June 25, 2025 • 30 mins
There are times we feel like the devil has us in his grip and is doing everything he can to torment us. That was Job's situation, but the difference is that Job didn't think the devil was doing this to him. He thought God was torturing him, and it was almost driving him crazy because he couldn't figure out why.
Sometimes the troubles of life—one right after another or at the same time—cause so much pain that we wonder if there are any limits as to how much we can take. More than that, we wonder if God even cares how much we're suffering and why he doesn't do something to stop it. This is the problem of evil in human life, and we're beginning to see more about it in this great Old Testament book.
Read about this subject
- Scripture: Job 2
- God at a Distance, Kerry Duke
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Episode Transcript
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Hi, I am Kerry Duke, host of My Godand My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee
Bible College, where we see the Bibleas not just another book, but the Book.
Join us in a study of the inspiredWord to strengthen your faith and to
share what you've learned with others.
Job was a good man.
He was also a very wealthy man, andin Job chapter one, we read about
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the devil taking away what Job had.
The devil took away his livestock,which was his income and also his wealth
to a large extent, and the devil alsotook away his ten children in one day.
But that didn't shake job.
The Bible tells us thathe held on to his faith.
You see, the devil had told God thatif he took away everything that Job
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had, Job would curse him to his face.
But he was wrong because in Jobchapter one, verse 21, the last words
that we read in this story in Jobchapter one are that Job said this:
“Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
But the devil does not give up easily.
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He keeps trying.
He is absolutely relentless.
I heard a preacher say years agoin a sermon that he entitled “Good
Things about the Devil,” [and you haveto put that in quotation marks, of
course] that one of the marks aboutthe devil is that he does not give up.
He is very persistent.
In the Bible, as an illustration, youread about Delilah who kept trying
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until she found Samson's weakness,and then she used that against him.
Well, the devil attacks you.
He attacks us, and he keeps doing thatuntil he can find a weakness and until he
can hopefully, on his part, destroy us.
First Peter, chapter five, verse eight.
The Bible says, “Be sober, be vigilant;because your adversary, the devil, as a
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roaring lion, walks about seeking whomhe may devour.” A lion keeps stalking.
A lion does not give upuntil he gets his prey.
That's what the devil does.
So in Job chapter two, the devil comesback and he comes back with a vengeance.
He is not done yet.
He has not given up on Job.
He's going to try to get Jobto curse God to his face.
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So in Job chapter two, verses oneand two, we find a familiar scene
and we also find some familiar words.
“Again, there was a day when the sonsof God came to present themselves before
the Lord, and Satan came also amongthem to present himself before the Lord.
And the Lord said to Satan, ‘From wheredo you come?’ Satan answered the Lord
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and said, ‘From going to and fro onthe earth and from walking back and
forth on it.’” Now that is exactlywhat you read the first time in Job
chapter one, verses six and seven.
It says, “Now there was a day whenthe sons of God came to present
themselves before the Lord, and Satanalso came among them. God said to
Satan, “From where do you come?” Andthen Satan said the same thing that
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he says here in Job chapter two.
So this is a second time.
This is a second situation.
The Bible says in verse three.
Then the Lord said to Satan, haveyou considered my servant job that
there is none like him on the earth,a blameless and an upright man,
one who fears God and shuns evil.
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Now again, that is exactly what he saidto the devil in chapter one, verse eight.
But here he says something elsehere in Job chapter two verse three,
notice that he adds and still.
He that is job holds fast to hisintegrity, although you incited me
against him to destroy him without calls.
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This is interesting.
Here's what the devil is best at doing.
He tried his best to turn God against job.
So notice this, God said to the devil,job is holding fast to his integrity.
He has not given up.
He didn't curse me to my faceeven though you, that is the devil.
You incited me against him.
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The King James version says,you moved me against him.
You tried to do that.
You tried to turn me against Jobto destroy him without a cause.
So in this book of job,what is the devil doing?
He is doing the same thing thathe has always done and the same
thing that he is doing today.
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And that is he is trying to turneverybody against each other.
He's trying to turn managainst God, God against man.
He's trying to cause havoc and chaos.
Now that's Satan.
He uses people's tongues togossip, to back bite, to criticize,
to cause division, to separatefamily and friends and brethren.
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The Bible says in Proverbs chaptersix, verse 19, he hates those
who sow discord among brethren.
In Proverbs 16, verse 28, the Bible saysthat A whisperer separates the best of
friends, and the devil tried to move.
He tried to incite God to destroyJob, to ruin job, to not only
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take what he had, but to crushhis spirit and to take his life.
Now Satan is out to destroy you,your family, your reputation,
and especially your soul, andtake away your salvation today.
That's what he does.
And notice, God says, you tried to move meagainst him to destroy him without cause.
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There was no reason for that.
He didn't deserve to die.
He didn't deserve to be destroyed.
And yet you tried to get me to do that.
So wouldn't we talk about unfairness?
When we talk about the problem ofevil, we need to look to the devil.
He's the one who's the authorof that you try to get me to
destroy him without cause.
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You see, the devil doesn't haveto have a valid reason or a cause.
He just causes trouble.
He doesn't care if there's a reason forit or a just cause or adjust calls or not.
In Matthew chapter five, verse22, Jesus warned about being angry
with your brother without a cause.
In John chapter 15, verse 25, Jesus saidthat the Jews hated him without a cause.
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There was no cause.
There was no just reason.
Job didn't deserve this.
It was not fair.
And yet the argument in this book is why?
What caused all this to happen?
If it wasn't fair, if you didn't deserveit, then what is this book about?
And that's why we're studying it now.
You find a typical response fromthe devil in verses four and five.
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So Satan answered the Lordand said, skin for skin.
Yes, all that a man has,he will give for his life.
But stretch out your hand.
Now remember, he's talking to God,stretch out your hand now and touch
his bone and his flesh, and he willsurely curse you to your face.
So now the devil tries something else.
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This is exactly what he does today.
If he uses one temptation to tryto take you down and that doesn't
work, he'll try something elseor he'll try the same thing.
