A Spurgeon Snapshot: Job 1:6-9

“One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” “From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered him, “and walking around on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.””
‭‭Job‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬-‭8‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Unlike many modern commentators who see this character called Satan as simply an adversary and not necessarily Satan as we think of the Prince of Darkness (see How to Read Job, History’s First Courtroom Drama), Spurgeon looks at the plain reading of the text—that “the satan” is the Evil One. He doesn’t wrestle with how Satan can be in God’s throne room. I love Spurgeon’s description of this scene:

When called to account for his doings, the evil one boasted that he had gone throughout the earth. He had marched everywhere like a king in his own dominions unhindered and unchallenged. [But] when the great God reminded him that there was at least one place among men where he had no foothold and where his power was unrecognized, namely in the heart of Job, the evil one defied Jehovah to try the faithfulness of Job…

Spurgeon Study Bible, p. 641

Beloved, Satan has no power over you that you don’t let him have. No matter how much Satan’s influence is around you, Satan has no influence within you unless you grant it to him.

The human heart has a door that can only be opened from the inside. When Jesus stands at that door and knocks (Revelation 3:20), let Him in! But when Satan stands at that same door and knocks, you, as an ambassador of Christ, have the authority to tell him to go away. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

I am using the Spurgeon Study Bible for my Bible Read Through in 2023. All of the study notes are quotes from Charles Spurgeon’s sermons and writing. For more on Charles Spurgeon, click here. The Spurgeon Study Bible is available from Lifeway, Christianbook.com, and Amazon.