Job CLXXXIX

 Job 18:5-9, “The light of the wicked indeed goes out, and the flame of his fire does not shine. The light is dark in his tent, and his lamp beside him is put out. The steps of his strength are shortened, and his own counsel casts him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walks into a snare. The net takes him by the heel, and a snare lays hold of him.”

Generally speaking, what Bildad was saying was not untrue. In this particular instance, because what he was saying was targeted at Job, a man whom God deemed blameless and upright, it was. We can’t broad-brush every situation and draw conclusions based on historical precedent. There are times when exceptions to the well-established rules arise, and if we harden our hearts and shut up our ears, refusing to hear those we are accusing, we just might be judging wrongly, and inconsistently with the heart of God.

But I’m just defending the truth, brother! It may be that it’s how you see it, but you’re insinuating that because the light of the wicked goes out, and the flame of his fire does not shine, and this is occurring in real time to someone, they must be in the camp of the wicked, and you allow for no other explanation.

There are absolute truths we must defend to our dying breath, such as Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life, and that no man can come to the Father but by Him, but defending these truths and insisting upon someone’s wickedness because they are suffering or going through a trial are two separate issues. When we’re quick to accuse, assume, insist, and insinuate upon another’s sin or wickedness, yet become timid and reticent to defend the name of Jesus, it’s not only telling, but something that ought to be so alarming to us that we search our hearts and see if there are any deep-seated issues we must deal with.

It’s easy to kick a man while he’s down because odds are he can’t defend himself. You don’t run the risk of getting bruised, beaten, or vanquished by lashing out against someone who is defenseless, as you would if you stood toe to toe with the enemy of your soul. It takes a special kind of cruelty to relish the thought of heaping scorn upon someone who’s already scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to hope, but some souls feel vindicated in doing so, believing that they will be deemed more righteous still if they gleefully kick at the man lying in the dirt waiting to die.

There is something to be said for extending grace to those who are at their wits' end. I’m not talking about condoning sin, but rather about not jumping to conclusions and insisting that someone has sinned just because they are going through a season of trial. These are two separate issues, and while we are to confront sin in the camp, expose it, and tear it out from the root, it is unbiblical to become the accuser of the brethren because we’ve concluded that wickedness must exist because otherwise the individual in question would not be tested to such extremes.

If you can’t tell the difference, if you don’t know which is which, silence is your best course of action until the evidence supports your conclusion on the matter. If no evidence is forthcoming, then you must allow for the very real possibility that there is no wickedness, and what is occurring is something beyond your understanding.

This isn’t communist Russia. Our position ought not to be ‘show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime’, but rather ‘Lord, shed light on this matter, and let your heart be my heart in this situation.’

To Bildad and his friends, being right was the only thing that mattered. They took their initial impression of the situation and built a case against Job to confirm their prejudices, not allowing for his words, his pleas, his tears, and his prayers to sway them because it wasn’t about whether or not Job had sinned, but rather proving that he had sinned because they deemed he had.

Some people will continue to insist they are right even when they’re proven wrong because allowing for the possibility that they misread a situation, that there was a blind spot in their understanding, or that they jumped to conclusions before there was clarity is incomprehensible to them.

About two years into our marriage, my wife and I were living in Romania, and one day, I got a call from my dad asking if I could go pick up a cousin of mine at the train station. My dad’s entire family lived on the opposite side of the country, and one of his nieces had decided to visit. Since I had nothing planned that couldn’t wait, I told him I would and showed up at the station a few minutes before the train was to arrive.

My cousin got off the train, we hugged, I led her to my car, and we drove to the orphanage where I knew my dad to be. Within that fifteen-minute window, someone who knew my wife and me, and had seen me at the station, took time out of their busy day to hurriedly call my wife and insist that I was stepping out on her.

“I saw him, Monica. I saw him hug another woman, and they got in his car and drove away!”

My wife had already gone to work by the time my dad called, so she didn’t know anything about the cousin or that I had to pick her up from the train station. Even so, she knew me well enough to know that what I had been accused of was uncharacteristic of my nature.

The seed had been planted, however, and that night as we were getting ready for bed she innocently asked, ‘What did you do today?’, to which I answered, ‘I picked up my cousin from the train station, took her to the orphanage, spent some time there, then went to dinner with her and my dad.’

The next day, she called the friend who felt the need to call her and tell her she’d seen me with a strange woman, and explained the situation, to which the friend answered, ‘That was quick thinking on his part. I’m sure there’s something more to the story.’

That was the day my wife stopped calling the individual her friend. Just because you want to be right about someone or something, it doesn’t mean you are. Be humble enough to admit when you are wrong, if you are wrong, and wise enough to keep silent before you know all the facts of a given situation. Wise as they thought themselves to be, by their actions and harsh words, Job’s friends proved that wisdom had eluded them.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.