15. The burden of Elihu
The burden of Elihu
We shall find this the burden of Elihu’s message. It is remarkable, that the moment Elihu spake, Satan is silenced in Job’s three friends. ’They were amazed; they answered no more; they left off speaking’.
Oh, that the tried and buffeted believer would also remember the words that are written for his comfort. ’My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 2:1).
Now, if these three men were amazed, that Elihu should stand up the advocate for Job, how amazed must Satan be when, after long tempting the child of God, he succeeds, in some unwatchful moment, to entangle him in sin. Straight he goes to accuse him before God. Yes, how amazed he must be to find in the high court of heaven that that unworthy Christian has for his advocate the Righteous One, who pleads His own blood.
They opened not their mouths; and the very mention of the blood of Jesus stops the mouth of ’the accuser of the brethren’.’They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb’ (Revelation 12:11). Believer, do think of this. Your utmost efforts to justify yourself can never stop the mouth of the accuser — it can only be stopped by the blood of the Lamb.
Elihu was for Job; but he was not for his self-righteousness. Against this burned his anger. When the blessed Jesus walked this earth, against nothing was He so filled with anger as against self-righteous Pharisaism. At this He was filled with indignation. You may have been deeply grieved that you could not be self-righteous, so as to justify yourself. The very attempt has grieved Him more. But though Elihu was so grieved at Job’s great mistake, yet, oh! how his heart yearned over him. He says, ’Behold my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles. I will speak, that I may be refreshed’.
Fellow-believer, high above yonder thrones and dominions, in that bright glory, there is a Man whose tender human heart yearns for you and me. Oh, brightness of the Father’s Glory! didst thou not take my nature for the very purpose of being a merciful, faithful, tender, loving High Priest? Thou art in the presence of God for us! Thine heart is refreshed in speaking for poor, unworthy me. Thy love is never, no never, weary of me. Oh! wondrous, sweet, divine love. Lord, let it fill the heart of the writer and reader! And now Elihu opens his mouth to address Job. He says, ’My words shall be of the uprightness of my heart’ (Job 33:3). What a delightful change, when, wearied out with trying to find righteousness in myself, the Spirit of God sets before me the Lord my righteousness in heaven. The object of the deep-felt need of Job was found in Elihu. ’The Spirit of God hath made me. Behold, I am according to thy wish in God’s stead; I also am formed out of the clay. Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee’.
What a striking illustration this is of the real humanity of our blessed substitute, the Lord of Glory. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, yet born of a woman. The Mediator or daysman between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. Is it not most blessed that God has thus been manifested to us in the flesh? His terror does not now make us afraid. Look at Him in the midst of poor, guilty sinners, — the woman of Samaria, the sinner of the city, the dying thief. May we not come with confidence to Him?
Elihu rebuked Job for his desperate attempt at self-righteousness: and, then, for the dreadful thought that God was against him: and then says, ’Behold this, thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man;why dost thou strive against Him!’
How simple the question of the believer’s conflict is when this light is thrown upon it. You are not just — you are guilty — is the fact, the sentence of God’s word. There is no difference, for all have sinned. As a sinner, you are judged in the death of Jesus; and as a judged, condemned, dead sinner, by that death reckoned dead, and set aside for ever.
You, as a son of Adam, never can be just, and thus every attempt to set up old self, old guilty self, in my way, is simply striving against God. God is not against you, but God is against this attempt to justify yourself. And I will answer you, God is too strong for you. All must be in confusion while you strive against God. I have just been told an anecdote, that shows this very strikingly. — A dear old Christian, living here, was sorely tried before his death. All the past sins of his life were set before him in such distinctness, and the sense of guilt and shame was so overwhelming, that he almost sunk in despair. At last, Job’s lesson was learnt. He said, ’I see now; if I had only been a little better man, it would have proved my damnation. If there had been anything in which I could have rested for my salvation, I should have done so, and perished in my delusion. But now it is only the blood of Christ’.
Such, with every child of God, is the desperate striving of the human heart against God. Job’s lesson must be learnt. Man’s purpose is to justify himself in some way. It may be by keeping the law, or it may be his mixing up the righteousness of Christ with his own, in meeting the claims of law, and so making out his case just before God. No matter how, every attempt to justify myself before God is striving against God. It is trying to set up my old Adam-nature, which God has put down, and buried for ever. ’When God opens the ears of men, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man’, then must he pass through this sore pain and affliction. It may be through some fall that all self-trust is blighted. Perhaps no believer ever really learns Php 3:1-21 without some fall. And it is no easy matter to count all the things of my religious self loss and dung — to have no confidence in the flesh — to be found only in Christ.