Eliphaz to Job - I Speak By Revelation

Good evening.

We'll continue in Job, and God willing, we'll finish chapter 4 of Job this afternoon. So if you turn in your Bibles to Job chapter 4, I'll read the text for this afternoon's message which is verses 12 to 21 in Job chapter 4.

That's page 419 in your pew Bible. When you have that, please stand with me as I read God's Word. Job 4, beginning at verse 12, and remember this is Elipaz speaking. Now word was brought to me stealthily.

My ear received the whisper of it. Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face.

The hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. There was silence. Then I heard a voice. Can a mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?

Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error. How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth. Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces.

They perish forever without anyone regarding it. Is not their tent cord plucked up within them? Do they not die, and that without wisdom? Now God bless that reading of his holy word, and now the proclamation of it.

Please be seated. So, it's happening here in a very odd and unusual, enigmatic kind of a passage here. As Elipaz relays to Job this night vision, this strange experience that he had, and he heard a question in it.

And just so you know, I think the question is where Elipaz is saying this came from the vision, and what follows is Elipaz's own comments upon it. Okay? So, what he has here is this question that he presents to Job, can a mortal man be right.

Before God?

And really, it's so clear of an answer that is needed. It's a rhetorical question, is it not? It's really more of a statement. Not can a man be right, he's saying really a man cannot be right before God.

And this idea is going to flavor the rest of his and Bildad's and Zopar's discourses. The impossibility that a man could even aspire to be righteous enough to stand before God. Now theirs is a retributive theology, a theology of retribution.

This idea that they have where they present really kind of an angry, unapproachable God who keeps his record of sin and doles out punishment to meet each crime. All three of Job's friends are going to imply that the Lord visits suffering or blessing on men in proportion to their righteousness.

Part of the message to Job, though, is, well, boy, Job, you really are pretty righteous, so your suffering is not going to last that long. But God is paying him back discreetly for discreet sins. And this is the premise of much of what they say to him.

But for just this part of Elipaz's discourse, verses 12 to 21, I'm gonna look at it in two parts with you. First, we're gonna look at this strange visitation that Elipaz had, that's verses 12 to 16. And then we're gonna look at the question that was posed.

That question, can a mortal man be right before God? The question for us is really not whether a man can be right before God. I'll try to answer that later. But the question I want to answer right now is not to answer his question specifically, but I want to discuss, I want to look, I want to preach about whether Elipaz's vision, his revelation, is even to be trusted.

Do we trust it? Was it from God? You need to be careful, you see, who and what you trust. You need to be careful where you put your hope. Men can help us understand the Scripture, and that's how pastors and teachers and church scholars of all ages help us along.

They help us to understand things that we of a more pedestrian intellect can't. Or they make things clear that were already clear, and they make them more clear. But they can help us. But see, when anyone, no matter how prestigious they may be, when they claim revelation above and beyond the written Word, they are to be rejected.

Job, for his part, never pleads that he is able to be pure before God. Rather, following Elipaz's theology of direct retribution, following along that line of reasoning, he demands to know what discreet sin he committed with mathematical precision that equals his current suffering, which is what Elipaz is saying.

Remember from two weeks ago, A plus B equals C. A is God's holiness, his retribution, his judgment, his justice. B equals the sin that you committed, and C then equals the consequent judgment upon you for it.

So I want to look at this strange apparition that Elipaz had, this thing that is so unusual in Scripture, sort of enigmatic. Let's see if we should really trust it in the first place. Now a word was brought to me stealthily.

My ear received the whisper of it. Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, dread came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face.

The hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. There was silence. Then I heard a voice. And we'll get to what the voice said in a few moments.

That he had a memorable experience is really quite obvious here. No one should doubt that. He had something happen, which he remembered quite well. It shook him quite a bit. But he presents it here as a divine oracle, an authoritative divine oracle, an authoritative divine oracle that's applicable to Job in his current circumstance of suffering.

You recall that he lost his children. He lost his wealth. He lost his health. And what they're saying is, this is directly because of your sin. And that is then buttressed by this vision that Elipas had.

