Job CCXXI

 The difference between Zophar’s accusations against Job and what is happening in much of the church, as far as sin being exposed, is that Zophar had no witnesses against Job; no one had accused him of committing acts of wickedness, it was just a conclusion Zophar and his friends had come to based on the fact that Job was suffering.

Let’s not get it twisted here, because I know there’s bound to be someone eager to defend a wolf who will conflate what Zophar did with what is happening in the church, and conclude that perhaps the dozen witnesses who tell the same story of inappropriate touching by a man that could be their grandfather while using their spiritual authority to perpetrate his evil is the same thing by a different name.

Job was a blameless and upright man by God’s standard, and whom God declared as such. Some of these monsters are so heinous in their criminality that they deserve to be thrown in a dungeon and have the key melted down to slag. The two are not the same. They don’t belong in the same hemisphere, never mind in the same category.   

Men err. Men make assumptions that later prove to be false. Men interpret what they see and come to the wrong conclusions so often as to make it a certainty that if it hasn’t happened yet, it will happen in the near future. God, on the other hand, does not err; He does not make assumptions but knows all things.

If you are an individual giving an opinion regarding some event or situation, you’re allowed to be wrong, you’re allowed to make a mistake, and the honest ones will come out and say as much. If, however, you are an individual claiming to speak on behalf of God, you have no such luxury. You can’t back paddle or obfuscate and say you got it wrong because your previous claim was that you were speaking for God. Either you must admit it was you and not Him, and you claimed His authority to increase your standing, or insist that the omniscient God of the universe gave you the wrong info.

People who insist they are never wrong about anything are dangerous. People who claim prophetic insight and get it wrong are more dangerous still because they present their conclusions as originating from God and should therefore be received as the authoritative voice of the Divine. There is a reason for the harsh words directed at those who claim to speak on behalf of God when God has not spoken.

Deuteronomy 18:20-22, “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ – when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously you shall not be afraid of him.”

Why was the standard so high? Because these men spoke words in the name of the Lord, and the people feared them for the authority they walked in. It wasn’t some trivial thing; it still isn’t, and God has not changed His view on the matter.

It’s not that we’ve lowered the standard of true prophetic utterances; we’ve eliminated them altogether. It’s the fuel that feeds the fires of deception, and with each newly minted prophet, the sheep soon realize is no prophet at all, only after they’ve hurt, wounded, misled, and shipwrecked people’s faith, there is a new slew of excuses trying to shield them from criticism rather than call them out for what they are.

It’s reached a level of absurdity wherein men have what can only be categorized as prophecy wars among themselves, each giving words regarding the other, insisting that the Lord isn’t with this one or that, when in reality He is with neither of them. All they’re doing is trying to protect their wallets.

When God speaks through an individual, that individual isn’t presuming, hoping, or feeling as though they've received a message; they know with certainty and clarity that thus says the Lord, and they are not reticent to declare it.

God will not contradict Himself, nor His word through prophecy. This only occurs when men presume to speak a word in God’s name which God has not spoken. That they are not judged in the moment does not mean judgment isn’t coming. That they can continue deceiving and being deceived does not mean that God is not keeping a record of their pronouncements and will one day judge righteously.

There is no fear of God or fear of judgment with such individuals. There can’t be. If you believe that God is a consuming fire, that He will judge every man individually, wherein everything will be laid bare, and nothing will be hidden, how could you continue down this path? How can you continue to presume and speak in the name of the Lord when He has not spoken?

Not even Jesus presumed. He made it clear that the words He spoke, He did not speak of His own authority, but by the Father who dwelt in Him. Wrap your mind around that one, then juxtapose it with how flippantly some men use the prophetic for their own greedy, self-serving ends.

John 14:10, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.”

