Contemplative Bible Reading

Job 1:18-19 (New Living Translation)

18 While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. 19 Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

This is from early in the (hi)story of Job. Satan is taking away all the wonderful things God gave to Job—with God’s permission. One calamity after another occurs. Here, a messenger arrives and tells Job how all his children are killed in a wind storm.

The wind hit the house on all sides and it collapsed on Job’s children.

Consider the quickly rising waters of the tidal surge in a hurricane. There is no water in the house, but water is pressing against all sides from the outside. It appears that the house implodes from the force of a vacuum, but it is merely crushed by the weight of water on all sides.

The same thing happened here from the wind storm. But how does wind hit a house from all sides all at once? How do we have storm winds from the north, south, east, and west all at the same time? That doesn’t happen. That was a dastardly miracle—a supernatural act performed by Satan.

Let us dislike Satan. Let us also fear Satan.

I don’t like this lesson—Satan has supernatural powers. Satan can do things that go beyond the physical laws of nature. Let us understand and fear that. In our post-post-post modern world, let us acknowledge that there are things we cannot explain with the physical laws of nature. Miracles from God bless us. Supernatural acts by Satan curse us.