Priest Daniel Sysoev - Job 11

 How did Job's friends differ in their attitude? Eliphaz relied on the revelations of a fallen spirit, another said that the main thing is the traditions of ancestors, that you need to rely on what they said, and that we have no other sources of knowledge. And so you have no right to come out and seek God.

Now the third friend is speaking, his name is Safar the Naamite. Safar, the representative of the third direction, which we will talk about. About those people who often meet and who existed in Western civilization, XVII-XVIII centuries. This type is a nationalist. And this is what he says:

1Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

2“Should this stream of words go unanswered

and such a speaker be vindicated?

3Should your babbling put others to silence?

Will you scoff without rebuke?

4You have said, ‘My doctrine is sound,

and I am pure in Your sight.’

There is already insult in him, Safar's statement is such pride that everything can be rationally cognized, and he begins to accuse of idle talk and lies, says that you are trying to silence people with words and at the same time you say that my judgment is true, and I am pure in your sight. That you yourself sign the verdict. This is a complete lie. Job never said that he was absolutely right, pure, but on the contrary, he was looking for meaning from God, the opportunity to find out the reason for what was happening to him in the eyes of God, he was looking for God, not his own truth. A well-known phenomenon: whoever is sick with what, then blames that. Then Safar turns to direct condemnation, which is not considered something shameful for this type of people.

5But if only God would speak

and open His lips against you,

6and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom,

for true wisdom has two sides.

Know then that God exacts from you

less than your iniquity deserves.

 Here he claims, completely on nothing, not based on that Job should have received much more than he received, and in addition God had mercy on him. This position is popular. Quite recently there was such an episode: one of our parishioners had an aggravation with her back, and when she came to the temple of God, kind parishioners met her and said, “Ahh, God punished you for your deeds….”, A good approach? Wonderful consolation. There is no need to try to see the wrath of God in everything. If such an approach, then such a person is displeasing to God, and Safar tries to speculate for God with his mind: he turns out to be smarter than God, knows how much wisdom is, his attempt to learn from God is already rudeness, but so, he himself knows everything. There is a type of people who in this world are trying to sort everything out on the shelves. And here is a clear idea that everything that turns out, according to merit, a person should get more, but regretted it. And this little scheme is put on a specific person who is a righteous person who is pure and immaculate.

7Can you fathom the deep things of God

or discover the limits of the Almighty?

8They are higher than the heavens—what can you do?

They are deeper than Sheol—what can you know?

9Their measure is longer than the earth

and wider than the sea.

10If He comes along to imprison you,

or convenes a court, who can stop Him?

11Surely He knows the deceit of men.

If He sees iniquity, does He not take note?

12But a witless man can no more become wise

than the colt of a wild donkey can be born a man!a

Safar is saying the right thing: God cannot be found by research.

One can learn about His being, but nature cannot be determined. This is true. It is impossible to fully comprehend the Almighty.

Here we see the mistake of rationalism - a rather flawed ideology, to assert that everything is transparent to reason, there can be the rationalism of an atheist, there can be clever rationalism, those people who believe in God. But a flawed thing, why? Because it is rational to cognize by virtue of the intellect, reason, it is a failure. Why? The mind is small, God's plan is larger than our human mind. The mind cannot be thrown away somewhere, it is necessary: to use, develop, do everything so that it flourishes, but at the same time it is impossible to atrophy it. Remember how in Soviet times in schools and institutes they taught that you need to achieve everything that all the secrets of the universe will be revealed, we will not have anything unusual, life will be absolutely wonderful and completely scientific. All systems of the human mind have distinguished themselves with special bloodthirstiness, have you noticed? Why? Because rationalism is trying to fit a big life into the small framework of its mind. Often people say that "I don't understand, it means that there is no such thing!" Not only that you cannot understand.

There is modern science that has come to modern things - analysis to the properties of complementarity, for example: what is an electron, wave or particle? It is a wave and a particle. Although these are completely different things. Then he says, he accuses Job: "What can you do"? What is the logic? God is truly above Heaven and therefore you should not twitch. Here is a mistake. Why? If God is higher than Heaven, then it does not follow that man does not need to seek God. Do you understand why? Because God is not a star, a planet that is higher than Heaven, that you cannot approach it. God is a person who can come out to meet you, or maybe not. And if He is outside of Heaven. It does not follow from this that He does not reveal Himself to people. This temptation is widespread, and now people say "God is so high, such a distant thing, He is not attainable, how do we know ...". That's just - this is a proposal of rationalism. How many people this is why the paths go. God is indeed distant and incomprehensible, but He reveals Himself, but people do not want to. There is right and there is wrong.

Safar says further:

9Their measure is longer than the earth

and wider than the sea.

God does not measure a person like that. He rules the world according to other laws, the outlook is greater than that of a person and therefore, a person cannot embrace his plan. But it does not follow from this that one does not need to know him. Job wants to know God himself, do you understand ?! And this is precisely where his main pain is, he wants to know God, wants to know his nature. And then they say:

10If He comes along to imprison you,

or convenes a court, who can stop Him?

If God has done something, then it is useless to argue with him, his power is so great that you cannot throw off the yoke from yourself. This is a sure thing. When God did something, but another question is whether God wants to do so that people do not recognize His righteousness. If the point of view of people was all equal to God, then there would be no Last Judgment, do you understand? Few things to dislike, your problems. God is interested in people's point of view! He created people in his own image, but Safar does not think so:

12But a witless man can no more become wise

than the colt of a wild donkey can be born a man!