Now in favor of it being a divine revelation, in favor of those who believe it was a divine revelation is the use of this word form in verse 16. I saw the form of it. Now the Hebrew behind that word form is used only 10 times in the Hebrew Bible.

Five times of carved images, and a carved image of course is prohibited by the law, but they're also prohibited because they're misrepresentations of Yahweh, whose form you don't see, whose person nobody saw.

They heard the sound of it, but they never saw the form of it. So five times, remember, five times this word that is used for form is used of carved images, false representations of Yahweh. Three times it's used of Yahweh's unseen form, twice of Israel seeing his form, all the while hearing his voice, and that's while he was on Sinai giving law to Moses, and one time of Moses seeing Yahweh's form.

And we're almost done with the number counting, stay with me. Once it's used in Psalm 17, 5, where the psalmist writes this, As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness. When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.

So that's nine times, and then here in Job 4, 16, always in relation to Yahweh the Lord. So five times it's used of false representations of the Lord, of Yahweh. And in fact, the first time this word appears in our Old Testament is in the second commandment.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness, and there's our word, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, most particularly God. It's used in relation to Yahweh, but in a negative sense of these false representations of idols.

So the fact that some people think that this was a divine revelation, this was from the Lord, or from a spirit the Lord sent, or from an angel, is this use of the word likeness that is used always in relation to Yahweh.

Secondly, righteousness before God is really not the issue of Job's complaint in chapter 3. There he only expresses his anguish, how he wishes that the day he was born had never been or that he had died at birth.

He bemoans having to continue in a life that was so wrought with misery, nor does he claim to be righteous or pure enough to stand before God. But what Eliphaz is saying here is Job has missed the point, that it is his very unrighteousness, slight as it may have been, sort of a grading system here, slight as it may have been, that was enough to account for his misery, stroke for stroke, from God.

And one commentator I rely upon quite a lot, David Clines, he writes here, so trivial a commonplace as that man is not more righteous than God, needed no vision to declare it, and it is quite irrelevant in this connection.

Irrelevant because that's not what Job is saying, this was not his complaint. Clines goes on, there is never a question in Job's mind of humans being more righteous than God. So Eliphaz's point is sort of a non sequitur.

Thirdly, when God speaks, he identifies himself. This goes against the idea that Eliphaz had a divine revelation because when God speaks, he identifies himself. When angels or prophets speak for the Lord, you hear, thus saith the Lord, this is the word of the Lord to you.

I was sent by God to tell you this. I, the angel, I, the prophet, and here's the word of the Lord to you. In other words, God doesn't hide that he's speaking, either himself or usually through an angel or a prophet.

There's no doubt. I say I mistrust Eliphaz's spine tingling revelation. I don't think it was demonic, but I think maybe he had a dream that was spawned in his own imagination. Whichever is the case, the fact that there is no clear author or sender here raises my caution and raises even my suspicion here that he had some message from heaven to give to Job.

Now, consider along with me, I just want to convince you of this point. In Galatians 1, verses 11 -12, where Paul claims inspiration from God, he says, For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now, this is not a spirit gliding past his face. This is not his hair standing up on end in some form that he can't describe. What is Paul saying? What I preached to you came to me directly from the Lord Jesus Christ.

He lays it out for them. It's plain and it's clear. Amos chapter 3, verses 7 and 8. For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets.

The lion has roared.

Who will not fear?

The Lord God has spoken. Who can but prophesy? He's fearful. Yes, of course, it would be a fearful thing to meet the living God. But an unidentified, uncertain spirit floating by, I just don't trust it.

Remember, too, what Jesus said at his arrest. The Lord Jesus Christ, in John's gospel, he said this, I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all the Jews come together.

I have said nothing in secret. Now, here's the Lord Jesus Christ in his incarnation, the Lord himself, saying here I am in my humanity, sitting in the temple, in the courtyard, wherever, preaching openly and plainly and telling you these are the very words of God.

Plain, full disclosure, I think we would call it today. We have to be careful who we trust and what we trust. These spine-tingling revelations, these things that are just hard to pin down in Scripture, that take a lot of verbal manipulations to make sense so it all clicks in place.

