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GG Questions
04/28/2019
Some Doubted: Is God Just?
Job
1. Putting God on Trial : In the courtroom of Job 1-2, Satan is the prosecutor and God is the defendant. Satan accuses God of mismanagement of His own universe – the only reason good people are good (1:8) is because God blesses them (1:9-10). This, Satan insists, is not true ‘goodness’. Satan proposes a test: take away the blessing, and the goodness will follow (1:11). Is he right (1:20-22; 2:9-10)? Have you ever felt that you were in a season of testing? What kept you going, though you, like Job, had no knowledge of a light at the end of the tunnel (42:10, 12)?
2. God Still on Trial : Job was stuck in a horrible, theological crisis. He once believed (27:13, 16-17), like his ‘friends’ (4:7-8), that God always blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked, but now he’s not so sure. Unable to resolve the contradiction, he simply demands an answer from God (23:1-7). As you have studied God’s Word, have you ever been challenged in your assumptions about God? How did you deal with those challenges?
3. Answer from the whirlwind : Whether Job’s unspoken accusation against God was divine neglect or simple incompetence, God’s response in Job 38-39 was the ultimate answer. Rather than being asleep at the wheel, God has his eye on every detail of the known universe, a universe about which we are woefully ignorant. This leaves us tiny creatures with a choice – we can either assume we know how God ought to run the world, or we can trust in His wise oversight of his creation. Is there an area in your life where you need to confess you’ve felt you know better than God? How is this surrender so central to processing our doubts?
4. Beast Mode : God concludes his discourse with Job with an unusual and honestly baffling zoological ode to the Behemoth (40:15-24) and the Leviathan (41:1-34). These two crazy powerful and dangerous creatures, which man cannot approach, God apparently loves (Gen. 1:21; Psa. 104:26). If such creatures are permitted existence within God’s good world, can the God who created and released them be trusted? In the places that we find God behaving in ways we don’t expect, are we willing to move toward Him in search of understanding?
