God Finally Speaks

As Job's friends insistence that Job was experiencing the judgment of God due to sin crescendos through the book, Job's plea narrows. He stops asking his friends to hear him out and turns his attention to God. In Job 13:22 he articulates his plea challenging God, "Then summon me and I will answer, or let me speak and you reply." His idea was that if he could just get an audience with the almighty, if God would just hear him out, he would acknowledge Job's righteousness and then would explain exactly what was going on.

As we wrap up here, we need to be settled on the fact that Job was not wrong. He was a righteous man. Remember when Satan sauntered into God's presence, it was God who called Satan's attention to Job: "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil" (Job 1:8). As I have pointed out before, Job was all that and a bag of chips! He was the bomb! So he knew that he wasn't being punished for some besetting sin. What he really wanted was for God to show up and let his friends know the truth, and, while he was at it, God could explain himself to the group.

While Job was asking for an explanation, God knew that what he needed was a revelation. Job knew some things about God but the problem was that he didn't have a sense of what he didn't know. What he knew was right, but it was woefully incomplete. In Job 38:2 God says, "Who is this that darkens My counsel with words without knowledge?" In other words, "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? Your argument, while trimmed in eloquence, is laced with ignorance. You may know about me but you don't know me, Job."

In chapters 38-41 of the book, God issues 77 questions to Job to help him understand that you don't know what you don't know. In asking His questions, God never answers Job's. But he reveals himself to Job. At the end of the book Job recognizes that God is really all he ever needed. "My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:5). Job still had questions but now he had God. And the bottom line for Job was that he would rather have life with God and questions than life without God and answers.