Now the Friends are Ready to Talk

"It was not an enemy insulting me...
But it was you ... my companion, my close friend."
—Ps. 55:12-13

As we saw earlier, the three friends had come together to comfort Job, and as they journeyed together they probably talked about what they were going to say and how they were going to go about it.

Each one addresses Job a little differently, each according to his own personality and probably age and position. Yet, their words contain pretty much the same message, just wrapped a little differently.

The first one to speak is Eliphaz. I would describe him as the most candid friend. I am sure you would recognize this person: he is the one in your life who always feels it incumbent upon himself to speak out whatever is on his mind.

He figures the only way to help Job is to speak very directly, and plainly. So he begins by saying: "If I try to speak to you Job, are you going to be impatient with me? But who could help speaking after listening to all the junk you have said?" Then he goes on to put into plain, bald language the bitterest thought of all, a thought that Job had probably been wrestling with already.

"Job, you have taught others, helped them with your words, strengthened and upheld those that were falling, and now, when you're put into some of the same circumstances, we see you discouraged and troubled."

Boy, that ought to comfort Job! Do you think that Job knew all this already? When he is sitting there talking about death and the grave as a place of rest, don't you think he knew he was fainting? In addition, did the memory of the way he had instructed others add to his despair? Nevertheless, it must have been hard to have his friend say it in cold, bare words.

Think of it, here Job sits in front of him stripped of everything, his heart torn and exposed, his words desperate, his eyes wild and probing and pleading for comfort, and what does the gentle Eliphaz have to offer? The gist of his entire argument can be summed up with the stinging comment he makes. "It seems to me, those who sow trouble reap it."

I have found myself in exactly the same position. When Patty and I moved to Ann Arbor, I left a position of church leadership where I taught, counseled, and encouraged others in their times of trial. Then came to Ann Arbor to be, as one brother called it, "just another 'cog in the wheel.' "

I never realized how important that place of recognition was to me until it was taken away from me—in fact, I discovered I had my entire identity and self-worth tied up into that identity. When a brother was trying to help me deal with it, I was constantly reminding myself how I used to give the same counsel to others. It was almost as if I was hearing my own words being played back to me. That bothered me more than the problem he was trying to help me with.

"Job, you of all men should know how to trust God in the hour of trial," Eliphaz continued. "Isn't your knowledge of Him sufficient to give you confidence now?"

I am sure those of you who are in a fiery furnace right now recognize those words. They are the words of many who are trying to comfort you. They talk to your grief and try to comfort you by saying, "You encouraged others to be strong, and now you're fainting yourself. Where's your faith now?"

A Friend's "Comfort"
Then Eliphaz goes on to say, "Think of it, what person ever perished that was innocent? As I see it, if a person plows iniquity or sows trouble, he will reap the same."

That is comfort from a candid friend! It reminds me of what David said in Psalm 55:12-13: "It wasn't an enemy that reproached me. But it was you, my companion and friend."

Very simply, Eliphaz feels that Job must be reaping the consequences of sin because, based on his long experience, men simply reap what they sow and no one could be as bad off as Job if they were innocent. Hence, God must be angry with him. In think Phaz just proved what Proverbs 26:7 says: "Like a lame man's legs that hang limp, is a proverb in the mouth of a fool." Whatever comfort he intended to convey was lost and could be summed up in the words of another proverb: "Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day . . . is one who sings songs to a heavy heart."

One problem with Phaz's argument is that, yes, many innocent people perish every day, and many evil people prosper every day. We live in an unjust, evil world. As long as Satan remains the god of the world, it will remain that way. As the bumper sticker says, "Stuff happens!"

Now Eliphaz could say this with conviction and assurance because he was not speaking from his own mind, but as one taught by a "vision in the night."

"A word was secretly brought to me amid disquieting dreams in the night . . . fear and trembling seized me. A spirit glided past my face . . .The hair on my body stood up . . . but at first I could not tell what it said and then I heard a hushed voice saying, 'Can a mortal be righteous before God? Can a man be pure before his maker?' "

That spirit-form sounds more like the devil disguised as an angel of light than the Holy Spirit. Satan, who had accused Job to God and asserted that in a time of deep trial he would renounce his faith, would never leave any means untried to achieve his desired end.

