11/2/25PM - Round 3 - Job 22

Round 3

Welcome to round 3

Let’s do a quick recap about what has occurred in the first two rounds

Round 1 - all three friends had something distinctive to say

Round 2 all three friends concentrated on the fate of the wicked

Round 3 the wheels begin to come off the arguments.

Here’s the spoiler

Eliphaz seems to contradict his earlier position

Bildad only gets 6 verses out

and Zophar doesn’t say a word

but in all of it,

they haven’t heard a word that Job has said

and now will indict Job as the worst sinner on earth.

This is what happens when you try to prove yourself right

rather than offer real genuine help to those that hurt.

It’s very easy to be cutting when

you have a clearly defined theological position you are convicted about

Often times this cutting attitude comes

on some of the more fringe issues of Christianity

meaning these are tertiary issues

third level issues that don’t really matter.

Let me pull one out like creation

what if I were to tell you that it’s really ok

for someone to believe in billions of years of creation

and that I believe in a young earth theory

of only six literal days?

Oh buddy, can we get into a fight about that!

You would tell me that scientific evidence

can show that there is billions of years in fossil records

and that God can use billions of years

just as easy as he can use a single day

And I would argue that you are wrong

because doesn’t God have the ability to

create things in a 24 hour period?

and why would God say day in Genesis

when He meant billions of years

And after rounds of arguing

neither one of us would be any closer to God

and maybe even causing disharmony among the saints

as we try to drag others in with the argument

I wouldn’t back down

I might even say some things that were from the NJRV

New Jersey Revised Version of scripture

and it wouldn’t go well

because at some point we would get so frustrated with each other that

neither one of us are listening to what each other says

unless it is to poke holes in the other’s argument

and in the end, people are dying and going to hell

while we try to duke it out

over things that just don’t matter in the big picture.

Here we are in the third round of arguments.

The three friends have quit listening to Job

except to find some argument to leverage their own position.

It sounds like the news channels that go at each other.

Fox wants to demolish CNN

and MSNBC wants to take out FOX.

when they both forgot that their job is to report the news

the facts without opinion.

Eliphaz is going to begin like an ambulance chaser lawyer

and he is going to ask a series of rhetorical questions

so that the jury, whoever that may be

will begin to formulate an opinion and a decision about who is right.

Job 22:1–4 CSB

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied: 2 Can a man be of any use to God? Can even a wise man be of use to him? 3 Does it delight the Almighty if you are righteous? Does he profit if you perfect your behavior? 4 Does he correct you and take you to court because of your piety?

These are easy answered questions to Epliphaz the wise

Can a man be any use to God - No

Can even a wise man be of use to Him? - No

because God is almighty and doesn’t need man

Does it delight the Almighty if you are righteous? - no

Does he profit if you perfect your behavior? - no

Does He correct you and take you to court because of your piety? - NO

why on earth would God pay any attention to man?

Psalm 8:4 CSB

4 what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?

All these no’s are what Eliphaz is thinking

God is so far above us

that even if you could perfect your behavior

there is no way that the Lord God Almighty even needs us

because He is God and we are not.

So it wouldn’t matter if you were

the most perfect person in the world according to Eliphaz

God doesn’t need us

God is God and we are not.

We know differently

but this was a common thought in the ancient times.

The God’s are fickle

They can decide to take you out when they wanted to

They are gods after all.

When they wanted something, they took it.

They didn’t need anything from us

and even if they did and we didn’t give it

they would get angry and begin to do devastating things

So if God doesn’t really need us

and even if we could live the perfect life

it wouldn’t make God happy

then it makes it plain that

because Job wasn’t just ignoring God

but he was ticking God off in some way

because God was taking out His anger on Job

Job 22:5 CSB

5 Isn’t your wickedness abundant and aren’t your iniquities endless?

Do we not do the same things at times?

we may play nice on the outside

but when someone gets what we think they deserve

man are we the first to at the very least

think, “yes, that’s what I’m talking about”

and at worst, actually verbally tell them they get what they deserve.

Don’t believe me?

Just go on Facebook, X, Instagram,

what ever your favorite flavor of social media is

and see how people will tear each other down.

Or go out in the parking lot of some churches

and go to the committees after the meeting

to hear how they speak about the leadership.

So no niceties in the front of this speech

this is the relentless hammering of his friend

after all, Job questioned his belief system

so there are no gloves in this fight anymore.

It’s time to get personal in the argument

no more debate

Eliphaz is about to get into Job’s grill

Job 22:6–11 CSB

6 For you took collateral from your brothers without cause, stripping off their clothes and leaving them naked. 7 You gave no water to the thirsty and withheld food from the famished, 8 while the land belonged to a powerful man and an influential man lived on it. 9 You sent widows away empty-handed, and the strength of the fatherless was crushed. 10 Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread terrifies you, 11 or darkness, so you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.

