Job's suffering is examined through the lens of his wife's counsel and the misguided comfort of his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. While Job's wife suggested cursing God and dying, his friends offered condemnation based on their limited understanding of God and the assumption that suffering is always a direct result of sin. The sermon emphasizes that true comfort comes from God and is administered through instruments of His choosing, highlighting the importance of a large-hearted perspective, the comfort of Scripture, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the loving actions of friends, such as listening, sensitivity, and intercession. Ultimately, the message calls believers to be effective instruments of comfort, reflecting God's own compassionate nature.
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Good evening, everyone. It's so nice to see you all here tonight, and I'm not going to talk a great deal about books. In fact, Brother Gilbert already gave the commercial for this one, so I'll just mention the other one. This is a commentary appropriately called Job, and I noticed there's quite a number of them back in the bookstores by Roy Zuck, who's a Dallas man, and I looked through it. I thought it was very interesting, and you may want to look at it because This man takes a very, excuse me, very modern approach to the table of contents. He's got terms like, do the bad guys always lose? Conversations at the garbage dump.
The ash heap duel and not guilty. And the angry young man. So that's very interesting. Even though those titles sound rather... modern, this man is a very conservative writer. And I have used some of his works. I haven't seen the one on Job, so you can pick that up in the bookstore. Now, I'd like to ask if you would turn in your Bible to the book of Job once again. And I want to thank many of you for sharing your thoughts with me during the last couple days. I appreciate so much hearing some of your thoughts and ideas and Well, it's just good to know that you people really struggle with the issues that are raised in the book of Job.
And not more than one have suggested things and brought things to my attention that have been a real blessing to me. One brother asked that we mention how old Job was when he went through these things. That's a good point. We didn't say that. We think that Job was seventy years old. And I hope on the last night we'll get to look at why we think that. And then someone else made the point that we didn't speak about the sons of God in chapter one. And it's quite likely that the sons of God is a reference to angels, and probably not all of God's angels are called to give an account, but those who have positions of rank and authority were called before God to give account as those who might have, you might say, leadership positions, archangels or whatever.
And Satan was certainly a very high-created being. That scene, of course, we believe did take place in heaven. Now tonight we come to that large middle section of the book, and I'd like to ask you, if you would, read with me in chapter two, and we'll read a little bit into chapter three and into chapter four. So let's turn to Job chapter two, and we'll begin reading at verse nine. Then said his wife unto him, Thus thou still retain thine inegrit integrity, curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speak. What shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?
In all this did not Job sin with his lips. Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came everyone from his own place. Eliphaz, the Timonite, and Bildad, the Shuhite, and so far the Nehemiahite, for they had made an appointment together to come, to mourn with him, and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept, and they tore every man his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
Chapter three. After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day, and Job spoke and said, Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which it was said there is a male child conceived. Let that day be darkness. Let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Just a couple verses over in chapter four, please. Chapter four, verse one. Then Eliphaz the Teamanite answered and said, If we venture to converse with thee, wilt thou be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking? Verse seven.
Remember, I pray thee, whoever perished being innocent. For where were the righteous cut off? Even as I have seen they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same. Now I think that's going to be enough reading for right now. We'll look at some other scriptures as we go, but let's just pause and submit this time to the Lord. Father, we thank you tonight that we can gather together in thy presence. And Lord, we thank you for the message that was given to us in the bell. We thank you for the message in song. And in every way, Lord, that we have come to thee in our need and expressed to thee our love.
Feeble as it is, Lord, we do love thee. And we ask that thou speak to us tonight as thy children, for we need to hear from thee. We ask that the Holy Spirit may help us as we go into a difficult portion of thy word. We thank thee in Jesus' name. Amen. In our first two messages, we were considering the introduction, and I call that part of our outline the problem introduced. And we saw in our first lesson the little theme or the idea that a spiritually mature person values his relationship with God and knows how to maintain a relationship with God. In our second lesson we are considering the subject that the mature believer knows the adversary.
