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I am using readings from the 49 Week Bible Challenge as the basis for these devotions. I encourage you to join me in this discipline. Today’s readings are John 11; 2 Chronicles 30; Job 2.
Job 2
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 3 And 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, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
I walked into her classroom and asked the woman sitting at the desk in front of the classroom for Nici. Nici was a fifth grade teacher at the school. This was her classroom. I wondered where she was. She said, “Yes?” I had not recognized my own daughter-in-law! The ravages of cancer had attacked her so relentlessly. My heart broke for her. Within a year she was dead. I hate cancer!
When Job’s friends saw him from a distance they did not recognize him either. Pain, suffering, and disease does that to a person. Cruel. Sad. Devastating.
The devil is always God’s devil. That quote is often attributed to Martin Luther, although not likely a direct quote. It is, nevertheless, true. We see that in the passage from Job. “And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.’” God put a limit on Satan’s influence over Job.
God did not put a limit over the cause of Lazarus’ death nor over the extent of Nici’s cancer. But God did something better. In the case of Job we see his friends sitting in solidarity with him – silent for 7 days. Though they would ultimately fail him, they did bring that brief time of comfort. Job will point toward Jesus who is the “Resurrection and the Life” (cf. John 11:25). Job will confess, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25).
That is our only true hope in the face of death and the devil. Not only are the limits set on both, Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, the Resurrection and the Life.
Even when suffering leaves us unrecognizable, we are not forsaken. Our Redeemer lives—and in him, death and the devil meet their match.
David Bahn - Reflections 
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