Job CCCIII

 Job 33:1-7, “But please, Job, hear my speech, and listen to all my words. Now, I open my mouth. My words come from my upright heart; my lips utter pure knowledge. The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. If you can answer me, set your words in order before me; take your stand. Truly I am as your spokesman before God; I also have been formed out of clay. Surely no fear of me will terrify you, nor will my hand be heavy on you.”

In contrast to Job, who was humble enough to know what he didn’t know, Elihu was a young man whose self-assurance and self-importance were ones for the ages. It wasn’t God who declared Elihu a man of upright heart, but Elihu himself, unlike Job, whom God deemed blameless and upright.

Grandiose doesn’t come close to describing Elihu’s attitude, because he didn’t just consider himself a man of upright heart; he also believed that his lips uttered pure knowledge. Every word that comes out of my mouth should be carved into stone to be remembered for ages to come, in my humble opinion. Can anyone validate my claim that my lips utter pure knowledge, you ask? No, then again, they’re all beneath me, so why would I consider their input?

Try as one might to see Elihu as a sympathetic figure, his words and attitude make it difficult, if not outright impossible. How would you react if, after a lifelong relationship with the Almighty, having lost everything, lying in the dust, scratching at yourself with a potsherd and barely clinging on to life, someone came along and insisted that they were your spokesman before God?

But I speak to God every day. I entreat Him to show me the error of my ways, if any error is present; I long to feel His presence and have fellowship with Him. How is it that you’ve appointed yourself my spokesman before God?

On the one hand you say we’re the same, both formed out of the clay; on the other you position yourself as spiritually superior, insisting I should fear you and that your hand would not be heavy on me. Who exactly are you? Why should, after all I’ve been through, endured, and suffered, be at all concerned with the weight of your hand on me? These are all valid questions Job could have asked, but Elihu was not interested in having his bona fides questioned. His only concern was that Job take his stand and answer him as though he were judge, jury, and executioner all rolled up into one.

There are a handful of practical yet important lessons in what not to do regarding Elihu’s approach, demeanor, and overall delivery of what he had to say that would serve any of us well as a cautionary tale.

The first of these is to reject the often appealing sense of self-importance. Not only did Elihu consider himself a man of upright heart, but he also insisted that his lips uttered pure knowledge. That’s quite a boast, one not even Job had made, yet Elihu felt perfectly comfortable making it.

Whether it’s Robert Tilton back in the day claiming to be the apple of God’s eye, or the more recent individuals who have no qualms about declaring themselves the solitary conduit of wisdom, knowledge, and prophetic insight, anyone who attempts to elevate themselves and claim exclusivity regarding an attribute that God gave to the household of faith as a whole is suspect and should be engaged with caution if at all.

If one such as Paul dared not elevate himself beyond the station of bondservant of Christ, what gives any person living today the right to make claims and boasts of such grandiosity as to make one think they were interchangeable with the Almighty Himself?

The second thing that Elihu did, that we should avoid at all costs, is presume to know the mind of God, and assume that He thinks as we do, judges as we do, or sees things through the same prism and the same light as we do.

Isaiah 55:8-9, ‘“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”

If Job didn’t know why he was going through the things he was, surely Elihu didn’t have a clue. Yet, in his hubris, he was fully assured that he knew the right of it, and all that was left was to convince Job of it. Set your words in order before me, answer me, take your stand; I will determine whether you speak the truth, I will determine whether you are innocent, and will eventually prove your guilt.

Elihu wasn’t without his bias. He had already made up his mind regarding Job, and had concluded, as had Job’s three friends, that he’d done something truly wicked to suffer in such a manner. He presumed to know the inner workings of the mind of God Himself, and was not reticent in declaring as much.

The third thing we should avoid, and one that has become epidemic within the household of faith, is claiming titles God never gave you, or offices to which you were never called. Elihu had assigned himself the position of Job’s spokesman before God. God never called him to be so, nor had Job solicited his aid in beseeching God. Elihu took it upon himself to claim something to which he had no right, and many today are doing the same thing within the context of ministry.

Everyone and their grandma is suddenly an apostle or prophet, not because God called them to be, or equipped them to be, but because the title gives them clout and perceived authority. It hits different when a message comes from a supposed prophetess than from Aunt Midge with the sixteen cats and neon hair, doesn’t it?

In the end we will all be called to account for the lives we’ve lived, the titles we claimed, the authority we misappropriated that was never ours in the first place, the boasts we made, the words we spoke, the pride we felt, and the glory we took for ourselves that rightly belonged to Him.

While the humble, obedient, and faithful cry out, Come quickly, Lord Jesus, there are those within the household of faith who look upon that day with dread and great terror because they know God knows, and their farces have not fooled Him in the least.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Posted on 5 June 2026 | 11:19 am