I want you to turn to Job. Turn
to Psalms and then go backwards one page. Job chapter 42. Job chapter 42 and follow along
with me. Look at verse 7. Look at verse
7. And it was so that after the
Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz
the Temanite, my wrath is kindled against you and against your
two friends. For you've not spoken of me the
thing that is right, like my servant Job has. Therefore, take
unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant
Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering. And my servant
Job shall pray for you, for him will I accept, lest I deal with
you after your folly, in that you have not spoken of me that
thing which is right, like my servant Job. So Eliphaz and the
Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Namathite went
and did according as the Lord commanded them, the Lord also
accepted Job. And the Lord returned the captivity
of Job when he prayed for his friends. Also, the Lord gave
Job twice as much as he had before. Now over time, the book of Job has been one
of my most perplexing books of the scripture. Martin Luther
said that the book of Job was more magnificent and sublime
than any other book in scripture. I would agree with that for whatever
it's worth. I think it's a lot like a novel.
If you've never read it, read it. I'm going to try to give
you an overview, but you would enjoy reading it. that it is historical. It is
historical, although it reads like a novel. And Job was a real
person, just like you and I. And he was probably the richest
man in all of that region of the world at the time this story
happened, this history happened. The book is written in a very
different style of writing from any of the former scriptures,
and humanly speaking, its story is easy to understand, and it's
interesting to read, but for some reason, my fault. I've never been able to satisfy
myself in finding the things of Christ in this book. hear of Job's patience. This
book's not about Job or his patience. Maybe that's an overstatement,
but it's about our Lord Jesus Christ and the things of Him.
That's what the Lord says about this whole book, Genesis to Revelation. I've even heard other preachers
make this statement that I just made. I've found it odd at several
different times and on several different occasions when I would
try to find sermons on the book of Job to listen to, I found
them practically non-existent. And for what it's worth, I can't
find or I don't know of one pastor that we're familiar with or a
pastor that we would have any confidence in Who has ever done
a verse-by-verse exposition of Job? What I'm saying at first here
doesn't really matter much, just personal observations. There's lots of commentaries
out there. There's been volumes written
about this book, but I found them pretty disappointing when
I would try to decipher things concerning Christ from those
commentaries. And I don't want to insinuate,
that's not what I'm saying, that I've now got this book all figured
out. But I've seen something this
week. that I've never seen before. And if you'll allow me, I'm going
to try to make some sense out of Job being a type and a picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ today. I don't have anything new to
say. I hope it's just something old and refreshing. Job's oldest
book in the Bible No one knows the year or the
time when these things of this story occurred or even when it
was written. It's just known to be the oldest
canonical book of the Scripture. If you put them in order of date
written, Job would be in the front of the Bible. It begins
by God declaring that Job was a perfect and an upright man. One who feared God and departed
from evil. I just point you to Christ right
there. Does that sound like Him? A perfect and an upright man
who departed from evil. At no point in this history does
God ever refer to Him in any other way. He was extremely wealthy. Extremely wealthy. His wealth
is described like this. He's got seven sons and three
daughters. He had 7,000 sheep. He had 3,000
camels. He had 500 yoke of oxen. And he had 500 she-asses. If you wonder what that is, I'll
tell you. Those are female asses, she-asses. You say, that's not too special.
Oh yeah, it is too. The females were docile. males
you had to hit them upside of the head with a two-by-four to
get them to do anything. And he had a very great household. Scripture says that he was the
greatest man, greatest of all men of the East. That's where our Lord came from
too. He loved his sons and his family. And Scripture says He sanctified
them. And He rose up early in the morning,
every morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number
of His kids. Because He thought that it may
be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. And
He did that continually. There came a day when God bragged
on Job to Satan. He asked him, have you considered
my servant Job, Satan? He told Satan that there was
none like him. None like him. In all the earth. Does that sound like God's Son?
He's a perfect, God said this, He's a perfect and an upright
man. And Satan asked the Lord, God, does He serve you for nothing? You've blessed the work of His
hands and He has more than any other man, any other man. But
if you put forth your hand and take all that He has, He'll curse
you to your face. You know what the Lord said?
