“When Job’s three friends…heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust upon their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.” (Job 2:11-13)
They were good friends. They cared. They came out of sympathy to comfort him. We need friends when we experience suffering. How our friends respond to us when we are suffering can help or hinder us. These friends began well, with the best of intentions. They sat with him for seven days. No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was. If they had only continued to do this the book of Job would have been much shorter, for the next 32 chapters record the conversation between these three, Job, and Elihu, who joined them. Job’s ‘comforters’, as history has come to call them, tested his faith still further by presuming to speak for God by giving intellectual and spiritual explanations for his suffering. They provide examples of the temptation to provide glib answers to the mystery of suffering, answers that aggravate rather than heal. They proceed from presumption under the guise of faith. Presumption is “unwarrantable, unbecoming, or impertinent boldness.”
The Presumption of Eliphaz: “My Tidy-Mind”. Eliphaz wants everything to be in its place, with no loose ends to confuse him. “Consider now: Who, being innocent has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.” (4:7,8)
This is the belief that there is a strict law of cause and effect in the universe. Suffering is caused by sin and prosperity is caused by righteousness. If you are suffering you must deserve what you are experiencing. But this is not always true. Scripture makes it clear that the innocent do suffer, and the wicked also prosper. The most righteous man who ever lived, Jesus, suffered unjustly. Life is not always fair.
Eliphaz compounded his presumption with spiritual one-upmanship. He claimed a special, private revelation from God in a dream. It is difficult to deal with people who claim that God has spoken to them, especially when he has not spoken the same message to you!
In order to justify his theory of suffering, Eliphaz has to find Job guilty of all sorts of sins (22:4-10). When the facts of Job’s life don’t fit his belief he changes the facts. What a friend! Instead of caring for Job he ends up condemning him. Is this his way of dealing with his own discomfort at seeing his friend suffering? Is it such a threat to his own faith that he must sacrifice the character of Job?
The Presumption of Bildad: “Mr Optimist”. Bildad assures Job that it will turn out all right in the end. “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” (8:21) These bland counsels are insensitive to the present sufferings of Job. Voltaire wrote his satirical novel, Candide, the story of an ingenuous young man, whose teacher, Dr Pangloss, a professor of Optimism, keeps blandly assuring him that ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’ in defiance of their successive misfortunes. To hear that everything will turn out all right in the end is no comfort in the present. The Cross is a response to the fact that this is not the best of all possible worlds. This world has fallen from God’s original intention.
The Presumption of Zophar: “Mr Denial”. Zophar is the man of common sense for whom life holds no problems that he can’t handle. Every doubt is considered sinful, and every difficulty is a sign of unbelief. Suffering is only momentary for the righteous: “You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as the waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning.” (11:16,17)
He does not want to look too deeply. Suffering is for the wicked, not for us. Let us put our lives in order and it will all be history. He is all reasonable reassurance. But he is not dealing with the reality of his friend’s situation. He does not want to become emotionally involved. If he can keep it on the level of bluff no-nonsense ‘keep your chin up’, he will not feel uncomfortable. But true love will bear the burdens of others and weep with those who weep. Did not Jesus weep at the grave of his friend Lazarus?
The Faith of Elihu. Elihu is the Angry Young Man of the group. He is impatient with his friends. He sees the problems with their arguments, and recognizes the reality of a righteous man suffering. He addresses Job’s concerns and raises the issue of motivation in religion. “What profit is it to me, and what do I gain by not sinning?” (35:3) What is the use of being good and following God’s words if it is not rewarded now? This is the issue of self-serving faith. People who ask, “Why has this happened to me? I have been a faithful Christian and churchgoer all my life. Why would God do this to me?” are really saying that they deserve to be rewarded now for their faith. We do good because it is the right thing to do whether or not we are rewarded for it now. We serve the Lord out of gratitude for his grace of salvation, and out of obedience to his command.
Elihu reminds Job and his friends that much rationalizing about the challenge of suffering is so much empty talk and the multiplication of words. Job recognized that assessment of his friends’ counsel by saying: “You smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you! If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom. Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.” (13:4,12)
The value of friends is their caring, encouragement and support in times of trouble, not their attempt to fix the problem and make the pain go away by simplistic opinions, and quick judgments. Job’s friends present us with examples of what not to do, of the inadequacy and positive harm some well-meaning people of faith can inflict on their friends.
An example of faith rather than presumption is to be found in the testimony of Ron Scates, who some years ago was Youth Minister at First Presbyterian Church, San Antonio before he became Pastor of Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Dallas.. His little daughter wandered away from him in a diving store and slipped under the cover of the pool and accidentally drowned. He said at her funeral:
“Amidst the darkness and the agony that you have shared with us in the death of our precious Anna, two words continually rise to the surface – privilege and grace. What a privilege for Anne and I to have been the parents of one who loved so unconditionally, who gave us two years and four months of the greatest joy that parents could ever know. And in her death, what a privilege to be surrounded and supported by you, the Body of Christ at First Presbyterian Church. Your love, your prayers, food, visits, phone calls, cards and letters have meant the world to us and have been the key difference between despair and hope in our lives. In your response to our need we experienced, in you a sheer goodness that we had never had the privilege of seeing to this extent in the lives of people who really let Christ live through them.
“Anna’s tragic death has brought moments of helplessness and hopelessness into our lives – but God is good, and God is gracious. Anna was a gift, not only to our family, but to all of you. God’s grace was displayed to her and in her as you, over the past two years, loved her and made a spiritual home for her at the church and also in your lives. It is God’s grace, through your continued prayers and love that is sustaining us, and will sustain us as we fell our way through the darkness. Of course, very much evident to us is that grace that is the essence of the Holy Comforter, but primarily working through you. So we go on.
“Someone shared the following poem by Cornelius Venderbregger with me and I pass it on to you that it might be a speck of grace as you confront unanswered questions in life. It is a privilege to believe, but it is also only grace that allows us to believe.
Not when I see the answer coming, blessed Lord:
That is not faith in Thee, to joy in sight;
But when the very promised good seems farther off
Than e’er before, and all is night.
Not when I feel that I can do the thing desired:
That is not faith in Thee, to trust in self;
But when in poverty I stand, stripped bare of all
That once I trusted in as wealth.
Not when the Canaanite is slain and done away:
That is not faith, to be without a foe;
But when I conquered am by him down in the dust,
And deep humiliation know.
To trust Thee then, when all is dark without
And dark within, the foe still in the land
My poor, weak, helpless, battered, sin-tossed soul
Too stunned to pray, gripped in His hand!
To trust Thee then, to think upon Thy Word,
And then to say, “My Saviour cares for me,
And He will surely help, for He has promised to!”
That, Lord, is faith – faith just in Thee!”
A Prayer:
God loves me, Christ is with me, the Spirit will help me. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Help me to trust in you even when I feel that you do not care. Direct my eyes to the Cross of Jesus. May his suffering for me heal my pain, and the pain of those I love. May your love raise me up, and comfort me. May I be willing to live with unanswered questions until that day when I see you face to face, and all things will be made new. Amen.
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