Job 6 - Job Responds to Eliphaz

Job Responds To Eliphaz

After all that Eliphaz had said, Job’s grief remained heavier than the sands of the sea! His grief was overtaking him. He felt certain that the Almighty’s arrows of punishment had been fired at him and he continued to despair even of life. He considered his friends to be of no help or comfort whatsoever. He thought they were afraid to comfort him because of the Lord’s wrath. Job feels completely justified in his misery and that nobody has a right to blame him. He puts his friends to the wall and asks them to prove him wrong – show him where he has erred. Wow! But it seemed that all the things that Eliphaz had said in the previous chapter were words of encouragement coming straight from the heart of God. Yet today it looks as though Job didn’t consider Eliphaz’s words to be at all helpful. What’s up with that?

Job seems to be so swallowed up in his own grief that he is not willing to get quiet and find out if there be any error in himself. He wants to die, and wants God to finish him off and put him out of his misery. He thinks his friends are anything but comforting. What a deal, huh? Like we mentioned in our last study, sometimes we need to hear what we need to hear, if you know what I mean, even in a time of mourning. Eliphaz had tried to turn him toward God in what he had been saying. He was encouraging Job to look at the wonderful things God does and how He helps as well as corrects His children. But Job didn’t want to hear that. He wanted to wallow in his self-righteous misery.

Saints, this is a dangerous place to be. In a time of attack from the enemy, the very first thing we need to do is turn to the Lord and find out why there was even an opportunity for the devil to get inside our lives to begin with. We already know that when we have any sin in our lives it gives place to the devil. The Lord has assured us in His word that if we make the Lord our refuge no harm or plaque would come near us.

Psalm 91:9-10

Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;

In verse 24 Job tells his friends to show him where he has erred. The thing is that Job’s problem wasn’t laying in plain sight on the surface as much as it was in the heart, way down deep. He was operating in a spirit of pride in this scene, and he refused to be comforted. Have you ever seen anybody like that?

They think they are 100% right and nobody is going to tell them anything different, “so leave me alone in my pool of misery” is what they are saying, right? But a person who is a child of God in a situation as drastic as Job’s would really need to step back for a spell and assess the situation wouldn’t they? If one really wanted to know why all these assaults had befallen them one would think they would run, not walk to the Lord and seek His wisdom on the matter. And the great thing (one of countless many) about our God is that He wants to help us. Many don’t believe this. They think that He is oblivious to what they are going through and they get into questioning Him in an inappropriate way about their case. That is not the correct response.

When I was in the middle of my crisis, I knew why I was there. I stepped outside of the boundary lines trying to solve my own problems my own way and I was open season for the enemy. I knew that from the beginning. I just didn’t understand many of the things I was dealing with on a spiritual level at that time. But Job was just going about his normal daily business and, pow! Suddenly he loses everything but his wife and his life. This would be his opportunity to go the Lord in prayer and find out what the problem really was. Here is what the Bible says…

James 4:7-10

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Job had a choice right then and there. He could resist what the devil had inflicted on him and draw close to God. Back then they didn’t have the New Testament so they didn’t have all the written word that we rely on today to turn to in times of trial. But he did have a great relationship with the Lord. He was, after all, considered a perfect and upright man in God’s sight. Did God know then that there needed to be some correction in Job? Of course He did. The Lord knows all things. But Job had been walking in the light he had. In other words, he was doing what he knew to be right at the time and he didn’t realize that there was something bubbling under the surface that needed to be dealt with. This trial would be the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ as they say.

The scripture in James says that we need to humble ourselves before the Lord. Wouldn’t it have been a good idea for Job to drop to his knees and ask God to give him wisdom right then? Yes, but Job wasn’t in a place to even consider that he had done something wrong – yet. He was self-righteous, and at the root of that was pride. Apparently this had not been dealt with in his life yet, so up until now God had not counted it against him. You see, if we know we are sinning, that’s one thing.

But if we are innocently doing something and truly thinking we are doing right in our hearts, God knows. He only holds us accountable for the light we have. Take a first grader for example. They may not know that it is against school policy to be caught walking in the hall between classes. It’s the first day of school and the child decides to get up and go out in the hall, not knowing it is wrong. He had never been told - yet. Then when the child gets in trouble, he learns that he had broken a rule. Then he is responsible from that time on to do what he learned was expected of him. It’s the same with us. When we know something is wrong in God’s eyes for us, we have to walk in that knowledge (light) otherwise it is sin…

James 4:17

Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Until now Job thought he was doing the right things. But the devil must have seen something in him that would give him an entry way into his life to reap all that destruction. And that is why the Lord allowed it. As we remember Psalm 91, we have to realize that God is always a fair Judge. He lives by certain spiritual laws and so do we. If we break the law, we will suffer the consequences. And the Lord doesn’t like to see us go through the things we do, but we tie His hands behind His back when we break His laws.

