Insight for Living

Chuck Swindoll: Whoever suffered without deserving it? How about every martyr? How about the Son of God, who is the innocent Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world, did no sin, knew no sin, had no sin, nailed to a cross.

Bill Meyer: When someone you love is suffering deeply, and it’s totally unfair, what do you say to restore their confidence? It’s one of the hardest moments any of us will ever face. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll takes us deeper into Job’s painful exchange with his friend Eliphaz, a man who started gently enough, but couldn’t resist delivering a verdict.

Chuck will show us how accusation has a way of quietly replacing compassion, and how a person drowning in grief doesn’t need a lecture. They need a lifeline. Chuck begins with prayer.

Chuck Swindoll: It’s wonderful today, our Father, to look ahead to that happy place where we’ll be forever blessed. It makes us homesick as we look back and remember our Savior’s love. How marvelous, how wonderful, that you flooded us with your love when we weren’t lovely and you found us when we weren’t looking, and you gave us dignity and purpose and direction when we were totally confused.

So that today we stand in awe of you. We do, our Father. We worship you today in the midst of a world in turmoil and trouble all around and in the present circumstances of our times, we stand in awe of you. We worship you. But it’s when we look ahead and we remember what is before us that we rejoice that the Lord is King, that you are sovereign, you are in control, nothing is out of control, nothing.

You saved us in the past because of your love. You enable us to face today in all of its trials, and because of that we worship you, we stand in awe of you. And we look ahead to that glorious time when we will be gathered with the saints about us, and we will see the one whom having not seen we love, in whom though now we see him not, we rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. We give to you our King, our God, our loving Savior. In the name of Christ we pray, and everyone said, Amen.

Bill Meyer: You’re listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into Job’s story, be sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today’s message, Responding to Bad Counsel.

Chuck Swindoll: Remember Job. We left him in what we call black pessimism. He was in the hole of depression, chapter three. He despised the day he was born, he hated the thought that having been born that he lived. The silence of God was driving him mad and he did not hold back. He said it all. Three friends sitting nearby sat and listened through it. They’d been there seven days and seven nights in silence, staring at him. First trying to believe it was really their friend Job.

Of course, he looks so different. His face is swollen and now scabbed over with these running sores. And if you look closely, there’s worms in some of them. It’s an ugly scene. And he’s comfortable in no position. He doesn’t feel comfortable lying down and so his nights are restless and they’re spent slowly and agonizingly as he tries to get into a position that isn’t just painful beyond words. And then the sun rises and bakes itself on him as he sits in the trash heap of the city. Dear wife, unable to help, friends stunned in disbelief.

And then when the comforters so-called began to talk, they bring no comfort. It was bad enough just to have them sit and stare, but it was horrible when they began to give bad counsel. Oh, they didn’t mean bad. They didn’t, not at first. Maybe never. They just lost sight of their purpose. And what was that? Chapter 2, verse 11, the latter part of the verse tells us why they came. They came to sympathize with him and they came to comfort him. Good for them. At least they came. The man who was the greatest man in the east, chapter one tells us, should have been surrounded by a roomful of friends, but three at least came.

The first two chapters, get this, and the last 11 verses of chapter 42, first two chapters and the last 11 verses of chapter 42 are narrative, called prose. They’re prose. It’s factual. You can understand it. There isn’t a lot of mystery. You have questions, of course, with these two chapters, and you’re thrilled at the end because it all turns out well and he gets double everything except children. That probably wouldn’t have been a blessing to have twice the number of children, so he gets the same number of kids and twice the other things he had to start with. Terrific. We all like that. We like it when they live happily ever after.

But in between, we have poetry. These men write or these men say, and Job no doubt journaled a lot of these things, maybe all of it, and maybe he wondered at times what it meant fully. Okay, that’s first thing I want to tell you. Second, this poetic section, which is the largest part of the book, Job chapter 3 through 42:5, okay, or 42:6. This poetic section begins as a rather mild discussion. It turns into a rather intense debate and it ends in heated dispute.

