When Friends Prosecute - Job 2:11-13; 4:1-9; 42:7-9

Introduction

Has anyone ever tried to help you but only made things worse? You know how this goes. There are some people that hear about a problem with your kids or with your health or with your job, and they immediately respond with: “Let me tell you what you have to do.” A few years ago, I woke up one day and just couldn’t sit up in the bed. I had playing golf and kayaking the week before without any problem, and then suddenly I couldn’t move. Well, turns out that I had to have a reconstructive back surgery because my spinal canal had collapsed. Go figure.

And, if you ever want to experience the phenomenon of well-meaning people making you feel worse, I recommend back surgery to you. Almost to a person, people, and I’m talking about complete strangers at times, would shake their heads and say: “Now, you know you’ll never be the same again, don’t you?” Or, “You never have just one back surgery. Get ready for more in the future.” And, my all-time favorite: “Don’t you let them operate on you. Nobody ever recovers from back surgery.” Now, of course, they didn’t know my circumstances or the fact that I was high risk for Cauda Equina Syndrome, meaning surgery was a necessity for me. But, they had a lot of advice, and none of it made me feel better about the inevitable situation I faced. As often as they talked, I could feel my low-grade anxiety creeping toward the boiling point.

God’s Word

Truthfully, even though they were well-meaning I’m sure, these folks weren’t being very good friends in the moment, were they? They were adding to my suffering rather than alleviating it. Well, Job has friends like that, too. They see him hurting, and they think they know how to help. In reality, they only add to his suffering instead. And, in the process, we learn a lot about the kinds of friends that Satan can use to add to suffering. They’re bad friends, and Bad friends: (Headline)

Speak too “soon”.

Job 2:11-13 “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 Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to 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, and they tore their 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 to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”

Sympathetic Response

Uz must have been a small town because word of Job’s destitution spread like a mayor getting too close to his secretary. Three of his friends, one which we know was at least 100 miles away, hear about what’s happened to Job. And, it’s a wonderful and sympathetic response. In fact, they respond better than most of us would. They didn’t talk about Job and send good vibes to Job. They didn’t send him a two-second text message to soothe their conscience. They went to him. They left behind lives and livelihoods and traveled a great distance at great personal expense to be with him. And, it gives us insight into their intentions: “to show him sympathy and comfort him.” These three friends came with good intentions. They wanted to be there for their friend.

Silent Compassion

For seven days, they sat with the shell of a man that was their friend. “No one spoke a word to him.” The only sounds was that of weeping and wailing together. There’s no ministry more powerful to sufferers than that of silent, present compassion. Suffering is a lonely affair. It isolates you from what appears to be ‘normal’ people who don’t have to carry around such a weight. It creates a new reality where dreams and aspirations no longer exist, and the future looks only bleak and dark. But, a silent, compassionate friend sitting beside you can ease the isolation.

A close friend of mine went through a time of intense suffering where his whole world was recreated over night. Person after person, offered to help but didn’t. Person after person, told him how to get everything back like they knew. And, the more they talked the more isolated he felt. But, he said one day, a man called and asked if he could stop by. When he came, he asked if they could sit on the back porch. When they went out, he said this is it. I feel like the Lord told me to just come and sit with you. No advice. No solutions. Just silent, present compassion. That’s what friendship is supposed to look like. A willingness to step into the uncomfortable presence of suffering so that the sufferer isn’t isolated. A quick, but powerful glimpse of a Savior who did the same.

Salting the Wound

Job 4:1-6 “Then Eliphaz the Temanite 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, and 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. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?”

If Job’s friends would’ve returned home after seven days of silence, they would’ve been hailed as the greatest example of true friendship in the Bible. But, they stayed, and they started speaking. And, they still spoke too soon. In chapter 3, Job cries out and laments what he’s lost and experienced. He says that his worst nightmares have become his new reality. And, Eliphaz, apparently the eldest and leader of the friends, can’t hold his tongue any longer. Eliphaz begins gently enough, describing many of Job’s kind acts of friendship in the past, but he lands by accusing Job of rank hypocrisy. “You teach others, but you can’t practice what you preach! You teach that God will bless you if you repent; yet, you don’t want to repent!” It’s clear that repentance is what he’s calling Job toward when he calls him to the fear of God and the integrity of his ways. But, because the narrator told us, we know what Job knew — that he had not sinned and didn’t need to repent for it.

The misguided words of his friends salted the boils on his skin. They compounded his misery. The solutions of his friends leave him feeling more misunderstood, more lonely, and more publicly embarrassed. And, don’t miss that last part. Job has lost all of his family, possessions, and health, but now it was apparent that he’d lost his honor and standing in the community, too. His friends proved that. You see, you can have good intentions and still be a bad friend. The help you seek to give can actually salt the wounds of the one you want to help. And, that is the opposite of the Lord. Psalm 147 says that the LORD “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” In fact, the ministry of Jesus starts with the presence of Jesus, doesn’t it? Don’t we see that in the incarnation? Jesus steps into our suffering so that He suffers himself. He goes to the broken so the He is broken himself. A ministry like Jesus begins with a presence like Jesus. If you want to be a friend in the way of Jesus, just be there. Just be there. People forget about cards and text messages and advice, but they remember the people who were there. They remember those who kept them from being alone. They remember those who came to them like Jesus did. Just be there.

Know too “confidently.”

Job 4:7-9 ““Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.”