10 or 20 times.
And if that doesn't work, he'll try it30 or 40 times until we finally give in.
This is the persistence of the devil.
Don't underestimate him.
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So God said to the devil inverse three, you were wrong.
You tried to get me to destroyhim, and it didn't work.
You were wrong about me and you were wrongabout job, but the devil won't back down.
He's argumentative.
He's rebellious.
He knows people.
What he says here in verse fouris generally true of mankind.
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He says, skin for skin.
You say, what does that mean?
It means that generally speaking, a manwill give anything to save his own skin.
As we would say to save hisown hide, to save his life.
A man will give everythinghe has if it means that he's
going to live instead of dying.
If a man pulls a gun on you and he wantsyour car or your wallet, and if you
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don't give it to him, then you're goingto die, then you'll give it to him.
Whatever it takes, you willgive it in order to live.
If a man has cancer, he willspend everything that he has
oftentimes to live a little longer.
That's generally speaking what happens.
Why?
Because we want to live.
So Satan told God, sure, job gaveup everything, but a man will do
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that just to save his own hide.
He's still trying to save.
That job is not sincere.
He's saying he's never really been tested.
And I'll tell you a realtest of his character.
The devil says, job thought,if he cursed you, he'd die.
And the only reason he didn'tis because he wanted to live.
He wanted to save his own neck.
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He's hiding his real feelings.
He.
So in verse five, the devil said,here's what will show his true colors.
You touch, that is you afflict hisbody, you put him in enough pain,
and you'll see what his religion was.
You'll see that he was a fake.
The devil is saying it's onething for a man to lose his
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property and even his children.
But it's another thing for him tosuffer, really suffer a lot of pain,
excruciating pain, especially in hisbody, in his flesh, and in his bones.
God made our bodies to feel pleasureand pain, and the devil knows this.
He tempts us with both of these.
Both of these feelings bring outwhat is in our hearts so the devil
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can torment us or he can temptus with the feelings in our body.
He can use pleasure because it willeither bring out gratitude in our lives.
We can either thank God for that, or itwill bring out the selfish, greedy side of
mankind, and that's what the devil wants.
And the devil knows thatpain has an effect on us.
It will either cause us to besubmissive and humble before God,
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or it can lead us to be prideful.
Turn to anger and be rebellious.
Satan said, if you put job in enoughpain, he'll curse you to your face,
not behind your back, and not justin his heart or in his mind, but
he will curse you to your face.
So God accepted the challenge, andhere's what we read in Job chapter
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two, verse six through eight.
And the Lord said to Satan, behold heis in your hand, but spare his life.
So Satan went out from the presence ofthe Lord and struck job with painful
boils from the sole of his foot to thecrown of his head, and he took for himself
a pot shirt that is a broken piece ofpottery with which to scrape himself
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while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
The Lord permitted Satan to have somepower over Job again here in verse six.
Now, the first time was back in chapterone and in chapter one, verse 12, God
said, okay, you can have what he owns.
You can do what you want to withhis possessions, even his children,
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but don't touch job himself.
Now, this time, verse five says, his fleshand his bones, but the limit is this.
You can't kill him.
Now, job later wanted to die, butGod had already decided that he
was not going to die at the handsof Satan Job didn't know that.
We have to remember, again, wehave to constantly remind ourselves
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as we read the Book of Job.
That job did not have job chapter oneand job chapter two to read before or
while he was going through all this.
If he had, then it would've beena lot different, but he does not
have this kind of informationyou and I do, but he didn't.
Now Satan has power to hurt job.
So how's he going to do this?
God said that he is in your handand you can do what you want to
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to his body, but don't kill him.
So what is Satan going to do?
He has all this influence over job.
And what is he going to do to torment him?
Is he going to put him in an accidentthat would leave him crippled?
Well, if he did that, then jobwould just adjust to that.
Is he going to cause an attackthat would leave him in a coma?
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Well, if he did that, thenJob wouldn't know about it.
He wouldn't be aware of it.
So is the devil going to deprive himof food so that he stars to death?
Well, that would kill him.
And God said, you can't do that.
I. Is the devil going to send a lionor a poisonous snake to attack job,
or is he going to send some kindof natural disaster like the wind
that he used in chapter one or thelightning that he used in chapter one?
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Well, the Bible says again thatGod told him you can't kill him.
So the devil is going to bringsome kind of suffering upon job.
He's going to strike himwith some kind of pain.
Now we can take pain, even severe painif it only lasts a few seconds or a
few minutes, or maybe even a few hours.
But chronic pain that never stops andgoes on for days and weeks and months
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without us knowing if it will end.
And if it does end, thenwhen Now that is a trial.
And what did Satan choose?
Out of all the forms of suffering,you think about all the kinds of pain
that we can endure in this lifetime,and sometimes we get curious and we
search on the internet for what the mostintense or severe kinds of pain there
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are that a human being can experience.
What are the worst kinds of pain?
Well, the devil had a lotof options open to him.
He could have caused job to suffer inany number of ways, but he chose a form
of suffering that tormented the skin.
He chose a skin disease whereso many nerves are, and he chose
the largest organ of the body.
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It was a disease so severe that itaffected him everywhere in his skin, in
his joints, in his internal organs, hisbreathing, his bowels and everything.
Now the Bible doesn't say specificallyexactly what this suffering was.
A lot of people believe itwas some form of leprosy, and
they may be right about this.
The Bible doesn't really tell us what itwas, but it does describe the symptoms.
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It does describe the suffering.
Satan struck job with this.
The Bible says that Notice verse sevenagain, the devil was behind this.
The devil caused this.
The devil was given this leewayto cause this kind of suffering.
In Job chapter two, verse seven, theBible says, so Satan went out from
the presence of the Lord and struckjob with sore boils from the sole of
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his foot to the crown of his head.
So here's physical suffering I.That was caused by the devil.
Now, this is not demon possession,this is not anything like that, but
it is something that the devil did.
