Yeah, I'm good to go. All right, good morning, everybody. It's a beautiful, bright, sunny day here, and the weather's nice and everything, and I'm here to share with you a very bright and sunny book. It's called Job.
All right, so we're going to dive in. I'm going to first open in prayer, because we need the Lord. And let's start with the word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this day that we have this beautiful day.
Thank you for your love to us, Lord, and your mercy, and your grace, Lord. I pray that you would give me your grace today as I share your word. And Lord, I know that I'm not worthy to share your word, Lord, I'm not worthy to even talk to you, Lord, but you have made me worthy through your Son, Lord. And I just pray that you would just help me to let my words would be the ones that you want me to speak.
And I need you to name them in. So if you remember last time I shared on Job, chapter one to three, and which is a very bright and sunny three chapters. Basically, Job is a man of integrity. He follows the Lord.
He sacrifices to the Lord. And he's a man of obedience. He's a man of prayer. He's a good father.
He prays for his children. And Satan really hates that about Job. And so he takes everything Job owns away from him, including his family, his wealth, his health, all of these different things. And it's not because of Job's sin.
It's just simply because of, it's because, well, actually, we're not actually really even told why this all happened, why God allowed this to happen. But that's for another time. Today I'm focusing on three people who came to Job to comfort him. And I say that in quotations.
These three guys, Alaphaz, Buildad, and Zopher, were not there to help. I'll put it that way. And it's kind of one of those situations where a lot of times you get an instruction manual. And a lot of times the easiest way of explaining how to do something is to explain how not to do it.
When you watch health and safety videos for your work, maybe you work on a job site or something like that. They show health and safety videos. Well, they're not usually showing you exactly how to do something. A lot of times they're showing you how not to do something.
What happens if you're climbing a ladder? And you let go with your hands? Well, you're going to fall off. What happens if you're operating a forklift without the proper training?
Well, bad things are going to happen. I don't need to go into details. So this is kind of almost like scripture showing us a manual in a way of how not to deal with people who are grieving or suffering. And it's a very complex, like 30 chapters.
It's hard to kind of go through all that. And most of the time I spent on this was actually reading. It was a there's a lot in there. And so I just want to give a little breakdown here on basically what's happened at this point.
Job has lost everything. Here's what Job has done in the last three chapters. He's worshiped God despite his suffering. He's cursed the day he was born.
He's wished for death. He's directed his feelings towards God. And at the end of the day, the scripture says he's not sinned in all of this. Job has not done anything wrong in expressing himself to God.
And this tells me, like I said last time, it tells me that God wants us to do that with him. He wants us to express how we feel. He wants us to be close to him in that way and drawn near to him when we are in trouble. And that means sometimes we have to come to terms with how we feel and talk to God about it.
So long come the three friends. And I'm just going to read a brief passage. I'm not actually going to read all of what happened because we don't have until the end of next week. There's a lot of scripture.
So I'm actually going to read a quick passage, basically summing up the best part of what the best contribution of these friends, what they did. So chapter 2, verse 11 of Job. Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz, the Timonite, Bill, Bill, the Shuhite. And so far the Namathite.
And they made an appointment together to come and show him sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept. They tore their clothes and robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.
And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights. And no one spoke a word for him. For they saw that his suffering was very great. So that is pretty much where their good contribution ends.
They sit with Job silently for seven days. Job starts crying out. He laments his birth. We talked about this last week.
Job's opened this. His honesty. This is honestly how I'm feeling right now. I don't understand the reason for this.
And I'm exasperated. And I don't know what's going on. Job's at the end of his rope. And this is where we start today with the three friends.
Eliphaz does the worst thing he could have done. He opens his mouth. Eliphaz responds to Job. Verse 1 and 2 of chapter 4.
Eliphaz, the Temonite, or Timonite. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. Answered and said, if one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking?
Behold, you have instructed many. And you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling. You have made firm the feeble knees.
But now it has come to you. And you are impatient. It touches you. And you are dismayed.
Eliphaz immediately says, just be patient, Job. Just it's fine. This will pass. But you've got to remember what Job is going through here.
He lost his wealth. Sure. He lost his health. He also lost his family, his children.
This is not empathy in any way, shape or form. Just be patient. We have this little joke that we say with my wife sometimes. If one of us is maybe going through a bit of a hard time or even just something small that we're maybe irritated about, one of us will say, yeah, I'm just kind of feeling irritated or irritable.
And I'll say, oh, just don't. And it's usually kind of a way of lightning the mood. It sounds really cruel. But it's a way of just kind of lightning the mood.
We kind of laugh about that. And then we move on and try to show each other as much empathy as we can. But as far as this goes, Eliphaz is basically looking at Job and just saying, just don't. Just don't feel this way.
Be patient. And that's really hard to do when you've just lost your family, when you've just lost your everything you own, and also your health. You've also become very sick. That's immediately what Eliphaz does.