If I were Job

I’d like to see proof of all this accusations

but in Eliphaz’s sanctified imagination

Job had to have done at least one of these.

Eliphaz just invented a catalog of transgressions.

It appears as if Eliphaz is baiting Job to finally give in and confess.

After all, Job was a very rich man.

People envied and distrusted the rich

why? because he was rich.

So Job was bound to be guilty

and at least one of these would make him crack.

I was listening to podcasts while I was traveling the other day

Did you know that Bill Gates

one of the richest men in the world

has changed his position on global warming?

I mean, first of all, why should Bill Gates be counted as

a person of influence on Global warming to begin with,

and now that he’s changed his position

boy the amount of criticism he gets from those that he used to support.

Why? Because he’s rich!

Not because he’s intelligent

Not because he’s the inventor of Microsoft

the largest computer company on the planet

No he has credibility because he has money

Have you ever been interviewed by a newspaper or tv station?

I have a friend of mine that used to work for a local news agency

He would tell me that when a hurricane hit

They would place him in the deepest mud puddle

at the height of the storm

to make it seem more disastrous than it really was.

These are the same people that after the storm goes away

they have a tendency to find

the largest, nastiest, two tooth looking redneck woman

and ask her question about her single wide 1954 trailer

that took on water and had the original roof blown off.

I remember getting interviewed for a newspaper once.

Newspapers have a tendency to edit their interviews a lot.

I get it, they have limited space

and they want to get the juiciest and most read soundbites in

so they have to edit the interview some.

However, in one particular interview

they asked me questions

and when the article posted in the newspaper

it wasn’t even close to what I had said.

They had put words into my mouth and

made it seem like I had said something

when in fact it was almost the polar opposite

because they left off a line.

Eliphaz is taking a dirty laundry journalistic tactic

and begins to put words in to Job’s mouth

apparently Job is hiding some secret sin

Job 22:12–20 CSB

12 Isn’t God as high as the heavens? And look at the highest stars—how lofty they are! 13 Yet you say, “What does God know? Can he judge through total darkness? 14 Clouds veil him so that he cannot see, as he walks on the circle of the sky.” 15 Will you continue on the ancient path that wicked men have walked? 16 They were snatched away before their time, and their foundations were washed away by a river. 17 They were the ones who said to God, “Leave us alone!” and “What can the Almighty do to us?” 18 But it was he who filled their houses with good things. The counsel of the wicked is far from me! 19 The righteous see this and rejoice; the innocent mock them, saying, 20 “Surely our opponents are destroyed, and fire has consumed what they left behind.”

My wife and I have had “discussions” from time to time

Spirited debates, verbal cage matches

synchronized passive-aggressive misunderstanding

the married couple's version of a knife fight

Or as one person put it

Geopolitical rhubarb

You know what I’m talking about

And I can honestly say that 99% of the time she is right

That she has told me something

About a date on the calendar or some appointment coming up

Or something I was supposed to get at the store

or directions to somewhere we’ve been before

And I just forgot it.

There’s not a prayer of a memory of what she said.

Maybe a whisper of something that I may have heard before.

But it has long been buried in the files of my brain

Underneath all the piles of whatever else happened that day

Or it leaked out of my head

Onto the floorboard of whatever vehicle we were driving when she told me.

But there is that 1% when I know I’m right

The spark of memory that is still there

I can remember the time, the smell, the place

What she was wearing, what I was wearing

Who was around us, the temperature of the day

Who was president, all of it.

That’s the only way I know that I’m right

Is because I can remember and recall all of the circumstances around it.

What a blessing!

And when that happens

the emotions of remembering at so strong

That I would be willing to fight to the death

over my conviction about what I know is right.

The whole, “I would agree with you

But we’d both be wrong” statement

Or “I refuse to engaged in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent” statement might slip out.

I can imagine as Eilphaz begins speaking

Job is writhing in pain, scraping his sores

Trying his best to ignore the insults that he expects will be coming his way

Just looking around at the ground

Scrolling through Facebook

Halfway listening to the babble that is being poured out by Eliphaz

Blah blah blah…

It’s like trying to win a chess game against a pigeon

No matter how good your moves are

It’s just going to know over the pieces,

Mess on the board,

And strut around like it won anyway

And suddenly he hears Eliphaz say

“but you have said…”

Job perks up a little

And then Eliphaz says what Job has said

And in Job’s brain, something awakens

It’s at this point Job gives the look of confusion

The whole raised eyebrow

And would like to a say

Uh, I never said that

I had to go back and look through all of Job’s speeches

and there is nothing that even resembles what Eliphaz has spoken.

