Miserable comforters, a true Comforter

After hearing Eliphaz’s words, Job once again tears into his tormenters saying,

“I have heard many things like these;
you are miserable comforters, all of you!

Will your long-winded speeches never end?
What ails you that you keep on arguing?

I also could speak like you,
if you were in my place;
I could make fine speeches against you
and shake my head at you.

But my mouth would encourage you;
comfort from my lips would bring you relief. (Job 16:2-5)

In other words, “Stop already.  You keep repeating the same things over and over and it’s not helping.  If you were in my place, I could do the same thing to you and tear you apart with my words.

“But I wouldn’t do that.  I’d have compassion on you.  I’d encourage you.  I’d comfort you.  Why don’t you do that for me?”

He then laments how bad his life is, but at the end of this chapter, he says something interesting.

Even now my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.

My intercessor is my friend
as my eyes pour out tears to God;
on behalf of a man he pleads with God
as one pleads for a friend. (19-21)

As bad as his friends were in comforting him, he believed that there was someone in heaven pleading his case for him.  That there was someone who was faithful who was interceding for him.

And it was true.  The Bible says that we do have someone who intercedes for us.  Paul writes in Romans 8,

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.  (Romans 8:26-27)

When we like Job are suffering, when we don’t know how to pray, and when all our friends let us down, there is one who intercedes for us: the Holy Spirit.  And he intercedes us in accordance with the Father’s will.

What is the result?

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  (Romans 8:28)

So many times we only look at verse 28, but fail to see why it is that God works for our good.  It is because the Holy Spirit himself is interceding on our behalf.

Are you like Job, feeling like God has abandoned you?  Like God is in fact against you?

Know that it is not true.  The Holy Spirit himself is interceding for you.  And because of that, you can know with certainty that God is working for your good, even if you can’t see it right now.