Job 22:8: “But the mighty man possessed the land, / And the honorable man dwelt in it.”

December 17th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Eliphaz again condemned Job; this time accusing him of oppressing the poor and needy. According to Eliphaz, righteous people aid the poor and orphaned and are always blessed for it; but that Job’s sins against them were “without end” (22:5), which was why he was suffering as he was. Eliphaz basically said, “Job, you refuse to give even a drink of water to the weary or bread to the starving.” Not suprisingly, Eliphaz is again wrong, as God had said otherwise of Job back in chapter 1: “a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (1:8). Eliphaz found it very easy to point fingers and accuse Job of fault based soley on the difficulties he saw Job going through. He was completely unaware of Job’s innocence, and failed to realize that Job was the hero of the story. We need to be very careful whenever we find ourselves beginning to criticize another believer.

There is a great lesson from 1759, when the British and French were fighting for Quebec. Admiral William Phipps, commander of the British fleet, was told to anchor outside Quebec. He was given orders to wait for the British land forces to arrive and then support them when they attacked the city. Phipps’s ships arrived early, but as the admiral waited, he became annoyed by the statues of the saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral. So he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ships’ cannons. No one knows how many rounds were fired or how many statues were knocked out, but when the land forces arrived and the signal was given to attack, the admiral was of no help. He had used up all his ammunition shooting at the “saints.”  We shouldn’t be taking cheap shots at anyone, but how much less a struggling, fellow believer, who we have been told to encourage and bear up, not tear down (Gal. 6:1–3). We, like Eliphaz, may not be able to see everything the Lord is doing in their lives.

“LORD, we need Your compassion for others this day so that we can extend grace and encouragement to them and not criticism.”