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Articles
Miserable Comforters
I have been studying in the book of Job this week. A verse that jumps out are the words of Job to his "friends" in chapter 16:2. "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all." These so-called friends were there to comfort, which they did do when they came and were silent in his midst. Then when they began to speak, they moralized and judged Job, thinking that "Piety Pays" and "Perversity Punishes." Job was suffering, and this was no doubt, a punishment from God for his perversity, they thought. So they judged him wrongly, and then moralized and lectured him to come clean and repent of his wickedness. But they were incorrect, thus Job called them "miserable comforters." We sometimes have these kind of folk today. That they prejudge, condemn, and make assumptions about our lives, they are "miserable comforters." Sometimes people to turn to booze and dope to bring comfort to a heart that is in misery. They think they can drown their sorrows away with the bottle. Yet they will find out that Ole Jack Daniel is a "miserable comforter." He will in fact bring additional problems to your life. That "escape" with the dope that you thought would take away the pain? It is still there, and now you have more problems. Sometimes people think that "Stuff" "Material things" will bring comfort to one's hurting heart. Yet, it does not take long, that the shopping spree that was to make you feel better, was just empty and void of any help, it was a "miserable comforter." And sometimes we think we can travel to escape the sorrows of life, which getting away will do the trick to bring comfort to sorrowful hearts. But at last it is like the other "Band-Aid" solutions, they are only superficial, they are "miserable comforters." Our real comfort will come from the God of all comfort, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort" 2Cor.1:3.