He implies, oh, yes, OK. So the next verse is what kind of scares me about Eliphaz. He says, it's not your fear of God, your confidence, and your integrity of your ways, your hope. I feel slightly disturbed by the second part of that sentence.
The integrity of your hope. That implies that Eliphaz believes Job should have confidence in himself. He should have confidence in the fact that he is a good man. And that's not where we need to put our confidence.
This is not where we are instructed to put our confidence from the Bible, from the Word of God. What's interesting about these three friends, and this is just a brief little thing about Eliphaz, and I better move on quickly because I'm only in chapter four. We're moving on to chapter 30, I think. Eliphaz shows us this confidence in the flesh.
He talks to Job and tells him, don't you have confidence in yourself? You've been a good man. And meanwhile, Job knows very well where his confidence comes from, where his goodness comes from, and where his integrity actually does come from. So those are a few things from Eliphaz.
He goes on to speak. He has a bit of a passive accusation of Job in verse 8. I've seen those apply in equity and so trouble. Oh, sorry.
I've seen that those who apply in equity and so trouble reap the same. He talks to Job as if, well, if you're suffering, maybe that's because you've sewn that. You reap what you sow. And Eliphaz's point of view is extremely black and white.
It's basically, well, this will always happen. The wicked will always suffer. The innocent will always prosper. And that's how it goes.
It's black and white. He tells Job to confront God, which Job has already done, very clearly. He's just not really helpful. But we move on to build that.
Is build that helpful? No. Sorry, I'm used to speaking to a two-year-old. So he speaks the truth about God.
Build that does speak the truth about God. He asks Job a question. And it's a rhetorical question because we all know the answer. Verse 3 of chapter 8, does God pervert justice?
Or does the Almighty pervert the right? This is a truth about God. This is something that's a rhetorical question. We all know the answer.
God does not pervert justice. God does not change. He doesn't change his mind on principles. He doesn't change his mind on his attributes.
These things are absolute. God's principles are absolute. Justice is an absolute. It's not a relative thing.
Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? So that's where build adds truth ends. He says in verse 4, if your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hands of their transgastion.
He accuses his children. Now again, he makes assumptions. We don't know. We don't know what scripture says.
Scripture doesn't say what they've done. If they've brought this calamity on themselves or not. And I don't believe the build add new, whether these children of Job had sinned or not, to cause this. He says if it looks like sin, it must be sinned.
Basically, that's how I would sum up build adds response. And of course, in between all of this, Job comes back to these friends, as we call them. And he expresses more grief, and he gets more and more bitter as we go. Chapter 11, Zofar speaks.
Zofar speaks. I think I spelled Zofar, and I meant to spell Zofar. He says that Job is getting less than what he deserves. So this is actually what's interesting about this, is it's actually true.
There's a lot of these things. These are theological truths. We have gotten less than what we deserve from God. We deserve eternity in hell.
We deserve to die right now. But God has mercy on every single human being who walks on the earth. And this is why we haven't gotten exactly what we deserve right now. For people who are dying in their sins, yes, God executes justice.
Absolutely. And he executes perfect justice. But right now, as there's time, he's given us something that's merciful. He's given us time.
And so this is the truth. This is actual truth. But what does the scripture say about sharing truth for us? It says we need to share it in love.
We need to speak it in empathy and love. Understanding that we are the same. We're the same. Zofar is the same as Job.
They're both in the same situation. Zofar is a sinner. So is Job. Job has sinned.
Zofar has sinned. They both deserve hell forever. And there's an arrogance to what Zofar says. There's also an assumption, Zofar, that just like all the other ones, that Job has the sin in his life that he's hidden.
So he says, oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you. And that he would tell you those secrets of wisdom, for he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves. What a thing to say to a guy who just lost his family.
I mean, that's when you call yourself a friend. And I don't mean to roast these guys too much, because again, I'm the same. A lot of times I'll look at a problem. Someone's having an issue.
Maybe someone has actually brought something on themselves. Maybe someone is suffering because of something that they've done. I know I've been there. I've suffered from things that I've done myself.
And my response, a lot of time, is to try to solve their problem or to analyze their problem, rather than just listening and helping them with it. So he accuses Job. They continue to do this. Eliphaz comes back.
He says, Job, you have no reverence for God. You've thrown away your reverence or your fear of God in chapter 15. He says this. Eliphaz shows no sympathy for Job, no empathy at all.
Bill Dad talks about a very black and white situation. Job is wicked. He does not know God. He implies that Job doesn't even know God.
That Job hasn't even seen God in any way. Job comes back. And over and over again, Job comes back to these people. And there's just so much in there that it's really hard for me to share it in one morning.
But there's one chapter that I did want to bring out in Job's response. And it's a bit of a side note. It's not really part of the message in a way. But it's definitely noteworthy.
