How Not To Counsel

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor.

[00:00:24] My name is Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is the entire book of Job.

[00:00:30] The episode is titled Don't Become A Job Counselor.

[00:00:36] So today we're going to take a subject that I think you'll find interesting.

[00:00:41] We're going to talk about Job's Comfortors or as I prefer to call them Job's Counselors.

[00:00:47] We all know the story of Job, I suppose, even people listening who are not Christians

[00:00:52] may remember that story of Job rather well because it is well known in our society.

[00:00:58] We just briefly let me run over the story again.

[00:01:02] Here is Job, a righteous and holy man prospering faithfully serving God.

[00:01:07] When suddenly out of the blue as he sees it comes the worst kinds of affliction.

[00:01:13] Members of his family are slain, his property is removed and finally his own body is afflicted

[00:01:18] with terrible boils and sores.

[00:01:21] According to the practices of the time Job goes out on an ash heap and sits in mourning

[00:01:27] in contemplation and there with a piece of broken hunk of clay pot he scrapes his boils.

[00:01:34] It's not a very pretty sight.

[00:01:36] He's in pain, he's in agony, he's in misery but he doesn't know what's behind it all.

[00:01:43] Now the Scriptures have already given the reader some indication about what's behind

[00:01:49] it.

[00:01:50] There is a controversy going on in heaven.

[00:01:52] The controversy is between Satan and God.

[00:01:55] Satan says that Job doesn't deserve God just because he loves him but he serves God to

[00:02:02] get something out of God.

[00:02:04] He questions his motives.

[00:02:06] He doesn't believe that a man can serve God out of a proper motive and God says, all right,

[00:02:13] you may do this but no more.

[00:02:15] And then afterwards he lets him do a little more and then draws the line.

[00:02:20] And then finally, a little more and draws the line what he says don't take his life.

[00:02:27] All through this picture Job continues to serve God even when his wife says, curse God

[00:02:33] and die he refuses.

[00:02:36] Now the interesting thing about this picture is that three of Job's close friends, they're

[00:02:41] called friends of the passage.

[00:02:44] So there are people who do care about Job.

[00:02:47] They come in order to counsel Job and help Job get through this.

[00:02:52] And I'm talking to you about this today because you may have friends to whom you need to

[00:02:57] give some counsel from time to time when they fall into affliction.

[00:03:02] Every Christian has friends who needs counsel.

[00:03:05] And if you're not a Christian, you yourself need counsel from some person who can point

[00:03:10] you to the Lord Jesus Christ as a fundamental answer to your problem in whom are all the

[00:03:15] other answers to your specific problems.

[00:03:18] But let's assume that we're talking now to Christians who are going to help other

[00:03:22] Christians who have fallen into some affliction and they can't discover any cause of that

[00:03:29] affliction in and of themselves.

[00:03:31] Now here comes the three friends of Job.

[00:03:34] And for a time according to custom they sit quietly and they say very little.

[00:03:40] Eventually one of them speaks, then the next, then the next.

[00:03:46] And then there are other species by each of these men.

[00:03:49] The major portion of the book deals with the speeches that these men make.

[00:03:55] Job replies to each speech.

[00:03:59] Without going into all the details of these species let me say that the first thing that

[00:04:03] we notice about these counselors are supposed comfortors of Job is that they all three come

[00:04:09] with their minds made up.

[00:04:11] They have decided what Job's problem is before they even talk to him.

[00:04:15] And as clear in their words they're telling him what it is that he is doing wrong.

[00:04:21] And they have assumed, all three of them have assumed that it is Job's fault that these

[00:04:26] boils and these misfortunes have come upon him.

[00:04:29] Job to the end maintains that he is not at fault.

[00:04:33] Surely he has not done everything properly but there has been no particular thing that

[00:04:38] he has done that he believes brought these difficulties into his life.

[00:04:43] And the interesting thing about it all is that Job's stead vastly maintains this in his

[00:04:49] agony of having to argue with these men about it at great length.

[00:04:54] He maintains it to the very end.

