Miserable Comforters

How do you get through the inevitable suffering that will come to you? The answer is comfort. A shock absorber system in a car doesn’t eliminate the bumps in the road, but it keeps the car from being shaken into pieces by the bumps. You have to have sources of comfort and strength when you go through suffering–not that it eliminates the suffering, but that the suffering won’t actually shake you to pieces.

Job had three friends. They show up, and from basically chapter 3 all the way into the 20s, they speak to Job in cycles to try to comfort him, to try to help him interpret and understand his suffering. And they do an absolutely terrible job of comforting.

Yet, even by looking at how they don’t comfort well, we’re going to learn something about where the sources of comfort must come from. We’ll look at this passage under three headings: the bad comfort we get from Eliphaz, the better comfort we actually see in Job, and the ultimate comfort we get from somebody else.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 13, 2008. Series "Job - A Path Through Suffering". Scripture: Job 5:1-7; 6:1-10.

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