September 9

The Great Debate

Job 4 – 7

What percentage of Americans think you earn your salvation by being a good person? The answer is 90%. Nine out of ten people think by being good, going to church, giving money to the poor earns the favor of God. Like the old Smith Barney commercial says, “We make money the old fashioned way, we earn it” most people believe they get salvation the old fashioned way, they earn it. This is the great debate today it was also the great debate with Job and his counselors.

His counselors believed in Smith Barney salvation. If you are good, God will give you good things in life. If you are bad you will be punished by God. So Eliphaz unloads both barrels of his shotgun into Job.

Job 4:7 Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?

The reason Eliphaz is so emphatic in his arguing is that he wants to be in control of the universe. If Job is a blameless and righteous man and this happened to him, what does that mean for him?

The truth is that Job didn't deserve this suffering. That is God’s own opinion of the man. Not all suffering is deserved. It is not as simple as Eliphaz and Hollywood portrays it.... the good guys don't always win and wear white hats. The truth is there are no good guys; we have all fallen short of God’s standard.

In the end we must live by our faith. We must believe in the goodness of God and his plan of salvation for the universe. Both the so called “good” people and “bad” people are going to have trials in life. .

Job 5:7 Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

The only question is, are you going to face those trials by trusting in your own resources (your goodness) or are you going to face them with God’s resource? With God by our side we can weather any storm.
Don’t rely on your goodness to win God’s approval, trust in the cross of Jesus. You will never be disappointed.