I have been angry, shocked, and grieving in the light of what I consider grievous violations of the ninth commandment, committed by professing Christians via social media. As I have pondered this situation, and wondered what to say, I have generally considered it best to keep quiet. “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.” Recently, my morning devotions took me through Job 22. My devotional method is to read the text, select a verse that is poignant, write a meditation on it, and then pray. I plan to publish this little meditation on Job 22:5 as a devotional response to false accusations.

“Is not your evil abundant?
There is no end to your iniquities.”

Eliphaz to Job in Job 22:5

Oh my soul, though there are jealous, bitter people, who desire vengeance rather than God’s vengeance, though these men may decry you, accuse you, spurn you, and hate you with lies–yet remember what Jesus tells you. “They will utter all kinds of falsehoods against you for my Name’s sake.” And though they may claim to be brothers in the Lord, yet Christ also says to them, “Many will say to me, ‘Did we not do miracles in your Name?’ And I will say to them, ‘Depart form Me, you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you.’”

Oh my soul, you should never desire that any person should be such a pitiful person. Perhaps, instead, those false accusers are brethren in the Lord who have fallen, for a time, into unjust anger. Perhaps, like Eliphaz, who here accuses Job for the third time, they have mistaken the nature of God, and therefore have mistaken the cause of our ailments. Perhaps, in misdefining God’s justice and God’s providential dealings with man, they reason that it must be that you have sinned–though no such thing is true.

What can your response be, oh my soul, to such accusations? Maintain your innocence, as Job does in the next chapter. Entrust yourself, then, to the Lord who judges justly, just as Peter urges you in imitating Christ. Look, oh my soul, at God’s wise plan, and see that even these false accusations, these violations of the ninth commandment, were used by God to save you, as false accusations led Christ to the cross of your salvation! Consider then, how God may use these false accusations to your good. He is working all things to your inevitable good, and to His much-deserved glory.