[00:04:57] He even calls upon God saying, Lord, stand up against me and let me plead my case with

[00:05:02] you as directly face to face.

[00:05:05] And finally God actually speaks to him out of the world when telling him that he had no

[00:05:10] right to speak that way to him but that he was right about his basic issue.

[00:05:15] Now there were three things wrong with Job's comfortors or counselors, and it goes three

[00:05:20] things I want to warn you against in going to another whom you seek to help who may be

[00:05:25] in some misfortune.

[00:05:27] The first thing is that they went with their minds made up, and therefore they failed

[00:05:33] to gather the facts.

[00:05:35] They assumed that misfortune came and came only and always to a believer when he has caused

[00:05:41] the misfortune to come by sinning against God in some gross or outstanding way.

[00:05:46] The matter of fact is that like the man in John 9 there was another issue at hand.

[00:05:52] God was going out to glorify himself through Job's afflictions.

[00:05:57] Just as God was out to glorify his son through the affliction of that man born blind who

[00:06:01] had not sinned, nor his parents had sinned.

[00:06:05] But simply that the works of God might be made manifest in him says the writer, so they

[00:06:10] failed to gather the facts.

[00:06:13] They assumed they knew the facts ahead of time, and that's one of the most dangerous things

[00:06:18] anybody can do when he tries to help another person who is in trouble.

[00:06:23] The first thing that must happen is that you must learn to gather the facts about this

[00:06:28] particular situation, even if it looks like another that he dealt with last week.

[00:06:35] Probably under the surface there are great, great differences.

[00:06:41] So let's never assume that we know before gathering the facts about every specific case

[00:06:45] and each individual.

[00:06:47] The second failure of Job's counselors was that they failed to believe him when he protested

[00:06:53] that he had not brought this upon himself.

[00:06:56] You see, the counselor, like those whom he councils must always operate in accordance with

[00:07:02] 1 Corinthians 13-7, where we're told that love believes all things and hopes all things.

[00:07:09] These men thought the worst of Job.

[00:07:12] They did not believe him when he protested his innocency.

[00:07:16] They did not believe when he said that I've done nothing specific to bring this specific

[00:07:20] problem upon me.

[00:07:22] They did not love him as they should.

[00:07:24] They should have believed until the facts drove them to say otherwise.

[00:07:31] Not start by disbelieving him and being suspicious of him.

[00:07:35] Many counselors err in this respect because they doubt every word that a person has to

[00:07:40] say.

[00:07:41] In our counseling we try always to take people seriously about what they say and try to

[00:07:47] move with them as long as we can and only disbelieve when the facts demand disbelief.

[00:07:55] The third and last failure of Job's counselors that I'd like to mention is that because they

[00:08:00] had failed to gather the facts and because they failed to believe Job, they failed to get

[00:08:06] at his real problem.

[00:08:08] Job needed help.

[00:08:10] He really needed counsel at that time and God's words to him make a clear of that he

[00:08:16] needed it.

[00:08:17] But what Job needed was not to be censored for what he had not really done to bring anything

[00:08:22] on himself as they thought he had, but what Job needed was to be taught how to handle this

[00:08:28] difficult problem, how to respond to it, how to deal with this trouble that had come

[00:08:33] upon his life, that he had not brought upon himself, and he really could have used some

[00:08:38] good help and some good counsel and some good encouragement from those men at that point.

[00:08:45] But because they got focused in the wrong direction, they failed to get at his real problem

[00:08:51] and to supply the counsel and the comfort the Job truly needed.

[00:08:56] Don't be a Job's counselor or a Job's comforter.

[00:09:00] Take to heart these three points.

[00:09:02] Gather the facts.

[00:09:04] Live what the person says in love and get at the real problem as a result.

[00:09:08] This is biblical counseling.

[00:09:12] This is competent biblical counseling, something that you can do, something that you can take

[00:09:18] from Scripture with respect to the right way and the wrong way, and God gives us a clear

[00:09:25] example with Job's counselors how not to do it.

[00:09:29] I hope this helps.

[00:09:30] Have a great day and talk to you.