#656 Cataracts

Then Job answered and said:

2 “Keep listening to my words,

and let this be your comfort.

3 Bear with me, and I will speak,

and after I have spoken, mock on.

4 As for me, is my complaint against man?

Why should I not be impatient?

5 Look at me and be appalled,

and lay your hand over your mouth.

6 When I remember, I am dismayed,

and shuddering seizes my flesh.

7 Why do the wicked live,

reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

8 Their offspring are established in their presence,

and their descendants before their eyes.

9 Their houses are safe from fear,

and no rod of God is upon them.

10 Their bull breeds without fail;

their cow calves and does not miscarry.

11 They send out their little boys like a flock,

and their children dance.

12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre

and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

13 They spend their days in prosperity,

and in peace they go down to Sheol.

14 They say to God, ‘Depart from us!

We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.

15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

16 Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?

The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

17 “How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out?

That their calamity comes upon them?

That God distributes pains in his anger?

18 That they are like straw before the wind,

and like chaff that the storm carries away?

19 You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’

Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.

20 Let their own eyes see their destruction,

and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21 For what do they care for their houses after them,

when the number of their months is cut off?

22 Will any teach God knowledge,

seeing that he judges those who are on high?

23 One dies in his full vigor,

being wholly at ease and secure,

24 his pails full of milk

and the marrow of his bones moist.

25 Another dies in bitterness of soul,

never having tasted of prosperity.

26 They lie down alike in the dust,

and the worms cover them.

27 “Behold, I know your thoughts

and your schemes to wrong me.

28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?

Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads,

and do you not accept their testimony

30 that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity,

that he is rescued in the day of wrath?

31 Who declares his way to his face,

and who repays him for what he has done?

32 When he is carried to the grave,

watch is kept over his tomb.

33 The clods of the valley are sweet to him;

all mankind follows after him,

and those who go before him are innumerable.

34 How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?

There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.” Job 21 ESV

Job's tone seems to have changed from despair to resolve, he will now demonstrate that he has listened to them and listened well. They have stated over and over their doctrine of prosperity, and have judged Job by these sophomoric attempts to connect the outside calamity to his inward person. He understands also that they will probably continue to mock him, but his argument is not with them so much as it is with God. They are the accusers, the challengers, but Job will break down all of their points. They act as if God is in this box that they open and peer into with ease, that He is so simply figured out. In order to hold their assumptions about God, they are ignoring that:
1. The wicked do often prosper and it is a question asked often.

Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. O LORD, You have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, You have established them for correction. 13Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate the faithless? Why are You silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? 14You have made men like the fish of the sea, like sea creatures with no ruler.…Habakkuk 1:12-14

2. The wicked often reach old age and some have come to power and ruled for a long time. We can see this in our own time, where men rule, then their son and grandson, all for the love of power more than for people, wanting, demanding to be adored rather than adoring truth. They swallow up the poor, they destroy men more honorable than themselves. Here is the sad thing of human nature, men see the unkindness towards others, but are easily flattered when that same wicked man shows them a different side. "He was nice to me," they say. It shows the ideal of their heart is not truth, the fairness that they proclaim, justice, but that their souls are easily purchased away from the ideas of right and wrong, that the sufferer must deserve the suffering and the abuser is in the right. Job's friends seem more and more greedy and envious all the time. 

These are the things you must do: Speak truth to one another, render true and sound decisions in your gates, 17do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love perjury, for I hate all these things,” declares the LORD. Zechariah 8: 16-17

3. Some of the wicked not only die in old age, but peacefully and are shown great honor in death, in the memories of other men. Job wonders why this is, why isn't the judgment of God more swift? It is much better to admit this, that I don't understand, rather than toss upon the spiritual and eternal your desired religion, an idol that acts upon your knowledge and whim. God will answer Job soon enough, and blessed are those that seek rather than those that suppose. King Hezekiah sought Godly advice, and he laid out the letter of his enemy before the Lord, "Look God, we must say, look, I don't understand, I am outnumbered and only You can deliver me. This is beyond my resources, yet I know You allow all things that happen and are Sovereign in all things."  

Take it to the Lord, Hezekiah

4. Job knows how they will answer, as if the proof is in their pudding, but he has also come to realize that he can't convince them. He wonders too, why don't you act more quickly God, but they say, "look, God does, where is your tent and children, Job?" In going on with them, in continuing this, he becomes a witness to them. He cannot be the Holy Spirit to them though, only a humbled voice, trying to find reason and finding that it is not with men, but with God. Lord, I must ask, please give me wisdom, but also patience. Let us love in spirit and in truth. 

The men who were holding Jesus began to mock Him and beat Him. 64They blindfolded Him and kept demanding, “Prophesy! Who hit You?” 65And they said many other blasphemous things against Him.…Luke 22: 63-65