SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 11/16/2011 8:21:10 AM
My Worship
Time Focus: “Three False Accusations”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Job
22:1-30
Message of the verses: With this SD we begin a new chapter of the
book of Job, and it also begins a new chapter from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on
Job, “Be Patient.” He entitles chapter
eight “Order in the Court,” and it will cover chapters twenty-two through
chapter twenty-four. In today’s SD we
begin with the next speech of Eliphaz and he will have three false accusations
to go against Job. These conversations
are getting more heated as we will soon see.
I can’t help but believe that the enemy of our souls had great influence
on these three friends of Job because the steaks were very high for Satan, yet
when one looks at it through the eyes of the Lord and through His character and
attribute one will realize that God would win this “contest” with Satan, and it
will be because of Job’s integrity that Satan will lose. Job did not worship the Lord for what he got
from the Lord, but he worshiped the Lord because he loved the Lord and desired
to serve him in the good times as well as the bad times.
Job is a sinner (Job 22:1-11): “1 Then
Eliphaz the Temanite responded, 2 "Can a vigorous man be of use to God, Or
a wise man be useful to himself? 3 “Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if
you are righteous, Or profit if you make your ways perfect? 4 “Is it because of
your reverence that He reproves you, That He enters into judgment against you?
5 "Is not your wickedness great, And your
iniquities without end? 6 “For you have taken pledges of your brothers without
cause, And stripped men naked. 7 “To the weary you have given no water to
drink, And from the hungry you have withheld bread. 8 “But the earth belongs to
the mighty man, And the honorable man dwells in it. 9 “You have sent widows
away empty, And the strength of the orphans has been crushed. 10 “Therefore
snares surround you, And sudden dread terrifies you, 11 Or darkness, so that
you cannot see, And an abundance of water covers you.” (NASB)
“1 Once again Eliphaz the Temanite
took up his theme: 2 "Are any of us strong enough to give God a hand, or smart
enough to give him advice? 3 So what if you were righteous—would God Almighty
even notice? Even if you gave a perfect performance, do you think he’d applaud?
4 Do you think it’s because he cares about your purity that he’s disciplining
you, putting you on the spot?
5
Hardly! It’s because you’re a first-class moral failure, because there’s no end
to your sins. 6 When people came to you for help, you took the shirts off their
backs, exploited their helplessness. 7 You wouldn’t so much as give a drink to
the thirsty, or food, not even a scrap, to the hungry. 8 And there you sat,
strong and honored by everyone, surrounded by immense wealth! 9 You turned poor
widows away from your door; heartless, you crushed orphans. 10 Now you’re the
one trapped in terror, paralyzed by fear. Suddenly the tables have turned! 11
How do you like living in the dark, sightless, up to your neck in flood
waters?” (Message)
I
wish at this time to give a quote from Matthew Henry that appears at the very
beginning of the chapter in Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary, “The God of Israel, the
Savior, is sometimes a God that hides Himself, but never a God that absents
Himself; sometimes in the dark, but never at a distance.” I am sure that if you would read this quote
to Job at this time in his life he would have said “Amen!”
The
first question that I wish to ask is how did Eliphaz know all of these things
about Job? Was he just making them
up? Did he get the answers to these
charges from some of Job’s neighbors?
This whole thing reminds me of the political scene that is now going on
in the US where one party slings mud at another even though they know that
their facts are not true but do not care because it will get people to begin to
think that they are true. Eliphaz is doing
this to Job, but Job is not buying it.
Eliphaz
is accusing Job of having too much pride in verses one through three. He is saying that Job is acting like his
character is important to God and Eliphaz is saying that it is not at all
important to God. However it is
important to God for that is the premise of this whole “contest” between God
and Satan.
In
verse six Eliphaz accuses Job of covetousness.
He says that Job is a greedy man.
Covetousness is what the tenth commandment is all about for it says that
a person is not to covet, covet a man’s house or donkey, or wife. To covet something you have to do it in your
heart and when you do this you break that law.
Job was not doing what Eliphaz accused him of doing.
Job
is accused by Eliphaz of a lack of mercy and compassion in verse seven through
nine. If this were true of Job one could
probably see why the Lord was not answering his prayers, but it was not true.
Job is hiding his sins (Job 22:12-20): “12 “Is
not God in the height of heaven? Look also at the distant stars, how high they
are! 13 “You say, ’What does God know? Can He judge through the thick darkness?
14 ’Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; And He walks on
the vault of heaven.’
15
"Will you keep to the ancient path Which wicked men have trod, 16 Who were
snatched away before their time, Whose foundations were washed away by a river?
17 “They said to God, ’Depart from us!’ And ’What can the Almighty do to them?’
