SERIES: The Book of Job
Round Two of the Garbage Dump Debate: What About the Prosperity of the Wicked?
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note to David: Check to see how the two parallel lists halfway through this sermon come out with the formatting.
Introduction: Two of the major philosophical questions believers of all ages have had to wrestle with are, “Why do the righteous suffer?” and “Why do the wicked prosper?” As we look around we see apparent evidence of both. Most of us could name people, including some in our own church, who, like Job, seem to stand out from their peers in godliness and holiness yet have had more than their share of trial and suffering. On the other hand, we can also think of people in the entertainment world, in politics, in business, perhaps even in our extended families, whose lives are moral cesspools but who seem to have the Midas touch. I suspect most of us have verbalized what the Psalmist said in our Scripture reading earlier: “This is what the wicked are like—always carefree, they increase in wealth.” (Psalm 73:12)
Now different approaches have been taken to solve this moral dilemma. I will mention three that are fairly common, and then at the end of this message we will examine a fourth—the biblical alternative. First, some take the suffering of good people and the prosperity of the wicked as proof that there is no God and that this is a mechanistic universe whose controlling feature is chance. Others hold on to their belief in God but assume He is a finite God who is doing the best He can (this is essentially the option taken by Rabbi Kushner in When Bad Things Happen to Good People).
A third option is to deny that a dilemma even exists. In other words, good people don’t suffer—only people who claim they are good. And wicked people don’t prosper—they just appear to prosper, but their prosperity is an illusion or, at best, short-lived. Some entire religions are based upon this third option, such as Unity School of Christianity and Christian Science. As we will see this morning, the seeds of this philosophy were sown over 4,000 years ago by Job’s three friends.
We are in the process of preaching through the Book of Job. As we have seen, this man was blameless and upright, he feared God and shunned evil. He was also very rich. When God one day bragged about Job, Satan challenged God by asserting that Job’s faith was totally contingent upon the wealth God had given him. “Remove the wealth,” he sneered, “and Job will curse You to Your face.” So, God allowed Job’s wealth to be removed. He also lost his family and his health. But still Job refused to curse God.
Not that Job was happy with his new lot in life. In fact, he was a tortured soul and went to live on the garbage dump of his town. Three friends heard of his plight and journeyed to comfort him, which they did admirably for 7 days and 7 nights in total silence. Job then spoke of his anguished soul, which triggered a three-round debate between Job and his friends, consuming the next 34 chapters of the book. Round one, which we considered last Sunday, found Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar each speaking in support of the proposition: “Be it resolved that suffering is always the result of sin in the sufferer’s life.” They contended in essence, “Job, you must be hiding some secret sin or God would not be punishing you.” In rebuttal Job denied their charges, chided his friends for their vicious condemnation, and even accused God of arbitrariness and unfairness. We concluded that Job’s friends failed miserably to prove their proposition.
We come today to the second round of speeches and to a second, somewhat related, proposition: “Be it resolved that the prosperity of the wicked is illusory and/or short-lived.” This is, of course, the other side of the coin from the first proposition, and Job’s three friends feel compelled to prove this, because Job has used the prosperity of the wicked as evidence of God’s unfairness. His friends cannot allow such a view to go unchallenged. To save God’s reputation, they must prove that the wicked do not really prosper. After all, a good and powerful God would allow neither the righteous to suffer nor the wicked to prosper. Any contrary view must be due to a misreading of the evidence.
Again, there are six speeches in this round—one each by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, plus three rebuttals by Job—but we will consider the speeches of Eliphaz and Bildad together because they are so repetitive. In my estimation there is a distinct change of mood in Round 2, as seen in the introduction of each speech by Job’s friends. The attitude is much more hostile. This is especially noticeable with Eliphaz, who, as you may recall, began his first speech in Round One very gently. This time he adopts a much more confrontational approach. Let’s begin our reading in 15:2, through verse 9:
“Would a wise man answer with empty notions or fill his belly with the hot east wind? Would he argue with useless words, with speeches that have no value? But you, Job, even undermine piety and hinder devotion to God. Your sin prompts your mouth; you adopt the tongue of the crafty. Your own mouth condemns you, not mine; your own lips testify against you. Are you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills? Do you listen in on God’s council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself? What do you know that we do not know? What insights do you have that we do not have?”
