True Knowledge Leads to the Knowledge of the True God

 42 Then Job answered the Lord and said:

  ²    “I know that you can do all things,

and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

  ³    ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

       Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

  ⁴    ‘Hear, and I will speak;

I will question you, and you make it known to me.’

  ⁵    I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

but now my eye sees you;

  ⁶    therefore I despise myself,

and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42:1-6

Job’s suffering was brutal.  It is probably one of the most horrible experiences any person could have gone through in life.  Losing everything in one day is no joke at all.  Job lost his wealth.  For many people in this age, this lost would destroy them.  But Job lost more than just his wealth, he also lost all his children.  That alone would have devastated him.  One more thing came upon Job, his health was also robbed from him.  Then his own wife tempted him to curse God.  The disaster was in full force.  The pain in the soul and in the body worked hard to bring down Job.  Job wailed and lamented his fate as his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar accompanied him.

But what led Job more and more into challenging God was his friends’ misleading comments and knowledge.  Job began by pouring his heart out to God.  But his friends started taking a jab at Job.  Processing the grave misfortune alone without the dark counsels of his friends was already extremely difficult.  But what Job had to deal with was more than just processing his pain and suffering.  Job had to shield himself from the terrible lectures of his friends.  Their accusation that Job must have done something wrong was like pouring vinegar on an open wound.  For them, God was punishing Job for his hidden sin.  It seems like Satan’s attacks on Job was not finished by the misfortunes befalling him, but that his friends had seemingly and suddenly turned into Satan’s agents.  Job’s torture continued on through his friends’ false knowledge about God.

They argued with Job as if they knew God better than Job.  So they held their false belief that God punished the guilty with life of misery, poverty, and sickness on earth and rewarded the innocent with prosperity, good fortune, and health.  In their minds, since Job’s life was miserable, Job must have hidden his sin somehow and God finally took action to punish him.  There was no way for God to allow such suffering to happen to His faithful ones, so Job’s friends thought.  But Job maintained his innocence and defended himself against their accusations.  God’s justice was being debated.  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar believed that God always gave success to the innocents and punished the guilty with terrible suffering.  Classic!

The 21^st century falsehoods are besieging us from every corner, preying on the weak.  The worst 21^st century falsehoods are those we find in the church, when false teachers and preachers darken God’s counsel.  The poor, the sick, and all those who are suffering, whom are looking for God’s help and hope, are easy target for the false teachers and preachers.  Just like Job, the unfortunate people are miserable, and so they ask God: “Why?”  And they request that God would come to their aid.  Many of those people are very likely to be nice people, faithful to God, like Job.  Yet their lives are quite hard.  Success does not come easy for them.  At times fortune seems to be elusive.  They wish for a change in their lives, a change for the better.  They want to get well from their sickness.  They want to be able to have a steady job.  They want to be able to save some money in the bank for future use, especially for their family.  They want to get out of suffering.  In God’s temporary silence, they hear words coming out from church officers feeding them with certain theological ideas.

Some preach that if one truly believes in Christ then he/she would definitely be prosperous in life here on earth.  Others speak that if one truly believes in Christ then he/she would definitely be healed from their sickness.  Or that God’s faithful will never be sick.  And many proclaim that God’s blessings are poured out for everyone who follows God.  All they need is faith.  If they haven’t gotten their request, it is only because their faith is not swell enough.  These people rush into that kind of teaching blindly believing that God will help them.  Years gone by and nothing happens.  Worse, their lives become even more difficult.  Their sickness is worsening.  Their job is gone.  Their money in the bank almost hits zero.  Hope is in front of them, according to such theology, yet they can’t reach it because their faith is not strong enough.  Thus they become even more devastated.  In the end they leave God believing that God is unjust and cruel.  In the end they believe that believing in God does them more harm and thus is not worth it.

Such is false knowledge, which leads to even more falsehood and destruction.  The false teachers exploit the weak.  Most of the first comers leave the church empty handed, only a few claim success, just like any other statistical calculations in the world.  The second comers come not knowing the truth, letting themselves be exploited.  They are too blind to see that the theology is twisted to the max for the benefit of only a few but at the expense of the weak.  Wave upon wave come and go.  The new wave of people never know nor wishing to know the truth, so they become the next victim.  Yet so many are delusional, holding on to the false knowledge about God, taught by false teachers, just like Job’s friends.

The going back and forth between Job and his friends finally reached its culmination in chapter 31.  As the four people had no more words to say, someone out of nowhere uttered words of wisdom.  Elihu spoke knowledge as prologue to God’s true knowledge being shown to all of them.  Our passage today is about Job’s reaction after he knew the true God.  Weak as he was, torn between his friends’ false theology and his own unexplained misery.  Job wanted God’s answer.  He was losing himself in despair and confusion.  His friends drowned him deeper in delusions and misrepresentations of God.  God had to intervene.  God had to step in.  So He did (cf. chapters 38-40).

God made Himself known to all in attendants there.  Job and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and someone out of nowhere who seemed wiser than them, Elihu.  God directed His attention to Job.  He bombarded Job with question upon question.  Each question bears a mystery nobody on earth could comprehend.  Even if given a million years to live and study, nobody would be able to answer all those questions.  Who can ever answer God’s question in 38:4: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”  There are many more questions like that if you continue to read.  God had to shed light to the dark counsels circling around the lengthy debate between wise people.