And there are other verses that talkabout the devil inflicting some kind
of physical suffering on people.
One of them is in Luke chapter13, beginning in verse 10.
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The Bible talks about awoman who was crippled.
She was bent over and the Bible saysthat she could not raise herself up.
And Jesus loosed her.
He said, woman, you areloosed from your infirmity.
And he laid his hands onher and immediately she was
made straight and glorified.
God.
That's Luke 13, verse 13.
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Now, when the ruler of the synagoguecomplained about this and said that
it was the Sabbath and he shouldn't bedoing this, then here's what Jesus said.
Notice in Luke chapter 13 verse 15.
The Lord answered him and said, hypocrite,does not each one of you on the Sabbath
loose his ox or his donkey from thestall and lead it away to water It so
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ought not this woman being a daughterof Abraham, whom Satan has bound.
Think of it.
He says, for 18 years, be loosedfrom this bond on the Sabbath.
Now, notice what Jesus said.
He said that Satan had bound her.
He had bound her for 18 years,so the devil had that power.
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Now, this woman is not demon possessed.
This woman is not possessedby some kind of devil.
The Bible shows that she's crippled.
And the Bible specifically sayshere that Satan had done this.
Satan had bound her with thiscrippling disease, and then in
Acts 10, verse 38, Peter said,God anointed Jesus of Nazareth.
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I. With the Holy Spirit and withpower, who went about doing good
and healing, all who were oppressedby the devil, for God was with him.
So Peter talks about something thatyou read many times in Matthew, mark,
Luke, and John, and that is that Jesushealed people of their sicknesses.
Now this passage says that at leastsome of the time, these people who
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were sick were oppressed by the devil.
The devil was behind that.
So you read about that in Acts 10 38.
You read about that in Luke 13, verse16, and you read about it in the Old
Testament here in the Book of Job.
And the Book of Job does go into alot of detail about his suffering.
It does tell us what the symptomswere, what the details of that physical
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suffering that job endured at thehands of the devil actually were.
And when we read this, this will helpus to understand and appreciate a whole
lot more what job was going through.
And the kind of faith that he had to have.
Now, the first thing that the Biblesays is that the devil struck him with
sore and painful boils from the soleof his foot to the crown of his head.
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Now, one boil would've been enough tocause pain, but this man has them from the
sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
He has them all over his body.
The sore boils come from a word in theHebrew, which means a boil or an eruption.
This is an inflammation.
It is a burning in the skin.
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In two Kings, chapter 20 verseseven, the Bible talks about a boil
that has a kayah had that's a boil.
And then the Bible talks aboutdifferent plagues in the Old
Testament that used this word.
So what happens here then is thathe is in such pain and misery that
he takes for himself a pot shirt.
Now that is a broken piece of pottery.
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It's not glass.
This is clay.
And Job used that broken piece ofpottery to scrape himself, to scrape
the sores because they itched so badly.
And the Bible says thathe was in the ashes.
Now that refers to anancient custom of mourning.
In Isaiah 55, verse five, the Bibletalks about how the Jews use these
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ashes in times of mourning and grief.
So here's job away from the comfortsof his home, away from almost everyone
else, and does he have any sympathy?
Does he have any doctor who comes to him?
There's nothing said about that, but theBible in this book does talk about what
he suffered and how he suffered in Job.
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Chapter seven verses three and four.
Job talked about the fact that hecouldn't sleep, he was hurting so bad.
Here's what he said.
Job seven verse three.
He said, so I have been allottedmonths of futility and weary.
Some nights have been appointed to me.
Many of his nights were wearisome.
He couldn't sleep, he couldn'trest because of all the
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pain that he was suffering.
Notice verse five of job chapter seven.
He said, my flesh iscaked with worms and dust.
My skin is cracked andit breaks out afresh.
In Job, chapter nine verse 18.
Job said this about his sufferings.
He said He that is, God willnot allow me to catch my breath,
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but he fills me with bitterness.
In other words, hissuffering was constant.
He couldn't get a break, hecouldn't get any kind of rest or
any kind of pause in his suffering.
And again, you see there in Jobchapter nine, verse 18, that he is
saying that God was doing this to him.
That's what Job believed.
In chapter 16, verse 16, the Biblesays that job said these words, my
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face is flushed from weeping, and onmy eyelids is the shadow of death.
Job looked really bad.
And not only that, the Bibleshows that he had lost weight.
I. In Job chapter 19, verse 20,he said, my bone clings to my
skin and to my flesh, and I haveescaped by the skin of my teeth.
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I'm just barely alive.
And he's basically sayinghe's like skin and bones.
So you also notice in this chapter, inJob chapter 19 that nobody wanted anything
to do with him because they were justashamed to be around him because he looked
so bad and he was suffering so much.
He says in verse 13, he, thatis, God has removed my brothers
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far from me, and my acquaintancesare completely estranged from me.
My relatives have failed and myclose friends have forgotten me.
Those who dwell in my house and mymaid servants count me as a stranger.
I am an alien in their sight.
I call my servant, but he gives no answer.
I beg him with my mouth.
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My breath is offensive to my wife.
I am repulsive to thechildren of my own body.
Even young children despise me.
I arise and they speak against me.
And all my close friends, ab whore me andthose whom I love, have turned against me.
And that's when he follows thatup by saying in verse 20, my bone
clings to my skin and to my flesh.
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So I point this out to say.
That job was not only sufferingphysically, he was suffering
terribly, emotionally in manydifferent ways, and one of those ways.
And we're gonna talk about this muchmore as we go through the Book of
Job, but one of those ways that he wassuffering was that people had shunned him.
So he had that kind of discouragementand disappointment and that kind
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of lack of support as far as thesystem is concerned among his
friends and the people that knew him.
Now, he will say much moreabout that in this book.
But I do want to turn to Job chapter30, because he describes his suffering
even more here in this chapter.
Now, this is later on in Job's defenseof himself, and the first thing he
does in Job chapter 30 is to talkabout how people were treating him.
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They were disrespecting him.
