Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: M. Scott Peck began his best-selling book with just three words: "Life is difficult." But Chuck Swindoll says the Old Testament book of Job takes it even further. Life is unfair. There's a difference, isn't there? Most of us have learned to handle difficult, but unfair? That's far more intense.

Today on Insight for Living, we're featuring message number one in a 22-part biographical series. You're about to meet a man who had everything and was about to lose it all through no fault of his own. His name was Job. Chuck begins with prayer.

Chuck Swindoll: As the story unfolds from this ancient document, we are immediately impressed with a man who indeed was just a man, but what a man. He loved You, He feared You, Father, and he disciplined his life in such a way that he had nothing to do with evil and the compromises of his day.

Thank You for the model of this man and thank You for the lessons to be learned from just the opening words in this resume of righteousness. But our hearts skip a beat when we turn the page in his life and see the other side. And we become privy to something that not even Job knew was taking place. And our interest is piqued. We're intrigued, our Father. We would have expected nothing but further blessing from Your hand, and You, in Your profound plan, made other arrangements that changed everything.

To us, it seems unfair, and there are some in this place under this roof today who would say with a sigh, "My situation is unfair. I do not deserve what I'm going through." And therefore, Lord, You speak in a timeless way just as You speak truth to us, and we find ourselves on the edge of our seats anticipating what You will say to us from these ancient words even in this 21st century.

Thank You, Father, for Your faithful, sovereign hand over us, that while You test us, You do not disgrace us. And while You strengthen and mature us, You are never cruel or dishonest. You have our good at heart, though Your journey to get us there is sometimes shockingly surprising.

I pray that You will give us not only ears to hear but hearts to receive these verses from the book today and the application from between the lines as to what this message means to us. Direct our thoughts, give us the ability to concentrate, remove from us the cares of this age and the worries of our times and the decisions at the office and the needs of the home and all the stuff of life so that You have our full attention.

Come, Thou fount of every blessing, tune our hearts to sing to hear Your praise. Lord, we quiet ourselves before You now. We trust You to speak words of wisdom and assurance to those who lead us in this city, in this state, and in our government.

We ask, our Father, that we might be good citizens just as we are good Christians. Find us, our Father, actively engaged in things that matter. Deliver us from the enemy of passivity and the compromise of sloth and laziness.

And now, our Father, it is our privilege to look to You now in worship as we reach into our wallets and as we write our checks, as we give our money. As those in the first century did, may we first give ourselves and then give of our treasure. We want You to know how much we love You, our Father, and these gifts represent that. We give from a pure motive, not to receive anything in return, but simply to lift our hearts and open our purses to You and say, "You own it all, and we give joyfully and we give generously because of that." In the name of the Lord Jesus, we quiet ourselves before You and we give. And all God's people said, amen.

Bill Meyer: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into today's topic, be sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message "Setting the Stage for Disaster."

Chuck Swindoll: Life was not only difficult; life became for Job absolutely, categorically unfair. You may not know the story of Job, and so I might be shooting in the dark. Allow me a few moments for a quick and dirty analysis.

He's a man of unparalleled piety. He's a man of well-deserved prosperity. He is a good and rich man, a fine husband, and a faithful father. In a quick and brutal sweep of calamities, he is reduced to a twisted mass of brokenness and grief. The extraordinary accumulation of back-to-back disasters are enough to finish off any one of us. Job is left penniless, homeless, helpless, and childless.

Standing beside ten fresh graves on a windswept hill, his wife heaving in sobs beside him, having heard him say, "Whether He gives or takes, we will follow Him," she secretly whispers, "Just curse God and die." Misery and mystery are added to the insult and injury of his experience.

As he sits there covered with skin ulcers that are now erupting with pus, swelling his body with fever and maddeningly giving him an itch that will not go away, there are three friends that arrive. They sit and stare for seven days and seven nights without a word. Just imagine. First, they don't recognize him, which tells you something of the swelling and the sores all over him. And then they are at a loss for words.

Unfortunately, they lost that loss for words, and when they spoke, they had nothing but blame. "You're getting what you deserve," though they couched it in much more philosophical terms. That was bad enough, but the misery turns to mystery with God's silence. If the words of the friends were hard to hear, the silence of God was intolerable. Not until the 38th chapter of the book does God speak.

The book opens with a wonderful resume of a good man. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless. It doesn't mean perfect; it means he did not compromise with moral evil. He was a man whose business was handled with integrity. He was a man who was respected by those around him, whether in or outside the family. He was upright, fearing God, turning away from evil.