We had a lesson on that. And tonight we want to move into our second point in the outline which is man discusses the problem and God willing we'll look at that tonight and tomorrow night. I always think it's well to share the goals that we have for the message so that you can follow along where we're heading. And tonight we want to do three things. We want to take a brief look at the subject of Job's wife. Then we want to consider a few thoughts about Job's friends. And I have a little study to end up with on the subject of Christian comfort. Because I think it's so important when we study God's word that we not become just intellectual Christians, but that we learn skills that we can apply our Christian faith.
And so we'll look at some work toward the end on comforting. Now our lesson tonight, as you could guess, as far as spiritual maturity goes, is like this. A mature Christian knows how to comfort others. A mature Christian knows how to comfort others. And of course we know that Job had some comforters, and he called them miserable, and we don't want to be miserable comforters. We want to be good comforters, and to do that we have to know what the basics are. But we have some things to look at, first of all. I would like to share with you three statements that I ask you to bear in mind, especially tonight and tomorrow night, as we work through this section. I'll just read them off for you. Number one, the enlarging work of God is carried out by instruments.
In other words, God works with Job and he works with us and very often he uses other people or situations or whatever. God uses instruments to enlarge his people. The enlarging work of God is carried out by instruments. And then secondly, the comforting work of God is carried out by instruments. God uses people to comfort. And thirdly, the enlarging or the stretching work of God in our life seeks to change some basic values. Now, where our values are founded on the word of God, we don't need to change them. They're good. But sometimes we have values that God needs to adjust for his glory so that we'll be bigger people, better Christians.
And God seeks to enlarge us in that way. Now we want to spend some time on those first two tonight. First of all, the instruments that God uses in his enlarging and also the instruments he uses in his comfortings. So let's move right ahead. We have been looking at some of God's instruments. We saw that Satan was allowed to get involved. Job's possessions were touched. His health, his family, these things we looked at on Sunday. And we mentioned Job's wife, but I want to spend just a moment more before we pass on. There have been many, many interpretations of what Job's wife had in mind when she said what she said and what she did. And I'm probably not going to add new light to that tonight. But you should know that some people see Job's wife as a real, gracious, loving supporter.
Because the word that she used really can be translated, bless God and die. It was kind of like saying give up. And Harold Singen quotes a lady writer, and I'll just read what he says. He quotes this lady who wrote on this passage. She said, as long as Job's wife could share in his sorrows, she bore up bravely. But as soon as he enters a fresh chamber of his suffering and leaves her outside, then she breaks down. For her the one intolerable woe is that which she is forbidden to share with him. And she just saw Job's wife as one who said, in effect, you might as well give up.
She was so sad to be separated from Job that now he had come to a point in his suffering where she could not share. He was afflicted and she was not. Others have said, well, The reason why his life wasn't afflicted is because Satan spares what he can use. That's not a very timed look at her, but that's another view. Someone says, she was so bitter of soul, her attitude was, my husband does all this good and God allows this. What's for you? And maybe some of you have had that feeling deep in your heart as someone close to you has suffered. Well, one thing I think we could say is that Satan certainly did try to use her words in Job's life. Now, you must remember, there was one round or confrontation, and Satan lost that.
And then he came back and appealed to God to go around again, and this time touched Job's body. And Job wasn't any quicker to curse God, as Satan said, would happen. And so I think that Satan came and he suggested to Job, through Job's life, exactly what he wanted. What did he want? Curse God and God. And he made that suggestion through an instrument. That was his instrument. It was also God's instrument. And I think we need to not only praise God for the steadfast stand that Job took, but I also think we need to ask ourselves some hard questions, especially the wives. Now I know that I'm speaking to older Christians here, and I have to go on sea and ice when I speak to older Christians, being a younger man.
