Imagine you are present when the preacher asks the congregation to open their Bibles to Job 22:21-30. Guided by this text, he urges everyone to fully surrender their lives to the LORD. Your heart is warmed as you ponder the call to make God your gold. You find yourself drawn toward heaven, eager to delight yourself in the LORD and enjoy the full measure of His blessings. It’s a powerful passage, this spiritual exhortation from the lips of Eliphaz. But what if the preacher had begun his sermon not with this warm invitation, but a bold accusation. “Someone here has sinned a great sin,” he proclaims, with his finger pointed directly at you. “And don’t think for a minute that God can’t see you! You had better repent today, or you will surely be punished!” When considered in context, the words of Eliphaz are not so encouraging after all, are they? The chapter has an extremely blunt beginning. At the start of his first speech, Eliphaz had made the charitable assumption that Job was a pious person (4:3-4). Now, for the first time in the book, Job is explicitly charged with being an impenitent and guilty sinner. This has been strongly hinted at all along, but never spoken aloud. Here Job is publicly called out. Eliphaz insists there is just one reason for Job’s suffering: he is a sinner. Not just an ordinary sinner, either. Job is a massively despicable sinner! His evil is “abundant;” according to Eliphaz and there is “no end” to his iniquities (v 1-5). Lest Job be left to wonder about the specifics of this broad accusation, Eliphaz proceeds to spell it out in no uncertain terms. The long list of sins Job has supposedly committed generally involves the abuse of power. He has impoverished his neighbors by demanding security they could not afford. He has refused to share basic necessities with the destitute. He is a privileged landowner, holding all the cards in his hand and refusing to help others. Like a bully tyrant, Job rides roughshod over the weak, exploiting his power for his own enjoyment. That’s why all these terrible things are happening, Job! No wonder you find yourself in God’s trap. What else would you expect? (v 6-11). But Eliphaz isn’t done yet. He also accuses Job of having too low a view of God, as one who cannot see or know all things (v 12-14). He suggests that Job is following the well-worn path of sinners that leads to premature death and judgment (v 15-20). If only he will make peace with God, repenting of all his injustices, dethroning the idols of his heart, he will know countless blessings! (v 21-30). But Job is already a penitent believer. To call on him to repent of sins he has not committed is to pressure him to compromise his integrity. For further meditation: