AP

Job 11:5-6   Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips against you and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides.  Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin.

It is quite sad reading these words of ‘wisdom’ from Job’s ‘friend’ and ‘comforter’, Zophar, when we know the end of the story.  In Chapters 38-42 Zophar’s wish is granted, and God does speak!  But what he says in 42:7 is not exactly what the Naamathite was expecting: “After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”

There is a good lesson for us all here.  Like Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, we can only ever see a small part of the whole purpose of God’s Providence in any particular situation, either our own or someone else’s.  Three passages of Scripture come to mind as I reflect on Zophar’s ‘waxing eloquent’: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matthew 7:1); “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.  Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.  Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God.  God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2); and “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1). (This last one is particularly scary for anyone who regularly ‘waxes eloquent’ in ‘Today’s Quick Word’!).  May the Lord help me to remember whenever I am ‘passing judgement’ on someone else that I don’t know the full story or circumstances.

Still, thankfully, there are two things in Zophar’s ‘wisdom’ that are correct: Firstly, ‘True wisdom has two sides” – and we usually are only aware of one so far, Zophar!

And, secondly, “God has even forgotten some of your sins” – in fact, my merciful Heavenly Father has ’forgotten’ all of my sins: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12); and “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12, cf 10:17, quoting Jeremiah 31:34).  “My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!  My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!” (Horatio Spafford)   “What love could remember no wrongs we have done, omniscient, all knowing, he counts not their sum; thrown into a sea without bottom or shore, our sins they are many, his mercy is more” (Matt  Boswell  & Matt Papa).

– Bruce Christian