You’re going to see Eliphaz begins with sort of his hat in his hand as he begins to speak to Job. And toward the end, there’s no hat in his hand. I mean, he’s got an index finger jammed into this man’s sternum and he is setting him straight. So it begins rather mildly and it ends in a dispute. Third, the three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, you’ll see their names, by the way, if you’re not familiar, in verse 11 of chapter two. Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar.

These three friends, now get this, it’ll help you and I’ll show you in the Bible in a minute. These men speak in cycles. Three cycles. First Eliphaz and then Job answers. Then Bildad and Job answers. Then Zophar and Job answers. And round one ends. And then Eliphaz comes back on the scene. He’s apparently the oldest of the group. In those days, the oldest were given priority. So Eliphaz speaks, Job answers, Bildad speaks, Job answers, Zophar speaks, Job answers.

Then you get to the third cycle, Zophar’s out of the picture. Maybe he got tired or he just thought, I’m out of here, this is going nowhere. When you get to chapter 32 to 37, a fourth man appears, that’s the youngest of the group. He comes out of nowhere. His name is Elihu. And Elihu just does a monologue and Job never answers. Maybe by now Job is like, man, I have heard all I’m going to listen to. Maybe Job is simply exhausted. Or maybe he doesn’t have any answer by now. He done a lot of talking so far.

That first round of dialogue between the three friends and Job, in each case Job answers each one of them. They meander all around and they talk about all different subjects, but mainly they’re there judging Job. Interesting, and I want to mention this here, Eliphaz bases his words on experience. He says more than once, I have seen, I have seen. So in light of what I have seen, I make these statements about your situation, Job.

Now Bildad bases his on tradition, says in chapter 8, verse 8, inquire of past generations. And he appeals to Job to go back into the annals of history and recall what had happened there. And in light of that, tradition teaches us this. When you get to Zophar, who is the harshest of the three, he throws tact to the winds and he comes right at Job with both fists. His words are based on assumptions.

Let me add here, all three are legalistic. All three are judgmental. All three are condemning, and all three offer shame-based counsel. Sometimes you’ll shake your head and say why in the world would they say that to somebody they had called their friend? But you know what, just an aside, sometimes we do that. Sometimes we do that. We’re so intent to set the thing straight that we just come right to it. We say things like, let me just cut to the chase, and boy do we ever. We run over them. We not only cut to the chase, we do a little slaughtering verbally.

It’s like a verbal fistfight. So that happens in the first cycle. Look at 15:1. Eliphaz responded. That’s his second speech. And then you keep going through 16:1, Job answered. You go all the way through that cycle, all three men speak till the end of chapter 21. Notice that, end of round two. Bell rings, they go to their corners, take a deep breath. Round three, chapter 22, verse 1 all the way through to 31:40. And that’s enough of that. You’ve got the idea.

I wanted you to get a structure of how the book is laid out. And each time be sure you check the beginning of the chapter so you’ll know who’s speaking, and you know why he’s answering. If you go back and see what was said, then you’ll be able to tie it together. And I’ll do my best to keep it interesting. I know that it just seems a little weighty. Weighty? Only Cynthia could tell you. I don’t know how many times this week I said, man, what in the world is this about? Good night. You know, and I got to preach in about two days here. I got to get this thing. This is not easy study.

And therefore to keep it as meaningful, I am not going to do a verse by verse. I’m going to do sections of it that I hope will help you be able to identify. Scout's honor, I’ll do my best to keep any of it from being boring. I don’t like boring people. And so I don’t think Job will do that, but I can do that. And so I’ll try to stay with what Job writes and see if we can draw some sense out of this.

Now remember last time, Job 3, he’s in a hole. And he pops up and he says some things. And he really dumps it. I mean, he just dumps it. And these three guys are going, oh man, never heard Job say things like this. And of course they’ve never been there. They’ve never probably had a boil, and this guy looks like one big pus pocket sitting there in this trash heap. And so Eliphaz decides it’s time to say something.

