Barring an unforeseen inflow of votes overwhelmingly biased toward one of the two choices, it is clear that the Principles of Prayer have won out over continuing our study of the Book of Job for now. As I said, Lord willing, we will finish the latter portion of the book of Job and the discussion thereof as soon as this short intermission is over, but for now, it is clear that a vast majority of you would prefer we delve into the topic of prayer for a little while.
Thank you to all who participated. We will commence the study shortly.Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Monday, April 7, 2025
Crossroads
There’s a difference between biting off more than you can chew and realizing that a meal will take longer to finish than you first expected. When it comes to our study of the Book of Job, it’s more the latter than the former. It’s not that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, but it's taking longer to go through than I initially expected. This is not a bad thing; it’s just the reality of the situation.
By my estimation, we’re about halfway through our study of
Job, and it has become evident that it will need to be split into two volumes,
lest I compete with a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of
size.
I am somewhat torn as to how we proceed from here, so I will
leave the choice up to you. The choice is binary, as most things in life are.
I’ve been working on an outline for a series on prayer, which I believe will be
a worthwhile exploration into the value and indispensable need for a robust and
consistent prayer life, that I plan on combining with the study on fasting we
did some months back and making it into a book.
The choice before you is to either take a break from Job and
proceed with the study on prayer, then return to Job once that study is
completed, or to continue on our journey through the book of Job until its
finality, which will likely be another six months if not longer. Since I can’t
decide, I’ll let you do it for me.
Please comment either Job or Prayer, and once we have the tally sorted out, I’ll know how to proceed. I don’t like being indecisive, but I’m struggling with this decision. I pray you understand.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Job CLVIII
Job 14:18-22, “Bu as a mountain falls and crumbles away, and
as a rock is moved from its place; as water wears away stones, and as torrents
wash away the soil of the earth; so You destroy the hope of man. You prevail
forever against him, and he passes on; You change his countenance and send him
away. His sons come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low,
and he does not perceive it. But his flesh will be in pain over it, and his
soul will mourn over it.”
Nothing in this world has permanence. Everything is fleeting.
Continents shift and reform, mountains fall and crumble away, torrents wash
away the soil of the earth, generations come and go, and kingdoms rise and
fall, but through it all, God abides. That men would cling so hardily to
temporal things and dismiss eternity as though it was not worth their time only
goes to put the ignorance of man on full display.
There is no structure, no nation, no system of government, or
man-made thing that is guaranteed to remain here, in the same iteration, ten
thousand years from now. Even the feats men deemed the greatest of any
generation are but vague echoes of what once was, whispered about by pockets of
studious men, imagined in the glory they once possessed. Long gone is the tower
of Babel, not one stone remaining upon another, the edifice everyone of that
generation was convinced would reach God Himself.
There is evidence of past civilizations that were so
thoroughly expunged as to leave behind a handful of stones and nothing more. As
is the case with this generation, they likely thought themselves the pinnacle
of wisdom, the crowning jewel of human accomplishment, and the one empire that
would be the exception to the rule and continue in perpetuity.
In his hubris, man develops a form of tunnel vision wherein
he refuses to consider the overwhelming evidence that try as he might, it’s
likely that he will not leave an indelible mark on the history of mankind, and
a handful of generations after he returns to the dust of the earth, he will be
forgotten as countless others have.
Our goal isn’t to be remembered or forgotten by our
contemporaries or future generations but to serve God. As long as we are remembered
by Him, whether the next generation remembers our name or not matters little.
Conversely, if the world knows your name a hundred years from now, but God does
not know you, then it’s all for naught.
It’s easy to get caught up in the rat race, trying to chase
the spotlight and attempt to elevate our status in the eyes of our
contemporaries, especially when everyone else is doing it. More often than not,
men will even try to justify their desire for glory by insisting the underlying
reason has more to do with being selfless and trying to help others than
feeding their ravenous ego.
What usually curbs the desire for the spotlight is the
realization that every notable servant of God, every man or woman whose names
are remembered, not for a decade or a century, but millennia after they’ve gone
on to their reward, had the singular desire to serve and obey the call of God
on their lives, not bothering to consider whether or not they would be
remembered, thought well of, or known, or weighing their options as to which
course would garner them a greater footprint or bigger following.
Do your duty. Be faithful in the things God has called you to
do, put your hand to the plow, don’t look back, and let the chips fall where
they may. It’s the obedience and faithfulness that God sees and rewards, not
our egotistical desire to become a household name or rise above the sea of
souls clamoring for the spotlight.
When something other than obedience becomes the driving force
of your labor, the tendency to compromise for the sake of what’s driving you
becomes nearly overwhelming. Everything gets filtered through the prism of
whether the word we were commanded to speak will offend the sensibilities of
the majority or whether we will lose support, and the message becomes diluted, ineffectual,
and a shadow of the truth it once was in its original form.
The notion that the gospel or the message of the cross was
meant to be inoffensive is a modern invention spurned by the desire for
acceptance. Jesus Himself said that He did not come to bring peace but a sword.
He warned that a man’s enemies will be those of his own household, for when the
light of truth ignites in a soul, those still in darkness will naturally be
averse to it.
We can seek to please men, or we can strive to please God. We
can’t do both. We either commit our ways to the Lord and follow after Him or
give in to the pressure of the world and those around us who insist that we are
too rigid, unmalleable, and unwilling to compromise for the sake of unity.
If unity is achieved at the expense of truth and the gospel,
it’s not unity but rebellion. We are seeing the effects of this in numerous denominations,
which have strayed so far from scripture as to make them unrecognizable from
the world, and the only thing they have to show for it is the validation and
celebration of sin.
Job knew where he stood. Although all three of his friends tried their best to convince him otherwise, he knew he had not sinned before God and approached Him with the boldness only such knowledge can foster in one’s heart.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Job CLVII
Job 14:13-17, “Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes. You shall call and I will answer You; You shall desire the work of Your hands. For now You number my steps, but do not watch over my sin. My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and You cover my iniquity.”
It’s awe-inspiring to witness a man grapple with his inner
turmoil, battling his instincts and senses, rising above despair and
hopelessness, and reaching out to the only One he knows can provide comfort.
Job’s response to Zophar and his plea to God is a testament to the courage
found in vulnerability, in admitting the struggle we often try to mask with a
brave face.
I deflect with humor. I always have, ever since I came to
realize what I was doing, especially in uncomfortable situations or
circumstances where merely the idea of confronting the pain is so unfathomable
that I would rather ignore it for as long as I can.
Job had no such outlet. He didn’t try to deflect the pain he
was feeling but poured himself out with all the pent-up frustration, fear,
pain, and grief that he was feeling.
Being vulnerable with God is not a weakness. On the contrary,
pouring one’s heart out to Him, crying out to Him, being honest, sincere, and
even painfully so about the hurt one is feeling and the hardship they are going
through demonstrates one’s awareness of their own limitations.
