The tents of robbers prosper,
And those who provoke God are secure—
In what God provides by His hand.
Job 12:6
Job's friends are in the midst of saying that he must have some secret, unconfessed sin, and if he would just confess it and repent of it, his affliction would be eliminated.
But, here, Job makes an important observation: it is dangerous to assess one's spiritual condition by his prosperity and security in this world. God, in His common grace, often gives prosperity and security to those who truly love neither their neighbor, nor the Lord.
But this is a pitfall into which we may easily fall: feeling like things are well with us spiritually, so long as they seem well to us temporally. But just because things are well with me temporally does not mean that I am justified in my treatment of men, nor that I am not provoking God.
So, riches may deceitfully promise blessing in this world, but they perpetrate a more subtle and dangerous deception: they may deceive us that we are spiritually well, when we are currently provoking God.
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