Now, let’s have a little fun with this, okay? It’s kind of like you guys, we guys, have had fights with our wives, okay? Don’t look like that. You have and I have. And so maybe like the second night you’ve been on a patio and you decide you’d like to come in and kind of get cleaned up. You push the door open, you go, hi, hi, nice hair, or something like that, you know, just kind of breaking in. That’s kind of the way Eliphaz starts because boy, Job is really unloaded on them.

And so Eliphaz goes, verse one, the Temanite answered, if one ventures a word with you, will you become impatient? You’ve said things like that to your wife, right? Now if I just want to kind of talk, maybe an issue or something here we could sort of ease into. That’s kind of the tone of it. But who can refrain from speaking? I mean, silence isn’t solving anything.

Our daughter Charissa sent me a cute picture a week and a half ago of a couple of lions. It’s really cute. And one was a male lion and he’s got mane, you know, the big chunk of mane around him. And the other is a lioness, and she’s obviously had cubs. And so she’s kind of hanging down to the ground. And he’s coming by for a little visit, you know. And she is like, roar! You know, and she’s got her paw up like this and fangs are out like this. And he’s like, whoa! And Charissa and I kind of went back and forth and did captions, none of which I’m going to share with any of you today.

But we had a little fun with this lioness who is roaring and this old guy’s going, ooh! Well, that’s Eliphaz. He’s kind of, if I wanted to bring the subject up. Behold, Job. And he begins very honestly, verse three, you have admonished many, you have strengthened weak hands. You do that when you’re trying to get a word in, you know. Oh honey, you’ve handled things so well. I mean, look at this place, it’s clean because of you and you’re just wonderful.

And Eliphaz is kind of trying to get a word in. And he says your words have helped the tottering to stand, and they have. It’s not flattery, they have. And you have strengthened feeble knees, and he had. But ah, now when you get to but, your ears look like a Doberman. You go, where’s he going now? Because it’s called a contrastive particle. And at this point he’s going to turn a corner and really get a jab in, but he’s going to do it kind of gently.

He says, but now it has come to you and you’re impatient. You spent all your life giving other people counsel and telling people how to stand firm and how to make it, and now this thing is happened to you and now we get a chapter of blast out of you. I mean it touches you and you are dismayed. See the poetry? It has come to you, verse 5, and you are impatient. It touches you and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence and the integrity of your ways your hope? Isn’t that what it’s about, Job? I mean I’m not questioning your integrity. But you’re impatient with this.

And then when he gets Job kind of strung out, listen to the twist in the knife. Remember now, whoever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright destroyed? According to what I’ve seen, see the experience, according to what I’ve seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble, harvest it. Got it? I mean Job, you’re getting what you deserve.

The message reads, would you mind if I said something to you? Under the circumstances, it’s hard to keep quiet. You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit. Your words have put stumbling people on their feet, put fresh hope in people about to collapse. But now you’re the one in trouble, you’re hurting. You’ve been hit hard and you’re reeling from the blows. But shouldn’t your devout life give you confidence now? Shouldn’t your exemplary life give you hope? Think. Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrapheap? There’s shame in that.

I mean Job, if you’re that innocent, why are you here? I mean I’ve observed people suffer like this when they’ve got sin in their life. Oh boy. I mean let the shame begin. Don’t ever go there. Don’t go there. Serves no one any good. If he’s there to sympathize and comfort, that’s a weird way to do it. You ever been helped, really helped when you’re really down low and someone says, I’m not surprised you’re on the floor. I mean especially having been a hypocrite, you thought, I mean you let all of us to believe you this guy in white armor, running around like Mr. Big. I mean think about it, Job. Think of the syllogism. All suffering is punishment for sin. You’re suffering, it’s punishment for sin. This happens all the time. It’s bad counsel. Especially when it isn’t true.

