Job 36:15–16

In one word he sweeps away the unholy suspicions Job had held — "God is mighty, and does not despise any." He is infinite in power, yet He looks with compassion on the feeblest of His creatures. He shows Himself just as clearly in both extremes — the infinitely great, and the infinitely small. How comforting is the truth, "He does not despise any!" His greatness is never the occasion for scorn.

It is all the other way. God shows His might by being able to grasp everything, and by taking notice of the smallest insect and caring about it... God disciplines man to win him to Himself. That discipline is far stricter over the righteous man, to keep him right.

God does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous; He keeps them always under observation, and in the end He exalts them as kings. Yet before that happy end is reached, He may allow them to be "bound in fetters" and "held in cords of affliction," just as poor Job was at that moment. And if He does allow this, it is for a purpose... Notice, it is the righteous who are dealt with in this way. Even an Abraham and a Job, though righteous, were not sinless. God aims His discipline at people like these, rather than at those who shut God out of their lives.

When God allows people to be bound in cords of affliction (v.8), His object is to get their ear. He then tells them where they have transgressed and acted defiantly. That gives people the opportunity to listen and to turn from iniquity (vv.9-10). Job's earlier life had not been a life of iniquity. But his bold criticism of God certainly was iniquity, little as he realised it.

Naturally Elihu cannot go beyond the present life... With the added light we now have, we can speak of "this light momentary affliction," though it lasts a lifetime... The despiser will meet his doom with all the unclean, but God will save the humble sufferer, "in" and indeed "by" his affliction. It "works out" blessing for him.

"They do not cry for help when He binds them." When the Lord puts them in a bind, they fail the test completely. How can a hypocrite honestly cry to the Lord for help? Their own hypocrisy defeats them... In contrast, God delivers the poor who know how to cry to Him honestly. The affliction and oppression they suffer are the test by which God "opens their ears" to listen to Him.

Job ought to understand this: "He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous." "He opens also their ear to discipline." "He delivers the afflicted by their affliction." Here Job had failed. He had been busy justifying himself, instead of letting his ear be opened to discipline... When I have a true sense of what He is, the effect must be to humble myself under His mighty hand, and to wait on Him.

In Job 33 it is inward things that have to be corrected; it is correcting a disposition, to withdraw man from his purpose. In Job 36 it is actual failure, discipline for positive faults... There are many things to correct in me, which hinder me feeling the love. I know it better, the more I am disciplined and exercised.

This is just what the book of Job teaches. Elihu explains God's ways in chapter 33:17-30. In chapter 36:7 he speaks directly of a righteous man: "He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous." Yet He chastens them for their sins, and Elihu warns Job not to fight against God. If he had bowed in heart, God would have delivered him from his affliction (v. 16). Since God was dealing with him this way, Elihu warns him to take care that he is not cut off from the earth (v. 12). Yet Job was the godliest man on all the earth, but he needed correction as he was beginning to think well of himself.

He delivers the afflicted by His affliction, and He uncovers their ear by trouble. You too He lures out of the jaws of distress. He brings you into a wide place with no narrowness in it, and your table set with rich abundance.

Why then affliction? These "righteous" are the objects of God's care, yet at times they are "bound in fetters, held in cords of affliction." Is that a contradiction of what Elihu had just said? To Job it had been. He failed to see the possibilities of evil in his own heart — a pride as real a transgression as the shocking evils the friends falsely charged against him. God's object was to lay bare to man the hidden evil of his heart, to open his ear to His warnings and to turn him from pride.

Suppose Job had not been crushed and resentful about this test. Then, Elihu assures him, God would have brought him out of his distresses "into a broad place where there is no restraint" (v.16). Job had not completely failed the test, as hypocrites and others had, for God was still testing him. But his own idea (or wrong idea) of judgment and justice held his blessing back (v.17).

In the afflictions of the righteous He shows love and kindness, not His wrath and displeasure. He wants to instruct them by suffering. If they listen and learn the lesson, they will spend their days in prosperity, and end their life on earth in peace and pleasantness... He would have led Job out into a broad place. But if Job keeps up the argument of the wicked — reasoning and pleading as they do, charging God falsely — then let him beware.

Tribulation works patience, because it breaks my will. I kick against the tribulation if I do not see the key to it. A naughty child, put in the corner, knows very well that his father would not put him there if he did not need it. So with us, the Lord puts us in the corner, and there we must stay till He lets us out. I get the experience of God's faithful love, for I am sure He would not put me there if I did not need it. "He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous." He is always watching for their good. In Job 33 it is inward things that have to be corrected; it is correcting a disposition, to turn a man away from his own purpose. In Job 36 it is actual failure, discipline for definite faults.