In reading Job's story, you have to keep in mind the forces that lie behind the surface. Satan had set his heart on Job, and his tactics did not stop with stripping him of all his possessions and health until he laid on the ground broken and in despair. He attacks him through his wife's words, then by dangling before him escape in the grave; again through the counsel of the three friends, particularly at this stage by Eliphaz. Every point is a direct attack against the integrity of Job, his faith in God, his assurance of fellowship with him, and most importantly the testimony of the Lord concerning him.

Eliphaz asserts that he has learned through his spirit-vision that no mortal man can be just and pure before God. He says, in effect, "Job, you better let go of your confidence that you have walked with God in integrity of heart. Your present situation proves that you are just the same as other men. You thought that God had protected and blessed you, but after all, you are reaping the consequences of sin just as everybody else does. You say that you shun evil and seek to walk uprightly; but no man can be counted just before God. No man can be pure before his Maker."

"If God places no trust in his servants, and if he charges his angels with folly, how much more those who live in houses of clay?" The Spirit-voice whispers to Eliphaz. This as at the very moment the Lord was giving his rave review of his servant Job and looking at him with the fullest confidence He could have placed in him. Instead of charging him with folly, He was declaring before the council of Heaven that in His sight Job was "blameless, true, and Godly, abstaining from everything evil."

Satan is always accusing man to God, and God to man, maligning His character and misrepresenting His attitude toward His people.

"Man is only like a moth," said the spirit-voice, "he is crushed in one brief day, he perishes and no one regards it."

This lying spirit has totally misled Eliphaz, deceived him with a half-truth. It is true that mortal man is not pure before the Holy God. However, he never mentioned the burnt offerings that Job offered continually, which was actually a fore-shadowing of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, which causes a man to be accepted before God.

It is also true that a man's life on earth could be said to be as brief as a moth but that God lets him die without notice is a lie! Jesus, who came to declare the Father, said "even the very hairs of your head are numbered, so don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows."

The Two Sons
We could compare the story of Job to Jesus' parable of the two sons in Matthew 21. One son says to his father, "I will not obey you," but in the end, he changes his mind and does what his father asked. By contrast the other sons says, "I will obey," and then forgets all about it and does what he wants. Their words obviously do not match their hearts. In fact in each case what they say is exactly opposite of what they believe. The real nature of their convictions shows up only in their actions because our actions will always follow our beliefs.

In the same way, the friends of Job all represent themselves as being upright and godly men. Repeatedly and in various ways what they say is that they believe in a God who is good and merciful, and they exhort Job to believe the same. Yet we can't help wondering: if they really believed that God is merciful, could they also be expected to show that same mercy to others? But they fail to do this. Instead of mercy, they bring condemnation. Instead of compassion, they demonstrate a rigid doctrine. Their actions speak louder than their words. They obviously believe that people should be good. Do they really believe in a good God? As G. K. Chesterton observed, perhaps what they really believe is "not that God is good but that God is so strong that it is much more judicious to call Him good."

From this point on, Job has very little good to say about God. Instead he rants and raves against His cruel silence and injustice, repeatedly calling God his "foe." In the end, however, when the Lord finally breaks His silence and speaks to him, Job immediately softens and repents. So at the end he turns out to be very much like the first son in Jesus' parable, who initially dug in his heels and cried, "I won't!" and yet who, when it came down to brass tacks, submitted. Job's character under extreme pressure does not conform to the popular image of saintliness. But the Lord knows what is in his heart, and Jesus' question at the end of the parable is not, "Which of the two sons had the more correct theology?" but, "Which of the two did what his father wanted?"

