Job 6:14

14 To him that is afflicted [mac] pity [checed] should be shewed from his friend [rea`]; but he forsaketh [`azab] the fear [yir'ah] of the Almighty [Shadday]. KJV-Interlinear

14 'For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; Lest he forsake the fear of the Almighty. NASB

When Job's friends first decided to visit Job, their intent was to bring comfort into an otherwise desperate situation.

However, when they arrived, what they saw was beyond their expectations and comprehension. Jobs condition was like seeing something that had crawled out of a monster movie.

Their first reaction was to come to a consensus regarding Jobs situation.

One can expect that they spoke to each other, out of the hearing of Job, and they concluded that Job was in the wrong. What his crime was, they did not know, but clearly Job had crossed the line with God, and was under this horrendous punishment.

Their first action toward Job was to remain silent for a week. This was a deathwatch, or a courtesy of friends who come to the side of the dying, and remain there with them until they finally pass away.

Throughout this week of silence, Job as thinking about his situation and how he could escape it, or at least bring it to an end. His friends, on the other hand, had decided that what he needed was some correcting.

So now Job charges them not with being friends, but with being critics. Here he is anguishing over his own terrible state of health, which had followed soon after losing his children and wealth. A big giant dog had doo-dooed all over Jobs life, and the first thing out of his friends mouths, was that it must have been his fault.

Their unkindness only served to aggravate Jobs calamity. If Job was to be criticized in the midst of his suffering, then wouldn't he want to die all the more. What pleasure or comfort is their in being criticized?

There is a place for lecture and criticism, but it is not generally appropriate while a crisis is unfolding in ones life.

Plenty of time for analysis after the events have ended.

Prov. 17:17

17 A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity. NASB

Prov. 18:24

24 A man of many friends comes to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. NASB

It is often said that you never really know your true friends, or loved ones, until adversity strikes. Then is when the pretenders and those who have ulterior motives, vanish into the night.

What Eliphaz and the others should have done, was to come as they had originally planned, and offered their sympathies to Job, to help his wife, to perhaps do some chores, to sit with Job and talk of the good times, and how this will soon pass, that there is always hope in the Lord, and such things like that.

They could have done these things until Job either died, or got better.

This type of approach gives comfort and encouragement to a person who is under suffering. This type of approach gives a boost in faith to even the immature, because they can look to some hope of relief. At least they have the compassion of their friends for the moment.

But to come in to someone who has been in an accident, and immediately begin criticizing them for what they did wrong, or did not do right, only aggravates the situation. A Christian who offers such criticism speaks only from his self-righteousness, in judging over an event. And whether he knows the facts of not is irrelevant.

A person, especially a new believer or an unbeliever, will tend to turn against God and Christ, when even believers demonstrate such coarse and rigid attitudes toward them.

Our place in adversity, is to help someone in need, to get out of, or get through, their predicament, not to begin lecturing when it is clearly too late to change the past.

Anyone who is hurting, knows only of their pain at the moment. If they are reasonably intelligent, they will already be racked with grief over what they did or did not do. Nothing is gained by further condemning them.

Anyone who sees pain and suffering, looks for and expects to find help. When they receive their help, then they are encouraged by the source of that help.

However, when they see the source of help, and that help turns out to be someone who is self-righteous, or someone who doesn't want to get involved, then they will have a tendency toward hating the source of what could have been their help.

Christians can be the best of people, and they can be the worst of people. And when you get into celebrities and politics, whether they are Christians of not, then these tendencies become magnified to greater extremes, because their opinions receive more publicity.

The first duty of a comforter is to be compassionate. If for no other reason, because any one of us might very well find ourselves in a dire situation. So don't allow hypocrisy to become the ruler of your beliefs.

When someone is under affliction, then everyone alive becomes indebted to them for compassion at the very least.

No one has the right to take advantage of someone who is down on their luck. You would not want to be taken advantage of, if your life was compromised.

Trouble is the environment, which separates those who have true compassion and the desire to help, from those who pretend friendship, as well as those who serve only to criticize the oppressed as well as those who try to help them.

Friends offer help and make an effort toward solutions, and at the same time promote Christian kindness.

Pretenders offer criticism, and never offer solutions, and at the same time try to separate themselves from the problem. They never really want to be involved, and would exit as quickly as possible. They promote evil concepts.

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