But I want to tell you up home, that's a big part of our work, working with young people, young couples in new assemblies. And we have got to help not only the men become leaders for God, we've got to train wives on how to support their husbands so they can become leaders for God. We have one young family that we love very dearly. He's become an elder and does a fine job. And some years ago, his wife said to him, now, honey, couldn't I go out and work? Have two small children, but she felt she was very skilled and she could work. And sometimes it's appropriate for wives to do that. They may need to. And sometimes it's not appropriate. But his stand was, no, I don't want you to work.
And so she said, well, could I help out in the Christian school? And he said, yes, you could do that. So she served very faithfully for a couple of years in the Christian school. And it got time for them to leave their apartment because it was being sold. And they were looking for a home. And she said to my wife, she said, you know, it's really hard to know that I could have earned twenty or thirty thousand dollars had I been working, and that would be such a help now. I have to remember, probably the cheapest home in our area would cost about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And she said, boy, that money would really come in and help us. And so they looked and looked and prayed, and finally they found a very nice, suitable small home, but one that would be fine for them. And they went to see the owner, and it was an older woman, and she was not a Christian as far as we knew.
And she said, now you young people need a little head start in life. And she said, the realtor has appraised us home at a hundred and forty-five thousand, but I'd like to sell a few for a hundred thousand dollars. And she said in tears, she said, God paid me more than I could ever have earned. And we have seen God help us show us or show the sisters that they will not lose as they help their husbands to become spiritual leaders. And I dare say that's important for any age group, isn't it? That's always important because God wants us men to learn how to be good leaders for him. And our sisters can be a big help in that way. So we come to the end here and we find Job sitting outside the city in an unclean place, misunderstood, forsaken by his friends, all alone, and the object of the scorn of passers-by.
By the way, a dung hill or the ash heap of an oriental city, very interesting thing. They took the dung from the animals, mostly straw, and they piled it outside of town in a heap, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger like a small mountain, and all of that would decay and produce a lot of heat, and the poor and the beggars and others would come there, and in cold weather, that would be a warm place for them to stay outdoors because of the heat that would be radiated. And then the ashes would be there from the fires, and that was very soothing to those who had sores and wounds, and they would be there. So Job was in sad company. And here he was, misunderstood and forsaken, and yet hanging on to his integrity and still worshiping God.
And I've said it before, and I want to say it again, how would you do, how would I do, if we were in that situation? Have you ever felt rejection to that degree? Even a little rejection hurts, doesn't it? Even a little small amount of rejection is one of the hardest things to bear. We had a little taste of that not too long ago in our home. My kids who were here tonight in the back, one of the tough things to be preachers, kids, say, Dad tells stories about them, you know. And I have a boy who's twelve and a daughter who's eight. And then a little baby, and not long ago they were having a little squabble as kids do.
And my son said to my daughter, Bethany, why can't you be happier? And she said, well, the Lord won't let me. And he said, Bethany, you should never speak that way. Don't you know the Lord could strike you dead? She came in the kitchen and she said, now when he walks around me in the hall, he goes way out around. I guess waiting for the lightning to fall. She felt very rejected in just a little small matter here. What about us grown-ups when somebody says, I'm cutting you off? Well, there was Job, and I suppose it wouldn't do for Job to try to convince people who went by that he was truly a righteous man.
Who wanted to listen? He lost all his wealth. And so that brings us now to the subject of the other instruments that God used, and that is the subject of Job's three friends. And you'll notice down in verse eleven, the three friends appear on the scene. They come to mourn and comfort him. And I want to tell you tonight to relieve you all that we are not going to applaud verse by verse through all thirty-some chapters of what those friends had to say. Now there's a reason for that, beside the fact of our time. For one thing, Job said they were wrong. For another thing, God said they were wrong. And for the third thing, if you've ever read it, your spirit tells you they were wrong.