It’s at this point they are just making stuff up

to try to prove their own point.

Another person once said

You know you’ve been in a heated debate

When both persons need to look up facts

They are already certain of.

If Eliphaz were to be fact checked.

There would be an empty file.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an argument so volitile

that you would look up things to ruin the credibility of another person

or, worse, make up things to ruin the credibility of another person.

Or even worse,

stretch the truth about someone to make someone lose their credibility.

But why let facts stop a passionate debate!

The interesting thing is

If we were to cut out the this whole first part

of Eliphaz’s comments

This last section actually speaks to wise advice

Eliphaz is going to share how to

Repent and be healed

Repent and be Healed!

Job 22:21–30 CSB

21 Come to terms with God and be at peace; in this way good will come to you. 22 Receive instruction from his mouth, and place his sayings in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be renewed. If you banish injustice from your tent 24 and consign your gold to the dust, the gold of Ophir to the stones in the wadis, 25 the Almighty will be your gold and your finest silver. 26 Then you will delight in the Almighty and lift up your face to God. 27 You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows. 28 When you make a decision, it will be carried out, and light will shine on your ways. 29 When others are humiliated and you say, “Lift them up,” God will save the humble. 30 He will even rescue the guilty one, who will be rescued by the purity of your hands.

Let’s just take this at face value for now.

This is actually pretty good advice

if it was removed from the rest of the stuff he said

This basically says, come back to God

and you can experience peace

receive God’s Word and be renewed.

Take all your valuables and consider them trash

instead worship God alone.

You will have strength, encouragement, peace,

light will shine on you

All will be right with your world

He’s not wrong

for those that are walking without God

this is a great gospel invitation

It’s like Proverbs 3:5-6

Proverbs 3:5–6 CSB

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight.

So many people are walking in darkness

and need the light of Jesus in their life

They need people to show and share who God is

because if we can show and share who God is

glorifying the Father

then people will want the life that we have.

It may not all be comfortable and wonderful

but we can stand on the Word of God.

in 2 Timothy 3 Paul shares with Timothy that life is going to get hard

The whole first part of the chapter

is all about those that would turn against God.

Verses 2-7 is a laundry list of those that are without God.

2 Timothy 3:2–7 CSB

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people. 6 For among them are those who worm their way into households and deceive gullible women overwhelmed by sins and led astray by a variety of passions, 7 always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Then Paul goes to calling out names of people from the past

and then Paul throws out a big but in verse 10-11

2 Timothy 3:10–11 CSB

10 But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance, 11 along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.

and then Paul drops this bomb on his young protege

2 Timothy 3:12–13 CSB

12 In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Kinda wants to make you rethink this whole Jesus thing

who wants to deal with all of that?

Paul, however, has dealt with that

and much much more

He has the experience and the right

to encourage his young apprentice in the faith

so he throws in another big but

2 Timothy 3:14–17 CSB

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, 15 and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

It is the Word of God that provides peace in times of trouble.

When Eliphaz shares in Job 22:22

Job 22:22–23 CSB

22 Receive instruction from his mouth, and place his sayings in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be renewed. If you banish injustice from your tent

He is sharing truth.

But even the devil can share truth from time to time

and will twist it to his own liking if need be.

I am going through a pastor cohort with Dr. Cloer

and several other pastors from the network

It is Adrian Rogers course called, What Every Pastor Ought to know

The course is a video driven course

where Adrian Rogers shares from his many years of experience

what every pastor ought to know.

This past week we have been studying

the integrity of the pastor

including personal integrity, Spiritual priority

Parental responsibility and sexual purity.

We dig in deep and then we share what we’ve taken away

One of the many things I heard Dr. Rogers share

on the topic of integrity is

the devil isn’t going to make you jump off the edge

to do something bad in the flesh

If he were to stand before me now and ask

if I would consider adultery, my immediate answer is no

So instead, what the devil will do

if get you to do something good in the flesh

We may never say it

but he can get us to do a pretty good job without prayer.

and other people may never notice it.

I can prepare a message pretty well without prayer.

I can lead a service pretty well without prayer

I can live my life pretty well without prayer

I can give my tithe pretty well without prayer

I can serve my church pretty well without prayer

Here’s the point

Once the devil has you doing something pretty well in the flesh

He can get you to do something bad in the flesh

because he’s got you in the flesh.

I can’t see Eliphaz’s heart

and we don’t know his true intentions

but based on what he’s saying and how he’s saying it

He’s doing pretty good stuff in the flesh.

I kinda wish we had a follow up on how these fellas did

after the end of Job took place.

Paul says at the end of Ephesians 6:18

Ephesians 6:18 CSB

18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.