Here’s God’s message in Acts: “Go, stand…and speak to the people all the words of this life” (5:20). It still is.
This speech by Job, covering chapters 12–14, is his longest so far. He has called us to scrutinize God’s revelation in creation, where He speaks through the natural world (12:7- 12) and shows Himself as the Unsurpassed God. Then in the next section (12:13-25), Job uses almost two dozen verbs in a series of staccato statements, describing Him as the Unstoppable God. This is God in history. He “breaks…imprisons…withholds…sends…leads… makes…loosens…binds” and so on. These could all be summarized as follows: “the hand of the Lord has done this” (v 9). As we enter chapter 13, Job wants us to consider the Unsearchable God. In fact, he would like to “speak to the Almighty, and…reason with God” (v 3), but first he addresses how the Lord has been represented by his friends. Do they think they know the Almighty? Have they spoken honorably for Him? Job considers them to be “forgers of lies” (v 4), representing the Lord in ways that dishonor His character. He fires off some searching salvos. “Will you speak wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for Him? Will you show partiality for Him? Will you contend for God? Will it be well when He searches you out? Or can you mock Him as one mocks a man?…Will not His excellence make you afraid, and the dread of Him fall upon you?” (vv 7-11). It makes me shudder today to hear men say that God does not love all sinners alike, or that Christ did not die to provide salvation for all, or that His choice is not for all. We are highly honored to proclaim His message “as though God were pleading through us” (2 Cor 5:20), but we must “speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet 4:11). “He will surely rebuke you if you secretly show partiality” (Job 13:10). And that is very solemn!