Go ahead and do it. Take all he's got. Take it all. And the Lord allowed Satan to
take all that he had. You know the story. It all started when a servant
came to Job and said, All of your oxen, 1,000 of them,
and the she-asses, 500 of them, have been taken away by the Sabeans. They just stole them, took them
away. And another servant, while that
servant was delivering that news, immediately came in and said,
he had witnessed the fire of God fall from heaven and burn
up all of the sheep and the servants and consume them. Have you ever seen a cow that's
been struck by lightning? I did when I was a kid. And it wasn't
nothing but a pile of ashes. Another servant, before that
one could finish up, came in and said the Chaldeans had carried
away all the camels, 3,000 of them. And he killed the servants,
tending them with the sword. Stabbed them all, run them through.
And immediately, another servant came in and said that all his
sons and daughters had been killed in their oldest brother's house.
A windstorm blew that house over and crushed them all to death.
Now some of you already know Job's reactions, I hope. Man,
you know what he said. He blessed the Lord and he said,
naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And then God said, in all this, in all of this, Job sinned not,
nor charged God foolishly. When God pointed to Job and complimented
him again by observing that he was still a perfect man, and
an upright man, even after Satan had moved against Job, with God's
permission, to destroy him, and the scripture says, without a
cause, Satan asked, you touch his skin, and his bones, and his flesh, he said, you let me do that,
and he'll curse you to your face. You know what the Lord said?
He's in your hand, Satan, but for one thing, you can't kill
him. And Satan smoked Job with boils
from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. What misery and suffering that
must have been. Job sat down on an ash heap,
took a piece of broken pottery, and clawed himself bloody with
those boards. His mouth was shut. He never
opened his mouth. That's what our Lord did. He was silent and he never murmured
a word. Amidst all of the anguish that
he suffered and misery that he must have
been in, his wife even told him, why don't you curse God and die? And to put it in our cultural
grammar, Job said, no. I don't care if he kills me,
I'm going to trust him. Job said, what? Shall we receive
good at the hand of God? And shall we receive not evil? In all this, God said this, in
all this, did not Job sin with his lips? Now it's important to realize
that Job knew that Satan had done this. But he also knew that Satan could
do only what God allowed him to do. Job acknowledged in Job
chapter 19 and verse 21, if you want to write that down, that
though Satan had done these things, God had allowed it. And Job said,
the hand of God has touched me. When they were gathered against
our Lord, they could only do and only did what God had determined
before to be done. Now let's get right to the point.
Our God, the Lord Jesus Christ, fits this type and picture to
a T. Is this not a description and
a picture of our Lord? Consider. There was a time before
time. Brother Don says that. There
was a time before time. That's a total contradiction. When Christ could and did say
that every beast of the forest is mine, the Lord Jesus Christ,
God Almighty, said in Psalms, every beast of the forest is
mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills, if I were hungry, I wouldn't
tell you. For the world is mine, and the
fullness thereof. That's our Job. That's our Job. Job is described as the greatest
of all men of the East. And in 2 Corinthians, Paul said
this, though Christ, he was made poor, or rich, though he was
rich, yet for his sake, your sake, he became poor. That's what happened to Job.
You want to see Christ? Read the book of Job. In Christ, believers are heir
of all things eternal. In Hebrews, Christ is described
as having been made a little lower than the angels for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by
the grace of God, should taste death for every man. Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew says that in his condescension, Christ
said, the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And that's the
place to which Job was brought. In all of this, I see Job as
a picture of Christ in his suffering and in his glorification. Remember
what our script, our text said? In the end, we're talking about
in the end, he was restored double of all he had. In all this, I see Job as a picture
of Christ, his suffering and his glorification and his ascension,
as we'll see a little bit later, to the Father. Now having brought you this far
and after fitting Job as a type and a picture of Christ, I want
to consider these friends that Job has. Job in chapter 2 and verse 11. It says, if you want to turn
there and look at it, it says this, Job 2 and verse 11. Now when Job's three friends heard
of all this evil that was come upon Job, they came every one
from their own place Eliphaz, the Temanite, and Bildad, the
Shuhite, and Zophar, the Namathite, for they had made an appointment."