Much of the theme of Job revolves around the reality that what people say they believe, is often not what they really believe. Why is that? It is because people really do not know themselves. On the other hand, it was said of Jesus "He did not need man's testimony about man, for he know what was in a man" (John 2:25). To know what people really believe, do not look simply at what they say about themselves, look at what they do. As Jesus instructed the Pharisees, "Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment" (John 7:24).

Do you remember when the newly sworn in, former President Clinton testified that his would be the most "ethical administration"? His actions spoke much louder than his words.

Ultimately the little-known parable of the two sons has much in common with the more famous story of the prodigal son. In either case, Jesus used two brothers to draw a distinction not just between two different kinds or degrees of faith, but rather between belief and unbelief, between living faith and dead legalism. In both parables the son who initially rebels is the one who, deep down is being intensely honest with his father, while the other son, though he makes an outward show of toeing the line, is being fundamentally dishonest. In each story the point is that straightforward dealing with God leads to eventual obedience and right action, while an insincere compliance with God—no matter how well-meaning or well-seeming—results in alienation.

Eliphaz's Exhortation
Eliphaz continues: "If I were in your place, Job, I would commit my cause to God. He performs wonders than cannot be fathomed. The lowly He sets on high and those who mourn are lifted to safety. He frustrates the plans of the crafty and catches the wise in their craftiness. He saves the needy from the clutches of the powerful, so the poor have hope."

Eliphaz is a strange mixture. He undoubtedly has some knowledge of God but it seems to be more by theory than by life. Although most of his counsel certainly lacked the compassion and tenderness of the Lord, here he begins to deal gently with Job. He only suggests that men reap what they sow, and advises Job definitely to seek God for deliverance. He should consider himself happy to be corrected by the Lord, and not to despise the discipline. "If the One who pours out blessings does wound, he also binds up; if he hurts, he will also heal." As I said before, God is not the one that wounds or hurts. What parent would? Quit looking at the Lord as the source of your problem and start discovering Him as the deliverer from your problems.

As I said, Eliphaz evidently has some knowledge of God, because he then goes on to draw a very clear and accurate picture of the result of the Lord's binding up. If Job would truly seek him and not despise His discipline, the Lord would deliver him from every trouble so that no harm would befall him. In famine, he would be rescued from death, in war, from the sword. He would be protected from the lash of the tongue and would not be afraid of destruction. He could laugh at destruction and famine; his home would be in peace and protected by the power of God. He would have many healthy, strong children and go to the grave in full vigor. However, this binding up has nothing to do with how good you are. Rather, it is a result of how good He is.

"We have examined this, and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself."

That's great, Eliphaz! Unfortunately, your whole premise is wrong! All this would be true if Job would go back to God, but Job had never left him. Eliphaz does not understand. He did not know anything of the spiritual conflict that was raging around him.

My Brothers and Sisters! Stop trying to figure it out in your own heads. Wait for clear understanding from the Lord. You are there as his ambassador, not his prosecuting attorney.

Carnal Christianity
Aspirin is good and effective medicine. However, it is useless against cancer. In the same way some of the advice that Eliphaz and the other friends dole out is, in its own right, correct, good, and true. Although, because their counsel is wrongly applied, it becomes useless. As I said above, Eliphaz's basic assumption that Job is being divinely "corrected" and "disciplined" sounds good to the religious mind, but it is simply wrong. God is not trying to rehabilitate Job; he wants to honor him and to glorify his faith.

I suppose what Eliphaz said was true enough. Although, even the truth, when spoken at the wrong time or in the wrong circumstances—that is, when spoken without love—is a lie. "If the wrong man uses the right means," goes an old Chinese proverb, "then the right means works in the wrong way." Paul wrote, "What you have heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus" (II Tim. 1:13). Why would Paul bother to add the words "with faith and love" unless it was possible to "keep the pattern of sound teaching" without them? In the end, it may be that the mishandling of truth will be shown up to be an even greater travesty, in the eyes of God, than blatant sin. When truth lies it becomes a wolf in sheep's clothing, and though it dresses up in the clothes of the Spirit, underneath it is thoroughly carnal.

