Job 22:4-5
“Is it for your piety that he rebukes you
and brings charges against you?
Is not your wickedness great?
Are not your sins endless?
Eliphaz is one of Job's three friends. He, like his friends and Job, are struggling to explain the "why" behind Job's dilemma. They are wrestling with the concept that Job was basically a good man and now all this bad is happening to him. Although all three friends have beat around the bush in their confrontation of Job, Eliphaz now goes right for what everyone of them has been thinking: "The reason you are in this state, Job, is because you were not a good man. Deep down you must have been a wicked person." Eliphaz does what most of us do. We just figure when we see someone suffering they must have done something wrong and this is "karma" coming back on them. They have a limited view of God and in their justice system all acts that look like unjust must steam from unjust living. Yet, we know the real truth behind this story. We know that God loves Job and that even God spoke highly of Job in chapter one. People tend to see sin as producing an immediate negative affect and righteousness an immediate positive affect. But, the results of sin and/or righteousness are not immediate or even known and observed by us. God sends His rain on the just and the unjust. Let's not make the mistake of Eliphaz. Just because someone is struggling let's not draw a line toward a life of sin. Let's just recognize their struggle and seek to comfort them by pointing them to a life of faith toward God. It doesn't matter "why" they are struggling if they don't first realize the way out is faith in God ... for what ever reason.
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