I really do not want to present Job in any kind of “bad light.” Enough people (commentators, professors, preachers, teachers) do that constantly. But I still want to be faithful in my portrayal of that little “hero,” in our Lessons here on the Website.

Here’s (the discussion being limited to Job chapters 9-10, just his response to Bildad’s barbs) how Job “feels” God is treating him. (Apparently Job never knows, in all 42 chapters, about the battle between God and Satan, that contest over “real faith” that was being waged.)

Job believes of God … “He breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause.” Job 9:17, God has sent a violent storm against Job! (Think of Jonah.) Furthermore, God has “stabbed” Job again and again, wound after wound!” And Job has done nothing (major) wrong, he is suffering innocently!

Job 9:18 continues: “He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.” God had taken Job’s breath away! And fed him a life of constant bitterness! Provocation, literally!

Job 9:31 adds more: “Yet shalt thou (Lord) plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.” God keeps stomping Job into the ground! And the man has lost so much weight … or his sores are running so copiously and constantly … that his clothes are of no value whatsoever. They either do not fit or stink terribly, one or the other.

Also in Job chapter 10 (still his “come-back” to Bildad) our Patriarch laments: “Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.” Verse 8, Job clearly believes in Creation. But God is destroying that which He so grandly made, killing Job day by day! The immediately following verse presents the same truth, in parallel fashion. It’s self-explanatory. “Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?” God reversing the creation process, on Job! Or so the man senses. What else could he have thought?

Finally, Job 10:17. “Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, and increasest thine indignation upon me; changes and war are against me.” Looks like Job believes the 3 “friends” (here “witnesses” who attacked Job viciously) are sent of God! But God later in the book rebukes them strongly. Also Job thinks God is getting hotter and hotter at him, in anger, every day! The army (“hosts”) of heaven are attacking Job, “war” having been declared against him! “Changes” may again refer to his constantly having to switch clothing, due to the oozing “boils” all over his body, corruption and infection everywhere.

Then, exasperated, near the end of his speech Job cries to God: “Let me alone!” Here’s the whole verse: “Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little.” Job 10:20

That’s why I labeled today’s Lesson, “a hurting man.”

YET … I MUST EMPHASIZE … THROUGH ALL THIS AGONY JOB NEVER ONCE “CURSES” GOD. Like the Satan said he would do back in both chapters 1 and 2. Job stayed True to His God.

He still believed in God.

Readers here today … this is FAITH in its purest form.

BELIEVING … IN THE FACE OF ALL KINDS OF OPPOSITION!

Like Hebrews 11:33-34 illustrated: “Christians who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”

Wow!

Job thinks God has turned against him … yet in reality God is thrilled with His persevering saint!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

Job asked it from the depths of his heart. “How should man be just with God?” Job 9:2

All Job’s acquaintances (Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar) have accused Job of being “not right” with God.

Of having blatant sin in his life.

Of experiencing such trauma (tragedy after tragedy) solely because of hypocrisy, unconfessed iniquity in his life. Apparently “tons” of it!

Later, Job (with a glimmer of hope) proclaims: “Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.” Job 13:8, in the Patriarch’s reply to Zophar.

“Justified,” in Hebrew “tzsadaq,” means “right” with God, “straight” (not crooked) in the Lord’s Eyes. “Cleared” of charges of any wrong!

It’s interesting that the man who suffered so much (the Old Testament’s supreme “sufferer”) asks this question repeatedly, inquiring about being “justified.”

BUT I HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER TO JOB’S BURNING QUESTION!

“How should man be just with God?”

In the New Testament, the answer.

To be “justified,” one must know Jesus Christ, the Son of God!

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Romans 3:24-25

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith.” Romans 3:28

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1

“Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” Romans 5:9

“Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” 1st Corinthians 6:11

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ.” Galatians 2:16

“That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:7

Anyone can now know the answer to Job’s penetrating question!

Anyone who trusts, believes the Bible.

But notice something.

Every verse I’ve used (New Testament) is from the pen of the Apostle Paul!

He is the man whom the Holy Spirit used to answer … “How should man be just with God?”

And who is Paul?

Get this!

He is the greatest human “sufferer” in the New Testament! (Outside of Jesus …Who is Very God of Very God! God the Son, God come to earth! Not merely a human!)

Wow!

The … Old Testament prototype of suffering (Job) … asks about being “justified.”

Then the … New Testament prototype of suffering (Paul) … answers the question (multiple times) about being “justified!”

Maybe “hurting” brings us closer to God, to wanting to be “right” with him!

And guess what … the answer to the dilemma of justification (How can man be right, straight in God’s Eyes?) is found in … The Innocent Sufferer named Jesus!

In His Death on Calvary!

In His shed Blood!

In His vicarious Death!

Maybe “suffering” (after all) has a ministry, particularly in the area of teaching us our need for being in harmony with Almighty God!

Job (as he suffered) asked the question.

Paul (as he suffered) ventured the answer.

JESUS (as he suffered) made it possible … RIGHT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD!

