Job 22-24 - Delight in the Almighty

Eliphaz Says Job Must Repent

Job 22:26 LSB - [26] "For then you will delight in the Almighty And lift up your face to God.

Psa 37:4 LSB - [4] Delight yourself in Yahweh; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

In a sermon titled Delight in the Almighty, Charles Spurgeon explained what this means.

• It means to have joy in God. “When a man hangs his head down he is unhappy: it is the attitude of misery; but oh, when our thoughts of God are changed, and our relationship to God is different, we lift up our faces and sun our countenances in the light of God’s favor.”
• It means to have guilt put away. “Guilt makes a man hang his head. “Conscience doth make cowards of us all”; but oh, my brothers, when the atoning sacrifice has come with all its power to us, when we are washed in the blood of the Lamb, and we are clean every whit, then we lift up our face unto God.”
• It means to be free from fear. “Fear covers her face, and would fain hide herself altogether, even though to accomplish concealment the rocks must fall upon her.”
• It means to have expectation. “Oh, to lift one’s face toward God, looking for deliverance, safety, and rest, and expecting both grace and glory from his right hand!”

Where Is God?

Job 23:3 LSB - [3] "Oh that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come to His seat!

ii. This not only tells us of Job’s sense of the loss of the presence of God, but of his longing to have it back. “Good men are washed towards God even by the rough waves of their grief; and when their sorrows are deepest, their highest desire is not to escape from them, but to get at their God.” (Spurgeon)

iii. “In Job’s uttermost extremity he cried after the Lord. The longing desire of an afflicted child of God is once more to see his Father’s face. His first prayer is not, ‘Oh that I might be healed of the disease which now festers in every part of my body!’ nor even, ‘Oh that I might see my children restored from the jaws of the grave, and my property once more brought from the hand of the spoiler!’ but the first and uppermost cry is, ‘Oh that I knew where I might find HIM — who is my God! that I might come even to his seat!’” (Spurgeon)

Job 23:10 LSB - [10] "But He knows the way I take; [When] He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

iii. “It looks very hard to believe that a child of God should be tried by the loss of his Father’s presence, and yet should come forth uninjured by the trial. Yet no gold is ever injured in the fire. Stoke the furnace as much as you may, let the blast be as strong as you will, thrust the ingot into the very center of the white heat, let it lie in the very heart of the flame; pile on more fuel, let another blast torment the coals till they become most vehement with heat, yet the gold is losing nothing, it may even be gaining.” (Spurgeon)

v. “I shall ask four questions of every man within reach of my voice. God knoweth the way that you take. I will ask you first: Do you know your own way? Secondly: Is it a comfort to you that God knows your way? Thirdly: Are you tried in the way? And, if so, fourthly: Have you confidence in God as to the result of that trial? Can you say with Job, ‘When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold?’” (Spurgeon)

Who Can Prove Me a Liar?