Now that's important right there. They had made an appointment
together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. If you read the book of Job,
These guys, these three friends, Job's friends, ganged up on him. They did it. They wasn't nothing
but a pack. And they all planned it to go
at the same time and said, we're going to straighten Job out.
We're going to straighten that boy out. God calls these men,
Job's friends, in verse 7 of our text, And nowhere does it
say or is it ever written that these men considered Job as their
friend. God calls them Job's friends.
Job calls them his friends. But they never called Job their
friend. Not in this whole book. Not in
this whole book. When his friends showed up at
the same time, they offered no comfort. That's what they came
for. That's what it says. They offer
no comfort, but they try to straighten him out. They told Job, you're
the source of your own problem. If you was as righteous as you
claim to be, this wouldn't have happened to you. These things can't fall on a
righteous man. This religious world thinks they
can know from looking at circumstances that God's judging a person.
Job must have done something horrible to see these things
happen to him. Otherwise, he would have remained
healthy or wealthy and wise. Human nature says that good things
happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
Even believers are not averse to observing that. What did you do to deserve what
you're getting? That's what we think. Some of
the disciples even did that. They asked the Lord, said, who
has sinned that this man is blind? Why is he blind? Was it something his parents
did? The Lord said, no. He was blind for the glory of
God. It wasn't to punish his parents.
It was that God might manifest Himself by the healing of that
man and His glory. Then Job's friends showed up.
Three of them have ganged up on him. You know what Eliphaz
means? The first one's name, Eliphaz. My God's gold. He worshipped
a golden idol. And there he was to correct Job
who was a worshipper of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who claimed to
be perfect and God witnessed to be perfect. And they're telling
him he's not. You got any neighbors that consider
you that for what you believe? Family? Bildad means confused by mingling
love. Bildad. He loved to exalt himself. That's what his name meant. His
love for Job was motivated by the fact that it would exalt
him to love Job. To feel sorry for Job. To straighten out Job. To correct
Job. Zophar means sparrow, but it comes from a root word that
means to leave early. It means to leave before the
sermon's over. His conclusions were premature. He accused Job of self-righteousness. Job was a rich man. Rich men
have lots of friends so long as they're rich. You ever thought about that?
I've been guilty of it, I'll tell you the truth. Men and women like to be around
celebrities. Rich folks, powerful men, it's
intoxicating. Proverbs says, many will entreat
the favor of the prince. And every man is a friend to
him that gives gifts. The poor is hated even of his
own neighbor, but the rich, they got a lot of friends. Yet these men are called his
friends. Job related their betrayal several
times, but yet he called them. He told them, you're not saying
what's right. you ought to be showing me pity.
And in spite of what they said to him, in spite of the confrontation
that they took toward him, he continually, all the way through
this book, says, my friends. Job related their betrayal several
times, but yet he called them his friends, even in their betrayals
and accusations. Turn to Job 19 and verse 14. Keep your finger on our text.
It says, my kinfolk have failed and my familiar friends have
forgotten me. Look down at verse 19. All my inward friends abhorred
me and they whom I loved. Get that. Are turned against me. Notice he said, they whom I loved have betrayed me. Those I love. They're the ones that betrayed
Christ. He came to His own and His own
received Him not. They killed Him. They killed
Him. Job has shown friendship to these
men. They were His friends because
He befriended them. Does this remind you of the friend
of sinners? Much to my surprise, that phrase
does not occur in the Scriptures. I thought it did. The friend
of sinners. But nonetheless, believers have
given Christ that name, the friend of sinners. We find in Matthew
many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His
disciples. Our Lord received sinners and
ate with them. The worst of all men were the
ones who approached Him, and the fact is the Lord did receive
those sinners, and He ate with them. He associated with them,
with the worst of all sinners. And they were the ones who gathered
around Christ while He was on this earth. When Levi made a
great feast in his own house over in the book of Luke, there
was a great company of publicans and others that sat down with
him. Pharisees didn't come. The religious guys didn't come.
