Job lesson 7

I've been having trouble getting my old dinosaur of a computer on line to upload my lessons, and the old dinosaur has an old 5" floppy drive instead of a 3 1/2" so I haven't been able to copy the lessons to Mrs. Cranky's machine to upload them from there. This is the current lesson. The missing back lessons are going to have to be retyped into the new computer we just bought for me, so I'll upload them as I get them retyped. The class at Calvary is growing; anybody in the Jacksonville/Middleburg, FL area is invited to join us any Sunday at 9:45 am.

Lesson 7
Text: Job 2:11-13

I. Introduction
A. In our last lesson, we examined the phrase "shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"
B. We saw that evil meant misery, distress, or injury.
C. Job has successfully endured the initial onslaught.
D. Now Job has lost his health.
E. Job's symptoms:
1. 2:7, boils
2. 2:8, severe itching
3. 2:4, insomnia
4. 2:5, running sores and scabs
5. 2:13-14, nightmares
6. 19:17, bad breath
7. 21:6, chills and fever
8. 30:27, diarrhea
9. 30:30, blackened skin
F. In verse 11, three friends of Job show up.
1. Eliphaz the Temanite
2. Bildad the Shuhite
3. Zophar the Naamathite
II. Job's Friends
A. Eliphaz
1. His name means refined gold or God is fine gold.
2. Both meanings suggest at least the greatness and preeminence of God.
3. He was a descendent of Teman, son of Eliphaz, from whom part of Arabia took its name.
4. He was a religious dogmatist.
a. He was full of self-glory
b. He was full of self-opinion.
c. He based all his opinions upon a solitary experience he had.
d. His folly was that he tried to press Job into the mold of his own experience.
B. Bildad
1. His name means son of contention.
2.He implied that all extraordinary misfortunes were certain proof of hidden and exceptional crimes.
3. His dogmatism was based upon human tradition.
4. With philosophy, wisdom, and tadition gathered from the fathers, he sought to convince job of his wrongs.
C. Zophar
1. His name means to twitter.
2. He dealt with profound things in a more light-hearted, flippant way than his two companions.
3. His dogmatism involved resorting to rigorous legal and religious methods.
4. His dogmatism rested on what he thought he knew.
5. He declared that suffering is judgement warning the sinner to repent and escape heavier judgement.
D. Job's friends represent three ways of solving the mysterious problems of divine judgement in the affairs of men.
1. Eliphaz is the symbol of human experience in history.
2. Bildad is the symbol of human tradition or philosophy.
3. Zophar is the symbol of human merit or moral law.
E. Even though Job's friends were off base, it must be stated that they had good intentions and goodness of heart.
F. Their friendship was deepened by adversity.
1. The effects of Job's adversity were overwhelming.
2. Adversity is one of the best tests of friendship.
G. Their friendship displayed self-denial.
III. Some insight into the friendship of Job's companions.
A. They had good intentions.
B. They were prompted by the adversity of Job.
C. They purposed to be a relieving force.
1. This entailed self-denial.
D. V.13 Silence is sometimes the best service a friend can offer.
1. Silence is the strongest evidence of the depth of one's sympathy.
a. The comforting power of a friend lies in his sympathy toward a sffering friend.
b.. Silence is a better expression of deep sympathy than speech.
E. Silence is consistent with our own ignorance of Divine Providence.