Job CCXCIX

 Job 31:33-40, “If I have covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom, because I feared the great multitude, and dreaded the contempt of families, so that I kept silence and did not go out of the door – Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my mark. Oh, that the Almighty would answer me, that my Prosecutor had written a book! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, and bind it on me like a crown; I would declare to Him the number of my steps; like a prince I would approach Him. If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together; If I have eaten its fruit without money, or caused its owners to lose their lives; then let thistles grow instead of wheat, and weeds instead of barley.”

An innocent man is just that: innocent. He is not someone who’s been able to hide his transgressions, sins, or wickedness from the eyes of others, for while others may not see what he does in the dark, God sees all and knows all. Job was able to declare his innocence because he was innocent of wickedness, innocent of sin, and not pretending to be.

You can’t go a week without reading some new, horrible, bile-producing headline of someone in spiritual authority being exposed for the wickedness they tried their best to cover up. The thing about sin is that it’s not your friend. It will whisper sweet nothings in your ear, it will insist this is the thing you’ve been missing out on all your life, it will present itself as fulfilling and something you can’t live without, until it has you in its clutches, then the mask comes off.

The devil plays dirty, and there is no empathy or compassion to be found in him. Sin is a snare, a trap, something the enemy uses time and again to stall forward momentum. The same thing that was used to tempt and entice, once committed, will be used to shame, humiliate, and discredit because that was the devil’s plan all along.

Especially when it comes to hidden sin, or sin one has not repented of, it’s not a question of if, but when the other shoe will drop. It’s the ever-present sword of Damocles hanging by a horse hair over one’s head, and though they may be surrounded by opulence and luxury, though they may have the best the world has to offer, the sword is still hanging overhead, ready to fall at any moment, making any sweet thing taste bitter on the tongue. As Cicero once wrote, nothing is happy for him over whom terror always looms.

The thing the foolhardy believed would give them wings, joy, and boundless pleasure soon becomes a millstone around their neck, a mire from which they cannot extricate themselves, and what’s worse, they can’t call out for help for fear of being found out and exposed for being the thing they railed against so passionately.

If you speak against the thing you’re doing, you’re a hypocrite, and sooner or later that hypocrisy will be on full display. If you preach righteousness, strive for righteousness. If you preach purity, be pure. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before the thing you tried to hide and cover up will be the thing that will define your existence, and the world will know of it in all its gory detail.

Unfortunately, so many names spring to mind that I would need four more arms to count them on my fingers, not because I’m keeping a tally but because once what was done in the dark is brought to light, the enemy does his utmost to gleefully point to it over and over again.

Funny how you never see a news segment about the true men of God who live the lives they’re preaching others ought to live. Funny how the selfless, the Scripturally sound, and those who rightly divide the Word never get any airtime, but the tumors and the cancers seem to be ever-present.

For those quick to roll their eyes at the mention of the fear of the Lord and the shunning of evil, say what they might, they can’t deny the results. The proof is in the pudding, and though these two pursuits are proven to work, as evidenced by the life of Job, all the other half-measures, machinations, justifications, and twisted interpretations they’ve attempted to foist upon the household of faith have fallen woefully short of the mark.

The fear of the Lord is a necessary virtue in the life of a believer, and it walks hand in hand with the shunning of evil. One who fears the Lord will shun evil because they acknowledge they serve a holy God, one who has declared that nothing wicked or defiled will enter His kingdom. It’s simple enough, obvious enough, self-explanatory to the point that anyone insisting that they can live in darkness yet claim to be of the light isn’t doing it out of ignorance but because they love their sin too much to repent of it, turn their back on it, and follow after Christ.

They will gravitate toward anyone giving them permission to remain as they are while vilifying those who, in love, insist that they must repent and turn from their wickedness because, as long as they cling to the illusion of being in right standing with God, there is no need for transformation, a new mind, a new heart, or a new purpose. They want to remain as they are while retaining the full benefits of sonship, because although heaven is appealing, their sin is more so.            

Some men think it’s a game and treat it as such. Others understand that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God and live their lives accordingly.

Job knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t faking it until he made it, he wasn’t putting on airs, he wasn’t pretending to be something he was not, and laments that if only his Prosecutor had presented any evidence He might have against him, he would gladly wear it as a badge of honor, not because he was proud of his wickedness but because there was no wickedness to be had.         

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.