[AI translation] As you know, in my explanation of the book of Job so far, I have left out the parts that I have just read, that is, the appearance of Satan before the throne of God and the problems associated with that. But now I want to deal specifically with this spiritual background to the story of Job, as I announced last Sunday. In view of the fact that the Word of God reveals to us here mysteries about which the human imagination can run very far and which, perhaps for that very reason, are not really spoken of in the churches, but rather only in the sects: we must try to hold very closely to the Word. I would like to say no more about this problem than what God has revealed in this Word. And what He has revealed, He has not done so to satisfy our human curiosity, but to comfort and warn us! So let us accept the few simple statements I will now try to summarize from this Word.1) First of all, it is clear from this strange description that there is a heavenly background to things on earth - unseen forces at work behind visible events. There is a mysterious connection between the development of human destinies and the movement of spiritual powers. Only in this way can we find some reassuring answer to the nagging question: where is so much evil on earth? If we only see what is happening in front of our eyes: it is often senseless, confusing and desperate! It is the opposite of what one would feel is right and just. Sometimes it seems as if the fate of people and peoples is being unfairly determined. The good fall, the weak are trampled underfoot, and violence triumphs. The whole history of the world is one big chaotic series of events with no definite line or goal! So is the individual human destiny.
Here, for example, is the case of Job: a truly tragic story of how the faithful, pious, rich, happy Job is struck by one calamity after another, and by a series of calamities, until he collapses underneath. Why?! What is the sense of it? What is the need? How is this possible? He himself marvels at it, his friends are surrounded with dumb horror at the incomprehensible mystery! But behold, God reveals in a beautiful poetic image something of the unseen background of an otherwise incomprehensible fate, and our faith is free to peer behind the tapestry where the threads of earthly events are woven. Behold, while these things are happening to Job, events are taking place in the unseen world which provide the key to understanding the visible events, and from which we can see that all earthly events have their ultimate roots and deepest foundations in heaven.
If we could glimpse into the invisible spiritual background of our own lives, or of the history of our times, as we do here in the case of Job, we would be able to understand the why of so many painful things. But God does not usually reveal that in advance. Nor did Job see behind the tapestry of his own fate, he had to walk the bitter road all the way, he had to fight the agonizing battle of faith until the final victory: until the higher meaning of the whole journey was revealed at last! We now know in advance where Job's whole tragedy came from and for what purpose, and so we know that there is a meaning to it all, that it all happened because something, some higher truth, had to be revealed.
Suffice it to say for now, then, that there is a heavenly background to earthly things, that there are invisible forces at work behind visible events.
2) The second thing we see from this Word is that in that heavenly background, among those invisible spiritual forces, there is also a power at work which is the very opposite of God, of good, of righteousness, of love and grace. And that this evil power has a very great part to play in bringing about the miseries of the earth. It is interesting that the world in the modern age is beginning to suspect that there is indeed a mysterious demonic power at work behind all these events. One of the most surprising phenomena of our time is precisely the renewed interest in demonic forces. And this is surprising because in the past, for example in the last century, when people thought they had searched the universe and now knew almost everything, they also thought they knew that there were no demons. He thought that advanced science had defeated demons forever. Evil as a personal power did not fit into his rationally enlightened and optimistic world. The devil had completely disappeared from people's beliefs, even believers, and his existence was no longer an issue. Modern man believed that he could bid farewell to the reality of the devil, along with the witches of old. But the most modern man was now struck by something: the unimaginable dimensions of evil in the world. Evil has once again become a problem for modern man! For it is the general experience of the whole world that evil has in recent decades assumed such a sophisticated, deceptive and unrelenting form that it has exceeded the limits of human capacity! The experiences of the last world war, the inhumanity, the horror, the cruelty, the many atrocities, the anti-Semitism, the concentration camps, the flood of lies: all these are phenomena that are perhaps no longer human but diabolical evil. A dynamic force that has brought our lives and our world, despite much vaunted progress and humanism, almost to the brink of ruin, almost to the hopelessness of total annihilation!
Today there is more and more talk in the world, in art, in society, of the demonisation of the Church... We are slowly coming to the point where we are forced to conclude that the Bible is right when it talks about Satan! Well, yes: God is not afraid of being laughed at or considered unscientific: God, in His Word, explicitly states that Satan is: VAN! And according to the Bible, Satan is a personal power. In the New Testament we find him under many names, such as: Satan, the devil, the evil one, the enemy, the tempter, the prince of the world, the prince of the air; - his subjects, his servants: the demons, the spirits of evil, the world judges of the darkness of life, which are in the high places, that is, in the invisible spiritual world around us. Satan and his hosts represent, in the invisible background, the power that seeks to corrupt the relationship between God and man and to frustrate God's wonderful plan of salvation.
Here too, in the story of Job, in the series of tragedies that befall him, in the suffering, in Job's material loss, in his grief, in his illness, in his physical and spiritual torment, Satan plays a very, very large part. We read straight away, "Satan went out from before the Lord, and one day..." - and then the sad events happened one after the other! So when things get messed up in a person's life, when robbers attack the peaceful - like the Sabeans attacked Job's flock - or when a peaceful, happy family life is upset, or when human wickedness triumphs, or when a house is plunged into mourning by unexpected misfortune, like Job's house: then Satan, the great poisoner, always has something to do with things.