They were shunning him.
They were making fun ofhim and taunting him.
But I want to go to his physicalsufferings here because that's
what we're really looking at.
In Job chapter 30, verse 16,he says, and now my soul is
poured out because of my plight.
The days of affliction take hold of me.
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My bones are pierced in me at night and mygnawing pains take no rest by great force.
My garment is disfigured.
It binds me about asthe collar of my coat.
He has cast me into the mire.
I have become like dust and ashes.
Then beginning in verse 27, he talks aboutthe pain and the fever and the aching.
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He says in verse 27, my heartis in turmoil and cannot rest
days of affliction confront me.
I go about mourning.
Not in the sun.
I stand up in the assemblyand cry out for help.
I am a brother of jackalsand a companion of ostriches.
My skin grows black and falls from me.
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My bones burn with fever.
I. I wonder how many Biblereaders know about this.
I wonder how many peopleremember the details of his
suffering and how great it was.
Oftentimes, you'll find thatBible readers know that job was
struck with these sore boils.
These painful itchingboils all over his body.
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They know about that.
But how many people realize the extentof his suffering that we just read?
In all this terrible suffering.
Was there anybody to help him?
What kind of support group did Job have?
Well, most people have others in theirlife to help them when they're sick.
They have family, they have friends, theyhave nurses, they have a doctor, and the
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Bible does talk about a few people whowere there, especially at the beginning.
The Bible says that the first one whogave him some advice was his wife.
That's in verse nine and 10.
Her advice in verse nine was, do youstill hold fast to your integrity?
Curse God and die?
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Do you still hold onto your integrity?
Are you still holding onto your faith,your fear of God, your uprightness?
Why would you do that?
What good is that doing you now?
You're suffering, you're going to die.
You might as well end it.
So just go ahead and curse God anddie because God will strike you dead.
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Some say that she just felt sorry for himand she thought this was a way out, but
regardless of what her motive may havebeen, job said that was foolish advice.
Notice what he says in verse 10.
He said to her, you speak asone of the foolish women speaks.
Shall we indeed accept good from Godand shall we not accept adversity in all?
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This job did not sin with his lips,so Job said her advice was foolish.
It's foolish to ever turn againstGod no matter what the situation is.
That was not an option for Job.
It's not because he is stubborn.
It's not because he is prideful.
It's because he is determined.
The Bible says in Job chapter 13,verse 15, that job said though he
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slay me, yet will I trust in him.
In Job chapter 27, verse five, he saidto his friends, far be it from me that
I should say, you are right till I die.
I will not put away my integrity from me.
Now again, that is nota prideful response.
He knew they were wrong in whatthey were saying about him.
He knew that they werefalsely accusing him.
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He knew he didn't deserve this.
He just didn't know thatthe devil was doing it.
He thought that God was causing all this.
That was causing him perhapsthe worst pain of all.
Now, his wife was not muchhelp at all in all this.
As a matter of fact, she made it worse.
No wonder Satan didn't take her life.
You know, the devil did takethe life of his 10 children,
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but he didn't take her life.
She said the same thingthat the devil was saying.
The devil said that job would curseGod to his face, and she's saying,
here, just go ahead and do it.
Go ahead and curse God and die.
So the very person who was closest tohim that you would expect to be there
for him and encourage him and givehim good sound advice, didn't do that.
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As a matter of fact, you reallydon't find anything positive
said in this book about his wife.
Unless I'm missing something and youcan read it for yourself, but you just
don't find the Bible complimenting her.
And we've already looked at Job chapter19 verse 17, where Job said, my breath
is offensive to my wife, and I amrepulsive to the children of my own body.
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Now let's go to his three friends, becausethis is where it really gets interesting.
And this is where we find ourselvesintroduced to three characters who are
going to be major players in this book.
In Job chapter two, beginning inverse 11, the Bible says, now, when
Job's three friends heard of all thisadversity that had come upon him.
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Each one came from his own place.
Pha the team Aite Bill, add the shoeheight and sofar the neite for they
had made an appointment together tocome and mourn with him and to comfort
him, and when they raised their eyesfrom afar and did not recognize him.
They lifted up their voices and weptand each one tore his robe and sprinkled
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dust on his head toward heaven.
So they sat down with him onthe ground seven days and seven
nights, and no one spoke a word tohim for they saw that his grief.
Was very great.
So Job has already been sufferingwith this terrible illness.
How long?
We don't know, but we do know thatby the time that his three friends
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heard about this, that they hadto travel to get where Job was.
Now, back in those days, travelwas not as fast as it is today.
So we can just imagine how Job issuffering during all this time.
And we do know that it has had aneffect on him because the Bible
says when his three friends gotthere, they didn't recognize him.
His face had changed.
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He was so disfigured, they didnot recognize their friend.
And notice that the Bible saysthis, that the reason that they
came obviously was to comfort him,to help him, to mourn with him.
That was their intention.
They wanted to come to be his support.
So you have to compliment them.
And respect them for the fact thatthey took off of work or they set
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aside other duties and responsibilitiesand they traveled all that way just
to come and to be with their friendand to be there for him and with him.
But of course, if you've readthis book, you know that all
of that is about to change.
Sometimes people start out with theright motive, and then when things
are said that they don't agree with.
Then it gets a little bit ugly, andthat's what happened in this book.
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I want you to notice in verse 17that they sat down with him on
the ground seven days and sevennights, and nobody said anything.
Here we find that the best and mosteffective thing they did for job
in this book was to keep silent,was to keep their mouth shut.
I'm not saying that it's wrong Insituations like that, to speak a good
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word, obviously you want to tell peoplethat you love them, but I'm talking
about what we can learn from that, andthat is sometimes the most effective
thing you can do when you're visitingwith a family, going through a crisis.
A death or sickness is what oneminister and a counselor told me.
He called it the ministry of silence.
Sometimes that is very, very effective.
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If these three men had done more of thatinstead of arguing with Job, this whole
story would've turned out a lot different.
Thank you for listening tomy God and my neighbor.
