Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.
One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”
Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
    and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
    may the name of the Lord be praised.”
In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

• Job 1:1-22

Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”
“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”
She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”

• 1 Samuel 1:13-20

“We live in a kind of necessary denial. We proceed with our daily lives as if we have guarantees of security that simply aren’t possible in this life. We congratulate ourselves for our impressive advances in technology, and we pretend we’ve conquered every challenge to life and health. But it’s not so. Nature is gorgeous and inspiring-and also monstrous and inhuman.
“There are too many earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, famines, storms, and tsunamis for us to even keep a running tally. Natural calamities rage on in our world, costing us countless billions of dollars and, more significantly, hundreds of thousands of lives.
…
“Natural disaster raises many questions about the nature of our security, about our fear of the uncontrollable, and especially about the character of God. These questions need answers. But I’d like to open the discussion by sharing about a biblical character who experienced two natural disasters in the space of twenty-four hours. His name, of course, was Job.
…
“When our pain leads us to see Him as uninvolved in calamity, powerless to control it, or defeated by it, we saw off the limb that sup­ ports us, and we plunge into fear. This leaves us without hope, for an all-powerful God is our only solace in tragic times.
…
“God is enough. Do these words of guidance seem to you as they did at first to Hannah-a trite oversimplification? They could be viewed that way until, like Hannah, we think a little more deeply. The fact is, God must be enough, for if He isn’t, where do we go for plan B? If the God of heaven and earth-who is mightier than all the world’s armies, who can cause the earth to melt into the sea-is not Lord of your crisis, you’re in deep trouble. And so am I.
“God is sufficient. He is in control. He holds the destiny of the galaxies in His hands, all the while knowing the precise number of hairs on your head.  Above all else, He loves you and chose to pour that love out, not in words, but in blood.”

• Dr. David Jeremiah, Hope, Living Fearlessly in a Scary World

The two stories that Dr. Jeremiah mentions in the quote are shown above in the Scriptures.  The story of Job has two natural disasters and some manmade disasters.  The story of Hannah is a different type of disaster, barrenness.  Either could be blamed of God.  Natural disasters are often referred to in legal terms as an act of God.

I put the entire first chapter of Job here, and Dr. Jeremiah quotes most of the chapter.  It is important to set the stage.  Was Job rich?  Yes, in every aspect: land, livestock, servants, and family.  Was Job a man of good character?  Yes, when his children got together to have a party, Job would make a sacrifice and have his children purified afterwards so that they could be ceremonially clean.  Did God do this to Job?  No.  Satan had to ask permission and God lifted the hedge of protection around Job.  God gave Satan limits.  Satan abided by the limitations he was given.  Did God wish harm to Job?  No, but He allowed this to happen as a test of Job’s faith.

What were the disasters that affected Job?  Sabeans came to steel the oxen and donkeys and kill the servants that were plowing the fields.  Only the messenger survived.  Fire came down from heaven and destroyed the sheep and the shepherds.  Only the messenger survived.  The Chaldeans raided to steal the camels and kill all the servants.  Only the messenger survived.  His children were partying, and a wind came and crushed the house, dropping the roof on all who were inside.  Only the messenger survived.

Might I say that if I was in Job’s employ, I might want to volunteer for the lowly job of messenger.

The Sabeans and Chaldeans were neighboring tribes who knew how powerful Job was.  They only attacked when Satan gave them the bravado enough to think they could pull it off.

Today, Boko Haram, Islamic State, and Fulani herdsmen attack Christian villages in Nigeria.  Thousands upon thousands are killed each year.  In one report, the military was present to try to fend off the attacks, but when they ran out of ammunition, they had to retreat.  In that particular attack 125 were killed.  The tragedy is that this type of attack does not coincide with the media’s agenda, and these attacks are not reported on the news.  The media’s agenda in Israel is clearly antisemitic.  For the media, October 7^th of 2023 seems to have never happened while the media reports unprovoked attacks on Israel’s Arabian neighbors.  The truth needs to be told, but the invisible puppet masters of the media refuse to report what does not meet their agenda.  Thus, these puppet masters manipulate elections based on unreported, misleading, and/or false information.

