Satan Has To Seek Permission

Satan Has To Seek Permission

“All right, you may test him,” the LORD said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” –Job 1:12

I find this verse troubling, and maybe you do too. Satan has come to God and asked permission to harm Job, and God has given the permission! That’s a hard one for us, because it just doesn’t fit with our understanding of a loving, protecting God, does it? But it is clear. God gives the permission and sets the parameters for Satan to bring pain into Job’s life. God says in essence, “Okay, you can put his faith to the test, but you can only go this far.” This reveals something very important about Satan and, ultimately, about God.

Satan has to ask permission because Satan has no power that is not given to him by God. You know God is powerful, and you believe that God is more powerful than Satan, right? But the bigger truth is that Satan has absolutely no power that God does not grant him. That is how sovereign God is over the universe and how limited Satan is in the world. He can go only as far as God will allow him in inflicting suffering on this world and in your life. God and Satan are not two ultimate powers in the universe battling to determine a winner. There is only one ultimate power, and that is God.

In Luke, we read again of Satan asking permission to harm one of God’s own. Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to have all of you, to sift you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail” (22:31-32). The “all of you” Satan wants to sift includes you and me. Satan’s sifting is an effort to destroy our faith. If he can do it by shaking you in the sieve of suffering, then he will try that. If he can do it through amusement or ease, he may try that. But while God may give Satan permission to harm us or sift us, he will never allow our faith to fail permanently or our hope to be destroyed ultimately. God’s confidence that Job would pass the test and Jesus’ expectation that Peter’s faith would not fail utterly was not dependent on Job or Peter, but on God’s power. And your ability to endure the tests hardship brings is not determined by the amount or quality of your faith, but by the object of your faith. The almighty God will never grant Satan permission to destroy the faith that makes you his and keeps you his forever.

Almighty God, it is hard to grasp that you have granted Satan permission to bring pain into my life, but I believe that your ultimate purpose is for my good and your glory. Your shield of faith gives me courage and comfort.

DIGGING DEEPER