(Job 32:1)
Humans generally LOVE to ARGUE.
We love the back and forth of debates, arguments and banter.
There are times I would want to watch a football match and rather than watch it in the comfort of my home, I would drive out to watch it with my friends at a pre-agreed location.
A lot of men who love football do this.
Why?
Because watching it alone at home could be BORING, but watching it with your friends is EXCITING!
Why?
Because of the debates, banters and arguments!
We enjoy trying to outwit each other with logic, reason, common sense, guile, wisdom, tact and arm-twisting. We just want to WIN!
It is what it is.
We carry the same mindset into everything we do: engagement with co-workers in the office, engagement with church members, engagement with nameless and faceless strangers on social media…
We sometimes carry this mindset in our engagement with God too.
This IS the problem.
We just don’t KNOW where to draw the line.
Let us look at the story of Job…
He was a very rich man, “The Greatest Man in the East”, as Scripture describes him. At some point, God decided to allow Satan to test him to see where his loyalty lies. He lost everything.
His 3 friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite came visiting to console him for his loss. They had a lot of arguments, debates and banters. At some point, Job said, “If only I know where to find Him (God)! I would state my case before Him and fill my mouth with ARGUMENTS!” (Job 23:3-4).
When the debates and arguments with his 3 friends reached the peak,they stopped arguing with him: they got to the Point Of No Return. “So these 3 men stopped answering Job…” (Job 32:1).
They simply gave up and left him to himself.
Let us also look at the story of Samson…
He was called and anointed to be a Judge over Israel before he was born.
He grew up as a Nazarite (the instruction God gave before his birth): he never cut his hair, he grew it into 7 locks. He was endowed with supernatural strength!
He once used a donkey’s jawbone to kill 1,000 men.
He once uprooted the gates of a city and carried them up a mountain.
He once killed a lion with his bare hands.
He did a lot of stuff with brute force!
Then Delilah, a Philistine came into the scene…
He saw her and fell in love.
She asked him for the secret of his strength, he told her. That was the Point Of No Return for him. “He woke up from his sleep and thought, ‘I will go out as before and set myself free!’ But he did not know that the Lord had left him” (Judges 16:20).
God left him.
He lost his strength, lost his eyes, lost his life.
As Believers, we MUST never get to that point. Scripture says, “The Spirit of God will not strive with Man forever” (Genesis 6:3)
When He tells us what to do, where to go and we prove stubborn and want to engage Him in a debate or an argument, He will simply walk away. The Holy Spirit is not a Spirit of Contention. He will not engage you in any argument or debate.
“But avoid foolish questions, genealogies, CONTENTIONS and striving… for they are unprofitable and vain” (Titus 3:9).
That Scripture continues…
“Give 2 warnings to those who cause arguments and are divisive and refuse to be corrected. After that, have nothing to do with them” (Verse 10).
In other words, Let Them Be: They have reached the Point Of No Return.
There is a place in Badagry, Nigeria called “Point Of No Return”. It is the point captured slaves were loaded on ships to the Western World. No slave went beyond that point and returned, hence the name.
May we never get to the Point Of No Return where God gives up on us in Jesus’ Name.
Amen.
Shalom,
Haruna Daniels