Stay connected with our podcaston our website, and on Apple,
Spotify, YouTube, or wherever.
Fine podcast our distributed.
Tennessee Bible College providingChristian education since 1975 in
(30:14):
Cookville, Tennessee, offers undergraduateand graduate programs study at your level.
Aim higher and get in touch with us today.
Hi, I am Kerry Duke, host of My Godand My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee
Bible College, where we see the Bibleas not just another book, but the Book.
Join us in a study of the inspiredWord to strengthen your faith and to
share what you've learned with others.
Job was a good man.
He was also a very wealthy man, andin Job chapter one, we read about
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the devil taking away what Job had.
The devil took away his livestock,which was his income and also his wealth
to a large extent, and the devil alsotook away his ten children in one day.
But that didn't shake job.
The Bible tells us thathe held on to his faith.
You see, the devil had told God thatif he took away everything that Job
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had, Job would curse him to his face.
But he was wrong because in Jobchapter one, verse 21, the last words
that we read in this story in Jobchapter one are that Job said this:
“Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
But the devil does not give up easily.
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He keeps trying.
He is absolutely relentless.
I heard a preacher say years agoin a sermon that he entitled “Good
Things about the Devil,” [and you haveto put that in quotation marks, of
course] that one of the marks aboutthe devil is that he does not give up.
He is very persistent.
In the Bible, as an illustration, youread about Delilah who kept trying
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until she found Samson's weakness,and then she used that against him.
Well, the devil attacks you.
He attacks us, and he keeps doing thatuntil he can find a weakness and until he
can hopefully, on his part, destroy us.
First Peter, chapter five, verse eight.
The Bible says, “Be sober, be vigilant;because your adversary, the devil, as a
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roaring lion, walks about seeking whomhe may devour.” A lion keeps stalking.
A lion does not give upuntil he gets his prey.
That's what the devil does.
So in Job chapter two, the devil comesback and he comes back with a vengeance.
He is not done yet.
He has not given up on Job.
He's going to try to get Jobto curse God to his face.
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So in Job chapter two, verses oneand two, we find a familiar scene
and we also find some familiar words.
“Again, there was a day when the sonsof God came to present themselves before
the Lord, and Satan came also amongthem to present himself before the Lord.
And the Lord said to Satan, ‘From wheredo you come?’ Satan answered the Lord
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and said, ‘From going to and fro onthe earth and from walking back and
forth on it.’” Now that is exactlywhat you read the first time in Job
chapter one, verses six and seven.
It says, “Now there was a day whenthe sons of God came to present
themselves before the Lord, and Satanalso came among them. God said to
Satan, “From where do you come?” Andthen Satan said the same thing that
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he says here in Job chapter two.
So this is a second time.
This is a second situation.
The Bible says in verse three.
Then the Lord said to Satan, haveyou considered my servant job that
there is none like him on the earth,a blameless and an upright man,
one who fears God and shuns evil.
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Now again, that is exactly what he saidto the devil in chapter one, verse eight.
But here he says something elsehere in Job chapter two verse three,
notice that he adds and still.
He that is job holds fast to hisintegrity, although you incited me
against him to destroy him without calls.
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This is interesting.
Here's what the devil is best at doing.
He tried his best to turn God against job.
So notice this, God said to the devil,job is holding fast to his integrity.
He has not given up.
He didn't curse me to my faceeven though you, that is the devil.
You incited me against him.
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The King James version says,you moved me against him.
You tried to do that.
You tried to turn me against Jobto destroy him without a cause.
So in this book of job,what is the devil doing?
He is doing the same thing thathe has always done and the same
thing that he is doing today.
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And that is he is trying to turneverybody against each other.
He's trying to turn managainst God, God against man.
He's trying to cause havoc and chaos.
Now that's Satan.
He uses people's tongues togossip, to back bite, to criticize,
to cause division, to separatefamily and friends and brethren.
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The Bible says in Proverbs chaptersix, verse 19, he hates those
who sow discord among brethren.
In Proverbs 16, verse 28, the Bible saysthat A whisperer separates the best of
friends, and the devil tried to move.
He tried to incite God to destroyJob, to ruin job, to not only
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take what he had, but to crushhis spirit and to take his life.
Now Satan is out to destroy you,your family, your reputation,
and especially your soul, andtake away your salvation today.
That's what he does.
And notice, God says, you tried to move meagainst him to destroy him without cause.
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There was no reason for that.
He didn't deserve to die.
He didn't deserve to be destroyed.
And yet you tried to get me to do that.
So wouldn't we talk about unfairness?
When we talk about the problem ofevil, we need to look to the devil.
He's the one who's the authorof that you try to get me to
destroy him without cause.
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You see, the devil doesn't haveto have a valid reason or a cause.
He just causes trouble.
He doesn't care if there's a reason forit or a just cause or adjust calls or not.
In Matthew chapter five, verse22, Jesus warned about being angry
with your brother without a cause.
In John chapter 15, verse 25, Jesus saidthat the Jews hated him without a cause.
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There was no cause.
There was no just reason.
Job didn't deserve this.
It was not fair.
And yet the argument in this book is why?
What caused all this to happen?
If it wasn't fair, if you didn't deserveit, then what is this book about?
And that's why we're studying it now.
You find a typical response fromthe devil in verses four and five.
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So Satan answered the Lordand said, skin for skin.
Yes, all that a man has,he will give for his life.
But stretch out your hand.
Now remember, he's talking to God,stretch out your hand now and touch
his bone and his flesh, and he willsurely curse you to your face.
So now the devil tries something else.
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This is exactly what he does today.
If he uses one temptation to tryto take you down and that doesn't
work, he'll try something elseor he'll try the same thing.
10 or 20 times.
And if that doesn't work, he'll try it30 or 40 times until we finally give in.
This is the persistence of the devil.
Don't underestimate him.
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So God said to the devil inverse three, you were wrong.
You tried to get me to destroyhim, and it didn't work.
You were wrong about me and you were wrongabout job, but the devil won't back down.
He's argumentative.
He's rebellious.
He knows people.
What he says here in verse fouris generally true of mankind.
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He says, skin for skin.
You say, what does that mean?
It means that generally speaking, a manwill give anything to save his own skin.
As we would say to save hisown hide, to save his life.
A man will give everythinghe has if it means that he's
going to live instead of dying.
If a man pulls a gun on you and he wantsyour car or your wallet, and if you
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don't give it to him, then you're goingto die, then you'll give it to him.
Whatever it takes, you willgive it in order to live.
If a man has cancer, he willspend everything that he has
oftentimes to live a little longer.
That's generally speaking what happens.
Why?
Because we want to live.
So Satan told God, sure, job gaveup everything, but a man will do
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that just to save his own hide.
He's still trying to save.
That job is not sincere.
He's saying he's never really been tested.
And I'll tell you a realtest of his character.
The devil says, job thought,if he cursed you, he'd die.
And the only reason he didn'tis because he wanted to live.
He wanted to save his own neck.
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He's hiding his real feelings.
He.
So in verse five, the devil said,here's what will show his true colors.
You touch, that is you afflict hisbody, you put him in enough pain,
and you'll see what his religion was.
You'll see that he was a fake.
The devil is saying it's onething for a man to lose his
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property and even his children.
But it's another thing for him tosuffer, really suffer a lot of pain,
excruciating pain, especially in hisbody, in his flesh, and in his bones.
God made our bodies to feel pleasureand pain, and the devil knows this.
He tempts us with both of these.
Both of these feelings bring outwhat is in our hearts so the devil
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can torment us or he can temptus with the feelings in our body.
He can use pleasure because it willeither bring out gratitude in our lives.
We can either thank God for that, or itwill bring out the selfish, greedy side of
mankind, and that's what the devil wants.
And the devil knows thatpain has an effect on us.
It will either cause us to besubmissive and humble before God,
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or it can lead us to be prideful.
Turn to anger and be rebellious.
Satan said, if you put job in enoughpain, he'll curse you to your face,
not behind your back, and not justin his heart or in his mind, but
he will curse you to your face.
So God accepted the challenge, andhere's what we read in Job chapter
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two, verse six through eight.
And the Lord said to Satan, behold heis in your hand, but spare his life.
So Satan went out from the presence ofthe Lord and struck job with painful
boils from the sole of his foot to thecrown of his head, and he took for himself
a pot shirt that is a broken piece ofpottery with which to scrape himself
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while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
The Lord permitted Satan to have somepower over Job again here in verse six.
Now, the first time was back in chapterone and in chapter one, verse 12, God
said, okay, you can have what he owns.
You can do what you want to withhis possessions, even his children,
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but don't touch job himself.
Now, this time, verse five says, his fleshand his bones, but the limit is this.
You can't kill him.
Now, job later wanted to die, butGod had already decided that he
was not going to die at the handsof Satan Job didn't know that.
We have to remember, again, wehave to constantly remind ourselves
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as we read the Book of Job.
That job did not have job chapter oneand job chapter two to read before or
while he was going through all this.
If he had, then it would've beena lot different, but he does not
have this kind of informationyou and I do, but he didn't.
Now Satan has power to hurt job.
So how's he going to do this?
God said that he is in your handand you can do what you want to
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to his body, but don't kill him.
So what is Satan going to do?
He has all this influence over job.
And what is he going to do to torment him?
Is he going to put him in an accidentthat would leave him crippled?
Well, if he did that, then jobwould just adjust to that.
Is he going to cause an attackthat would leave him in a coma?
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Well, if he did that, thenJob wouldn't know about it.
He wouldn't be aware of it.
So is the devil going to deprive himof food so that he stars to death?
Well, that would kill him.
And God said, you can't do that.
I. Is the devil going to send a lionor a poisonous snake to attack job,
or is he going to send some kindof natural disaster like the wind
that he used in chapter one or thelightning that he used in chapter one?
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Well, the Bible says again thatGod told him you can't kill him.
So the devil is going to bringsome kind of suffering upon job.
He's going to strike himwith some kind of pain.
Now we can take pain, even severe painif it only lasts a few seconds or a
few minutes, or maybe even a few hours.
But chronic pain that never stops andgoes on for days and weeks and months
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without us knowing if it will end.
And if it does end, thenwhen Now that is a trial.
And what did Satan choose?
Out of all the forms of suffering,you think about all the kinds of pain
that we can endure in this lifetime,and sometimes we get curious and we
search on the internet for what the mostintense or severe kinds of pain there
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are that a human being can experience.
What are the worst kinds of pain?
Well, the devil had a lotof options open to him.
He could have caused job to suffer inany number of ways, but he chose a form
of suffering that tormented the skin.
He chose a skin disease whereso many nerves are, and he chose
the largest organ of the body.
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It was a disease so severe that itaffected him everywhere in his skin, in
his joints, in his internal organs, hisbreathing, his bowels and everything.
Now the Bible doesn't say specificallyexactly what this suffering was.
A lot of people believe itwas some form of leprosy, and
they may be right about this.
The Bible doesn't really tell us what itwas, but it does describe the symptoms.
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It does describe the suffering.
Satan struck job with this.
The Bible says that Notice verse sevenagain, the devil was behind this.
The devil caused this.
The devil was given this leewayto cause this kind of suffering.
In Job chapter two, verse seven, theBible says, so Satan went out from
the presence of the Lord and struckjob with sore boils from the sole of
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his foot to the crown of his head.
So here's physical suffering I.That was caused by the devil.
Now, this is not demon possession,this is not anything like that, but
it is something that the devil did.
And there are other verses that talkabout the devil inflicting some kind
of physical suffering on people.
One of them is in Luke chapter13, beginning in verse 10.
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The Bible talks about awoman who was crippled.
She was bent over and the Bible saysthat she could not raise herself up.
And Jesus loosed her.
He said, woman, you areloosed from your infirmity.
And he laid his hands onher and immediately she was
made straight and glorified.
God.
That's Luke 13, verse 13.
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Now, when the ruler of the synagoguecomplained about this and said that
it was the Sabbath and he shouldn't bedoing this, then here's what Jesus said.
Notice in Luke chapter 13 verse 15.
The Lord answered him and said, hypocrite,does not each one of you on the Sabbath
loose his ox or his donkey from thestall and lead it away to water It so
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ought not this woman being a daughterof Abraham, whom Satan has bound.
Think of it.
He says, for 18 years, be loosedfrom this bond on the Sabbath.
Now, notice what Jesus said.
He said that Satan had bound her.
He had bound her for 18 years,so the devil had that power.
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Now, this woman is not demon possessed.
This woman is not possessedby some kind of devil.
The Bible shows that she's crippled.
And the Bible specifically sayshere that Satan had done this.
Satan had bound her with thiscrippling disease, and then in
Acts 10, verse 38, Peter said,God anointed Jesus of Nazareth.
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I. With the Holy Spirit and withpower, who went about doing good
and healing, all who were oppressedby the devil, for God was with him.
So Peter talks about something thatyou read many times in Matthew, mark,
Luke, and John, and that is that Jesushealed people of their sicknesses.
Now this passage says that at leastsome of the time, these people who
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were sick were oppressed by the devil.
The devil was behind that.
So you read about that in Acts 10 38.
You read about that in Luke 13, verse16, and you read about it in the Old
Testament here in the Book of Job.
And the Book of Job does go into alot of detail about his suffering.
It does tell us what the symptomswere, what the details of that physical
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suffering that job endured at thehands of the devil actually were.
And when we read this, this will helpus to understand and appreciate a whole
lot more what job was going through.
And the kind of faith that he had to have.
Now, the first thing that the Biblesays is that the devil struck him with
sore and painful boils from the soleof his foot to the crown of his head.
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Now, one boil would've been enough tocause pain, but this man has them from the
sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
He has them all over his body.
The sore boils come from a word in theHebrew, which means a boil or an eruption.
This is an inflammation.
It is a burning in the skin.
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In two Kings, chapter 20 verseseven, the Bible talks about a boil
that has a kayah had that's a boil.
And then the Bible talks aboutdifferent plagues in the Old
Testament that used this word.
So what happens here then is thathe is in such pain and misery that
he takes for himself a pot shirt.
Now that is a broken piece of pottery.
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It's not glass.
This is clay.
And Job used that broken piece ofpottery to scrape himself, to scrape
the sores because they itched so badly.
And the Bible says thathe was in the ashes.
Now that refers to anancient custom of mourning.
In Isaiah 55, verse five, the Bibletalks about how the Jews use these
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ashes in times of mourning and grief.
So here's job away from the comfortsof his home, away from almost everyone
else, and does he have any sympathy?
Does he have any doctor who comes to him?
There's nothing said about that, but theBible in this book does talk about what
he suffered and how he suffered in Job.
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Chapter seven verses three and four.
Job talked about the fact that hecouldn't sleep, he was hurting so bad.
Here's what he said.
Job seven verse three.
He said, so I have been allottedmonths of futility and weary.
Some nights have been appointed to me.
Many of his nights were wearisome.
He couldn't sleep, he couldn'trest because of all the
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pain that he was suffering.
Notice verse five of job chapter seven.
He said, my flesh iscaked with worms and dust.
My skin is cracked andit breaks out afresh.
In Job, chapter nine verse 18.
Job said this about his sufferings.
He said He that is, God willnot allow me to catch my breath,
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but he fills me with bitterness.
In other words, hissuffering was constant.
He couldn't get a break, hecouldn't get any kind of rest or
any kind of pause in his suffering.
And again, you see there in Jobchapter nine, verse 18, that he is
saying that God was doing this to him.
That's what Job believed.
In chapter 16, verse 16, the Biblesays that job said these words, my
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face is flushed from weeping, and onmy eyelids is the shadow of death.
Job looked really bad.
And not only that, the Bibleshows that he had lost weight.
I. In Job chapter 19, verse 20,he said, my bone clings to my
skin and to my flesh, and I haveescaped by the skin of my teeth.
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I'm just barely alive.
And he's basically sayinghe's like skin and bones.
So you also notice in this chapter, inJob chapter 19 that nobody wanted anything
to do with him because they were justashamed to be around him because he looked
so bad and he was suffering so much.
He says in verse 13, he, thatis, God has removed my brothers
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far from me, and my acquaintancesare completely estranged from me.
My relatives have failed and myclose friends have forgotten me.
Those who dwell in my house and mymaid servants count me as a stranger.
I am an alien in their sight.
I call my servant, but he gives no answer.
I beg him with my mouth.
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My breath is offensive to my wife.
I am repulsive to thechildren of my own body.
Even young children despise me.
I arise and they speak against me.
And all my close friends, ab whore me andthose whom I love, have turned against me.
And that's when he follows thatup by saying in verse 20, my bone
clings to my skin and to my flesh.
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So I point this out to say.
That job was not only sufferingphysically, he was suffering
terribly, emotionally in manydifferent ways, and one of those ways.
And we're gonna talk about this muchmore as we go through the Book of
Job, but one of those ways that he wassuffering was that people had shunned him.
So he had that kind of discouragementand disappointment and that kind
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of lack of support as far as thesystem is concerned among his
friends and the people that knew him.
Now, he will say much moreabout that in this book.
But I do want to turn to Job chapter30, because he describes his suffering
even more here in this chapter.
Now, this is later on in Job's defenseof himself, and the first thing he
does in Job chapter 30 is to talkabout how people were treating him.
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They were disrespecting him.
They were shunning him.
They were making fun ofhim and taunting him.
But I want to go to his physicalsufferings here because that's
what we're really looking at.
In Job chapter 30, verse 16,he says, and now my soul is
poured out because of my plight.
The days of affliction take hold of me.
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My bones are pierced in me at night and mygnawing pains take no rest by great force.
