Job 15:1-35 - Why Do the Wicked Prosper While the Righteous Suffer? (Session 20)

In this verse-by-verse Bible study of Job 15, Reasoning Through the Bible begins the second round of speeches from Job’s friends and shows that their counsel is becoming less delicate and more cruel. Eliphaz no longer sounds merely mistaken. He now sounds personally offended, sarcastic, and harsh as he accuses Job of bringing suffering on himself. 

This session explores one of the great questions of life and Scripture: why do the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer? It also exposes the theological error in Eliphaz’s reasoning. He treats God’s justice as if it were a mechanical formula, assuming that all suffering must prove wickedness and all prosperity must prove righteousness. The study shows why that view leaves no room for God’s mercy, patience, or larger purposes in suffering. 

This session also addresses Word of Faith theology, the idea that a person’s spoken words create prosperity or suffering. The book of Job stands against that teaching because Job’s suffering is not caused by his confession or speech, but by the larger heavenly scene God allows for His own purposes. This session is both doctrinally sharp and pastorally practical for anyone trying to comfort the suffering without blaming them. 

Topics in this episode include:

•  Job 15 explained 
•  why the wicked prosper 
•  Eliphaz’s second speech 
•  suffering does not always prove sin 
•  false assumptions about prosperity and pain 
•  word of faith theology examined 
•  harsh versus loving correction 
•  God’s mercy and long-suffering 
•  how not to counsel sufferers 

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Transcript

Why The Wicked Prosper Question

SPEAKER_01 0:16

One of the perennial questions that comes across the minds of godly people is why do the wicked prosper? It seems sometimes that the wicked are the ones that have all of the breaks, and the people that are trying to be righteous seem to have problem after problem. Well, this is not a new phenomenon. We see it all the way back in the days of Job, and God's going to give us an answer to this, or at least a response, in his word. We're in the book of Job. We're starting today in Job chapter 15, and chapter 15 starts the second round of comments from Job's friends. So if you remember where we've been so far in the book, Job started out as a righteous man. God called him blameless and upright and God-fearing. God had some conversations with Satan in chapters one and two. God brought up the subject of Job. God approaches Satan. Have you considered my servant Job? And God was in total control. He controlled how far Satan could go and what he could do. And God has control and God has a purpose for these things. So everything in heaven and on God's side of things is very orderly and controlled and running quite smoothly. Job, on the other hand, sees nothing but pain and suffering and chaos. And Job does not know why. And he has laid a lot of his blame at the feet of God. And we're going to see today the second round of Job's three friends come to him, whereas the first time they were a little more eloquent, but this time they're much more blunt. The second round is going to get a lot less delicate and almost cruel in their accusations against Job. So, Steve, can you read the first six verses of Job chapter 15?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded, Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge and fill himself with the east wind? Should he argue with useless talk or with words which do not benefit? Indeed, you do away with reverence and hinder meditation before God. For your wrongdoing teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the cunning. Your own mouth condemns you, and not I, and your lips testify against you.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

So in that, if we look at verse two, what is Eliphaz saying in effect to Job? What's he really telling him?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Eliphaz has taken Job's response to him on his first argument, and he's taken it personal. And he has come back in his opening statement here in his rebuttal to Job with personal attacks against him, says that he's basically full of wind and that his own mouth speaks against him. So to me, it looks like Eliphaz is taking this personal. Now it's turned from being there and being with Job for the first week, doing nothing and speaking nothing, just being with Job, to the first round of arguments of saying, well, trying to console Job, although they don't do it in such a good way, to now just outright insulting him.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

