4th October 2025

4th October 2025


Pray (ACts) 


Read (Job 2v9-13) 


Message (Scott Woodburn)


Job is famous for his three friends who came to offer their sympathy and comfort to their oppressed friend (Job 2v11). There was Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite. The great majority of the book of Job is devoted to hearing what Job's friends have to say and how Job responds to the counsel of his peers. Yet, before his friends utter a word for good or for bad another voice speaks into Job's life.


As we study the book of Job we will encounter seven voices. Job speaks and five other voices offer all kinds of rebuke and challenge before God Himself speaks as the book reaches its conclusion. But before any comforter speaks and before Job answers his friends, the distraught man hears the voice of his wife. We don't know her name and we don't know what becomes of her but she appears in chapter two and she gives voice to Satan himself.


That might seem like a very harsh assessment of Mrs Job but consider her words. She said “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” (Job 2v9). That's pretty horrendous isn't it? In her defence let us remember that just as Job's life had been torn asunder, so too had the life of Mrs Job. She had lost her children, her household had been devastated and her husband was afflicted with sickness. I have no doubt that Mrs Job's heart was broken.


Even so, her counsel to her husband was from Hell itself. She urged him to waken up and smell the coffee. As far as she was concerned the Lord had punished Job and all that was left was for Job to curse God and die. His wife's advice urged her husband to leave his faith behind or in other words to apostatise. Apostasy is the turning away from the faith by someone who once professed Christ. It is a tragic thing when a once vocal Christian curses the Lord with the same lips that once offered Him praise. It was this very action that Job's wife encouraged.


It has been said by more learned men than me that Satan spared Mrs Job for precisely this purpose - she would act on behalf of the Devil and speak the voice of Satan to her suffering husband. Once more, despite his wife's urging, Job's faith held firm. He answered her “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2v10).


In the book of Proverbs wisdom is depicted as a woman crying aloud in the streets challenging the foolish to turn from their nonsense (Proverbs 1v20-23). Tragically, Job's wife speaks as a fool causing her husband to rebuke her nonsense with powerfully challenging wisdom. All of us happily receive God's blessings but we must remember that there are times we will face dark days. Should we not be prepared to receive both? Should we not rest in the providence of God and trust His plans? This is a challenge which is easier to preach on a Sunday than put into practice on a Monday.


Am I prepared to receive dark clouds with faith? I don’t know. I will not pretend in these devotions that I am anything but the chief of sinners. Nevertheless, a simple response to this passage is for us to be careful who we lend our ears to. People are well meaning and often advice comes quickly. Yet we need to be wise that we do not listen to the advice which seeks to take us away from God. It is often advice that seems sweet like honey but it reeks with the stench of Hell. Brothers and sisters, if you currently sit in the ashes then entrust yourself to the goodness of God and the Word of God. Let Him be true and every man a liar (Romans 3v4).


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q91 How do the Sacraments become effectual means of salvation?
The Sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them; but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them.
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