As you can see, Job is in for some tough sledding this time around. In verse 17 Eliphaz begins his argument to the effect that the prosperity of the wicked is illusory, an argument mirrored by Bildad in ch. 18.
Eliphaz and Bildad claim that the prosperity of the wicked is only illusory. (15, 18)
“Listen to me and I will explain to you; let me tell you what I have seen, what wise men have declared, hiding nothing received from their fathers…. All his days the wicked man suffers torment, the ruthless through all the years stored up for him. Terrifying sounds fill his ears; when all seems well, marauders attack him. He despairs of escaping the darkness; he is marked for the sword. He wanders about—food for vultures; he knows the day of darkness is at hand. Distress and anguish fill him with terror; they overwhelm him, like a king poised to attack, because he shakes his fist at God and vaunts himself against the Almighty, defiantly charging against him with a thick, strong shield.” (15:17-26)
Since it is impossible to deny the apparent prosperity of the wicked, Eliphaz takes the approach that the wicked only look prosperous until one gets beneath the surface. There one finds all manner of torment and despair. Let’s pick up the last part of Bildad’s speech where the same theme is sounded, chapter 18:17-21.
“The memory of (the wicked man) perishes from the earth; he has no name in the land. He is driven from light into darkness and is banished from the world. He has no offspring or descendants among his people, no survivor where once he lived. Men of the west are appalled at his fate; men of the east are seized with horror. Surely such is the dwelling of an evil man; such is the place of one who knows not God.”
What strikes me here is that both Eliphaz and Bildad have apparently been highly selective in the examples upon which they have based their conclusions. All of us can think of people who were morally reprobate, but whose memory has not perished (in fact, they are held in greater esteem today than even when they lived), and whose descendants have not perished. John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley come to mind as cases in point. Furthermore, most of the allegations Eliphaz and Bildad make about the wicked are empirically unverifiable. How could one possibly prove that the wicked never rest easy or that they always have a guilty conscience. Eliphaz and Bildad are guilty of begging the question, assuming their conclusion.
Job ignores their arguments and focuses instead on his suffering and their insensitivity. (16, 17, 19)
Chapters 16 & 17 contain Job’s answer to Eliphaz, while in 19 he responds to Bildad. Inasmuch as these two speeches do not contribute significantly to the theme of the prosperity of the wicked, I’m not going to dwell on them at length. I would, however, like to read a few verses to demonstrate how deep is Job’s emotional anguish. First, from 16:1-5:
“Then Job replied: ‘I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all! Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing? I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you. But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.'”
Move down to verse 11:
“God has turned me over to evil men and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked. All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target; his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground. Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior.”
Now over to chapter 19:
Then Job replied: ‘How long will you torment me and crush me with words? Ten times now you have reproached me; shamelessly you attack me. If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone. If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me, then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me.”
And finally, from verse 13:
“He has alienated my brothers from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My kinsmen have gone away; my friends have forgotten me. My guests and my maidservants count me a stranger; they look upon me as an alien. I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me. All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me. I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.”
Surely there is nothing worse than being rejected by friends and family while suffering. I think of a Catholic priest in New York, who was convicted of bank robbery back in the mid-80’s and sentenced to prison on the identification of an eyewitness. He maintained his innocence, but most of his friends, parishioners, and even colleagues eventually turned against him. But he wasn’t guilty, and sometime later the real culprit was caught—a man who looked very much like the priest. He said in an interview that the most difficult thing about the whole experience was not spending time in prison or even losing his reputation, but rather the rejection of his friends. Job knew all about that.
Following Job’s bitter lament of chapter 19, Zophar gives his speech, the last of the three in this Round. He takes a slightly different approach.
