Page 118 - Reading Job to Know God

Do you see what Job is saying? Oh, why won’t He listen? Why won’t He
come? Verse 10,

“But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come
forth as gold.”
What a marvelous verse. Job knows there is a reason! He is not rebelling
against that. It is the perplexity in his heart. He is not crying because he lost
his children or his gold or his cattle or his houses or even his health. He is
not complaining about the physical suffering. He is complaining because
God is gone and he does not know where to find Him.
He knows he cannot resist the Lord. Verse 13,
“But He is unique and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that
He does. For He performs what is appointed for me, and many such
decrees are with Him.”
And then he asks again in Chapter 24, “Why (verse 2) are some .............. ” I
will not go through the whole chapter. And then if you read those verses
you will see what he is talking about. “While others,” verse 13. Why are
some wicked men blessed and other righteous men allowed to suffer? And
then in verse 25 he says, “Now if it is not so, who can prove me a liar, and
make my speech worthless?” You say the wicked suffer. I say they do not.
At least not always.

This is the mystery of providence. Let me just digress from Job for a
moment here. As a matter of fact, in my study of Luke I found an interesting
verse. Turn to Luke 13 just for a moment where Jesus gave this wonderful
illustration. Luke 13, beginning at verse 1,
“Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to
Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their
sacrifices. And Jesus said to them, “Do you suppose that these
Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they
suffered this fate?” Verse 4: “Or do you suppose that those eighteen on
whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than
all the men who live in Jerusalem?
Why did that tower fall and kill those eighteen people? Because they were
more wicked? Jesus says, “I tell you no.” Why does that airplane crash?
That God would have judgment on those that were in it? Jesus said, “I tell
you no.” Matthew 5:45 says, “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and on
the good, and He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
God has established certain laws of nature. He can change them, but He
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