And so with that kind of evidence, I don't think it's edifying to spend a great long time on what these men have to say. Now, of course, let's draw one distinction here. Please understand the difference between what is inspired and what is infallible. Every word of Scripture is inspired. Everything Job's friend said is preserved by inspiration, but it's not all infallible. The words of Satan are preserved as inspired, but they're not infallible. In fact, they're wrong, and some of the things that the friend said here are wrong. And so there's a difference. And there's a lot there that may be of interest historically, and you might find a little food for your soul. It's like a dry land in some of their comments. But I don't want to spend a great long time.
I want to, though, tell you that we have to give the friends some marks for effort. First of all, it says they made an appointment to come and mourn and comfort Job. And they came from a long distance and that they were very old. The text tells us that. One of the speakers says they're very old. So we have to give them credit. Secondly, we have to give them credit for the sacrifice they made. If you don't think they made a sacrifice, ask yourself the last time you went to comfort a sick person and sat seven days before you said anything. That's a sacrifice. And then they tore their mantle, and if it was a good mantle, that got torn. And so they did make a sacrifice. And what we hope to do is just spend a few moments and have a brief summary of those three men tonight.
And then we'll look at that other man, that individual who appears at the end by himself, tomorrow night, Lord willing, Elihu. What I tried to do to make this as interesting as I could and keep us from getting bogged down in it is I tried to summarize in a few words the thrust of each man's argument. The first man is Eliphaz, and we have four chapters of his comfort preserved. And his judgment seems to be based on his experience and his observation. He likes the phrase, I have seen. In other words, what I have seen, what I have observed backs the basis of my comfort. He likes that phrase. And he gives us three speeches that basically condemn Job.
He says, Job has sinned. And if you'll just turn with me to one verse in his last speech, chapter twenty-two, Job chapter twenty-two, and verse five, I want you to notice a word that he uses about Job. This is the last speech of Eliphaz, the first speaker, presumably the oldest man, chapter twenty-two in verse five, and he says, Are not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities endless. Now that doesn't seem to me to describe the man that God said was a perfect man and upright. Eliphaz comes to the end of his speech and he says, Thy wickedness is great and thine iniquities are endless.
Well, so much for his observations. Bildad, the second speaker, he gives us three chapters of his comfort. And his judgment seems to be based on tradition. He likes the phrase, the fathers. He refers to the fathers. He likes tradition. And even though Job has said some very, very important things, he never answers Job at all. He doesn't even seem to hear Job. Makes us wonder what kind of a listener he was. I like to ask myself that sometimes. Am I a good listener? And Bildad didn't seem to be a good listener. No fresh thoughts.
In fact, if you read his last two speeches, all it is is a sad collection of traditional proverbs. At one point, Job says, who knoweth not these things? Poor Job. Well, this man, Eliphaz said Job had sinned. This man says Job is a hypocrite. And if you'll turn to chapter eighteen, we'll look at one verse about what he concludes Job's problem is. Job chapter eighteen and verse five. Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out and the spark of his fire shall not shine. Now you notice he uses the very same word about Job.
He says wicked. He's the second man that calls Job wicked. And that's his conclusion too. The third man so far he gives us two chapters and only two speeches. And his judgment seems to be based on what you might call religious dogmatism. Now, that's a big, long, complicated way of saying that Zophar said, I said so because it's so. Why is it so? Because I said so. And we all know what the young people think of that kind of an answer, don't we? And I said so. And his favorite phrase is, know thou, K-N-O-W, know thou. Job, know thou this. It settles.
And this man doesn't seem to inquire about anything. He doesn't want any fresh thoughts, no questions, no nothing. He just says, Job, know thou this. Now let's see how he ends up. Chapter eleven, we'll look at his first speech for one verse, and then we'll go to the end. Chapter eleven and verse six, he says, and that he would show thee, that is, that God would show thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is, no, therefore, in the Hebrew that is, no, thou, therefore, that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserving. Job, you think you're suffering? You're suffering less than what you deserve.
You're so bad. And then let's go to his last speech in chapter twenty. And we'll see how this man ends. And by the way, this brings us to the end of the speech of these three men. Job chapter twenty and verse four. Knoweth thou not this of old, since man was placed upon the earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the hypocrite, but for a moment. Verse twenty nine. This is the portion of a wicked man from God. and the heritage appointed to him by God. Well, isn't that interesting? He comes to the same conclusion that the other two came to.
No surprise to us, is it? Job is wicked, and he's not only so wicked that the suffering he's enduring is only half of what he deserves. Well, my dear friends, I hope there's no comforters like that here tonight. Anyone is sick, and you're like that tonight. Please don't go and feed them. They don't need it. What are some conclusions we can draw? Well, let's quickly draw some conclusions about this. First of all, the friends interpret Job's suffering by their narrow view of God. They have a little small, narrow view of God, and that's all they can understand what Job is going through according to that.
Well, I think one of the things we desperately need in the church today is large-hearted people. Now, you know, there's a difference between somebody who is large-hearted and somebody is liberal. Please do understand that. It's so important. When we ask that people be large-hearted, we're not suggesting that they be liberal in the sense of liberal in their doctrine or whatever. Large-hearted means people who have a big view of God. Don't you love to be around those kind of people? I do. One of the finest examples to me of that and all of scripture is recorded in the book of Acts. You remember what happened to Peter as God prepared him to go to the Gentiles, to Cornelius' house, and all that Peter had to go through, and Peter finally gave in and went along and actually went into Cornelius' house, and God did a mighty work, and the Gentiles were brought into the church, and it was a wonderful day.
Peter went back to Jerusalem. And some of the officials there kind of called him on the carpet and said, thou wentest in to eat with uncircumcised Gentiles. And I had an old professor at school. He used to say, fancy calling the first pope on the carpet. But they asked Job or Peter to give an account of himself. He said, now we heard you went up there to Caesarea and you went in and had a meal with Cornelius. Now you give an account. And so we read that Peter started the beginning and he rehearsed the matter from the beginning. And he went right back all over all the details. And that's found in Acts chapter eleven. And you get down to chapter eleven and verse eighteen. You read these wonderful words. I've always loved them. When they heard these things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying, Then hath God granted repentance to the Gentiles.
Now that's large-hearted. They held their peace. That means they quit their argument against Peter, and they glorified God. They said, well, God has chosen to do a wonderful thing here, and we just have to give him thanks. He's decided to extend repentance to the Gentiles. How wonderful. What would your response have been if you'd have been there interviewing Peter? I'm sorry to say, I know some people would have told Peter. Peter, you could talk all day, and I don't care what you say. The Gentiles are dogs, and they're never coming in, and I don't want to hear any more about it. Over my dead body. Isn't that true? Some would take that view. And these godly men, they were very careful of their beliefs. They were very careful to honor God.
But when God broke out of their little box and did a great thing, they gave them glory. And they said, well, now this is thousands of years. This changes all of what we're used to. But we have to give God glory because he's assigned to God and extend his grace and his love to the Gentiles. I think that's wonderful. Now that's large-heartedness and we need to see that today and our young people desperately need to see that and I know that there are a good many of you saints here that are large-hearted because I've been talking to you during the week and I thank God that you're here and I hope you're getting your batteries charged and getting refreshed because when you go back north or south or wherever it is you go you will come in contact with people who need to see large-hearted believers.
And these men were not that way. Now, another conclusion we can draw is that they apparently felt a conviction that Job's suffering was the direct result of sin. If any of you here tonight are suffering or have suffered, you know how very difficult it is to have people look at you with that certain little look. You know what I mean. What do you do? Or what's even worse, if they look at you, I think I know what you've done. That's painful. And it's true that in a sinful world there is suffering. That's true. But it is not necessarily true that if you're suffering, it's a direct result of your sin. Could be for a lot of other reasons. And then they seem to agree that material prosperity proves God's favor.