Zophar claims that the prosperity of the wicked, though real, is short-lived, but Job vigorously challenges him. (20, 21)
The key phrase in Zophar’s speech is found in 20:5: “the mirth of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.” He doesn’t deny that the wicked do indeed prosper, as Eliphaz and Bildad seemed to imply. Rather his point is that their prosperity doesn’t last long. In verse 21 the same theme is struck: “His prosperity will not endure.” Exist, yes, endure, no.
Rather than expound Zophar’s speech verse by verse, I thought there would be some value in contrasting the points he makes with corresponding points in Job’s rebuttal, for Job finally decides to challenge the whole thesis that the prosperity of the wicked is illusory or short-lived.
In chapter 21 Job contradicts every one of the assertions by Zophar in chapter 20, as you can see below:
Zophar (ch. 20) Job (ch. 21)
The wicked enjoy life only briefly (7-8), the wicked live well to old age (7, 13).
Lose their pride and vitality (6, 11), increase in power (7).
Lose their homes and possessions (26, 28), live safely in their homes, possessions multiply (9, 10).
Make the future difficult for their children (10), have children who prosper (8, 11-12).
Will suffer God’s fierce anger (23-28), know nothing of God’s rod of judgment (9, 30).
Will be forced to give up their wealth (15, 17-18), spend all their years in prosperity (13).
Will have their guilt revealed (27), get away with sinful defiance of God (14-15).
Are forgotten at death (7-9), are buried honorably (32-33).
I think there would be value in reading some of Job’s final speech. We’ll begin in verse 7:
“Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes. Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not upon them. Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry. They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about. They sing to the music of tambourine and harp; they make merry to the sound of the flute. They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace. Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?'”
Skip down to verse 29:
“Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts—that the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, that he is delivered from the day of wrath? Who denounces his conduct to his face? Who repays him for what he has done? He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb. The soil in the valley is sweet to him; all men follow after him, and a countless throng goes before him. So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!”
Now surely you see the impasse to which this debate has brought us. The three acquaintances of Job all maintain that the prosperity of the wicked is an illusion, or at best short-lived. Job, on the other hand, is claiming that wickedness and prosperity are virtually synonymous. We are rather quickly driven to the conclusion that both sides have overstated their cases and that the truth must lie somewhere in between. But before we try to find some balance between these extremes, I want to ask you to search your own experience and try to answer the questions which have been raised?
Do the wicked, godless people you know live every day with tortured conscience, or do they seem to be at ease with themselves and their lifestyles? Do the wicked have a significantly higher mortality rate? Is the wealth of the wicked short-lived, or do they pass it on from generation to generation? Frankly, a thoughtful person will probably answer, “Yes and no.” Some wicked people are restless and some at peace. Some live to be very old while others shorten their lives considerably by high-risk behavior. Some prosper for only a short time while others pass their wealth on to their children. The fact is that ONE’S CHARACTER CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY ONE’S LOT IN LIFE.
Despite what the Pharisees believed, it is not true that “whom the Lord loveth he maketh rich.” We may think it ought to be true. And frankly, it would be a lot easier to tell who is righteous if all the godly had more money, higher IQ’s, more talent, better complexions, nicer homes, and better jobs than the wicked. But they don’t.
Remember, the doctrine of preferential treatment is not in the Bible. God has never promised that His children will not get arthritis, that their homes will never burn down, or that their transmissions will never go out. Nor has He promised that the wicked will never be richer, or more famous, or more healthy, or more powerful than the righteous. In fact, if anything we should probably expect there to be an imbalance of fortune in favor of the wicked. Why? Because God desires to wean us away from dependence on material things and pleasure and wealth in favor of depending upon Him. He gives us many good things, but when we begin to love those things rather than Him, He has been known to remove them. He wants us to love Him and follow Him because of who He is, not because of what we can get out of Him.
