Affliction has come

"Affliction has come" – Job 5:1-7 Eliphaz challenges Job to summon men or angels to refute (reject, contradict) the idea that after sin always comes judgment. He challenges Job to choose what can make him right. Eliphaz himself has observed the unalterable link between perversity and punishment. Affliction (tribulation, pain, sorrow) never comes without cause. Man, a sinful servant, is destined for affliction and as surely as sparks rise to fly through the air.

I. That "sin" causes the ruin of sinners.

A. Anger is not only useless, but also harmful (damaging, bad).

1. To disturb reason, distempers (alters, indisposition) the mind and even make us sick.

2. "That happens to you," Eliphaz says; by quarrelling (strife, accusing) against God, you are doing yourself the greatest possible harm.

3. (5) As had happened to the wicked also to Job in the matter of his property.

4. Despite the fences and barbed hedges, the Sabeans (Sabbas) and Chaldeans (people of Babylon, Iraq), hungry for plunder (robbery), had taken all his possessions.

5. (Job 14:1-2) A man born of a woman, a phrase that shows frailty, lives few bad days.

6. Job goes on to ask why God is so harsh on someone who, like him, is ephemeral, fragile, and imperfect.

7. The man born of a woman lives for a few days and is weary of troubles.

8. Why doesn't He allow him to end the rest of his short life with some peace?

9. The man born of a woman, a phrase that indicates fragility, lives few bad days.

10. Job illustrates the brevity of life with two beautiful images:

a. That of a flower being cut during its splendor (neither Solomon was clothed) (Matthew 6:28-30).

b. That of a shadow that always flees, no matter how much it wants to reach and disappears when night comes.

c. Life always seems very brief when it has already passed, and all Scripture ponders (strengths) in many ways that brevity.

d. In addition, it is a life full of disappointments, problems, sorrows and pains.

e. Pleasant moments pass quickly, while a simple toothache seems to last forever.

11. (Job 14:22) Just as inevitable as erosion (the surface layer is lost), degradation (wear, deterioration) in nature is the decay of man under trials.

12. His body returns to the dust and his soul where his flesh has fought.

13. (Psalm 71:20) The depths of the earth.

14. The great things He has done.

15. You, who have made me see many anxieties (affliction, pain, tribulation) and evils.

16. "You will give me life again, and You will raise me again from the depths of the earth."

17. Of the great dangers that I am exposed to by those who desire me evil.

18. You free me from the hypocrisy of those who seek my soul to destroy it with their hatred.

19. And You will not allow me to be plunged into the abysses (those great, awe-inspiring, dangerous depths) that the enemy seeks as to sink my life here on earth.

20. (Psalm 116:3) I was surrounded by bands of death.

21. When God allows hardships and afflictions as messengers to attack a person, they find him and when they find him, they lay hold of him.

22. The days of affliction surround him; He cannot let go of them; there is no way to escape from its hands.

23. These divine persecutors do not allow themselves to be persuaded or bribed to let you escape, until God says, "Let him go, let him free."

24. He was in great trouble, he was already caught up in death, who knows which one, so he raised a brief prayer to God.

25. (4) "O Lord, deliver now my soul."

26. (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23) He saw in him a painful and unprofitable occupation.

27. He neither enjoys life during the day, nor rests from work at night.

28. Here we see the need of those who forget God and are only concerned with the things of this life, they only take out unprofitable labors.

29. All the earnings from their wearisome labors were to go to others.

30. A godly person cares very little about how others are to enjoy what he has honestly earned.

31. Perhaps Solomon was concerned about who was to succeed him on the throne, and he knew the folly of his son and successor Rehoboam.

32. The best thing that can be done, then, with the riches of this world is to use them cheerfully and do good with them.

33. (Jeremiah 8:15) God will pluck them from there as one does a vine or a fig tree.

34. The people are resigned to perish in the city.

35. The Babylonian army advances like asps against which there can be no enchantment.

36. Why should we fight against destiny when God Himself fights against us?

37. At last, they begin to see God's hand extended in these calamities, and they recognize (acknowledge Him) that they have provoked Him. Amen