You know that the last couple
of times I preached to Job, I preached about how Satan, though he had
made some awful accusations against Job, to God himself, and Satan was defeated, whipped,
embarrassed, shamed, he had to go away with his tail between
his legs because Job, God upheld him, And in all the things that
he went through, Job sinned not. Sinned not. He did not sin. And we've got an adversary, but
our adversary, though he's powerful, our advocate is stronger, more
powerful. Our Lord Jesus Christ has already
defeated him. Already defeated him. And I tell
you, he can't touch us. He can't touch us unless God
wills for Him to do it. But I'm thankful that we are
in the hands of God Almighty. I'm certainly thankful that I'm
under the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to look tonight,
look here in verse 11 and down through verse 13 and we're going
to deal with what we call friends, real, true friends, genuine friends. Now when Job's three friends
heard of all this evil that was come upon him, They come every
one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuite,
Zophar the Namathite, for they had made an appointment together
to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. And when they
had lifted up their eyes afar off and knew him not, they lifted
up their voice and wept, and they rent every one his mantle,
sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down
with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none
spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great." That's a mouthful. They saw that his grief was very
great. You know, we lose just a little
in this world. And our grief gets very great.
But you imagine losing all your wealth, losing all your children,
and your wife telling you just go ahead and cuss God, give up
your faith and die. And Job didn't do it. Job didn't
do it. All Job had had been lost. But
there were three men, three men who heard of Job's sorrows, heard
about Job's losses. Job had lots of acquaintances,
lots of acquaintances as most of us do. We know a lot of people
have lots of acquaintances. But very, very few people have
real, genuine friends. Very few people do. Old Scott
Richardson told me one time, sitting in my backyard, he said,
if you ever have a real, true friend, you better treat him
so well, because a true friend is very hard to come by. We have a lot of fair weather
friends, but when it gets into tough going, when it gets in
the real rough going, that's when you find out who your friends
are. And Job had been mocked by the children and he said here among the ashes,
he called his servants and they didn't answer. But here comes
three of his friends and when they got there, You know, the
way that the Jews would do, they'd rip their garment up here close
to the heart to show how their heart was ripped, that it hurt
them, it grieved them. And then they'd sit down in the
dust and they'd throw dust on their hair, throw them all over,
dust all over, to show them that they was amazed, that they was
just dirt and dust. And they'd sit down and do that. And then when they sat with him,
they sat silently and wept for him for seven days and seven
nights. Eliaphaz, his name means God's
strength, my God's strength. That was Bildad and Zophar. These men were true hearted,
true hearted, true loving, truly loving. But they were religious
men, they were devout men. And we'll find out as we go on
through the book of Job that with their religion, they would
be the most, cause Job the most intense suffering and sharp and
great temptations that he would have to endure over these men
and their religion. But here we have several things
about having a true, true, genuine friend. And here's the first
thing about it. The greater the adversity, the
greater the friendship. The greater trouble you have,
the greater friend you have. You know, Job's troubles, instead
of driving his friends away, they drew to him. Now his wife wasn't for him.
His friends, other friends in town weren't for him. His servants
wouldn't pay any attention to him. But when they heard about
him and they lived far away, they drew near to him. It says
there in verse 11, now when Job's three friends heard of all this
evil that was come upon him, they lived a long way off and
they heard everything that had happened to Job. They heard about
Job losing all of his wealth. Losing all of his cattle. Losing
everything he had. Heard about him losing his ten
children. They heard about everything that
happened to him. All the evil that came upon him. And then look what it says next.
And they came every one from his own place. Oh my. They came every one from his
own place. They lived in different places. They had homes. They had different places that
they lived. They left their homes and hurried to Joe's side. His
affliction so moved them and had such an effect upon them
that they had to go to be with him and to do what they could
to comfort him. Adversity is one of the best
tests of friendship. When you're going through great
trials, heavy, heavy burdens, True friendship, adversity proves
true friendship. Oh my. You know it's like the
bees and the birds. They love the flowers, but when
the frost comes, they stop. And that's the way false friends
are. They'll come around when you got everything's well. But
true friends, true friends visit us in prosperity only when invited,
but in adversity, when you're in trouble, they come without
an invitation. They don't need an invitation
to come to your house. Bring something, bring prayers,
bring the sorrow, bring the grief, and come to be with you through
your grief. And look over, keep Job, and
look over here in Proverbs 17, 7. Proverbs 17.7. The Course says about our Master, Job 17.17, excuse me, Job 17.17. The Course says about our Lord Jesus
Christ, a friend loveth at all times, I mean he loves in the
morning, he loves in the afternoon, he loves at night, he loves day
in and he loves day out. Once he starts loving you, he
loves you all the time, all the time, all the time. And then look what he says, and
a brother is born for adversity. There's a brother that's born
to go with you through your adversity, through your troubles, through
your heartaches, through your thoughts. And our Lord is the
truest friend that you and I have ever had. What a friend we have
in Jesus. All our sins and sorrows bear. And I tell you, He's a brother
born for our adversity. Sin's adverse. Law's our adversity. brings us into adversity. Justice
brings us into adversity. Sin brings us into adversity.
