Today from Chuck Swindahl, the Marshall, the Marshall. Not all advice is good advice. Not even when the person who gives the advice thinks that it's the right advice.
Sometime it can be given in all sincerity, but it is Faulty. Everybody's got an opinion, right? And when you're going through the hardest stretch of your life, it seems like people can't wait to share theirs.
Some of it's helpful.
Some of it really isn't. Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindahl continues his biographical series on the life of Job. In this study, we'll discover that Job's misery had company. Three friends showed up to comfort him. They mean well.
But meaning well and doing well are two very different things. Chuck titled today's message, Responding to Bad Counsel. We're looking into Job chapter 4, 5, 6, and 7. This morning, so we'll be through about 2.30, 3 o'clock, and Yeah. Let me read just a little part of each section, and you'll kind of get the drift of it.
Job 4:1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, If one ventures a word with you, will you become impatient? But who can refrain from Speaking. Behold, you have admonished many, and you have strengthened weak hands. Your words have helped the tottering to stand.
And you have strengthened feeble knees, but now Now it has come to you and you are impatient. It touches you and You are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence? and the integrity of your ways. Your hope.
Remember now. Whoever perished being innocent. Or Where were the upright destroyed? According to what I have seen. those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble.
Harvest it. Chapter 5. Verse 8. But as for me, I would seek God, and I would place my cause before God, who does great and unsearchable things. Wonders without number.
He gives rain on the earth and sends water on the fields, so that he sets on high those who are lowly. And those who mourn are lifted to safety. He frustrates the plotting of the shrewd so that their hands cannot. attain success. Chapter 6.
Then Job answered, Oh, that my grief were actually weighed. and laid in the balances together with my calamity. For then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas. And therefore, my words have been rash. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me.
They're poison. My spirit drinks. The terrors of God are arrayed against me. Chapter seven Verse twenty. Have I sinned?
What have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target?
So that I am a burden to myself. Why then do you not pardon my transgression? and take away my iniquity. For now I will lie down in the dust. And you will seek me.
But I will not be. You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into Job's story, be sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbook by going to insight.org slash offer. Chuck titled today's message, Responding to Bad Counsel. Not all advice is good advice.
Not even when the person who gives the advice thinks that it's the right advice.
Sometimes it can be given in all sincerity, but it is Faulty. A man had finished lunch and was in his car driving toward the next appointment with his work, and he. Began to be troubled by the argument that had gone on between him and his wife. It had run over a couple of three days, and he decided that it was time to. to make up.
At least he could do it by cell phone and And uh finished the conversation that evening.
So he dial the number and the mate answered the The call, and he said, I'd like to speak to my wife. And she said, Well, Uh she doesn't want to be disturbed right now. He said, doesn't want to be disturbed. And the maid said, yes, she's upstairs with her boyfriend. And uh The man said in an infuriated moment, you know where the shotguns are?
Go get one of my shotguns, put two shells in, go upstairs and kill both of them. She put the phone down, went upstairs. He listened, heard two blasts. She came back down, picked up the phone, she said, okay, it's done. They're dead.
What do you want me to do with the bodies? He said, throw him in the pool, I'll take care of the rest when I get there. She said, we don't have a pool. He said, is this 545-307? Not all advice is good advice.
Not even when the person giving the advice thinks that it's good advice. And says it in all sincerity. Not all advice is bad advice. Every person listening right now has experienced getting bad advice.
Someone gave it to you, and you followed it, and you suffered the consequences. But on the other hand, we have all benefited from someone telling us. good things and they've counseled us and We've followed their advice and the benefits have been many. Matter of fact, this ancient book of Proverbs. which is a couple of books beyond Job, seems to be full of of comments about the wisdom of following good counsel.
Turn, for example, to Proverbs Chapter 12 would be a good place to start. Proverbs 12, 15. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but A wise man is he who listens to counsel. You and I have known the experience of that. We have been foolish in our ways, and we have had someone.
