Elihu: The Man

"Is the Spirit of the Lord impatient?
Are these His doings?"
—Micah 2:7

Elihu had just finished giving a tremendous explanation of God's workings, then he turns to Job, and Job is silent. It rather reminds me of an altar call where no one comes forward. Here the preacher gave a real good sermon that should have brought tears to everyone's eyes, but no one comes forward. He waits . . . but no one comes. How embarrassing! Oh, no . . . What do you do in a case like this?

Well, Elihu turns to the other three and appeals to them as men with knowledge to listen to what he has to say. He begs them to search out the matter with him, because if Job is not going to acknowledge what is right, "We can discern for ourselves . . . let us learn for ourselves what is good." He then proceeds to discuss Job's attitude and language right in front of him.

That is where Elihu the man and not Elihu the messenger comes out. It is amazing! Here he was clearly expounding the wisdom of the Lord while under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. After he pours out his heart and there is no response, he gets self-conscious and sensitive and figures Job's silence to be scorn and cries, "What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water?"

I suppose it isn't all that amazing. It's no different than a man like Noah, who pulled one of the greatest feats of faith of his time and immediately after it was all over got falling-down drunk!

We do it all the time ourselves. During a church service we may give forth a beautiful word of prophecy or exhortation, and right after the service start complaining about the music director or something else.

It would be like giving a real super-duper talk on holiness and zeal and right afterward praying for folks, being clearly under the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit—being real holy and spiritual. Suddenly being distracted by thoughts of lust as a beautiful, shapely young woman comes up for prayer.

Why? How could that happen? Because we live in an earthen vessel that is weak at times and in many ways we are still immature in the power of God. We are treating the precious pearls of God's wisdom like marbles for us to play with.

Still, if we are going to be true messengers of God, we need the patience of God as well as the message! Elihu was so sure he had the light of God on Job's problems, he probably expected an immediate result to everything he had said. However, he should have just given the word and gone on his way. He failed to remember propriety and Job's position with the others around him. Why did he expect Job to confess that the word met his need? That it hit the mark? God had humbled Job and it was not Elihu's job to add one jot to the humiliation.

Elihu really was taught in the ways of God, but his impatience makes us wonder if he had actually experienced this "school of suffering" himself. Sometimes it is very easy to discern spiritual truths quickly but then we have to be careful that the light does not outrun our experience.

Sometimes we mess up just like Elihu did. If the person responds right away to our message, we get all excited and happy. However, if they do not respond because of some reserve of temperament or intensity of emotions and they just stand there silent, we get impatient. We attribute their silence to some wrong cause. We assume they have a hard heart, pride, or whatever reason we may create at the time. When we do that, we lose touch with the gentle working of the Holy Spirit. They end up without help or in deeper despair than before.

Elihu delivers his message. Then, when Job is silent, Elihu pours out a whole bunch of verbiage from his own mind to try to emphasize the Lord's message. Instead of quietly leaving the Word with God, who would "watch over (His) Word to perform it" because "His word is not without power."

I am embarrassed to admit how many times I have cooperated with the Lord, carefully and slowly depending on Him for every word. The Holy Spirit bearing witness by holding the person's attention, until I failed to discern that the message had been delivered and began adding my own mess to explain or press home the message from God. Unfortunately, the Lord does not watch over our words to perform them and they are without power—except the power to add confusion.

The Life of a Garden
We need to learn to be totally set apart for the Lord's use and pleasure. Think of everything that involves your personality, your mind, emotions and will as a special garden. Not a public garden but one that is locked up and enclosed (read Song of Solomon 4:12). This garden's one objective is to produce flowers and blossoms that are for beauty and pleasure, which exists for the satisfaction of its owner.

If you will let the Lord prune and cultivate the "garden" in your life, it will produce much life and fruit for His pleasure and satisfaction (Song 5:1; Isa. 53:11).

The Life of a Spring
Using this analogy of our lives being like a garden is certainly not an original one. It is actually found in the fourth chapter of the Song of Solomon. The maiden there is also compared to "a sealed spring." It is not intended for public use, nor is it to run at random into every outside area, to roam and wander as it chooses. This is a private garden belonging to the Lord of Glory. The spring of waters within it are His. The Lord invites His friends and lovers to partake of the fruit grown there. It is not the maiden's prerogative or choice to give these things out to whomever she chooses.

