- There was someone else on the scene we hadn’t known about, a younger man who, out of respect, had been waiting to speak. His name is Elihu.
- He says, “But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand. It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right” (Job 32:8-9).
- I would be quick to tell you that wisdom comes with age. I’m one who thinks it’s not the twenty-somethings who should be leading youth groups, but that there should be a leader with some wisdom that comes with experience that comes with age.
- However, Elihu is right. True wisdom comes from God and can come to anyone who has the Spirit of God. An older person may have the wisdom of the world, but it can’t compare to the wisdom of God.
- Elihu will be the only one God doesn’t correct or rebuke in some way at the end. He apparently does have wisdom from God.
- He’s been listening and it’s been a bit tormenting to him. I can relate. He says, “For I am full of words; the spirit within me constrains me… I must speak, that I may find relief; I must open my lips and answer” (Job 32:18,20).
- The wisdom in him was stirring up thoughts of correction for Job and the three friends, but the spirit of wisdom in him was also holding him back. Just because we know the truth, know what’s right, doesn’t mean it’s right to say something.
- Job’s friends had a lot of truth in them. They were wrong to speak it, though, at the time and in the way they did.
- Then finally, Elihu says that he can’t take it any longer. That’s letting out the fire in your bones. God can put a fire in us and it will burn and grow until we have to let it out. Ken Ham describes the fire in his bones growing stronger as the Lord worked to put the idea in him to start a teaching ministry about creation.
- Little quiet me has actually interrupted two sermons in my day because of fire I couldn’t contain any longer! Don’t mock God’s word or the love for the brethren around me!
