Job's comfort
Job 5-6

Introduction

So we’re looking at the book of Job across this term. And the thing that is unique about the book of Job is that it’s a very LONG book … one of the longest in the Bible … but it deals with just ONE topic; the topic of suffering. And the reason God included a book SOLELY about suffering in his Holy Scriptures is because in our fallen world … suffering is one of the few things common to us all. As I’ve said many times over … if you live long enough:

You will suffer health problems
You will suffer wealth problems
You will suffer relational problems
You will suffer emotional problems
And one day you will be standing over the grave of a loved one

And the 2 questions that sufferers always ask are the ‘why’ question and the ‘how’ question. And the book of Job was written to answer BOTH these questions.

So the ‘why’ question is WHY does God allow his creatures … in particular his beloved followers … to endure what is sometimes debilitating suffering?
And the ‘how’ question is HOW do we acquire the skills needed to deal with suffering.

And as commentator Christopher Ash puts it … there are 2 ways to answer these questions. We can answer them from the armchair … or the wheelchair. And the beauty of Job is he answers them from the wheelchair … from deep personal suffering. And THIS is why the book of Job is so long and difficult to read. It’s because there are NO quick fix to suffering when you’re IN the wheelchair. OK … you can give pat answers to suffering from the armchair. But there are NO pat answers when you’re in the wheelchair. Suffering is just hard.

Now for the first 2 weeks of this series … we’ve been focussing on the WHY question. Today our focus shifts more to the HOW of suffering. And I pray you can join with us for the next three weeks … as we look at HOW we get through times of hardship. And the FIRST essential for dealing with suffering … is comfort. How do we endure hardship? We do it through comfort.

Now comfort does not ELIMINATE suffering. But it does makes it easier to bear. It’s like suspension in a car. The suspension doesn’t ELIMINATE the bumps in the road. But it cushions the BLOWS of those bumps … so the people inside are not shaken to pieces. And last week we saw 3 of Job’s friends show up to comfort Job. And they did a wonderful job … to begin with. In our passage today … that all goes out the window. In fact Job’s 3 friends do such a bad job of comforting Job that he tells them in 16:2 they are quote; ‘miserable comforters’. Yet like most things in life … we can learn just as much from bad examples as we can from good.

And today we’re going to learn about 3 different types of comfort that help us endure the kind of hardships this fallen world is going to throw at us. And they are our 3 points for today. We’re going to being by looking at the comfort we can receive from those around us … which I’ve titled (i) Comfort from without. We’ll then look at the comfort we need to give ourselves during times of trouble … which I’ve titled (ii) Comfort from within. We’ll then conclude with the ultimate comfort … which is (iii) comfort from above. So let’s dive in and look at one of the most important tools required in dealing with the HOW of suffering.

Comfort from without

And we pick up the narrative in Job chapter 4. So 2 weeks ago we saw Satan inflicting Job with some debilitating suffering. Then LAST week we learnt that Job’s 3 good friends … Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar … came to visit Job. And they come …

Job 2:11 (NIV) … to go and sympathize with him and comfort him

And here’s our first piece of application for today … right off the bat. Truth be told … this whole sermon is application. Don’t stay away. When your friends or family are suffering … don’t stay away. OK … some people stay away … because it’s too hard … either looking on or dealing with the suffering of others. Others stay away because they don’t know what to say. But one of the greatest tools we have for dealing with suffering … is others walking through it with us. Yet to do that … you have to show up.

I’ve shared with you before the tale of when I broke my femur snowboarding. Quite the disaster story. What I didn’t mention was how sad and lonely that 2 weeks stay in hospital was … stuck some 300 kms from home. Thankfully I had some cousins in Canberra … who came and visited me. One of them said about 10 words to me. That’s it. He brought me a couple of comic books … and just sat there in silence for about half an hour … then said goodbye and left. And that was exactly what I needed. I was in enormous pain … recovering from a snapped femur and someone cutting me open. I was in no state for chit chat. But just having him sitting there in silence with me … was enormously comforting. And that’s what Job’s 3 friends do in chapter 2. They provide Job with enormous comfort … UNTIL they open their mouth.

Job chapters 4 through to 27 recounts for us a conversation in which Job and these 3 friends … Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar take it in turns explaining to Job the WHY of his suffering. And the JIST of their argument is well captured in:

Job 5:3-5 (NIV) I myself have seen a fool taking root, but suddenly his house was cursed. 4 His children are far from safety, crushed in court without a defender. 5 The hungry consume his harvest, taking it even from among thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth.

Now ‘the fool’ in the Bible is someone who is disobedient to God. And Eliphaz says such people MIGHT prosper for a time … they MIGHT start to take root … but their prosperity doesn’t last. Why?

Job 5:12-13 (NIV) He thwarts the plans of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success. 13 He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away.

