Job 22:5-20 - Homiletics

Eliphaz to Job: 2. A false accusation.

I. A CHARGE OF FLAGRANT IMMORALITY .

1 . Generally preferred. (Verse 5.) All sin may be justly characterized as great, being committed against a great God, a great Law, great light, great love, great obligations, and great penalties; and every man's iniquities may be styled "without an end," i.e. numberless, since David says of his, "They are more than the hairs of mine head" ( Psalms 40:12 ); but Eliphaz designs to represent Job's wickedness as exception ally flagrant in comparison with that of ordinary sinners, and a fortiori of such good people as Bildad, Zophar, and himself (cf. Luke 18:11 ), and Job's crimes as not only already beyond computation, but, probably, as even then not terminated (Carey).

2 . Specifically detailed. More abominable wickedness can scarcely be imagined.

3 . Plausibly constructed. The charge preferred by Eliphaz had this mark of truthfulness, that the crimes specified were such as a rich and powerful prince might naturally have been supposed to commit. Men's vices as well as their virtues usually adjust themselves to external surroundings as well as to internal dispositions. All men have their characteristic and besetting sins, while there are other forms of wickedness which they cannot commit. A person may shun burglary and yet perpetrate forgery. He who cannot steal a purse may yet appropriate an inheritance. A man may avoid the vulgar sin of drunkenness and yet fall into the greater wickedness of whoredom.

4 . Ostensibly proved. Eliphaz could point to Job'8 calamities as evidence that what he had alleged was true. That calamity had been

(1) sudden in its coming, it had caught him like a snare; it was

5 . Wholly imagined. It was purely a creation of the Arabian seer's fancy. Not only did Job declare it untrue, but Eliphaz himself must have known it to be baseless (cf. Job 4:3 , Job 4:4 ). Either Eliphaz had allowed his excited and wrathful imagination to beguile his judgment, which was not like a seer, or he had taken up a slanderous report against Job, in spite of his better knowledge, which was not like a saint. But passion can disperse piety and confound reason, while malice will constrain even good people to believe lies. Envying and strife are the parents of confusion and every evil work ( James 3:16 ).

II. A CHARGE OF PRACTICAL ATHEISM .

1 . The import of this form of infidelity. It denies not the existence, but the overruling providence of God—in this respect differing from theoretical atheism. It places the Supreme at an infinite distance from the universe which he has called into being, setting him "in the height of heaven," banishing him, as it were, beyond the stars, where "he walketh in the circuit of the heavens," wrapped about by "clouds" which "veil him that he seeth not," alike ignorant of, and unconcerned about, anything that transpires in this lower sphere, and, of course, never interfering in any way with "the work of his hands," which, like a perfect piece of mechanism, goes without inspection or repair—in all this contradistinguished from pantheism, which believes in a God at hand, but at the same time confounds the Creator with his works. Practical atheism says, "The Almighty was once here present, but he has withdrawn ages ago; nature reigns, and all physical phenomena are the necessary result of mechanical laws" (Pearson on 'Infidelity,' Job 3:1-26 .).

2 . The antiquity of this form of infidelity. This was the creed of the men of the antediluvian world, "the old way of the wicked, who were cut down out of time" ( i.e. before their time), "whose foundation was overflown by a flood " (literally, "a river poured out was their firm foundation")—"a strong but suitable expression, referring probably to Noah's flood" (Umbreit). Though not the faith of Job, it was that of some of Job's contemporaries ( Job 21:14 ), as afterwards of some of David's ( Psalms 10:11 ) and Asaph's ( Psalms 73:11 ), and at a later time of many Hebrews before and during the exile ( Isaiah 29:15 ; Ezekiel 8:12 ). Among Greek philosophers it was the teaching of Epicurus and the atomists. The French encyclopaedists, the English deists of the last, and the Comtists of the present century, all concur in this opinion. It is the latest finding of modern materialistic science.

3 . The origin of this form of infidelity.

4 . The wickedness of this form of infidelity. Were there no indications of God's overruling providence discernible, such amazing incredulity might in part at least be excusable. But proof in abundance existed which these atheists might have studied had they been willing, for "he had filled their houses with good things." So Paul told the men of Lystra that God had never left himself without a witness ( Acts 14:17 ), and the Athenians that he was not far to seek, or find, from any one who looked upon the world with open eye and honest mind ( Acts 17:26-28 ). Hence such infidelity is criminal, and to be held in abhorrence by all good men, as well as by Eliphaz and Job ( Job 21:16 ).

5 . The find doom of this form of infidelity. In opposition to Job, who maintained that men of atheistical principles flourished and were happy all their lives, Eliphaz contends that their common fate is rather that of the sinners who were engulfed by the Deluge (verse 16); which fate, though often

(1) invisible to them, coming on them at the moment when they are saying, "Depart from us," as it did on the infidels of Noah's day ( Luke 17:26 , Luke 17:27 ), is

Learn:

1 . That good men may tell lies.

2 . That saints should be chary in preferring charges against one another.

3 . That no cause can be permanently advanced by an untruth.

4 . That atheism is an old sin, and is commonly associated with immorality.

5 . That neither distance nor darkness can hide from God.

6 . That the Almighty can do more for, or against men, than unbelievers imagine.

7 . That God's goodness does not always lead the ungodly to repentance.

8 . That they who now scorn the righteous will eventually be scorned by the righteous.

9 . That God must reign until all his adversaries are overthrown.