January 12th - Day 12
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January 12th
Our Bible reading today is found in Job 32,33,34.
The debate between Job and his friends is over. After all these weeks and months, nothing has changed. Job’s body is still racked with disease. His flesh has changed colors, not by the sun, but by the rot of infection. His attempts to endure the pain has drained him of strength...so weakness and fatigue have replaced it. Nothing has changed with Job’s suffering.
And nothing has changed with the theology of his friends. They continue to blame Job for God’s judgment. They continue to declare that Job is living in self-righteousness and unconfessed sin...an arrogance that deserves such suffering. **The counselors finished the way they started. They still believed that unrighteous behavior deserved the punishments of God. So they looked upon the terrible condition of Job and deduced that he was really a very bad sinner...who would not repent. They looked upon their own good condition and deduced that they lived righteous lives that gave them an advantage with God. (Reminds me of the Pharisees in Jesus’ day...”O God, I am glad that I'm not a sinner like that pitiful man.”)
If anything changed in 29 chapters of Job’s life with pain, it was Job’s faith...slowly but surely it became a “shaken faith” in who God was...Let me explain: The Suffering Job praised God in the beginning, “My Redeemer Lives”, he sang...and Job believed God strongly in the middle of his suffering declaring, “Though He slay me, I will still put my hope in Him”...but toward the end, Job began to voice doubts about His relationship with God...saying, “I have become an enemy to God”....implying that God had wronged him at some point.
Knowing the end of Job’s story, I can tell you that Job’s faith was restored. But not without an unexpected helper. That’s where the next 5 chapters come in. Beginning with the introduction of a new and somewhat strange character in today’s reading...Elihu. He had one main message...listen for it.
Right off the bat, we learn that Elihu was a young man...much younger than Job and the three friends. How he came to be in the hearing of these four older men is not made clear. But obviously, out of respect, he held his peace until now. And without fear, young Elihu spoke truth. (I Remember Ruth and the charge her uncle gave her in the face of a very hard responsibility...” you were born for such a time as this...”...so was Elihu!)
He reproved Job’s friends. And he reproved Job. The Bible says Elihu spoke to them with words that burned with anger. (I want to liken it to Jesus’ righteous anger against the spiritual corruption promoted by priests and Sanhedrin in Jerusalem...)
Perhaps you have wondered, like me, if Elihu was just another critic who came late to the party. And then we read a little slower, a little closer.
In chapter 32 we hear the beginning of Elihu’s conversation...”I was young and you were aged...I was afraid to speak my opinion...I would let days teach wisdom...I would let number of years express wisdom and understanding...But I knew that it was the spirit in a man, the breath of The Almighty, that made him understand...it’s not the old who are wise or the aged who understand what is right...it’s the Spirit of God within them...” (Reminds me of what Pharoah said to his servants about Joseph...”Can we find a man like this in whom is the Spirit of God.”
Elihu was speaking his main message. Wisdom is found in God. It is the Spirit of God that gives wisdom and understanding. (I'm impressed with the young messenger so far.) But even more, impressed with the fact that Job and his friends were silent. That’s a first
My take on that?...the Spirit of God in Elihu spoke to the spirit of these men and brought conviction to their hearts...”And perhaps they said in their hearts, “I should be still now and know that the Lord, He is God, not me.” (Or they could have taken offense at what the young man said...probably more likely...but I hope not.)
What might Jesus have to say to Job now about suffering and death? I believe Christ, in all of His glory, would show Job his nail-pierced hands and feet and his spear pierced side. And say, “it was and is for the glory of God...so make much of Him now, and He will glorify you later. “