Get Wise On Your Lack of Wisdom

Elihu continues to answer Job in chapter 34. 

Job 34:7-9 (ESV) What man is like Job, who drinks up scoffing like water, 8 who travels in company with evildoers and walks with wicked men? 9 For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should take delight in God.’

He first sounds a lot like the three friends with a twinge of condescension for these are familiar attacks on Job. But his words are taken to a far different conclusion. Where Job's three friends assumed his guilt brought just condemnation, Elihu turns a corner and defends the awesome "otherness" of God. 

Job 34:12–15 (ESV) Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice. 13 Who gave him charge over the earth, and who laid on him the whole world? 14 If he should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, 15 all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.

Elihu makes the case for the sovereign wisdom of God. No one put God in charge. He is God. And even further, God does not pervert justice in His rule.

Job 34:17–20 (ESV) Shall one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty, 18 who says to a king, ‘Worthless one,’ and to nobles, ‘Wicked man,’ 19 who shows no partiality to princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor, for they are all the work of his hands? 20 In a moment they die; at midnight the people are shaken and pass away, and the mighty are taken away by no human hand.

Now admitting that God is wise and righteous altogether implies a hard truth for us: God is not bound to our petty comparisons and contrasts to others. For that is what we do when it comes to our suffering. Even Job did that on a certain level. We assume we don't deserve suffering based on how we live in relationship to others. But God sees beyond our mere shallow opinions. Notice what Elihu says. 

Job 34:23–25 (ESV) For God has no need to consider a man further, that he should go before God in judgment. 24 He shatters the mighty without investigation and sets others in their place. 25 Thus, knowing their works, he overturns them in the night, and they are crushed.

God sees and knows all. And His justice is perfect because He is its basis. No human can take God to court on charges of unfairness or inequality. Why? Because those very ideas come from Him and He metes those realities out from the standpoint of perfect wisdom. Who is the equipped person to question this one true God?

Elihu notes the sinful tendency of us all in verse 31. 

Job 34:31–32 (ESV) “For has anyone said to God, ‘I have borne punishment; I will not offend any more; 32 teach me what I do not see; if I have done iniquity, I will do it no more’?

In short, there is no one who does not sin in spite of our best promises and most earnest attempts. The next two verses in the NLT are beautiful: 

Job 34:33 (NLT) “Must God tailor his justice to your demands? But you have rejected him! The choice is yours, not mine. Go ahead, share your wisdom with us.

Job is a wisdom book and it's answering the question of the problem of suffering from God's perspective in a way that we can understand through such matters are ultimately beyond us. The first step is to admit (stop rejecting) that. Elihu brings us to that decision along with Job. When we surrender our idea of what SHOULD happen we can start to rest in the wisdom of God who sees and knows all that MUST happen. He's the only ONE equipped to fill that role.