Father, as we look tonight at the chapters that are spoken by this young man named

Eliju, I pray that we would understand his purpose and the writer's purpose as they relate to the

exposure and the removal of pride in our lives.

Nothing is more deadly than vanity and

so I pray that you would come do surgery on us

and that you would lance the pride-filled boil on our hearts and that you would humble us and

make us penitent, broken-hearted, bold worshippers of God and witnesses to Christ.

In his name we pray, amen.

Let's open our Bibles now to chapter 32 of Job.

Job 32. We're going to be looking at the chapters 32 through 37. From chapter 4 until 31, Job conversed with Elifaz, Bill, Ed and Zar, about the meaning of suffering.

And he won the argument, but he didn't come up with an answer.

The principle that he defeated was the simple principle of retributive justice that says in the world,

God is a God of justice and this expresses itself through the righteous

prospering and the wicked suffering and when there's lots of righteousness, there'll be lots of prosperity, and when there's

lots of wickedness, there will be lots of suffering.

And it didn't hold. It couldn't be made to stand against the witness and the integrity of the person

Job who was suffering a lot and his life did not correlate with a lot of evil.

Job defended himself valiantly and pointed to exceptions in the world to this principle.

And so they failed.

Elifaz, Bill Dade, and Zofar were not able to sustain this theory of righteousness or justice in the world in the face of

Job's realism and his integrity.

And as the argument developed and the three cycles moved, the speeches of these friends got shorter and they got more hostile until they faded out with Bill Dad able to muster six verses at the end and so far not able to

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