Early on, a parent or a teacher, maybe a coach. Maybe a band conductor or some friend. Replace our foolishness with wise counsel, and we benefited from it. Proverbs says, It works like that. Look at 1624.
Same book, 1624. Pleasant words are a honeycomb. Sweet to the soul. And healing to the bones. I love that.
Words given at the right time. Proverbs says elsewhere, or like apples of gold and pictures of silver, as an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear. good counsel. Wise reproof, obedient response. Benefit, win, win, win.
There's another. Look at 1920 of Proverbs. The book is full of verses like this. Listen to counsel and accept discipline that you may be wise. The rest of your days.
219. 219. It's better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman. That's not the verse. Hmm.
Verse 19 it is. It is better to live in a desert land than with a content. That's not it either. Yeah. I don't know why I had those verses marked.
Look at chapter... Look at 27. 2719.
Well, let's take 17. 27, 17. I love this. Iron sharpens iron, so. One man sharpens another.
We men know the benefit of a good friend. Who sharpens us with his presence or with his counsel, his model sharpens our lives. Two verses later, 19, as in water, face reflects. A face, so the heart. of a man reflects.
A man. Have you had that experience? Surely you have. You've had something deep down in the well of your heart, and you've been near someone who loves you and knows you and has the ability. to drop that bucket in the well and to pull out.
And to splash it out for both of you to read what's there and to see, I see it now.
Sometime it's a reproof. 27 verse 6 says Faithful are the wounds of a friend. But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. The Hebrew uses an interesting causative stem in the early part of the verse, and it could read: Faithful are the bruises caused by the wounding of one who loves you. Faithful is the bruise that comes after the blow.
of one who cares enough to tell you the truth. He hits you with The truth alone in private. Confronts something that needs to be confronted, and a bruise forms that remains there. And it's trustworthy.
So much more trustworthy than the hug and kisses of an of a flatterer. called an enemy. Good counsel is is a good thing. On the other hand, there's Bad counsel.
Some one-liners would run like this in bad counsel. Look, why don't you go ahead and marry him? He'll change after the marriage. Most of those laughing were women. Interesting.
Here's another. You know, in my experience in this field of finances, this feels good. I really think it's worth that $10,000 investment in Enron stock. Two years ago. Maybe a year ago.
Bad counsel. Didn't mean it to be bad. But it turns out bad. Or, hey, don't bother about finishing school. Do you have any idea how many millionaires there are today who never even got out of high school?
Bad counsel. Every dropout teenager loves to hear words like that. Because it's what they want to hear. When school gets tough.
Well, this brings us to dear old Job. Joe. Remember Job? We left him in what we called Black pessimism. He was in the hole of depression.
Chapter 3.
Okay. He despised the day he was born. He hated the thought that, having been born, he lived. The silence of God was driving him mad, and he did not hold back. He said it all.
Three friends sitting nearby sat and listened through it. They'd been there seven days and seven nights in silence, staring at him. First, trying to believe it was really their friend Job. Of course he's He looks so different. His face is swollen and his and now scabbed over with these running sores.
And if you look closely, there's worms in some of them. It's an ugly scene. And he's comfortable in no position. He doesn't feel comfortable lying down, and so his nights are restless, and they're. They're spent slowly and Agonizingly, as he tries to get into a position that isn't just painful beyond words, and then the sun rises.
and bakes itself on him as he sits in the in the trash heap of the city. Dear wife, unable to help, Friends stunned in disbelief. And then, when the comforters, so-called, begin to talk, they bring no comfort. I mean, it was bad enough just to have them sit and stare, but it was horrible when they began to give. Bad counsel.
Oh, they didn't mean bad. They didn't, not at first. Maybe never. And they just lost sight of their purpose. And what was that?
Chapter 2, verse 11. The latter part of the verse tells us why they came. They came to sympathize with him. And they came to comfort him. Good for them.
At least they came. The man who was the greatest man in the East, chapter 1, tells us. should have been surrounded by a room full of friends. But three at least came. And they came for the right reason.