When Paul wrote, "If you live according to the flesh, you will die" (Rom. 8:13), he was not warning primarily against gross sins such as drunkenness or stealing or sexual immorality. He wasn't even railing against the more genteel iniquities such as gossiping and dissention (which incidentally, the New Testament brands as being equally serious: see Galatians 5:19-21, where "envy" and "orgies," "selfish ambition" and "witchcraft" appear side by side in a list of what are termed "obvious" sins). No, Paul's warning was against Christians giving themselves to any behavior that had its origin in the flesh rather than in the Spirit. Could that have included the misapplication of truth, and insensitive and judgmental counseling of others? Would he also have included hypocrisy and phoniness, insincere love, and conformity to peer pressure? I imagine his being outraged with singsong evangelism, the sterile, robotic mouthing of the gospel of Christ. Then there is also the pasteboard smiles, vacuous laughter, and good deeds motivated by guilt or by the need to impress others. Maybe he would also have expressed sadness over a satisfaction with the lack of reality in the Christian faith.

It does not matter if you call yourself a "Christian." If your inner attitudes and your lifestyle are primarily those of conformity to the world and the flesh—when in your heart you know better and have been given grace to follow the Spirit—then your life will be no real life at all, but a living death. You will die a little more every day. You will hate yourself (and God too) a little more every time you choose to settle complacently into the world's rut rather than obeying the life-giving prompting of the Spirit. Jesus warned, "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing."

If we continue to disregard the voice of the Lord deep within us, what else can we expect but that our hearts will grow cold and hard? Every time we shut out Christ's words, we make it that much harder to hear Him the next time.

Michael Card's song, Know You in the Now, draws an honest view of the life many Christians live, and provides an excellent prayer for us to pray:

Echo of history
A light so many strain to see
The One we talk so much about
But rarely ever live it out

Could You tell me why
Was it for this that You came and died
A once a week observance
Where we coldly mouth your words

We should confess
We lose You in our busyness
We've made You in our image
So our faith's idolatry

Lord, deliver me
Break my heart so I can see
All the ways You dwell in us
That You're alive in me

Lord I long to see
Your presence in reality
But I don't know how
Let me know you in the now

A.W. Tozer encourages us by pointing out that "within the fold of conservative Christianity, there are those increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with mere words, nor will they be content with correct 'interpretations' of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the fountain of Living Water."

Our problem is that we let everyone else do our seeking for us. All of our evangelistic endeavors are made to center on the initial act of "accepting" Christ and we are not expected to crave anything more. We become caught up in the coils of a spurious logic that insists that once you find God you do not need to seek Him any more.

Job's Reply
Job responds differently to each of his counselors. Eliphaz gets him mad. Sure, Job heard everything that Eliphaz had to say, but he certainly did not listen because of his "anguish of spirit." He feels that "if his anguish could be weighed, it would outweigh the sand of the seas."

Even an animal will complain when its food is unpalatable, "so don't condemn me for crying out; nature must be allowed relief." Then he goes on to state he wishes God would indeed "destroy him like a moth." At least that would be better than what he had right now! "But I'll tell you what, if he did do that, then I would still have this one consolation—this one joy in my unrelenting pain—that I did not deny the words of the Holy One."

Job's response to his friend's callous words is a heartrending plea for mercy. Eliphaz seems to be arguing for a kind of balance-scales theology, a tit-for-tat religion in which we do things for God and then He does things for us in return. Just as virtuous deeds can, according to this view, be traded with God for tangible benefits, so all of Job's misfortune should be able to be set right by a proper, formal repentance. In Eliphaz's mind everything about the spiritual life can be computed, totaled up, and kept straight and tidy.