If I am broken, I can’t fix myself. If I have reached the end
of my tether, by definition, there is nothing I can do of my own agency to get
me out of a situation or predicament. Yes, we endure, yes, we press on, yes, we
persevere and keep moving forward, but the hope of being made whole again must
be tethered in God and His ability to do so rather than our own strength and
resolve.
We can only white knuckle it through pain for so long.
Eventually, without the aid, comfort, and healing presence of God, we will be crushed
and ground into the dust of the earth, no matter how valiantly we attempt to
carry on.
Job was aware of his limitations. He understood that there
was nothing he could do but cry out to God, plead with Him, and cling to the
hope that the goodness of God would prevail in his situation. Job was not picky
about how his resolution would come about as long as it did. In his current
state, the only remedy he saw was to go to the grave because our intellect often
limits our willingness to hope for a miracle. We are told that something or
other is impossible for so long that we come to believe it, ignoring the
reality that nothing is impossible with God.
Throughout my years in ministry, I’ve found it telling that
certain trials last only so long as it takes for the individual in question to
abandon all hope in themselves, their abilities, and their resilience and rest
their hope fully in the Lord.
Some of us must be stripped of the illusion that projecting
strength is itself a form of strength. We’ve all encountered fake tough guys
who talk big, but wilt at the first sign of pushback, and the reaction to such
individuals is universal. True strength is not boastful, arrogant, or given to
displays of grandiosity. As is often the case, those who talk big do little,
and eventually, their shortcomings, inadequacies, and weaknesses come to the
fore and are on full display for everyone to see.
Men can choose to stand in their own strength or stand in the
strength that originates from God, something beyond their agency or ability.
Those who stand in their strength discover the frailty of it eventually, some
only doing so when they’ve exhausted themselves trying to do on their own what
only God can do. It is a form of pride, I think, beating our chests and
declaring how powerful we are in and of ourselves. As Scripture points out, God
resists the proud while giving grace to the humble.
Looking back on my own life, with the benefit of hindsight, I
can attest that there are innumerable instances where only the strength of God carried
me, and nothing I could have done on my own would have sufficed. You can have
the hosts of hell arrayed against you, but if God remains on your side, victory
is certain because God is able to do what man cannot.
What could Job have done of his own volition to improve his
lot and his situation? What could he have done to heal his broken body, restore
his possessions, and return to the life he’d once lived? Absolutely nothing.
The best he could manage was a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and
eventually, even that became burdensome because the sores were painful, and he
could no longer do it.
Standing in our own strength is a toxic mix of hubris, pride,
and utter futility. Especially when going through a trial, a sifting, or a season
of hardship, the best course of action is to lean ever more on God and
acknowledge our frailty, knowing that He has strength in abundance and is ever
willing to imbue us with it if we humble ourselves and ask it of Him. We have
not because we ask not, and when we do ask, some of us ask amiss, hoping to
deal with the symptom of something rather than the underlying cause.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Job CLVI
Job 14:7-12, “For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut
down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease.
Though its roots may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the
ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a
plant. But man dies and is laid away; indeed he breathes his last and where is
he? As water disappears from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dries up,
so man lies down and does not rise. Till the heavens are no more, they will not
awake nor be roused from their sleep.”
Every great faith started out small. It’s a testament to the
transformative power of faith that every mind brimming with wisdom, knowledge,
and understanding once belonged to a babe who spent their days staring at their
fingers, stacking blocks, learning to crawl, and finding the greatest amusement
in playing with an empty box for hours on end.
We don’t like to hear it, but God doesn’t grade on a curve. He
doesn’t see us as a monolith but as individuals, and we will stand before Him
one day as individuals. We don’t get a passing grade simply because we deem
ourselves of average faith, more faithful than Bob but less faithful than Jill,
so right in the middle should be the sweet spot. Controversial? Most assuredly.
Biblical? Quite so. Jesus said as much, but our self-righteousness will not
allow God to be God and determine the standard by which He judges men. Trying
to play de facto judge offers a higher perch, and for some, looking down on
another who’s just starting out on their journey of faith, with shaky legs and
a faith in its infancy, makes them feel better about themselves and their
duplicitous hearts.
It’s easy to sit in judgment of Job in hindsight, given what
we know regarding eternity, life after death, the home that Jesus went to
prepare for us, and all that salvation entails. We read his words and tend to
shake our heads at how little he understood regarding these things, especially
if we fail to acknowledge the context of the time he lived in.
I understand that armchair quarterbacking is all the rage,
and some are chomping at the bit to pick at the flaws of a man whom God deemed
blameless and upright, but before we judge Job too harshly, we would do well to
hold a mirror up to ourselves and acknowledge our imperfections.
With the knowledge he possessed and the faithfulness he demonstrated,
Job was regarded as a man to whom God could point as having been unique among
his contemporaries, both in his service and love of God. That’s not me saying
it; that’s God saying it, so anyone quick to roll their eyes at Job’s ignorance
of the broader picture of eternity and what comes after this life is spent would
do well to acknowledge this truth.
That’s not to say Job’s outlook wasn’t bleak. He saw more
hope for the tree that is cut down to sprout anew than for a man who dies and
is laid away. No, I do not believe Job was contemplating reincarnation but
rather a continuity of life beyond the point of death. In his limited
understanding, he concluded that man lies down and does not rise again.
If your desire is to know Him, God will meet you where you
are. You don’t need to be fluent in Hebrew or Greek or hold a doctorate in
divinity from a seminary, but you do need to possess a broken and contrite
heart that yearns for more of God. Job’s understanding of eternity was limited,
yet God still saw him as a blameless and upright man.
Luke 12:48, “But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving
of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from
him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they
will ask the more.”
Job was accountable for the things he understood during the
time he lived in. If God keeps count of the hairs on your head, rest assured, He
is fully aware of the level of faith, understanding, knowledge, and spiritual maturity
you possess. If you’ve been given much, much will be required of you. We are
individually accountable for the understanding we possess regarding spiritual
matters.
Not knowing something was displeasing to God and doing it,
and knowing that it was and doing it anyway, are two very different things.
When something deserving of stripes is done in ignorance, the individual shall
be beaten with few. Jesus didn’t say there would be no consequence, but God does
take into account whether it was done in ignorance or with full knowledge that
it would displease Him and was done anyway.
True enough, ignorance of the law is no excuse, at least in
earthly courts. However, unlike man, God knows whether or not an individual is genuinely
ignorant of something or merely pretends to be in order to escape punishment.
Whenever discussing topics related to repentance, holiness,
sanctification, or obedience, there is bound to be at least one individual who uses
the thief on the cross as an excuse for their rebellion. He didn’t repent or
live a holy life; he just said, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your
kingdom.” Why should I have to sanctify myself when he didn’t? In short, he was
ignorant of Jesus, who He was, and the salvation He offered up until that
moment.
Most people who reject the love of God, who reject Jesus and
His redemptive power, knowingly do so because they harden their hearts toward
Him and refuse to surrender and humble themselves. It’s not that they never
heard the gospel or were ignorant of it; having heard it, they rejected it.
