and in verses 11 through 13 this evening. Just notice from the sermon notes that this is message number 10. We're just coming up with the two, trying to speed through Job. So we're looking tonight at the arrival of Job's friends as we look at 11 through 13 in chapter two, but I want you to think about this evening what we're looking at is showing sympathy for those who have lost a great loss. This is a lost art among Christians. It's a lost art in our society today where funeral homes are doing away with their chapels because there's very few people that want a funeral. They may have a graveside service, quick in and quick out. We'll find that very few people attend funerals. And one of the reasons is because people live in denial. They just don't want to face the subject of death. And of course, they don't know how to show sympathy to other people. So tonight, we're looking at these three friends. Now, later on, they're going to be called the miserable comforters. But tonight, we're looking at the fact that they did a pretty good job. They have really set the scene for us. So before we get to that, as we just open up, I just want you to think about John chapter 11. One of my favorite passages to go to is how to show sympathy or caring for people that are having a distressful time. The Lord Jesus Christ delayed in going to Bethany because even though they had heard that Lazarus was sickened to death, He delayed going because he was going for the glory of God. So when he got there, as he came up the scene, there is Martha, remember Martha and Mary, and Martha's the one who was very concerned because her sister Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and learned from Jesus, whereas Martha was cumbered about with so many things, and she said to the Lord Jesus Christ, tell my sister to help me, right? OK, that's the Martha we're talking about. So Martha comes out to Jesus and immediately says to him, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. But even now, I know you can ask God. God will give you whatever you ask, and you can ask him. And Jesus says, your brother will rise again. She returned and said, I know he's going to rise in the day of the resurrection. Jesus interrupted her and said, I am. the resurrection and the life. Now, sometimes when you comfort people, they need a stern, here's the fact. Not many people need that. I mean, not many people can take that, but Jesus knew what Martha needed. In a sternness, I am the resurrection and the life. Because later, when he goes farther, Martha goes in to Mary and says, the master's out there. Mary comes out and says the same thing. If you'd have been here, our brother wouldn't have died. And Jesus was noticing that when he came to her and noticed how she was weeping, and the people with her, the Jews that were with her, were weeping. He was deeply moved, and that set up Next words, we said, where have you laid him? And that, of course, following that was their invitation to come and see the grave place. And the shortest verse in the Bible, John 1137, Jesus wept. Interesting, when you ask people, what's your favorite verse in the Bible, and they can't think of one, they say, well, Jesus wept. I said, where's that found? They don't know. John 1137, so always remember that. But it's interesting because Mary didn't need a stern warning. Mary saw Jesus cry. It's interesting, Jesus wept. I've heard all kinds of theologians talk about why he really wept. I think he's a compassionate savior, right? He's our high priest. He cares how we feel. He's touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He's touched with our feeling. He could have said, hold off, stand by, I'm gonna raise him to it. No, he just wept. So that's where we're going tonight, kind of two different categories, but we're looking at the three friends that come to visit Job in his affliction. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. We pray that you would give us the grace of the Holy Spirit to receive instruction from your word and maybe change the way we do things. Change the way we think about things. Change the way that we minister to others. As you've given us that commandment in the Book of Romans, that we are to weep with those who weep. Have mercy upon us during this message, Lord. I thank you for this privilege. In Jesus' name, amen. I was adding it up, and I said, you know, one thing about preaching through books of the Bible instead of cherry-picking, I've cherry-picked for years in the Book of Job, verse here, verse there, a couple of verses. I just see bright. It's hard stuff when you're going through, boom, boom, boom, right? Right through every scripture. So tonight, we're looking at showing sympathy or encouraging those who are very down in the dumps with grief. So first of all, I'd ask you a couple of questions. What's the worst thing you can do for someone in need of comfort? What's the worst thing you could do? The answer is, avoid them. That is the worst thing you can do. A couple of things. What's the worst thing you could say to the person in need of comfort? Number one on my list is, if there's anything I can do, just let me know. As a friend of mine was preaching on that subject one time, and he said, you know, the answer