How Satan Attacks
"Does Job fear God for nothing?" —
Satan
Never overestimate the power of Satan. In the deepest and darkest moments of our suffering, we are convinced that his power is unlimited and his control is complete. Job's story teaches us the opposite. Although Job feels betrayed by friends, forsaken by God, and assaulted by death, Satan's dominance is still frustrated by a shred of faith which Job will not let go. After reading the Book of Job, we know that Jesus does not exaggerate the truth to create an effect when He declares that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. Furthermore, we know that Martin Luther writes inspired truth in the hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"
. . . one little Word shall fell him.
At the same time, we must never underestimate the power of Satan. He is a master strategist who employs every tactic to maximize the power under his control. Against Job, he utilizes every weapon in his arsenal. To know Satan's strategic and tactical weapons is to be better prepared to defend against them when our time of suffering comes.
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The Strategy of Doubt
Critics of the Book of Job cannot explain how or why the drama of Job opens with Satan appearing among the sons of God in the council of heaven (Job 1:6). One answer is in the nature of God and His created beings. Even His angels are given the freedom of choice. According to scripture, the angel Lucifer plotted a coup against the authority of God which failed (Luke 10:18). Cast out of heaven with the one third of the angels who joined him, Lucifer and his rebellious corps became the restless spirits who roam the earth personifying evil and recruiting others into their ranks.
When God spots Satan among His sons in the council of heaven, He calls him out to ask where he has been and what he has been doing (Job 1:7). Perhaps God hopes that a lost son has come home. Instead, Satan reveals the tragedy of sin and alienation from God. He answers that he has been wandering to and fro over the earth. For those who wink at sin, this is a sober reminder of what it means to be lost — rootless, restless, aimless, and alone. Of course, this makes Satan doubly dangerous because he has nothing to do but exploit evil. As a paranoid person sees a threat in every cue of the environment, Satan sees the existence of evil in every form of physical nature and the potential for evil in every gift of human nature.
Peter's vivid picture of Satan as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour is fair warning to us (1 Peter 5:8). An unguarded moment, a wayward eye, a moral flaw, a lingering doubt — at the slightest provocation, Satan strikes. While his tactics are as varied as the number of persons on the earth, his strategy is singular. Having learned his lesson when his rebellion in heaven failed, Satan always attacks the unguarded flank with a tempting question. As unbelievable as it may seem, he employs this strategy even in his confrontation with God at the meeting of heaven's council. In response to Satan's report on his wanderings, God asks him, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?" (Job 1:8).
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Ever the cynic, Satan acknowledges that Job is a challenge to him, but he accuses God of giving His servant special protection and prosperity to assure his loyalty and obedience.
In Satan's snarling question, "Does Job serve You for nothing?" we see a re-run of the demonic strategy under which Adam fell and over which Jesus triumphed. Through Eve, Satan questioned God's integrity, authority, and power. When he inserted the doubt, "Did God really mean it when He said that you would die if you ate from the Tree of Life?" Adam took the bait and fell into sin.
With Jesus, Satan worked a variation on the same theme of challenging God's integrity, authority and wisdom.
. . . if You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread;
. . . if You are the Son of God, throw yourself down;
. . . if You will fall down and worship me (I will give You the kingdoms of the world)(Matt. 4:3, 6, 9).
"If" is the key word. A contingency is set up to introduce an element of doubt. Satan is a master at shifting the burden of proof to his victims. Jesus, however, refuses to take the bait. By citing the Word of God as the Truth, He puts the tempter back on the defensive without a comeback.
With us, Satan has not changed his strategy. He wanders over the earth in search of an opening into which he can insert a question that raises doubt about the integrity, authority, and wisdom of God. With Adam and Jesus, he used "If"; with us he uses, "Why?" Suffering is therefore a natural opening for Satan. When we ask "Why me? Why this? and Why now?" he utilizes every weapon in his arsenal to destroy our faith. If Satan has his way, we will curse God and die.
