Job - Dialogue with Three Friends (0)

I. The Three Friends - Job 2:11 – 31:40

Would you agree with me that it is one thing to have a sudden tragedy, like the loss of a child or the discovery of a dreaded sickness and quite another to experience the relentless misery of that loss for months or even years afterward? I have heard of mothers lifting cars off of their children only later to collapse later under the shock of the event. There is a spiritual counterpart for Christians. Initially, the earnest Christian may exclaim with Job, "The Lord gives, the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." But, then under the relentless sequence of empty rooms or chemo treatments, many Christians collapse in dismay at what they are going through.

In one afternoon, Job lost ten children and all of his wealth. Shortly afterward he was afflicted with a serious and horrible skin disease. In both of these tragedies, he kept his faith and revered the sovereign hand of God. In 1:21, he said, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." In 2:10, after being afflicted with the skin disease, he said, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?" He affirmed the absoluteness of God's control over all things and he humbled himself in submission to these devestating blows.

But God did not reward Job by a quick healing of his disease. Job says in 7:2-3, "Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages, so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me."

The question now is why? Hasn't God made His point to Satan? Job had shown that God was more precious to him than even his own health. Why don't we now skip to chapter 42 where he gets all his stuff back and more?

The answer is that Job has much yet to learn about suffering and about God. Those among us who have had to endure month after month of misery would feel that the story is naïve and inauthentic if it ended at chapter two. And so, Job sits silent as probably weeks go by and his "comforters" come and sit with him quietly. We will begin our overview of their conversations with Job in the next post.