It is. It's a downright insult. He's saying, in effect, you're an empty-headed windbag. You're the one, Job, that is just an empty wind that is saying these things. So Eliphaz here is more direct, more blunt, or even more insulting. The second line in verse 4, Eliphaz says that Job hinders meditation before God. He doesn't think that Job is thinking clearly about godly things. Your mind is full of hot air. You're not thinking clearly about godly things. So now Eliphaz is laying things on even thicker and more direct. Job was telling them the first time, I'm hurting here, I'm suffering, and you guys are not helping. Now the friends kind of turn it up a notch and it gets worse. So I always try to ask the question: if I were Job, how would I take this? And I'm not really sure. At this point, they just seem to be turning the screws even tighter. It would seem to me that if I were Job, I would want to just run away from these friends. So, Steve, if you were Job, how would you think? How would you react to this?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I think I would probably say, look, this isn't helping anything. Y'all have given me some advice, which I think was the wrong advice. I've come back and defended myself, pointed out the areas that, look, I'm I'm innocent in all of this, and I don't know what's happening. And yes, I've kind of got a strange perception of God as far as why this is happening to me. Yet here you are coming back and insulting me just because I've defended myself. I think my reaction would be, I think Eliphaz, it's time for you to leave. That's what be my response.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I would be something similar. In verse five, he says here, your wrongdoing teaches your mouth. And he says in the next verse, verse six, your own mouth condemns you and not I. What Eliphaz is telling Job is that your words are contributing to your problem. Your words are condemning you before God. Your language is what's helping to contribute to your situation here. He's basically saying to Job that Job, you're in denial. And every time you deny this, you're just making it worse. It's sort of like saying, well, if the first sign of a person with this problem is that they deny things. And when the person says, I don't have this problem, well, see, you're in denial. That just proves you have the problem. It's putting Job in a no-win situation. He's putting Job in a situation that even if he tries to deny it, he's guilty of the problem. Eliphaz is saying the first sign of a problem is denying there's a problem. There's nothing Job can say or do to get him out of the accusation. So is in fact Steve Job suffering because of anything he did or anything he failed to do?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

No, he's not. And we know that because we know the beginning of the story from chapters one and two. And Job knows that himself. We've brought that out in our study very early on. Job knows that he is innocent. He doesn't understand what's going on, but he knows that he's innocent. And Eliphaz is coming back in a strong way because he's condemning Job's apparent irreverence toward God that he just got through speaking about in chapter 14, but he's doing it in a wrong way. And he's doing it in a way that's offensive to Job. He's not helping the situation. He's not listening to Job. He's not listening to what Job has been saying. He is coming back against Job, basically saying, is, you don't know what you're talking about. You're just a bag of hot air and your own words condemn yourself, meaning that he hasn't heard Job say, Hey guys, I'm innocent here. I can't tell you what's going on, but for sure it's not something that I have done. So rather than now in the second round, that each of his friends are going to have a response, rather than coming and saying, okay, we've listened to you, we've heard you, let's investigate why you think that you haven't done something wrong and let's do that. No, Eliphaz just comes out with his guns blazing, so to speak, in condemning Job and condemning him on his irreverence approach towards God. I think that he should have more of a sensitive response to Job in light of the suffering and condition that Job is in at the time.

Word Of Faith Theology Tested

Sarcasm And Appeals To Age

SPEAKER_01 8:13

This accusation here by Eliphaz in Job chapter 15, he's accusing Job of his words contributing to his problems. That brings up what reminds us in our day of what has been called word of faith theology. Word of faith theology says that what a person speaks is what's going to happen to them. These word of faith teachers claim that if a person speaks money and healing, then they're going to be rich and healthy. But if they speak problems, then they're going to have suffering. The book of Job contradicts word of faith theology. It is indeed a false theology according to the word of God. Remember, at the beginning, Job was blameless, upright, and God-fearing. God declared that to be so. God allowed Satan to attack Job and cause the suffering. The suffering had nothing to do with Job's words. And getting out of it has nothing to do with Job's confession or anything he said. Here in Job, it's interesting that this word of faith theology is in the mouth of the enemy, Eliphaz, and not in the mouth of the righteous. Word of faith teaching does not provide any comfort to people in the face of suffering and tragedy. In fact, it blames people for things that are not their fault, which is exactly what Eliphaz is doing here. He is blaming Job for his problems, saying that, well, because you're in denial of this, you're contributing to the problem. Therefore, this is in the mouth of the enemy. Word of faith theology has nothing to do with the scriptures, because in this instance, Job's prosperity and Job's suffering had nothing to do with what he was confessing and what he was saying. It had everything to do with what God and Satan were do in the heavenlies and what God was allowing and what God's purposes were. Job's job was just to submit to that and glorify God, even in the midst of the suffering, which is what God asked him to do. It helps bless Job and us in the end. I'm going to go ahead and read the next section. Next, Eliphaz becomes more than a little bit sarcastic. I'm starting in verse 7. Were you the first person to be born? Or were you brought forth before the hills? Do you hear the secret discussion of God and limit wisdom to yourself? What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we do not? Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, older than your father. Are the consolations of God too little for you, or the words spoken gently to you? Why does your heart take you away? And why do your eyes wink that you can turn your spirit against God and produce such words from your mouth? What is man that he would be pure, or he who is born of a woman that he would be righteous? Behold, he has no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight. How much less one who is detestable and corrupt, a person who drinks malice like water. So, Steve, what's he saying in that passage?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Well, again, he's coming back and he's condemning Job for those attitude towards God. And he's basically saying, you need to keep in mind, Job, that there's older and there's wiser people than you, you laying the blame and the things that you're attributing to God. There's other people that know better than you, and you should listen to them because they've walked longer paths than you have walked. And while that might be true, again, it's a response back to Job of one of rebuke, which is not necessarily, I think, appropriate at this particular time. If Eliphaz thinks that Job's response back to God is wrong, there's a way to gently get Job back on track and get him focused back on the things that Job should be praising God about. I think that that's a better approach. He could still use his argument that there are wiser people in such a way as this. Job, I understand that the situation that you're going through and I understand the suffering that you're going through as much as I can understand it. But I want to let you know that there are other people that are here that are older than you, they're wiser than you. They've walked paths longer than what you have walked. And I can tell you, don't abandon God and don't lay these wrong accusations that you have just laid on God. They're wrong, they're misplaced. Think about what you had in God before this has happened and think about what you're going to have in God after this is going to happen. This is a temporary time in your life. Keep focusing your way on God. Now, to me, that is a way to redirect Job's perception about God during this time of suffering and focusing it back on God. So it's accomplishing the same thing that Eliphaz wants to accomplish, but it's doing it, in my opinion, in a more gentle way and fashion than what Eliphaz is approaching here in this first part of chapter 15.

