Wisdom Truck 20

 

I begin to realize how much like Job I am as I look at the 5 chapters that contain Elihu's speech to Job.  Now Elihu is much younger than Job or his three misled friends, and so he respectfully waits- because he's had enough of both of them! We are told he is "burning with anger" over how the back and forth between them has gone.  Against Job, because he was turned from justifying God to justifying himself (as we learned last time); against the others because the came with accusations but no answers, no help, no mercy.

I am going to split Elihu's five chapters (and not without leaving a LOT of valuable stuff out) into 2 groups.  Group one is seven things that we need to do to lovingly rebuke someone; group 2 are the 4 sins of Job that Elihu points out to him.  Group one is a lot like the four principles that Dr David Jeremiah gave us way back when we started Job, so let's start there.

In order of appearance, the seven guides that Elihu's example give us:

1- Job 32:8  But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand. 

Job 32:9  It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right. 

Throwing out the entire arguments of the 3 friends, Elihu points out- just as Job did last time- it's God that gives wisdom, not how long you've lived, or your many traditions.  Jeremiah's rule- The suffering need encouragement, not experiences.

2- Job 32:11  “Behold, I waited for your words, I listened for your wise sayings, while you searched out what to say. 

Job 32:12  I gave you my attention, and, behold, there was none among you who refuted Job or who answered his words. 

Elihu LISTENED before opening his mouth.  By the time you get to the end of the back and forth, it's obvious that Job et al are speaking PAST each other.  Hearing what they wished to hear.  If you want to rebuke someone, first hear THEIR side.  Jeremiah rule- they need support, not sarcasm.

3- Job 32:14  He has not directed his words against me, and I will not answer him with your speeches.

He's not going to parrot some old talking point, like politicians do.  He's going to give constructive talk, talk that requires thinking on your own. Jeremiah rule- they need assurance, not advice.

4- Job 32:21  I will not show partiality to any man or use flattery toward any person. 

Job 32:22  For I do not know how to flatter, else my Maker would soon take me away. 

He's not here to butter Job up, or take one side against another.  This one is actually going to tie into the seventh, so hang in there.

5- Job 33:31  Pay attention, O Job, listen to me; be silent, and I will speak. 

Job 33:32  If you have any words, answer me; speak, for I desire to justify you. 

Job 33:33  If not, listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.” 

Lesson here- to rebuke someone is not to contest them, but to JUSTIFY them.  This doesn't mean agree with them- the word translated "justify" means 'to make right.'  He desires for Job to walk rightly again, where the 3 'friends' got caught up in the blame game. Jeremiah rule- they need assurance, not assumptions.

6- Same verses- he gives Job a chance to respond.  You cannot help someone without a dialogue.  And boy have I learned that lesson recently coming into this post! 

7- Job 36:1  And Elihu continued, and said: 

Job 36:2  “Bear with me a little, and I will show you, for I have yet something to say on God's behalf. 

Job 36:3  I will get my knowledge from afar and ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 

To rebuke someone properly, keep in mind you should be speaking on God's behalf.  Even if you feel like a 2X4 should be used, that's up to God, not you.  Jeremiah rule- they need power principles, not pious platitudes.  Which is why it ties into #4.  He's not here to make friends, he's here to BE a friend.

So now that we understand how Elihu was to rebuke Job, it's time to look at what he was going to rebuke him for:

1- Job 33:9  You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me. 

Job 33:10  Behold, he finds occasions against me, he counts me as his enemy, 

Job 33:11  he puts my feet in the stocks and watches all my paths.’ 

Job 33:12  “Behold, in this you are not right. I will answer you, for God is greater than man.   

Job bases his contention with God on his having done nothing wrong.  But Elihu answers with the same wisdom John would use millenia later:

1Jn 1:10  If we say we have not sinned, we make (God) a liar, and his word is not in us. 

2- Job 35:1  And Elihu answered and said: 

Job 35:2  “Do you think this to be just? Do you say, ‘It is my right before God,’ ...

Job has come to believe he has 'rights' before God- as if he is an equal.  Ehilu goes on with a description of the majesty of God, and just where Job actually stands...

Job 35:4  I will answer you and your friends with you. 

Job 35:5  Look at the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds, which are higher than you. 

Job 35:6  If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him? And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him? 