If Jesus Himself did not speak on His own authority, what makes anyone currently living think that they can speak on His behalf in their authority? That is the question that must be answered in order to understand how deep the rebellion goes. Someone laid hands on you? Someone spoke a word that told you that you would be a prophet to the nations? Jesus was the Son of God, born of a virgin, perfect and sinless, and even He declared that the words He spoke were not with His own authority but that of the Father.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXX

 Currently, we know in part. Although there is a purpose for all things, God is not obligated to explain what that purpose is. Rest assured, it is according to His purpose, whether you currently see it or not. He sees it, and that’s what counts. He knows your struggle, your hardship, your pain, and were they in vain, were they purposeless, He would not be the loving God we know Him to be.

We trust in His plan because we know His character. We trust in His plan because we know His heart. We trust in His plan because we know His love and the eternal goal He has for those He loves and those who are His. Whether it requires chastening, so be it. Whether it requires pruning, refinement, testing, or purifying, He is fully aware of what is required, of what is needed, of what we must traverse in order to reach the other side stronger, more sanctified, committed, and focused on the prize.

God will not cheer us on if we’re running in the wrong direction simply for the sake of encouraging us. In His love, He will point out that although we are running, it’s not toward the finish line, but further away from it.

That’s one of the elephants in the room that the contemporary church needs to acknowledge and remedy: too often, we offer encouragement rather than rebuke out of a misplaced desire to show love. If someone is headed toward a cliff at full sprint, it isn’t loving to cheer them on. If someone’s actions, habits, or lifestyle are leading them away from Jesus rather than toward Him, it’s not loving to ignore it or validate their practices for the sake of feigning empathy.

Yes, all are welcome as they are, but the message must be unequivocally clear that they cannot remain that way if they desire to live godly in Christ Jesus. All are broken when they come before Him, but they must be told that He must make them whole if they desire His indwelling presence.

As Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again! There is no other way but this. There is no alternative path leading to the same destination; there is but one, without exception, since the moment Jesus said, “It is finished!”

Those who are His, those who belong to Him, those whom He calls sons and daughters, know that He is near, that His eyes are upon them, and that He hears their cry. They are as sure of this truth as they are of anything in life that comes about with the regularity of a rising sun or the changing of the seasons. There is no doubt or shadow of turning. There is no wondering or second-guessing whether He is present, whether He hears, or whether He is invested.

Psalm 34:18-19, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have contrite spirits. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

If you are His, His presence is enough to chase away fear, His presence is enough to chase away despair, His presence is enough to chase away uncertainty and doubt, and replace them with His peace, love, and joy.

Those who do not belong to God have no such respite. In this, Zophar was on point. Since repetition is the mother of learning, generally speaking, Zophar was not wrong about the wicked and what their inevitable outcome will be; where he erred was in assuming that Job was counted among the wicked.

You can say all the right things, but target them at the wrong individual. You can also say the right thing, to the right person, and do it in the wrong spirit. There are nuances and factors beyond the words we speak, and intentionality and purpose play a big part. Is my intention to comfort or wound? Is my purpose to elevate my own self-righteousness in the eyes of others, or to highlight the righteousness of God in the words that I speak?   

Doing more harm than good, even though that’s not what we set out to do, happens often enough when there is no spiritual guidance and only an intellectual reaction to a particular situation.

But, brother, the Bible tells us to speak the truth. Actually, what the Bible says is to speak the truth in love. Yes, you can speak rebuke, you can speak correction, but if they are tethered in love, you are speaking life rather than death, and hope rather than despair. Zophar was not being led by the Spirit, even though the words he spoke were valid as far as the wicked were concerned. He was accusing an innocent man of things he hadn’t done, not correcting or rebuking him for things he had.   

Job 20:20-24, “Because he knows no quietness in his heart, he will not save anything he desires. Nothing is left for him to eat; Therefore his well-being will not last. In his self-sufficiency he will be in distress; every hand of misery will come against him. When he is about to fill his stomach, God will cast on him the fury of His wrath, and will rain it on him while he is eating. He will flee from the iron weapon; a bronze bow will pierce him through.”

