Satan’s Strategy for Your Life #3: Your Health

“Then Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to Your face.’ And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.’"—Job 2:4-6

Satan wants to destroy you. He is the thief that “comes only to steal and kill and destroy”—John 10:10. He doesn’t care about you, your job, family, or relationships. He hates you and wants to turn you away from God. He will do everything in his power to turn you away from following God. There is no practice too devious, no tactic more deplorable, and no depths more appalling that he will not go. Satan’s arsenal is vast, but as we continue to walk in Christ we are unmovable. As Paul said,

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”—Romans 8:38-39.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God as found in Christ Jesus our Lord, but that doesn’t mean that Satan isn’t going to try. As we have been examining the life of Job, we have seen two of Satan’s strategies already played out. First Satan attacked Job’s money, possessions, and livelihood (Job 1:13-17), and then he killed his family (Job 1:18-20). These are two of the first strategies that Satan used against him, but neither of them worked. Job still held onto his integrity before God (Job 2:3), thus infuriating Satan even more (Job 2:4). Believing that God had kept Satan back by refusing to allow him to afflict him, Satan now demands to be able to hurt Job physically, which God, for some reason, allows.

“So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes”—Job 2:7-8.

Job’s illness was horrendous. His breath stank (Job 19:17), he had sores all over his skin, and he takes a piece of broken pottery in order to give him some sort of relief from the pain he was enduring. His wife even turns against him saying, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die”—Job 2:9.

Satan had even managed to incite Job’s wife against him! Satan will attack us by any means necessary—and afflicting our health is one that is particularly effective. Not every physical affliction has Satan at its root, but for Job’s affliction Satan was undeniably the source. He wanted to get Job to turn against and deny God by taking his money, destroying his possessions, and murdering his family. Nevertheless, Job was undeterred and answered his wife’s thoughtlessness,  

"You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”—Job 2:10.

Job understood the sovereignty of God and clung to the knowledge that God can do whatever He wants (even though it was Satan who had perpetrated the evil against him). Even after enduring such loss, pain, and sorrow he still "did not sin with his lips”—Job 2:10. He is the sterling example of how we are to respond when we find ourselves being attacked by the enemy. He held fast to God and eventually he was vindicated.

Whenever we are tempted by the enemy we must claim the promise found in James 4:7, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Cling to God, fall at His feet in prayer, pour out your heart, and lift your spirit in worship to our Sovereign King! Fill your heart with the things of God and once you do so, Satan will inevitably leave. He can’t stand being around true heartfelt prayer, and Spirit-filled worship!

May the Lord our God establish us in Him and may the physical affliction that we face turn us not away from God, but to Him in worship so that He might be seen to be the all-consuming passion of our hearts and the joy of our souls. Amen.