Job’s Three Friends
JOB 2:11-13
11 ¶ Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.
13 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.
(It is hard to imagine how the level of Job’s grief must have felt under his circumstances of loss)
JOB 16:1-2
1 ¶ Then Job answered and said,
2 I have heard many such things (In other words “I have heard all these sort of arguments before”): miserable comforters are ye all.
These three friends of Job came with every intension of comforting him, but because of their background characteristics and their natural sense of what they thought was justice and logic, they actually began to pile up more discomfort onto Job’s life, and all because they were misunderstanding how God was dealing with Job. So this was actually the third part of Job’s trial which was the rejection of his friends and family.
JOB 21:34
34 How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?
Truth mixed with falsehood will fail to bring true comfort to a person, but a true understanding of the way God is dealing with your life will bring you comfort. Many times trials is God’s way of dealing with your life in order to reveal Himself to you in a deeper way.
Job’s Three Friends
The first of the three of Job’s friends was Eliphaz, and he is what we would characterise as a Sensationalist.
The second friend of Job was Bildad, he is like a Traditionalist.
And the third friend of Job (Zophar) is into Intellectualism.
**Sensationalism, Traditionalism, and Intellectualism – and so we want to look at these three characteristics to see how that they all failed when it came to understanding what was happening to Job of how God was dealing with his life. These three men are also patterned in Lion Ox and Man-age anointing’s.
We also remember that after these three friends came Elihu which represented the eagle age of the end time prophet.
JOB 16:1-5
1 ¶ Then Job answered and said,
2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
3 Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
**It is so common for people to think that they know all the answers to someone else’s troubles - that is how we humans mostly seem to be.
And so this is why that people can become very bold in their opinions of others, because we seem to ourselves so right in our own eyes of our own reasoning. The bible says that there is a way that seems right to a man – and none of us are exempt from this, but there is only one true surety of truth, and that is the word of God.
**And so there is a way that seemeth right to a man based on his own limited human understanding – and there is a great lesson here for us, because we know that these three friends of Job were very intelligent men, probably more than many of us, and yet in all their great wisdom, not one of them had the correct understanding of how God was dealing with Job and of the real purpose of the suffering of what Job was going through.
*And so this tells us something in that regardless of how cleaver we think we are, we will never understand how God is truly dealing with others in their trials, because as humans, all we mostly think about is our comfort first, whereas God thinks about our character growth first.
**This is why our prayers are mostly about asking God for blessings and comfort with the idea of having a good and peaceful temporal life on this earth from the cradle to the grave, because we know that this life is full of troubles and dangers, and we want to try to avoid these as much as possible because we don’t like pain and discomfort.
**But yet God is leading our lives in a way by allowing certain trials to come along in our lives in order to reveal Himself to us through the hardships and discomforts of our earthly journey.
*So these three friends of Job thought (just like we would have) that Job was out of the will of God and that he was under the judgement of God because of all the discomfort that had suddenly come into his life, when in fact it was the opposite that was true – and so this is a good lesson for us to understand that our human reasoning and judgment of how God is dealing with someone is probable a million miles off just like Job’s three friends were.
**This is why when people are going through their sufferings of life, it is so easy to think that it is because they did this wrong, and because they did that wrong, and that is why all this discomfort has come into their lives, but that may be one hundred present opposite to the real truth, because the book of Job is teaching us that the real truth of these things concerning our trials of life is that it is God that is in control of all of these things for the purpose of bring them out for our good in the end, because nothing happens by chance in your life, and all things work together for the good to them that Love God.
**But look at Job’s response of how we should handle these things when dealing with others who are going through trials.
4 I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. (Is it so easy for us know all the answers for others and to heap up words against people who are suffering and to shake our heads at them)
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief. (This is what God called a perfect man)
This word “asswage” means - to withhold, restrain, hold back, keep in check – in other words, don’t add more suffering by your negative human opinions to a person that is already suffering.
***So we see how that Job’s earthly friends couldn’t bring comfort to him in this great trial of his life because of their misunderstanding of the way that God was dealing with his life.
*And so this is a common human trait that we all can fall into and fail with along the journey of our lives when dealing with others.
**We know from our previous studies that at the beginning of the book of Job, that when all of these terrible disasters suddenly came upon Job, that all he could see was his own temporal life of a man born of a woman coming into a world of suffering and death.
His understanding up to that stage of his life was limited to only seeing a man’s life from the cradle to the grave and then he dies and is gone forever - and that is where Job’s revelation ended, and so because of this he wished that he had never been born at all, because what was the purpose of life if that was what life was all about – suffering and death.