And then the next most important part of him following his character would be his family. He's blessed with seven sons and three daughters that had been born to him. By the time the story is told us in the text, they're all grown. This is a grandfather's life at its best, if you will. By now, he has amassed a remarkable number of possessions. Possessions had to do with these: 7,000 sheep. The wool from the animals could be woven into fabric, which would be made into warm clothing for the cold winter days.

The food would also be provided from them, and that would add to the diet. There were 3,000 camels. There were 500 yoke of oxen. Don't miss this: that means there were a thousand of them, two yoke together to plow the fields, to cause the crops to be plowed and to be prepared and the soil to be prepared for the growing of the food. And then there were 500 female donkeys. Over and above that is a wonderful family, all grown kids. This guy is rich and he's got it made, and no one is criticizing because there's nothing to criticize. Wealthy, good, godly, but not out of touch.

You will notice he did have his concerns. His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. It came about when the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all, offering up ten burnt offerings in the name of each one of them, concerned that perhaps maybe even in their hearts, there had been a little bit of profanity or perhaps an off-color story that was told in the feasting. Job was so concerned not only for his walk, but for the walk of his children.

Verses 1 to 5 are full of good news, wonderful blessing, business integrity, purity of heart, faithfulness of life, domestically blameless, professionally respected. William Clayton's hymn comes to mind from the 19th century: "God's hand of love shall be your guide and all your need He will provide. His power shall ever foe dispel. All is well. All is well." And so it was that night Job went to sleep.

As Job sleeps, another scene opens to us that Job knows nothing about. It happens in our lives as well. When we're not aware of it, God is carrying out a plan that would amaze us and on occasion would shock us. He is permitting things to get underway that we would have never expected. Either that, or He is not fully sovereign. This is a very important part of understanding Job. If it teaches nothing else, it teaches the absolute sovereignty of God, which is full of mystery.

Without Job's knowing it, something is happening in the heavenlies, and we are transported from earth to the third heaven. Look at the difference in the opening lines of verse 1 and verse 6. Look in your Bible. "There was a man." "There was a day." Look at that. There was a man who lived on this earth. There was a day in the throne room of God. We are moved from the familiar planet of our world to the unfamiliar scene of the third heaven.

The only ones comfortable there would be the Seraphim, who fill the presence of the living God with the flutter of their wings. With six wings, two they cover their face, and with two they fly, and with two they cover their feet. They are the attendants of the Almighty. They are called in verse 6 the "sons of God." William Chalmers Smith wrote: "Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes. Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise. Great Father of Glory, pure Father of Light, Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight. All praise we would render; Oh help us to see, 'Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee."

It is in the laser-like light of the third heaven we come in verse 6. And God is sitting in this throne room, if you will, to use our terms. And he looks about and he sees the sons of God that have come to present themselves before the Lord. That makes sense; they're accountable to Him. They do His bidding, they carry out His will, they accomplish His purposes. But there is an intruder. There is one who is not among the elect angels. He is identified in the Hebrew text: "The Satan," *ha-Satan*. Every time the name Satan appears in the first two chapters, it is *ha-Satan*. *Ha* meaning the, *Satan*, Satan.

Sounds strange until you think. Sometime we'll use the name Judas in that way. If we form a company of close friends and we put a plan together that is secret and we hope to carry it out in the business world, and one of the individuals in the group turns against us and lets that plan be known to our opponents in business, we sometimes refer to that man as "the Judas of the group." In this case, it isn't the Judas; it is "the Satan."

What does it mean? *Satan* is the Hebrew verb and most often Hebrew words originate with the verb form. *Satan* means to be an adversary, to resist. Sometime in noun form, it is rendered simply "the adversary" or "the accuser." Revelation 12, verse 10 tells us that he is the accuser of the brethren. I'm sure it would include the sistren as well. He accuses God's people day and night.

And here the accuser appears among the other angels. Pause and remember, Satan is not a little imp with a red body and a pitchfork sitting on one of your shoulders whispering ugly little nothings in your ear. That's a medieval caricature that Satan would love you to believe. He is the most attractive, brilliant, powerful archangel that God ever created. He has not lost his brilliance; he has not lost his power; he has not lost his beauty. He is also insidious, and his favorite method of working is behind the scenes. Because he is invisible does not mean he is therefore not real.

He is real. As we will see a little later, he has personality. And he is engaged in a wholesale commitment to destroying God's people and ruining, where possible, God's plan. So he's standing in the heavenlies among the group. Beginning at verse 7 down through verse 12, we have a dialogue that is a most interesting dialogue you won't find anywhere else in the Bible. Only here. Here and in chapter 2.