The Danger Of Quick Judgments

SPEAKER_01 13:31

In this section, Eliphaz is being more than a little bit sarcastic. He's dealing in a subject that many cultures, including some today, hold older people to be wiser. Naturally so. The older people, more mature people, are all held to be more intelligent and wiser. So Eliphaz is being very cutting, very sarcastic to Job. Are you older than the hills? Do you hear the secret discussions of God? Is wisdom limited to you yourself? Then Eliphaz says in nine and 10, he's basically saying, all the really smart people are on my side. That's what Eliphaz is saying. All the really intelligent people are over with me. It reminds me of what is often done today by skeptics and critics. They have this attitude of thinking that they are the intelligent ones, and they accuse those of us who have a simple faith in Christ. They say that we're more simple-minded and unintelligent. I've often found that if you just take away the sarcasm and you take away the emotional debate techniques, then the atheists and the skeptics really don't have too terrible much to say. They've couched a lot of it in these little sarcastic emotional digs. Really, all they're doing is not much more than what Eliphaz is doing, which is saying, Well, we have the intelligent people. You're just simple-minded. He doesn't really give an argument here. Now, remember the first time Eliphaz spoke, he claimed to have gotten knowledge from a vision. He was the one that said he had this night vision last time. Eliphaz thinks that he has knowledge that other people do not have. And by the end of the book, Eliphaz is going to find out who really the intelligent one because God's going to show up and give an answer to all of these things. In this passage we just read, verse 13, Eliphaz is accusing Job of turning his spirit against God. Each of us should ask ourselves: have I been guilty of judging other people's spiritual condition because of their looks or their situation? Have I been guilty of looking at someone and saying, wow, they're in a really unfortunate situation? They look bad, they've been acting poorly. And have I prejudged them when I don't really know them and then judge their spiritual condition? So, Steve, can I look at someone and by their looks tell much about their spiritual condition? Or is that really sort of an unfair prejudgment?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I believe it's an unfair prejudgment because anytime that we look at somebody, we're looking at a snapshot of their life. Now, there are situations where you have family members and you have good friends where you spend time with them maybe on a daily basis. So on those situations, you have more of an inside look as to what they're experiencing. You talk with them, you converse with them on a daily basis or a weekly basis more often. But the majority of people that we meet are ones that we don't have that much of an inside information, and they're really just snapshots in their lives. Therefore, we shouldn't just all of a sudden come to a conclusion about their spiritual condition. We don't really know how it is based upon that one snapshot and time that we might have.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Towards the end of the passage that we just read, verse 16, Eliphaz says that, well, just go ahead and read it again. He gets very hard and direct again with Job. How much less one who is detestable and corrupt, a person who drinks malice like water. He's accusing Job of being detestable and corrupt and drinking iniquity or malice like water. So that's reminds me that, yes, that's true. Mankind, from God's perspective, really does sin a great deal. We really have no grounds to hold any sort of righteousness on our own before God. But the way that Eliphaz is saying this is really an improper way. And it reminds me of some of these sour, dour Christians that are very quick to prejudge people. And yes, oftentimes they point to people that really are indeed sinning, but the manner in which these Christians make the accusation is really a wrong way. Oftentimes they do so in just a very mean manner. And I think that there's a place for a loving Christian to come alongside and try to correct someone and point them towards Christ without coming across as judgmental. The New Testament tells us that we should speak the truth, but we should speak the truth in love, Ephesians 2.14. So, Steve, have you ever found that there are at least some Christians that they may be speaking the truth, but they're not doing it in a loving way?

SPEAKER_00 18:28

We must resist the temptation to equate suffering with sin. That's what Eliphaz is doing here, and some of Job's friends as well. And as we pointed out at the beginning of this session, they're not listening to Job's rebuttal to them and telling them that's not the problem. Granted that Job is not communicating it in the right way. We we've talked about that. He's laying the blame at God's feet too much. But outside of that, they're not hearing Job and what he has been saying. They're just coming back with essentially the same arguments that they had before. God only punishes those who are sinful. You're suffering, therefore, you're being punished, therefore, you've got sin in your life. That's basically their argument. And it's a wrong argument. As we go through and continue to go through this book, Job is the name of the book. The main character is Job and his suffering. And so, yes, we need to get out of Job, his suffering and how he reacts to it, how he reacts to God about it. Those are all things that we need to get out of the book of Job. Why do the righteous suffer? That's a question that we ask, and as we go through Job, we attempt to answer. But we shouldn't lay aside his friends. We need to learn from his friends the way that they initially come to him, the arguments they make, the way that they come back as we are getting into their second round of responses. Let's not forget that those are teaching moments for us as well, and that we can learn from them as to their responses and whether they're right or wrong. So it's not just Job in this book, it's also all of his friends. We need to focus in and look at their responses and take out of them some of the things that we should do in responding to other people, not just if they're suffering, but as you just pointed out, if they're lost in general, how we approach them and how we bring out and tease out of them, yes, they're a sinful person. They've missed the mark, they need a savior. Jesus Christ is the only one that can do that. I'm not saying that you just give nothing but Jesus loves you and therefore you need to believe in him. We need to point out the sin in their life, but there's a way that we should do it and a proper way that we should do it and a loving way that we can do it to get that message across to people.

When Theology Turns Mechanistic

SPEAKER_01 21:02

In the next section, Eliphaz is going to continue in this vein of trying to tell Job, well, I'm the really smart one, and you're not very intelligent. And really, as Steve said, it's really a continuation of trying to blame Job for his own problems. So I'm reading in verse 17, I will tell you, listen to me, and what I have seen, I will also declare. What wise people have told and have not concealed from their fathers, to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them. The wicked person writhes in pain all his days, and the years reserved for the ruthless are numbered. Sounds of terror are in his ears. While he is at peace, the destroyer comes upon him. He does not believe that he will return from darkness, and he is destined for the sword. He wanders about for food, saying, Where is it? He knows that a day of darkness is at hand, distress and anguish terrify him. They overpower him like a king, ready for the attack. Because he has reached out with his hand against God and is arrogant towards the Almighty, he rushes headlong at him with his massive shield, for he has covered his face with fat and put fat on his waist. He has lived in desolate cities, in houses no one would inhabit, which are destined to become ruins. He will not become rich, nor will his wealth endure, and his property will not stretch out on the earth. He will not escape from darkness. The flame will dry up his shoot, and he will go away by the breath of his mouth. Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself, for his reward will be emptiness. It will be accomplished before his time, and his palm branch will not be green. He will drop off his unripe grape like the vine, and will cast off his flower like the olive tree. But the company of godliness is barren, and the fire consumes the tents of the corrupt. They conceive harm and give birth to wrongdoing, and their mind prepares deception. Well, Steve Eliphaz is saying some things here that are kind of sort of right, but for the most part, he's saying things that in Job's application are quite wrong. Job is saying that the wicked people suffer, but he's saying here in a way, again, that's not really correct. For example, verse 20, the wicked man writhes in pain all his years. In our lifetimes, if we look around the world, do we see wicked people writhing in pain every year?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