However, suffering is not like that; it is not tidy and mathematical. Neither is grace, for that matter. Neither are any of the great mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. By their very nature, spiritual realities are untidy. Think of how shocked Jesus' disciples were when He first began teaching them about the necessity of drinking His blood! "This is hard teaching," they complained. "Who can accept it?" (John 6:60). The mysteries of eternal life are untidy because they are infinite and immeasurable. The blood of Jesus could not be kept neatly inside His body; it had to be spilled out. What was meant to cover the whole earth could not be contained for long in an earthen vessel. As Peter wrote, "You know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect" (I Peter 1:18-19). Things that are perfect and eternal overflow the world's containers; they upset the world's apple carts; they invalidate the world's balance scales. After all, it is not as though the atoning sacrifice of Jesus merely outweighed the sin of the world; much more than that, the cross of Christ canceled sin entirely.

It seems very few us could address suffering in the way that Alexander Solzhenitzyn did when he spoke of his experience in the Gulag: "Bless you, prison . . . for it was in you that I discovered that the meaning of earthly existence lies, not as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul."

No balance-scales view of God's judgment can ever account for such a wonder. In the same way, no human effort of will—even the will to repent in dust and ashes—can ever reconcile itself to God or take even the tiniest step towards Him. As Paul wrote in Romans 11:35 (paraphrasing, in fact, the Lord's own words to Job in 41:11), "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay Him?" The love of God is not a matter of calculation and accounting. The trouble with Eliphaz and the other friends is that their thinking leaves no room for unmerited grace. Not only is the cross not at the center of their theology—it is not there at all. While Job holds to faith alone in the midst of his suffering, his friends seem to spend their energies doing the very opposite, seeking to avoid suffering altogether and doing so in the name of faith. As Job summarizes their attitude later in this chapter, "You see something dreadful and are afraid."

Job's Disappointment
Eliphaz claimed to come in order to comfort Job, but he was not kind to him at all. He had reproached him for becoming discouraged after teaching others to stand strong. Now maybe it was true, but "a despairing man should have the support of his friends," they should show some kindness, not severity. Otherwise, the man might be driven away from God altogether. Ralph Waldo Emmerson once wrote, "The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship." Somehow, it looks as though Eliphaz falls far short of this description of a friend.

We might as well face it: it is Job's suffering, and his suffering alone, which turns his friends against him. This is so often what also turns us away from those who desperately need our love. In the words of Flannery O'Connor, who from her own battle with lupus had reason to know about such things, "Sickness is a place . . . where there's no company, where nobody can follow." How easily we distance ourselves from other people's pain! We are so good at rationalizing and accounting for suffering, so poor at doing anything about it, and so devastated when it is our own turn to suffer.

I currently work in security for a large department store. One of my responsibilities is to provide first aid and CPR. Recently one of our Department Managers experienced a severe asthma attack. The severity was to such an extent that she completely stopped breathing and collapsed. While her skin was turning ashen color and her lips blue, we check for a pulse and found none. My partner and I thought she was dead, or certainly very close to it. We were about to begin CPR just as the ambulance arrived. This manager spent several days in ICU at one of the local hospitals. The saddest and most disappointing aspect to this crisis was not that she had died or was close to it; it was not the pain of having her daughter watch in horror as her mother collapsed with the look of death on her face. The most frustrating and disappointing thing was that afterward very few of her coworkers ever asked how she was or thought to check on her while she stayed in the hospital. I suppose everyone was just too busy and occupied with his or her own life and crises to bother.

Job compares Eliphaz to a deceitful brook and graphically pictures the disappointment of a caravan in the desert that turned aside in order to find water in its hour of need and finding the brook black and frozen with ice.

"Phaz, you're no different! You, too, proved to be of no help. You haven't given me any comfort from the heart of God, you frozen stream. You look at me, and I look so loathsome to you that you're afraid of me—and you're afraid to be kind to me just in case you're counted a partaker of the sins in which you charge me.

"But tell me, what strength do I have that I should still hope and what do I have to look forward to that I should be patient? I'm not made of brass to endure all this. I am helpless."

It is obvious the attacks are laying hold of Job. His heart is still anchored, but his humanity is definitely crying out.

Anyone who has wrestled with serious illness in a hospital room, and received visitors, will know that between the sick and the well, between the paralyzed life of the sufferer and the full, energetic outer world of the visitor, there exists a vast and nearly uncrossable chasm.

Then again, is "uncrossable" really a word in the Christian vocabulary? No, it does not have to be. Because of the cross of Christ, every chasm has already been crossed, every alienation bridged. If Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were alive today and could read about themselves and their suffering friend in the Bible, they would realize that this book is the Calvary of the Old Testament. They would see that the key to the sufferings of Job, and indeed to life itself, is the cross. They would realize that suffering, far from being something avoidable, is the very heartbeat of life, and the door to Heaven.

The Yeast of the Pharisees
What would you think of a friend who invited you to dinner and then put absolutely nothing on the table? Suppose you were to sit down to gleaming silverware, the best china, a lace tablecloth and candles, but no food? On top of the, what if your host even toasted you with an empty glass, then picked up his knife and fork and began digging in on a bare plate, clearly inviting you to do the same? What would you do? Would you go along with this preposterous ruse, smacking your lips and complimenting your friend on his marvelous culinary skills? On the other hand, would you be angry with him for trying to make a fool of you, and would you tell him so in no uncertain terms?

Well, Job is angry with Eliphaz for having pretended to feed him, when in fact he has deprived him of solid spiritual food. No doubt, Job would feel the same way today if he were to visit many contemporary churches. The altar is set with linen, candles are lit, guests assemble, and there is even a plate passed around—but where is the food? There is an after-dinner speaker but no dinner. As Milton has said, "The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed." At least, whatever passes for dinner is about as tasty (as Job puts it) as a bowl of egg whites. The meaning of the Hebrew is obscure, and so we do not know exactly what food it is that Job says, "makes me ill." Nevertheless, we can easily fill in this blank ourselves the next time we are subjected to a nauseatingly bland sermon. Job's metaphor may remind us of one of Jesus' comments in the Sermon on the Mount: "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."

After two chapters of Eliphaz's double-talk, there may still be some question in our minds as to what exactly he has said. But however kind and wise Eliphaz's tone of voice may have been, Job has picked up on the real message: all his problems are his own fault and he had better clean up his act. It is the polite imputation of guilt in this counsel that repulses Job. He knows that wherever religion is founded on and motivated by guilt, the result can only be evil. Evil spirits are drawn by guilt like moths to a light bulb.

Granted, guilt has it proper work to do, and many believers do not pay nearly enough attention to the call to live clean and godly lives. However, many others, erring on the opposite extreme, are virtuous to a fault. As one author has written, "they are punctilious about peccadilloes." By being overly scrupulous about selected issues of piety and morality, they unwittingly turn the gospel and its glorious freedom into just one more religion, just one more system of humanly-powered spiritual principles, with guilt at the core. It is not hard to spot such guilt-ridden faith, because it is full of anxiety, full of nagging worries about "finding God's will," "loving one's neighbor," grieving the Spirit," or "taking the gospel to the ends of the earth." This faith is endlessly and neurotically preoccupied with its own performance, with its own power and holiness or lack thereof. It always has an eye on the heavenly box office, the celestial ratings, earning Christian "Brownie points." A bad rating will cause it not to love more, but to try harder; not to fix its eyes on Jesus and his work in their life, but rather to examine itself more feverishly. Worst of all, such hypersensitive egocentricity always spills over into an authoritative, judgmental attitude toward others. I have been there, done that, have the tee shirt to prove it.

This is the hypocrisy that Jesus called the "yeast of the Pharisees." Whether He found it in the Jews who were plotting to kill Him, or in His own disciples, it is something he always angrily exposed and denounced. Paul also used the yeast metaphor when warning the Galatians to resist the powerful legalists in their midst, for "that kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 'A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough'" (Gal. 5:8-9). The real root of religious hypocrisy is unresolved guilt, and this is the active agent in all legalism.

There is so much about morality and good living in the New Testament it can be difficult to see this is not really the point of Christianity (at least, it is neither the starting point nor the focal point). It can also be more difficult for a Christian who starts well, to detect in himself the gradual, poisonous growth of the yeast of the Pharisee.