- Job replies to Eliphaz. He will say some beautiful things like we’ve come to expect in Job, but first he goes a little too far. Realize that Job and all three of these friends are going to get a rebuke from God. The three friends will have to repent. Job won’t be charged with sin in his anguished responses, but he will be corrected and will say that he repents.
- Job has a bone to pick with God and wants to come before God’s throne to present his argument. He says, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat! There an upright man could argue with him, and I would be acquitted forever by my judge.”
- He understands an upright man can approach God. I have no idea how they know so much about God. God seems to be revealing Himself them. Some say this is a made-up story written after the Psalms and Isaiah, books which seem to be reflected in many of these speeches. I don’t have trouble believing the Bible is true. Others believe he maybe lived around the time of Abraham. He lives even longer than Abraham, at least 200 years, but he doesn’t live as long as people of Noah’s day.
- Anyway, it’s such a fascinating book. Job thinks he can approach God freely, but thinks he doesn’t have to do it humbly. He thinks he can make an argument with God and win.
- But then Job turns things around. He ends with these beautiful truths.
- “But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind.”
- God will do as He knows is best and it will be to turn us into gold.
