- Satan gets to work.
- Notice that God didn’t give him specific directions. God doesn’t devise evil. It’s described of the wicked that they devise evil schemes, evil plotting while on their beds. That’s not God. He’s not wicked.
- Satan is the one who steals, kills, and destroys. Jesus gives abundant life. Don’t ever mix the two up.
- Jesus at times comes with a sword. But He carries a sword for the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness (ref. Psalm 45:3-4).
- That’s actually a comfort to the believer. Whatever Satan does in his injustice against us, stealing, killing, and destroying, God can come in His justice and set right, and not just restore things, but redeem things, bring us out better on the other side than we were before. We’ll see that in Job’s story.
- God has no problem setting Satan loose because God knows what he’ll do. Satan steals, kills, and destroys. He is not at all creative. He does the same tricks over and over. God’s never surprised by him, not to mention God sees the future. He knows.
- What happens to Job? His camels and oxen and donkeys are stolen. His children and many servants are killed. His sheep are destroyed. Predictable.
- Satan uses people, the raiders, but he also uses natural and unnatural events.
- A strong wind blows. This is why Jesus can rebuke the wind.
- The one servant says fire of God fell from heaven. Satan loves to blame God for his evil deeds. There are plenty of people who buy it and think God is evil. Natural disasters are called acts of God. Here we see Satan behind the strong wind, strong enough to knock down a house.
- Remember, Satan is not creative. The best he can do to try and come up with stuff is to imitate God.
- Satan imitates God’s fire from heaven. Satan can and does perform supernatural signs. We must never assume something is of God because it’s supernatural. We look at the fruit. The fruit of this was death and destruction – Satan.
- But what Satan intends for evil, God intends for good. God’s intentions toward us are kind (ref. Ephesian 1:5).
