Just slow down and look at Me

 Job 21: 1-16

 

“Then Job answered and said: “Keep listening to my words and let this be your comfort. Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.  As for me, is my complaint against man?  Why should I not be impatient?  Look at me and be appalled and lay your hand over your mouth.  When I remember, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.  Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their offspring are established in their presence, and their descendants before their eyes.  Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry.  They send out their little boys like a flock, and their children dance. They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.  They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace, they go down to Sheol. They say to God, ‘Depart from us!  We do not desire the knowledge of your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?  And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’  Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?  The counsel of the wicked is far from me.”

 

Eliphaz had implied earlier that the three were there offering consolation, but Job’s not buying that line, he is sure they are mocking him.  Often, we see Job using rhetorical questions to make a point as he is doing in verse 4.  He’s not referring to the wicked man, but about how God has dealt with him.

 

In verses five and six Job is asking, have you three really looked at me, be quiet for a time, and just look at what has taken place since you last saw me.  Job states that when he gives thought to his condition it brings fear to him.  So many lessons for each of us that follow Jesus to take away from this.  

 

Beginning in verse seven, Job is telling the three that all that they have said about the wicked is in error.  They do not live a short life, for he knows as we have witnessed they often grow old and powerful.  In fact, Job has witnessed that and so much more, their children are happy and become well established.  Job has witnessed that all seems to go well with them and that they even go to the grave in peace, I might not agree with Job's last point on the grave.

 

But he is on point about their attitude about where they get wealth and power and the world is in agreement.  They assume they are self-made men and they will not acknowledge that all they have has come from God.

 

In fact, we see them all through our nation and often end up in the Congress of our government.  Evil and the wicked are looking to their father the devil for direction.  You reread verses 14-15, “They say to God, ‘Depart from us!  We do not desire the knowledge of your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?  And what profit do we get if we pray to him?” 

 

In verse 16, Job shares the wicked are 100% wrong for all that man has is a blessing from God.  Prosperity is never our own doing, and that Job wants them and us to understand.  He tells the three that I am not wicked, and I understand that both blessings and curses come from the same God.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice