Job 15:1-16 - Homiletics

Eliphaz to Job: Resumption of the second controversy: 1. An overwhelming indictment.

I. OLD ACCUSATIONS REPEATED .

1 . Unprofitable talk. The replies given by Job in the preceding colloquy Eliphaz characterizes as

2 . Manifest impiety. Eliphaz had already ( Job 4:6 ) insinuated that Job was devoid of true religion; here he regards the insinuation as substantiated by the conduct of Job himself in three particulars.

3 . Astounding presumption. Stung by Job's ridicule of himself and his colleagues ( Job 12:2 ), and forgetful that "a soft answer turneth away wrath," while " grievous words stir up anger' ( Proverbs 15:1 ) Eliphaz retorts, with a keen-edged irony scarcely second to Job's, that no doubt Job was a wise man, a very wise man, in fact the only wise man, since

4 . Contemptuous indifference.

5 . Passionate rebellion. Job allowed his feelings to get the better of his understanding—his passion to overwhelm his judgment. It is the part of wisdom and the work of grace to restrain angry emotions ( Proverbs 29:8 ; Ephesians 4:26 ). Uncontrolled excitement leads to sin ( Proverbs 29:22 ). It had hurried Job into vehement expressions against God, which seemed to show an embittered and hostile spirit in

II. OLD THEOLOGY RESTATED . The crowning sin of Job, in the estimation of Eliphaz, was his persistent attempts at self-justification. As if to give this tremendous heresy its final quietus, the solemn Arabian seer once more advances the humbling doctrine of man's universal depravity, which he establishes from a fourfold consideration.

1 . Man ' s constitutional frailty. Man is essentially a frail and diseased creature, enosh (verse 14); and, although physical weakness is not the same thing as moral pollution, yet the former is inconceivable except as the result of the latter.

2 . Man ' s depraved origin. Mortal man is descended from fallen woman, and, as a consequence, inherits her depravity. So Job admitted ( Job 14:2 ), David bewailed ( Psalms 51:5 ), and Christ taught ( John 3:6 ). To this law human history knows of only one exception. Christ, though the Seed of the woman, was untainted by hereditary corruption. Holy in his birth ( Luke 1:35 ), he continued throughout life "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners" ( Hebrews 7:26 ). The moral purity of Jesus was indispensable to his mediator-ship ( Hebrews 7:27 ).

3 . Man ' s inferiority to the angels. Man occupies a lower place in the universe than the angels who inhabit heaven (verse 15). Yet even these bright intelligences appear tarnished in God's sight. How much less, then, can a claim of moral parity be made good for man? If God's hell, less, the standard of all creature excellence, is so absolute that even the heavens with their holy inhabitants are not pure in his sight (verse 15), it is sheer folly to expect that man can establish his moral cleanness before the eyes of the Omniscient One (cf. Job 4:17 , Job 4:18 , homiletics). On the contrary, man must be entirely abominable in the estimation of a holy God, because wholly corrupt (verse 16), sin being that abominable thing which God hates ( Jeremiah 44:4 ), and which renders everything it infects hateful, because of changing its nature, and making sour, putrid, corrupt, disorganized, what God had at first pronounced fair, orderly, and very good.

4 . Man ' s habitual practice. This the culminating proof of man's total and universal depravity. Wherever man exists he is found to drink up iniquity like water; i.e. to commit sin as regularly, eagerly, abundantly, easily, naturally, as the ox or the horse drinks up water.

Learn:

1 . Men often fail to see in themselves the faults they condemn in others,

2 . The faculty of speech was given to every man to profit withal.

3 . The tongue is badly used when it is employed to either afflict saints or encourage sinners.

4 . "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

5 . Prayer is one of the natural instincts of the human heart.

6 . A man's creed is commonly an index to his character.

7 . The man who condemns himself need not wonder if he be condemned by others.

8 . The older a man grows the wiser should he become.

9 . Divine consolation may be, but is not always, administered by man.

10. "Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."

11. The month should never be allowed to go wit. hoot a bridle.

12. The doctrine of man's depravity is very old.