The Lord said, verse 7. "The Satan answered," verse 7. I should have said the Satan, the accuser. The Lord said, verse 8. "The Satan answered," verse 9. And verse 12, the Lord said and the Satan departed. So it's a dialogue back and forth. The Lord God sees the intruder and speaks to him. "From where did you come? From where do you come?"

Please don't misread that. I'm always a little humored by people's reading things in the wrong way. For example, when the Lord came to the Garden of Eden and he said, "Adam, where are you?" I mean, it wasn't like, "I can't find you. Help me out. Where are you, Adam? Adam!" It's not that. God is omniscient; He knows everything. His question could be, "Why are you where you are? What are you doing there? What are you doing hiding from me?" We don't have that kind of relationship.

He says to Satan, "Tell me where you've been about, what's been going on." Satan's answer is brief and somewhat impudent: "Roaming about on the earth and walking around on it." The Satan has access to this planet as well as the heavenlies. He moves about and his demonic forces as well. If you could see the demonic forces, you would be heartsick, frightened. You may never laugh again until you also were able to see the angelic presence and what goes on between the two of those forces.

But he now, Satan remember, can only be one place at one time; he is not omnipresent. So now that he's brought himself back into this throne room, the Lord says to him, "Where have you been?" "I've been roaming about on this earth." He has random access to wherever. And matter and the elements of this earth that hold us in check do not affect him. He's a supernatural being. He could move from Asia to America, he could move from Mexico to the North Pole in a split second of time. Those kind of things are not the things that restrain spiritual beings. The same will be true of us in our spiritual bodies.

He says, "I've been roaming about on the earth." I love the statement the Lord asks: "Have you considered my servant Job?" I failed to read a most important part of his resume, chapter 1, verse 3, last sentence: "That man was the greatest of all the men of the east." No exaggeration. But you know the wonderful thing about Job is that he was a servant. There was no celebrity about Job; there was no pride in Job's heart. Job is a servant of God.

"Did you observe my servant?" By the way, if our Lord were pointing out to the enemy you, would He use the word "servant" to describe you? I hope so. "Have you observed my servant Job down there? In fact," He adds, "there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil." With the word "evil," the original axis of evil responds interestingly: "Does Job fear God for nothing? I mean, look. Talk about kid-glove treatment, penthouse perks. Look at what he has. Watch closely. Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has?"

Look at the categories. You have protected him in his body, You have protected him in his family, and You have protected his possessions, all that he owns. On every side. I mean, the divine wall around this man's life is enviable. You have not only protected him, You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. The accuser points out divine favoritism. The audacity of that. "You have built a hedge around him; You have blessed him like no other. Who wouldn't worship You?"

I promised you a quick understanding or survey of his personality. We know that he has an intellect because he converses with the Lord. We know that Satan has emotions because he is antagonistic toward Job. We know that he has volition because he purposes to destroy Job and to disgrace God. His great hope is to level Job. "You bring him down to the dirt like the rest of those humans have to live, and You'll see what he's made of." Look at how he puts it: "Put forth Your hand," verse 11, "and touch all"—I have marked that word in my Bible—"touch all that he has, and he will curse You to Your face."

Bill Meyer: Satan was convinced that Job's faith was nothing more than the product of God's generosity and protection. Strip them away, and he'd crumble. It's a chilling thought because the enemy makes the same calculated wager about you and me every single day. But as we'll discover in this study, Job had something the enemy completely underestimated.

You're listening to Insight for Living. Our Bible teacher Chuck Swindoll has just started his biographical series on the life of Job. He titled today's message "Setting the Stage for Disaster." If you're ready to learn more or if you're looking for a creative way to guide your small group Bible study and discussions, well, we invite you to request the Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook for this series. It's called "Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance." You can order it today at insight.org/offer.

And then if you've ever felt a quiet ache for something more than this world can offer, that's not restlessness, that's homesickness. And according to Chuck Swindoll, God put it there on purpose. We who have trusted Jesus are, in the Apostle Peter's words, aliens and strangers on this earth, foreigners longing for our homeland. The problem is, most of us give surprisingly little thought to where we're actually headed. Our popular "Understanding Heaven Passport" changes that. In this rich, readable guide, you'll discover where heaven is, who will be there, what you'll actually do for eternity, and why thinking seriously about your heavenly home gives you hope and perseverance for the journey ahead. We invite you to download a PDF copy of our "Understanding Heaven Passport." You can get it online by visiting insight.org/heaven.

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I'm Bill Meyer. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll presents timeless lessons from the life of Job tomorrow on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "Setting the Stage for Disaster," was copyrighted in 2002, 2004, and 2026, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.