Job 27:5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.
Perhaps more than ever before in your lifetime or mine it is important to remember that there are days when a clear conscience is its own reward. That is to say that sometimes evil does not seem to be punished and good does not seem to be rewarded. Not only that, but it seems that good is punished and evil is rewarded in our day!
Job was a man who was living in confusion because, like his pious friends, he felt like if he was doing right, he should be blessed every day for that with health and wealth. In Job 27:5 Job protests, “God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.” Job was speaking of his innocence. He was speaking of his integrity to friends who thought that calamity wouldn’t come upon a good man. But, it had. So, Job reminds us that integrity is doing right without reward.
There was a time when Job was rewarded for doing the right thing, but not now. And his calamity, as it turns out, was not for any sin he had done. If we don’t get this clear in our minds, we can be confused and discouraged when we ought not to be.
I grew up in a home where if I did the right thing, it was rewarded, and if I did the wrong thing, it was punished. You grow up expecting for that to be extended to and amplified by the world as it is, but that is not what is happening. We call evil good and good evil.
Philippians 3:19 says, “Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” More than ever in our lifetime, people around us who mind earthly things are glorying in their shame. Their god is their own pleasure. It is almost like there is a belly walking around with a couple of stick legs. It is a caricature of the human condition apart from God and apart from a conscience informed by such a God.
Because of all this, Job wished for the past. In Job 29:2 he says, “Oh that I were as in months past.” He remembered when the old men stood and the young men were quiet when he entered the marketplace, and he was rewarded for being such a man of upright integrity. He wished for the past, a different day.
Job was confused by the present. In Job 30:1 Job says, “But now.” Verse 9 says, “And now.” Verse 16 says, “And now.” Job is drawing a contrast between the good days of old and the hard days of now. Job wondered, “If good is always rewarded with health, wealth, and good times, then why am I suffering so?” His friends had an easy answer. Their answer was that Job had done wrong, but Job knew that there was not any specific guilt. So, he wondered why.
Job pondered the future. In Job 31:4 he says, “Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?” I think this is not just a statement of fact but a statement of perplexity. Job is saying, “Doesn’t God understand? Doesn’t God know? Can’t God see how good I am and how bad I have it?” Then there are more than thirty verses of conditions. Job says, “If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; [then] let me be weighed in an even balance that God may know mine integrity.” That works until you live in a day when evil is rewarded and good is punished.
What if I were to say today, “I have protected the innocent children both born and unborn.”? Is that statement unanimously considered to be virtuous? Will I be rewarded for that or would I be punished for that? Could I be punished by society at large for doing the right thing or even the loving thing? Could love be called hatred and hatred called virtue? More and more it seems as if that is the day in which we are living.
But we ought not to be discouraged, because there is a God in Heaven Who has a long view. None of us have an accurate perspective of time. For most of us the longest perspective we have is eighty years or so. The Bible is eternal. God is eternal. God has a long view. Job did not, and that is where trusting God comes in.
Faith is trusting God’s Word, that what He says is true. We can go to the bank with it. Faith is trusting that God is aware. Does God count my steps? Yes, He does. Does God know my integrity or lack of it? Yes, He does. Faith is trusting God’s timing. Timing is everything. Ten years is a long time to many of us, but to God it may just be a small part of His plan. Faith is trusting God with justice.
Integrity is doing right whether I am rewarded at church or punished at work. It is doing the right thing. Integrity is loving God, loving people, hating sin, and distinguishing among the three. Integrity is doing right because there is a God in Heaven and the right thing is judged by Him.