Year 2, Day 115: Job 21

Lie: What Goes Around Comes Around

It is now time to turn and seriously attack this constant assertion from Job’s friends that the world eventually catches up to the wicked.  In the last chapter, Zophar gave a long argument that the wicked do eventually get what is due to them.  Remember Zophar’s argument in which he claimed that either another human will put his arrows through the wicked or nature will sink its own venom into the wicked.

Job comes out swinging against this teaching.  Job’s bold claim in verse 7 starts it off.  Job asserts that experience has taught him that the wicked live, reach old age, and even prosper!  Perhaps even worse, Job then goes on to claim that the children of the wicked are more likely to pick up the mantle of wickedness when the wicked do perish in old age and seem to life a good and prosperous life!

Job then claims that not only are the wicked prospering, but their property is safe.  Their animals breed in the fields without concern.  Their cows have calves without worrying about them.  After all, if the wicked are truly prospering and in power, who is going to challenge their property?

After speaking about the property of the wicked, Job again returns to the children of the wicked.  They are happy.  They play songs and dance together.  They continue to prosper in this life and they die seemingly in peace.  They are even so comfortable in life as to look at God and tell God that they don’t even need His ways.

This brings us to verse 17, but I want to stop and talk about what we’ve seen thus far.  From my read on life, I think Job absolutely nails it.  There is no reason to think that the wicked won’t prosper in life.  I can think of numerous unscrupulous people who have prospered.  I can think of plenty of people who prosper while living under the “looking out for number one” mentality.  Sure, I can think of plenty of people who did get caught up in their wicked schemes.  But I do think that there are plenty of wicked people who do prosper as well.

I’m pretty sure that there are many wicked who don’t get what they deserve in this life.  I’m pretty sure that there are plenty of self-centered selfish people who live seemingly happy lives of having it all.  The truth is that what goes around doesn’t often come around – at least not as often as it should, especially the more power and wealth you have.

Truth: Prosperity Brings Distance From God

All that being said, what I think is really true is the theology that Job comes to in the end of that section.  As the wicked do prosper, this is precisely the time when people turn away from God and declare that they really don’t need Him.  For me, that is quite a deeply true statement.  It has to be that the wicked do in fact prosper.  If the wicked did not prosper there would be no reason to turn away from God and be wicked in the first place!

Again, let me illustrate why this has to be true.  If the only people that prosper were the ones who were righteous, then everyone would strive to be righteous.  The wicked would die off, and all the prosperous people would all be the righteous ones.  Those looking to be prosperous would see that the only way to do it is in righteousness, so we would all learn to be righteous.  However, this is clearly not the case at all.  There are scores of people who are choosing to turn away from God and live unrighteous lives.  This indicates that people recognize that one is not mandated to live righteously in order to prosper in this life.  In fact, it likely indicates that it is easier to prosper by not humbling oneself before God.

Truth: People Often Care More About Prosperity Than God

How sad is it that prosperity can lead to a turning away from God?  But it is the epitome of humanity.  Human beings are by nature self-centered and self-serving.  If we get to a point where we don’t need God, many human beings will actually turn from Him.  This fact alone tells me that Job is right.  The wicked do prosper.

Question: Are You Listening?

The rest of Job’s speech is very apropos.  Job confronts his friends and essentially asks them if they are listening.  Job knows that they aren’t listening to him.  But now he comes right out and tells them that they are not really listening to life experience, either.  Were not the ancient roads known for having bandit after bandit?  Does that witness not tell us that Job is right and the wicked do prosper?

Of course, Job gives us plenty of other examples where the trio of friends does not listen to Job or life.  The reason that this is apropos is because it really points to the underlying problem in their speeches.  They are so interested in being right and making theology out the way that they want it to be that they are ignoring real truth.  When we continue to ignore truth, we eventually come out with bad theology based on what we want to see and not what God actually has to teach us.

Today, we really do have reason to examine ourselves as we read Job.  Are we listening to God?  Are we truly taking stock of the world and life around us?  Are we genuinely following God’s truth – or are we like Job’s friends and convinced that we already know the truth?

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