They came as you go to the hospital. to visit the terminally ill loved one. You don't know what to say, and often you stand and say very little. And sometimes, interestingly, when you do say something, you leave thinking. Why did I say that?
I know how you feel when you don't know. You know, I've thought about this, and I think at least you've got this to be thankful for. Why did I say that? Ah, but these men go so much further. They mix blame and shame and condemnation and and judgment and Legalism and They preach a little and...
And there's no comfort. Let me see if I can offer some structure. Jove's a big book.
Some of you have already begun to dread it. 42 chapters of this. I mean, Chuck is going to be in the grave before he gets to the end. I may be there with him if I endure these 42 chapters.
So let me give you a little hope. First of all, we're not going to do it verse by verse, okay? Otherwise, we would all need real help. If you weren't on medication before that, you would be needing it. if you took all of this literally.
And I'm not saying it isn't inspired. I'm just saying it isn't encouraging.
So let me see if I can help open up some of the mystery of it and give you a little hope. The first two chapters get this. And the last 11 verses of chapter 42. First two chapters and the last 11 verses of chapter 42. Our narrative.
Called prose, P-R-O-S-E. They're prose. Just like the novel you're finishing or the. The newspaper article you read this morning. Or Perhaps some note someone gave you, they wrote it in prose, and you read it, and it's history.
It's factual. You can understand it. There isn't a lot of mystery. You have questions, of course, with these two chapters. And you're thrilled at the end because it all turns out well.
And he gets double everything except children. That probably wouldn't have been a blessing to have twice the number of children.
So he gets the same number of kids and twice the other things he had to start with. Terrific. We all like that. We like it when they live happily ever after. But in between We have poetry.
In fact, the book of Job falls in the category, as Old Testament scholars categorize it. the category of poetry. like psalms. like proverbs. And if you were to read it in the Hebrew, you would notice a change in the meter.
It reads like poetry.
So there's repetitious phrases. There are a lot of colorful word pictures.
Some things are beyond our capacity to understand. And so we'll just say. We're not sure what that means. Because it's poetry. Beautiful.
but a little bit mysterious, a little mystical at times. Let me say secondly that um Oh, by the way, the poetry is philosophy.
Okay. I mean, history we can get, but philosophy. I had a mentor tell me years ago that a philosopher is a person who talks about things he doesn't understand, but he makes it sound like it's your fault. Yeah. Uh And these men write, or these men say, and they, Job no doubt, journaled a lot of these things, maybe all of it, and maybe he wondered at times what it meant fully.
Okay, that's the first thing I want to tell you. Second, this poetic section, which is the largest part of the book, chapter 3 through 42, 5.
Okay. This Poetic section begins as a rather mild discussion. It turns into A rather intense debate, and it ends in heated dispute. You're going to see Eliphaz begins with sort of his hat in his hand. As he begins to speak to Job, and toward the end, there's no hat in his hand.
I mean, he's got an index finger jammed into this man's sternum, and he is setting him straight.
So it begins rather mildly and it ends. in a dispute. Third, the three friends. Elephaz, Bildad, and Zophar, you'll see their names, by the way, if you're not familiar. In verse 11 of chapter 2.
Eliphaz, Bildad, So far. These three friends, now get this, it'll help you. I'll show you in the Bible in a minute. These men speak in cycles. Three cycles.
First Eliphaz and then Job answers. Then Bildad and Job answers, then Zophar and Job answers, and round one ends. And then Eliphaz comes back on the scene. He's apparently the oldest of the group in those days, the oldest. We're given, you know, priority.
So Eliphaz speaks, Job answers. Bildad speaks, Job answers. Zophar speaks, Job answers. Then you get to the third cycle, Zophar is out of the picture. Maybe he got.
tired or you just thought, phew. I'm out of here. It's going nowhere. When you get to chapter 30. 2 to 37, a fourth man appears, that's the youngest of the group.
