Page 52 - Reading Job to Know God

done anything wrong. Job was suffering, they said, because of sin and we
are not suffering because we are not sinners. Such a view, which is still
held by many Christians, is self-deluding and self-destructive. Now let me
illustrate this for you from the mouths of these men. Let me show you at
least one verse from each debate. The first from Eliphaz. Chapter 4:7-9,

“Remember now, whoever perished being innocent? or where were
the upright destroyed? According to what I have seen, those who
plow iniquity and those who sow trouble harvest it. By the breath of
God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they come to an end.”
That is what Eliphaz said. Look at chapter 15:20,
“The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, and numbered are the

years stored up for the ruthless.”
You see, Eliphaz says I know why you are in that awful situation. I know
why you have lost your family, and you have lost your crops, and you
have lost your job, and you have lost the support of your life companion,
and you have lost the sense of God’s presence, and you have lost your
health, and you have come into these awful straits. It is because you are a
wicked man. You might be hiding your sin and not admitting it, but you
are a sinful man. Eliphaz speaks again 4:22,
“Is it because of your reverence that He reproves you,
That He enters into judgement against you?” (Haughty hypocrite!)
Is not your wickedness great, and your iniquities without end?”
Now watch what he accuses Job of.
“For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause and
stripped men naked. To the weary you have given no water to drink,
and from the hungry you have withheld bread. But the earth
belongs to the mighty man, and the honorable man dwells in it. You
have sent widows away empty, and the strength of the orphans has
been crushed. Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread
terrifies you, or darkness, so that you cannot see, and an abundance
of water covers you.”
Oh, I tell you, this Eliphaz was brutal. He comes right out and he accused
him of all kinds of things. Look at verse 23 of the same chapter.

“If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; If you remove
unrighteousness far from your tent.”
You are a wicked man, Job. Eliphaz believed that suffering was because

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