It's a noteworthy response. And here we see where Job's confidence really lies. And this is where we see that, truly is, I believe a righteous person. And what the scripture tells is the righteous person before God.
Job says in verse 25 of chapter 19, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth. After my skin has destroyed, sorry, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. This is an absolutely profound, prophetic response from Job. What's amazing about this is that it's widely believed that Job was actually one of the earliest books of the Bible, written possibly before the flood, probably older than most books.
And Job may have had access to a few scriptures, but it's hard to say if he did at all, if he had any access to any prophecies or scriptures. And for him to say this, this is the Holy Spirit. This is clearly God speaking through Job. He knows his Redeemer lives.
That confidence. And whereas his confidence is not where Eliphaz said it should be. It's not in his upright life. I know that my Redeemer lives.
And at last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God. He doesn't talk about himself. He doesn't talk about his flesh.
Or he does talk about his flesh. He talks about it as something that's going to be destroyed. And he's going to see God. It's because his Redeemer lives.
The one who redeems him. The one who he's talking about Jesus Christ in this case. And I thought that was a very astounding the depth of that prophecy is amazing. There's more dialogue from chapter 20 to 28.
I'm just going to sum it up in a few little points here. Zofar speaks of the suffering of the wicked. So Zofar basically says in his next response that the wicked always suffer and the righteous always prosper. This is of course a prosperity gospel.
We know this to be the prosperity gospel. If you are living a good way that pleases God, then God will give you all these things here on earth. And you won't suffer. And therefore on the other side of it, the wicked will suffer.
Always. That's what Zofar says. That's the black and white, good is gold response. Job comes back and says, wait a minute.
I've seen the opposite. I've seen it happen the other way around. The reality of the wicked and the prosperity, the reality of the righteous and their suffering. Job speaks and just says, I've seen it the other way.
I've seen it with my own eyes. This is the reality. Eliphaz accuses Job of great wickedness. Job cries out to God.
And this is where I think Job actually did do something a little bit wrong. He accuses God of being absent. He starts to make assumptions about God. And again, this is a very complex narrative.
It's very, these people are very complex as we are too. Which tells me that these people are real people. This is what proves it to me, that the Bible is very outright about people and very open. Job wasn't all right in everything he said.
Bill Dad speaks about the futility of man. How can man be right before God? That's a correct statement. A lot of these things are right.
These things are good theology. But theology can be damaging if it is not presented in the proper way, if it's not presented in love and in the Holy Spirit. So all in all, we have Job's friends trying to analyze the problem, trying to maybe solve the problem. I'm not sure.
Telling Job to repent. They're trying to figure it out rather than listening to Job and comforting him. I mean, the best thing we can do is a lot of times is listen. The Bible teaches us in James.
It says, be slow to speak and be quick to listen. This is really important. So Job provides us with a manual on how not to comfort those who are grieving. But we do have some good examples in scripture, some great instruction manuals on how to do this.
And when I say instruction manual, I mean, I know that's a pretty matter of fact. There's a lot of it. We have to leave with God and we have to leave with the Holy Spirit. We have to be in prayer.
We have to be in communion with God. That's really, really important when we're dealing with any type of difficult situation or easy situation. In Matthew 5, verse 1 to 7, it talks about an attitude. It talks about the B attitudes, the attitudes that we need to be.
The way that we need to be as Christians and as people who follow Christ. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs of the kingdom of heaven. Poor in spirit. That indicates humility.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Does it say that the ones who mourn are evil? Is that what it's saying? No, it's saying blessed are those who mourn.
They shall be comforted. It's implying that sometimes the righteous suffer. Blessed are the meek for they and shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. This is the way that we need to approach people in general and approach life in general is to be humble, to be loving of mercy, to comfort the ones who are mourning. There's even a theological reference to the situation, whether people suffer because of sin or because of the glory of God or because of different reasons. People suffer for different reasons, not just black and white, not just because of sin.
John 9, verses 1 to 6, Jesus addresses us directly with his disciples. This is about a man that Jesus healed who was born blind. And I'm going to read this. I could speak a whole message on this passage.
It's just amazing. The guy gets in trouble with the Pharisees and things like that. And that's just a lot for this time. But I'm going to read just one statement in this whole thing.
In chapter 9, verse 1, as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? This is thousands of years after Job. People are still asking this question.
Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned, or that his parents did, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while his day, night is coming, and no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. I want to use this as an encouragement to people who are suffering as well.
Sometimes when you're going through very difficult times. And when you're struggling through things, this has been a very difficult year for a lot of us. For many of us, we've suffered loss. We've had to be apart for a long time.
And a lot of people are grieving. It's a very difficult time. But we need to be encouraged that this is not necessarily because of our wrongdoing. It might be sometimes.
