Job Has Questions
1 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?’
16 But their prosperity is not in their own hands,
so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.
17 “Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out?
How often does calamity come upon them,
the fate God allots in his anger?
18 How often are they like straw before the wind,
like chaff swept away by a gale?
19 It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’
Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
20 Let their own eyes see their destruction;
let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what do they care about the families they leave behind
when their allotted months come to an end?
22 “Can anyone teach knowledge to God,
since he judges even the highest?
23 One person dies in full vigor,
completely secure and at ease,
24 well nourished in body,
bones rich with marrow.
25 Another dies in bitterness of soul,
never having enjoyed anything good.
26 Side by side they lie in the dust,
and worms cover them both.
27 “I know full well what you are thinking,
the schemes by which you would wrong me.
28 You say, ‘Where now is the house of the great,
the tents where the wicked lived?’
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!”
Revelation 21:1-4
God Will Wipe Away Every Tear
1 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. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 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. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
In the Book of Job, we are not given a lot of length in the story about how Job was when he was in his good times, and was enjoying life...The book goes quickly into God allowing the evil one to enter Job's life, and troubles quickly begin...And what we do learn in the short first section about Job, is we know that he is a strong believer in the LORD...C. S. Lewis said that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”...And though we are not told how much Job thought about God when things were going right, and he was healthy, I do believe God has his attention and the God megaphone is turned up (in Job's life)...
Job has very good questions, and many of them are directed to God...In fact, Job and his friends all assume there is a God...There is never a time, as we read through Job, when we do not think that Job is a non-believer...He does cry out to God and tells Him that He is not answering him (Job 30:20 and Job 19:7)...And in a way, I think, the way Job questions God -he maybe blaming Him for his sufferings...Job even asks here, if any of his questions or complaints are really directed to a human being...So Job believes in God and wants answers for his suffering from God...He believes and calls on Someone Higher to answer to his questions and his sufferings...Job is calling out not so much to his friends, but Something transcendent that is so much more than his friends or human...
Job is a believer and I think those who believe in God deserve and want answers from Him...Job questions God throughout the Book of Job...But the unbeliever does not and cannot question God, because they do not believe in Him...Why question Something or Someone you do not believe in?...And this is sad...The non-believer can complain about their suffering, but to whom...If there is no God, there is never an end to suffering, because there is no heaven...Suffering will always exist for the non-believer...So for many, life is a tragedy...Suffering is just this grand tragedy that will be randomly in some people's lives and others will get by without much pain and suffering through this luck and randomness...The non-believer cannot blame God for their pain or any suffering, or anyone's pain and suffering...But more importantly the cannot reach out to Him and ever feel a sacred or holy moment in their life, and feel there is Something, in fact, that is Eternal and Spiritual...The Something and One Thing that is greater than man is not there for the unbeliever...The unbeliever has no hope for anything after their death, because their is no God...So the afterlife must be less and mean less to the non-believer than to the believer, who wants to spend His eternity with their Father and His Son...Death is "the end" for the one who does not believe in God...
I think the believer has the right like Job, to ask our Father these "Job-like Questions."...The non-believer has no one to ask, and no one to go or turn to...
There will never be a solution to the problems of pain, suffering, and evil when there is no God and no heaven...The non-believer does not believe that each of his tears, and his pains will end...So the irony of this is that life will remain as it is until man decides to love everyone, including his enemy...However, for the believer he believes that his every tear will be wiped from his eyes forever, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain or suffering anymore, for the former things have passed away...For the believer he not only has hope now, he has hope forever...