Job 11:10

Then follows Zophar, in Job 11, who is the keenest of the three, and the least considerate. He charges him with moral blindness as well as mere bluster. He takes up the harsh thoughts of those who attacked, and gives no weight at all to Job's pleadings in his wretchedness. Instead he begins to hold that sad thought, which all of them come to express. Some grave and secret evil must lie underneath, and it must be the cause of Job's many and unmatched calamities.

Zophar continues to speak in verse 10, "If He passes by, and shuts up, and calls to judgment, who can hinder Him?" This is worth weighing. No one can thwart the judgment of God when it comes. Of course Zophar, in speaking this way, considered that God was judging Job, which was not the case.

"If He cuts off, and shuts up, or gathers together, then who can hinder Him?" There is no doubt about His power, no limit to it. "For He knows vain men: He sees wickedness also." These are all insinuations against Job. "Will He not then consider it? For vain man would be wise, though man is born like a wild donkey's colt." Well, no doubt. That is man's condition now through the fall.

We can only bow to the truth that God is the searcher of hearts, and that nothing can escape His all-seeing eye.

Things which are true, but misunderstood and misapplied, may do more harm than many a thing that is false. Misapplied truth gives the apparent authority of God to an error, and that error carries all the more weight because it comes as the truth. People despise a foolish statement, or one plainly false; but no believer can treat the truth of God lightly. Suppose someone uses the truth of God wrongly. Suppose he applies it to crush a man who at that very moment is an object of intense interest to God. How foreign and offensive to His mind!

What a man sows, he will also reap, and punishment for sin is certain, both judicially and divinely. But to limit God in His dealings with His children to that is to dishonour Him, and to miss the richest and choicest of His purposes... Job's friends were men of a very high standard of life. Yet they missed this important link in the chain of God's dealings with His servant, and so they became the cruellest and bitterest of foes. Why? Because they limited God's dealings to the punishment of sin. They missed the training, forward-moving character of the sufferings, so they could only conclude that such a great sufferer must have been a great sinner.

It is a noble description of God, and we can hardly avoid the conviction that a man who could speak like this was not ignorant of the true God... But the Psalmist rejoices that he cannot drift beyond His love and care. In the New Testament we are overwhelmed, not by a dark and unsearchable mystery or an unappeasable avenger, but by "the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge."