The name Job means “persecuted one”; “afflicted one”; “one who’s caused to suffer.”

“All those acquaintances of Job—you ought to go back to Job 19 and read what it says—

it was, “Job who? Huh, don’t know ya,’ ” says Jordan. “Even his house servants, his butler and his chauffeur wouldn’t acknowledge knowing him. You know, you could expect that of your lawyer, but your chauffeur?! Your gardener?!

“And then it says his wife . . . it’s a strange verse over there. He says, ‘My breath was a stranger to my wife.’ You got to get close to somebody to know what their breath smells like. You know, if somebody offers you a Cert always take it and all that kind of stuff.

“But you know what happened—his wife left him. You remember the old bat back in chapter 2, don’t you? The verse reads, ‘Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.’

“Well, he’s probably better off that she left him. She sure was no comfort to him. She took up the devil’s line. She literally said to Job what Satan was saying to God Job would say.

“Notice that when Job got back everything double (at the end of the Book), it didn’t include his wife. Now that may have been a blessing in and of itself, considering the kind of wife she turned out to be.

“She was a source of the working of the satanic policy of evil in Job’s home. You go over and study I John and he tells this ‘believing remnant’ how to know whether you’re in the true fellowship or not. How you’re really the Israel of God or you’re not. And he tells them how to spot the real Israel of God and how not. And, also, how they could also know themselves, whether they really had the spirit of God working in them or whether they were phony.

“II John says this issue of being able to discern the seducing policy of the Adversary has to be carefully practiced in the home. III John says it has to be practiced in the ministry in the local church. And the two things that he adds on to I John as appendixes—

II and III—don’t tell them how to do it; it tells them where to do it.

“People like to quote II John in regards to ecclesiastical separation, but it’s about separation in a home—in a house, among a family. That’s what’s happening in Job’s house.”

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When Job’s seven sons and three daughters died, he knew he didn’t really lose them because he believed in resurrection.

In Job 19: 25-26, he says, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

Job’s supposed friend Bildad actually accuses Job of being at fault for the death of his children. He reasons in Job 8, “Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression.”

Jordan explains, “Oh, it’s a cruel shock—a terrible thing. Bildad says to him about his kids being dead, ‘If they had been living for the Lord, they wouldn’t be dead now.’

“Man, wouldn’t that be a cruel thing to say when you just lost 10 kids?! ‘God’s just and if your kids hadn’t been living in sin, they’d still be with us.’ Oooh. Can you understand why Job wouldn’t consider these people a great comfort? They were ‘miserable comforters,’ as he called them. ‘Forgers of lies,’ he calls them. That’s why it’s so remarkable he later has this change of heart about them.”

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Job didn’t suffer because of anything he did; he suffered because of something God was doing—he suffered according to the will of God.

“God has allowed Job to be in satanic captivity because of something bigger than what’s going on with Job,” says Jordan. “It had nothing to do with anything Job was doing wrong. In fact, if you look at chapter 1, when Satan comes on the scene here, it says:

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
[7] And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
[8] And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
[9] Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?”

“When you go to and fro in something, and you walk up and down in it in the Bible, that’s a gesture, a posture of ownership. God told Abraham in Genesis 13 to, ‘Go over into that land and walk up and down in it because it’s yours.’ It’s an exercise that speaks of possession; ownership.

“When you have free access to something it’s because you’re at home; you possess it; you own it, and that’s what Satan’s doing. ‘As a roaring lion he walks to and fro on the earth, seeking whom he may desire.’ He’s going around in the earth looking for anybody arguing with him on the earth, and if they are, he’s going to eat ’em up, chew ’em up and take them captive and spit them out.

“He says to God, ‘Hey, I’m down there possessing the earth! It’s mine!’ You see, the issue between God and Satan immediately is the possession of the Planet Earth. And in the context of that contest between God and Satan—in connection with his contention with God over the earth—the Lord said unto Satan, ‘Whence comest thou.’ Then the Lord said unto Satan, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job?’

“Notice Satan didn’t answer saying, ‘If you knew Job like I know Job, you’d know he was a dirty rotten rascal.’ You read down through there and you’ll never find Satan say anything bad about Job.

“Job’s a good guy, and the issue isn’t going to be Job’s conduct in the sense of ‘he’s doing something wrong we’re going to get even with him for.’ The reason Job’s going to suffer is there’s this conflict between God and the Adversary in the angelic realm, and involved in that conflict . . . in order for God to bring the proud one Satan low, as Job 40 says he’s going to do, Job winds up suffering, and it has nothing to do with him on a personal basis; it has to do with the fact God’s doing something in the earth.”