Of course, when material prosperity goes, God's favor is gone. We have a lot of people today in our country that are preaching that kind of thing. Now, I think all you have to do is make a careful study of the life of our Lord and the Apostle, and that would solve that problem forever. Well, finally, they all seem to take the view that the score is settled in this life. And we know that's not true, don't we? The score is not settled in this life. There's a day coming when God is going to... change some things and show us the hidden things that we don't know about. Thank God for that day that's coming, that God is going to bring hidden things to life. And that's the great day of evening.
That's the judgment, not now. So much for a look at the enlarging work of God that is carried on through instruments. And for Job, it was very painful. God was stretching him. It was very painful that God used instruments. You know, I use that word instrument. You might wonder why I chose such a strange word instrument. I'll tell you why I do. Because an instrument makes you think of a tool, an inanimate object. And I like the thought because it tells me, it shows me how utterly helpless anybody or anything is to hurt the child of God without God's permission. Just an instrument in his hand. If God doesn't give it permission, it can't touch you and it can't touch me.
Well, thank God for that. But now what about the comforting work of God? Well, the comforting work of God is also carried out by instruments. And we want to be instruments in God's hand. Now let me talk to you, if I may, for just a little while at the close tonight about the comforting ministry of a mature believer. And we'll try to be quick here, but I want to ask you to really follow along this because I hope that after our study, and perhaps I'm speaking to some of you that are deeply involved in ministries of comfort, God bless you, you may not learn anything here, and that's fine, you carry right on. But for some of us, we do not know how to carry on a ministry of comfort, and we need to know the basics.
Now, the first thing we have to say is that the source of all true comfort is God. God is the source of all comfort. Second Corinthians chapter one and verse three, the God of all comfort. So any comfort that we give out that's going to amount to anything, it's got to have its source and God. Secondly, I hope we know that God wants to comfort those who are suffering. That's his will. He wants to do that. But thirdly, God wants to comfort through instruments. God wants to comfort those who are sick and suffering and sorrowing through people that he could use. And some great men of Scripture were very quick to see God's hand using instruments.
Look at David as he wrote the twenty-third psalm. He looked at the rod and staff. Many people might say, well, I want to keep far away from that. David said, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Because he saw the rod and the staff were in the hand of the shepherd. And the shepherd loved him, and he knew that. And he said, because they're in the hand of the great shepherd, they comfort me. They're a comfort to me. But what has God provided then for us as resources in our comforting work? I think three things. Two I'm going to mention very briefly, not because they're less important, but because it doesn't so much bear on Job. But that third one, we're really going to spend a minute on. First of all, God has provided the comfort of Scripture.
Romans, verse four. Whatever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. Friends, when you go to visit somebody who is in any way suffering, see if you can bring even one verse of Scripture, because it's Scripture that gives us hope. And I want to tell you a little personal note here. I know you won't mind. A dear lady from Connecticut is sitting right here in the meeting tonight. She's right up here in the second row. Her name is Mabel Leonard, and she was my Sunday school teacher when I was only about that big, or maybe a little bigger, and there never was a time in my life when there wasn't Aunt Mabel.
And I sat with her at lunch yesterday, and she told us a story that she had a little free time, and she went to visit a lady who was a hundred and one years old, and very deaf and very blind and had a lot of other problems, but she got her little testament out, and she read a little scripture. Now, that rebuked me because I thought if she could do that at her age, I should maybe do a little better. And so the scripture, and I think the sisters, the sisters can do that just as well when you visit other women who are suffering. Don't neglect that. Do that. Read a little scripture with them or quote something.
You know how many times I've stood at the graveside of some dear person, some Christian person to take the funeral. and we read that wonderful passage first Thessalonians chapter four this we say unto you by a word of the Lord and Paul gives that wonderful theme about how we're going to be caught up together and then he ends up and how does he end he says wherefore what comfort one another with what with these words right it's these words the very words of God now that is authority and if we didn't have that authority Why? Without the authority of God's words, we would just have mere sentimentality. My wife and I were at a funeral years ago, and the priest got up, and as far as we know, the man was not a believer who died, and he said, We may fondly hope that the soul of our dear departed loved one is out somewhere in the regions of bliss.