**But God was going to utilise this great trial in Job’s life to bring Job into a higher level of thinking and revelation – a thinking of not just that God was a great creator, but that God is also a great redeemer, and if He is a redeemer, then there must be a reason why man has fallen down into this world of suffering for a season, and then there must also have been a greater place where he had been before he came down into the fallen state of this life of suffering and death.
**And so because of this trail that had befallen Job, it caused Job’s thinking to go into a higher realm than just thinking about his earthly birthday and his temporal life on earth. His mind began to think back to where he was millions of years before man fell in Eden, and so through this trial his thoughts were being elevated beyond this span of temporal life of him wishing that he had never been born - he had heard of all these things of nature and the stars, but now he was beginning to see and to understand the real purpose of his life on earth, and that purpose was so that this mighty God could be unveiled to Job in the unveiling of the great character of God as a saviour and a redeemer.
***So when we study into these three friends of Job and their characteristics of their backgrounds, we will see that they couldn’t bring comfort to Job because firstly they had no true understanding of the real purpose of this temporal life on earth either.
And so the combination of their lack of revelation combined with the characteristics of their backgrounds, we will see that we also have these same types of characters in this day that also lack the same revelation that these three friends of Job had, and that also bring discomfort against the true believers in this hour because men die but the spirits that were on these men don’t die – and so this doesn’t mean that they were bad people or that they were lost, it just means that they were lacking in their understanding of how God was dealing with Job, because all they were doing is looking at Job’s suffering through the eyes of their religious world view and the best of their human reasoning powers – and we know that they had very strong and convincing arguments for this, because we know that the supernatural fire of God burning up the sheep and the servants and consuming them could not be confused with natural coincidences.
**And if we had been there and seen a supernatural fire come down from heaven and destroy all of someone’s material possessions, then we would also have a very strong opinion that that was nothing but the judgement of Almighty God upon that person, but yet we would be wrong also – so you can never judge how God is dealing with someone else by the trials that come upon their lives.
**Eliphaz was the first of Job’s three “dis” comforters that spoke. And Eliphaz is what we would categorise as a sensationalist. Because when we look at how Eliphaz spoke out in reasoning against Job, we see that he is basing his vindication on a supernatural experience that he had had back in some bygone age of his life - they call this the “Eliphaz Syndrome”.
**The “Eliphaz Syndrome” is when a person has the tendency to formulate vital doctrine based on visions and experiences rather than the Word of God.
*And we have seen plenty of these types of people rise up in the message of this hour, and some have even come against the bride with all these types of proofs that sound really supernatural, and there is no doubt that some are genuinely supernatural, but the problem is that many are not completely scriptural according to the revelation of the word of this hour.
JOB 4:1
1 ¶ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
JOB 4:7-21
7 ¶ Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off? (This statement would be regarded as sound reasoning to anyone who believes in a loving God of justice and peace; because this is what seems right to a man’s thinking of his natural born sense of justice, because us humans are born with this strong natural ability to judge about things being fair. That is why you will often hear a little child saying “that isn’t fair”, and this is because we are born with this inherent natural logic for justice, and this sense of what seems right and wrong to us matures as we grow into adult life.
**And so to the natural human mind of justice, what happened to Job did not seem fair to him in of what God had allowed to come upon his life unless he had committed some secret sin, and so this “secret sin” seemed the most logical answer as to why these sudden disasters had befallen Job, and then that would answer the human reasoning of the account of fairness.)
8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. (This is good sound reasoning)
9 By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. (Not doubt he is thinking of the fire that came down and consumed Job’s sheep and his servants because that was such an undeniable supernatural event of what appeared to be the judgement of God)
10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.
11 The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad.
12 ¶ Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof. (Now he is going to back up what he saying by what he thinks is the vindication of his own personal testimony of a supernatural event that happen back in his life)
13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up (all these things are sensations of the body in response to fear):
16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:
19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?
20 They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.
21 Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.
***This portion of scripture is showing us how that people will try to vindicate all sorts of ideas by using their own personal supernatural encounters as a vindication in the eyes of the people to support their own reasoning of what they think is true, and especially when it comes to their interpretation of the word of God, because a supernatural testimony seems to be a very powerful proof as a support to the reasoning of man.
**And this is what has taken place again in this age with the Jannes and Jambres spirit that has deceived this whole age from receiving a true vindicated prophet of God, and these same spirits are still an influence amongst the message ranks of today.