Remember, I am not supposed to eat ice cream. So if I do, I am sinning. But if you eat ice cream it might be totally fine for you. Maybe you never had a food addiction issue and so for you it is no problem that you eat a bowl of ice cream now and then. But the minute I would do that I would be guilty of sin and I know the Father would not be pleased with me. I would have to repent immediately and get right with Him. Job’s attitude was showing what was in his heart – really. Look at this verse…

Matthew 15:18-20

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

When you read this chapter it might help you to look at both the Amplified Classic Version and the Easy to Read Version. Especially the ERV. I found it broken down in a way that it looked like the ‘plain English’ way of saying, “Hey, who do you guys think you are? I never asked you for anything and here you are giving me anything but comfort in my hour of need. And what have I done wrong anyway?” That’s my Hanny paraphrase. Eliphaz had given him some good advice to consider. But Job wouldn’t listen. Have you ever done that? I sure have. (Ugh!)

What would you or I do in a situation like this? With it being such a fierce storm in his life, Job would start to bring up and out what was really in his heart. Sometimes we just don’t know what’s boiling down deep beneath the surface. We know that intense ‘heat’ in our lives will bring out what is really there. I saw this in myself when I was going through my ‘storm of the century’. I reverted back to the behavior of a teenager. Why? Because of the emotional lack of maturity and growth in my life. I went back to all I had known. I never had received any real coaching/counseling about the issues I had faced in my life.

As a result, I developed a habit of running from them. I just pushed them down and ran. I stayed in the fast lane to avoid all the pain. I ran around the country. I hitchhiked to Florida from Michigan and back again. I hitchhiked from Colorado, through Texas to Florida all by myself. Imagine that? An 18 year old girl on the side of a highway alone. Talk about a moving target! Now I was in my late forties and doing the foolish things I had engaged in when I was in my late teens. A person will always resort back to what they know in a trial. And out the abundance (or lack thereof) of the heart the mouth will speak. This is where we see what a person is really made of. In my case it was a pile of junk!

What do you think would have happened if Job would have maintained the attitude of praise and worship of God that he had started with? We will never know how quickly the Lord could have turned his life around if he had maintained that stance, will we? It is said that his suffering lasted for a very short period of time, maybe a year or so, I am not sure. But one thing I do know. If he had maintained his praise and worship of the Lord through every bit of it and waited on the Lord, I believe he would have come through it much faster. Look at Paul and Silas in prison. They weren’t in there for long but the time they spent was praising and glorifying God. This would enable the Lord to move on their behalf and we all know the story…

Acts 16:23-26

And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

If I didn’t learn anything else in my trial, I learned this. Praising God was and is always the way out of any situation. When things go wrong in our lives there is always a reason. It is up to us to humble ourselves before the Lord and ask Him what we need to see in the situation. What does He want to show us? What behavior needs to be changed? Is there something we have done against another that needs to be mended? We need to find out if we have offended the Lord in any way. By doing this we can save ourselves a lot of grief.

The Lord never wants us to suffer, not for a moment. Not in the way that comes from sin. He knows we will suffer in this life for doing good. That is the only kind of suffering He expects to see. Anything else is self-inflicted (or others inflicted) and it needs to be dealt with immediately. If we let things fester it will be like a nasty splinter that is there, throbbing and irritating, albeit under the surface of the skin, it still hurts and needs to come out. We want to walk with a clean conscience before the Lord at all times. If we missed it we need to repent right away and get back on track. The Lord is so gracious and willing to accept our apology and forgive us.

The chapter ends with Job’s remarks to his friends, as if to say, “Show me if there is any unrighteousness in me.” I guess he would have a longer way to go before he would be ready to get humble and start to look on the inside. I know I could have been relieved of my pain in my crisis much sooner than I did if I had made some quick changes. The Lord could have restored my marriage, me relationship with my daughters and given me my home and career back. But I was pretty ‘strong willed’. That was a surprise to me. I never thought I was a ‘strong willed’ person.

I used to ask the Lord why He had put all these ‘strong willed’ people in my life. I looked at others and thought they were the ‘strong willed’ ones. Little did I know how ‘strong willed’ I was. If I had humbled myself sooner, everything would have been different. But on no – not me – I had to hit the bottom of the barrel before I realized that I could no longer depend on myself to survive. After a lifetime of trying to survive in this world alone, I would finally come to realize that it would take something much bigger than myself to get out of the mess I was in. Then and only then did I start to find out how really big our God is – hallelujah!

Tomorrow we will look more at Job’s continuing comments to his friends and see what the Lord wants to show us. But what He has given us is sufficient for today – amen?!

Questions:

What was Job’s attitude in this chapter about himself?

What did he think about his friend’s comments?

What did he wish that God would do for him?

Did Job think he had done anything to deserve this horrendous attack?

What should be your first response when you find yourself in a trial?

There are three main points to consider from today’s study…

When trouble comes we need to go to God immediately

The best attitude with the Lord is that of humility

A heart of praise can turn any situation around more rapidly

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for loving me enough to not leave me like I am. Father, I ask You to show me any wicked way in me. Whatever it is; if there be anything in my heart that is not right toward You or anyone else, I am willing to look at it Lord and make things right. Thank You for caring so much for all that concerns me. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me. I thank You in advance for Your help in Jesus name! Amen! 

What may be bubbling underneath the surface of your heart? 

And God Said… You fill in the blanks.

 Psalm 51:10-13

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence,
and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
and sinners shall be converted to You.