And our Lord Jesus Christ came to save us from all of our adversity. To save us from all that was
against us. Sin and law and justice. And
to save us. And I'll tell you what He does.
Bless His holy name. He stays with us. Through thick
and through thin. Whether we're up or whether we're
down, whether we're laughing or whether we're crying, when
we're in our bed or when we get up in the morning, our Lord is
with us through everything that we go through. He's touched with
the feelings of our infirmities. He's touched with them, I'm telling
you. And I'll tell you what, He's with us when the sun shines
or the rain. He's with us through our life,
and He's with us through death, and He'll be with us through
this life, and He'll be with us through our death. That's
the kind of Lord we got. What a true friend. What a friend
we have in Jesus. Oh my, not only is a true friend
born for adversity, the greater the trouble, the closer the friendship. I mean, listen, in a genuine
true friendship, it's practical. What I mean by that, that it's
not just in word, it actually manifests itself. It comes to
help. It comes to the rescue. The friendship
of these men weren't Just a passing sentiment. They said, well, I
heard about Job, and bless his heart, I hated for him. We'll
pray for him. We'll send him a nice card. We'll
tell him we're very, very sorry. But that wasn't the way it was
with these men. Uh-uh. It was a working force. Grace. The Scriptures tells us
faith works. It really truly works. How does
it work? It works by faith. It works by
faith. And their love here, this friendship
here, was a self-denying work. Now you think about this. These
men, they all had homes. Every one of them had a home.
Every one of them probably had families. They had work to do. They had things to do. And when
they taught I started out traveling in those days, travel was very,
very hard. Most men had to walk wherever
they went. Every once in a while, somebody
was wealthy enough to have a carriage and somebody would drive them.
But oh my, traveling in those days wasn't easy. And then it
says here, down there in verse 11, now when Job's heard, these
three friends heard all these things, it says, Down in the
last line of the verse, they had made an appointment together
to come to mourn with him and comfort him. They had got together. They contacted one another. And
they lived far apart. They contacted one another. And
they made an appointment to meet up somewhere. And they said,
we'll travel together. And they put forth great effort. when they heard of our friend's
calamities and the things that he went through. You know, Galatians
6.9 says this, be not weary, don't be weary in well-doing. Don't do it, don't be weary in
well-doing. Don't be weary in well-doing. And as much as you're able to,
you communicate to them, that means give out to them who are
in trouble. Oh my. And it says here, they
came to mourn with him and to comfort him. You know there's a verse of scripture, where is it at? I think it says,
weep with him that weep, mourn with him that mourn. They came
to comfort him and also to mourn with him. And that's one of the
most, you know, Sometimes we don't know how to
comfort somebody. But just a kind word, just a gentle word, just a tender
word, just a concerned word. Somebody called Shirley the other
night and was talking to her and she said, I appreciate you
asking about how I am. I'm thankful that you care about
what I'm going through. I'm thankful that you care what
I'm going through, that you ask about. And oh my, God comforts those. He comforts those that comfort
us that we may be able to comfort others. Paul had been in jail
for two years. He appealed to Caesar. Got on
a ship. He was on that ship for months. And he had that great storm.
And the ship just broke all to pieces. And they were stranded
on an island for three months on the island of Malta. And he
finally got on a ship and he finally got to Italy. And he
finally started toward Rome. And there's a place called the
Apiforum. And a whole bunch of brethren
heard that Paul was coming, and they went out to meet him. And
you know what Paul said? The scripture says, and Paul
took courage when he saw the brethren. Oh, there's the people who love
me, care for me. They're here to meet me. He said he was going to go to
Jerusalem. He was going to suffer. And they begged him not to go,
said, oh, it's going to be awful what's going to happen to you.