Whether it was projection, jealousy, insecurity, or the whispers of the enemy that led Zophar to continue his litany of accusations, given what occurs later in the book, we know without a doubt that he was in the wrong regarding his accusations against Job. God Himself would declare as much, and when God says something, we don’t have to wonder about its veracity. It’s a practical lesson we should all take to heart, and one that would save many much heartache.

Whatever you hear, whomever you hear it from, your first instinct should be to go to the Word and confirm that the two are in harmony, and complementary of each other. If they are not, reject whatever you hear from the lips of men because the Bible is always right.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXIX

 Scripture is timeless. The lessons it teaches us are likewise timeless. To put it another way, the Word of God is evergreen, never withering, changing with the seasons, or with the times. You receive spiritual succor from God’s Word today, as readily as someone two hundred years ago, or five hundred years ago. The only thing that has changed is man’s willingness to humble himself and receive the truth of Scripture. Access to knowledge and its availability have increased exponentially, but those who avail themselves of it have not kept pace. Broadly speaking, it’s undeniable that knowledge has increased, but wisdom has not.

Even when it comes to knowledge, not all knowledge is created equal. There is worldly knowledge, then there is knowledge that comes from God. When God points out that His people perish for lack of knowledge, it’s not knowledge of how to work a universal remote, but rather knowledge of Him, His character, His will, and His attributes.

Knowledge has increased, but it’s knowledge of the wrong things. As far as wisdom is concerned, by all available evidence, it seems as though wisdom has fallen off a cliff, rolled down the side of a mountain, and tumbled its way into a deep crevice.

That doesn’t keep us from beating our chests until we’re bruised and screaming “look at me, look at me, I’ve built a better mousetrap” from the top of our lungs. It wasn’t broken. We just didn’t like it in its original form. There was nothing that needed fixing, but we took to changing it with gusto nevertheless. That, in a nutshell, is the crux of the madness. We’ve gone from “look to Him” to “look at me”, and because there’s only so much market share to go around, we needed a hook. We needed something that would make us stand out.

Given that I’ve run across both, I can say with a high degree of certainty that the gypsy fortunetellers in the old country possess more real power than many of the so-called prophets of today, who are being raised up on pedestals as the newest spokespersons for the divine. At least the gypsy women can guess your name, your age, your birthday, or your dog’s name without the aid of Facebook. This is what ignorance of the word gets us, and since there is never a mention of repentance from those pretending to be the next Oz Pearlman or the next Amazing Kreskin, the sheep lap it up hungrily.

What does guessing the first three numbers of your home address have to do with Jesus? What does guessing how many children you fathered have to do with repentance, righteousness, or holiness unto the Lord? We don’t want God, just our own spiritualized version of bread and circuses. We don’t want sanctification; we just want a carney act to tell us how special we are, because that just reinforces our beliefs.    

Our conceit has convinced us that we know better than God, that we can take liberties with the written Word as we will, do away with the parts we don’t like, abolish context altogether, dismantle the text, then clobber it back together in a way that best suits us, insisting it’s still as originally intended, just an upgraded version. The hubris is mindboggling, yet here we are.

Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

That just won’t do; it won’t do at all. Piercing and cleaving, even to the division of soul and spirit, sounded too painful, so we found a workaround to mitigate the corrective attributes of the living and powerful word of God. Rather than have the Word pierce us to the depths of our hearts and expose the thoughts and intents of the heart, we decided to take a hatchet to the Word itself, make it say things it never did, and so avoid its sharpened edges.

It took a generation or more, but we’ve gone and done it and couldn’t be prouder of ourselves. We managed to blunt the sharpness of the Word, tone down the controversial bits, roll our eyes whenever anyone happened to remind us of them, convincing ourselves that we’d gotten one over on God. Hi fives all around; we’ve perfected the magic sauce. You can now have revelation without relationship, be a servant without submitting to the Master, and live like hell and be guaranteed heaven.

Isn’t that more appealing to the masses? Isn’t that more palatable? No more talk of the Word being sharper than a two-edged sword. No more talk of the Word having the ability to pierce even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, or the most troubling part, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart.