18 “Yet He filled their houses with good things; But the counsel of the wicked
is far from me. 19 “The righteous see and are glad, And the innocent mock them,
20 Saying, ’Truly our adversaries are cut off, And their abundance the fire has
consumed.’” (NASB)
“12 “You agree, don’t you, that God is in
charge? He runs the universe—just look at the stars! 13 Yet you dare raise
questions: ‘What does God know? From that distance and darkness, how can he
judge? 14 He roams the heavens wrapped in clouds, so how can he see us?’
15
"Are you going to persist in that tired old line that wicked men and women
have always used? 16 Where did it get them? They died young, flash floods
sweeping them off to their doom. 17 They told God, ‘Get lost! What good is God
Almighty to us?’ 18 And yet it was God who gave them everything they had. It’s
beyond me how they can carry on like this! 19 “Good people see bad people
crash, and call for a celebration. Relieved, they crow, 20 ‘At last! Our
enemies—wiped out. Everything they had and stood for is up in smoke!’” (Message)
Eliphaz
is actually saying that Job is a hypocrite, something that has been hinted at
earlier in the speeches of Job’s “friends.”
Dr. Wiersbe write of hypocrites:
“A hypocrite is not a person who fails to reach his desired spiritual
goals, because all of us fail in one way or another. A hypocrite is a person who doesn’t even try
to reach any goals, but he makes people
think that he has. His profession
and his practice never meet. The Puritan
preacher Stephen Charnock said, ‘It is a sad thing to be Christians at a
supper, heathens in our shops, and devils in our closets.’”
A
hypocrite does not believe that God can see them and so they can act and do as
they wish, but according to verse twelve God sees all. This is a true statement, but accusing Job of
being a hypocrite is not. Again we see
truth in what Job’s accusers are stating, but their accusations that go against
Job are not true. In verse twelve
Eliphaz wants Job to look up and then in verses 15-18 he wants him to look back. He want him to remember what has happened to
sinners in the past. I like what Dr.
Wiersbe writes about this: “Poor Job! No matter which way he turned or how he tried
to reason with his accusers, he was wasting his time and energy. First they said that God blesses the
righteous and punishes the wicked, and now Eliphaz claims that God blesses the
hypocrite and fills his house with good things!—It has been well said that the
highest reward for a faithful life is not what you get for it but what you
become by it. Bishop Brooke Westcott
said ‘Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to
the eyes of men. Silently and
imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or we grow weak, and at last
some crisis shows what we have become.’”
Job must repent of his sins (Job 22:21-30): “21 "Yield
now and be at peace with Him; Thereby good will come to you. 22 “Please receive
instruction from His mouth And establish His words in your heart. 23 "If
you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; If you remove unrighteousness
far from your tent, 24 And place your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir
among the stones of the brooks, 25 Then the Almighty will be your gold And
choice silver to you. 26 “For then you will delight in the Almighty And lift up
your face to God. 27 “You will pray to Him, and He will hear you; And you will
pay your vows. 28 “You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for
you; And light will shine on your ways. 29 “When you are cast down, you will
speak with confidence, And the humble person He will save. 30 “He will deliver
one who is not innocent, And he will be delivered through the cleanness of your
hands.’” (NASB)
“21 "Give in to God, come to terms
with him and everything will turn out just fine. 22 Let him tell you what to
do; take his words to heart. 23 Come back to God Almighty and he’ll rebuild
your life. Clean house of everything evil. 24 Relax your grip on your money and
abandon your gold-plated luxury. 25 God Almighty will be your treasure, more
wealth than you can imagine. 26 “You’ll take delight in God, the Mighty One,
and look to him joyfully, boldly. 27 You’ll pray to him and he’ll listen; he’ll
help you do what you’ve promised. 28 You’ll decide what you want and it will
happen; your life will be bathed in light. 29 To those who feel low you’ll say,
‘Chin up! Be brave!’ and God will save them. 30 Yes, even the guilty will
escape, escape through God’s grace in your life.’” (Message)
The
only commentary on this section that I will give is from the pen of Dr. Wiersbe
for I surely could not say it any better: “Eliphaz says some excellent things
in this appeal, but he says them to the wrong man. When we get to the end of the book we will
discover that it is Eliphaz and his two friends who are out of fellowship with
God. They will need Job to intercede for
them so they can be restored (42:7-10)
“If
you were Job how would you respond to
this appeal?” (Good question)
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As I look back as some of the speeches that
Job’s “friends” gave to him I find a lot of truth in them just as Dr. Wiersbe
points out from this last section, but it is given to the wrong man at the
wrong time. When people are hurting they
need a listening ear and not a threatening tongue like Job’s three friends were
giving to him. This is one of the great
things that I can take away from this book, and by God’s grace and the aid of
the Holy Spirit put into practice in order to help others who are in need of
help.
My Steps of
Faith for Today:
1.
Have a
listening ear that listens from the heart and not have a threatening tongue
that will hurt people worse than they are already hurting.
2.
Continue to
learn contentment.
3.
Romans
12:1-2.
4.
Ephesians
6:10-18.
5.
Proverbs
3:5-6.
11/16/2011 9:33:53 AM
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