Christ himself says that the Son of Man has come eating and
drinking, and you say, behold, a gluttonous man and a winebibber,
a friend, of publicans and sinners. There was something about Christ
that made Him approachable and made them comfortable with His
company. They were the ones that Christ, the ruler, owner, and
sovereign of the universe, the one who owned all things, loved. He loved them. That's what they
said about him. That's what Job said about his
friends too. Those whom I love. They were and are his friends. And in the end, they found comfort
and acceptance at his feet just as Job's friends did in verse
9 and 10 of our text. I want you to read it. Verse 10, 9 and 10. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad
the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, remember that, and did,
remember that, according as the Lord commanded them. The Lord
also accepted Job, And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when
he prayed for his friends. Also, the Lord gave Job twice
as much as he had before. Christ disowned the Pharisees
and said to them, I didn't come to call the righteous to repentance.
I came to call sinners. You could say, well, these friends
of Job were the equivalent of Pharisees. from the way that
they admonished Job, or maybe so, but I want you to remember
a couple of things. Paul, the apostle, went about
all over the country with execution orders in his hands, killing
Christians. Paul was Christ's friend. Christ wasn't Paul's friend.
Get it? Why did he obtain mercy? For
one reason and one reason only. Christ loved him. Paul was his friend. Christ was not his friend. Christ
had loved him with an everlasting love. Paul hadn't loved him. Peter denied him three times.
And you know what the Lord said? He said, you're going to deny
me three times. I prayed for you. I prayed for
you. And that's what Job did in verse
10 for his friends. He is wicked, persecuting friends. When we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. These friends of Job were not
afraid to approach Him. But there was a time when they
didn't care a thing at all about Him. So it was with us concerning
Christ. There was a time when His name
was nothing to us but black letters on the pages of this book. But even then we were His friends. I can remember once a long time
ago when Brother Don was here when he made the comment that
our Lord loved King David. as much when he was in the arms
of Bathsheba as he did when he was writing the Psalms. It just
absolutely awestruck me when I heard that. You know what? It's true. I believe
that. I'll put it even blunt, more
blunt. If you ask God, well, what about
David? If you'd ask that question while
David was in the arms of Bathsheba, you know what Christ would have
said? He's my friend. Our Lord has made a covenant
with His friends. And He's going to save them.
Every one of them. He will not and He cannot change,
no matter what. Peter denied Him three times,
but rather than kick Him into an eternal hell, He comforted
Him. Christ said as such, He's my
friend. I've prayed for you. Job's friends
didn't even know they were in need of a righteousness before
God. They were sincere. They were
confident in the righteousness which they had made for themselves. But they were wrong. God emphatically
states in verse 8 of the text, You've not spoken of Me, the
right thing, like My servant Job. Now if you want to go home
and read this book, remember this. It'll tell you when Eliphaz
is speaking. It'll tell you when Bildad is
speaking. It'll tell you when Zophar is
speaking. And anytime you're reading in
this book, Job, if you're reading what Eliphaz said, it's baloney. It's not true. But you read anything
that Job says, it's true. Now there's some perplexing things
that they say that seem to be awfully logical and awful true.
But in the end, God said they're wrong. Christ's friends are described
as his enemies and the ungodly. And Job's friends were about
to be dealt with after their foolishness. That's pholic there
in verse 9 or 10. There was a way that seemed right
to them, but the end was the ways of death. What Job's friend
needed was a burnt offering. And they got one. They needed a blood sacrifice
of bullocks and rams. The largest sacrifice that there
was. They needed a big sacrifice.
The biggest and strongest of all, and not only that, God required
seven of them. You know what that means? That
means that they needed a perfect sacrifice. That's what the number
seven means. And not only that, they had to
go to God's servant Job, who would pray for them, who would
intercede for them. Intercede is the meaning of the
word pray in verse 8. Why would he pray for them? Because
they were his friends. They were his friends. And God
would show mercy to their folly for Job's sake. That's why God
shows mercy to us for Christ's sake. Now look at verse 9. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad
the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did. Something happened
to Job's friends. You know what it was? They believed God. God said,
you offer these burnt offerings, well, I'm going to kill you for
your foolishness. They believed God. If they hadn't believed
God, they would not have went. The book of Hebrews says that
by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved. He went. And he built an ark
because he believed God. You walk because you believe. By the which he condemned the
world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
When you believed God, you did according as the Lord commanded. God's
commandment is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
His commandment. Look again at verse 8. God says,
Go to My servant Job. For him will I accept. The only
hope that Job's friend have is that Job would intercede for
them. The meaning of that word pray there. That's the only hope
that we have when we're found in Christ. That He intercedes,
mediates, and represents us. And that we're found in Him.