Again, the same logic that Eliphaz had. Trying to find out something is a sign of emptiness. The rationalists have an interesting logic, even in modern science, science says: what works and how, but refuses to explain why! Before modern times, the question was posed: what is there for, what is the purpose of a given thing. But rationalists say: "We are small people, we need to find out how it works now." For example, in life, it certainly doesn't work. To find out the purpose of everything is emptiness, stupidity. And what Christians say, the person who cognizes God will find a specific goal for every thing. It is for this reason that the intelligent sees the future. Actually prophecy, how is it different from fortune telling? Not only those, fortune-tellers fall or not. Further Safar proposes:

13As for you, if you direct your heart

and lift up your hands to Him,

14if you put away the iniquity in your hand,

and allow no injustice to dwell in your tents,

15then indeed you will lift up your face without shame;

you will stand firm and unafraid.

16For you will forget your misery,

recalling it only as waters gone by.

17Your life will be brighter than noonday;

its darkness will be like the morning.

18You will be secure, because there is hope,

and you will look around and lie down in safety.

19You will lie down without fear,

and many will court your favor.

20But the eyes of the wicked will fail,

and escape will elude them;

they will hope for their last breath.”

Thus, God will not touch him. It is forgotten that what is the essence of sin? That man was personally against God. This is where a purely mechanical approach comes in. When a person has a lot of sin, he is restless everywhere, suspects everyone, is afraid of everything, and is afraid of everything. And if a person moves away from evil, then it is impossible to hook him in any way, even in ordinary life.

It is rightly said that:

18You will be secure, because there is hope,

and you will look around and lie down in safety.

If a person has done evil, repented of him, then he is justified by God, purified, although there is also a shade here, Safar says that a person must do it himself! The prophet Jeremiah says: "Convert us and we will be converted!" Do you understand what's the matter? Safar offers to make repentance with his own hands. A lot of people come across: I will do everything myself, I will organize it with my own hands, and we will absolutely get even with God ”.

16For you will forget your misery,

recalling it only as waters gone by.

17Your life will be brighter than noonday;

its darkness will be like the morning.

Your life will be clearer. About what light is Safar speaking here? The point is, we know there are several types of light. Light: visible, divine, angelic, fallen angels, human, mind. The place of God is sapphire, like the sky is clear. There is a point of view that sometimes pagan mysticism can rise to this world. Pagan mysticism is similar to Christianity, although in its roots it is farthest, it even happens that the mysticism of light, when a person sees himself as light, and considers this light to be the light of God, it is more distant from Christianity.

 - This is not self-hypnosis?

- Not. Man is created in the image, and God is light, then man is also a kind of light. As Gregory the Theologian said: "Our mind is the third light." Is it clear why the third? The first is God, the second is an angel, and the third is a man. This is a kind of reality. But he inspires a person to himself, inspires as a result of pride. Because he says: "I have reached this point, I have broken through to this, then I am God."

It is interesting that extremely different things, they are similar. The experience of Christianity that God sees is the opposite of the experience of the mystics. Pagans are uncreated by reality and at the highest ascents they are farthest from Christianity. When they say that there is one way to the top, it is a mistake. There are two peaks. And the higher a person rises to the wrong peak, the further he is from the truth. Do you understand? Imagine that you need to climb Everest, and you are climbing another mountain. The higher you get, the longer it takes to get back. That is why mystics usually do not come to God. They feel like they don't need God.

This is the most serious illness that a person has, it is with this illness that Lucifer fell ill. How did you start? He gazed at his beauty. The Christian sees the real place of this light. Why is this error possible? The fact is that a person is deeply, moreover, from the point of view of Christianity, a person is a macrocosm in a microcosm. The universe is a microcosm, and man is a macrocosm, that which is greater in us than outside. And that is precisely why such a substitution is possible, and a person remembers that Almighty God is the Creator. The Creed begins with "God Almighty and Creator." If you forget about this, for a second, then all of Christianity at once turns into Satanism, not even into Satanism, but turns into even worse, a person turns into Satan himself.

That is why the virtues of non-Christians are worse than any sins of Christians. Why? All these virtues are an element of this very worship of the great Satanism, even the desecration of man. As one said: imagine that all passions are made into 14 parts, a person can drop 13, and leave one, and that part will outweigh all the others, this one part is pride. Elementary. When a person says "I am God." It is better to get drunk, to fornicate, than to consider “That I am God!”.

19You will lie down without fear,

and many will court your favor.

Here we see a thin line, which again betrays the secret spirit that stands behind friends. Lucifer is behind them. What is offered to Job? You will do it now and you will be dependent on it. And who needs to be envious? Only to the proud. What is the use of fawning? Needed by someone who is happy, he needs to be fawning.

A lawless person is deprived of the opportunity to see the world of reality. It's true. His mind is disintegrating, the pure truth. If a person does not fulfill the commandments of God, then he is deprived of the opportunity to see the world in reality.

Notice a very important point: what is offered as a reward? Again the second feature. Neither Eliphaz, nor Wildat, nor Safar offer Job a meeting with God. They say: you don't need it! You need a good, well-fed, reasonable, transparent, calm, life here. Only one thing is not necessary - God is not needed.

David replies to this: “What I need from you, I don’t need anything on earth without you”. For a true righteous man, the most important thing is God, and for Satan, that they be obedient to him. Interestingly, the idea proposed by Safar to Job is the idea that ends the book "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov. Remember what the devil is offering to the Master? Peace.