There are parts of scripture that tell us that the rain falls on both the good and the bad. That's a type of situation where no, we don't see the wicked always being punished. In our lifetime, now we know that they're going to be punished in the end. That's what's called the great white throne judgment. They are then going to be punished by God for their wickedness, for their ways. And now you get into a classification: well, what constitutes being wicked? Those are discussions that we've made several times throughout all of our studies. But there is going to be a time whenever they're going to face the judgment of God for their denial of God, for their anger against God, for their anger against God's people, things like that. There is going to be a judgment. But in our lifetime, we see many times that people that are God deniers and don't want to have anything to do with God, atheists and stuff, they're prospering quite well during our lifetime. They're not being punished during our lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Many wicked people in our day seem to have a lot of earthly pleasures. Many righteous people seem to have a lot of suffering. In the story that Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospels, the rich man had his pleasure while on earth. Lazarus had suffering while on earth. And in the afterlife, it was flip-flop. So we do not see what Eliphaz sees is that every time the wicked always suffering, it seems to us that oftentimes the wicked are doing quite well here on earth. Of course, what this does in Eliphaz's theology, he takes a very mechanistic behavioral view of God's blessings. God blesses those who act rightly, God condemns those who act wrongly, which is a half-truth, but he carries it into the part that's wrong, which is every person that's suffering is doing so because of wickedness. And every person that's prospering must be doing so because of righteousness. This takes away a couple of things from God that are quite valuable. First of all, God can be long-suffering to wicked people on earth if he so chooses. He can be long-suffering and give them plenty of chance to come back to him and love him. And he often does so. He will have justice in the end, but he can be long-suffering towards the sinners if he so chooses. God can use the suffering of the righteous for a higher purpose if he also so chooses. God uses Job's suffering and has done so ever since the book was written. So God can be long-suffering towards the wicked and not punish them just yet. And he can also use the suffering of the righteous for a greater purpose. So Eliphaz's viewpoint, very behavioral, very mechanistic, and it takes away God's mercy and it takes away God's grace. Next, Eliphaz lays the suffering on Job as being caused by Job having too much wealth in the beginning. Verse 27, he has covered his face with his fat and made his thighs heavy with flesh. Very wealthy people, especially in those days, would have plenty to eat and would gain weight. So a fat person was viewed as someone who was rich and had plenty to eat. Eliphaz is saying that Job was too wealthy and sinned. Therefore, God was punishing him. So, Steve, there's also a branch of theology that says that just because you're rich, you're evil, and just because you're poor, you're righteous. And we would reject that also, would we not?

SPEAKER_00 27:25

We would reject that. And through the study, and we're looking at here, we're seeing all different types of doctrines and theology that are skewed too far one way, and they don't account for the grace and mercy of God. So we need to keep that in mind that people can take certain narrow sections of scripture and develop some sort of a doctrine or theology out of it that is just the easiest thing I could say is it's just wrong. And we need to learn from that and we need to reject those types of theologies because they're just not beneficial to people in the long run.

When Harsh Correction Is Needed

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Throughout this whole chapter, Eliphaz has been very harsh with Job in an attempt to get Job to move to what Eliphaz thought he should do, which is repent. He's being very pushy, if you will, trying to get Job into admitting some secret sin. So I guess the last discussion question for this chapter is it a good idea to try to be harsh in trying to get someone to repent? If we see someone who is legitimately sinning, is it a good idea to be harsh trying to get them to repent? How does God approach a person like that?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

God approaches people like that through us, and we should keep that in mind. Are there certain times and situations where we need to be harsh with someone? Yes. Is that a general approach that we should have? No. Paul gives us an example of a time whenever we need to be harsh with certain people. In the Corinthian church, there was somebody there that was sleeping with his mother-in-law. And the way Paul addressed it was that everybody knew about it, yet they weren't doing anything about it. It was immoral for him to be doing that. And Paul told him, you need to get him out of the church and turn him back over to Satan. And the reason was so that his soul might be saved. Paul is giving an example of where there's a time to be harsh with someone in addressing the sin that they have. But in general, that's not the approach that we should have with people. The general approach is to tell them that they are sinful, that they have sins in their life, which means they're missing the mark with God. They're going to have to account for that at some point, and that there's a way for that to be bridged and for them to have their sins forgiven. That's all through Jesus Christ, through his death, burial, and resurrection. And that that is the approach that we should take with people. I think we should take everything on a case-by-case basis and only reach a harsh place with somebody whenever it has reached the point whenever it needs to be dealt with them harshly.

Wrap Up And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_01 30:08

We'll stop here for today because of time, but we've reached the end of Eliphaz's second speech. Next time we're going to see Job's response to that. And again, Job is getting very frustrated at this point. We're going to see his emotion kind of come out as we reason through that next time. Thank you so much for watching and listening.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

May God bless you.