My garment is disfigured.
It binds me about asthe collar of my coat.
He has cast me into the mire.
I have become like dust and ashes.
Then beginning in verse 27, he talks aboutthe pain and the fever and the aching.
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He says in verse 27, my heartis in turmoil and cannot rest
days of affliction confront me.
I go about mourning.
Not in the sun.
I stand up in the assemblyand cry out for help.
I am a brother of jackalsand a companion of ostriches.
My skin grows black and falls from me.
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My bones burn with fever.
I. I wonder how many Biblereaders know about this.
I wonder how many peopleremember the details of his
suffering and how great it was.
Oftentimes, you'll find thatBible readers know that job was
struck with these sore boils.
These painful itchingboils all over his body.
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They know about that.
But how many people realize the extentof his suffering that we just read?
In all this terrible suffering.
Was there anybody to help him?
What kind of support group did Job have?
Well, most people have others in theirlife to help them when they're sick.
They have family, they have friends, theyhave nurses, they have a doctor, and the
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Bible does talk about a few people whowere there, especially at the beginning.
The Bible says that the first one whogave him some advice was his wife.
That's in verse nine and 10.
Her advice in verse nine was, do youstill hold fast to your integrity?
Curse God and die?
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Do you still hold onto your integrity?
Are you still holding onto your faith,your fear of God, your uprightness?
Why would you do that?
What good is that doing you now?
You're suffering, you're going to die.
You might as well end it.
So just go ahead and curse God anddie because God will strike you dead.
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Some say that she just felt sorry for himand she thought this was a way out, but
regardless of what her motive may havebeen, job said that was foolish advice.
Notice what he says in verse 10.
He said to her, you speak asone of the foolish women speaks.
Shall we indeed accept good from Godand shall we not accept adversity in all?
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This job did not sin with his lips,so Job said her advice was foolish.
It's foolish to ever turn againstGod no matter what the situation is.
That was not an option for Job.
It's not because he is stubborn.
It's not because he is prideful.
It's because he is determined.
The Bible says in Job chapter 13,verse 15, that job said though he
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slay me, yet will I trust in him.
In Job chapter 27, verse five, he saidto his friends, far be it from me that
I should say, you are right till I die.
I will not put away my integrity from me.
Now again, that is nota prideful response.
He knew they were wrong in whatthey were saying about him.
He knew that they werefalsely accusing him.
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He knew he didn't deserve this.
He just didn't know thatthe devil was doing it.
He thought that God was causing all this.
That was causing him perhapsthe worst pain of all.
Now, his wife was not muchhelp at all in all this.
As a matter of fact, she made it worse.
No wonder Satan didn't take her life.
You know, the devil did takethe life of his 10 children,
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but he didn't take her life.
She said the same thingthat the devil was saying.
The devil said that job would curseGod to his face, and she's saying,
here, just go ahead and do it.
Go ahead and curse God and die.
So the very person who was closest tohim that you would expect to be there
for him and encourage him and givehim good sound advice, didn't do that.
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As a matter of fact, you reallydon't find anything positive
said in this book about his wife.
Unless I'm missing something and youcan read it for yourself, but you just
don't find the Bible complimenting her.
And we've already looked at Job chapter19 verse 17, where Job said, my breath
is offensive to my wife, and I amrepulsive to the children of my own body.
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Now let's go to his three friends, becausethis is where it really gets interesting.
And this is where we find ourselvesintroduced to three characters who are
going to be major players in this book.
In Job chapter two, beginning inverse 11, the Bible says, now, when
Job's three friends heard of all thisadversity that had come upon him.
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Each one came from his own place.
Pha the team Aite Bill, add the shoeheight and sofar the neite for they
had made an appointment together tocome and mourn with him and to comfort
him, and when they raised their eyesfrom afar and did not recognize him.
They lifted up their voices and weptand each one tore his robe and sprinkled
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dust on his head toward heaven.
So they sat down with him onthe ground seven days and seven
nights, and no one spoke a word tohim for they saw that his grief.
Was very great.
So Job has already been sufferingwith this terrible illness.
How long?
We don't know, but we do know thatby the time that his three friends
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heard about this, that they hadto travel to get where Job was.
Now, back in those days, travelwas not as fast as it is today.
So we can just imagine how Job issuffering during all this time.
And we do know that it has had aneffect on him because the Bible
says when his three friends gotthere, they didn't recognize him.
His face had changed.
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He was so disfigured, they didnot recognize their friend.
And notice that the Bible saysthis, that the reason that they
came obviously was to comfort him,to help him, to mourn with him.
That was their intention.
They wanted to come to be his support.
So you have to compliment them.
And respect them for the fact thatthey took off of work or they set
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aside other duties and responsibilitiesand they traveled all that way just
to come and to be with their friendand to be there for him and with him.
But of course, if you've readthis book, you know that all
of that is about to change.
Sometimes people start out with theright motive, and then when things
are said that they don't agree with.
Then it gets a little bit ugly, andthat's what happened in this book.
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I want you to notice in verse 17that they sat down with him on
the ground seven days and sevennights, and nobody said anything.
Here we find that the best and mosteffective thing they did for job
in this book was to keep silent,was to keep their mouth shut.
I'm not saying that it's wrong Insituations like that, to speak a good
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word, obviously you want to tell peoplethat you love them, but I'm talking
about what we can learn from that, andthat is sometimes the most effective
thing you can do when you're visitingwith a family, going through a crisis.
A death or sickness is what oneminister and a counselor told me.
He called it the ministry of silence.
Sometimes that is very, very effective.
(29:51):
If these three men had done more of thatinstead of arguing with Job, this whole
story would've turned out a lot different.
Thank you for listening tomy God and my neighbor.
Stay connected with our podcaston our website, and on Apple,
Spotify, YouTube, or wherever.
Fine podcast our distributed.
Tennessee Bible College providingChristian education since 1975 in
(30:14):
Cookville, Tennessee, offers undergraduateand graduate programs study at your level.
Aim higher and get in touch with us today.
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