For the thief on the cross, it was his last few hours on earth. He couldn’t schedule a baptism when the weather permitted or commit to living out his new convictions after this pesky crucifixion was over. Come the next sunrise at the latest, the life would have left his body, and he would be no more. Jesus knew he would have no opportunity to do what He’d instructed the rest of us to do, and in His grace and love, made allowances for that reality. That we would take an exception and make it the rule while ignoring the rule isn’t just obtuse; it’s dangerous.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Job CLV
Job 14:1-6, “Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and fades away; he flees like a shadow and does not continue. And do You open Your eyes on such a one, and bring me to judgment with Yourself? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one! Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; You have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass. Look away from him that he may rest, till like a hired man he finishes his day.”
Men like to think of themselves as more than they are and God
as less than He is. If we were to make a base case for why there is so much
rebellion, disobedience, and faithlessness, this idea would be among the root
causes.
It would serve both the prince and the pauper alike to
revisit the words of Job regularly and rediscover the timeless truth contained
therein, for no matter how well-known, well-liked, well-heeled, or well-tended,
the truth is that man comes forth like a flower and fades away. He flees like a
shadow and does not continue.
It doesn’t matter how much kale you force down your gullet,
how many handfuls of vitamins and essential nutrients you take every morning,
how robust your exercise regimen is, or whether you subscribe to red light
therapy or blue light therapy, everyone’s days are determined, and the number
of their months are with Him.
Yes, the notion of quality of life is one that must be
acknowledged, whether you’re stuck in a mobility scooter at twenty-five,
wheezing through an oxygen mask, or being able to climb a flight of stairs
without having heart palpitations is of consequence and something you have
agency over, but as far as lengthening one’s days or extending the number of
years we’ve been given, those limits have been appointed by God, and man cannot
pass the limit that was set for him.
Given the technological advancements of recent decades, some
have even taken it upon themselves to endeavor for immortality, something not
given to man, no matter how rich, consequential, or willing to live as an echo
of what they once were, a displaced brain in a machine, without the true spark
of life, or the presence of a soul. It’s the fear of death that drives such
individuals, and they fear death because they do not know life. They do not
know life because they do not know God, and one cannot be known independently
of the other.
They scramble about failing to live for fear of dying,
believing they can circumvent divine order and extend the appointed limits that
have been deemed unpassable. Men have always feared death to a certain degree,
but given the anecdotal evidence available, none more so than this present
generation.
It doesn’t take a deep dive to understand how void of hope in
anything beyond this present life many have become. All it takes is looking
back on the last few years and seeing how few of those who just months prior
sang, “I’ve got a home, waitin’ in the heavenly kingdom, up where the streets
are made of gold” until the rafters shook, did not give in to fear and
continued about their lives rather than shrink wrap themselves and wait
patiently in their basements for the all-clear. This shift in attitude towards
death and the life to come is a clear sign of the fear that has gripped this
generation.
Your days are determined, and the number of your months are
with God. If that is the baseline of your reality, fear will never enter the
equation or be allowed to hobble you in your duty toward Him.
If fear of death were a contributing factor to those who came
before us, their testimonies would likely never have existed because, in their
drive to spare themselves or extend their days, they would not have dared to
stand before the masses who were set on their destruction, baying for blood, and
proclaim the name of Jesus with their dying breaths.
Fear of death is bondage, and it’s usually those who are
already dead that fear it, ever enslaved by it, more concerned about its
inevitability and finality than receiving the life that would dispel it once
and for all.
1 John 3:13-15, “Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world
hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the
brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his
brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding
in him.”
Although the broader conversation John was having focused on the
love of the brethren, it cannot be overlooked that he was firmly convinced that
he, along with those to whom he was writing, had passed from death to life. It
is an often-seen theme throughout the New Testament, and something Job was not
privy to because the Christ had not yet come.
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Job queried? No
one! That was his conclusion, and at the time, he was not wrong. However, with
the advent of Christ, we were given the grace to know salvation, transformation,
and rebirth from death to life so that the bondage of fear would no longer hold
sway over us.
Romans 6:8-10, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that
we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead,
dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He
died, he died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”
Job had come to terms with his mortality, understanding that
the only one who has agency over when we breathe our first and when we breathe
our last is God and God alone. It’s undeniable that had Job had his way, he would
have preferred it all to end till, like a hired man, he finished his day, but
it was not up to him.
Your today will not determine your tomorrow, just as your yesterday did not determine your today. Yes, there are times and seasons in life when we cling to hope by the barest of threads, but the overarching assurance that if we died with Christ, we shall also live with Him gives us the strength to persevere and endure.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Monday, March 31, 2025
Job CLIV
There is no end to human hypocrisy and the vanity of opinion. They are bottomless pits, and just when you think they can’t go any lower, they surprise you in the most unpleasant fashion. Natural wisdom, no matter how well-crafted, has cracks and fissures that become evident the moment pressure is applied to it. Philosophy for its own sake is oftentimes disjointed and at odds with itself, seeming to contradict one initial premise with another, deceiving people into thinking themselves wise, when any wisdom that does not originate from God and which doesn’t have Him at its core is a hollow husk of presupposition made up to seem like more than it is.
People can have an intellectual response to God just as they
can have an emotional response to Him. They can acknowledge His existence, yet
their hearts will continue to remain cold and unyielding until He becomes both
a need and a desire, something one cannot live without.
God cannot be one among many for which our hearts pine, but
the singular treasure we seek, everything else falling by the wayside and becoming
ever more irrelevant the more we get to know Him. He is an existential need,
like oxygen, food, and water, for the human soul. God is not a hobby; He is not
something we relegate to the sidelines, the attic, or the shed until we have
need of Him or a mere acquaintance, someone we know in passing rather than a
heavenly Father.
Most people treat God like a life mechanic, the same way they
treat a car mechanic, paying Him no heed and thinking nothing of Him until
their life starts falling apart, and there’s nothing they can do to stop the
freefall. That is not the sort of relationship God is after. That is not the
sort of relationship that will grow you and mature you spiritually because, by
definition, it’s not a genuine relationship.
In His grace and love, God has given man the opportunity to
know Him, fellowship with Him, worship Him, and grow in Him. This relationship
has the power to transform us, to bring us peace, comfort, and hope. That we
would squander this greatest of gifts for the fleeting things of this earth
only goes to show that we do not understand the value and worth of a
relationship with Him.
When our priorities are rightly aligned, and God is first in
all things, we will have peace even in the midst of chaos, we will have comfort
even in the midst of pain, and we will have hope even in the midst of the
storm. It’s when we shift our focus from Him and from following Him in humble
obedience to trying to do on our own only what He can do that our progress is
impeded and our walk needlessly burdened. But when we align our priorities with
God, we can rest assured that He is with us, guiding us through every trial. It
is not God’s duty to align Himself with man. It is not God’s duty to be in
harmony with me. It is my duty, as well as the duty of every person, to align
oneself with God and be in harmony with Him.
This begins with acknowledging that we are not the captains
of our ship, the masters of our destiny, or whatever clichéd trope people tend
to use nowadays. We are servants of God and, therefore, must remain under His
authority in obedience and faithfulness, whether the road is easy or hard.
