Was God Just and Fair?
But Job retorted to his wife, "You are talking like an impious fool. Are we to take good from God's hand, and not evil too?'"
Notice, all the GOOD had come from God. Also all the evil! Beside Him there is no God — no power equal or superior to His. God is responsible for EVERYTHING — both good and evil — because God's power is SUPREME — absolute! Is this a sin to charge the EVIL, as well as the good, to God?
"In all this," answers God's Word, "Job sinned not with his lips." Charging this evil to God, then, was no sin — no error. It was the TRUTH!
Job's Friends Have an Argument
"Now, when Job's three friends heard of all the trouble that had befallen him, they came, each from his own home, Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuah, and Zophar from Maan; they arranged to go and condole with him, to comfort him. But when they caught sight of him at a distance and could not recognize him, they wept aloud; every man of them tore his tunic and flung dust on his head. For seven days and seven nights they sat beside him on the ground; none said a word to him, for they saw how terrible was his anguish" (Job 2:7-13, Moffatt).
Here is human suffering to compare with the horrors of World War II. Here is anguish almost beyond description! Satan inflicted it. But God permitted it, and therefore is RESPONSIBLE!
Now in the long conversation that followed between Job and his three friends — a conversation occupying the next 34 chapters in the Bible — Job's friends blamed it all on Jos. Their idea was a good deal like many people believe today. Since God is GOOD, it was impossible to attribute this evil to GOD.
But Job continually denied his friends' allegations. Continually His OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS he upheld and maintained. He attributed it all, rightly, to God — yet, without imputing any blame or fault to God. JOB UNDERSTOOD GOD'S GREAT PURPOSE being worked out here below!
And it is important that we understand! For here Job, as one single individual, is used as an illustration for our learning TODAY, typical of all the mass suffering we see about us in this world today!
God Enters the Argument
Finally, after all these long conversations run themselves out, God Himself takes a hand in the conversation.
Now we begin to see WHY this affliction had come to Job.
"Then the Eternal answered Job out of a storm, saying: " 'Who darkens MY DESIGN with a cloud of thoughtless words? Confront me like a man; come, answer these my questions'" (Job 38:1-3).
Let me interrupt here with an interesting sidelight explanation which throws light on the conversation to follow. Some authorities believe that Job was the architect and director of the building of the Great Pyramid — still today one of the largest buildings on earth and, prior to the construction of the Woolworth building, the tallest. That Job was proud of his righteousness is plain. That he also might have been puffed up over constructing the world's greatest building clears up much that God says now to him.
Job was too well aware of his righteousness. God now proceeded to deflate his ego. Can it, then, be possible God now compares His creation of the earth, and all that is, to the comparatively insignificant accomplishment of building the Great Pyramid? It's interesting to keep this possibility in mind.
" 'When I founded the earth,'" God opened up on Job, " 'where were you, then? Answer me that, if you have wit to know! Who measured out the earth? — do you know that? Who stretched the builder's line on it? What were its pedestals placed on? Who laid the' corner-stone, when the morning-stars were singing, and all the angels chanted in their joy?'" (Verses 4-7)
It is significant that a pyramid is the only kind of building on earth where the cornerstone is the top stone — the last stone laid — at the COMPLETION of the building! And here God represents the symbolic "cornerstone" of the EARTH as being laid at its completion —when the angels shouted for joy!
And so God continued to deflate poor Job. Job may have been the most righteous man on earth — yet how insignificant he was, compared to God!
Man was created to need God! Man cannot live his full life, fulfill his mission, or be happy, unless he keeps himself in his right relationship with God! That is the very first lesson man needs to learn and keep ever in mind!
A first principle in character — in the PURPOSE of our existence — is to exalt and worship only GOD, to humble the self, to realize man's utter helplessness, and his total DEPENDENCE upon GOD!
" 'Who helped to shut in the sea,'" God asked, " when I swathed it in mists and swaddled it in clouds of darkness, when I fixed its boundaries . . . saying, "Thus far, and no further! Here your proud waves shall not pass"?' " (Verses 8-11)
" 'Have you ever roused the morning, given directions to the dawn? . . . What path leads to the home of Light, and where does Darkness dwell? Can you conduct them to their fields? . Have you grasped earth in all its breadth? How large is it? Tell me, if you know that! (Verses 12-18)
"Can you bind up the Pleiades [cluster of stars] in a cluster, or loose the chains of Orion? Can you direct the signs of the Zodiac, or guide the constellations of the Bear? Can you control the skies? Can you prescribe their sway over the earth?'" (Verses 31-33)
GOD does all these things. How MIGHTY is God ! And how little, how weak, how impotent and insignificant is man — yes, even the most righteous man, Job! How Job must have begun to shrivel up in his own estimation! Smaller and smaller Job shrank, as God continued. Job didn't seem so important, now!
"Who, then" — God is not through yet — "is able to stand before ME? Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? Whatsoever is under the whole heaven IS MINE. . . . " (Job 41:10, 11, A.V.) And so God continued to bring down Job's self-righteous importance — and to show the unmatched, awesome MAGNITUDE of God, through four whole chapters, before He finished.