Overconfident Theologians

You can sympathize with the friends, can’t you? They didn’t have a narrator to tell them what was going on either. What they had was what they’d been taught (“sow..reap”) and what they’d experienced (“As I have seen”). And, that’s really all any of us have. You can see what they’d been taught: What you sow, you’ll reap. Righteous people prosper, and wicked people suffer. It’s the retribution principle. Sow good; reap good. Sow bad; read bad. Everybody knows that! Not only that, this had been their experience. After all, Proverbs teaches us how the world usually works, and this is what Proverbs teaches. So, this is the majority experience, then, isn’t it? You see, all of you have a theological framework. You have an understanding of how the world works, and it’s always the combination of these two things: what you’ve been taught and what you’ve experienced. And, it’s through this framework that we interpret circumstances, and it’s from this framework that we offer counsel and advice. What’s the problem? You don’t know everything, and you haven’t experienced everything.

Insecure Men (without mystery)

Job 6:21-25 “For you have now become nothing; you see my calamity and are afraid. Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’? Or, ‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’? Or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’? Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the ruthless’? “Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray. How forceful are upright words! But what does reproof from you reprove?”

So, if you become overly confident in your framework, if you understand your experience as the starting point for everyone’s experience, if you believe that your knowledge gives you insight into all knowledge, then you are well on your way to hurting others. You see, Job’s friends had a theology without mystery. They had a true theology. Their experience aligned with what they had learned. And, that meant that they could look at Job and know what had happened. Job had sinned. That was their theology. That was their experience. In fact, that had to be the case or their whole way of seeing the world would come crashing down. In 6:21, Job, in his response to his friends perfectly neat theology, accuses his friends of seeing something terrible and becoming afraid. That is, they were too insecure to add mystery to their theology. If the universe was not as neat and clean as they thought, then they might suffer too. Who could stand the thought of that? A man or woman who has to know all of the answers is an insecure person indeed. They’re unable to trust God’s goodness for the future; they have to control it themselves.

Bad Friends (ministers)

And, I can assure you that overconfident, insecure people make bad, bad counselors. A theology without mystery leads to a ministry without mercy. Or as Job says it in verse 25: “But what does reproof from you reprove?” His friends wanted to confront and not comfort when Job needed to be comforted and not confronted. Those who want every circumstance and every decision and every struggle to be black and white are people who have no patience for the messiness of merciful ministry.

I know of a situation several years ago in which a young man and his pregnant girlfriend were saved. They became active in the youth ministry. The pastor became concerned that the optics wouldn’t be good and that prominent families might offended. The issue was black and white, and the couple was to be removed from the ministry. But, the youth ministry was one of the only stable aspects of this terrified couples’ lives. They had just met Jesus, and this would mean that their first church experience would be expulsion from the very means that brought them to Christ. That’s poor, overly confident, insecure ministry, and most of us would probably agree. And, it seems the exact opposite of Jesus. Jesus was more concerned that the sick have a doctor, that the wounded have someone to bind his wounds than He was with the optics of the religious establishment.

What if instead, in the way of Jesus, this young couple were shown the redemptive power of Christ who takes that which is shattered into a million different pieces and makes it whole again? What if instead of being seen as examples of something bad their situation could be seen as an example of Jesus’ grace and power? Job requires us to ask: What if there’s more to the picture than we can see? What if God is up to something greater than our experience can anticipate? What if God’s plan exceed our theological framework? What if, in the mystery of God’s providence, the sufferers we encounter are being used by God to demonstrate the sheer power and wonder of his redemption? If you’re going to be a good friend, if you’re going to minister in the way of Jesus, you have to humble yourselves, humble yourselves in the likeness of a Savior who made himself a servant. For there is no friend less comforting than a proud, overconfident one.

Understand too “little.”

Job 42:7-9 “After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.”

Three Different Perspectives

We’re really given three different perspectives of the friends. From the friends’ perspective, they’ve come to help. From Job’s perspective, they don’t know what they think they know. But, in chapter 42, we hear God’s perspective. You have to understand that Job is wisdom literature. It’s meant to teach the nuance and complexity of true wisdom. You see, the friends were too confident in what they knew, but they apparently knew a lot. If you listen to all three cycles of these friends conversations, you realize they were the men that others would consider wise. They were the people that others listened to. But, God says to them directly: “You spoke on my behalf, but you didn’t speak like me at all.” They were poor spokesmen and poor representatives for God. Why? They knew a lot, but they understood very little. Humility distinguishes wisdom from knowledge. Humility recognizes the complexity of life and the unsearchability of God, and these men failed to understand. They weren’t humble, and they weren’t wise.

You see, the picture here is stark and sobering. Job’s friends thought they were defending God, but they were offending him instead. They thought they were representing the Lord, but they were doing Satan’s work instead. You’ll remember last week that I said that the Book of Job puts God on trial in a sense. Satan’s thesis is that no one loves God, only what He can provide. So, everything has been taken away from Job to see if Job actually loves God or not. But, ironically, in this trial of God, Job takes the role of defendant and his friends that become the prosecution on Satan’s behalf. For, if the friends are able to get Job to confess to a sin he did not commit for the sole purpose of restoring his earthly prosperity, Satan will be able to rest his case that God is only loved for the gifts He provides. That is, if we don’t understand the situation like we think we do, if we aren’t as right as we think we are, we may do Satan’s work all the while believing it’s God’s work. That should slow us down to make sure we really understand. The question isn’t just: “Do you know?” But, “do you understand?” Are you a knowing friend, or are you an understanding friend?

It’s interesting how God restores the friends, isn’t it? They are the ones who end up having to repent. They offer the sacrifices, and they have to ask Job to pray for them. What if they had offered to pray for Job instead? But, they didn’t. They talked a lot about God, but they never talked to God. But, here’s Job— the Sufferer — the one four times called “my servant” by God, who accepts the repentance of the men and intercedes on their behalf. And, that gets to the true mystery of God’s plan. One day, a greater Servant of God will suffer a greater affliction from God, and He too will intercede on behalf of those who afflict him. We don’t need neat, tidy theology to be secure. We only need Jesus.