Week 4 - Job 10-14 - Need for Salvation

Anticipating an arbiter, Job begins to prepare his case.  If he had the chance to speak with God, he plans out what he would say.  But as he begins, his thoughts take a turn.  At first, he continues to complain about the calamity:

Job 10:8

Your hands fashioned and made me,

    and now you have destroyed me altogether.

But then he comes to understand, that all of this had a purpose.

Job 10:12-13 

You have granted me life and steadfast love,

    and your care has preserved my spirit.

Yet these things you hid in your heart;

    I know that this was your purpose.

God had a purpose and it was to love him.

Zophar, in an attempt to ridicule Job's conclusion, points out:

Job 11:5-6

But oh, that God would speak

    and open his lips to you,

and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom!

    For he is manifold in understanding.

Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.

The calamity does not match the guilt of Job, of which a sovereign God has complete knowledge.  Zophar goes on to Job, that the solution begins with Job, himself

Job 11:13-15

“If you prepare your heart,

    you will stretch out your hands toward him.

If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away,

    and let not injustice dwell in your tents.

Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish;

    you will be secure and will not fear.

  But Job understands that he cannot save himself (imagine a lioness carrying a cub).

Job 13:14-15

Why should I take my flesh in my teeth

    and put my life in my hand?

Though he slay me, I will hope in him;

    yet I will argue my ways to his face.

These are the words of a man of faith!

Hebrews 11:1-3

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Job had faith for the things he could not see.  That said, it was not a blind faith.  God's nature and purpose, was evidenced by the things he could see.

Romans 1:19-20

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.