8/9 Bankrupt: The Story of Job (Job 2:11-21:34)

Introduction:

• What is the worst advice you ever received from a friend?

Lesson:

•  Read Job 2.11-13: The friend’s come to the rescue, they are going help Job through the hard time in his life.
• Read Job 3: Can you feel the absurd amount of grief that Job is experiencing here?  We see that Job is beginning to lose perspective; he’s losing his purpose in life.
• Job 4-5:  Eliphaz starts in his advice to Job. What does he say the reason for Job’s suffering is?  Read Job 5:17-27
• Job 6-7 Job’s response: What does Job say to Eliphaz? Read Job 6:14-29, 7:20-21. Job knows that he has done nothing to deserve what has happened to him.
• Job 8: Bildad reaffirms what Eliphaz tried to tell Job. Read Job 8:1-7, 20-22
• Job 9-10:  Job refutes Bildad. Read 9:21-24. Then he turns to God asking why these things are happening to him. Read 10:8-17.  Job acknowledges the fact that the more he puts his faith in God, the more is taken away from him
• Job 11: Zophar gets a little angry at Job for not admitting his sins. Read Job 11:2-5
• Job 12-14: Job refutes Zophar. Read Job 12:2-4, 13:1-6.  However, he possibly starts to think that his friends have a point, look at his plea: Read Job 13:20-28.  Now he loses hope: Read Job 14:7-22
• Job 15: You would think that good friends would now let bygones be bygones and console their friend.  Not so much.  Here comes round two. Though the accusation is the same, Eliphaz is ruder, more intense, more threatening. Read Job 15:17-35
• Job 16-17: Job’s friends were supposed to be comforting him in his grief; instead they condemned him for causing his own suffering. Read Job 16:2-5
• Job 18: Bildad is back at it again, he thinks he knows how the universe should be run, and he saw Job as an illustration of the consequences of sin.
• Job 19: Job gives another rebuttal: Read Job 19:2-6
• Job 20: Zophar’s speech showed that he presumed that Job was an evil hypocrite.  He said that although Job had it good for a while, he didn’t live righteously, so God took his wealth from him.  According to Zophar, Job’s calamities proved his wickedness
• Job 21: Job's final rebuttal (at least for this week): Verses 1-21- Job points out that even the wicked live better lives than he is right now. They are prosperous and happy. Verses   22-26-  What do Adolf Hitler, Mother Teresa, Saddam Hussein, and Martin Luther King have in common?  They are all dead and buried. Job says that those who live good lives and live bad lives both end up side by side in a graveyard.  By looking at things through a worldly point of view, things get quite upsetting and disappointing.  Life seems meaningless. Verses 27-34- Job tells his friends that no matter how many times they try to get him to admit his sins, he will not do it.  He knows he didn’t do anything to deserve this, but his friends just won’t listen.

 Application 

• What are your thoughts on what we went through today?