And I thought, no wonder the family is in great sorrow. If that's all the word that they have to stand on, we may fondly hope. Paul says, We say this to you by the word of the Lord. So we have scripture for comfort. And then secondly, we have the Holy Spirit. And he is called the comforter, the one called alongside in time of need to give strength. By the way, we need to remind sufferers that the Holy Spirit doesn't just visit. Jesus said that he may abide with you forever. No matter what they're passing through, the Spirit of Christ is within them. And he has the potential, the ability to provide them more comfort than any human being can ever do.
And boy, we need to remind them of that wonderful truth. You could forget those basic truths when you're suffering, can't you? But this third area is the one that I want to highlight for a moment, not only the comfort of scriptures, not only the Holy Spirit, but the love of friends. Paul says in Philippians chapter two and verse one, if there be any comfort of love, And I'd like to suggest to you tonight that true love knows how to give gifts. In fact, really a good definition of love is meeting the need of someone else through personal sacrifice. For God so loved the world that he gave.
The word love and gave go together. God so loved the world that he gave. God saw us in our need and he loved us. And he met our need at great cost to himself. He gave his son. Now, do you love those that you want to comfort? Well, then you can give to them. And I want to give you a list of seven things, right at the close here, seven things that we can give under this heading of the love of friends. And you may want to jot these down. And if you do, sometime in the next month, check your comforting ministry against this list. And see where you might need to change a little bit.
There are seven. Number one, the gift of your presence. Just being there. Now, in writing Corinthians, second Corinthians chapter seven, Paul says, God who comforts those that are cast down comforted us by the coming of Titus. Paul was lonely and he was hurting. He had had some bad news, and some of the assemblies were having problems, and giving him problems, and he was hurting. And he said, we were so comforted by Titus' coming. Now, you don't read that Titus made any, did any great thing. I'm sure he did, but you don't read about it. He came. And many times, just the coming of another Christian.
I know one person take their knitting, and go and sit near the suffering person, and just be there. A ministry. The gift of our presence. Secondly, the gift of sympathy. Let's turn to second Corinthians, shall we, because I think we need to read this one verse. Second Corinthians chapter one. Second Corinthians chapter one, verse three, we've already referred to the God of all comfort. who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God.
Boy, that's a big verse. Let me share a couple of insights with you about that verse that are precious to me. Remember, we're talking about the gift of our sympathy. That sympathy, by the way, means feeling together with a person. One thing Paul brings out here is that we share the comfort that we receive when we're afflicted. We share the comfort that we receive from God when we're passing through our trial. That leads me to at least two conclusions. One is that you have to learn how to receive comfort from God, don't you? We have to learn how to receive comfort from God.
When you were last suffering, did you ask God to teach you how to receive comfort from Him? That's a great thing to ask God. You know, He'll do that. He wants to teach you and me how to receive His comfort. So we have to know how to receive His comfort. But then another thing we can learn from that is that we have to share that comfort that He receives while it's still fresh. The tenses in this verse let us know that we're receiving comfort as we suffer and as we suffer. We go out and minister. Now that tells us that many times people who are suffering make the best comforters.
Because you see, God is pouring His grace and His comfort into them and they have a fresh supply. And what happens many times? People say someday when I get back on my feet and all better, I'm going to go comfort. Don't wait so long. Now, I know if you're down with a flu, and if you're incapacitated, you can't go comfort somebody else. I know that. I had it myself recently. I wouldn't want to comfort anybody. I couldn't. But there are many times in many ways that we suffer in other ways, and we could very well go and minister comfort. Do it when we get it fresh from God. Are you receiving comfort from God, and you're not passing it on? If you are... as a problem. Because one of the reasons you may be suffering is because God is equipping you to be a comforter and it's stopping with you.
