Job 22:22

The language is of great beauty, and we might well wish he had put it to a worthier use. "Acquaint now yourself with Him, and be at peace: so good shall come to you." This might well serve as a gospel text. Is it not eternal life to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent? And what peace comes through this knowledge — "peace by the blood of the Cross" — peace preached, and peace held by faith! What good, for time and eternity, flows from this acquaintance! But he is speaking to a man who does know God — as God was known in Old Testament times. So the appeal, tender as it sounds, turns bitter. "Receive, I pray you, the law (instruction) from His mouth, and lay up His words in your heart."

In truth Job knew God better than any of his friends did. How painful to have the most serious of them speak in a way that charges him with worse than ignorance! There are those to whom such a call would be loving and fitting. The mistake was about Job's state... They had no right notion of God's gracious work with souls to humble them, breaking self down, and making His grace infinitely precious.

He urged Job to receive instruction from God. It is surely right to lay up God's words in our heart, but to accept the words of Eliphaz as God's word is a different matter. Job had not left the Almighty, therefore to tell him to return was insulting. Let us never treat a suffering believer as an unbeliever.

Again, we must warn God's people of the snare into which Eliphaz has fallen. Every godly call to repent, to give up sin, to condemn a course of evil, is nothing but an insult if it does not rest on known facts. Such a call has the flavour of a Pharisee's spirit — and that spirit, as with Eliphaz and his friends, must itself be repented of.

Understand, then, that having the word of God abide in us takes work. For example, if I only seldom read the Scriptures, and even then in a rush and on the surface, it is impossible that I can have the word of God abiding in me. No, we reach this blessing only by reading, prayer, meditation, and the ministry of the Spirit. In this way the word written in the Bible passes into our hearts. There it is stored as a priceless treasure, and it becomes the spring of all our thoughts, activities, and conflicts.

We need to depend on God when trial comes. But there is also real value in having the truth and the will of God fill us beforehand. In this way the soul grows strong within against the snares outside. They find the father's teaching already holding the ground.