Can you trust what you oberve and/or hear? Job 15-17

God has put Job in a very special place. Although we can "assume" it happened again, we have no story quite like Job's in all of God's Word. If you "observed" or "heard" about Job and you were living in his day you would make some valuable assumptions about "why" this is happening to Job. Even in our day it is not unusual for people to make a false judgment about why something is happening to someone else. We almost always assume they have down something and some sort of "karma" is coming back on them. There are times we hear, "Oh, how tragic, they didn't deserve that." In this section Eliphaz is once again confronting Job and he is taking issue with Job's declaration of that he is righteous and this is "undeserved." In 15:17 Eliphaz tells Job he is going to share with him what he has "observed" and been told from the past. We often rely on past observation to confirm current beliefs. And, now that we have Job's story, we, too, can rely on this observation to make future decisions in regard to sin and suffering. But, Eliphaz has never seen what he is seeing. He is simply going on what has happened in the past and this is a new past. God is doing something great here in Job's life and Eliphaz has no understanding or any knowledge and experience with it. Observations of the past can be reliable but they don't leave room for God miraculous acts in the present. When Jesus beaconed Peter to come to Him on the water Peter would never have left the boat if he would have relied completely on the past. Israelites would never cross the Red Sea if they relied upon the observations of the past. God's redemptive story (the Bible) is to show others a grand story that is not based upon observation of the past. Christ's coming again won't be believed if all you have is observation from the past. God is a revealing God. Therefore, obervation of the past can't be your only tool to determine what is happening now or in the future. You have to give room to God to act in life to create a new history based upon the promises and integrity of His Word.