Ensign: The Words Of Job Are Just Beginning, ot The EBZ Affair

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 18 October 2013

Job's speeches recorded in the book of Job where he's defending himself to his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar end with the thirty-first chapter of said book with the words: “The words of Job are ended.” We get the impression that E, B, and Z (please don't make me spell them out every time) were roughly his age and sat down with him first, saying nothing for seven days after he'd nearly lost everything.

And they were great comforters … until seven days later when they opened their mouths and speculated scathingly – wow, now THAT'S a phrase! – that this must have happened because somehow, someway, some obscure Levitical law you're not following is keeping you from being right with God. Of course, I'm the only person who ever hears that from someone who speaks first because they're an elder and second because they're trying to encourage me with some “tough love”. Right?

This is why I'm liking Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite (note Job, E, B, and Z get named with only where they're from, and not also who they're the son of) who seems to get known first in chapter thirty-two for getting his wrath kindled, first against Job for he justified himself not God (verse two), then against E, B, and Z for kicking Job when he's down (verse three), and then against them AGAIN because they would respond back to him (verse five).

So after getting in their piece, Elihu got in his. Over the next six chapters. But he did let his elders – hate that word, how about “the people older than he was” – get in what they had to say before he did. I won't go into the full text of chapters thirty-two through thirty-seven here, but it's worth it to us to know why Elihu felt the need to say anything. Look back at verse one: “So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.”

Perhaps you have never noticed four people in the same age bracket talking … pretty much about anything, they can go on for hours! And we have no way of knowing how long Job, E, B, and Z spent hashing out the nature of human suffering before Elihu got there, or how long the pauses were.

Timothyesque is your new word for today. And mine because I just made it up. That's who Elihu reminds me of, that just as Timothy was a partner of Paul's in the New Testament in the developing church so Elihu was the young man who no doubt looked up to Job, E, B, and Z but wasn't afraid to speak out when he heard something he knew was wrong.

It reminds me of the man Paul encouraged Timothy to be, encapsulated in 1 Timothy 4:12 – to not let any man despise (in today's sense of “look down on”) him because of his youth, but set an example in how he speaks and lives.

Until I re-read – correction, as I am re-reading – this passage I never quite got how the LORD's wrath wasn't kindled against Elihu as it was against E, B, and Z. Look back at verse one: “So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.” Elihu didn't speak comparing his own righteousness to Job's, but relating it to God's – essentially, you aren't righteous compared to Him.

Neither am I. Neither are you. Sometimes it takes something really big and personally catastrophic to remind us of it. Elihu was letting the LORD use him to speak and not letting his own experience or belief speak for him; E, B, and Z weren't being bad people with Job, they were just being nearsighted.

Not for nothing do we get Jesus' warning in the New Testament (see Matthew 7:3-5) about motes and beams; metaphorically, motes are small faults that we see in others, and beams are the great faults we have ourselves. And judging from the relative size differences, a beam you're more likely to hit someone else with.

Hence the reason Jesus says FIRST to cast the beams out of our own eyes and then we can see clearly to cast out the mote in someone else's. This is a big effort for me; for a lot of people I expect, it's just so easy as time goes on to feel so secure in our own righteousness, thereby being someone's E, B, or Z that we don't make the effort to let the LORD use us for anything more than speechifying. He needs to work in you, Elihu.

Sincerely yours,

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encouragement too! If you find that I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!

We praise You, Lord, for this beautiful day You have given us! Please pray with me for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence and for communities around our world.

Lord, we need Your strength to fight the natural disasters and human ills to ultimately treat the cause and not just the symptoms; until we who have power change, this world You have made us stewards of won't either.

Thank You, Lord, for all those in leadership and service here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have been given as well as the promise of new life through Your Son. May we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.