Job’s jaw dropped to the ground as he saw God with his own eyes.  All his daring challenge went poof like a mist of vapor in a bright day.  He quickly realized that he had crossed the line.  He had joined those who darken God’s counsel, but from the other side, as he opposed the falsehoods his friends jabbed at him mercilessly.  Job had reached his limit.  He knew how weak he was.  He knew immediately that he knew nothing about the things he just debated with the three friends.  His spirit went so deep into his heart of hearts, and he found how he despised himself for what he had spoken to the holy, loving, gracious, merciful, and glorious God.  He met with the true God.  He heard of Him before and he believed the truth of what was taught to him regarding God.  But now it was different.  He saw Him with his own eyes.  The answer he sought he might never receive, but God had showed Himself to Job, and that was infinitely more than enough to satisfy his despairing soul.  In His rebuke, God restored Job’s spirit.  This happened before He restored Job’s fortune and prosperity.  But Job was a different person then.  Although his theology was always correct, he now knew himself and God in a level much deeper than any theology.  Had God taken his fortunes again afterwards, Job would react differently.  Nope, God did not punish Job.  And true, God did not need to explain Himself even when He allowed suffering to plague His faithful.  Job would take whatever God did to him in faith, and this time he would not challenge God anymore.  His maxim in 1:21 remained:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, be very careful with the counsel of false teachers like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.  Fortunately Job’s three friends repented after they were given the honor to attend God’s Master Class on the true knowledge of who He truly was.  But many false teachers today still roam the church and exploit the weak before devouring them completely.  Those false teachers fatten themselves while those who listen to them succumb deeper into despair.  They have become agents of Satan and blur the vision of those who are in need of the true knowledge of God.  They have darkened God’s counsel and they do not feel guilty.

Let me tell you about Costi Hinn.  Costi is the nephew of world famous prosperity gospel preacher Benny Hinn.  Costi grew up following Uncle Benny everywhere he preached.  Costi was even very active in supporting and assisting Uncle Benny in his crusades.  He was in almost every single one of Uncle Benny’s healing crusades.  He knows exactly how Uncle Benny’s crusade works.  As God opened his eyes, Costi finally testified against Uncle Benny and called for Uncle Benny to repent.  In his interview, Costi revealed how Uncle Benny exploited the poor so Uncle Benny and family could enjoy life of luxury beyond most people’s imagination.  Costi said that Uncle Benny traveled around the world in style, as he leased a private jet, and stayed in a suite that cost him $25k a night.  Costi admitted something about how his Uncle Benny operated:

"It's bad news. I was greedy. I was very ambitious for all the wrong things. We were teaching things that were wrong. We were taking advantage of [people], exploiting the poor, using our greed, squeezing every last dollar out of people so we could live the way they could never."

And they did that in the name of Jesus.  Costi also told Carol Costello, a CNN reporter, that Uncle Benny’s operation was like a royal family and a mafia.  In his own words:

"You keep to your own, you defend your own. You never, ever, regardless of what the truth might be, do anything to harm or expose at the expense of family. It's just a tight-knit, tight-lipped community."

Costi remembered how he got a warning from a family member telling him: "you need to pipe down, don't talk about family."  Because Costi was speaking publicly about the Hinn family.  When asked about the theology, Costi criticized his uncle’s theology and labeled it as twisted.  In essence Costi explained prosperity gospel:

"If you take the Bible and you take what Jesus taught and you take some of the promises of heaven and the riches of heaven and the wonderful glories of heaven and you make them a now thing, then you really have a model for your best life now."

Costi added that prosperity gospel is like:

"You put a guy on a platform in a real nice suit in a very beautiful auditorium and he'll tell a whole bunch of Americans, 'if you do this, and do this, and do this, you'll get this.' And God is like your magic genie.  If you rub Him right and do all the right things, your bank's going to grow, you're going to get that promotion, you're going to get that woman that you want to marry, that perfect man, your life is going to be perfect, because that's what God wants for you."

Costi went ahead and said that that’s not the true gospel of Jesus Christ.  Costi realized his mistake, and he repented.  He is disgusted at his old self.  Costi now rejects the prosperity gospel kind of theology.  He is calling everyone who has believed in the Benny Hinn’s preaching or in anyone similar to Benny Hinn to walk away from such teaching and return to the true gospel of Christ.

            Brothers and sisters, do not dwell in the false knowledge.  Resist falsehood.  Pursue true knowledge.  In his pursuit of true knowledge, Job finally met the source of all Truth Himself.  Costi left the false knowledge, even though it brought him tremendous earthly comfort and pleasures.  Do not listen to “Eliphaz” or “Bildad” or “Zophar” or people like them who disperse twisted biblical knowledge.  If you listen to them you will end up destroyed and devastated.  You might lose your faith altogether and leave the true God.  You will be in utter despair and hopelessness.  I pray that as you listen to the true knowledge, you will remain in it even though difficult, and finally truly know the true God who will comfort your soul even in His rebuke, just like He did with Job.  Amen!