Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Eliphaz Speaks: His First Words of Counsel to Job

A. Good Counsel to the Sufferer

1. His kindness: Job 4:1-2, 2 Tim. 2:24

2. His encouraging affirmation: Job 4:3-4, Philemon 4-7

3. His reminder of life’s realities

– Man is hopelessly flawed before God: Job 4:17-21, Job 9:2, Job 14:4, Job 15:14, Job 25:4

– Man is destined to much sorrow and trouble in this life: Job 5:6-7, John 16:33, Acts 14:21-22

4. His appeal to submit to God: Job 5:8, James 4:7-8

B. Eliphaz: The Bad Counsel to the Sufferer

1. His accusation of hypocrisy: Job 4:5-6, Job 5:1-7

2. His assumption Job’s suffering results from sin: Job 4:7-11, John 9:1-3, Acts 28:1-5

3. His reliance upon individual special revelation: Job 4:12-16, 2 Cor. 12:1-7

C. Truth Affirmed, Truth Learned about our God

1. God’s Immanence (near) and transcendence (otherness): Job 5:8-9, Isaiah 66:1-2

2. God’s loving provision and care: Job 5:10; 15-16, Isaiah 9:6

3. God’s workings of providence: Job 5:12-14, Luke 1:51-53

4. God’s paternal discipline: Job 5:17-18, Prov. 3:12, Heb. 12:5-6

5. God’s delivering grace: Job 5:19-27, Psalm 54