The enthusiasm of his malignity. No sooner does he receive permission than he begins in terrible earnestness. He does not seem to have lost a moment. Like a hungry vulture in a carrioned atmosphere, he pounces down upon his victim. Now he strikes at the cattle that were ploughing the field, and the she asses that were beside them. Then he slays the servants, then with a shaft of fire from heaven he burns up the “sheep and servants,” and then he breathes a hurricane through the wilderness, and levels to the dust the house which his children are revelling in the festive pleasures of family love, and destroys them all. Then he goes to the utmost point of the liberty which his great Master granted him. He could do no more with Job’s circumstances. He deprived him as in a moment of all his property and his children. He had no authority to go beyond this point at present. He had to wait for another Divine communication before he could touch the body of Job. He did his utmost, and did it with an infernal delight.
II. The variety of his agents.
1. Wicked men. He breathed his malign spirit into the men of Sheba, and they rushed to the work of violence and destruction. He inflamed the Chaldeans with the same murderous passions, and then “three bands fell upon the camels,” carried them away, and slew the servants, etc. Alas! this arch-fiend has access to human souls. “He worketh in the children of disobedience.” He leadeth them captive at his will.
2. Maternal nature. The great God gave him power over the elements of nature. He kindled the lightning, and made it consume the sheep and the servants. He raised the atmosphere into a tempest, levelled its fury against the house, and brought it down to the destruction of all within. With heaven’s permission this mighty spirit of evil can cause earthquakes to engulph cities, breathe pestilences to depopulate countries, create storms that will spread devastation over sea and land. “He is the prince of the power of the air.”
III. The celerity of his movements. How rapidly his fell strokes followed each other. Before the first messenger of evil had told the patriarch his terrible tale, another appeared. Whilst the first was “yet speaking,” another came; and whilst the second was yet speaking, came the third. The carriers of misery trod on the heels of each other. Why this hurry? Was it because this work of violence was agreeable to the passions of this foul fiend? Or was it because the rapidity would be likely so to shock Job’s moral nature as to produce a religious revulsion, and cause him to do what he desired him to do--curse the Almighty to His face? Perhaps both. Perhaps the celerity was both his pleasure and his policy. Trials seldom come alone.
IV. The folly of his calculations. What was the result of all this on Job? The very reverse of what Sarah had calculated. He “worshipped.” He did not curse. In his worship we discover three things:--
1. His profound sensibility.
2. His exalted philosophy.
3. His religious magnanimity.
How disappointed this arch-fiend must have been with the result. The result was the very opposite to what he had expected--to what he had wrought for. Thus it has ever been, and thus it will ever be. God may permit Satan to blast our worldly prospects, to wreck our fortunes, and destroy our friendships. But if we trust in Him He will not allow him to touch our souls to their injury. He only uses the fiend to try His servants. An old Welsh minister, in preaching on this text, is reported to have said that God permitted Satan to try Job as the tradesman tries the coin that his customer has tendered in payment for the purchased wares. He strikes it on the counter and hears it ring as rings the true metal, before he accepts it and places it in his drawer. The great Merchantman employed Satan to ring Job on the counter of trial. He did so--did so with all the force of his mighty arm, and in the Divine ear the moral heart of the patriarch vibrated as the music of Divine metal fit for the treasury in the heavens. (Homilist.)
God sets bounds to the afflictions of His people
1. It is not always an argument of God’s goodwill and love to have our motions granted. Many are heard and answered out of anger, not out of love. The children of Israel required meat for their lusts, and God gave it them.
2. That until God gives commission, Satan hath no power over the estates or persons of God’s people, or over anything that belongs unto them.
3. That which Satan and evil men desire sinfully, the Lord grants holily. The will of God and the will of Satan joined both in the same thing; yet they were as different as light and darkness, their ends were as different as their natures.
4. That God Himself sets bounds to the afflictions of His people.
5. That Satan is boundless in his malice toward the people of God. If God did not set him bounds he would set himself no bounds, therefore saith God unto him, only upon himself, etc. (J. Caryl.)
