"I too could speak like you, if I were in your place. I could compose words against you and shake my head at you....My face is flushed from weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids...." (Job 16:4, 16--NASB)
Job was right to say, as in verse one, " Sorry (miserable) comforters are you all." I have said before that the best thing these three men did was in the first week they were with Job--------------------nothing. "....They sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him...." It was what Brother Andrew calls, "the ministry of presence," no words, no "word of knowledge" or "word of wisdom," no cliche-type quoting of Bible passages, just sitting, "on the ground with him...." This, my friend, is the mark of true friendship.
In our text, Job tells them that, "if I were in your place," in essence, "I could philosophize and theologize just as you." It is always easy to spout cliches, the latest catch phrases going around in the Christian community, mostly at first spouted off by famous national leaders. I deliberately use the phrase "spouted off" because that's all it is when we just parrot phrases which are others' and nothing which comes from being, "tested...in the furnace of affliction." Now I am not claiming such, nor am I claiming an ordeal such as Job's. But I have experienced enough in life to know that all the talk of the four "experts" in the book of Job are worthless babblings. Some "friends" they were. All they did, including the young know-it-all later, was to accuse him. "You know, Job, if you were half as spiritual as you claim to be and others think you are, none of this would have happened. Anointed people, people of favor, people who just sow enough financial seed, people who are really called of God do not go through such things. Bad things don't happen to good people. Job, something must be very wrong in your life. As yet God has not shown it to us, but He will."
Where have you heard all of that before? These men did not seem to care that, "My face is flushed from weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids." Instead of weeping with him, the accused him.
Yet many of us have experienced our text. And how can any words I speak ever help someone is such a state?!? I pray, in Jesus' Name, that I never be such a babbling fool as those who came to Job in his deep, deep suffering. I have not always responded perhaps in the way I should have when some around me were suffering, but what I can do is share that my deliverance was and is in the very, "Words of God." When, "my face [was] flushed from weeping, and deep darkness [was] on my eyelids," nothing brought me through as did, "The Word of God," Jesus, and His Words, the Bible. I do not recommend some dispassionate quoting of Bible verse and chapter to someone. But I do highly recommend encouraging them to keep going by,"Looking unto Jesus," and His, "God-Breathed," Words.
Father, in Jesus' Name, thank You for friends who, "sit down on the ground with [me]. Amen.
Job was right to say, as in verse one, " Sorry (miserable) comforters are you all." I have said before that the best thing these three men did was in the first week they were with Job--------------------nothing. "....They sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him...." It was what Brother Andrew calls, "the ministry of presence," no words, no "word of knowledge" or "word of wisdom," no cliche-type quoting of Bible passages, just sitting, "on the ground with him...." This, my friend, is the mark of true friendship.
In our text, Job tells them that, "if I were in your place," in essence, "I could philosophize and theologize just as you." It is always easy to spout cliches, the latest catch phrases going around in the Christian community, mostly at first spouted off by famous national leaders. I deliberately use the phrase "spouted off" because that's all it is when we just parrot phrases which are others' and nothing which comes from being, "tested...in the furnace of affliction." Now I am not claiming such, nor am I claiming an ordeal such as Job's. But I have experienced enough in life to know that all the talk of the four "experts" in the book of Job are worthless babblings. Some "friends" they were. All they did, including the young know-it-all later, was to accuse him. "You know, Job, if you were half as spiritual as you claim to be and others think you are, none of this would have happened. Anointed people, people of favor, people who just sow enough financial seed, people who are really called of God do not go through such things. Bad things don't happen to good people. Job, something must be very wrong in your life. As yet God has not shown it to us, but He will."
Where have you heard all of that before? These men did not seem to care that, "My face is flushed from weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids." Instead of weeping with him, the accused him.
Yet many of us have experienced our text. And how can any words I speak ever help someone is such a state?!? I pray, in Jesus' Name, that I never be such a babbling fool as those who came to Job in his deep, deep suffering. I have not always responded perhaps in the way I should have when some around me were suffering, but what I can do is share that my deliverance was and is in the very, "Words of God." When, "my face [was] flushed from weeping, and deep darkness [was] on my eyelids," nothing brought me through as did, "The Word of God," Jesus, and His Words, the Bible. I do not recommend some dispassionate quoting of Bible verse and chapter to someone. But I do highly recommend encouraging them to keep going by,"Looking unto Jesus," and His, "God-Breathed," Words.
Father, in Jesus' Name, thank You for friends who, "sit down on the ground with [me]. Amen.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
