Once the curtain is pulled back, the only thing you want to do is pay attention, because this reveals what is truly going on. What has happened in the prologue to Job? Has the curtain been pulled back? What have we been given a glimpse of? Let's have a look and see what answers we can discover.

First, some background. We do not know when or even where the story of Job happened. The books of the Old Testament are not preserved in any one single sequence. The prophets are presented chronologically, but divided into the three major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and what are known as the Twelve or by that unfortunate designation, the minor prophets.

The first five books are presented in a historical fashion but the first character to whom we can attach a date with any sort of certainty is Abraham. A chronological Bible would likely offer Job to us just before the end of Genesis 11. As literature, Job is the oldest story in the Bible. Some have suggested that Job might have been a contemporary of Abraham. However this is guesswork as is any suggestion as to where the land of Uz might be.

I have often wondered if this is on purpose. In others words, the story of Job belongs to every person and every nation, because all of us, everywhere, must deal with the question of why bad things happen to good people.

The story of Job may belong to everyone, but Job is not the sort of character we meet every day. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil (Job 1:1b). Job lived long before Moses, and indeed, before Joseph and the sojourn of God's people in Egypt. He lived before the Ten Commandments had been given. He lived before the prophets told the people about God's will and purposes. He lived before God had revealed the plans and order of worship in the tabernacle. But Job was a person who had responded to that inner voice whichtold him there was someone in the universe to whom he owed his very life. Job saw the pursuit of his life as two sides of the same coin, seeking to please God and turning away from evil.

It is this man who becomes, one day, the subject of the Board meeting in heaven. Let me say two preliminary things about this scene which begins in verse six of chapter one. First of all I believe the Bible is the Word of God and all of it is given to us to benefit and bless us. Therefore, something is here for us. But second, this is to me one of the strangest, most troubling scenes in the whole of Scripture. What is the best way to deal with this text?

I suppose I could try a little pastoral slight of hand. One of the things I have pointed out on more than one occasion at our Wednesday evening vesper studies is that most Bibles make a visual distinction between prose and poetry. Most of Job is poetry. It starts with chapter three and continues to the end of the book except for the last eleven verses. So I could say the whole book has this poetic feel to it and say the description in chapter one of the heavenly council is meant to be understood in that same way. In other words, you can't take every detail as a statement of simple fact—it's not a 2+2=4 sort of description. While I do think it is important to note the poetic nature of most of this book, our text today is part of the prose section and we must look closely at what it describes.

What does God want us to hear through these words? First, there are realms of existence that we cannot know through our physical senses alone. In Paul's letter to the Ephesian Christians, he tells them to put on the whole armor of God. He goes on to explain why this is necessary. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:11a, 12).

I don't know if this is helpful to you or not. I look at it this way. I have always known, as humourist Dave Barry puts it, that I am not the sharpest quill on the porcupine, but I had enough intellectual raw material floating around to complete my university and seminary training. But there are all sorts of things that people I know, including my wife and children, have managed to grasp in their minds that still baffle me completely. We joke about not remembering what a logarithm is exactly. The difference is once Chris did know what that was. I never did. So while I use my intellect to think about God and put my intellect to the service of God, if God could be framed by my intellectual abilities, he would be no god at all.

Heavenly realms are part of our existence. I have no idea where they are. In a physical sense, they are nowhere. You can send out a whole team of surveyors, you will not be able to drive a stake to show the property line of the heavenlies. But such a place does exist.

Here's the second thing. Our world is ordered in such a way that the struggle to maintain integrity and balance in our lives is part of every day. A bit of word study is necessary here. Look at verse six of our text. One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. Most good translations will refer you to a footnote for that word Satan. In the NRSV you will see the word is actually, the Satan, and could also be translated, the accuser or the adversary.

I once heard the heavenly council described in this way. It is a meeting of heavenly beings before God, including the prosecuting attorney. In other words there is a being that is part of that unseen realm who rebelled against God and who continues to seek recruits in that rebellion.

This makes some sense to me. I have preached before on the book of Job, but I noticed something this time that I had not taken notice of before. It is that description of Job as one who feared God and turned away from evil. This is describing two separate actions. Do you get that? Job actively sought to please God in his own life and interceded with God for the spiritual welfare of his children. Job also turned away from any and every choice that was wrong, wrong in relationships, wrong in business, wrong in spiritual pursuits.

As I said this makes sense to me. When I try to align my life with the will and purposes of God, to follow Jesus with integrity, to serve God's Kingdom faithfully, I do not discover the spiritual equivalent of Switzerland in the other direction. There is no one claiming neutrality in this conflict. Rather, what I discover is a being or a force that continues to hold out before me choices that tempt me toward evil.

There is a third thing I believe God wants us to see in our text. It is God who is in charge. Some people have looked at this part of Job and seen evidence either of two gods, one good and one evil, or of a great battle between God and Satan with Job caught in the middle. That is not what is suggested here. Heavenly beings, including the accuser, come to present themselves before the Lord. It is a scene which speaks of God's ultimate power. In other words, the writer is setting the stage for what is to come. Nothing that happens to Job and nothing that happens to us is outside the power and knowledge and influence of God. The accuser, the adversary, Satan is not God's equal.

One preacher put it this way. " God has set the boundaries to Satan's activities. But the impressive thing is that although Satan is a rebel, and he would break the rules if he could, there is no suggestion that he even attempts to break forth from this limitation. There is no possible way by which even Satan can violate "The Test," www.pbc.org/files/messages/3632/3540.htm).

Having said that, what is presented to us in this first chapter of Job is a test which God allows. But let us be sure to see what is at stake in the test. The Adversary says to God, "But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face." Do you see the contrast that is offered here? Job is described as someone who sought the will of God and turned away from evil. The test is to see if he will reverse his course, if in the midst of trial and suffering he will deny God and adopt the actions of evil.

Today then we have seen the set-up of the story; we have been told what is at stake. There is no surprise to anyone that the righteous suffer, that, as Rabbi Harold Cushner famously put it, bad things happen to good people. Within that part of life, andthrough the rest of this book shedding some light on our struggles, God wants us to know these realities:

• 
  
  the spiritual world is real and what happens within the spiritual world is part of every day;
  
  
• 
  
  human beings have active choices to make—choosing for God, choosing against evil. How are you doing with those choices?
  
  
• 
  
  God is in charge of the world. God is involved in your life. Do not curse God. No matter what, seek God's presence.
  
  B