Show Up, Shut Up, and Lift Up

1 Then Elihu answered and said:

2 “Hear my words, you wise men,
    and give ear to me, you who know;
3 for the ear tests words
    as the palate tastes food.
4 Let us choose what is right;
    let us know among ourselves what is good.
5 For Job has said, ‘I am in the right,
    and God has taken away my right;
6 in spite of my right I am counted a liar;
    my wound is incurable, though I am without transgression.’
7 What man is like Job,
    who drinks up scoffing like water,
8 who travels in company with evildoers
    and walks with wicked men?
9 For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing
    that he should take delight in God.’

10 “Therefore, hear me, you men of understanding:
    far be it from God that he should do wickedness,
    and from the Almighty that he should do wrong.
11 For according to the work of a man he will repay him,
    and according to his ways he will make it befall him.
12 Of a truth, God will not do wickedly,
    and the Almighty will not pervert justice.
13 Who gave him charge over the earth,
    and who laid on him the whole world?
14 If he should set his heart to it
    and gather to himself his spirit and his breath,
15 all flesh would perish together,
    and man would return to dust.”– Job 34:1-15 ESV

You reap what you sow. That’s the basic idea behind Elihu’s entire argument, and from his “learned” perspective, Job was living proof of that proverbial adage. But Elihu could not claim credit for having coined that phrase; it was Eliphaz who first broached the topic.

“As I have seen, those who plow iniquity
    and sow trouble reap the same.” – Job 4:8 ESV

The prophet Hosea records Yahweh using the same idea to condemn the rebellious people of Israel.

“I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness,
    and you will harvest a crop of love.
Plow up the hard ground of your hearts,
    for now is the time to seek the Lord,
that he may come
    and shower righteousness upon you.’

“But you have cultivated wickedness
    and harvested a thriving crop of sins.” – Hosea 10:12-13 NLT

And the apostle Paul picked up on this theme when writing to the believers living in Galatia.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. – Galatians 6:7-8 ESV

Of course, Elihu attempts to give his personal touch to the topic by paraphrasing it in a slightly different way.

“The Almighty can do no wrong.
He repays people according to their deeds.
    He treats people as they deserve.” – Job 34:10-11 ESV

His places the emphasis on God because he is trying to show that Job is guilty of falsely accusing Yahweh of injustice. Not only has Job committed sins worthy of God’s wrath and judgment, but he has also blasphemed the name and character of God – at least according to Elihu’s estimation.

But Elihu is guilty of twisting Job’s words. Yes, Job is frustrated and has spoken rashly and, sometimes, unwisely, but at no point has Job disparaged God. He has actually championed Yahweh’s sovereignty, declaring his belief that, ultimately, God is in control of all things. That’s the reason he longs to have God provide him with an explanation for his suffering. Job isn’t discrediting the character of God; he is simply having a difficult time justifying his own pain and suffering. He refuses to accept the idea that his losses are the result of personal sin and that is what is driving Elihu crazy.

Elihu resorts to quoting Job but takes liberties in doing so.

“For Job also said, ‘I am innocent,
    but God has taken away my rights.
I am innocent, but they call me a liar.
    My suffering is incurable, though I have not sinned.’” – Job 34:5-6 NLT

A look back at chapter 27 reveals that Elihu conveniently disregarded a few pertinent points from Job’s comments.

“I vow by the living God, who has taken away my rights,
    by the Almighty who has embittered my soul—
As long as I live,
    while I have breath from God,
my lips will speak no evil,
    and my tongue will speak no lies.
I will never concede that you are right;
    I will defend my integrity until I die.
 I will maintain my innocence without wavering.
    My conscience is clear for as long as I live.” – Job 27:2-6 NLT

Job did not disparage God but simply acknowledged that his fate was in God’s hands. His whole point was that there was nothing Elihu, Bildad, Eliphaz, or Zophar could say that would make him deny his innocence. Job’s belief in the sovereignty of God was so great that he was forced to conclude his trials were the handiwork of God.

Elihu was disingenuous and deceptive in using Job’s words against him. But he was desperate to portray Job as a wicked and ungodly man who was getting exactly what he deserved. In fact, he goes out of his way to paint Job in the least favorable light.

“Tell me, has there ever been a man like Job,
    with his thirst for irreverent talk?
He chooses evil people as companions.
    He spends his time with wicked men.
He has even said, ‘Why waste time
    trying to please God?’” – Job 34;7-9 NLT 

For all his self-proclaimed wisdom, Elihu displays rather unsophisticated reasoning skills. For him, it boiled down to one simple equation: God is right and men are wrong.