is, when they say that, the answer to that is, oh, great. I can't even think what I'm supposed to do. Now I've got to think of something for you to do. Is there anything I can do? That's a cop-out when you say that. It's a cop-out because what you're doing is saying, you know they're not going to say anything. If they do, well, okay, you're glad to do it maybe, but you hope that they won't say anything, but you want to act like you could, right? But the second worst thing, and this is really a tie with the other, is the words, I know how you feel. No, you don't. Nobody knows how I feel. You might have gone through the same circumstance, but because of my background and experience, it's totally different. So putting those together, how should we act then when we want to comfort others who are going through great sorrow? We're looking at three friends of Job in verses 11 through 13. The friends heard and made a plan. They communicated sorrow, and they sympathized. So let's break it down. And first of all, read the text in verses 11 through 13. Now, when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place. Eliphaz the Temanite, the Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. And they were made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and to comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads and tore toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, but they saw that his suffering was very great. Well, let's just keep. The bottom of his feet, and the only relief he had was to scrape himself with broken pots. I can't believe that, but I understand that. But he was afflicting himself with little pain to put away the big pain, I reckon. So that's what he's doing. So that's the scene. All right, what did the friends do that really amounted to the fact that they brought comfort to him? Number one, they heard about Job's affliction. It says that when the three friends heard of all this, that they had come that they had come to him, each one came from his own place, and the Temanites, the Shuhite, and the Nehemiathite, they heard about Job's affliction. I thought, how did they hear? Certainly they didn't have phone calls, right? Certainly they didn't have television, you know, maybe see it on the news. So how did they learn? Well, putting two and two together, first of all, in the book of Job chapter one, it says that he was the greatest of all the people in the East. So he's a man of great worth, and he's a man that things. So you'd have to rely probably on the news that would come from different traders, that they would trade in a certain area, and they'd go to another area, and they'd say, have you heard? And the word was where it had gotten out about Job. How long did that take? Probably days, maybe even weeks or months. So it's interesting, when they see Job, he's still on the broken pots. Maybe they came after the, you know, the thing they were responding to was the first one. Nevertheless, they came. They came to Job, and they heard about his affliction. I put on, you know, the Citizen Book of Proverbs, the eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch over on the evil and the good. So he's watching out, of course. He knows all. And I suspect that he prompted them. So we're going to give God the credits. That's what I'm getting at. So they were prompted. So I want you to think about that. When you hear of something, as not an accident, God has allowed you to hear about something as someone's need. That's what they did. They responded to hearing about Job's need. Now they didn't question it, obviously. What they did, they made it, notice what it says, they made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. They made an appointment. I like that. They made an appointment. It says in 2 Corinthians, God is the one who comforts the downcast, the Apostle Paul says, And he comforted us by the coming of Titus. So if you want to comfort somebody, you need to think about that. So when it says, I made an appointment, that's a plan of action, right? One of the things I teach when I teach about time management from the book of Ephesians, we're to look carefully how we walk, not as unwise, but wise, and therefore making the best use of the time because the days are evil. If you want to comfort somebody, meet with another person, you need to make a plan of action, and it's good to put it on your schedule. Isn't it interesting, if it's on your schedule, you have more of a tendency to do it than if you just say, yeah, I'm gonna go visit them. So when you put it on the schedule, you make an appointment. It's interesting that in the last chapter of the book, people came to him, it's interesting, let me just read it, I mean this is kind of a, really a big preview a long time away, but it says, then came to him all his brothers and sisters who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house, and they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave a piece of money and a ring of gold. Now that's after God restored everything to Job, and even in fact he had was, but God prompted these people to come. What I'm getting at, we do not go and visit someone without making a plan. That's the first thing we're going to say, that the friends heard about Job, they responded in sympathy, they responded in a desire to comfort them, so they made a plan. Makes sense, doesn't it? If somebody in the congregation is weeping and they're in need of comfort, we make a plan. Okay? We go to make a plan to go and see them. There's more. Secondly, the friends communicated sorrow. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised up their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads towards heaven. They saw him at a distance. I don't know how close that is. I'm trying to figure out how could they, you know, how close is they saw him at a distance? I mean, they saw him at 100 yards, maybe from here They were 200 yards from here to the road. I don't know. But they saw him. They were close enough. They didn't recognize. They thought he was close enough that they knew what he looked like. And this was not something he looked like. And he's probably swollen quite a bit, isn't he? He has all those boils. And he's tortured himself, rubbing that. How many days has he been doing this now? I mean, maybe 30 days. I don't know. But anyway, they didn't recognize him. They saw him in the distance. You know, it's interesting, Job says that my relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me. I mean, that's what he says in chapter 19. So it's almost like people just cast him off. So here he is sitting in ashes and rubbing himself with clay pots. They see him from a distance. So I put down this. I said, this is honest Job. Whereas sometimes, you know, we feel sorrow. And rather than be honest about it, we lie about it. You know? How are you today? Oh, I'm fine, thank you. How are you? Oh, I'm fine, too. Okay? Job is honest. I mean, he isn't even expecting people to come see him at this point. You know, he's just rubbing his wounds here. And what they saw was the real Job, afflictions and all. I thought about this, let me connect the dots just in one second with the book of Ruth. Remember when Naomi loses her husband and her sons, and they're in the land of Moab, okay, and she returns back to Bethlehem area, and as she comes in, they go, oh, Naomi's here. She says, call me no more Naomi, but call me Mara. For the Lord has dealt bitterly with me. Instead of calling me rejoicing or happy, just call me sadness and sickness. He says, I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. You have the real Naomi, okay? She has to be real. So Job is being real. I mean, he's there scraping himself. I mean, and they see the real Job, and so they are concerned. He said, they raised their voices and wept. They tore their clothes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. Now, let me draw a conclusion about that. They came and they expressed their grief in the way that Job was expressing his grief. Hmm. Follow with me on this. Because when Job, on his first affliction, when he lost all his wealth and he lost his sons and his daughter, that they tore, he said he tore his robe, shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. On the second one, it says he took a piece of pottery in which he would scrape himself and he sat in ashes. So when you think about going to a person to comfort them, it means to come along beside them. Come along beside them. Listen to these words in 2 Corinthians 1, verses 3-5. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's suffering, so through Christ we Comfort means to come along beside. So God is the God of all comforts. He's the one who all, the coming along, however he uses, whatever he used to come along beside us, but we also know that he does that with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter. Okay, we also know in the ESV it calls him the Helper, but he says, I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper, which is, of course, the Holy Spirit. If you wanna comfort a person, you gotta come along beside them. If they're sitting in the dirt, you sit down in the dirt with them. If they're weeping, you sit down and weep with them. That's what the point is from the second point of Job's friends. They met him where he was. They identified with his sorrow. Okay, they didn't go in there, you know, later on they're going to try to fix him. And that's wrong. But let's just look at what they did right here. They met Job where he is. He's sitting in ashes and he has probably torn clothes and he has torn skin and everything else. Okay, so the first thing they do is they rip their clothes, they put dust on their heads, and they sit in ashes. Okay, so they identify with Job. I can't. Maria's excited about it. Can you believe that? She's in need of comfort. So Grandma's going to comfort her right there. She identifies with her. All right. When we're talking about comfort, I just want to read to you from Hebrews chapter 4. This is special. Hebrews chapter 4, 14 through 16. Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect was tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then have with confidence drawn near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus, the one who wept with Mary. Jesus is our high priest who's touched, as the King James says, with the feeling of our infirmities. Friends of Job identified with his feeling. I'm not sure how that looks in our society. But I say, first of all, it comes by being with them. It comes by allowing ourselves to weep with them. It comes in just listening to them. But the main thing is to be there beside them. That's a comfort. He sympathized in a unique way, verse 13, and they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights. No one spoke a word to him and they saw that his suffering was very great. Sat there with him for seven days and didn't say anything. It says in Psalm 41, blessed is the one who considers the poor in the day of trouble and the Lord delivers him. David says in Psalm 35, but I, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth and afflicted myself with fasting. I prayed with my head bowed on my chest. I went about as though I had grieved for my friend and my brother as one who laments his mother and is bowed down in mourning. Paul put it this way, he says, with the week I became weak that I might win the week. I realize it has to do with other things, but it says in the book of 2 Timothy chapter 2, that in verse 24 through 26, it says, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. Coming along, we see Martha was going down the trail. She shouldn't be going before she kind of accused Jesus. And she realized, OK, the resurrection is coming. And that's why Jesus says that, I mean, he points to the fact that he is the resurrection, the life. That was with Martha, rather. That was with Martha, and then with Mary. They did not speak for seven days. Did you find that hard? It is extremely hard. In ICU at St. Joe, and having prepared this, what do you say to a person in ICU, a person that's in a lot of pain, he was in and out of consciousness because he was put on so much pain medication. You know, the quick thing is you'd like to say something really witty and, you know, scriptural and really like point them in the right direction where they're probably not even thinking. So I thought, okay, I'm going to preach on this on Sunday night. I'm going to practice this. You know how hard that is, for a preacher especially, to be able to visit somebody and not say anything? And sometimes you think people were expecting you. Well, fix this. Say something and fix this. Make me better, Erica. I showed sympathy. And it was really hard. I thought, you know, okay, that was good for me to experience that because I'm preaching on this. I'm not preaching down on you. Me too. Okay. This is something we do. that can merely minister, you really don't have to fix them. You don't have to say something witty and fix the situation. Your being there is coming along beside them. You're taking the initiative to care about them and being so sensitive that you're willing to weep with them. That's a vulnerability that many people would rather not do. They stay away from that. So it says they didn't speak. They didn't speak for a week. And they saw his suffering was very great. In the book of Lamentations, chapter 2, listen to these words. It says, the elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. This is after the destruction of Jerusalem. And the kind of the way of demonstrating the fact I am in great sorrow. Interesting, we don't do that today. We try to hide it, right? But here they did, and it says that the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. For the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him. Okay. I am blessed to have a good friendship with Charlie Plotkin. I meet with Charlie on a regular basis. I learn a lot from him because he shares with me Jewish customs, okay? The Book of Job and where this, you know, And he said, that sounds like sitting shiva. The word shiva means seven, okay, so seven days. The Jewish custom is when someone suffers loss in their life and they grieve, the people come in for seven days. They come into their house for seven days. Seven days straight, they come in, they bring food, they take care of them, but they come in and sit down and don't say anything. Just silence. Maybe they come in for two or three hours maybe, is that right, Charlie? Okay, and or maybe more, but at the end of the day, before they leave, they have a brief service. which includes a reading of a psalm. And it's interesting, the list of psalms that they have are many of the laments, which is good. But they also have a, what do you call it, kaddish? And so these are read, and I thought, listen to this. This is what a mourner hears. and say amen. The second one goes like this, may his great name be blessed forever to all eternity. Ever spoken in the world and say amen. I think those are pretty good words. There's a third one, here it goes, May there abound peace from heaven in life for us and for all Israel and say amen. And who creates peace in his celestial heights, may he create peace for us and for all Israel and say amen. During that time, they're taking care of the needs and they allow a person to grieve. and they allow the person, before it's all over, before we depart. It's interesting, sometimes we go in and we try to pour down scripture. I'm not saying scripture's bad, it is, it's a good thing. Sometimes people can't receive it. I think y'all associated with Grief Share understand that, that sometimes people can't take it. is somebody trying to straighten them out. So as I bring