He also knows that we have a terrible tendency to become proud of our good fortune and give ourselves credit that is only due to Him. Isn’t that what Paul implies in I Cor. 1:26-29:
“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”
What about the Prosperity of the Wicked? Psalm 73 provides some answers:
Is it real or imaginary? Is it long-term or short-lived? Job and his three friends have raised the questions and succeeded in getting us to think about the issues. Perhaps the best place to go for answers is to Psalm 73, which was read earlier in the service. The Psalmist hits the problem head on in verse 3 when he honestly admits, “I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” He seems to echo the words of Job as he describes the wicked beginning in verse 4:
“They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink of waters in abundance. They say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?” This is what the wicked are like–always carefree, they increase in wealth.’ Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure.”
Now friends, is that true? Well, yes, it’s true of some of the wicked. And if it’s only true of one, it creates a problem for the thinking believer, for why would a holy God allow even one wicked person to prosper? The answers the Psalmist offers, interestingly, have little to do with the wicked person and everything to do with the godly person who is stressed out about the wicked person. First, …
Worship brings eternity’s values into perspective. (16-17) Look at verse 16: “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.” It wasn’t until the Psalmist stepped away from the unfair circumstances and stepped into the place of worship that his perspective was corrected. He had been looking at the temporal, at the material, at the earthly; getting away alone with God helped him bring eternity’s values into view. You know, something I have noted during two decades of pastoring is that people who experience unusual suffering in their own lives, or are confronted with the prosperity of the wicked close at hand, often pull away from God and avoid worship. Tragically they are avoiding the very solution to the problem at the exact time they need it most. A second important answer the Psalmist received is that …
Anger and bitterness over the inequities in God’s universe are counterproductive and foolish. (21-22) Look at verse 21: “When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.” Some people have an exaggerated sense of fairness. They get so bothered when they see injustice that they nearly go ballistic as they attempt to rectify the situation. Now that’s not all bad, especially when the anger is directed at injustice to others, rather than to us. We might still have slavery if it weren’t for the likes of William Wilberforce and John Brown. Women might not yet have the right to vote if it weren’t for Susan B. Anthony and Frances Willard. But while some good is accomplished when people get angry about true injustice, much evil occurs when people overreact to injustice, or when they become overly protective of their own rights, or when they assume God’s prerogative and try to resolve things in their own way and according to their own timetable.
It is absolutely crucial for us to understand that life is not fair. God is under no obligation to balance the books at the end of each day, or even at the end of our lives; He has only promised to balance the books at the end of history. In the meantime, what He asks of us is to trust and obey.
The presence of a Sovereign God overrides all other considerations. (23-28) Look at verse 23:
“Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”
Do you notice something here? It is not some theological or philosophical insight that solves the problem for the Psalmist. It is relationship—the relationship he has with almighty God. He reminds me here of a small child who is taken to a doctor for his shots. Fear overwhelms the child when that first needle goes in, but does the child get angry at his mother for bringing him to the doctor’s office? No, not normally. Rather, the normal child will squeeze his mother tightly because she is the one point of security in a strange and hurtful place. So with the Psalmist.
A final word from Job (19:23-27)
I ask you to turn back to chapter 19, which contains Job’s rebuttal to Bildad. Let’s begin reading in verse 23:
“Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever! I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”
Job clearly expects to see God, and his reference to skin, flesh, and eyes makes it clear that he expects to have this experience as a human being, not just as a disembodied spirit. You see, the problem all along for Job was not that God had abandoned him eternally, but rather that God had abandoned him even temporarily when he had done nothing to deserve it.
Friends, there are going to be times when the temporal pain and suffering of the righteous have no explanations; and there will be times when the prosperity of the wicked is thorough, long-lasting, and inexplicable. But one thing is absolutely certain—the righteous man knows that his Redeemer lives and one day he will see God and enjoy Him forever. Furthermore, the wicked man has received all the prosperity he will ever enjoy in this life, and he has nothing but eternal punishment awaiting him in the next. The Bible says, ” He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18) Yes, the wicked may prosper and they may prosper for a good long while, but they will not prosper forever.
DATE: July 11, 1993
Tags:
Prosperity of the wicked
Suffering
Sovereignty of God