A Better Comforter

Introduction

Job 16:1–5 CSB

1 Then Job answered: 2 I have heard many things like these. You are all miserable comforters. 3 Is there no end to your empty words? What provokes you that you continue testifying? 4 If you were in my place I could also talk like you. I could string words together against you and shake my head at you. 5 Instead, I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation from my lips would bring relief.

[Reminder about evangelism next Sunday]

As you may have guessed by today’s passage being from the book of Job, we’re going to talk a bit about evil and suffering. Some things we are going to address are:

“The problem of evil” - “G

Sometimes I’m not too sure if I’ve chosen the correct sermon topic, but then things happen before and afterwards that show me that God still used it to be a blessing to some people.

Things began to happen this week, where it convinced me that this is the message that God wants us to hear today.

So I was like, “Okay, God wants me to preach on this heavy topic of how we ought to think about moments of suffering.” Then I began to worry, “wait, why does God want to communicate a lesson to us about suffering?” “Is somebody going through something? Or is about to?” I don’t pray for that… at all

But what gave me peace was that as I was looking up videos in response to the problem of evil, I saw one by Frank Turek and in it he mentioned, that the best time to get your theology right about suffering is when you’re not suffering. It’s harder to think through these things when you’re going through the pain.

When it comes to the issue of suffering, there’s a correct answer and there’s an appropriate answer. All that I mention today, in the context of a sermon, will not be appropriate to bring up to a friend who is suffering. But my hope is that this sermon will be able to better equip us to be better comforters to those who are in morning and to help us know that it’s okay to feel all the emotions we feel when we go through difficult times.

I’ve structured this sermon into three main points that I believe will help us generally understand the story of Job for it’s time, but also for us today who live after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The three points are:

The suffering of Job

Miserable comforters

A better Comforter in Christ

The suffering of Job

If you are unfamiliar with the story of Job, he’s a man who suffered a lot in the Bible. In fact, his name in the Hebrew (iyyob) means “persecuted.” He suffered more than most people will ever suffer. We’re introduced to him in verse on of chapter one.

Job 1:1 “1 There was a man in the country of Uz named Job. He was a man of complete integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil.”

It goes on to describe his many kids and also his thousands of sheep, goats, and camels, oxen, donkeys, and servants.

Two things we learn about Job is that he lived a more exemplary life than you and I, and he was a lot wealthier (especially if you were to convert that into today’s wealth) than many of us will ever be.

Then the story begins to take a turn. It talks about how God had a meeting in heaven and Satan appeared. Then God pointed Satan’s attention to his servant Job. Satan says this about Job in verse 9.

Job 1:9–11 “9 Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Haven’t you placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse you to your face.””

Some months ago, we talked about what the Bible means when it uses the phrase, to fear God. Essentially, it means to have a healthy fear of God, which includes an understanding of who He is, an awe of God, a reverence of Him… Ultimately, it also means to love God.

Satan is jealous and angry at the idea that people would be loved by God and would love God and so he accuses Job before God. “You think he loves you for no reason? It’s because you’ve given him all this stuff. But take away that stuff and he’ll curse you.”

The first main point from the book of Job is this:

We’re not supposed to follow God for the good things He gives us, but because we love Him.

John 1:38 “38 When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?””

All throughout the gospels, Jesus is testing people and they turn back because it turns out they were following Him for the miracles and healing they can get from Him when He offered something greater, Himself.

Matthew 6:33 “33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.”

So job gets all the things removed from him. Four servants:

Cattle - plowing

Sheep - Clothing

Camels - travel and war animals

Servants - each one was the only one to survive

Kids

Job 1:20–22 “20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, 21 saying: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. 22 Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.”

Job 2:8–10 “8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself while he sat among the ashes. 9 His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” 10 “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.”

He didn’t call his wife foolish… instead he said you’re talking like a foolish woman… “You’re not being yourself, you’re losing it.”

He acknowledges her pain too and says, “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?”

I’ll talk about real briefly, and only because it leads to the next idea. There’s plenty of debate as to what Job’s wife said, when she said “Curse God and die.” Because the Hebrew word that is used for “curse” here typically is translated to the English word “bless.” So throughout most of the Bible, the

Ahab - Jezebel - Naboth 1 Kings 21:13 “13 The two wicked men came in and sat opposite him. Then the wicked men testified against Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth has cursed God and the king!” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones.”

The “sin” that Job was tempted to commit was to renounce God.

Ultimately, what Satan was trying to get Job to say was, “If God was all-powerful and all-good, he would get rid of this evil, but since the evil is here he must not be all powerful or all good.”

That’s the same lie that many so called intellectuals fall for today. But in all his suffering, Job never renounced God.

The book of Job is 42 chapters long, but everything happens to Job in the first two chapters. The other 40 chapters is all dialog about what happened. What that tells us is that the main purpose for the book of Job isn’t necessarily what happened to Job, but the discussion. And what was the discussion about? It’s about how are we supposed to think about suffering and God’s role it all of this.

Miserable comforters

Job 16:1–3 CSB

1 Then Job answered: 2 I have heard many things like these. You are all miserable comforters. 3 Is there no end to your empty words? What provokes you that you continue testifying?

Sincerity of his friends

They love him

They sat with him

Job 2:11–13 “11 Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.”

Retributive theology (Miserable comforters)

Chapter 4 - Eliphaz asks Job, when has he ever heard of an innocent person perishing like he is now.

Chapter 8 - Bildad is telling Job he needs to repent of the deep sin that caused his suffering.

Chapter 11 - Zophar is telling Job that if he was innocent, he would have found favor in his life.

Common thinking at the time - Hinduism - Karma (even in the past life)

2 Weeks after the funeral

Theology softens with wisdom

I was like Job’s friends

Withholding grace

Have the same problem of those who hold to the “Problem of evil.” What is that problem that both views share? It’s an incorrect view of the world we live in.

We live in a broken and sinful world. Where bad things happen

Here’s the mistake everyone makes when reading through the book of Job, we think Job is the main character.

They were supposed to be comforters

We know that the book of Job was written in Hebrew. We may also know that about 250 years before Christ, the Greeks commissioned a Greek copy of the OT to be placed in the Library of Alexandria. In the Greek copy of the book of Job, the Greek word that the Jewish scribes thought best to use for this word “comforter” was the Greek word “parakletos” - Advocate, counselor, comforter, helper

A better Comforter in Christ

Parakletos - “One who walks along side you”

John 14:15–16 “15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.”

There are plenty people who will walk along side you during different seasons of life

There are plenty of motifs in the Bible - David and Goliath - the weaker person or the underdog defeating the stronger person.

Job as the innocent sufferer whose suffering brings about the glorification of God

Hurt/Loss

Abandoned by God

Betrayed by his friends

Job didn’t suffer because he was guilty of any particular sin… but because we all live in a world of sin

Christ is the True Job… He’s the true innocent sufferer who’s suffering brought about the greatest glorification of God

Through Christ death, the problem of sin is resolved.

Gives us the Holy Spirit as a down payment

Ephesians 1:14–16 “14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory. 15 This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.”

Psalm 91:15 “15 When he calls out to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and give him honor.”

It’s hard for us to see him that way since we can’t see him. Most people will never physically see God

But it’s actually better for us that we can’t see him

Psychologist say that when you love you actually take on more pain. Why? It’s because the people we love can never be there for us in all the ways our hearts desire.

That’s in part because they can’t be in multiple places at once.

John 16:7 “7 Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you.”

Moses - Unless your spirit goes with us we will not move

What’s the point of following Christ if you’re still going to face bad times?

Romans 1 - mankind is without excuse