He comes out of nowhere. His name is Elihu, E-L-I-H-U. And Elihu just does a monologue, and Job never answers. Maybe by now Job is, oh man. I have heard all I'm going to listen to.
Maybe, maybe Job is simply exhausted.
Okay. Or maybe he doesn't have any answer by now. You've done a lot of talking so far. Let me show you this in the Bible. Look at chapter 4, verse 1, okay?
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered.
So, this is his first speech, if you will, in the first cycle. Look at 6-1. Then Job answered.
So Job is answering Eliphaz. Got it? That goes through chapter 7.
Now keep rolling with me here. Look at 8-1. Then Bildad the Shuhite answered. This is his first speech. Look at 9:1.
Then Job answered, answer Bildad. And he does that for two chapters.
Okay, you stand with me? 11-1. Then Zophar the Namathite answered. That's his first speech, verse 12. I'm sorry, chapter 12.
Then Job responded. And that goes through 13 and 14, and that's the end of that first cycle. That first round. Of dialogue between the three friends and Job. In each case, Job answers each one of them.
They meander all around and they talk about all different subjects, but mainly they're there judging Job. Interesting, and I want to mention this here. Eliphaz bases his words on experience. He says more than once, I have seen, I have seen.
So, in light of what I have seen, I. Make these statements about your situation, Job.
Now Bildad bases his on tradition. It says in chapter 8, verse 8, inquire of past generations. And he appeals to Job to go back into the annals of history and recall what had happened there. And in light of that, tradition teaches us this. When you get to Zophar, who is the harshest of the three, He throws tack to the winds, and he comes right at Job with both fists.
His words are based on assumptions. It's like a verbal fist fight.
So that happens in the first cycle. Look at 15:1. Eliphaz responded. That's his second speech. And then you keep going through 16.1, Job answer.
You go all the way through that cycle. All three men speak till the end of chapter 21. Notice that. End of round two. Round three, chapter 22, verse 1, all the way through to 3140.
That's enough of that. Got the idea. I wanted you to get a structure of how the book is laid out. And each time, be sure you check the beginning of the chapter so you'll know who's speaking. And you know why he's answering?
If you go back and see what was said, then you'll be able to tie it together. And I'll do my best to keep it interesting. I know. I'll try to stay with what Job writes and see if we can draw some sense out of this. Chucksmandal has laid a strong foundation for us today.
In a book as rich and complex as Job, it's enormously helpful to know where you are, who's speaking, and why. What we're beginning to see is that suffering has a way of drawing people out, and not always in the ways that we'd hope. This is Insight for Living. Chuck titled today's message, Responding to Bad Counsel. It's the sixth in a 22-part series.
You know, in a season when every news cycle brings something new to fear, it's tempting to look for solid ground and wonder if there's any left.
Well, there is, and Chuck wants to show it to you. His book, Finding God When the World's On Fire, is a powerful pastoral guide through the scriptures that speaks directly to suffering, loss, and the kind of fear that keeps you up at night. Just as we've been walking through the life of Job, a man acquainted with grief in ways most of us will never experience, this book will take you even deeper into the truths that held Job together. and it will hold you together too. No matter what tomorrow brings, the Word of God will never waver.
Let us send you a copy of Chuck's practical book, Finding God When the World's on Fire. It's yours when your request includes a contribution toward the Ministry of Insight for Living. We are so grateful for you, and we believe this book will be a gift for your soul. Call us at 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/slash donate. Your gift allows us to provide Chuck's teaching on your station, on the Insight mobile app, and all the other platforms where Insight for Living can be freely heard.
If you'd prefer to write to us, you can send your donation to Insight for Living. Post Office Box 5000 Frisco, Texas, 75034. or call 800-772-8888. You can also go online to insight.org slash donate. When someone you love is suffering deeply, what do you say?
I'm Bill Meyer. Here, Chuck Swindahl's compassionate answer Thursday on Insight for Living. Yeah. The preceding message, Responding to Bad Counsel, was copyrighted in 2002, 2004, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindahl, Incorporated.
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