Even in his torment, Job’s priorities were properly aligned:
God first! In all things, God first. His presence, His voice, His guidance, His
comfort, His strength, His will. There was nothing Job was willing to trade the
presence of God for, whether restoration of his health or his wealth because he
understood the fleeting nature of man and the waning appeal of the material.
Job 13:23-28, “How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me
know my transgression and my sin. Why do You hide Your face, and regard me as
Your enemy? Will you frighten a leaf driven to and fro? And will you pursue dry
stubble? For You write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the
iniquities of my youth. You put my feet in stocks, and watch closely all my paths.
You set a limit for the soles of my feet. Man decays like a rotting thing, like
a garment that is moth-eaten.”
Job’s anguish is palpable, not so much the physical pain but
the idea that God chose to hide His face from Him and regard him as His enemy.
The notion that Job not feeling the presence of God weighed more heavily on him
than all the loss he suffered, and all the torment he’d endured is revelatory
and humbling.
Countless souls are walking about today, beating their chests
and declaring that they belong to God, but whether the presence of God is felt
in their lives or it’s no longer there makes no difference and has no impact as
far as their disposition is concerned.
If we groan and weep at the loss of material things with
greater fervor and intensity than we do when we do not feel the presence of
God, it says more about our spiritual condition than anything we could declare
with our lips. That alone reveals our perspective regarding the importance of
His presence, the value we place on intimacy with Him, and how existential we
view our fellowship with Him to be.
How one reacts to something reveals their inner heart. It’s
in those moments when something is snatched away or goes awry that the
well-crafted masks so many wear slip off, and the true intent of their heart is
made clear.
Job’s singular desire was to know the presence of God afresh. It’s the one thing he’d concluded he couldn’t live without, eclipsing everything else in his life. There’s a reason God considered Job to be a man apart, unique in his generation, upright and blameless. It’s because he put God first above all else, desiring only fellowship with Him.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Job CLIII
Job wasn’t looking to his friends to save him. He knew that
even if they wanted to, they couldn’t because his situation wasn’t one that
could be remedied by the intervention of men. Job entreated God because he knew
where his salvation would ultimately come from if there was salvation to be
had. He will be my salvation! Not you, not your accusations, not your
judgments, but God will be my salvation, and it is before Him I must search my
heart, and not before you.
In our modern age, we’ve taken the idea that God knows our
heart and mutilated it to a point wherein it is used as an excuse and
justification for anything and everything we pursue that is contrary to
Scripture. I know I do all these horrible things, but God knows my heart. Yes,
He does, and in light of this, the fear of the Lord should make you tremble
like a reed in a hurricane.
Job was fully assured that God knew His heart, but he also
acknowledged that a hypocrite could not come before Him. We tend to appropriate
the first part but dismiss the second part because the second part holds us accountable
for our actions and the choices we make throughout our lives. I cannot live in
rebellion and disobedience and use the notion that God knows my heart as a
justification for it.
There was no hypocrisy in Job’s self-assessment. He didn’t
insist upon his innocence to try and impress his friends or make himself seem
spiritually superior to them. He wasn’t playing at being an upright and
blameless man; he was an upright and blameless man. This is not a distinction
without a difference. Pretending to be something and being something are two
very different things.
Job 13:20-22, “Only two things do not do to me, then I will
not hide myself from You: withdraw Your hand far from me, and let not the dread
of You make me afraid. Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, then You
respond to me.”
By the twentieth verse, Job was no longer addressing his
friends or trying to convince them of anything. He realized it was a lost
cause, so he began petitioning and beseeching God directly.
If there was ever any doubt over Job’s deep devotion and love
for God, the two things he asked for should dispel it altogether. Job didn’t
ask God to restore his health, his wealth, or his family, nor did he didn’t ask
God to make him forget the past few months or take the pain away. His two
requests were that God not withdraw His hand far from him and that the dread of
Him would not make him afraid.
Even in his condition, Job’s uttermost priority and the
singular desire of his existence was the continued presence of God in his life.
Do not withdraw Your hand far from me! I can bear all these other things. I can
bear the loss of my children, the loss of my wealth, the loss of my health, and
the loss of the respect my friends had for me once upon a time, but what I
cannot bear is the absence of You!
When it came to Job’s hierarchy of needs, God wasn’t
competing with something else or positioned alongside health, wealth, and a
comfortable life. He wasn’t one need among many; He was the need, the one thing
Job could not live without, the one thing Job desired above all else.
Anyone with a superficial understanding of God will never
reach the point where all that they desire is more of Him. They will, perhaps,
acknowledge the benefits of knowing God, even go so far as wanting to know more
of Him, but as far as reaching the point of desperation where everything else
in this present life is as ash and dust compared to His presence, one must
possess an understanding of His character, nature, and majesty.
If Job had ever been underwhelmed by the presence of God, if
spending time with Him had ever grown banal or fallen short of his
expectations, if the God he served failed him more often than He came through,
his singular desire would not have been for God not to withdraw His hand far
from him.
Whenever the weather permits, my girls are outside playing,
whether making forts out of sticks, trying to outdo each other on who can do
more cartwheels, climbing trees, playing hide and seek, or anything else their
imaginative minds can conjure. Since we live in Wisconsin, there are days when
they are forced to remain indoors, and that’s usually when they get into a
spirited game of “Would You Rather.”
If you don’t know the rules of the game, it’s quite simple: one
person asks a question starting with “Would you rather,” followed by a binary
choice, and the other has to pick one. I’ve heard it all. Would you rather have
the ability to fly or breathe underwater? Would you rather be able to speak to
animals or walk through walls? Would you rather lose your sense of smell or
taste, and the list goes on and on?
For Job, every answer was God. Given the choice between more
wealth or God, he chose God. Given the option between health and God, he chose
God. Given the option between anything in this world, anything material,
whether all the earthly treasures of men or a position of prominence and
authority, and God, he chose God.
We’re often envious of the relationships those who came before us had with God, not realizing that we can have the same if our desire is for God above all else, every day, no matter the situation or circumstance. The reason God reveals Himself to some and not others is because those to whom He reveals Himself desire Him alone, exclusively, without expecting anything more than the knowledge of Him in return. Men today do not know God because they lack a genuine desire to know Him. The only thing they’re interested in is how they can profit from claiming to know Him rather than desiring a true and abiding relationship, and it shows.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Friday, March 28, 2025
Job CLII
Job 13:13-19, “Hold your peace with me, and let me speak, then let come on me what may! Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hands? Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him. He also shall be my salvation, for a hypocrite could not come before Him. Listen carefully to my speech, and to my declaration with your ears. See now, I have prepared my case, I know that I shall be vindicated. Who is he who will contend with me? If now I hold my tongue, I perish.”
I can’t say I’ve ever reached the end of my tether, but I’ve
come close enough to understand what Job was going through. He had reached the
point in this back-and-forth between himself and his friends where the
aftereffects of what he said and what followed were of no concern to him. Let
me speak, then come what may. You can hate me, judge me, loathe me, unfriend
me, but I’m going to speak my mind.