It’s easier to wag our fingers and point at what the world is doing than to look inward and see the catastrophic tragedy the contemporary church has become. As far as God is concerned, however, his first priority is His house, and that is where judgment will begin, flowing outward to the wicked and the godless. God deals with His own kids first before taking the rod to someone else’s kids.

1 Peter 4:17, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?”

It makes no sense that we want to change the world while resisting and refusing to be changed by the Word of God. It makes no sense that we expect the wicked to be more righteous than those declaring themselves to be ambassadors of Christ and prophets to the nations. Physician heal thyself, indeed.

It is the church itself that must return to the living, powerful Word of God, and not shrink back from its sharpness. It is the church itself that must clean house and tear down its idols, and the altars at which they worship that are as a stench in God’s nostrils, before it can be useful to the Kingdom and preach the gospel with the power and authority that have been missing for so long.

Will it? Will the church have a come-to-Jesus moment, a moment of true epiphany wherein it not only realizes how far it has strayed from the truth, but repents of it, acknowledges it, and returns to the basic tenets of Scripture? Given what the word tells us, given what we can see with our own eyes, it is unlikely. The getting’s too good, the vanity too deeply rooted, the praise of men too intoxicating. The hubris has metastasized to the point that we think we can dictate terms to the Creator of the universe. Rebellion has become so commonplace as to have been normalized, and wickedness is now considered par for the course, something we willfully ignore and sweep under the rug because exposing it will risk the income streams we’ve made our de facto gods.

Even so, a remnant remains, the few are being sanctified, the bride is being prepared, and those striving to enter through the narrow gate will see what their heart yearns for, their Redeemer, face to face, and hear two of the most profound words they will ever hear, well done!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXVIII

 So, which came first, the chicken or the egg? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Was there an ice cream land in heaven before ice cream was invented, or is heaven expanding in tandem with human invention and ingenuity? The same applies to Jello-Land, and isn’t there some sort of copyright infringement happening because, technically, Jello is a company that sells flavored gelatin, not the actual product itself? Does the Jello company have a legitimate lawsuit against heaven for naming it Jello-land? Inquiring minds want to know.

Why are you focusing on this? To highlight the absurdity of the claims some people are making on behalf of God, and in the name of God, that’s why. They’re jesters, farceurs, tellers of fables and ticklers of ears, wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest with no connection to the vine or foundation in truth.

Tell us more, tell us more about how cows drive around on tractors, about the unicorns in heaven, about the sasquatch, and other such fables. Make us smile, make us laugh, make us cringe and roll our eyes, but by no means insist that we reflect on our own wretchedness, our faithlessness, our hypocrisy, and ignorance of truth.

It takes less effort to pop a Twinkie in your mouth than it does to cook a meal, but while one may take longer, it’s packed with nutrients and vitamins, while the other is just empty calories that leave a coat of mystery oil on the roof of your mouth. One provides sustenance that is lasting and beneficial, the other an insulin spike that leaves you hungrier than you were before consuming it.

The choice of which to gravitate toward is yours as an individual. I’m not going to hide in the bushes and stuff a Twinkie in your mouth while jump scaring you, nor am I going to drive out and cook you a meal every night. It is you who must determine which is better for you and take steps to ensure you acquire it regularly.

You choose whether you will pursue fables and bedtime stories meant to lull children to sleep, or the power and authority that comes with walking in the will of God. One requires little to no effort, the other demands the putting to death of the old man and the forfeiting of all things for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.    

How do cows turn the key in the ignition if they have no thumbs? How do they know to change gears? Are the tractors automatic? Are there gas stations in heaven, or do the tractors run on sustainable energy sources heretofore unheard of? When it comes to the nature, character, sovereignty, providence, and supremacy of God, there is no need for such banal, laughable questions. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forevermore, unchanging, everlasting, sovereign, and omnipotent.

That’s all well and good, but you have to admit heaven sounds quirky, cute, and fun, I mean, cows driving tractors of all things. You can’t make that stuff up! Actually, you can.

