Insight for Living

Guest (Male): You and I, more often than not, will be, hopefully, the caring friend, the sensitive friend. It’s important to remain caring and sensitive, to know when to come, to know how long to stay silent, and if to speak at all, to know what to say.

Some things you can’t learn until you’ve lived them. Endurance is one of them. Job didn’t choose his suffering, but somewhere in the middle of it, he learned to keep walking—not with clenched teeth, not with a fake smile, just a long obedience in the same direction.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll points us to the profound lessons Job teaches us about ourselves, about what it means to stop running from the very things we need to face and to grow stronger in our faith. Chuck titled his message "What Job Teaches Us About Ourselves."

Chuck Swindoll: We never know ahead of time the plans God has for us. Job had no way of knowing this. That morning dawned like every other morning. The night had passed like most every other night. There was no early morning skywriting, there was no angelic visit, there was no tap at the window warning him that something would change, or that all hell would break loose, or the bottom would drop out of his life. He got up that morning like every other morning. It’s impossible to explain it fully. No one can explain it.

I remind you, these are principles to live with and to remember. Job’s response, verse 20, is absolutely remarkable. "Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell to the ground and worshiped." He said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Through all this, we read Job did not sin, nor did he blame God.

Lesson number two: A vertical perspective will keep us from horizontal panic. Don’t misunderstand. Job doesn’t escape into denial. He faces the music, somber and sad that it is. He’s overwhelmed, that’s why he tore his robe. He’s broken and saddened and bankrupt, that’s why he shaves his head and sits in ashes. He refuses to escape emotionally through denial. He falls to the ground and worships. What a remarkable response.

Job does not sin or blame God, which frustrates Satan and does not surprise our God, who already knew Job would be a man of integrity. So there was another day, round two, and Satan comes out swinging. "Skin for skin," chapter two, verse four. "All that a man has he will give for his life. Put forth your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh. He’ll curse you to your face." He repeats the charge, the warning.

So the Lord said, "He’s in your power, only spare his life." Satan went out and smote him with boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Have you been sick lately? I mean really sick? Fever wouldn’t go away? Hospitalized? They couldn’t find the cause? Some exotic germ that has leveled you? It affects your job. You don’t have disability, and now you could no longer work. That’s where he finds himself. It’s horrible. He took a potsherd to scrape himself. The itching was maddening as he sat among the ashes.

Verse nine, his wife said to him—look closely. "Do you still hold fast your integrity, Job? Come on, sweetheart. It’s enough. Just curse God and die." You know what? She loved him. Never doubt it. The sickness hasn’t made her love the less. Her compassion kicks in, and she just thinks if we could just pull the plug. "You curse Him, and He’ll take you. You and I both know this will end the suffering." Until you’re there, don’t judge his wife, okay? Until you’re there.

She’s lost everything, too. She, too, has visited the gravesites of ten precious lives. But he said to her, verse 10, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.

Lesson number three: Great discernment is needed to detect wrong advice from well-meaning people. That’s his wife. Job knew better. As much as he loved her, he couldn’t follow her advice—not this time. Which brings us to his response, verse 10. He said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks." It must have been hard for him to say to someone he loved like he loved her, but it needed to be said. "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" What great theology.

Lesson number four: When things turn from bad to worse, sound theology helps us remain strong and stable. It’s amazing, frankly, that Job, after suffering such a barrage of cataclysmic events, would be thinking so clearly, so correctly, without wavering, knowing certainty. How could he do it? He was so grounded in his knowledge of God. Sound theology: so valuable.

Well, the friends show up. You may recall verse 11: "Three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, and they came each one from his own place. They made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him." And when they lifted up their eyes at a distance, they did not recognize him. They raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and threw dust over their heads toward the sky. And they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw his pain was very great.

Fifth lesson: Caring and sensitive friends know when to come, how to stay quiet, and what to say. You might add in parenthesis, "if anything at all." I so wish that Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar had simply stayed silent—been there to fetch some water, bring a little bit of soup or broth, just to be near.

You know, these men qualified on the first two, didn't they? They came to Job, they left their homes and the comfort of home, and they traveled however far. We’re not told. And when they got there, for seven days, they did the right thing. They simply sat with him. But when it got to the third one, they didn't know to stay quiet. They felt like it’s time to set the record straight, and so they rebuke him. They question his motive. They even probe for hidden secret sins that brought this about.

Now, we’ve looked earlier at what it is like to be a sufferer. Now we’re looking at what it is like to minister to the suffering. You and I, more often than not, will be, hopefully, the caring friend, the sensitive friend. Everyone who is hurting needs a friend. Needs a friend outside the family. Not too many, but some. Some friends. It’s the message of some friends to simply bring comfort and sympathy. It’s the message of other friends at the appropriate moment and time to bring confrontation and reproof.

David comes to mind. Early on, after being anointed as the future king, David is now hunted and haunted by King Saul out of jealousy and envy. Saul’s son Jonathan hears these comments his father makes and knows that they are misplaced and incorrect and unfair. And so Jonathan takes up the cause of David and becomes for David a friend. He even seeks him out and finds places for him to hide and reveals to him words that offer hope and encouragement. That’s the role of Jonathan.