He’d tried to explain, tried to de-escalate, tried to make
his friends see that they were judging him wrongly, but to no avail. It is said
everyone has a breaking point, and Job had reached his. The dam had finally
broken, and what were once fissures, cracks, and minor leaks in his resolve was
now a torrent.
Although there are countless profound, thought-provoking, and
inspirational things Job said that later laid the foundation of wisdom from the
likes of David, Solomon, Paul, and others, there is one that, in my eyes,
stands head and shoulders above the rest, especially given Job’s current
situation and the sifting he was going through. Though He slay me, yet I will
trust Him.
I’ve spent hours pondering this handful of words, and every
time, they engendered a deep sense of humility. When Job spoke these words,
they weren’t theoretical. He wasn’t being blessed coming and going, his cup
wasn’t running over, everything wasn’t in its proper place, and the future
didn’t seem bright. He was a man in pain, bereft of sleep, being accused of sin
by his friends, covered in worms and open sores. He had reached the bottom, and
there was no next tier of descent for him, yet at his lowest, in the depth of
his sorrow and pain, he declared that though God saw fit to slay him utterly,
he would trust Him because he knew the nature and character of the God he
served.
When all your senses, circumstances, friends, and family
insist that you have been forsaken, that God has turned His back on you, that
you are alone amid the maelstrom with nothing to cling to and no hope of
rescue, only an anchored and well-established faith can give you the strength
to say you will continue to trust God and mean it.
It’s one thing to declare we trust God when all is well, when
things are going right, and when anything we set our hand to grows, multiplies,
and is met with enviable success. It’s another thing entirely to see everything
you’ve worked for turn to dust and ash, having your body wracked with pain and
your sleep invaded by nightmares, and still make the same declaration.
Were He to slay you, would you still trust Him? Were He to
remove every safety net, everything you counted as constant, everything you
held dear, would you still have the strength, faith, and presence of mind to
declare as Job did that you will trust Him?
The underlying question is, do you know God well enough to
trust Him in the valley just as readily as you do on the mountaintop? Do you
know His character and nature well enough to trust Him in your trials as
unequivocally as you do in your victories? Have you taken the time to build a
true and lasting relationship with Him to the point that though He slays you,
you will yet trust Him?
From an individual standpoint, the answers to these questions
are far more imperative than who the Antichrist will end up being or whether
praying while lying flat on your face will increase the chances of God hearing
you more than standing up.
As an aside, either works, just pray. We get so caught up in
the minutia that we fail to see the overall picture. There is no right or wrong
way to beseech God. Hands clasped in front of you, hands raised in the air,
hands hanging by your sides - it makes no difference as long as the desire of
your heart is sincere and your supplications are heartfelt.
Yes, I will trust God, even if He chooses to slay me, but
this does not mean I will admit to something I didn’t do, Job insists. Even so,
I will defend my own ways before Him. I know what I know, and no amount of you
telling me I’ve sinned when I know I haven’t will change the reality of it.
I’m all for discourse and debate, for reasoning together as
we ought, but when my disagreeing with your opinion on a non-salvific matter on
which the Bible has no declared position automatically means that you consider
me cast out, doomed to suffer the eternal anguish of hell, it’s no longer a
debate, but you playing judge, juror, and executioner.
For some, their pet doctrine eclipses brotherly love to the
point that they will cut ties, disfellowship, and shun anyone who is not in
lockstep with them. Again, these are not salvific issues but rather
appropriated nuances that are elevated to the status of canonical scripture,
magnified in the eyes of those who insist upon them to the point of
overshadowing Scripture itself. Pet doctrine doesn’t save; Jesus does. It’s the
one thing anyone waking up itching for a doctrinal fight must be aware of, lest
they reject Christ for the sake of their stated position.
Every day seems to bring about a new bone of contention, a
new reason for division, and a reformulated theory that the Bible debunked long
ago, but no matter, we keep going at each other as though this faith of ours
was a blood sport, not fought between the household of faith and the hosts of
darkness, but between each other.
Job’s friends weren’t interested in discourse. They had no
interest in hearing what Job had to say as long as it wasn’t an admission of
the sin they imagined he’d committed for being brought so low. Their minds were
made up, their positions firmly established, their conclusions unwavering. At
this point, nothing Job could have said in his defense would have swayed them.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Job CLI
There are few absolutes in life without the caveat that there is always an exception to the rule. Even the one about not getting out of life and alive had its exceptions, since both Enoch and Elijah never died a natural death but were taken by God. One such absolute without a carve-out or exception is that God will not be mocked. Men have tried; they even thought they’d gotten away with it for a time, but eventually, the bill comes due, and there’s no squirming your way out of paying it.
Another such absolute is that your sin will find you out.
This particular one is specifically tailored to those who pretend to be
something they’re not, who insist upon their righteousness, and who present
themselves as beacons of holiness when, in fact, they are heavily ladened down
with sin and depravity.
Even if the sin in question occurred so long ago that the
individual has forgotten about it altogether, if it remains unconfessed and
unrepented of, it will be exposed, and the shame of it will be put on display
for all to see. The most recent debacle with the pastor of the biggest church
in America at its center is a testament to this absolute, wherein heinous sin,
and by the metric of law, a crime that was committed four decades ago, has come
to light.
Even in his rebuke of his friends, Job had enough love for
them in his heart to warn them of the severity of the punishment that is
visited upon those who speak for God when He has not spoken and who mock Him as
though he were a man. It wasn’t so much a ‘God is going to get you’ lecture as
it was a reminder of who God is and that He will not be mocked. Do you know
what you’re doing? Are you aware of the consequences of your actions, or is
your overriding need to find me guilty of something I didn’t do blinding you to
the reality of the judgment you are bringing upon yourselves?
Unlike them, Job wasn’t being condescending or giving off an
air of spiritual superiority, although, to be fair, it would have been hard to
do so in his current state. Yes, he was direct in his response to Zophar the
Namaathite, but unlike him, he wasn’t being belligerent and sanctimonious.
You can speak the truth in love, but you can also speak
truthful words in a spirit of division or to try and defend a point that is
more a personal conviction than it is a biblical direction. Especially when
attempting to comfort someone who is going through a trial, it’s advisable to
search our hearts and determine whether the counsel we are providing is coming
from a place of love and compassion or one of antagonism and spiritual elitism.
A wise man will curb his instinct to condescend or pour burning coals on
another’s head just to make themselves feel spiritually superior, while a
foolish one will do as fools often do, and whether to mollify their inferiority
complex or feed their need to seem great in their own eyes, they will do so at
the expense of another’s pain.
Another warning shot across the bow and a reminder by Job to
his friends is that God would surely rebuke them if they secretly showed
partiality. We’ve all seen situations where self-professing objective arbiters
of truth turned out to be anything but. The same individuals who would tell
anyone who would hear that they are unbiased and objective as though they’d
been tasked with being the town crier reveal themselves for who they are in the
partiality they show.