We do not have to fret and worry about giving out this precious life that is stored up inside—it is not ours to give. Only Jesus can unlock the garden or unseal the spring. Only He can give permission for people to enter.

Ask yourself how many times you jumped in with a testimony or an attempt to evangelize someone, maybe a co-worker or a friend, and they simply made fun of you. As each word came out of your mouth, they were dry and lifeless.

No matter how much we might long to witness to someone or desire to share with others, unless the Lord Himself removes the seal from the well (Gen. 29:2, 9-10) or unlocks the garden (Song 4), all our striving is in vain. Also, remember that "every container without a lid fastened on it will be unclean." On the other hand, we might find ourselves in situations where the idea of actually ministering to the person we are talking to is the farthest thing from our mind. All of a sudden, we are aware the Lord jumped in and began ministering through us, watering and feeding his heart. What happened? Well, the Lord brought one of His friends or lovers into His garden. The Lord knows who are His and who is thirsty. He is well able to quench their thirst and give them "the water of life without cost."

As we allow the Lord to cultivate the garden of our soul, He will take what He has grown and will feed His sheep. "I will satisfy the priests with abundance and then my people will be filled with my bounty" (Jer.31:14).

As We Mature
Just like any other good shepherd, Jesus goes ahead of His sheep, looking for rich grazing areas and fertile ground. Then He plants and cultivates rich food for them. He will take out any poisonous weeds that would hurt them, check any holes that would cause them to stumble or fall. Then he would gather the sheep, leading them to the pasture that he has prepared. (Ezk. 34:14, 15; also see "A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm" by Phillip Keller). Jesus wants to cultivate each one of us into "rich pasture," not for our own enjoyment, but so that He can bring His "sheep" there to drink, eat, grow healthy and strong. (And all this time while you were complaining and griping, the Lord was simply pulling weeds and filling holes in your life.)

As that fruit is maturing and ripening in our life, and our words become actually His Words, we will experience that the Word of the Lord is indeed "living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." We will come to know that "there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do" (Heb. 4:12-13).

So whenever we fail to speak when we should, or like Elihu, speak when we should have stopped, we lose that kind of power and glory. The difference between Elihu the "interpreter," and Elihu the "man" is obvious—like night and day.

It seems as though Elihu was wounded in some way or offended by Job's silence. So out of his pride and self-hurt, he stops speaking for God, loses control of his sense of protocol and starts making the same charges that the others had made.

Elihu's Torrent of Words
Elihu complains that Job persists in thinking his wounds are incurable. Well, what do you expect? According to Elihu, Job has scorned all efforts to help him! If he has not sinned himself he must have associated with "workers of iniquity" and walked with evil men! "Job said himself, 'It doesn't profit a man anything to delight himself with God.'"

Wait a minute! Job never said that as regarding himself. The words that Elihu is supposedly quoting were words that Job had used to describe the attitude of the ungodly.

By reverting to his own understanding, Elihu brought a dimming of spiritual wisdom and power. His tactfulness was gone, His poise and gentleness, even his sense of exact truth in quoting Job's words, were all gone.

As silly as it sounds, Elihu proceeds to "teach wisdom" to his elders and he takes up the same line of argument they had presented from the beginning.

God is so great, so holy, He would never do anything wicked and men simply get what they deserve. His judgments would be absolutely right. He is the Sovereign Lord of the whole world, yada, yada, yada . . . .

Surely the only right attitude before a God like this, according to Elihu, is a humble acceptance of His chastening, saying, "I'm guilty but I won't offend you any more. Teach me what I can't see, if I have sinned, I won't do it any more."

"Should God reward you on your terms, when you refuse to repent? You're the one that has to choose, not I." Well, what do you have to say, Job?

Elihu's Severity
Job just sits there and Elihu gets even more impatient with him. "Everyone knows that Job spoke before without knowledge and without wisdom . . . Father, go ahead and try him to the end ... he's simply adding rebellion to his sin."

How embarrassing for him. Elihu just keeps rattling on about what he thought Job had said about the profit of serving God, despite Job's silence.

Job had never even thought about any "advantage" or "profit" in serving the Lord, but he doesn't say anything to set the record straight, he just lets him go on and on with his torrent of harsh and severe words.