Whoever suffered without deserving it? How about every martyr? How about the Son of God, who is the innocent Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world, did no sin, knew no sin, had no sin, nailed to a cross? And he’s the one who says, Father, forgive them, they don’t even know what they’re doing. The classic example of unjust suffering is the Savior’s crucifixion. Eliphaz, you are out to lunch. I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care how many experiences you’ve had. You got no right to say that to a man of integrity, nor do you and I. Let’s be really careful what we let come out of our throats. Let’s be really careful.

The problem is he’s not through. He keeps on, talks about visions in the night over there in verse 13. Talks about the generality and it’s true that mankind is not perfect before God and we have a Maker and he’s the perfect one, we’re not. As a matter of fact, he’s got it right in chapter 5 and verse 7. We are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. That’s true. That’s true. And Job, that’s what’s happening. But if he’d just stopped there. Look at verse 8. Little pride seeps in. Now as for me, I would seek God. I would seek God and I would place my cause before God. Now that’s what I would do. Implying you haven’t done that.

How does he know what Job has done? You don’t always seek God verbally. Sometime in the silence you seek God deeply. God is the one who does great and unsearchable things, he does wonders without number. I know that, Job could have said. I’m not sitting here like a dummy. I know that God does great and wonderful things. I am covered with boils and I’ve done nothing wrong. And you’re giving me great theology with no understanding. Please, please.

He has the audacity to say at the end of verse 17, you should not despise the discipline of the Almighty, Job. You’re suffering because you’re guilty, you’re getting just what you deserve, you’re not listening to the Lord’s reproofs. As a matter of fact, in the long run you’re going to be just fine. Isn’t that sweet? Look at verse 25, you will know also that your, we're in chapter 5, 5:25, you will know also that your descendants will be many, your offspring as the grass of the earth. You will come to the grave in full vigor like the stacking of grain in its season. Behold this, we have investigated this and it is and that is the way it is. Hear it and know it for yourself. That’s the answer, Job. Done. No charge. Glad to give that to you, piece of my mind I couldn’t afford to lose.

Before I move any further, let me say that accusation replaced compassion somewhere in Eliphaz’s delivery. And don’t think Job missed it. A sick person doesn’t lack discernment. People who are hurting don’t need a coarse sandpaper and a kind of a mixture of Genghis Khan and Mike Tyson rolled into one verbal reproof. We please, please. If you don’t know and if you don’t have God’s clear mind with facts to prove it, please just love them and stay quiet. If there is insight to be gained, it will be gained through the comfort and tender mercy of friends.

Bill Meyer: If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of words that stung when they should have soothed, today’s Insight for Living is for you. Chuck Swindoll reminded us that accusation and compassion can’t occupy the same space. A person who’s hurting isn’t without discernment, they know the difference. And sometimes the most powerful thing a friend can offer is simply their quiet, caring presence.

Here at Insight for Living, we understand you may come to this daily program carrying significant burdens that are weighing you down. In fact, maybe you’re in the middle of a battle against discouragement yourself right now. You can’t seem to rise above it. Well, all of us at Insight for Living care deeply about you. It’s our prayer that today’s message and this complete series on Job will provide reassurance that God knows your story.

We produced a variety of creative resources to help you. First, Chuck wrote a full-length biography of Job, a fresh look at this remarkable story. Second, the brand new Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook for Job is ready now. This spiral-bound resource has been designed to help you dig deeply and reflectively into the biblical account of Job. And third, all 22 of Chuck’s full-length sermons are available on CD or MP3.

You can find all the details regarding this bundle of resources on the life of Job at insight.org/offer or call us at 800-772-8888. Finally, a heads-up on something special that’s coming this fall. Behind the scenes, Chuck has been working on a personal memoir and we’d like to send you a copy as soon as it comes out. The title is Awakened by Grace. If you’d like to be one of the first to learn about its release, we invite you to sign up to receive a notification by going to insight.org/memoir. That’s insight.org/memoir.

What do you say when a friend gives you bad counsel? I’m Bill Meyer. Chuck Swindoll explains how to respond Friday on Insight for Living.

Bill Meyer: The preceding message, Responding to Bad Counsel, was copyrighted in 2002, 2004, and 2025 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindoll Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.