You cannot play favorites when it comes to rightly dividing
the Word, nor can you show partiality to an individual at the expense of the
truth. We’ve all seen the mind games some individuals like to play when it
comes to their favorite preacher or teacher, who has demonstrably, verifiably,
and undeniably strayed from the path yet continue to be vociferously defended,
whether because of the good they did in the past or the size of their ministry.
It always ends in a similar manner, wherein those defending the indefensible
must backtrack and apologize for having shown partiality, whether secret or
otherwise.
As far as platitudes are concerned, it is undeniable that
they’ve become common fare for today’s modern church, and as was the case with
Job’s friends, most of them are platitudes of ashes, absent of life or
instruction. Some men build kingdoms on platitudes alone. They spend their
entire lives repeating the same tired tropes, and because there is no
insistence on the deeper things of God, those content with a superficial faith
lap it up as though it were a fine feast.
It’s not that proverbs or even platitudes don’t have their
place once in a while, but a steady diet of them, especially when they are
vapid and superficial, only serves to weaken the desire for the deeper things
of God and drive people to cling to mantras they repeat in the mirror every morning
rather than to Christ.
Everything you’ve said to me is as ash and clay. It is as
dross swept away by the wind, with no permanence of foundation. Try as you
might to seem wise in your own eyes and lean on sanctimony, you’ve fallen short
of the mark. If ever your desire was to comfort me, that too has failed, yet I
am not forsaken or alone because I still have God to whom I can run, I still
have God upon whom I can call, and I still have God in whom I trust.
This was the crux of Job’s rebuke of his friends and one that
was heartfelt and filled with sorrow. In seeing their reaction to his suffering
and their insistence that he had sinned and thus deserved what was happening to
him and perhaps worse, Job realized what many throughout the ages have since
come to realize: only in God is there permanence. Only He is a strong tower
that abides.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Job CL
Typically, a physician studies the symptoms in the hopes of identifying the malady so that he can prescribe a remedy. When Job called his friends worthless physicians, it was no small slight. He was either insinuating that they were not as bright as they thought they were or that all of their wisdom amounted to a goose egg, as far as he was concerned. All three were certain of their diagnosis, unshakeable in their resolve about Job’s sinfulness, and all three couldn’t be further from the truth.
Proverbs 26:4-5, “Do not answer a fool according to his
folly, lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he
be wise in his own eyes.”
By Solomon’s reckoning, there are two ways to answer a fool,
and both are equally effective. You can answer a fool according to his folly,
but you run the risk of being like him, or you set a fool straight lest he be
right in his own eyes.
When men speak foolish things, and no one calls them on it,
they continue to believe they are right in their own eyes, emboldened by the
absence of pushback or confrontation. It’s the reason so many aberrant and
foolish teachings not only survive but also thrive within the church nowadays.
Whether due to a lack of conviction, a lack of backbone, or a desire to ingratiate
themselves with those in authority, even when they hear foolishness pouring
forth unbidden, they bite their tongue and nod along, clapping like seals
whenever the pregnant pause gets a bit too long.
If you’re going to answer a fool according to their folly,
however, make sure you have a cogent argument handy, lest you also be like
them. I’ve seen biblical debates descend into shouting matches because neither
party had the Biblical knowledge to defend their position, or worse, they had
no Biblical leg to stand on.
Job was loaded for bear. He wasn’t speaking about God in the
abstract or via secondhand accounts of who God was, but from a deeply personal
and intimate place, having lived the experience of seeing the hand of God
active and present in his life. He wasn’t heralding the fathers of old as an
example of who God is but speaking in the present from the understanding he had
gleaned over the course of decades.
You can always tell when someone is espousing theories about
God and when someone is relaying lived experiences with Him. Knowing about God
and knowing God are two very different things. Hearing testimonies about the
power of God and being a living testimony daily experiencing it likewise have
very different implications.
Those who daily deny themselves, pick up their crosses, and
follow after Christ, faithfully carrying out the things He commands, don’t need
to be able to spin a good yarn or make up stories about porta-potties acting
like a poor man’s teleportation device to heaven. Rather than seeking out the
spotlight, they shun it because they know it’s not about them but about the One
they serve, and they are content to give Him the glory and honor that are
rightly His.
Oh, that you would be silent, and it would be your wisdom! In
other words, if you three hadn’t gone on a diatribe of epic proportions, the
illusion of your wisdom would have remained intact. Given that you chose to
speak, the depth of your ignorance is laid bare, and you have no one to blame
but yourself.
Job 13:6-12, “Now hear my reasoning, and heed the pleadings
of my lips. Will you speak wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for Him? Will
you show partiality for Him? Will you contend for God? Will it be well when He
searches you out? Or can you mock Him as one mocks a man? He will surely rebuke
you if you secretly show partiality. Will not His excellence make you afraid,
and the dread of Him fall upon you? Your platitudes are proverbs of ashes, your
defenses are defenses of clay.”
It’s evident that many prominent preachers, evangelists, and
pastors today never bothered to read the book of Job and heed the warnings
discovered therein. There is a cost to speaking wickedly in God's name and
talking deceitfully on His behalf. God will search out the heart of every man
and discover the truth of it, no matter how much they might protest or point to
the multiple campuses they’ve built as temples to themselves.
Job’s friends were similar to many believers today, wherein
the excellence of God does not make them afraid when they speak things He has
not spoken, nor does the dread of Him fall upon them when they teach abject
heresy from the pulpit insisting it is the new and shiny path that will lead to
the same destination as the old path, just with a lot less self-denial,
spiritual maturity, and growth.
If you could have the best of both worlds, why wouldn’t you?
If you could live as you will and be guaranteed a seat at the marriage supper
of the Lamb, why not avail yourself of this offer?
If you can live off the fat of the land and enjoy the bounty
God provides, then turn tail and run at the first sign of the enemy while
maintaining good standing in His army, there is no downside. I suppose all the
people being martyred throughout the world didn’t get the memo; otherwise,
they, too, would have found a way to extricate themselves from the situations
that led to their martyrdom.
If our service to God is predicated on whether He showers us
with material excess, then whoever comes along to offer more —whether more
money, fame, or fortune —will become their new master.
Before you think that would never happen, let me remind you
that it’s happening every day. With each new bombshell, exposure,
evidence-laden prosecution, or heretical teaching that sounds more like
paganism than Christianity, there is a fresh bruise that the household of faith
must contend with and a new defense it must mount, reminding the world that
we’re not all alike. It becomes even more challenging to convince anyone of
this when it’s revealed that entire elder boards have been covering up the
egregious sins of their leaders for years, as they didn’t want to rock the boat
or jeopardize their cash-generating enterprise.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Monday, March 24, 2025
Job CXLIX
The truth doesn’t need to be molded. It doesn’t need to be
shaped and hammered, stretched, and worked until it resembles what men want it
to resemble. The truth is the truth, and it requires no help from us. It does
not require us to reshape it into a more pleasing form but rather to present it
as it is, without reservation or reluctance.