Job 35:7  If you are righteous, what do you give to him? Or what does he receive from your hand? 

Answers: nothing.  Without God's love and mercy, you are next to nothing before Him.

3- Job 36:21  Take care; do not turn to iniquity, for this you have chosen rather than affliction. 

Instead of accepting the affliction, and learning from it, as he did in the beginning, Job has turned instead to justifying himself before God.

4- Job 37:23  The Almighty—we cannot find him; he is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate. 

Job 37:24  Therefore men fear him; he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit.” 

Job complains that he calls out to God and gets no response- and Elihu tells him WHY he gets no response.  Again, we can see the same principle in the New Testament:

Jas 4:2  You desire, and do not have. You murder, and are jealous, and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. 

Jas 4:3  You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts. 

Our prayers, like our rebukes, need to be on God's behalf, according to His will.

Now, Elihu has stopped the sin-momentum that the other three started in Job; he is ready at last to hear what GOD has to say...

Picture time

 I have a bankroll of semi-interesting pictures to share today-  thank the Lord not everyday lately has been a rain-out!

We start with a Thursday afternoon walk

It was at this point I got a call from a lady who claimed I was looking into life insurance back in March...

A lot of tall grass depressions where the deer I never get to see anymore took naps

Odd spot for a teething ring

You tell me, we'll both know.  On the back end of the footbridge trail

They tried to grade the road, spent a lot of time making ruts, though

A 300 pound man in a kayak with his wife on his lap.  His buddy, out further: "At least we know it will hold a week's worth of supplies!"

In addition to kayakers, the Latino Fishing Team

Not to mention bicyclers and people turning around 

We move to Friday, where we try out the first of the Fortlandia growlers- Standing Hampton Porter.

And boy, it was good!

Saturday I had found on a FB group that someone took a poll of everyone's favorite ELO song.  Compiled the results and played it to the sweet tastes of the other growler, Dr Evils Belgian Golden

Squirrel was up and rocking out...

Misty, not so much

Sunday was the races and semi-drunken Karaoke.  Laurie proved to have the best voice, though we did hit a few good notes

Brings us to the walk we just got back from...

Bright and beautiful

Lotsa toadstools thanks to all the rain

Misty's find of the day- a mess of apparently too-small fish

Looks like we'll have a raspberry bumper crop

Lilacs at the duck pond

Another busy day at the landing

Water's clear for a change at the bridge

But honestly, we were getting hot, and happy just to be in the woods.

Wisdom Truck 19

 

I wonder, as we have wandered through job, if you have caught on to Job's biggest problem.  He didn't have it at the beginning.  In fact, we (had I been doing just a Job study) would have seen how grounded he was.

Job 1:20  Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 

Job 1:21  And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 

And...

Job 2:9  Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 

Job 2:10  But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. 

But somehow Job seems to get off track.  Then, towards the end, he shows us in chapter 28 he is still, deep down, grounded in faith.  He uses vv1-11 to show the things, amazing things, man can do that no other living creature can, by finding gold and gems by mining, damming rivers, and the like.  But with verse 12, he hits his point...

Job 28:12  “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? 

Job 28:13  Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living. 

Job 28:14  The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ 

Wisdom is not natural; it is supernatural.  And actually, it is BEYOND supernatural...

Job 28:21  It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air. 

Job 28:22  Abaddon and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’ 

In verse 27, Job tells us four things we have a hard time grasping about Wisdom...

Job 28:27  then He saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. 

Let's stop and take stock of these four things, because it is important, and Job knowing this shows himself at the core as truly wise. God saw it- He envisioned it as part of the structure of the universe, and beyond.  "Declared" is literally He counted it like a tally counts, He made the very structure, directions, and limits (to the extent they exist) of Wisdom.  "Established", or as the KJV translated it, "prepared", comes from the word for 'to set up'.  He built it into all things.  "Searched it out" is one word meaning 'to penetrate, to examine intimately.  And Job caps the definition with:

Job 28:28  And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’” 

All of which is different than, even opposite of, all that Eliphaz and co. called wisdom.  Eliphaz claimed they had searched it out... but how can man do what only God has done?  Wisdom isn't learning what the gray haired old men repeat, or what they can search out and pass on.  It is seeing God for what He is.

