Let It Go

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Grace and peace to my brethren in the Lord, and greetings to the lost.

Most of us are familiar with the story of Job: how he was a righteous man, upright before the Lord, and eschewed sin. We know how God allowed Job to be afflicted by Satan in order to test his faithfulness, and that Job’s friends accused him falsely, saying that God afflicted him because of his sinfulness and self-righteousness. But Job remained faithful until the end, and at no time during his temptation did he ever “charge God foolishly.” As a result, “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

It is no secret that God tests his people, and that often the severity of those trials is proportionate to the measure of our faithfulness.  During these trials, Satan will often use those closest to us to discourage us, as Job’s wife proves:

“Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die” (2:9).

We normally only emphasize the last part of this sentence, that Job’s wife said he should “curse God and die.” But we often overlook the first part. Job’s wife asked him if he still retained his integrity. Is it merely a coincidence that God had only just spoken of Job’s integrity at His second meeting with Satan?

“Hast thou considered my servant Job…still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause” (2:3)

No, it is no accident. It obviously chapped Satan’s hide when God said this about Job: that he held his integrity even after Satan took everything he had, including his children.   Satan said that Job would curse God to his face, but Job proved him wrong.

The point I am trying to make is that Satan, angered at this reference to Job’s integrity, used Job’s own wife against him by putting God’s very words in her mouth. Only whereas God meant them for good, Satan used them for evil.

There is a great lesson in spiritual warfare here. Many of us are suffering temptations because of our faithfulness to God. And our friends and loved ones play a major part in this temptation. Oftentimes a friend or family member will say or do something that seemed to come right out of left field. It will be obvious that the intent of the action was not to edify or encourage us, but to hurt us or to make us angry. Our first reaction will often be one of anger, but we should take a moment to examine the comment before we react, because often it will give us a glimpse of the spiritual warfare that is taking place behind the scenes.

Take Job’s wife. Now the Bible says of Job:

“[T]here was none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil” (1:8).

God said these things about Job, not about his wife.  So it is a good guess that his wife was not a God-fearing woman.  But even so, I don’t believe under normal circumstances, she would ever have suggested that Job kill himself.

What? You say. Who said that Job’s wife told him to kill himself? Why, the Bible, of course. What do you think the sentence, “Curse God and die” means? It is a double imperative or a two-part command:

1. “Curse God.”
2. “Die.”

Understand that no one can just die. We don’t have the power over life and death; only God does. So for us to die, either someone has to kill us, we commit suicide, or Satan kills us through sickness, disease, an accident, or some other means.  Under certain circumstances, God simply allows us to die (as in the case of Moses).  In any case, God is in complete control.  

Now Job’s affliction was not terminal. It was not going to kill him, because God specifically told Satan not to take Job’s life (2:6).  Job’s wife knew that his illness wasn’t terminal.  So what else could she have meant when she told Job to die, when she knew that he wasn’t terminally ill? She meant for him to kill himself.

Are we to believe that Job’s wife really wanted for him to die? Of course not. These were not her words; they were Satan’s. And proof of this is that Job’s wife prefaced this suggestion with God’s very words, only twisted.  Job knew this, because he didn’t even address the second part of her comment. He only addressed her admonition to curse God:

“What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil?” (2:10).

At her suggestion that he kill himself, Job said nothing.  He knew these were not his wife’s words.  So he let it go.  Moreover, Job’s wife told him to curse God.  This is interesting, because Satan told God that if He allowed Satan to afflict Job, he would curse God to His face” (Job 1:11).  Again, this is proof that these words, though said by Job’s wife, actually came from Satan.  

This is important for us to remember.  Satan is going to use those nearest and dearest to us to hurt and discourage us. Why? Because God hasn’t given Satan permission to kill us. Satan has to stop us in some way, and he would prefer to kill us.  But if God hasn’t given him the right to take our lives, he can’t do it. So he will try to discourage us and may even try to get us to kill ourselves, just like he did Job. And he will use our friends and families for this purpose. That is why we must fight diligently not to let them beguile us into saying or doing something that we most surely will regret later. We must learn to let it go.

Think about it: You are going through one of the most difficult times in your entire life, and your wife or husband, who is supposed to stick by you through thick and thin, tells you to kill yourself. What would you do? I can tell you that most of us would say something we would later regret; and we would regret it, no matter how we tried to justify it. Job did not do this, for even after his wife made this suggestion, the Bible says:

“In all this did not Job sin with his lips” (2:10b).

Most believe that this verse means that Job didn’t curse God. Though this is true, it may also mean that Job didn’t go off on his wife after she told him to kill himself, nor blow his top on his friends when they accused him of being a hypocrite.  Job understood spiritual warfare intrinsically, even though he didn’t know the specifics. Job knew God, so, conversely, he knew Satan. And if he knew Satan, he knew his tactics.

What this means for you and me is this: Understand that this warfare is not primarily about our friends and family. It is about us. Satan already has them, and he doesn’t have to do anything special to keep them. He must only feed them a steady dose of the sin of their choice to keep them in bondage.