The Limits of His Power
God's give-and-take with Satan is like a two-sided coin. On one side is the image of Satan roaming the earth, exploiting doubt, preying on unwary souls, and even tempting God. On the other side is the image of God who is so secure He can
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give His creation freedom of choice and so caring He draws limits on the power of evil over our lives. When God permits Satan to test Job's faith, He sets the terms, "Do not lay a hand on his person." Job's fortune, fame, and family are put on the line. As always, God's response can be read from the view of skepticism or faith. Skepticism makes God a chess master who manipulates Job in a game of pride. Faith sees the scene through other eyes. God so trusts His servant Job that He knows his faith will hold and grow under the test of suffering. He also knows Job's limits and will not permit Satan to tempt him beyond what he can bear.
We stand in the presence of monumental truth. God's presence limits the power of Satan in our lives and in the world. For his family, fame, and fortune, Job acknowledges the protection and blessing of God with gratitude. Through his suffering, he learns that God lets Satan go just so far and no farther.
Since studying the Book of Job, I see life differently. For all God's gifts of grace in my life, I am more grateful because I know they are evidences of His goodness, not my righteousness. For all the bad news which might lead us to think that God has given up on His world, I know better. Evil may appear to be having its day, but God sets the time and draws the boundaries. For all who suffer, I know that God, not Satan, sets limits for the power of evil. Death is the worst Satan can do and for those with faith, "To live is Christ; to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21). Whether in riches or poverty, sickness or health, calm or stress, comfort or persecution, it is absolutely essential to remember that we live under the protection of God and are never abandoned by the presence of God.
The Tactics of Evil
Although Satan's strategy is one-dimensional and his power is limited, he employs so many varied and vicious tactics that he makes Machiavelli look like an amateur. None of his weapons are of his own creation. He uses the effects of sin
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in the physical order and in the human heart for his assaults. Job's early calamities are an example. Satan strikes through natural disaster and human depravity. Sabaens wipe out his farms by rustling his oxen and asses; lightning causes a brush fire with chars his sheep ranches; Chaldeans cut off his caravan trade by stealing his camels; and a wild wind, most likely a tornado, crushes all his children.
Accidents of nature are a conundrum to us. Insurance companies define natural disasters as "acts of God." Their theology is both right and wrong. Lightning bolts and tornadoes are within the natural order of God's creation and can be explained by physical laws. Yet the weather remains essentially out of human control. While we tend to think of economics as a science, experts confess the limits of their control and the inexactitude of their craft. Each time I hear weathercasters predict a 90 percent chance of rain I chuckle at their cleverness and our gullibility. With such a prediction, they cannot be wrong. If it rains, the 90 percent margin assures the predictor's credibility. If it doesn't rain, the weathercaster can still say, "It's within the 10 percent!" The truth is that we can neither predict nor control the weather with 100 percent accuracy. Nature is full of surprises, some of which cause horrendous human suffering.
At a little league baseball game one sultry evening, only distant thunder signaled a brewing storm. Crackle and crash! Without any other warning, a wildcat bolt of lightning struck an eleven-year-old centerfielder and shocked the crowd into ghastly silence. What are the chances that one bolt of lightning from a distant storm will strike an open baseball field and sear an innocent boy standing in the outfield? The odds are almost infinite and can be explained only as a random act of nature, never as a deliberate act of God.
Whether Satan has some control over the acts of nature which he exercises to bring calamity to Job is an open question. One thing is certain. He exploits the accidents of nature to his own evil advantage. In Job's case, Satan either used or exploited the accidents of nature to destroy the fortune and family of a righteous man. If the Sabaens or Chaldeans had slaughtered his children, Job would have had a target for his
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rage. But Satan is too clever to give him that escape. By using a wild wind to crush his children, Satan enacts a slaughter without focus or blame. In such instances, the question "Why?" is aggravated — and God Himself becomes the target for protest against the evidence of His apparent injustice.
