Job 21. 1-15, 17, 19, 23-26, 29-34
Then Job replied: 2 “Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me. 3 Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on. 4 “Is my complaint directed to a human being? Why should I not be impatient? 5 Look at me and be appalled; clap your hand over your mouth. 6 When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body.
7 Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? 8 They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes. 9 Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them. 10 Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry. 11 They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about. 12 They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre; they make merry to the sound of the pipe.13 They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace. 14 Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. 15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’
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? … 19 You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it … 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.
29 Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts— 30 that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity, that they are delivered from the day of wrath? 31 Who denounces their conduct to their face? Who repays them for what they have done? 32 They are carried to the grave, and watch is kept over their tombs. 33 The soil in the valley is sweet to them; everyone follows after them, and a countless throng goes before them.
34 “So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!”
Sermon quotes and References:
Sometimes good never seems to come out of evil. Good people wait in vain. They find God’s slowness irksome. They lose heart, and they are tempted to lose faith. The purposes of God are often slow & self-restrained, working through the long processes of history, and they sometimes require the span of many centuries. It is easier to see the hand of God in spectacular and immediate acts, and the sinner who is not instantly corrected is likely to conclude that God’s delay in executing justice is a sign that He is indifferent or even absent. But we have to be as patient as God Himself to see the end result, and to walk by faith without sight in this life. But in due season we shall reap, if we do not faint. – Francis Andersen, The Message of Job