Job 23-24, Where is God?

Where is God? Where is God when I'm in pain? Where is God when I have questions? Where is God when the wicked oppress the needy? Where is God when the unrighteous are successful? Where is God when I need him?

If you're a person who has lived a life of faith for any time, you have found yourself asking these questions. Job asks these questions as well in Job 23-24. Again we find that doubt and struggle with our faith is not confined to those of us who are "weak" or "young" in our faith, but also to those of great character and experience who had walked with God for a long time.

In Job 22 Eliphaz told Job that he was a sinner, that he had turned from God in his heart, and if he would only repent then everything would be okay. In other words, same old, same old from Job's friends. Job is going to follow up in 23-24, lamenting his current state and refuting Eliphaz's arguments yet again. Please read along in the Bible...or here...or here.

Job 23:1-7 - Where is God? Why won't he hear me? Why can't I find him? Sometimes I throw little funny pictures or comments in here, but it just doesn't seem appropriate for this heartbreaking section of verses. Job is pouring our his heart before God. He's broken. He's searching for God. He wants to find God so he can find an answer for the suffering he's had to endure. "Today also my complaint is bitter; my hand is heavy on account of my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat," (2-3) He wants to find God and ask, "Why?". "I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know what he would answer me and understand what he would say to me," (4-5). Job is still confident that if he could present his case before Him, that God would vindicate him as a righteous man, (6-7).

Job 23:8-17 - Job's inability to find God and his despair at God's sovereign and mysterious will. Boy, I don't think anyone can relate to this section, right? I mean no one has struggled with the hidden will and purpose of the Almighty, right? Well that's where Job is right now. "Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him," (8-9). Job despairs at being unable to find God to answer his questions. He despairs at being lost in his "why" questions. I know you and I have been there too. We've found ourselves alone, in pain and in doubt, crying out for God to show himself and to care for us. We've all experienced being alone with our questions. Why does God work this way? I don't know. Job despairs at the mysterious will of God.

"But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind. Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me," (13-16). 

Yet throughout all of this, Job holds fast to his integrity. He knows he has not sinned against God. He knows there is no evil in his life to justify the pain and loss he has experienced, (even as his friends keep stating the opposite). "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold," (10-12).

Job 24:1-12 - Where is God in the presence of unrighteous oppression? Job had despaired at the hiddenness of God's will in the previous chapter. (Yes, "hiddenness" is a word. Look it up). Now Job's despair has led him to cry aloud at the hiddenness of God in the face of oppression on the earth. This is also the beginning of a rebuke of Eliphaz's idea that evil men do not prosper on the earth. "Why are not times of judgment kept by the Almighty, and why do those who know him never see his days?" (1). In other words, why don't we see God judge sin in the world? "Some move landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them. They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge," (2-3). Not only do the wicked exist, but they ruin the lives of the poor and needy. "They thrust the poor off the road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves...They lie all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold...From out of the city the dying groan, and the soul of the wounded cries for help; yet God charges no one with wrong," (4-12, selected). Job's not only asking, "Where's God for me?" but also, "Where's God for the poor and oppressed? Why are the poor oppressed by the wicked? Why doesn't God show up and help them? Why is there so much suffering and injustice in the world?"

Job's friends had confidently stated that the wicked are judged on the earth and that God swiftly punishes the guilty for their sin. Job looks at his life and the world around him and says, "That's not so." In our day all we have to do is turn on the six o'clock news to see that things are not right in the world. There is injustice, oppression, poverty, evil, and war. Evil men invade countries. Poor people are wronged. Justice is perverted. Where is God?

Job 24:13-17 - Where is God in the darkness of evil? "There are those who rebel against the light...the murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy...the eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying 'No eye will see me'...they do not know the light...for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness," (selected, self explanatory).

Job 24:18-25 - Job confronts and rejects an expected response from his friends. Job knows his friends are going to counter his arguments, so he will acknowledge it and then respond to their arguments ahead of time. This is a bit of a tricky passage. Some translations read this differently. My understanding is that the original Hebrew is a bit hard to interpret. I'm going with the ESV translation because it appears to match up with the flavor of what Job was saying in the passage. Then again, I may be wrong here. My advice to you is to read it on your own and come to your own conclusions. But since you're reading my blog, I'll give you mine. Read along in the ESV if you want to see what I'm reading.

"You say, 'Swift are they on the face of the waters; their portion is cursed in the land...Drought and heat snatch away Sheol those who have sinned," (18-19). Job expects his friends to respond with the same comments they have made previously. Now he counters in 21-25, tell his friends they are wrong. "They, (the wicked), wrong the barren, childless woman, and do no good to the widow. Yet God prolongs the life of the mighty by his power...He gives them security, and they are supported," (22-23). Ultimately, Job sees that the good and the wicked all live and die alike, so what is the point? Then he challenges his friends to disprove him if he is wrong. "If it is not so, who will prove me a liar and show that there is nothing in what I say?" (25).

Job spends this chapters crying out at the seeming "hiddenness" of God. He not only asks, "Why God?" but also, "Where are you?" "Where are you why I cry out for help? Where are you when the wicked prosper? Where are you when there is injustice and oppression in the world? Where are you in my pain? Where are you when the wicked murder, corrupt, destroy, and mock your righteousness?" We have asked those questions too in cuddled up in our beds, alone with our tears. Job is not so fortunate to get answer in these chapters, either from God, (who will respond eventually), or from his friends, (who are morons). But it would be rude of me not to offer some Biblical perspective here.

The world is not as it should be. God did not make the world with suffering, sickness, despair, evil, corruption, and oppression. God made the world perfect, safe, pure, and whole (see Genesis 1-2). Man, from the very beginning, has rejected God, his ways, his authority, and his kind and holy instructions about life, love, righteousness, and what is good (see Genesis 3 until Revelation, which is a rather large reference, don't you think?). This is why Christians describe the world as fallen. It is not as it should be.

And God is not silent or aloof. Job asked where God was in the midst of his broken life and the broken world around him. What Job didn't know is that one day God would enter the world as a man, Jesus Christ. He would live on this earth, faithfully obeying the Father's will, and bringing the goodness of God into this fallen world. He healed the sick, touched those who were unclean and cared for the poor. He also taught the beautiful truth God's Word, instructing the simple, correcting the proud, and revealing the will of God to all. Ultimately, he was tortured and killed on a cross, convicted of crimes he had not committed. He died and rose again from the grave. Where was God? God was in Christ. He stepped into this fallen world, bore its sorrows and wickedness, and paid the price so that men might believe on him as a Savior, be forgiven of their sins before God, and restored to a relationship with their Creator.

The Lion will return. 

Finally, the world is not as it will be. One day Jesus is coming back. The world is going to be restored to as it was before the Fall. Those who are not believers in Jesus Christ will receive the appropriate judgment for their sin. The wicked will no longer oppress the needy. The poor will no longer be have no advocate for their suffering. The corrupt will no longer deceive. Evil rulers will no longer trample on the weak. There will be a king, Jesus, who will rule forever in righteousness and mercy. Job didn't know this. Maybe you didn't know this either, but now you do. How are you going to respond?

In the meantime we ask "Why?" and "Where?", but one day we won't have to.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, or crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away," (Revelation 21:1-4).

Amen.