According to Eliphaz … and Bildad and Zophar say the exact same thing … there is no such thing as innocent suffering. If you’re REAPING trouble … according to Eliphaz … it’s because you SOWED it yourself. OK … just like wheat doesn’t just SPRING UP from the soil without someone sowing it …:

Job 5:6 (NIV) … hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground.

Unless someone has sowed it. And that someone … according to Eliphas, Bildad and Zophar … is Job. And they spend 23 chapters trying to convince Job that all his troubles stem from some unrepentant sin in his life.

The problem with their theory is … Job’s suffering is NOT the result of his sin. It’s actually the exact opposite. Job 1-2 tell us Job is suffering BECAUSE he is blameless and upright. Where these 3 guys go wrong … is they don’t understand the Bible’s multidimensional view of suffering. And it’s the same with many churches today … who tell people there are suffering because of a lack of faith or some unrepentant sin. Now that MIGHT be the case. Divine discipline IS one of the many dimensions of suffering in the Bible. But because it’s one of MANY dimensions … we cannot claim that’s what’s happening. And in Job chapter 42 … God says he is ANGRY at Job’s 3 friends for claiming that’s what was happening to Job. So application number 2 for today is … don’t EVER tell someone their suffering is due to a lack of faith … or some unrepentant sin. The SOLE reason Job’s 3 friends are in the Bible is to warn us against making such a claim.

So that’s MISERABLE comfort from without. Those in the wheelchair don’t want a speech outlining all the different possible causes for their suffering. And they CERTAINLY don’t want to be told their suffering may be self-inflicted … because we simply cannot know. What then is HELPFUL comfort from without? What sufferers need is 4 things … 4 more application points. They need us (i) to show up, (ii) to listen, (iii) to say JUST ENOUGH … to hear how sorry we are to see them going through this, and (iv) to ask if we can do anything. (i) Show up … like Job’s 3 friends, (ii) listen to whatever complaints or pleas they have … like Job’s friends at the start, (iii) say VERY little … like ‘that must be hard. I’m so deeply sorry to hear’, then (iv) say ‘is there anything I can do to support you through this’.

And let me tell you brothers and sisters … do not underestimate the impact that has on sufferers. Comfort from others is one of the greatest tools we have to enduring suffering.

Comfort from within

The SECOND type of comfort on display in this passage is comfort from within. What I mean by that is … Job must do some PERSONAL comforting … some SELF-counselling too. Whether you have miserable or helpful comfort from others … nobody can get through a season of affliction without some self-counselling. Take Psalm 42 for example … where the psalmist says:

Psalm 42:3 (NIV) My tears have been my food day and night

Now in times of deep affliction … it’s very tempting to listen to those accusing voices in our head … right. ‘Nobody likes you. God has abandoned you. The world would be better without you’. Yet instead of listening to himself … the Psalmist SPEAKS to himself:

Psalm 42:5 (NIV) Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

So those who travel through affliction BETTER than others … are generally those who can speak words of comfort to themselves. And in chapter 6 … Job does 3 things to comfort himself. Another 3 application points.

Firstly … he’s REAL about his affliction. He doesn’t downplay it … nor is he stoic about it. He says:

Job 6:2-3 (NIV) “If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! 3 It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas— no wonder my words have been impetuous.

In the movie Central Intelligence … the Rock’s character goes through a pretty humiliating experience at high school. Years later … Kevin Hart’s character asks how he ended up dealing with it. The Rock said ‘what I did was … I took ALL that trauma … and I bottled it up … and pushed it way down deep … so it can’t bother me’. And Kevin Hart says ‘that doesn’t sound very healthy’. The Bible doesn’t know about emotional avoidance … or emotional stoicism. It teaches emotional realism. What that means is … (i) admitting our troubles and traumas … rather than denying them, (ii) processing our troubles and traumas … rather than hiding them, then (iii) expressing our troubles and traumas. Being REAL about our emotions … about how our troubles and traumas affect us … is STEP 1 in comfort from within. Don’t ignore it your anguish. Process it.

The SECOND thing Job does is he prays. Now it doesn’t LOOK like prayer to the naked eye … because he’s speaking in the 3rd person. But picture a surf in the Middle Ages addressing the king. Even though he might be speaking directly TO the King … he might say something like ‘oh that the king would please grant my request’. This is what Job is doing in v. 8:

Job 6:8 (NIV) “Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for,

Job is bringing his situation to the Lord. Or in the words of:

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV) Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Casting all our anxieties upon God has several benefits.

Number 1 … it honours God. God LOVES being asked for help. He LOVES our prayers … because it shows we’re relying on Him.
Number 2 … it means we haven’t turned away from Him … like Satan wants us to.
And number 3 … the Bible tells us God uses our prayers to bring about his good purposes. Now we’re not privy to HOW he does this. But WHEN we pray … the Bible says we should expect that God hears those prayers … and uses them in some way … to bring about his good purposes for us.