And they all knelt down and prayed. And he said, they all started
weeping. He said, why are you weeping? You're breaking my heart. But they wept for him, for what
he's going to go through. Oh, he took courage. And oh,
how our master came to comfort us, to bear our sorrow, And he's
well, well, well acquainted with our grief. Look with me over
here in Isaiah 61. Our Lord's well acquainted with
our grief. He was acquainted with it himself,
and he's well, well, well acquainted with our grief. Our grief. Look what it said here. Our Lord
speaking here, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because
the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the
meek. Listen to this, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. When your heart's just absolutely
broke, and everybody knows what a broken heart is, how your heart's
been broken time and time again, to bind up the brokenhearted,
To set permanent liberty to those that are bound. Opening of the
prison, those that are in prison, prison by sin, prison by law,
are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God. Listen to this now,
to comfort all that mourn. You mourn, Christ comforts you. I was with a young man the other
night and he just crying like a baby. Just wept and wept and
wept over his mama. And all he said, he come to comfort
all that mourn. Now listen to them. To a point
unto them that mourn, mourn in Zion. You know what he's going
to do? He's going to give them beauty
for ashes. Job's sitting on the ash heap,
rubbing ashes all over himself. God said, I'm going to give you
beauty for them ashes one of these days. And Job received
twice as much as he had to begin with. And he said, I'm gonna
give you the oil of joy. You're mourning? I'm gonna give
you some oil of joy. And you got a spirit of heaviness?
I'm gonna give you the spirit from the spirit of heaviness
that you might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting
of the Lord, that God may be glorified. That's what Lord come
to do. Comfort us. How many times have
we been comforted in the night when we woke up? And oh, how
our master come to comfort us in our sorrow. He is well, well,
well acquainted with our grief. And let me tell you this in verse
12, true friendship, real friendship, is vicariously afflicted. What
I mean by that? That you actually enter, you
suffer with them. You actually enter into their
sufferings with them. Look what it says there in verse
12. And when they lifted up their eyes, and they were still yet
well far off, and they saw Job sitting there. And they knew
him not. Said, that's not Job. There's
no way that can be Job. That's not my friend. That's
not the way I remember him. I've never seen him look so bad. That's not the way he was. He
used to be healthy. Had a smile. He had a wonderful
countenance. And now we can't even recognize
him. They do not, they don't look
like, can't possibly be Job. And you see somebody dying and
you watch them wither away and they go from somebody you can't
pick up to you can pick them up with your arms and carry them
around. I don't look like him. I went to see my daddy when he
was sick. He didn't look like my daddy. He didn't look like him. I said,
there's just no way that's my dad. But he was laying there
skin and bones. And he outweighed me by 50 pounds. And oh, listen. When they lifted
up their eyes and knew him not, listen to what else happens now.
When they said, oh, that can't possibly be Joe. And then they
lifted up their voice. And they began to weep. I believe
you could hear them weeping. I believe you could hear mourning.
I could believe you could hear all three of them were just weeping
and weeping and weeping as they drew close to Job. I mean, their
tears were streaming down their face. They saw Job and they said, Oh, Job! Oh, Job! Oh, I'm so sorry, Job! And they
didn't even hug him. Oh, they knew it was Job, but
he looked so different. Oh my, they saw death and they
saw afflictions all over him. They saw sores all over him.
He's sitting down in the ashes. And oh my. And then it says, look what else
it says. They got to him and they ripped the mantle. They
ripped the coat that they had on, ripped it. and sat down beside
him and got dust, start throwing it on him. Oh, showing how mournful they
are, how heartbreaking they are, how, what a shame that this Job
was in such a sad state. Oh my, he was real, real soul-suffering
when they saw Job in his real condition and knew not. And oh,
they said, it's much worse than I heard. I heard, but oh, it's
so much worse than I heard. They were so moved, their hearts
so hurt, that they truly, truly suffered with Job. I tell you,
the more we love, the more we suffer with those that are suffering. You know, suffer with them by
counseling. You take a mother, And her child gets sick, gets feverish, gets real sick. That mother suffers so with that
child. That mother hurts with that child. That mother within a moment,
she, you know, she loves that child so much that she said,
oh Lord, let this, let it be me, not her. Let it be me, not
them. Because they love that child
so much that they can't bear to see it sick. And that's what
the mother's heart and soul feels. Feels it. Look in Isaiah 63. Let me show you something here.
Me and Bruce was looking at this last week. We was talking about
being afflicted and the different things. But look what it says
here about our blessed Lord. Isaiah 63 9, in all the affliction he was
afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them in his love
and in his pity he redeemed them and he buried them and carried
them all the days of old. So our Lord he feels He feels. And here's these men. They were
suffering. They suffered for one another.
And that word vicarious means suffer for another who had no
reason to suffer. And you know our Lord Jesus suffered
vicariously for us. He had no reason to suffer. He
had no sin. He had no sin. So when He suffered,
He had to be suffering for someone else. Someone else. And then genuine, true, true
friendship is tender and quiet. Tender and quiet. And look what
it says, verse 13. So they sat down with him upon
the ground. They just sat down with him. Just sat down with him. They saw, oh my goodness, they
saw that his grief was great. And they sat down there on the
ground. It says seven days and seven nights. That's a long time. Seven days and seven nights. And you know what it says here?