We are commanded to preach the gospel, not make it palatable,
and then preach it or fashion it into something so different from the original
that it becomes unrecognizable. We do the kingdom of God a disservice whenever
we attempt to soften the blow of the truth or try to apologize for its
directness on God’s behalf as though He needed our vindication.
We cannot approach the gospel with the mindset of an
immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. One has to bend and relent,
submit, and comply, and it’s not the gospel. When we read Scripture with the
predetermined resolve that we are unwilling to change or allow ourselves to be
transformed by the power of the Word, we will find reasons and excuses to
remain as we are. What’s worse, we will discover voices among the masses who
will validate and endorse our stubbornness.
2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All scripture is given by inspiration of
God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work.”
By all scripture, Paul means all, not just the parts that
suit our presuppositions or prejudices or the ones that, if taken out of
context and put through a meat grinder, seem to suggest we can continue doing
the things we know we ought not to do, but we love too much to walk away from.
All scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and all of
it is profitable. Whether doctrine, reproof, correction, or instruction in
righteousness, nowhere does the Word imply that it is given to personal
interpretation, nor are there allowances made for disregarding whole books of
the Bible just because they challenge us or make our flesh feel uncomfortable.
The downside to not allowing Scripture to mold us, guide us,
correct us, and instruct us is that we will never be complete or thoroughly
equipped for every good work. If we continually skirt and ignore the Word, then
it cannot have the intended effect on our hearts and minds, keeping us at arm’s
length from its transformative power. We will always remain incomplete. We will
always be ill-equipped, whether for good work or resisting the enemy as he
attempts to derail our faith and purpose.
The devil knows that the gospel of Christ is the power of God
to salvation, and so does his best to keep us from it. Whether through
distractions, rabbit trails, or that constant whisper that it’s too rigid, too
implacable, and given to modern-day twists and interpretations, because surely
God could not have foreseen how difficult it would be to walk uprightly in our
current era.
When we think too little of God and too much of ourselves, we
will always find justification for rebellion, faithlessness, duplicity, and
lukewarmness.
Job knew who God was. He understood the majesty and
omnipotence of the God he served and did not see himself as His equal or
deserving of any special treatment because of his faithfulness. There was no
explicit nor implicit declaration of a laundry list of expectations that he
felt he was entitled to.
We serve and worship God because it is the duty of man to do
so, not because we might get to the head of the line when he’s handing out
million-dollar checks or keys to a brand-new car. Until one comes to the point
of being humble enough to humble oneself in the sight of the Lord and submit to
His authority, the dynamics of the relationship between the individual and God
are off-kilter and improperly defined.
Because their expectations of what God should do for them
fall short, many who initially feel enthused about the prospect of having a
fix-all for all their bad choices become resentful and disillusioned with God
Himself when these expectations are not met. If you start a journey on the
wrong road, heading in the opposite direction, you will never reach your
intended destination.
You may fool yourself into believing that God’s only function
is to give you stuff for a season, but eventually, especially when an
unexpected trial comes along, the bills start piling up, and you’re still
packing on the pounds even though you prayed the calories away every time you
sat down to have a sheet cake all by your lonesome, you’ll start to wonder if
you were sold a bill of goods.
It’s a vicious cycle and one that must be broken if there is
any hope for the contemporary church to be what God intended it to be. Men
preach a false gospel, present a false god, focus on the material, and make
promises of plenty; then, when all the things for which the people signed up
fail to materialize, they turn around and blame the God of the Bible, as though
He lied to them.
Sorry, Skippy, it’s not God who lied to you; it’s the man who
you perceived to be on equal footing with Him because he told you everything
your greedy little heart wanted to hear. Men grow bitter and harden their
hearts toward God because they believe the lies men told them about God.
It’s not that God hasn’t kept His promises to His elect; it’s
that He didn’t keep the promises men made in His name. Know the difference, and
do not allow bitterness to take root in your heart because something someone
told you has not come to pass. If God didn’t say it, He is not beholden to it,
just as I am not beholden to take all the neighborhood kids out for ice cream
just because my little girl said I would when I didn’t.
But how can one know what God has promised, you might ask? Read His Word! It’s there in black and white, without the filter of personal opinion or denominational prejudices. Between falling for the lies of men and wasting decades waiting on something God never said would happen and taking the time to devour Scripture so that I may be complete and ready for every good work, I know which one I’d choose.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Job CXLIII
When an attempt at comforting becomes an accusation of wrongdoing, when those you count on to be a healing balm turn out to be the ones pouring salt into your open wounds, you can’t help but feel some kind of way about it. If Job’s friends had been strangers, it would be one thing. Because he considered them friends, however, his expectation was that they would be a source of comfort in his grief and a means by which his pain could be lessened, if only minimally.
The negative impact of having one’s expectations not only
dashed to pieces but experiencing the opposite of what you hoped you would
cannot be overstated. Imagine being told you’ve won the top prize in a raffle
you entered, and it's for a new car. You’re over the moon excited, jump into
your rusted Kia, and head to pick up your prize, only to discover that there's no
new car. Not only that, but three men jump out of the bushes, demand the keys
to your old car, and give you a good beating to add injury to insult.
Had you never been told of the prize you’d won, your
expectations would never have blossomed, and your imagination would not have
soared with thoughts of what make, model, color, or style of new car you’d be
driving in a few short minutes. You would have never imagined what that new car
smell was really like or wondered if it lived up to the hype. You would have
been content with your Kia, replete with the pile of trash in the passenger
seat and that funny smell that’s a cross between wet dog and spoiled shellfish.
Even the letdown of there being no new car would have been
manageable. The most that would have happened is that you would have scolded
yourself for being too gullible, and that would have been that. The black eye
and having to walk home, however, those you could have done without, and the
crash from the heights of expectation to having less than what you started out
with will be the roiling resentment in your gut that you will have to contend
with.
Job had expected his friends to be a source of comfort, and
rightly so. Instead, they added to his pain and discomfort, proving themselves
to be a detriment to his well-being rather than an added benefit. In light of
this, it’s understandable that once it was Job’s turn to respond, he held
nothing back and seemed utterly disinterested in trying to be conciliatory
toward his friends.
Job 13:1-5, “Behold, my eye has seen all this, my ear has
heard and understood it. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.
But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. But you
forgers of lies, you are all worthless physicians. Oh, that you should be
silent, and it would be your wisdom!”
There had been no earth-shattering revelation in anything
Job’s friends had said. What they knew, he also knew, and although, given God’s
declaration that there was none like him on the face of the earth, Job could
have rightly proffered that he was superior in his understanding of God, he
settled for reminding them that he was not inferior to them.
Just because someone is loud, obnoxious, or belligerent
doesn’t make them wise or right. We’ve fallen into a vicious cycle of trying to
shout over everyone else until someone with a healthier set of lungs comes
along and does likewise, never reaching a consensus or a deeper understanding
but wasting our lives away yelling at strangers until we’re hoarse.