So … process your grief … then place your grief before the Lord. The THIRD thing Job does to comfort himself … is he rejects suicide. Have a look at v. 9:

Job 6:9 (NIV) that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut off my life!

Now wishing for death is not uncommon to those going through suffering. If the thought of being dead hasn’t crossed your mind before … chances are you’ve never gone through acute suffering. Yet what Job does in his thoughts about death … is he leaves his life in God’s hands. Let me explain. If you’re sitting in church here today … and you’d like to LOOK UP Job 5-6 … to follow along with the preacher … we always encourage our people to have their Bibles open during the sermon. If you want to follow along in the Bible … what do you do? Do you sit there and say ‘oh that someone would hand me a Bible!’ No. There are Bibles at each end of your pew … right? You just slide over and grab one.

In the same way … if Job wanted to end his life … all he had to do was take a long walk off a short cliff. He’s more than capable of ending his own life. The reason he cries out ‘oh that God would be willing to cut off my life’ is because he’s refusing to take his life into his OWN hands. And I pray that’s the same for all of us … for TWO reasons. First … God gave us life in the first place. So our life belongs to him. That’s why suicide is a sin. It’s taking something … that only God has a right to take.

But just as important is the fact that suicide is no comfort. Not only does it crush your loved ones … if you’ve ever known someone who committed suicide … you will know it CRUSHES those around them. But it also takes away God’s ability to use you for his good and joyful purposes. When terminal patients are given good palliative care … the vast majority of them say ‘I’m so thankful I didn’t take the euthanasia option 18 months ago … because it has given me more time with my loved ones’. Friends … as bad as it might feel at the time … let’s leave the ‘end of life’ to God … by trusting that He knows what he’s doing … even if it looks the opposite.

Comfort from above

Well this brings us to our third and final form of comfort … comfort from above. In v. 10 Job says this:

Job 6:10 (NIV) Then I would still have this consolation— my joy in unrelenting pain— that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.

The REASON Job wants God to take his life away … is so that Job can die NOW … before his debilitating suffering leads him to blaspheme God. Job’s wife says ‘curse God and die’. Job says I would like to leave this life without cursing God … thank you very much. Now why is that? Well let’s think this through.

To begin with … it means Job still loves and fears God. If he HATED God … then he’d be HAPPY to curse God …would he not? The FACT that Job wants to die NOW … before he gets the chance to curse God … indicates Job still loves God.
But why does Job still love God … given God’s arrows are IN him … v. 4? The reason is … because Job trusts that GOD still loves him. And this is the MAIN form of comfort that helps Job get through this horrible season of affliction; the knowledge that God is still FOR him … even when it looks otherwise.

Now WHY is this? Why is it that IF we know God still loves us … it cushions the blow of suffering … like the suspension in a car? It’s because the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. In the LOTR BOOKS … not the movie … Peter Jackson trashed this scene in the movie … Faramir refuses straight OUT to take the One Ring. When he does so … Samwise goes up to him and says ‘you have shown your quality sir … the very highest’. At that point Faramir had already recognised Sam’s courage and faithfulness. If you’re not aware … Samwise Gamgee is the REAL hero of LOTR. He sticks with Frodo even when Frodo doesn’t stick with him. And Faramir says to the courageous and faithful Sam; ‘Master Samwise … the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards’.

Brothers and sisters … the cross is the ULTIMATE praise … from the most praiseworthy. It is God saying ‘YOU Natalie … or YOU Robert … are SO valuable to me … that I’m willing to die for you. In Job 4:7 Eliphaz says:

Job 4:7 (NIV) Who, being innocent, has ever perished?

The answer is … Jesus. Jesus is the one person who reaped trouble without EVER sowing it himself … without EVER turning away from God’s word. And he did so … because he loves us.

Now the cross shows us TWO things in this context. Firstly … it shows us Job’s 3 friends are categorically wrong. If there is NO innocent suffering in the universe … then there’s no substitutionary suffering … and therefore no grace. The SECOND thing it shows … is Christians have even MORE reason to trust that God still loves us than Job did. Job only had God’s PROMISE of love. We have the PROOF of God’s love.

So with that in mind … let me close with some final points of application … cause we haven’t got enough yet.

WHEN we are tempted to think ‘God doesn’t love me anymore’ … look again at the cross. The cross is tangible proof that you’re suffering is not punishment for some sin. That punishment was taken care of by Jesus. And the REASON he took your punishment is because he loves you. So he hasn’t abandoned you. Rather he has some OTHER purpose for this suffering.
There may be someone in your life who gave YOU miserable comfort during your hour of need. Given Jesus has forgiven YOUR sin … we are called to forgive THEM also. Or perhaps YOU were the one who gave miserable comfort to someone … telling them their suffering was due to sin … or a lack of faith. Perhaps you need to repent of that … to God and the person.
Or perhaps you need to repent of losing hope … or of turning away from God during a season of suffering. If so … please know that God will forgive you before you can even get the words out … because he loves you.

Conclusion