Job 12:5-6

5 He that is ready [kuwn] to slip [ma`ad] with his feet [regel] is as a lamp [lappiyd] despised [buwz] in the thought [`ashtuwth] of him that is at ease [sha'anan].

6 The tabernacles ['ohel] of robbers [shadad] prosper [shalah], and they that provoke [ragaz] God ['el] are secure [battuchowth]; into whose hand [yad] God ['elowahh] bringeth [bow'] abundantly. KJV-Interlinear

5 'He who is at ease holds calamity in contempt, As prepared for those whose feet slip. 6 'The tents of the destroyers prosper, And those who provoke God are secure, Whom God brings into their power. NASB

People are typically superficial and shallow in their thinking. They look at the outward appearance and talent of others and that is how they determine the worth of another.

When someone is talented, successful, attractive, wealthy, and so forth, people will generally want to rub shoulders with them. Not because they like them necessarily, but because they want some of that success or wealth, or at the very least, a good connection for later success.

Those who are successful, wealthy, talented, attractive, and so forth, generally believe that they are so blessed, due to their own efforts or wisdom. It would never occur to the successful person that God had anything to do with their blessings from life.

Now we are talking about people who disregard God, Christ, and doctrine in their life. And of those people who are reasonably successful, by worldly standards. These include not only hard working folks, but those who inherit, as well as those who accumulate by means of crime or tyranny.

As folks advance in their successful life, they are revered. But when adversity strikes and they slip into a declining state, then the valued friends tend to fade away. The rich man, now poor, is of no further use. There will be those who will simply ignore them and turn to another whom they consider a successful acquaintance, and then there will be those who will stand in line in order to make their fall from success a little more painful and swift.

Who needs enemies?

Jobs friends are such friends. They looked with high regard toward Job when he was rich, and now they despise him because he has been tainted by the difficulties of life. They look at Job with disrespect, disapproval, condescension. They criticize him openly and publicly. They do not attempt to be private and discreet in their conversation with him.

One of the biggest barriers to spiritual success that successful people have, is that they will not listen to anyone whom they consider beneath them socially or even financially. Worldly outward success is considered a measurement of wisdom. How can a poor man or someone of lesser social status, know anything?

And certainly anyone who is experiencing difficulties in life, must have something wrong with them. Or that is the worlds opinion, anyway.

The world is very shallow and those who subscribe to it are shallow as well.

Now Job adds one more comment regarding the 'destroyers' or 'robbers' as he calls them. He is referring to everyone who is not spiritually sound. This will include criminals obviously, but also it includes the self-righteous and the spiritually indifferent.

To these, the wicked, life can be very prosperous and seemingly fulfilling. They can prosper, they can be successful, they can get away with nearly everything it would seem. And God allows it. Why?

They provoke God through their arrogance. They provoke God through their self-appointed expertise. They provoke God through their indifference. They provoke God through their pursuit of religions, philosophies, and non-Biblical beliefs. They provoke God through their criminal, or lascivious, or ascetic, or alternate life style pursuits.

Why is this?

Because God does not judge in this life, according to the daily patterns of life which people choose for themselves. Judgment is reserved for the next life.

In this life we have a world environment defined by Satan, which we call the jungle, and we have the divine establishment environment defined by God, which offsets and serves as a stabilizer to the jungle. People can think as they may, and do as they may, within those boundaries. To some will go success, to others an average life, and still to others, poverty.

Their tents, or tabernacles, are the lives which they have secured for themselves. It includes their values as well as their assets. These things are temporary, however, as are all things in this life.

For those who exclude God in their life, their life in this world will be all the pleasure they will ever have. God allows them this temporary life, a life of a few decades perhaps as opposed to an eternal life, which is considerably longer.

The abundance these people receive in this life is short lived, and insignificant when compared to the abundance, which is waiting for those who pursue their spiritual lives. The abundance of the mature believer is defined as receiving more than one could possibly use given an infinite number of lives. That is a lot more than this world can even imagine.

Those who look down on calamity as something undignified, or as something beneath them, will one day wish they had a little calamity in their life so that they would learn to appreciate the good things that they have, and so that they would not miss out on the greater things of eternity.

Adversity, is applied by God, to people for several reasons.

First, to teach them and to place their arrogance in check. Second, to discipline for wayward thinking and choices in life. Third, adversity is a natural occurrence and result of life in the jungle. Choosing the jungle should become an obvious bad choice for ones life. Fourth, to demonstrate to those who observe adversity in others, that this is not a good way to live ones life. Life has to offer something better and Bible doctrine is the path to that 'better' life regardless of ones circumstances.

When a person looks only at the world, they see no further and thus lose out on a fabulous eternity, which by the way follows death. Everyone dies sooner or later. No one has the power to perpetuate this life.

Anyone who chooses God, Christ, and doctrine, pursues their spiritual life regardless of their worldly circumstances. Life now provides a classroom for applying Gods Word to ones daily life, and it teaches among other things, responsibility, accountability, empathy, charity, spiritual support and so forth. Life in eternity is the real goal and target for the mature believer. Life in eternity is forever. This life will be over very soon, by comparison.

Jobs friends are impressed with their newly found opportunity to voice their opinions. Opinions toward one whom they once viewed as superior to them, but now seems to be beneath them. Spiritually impotent people are constantly competing in life in order to promote or establish something for themselves. They are constantly charting and comparing themselves with others in life in order to determine their advancement in life, as they see life.

They miss the boat completely and never figure it out.

Job is impressed with Gods control over this entire affair. Job is the one here who is under tremendous pressure and suffering, and yet despite his adversity, he does not feel the need to compete with his friends, nor surrender himself to their opinions, presumably, as his friends see it, to get himself out of his current misery.

God gives and God takes away. And, God restores.

Now is the time to post a prayer.