And by the time God finished, Job's estimation of himself was exactly nil. All through his conversation with his three friends, Job stoutly maintained his own righteousness — his self-importance! Even though Satan had taken away his wealth, his children — even though reduced to a pitiful sight, covered with nauseating boils — Job's own righteousness he stoutly maintained!
Job was able to maintain his case against Satan — against his friends. But now he could not answer God! Job's trouble was not what he had done, but what he was — SELF-RIGHTEOUS! The self in Job had never died!
In just 5 verses of Job's conversation he used the personal pronoun 15 times; and in the 29th chapter alone, he used it 50 times!
Now, for the first time, he began to realize the TRUTH — he began to catch a vision of God!
The Lesson Learned!
Then Job answered the Eternal, and said, " 'I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be with-holden from thee. I thoughtlessly confused the issues. I spoke without intelligence, of wonders far beyond my ken. I had heard of thee by hearsay, but now mine eyes have seen thee; wherefore I ABHOR MYSELF, and REPENT in dust and ashes" (Moffatt and A.V.). That was Job's SURRENDER to Almighty God — a surrender every human must make before he can be converted — before God's PURPOSE in him can be fulfilled! A man may be naturally GOOD — but even the self-righteousness of a Job, God says, is like a filthy rag to Him! The only righteousness that is really good is the Righteousness of GOD, imparted to us BY FAITH!
Job at last had learned his lesson! Just human goodness is not enough. GOD is all in all. And the only goodness that is good is God's own goodness, imparted through God's Holy Spirit within us! All true righteousness comes from GOD.
ALL humans have this great lesson to learn. It's the one supreme lesson of life! To learn it, and conform to it, is the PURPOSE of human existence!
Job's calamity and great suffering proved a great blessing to him, in the end! Actually, great good, double prosperity, and eternal happiness, came of it! For, after he repented, and came to really know God, he was given another seven sons and three daughters, and twice the material possessions he had had before!
"So the Eternal blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning," it is written (Job 42:12, A.V.). And verse 11 speaks of "all the evil that the Eternal had brought upon him."
Satan Never Altered GOD'S PURPOSE
So notice this! Satan has never upset God's program — never altered God's purpose! In Job 42:2, the alternate marginal translation of the original inspired Hebrew words is: "no purpose of thine can be restrained."
Almighty God is SUPREME in the universe! Supreme not only in Love, and in Power — but in WISDOM! There was divine WISDOM in God's permitting Satan to afflict Job. Out of all this experience of suffering, Job was humbled, his ego deflated, his self-pride removed. It hurt, to have these things torn out of his character — Job suffered — even as you and I suffer, today! But he was brought to repentance, surrender to GOD, dependence upon GOD, a filling of God's Spirit, without which he never could have known real happiness, never could have gained eternal LIFE!
All Job originally had was material wealth and possessions, and more human righteousness! Now Job had double the material possessions — but infinitely greater, he now had the supreme security of the faith of God, and that true source of happiness, reliance upon the Supreme One, and the indwelling of all His attributes ! God's Spirit in us is the only thing that will satisfy the heart-hunger — the only thing that can warm, fill, and energize with happiness and joy the human soul!
The True ANSWER to Our Questions!
Now we are ready to see, and to UNDERSTAND, the true answer to our questions!
The real answer was brought out by Job during his conversation, even as it is illustrated by the experience of his life.
"If a man die, shall he live again?" asked Job (Job 14:14).
And the answer is the answer to all our questions! Here it is: "All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands!"
The part of what Job said that is most often carelessly overlooked is the part that answers the questions of this article! Notice it again!
"Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands!"
STUDY THAT! Job knew he was merely the work of God's hands: Merely a clay model, which God, the Master Potter, was to mold and fashion and reshape. Let Isaiah explain it "WE are all as an unclean thing, and al, our righteousness’s are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf; and Nil iniquities, like the wind, have taken u! away. . . . But now, O ETERNAL, thou art OUR FATHER, we are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand" (Isaiah 64:6-8).
Our own righteousness will not save us. We must REPENT, surrender unconditionally to GOD, come to Him through Jesus Christ as personal Savior, and then God PROMISES to beget us with His Holy Spirit — actually put HIS SPIRIT within us. His spirit is His very LIFE — His Love, His understanding and wisdom, His power, His faith, His righteousness. We drink in, through His Spirit, His NATURE AND HIS CHARACTER.
Through a long life of Christian living — of overcoming self, of growing spiritually, through the very power of GOD imparted to us, we develop spiritually ready to be finally BORN OF GOD — by a resurrection, or instantaneous conversion from mortal to immortal — from human to divine — from weakness to power — from dishonor to GLORY!
And what about all these human sufferings which work character within us?
The Apostle Paul settled that: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the GLORY which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the SONS OF GOD" (Rom. 8:18-19).