this thing to a conclusion, I want to just come along beside. So if we want to comfort somebody, that we are to come along beside them. And one of the best ways to comfort them, maybe it's down the road, maybe not at this time when they're going through strict grief, but the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1 that God is the God of all comfort, so we need to be ready to be used by God to comfort someone else. And one of the ways he uses us is the comfort that he has given to us in any one of our afflictions that we're able to share that with someone else. For many years, I thought that we have gone through similar experience and we're able to share that comfort. But it says comfort in any afflictions. So you might have had a comfort that God has comforted you through a marriage difficulty and someone else is sick, but it still works. It's the comfort from God. But you can't comfort them by going and preaching to them. You need to come along beside them. You need to come into their realm. And I think it's really important that the friends came and they identified with Job's affliction. They sat, dust on their heads, and they ripped their clothes. Imagine doing that, you know? There's a $40 shirt. Okay. But they did. They expressed grief. How many times when you come across a person that is expressing grief, we don't know how to handle that. We almost want to say, shh. Some of my parents, every time we cried, my dad said, shut up. Okay? He didn't want to deal with it. Stop that crying right now, or I'll give you something to cry about. Sometimes we do that. Don't cry. Well, that's very therapeutic in itself. All right, so we need to come along beside a person in their grief and weep with those who weep. If we want to be beside them, we need to make a plan. Put it on your calendar. It's interesting, I reckon that the Jewish custom is, if you're going to be part of a sitting Shiva, you put that on your calendar, right? You're going to go seven days to a person's house, you need to put it on your calendar and say, I'm going to mark that time out and not be late, right? Because you're coming along beside them. I wonder if that... I don't know how people would do it. We'd have to teach on this quite a bit before people would be accepting. Otherwise, they're in a time of grief. Next thing you know, here comes the church for seven nights in a row. We come and just commit and sit down. I'm not saying that's all bad, but we probably have to be prepared for it. Also, we don't need to be skilled in words. Many people feel like they can't comfort somebody because they don't know the words to say. I know as a minister of the gospel for these 40 plus years, I don't know how many times people will hand me the phone and say, speak to them. Like I'm supposed to have this Midas touch that can solve all problems. I just try to listen. So one of the best things you do, if you have that gift and organization, when you go over to somebody's house, you organize. Sometimes people will bring in all macaroni and cheese, right? And so they need to stack it. Understand when a person is grieving, they're not thinking, and they're not eating well. I put on my notes to don't let the time of the funeral and the time of helping them through the initial grief process be the last time you contact them. How many times people are forgotten a week later, a month later, and they still have grief in their heart? This is a call to action by all of us to realize This is a very important ministry in the church. We are the arm of God in reaching out to hug someone else in time of grief. Words are of a long passage of scripture probably aren't. And you don't have to feel like you have the magic verse that's going to cure. experience here. I appreciate the friends. Now next week as we'll see, Job opens up and he is, he's miffed to say the least. And sometimes when you talk to people that are going through a crisis, they're struggling for words and sometimes the words that come out are not nice. And you have to understand. Let them talk. Because they're emptying the cup. And they need to empty the cup before the ministry of the word can really take place in their lives. The point of this message is this. Silence is okay. Being there is important. As I learned yesterday, as I mentioned, it's hard to be silent. but it's very effective. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. I thank you for this passage that, I have to admit, I've never preached on this before. I thank you that you have a purpose for everything in the word of God, and this is a ministry, it's a call to ministry for all of us, to be aware of the fact that we can minister to others simply by being there, even in silence. Thank you for the appreciation of this Jewish custom of Shiva. I pray that you would lead us as we seek to apply maybe some things from that. I don't know how it would look, but oh, Father, we pray that you would make us so sensitive to the needs of others that our heart's desire above everything would be to be used by you through the working of Holy Spirit to come along beside, to bring comfort to those in every need. Thank you for this lesson tonight. Thank you for your word. Thank you for our time together. In Jesus' name, amen.