It is characteristic that the New Testament name for Satan, diabolos, is derived from the word diaballein, which in Hungarian means to confuse, to throw, to scatter. So whenever the order, the divine order, is upset, for example between spouses, or between parents and children, or between peoples living side by side, or between members of a congregation: there is always some way in which the hand of Satan, diabolos, is stirring things up... It is good, therefore, to be aware and to reckon with the fact that Satan is there and that he plays a very great part in bringing about the miseries of the earth. Where Satan comes from, why he is, what he is all about: the Bible does not give any details. The Scriptures do not explain the reality of Satan, but warn against him as a specific evil...
3) We also learn from the story of Job, and from this spiritual background, what Satan's purpose is. In beautiful poetic imagery, he tells us of Satan's appearance before God, the essence of which is that he cannot conceive of selfless love for God existing in the world. "Does Job fear God for no reason?" he says mockingly. It's as if he's saying that it's really no big deal to be godly if one gains more by it than one loses. It's all business: Job serves God and God provides for Job's welfare. "But beat that Job just once, and see what he does to you," Satan says to God. So Job's faith in God is under attack from Satan. It is not Job's wealth that Satan envies, it is not that Job is rich, fortunate, happy, but that he is a believer. That with all he has he gives glory to God. Satan is not interested in a man losing his wealth, his children, his health, all these things are just means. The goal is to make a man lose his trust in God! Satan does not want to destroy you financially, he wants to separate you from God. And this is good to know because we usually fear what Satan attacks and what God protects. Because, for example, Satan is not attacking our child's life, when he, say, strikes him with disease or rains death upon him, but our faith! With it, by it, our faith. Satan is not the mortal enemy of Job's fortune, but of Job's godliness, and his main ambition is to shake it. Hence all his attacks. He seeks to prove in this world that there is no sincere, spontaneous, unselfish faith in God in the hearts of men; that the love of God cannot draw human hearts into pure reciprocal love and induce them to free, grateful devotion, so that God has in fact no friends and children, but only servants and lackeys. Ultimately, it is against the glory of God that Satan attacks. So, ultimately, the victory or failure of a Satanic idea turns on Job's suffering. The significance of this is immense: not only is a man's faith tested, but through it he must decide whether Satan is right or wrong! That is why everything happens, material loss, grief, sickness, spiritual torment, so that in the end the glory of God shines forth and the lie of Satan is exposed. Oh, if only we could see our earthly problems, our tragedies, our situations in the context of such higher interests: we could go our way with less anguish and more purpose!
4) All that I have said, all that the Bible says about Satan, is nothing but a great urgent call to decision! To speak otherwise about the problem of Satan is mere philosophizing! And this whole sermon is just a useless philosophizing, if it does not urge us to take our own personal decision seriously, that is, what Paul says: "Do not give your members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin; but give yourselves as weapons of righteousness to God, as those who have been raised from the dead to life, and your members as weapons of righteousness to God." (Rom 6,13) That is, to whom do you give yourself as an instrument, to whom do you take your stand, whose cause, whose righteousness do you plead, to whom do you stand? Who is using you as a weapon against the other: the power of love against the power of hatred, light, purity, God against Satan, or vice versa?
Is it not of dizzying importance who has, for example, nuclear power, this enormous potential, in his hands: an irresponsible madman or a man who is aware of his responsibility? And what is the significance of the fact that in an already demonized world, a human life lives and acts under whose rule, whose instrument it is destined to be, whose effects it transmits to the world, whose glory shines forth in its suffering, what forces and ideas triumph through it...! Yes: therefore "give yourselves to God as those who have been raised from the dead" (Rom 6,13). He suffered the decisive blow at the very moment when he seemed to have won the greatest victory: at Calvary, where divine Good fell victim to satanic evil! But that cross, on which the Prince of Darkness killed the King of Light, was part of God's all-embracing plan of salvation, and it was on that cross that Satan's power was broken, that very cross became the place of grace, the triumph of God's reign of love! By that cross you too can triumph, however terrified Satan may be! For we know that whatever Satan does on the cross, his action always remains within God's plan of salvation, God has counted on it, has taken it up and uses the powers of Satan to triumph in his own purposes, to increase his own glory! No man is a prey to Satan, but he who willingly gives himself to him. Nor could he do to the latter what he wanted, but what God allowed him to do. In the last degree, in the last analysis, evil is in God's hands, dependent on Him, serving Him! He is His instrument. And in the great battle that goes on behind the visible things and events in the invisible world, between the spiritual powers: He, the Lord, remains the victor!
It is in this certain consciousness that the call is urgent: decide already, and then finally, where do you belong? Is it not to the One who has already won and who will finally win?! Well, then: 'Dedicate yourselves to God, as those who have been raised from the dead to life' (Rom 6:13).
Amen
Date: 24 August 1958.
Lesson
Jób 1,6-12
Jób 2,1-6