Job 16:19 Also now, behold my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high
Probably everyone listening could relate a story where you have been accused. Sometimes we say we are falsely accused, but the truth is, often the accusation is probably not completely false. Maybe we did something wrong but we meant well or some such thing. There is always some excuse for what we’ve done that makes us feel like we are in the right. Having said that, all of us have probably had experiences where we are falsely accused.
All of us have probably had experiences where we pled with some authority and it felt like our words were just beating the air. Someone may say, “Don’t waste your breath,” and there are times when that is good advice. I think about the economy of words when you are hiking a mountain at 10,000 feet. When I hike, sometimes I am just trying to breathe. I don’t do a lot of talking if it is a strenuous hike, but my kids, who have all grown up with hiking and outdoor pursuits, can just chatter all the way up the mountain. For me there is an economy of words because there is an economy of breath. I want every breath to count.
In Job 15 we find what Job’s words were, and they were characterized as unprofitable. Eliphaz says in verse 2, “Should a wise man utter a vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?” He is saying, “You are filling your belly with air just as you fill your mouth with vanity when you are talking about your innocence.” Verse 3 says, “Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good.” Now, Eliphaz thought Job’s word were vain because he thought Job was perhaps lying. That was not the case, but the truth is that Job’s talking to his friends was unprofitable. They weren’t getting it. They were miserable comforters.
Job answered in Job 16:2, “I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.” What an oxymoron, miserable comfort. How can you be both at the same time? But that is what they were. Verse 3 says, “Shall vain words have an end? Job kind of throws this back on Eliphaz and says, I’m not the one who is speaking empty words. You are. Your comfort has been empty, vacant, and vacuous.” Verses 4-5 say, “I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you.” He goes in the next several verses to say all the good he would do if his friends were in his shoes.
It is very easy to think, “Well, if I were in their shoes, I would do thus and so. They don’t understand me.” They may not understand you, but you probably don’t understand people you think you know well. All of us are lacking, and empathy isn’t always enough. You are imperfect as to knowledge. People don’t always understand me, and I’m sure I don’t understand them nearly as much as I think I do. Job goes on to say, “Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.” He is saying, “I am not the one who is unjust here. I am being falsely accused.”
In verses 17-19 we get to an answer. Verse 19 says, “Also now, behold my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.” He was saying, “My friends have seen, but they don’t see. They hear, but they don’t listen. They don’t know what is going on.” Verses 20-21 say, “My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God. O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbor!” This echoes the words of Job 9:33. He is talking about an advocate.
The bottom line is that there is only one who is both witness and advocate. That one is the Lord. The devil is the accuser of the brethren. It wasn’t primarily Job’s friends and it certainly wasn’t God. It was the devil. There is only one who is both witness and advocate and judge. That is God.
God sees everything. He is my witness in heaven. God has a perspective that no one else has. Maybe you have watched a football game where a player takes a swipe at an opponent and gets ejected from the game, but what was missed was that he was provoked by a push or shove. Usually it is the second player, the retaliation, that gets caught. Maybe you feel that way sometimes. You think, “A bunch of us were doing wrong, but I’m the only one who got caught.” Well, God truly sees everything.
God knows everything. Again, verse 21 says, “O that one might plead for a man with God.” The Lord Jesus does that. He is our advocate. Job’s friends did not understand. Job 17:4 says, “For thou hast hid their heart from understanding.” They didn’t understand, but God does. He sees, He knows, and He controls everything. There is a big difference between complaining and praying. Complaining is saying anything to anyone in a negative manner when the person to whom you speak can do nothing about it. When I complain about the weather, my lot in life, or that people don’t understand me, I am usually talking to someone who cannot change my plight. Prayer is not that way. It is not unprofitable because God is my advocate, my witness, and my judge.
Ultimately, only Jesus could understand. All of us have been unjustly accused and perhaps at times unjustly punished, but only in a relative sense. None of us are innocent and perfect. If we were judged for something we didn’t do, that just serves to balance out a hundred things that we did for which we were not judged. Jesus is truly innocent and perfect. He is God in a body and God the Son, yet He was punished for us. He is infinite in capacity and compassion. He came to this earth and was clothed in human form, so He knows the things that we go through. Only Jesus could understand you the way Jesus can.
Maybe today you feel like talking to other people is like the east wind; it does no good; it is vain, vacuous, and unprofitable. That is why though complaining may make us feel better, it doesn’t make things better. There is one who is both witness and advocate; that is God. He sees, He knows, and He answers prayer.