Oddly enough, of all the things John the Revelator saw during his glimpse of heaven, there was no mention of cows driving tractors. He saw the throne, the One who sat on the throne, the twenty-four thrones surrounding the central one, he saw the elders, the seven lamps of fire, the sea of glass, and the four living creatures, not resting day or night saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come”, but no mention of pet dinosaurs or tractor-driving cows.

Granted, John admits he was in the spirit while the individual to whom the tractor-driving cows are attributed says she was translated bodily, but unless there is a different wing of heaven for receiving physical guests, like a solarium, it’s more than likely it’s pure, undiluted fiction.

Just compare and contrast the two. The solemnity, awe, reverence, worship, and grandeur of John’s vision of heaven, with the pitiful recreation of pet dragons and unicorns. Perhaps God remodeled to keep up with the times, one might say, but God is outside of time and does not seek the affirmation or validation of man. He is God! Worthy of honor and praise, worthy of glory and power, for He created all things and by His will they exist.

The God Job knew was the God who reigns in majesty, the God who is high and lifted up, whose train of his robe fills the temple. He knew the God who is from everlasting to everlasting, his Redeemer, and that’s the prism through which he served, worshipped, and had fellowship with Him. Had it been a child’s cartoonish version, replete with tractor-driving cows and sasquatch, would his faith have endured, I wonder?

It doesn’t take exhaustive research to discern the lies vomited upon the unsuspecting by self-professing heaven-hoppers, just a rudimentary knowledge of the Word of God and how ones such as John, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul, or Stephen described what they saw.

Just because we want to believe fables, it doesn’t make them true. Just because what is described is fanciful and imaginative, lighthearted and eccentric, it doesn’t make it Biblical. No, you didn’t sit on God’s lap, no, you didn’t braid His beard, no, you didn’t beat Him at pinochle or spend a week playing Pictionary.

2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”

Even though we knew it was coming, it’s still tragic to behold. Even though we tried to steel ourselves, it still smarts because real people are getting hurt, even though they’re the ones who sought out teachers who, rather than challenge them, rightly divide scripture, and preach the truth, would tickle their ears and speak fanciful fables to them. If you have a heart for people, you can’t help but be saddened by it, even though you know they participated in and invited their own deception while actively turning their ears away from the truth.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXVII

Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord? Perhaps once when there weren’t so many people vying for the spotlight, but nowadays you have to elbow your way through the masses, get some fresh anointing, a new revelation, something to set you apart like claiming to take trips to heaven as often as some of us commute to work, otherwise all you’ll end up being is a servant of Jesus who follows in his Master’s footsteps, and that won’t get you any air time on public access television, be sure of that!

Does it matter that nowhere in the Bible is there a precedent for being physically translated to heaven, coming back, and then making return trips every other week? Of course not! That doesn’t matter. People want to believe, and they’ll believe it because they want to believe it, even if it is wholly extra-biblical.

You’re just jealous that you never got to see the body part room in heaven, witness the grandeur of pet dinosaurs, or smell the aroma of pumpkin pie while walking through Jello-Land, which is the patented, proprietary scent of the Kingdom. Any reasonable individual would think I was poking fun, making it up, finding the most absurd word combinations I could think of, then hurriedly typing them, but no, these were actual claims of an actual person who actually deems herself a prophetess! And you wonder why so many are suspicious and skeptical of anything to do with the prophetic nowadays?

Zophar knew nothing of God’s wager with Satan, and neither did Job, for that matter. Even so, he had no qualms about declaring that Job checked off all the boxes required to be labeled a wicked man. Sure, he could hide it well enough, but then again, the wicked hide evil under their tongue, and do not forsake it.

