Page 52 - Job

we can commend them with Morgan for being quiet.
And then the third suggestion G. Campbell Morgan makes is this. They
are to be praised because what they had to say they said right to Job’s
face. These men can be criticized for many things but at least you cannot
accuse them of backbiting. They had a lot to say. They had a lot to unload,
but they unloaded it right to his face. I will not develop it now, because
this is not a topical study on backbiting. Paul calls backbiting cannibalism
in Galatians chapter 5:15. The church is full of cannibals today. They
backbite. They devour one another. They eat each other up. These men
did not do that.
All right, that brings us then to chapters 3-31, man’s futile attempt to
answer the mysteries of life. In this section we have these three men –
Eliphaz, great-grandson of Esau, Genesis 36:10-11, Bildad, great-
grandson of Abraham, Genesis 25:2, and Zophar. We do not know his
family because he is named after the place he lived in southern Arabia.
But we have these three men, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, debating on the
purpose of suffering. Why do people suffer? Why does God allow pain in
the world?
Now, each of these sections can be very confusing because they are
arguments. Confusing, but rather easy to outline because they were
orderly debates. What I would like to do now is take chapters 3-31 and get
a bird’s eye view of the whole thing. I am becoming more and more
convinced that unless you get the bird’s eye view first, then you are only
going to be confused going forth. If you just start in chapter 1, verse one,
and go through, you will get a lot of individual blessings, but you might
miss the point the Holy Spirit desires to highlight. The main principle the
Lord is trying to teach. So what we are going to do is fly over these
chapters and keep dipping down as we come upon significant principles.
Let me give an outline for this section in terms of the facts. When we go
through it debate by debate, we will go through it in terms of the
principles. Chapter 3 is the foundation. How I love chapter 3. We will not
get into that now. It looks like he is bewailing his birthday, but he is not.
What you have is three cycles of debates. Chapter 4-14 is the first cycle.
Chapter 15-21 is the second. Chapter 22-31 is the last cycle of debates.
Eliphaz is the first to speak. He speaks in chapter 15, and then Job
answers him right away in chapter 16 and 17. Then Bildad speaks in
chapter 18, and Job answers him in chapter 19. Then Zophar speaks in
chapter 20, and Job answers him in chapter 21. Chapter 32:1, is the end of
this debate:

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