But what could fire from heaven be?  Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, in part, by what experts think were geysers that sprayed molten salt instead of a volcano spewing molten rock and ash.  There are pillars of salt all over the region just south of the Dead Sea.  The fire from heaven could be a massive lightning storm, volcanoes erupting, or this phenomenon of molten salt.  Since lightning is extremely hot and burns as the current passes through, it might be described as fire.  What would be left on the ground would be burning corpses of shepherds and sheep.

The wind could be straight line winds from something like a derecho or there could be a hurricane.  Spinning winds would probably be a tornado.

When we have disasters strike, people go through the five stages of grief, but let us see how Job reacted.  He stated that the Lord had blessed him, and the Lord can take those blessings away.  Blessed be the Lord.  In the sight of a major calamity, going from rich to dirt poor, Job praised God.

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  It seems that Job went straight to acceptance.  In Job 2, God allows Satan to make Job sick, but Satan cannot kill him.  In the chapters that followed, Job wants answers from God, and it is clear that by now the depression has set in.  The experts state that you might never have all five and there is no particular order in the steps.  The book of Job would bear this out.  Job is angry.  Job is depressed, but Job does not curse God.  Job wants an explanation.  His friends demanding that Job confess the terrible sin in his life, when there was none, just made matters worse.  When God appears to Job, God chastised the “friends.”

Hannah did not lose her children in a windstorm.  She had none to start with.  Again, she could be angry at God, but she went to the tabernacle to pray.  She prayed so emotionally that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk.  But Hannah tells Eli that she was asking God to help her.  She recognized from where all good gifts come.

Neither Job nor Hannah cursed God.  They knew good gifts come from God.  They passed their tests of faith.

My wife and I suffered my persecution in the workplace.  We suffered my job loss on three occasions.  My wife lost several jobs.  Like Job, we wanted answers.

The only natural disaster that we faced was an ice storm.  We were without power for three weeks.  Our only real loss was the food in the deep freezer.  For the first two days, everything stayed frozen, but then the day temperatures got well above freezing and we lost several hundred dollars of food.  Since we had no clear inventory of the losses, the insurance company gave us three hundred dollars, probably about half of our losses.  But the way we handled those three weeks showed our faith.  We had warm “spit” baths, as my wife would call them.  I would boil water on the barbecue grill (propane).  The water was split between bath water and dish washing water.  We would have one good meal.  And we would play a board game using the light from a lantern.  And we all slept in the living room to conserve heat.  The boys never missed a day of school, other than when the school was closed.  My wife never missed a day of work, and since I was unemployed at the time, I never missed a day of going to the resource room that the company set up when the site closed, except for a few days where I did substitute teaching when the teacher could not handle the power loss.  People were shocked that we wore clean clothing, that we were freshly bathed, and that we had smiles on our faces.  We could see God providing for us each day.  Due to my job loss, we had stopped eating out, but on our wedding anniversary we splurged.  We watched a movie and went out to dinner.  Even God helped us there.  Our waiter went off shift and did not tell his substitute our order.  We waited over an hour and the manager apologized and we dined for free that night.  When we arrived home, every light in the house was on.  Our ordeal had come to an end.

The point is that all of us have trials in our lives, but it is how we face those trials that matters.  God is good, all the time.  And all the time, God is good.  He removes the hedge of protection at times to see how we respond.  And each time we praise God and give Him the glory, even in our loss, we grow our faith and God showers even more blessings upon us.

And a local pastor on a television program points out that Satan knows the legal system.  He cannot go where God does not allow him to go.  He cannot defeat God’s hedge of protection.  Thus, some of our problems that we have in our lives could be due to us inadvertently allowing a door or window to be left open so that Satan can attack.  And it may sound silly to ask God for a hedge of protection.  As Tim Hawkins, the comedian, says, he’d prefer a big stone wall with razor wire on top.  But Satan cannot defeat the hedge because God put it there.

Lord, strengthen me.  My family should consider themselves blessed.  We have not had that cataclysmic event that took everything all at once, but we have had our share of setbacks.  We might have been angry at times, but we know only good gifts come from You.  And the most important thing is that we must come to You in such times.  As Hannah basically said, ‘where else can we go?’  And Lord, expose the open doors where I allow evil to sneak in, and restore the hedge of protection.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.