March 7, 2023

Passage Read: Job 21-24
Meditation Verse: 24:1

Thought

Job is frustrated that wicked men seem to get along just fine and judgment doesn't come soon enough. He lists here all kinds of ways they get away with their evil, how they plot and carry out their schemes, how they get away with their evil desires. But he recognizes that death catches up with everyone. That's not his complaint; his complaint is that judgment doesn't catch up with them sooner, that they're able to get away with such evil for so long before they finally come into judgment. I too wish judgment came sooner, that wicked men were caught sooner, suffered punishment quicker. Judging from the Law, that is God's desire too, but He gave men the responsibility for carrying out justice. So the problem of wickedness is not God's, but man's. Wickedness multiples because we don't condemn and carry out serious punishment against it.

Application

How this is illustrated by our times now! Where punishment is not carried out quickly, evil flourishes. Where justice is not carried out at all, evil walks in the daylight. Evil men lose all inhibition when no one will act against them. I need to pray for local leaders and elect local leaders who will stand up against wickedness, condemn it and punish the wrongdoer quickly. I need to cry out to God for the repentance of evildoers or the removal of them from society if they will not repent.