“Everyone knows that God doesn’t sin!
    The Almighty can do no wrong.” – Job 34:10 NLT

No one in his right mind would argue with that conclusion, including Job. But Elihu wants to make it appear as if Job was accusing God of sin. At best, all Job was guilty of was questioning the fairness of his situation. He couldn’t understand why he had been forced to endure such devastating losses. But at no time had Job accused God of wickedness. He knew there was a reason behind his suffering and all he was asking for was an explanation.

But Elihu is engaging a bit of slight of hand. He is attempting to make this a battle between Job and the Almighty, with Job playing the part of the evil antagonist. In Elihu’s heavily fabricated version of events, God is wearing the white hat while Job is relegated to the role of the dastardly desperado.

“Truly, God will not do wrong.
    The Almighty will not twist justice.” – Job 34:12 NLT

This overly simplistic view of Job’s situation was designed to make it a black and white matter. God was good and Job was bad. As far as Elihu could see it, Job was lucky to be alive.

“If God were to take back his spirit
    and withdraw his breath,
all life would cease,
    and humanity would turn again to dust.” – Job 34:14-15 NLT

But Elihu is a windbag who lives to hear himself talk. He is in love with the sound of his own voice. He goes on and on, spouting his words of wisdom, but never really saying anything of substance. Amazingly, he accuses Job of talking utter nonsense. He claims that Job speaks without knowledge or insight, and he opens his mouth in empty talk. But in reality, Elihu is the one who is saying a lot without saying anything at all. He is so convinced he is right that he even gets vindictive and hateful toward Job, wishing him harm and not good.

We all could learn a lot from Elihu; not so much from what he says, but how he says it. In his pride and arrogance, this young man cares more about being right than being showing love to someone who is hurting. He takes it upon himself to defend God, when God needs no defense. He speaks for God when he has no clue what God is doing or thinking.

But we can do the same thing. It is too easy to jump to conclusions regarding situations and circumstances, and make determinations that are neither correct nor corrective. We judge too quickly and condemn too easily. Sometimes our declarations of guilt have less to do with the facts than wishful thinking. There is little doubt that there were those who took a perverse sort of pleasure in Job's demise. They had watched him prosper and succeed, all the while harboring jealous feelings toward him. Now that he had taken a tumble, it was easy to dog-pile and relish in his apparent sinfulness.

They say if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. That's probably what Job's friends were thinking about him. And sometimes we can harbor the same feelings towards those in our sphere of influence whom we have watched suffer a sudden fall from grace. Sure, we tell them we’re praying for them, but we actually find their demise somewhat enjoyable. We find pleasure in trying to ascertain the sin that led to their fall. If we’re kind, we try to remind them that they’re far from perfect. And we do all this because if we can find fault in others, it usually makes us feel better about ourselves.

But what Job needed was encouragement, reassurance, and comfort. He needed to know that God loved him and had not abandoned him. This suffering saint was in need of the calming presence of compassionate companions, not the harsh criticism of fair-weather friends. So when we encounter friends who are going through difficult times, will we offer them a tale ... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Or will we offer them our unconditional love and unwavering support?

While it is easy to condemn Elihu, we must be careful to keep from becoming just like him. That requires God to open our eyes so that we can see any similarities we may share with Elihu. It means that we must ask the Holy Spirit to control our tongues and create in us hearts of compassion. They say that silence is golden. There are times when saying nothing can speak volumes. So, may we ask God for the wisdom and discernment to know when to speak up and when to shut up, so that whenever we encounter anyone going through difficulty, we can be the ones who lift them up.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

With Friends Like These…

1 “Has not man a hard service on earth,
    and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?
2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
    and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,
3 so I am allotted months of emptiness,
    and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4 When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’
    But the night is long,
    and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
    my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle
    and come to their end without hope.

7 “Remember that my life is a breath;
    my eye will never again see good.
8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
    while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.
9 As the cloud fades and vanishes,
    so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;
10 he returns no more to his house,
    nor does his place know him anymore.

11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
    I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
    I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea, or a sea monster,
    that you set a guard over me?
13 When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
    my couch will ease my complaint,’
14 then you scare me with dreams
    and terrify me with visions,
15 so that I would choose strangling
    and death rather than my bones.
16 I loathe my life; I would not live forever.
    Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.
17 What is man, that you make so much of him,
    and that you set your heart on him,
18 visit him every morning
    and test him every moment?
19 How long will you not look away from me,
    nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
20 If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?
    Why have you made me your mark?
    Why have I become a burden to you?
21 Why do you not pardon my transgression
    and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
    you will seek me, but I shall not be.” – Job 7:1-21 ESV

Job pulls out all the stops, unleashing a torrent of pain-induced questions mixed with a heavy dose of invectives against his so-called friend, Eliphaz. He has had enough of listening to pious-sounding advice that only intensifies his misery while raising more questions than answers.

Job’s statements recorded in this section contain direct attacks on Eliphaz as well as more veiled questions aimed at God. It is partly a self-defense and a soliloquy. Job seems to be letting his inner thoughts pour out with no attempt to manage their intensity or worry about the impact they may have on the hearer. He can no longer constrain his growing frustration and allows a barrage of pent-up anger to flow from his lips unabated.   

But even considering his circumstances, Job’s words are shocking to the ears. As followers of God, we can’t help but question the propriety of his unfiltered and ungodly-sounding speech. Can he say the things he is saying? Is it okay for someone to talk like that, especially to God? It all sounds so unfaithful. The degree of his pessimism appears to be off the charts. Where's his faith? Just listen to his words:

"I hate this life! Who needs any more of this? Let me alone! There's nothing to my life – it's nothing but smoke." – Job 7:16 MSG

A believer isn't supposed to think like this, let alone talk like this, is he? Just listen to the way he addresses God.

"Let up on me, will you? Can't you even let me spit in peace?" – Job 7:19 MSG

How can he get away with that? Shouldn't we say something? Shouldn't I quote a verse to him? Doesn't he need a good dose of Romans 8:28?

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Or how about 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18? That's a good one. "Always be joyful. Keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." This guy just needs someone to read him the proverbial riot act and tell him to shut up and shape up.

But wait a minute. Before we blow into another person's despair with our gems of wisdom and some ill-placed and taken-out-of-context Scriptures, let's try to understand where they're coming from. Let's enter into their situation and feel their pain. Let's share their grief. Let's get into their shoes and try to experience what they are going through.

Too often, we try to alleviate someone else's misery because we want it to go away for our sake, not theirs. We want the other person's pain to go away because it causes us to doubt. It tests our faith. Listen to what Job said about his friends: "They arrive so confident – but what a disappointment! They get there, and their faces fall! And you, my so-called friends, are no better – there's nothing to you! One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear" (Job 6:20-21 MSG).

You see, pain is – well, painful. It is hard to watch someone suffer and even more difficult to walk into someone else's heartache and simply be there for them. We want to fix it. We want to pray them out of their situation. We want to counsel them back into wholeness. And while there’s nothing wrong with prayer or biblically-based counsel, God may simply want us to go through this moment with them to provide love and concern. He may not want us to fix them; He may just want us to care about them.

There is something uncomfortable about Job's words in this chapter. He is being brutally honest and it assaults our Christian sensibilities. He is saying things that "good" Christians should not say. He is being TOO honest, and it makes us squirm. But in the midst of his pain, Job has lost all his pious inhibitions. He is beyond worrying about what others think about him because he is fighting for his life. Loss has a way of peeling away the layers of pretense and getting us down to the bare reality of life. It causes us to question, and those questions make others uncomfortable.

But why does the pain and suffering of others make us uncomfortable? It’s usually because we don't have the answers. Of course, those of us who have grown up in the church have the standard Sunday School answers. We know a handful of verses we can apply to a given situation but most of us don't speak from experience. We have been programmed with the proper responses but our words don’t always reflect a personal point of reference.

Job's friends had not walked in his sandals. They had never been through what he was experiencing, so they couldn't relate and it made them uncomfortable. But if any one of them had suffered the kind of losses Job had, they would probably have said less and hugged more. They would have allowed their friend to vent, understanding that it was part of the healing process.

Is there a time to speak up? Certainly. But sometimes it is enough just to show up; to give those who are going through tragedy a chance to express their grief, vent their anger, and ask their questions. God can handle it, so why can't we? I think it’s because, in the back of our minds, we don't like to witness the suffering of others because it raises doubts in our own minds. Where is God? Why does He allow good people to go through difficulties? If it can happen to them, what guarantee do I have that the same thing won’t happen to me?

Suffering causes us to doubt. It tests our own belief system. But that's okay. Part of the reason God placed us within the body of Christ is that we might go through difficulty together. I can learn from the heartache and hurt of others. I can grow from their difficulty – alongside them. Job's friends could have learned a lot – if they would have only listened.

Job made it clear. He was in pain and he was no longer willing to keep quiet.

“I cannot keep from speaking.
    I must express my anguish.
    My bitter soul must complain.” – Job 7:11 NLT

And while Job’s skin was covered with sores, his mind was filled with questions. He couldn’t understand what was happening to him. He desperately needed to know he was still loved because he felt completely abandoned and alone. And in a desperate attempt to seek solace and comfort from God, he cried out, “Why not just forgive my sin and take away my guilt? For soon I will lie down in the dust and die. When you look for me, I will be gone” (Job 7:21 NLT).

It was at that moment that Job needed his friends to show up and wrap their arms around him. He needed to know he was not alone. He needed to be reminded that his God still loved him. But as we will see, Job’s friends failed to hear what he had to say. Rather than listen and love, they will take turns berating their beaten-down friend and attempting to set themselves up as his spiritual superiors and moral betters. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.