It's that sort of thing where you have that aha moment. Have you ever had that? You go, well, that guy makes sense. I never thought of it that way. I couldn't put those pieces of the puzzle together. But as soon as you get outside the door, it just kind of all vaporizes.

You go, wait, how did that work? What did he say? Which Scripture did he use to confirm this or that point? I think that's sort of what's happening with Eliphaz here. I guess you can see my prejudice.

I don't like his lack of clarity. I don't like the certainty of who this came from or where this came from. You know, early in my Christian life, we hosted a Bible study at our home for Jews for Jesus.

Everyone was welcome, but it was mostly Jewish believers. We had about a dozen. Now, if you've known many converted Jews, present company excluded, you know them to fall into two camps largely. They can become extremely dispensational with this very bright, firm line between church and Israel.

Or they can be very charismatic, very word of faith kind of oriented. Now, one of the latter group used to come to this Bible study that we had. Sue would get mad at me because I couldn't remember her name.

I just called her the loud person. The way she talked, she was loud and she was boisterous and kind of dominated everything. But she had this habit of relaying words of God to us, words of truth to us.

And there were these personalized sort of things. Like, Lord told me to tell you, and she'd say something very personal and, you know, unrelated to anything that was in my life or the person she was talking to.

How do you know that? I would ask her. Where are you getting this from? And she would give these answers. It was sort of like Eliphaz's revelation here. You know, I just felt it. Oh, the Spirit moved me.

My chest burned with, you know, flames of fire like the disciples going to the road to Emmaus.

Excuse me.

So she wanted to tell you things, and they come from the Lord. I put a stop to it once when she finally wanted to pray me up a tongue. When she found out I didn't speak in tongues. She wanted to pray me one up.

She pulled me down. We were going to pray on our knees at the coffee table in front of everybody. And I'd have a tongue by the time she was done. And I just shut it down. My point there is, and it relates back to Eliphaz, we just need to be careful when people are trying to be authoritative with us and claiming some kind of divine revelation or some kind of insight into the Scripture that just doesn't feel like anything your pastor has told you before that made sense to you.

Like your good Pastor Conley here, who is almost famous in my mind for making good sense of things. You can follow it. You can see it in the Scripture, right? I would say most preachers who come here, Conley's careful who he allows on this pulpit.

You can see where it comes from. Even if you don't agree, you can see it comes from the Scripture. I'm telling you what I think. Here's the reasons for it. When people don't have a solid reason for it, and they can't take you back to the Word of God plainly, that's very important.

Not a spirit gliding past your face. Not a likeness that you can't wrap your arms around. Not something that makes your hair stand on end. Something that calms or encourages your spirit or convicts you of sin because it's the plain Word of God, the apostolic Word that we have.

Now God can, and according to His Word, He does use you or me to relay His Word to each other, to rebuke, to encourage, to tear down strongholds, to fortify our strengths together. But it's not by means of some mysterious phantasm.

We speak God's Word to each other from the revealed Word of God, as is fit for the occasion and is good for the person. Ephesians 4 .29. And I would argue that Elipaz's revelation and his giving of it to Job fails at all points here.

So what is his question?

This rhetorical question. Let's look at this for a minute. Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? Well, the obvious answer is what? No, of course not. For Elipaz, it serves to justify God's assumed wrath against Job and lays the foundation for his theology of retribution.

See, he's saying if you're not right with God, you deserve what He's given you. And in relation to your righteousness, as your righteousness ebbs and flows, so also will God's punishment and His rewards to you ebb and flow.

And what Elipaz lives out, though, because the part I said about the rewards is sort of implied, is he leaves out that opposite side of the coin. If you're doing well in this world, that means God is quite pleased with you and you deserve it.

We spoke about this a while ago, a few weeks ago, that if you deserve the good, if you can go to God and say, look at these things I checked off the list, these good works to do, and I walked in these good works, and I glorified you in this and that way, so Lord, where is my reward now?

And if God has to give you one, there's no grace because then it's all of works. And then there's no gospel because by grace you've been saved through faith. It's not of yourselves. It's not of works.

It's not your own doing. It's the gift of God. Like Jesus' disciples, you remember them assuming that the man who was born blind was born blind because of sin? And it seems to me implied that they thought he was born blind with this discreet judgment upon him because of discreet sin, either his or his parents, which Jesus says, no, neither his parents nor he sinned, but that the works of God should be shown in him.

They totally didn't get it. And remember the disciples' amazement when Jesus said it's harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. What's the problem with that statement?

Because rich people, in their mind, in their view, in that Jewish view at the time, rich people were blessed. And they're blessed because they're righteous. And that's why God gave them so much wealth.

So that's the question.

Can a mortal man be right before God? Even in his servants he puts no trust. Eliphaz commenting on his vision. And his angels he charges with error. How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.

Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces. They perish forever without anyone regarding it. Is not their tent cord plucked up within them? Do they not die, and that without wisdom? In a word, we don't last long.

And in a word, all God has to do is look toward us and breathe.

And we're gone.

We're like the grass that flourishes in the morning and is gone by evening. Now, verses 18 and 19 are a single sentence with two clause. And the first clause is about God's trust in his servants and angels.

And the second comparing the lesser trust that is due to men. Now, if God's angels are prophets, and I take servants to be prophets, can be charged with error, what he's saying is, how much more you, Job?

In Job's time there weren't prophets in the more common sense because the law from which the prophets brought their charges had not yet been given. And I, of course, mean the law from Sinai. But he could have meant men like Noah, who in the young earth framework weren't that much prior to Job.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had some prophetic ministry. Joseph, if he was known then, was certainly a prophet. It could also be the angels charged with error are those that consorted with the daughters of men in Genesis 6.

But if that be the case, as some commentators would posit, if that be the case, then Job is not less, but he's more righteous and more trustworthy than those angels. So there's a lot of mix-up here in Elipaz's premise, in his theology, in just the whole way he lays out this question.

But back to that question, can a mortal man be right before God? And again, no, absolutely not. Martin Luther tortured himself over his unfitness before God, and the thought of it terrified him. The Puritans taught us a good and holy pessimism about ourselves and our standing before God on our own merits.

But see, that's just the point. This is just the point of the gospel. Because it is not my spirituality that commends me to God. It's not your good works, it's not your righteousness, it's not your holiness that brings you to the Lord God.

Not at all. It's Christ's and his alone. I fail often, as you do. And still that's not quite the point, but it is because it is God who works in you to will and to work for his good pleasure. And Peter, in one sentence, sums up a lot of what Galatians 5, 16 -22 says.

He says, So a mortal man, right before God? Not a chance. Elipaz's question's rhetorical. It can only be answered in the negative. But see, he asks the wrong question. And remember, as I go on, my hermeneutical key to how I'm taking this book of Job and these discourses is from the end of Job, in chapter 42 and verse 7, when God says to Elipaz,.

So remember, one of my premises and how I look at everything that I'm preaching through Job is that God is angry at the whole thing. He's not picking out and saying, well, you did pretty good with this sentence.

This one over here made me a little angry. This one burned with anger. You got back on track over here. It's nothing like that. God burns with anger. Remember, that's my premise. So how can a man... The question is wrong.

Not, can a mortal man be right with God? The question should be this. How can a mortal man be right with God? Not, can he? Obviously you can't. But how can you? And that has an answer.

If I was to ask you,.

How can a mortal man be right with God? You can answer that. The first answer is, well, you cannot. Emphasis mine. You cannot. Only the man Jesus Christ was right with God and only by faith in Christ and trusting Him as your advocate before God can you be right with Him.

Because by faith it is He whose righteousness is seen as your own. That's 2 Corinthians 5 .21.

I quote so often.

He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. So that in Him, of course, as God the Father making and God the Son being made sin for us, we become the righteousness of God. You see, can a mortal man be right before God?

The answer is a resounding yes. As long as we equally resound with the answer, can I do it myself?

No.

Simply no. That's impossible. But Christ said, nothing shall be impossible with God. And when the Lord finally weighs in, He rebukes Elipaz for even asking such a question. Job summed it up this way. He says, you, he's speaking to the Lord, you, the Lord, you ask me, who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?

Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Again, relying on David Klein's, can a man find God wonderful in all he does? That's the question here.

Can a man find God wonderful in everything he does? Like John Piper's Christian hedonism, can you take pleasure in God no matter what? There's the right question for us. Can we rejoice in our Savior during our suffering?

Not because of the suffering. That'd be ridiculous. Not because of the suffering, but despite the suffering. Is Christ bigger, more powerful, more wonderful than whatever our circumstance is? Most of us don't have terrible circumstances, nothing close to Job.

We're in all different stages of life and economic status and all these other things. Whatever it is, whichever direction you're going. Can you take pleasure in God no matter what? This is really the question.

Rejoice during suffering, not because of, but during. Rejoice despite the fact that we suffer. Our question, I think it's the question that Job ultimately answers if we had time to go through this whole book, is which is bigger, our trial or our God?

Which is more powerful, our suffering or the Holy Spirit and His comfort and His help? You think of Romans 8 .26. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

I would suggest that if God the Holy Spirit takes up our prayers that are so laden with sorrow and suffering that our speech fails, have you ever been there? Where you just don't know what to say? It's just kind of a, God, Lord, hear me.

And God doesn't say, well, what do you have to say? That's not what happens. Romans 8 says what happens is that the Holy Spirit brings our prayers to God, and as it were, He makes sense of them. He takes that inner groaning, that faithful prayer in Jesus' name, but that groaning that's too deep for words, that suffering, that loss, that grief, that agony that you can't really even verbalize.

But in faith, you're on your knees before God, going to Him in Christ's name, and the Holy Spirit then takes that moaning and that groaning and that thing that we just cannot verbalize because we can't find the words, and He brings it to God and makes sense of it for us and returns with the right answer, all things working according to His goodness, for we know that all things work together for the good of those who love Him.

The Spirit brings prayers in Jesus' name to the altar of the Father, and there He deposits them with His interceding interpretation. So the question again, can mortal man be right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?

If this theology of retribution that Elipaz has, and I think Bildad and Zopar are his followers as they do this, as they go through this, is wrong. We know this first and foremost because God's anger burned against them.

Verse 16, may especially have brought God's ire because of how it puts the Lord in a box. It goes beyond trying to understand Him. It limits His actions and holds Him responsible to human understanding, which is, of course, impossible.

And this theology also says that every unrighteous deed in word or action must be met with judgment. Now if that were the case, if He was correct about that, who could survive? Psalm 14 has God looking down from heaven, seeing if there's anyone who is righteous, any who does good, and who does He find?

You? Me?

No, not one. And this is what Paul repeats in the book of Romans. No righteous one.

No, not even one.

You remember, Sodom would have been spared if they had found... What did Abraham finally get it down to? Was it five? Five righteous men. Five righteous men who had any thoughts for God. The whole city would have been spared.

No, not one. What does the psalmist say about this? He says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? According to Eliphaz, lightning must come down from heaven if punishment for our unrighteous deeds is immediate and according to the crime each time.

But the Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve. Every person alive at this moment has not been treated as your sins deserve. And maybe we could change that just a little bit and say God does not treat us as our sins deserve every time a sin deserves to be treated.

Because if He did, we wouldn't make it out of the house in the morning. We wouldn't be able to get in our car. You wouldn't be able to start breakfast. You couldn't do anything if God immediately treated you or me as our sins deserve.

Why do...

I should say why do I, not why do we. I don't know if I've convinced you yet, but why do I resent Eliphaz's statement so much? Because the whole point of the gospel is how God overlooked sin until the advent of Christ.

That's in Acts chapter 1730. He didn't ignore sin. Paul's point was that the ultimate answer for sin had to wait for God the Son to become flesh. It was Christ who took upon Himself the infinite storehouse of God's wrath.

All the overlooking fell on His shoulders. Eliphaz's theology of retribution makes the Lord to be almost devoid of love. Certainly not the God who the Psalms go to and say, who could stand? Because implied there is He doesn't keep a record like that.

He strips God of His love. The Lord who regarded Abraham to be His friend, the Lord who redeemed Israel for no other cause, as He says in Deuteronomy 8, that He chose to set His love on them. Why did you love Israel?

I chose to. What's so good about Israel? I chose to. What did I have to offer you, Lord? I chose to. It's the only answer God gives. Why did He choose you or me? We know it's for His glory, and we know that as Christ fulfilled the Father's will and redeemed those who He gave Him.

It's for Christ's glory. It's for God the Father's glory. The Holy Spirit bringing us faith to believe and glorify Christ in that way.

Why?

Because He chose to. I think Eliphaz strips God of that love. The Lord who loved Jacob. There's none right before God, but that's just the point. Not the point that proves His retribution. It's the point that proves His love.

We love Him.

Why?

Because He first loved us. Our unrighteousness, your and my unrighteousness, does not lead to a theology of just suffering. Rather, your and my unrighteousness, our abject inability to stand before God, to be pure in His sight, is exactly the point of the Gospel.

So can a mortal man be right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? My answer is yes, you bet he can. You bet he can. But maybe we have to change that question a bit to slow down some of the exuberance here.

Can a mortal man make himself right and pure before God? You bet he cannot. No way, that's not possible. Your sins have hidden His face from you. Your righteousnesses are like filth before Him. We, like sheep, have all gone astray.

Our sins rise to heavens with Sodom's ashes. With what shall I come before God? God asks the psalmist. Perfection, absolute perfection, only that. So can a man be right before God? Can a mortal man be right before God?

Absolutely.

Because as Jesus said, with God nothing shall be impossible, even the likes of you or me, being able to stand before God. Even the likes of you and me, and all of us in this place, and every true church now preaching this gospel, to know that the Holy Spirit truly is with us.

That God, because of our faith that He gave us, because of our faith in Christ, is pleased with this worship and is hearing it as a pleasing aroma to Him. Can we be right with God? Yes. By our own doing?

No. By faith in Christ, and Christ alone. Because Christ the just stood in for the unjust, and the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Because God so loved the world, they sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Because God, who is rich in mercy, even while we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked, made us alive together in Christ. Because God, far from visiting on you the punishment your sins and my sins deserve, as Elipaz and Bildad and Zopar would have it, as those two follow Elipaz, far from visiting on you or me the punishment that we deserve for our sins, made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, in order that in Him we might become what?

The answer to Elipaz's question, the righteousness of God. Can a man be right before God? Yes. Not on your own doing, on Christ's doing, on faith in Him. And this is why I resent that question so much, the way Elipaz put it forth.

For the reasons I gave you, the little language study we did, I don't trust that it was something from heaven. I don't think it was demonic. I think he had a very strong dream that he remembered. I think it shook him.

I've had dreams that have shaken me. He had one that really shook him. But the question has an answer. And the question is answered by the gospel. That because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, because of Christ the just, because of Him, the righteous one of God, who took our unrighteousness upon Himself and paid before the Father the full price, the full infinite price for our sin, and paid for it all on the cross, because of that, yes, you can be right with God.

Do you trust this Christ? Do you know this Christ? Because only His righteousness will suffice when you meet God. Perfect righteousness, with no blemish, with no alloy in it. His righteousness and His alone.

Yes, you can be right with the Lord. By God's grace and mercy, yes, you can believe, not by Elipaz's theology of retribution, but the gospel of God's love. Believe that on the cross, Jesus endured the wrath of God due for your sins, not the loss of your wealth and family and health as Job, but eternal, infinite wrath.

Believe that God did this in Christ and that He did it for the sake of helpless sinners and we close with what the Apostle Paul wraps it up in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Can you be right with God? Yes, you can. Believe this gospel and be right with God because of Christ. Not by your own works, not by your own righteousness, not by your own holiness, but Christ and plead Him and Him alone.

And Elipaz's question becomes one that we can almost smile at. Can you be right before God?

Yes.