You’re not fooling anyone with all your talk of your Redeemer living and seeing Him face to face one day. If you were the faithful man you claim to be, you would have already relented. You would already have acquiesced to our collective wisdom and confessed to the wrongdoing we know you to be guilty of. What other explanation could there be? Just because we don’t know of one instance where you have oppressed and forsaken the poor, or violently seized a house which you did not build, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

I’ve lost count of how many times the household of faith was aflutter about the imminent return of Jesus on a specific date because someone made an assumption, saw things that weren’t there, or drew conclusions without any underlying Biblical support. Each time, the reason it has to be a specific date differs, but the root cause of why someone came to their conclusion is the same. They took one passage of Scripture out of context, then assumed, presumed, guessed, contrived, and manufactured the missing parts to fill in the holes in their narrative.

We will not allow for the possibility that some things were not given for us to know, so we have to come up with a plausible explanation as to why Jesus was wrong when He said no man knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven, but the Father only.

Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

Well, yes, Jesus said that then, but he hadn’t met the blind mystic from the Eurasian peninsula, or the fellow from Nigeria who assured us that they knew exactly when Jesus would return. I’m sure after getting a thorough tour of heaven and regaling us with all the wonders it holds, from chocolate rivers to ice cream land, the frequent visitor will get around to asking when Jesus is coming back, and will be sure to let all of us know.

Does the when really matter if He doesn’t find us in peace, spotless and blameless upon His return? Does it really matter how long we have to the finish line if we’ve already given up running the race that is set before us with endurance or running in the opposite direction?

We will always find an excuse to put off doing what we know we ought to do because we’re either hoping someone else will do it or are unwilling to put in the effort.

Nobody in our family likes folding clothes. Whenever a fresh load of laundry comes out of the dryer, everyone finds something else to do that is more important and time-sensitive than taking the basket and going through the shirts, towels, pants, and other sundries, and folding them. My daughters suddenly remember they have homework, I suddenly remember I have to shovel the driveway for the third time that day, and my wife is busy either baking bread or preparing dinner.

Everyone waits for the others to finally break and start folding, and the battle of wills begins. That is, until momma bear speaks in a tone that shatters any hope of levity or mirth, and insists that everyone take their own laundry and fold it before dinner, otherwise they’ll be sitting in front of an empty plate.

Nobody’s quick about it; everyone drags their feet, but we all start folding because dinner smells good and we’re hungry.

God has not only told us what the end will look like in His word, but He has also outlined what we must do to overcome and endure to the end. Build up your faith, build up your prayer life, trust Him, follow Him, know His voice, submit to His will, and here we are saying I’ll get to all of that, but first there’s something more important I have to deal with. I’ll start taking my walk seriously, I’ll start investing my time wisely, I’ll start using my discernment to separate false hope from lasting hope, but first, there’s this one thing I need to research, there’s this one rabbit trail I need to follow, there’s this one straw I need to grasp at, and then, once that’s done, I’ll get to doing what You’ve said I must do.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXVI

 Sometimes the hubris is insufferable. You want to grab the person by the shoulders, shake them a bit, and ask, “Do you hear yourself? Do you hear what you’re saying? Do you understand the ramifications of insisting that people who were martyred for the sake of Christ will not enter the Kingdom because you deemed it so based on your personal prejudices? Do you get that in declaring that someone will be barred entry into heaven based on some arbitrary rule you determined, or some performative ceremony you insist upon is appropriating the authority of God and putting yourself in His place as judge?”

We’re no better than the people who think biological men can get pregnant sometimes. We cling to things that are demonstrably false and will not be moved from our position, no matter how many times we are proven wrong.

If Paul was a demonic plant, then Peter must have been too, yes, the selfsame Peter of whom Jesus said that upon this rock He would build His church. How so? Peter cosigned and vouched for Paul, calling him a brother. If he were a deceiver, then, by Peter calling Paul a brother in Christ, he, too, must have been deceived. 

2 Peter 3:14-16, “Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation – as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.”

Not only did Peter call Paul a brother, but he also called him beloved! Well, there you have it, Peter’s off the list now, too. There go another two books of the New Testament. Eventually, all we’ll have left of the canon of scripture is the book of Enoch and Genesis 6. Yes, I know, the book of Enoch is not contained within the canon of Scripture, but that too was a conspiracy, don’t you know. They left the best, most essential part out on purpose, they did!

