Job LXXXIII

 At first glance, using only human reason and earthly understanding, Eliphaz may have the right of it. No man is perfect, and all have fallen short. Whether by commission or omission, we’ve erred, and he couldn’t possibly know that God had evaluated Job’s life and found him blameless. Again, conventional wisdom and godly wisdom don’t often coincide, and more often than not, they are at odds with each other.

Isaiah reminds us that God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. If they were, it could only mean one of two things. Either God is human, or we are gods, and neither is true. Being a bride does not make you the groom, and being a creation does not make you the Creator. The mental gymnastics some men go through to conclude that they are more than God created them to be is mind-boggling and leads to all manner of deception wherein they conclude that they are on even footing with the Almighty Himself.  

Much later, Paul would conclude that it is within God’s purview to choose the foolish things of the world and use them as a means to confound or put to shame the wise and, likewise, the weak things to put to shame the mighty.

The potter cannot be molded. The potter does the molding. It takes a certain level of humility to accept this and live accordingly, allowing Him to mold us as He sees fit without resisting it or thinking we are entitled to more.

Where Eliphaz and Job’s other two friends erred is that they approached the situation with already established presuppositions. This is why twists in movies or novels have such a great impact on the individual. You presume you know how it’s going to play out, from start to finish, and then something unexpected happens that shakes the foundations of what you thought you knew. Whether who you assumed to be the main character dies in the first act, or the supposed hero does something unheroic and rather than defend his homestead hides in the cellar shaking with fear, it disorients the viewer or the reader to the point that they are uncertain of how the rest of the story will play out.

If no two snowflakes are identical, then no two situations are identical either. Every time you approach someone in trouble, going through hardship, or dealing with loss, you must do so with a clean slate, without the burden of presupposing that you’ve seen this kind of thing before, you know what caused it, and you can rightly judge it based on previous experiences.

There can be a multitude of reasons as to why your engine is making that noise, but you remember that one time when it was clattering because you were low on oil, so you add some oil and go about your day only to have your engine die in the middle of the highway because it wasn’t more oil you needed, it was your timing belt going the way of all things.

We presume, and we assume because it’s in our nature to do so. Having gone through life and lived similar experiences, our natural inclination is to conclude that we know the reasons behind it, even though it’s just a guess, an assumption, a conclusion drawn on nothing more than the possibility of what something may be, rather than the reality of what it is.

Job’s friends assumed he had sinned and was being judged by God because every other instance in which they’d encountered similar circumstances had been because the individual had sinned.

It’s easy to stand in judgment of others when they’re going through hardships and drawing baseless conclusions, but when it’s your turn to go through some fiery trial or another, you expect those you’ve judged to show grace, mercy, understanding, and compassion.

Matthew 7:1-2, “Judge not, that you not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Granted, these verses have been abused, taken out of context, used to justify sin, and all manner of vice even though that’s not what Jesus meant by them, but the underlying truth of it still holds and is applicable to this day.

Jesus never said to ignore sin within the church or turn a blind eye to something you see as wrong or unscriptural, but rather, not to jump to conclusions and assume we know the whole of the situation when we only know it in part.

Job 4:12-21, “Now a word was secretly brought to me, and my ear received a whisper of it. In disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair on my body stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence; then I heard a voice saying: ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker? If He puts no trust in His servants, if He charges His angels with error, how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before a moth? They are broken in pieces from morning till evening; they perish forever, with no one regarding. Does not their own excellence go away? They die, even without wisdom.’”

Eliphaz does not relent in his assertion that Job must have sinned or done something displeasing in the sight of God but doubles down and gets spiritual about it. He speaks of a dream he had, wherein a spirit passed before him, and a form was before his eyes; then the spirit spoke and began to ask leading questions reminiscent of the serpent in the garden asking Eve whether God had really said they must not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It’s worth noting that Eliphaz never insisted it was the Spirit of the Lord, rather a spirit, faceless and without discernable appearance, but since it echoed what he already presupposed, he received it as such.

We get a snapshot of how devious Satan is in the questions he poses to Eliphaz. Satan knew Job was a righteous man who feared God and shunned evil. He’d proven it repeatedly by holding fast to his integrity and not sinning against God, yet here he was, whispering into Eliphaz’s ear, can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Master?

Satan was inferring that Job couldn’t be as righteous as he seemed because no man could be as such when you come right down to it. He knew the truth of it. He knew better, yet you can never expect the devil to be an honest arbiter or tell the truth. As is the case with most politicians today, the truth is situational at best when it comes to Satan, and he will twist it, distort it, butcher it, omit it, or reimagine it to further his goals.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Posted on 30 December 2024 | 12:51 pm