knowledge is partial and incomplete.
What I believe is absolutely necessary is that we stop questioning God’s will concerning healing. Can we point to a single example in the Bible where someone came to the Lord trusting Him for healing, and He turned them away, and told them it was not God’s will to heal them? No.
We need to stop making excuses for our lack of experience concerning healing, and instead build our faith for it.
