daily java

Daily Java: You say to God, 'My beliefs are flawless and I am pure in your sight.'
Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips against you
and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides.
Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin.
Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave – what can you know?
Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.
If he comes along and confines you in prison and convenes a court, who can oppose him?
Surely he recognizes deceitful men; and when he sees evil, does he not take note? (Job 11:4-11)

Some of the neatest stuff in the Bible is not true.

The Bible is absolutely real and really written, truly written if you will.

But everything said in it is not true.

Sometimes you hear people quote a verse that sounds good at the time and in the context, but is not true. This passage is one of them.

Job has gone through so much, but yet is innocent. His friends cannot believe that he is, so they are trying to convince him of that age-old adage: God punishes people for what they do right now.

It is an age-old adage, but, as I said, it is not true.

Zophar was one of Job’s “friends.” He is trying his best to convince Job that he has done something wrong, or all of this bad stuff would not happen. And he is doing it in a rather smirky way, too.

“If God were here, he would tell it to your face, man, you’re some kind of sinner.”

“If God were here, he would be frowning at you, Job.”

“God would judge you and you would not be happy.”

“He knows you are lying, Job. You have done something wrong and you know it.”

The problem is, God does not punish us right now for things done right now. He waits. And a lot of his waiting is so that we can realize our sin and come back to him.

The Bible is rather plain that immediate punishment is not in God’s plan.

Now he does allow us sometimes to suffer the consequences of our foolishness, but we also suffer the consequences of other people’s foolishness, too. And sometimes we duffer those consequences and \the ones who were foolish do not.

Life is not fair, nor is God fair. At least, not as we count fairness, anyway.

God is good, God is great, all the time. But he is not fair. That is a sad point, at least to us.

But his goodness will prevail and things will work out to his glory and to our glory, sooner or later.

Zophar was full of beans, and didn’t know what he was talking about. Job was right. He was blameless, yet he had a lot of bad things happen to him.

At least he also had the knowledge of who was full of beans, he didn’t listen to Zophar or his other three friends.

He listened to God.


BTW, another example of that is John 9:31: God does not listen to sinners. He sure does.

This is a religious guy trying to justify what he thinks by making up some doctrine. After all, if God did not listen to sinners, he surely wouldn't have listened to you.