"All That a Man Hath Will He Give for His Life"

Dedicated to my long-time pastor, Dr. James West, who passed away November, 2021, having faithfully stood so perfectly in truth and love despite years of extreme hardship with little praise and recognition.

  • Job 2:4 “And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.”
  •  

When asked by the Lord in Job 2:2 what the devil had been doing with his time, “Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” From this, we can gather that Satan is very well acquainted with mankind: our thoughts, our feelings, our motives, our actions, our defeats, our victories, etc…. In other words, Satan knows what makes the average person tick. Our “adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” so we know that Satan uses the knowledge he has gained from thousands of years of observing mankind against us. The word for “life” (nephesh) Satan used in Job 2:4 has a broad use in Scripture referring not only to living (existence), but also to pleasure (Deut. 23:24), desire (Eccl. 6:9), appetite (Pro. 23:2), lust (Ps. 78:18), and abstractly to vitality (health). Satan was not allowed to take Job’s life (existence) so the devil pushed the limit of what God meant by “life” (nephesh) and attacked Job’s “life” (health – Job 2:7) believing Job would give all he had “for his life.” It worked on Job’s wife (Job 2:9) as she pressed Job to “curse God, and die.”

From what Satan has observed of your average human being, the devil truly believes what he told the Lord, “yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” And, for the most part, Satan is correct. Most will give all the freedom, health, friends, family, innocence, or “integrity” (Job 2:9) they have if it means they can save their own skin. To save our life (existence) or life (health or pleasure), we’ll lockdown, mask-up, inject poison, or kill innocents. History is replete with such awful stories like the Holocaust.

What Satan does not account for or more like whom he purposely tries to forget, are the Jobs. God always has a remnant (Rom. 11:4-5), like Job, who will never relinquish their “integrity” (Job 2:9).

  • Revelation 12:11 “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”
  •  

There are many who have overcome and who still overcome “the accuser of our brethren” (Rev. 12:10) because they love not their lives even unto the death. Are you one of those believers?

When a wicked government commands you to disobey God and not preach the gospel, will you fulfill Satan’s prophecy or God’s law for your life? Will Satan trick you to save your own skin and disobey God’s laws when sickness comes like Covid-19 did for most of the globe? Will temptation or trial cause you to love your life and give all that you have in order to enjoy your temptation or avoid your trial?