Understanding Goodness and Badness

Everyone will know good and evil. That is a result of the curse. Remember God said after the first transgression about the woman and Adam:

Genesis 3:22 (ESV) Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.

Job asks us to look the evil in this world straight in the eye and dig deeper than the surface of our mere discomfort. Our hearts are at stake, and who we become matters greatly to the Lord. 

Job has thought it was all useless to be righteous. Thus Elihu asks him:

Job 35:3 (NLT) For you also ask, ‘What’s in it for me? What’s the use of living a righteous life?’

Elihu's response:

Job 35:5–7 (ESV) Look at the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds, which are higher than you. 6 If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him? And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him? 7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him? Or what does he receive from your hand?

It is very true that our righteous or wicked living does not help or hurt the Lord. He is not dependent upon us and our sins, while grievous to Him do not take from Him. He is eternal and unchangeable. So the question Job poses is really one that treads on the ground that denies those premises.

As Paul writes:

Romans 11:35 (ESV) “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

People with a high view of God are so much more adept at speaking for Him. I loathe the contemporary preaching preachers like to give Christ with "contemporary" sermon slang, bringing the God of the Universe to some measure of tame accounting. I will remind you that Elihu is never corrected or condemned in his speech. I believe his John the Baptist, "prepare the way" speech is getting Job to do ONE thing - turn his eye off himself and on to the exalted Lord. 

Elihu then shifts gears in verse 9

Job 35:9–11 (ESV) “Because of the multitude of oppressions people cry out; they call for help because of the arm of the mighty. 10 But none says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, 11 who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’

Elihu rebukes those who seek God only for help in times of need. Those who wish to have salvation without transformation are not ultimately saved at all. For God is not simply a rescue plan from your wisdom, He is the illumination of all wisdom and His aim is to change how you think, not just what you experience. 

And here's perhaps a stinging rebuke to us all:

Job 35:13 (ESV) Surely God does not hear an empty cry, nor does the Almighty regard it.

God knows our hearts. And this is why prayer can be so mysterious to us. When God says "no" to someone we think deserves it, remember God knows what's going on, what that prayer is really asking, and what the results will be in the character of the person asking. And while genuine people of faith suffer and still get requests postponed (until heaven) on this Earth, we grow through the trouble we live in far more than the challenges we are immediately rescued from. 

Elihu is getting Job to think far more deeply about God, about himself, and about suffering. And when we do that, we truly gain.