We, however, have slipped through Satan’s fingers, and that is a problem for him. A faithful Christian is like a bag of seeds with a hole in it. Wherever we go, we are constantly dropping seeds on the road. A healthy seed doesn’t last long on the ground. If a bird sees it, it will come and snatch it up and eat it or feed it to its chicks, and they will be nourished. If an ant finds it, it will take it home and provide nourishment to the colony. And if it finds its way to fertile soil, it will take root and grow. And even if it doesn’t, it will decompose and provide nourishment for other plants.

The point is that a faithful believer is a regenerating agent. When his seeds fall out of the bag, there is no telling what they will do or where they will end up. They may fall in Los Angeles and end up in Japan. This of course agrees with Scripture, which says that God’s Word will not return to Him void. Once the seeds are are out of the bag, it’s anyone’s guess.

Satan doesn’t want to take the chance that this will happen, so he will do everything he can to patch the hole in your bag. And one way he will try to do this is to discourage us through our friends and family. This is actually a two-pronged attack, because not only is he attacking us through them, but if we react the wrong way, he is also attacking them though us. If we say or do something drastic in a moment of anger, we could lose forever the chance to impact them with the Gospel. And that is Satan’s end game. He knows he can’t have us, so he wants to make sure that we don’t get them.

We must be ever on the lookout for this tactic. When Satan comes against us through our friends and family, we must always remember that we are the ones who are saved, not them. Therefore, it is we who must be responsible for our words and actions even if they are not. We must learn to let it go.

Now in order for us to do this, it may mean putting some distance between them and us. Some will do this for us, electing to have nothing to do with us for our preaching the Gospel. They may call us crazy or judgmental, and just decide that they would rather not come around us. Sometimes we get upset at them for this, but it may be a good thing if our being a Christian excites something in them that is not conducive to an amicable relationship.

There are also others from whom we may have to distance ourselves. Some will take offense to this, even if they know that they are the ones with the problem. That’s human nature. But though we are admonished to show ourselves friendly, with some that is not always possible. It is best to part on good terms, than on bad. We must let them go.

The important thing is that when we are treated badly by a friend or relative, we must do our very best to consider the action from a biblical perspective. We are in a war, saints, and everyone and everything that is not of God is a potential weapon—especially those nearest and dearest to us. We must always remember how Jesus prayed for those who crucified Him saying,

“Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

This is no less true of our friends and family. They know not what they do. They are merely pawns in the hands of a cruel and relentless chess player. And as long as they reject Jesus, Satan will move them in whatever direction he chooses. But he is no match for The Chess Master. In fact, Jesus declared “Check Mate” when He said:

“It is finished” (READ “You are finished.”) (John 19:30).

So, understanding that we are in a war, we have to forgive them just like Jesus did. If we do, we stay on amicable, if not friendly terms with them, and it is always possible, God willing, that they will one day accept the Gospel. And even if they don’t, it won’t be because we were unloving and without charity, which includes pity and understanding. We must let it go.

Job did this. Notice that only three people came to see Job the entire time he was afflicted: Eiphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Proof of this can be found in verse 11 of the last chapter of the book of Job, which says:

“Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before” (42:11).

What? We didn’t even know that Job had brothers and sisters. Why? Because when Job was going through this very difficult time, they were nowhere to be found. But Job didn’t complain, though it must have hurt him very much to suffer so without the consolation of his family and friends. Job knew that their absence was part of the evil that had been visited upon him. Listen to this:

“[God] hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
“My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.

“They that dwell in mine house, and my maidens, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight.

“I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth.

“My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.

“Yea, young children despised me; I arose and they spake against me.

“All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me” (19:13-19).

Poor Job! You see, we only think of Job’s affliction in terms of the disease, but it went much deeper than that. Job was utterly alone. All his friends and family had forsaken him. And when his three friends did show up, it was only to accuse him, and he was innocent of any crime. Now that’s affliction.

But Job didn’t accuse them, because he knew that this was all God’s doing. It was part of his trial. With all that was done to him, the Bible says Job “sinned not with his lips.” Thus, at the end of his affliction, his friends and family were able to come and console him. And they didn’t come begrudgingly. Listen to what happened:

“And [Job’s family and friends] did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned (cried over) him, and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold” (42:11b).

Everyone who had abandon Job came to him at the end of his affliction and comforted him and made restitution with him. The preceding verse is the key to understanding the change in attitude in Job’s friends and family. Listen, because it is very important:

“And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (42:10).

Did you see that? God restored Job, but only after he prayed for his friends. Job forgave them for all the evil they spoke of him. Job let it go.

There is a great lesson here for us, brothers and sisters: we who are going through various trials for our Christian witness. It is not a pleasant thing when our friends and family become our enemies because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We think that if they were truly our friends, then they would not forsake us. We fail to understand that nothing in a believer’s life happens that is not ordained of God. So when our friends forsake us and our families speak evil of us, ultimately it is God who is bringing it about.

Now, I can’t pretend to understand the what and the why of everything that God is doing in our lives. But I do understand this lesson that God has provided for our edification and encouragement. God is ordering our steps. He is bringing it about. So let us not hold grudges against those who do evil to us and spitefully use us. Let us forgive them. Let it go.

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Be encouraged and look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.

The Still Man

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