Job 34:11

Elihu's second speech aims to prove that no one may doubt God's fairness in government. It also aims to prove that Job, who dared to accuse that fairness, deserves serious blame for encouraging the evil and the scornful, in thought and word. God, sovereign in Himself, cannot err in His ways; He is righteous by His very nature. Abraham reasoned this way in Genesis 18:25, and so does every man, unless his mind and conscience are defiled. No one can even imagine injustice in the Almighty. His servants may fail — never the Fountain of all good.

"God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). The Almighty — the Omnipotent — can do everything, but "He cannot lie." "He cannot deny Himself." This ensures perfect, even justice in His dealings with men. He will repay a man's own work to him, and He will cause him to find the results of his own ways. This does not mean that Job's friends are right in their charges. It means that God is dealing in absolute justice with Job, and causing him to learn the lessons he needs.

Then he makes the simple, clear declaration, "Far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity." Job should not have had the slightest doubt about this, no matter how much he had suffered. Whatever questions arose in Job's mind, the fact remains: "according to the work of a man he will repay him, and according to his ways he will make it befall him" (v.11). He does not say when God repays man. That timing depends on God's unsearchable wisdom. But God will never do wickedly or pervert justice (v.12), as Job had suggested God had done in his case.

Whether man sees it or not, every act of God and every permission of God is necessary, both in His dealings with a nation and with a man. "For His eyes are on the ways of man, and He sees all his steps. There is no darkness, and no shadow of death, where those who do evil may hide themselves." God's providence with the world and His discipline with His own children may take many forms — chastening, or even removal by death. Whatever the form, all His ways are in righteousness and truth.

As Galatians says, a man reaps what he sows. This, however, is not grace but government. Still, it is true of a saint as well as of a sinner. God has both kinds of dealing with the saints now — in grace, and in righteous government. I shall never reap the reward of my sins in eternal blessedness, for grace is infinite. But under righteous government I shall reap the reward of my wrongdoing down here.

Elihu urges Job to understand that God is righteous, and in His righteousness He can act as He will. "He will not lay upon men more than is right, that he should enter into judgment with God." Since this is so, the true place for Job was confession: "Surely it is right to say to God, I have borne punishment — I will not offend any more." These varied lessons are steps forward in the history of a soul. The account gives them to us as one continuous, unbroken story. But we must remember that there are often long and painful gaps while a soul learns each step.