Time passes, Saul dies, David becomes king. And after years, he plunges into the horror of adultery mixed with murder and then hypocrisy and lack of leadership. Along comes not Jonathan, who’s dead by now, but a Nathan, who is equally a committed friend, sensitive and caring. And Nathan comes to reproof his friend and to remind him, "You are the man." And it turns David’s attention, catches his attention, turns his thoughts back in repentance to God. Everyone needs a Jonathan. Everyone needs a Nathan.

Whatever role you play, it’s important to remain caring and sensitive. To know when to come, to know how long to stay silent, and if to speak at all, to know what to say. Well, Job finally lets it all out, doesn't he? 3:1: "He opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born." Job even says, "Let the day perish on which I was to be born, and the night which said, 'A boy is conceived.'"

He curses the day of his birth. Verse 11: "Why did I not die from birth, come forth from the womb and expire?" Verse 25: "What I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet. I am not at rest, but turmoil come." You know what this is? Listen to me. This chapter provides us with words of a suffering broken man. He is at wit’s end.

The suffering doesn't end. The kids are still dead, the body is still covered with boils, there’s not enough money to provide for what’s needed. His surroundings are atrocious. The wild dogs feed on the garbage all around him. His wife is there, disillusioned, heartbroken. "That’s enough!" And he curses the day he’s born. He despises the thought that he lives, and he’s not resting, and he is in dread. He must have sat at that moment at the end of chapter three with his head in his hands.

Let me give you the sixth lesson from a bit of a diagonal viewpoint here. It’s easy to be Monday morning quarterbacks when we encounter another’s suffering. I mean, it’s hard to read statements like this. I wish chapter three weren't in the book. I really do. I have to catch myself from saying, "Job, don't say that. You’re going to regret it." But he needs space to say it.

And so the Monday morning quarterback hears it and says, "I would never react like that. I would never say such a thing of our God. This is how I would respond. I mean, how could she call herself a Christian and act like that? What’s he saying about himself or his God? Why, power the Lord, I’d discipline him for that." Monday morning quarterback talk.

We don’t wait until Monday. We do it Sunday afternoons. "Don't throw that pass, you idiot! They’ve covered the end! He’s going to get intercepted! What are you going to get—a life!" And most of us have never been a quarterback. We’ve never had three 374-pound linemen with blood in their eyes, 6’9", coming toward us, grinning. And we say, "Don't throw that thing, you dodo! Don't throw it! If I were there, I wouldn't have thrown it. I’d take a hit." Yeah. Yeah.

Leave it in the book. Leave it in the book. Don't try to take it out. We all have our Job Chapter 3s. We’ve all said things, we’ve all done things, we’ve all responded in the wrong way. We’ve all run off at the mouth, we’ve all thrown interceptions. And we don't need someone to tell us what we already know. We may even think at the time we’re doing it, "I’m going to regret this." But we do it.

You’ll need this lesson, you’ll need this principle, especially if you’re a spiritual leader. You teach the Bible study, or you’re on a staff of a church, or you’re a pastor, you’re a counselor. The world’s full of "I told you so's" or "shouldn't, you ought not." Just be quiet. Let it be.

Eliphaz lands on him with both feet. Fists are swinging. Round one, round two, round three, punching at Job. And Eliphaz has never gone through what Job is going through. Well, the last one is over in chapter 42. Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it? Chapter 42. Chapter 42, Job repents. How beautiful it is in verse six: "I retract what I said and I repent."

What a great man. He suffered through all of this for who knows how long? No one seems to know. Some say weeks, some say months. I don't have any idea. I don't know how to guess. It’s taken us months to get through it, so I can’t imagine how long it took him to live it. And finally, finally, he endures. He endures. And the Lord, four times, calls him the same thing.

Verse seven: "It came about after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, He said to Eliphaz, 'My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.'" There’s no repentance I hear from you. There’s no retraction I hear from you. He says again, three times in chapter 42, verse eight, "My servant Job, My servant Job, My servant Job" has spoken what is right. Verse nine concludes: "The Lord accepted Job."

James 5:11 says we remember the endurance of Job. Here’s the principle: The cultivation of obedient endurance is the crowning mark of maturity. I don’t know of a wholesome, healthy Christian who doesn’t long to reach maturity. If you ask me in any unguarded moment, I will tell you my great goal in life is to be grown up in my walk. I would love it if the stone simply read, "Here lies a man who finally became mature." You know what that tells me? That tells all of us it’s a slow, arduous process. And Job reached it. Reached the goal.

David Roper, in his work on James, which he titles *Growing Slowly Wise*, writes this: "When trouble comes, we have two options. We can view it as an intrusion, an outrage, or we can see it as an opportunity to respond to it in specific obedience to God’s will. This is that rugged virtue James calls endurance. Endurance is not tooth-clenched resignation, nor is it passive acquiescence. It is a long obedience in the same direction."

Where are you today? Where are you in your journey? Hard place? Severe trial? Maybe back to back? I plead with you not to discard the list of seven lessons. I would ask you, sometime even this afternoon, to go back and read them aloud, to insert them in your journal. Think through your current situation and apply whichever ones are appropriate. Go there. It could make all the difference in your growing up, rather than simply growing older in your faith.

I’d like you to bow your heads with me, please. I’d like you to close your eyes. Wherever you are in your journey, God has allowed you to hear this today.