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Job 15:23 "[The wicked man] wanders abroad for bread, saying, 'Where is it?' He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand".

 

Eliphaz is speaking of the plight of the wicked man, saying such a man does not live in peace. Rather, he "writhes in pain all his days", "terrifying sounds are in his ears", "he knows that a day of darkness is ready for him", "distress and anguish terrify him". (Job 15:20-24). Eliphaz is not describing anything those observing this man would be able to see, but rather what the wicked man is going through internally, what the knowledge of his wrongdoing is doing to him. The wicked man does not and will not have peace "[b]ecause he has stretched forth his hand against God." (Job 15:25).

 

Many people today are understandably looking for justice for what has been done to us, to our families, to our children, to the elderly, to our country, and to the world, over the last few years. The evil was so strong, so pervasive, that even normally good people were influenced by it and acted wickedly themselves. While I also want to see justice done, I am not bothered that it seems slow in coming. I know that justice will come for them, and I know that they are grappling with their wickedness, even if we don't see it.

 

God's justice is perfect, human justice is not. Only God knows exactly who should face justice, how, and when. I don't think that human justice could even begin to address the magnitude of what was done, there aren't enough jails in the world, and jailtime would be insufficient, anyway. The wrongs that have to be answered for are so great, their effects so widespread, that justice has to come from God.

 

I also know that what Eliphaz says here is true. The guilty are paying for their wickedness even if we do not see it. Many of them are still in denial, I know that by hearing what they are still saying, but they know, in their hearts, what they have done. I can see that, too, in their mannerisms, in the strident nature of their assertions, in their avoidance of people or situations that might call upon them to answer for themselves. They know, as Eliphaz says, that a day of darkness awaits them. They can't put off their reckoning forever, as much as they continue to try, and that knowledge must cause them terrifying distress and anguish. This really is justice in its own way, a kind that I would not wish on anyone. If there is a reason to hope for human justice for the world's current crop of evildoers, it is because that may be their last chance to repent and avoid God's eternal justice. God wants to save them, too, which is why He gave them a conscience in the first place.