It’s often the case that, as the 90s pop song says, it
doesn’t matter what you say as long as you speak with inflection and commit to
your declared position. You hear some men speak so passionately about a topic
that, in hindsight, you realize they know nothing about because everything they
had to say was window dressing, filler, and fortune cookie one-liners that do
nothing to open people’s eyes to the beauty, majesty, glory, and wonder of the
God of the Bible.
Job was done trying to convince his friends of his innocence.
It’s not that he hadn’t tried or done his best to explain to them that they
were misjudging him, and if there had been anything untoward in his life, he
would have confessed and repented of it already. He had, but all of his pleas
had fallen on deaf ears. They’d made up their minds and would not be swayed no
matter what he said, so the only recourse left to him was to speak to the
Almighty and desire to reason with God.
When men will not hear you, when those close to you fail to
understand you, there is always God. Run to Him, speak to Him, pour your heart
out to Him, knowing that He hears, He sees, and He understands. Whether
purposefully or in ignorance, you are bound to be misunderstood. Whether by
friends, family, acquaintances, or colleagues, there’s bound to be someone who
sees what isn’t there, who insists upon something that is a figment of their imagination,
and will not be swayed, no matter how cogent your defense.
By this point, there was intentionality behind Job’s friends
and their insistence that he had sinned. They refused to take their friend at
his word and give him the benefit of the doubt because the prism through which
they saw his suffering precluded the possibility of innocence.
Acknowledging his innocence would have turned their entire
philosophical world on its ear, along with their belief structure and how they
viewed the world on a very practical and binary level.
It says a lot about their heart that, given the choice to
believe their friend to the detriment of their long-held beliefs, they chose
their beliefs at the expense of sowing uncertainty and doubt in Job’s heart.
You cannot be innocent because if you are, that means the world isn’t as we
imagined it to be.
To that, Job calls them worthless physicians and forgers of lies. It takes effort to forge something. Typically, it involves a piece of metal that requires heating in a furnace, followed by shaping it into the desired form through the process of beating and hammering. Essentially, what Job was accusing his friends of was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, even though they saw it wouldn’t fit. Given their words, declarations, and insistence that he had sinned, Job was not wrong.
With love in Chris,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Friday, March 21, 2025
Job CXLII
Job 12:13-25, “With Him are wisdom and strength, He has counsel and understanding. If He breaks a thing down, it cannot be rebuilt; if He imprisons a man, there can be no release. If He withholds the waters, they dry up; if He sends them out, they overwhelm the earth. With Him are strength and prudence. The deceived and the deceiver are His. He leads counselors away plundered, and makes fools of the judges. He loosens the bonds of kings, and binds their waist with a belt. He leads princes away plundered, and overthrows the mighty. He deprives the trusted ones of speech, and takes away the discernment of the elders. He pours contempt on princes, and disarms the mighty. He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings the shadow of death to light. He makes nations great, and destroys them; He enlarges nations, and guides them. He takes away the understanding of the chiefs of the people of the earth, and makes them wander in a pathless wilderness. They grope in the dark without light, and He makes them stagger like a drunken man.”
Try as one might, they would be hard-pressed to find a more
profound, complete, and moving soliloquy on the sovereignty of God anywhere.
David came close in the Psalms, but his musings had more to do with the greatness
of God than the sovereignty thereof. To think that a man wracked with pain,
addled by sleeplessness, and contending with worms and sores covering his body
had the presence of mind to utter words of such profundity is humbling to the
uttermost.
If we’re honest, we must acknowledge that on our best day, in
good health, well-fed, and brimming with caffeine, we wouldn’t come close to
encapsulating the omnipotence of the God we serve the way Job, a man sitting in
the dust and scratching at himself with a potsherd was able to.
Although his three friends showed glimmers of wisdom in their
orations, this handful of verses regarding God, His nature, and His immutable
will over all that exists is so beyond anything they were able to express that
it should have rightly shamed them into silence.
Not only was Job a blameless and upright man, but he was also
a man of profound wisdom, light years ahead of his contemporaries, which, given
the context of the time he lived in, makes it doubly impressive. Spend enough
time in God’s presence, and it is inevitable that His wisdom will be poured
into you.
When we desire to know God, He reveals Himself to us. He
doesn’t play hide and seek with His children, nor does He keep Himself shrouded
in mystery. His desire is for us to know Him just as He knows us. The caveat is
that God has never forced Himself upon anyone, nor has He manhandled anyone
into spending more time with Him. The desire for more of Him must be a present
reality in our lives, springing forth from a sincere heart with no ulterior
motives or vested interests beyond a genuine desire for Him. Only then will He
reveal Himself to us in a deeper and more profound way.
It is a grace and a gift to be able to come before God, pour
out our hearts, and know that He is listening. It is an honor and a blessing to
have the opportunity to know more of Him every day. That some would try to
blackmail God into giving them material things in exchange for spending time
with Him is offputting on its best day. That’s not a relationship but merely
feigned intimacy in the hope of receiving the thing you want more than you do God.
It’s base usury, and God will not be mocked.
Job had spent his entire life building a relationship with
God, getting to know Him, going beyond the superficial and surface-level
understanding of His nature and who He is, and it showed.
There was no uncertainty in Job’s words. He understood that
God has absolute authority, absolute power, and absolute sovereignty over all
things, whether the kingdoms of men, the rain that falls, kings, princes,
counselors, wise men, fools, and everything in between. There is nothing in
heaven or on earth that is outside of His purview, nothing that He cannot build
up or tear down, illuminate, or confound.
If you are not in constant awe of the God you serve, chances
are you do not possess a clear understanding of who He is. That’s as nicely as
I can put it without coming across as snarky or condescending.
From Genesis to Revelation, every man or woman who grew in
the knowledge of God possessed the requisite reverence for Him. There is
nothing trivial about who the God we serve is. That men today can be so
dismissive about His authority and omnipotence only shows that they do not
truly know Him. They may have a vague knowledge of His existence, but they do
their best to strip Him of His authority and sovereignty, attempting to place
themselves on an equal footing with Him, some even having the temerity to consider
their authority superior to His.
When anyone utters the words, “I know that’s what the Bible
says, but I feel differently,” they are essentially subverting the authority of
the Gospel and of God Himself, placing their own feelings and opinions above both
of these. It’s no small thing, nor is it a negligible offense, because when we
are no longer under the authority of God’s word, we are no longer under God’s
authority, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. This mindset is the
petri dish for all manner of deception, foul doctrine, and unbiblical
machinations.
One cannot read Job’s reply to Zophar and fail to see the
deep and abiding reverence he has for God. It is in every phrase, in every
sentence, and though he had been brought low and sifted beyond what we can
fathom, he had not lost his awe and reverence for the God he served.
My trial does not diminish God’s authority. My testing does
not diminish God’s omnipotence. My sifting does not diminish God’s power. He
remains God, sovereign over all, and the knowledge of this gives me strength
even when I am at my weakest.
God’s nature is not situational. He is a constant. He remains the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He is no less the Alpha and Omega, no less the Creator of all that is seen and unseen just because I’m going through a valley. He is no less present, no less able, no less loving, and whether here or in the life to come, His purpose in allowing me to go through testing will be made evident.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.