FRIENDS LIKE THIS

We need air to breath, food to eat, water to drink. We also need encouragement because encouragement is food for our souls. Without encouragement, we are like a leaf that has fallen off the tree, dried up and is blown away.

God knows we need encouragement and in 2 Cor.1:3 the Father is called the God of all encouragement.

In 2 Thess. 2:16 Jesus gives us everlasting encouragement.

And the Holy Spirit is so closely ID’s with encouragement that 1 of His names is “the encourager”.

In this message, I want to show you something about encouragement for the book of Job. First I want to show you how not to encourage, and then everything after that will be positive. There is no better place for us to turn on the subject of “How Not to Encourage” than in Job 2:11. Job was a real person who had the worst week any man has ever had. If you think you’ve had a bad week, then in the next few moments you are going to feel a whole lot better because when you put whatever kind of week you had up against the week Job had, you will realize you didn’t have a bad week at all.

The first chapter of Job tells the story about how it all began. Job was a righteous and an upright man. One day Satan was in the presence of God and God said, “Have you heard of my servant Job? There is nobody like him in all the earth, he is upright and he shuns evil.

And Satan said: “Well, God, that’s understandable, I mean, you have put a wall of protection around Job. You have given him all the good things that he has. Anybody would be upright, and good, and upstanding, and shun evil if they had everything Job has.”

The thing we should understand here is that God allowed this not to tempt Job to do wrong, but to show Satan and to show us that you can take the worst hits that live can hit you with and still keep your integrity.

And so, as you know, Satan went out to touch Job. If you want to read all about it you can, but let me summarize what happened. In one day Job lost everything. One after another, 4 frightened messengers reported to Job that 500 ox, 500 donkeys, and 3000 camels were stolen in a raid by enemies. 7000 sheep were struck by lightening. All 10 of his children… 7 sons and 3 daughters… were killed when a windstorm blew over a house they were in.

And if you read the story in Job 1:13 to 20, you will see it happened suddenly… all on the same day.

Satan was watching to say, “now he has lost everything, he’s surely going to curse God and deny his faith”. If you want to see what happened, read the end of the 1st chapter, verse 21. “Job arose and tore his robe, shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and

He Worshipped:

He said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

Well, Satan came back and said, “Well, God, let me tell you - I understand that Job did not give in when everything was lost. But I need to tell you something God - if you start touching his physical body, he will deny you. So God said, “Alright Satan, you can do everything you want to, to him but you can not kill him.”

How many of you have been so sick that you thought you were going to die, and then you were afraid you wouldn’t? Isn’t that awful? I’ll tell you something, I don’t know how sick you have ever been, but you’ve never been as sick as Job!

I went through all the book of Job and wrote down all his physical ailments. Listen to this… the symptoms were like this:

Severe itching
Can not sleep
Running sores and scabs
Boils over entire body.
Nightmares… bad dreams
Weight loss
His wife said he had bed breath
Chills and fever
Diarrhea
Blackened skin that fell off of his body.

As we shall see, Job was in such a bad way that when his 3 best friends came to visit they did not recognize him… and then there was his wife - I don’t want to put any thoughts in Job’s mind, but he must have wondered that when that house blew down why she was not in it. Because she was not any help to him. In the 2nd chapter, verse 10, she said, “Do you still hold onto your integrity? Why don’t you just curse God and die?”

He said to her, “You speak like a foolish, Godless woman, shall we just accept good from God and not accept problems? “ Through all this Job did not sin with his lips”.

We see that Job was in such misery that he went out to the city dump, where garbage is sent and where the dead bodies of poor people are thrown away. He has a piece of pottery, or glass, in his hand and he is scraping his body to try to relieve the itching. Here he sits out in the dump and 3 of his friends find out he is suffering. I want to tell you before we see all the things they did wrong, they did some things right. Their names were Elephaz, Zofar, and Bildad. They had decided to come to encourage him. When they saw him they wept.

They sat with him for 7 days and 7 nights without speaking a word, for they saw that his grief was too great for words.

So let’s give these 3 men credit for coming to visit Job. It’s easy to feel bad for someone, but it takes effort to come to them and visit. They also had compassion for him, because they wept.

I am beginning to understand that there is no better medicine for a person’s wounds than the tears that come from your own eyes.

And they identified with Job in his misery - they went out and sat in the dump with him. The smartest thing they did was they did not say a word for 7 days and 7 nights. They sat there with Job.

But later when they talked, they did a lot of damage. So we can learn from the few things they did right, but they started doing things wrong in a big way.

The 3 men supposedly came to encourage Job and they have it sorted out by the time they get there. 1st of all, let me tell you they were terrible encouragers. In chapter 16, Job says they were “miserable” encouragers, full of hot wind.

How many of you have ever had a meeting with Elephaz, Zofar, or Bildad? Let’s meet them one at a time.

ELEPHAZ. He bases all his comments on his own observations. Over and over again he says, “I have seen, I have seen” do you get the picture? “Now, Job, here is what I have learned.” He comes up with his analysis of what is wrong with Job. Look at 4:7, this is what Elephaz says to Job who has lost everything, is sitting in the garbage dump, and is near death. You can read this later, but what Elephaz is saying is “Job, nobody who is upright ever goes through trouble like this - God never punishes a righteous person. So, Job, what have you done that is so bad that you deserve this?’

One of the things that is very painful to people who are in trouble is the false guilt put on them by well-meaning Christians. Remember that Job was not going through this because he was bad, he was going through this because he was GOOD! In fact, he was the good person in the whole world. So we know from this situation that Elephaz was totally wrong in his evaluation of Job.

Next, here comes Bildad. His little speech is over in the 8th chapter, verse 20. “Job, you are in this mess because of your sins”. He even says in verse 4 that Job’s sons were killed because they were big sinners. Can you believe this guy, Bildad? Do you call that encouragement? I don’t think so.
Well, Bildad heaves and here comes Zofar. He is an interesting study and your Pastor can go into all the scriptures about him at some other time. He is like the young preacher that has never preached a sermon in his life, but has all the answers.

He is the youngest of the 3 visitors and has a habit of starting everything he says with a little phrase.

You almost don’t want to hear what else he says because this is such a discouraging way to start.

Now, Zofar goes on to say the most discouraging thing anyone can ever say. He says to Job, “God is punishing you far less than you deserve”. “Job, if you are hurting now, just think how bad it would be if you got what you deserve.”

Now remember, Job has lost everything. His life is in ruins. He has nothing left and Zofar says he deserves worse punishment, so he should not be angry.

These 3 visitors should have known better. They should have known that what they were saying could not possible be right. But Job had to sit there and take it.

I pray, “God, please keep the Eliphaz's, the Zofar’s, and the Bildad's away from me if I ever have a Job day.”

What is there to learn from this story that will help us be encouragers? Here are 4 things you can write in your heart that you can learn from what these men did.