THE.ANOINTED.ONES.AT.THE.END.TIME_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-3 SUNDAY_ 65-0725M
207 But this kid said, young fellow said, young monk about twenty-five years old. He said, "The Lord has made me a prophet, and I'm going to prove it to you." Said, "Tonight the Lord is going to give me a big, fine robe, put it upon me, a white robe, and set among you. Then all of you shall come up to me, see, and you'll take orders from me."
208 Now compare that today, see, "I'll be the head of the organization. I'll take care of you, rest of you monks."
And sure enough, "That night, a lights come on in the building," so the writing of Saint Martin says. Read it. And it's authentic. It's history. And the lights come on, and all the rest watched, and here come... He had on a white robe, standing among them. He said, "See what I told you?" But that's contrary to the Word.
209 And when he went and got the old dean of the college, he walked up-and-down a little bit, said, "Son, that don't sound right." He said, "There's only one way." Here it is! "There's only one way for us to know. It looked supernatural." Boy, Pentecost would have grabbed that, root, sinker, line, hook, and everything else! He said, "The miracle may seem all right, but it don't seem right to the Word. Now, we have such a person, an anointed prophet, by the name of Martin. Come, go up before him."
The guy said, "No, no! Martin ain't got nothing to do with this."
210 And said, "You're going, anyhow." And they grabbed him by the arm, to take him before Martin, and the robe left him.
211 See, "Deceive the Elected if it were possible." See, they know them. Jesus said, "My sheep know My Word."
"Oh," you say, "'hear My "Voice."'"
That's His Word. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word." See?
***The combinations of certain words unlock spirits – and the reasoning talk of man is just a series of words that unlocks a person’s mind to change their thinking (in many cases) against the word of God into the reasoning of man. *That is why the average person will mostly always put more faith in their own reasoning then in the word of God, because to them their reasoning becomes their personal revelation of faith in their own imagination.
**Deception comes by words being placed in a certain combination that is able to deceive a person.
*People hear a certain combination of words that can unlock lies to them, and then they think that they understand things that may not even be close to the truth – and this is what a lot of corrupted politicians are very good at as well as con artists and scammers – they are very good at putting words together in order to get people to see something that is actually false.
*This second friend of Job is Bildad, and he is a traditionalist, because he wants to bring the things of the traditions of past ages of what was accepted as truth in a previous age into his current age, just like people want to still bring their past traditions of denominations over into the message of this hour.
JOB 8:1-10
1 ¶ Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
2 How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?
3 Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?
4 If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression;
5 If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty;
6 If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
7 Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.
8 ¶ For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers:
9 (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:)
10 Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?
And then Zophar is an intellectualist who tries to explain Job’s condition through his intellectual reasoning;
JOB 20:1-3
1 ¶ Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,
2 Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for this I make haste.
3 I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.
The spirit of his intellect.
Intellectual people have to be careful not to intellectualise themselves away from the truth of this hour as given by the seventh angel messenger, because they can have a tendency to put their trust more in their own human reasoning then what a 7th grade uneducated prophet of God said.
**These men of Job’s three friends have long since died, but the spirits of their three backgrounds of what had anointed their lives have not died but are still alive and well today.
And so that is why you will see these three types of religious spirits of Sensationalism, Traditionalism, and Intellectualism on many people in this hour.
*And so although the personalities backgrounds of Job’s three friends were different, we still notice that they were united in their reasoning that Job’s suffering had come upon him as a judgement from God in answer to some secret sin in his life.
**And this stands as a very strong reason because of the supernatural nature of all these great calamities that came upon Job in one single day - it doesn’t take a mathematician to realise that the odds of this all happening to Job on one single day is probably around a billion to one, and so it was obvious to these three friends of Job that the supernatural was involved in what had happened to him.
**And so by their combined and united reasoning powers they tried to explain the reason for Job’s sufferings on earth – but the book of Job is also giving us the other side of the story so that we as the reader are able to see both sides of what God is really doing of what these three intelligent friends of Job didn’t know anything about.
**And so all of this is showing us something of our own lives and of our own struggles in this life, of that when things sometimes seem to go supernaturally bad for us, that it is not just simply God punishing us, but that God is wanting to take us into a greater revelation of Himself, because we have heard about God, but God wants to bring us to the end of our journey and suffering on earth and to our chapter 42 with the same testimony and revelation that Job came to “I have heard, but now I see.”
So we want to mature into a higher level of thinking concerning our suffering on earth, and this is why we should never blame God when we go through trials because we know that He by his grace is allowing it for our advancement and for our glorification at the end.
**Like Joseph’s life, we know that we must first travel through the pathway of the prison house of rejection and misunderstanding before we can go to Pharaoh’s house and receive honor and glorification.