Job CCXV

 Being hated as a child of God is inevitable, unavoidable, and certain. Jesus said as much. The question that remains unanswered is how we react to the hatred and vitriol. Will we wither, shrink away, and attempt to blend in with our surroundings, making compromises in the hope of not being singled out and villainized, or will we stand firm in the truth that a servant is not greater than his master, and if they persecuted Him, they will surely persecute us.

It comes with the territory, and that is something we must acknowledge, be aware of, and prepare for. Given that Job was an archetype of Jesus, and though God found him blameless and upright, his friends concluded he had sinned grievously, and his household deemed him forsaken, the notion that our innocence will keep the wicked from persecuting us is flawed from its inception.

You don’t have to be guilty to be deemed guilty when those declaring themselves to be the arbiters of justice practice injustice whenever it suits them. In their eyes, your crime isn’t that you stole, murdered, lied, or cheated, but that you serve Jesus. If that’s a crime, guilty as charged.

Satan knew Job was blameless. He knew Job had not sinned, yet it did not stop him from unleashing the closest thing to hell this side of eternity against him. There is no mercy, empathy, or sympathy for the innocent. There is no kindness or compassion in him. There is no point during Job’s sifting when Satan eased back on the throttle, concluding that he’d suffered enough, or that his suffering wasn’t fair.  

Job 20:12-19, “Though evil is sweet in his mouth, and he hides it under his tongue, though he spares it and does not forsake it, but still keeps it in his mouth, yet his food in his stomach turns sour; it becomes cobra venom within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly. He will suck the poison of cobras; the viper’s tongue will slay him. He will not see the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream. He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down; from the proceeds of business, he will get no enjoyment. For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor, he has violently seized a house which he did not build.”

You can tell when someone is trying to make a rational argument, a logical counterpoint to what you’ve said, and when their emotions get the better of them, and they just unload, regardless of whether it makes sense, or there is a coherent through line. By this point, Zophar had abandoned all pretense of being comforting or conciliatory. Considering the words he spoke, it’s likely it wasn’t in a monotone voice, soft-spoken and reasonable. He was getting flustered, his ego had been bruised, and it’s not hard to imagine a wagging finger added to the mix as he expounded upon the lot of the wicked.

This wasn’t just a battle of wills; it was war, and there could only be one victor. It should have been easy enough since it was three against one, and that one was clinging on for dear life, but Job’s strength and resolve extended beyond his frail flesh because his hope was tethered, anchored, and cemented in the God he served, and though at times he gave as good as he got, he understood that his deliverance, were it to come, would not come by the hand of man, but the Almighty Himself.

The danger of presuming we possess more wisdom, knowledge, or understanding than we do is on full display in the form of Job’s friends. The entirety of their argument regarding Job and his situation was based on a fallacy, a conclusion they’d drawn based on what they saw with their eyes, without allowing for the possibility that they weren’t as wise as they thought themselves to be. We see this playing out in our modern era with startling regularity, not among those of the world, but those of the church who happen upon some tertiary issue or another and make it the nexus of their existence, going so far as to diminish the supremacy of Christ in the life of the believer in lieu of their chosen pet doctrine.

Such individuals become so entrenched and myopic in their stance as to be defined by that one issue rather than by the presence of Christ in their lives. It runs the gamut, and you’ve likely encountered such individuals at some point. Whether the conversation focuses on the timing of the catching away, if wearing a necktie is a sign of pride, whether not belonging to their particular denomination is Ichabod, aliens, giants, flat earth, or something as irrelevant as wearing a wedding band, if you disagree with their particular take you are worthy of being cast into the outer darkness, and must be disfellowshipped forthwith.

But I thought we were all members of the body of Christ. I thought that having been saved, born again, and serving Jesus as Lord, Savior, and King of my life was the only thing that mattered. Not so fast there, Sparky. Unless you address Him by His Hebrew name, you’re not really serving the real Jesus, and neither were any of those people who were tortured, murdered, and martyred for His name’s sake. They died in vain, forfeited their lives in vain, watched their sons, daughters, mothers, sisters, and wives butchered before their eyes in vain, because they didn’t know what I know, and that’s just the way it is.

And while we’re at it, that Paul guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament and was decapitated with Jesus on his lips, he was a demonic plant, and we know this because he called Him Jesus too. See? It all makes sense now. I’m the only one in a sea of nine billion people who knows the truth, who has the keys, who can unlock the mysteries that have been kept hidden for millennia. Well, me and my cousin Albert, because he believes exactly the same way I do!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.