Search This Blog

What were Job’s friends upset at?


“Yet if you devote your heart to him
    and stretch out your hands to him,
if you put away the sin that is in your hand
    
and allow no evil to dwell in your tent,
then, free of fault, you will lift up your face;
    
you will stand firm and without fear. Job 11:13-14
            Job’s friends came to comfort Job after he lost his family, business and house, but they ended up discomforting Job, by asking many questions and suspecting him to be sinful.  They believed that only the evil received this kind of punishment in life and worked Job to squeeze out a confession.
            Job held firm to his innocence.  His friends could not believe Job was a righteous person.  Yet, even God speaking to Satan called Job a righteous man.  His friends called him arrogant for believing in his own innocence.
            The friends ended up exposing their own arrogance in accusing Job.  Their belief system of bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people completely disregarded the will of God to do whatever He wants to do.  They felt God's payback system was the only right way.
            God ended up chastising the friends and applauding Job’s righteousness, proving that bad things can happen to good people if God allows it.  And, by blessing Job, that good things happen to good people because God allows it.