11 Nov God is not always good, but he’s always Just!

“Just curse God and die!”. But he (Job) said unto her, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil”? Job verses 9 and 10 of the second Chapter, shows the wife of Job has reached her breaking point. The death of their children. The loss of all their resources, and finally, the exacerbated condition of her Husband Job. The Bible never reveals the name of Job’s wife, by the end of his story, she is no longer in the picture.

Verse 10 of Chapter 2, Job acknowledges that he was the recipient of Gods favor for a great number of years, and now he feels he has falling out of favor with God.  The losses he sustained are massive.  And it has helped him reach a conclusion, that he is now in the cross hairs of God’s anger.  Job described what he was now on the receiving end of, as “evil”. God had allowed calamity of epic proportions into his life.  Even more disheartening, he was convinced God himself had done it! “God is good all the time”.

God is good all the time has become a national Church saying across the United States.  I don’t know where it originated from,  but it’s been making it’s way around the Christian Church for over a decade now.  You will hear this saying in just about every Christian Church that is geography dispersed across the United States. It has even made its way into Christian film. Job didn’t describe what was happening to him as good at all. I wonder if the same people saying these things, ever stop to think what these words actually mean. Or had they forgotten when they sat in the ashes of their own calamity as Job, that God had turned an arrow of misery against them?

So we have Job. A Man the Bible describes as a person who would go about his day seeking out those whom he could help. He had a big Family, 7 sons and 3 daughters. He was extremely well off. In today’s terms, he would be described as wealthy. He was known for his integrity and outstanding conduct throughout the land. He was devout. He was unblemished, that no one in the land could point out one spec. In one day, Job suffered the unthinkable. In one day, he loses his Children, his servants, and all of his resources. Then if things couldn’t get any worse, he loses his physical health.

Let’s tally the cost: Seven sons, three daughters, all of his servants, all of his resources, his health, his self-esteem, his self-respect, and his confidence. He was covered from head to toe in open boils that were leaking, that he would scrape them with a broken piece of pottery. He even became detestable in his wife’s sight. Detestable meaning it was an offense to even look at. So there was no hand holding, no hugging, no physical comfort from his wife. She had loss any form of affection towards him.  This ordeal had brought her to the point of wanting to see her Husband dead! It was better for him to die, then to keep on living in such a detestable state.

It is in the most painful situations, that the innermost parts of a person’s heart are revealed. Months and months of this painful set of circumstances, experiences and situations, had taking its toll on her. She was no longer the support and help meet that Job needed. When Jobs friends showed up, they were so taking backed and grieved by his condition, that they just sat with him for 7 days and did not say 1 word. There were no words that could comfort his condition. Sometimes saying nothing, is saying a lot.

There is no good in anything I just described. Job’s friends, even in some of their ridiculous theories, did not state what was happening to Job was good. Job’s wife certainly didn’t identify her circumstances as good. And Job specifically said what he was now receiving was “evil”. We must not say things because they “sound good” or say things without understanding.

“People who say, God is good all the time”, have never sat in the ashes of sorrow as Job did. They’ve never been betrayed and pushed in a hole as Joseph was, and then sold off into slavery. They’ve never been on the run for their life as David was. They never had their male firstborn baby murdered by a decree of law. They’ve never been stoned. They have been “caught” in the trap of religion. Saying things and doing things without any true meaning or purpose behind it.

Jesus who is now our high Priest, disassembled the entire priesthood after his death and resurrection. Yet you still have Catholic priest running around saying they speak for God. Jesus now speaks for all men. His blood gave all Men who by Faith believe in the son of God, the ability to go to God through him to make our request known and seek repentance for sins.

It is religion that keeps such ridiculous things going. There is no scripture in the whole book of Job that declared what happen to Job as being “good”. That was specifically Job’s gripe. That what was happening to him was not good, even though he walked uprightly before God in all his ways. The end result was “good”. Through satans relentless attacks, it depleted all the pride Job had on the inside.

But the methods in which it was done was not good. It was necessary. God methods are not always good, but his methods are always just. He never goes beyond what is needed to get the result that is needed. But he will allow things or do things that are not “good”, in order to reap a result that’s good in the end.