Week 2 - Job 3-6 - Verklempt

If there was ever a person who had a right to complain, it was Job.  That complaint he spoke after seven days of silence to a small group of friends who had gathered to console him.  He repeatedly lamented his own birth and ultimately said:

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

    I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

Job 3:26

At no time did he skip a Sunday, or in his case a Saturday.  His piety and execution of justice had been continuous.  Yet, trouble still came.  

In response, one of his "friends" Eliphaz questioned Job's source of confidence:

Is not your fear of God your confidence,

and the integrity of your ways your hope? 

Job 4:6 

And then related a question that had come to him in a dream:

‘Can mortal man be in the right before God?

    Can a man be pure before his Maker?

Job 4:17

Unable to save ourselves, there is only one option.  Eliphaz continues:

“As for me, I would seek God,

    and to God would I commit my cause, . . ."

Job 5:8

But, presuming too much on God's intention, Eliphaz promises Job that if he did this, that God would restore him:

You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,

    like a sheaf gathered up in its season.

Job 5:26

Job sees through this, identifies it as a mirage, and so convincingly Eliphaz becomes verklempt:

For you have now become nothing;

    you see my calamity and are afraid.

Job 6:21

We are promised that everything will work out for our good, if we love God as one called according to his purpose.  It will happen when we enter into glory.  There is nothing that can prevent it (Romans 8:28-39).