The God who is sovereign over all creation missed that one! The God who knows the end from the beginning and is supreme in purpose, will, and design got this one wrong. If He were smart about it, He would have scrapped everything Paul wrote and replaced it with the book of Tobit, the book of Judith, the book of Enoch, the book of Mary, the gospel according to Nicodemus, and just for some added spice, the Protevangelion.

Full disclosure, yes, I’ve read the Apocrypha, the writings of the early church fathers, such as Origen, Polycarp, Augustine, Irenaeus, and Ignatius, as well as later writings by men such as Gurnall, Luther, Knox, Pink, Spurgeon, Bunyan, Ryle, Watson, Flavel, Tozer, Ravenhill, and a score you’ve likely never heard of, but they were never meant as a replacement or substitute for Scripture, nor are they on equal footing with it.

Since the Son of God was the only perfect man to ever walk the earth, in every case, there are things I agree with wholeheartedly and things I don’t agree with, things I understand, and, as Peter says, things that are hard to understand, but I filter them through the prism of Scripture and not personal prejudice. To some extent, we can’t help but be influenced by upbringing, personal experience, and worldview, but we cannot allow those things to dictate in such a fashion as to discount the Word of God in favor of them.

I don’t like kale. It’s a personal preference. My wife loves kale, and that too is a personal preference. The Bible does not make any determination on the consumption of kale; therefore, neither my dislike of kale nor her enjoyment of it is wrong or sinful. Sin is sin because the Bible deems it sin, and what the Bible deems sin is sin, no matter how many faux shepherds try to say otherwise.

If Aunt Trudy all of a sudden decides meat is murder, and no flesh shall evermore pass her lips, that’s her prerogative. It does not make it a doctrine. It does not make it a divine edict. It does not make her more righteous for not eating meat, just as it does not make me a sinner if I enjoy a steak on the rare occasion I can afford it. If, however, Aunt Trudy determines that her not eating meat means no one else should, and if they do, they’re headed for the lake of fire, Aunt Trudy is playing God, and one day she will answer for her missives.

Rather than being diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless, we’re spending our days and nights trying to prove how smart we are at the expense of Scripture itself. Sometimes it’s okay to sit in the corner and eat a slice of humble pie. Sometimes it’s okay to be silent and not offer a hot take on how you feel about what the Bible says. Sometimes, it is perfectly reasonable and even highly recommended that we don’t create new doctrine out of whole cloth in the hope that others see us as luminaries and wise men among fools.

Granted, it’s easier to stargaze and ruminate about Nibiru than it is to submit to the process of sanctification, molding, pruning, and refining, but Nibiru doesn’t save; Jesus does. We’re watering the potted plants while the house burns. We’re rearranging the deck chairs as the ship is sinking. We’re running out of time, but in our arrogance, we presume that God will see it our way, so what does it matter what tomorrow brings? We won’t be here to see it anyway, so back to the talk of black holes and dwarf planets we go. Who wants to hear about all that righteousness and holiness unto the Lord stuff anyway? That won’t get you much traction nowadays, and traction is what it’s all about.

Zophar’s reaction to being challenged was to take offense. I’m certain that not only will some take offense at the preceding pages, but they will also be sure to let me know loudly and repeatedly. Such is life; the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that goes double for human nature.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXV

 Being hated as a child of God is inevitable, unavoidable, and certain. Jesus said as much. The question that remains unanswered is how we react to the hatred and vitriol. Will we wither, shrink away, and attempt to blend in with our surroundings, making compromises in the hope of not being singled out and villainized, or will we stand firm in the truth that a servant is not greater than his master, and if they persecuted Him, they will surely persecute us.

It comes with the territory, and that is something we must acknowledge, be aware of, and prepare for. Given that Job was an archetype of Jesus, and though God found him blameless and upright, his friends concluded he had sinned grievously, and his household deemed him forsaken, the notion that our innocence will keep the wicked from persecuting us is flawed from its inception.

