At the End of Your Rope

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking?
Job 4:1-2
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At the End of Your Rope
We are often brought to the end of our ropes, so to speak. We can only take so much until we break.  Job expressed this in the previous chapter.  Not only was his body broken with physical afflictions, but his mind also buckled.  He was a shell of his former self in the eyes of many.  A pitiful sight to behold as he sat in sackcloth and ash.  It is at times like these words often fail us.  We are wearied in mind, body, and soul.  It is also at these times when we need someone to speak for us, to speak to us.  Eliphaz speaks to Job in his time of need. Yet he does not bring the comfort Job needs because he does not bring the Gospel. Instead, as we will see, Eliphaz and Job’s other friends bring the Law.  The Law does not have the power to save.  What Job needs, what we all need, in times like this is the Gospel.  We need a friend who can speak God’s soothing balm of salvation to our broken lives.  Which is why it is so important that the one we hold closest to us is not simply a friend but our Savior.  The only words which can truly bring comfort are those of Christ.  We need to hear Him speak these words, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) We need to know, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13)  And more than anything, during our lowest points when the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh have wreaked havoc upon us, we need these words, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)