Satan has a more potent weapon in the evil intentions of the human heart. Whether calamity comes from the roving bands of Sabaen vandals or the calculated ambush of the Chaldeans, the motive is the same. In contrast with the accidents of nature which cause us to ask, "Why?" the suffering brought upon us by human evil causes us to add the question, "Who?" If we drive that question back to its source, we encounter the depravity of humanity and the evil intentions of men and women which Satan uses to work nefarious deeds, senseless atrocities, and unfathomable holocausts. At Dachau, whose name is synonymous with the Nazis' slaughter of the Jews in World War II, a black sign on a stone monument has been sculpted out of barbed wire letters which spell out the words, "Never Again." Our humanity makes that pledge after every holocaust, but the hard fact is that such events will not stop as long as our hearts are unredeemed and Satan exploits the evil in human nature.
Our church magazine carried the story of a father who picked up his five-year-old son for a weekend as part of a custody agreement in a divorce settlement. Promising the boy a trip to Disneyland, he took him to a motel and, while the child slept, poured kerosene over the bed, lit the fire, and drove away. Miraculously, the boy was rescued but not before he was burned over 90 percent of his body. Months of excruciating pain which the nurses described as "hell" left him totally disfigured and handicapped for life. Through the ordeal his mother has developed a calm and confident faith that includes forgiveness for the father. He, however, will soon be released from a short prison term with no apparent trace of remorse.
Whether the holocaust involves six million Jews or one five-year-old boy, we are constantly reminded that the unredeemed human heart is capable of evil beyond our imagination. Satan's power may be limited in the world, but we help him out. More often than not, his best weapon is to let us pursue our evil desires. He wins and others suffer.
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The Point of Vulnerability
Contrary to Satan's claim, Job did not curse God and die when calamity wiped out his fortune and family. Rather, we see evidence that Job's relationship with God went far beyond the assurance of His protection and blessing. With gratitude, he received God's gifts but never took them for granted. Therefore, when they were taken away from him, Job gave us immortal words of faith which we now often repeat in the face of death. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (1:21).
So Satan failed in his first attack. But persistence is another of his weapons. Reappearing among the Sons of God in the council of heaven, Satan is chided by God: "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause" (Job 2:3).
In response, Satan spits through his teeth the oath, "Skin for skin," and declares that he failed only because God still protected Job from personal attack. With full trust in His servant, God lifts His hand of protection from the person of Job but forces Satan to stop short of death itself.
Satan has revealed his ultimate weapon. In attacking us, he probes and probes until he finds our point of vulnerability. His assumption is that each of us has a price for which we will deny our faith, curse God, and die. In Job's case, Satan made the error of thinking that the man's circle of faith did not go beyond his fortune and his family. For many of us, Satan's assumption might have have been true. If we faced the sudden loss of all the blessings of God which we take for granted, would we remain faithful? Few of us have ever been put to that test. Perhaps God knows our limits and protects us from the attacks of Satan. If so, the absence of this test may be an indictment upon the smallness of our trust and the shallowness of our relationship with God. Faith grows large and deep only when it is tested.
Job's priorities are revealed by Satan's earlier probes. In succession calamity wipes out his farms, ranches, caravans, and children. In the economy of the East, we can presume
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that Job's greatness escalated as he expanded his empire from local farms and vast ranches to the international trade routes plied by camel caravans. Although the Book of Job does not specify the time interval between calamities, Job had sufficient time to react to the tragic news brought by each of the messengers who survived disaster. If he had cursed God at any point, Satan would have discontinued his attacks. Instead, Satan struck and struck again until he came as close to Job as he could without afflicting his person. The order of Satan's attacks tells us much about Job's priorities. Professionally, he loved his reputation as an international trader whose camel caravans plied the trade routes of the East. But business took second place to his love for his family, especially his children.