It might be the result of our wrongdoing. But let's be encouraged that the work of God can be displayed in us through our suffering. Few things that we go through that are difficult. This is something that the Apostle Paul talks about a lot.
He talks about suffering for Christ. And how that is how he shows the joy of Christ. Because when he's suffering, he still has joy. And people can't figure that out unless they have the Lord.
And I think it's a testimony to God living in us. So Jesus actually addresses this exact issue. And it's interesting to me that thousands of years after Job, this is still something that people think. And thousands of years after Jesus, this is still something that people think that we think.
That sometimes I get in my head, oh, if that person who's got the sign on the side of the road, oh, if they only just went out and got a job, or someone who's destitute, maybe they're addicted to something, maybe whatever it is. Oh, well, maybe they just need to stop doing that, whatever it is. I think it's really important for us to have this view that Christ did, that everybody is a sinner. Everybody is a sinner.
We're all equal before God. And the final thing that I want to share is a very good example from Jesus on how to work with people who are suffering, who are going through something very difficult. I'm going to turn to John 11, two chapters later. This is another thing that can be a whole message.
It's not just, it's pretty hard to sum this story up in a brief 30-second message. But I'm just going to briefly say, this is the death of Lazarus, one of Jesus' friends. Lazarus had two sisters and probably other family and friends who were all gathered around. And he fell ill, and he died.
And so Mary and Martha, his two sisters, were devastated. Absolutely devastated. Jesus was a good friend of Lazarus. Mary and Martha are actually mentioned multiple times in the scriptures.
And there's a whole story here. Jesus does raise him from the dead. There's a lot to this story, so many things in here that we can draw from this. But I want to specifically talk about Jesus' behavior when he comes and meets with Martha and talks to Mary and these people who are grieving.
I'm going to actually start from, I'm going to start from verse, let's see here, verse 23. Let's start from a little before that. Well, Martha comes to Jesus. He's at the edge of Bethany, the town, where they were.
Martha went to meet him. And she says, Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus says to her in verse 23, your brother will rise again.
He brings her theology. He brings her the theology of the resurrection in the last day when people will rise again. And again, this is not just the last day as we learn further along. Jesus speaks to her in reality and theology.
But he uses it in love. He uses it to comfort her in her sorrow. He says, and of course, I can't leave this verse out. I am the resurrection and life, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.
Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Again, he's bringing out theology, but it's encouraging. He's encouraging Martha.
He's comforting her. And then we go from verse 27 to 39. And this is where Jesus speaks five words in total. He only speaks five words for all these verses.
There's 12 verses here. Jesus is going to be with Martha. He's going to see her. He's going to see Mary and all the people who are grieving.
And he speaks only five words. He says, where have you laid him? It's simple. I want to be with you.
I want to be here. He doesn't speak a whole big paragraph he could have. But he doesn't. He simply is silent.
He doesn't speak. And I think this is important. I think people a lot of times need to just have some time and have some silence and some space to think when they're grieving. One of the most touching verses in all of scripture is verse 35 where he says, where it says, Jesus wept.
And this is the shortest verse in the Bible. But it's one of the most profound, one of the deepest verses. And this is a really important thing for us as Christians. It's really important when we have friends who are going through something difficult to echo their emotion, to echo their, even if we're not very emotional, people we can echo empathy.
We can give them empathy through the Holy Spirit, through God. He is the one who allows us to be able to do that. And I think it's so important. I mean, Jesus knew in his head.
He knows I'm going to raise this guy up from the dead in a few minutes here. But he wept with them because he wanted to show them empathy. He wanted to show them that he cares. So God is able to raise the dead.
He's able to heal the blind. He's able to give someone his family and his wealth and his riches back. But most importantly, he's with us. He cares about us.
And so I want to really just encourage people with those words that God is here for us in this year. That's been very difficult for all of us. Some more than others, not that there's really a gauge. But it's really important that we recognize God came here to be with us.
We are sinners. We're wretches. But God cares about us and not that he weeps with us. And we need to have the same attitude because we are the wretches that God cares about.
And therefore, we can care for each other as fellow wretches. So yeah, I'm going to close the prayer. And I don't know what we'll sing, but maybe we'll sing something. All right.
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for this truth and your scripture that you care about us and that you're willing to be with us, Lord, no matter what. For your mercy, Lord, that you've shown to us, Lord. And I just pray if there's anyone here, Lord, who doesn't know that mercy, who doesn't know you, that they would approach you, Lord, is the resurrection and life that they can have new life in you, Lord.
Thank you for this example of Job, Lord, of how not to do this, Lord, and how not to care for each other. And Lord, I thank you so much, Lord, that that's not how your attitude is towards us. You're not the accuser of the brethren, Lord. We know who that is.
And Lord, we thank you so much that you could accuse us of so many things, but you choose to have mercy on us. And I pray all these things. And thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.