Elihu: The Messenger Again
you will be as my mouth."
—Jer.15:19
I think Elihu realized he had blown it by speaking on his own behalf, when he quit interpreting the working of God to Job, and began to attack him. I think he also realized he had better repent and start speaking worthy words, rather than unworthy words, if the Lord was going to restore him as His spokesman (Jer. 15:19). He asks them to excuse him, and to bear with him a little because "there is more to be said on God's behalf."
It was very unbecoming for him to address his elders the way he did and to deal directly with everything he saw wrong. The Lord was able to use him to explain what was going on around Job as long as he retained his sense of propriety and did not violate the bounds of courtesy and love. However, when he gave in to nursing his pride, he lost touch with the gentle working of the Holy Spirit.
As long as Elihu spoke from the standpoint of an instrument or a mouthpiece for God—someone standing "in God's stead"—all his words were directed by the Spirit and had power, clarity, strength. However, as soon as his attitude changed, and he started speaking like someone who was supposed to plead for God, he lost the marked power of God.
This difference between the two is important for us to understand. If you are speaking for God the listener is assumed to be in the position of an antagonist who has to be won over to the Lord's side by the special pleader. However, if you are simply a mouthpiece, with your lips yielded to Him for His use, the listener is brought into direct dealing with God Himself.
Elihu regains his humble and gentle attitude toward Job and begins, again, to interpret the heart of God. The change in tone and language is amazing. The hand of God is on him again as he proceeds to "ascribe justice to (his) maker."
The Heart of God
He is truly speaking from the right standpoint now as he tells Job that although the Lord is mighty, He does not despise any of His children, even the weakest. He knows their frame and remembers very well that they are dust. In all of their afflictions, He also is afflicted. Yet His strength of love toward them enables Him to bear seeing them suffer for their eternal gain, giving "to the afflicted their rights" after His purpose of love is accomplished.
"He doesn't take His eyes off the righteous. Rather, he enthrones them with kings and exalts them forever." That is the loudest cry of the New Testament! That he takes the redeemed of the Lord and calls them to be Kings and Priests. This is the "right" or the inheritance of the afflicted, because if we are willing to suffer with Him, we will also be glorified with Him. In His purpose of love, He has already set the "righteous"—those who are in union with the Righteous One—on the throne of victory with their Lord. He is patiently preparing each of us for our future position by placing us in the furnace of trial. Why? So that we will be prepared for our high and heavenly calling and learn to overcome, even as our Lord has overcome. "To him who overcame, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne" (Rev. 3:21, also see Rev. 5:10;
A King in Chains
"But if men are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction," Elihu says, as he continues to describe another aspect of the Lord's instruction through suffering, "He tells them what they have done." The Lord who is "mighty in strength of heart" flashes His light on the service of the past. He tenderly shows where His servant has "transgressed," in moving without His commands, or "behaved arrogantly," in criticism, or harsh judgment of others; in reliance on his own capabilities; in assurance of his own knowledge, or in thinking himself indispensable to God. So the Lord "opens the ear" of His children to instruction, and they are taught by Him.
How He Delivers
God simply withdraws His servants from their work in order to sift and to test them. "He shows . . . that they have acted arrogantly . . . He makes them listen to correction and commands them to return to Him and repent." He convicts only so that He can deliver. He rebukes to bless. He wounds in order to heal. (Thank you, Lord. Now I know what you have been doing with me the past several years.)
The Lord will reveal sin in its true light. Any shade of pride is called iniquity, and every transgression needs a "return" to God for His pardon and cleansing, just like you did the very first time you sought Him.
If we choose not to listen, even when the Lord has opened the ear, and his instruction given, the Lord has to use the sword in still sharper dealing. If His children still fail to listen to Him, the end must be a loss of life "saved even as by fire."
Elihu tries to comfort Job by reminding him that the godless in heart do not cry to God for help when they are bound with cords of affliction. They are more often angry and harbor resentment, so the fact that he cries out to God proves that he knows where to turn in the time of trouble. "Job, don't you realize that God delivers you in your suffering and speaks to you in your affliction?"
God's purpose
In the midst of a crisis or trial, we need to understand He often leads us out of our distress softly and gently. We are almost unaware of all that He is doing. He "delivers the afflicted by affliction, "and in the adversity our ears are being opened to understand the faintest whisper of the Lord. You do not realize that you are being wooed. You are silently being drawn out of the jaws of distress—into a spacious place free from restriction or narrowness of vision. There will be no smallness of heart or lack of spiritual food. Your table will be "laden with choice food" or, as one translation says, "abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, and He will spread a table before him in the very presence of their enemies" (Ps. 23).
The Warning
Elihu points out to Job that he has been talking too much about the judgment of the wicked. He also tells Job that he had better watch out for himself, so he is not lured away from his position with God. How could that happen? It happened by leaning on his own sufficiency and being drawn aside from dealing with his own sin, because of the "greatness of the Ransom." All of his riches, whether material or spiritual, all of his strength, would not sustain him during his times of distress. Only the Lord can bring us into the "spacious place that is free from restriction."
The greatest danger to each one of us is our "self-sufficiency." Once we have dealt with that and have learned to draw on the sufficiency of God, it is possible to be drawn aside, from our dependence on Him, by the very sufficiency He has given us!
Sometimes it seems like we can only grab hold of one aspect at a time of the stupendous sacrifice of Christ and the awful holiness of God. We are often either walking in a measure of bondage, judging our fellowship with God by our obedience. Or else we are living in the grace of God, and the value of the shed blood of His Son are realized to such an extent we fail to deal severely with our sin and disobedience in our daily walk.
The Believer's choice
Job had been very arrogant when he was trying to vindicate himself and Elihu calls a spade a spade and iniquity, iniquity!
"Job, you better beware of neglecting to deal with your iniquity," Elihu says. "You seem to prefer that to affliction; you choose to defend yourself rather than be silent and endure; you chose to take things into your own hands rather than trusting the Lord to be your vindicator."
Every step you take in your walk with the Lord you have to make a choice, you can choose either the "wide road . . ." or the "narrow road . . ." the easy way or the way of affliction and struggles. The best thing to do is choose, without hesitation, the right course and not even to glance at any other path, even if it seems like the right thing to do. You probably think that is the most obvious thing you have ever heard, but if you are placed in the kind of a trial as Job—what then?
"Who is a teacher like God?" exclaims Elihu, as he begins to unfold the patient dealings of God with His children, and the depth of His love toward us. How tenderly He shows us our work, opening our hearts to understand His instruction, delivering us from our bonds of fiery trials and gently luring us out into the "spacious place where there are no restrictions."
"God is exalted in His power," no one can really teach Him or "prescribe" His ways, no one can charge Him with unrighteousness. All we should do is "remember to extol His
work" and remember that men can only look at it from afar. He is so great and awesome we cannot fully understand Him, as He is, and was, in the far back ages of eternity.
The Storm
While Elihu was still speaking, a huge storm began to gather, and the group on the ash mound was wrapped in darkness, broken only by the vivid flashes of lightening.
Elihu knew God, and so his whole being responded with delight at the manifestation of the majesty of the Lord in the storm. It is almost as if the Lord said, "Enough! He won't listen to my servant, I'll have to settle this Myself." I can remember many times seeing people refuse truly inspired counsel from different sources, all of whom presented essentially the same message, until the Lord simply had to deal with them directly Himself and usually much