So what should we do? What must we do to be saved?
We must go to God's servant, our Lord Jesus Christ. God will
accept his intercession because he's offered himself the perfect
sacrifice that ended all sacrifices once. And there is no more sacrifice
for sin. If we had been witness to His
crucifixion, we would have been in the crowd that was crying,
crucifying, just like these three friends were. Christ could have said what Job
said to his friends. All my inward friends abhorred
me, and they whom I loved are turned against me. The prophet
Zechariah, this is interesting. said in his prophecy of Christ,
he said, and one shall say unto him, what are these wounds in
your hands? His answer shall be, those with
which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Do you get wounded
when you go to a friend's house? Christ did. We all have lived in total rebellion
against God, and if not verbally, we have by our lives and actions
declared that we'll not have this man rule over us. But all
the while, we were His friends. From before the foundation of
the world. He's loved God, hating sinners for a long time. They're
His friends. Wretched sinners. He loved us and gave himself
for us. Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. What was
the end of Job's friends? That's the title of this message.
The end of Job's friends. Look at verse 10. The Lord turned
captive And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed
for his friends. Also, the Lord gave Job twice
as much as he had before. This is to be understood of Job's
restoration from his afflictions to a happy state. This is to
be understood of the return of the substance and the health
and his friends, and especially of his deliverance from Satan,
in whose hands he had been for a long time. I'm convinced that
Job's suffering was indescribable. There is but one instance of
suffering recorded in the Scriptures which exceeds the suffering of
Job, and that's the suffering of Christ. You find me any other
character in this book that suffered like Job did, other than Christ.
Christ suffered the equivalent of eternal death when our sin
was laid upon Him and He gave Himself to make His friends free. When Job's friends arrived and
when they lifted up their voice afar off, they didn't even recognize
Him when they saw Him. He was so eaten up and His visage
so marred that they didn't even recognize Him. They sat down on that ash heap
with him and didn't say anything. There wasn't a word said for
seven days. But now his captivity was turned
and he was freed from all of his distresses and his suffering,
even from those which arose from the dealings of God with him.
He was now fully satisfied and content. And that being so, Job's
friends were witness to God turning his captivity and the restoring
of double of all that he had before. Double, double. You remember this? Well, I'll
tell you first, he had 14,000 camels, 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels,
1,000 yoke of oxen, and he had also seven sons and three daughters. Brother Henry made a comment
from this pulpit one time. He said, seven sons and three
daughters, that's not double what he had. You know what Henry
said? He said, oh yeah it is. He had
seven in heaven. So he had double what he had.
And here's my point. There may be some speculation
in what I'm about to say, but I'm convinced it's so. Job's
friends were beneficiaries. of God turning to captivity of
Job. Why would I say such a thing?
Because Job loved his friends. When he had all that substance
restored, they were his friends. And the 11th verse says that. Then came there unto him all
his brethren, verse 11, and all his sisters, and all that they
that had been of his acquaintances before, and did eat with him, bread in his house, and they
bemoaned." You know what that word means? It means shook their
heads. Have you ever had a vision of
Christ's suffering and metaphorically kind of shook your head in observing
it? Every man also gave Him a piece
of money, and every one an earring of gold. And here's the picture
of what our Lord has done for us. Isaiah 40, and verse 2 says this, Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. For she hath
received at the Lord's hand double, that's what Job got, for all
her sin. Our sin's gone. Not just barely
gone, they're double gone. Double gone. Our David, our Lord
Jesus Christ has recovered it all. And all his friends have
been made heir of all things in and through Him. Go home and read, Joe. I think you'd enjoy it. Father, give us comfort in the
things of Christ. Give us an understanding of Your
Word. Reveal Christ to us in all that we read. Give us eyes to see, and hearts
to perceive, and forgive these stammering lips. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.