Job 20:1-2

1 Then answered [`anah] Zophar [Tsowphar] the Naamathite [Na`amathiy], and said ['amar],

2 Therefore do my thoughts [ca`iph] cause me to answer [shuwb], and for this I make haste [chuwsh]. KJV-Interlinear

1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered, 2 'Therefore my disquieting thoughts make me respond, Even because of my inward agitation. NASB

Have you ever been talking with someone and they just don't seem to hear a word you have said? Zophar is such a person. He doesn't listen.

He would be a good subject for a knock, knock joke.

'Knock, knock.'

'Whose there?'

'Zophar.'

'Zophar who?'

'Have you heard anything I have said, 'So' 'Far?''

And such is the case of people who go through the motions of Christianity, but they don't seem to learn. Nor do they take Jobs warning seriously. But beware, for those who consider that their attitude in life is better for them, but in fact will be more detrimental.

You could pursue life from your own entrenched beliefs, thinking that you are advancing toward or achieving your goals, and then God sweeps you away and someone else will step in to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You get zip.

If you think that you know better and there is not much more for you to learn in life, then you are indeed at risk of losing everything. Or, if you are indifferent toward Gods mandates, believing that your own ideas are better suited for yourself, that whatever it is that you do is more than adequate, and that many of the things that God mandates don't apply to you, then you are at risk of losing everything.

There is nothing worse than to expend all of your life long effort and never have the opportunity of enjoying it, losing it all to someone else.

Recall that Zophar is the third of the three friends thus far introduced in this book. Zophar means 'chirping' or 'to leap.' His home, too, is uncertain as to its location, however Naamah was a place to the west of Arabia, near the place of the future Judah. He is the most impulsive and inflexible of the three. He speaks only twice. His words are intense and are somewhat reckless exaggerations. He will be the first to accuse Job of wickedness. Like the rest of the friends, Zophar promises peace and restoration on condition of Job's repentance.

Zophar is set in his ways, but he is not an independent thinker. He merely imitates the opinions that have already been voiced.

Zophar is not under any kind of suffering, Job is. So why would Zophar get agitated? What does he expect to gain by his insistence that Job is guilty, and that Job should confess?

Job has already mentioned that no one should make accusations, because it is the individual, or ones own self, in whom all fault lies, not in others. To look to others for fault will never help or advance your own cause.

But anyone who lacks truth in them self, lacks orientation to life, lacks capacity for life, and therefore lacks an ability to cope with life. No capacity means no contentment. No contentment combined with no inner resources for life, forces one to become opinionated, or in contrast, withdrawn from life.

Zophar is forced to state his opinions, not based on truth, but based on his lack of inner resources. He is striving for attention and to be considered as an authority in life, but he lacks the wisdom to accomplish that goal.

So he is supported only by opinion, and the recitation of sayings, for his beliefs. Job has already called his three friends' accusations, a pretext for a case against him, not sound truth. And their pretext has nothing to do with Job, but with themselves. Their fault lies not with Job, but with themselves.

In their effort to correct Jobs life, they risk their own destiny and blessing, because their accusations are unfounded, unfair, and out of line. And they don't listen.

If you have not read the Parables of Christ study, or even if you have, you should revisit that study. It should help clarify many of the things we have been studying these past weeks.

Learn humility and set aside a stubborn attitude, lest you lose everything in life, such that another might step in and enjoy your blessings, not you.

Now is the time to post a prayer.