Job CCXLV

 Job 22:21-26, “Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; Thereby good will come to you. Receive, please, instruction from His mouth, and lay up His words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; You will remove iniquity far from your tents. Then you will lay your gold in the dust, and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. Yes, the Almighty will be your gold and your precious silver; For then you will have your delight in the Almighty, and lift up your face to God.”

It’s as if Eliphaz had tuned out everything Job had said up until this point. Not willing to relent or give up his perception of intellectual and spiritual superiority, believing himself a physician of both soul and flesh, he begins to prescribe the steps Job must take in order to be at peace and for good to return to him.

It’s hard not to notice the spiritual elitism in Eliphaz’s words, because not only does he assume that Job had so far removed himself from the presence of God that he needed to reacquaint himself with the Almighty, but considered the words he spoke as divine, or at least of divine origin.

He did not tell Job to consider his words, but insinuated that the words were from God Himself and the instructions from His mouth. Assumption, presumption, and undeservedly appropriated spiritual authority are a heady mix, and though the words Eliphaz spoke may have been true when applied to another, they were not true of Job. He had not departed from the Almighty, so had no need to return to Him. He had not abandoned the knowledge of Him, so he had no need to reacquaint himself with God.

Everything Eliphaz said was based on the wrong assumption that Job was being punished, that he had committed wickedness, that he had turned his back on God, and had strayed from Him. Without spiritual insight, and purely from a physical point of view, it would be an easy conclusion to reach, and one that made the most logical sense.

There’s a meme floating about the interwebs of a man asking a faith healer to pray for his hearing, and the faith healer takes to his performative theatrics with gusto, sticking his fingers in the man’s ears, cupping his hands over them, and after some time the faith healer asks, how’s your hearing, to which the man answers, I don’t know, it’s next week.

We are either guided by the spirit or by the flesh. We either take everything we see with our physical eyes at face value and dismiss the unction of the Spirit, or allow for the Spirit of God to reveal the truth of a situation to us that goes beyond the mere physical.

Sometimes things are exactly as they seem; sometimes they are not. If we lean on our understanding and dismiss the possibility of something other than what we concluded occurred, sooner or later, we will fall into the same snare as Eliphaz did.

Again, the things Eliphaz said would have been sound advice for someone who had strayed from the presence of God. Yes, by all means, acquaint yourself with God, lay up His words in your heart, return to the Almighty, but what if you never left, never ceased crying out to Him, never stopped trusting Him, never wandered away from Him? Then the counsel, sound as it may be, generally speaking, wouldn’t make much sense for that particular individual.

Curse God and die hadn’t worked, stop clinging to your integrity hadn’t worked, and now, via Eliphaz, the enemy begins to employ a new tactic: make him doubt his relationship with God.

I’m sure you believe that you are well acquainted with the Almighty, but you’re really not. I’m sure you believe you’ve been faithful, but you haven’t. I’m sure you believe you’ve kept His words in your heart, but let’s face it, buddy, if you’d done all these things, you wouldn’t be in the predicament you find yourself in now, would you?

It’s a nefarious approach to be sure, but the devil was getting desperate. Coincidentally, it’s one he continues to employ to this day in various guises and differing nuances, but in the end, his purpose is the same. At first glance, the individuals who come across your path seem well-meaning enough. But then, once rapport has been established, they start throwing out those poisoned pellets that feel off, wrong, and less than the whole truth.

If you are not firmly established in the truth of Scripture, if you are not fully assured of your place in God’s kingdom, you start to teeter and miss a step; you start to doubt and second-guess the simplicity of the gospel, thinking there must be something you’re missing. Perhaps there are more hoops I need to jump through; perhaps the letter of the law does have supremacy over the spirit thereof.

You were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Well, that just won’t do. You have to do it again, this time just in the name of Jesus. Were you baptized in the name of Jesus? Unless it was done in His Hebrew name, the entire thing is null and void. Sure, your heart desired to know God; you made an outward expression of your inward faith; you’ve repented, crucified your flesh, picked up your cross, and diligently follow after Him. Sure, you declare that Christ is Lord of your life, the King that sits upon the throne of your heart, but is that enough? Sure, you asked Him for bread, and He promised He would not give you a stone, but are you sure bread is what you got?

You pray standing up? Everyone knows that God only hears prayers if you're kneeling or prostrate before Him. You read your Bible daily? I guess that’s okay, but what you really need is for me to mentor you in the secret mysteries that only I can reveal.

I’m sure by now you get the point. Let’s keep this on the brass tacks: anyone insisting that Jesus is not sufficient, and that you need something more, or other, is a liar, and the truth is not found in them. Anyone attempting to sow doubt in your heart regarding your relationship with God, when you know, as Job did, that you’ve been faithful, obedient, and humble, is being used of the enemy to dispirit you. Anyone who insists that they alone hold the keys to unlocking the mysteries of Scripture, prophecy, the future, or the ancient past is a conceited liar, bloated with pride, arrogant beyond measure, attempting to elevate their status in your eyes as though they were on equal footing with God. It’s nothing new. Eliphaz tried it, and as we will see further in, God Himself rebuked him for his hubris.          

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.