Sermon 22, Job 5:19-27
It doesn’t get better here.
After one emergency fire has been extinguished then it’s on to a heartache. Something dramatic happens and then, maybe next up, it’s a slower burn. Regardless of the pacing of negative events they never seem to stop.
For the hyper aware there is always something to feel down about. There is always a problem.
In today’s sermon, Calvin uses Eliphaz’s concluding remarks to tell us, yeah, that’s how this life works. It’s never going to get much better here. Get used to it. Get stronger. Be prepared for calamities of every type.
“…having escaped one evil, we will come upon another, which will be a continuing process throughout our lives.”
“…no one must expect uninterrupted rest…”
“God does not consider it praiseworthy when a man shows himself strong in one trial but weak and immediately overcome by another.”
“…a hundred thousand deaths threatening us and surrounding us on all sides.”
What do we do? Eliphaz has a great line, that Calvin explains. “You will be in league with the stones…”. Ha! What? If you’ve ever dug over a yard you’ll know, or can imagine, that running into stones is a constant annoyance. Digging is just harder if every 12 inches or so you are hitting rock. But, you pull one up, or you work around it, I.e. you figure it out. Then you hit the next stone. It’s a different shape stone, has a different color, is different in size. So, what are you going to do now? The answer is, the same thing you did last time, dig it up or work around it. What do we learn from that? Stones aren’t that big a deal, if you have the smarts to deal with one then you can deal with all of them. I think this is the analogy. If God gets us through one problem, his promise is that he will get us through the next one, indeed all of the problems. In fact, Eliphaz goes further, we will eventually be, figuratively at least, digging a yard in which the stones are on our side.
“Let us know that he wants to be our Saviour, not from just a thing or two, but from all things.”
So, it’s never going to get better. But we can always be optimistic.