Job’s Friends
When people read the book of Job, it is understandable for us to relate with Job’s judgement that his friends were miserable comforters. He is in suffering and, because we have behind-the-scenes information, we know that it’s not even a consequence of bad behavior. In fact, we know that the reason trials are coming to him is actually because he was considered righteous and so Satan had begged for the ability to test him.
This whole time as he suffers to prove his righteousness, his friends accuse him of sins that he never committed as an excuse for why God would allow it. Rather than mourn with Job, they pile up accusations for which they have no basis. Miserable comforters indeed!
However, there is another judgement in the book against his friends and that is the judgement of God.
After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
Job 42:7-8
God not only warns Eliphaz and his friends. He also is going to make their forgiveness depend upon asking the man they have wronged to pray for them. God’s judgement was that they must be humbled.
Partiality Toward God
But what was it that these men had said about God that was so terrible? In most cases, they actually were praising God while accusing only Job. In the midst of this, Job actually explains to them the problem and how it would anger God.
Will you speak falsely for God
Job 13:7-12
and speak deceitfully for him?
Will you show partiality toward him?
Will you plead the case for God?
Will it be well with you when he searches you out?
Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man?
He will surely rebuke you
if in secret you show partiality.
Will not his majesty terrify you,
and the dread of him fall upon you?
Your maxims are proverbs of ashes;
your defenses are defenses of clay.
God is just and that means there was no need for these men to try to justify God’s actions in the life of Job. That same justice is what makes their partiality so disgusting. Because he is just, he does not approve of partiality, even when that partiality is shown toward him. They sought to deceive in God’s favor, when he is a God of truth!
Modern Ears
Many people can find themselves guilty of this very same thing. How many times have people tried to make light of Hell to try to make God more appealing to the sensibilities of man? I’ve often heard it told that God sends nobody to Hell, but rather that man chooses it for himself. But, of course, the judge, himself, has already revealed that many will try, on judgement day, to justify themselves and it is Christ who sentences them.
Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Matthew 25:44-46
It is certainly their guilt for which they are held accountable, but it is undeniably the judgement of God that they go to their eternal punishment. There are many other things people say of this matter to try to round the edges of the doctrine of the second death but the wrath of God ought to be a terrifying thing.
It’s not just this topic either. When people judge God according to modern sensibilities people rush to his defense in ways that downplay his revealed will on many things.
Feminists love to attack God for his commands on gender roles. The correct response is to recognize that God’s ways are good and it is they who are wrong for objecting. Instead, many believers try to defend the faith by effectively claiming that it was “feminist for its time”. After all, he had women followers and it was even two women who were first witness to his resurrection! It’s not that the facts of that statement are wrong. Rather, it is that it is often offered to plea the case for the faith upon the grounds of feminism. However, that puts the feminists as judge and God as the defendant!
From the eradication of the Canaanites to commands regarding slavery, scoffers are ready to sit as judge against God, accusing him of mass murder, child abuse, misogyny, etc… Rather than rush to try to defend him on their terms, we must recognize that their terms are no good. Instead of trying to deceive such people into believing God meets their standards, we must inform them of how they have failed to live to God’s standards.
On judgement day, none of them will be on the throne. They need to know the one who will.
