Job 19:7

There follows now a fearful accusation against God. It is good for Job that he is accusing infinite patience, or he might have had a real taste of divine anger. But God bears with it all, waiting His own time to bring the poor distracted man into His own holy presence. Job cries out for judgment and help, but no answer is given.

Job protests against the constant suspicion that follows him, in spite of his solemn claims of innocence. If it really were punishment for evil, that was his own business. But he would meet their thought, and openly acknowledge that his trouble did come from God. It was He who had hurled him down, and surrounded him with tangles he could not escape. It was He who refused to listen to his cry, and gave no ear to his appeals. It was He who had hedged up his way so that he could not escape. He covered his path with darkness, stripped him of honour, and took the crown from his head.

What proof did they have of sin in his past? If he had really sinned, the secret lay in his own heart, where they had no right to intrude. They goad him on to declaring, as he had already done, that the wrong was not his but God's! This root of suspicion against the Almighty is the thing that must be dug out. These men's false charges will never do it.

God does not deal with man on a legal basis, as most people think. So Job speaks of crying out about wrong, and of being ignored by God. Where was the justice in this? (v.7).

Of course God heard him, but God answers only at the right time and in the right way. Had God become cruel to him? He thought so, but it was the love of God that delayed an answer. What he considered God's hand strong against him was really the strength of God's love for him.

Thus, he considers he is the subject of God's bitter anger and that God counts him as His enemy (v.11). How totally wrong Job was in all this. But when one is bound up in "self" he will always think of God in this accusatory way. Yet in all the trouble Job was experiencing, God was acting toward him in genuine love and compassion.

Human love would have rushed to help at once. But letting death come in first brought, in the raising of Lazarus, what nothing else could: glory to God, and glory to Christ Himself. How then it should still our hearts in the presence of God when He seems to delay to answer our cries! Urgent need or pressing danger is usually persistent and impatient. "Has not God said," we repeat at such times, "that He will hear our prayers?" How then is it that we have cried in vain? No! We never cry to Him in vain. "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer." (1 Peter 3:12.) If the Lord waits, He waits only for His own glory, and our fuller blessing.