I’ve said before that I love the book of Job in the Bible, especially the last chapters when God speaks to Job and he responds. If you haven’t read it before Job is the story of a man who is faithful to God. He is then attacked by the enemy in many different ways. After all the attacks have subsided Job is then joined by some of his friends. This passage in Job 34 is actually spoken by Elihu, the youngest of his friends. Up to this point he hadn’t really spoken. Whilst lots of what his friends have said was unhelpful and not reflective of God, that includes Elihu, I think Elihu nails it with his description of God. Here’s what he says;

So listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do evil,
from the Almighty to do wrong. He repays everyone for what they have done; he brings on them what their conduct deserves. It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice. Who appointed him over the earth? Who put him in charge of the whole world? If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust. Job 34: 10-15

As I’ve mentioned before, the book of Job is the first time in the Bible that the idea of warfare was introduced. It’s one of the oldest books to be written and up until that point people thought that if life was going well it was because you had behaved well and had received God’s blessing. On the contrary if life was going bad it was because you had done wrong and God was punishing you.

Elihu is making it clear here that God is not a God who is leant to evil, He is not a God who does wrong. He even says that it is unthinkable that God could do wrong. He even goes on to say that if God really wanted to do evil and cause wrong to happen He could do a lot worse than what they think He has done. If He truly was evil He could withdraw His spirit and breath and that would destroy all of us forever!

It’s a reminder to us of the goodness of God. So often we can be tempted to think that He has forgotten us or that He isn’t good if our life doesn’t go that we want but when we truly think about all that God has done and all that He sustains through His being then we can tell just how good He is.