“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came everyone from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. 13. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was great.”
I’m going to assume that you know something about the book of Job. It is one of those biblical narratives that we hear a lot about because of its unusual nature. In the book God allows Satan to rip Job’s life apart by causing him to lose everything, including all ten of his children and all of his wealth. The gist of the narrative is that Satan thought he could make Job curse God, and God knew that Job would remain steadfast throughout the ordeal – which he ultimately did but not before he asked a lot of questions and agonized over his ordeal. In the midst of Job’s suffering come his three friends. Here is where we will see that we do not need to be like Job’s friends. In verse 13, we note that these three friends came to Job in the first place to comfort him. They got off to a good start, because for the first seven days they sat with him and did not say a word. The lesson here is that as long as Job’s friends kept their mouths shut and just shared their presence with Job, they did fine. The problem with them arose when they began to run their mouths and try to straighten Job out. They were trying to convince Job that he was being punished by God for all of the sins that he had committed. Let me give you one example of a “word of comfort” from Job’s dear friend Eliphaz: “Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off? Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity; and sow wickedness, reap the same” (Job 4:7-8) Wow! How is that for comfort? He couldn’t have been further from the truth. Here is what God said to Satan about Job in Job 1:8: “And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that fears God and escheweth evil?” We should think before we speak, because words, unfortunately, cannot be called back into our mouths. Sometimes it is just best to keep our mouths shut and just be a friend. Job’s friends purported to speak for God, when they were just giving their own opinions of what God was doing in Job’s life. I have discovered that I have a hard enough time determining what God is doing in my life without trying to figure out what he is doing in the lives of others. We need to be careful when we speak for God, because we may just be speaking for ourselves. We need to think long and hard before we give advice to suffering friends, particularly in the spiritual realm. We might think that we know the mind of God for that person, but we probably do not. What could Job’s friends have done for Job that would have been better than what they did, and for which they had to repent? (Read Job 42:7-10) They could have just stood by him as they did at first and kept their mouths shut. They could have just prayed for him silently and vocally, and asked God to relieve their friend. They could have just let Job talk about his troubles without giving their self-righteous feedback. They could have heard Job’s complaints and not have given their judgments about them. They could have just been his friends – period. The lesson for us is that we are to just love our friends, pray for them and help them when we can. When we can’t say something encouraging, it might be a good idea to follow what Job’s friends did in Job 2:13. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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