You don’t have to be guilty to be deemed guilty when those declaring themselves to be the arbiters of justice practice injustice whenever it suits them. In their eyes, your crime isn’t that you stole, murdered, lied, or cheated, but that you serve Jesus. If that’s a crime, guilty as charged.

Satan knew Job was blameless. He knew Job had not sinned, yet it did not stop him from unleashing the closest thing to hell this side of eternity against him. There is no mercy, empathy, or sympathy for the innocent. There is no kindness or compassion in him. There is no point during Job’s sifting when Satan eased back on the throttle, concluding that he’d suffered enough, or that his suffering wasn’t fair.  

Job 20:12-19, “Though evil is sweet in his mouth, and he hides it under his tongue, though he spares it and does not forsake it, but still keeps it in his mouth, yet his food in his stomach turns sour; it becomes cobra venom within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly. He will suck the poison of cobras; the viper’s tongue will slay him. He will not see the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream. He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down; from the proceeds of business, he will get no enjoyment. For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor, he has violently seized a house which he did not build.”

You can tell when someone is trying to make a rational argument, a logical counterpoint to what you’ve said, and when their emotions get the better of them, and they just unload, regardless of whether it makes sense, or there is a coherent through line. By this point, Zophar had abandoned all pretense of being comforting or conciliatory. Considering the words he spoke, it’s likely it wasn’t in a monotone voice, soft-spoken and reasonable. He was getting flustered, his ego had been bruised, and it’s not hard to imagine a wagging finger added to the mix as he expounded upon the lot of the wicked.

This wasn’t just a battle of wills; it was war, and there could only be one victor. It should have been easy enough since it was three against one, and that one was clinging on for dear life, but Job’s strength and resolve extended beyond his frail flesh because his hope was tethered, anchored, and cemented in the God he served, and though at times he gave as good as he got, he understood that his deliverance, were it to come, would not come by the hand of man, but the Almighty Himself.

The danger of presuming we possess more wisdom, knowledge, or understanding than we do is on full display in the form of Job’s friends. The entirety of their argument regarding Job and his situation was based on a fallacy, a conclusion they’d drawn based on what they saw with their eyes, without allowing for the possibility that they weren’t as wise as they thought themselves to be. We see this playing out in our modern era with startling regularity, not among those of the world, but those of the church who happen upon some tertiary issue or another and make it the nexus of their existence, going so far as to diminish the supremacy of Christ in the life of the believer in lieu of their chosen pet doctrine.

Such individuals become so entrenched and myopic in their stance as to be defined by that one issue rather than by the presence of Christ in their lives. It runs the gamut, and you’ve likely encountered such individuals at some point. Whether the conversation focuses on the timing of the catching away, if wearing a necktie is a sign of pride, whether not belonging to their particular denomination is Ichabod, aliens, giants, flat earth, or something as irrelevant as wearing a wedding band, if you disagree with their particular take you are worthy of being cast into the outer darkness, and must be disfellowshipped forthwith.

But I thought we were all members of the body of Christ. I thought that having been saved, born again, and serving Jesus as Lord, Savior, and King of my life was the only thing that mattered. Not so fast there, Sparky. Unless you address Him by His Hebrew name, you’re not really serving the real Jesus, and neither were any of those people who were tortured, murdered, and martyred for His name’s sake. They died in vain, forfeited their lives in vain, watched their sons, daughters, mothers, sisters, and wives butchered before their eyes in vain, because they didn’t know what I know, and that’s just the way it is.

And while we’re at it, that Paul guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament and was decapitated with Jesus on his lips, he was a demonic plant, and we know this because he called Him Jesus too. See? It all makes sense now. I’m the only one in a sea of nine billion people who knows the truth, who has the keys, who can unlock the mysteries that have been kept hidden for millennia. Well, me and my cousin Albert, because he believes exactly the same way I do!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.