We were doing a children’s story in church, playing we were in school. Three of us were sitting in school desks on the platform, behind each other (as in school). I was the third.
Just to help the children understand something about the Book of Job in the Bible, I got a long thin stick and under the seat of the boy ahead of me I stuck my long stick ahead to the boy who was sitting two seats ahead of me. The one sitting just ahead of me didn’t know what I was doing, because he couldn’t see underneath his seat. When I pricked the third one in front, he naturally looked around at the second one behind him, and said, “Stop it!”
“I didn’t do it!” he said.
So I pricked the third one again with my long stick.
The one ahead of me couldn’t understand—he really hadn’t done anything! The “bad guy” was me—hiding in the background.
Now don’t try this on anyone, for you might get yourself in trouble. But it explains one of the most important books in the Bible that lots of people don’t understand.
The Book of Job tells about a very good man who did everything right. He was the best man in the world at that time. He was very rich, with seven thousand sheep, a thousand oxen, five hundred donkeys, and three thousand camels. And he had seven sons and three daughters Then he started having troubles like it was hard to believe. One day while they were all having a feast, a messenger came running in to tell Job that some wicked terrorists had stolen the valuable oxen while they were plowing, and the donkeys, and then had also killed the servants. Bad news!
Then another messenger brought in word that a lightning bolt had “burned up the sheep, and the servants” also. Still worse news.
Then almost immediately, another servant came running in with the news that some more terrorists had captured all his valuable camels—and again had killed the servants.
You’d think this was news so bad no one could stand any more like it. But another man came running in to tell how his seven sons and three daughters were having a party and a terrible cyclone blew the house down and all his children were killed in the crash.
This is the story of Job, in the Bible. Then afterward Job became sick with strange boils all over his body. The whole book is about who did all this to poor Job. If God did it, that would mean that God is not very nice.
Three friends came to comfort him; they thought God did it all because Job must have done some terrible sin (which was not true). And they bothered him until he thought their bad news was worse than all the other troubles that had come upon him.
But neither Job nor his friends knew the story behind all this
Just like I was pricking the boy three seats ahead of me and he didn’t know who was doing it, Job didn’t know that in fact it was Satan doing all this behind the scenes.