And none spake a word unto him. Nobody said a word. Nobody said
a word. What could they have said to
Job? What would they have possibly said? Job, I've lost children
so I can identify with it. I've lost my wealth so I can
identify with it. No. No, they had everything that
Job didn't have. But they were silent, never said
a word. Why were they silent? Well, I think they were silent
first of all because they were amazed at the condition that
Job was in. They were so astonished that
they couldn't speak. Oh, Job, Job, Job. And oftentimes we're silent because
we don't know what to say at such a time. We don't know what to say. We
don't know what to say. What are you going to say? What
could you have said to Job? What could you have said to a
man that lost everything he had? When you lose somebody exceptionally
close to you, there's nothing anybody can say to comfort you. The only comfort you'll ever
get comes from Christ. And you'll have brothers and
sisters that they love you, they'll weep with you, and they'll pray
for you, and they'll hug you, and they'll leave tears on your
shirt, they'll leave tears on your shoulder. But oh, sometimes we just don't
know what to say. Have you ever said that, I don't
know what to say? If I say anything, it'll be the wrong thing. Sometimes, because our emotions
choke us up so much, that we can't speak. We're so choked
up we can't speak. Our emotions got us so choked
up we can't speak. And why are these men, these
three friends of Job silent? Probably for every one of those
reasons that I mentioned. But there's wisdom in silence.
Wisdom in silence. Their tears written their banners
sprinkling dust on their heads, their sobs, their sighs. These express the profoundest
sympathy that words could never express. And you know how our
Lord expressed his love toward us? He sweat great drops of blood, left alone to do everything he
did left alone. And sometimes when you don't
know what to say, the best thing to say is nothing. And silence oftentimes is the
best service that a friendship can render when a person's in
sorrow. Silence oftentimes is the strongest
evidence of the depth of a friendship toward a suffering friend, you
just sit with them. Just sit with them. Just be there. Just be in there. Just be in
there. And I tell you, silence is most
consistent with our ignorance of God's providence towards our
dear, dear friends. We don't know what God's doing
with them. And we got no reason to tell them And silence is the best because
of the mental state that some of them are going through. You
don't know what their mental state is. We don't know what
the state of mind of our suffering friend is. And we may say something
that makes their suffering even worse than it already is. And
I certainly wouldn't want to put a burden on somebody who's
got enough to carry, would you? You wouldn't want to say something
to make it worse. Well, let me close telling you
a little story. There's two brothers. One of them bought himself a
new bicycle. Made him a little money and bought himself a new
bicycle. His little brother just loved that bicycle. He said,
well, I'm going to give it to you. It's yours. I'm going to
give it to you. There's two little brothers standing beside. They
stood by. And one of them said, I sure
wished I had a brother like that. And the other one said, I wished
I was a brother like that. And that's why I'd like to have
a friend like these, a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
But instead of having a friend like them, I'd love to be a friend
that sticks closer than a brother. Well, I pray the Lord, God, make
us true friends. Make us real friends. Make us
people that suffer with one another, weep with one another, and mourn
with one another. And when you ain't got nothing
to say, just hug them. Kiss them and let it be gone. Let it be that. That's all you
need to do sometimes. That's all it takes. Our Father. Oh, our Father. Oh, to be a friend like Job's
friends. To be one who can actually enter
in to what other people go through. But Lord, so many times I don't
because my heart's so hard, my heart's so cold, so consumed
with self and my own feelings, my own concerns. Oh Lord, forgive
me, forgive me. But God, make us all true brethren. true friends, lovers of one another more than
lovers of ourselves, and especially lovers of Christ instead of lovers
of herself. Please be with us and keep us.
And again we pray for Joyce, Debbie and Jim, Bruce and Joe, and others who we may not know
what they're going through, but Lord, you do. If we pray for
those, oh Lord, in Christ's blessed name, amen, amen. Let's turn in the hymn book to
354. If we'll sing this and you'll be at liberty to go. 354, let's
stand together. You know what this is? What a friend. What a friend. Okay. Oh my. we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry. We thank to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear. Oh, because we do not carry everything to God in prayer, have we trials and temptation? Is thy trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord Can we find a friend so faithful
who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness. Oh Lord, take it to the Lord. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy laden? Cumbered with that load of care Precious Savior, still our refuge
Take it to the Lord in prayer Oh, listen. In his arms, he'll
take you and shield you. Oh, my. Now God bless you. I'll see you
Wednesday, God willing.