Passage Read: Job 33-36
Meditation Verses: 33:29-30
Thought
Elihu believes he can explain to Job exactly what is going on, and where Job is wrong. He believes he can do so better than Job's three friends, men older and wiser than him, who failed to bring Job to repentance. His argument is that God warns men all the time of their sin and need for repentance. Perhaps in a dream or in a quiet voice in the heart or through trial and suffering. So the terrible things that have happened to Job are obviously God's way of telling him he needs to repent. Elihu doesn't seem to understand that Job agrees with him, but God hasn't made clear what it is Job needs to turn from! All he has done and sought to do every day of his life is please and honor God in everything he does. So if God is so furious with him, why won't He tell Job what he's done wrong? He's willing to repent, just tell him what he has wrong! But both Elihu and Job are wrong in this case. Job hasn't done wrong, and that's where Elihu goes off, condemning Job as one who "drinks scorn like water."
Application
Unlike Elihu, I can't say that God speaks to everyone, in some way or another, to warn him away from sin. If that includes the conscience and well-meaning friends, then perhaps he's right. But not all suffering is in fact a rebuke for sin. Jesus makes that plain in the case of that one man who was born blind; it wasn't because of his own sin or the sins of his parents that he was born blind, but for the glory of God. There is so much God could rebuke any one of us for, but it seems many never hear a rebuke. Surely God testifies to every man in one way or another that he is liable to judgment for his ways; that seems right and wise. But again, God has assigned men to act in His place, so perhaps if we don't speak, then many go without hearing. In which case, it is important for me to suggest to every person who suffers that they may be receiving a warning from God in their suffering. But I can't know for sure that that is the case, unless I know for a fact how someone is sinning against God. To accuse someone of being dead-set against repentance requires definite knowledge of their sin and rebellion. But it is not my role to condemn any man, but merely to warn, knowing the possibility that he may be suffering judgment, but he may also be suffering so that God's glory may be revealed. Actually, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out, at least in the majority of cases, because men make it pretty clear whether they care what God thinks or not.