Condemning Lips

But you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God. For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you.
Job 15:4-6
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Condemning Lips
The words which we chose to speak to others can bring great relief or great despair.  Words are extremely powerful.  When words are spoken in love a multitude of sins are covered (1 Peter 1:22).  When they are spoken in hate, we condemn ourselves “The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool” (Proverbs 10:18).  Eliphaz says that Job is destroying his faith by not being truthful concerning his sinful condition.  He says Job has lost the “fear of God” which is to say he has lost wisdom and is foolish in his stubborn persistence that he doesn’t know why he is suffering so much. Again, we are confronted with the idea that every trouble in our lives is a direct result of some specific sin.  To often we fall into this way of thinking, forgetting that suffering can come from us, or others, or from being a fallen person living in a fallen world. Our lips condemn us when we speak like Eliphaz and think that only the wicked suffer.  We are children of God! He has given us His righteousness. Yet we still suffer, we still endure tragedy.  So we chose our words carefully, not wanting to given a false witness to our neighbor.  Knowing “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Proverbs 12:18).  We trust in God and His promises and when we can’t make sense of the hurt, pain, and suffering we listen to God’s Word, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).