God wants you to pass it on. So the gift of our sympathy. And then thirdly, the gift of compassion. Now, sympathy is a little bit more of the emotional side. Compassion maybe is more of the spiritual side. We read that our Lord Jesus was moved with compassion. The great motivator, compassion. And The little idea that I would give there is that when you go and comfort someone, keep your focus on your mission. You're there to comfort. You're not there because of the worthiness of the person. You know what I mean? Sometimes you just can't help but notice there may be very clear reasons why they're suffering. And the human temptation is maybe preach a little bit at them.
Now they don't need a sermon. It's tempting, isn't it? It's really hard. Because sometimes the sufferer is not worthy of comfort, or we may think so. Or we might think, well, they deserve to suffer. Look what they've done to themselves or look what they're doing. Put that away. If we're going as a servant of the Lord to minister comfort, keep your focus, motivated with compassion, write on what your mission is. Your mission is to go and bring that person closer to Christ because he's the one that ministers true comfort. One person said under that issue, they said, some Christians brought more hurt by their quick fix answers. They brought more hurt by quick, fixed answers.
Well, we don't want to do that. Number four, the gift of listening. Jesus said in Luke chapter eight, take heed how ye hear. And one of the newer translations I notice renders that, take heed how ye listen. Now Mark says, take hear what ye hear. But Luke says, take here how ye hear, and I think Christians would do well to heed that. Take heed, pay attention to how you hear, what kind of a listener you are. The other day I was sitting here a situation that took place, and a brother here from the area here was comforting, an older saint who was upset.
And I just heard a few of his words, and he said to her, well why don't you explain to me how you feel because that would help me and then he listened and listened and I thought my you know it's been a long time since I heard someone who reminded me so much of the Lord Jesus his attitude and his character was so Christ-like why don't you share with me and I'll listen and that will help me my that just drew my heart if I was in her place I'd say I could really enjoy the comfort of God through this servant. It's a good listener.
Many times we're not. Number five, the gift of sensitivity. Ask yourself, what are the needs of this person? Now, do you notice how terribly Job's friend failed here? They never said, Job, how is your wife doing? Job, how are you taking it with your children? Job, what are your needs, your meals? I mean, you're sitting out here in the ash heap. Can we get you some food or what are you going to do for the winter or your clothing? Not a word of it. We need to be sensitive to suffer. Number six, the gift of memories. Now, this is not always appropriate, but sometime it is.
These men call themselves Job's friends, and they never one time referred to a single thing in the past that they had shared together. They never said, Job, remember the day that we went somewhere together? Remember the good time that we had Job? That could be very, very, very soothing and good under some circumstances of suffering, can't it? Number seven, the gift of intercession. These men knew that Job was a pious man, and they never once offered to pray for him And they never once offered to pray with him.
And if we're going to be comforters for our Lord, we've got to learn how to pray and intercede for people who are hurting. It doesn't have to be lengthy. It could be just a little short word. But my, how much it's appreciated. Well, I know I've gone a few minutes over time, but I hope you'll forgive me. God bless you as you comfort. And I just want to say in closing, that I think God has given you a marvelous mission field for comfort right down there in the care unit. And anybody who wants to practice their skills, I know there's Christians down there that would love to have you practice on them. And God bless you if you feel called of God or led of God to do some of that.
Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the precious care and concerns that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, that good, great shepherd has for us. We thank thee for the comfort that he has been to us in our need. And Lord, we hear him say that we are to love one another as he has loved us. We confess to thee tonight that we have not always done that. Many around us are suffering and are in sorrow and long for a word of comfort. Lord, may we be thy instruments. Blessed by dear people here tonight and encourage them, we pray. May this message not be to them a rebuke, but an encouragement and a confirmation that the Holy Spirit wants to use them in ways that please God.
Now bless us, we pray, tonight as we part. We thank thee in Jesus' name. Amen.