When I first read Job's story, I reacted against the apparent ease with which he responded to the loss of his children as well as his possessions by saying, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed by the name of the Lord." Still later, however, we learn the depth of hurt which Job suffered when he lost his children. His three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, each took a turn at trying to connect some unknown sin in Job's life with the death of his children. But later one, as Job recalled the time when God blessed him, he did not count oxen, asses, sheep, or camels (Job 29). Rather, he remembered the moments together with his children and he anticipated old age as a father and grandfather who would see many generations of his family. To lump the death of his children in with the loss of his material possessions is to misread Job. When the tempter crushed Job's beloved sons and daughters in the tornado, Satan struck as close to the heart of Job as he could without attacking the man himself.
Satan has not changed his tactics. He still persists in probing and probing until he finds our point of vulnerability. He still assumes that our motives are basically selfish, whether for our possessions, our children, or ourselves. Therefore, even though he fails to break Job's faith by his early onslaughts, he blames God for protecting his point of vulnerability, namely his body and his ego. By afflicting him with a physically painful, psychologically depressing, and
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socially detestable disease, Satan concludes that he will find the fatal flaw in the blameless and upright character of Job.
Another attestation to the righteousness of Job is the fact that Satan can attack him only from the outside. No evil desire or hidden lust gives Satan a beachhead within Job from which to launch his attack. He must resort to the effect of sin in the natural order. In this case, Satan uses either Job's hereditary weakness or environmental influence to cause the most grotesque of physical diseases.
Within ourselves each of us has a susceptibility to a variety of physical diseases. As long as we are healthy, the diseases are kept dormant by the defense systems of the body. If, however, our defense systems are broken down, we become vulnerable to diseases peculiar to us due to hereditary or environmental influences. Diabetes, for instance, is heavily affected by hereditary factors. Skin cancer, however, is on the rise due to sunbathing in polluted air penetrated by ultraviolet rays. Hereditary factors, such as skin pigment, are still not ruled out. A fair-skinned person who disregards the doctor's cautions about exposure to the sun is inviting the kind of cancer for which he or she has a weakness.
Satan also knows our psychological point of vulnerability. Each of us has a different tolerance level for tension. Persons with a high threshold can cope with multiple stress factors. Those with a low threshold of stress, however, may buckle under the weight of a single factor. Holmes' scale of stress, for instance, identifies 100 stress experiences in descending order.1 At the top are such factors as divorce, death of a spouse, change of position, and moving to a new location. The most stressful situation is to combine several of these high stress factors into a cluster of stresses within a short time frame. Everyone will show some signs of trauma during such times, but depending upon the threshold of stress, one person might break under the strain while another might gain strength. It all depends upon our vulnerability to stress.
One of the arguments criminologists use against capital punishment for murder is the difference between an "habitual killer" and an "episodic murderer." An "habitual killer" is a hardened criminal who murders by vicious design. An "episodic murderer" is a person who is caught in a collapsing
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web of circumstances that causes an unusual and temporary reaction of violence. Presumably, a person could be caught in such a web of circumstances which provoke murder only once in a lifetime and therefore should be rehabilitated rather than executed. A related assumption is that every person has the potential for violence given the right set of circumstances. In other words, in the social as well as the psychological and physical setting, each of us has his or her point of vulnerability. The contest is ever on. As long as we live, Satan will persistently probe for our weaknesses with the demonic hope of finding our "fatal flaw."
While Satan's goal is to make us suffer, the story of Job teaches us that the devil's power is limited by the protection of God and frustrated by His presence. Satan's strategy is singular. He tries to get us to turn the question "Why?" into doubt about God's integrity, authority, and wisdom. His tactics, however, are multiple. Using the effects of sin in the physical order and human nature, Satan is a terrorist who customizes his attacks to fit the circumstances and takes his victims by surprise. Especially through accidents of the physical order and the leanings of the human heart, he probes until he finds our point of vulnerability. Here is where we truly suffer; here is where our faith is fully tested. Under Satan's attack through suffering, we will either curse God and die or trust God and grow.