And unfortunately, that means that Job, while closer than his buddies, isn't quite there, either.  He proves that by continuing on his path of wanting to get back to where he was, when he was a man repsected, and not being made fun of while he sits in the garbage scratching his boils.

You see, for the first time ever, I saw that Job actually spells out his problem.  He didn't realize it, and his friends were too far off-course to see it.  But in all his moaning and groaning, he finally names it for what it is... and the reason I never saw it before is I have only seen it translated this way in the Jermiah Study Bible- and he drew it from the New King James:

Job 30:22 (NKJV):

"You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride on it; You spoil my success."

You. Spoiled. My. Success.  There it is, in all its ugliness.  Somehow, he went from Huimbling himself to the Lord's will back in Chapters 1-3 to resenting God for humbling him now.  Lesson learned: true Wisdom is humbling.  Well, maybe we learned it... but Job hasn't, not yet.  And He's not ready to hear it from a blunt, point-blank God.  And at this point, we will meet Elihu- and Elihu will define things for all of us.

When I'm 64 finally

 My son and I embarked on our Master Plan around 2 pm...

Hopping in his car to head for objective #1, a local brewery.  Of course, we've never been able to get there without screwing up the journey somehow...

...which led us to turn around in the parking lot of the Rang Dong grocery...

...before at last landing at the Fortlandia nano-brewery.

Now I don't make taking pictures of restrooms a habit, but...

...the restroom at Fortlandia IS an exeption!

Fortlandia sevres what they brew and it will either be on tap or in their frig...

Realizing my pic of the tap board was crap, you had... 1) Strawberry Guava sour; 2) Man-I-Juana-Lei-U pineapple blonde ale; 3) Dad's Not Drinking That Craft Crap lager (one of KCs choices for his flight- four smaller glasses of different styles-tastes like a decent pale ale); 4) Blackberry Gosaic Sour (which the barman accidently gave KC in his flight); 5)Knickers Optional English dark (which was KCs actual choice, and he got it for free- I thought it was pretty tasty) 6) It's Hazy Mate IPA; 7) Night Train lager- KC's favorite of his flight); 8) the one I had 2 glasses of, E-Vil Belgian Golden, a truly top-flight Tripel; 9) Maple Bacon Coffee Porter- we've had this before- emphasis on the bacon; and 10) Black Hearted IPA.  After drinks and chit chatting with a group that joined us (to whom KC said I was born in 1904), I raided the frig for a couple of take-homes:

One of course was the Belgian Golden; the other was their Standing Hampton Baltic Porter.  They will be next week's business.   But for now, we move on...

To another local spot, the Arena Bar and Grill.  There we talked to a young man in Komets gear, who was getting ready to leave for Army Basic in South Carolina.  He told us an amazing story that I will relate in abridged form:  He was at the annual Blueberry Festival in Plymouth Indiana, weighing in at 340 lbs and not surprisingly in line for a free blueberry donut.  The line ran past the Army recruiting table, and with extreme persistance managed to get him to sign an "I'm interested" card.  Flash foreward a few months, and happy go lucky had changed to troubled due to work and relationship troubles.  He prayed to God that if God would give him an open door- no matter what door God decided to open- he'd go through it.  Moments later, the Army recruiter called!  He had to go on an extreme diet which cut most of that weight down (though he said the Army was still gonna put him in 'fat camp'), and with his ASVAP scores, he's got some very wide-open doors now.  What an answer- God provides again!

After a couple of more commercial drinks, it was food time...

And soon we were on our way back home, to meet with Daughter Shenan and beau Lloyd, and more birthday stuff...

The haul from Shenan included a bottle of body wash (that apparently I had to be warned not to confuse with beer), some scratch-offs (which I hit one for I believe $10), and a six of Founders Dirty Bastard Wee-Heavy (of which only half survived the night...)  and that litte black shot glass who played a part in the rest of the proceedings.

Euchre ensued, as well as more drinking.  As the skill of my camera work declined as we went on, my card playing improved- after losing 2 tight games, Lloyd and I came back to win 2 blowouts, and took the finale with a last hand I might have made alone, but we were in the barn anyway.

Nearing the end of the night, I closed with a 'stirring rendition' of the Jayhawks' "Everybody Knows".

So final count, two loving kids, one great boyfriend in law, 3 bars (including Bobs), 8 beers (one liberally spiked with bourbon), one candle (which I almost forgot to blow out), and all the memories.