Amen!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Maybe suffering “sensitizes” us to the great issues of life. Psalm 119:71, its writer, certainly agrees. Here he is admitting to God: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”

Wow!

 

Today we meet Bildad, the second of Job’s “miserable comforters.” That’s exactly what Job called his three “friends” later in the dialogue, at Job 16:2.

Out “text” this morning is Job chapter 8, with only 22 verses, some of which I will prayerfully note.

Bildad to Job: “How long shall the words of thy mouth be be like a strong wind?” Job’s rants,  just “hot air” blowing! Verse 2 … and the “war” is already waging!

And by verse 4 (of chapter 8 remember) Bildad as much as says that Job’s 10 children all died because of sin in their lives! “If thy children have sinned against Him (the Lord), and He have cast them away for their transgression ….” God gave them over to death, the Hebrew suggests!

And try to realize the pain Job 8:6 would have caused the already sensitive Job. “If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.” If you were living right, Job, God would prosper you! This is the classic “Health and Wealth” theology still rife today in America.

In verse 13 Bildad labels Job as one who “forgets God!” And a rank “hypocrite!”

Verse 20, another slam: “Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers.” According to the Bildad viewpoint Job is not “perfect” before God. But in Job 1:1 God Himself said Job was perfect before Him!

Yes, Bildad is as vicious as Eliphaz had been back in chapters 4 and 5 of Job. If not more so!

And Bildad’s appeal to the men of old, to yesteryear, has caused many commentators to consider him the “traditionalist” among Job’s accusers.

Job 8:8-10, for example. “Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers. (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow.) Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?”

“The former age!”

“The fathers!”

“THEY shall teach us!”

And it is true, up until the Book of Job the Bible has (95% of it anyway) illustrated that “the more one obeys God, the more God blesses that person!” And excessive “hardships” and “trials” are a pretty good sign God is “whipping” a person, usually because of sin!

But the Book of Job breaks that pattern!

(And the Book of Job is God’s Word as well! Every bit as much as Genesis through Esther has been!)

Here (in Job) … a good man suffers!

No matter how much the Fathers have taught us to the contrary!

Lesson … tradition (“it’s always been”) can be wrong!

Tradition is not completely reliable! In fact, it can be deadly.

Only God is perennially (really eternally) right!

In fact, God is RIGHT, even when things do not look that way!

Bildad did not speak right things about Job!

Here’s God talking in Job 42:7. “The LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends (including Bildad): for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.”

Wow!

Oh, how we need to search the Scriptures, to get the “Mind of the Lord” … and not simply (blindly) follow tradition!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Hey Bildad: “Words can deeply wound! And cut into the innermost parts of the soul, the heart!” So says Solomon in Proverbs 18:8.

A lesson we all need to learn!

 

Today I am wondering how Job really “felt” during the long months of his ordeal, his hardship, his virtual season of “persecution” from Satan.

And, thankfully, throughout the whole Book the man details (nearly catalogues) his feelings.

For example, today’s Lesson, in Job’s first response to Eliphaz … he graphically describes his great “burden.”

“Job answered and said, Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.” Job 6:1-4

The noun “grief” is “kaas” in Hebrew, meaning “sorrow” 3 times in the Old testament. It also means “wrath” 4 times and “anger” 2 times! It is also translated “provocation” 4 times, King James Version!

Then “calamity” is “havvah,” meaning “ruin” or “destruction.” But it is also written as “wickedness, iniquity, and naughtiness” 6 times! Job never claims complete sinlessness, not once in all 42 chapters, just no major sin contributing to his crises!

How severe was Job’s “burden?”

All I know to say, based on reading the Passage above … is VERY HEAVY!

Weightier than “the sand of the sea!”

Tons!

Next Job gives a second picture of how he feels, suffering so deeply.

He sees God as an Archer!

With his “Bow and Arrow.” Make that “bows,” plural.

God shoots at Job, and hits the target!

Poisoned arrows, nonetheless!

Thirdly, Job believes God is “terrorizing” him!

God as Holy Terrorist!

Oh, the agony this godly man must have been facing, enduring.

Let’s read our passage again: “Job answered and said, Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.”

Yet I mention to you again … though he was in pain (physically and emotionally and spiritually) Job did NOT once curse God! Job stayed faithful!

Someone reading here today has, no doubt, a heavy weight pressing on his or her shoulders (or heart) … loads of sorrow or grief or doubt or pain.

Job would have known exactly how you feel.

In fact, so does Jesus!

“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15

Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

 

His name was Eliphaz, one of Job’s “friends” or “comforters.” They are called by both names.

This sounds “good” at first. “Now when Job’s three FRIENDS heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.” Job 2:11

But eventually Job labels them: “Miserable COMFORTERS are ye all.” Job 16:2

Eliphaz is certain that Job is suffering his hardships because of sin in Job’s life. Some untold but major iniquity. And that God is “punishing” Job because of that wickedness!

He says: “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.” Job 5:17, which is partly quoted later in the Bible in Psalm 94:12. And again in Proverbs 3:11-12 and Hebrews 12:5. And finally in James 5:11. And maybe Jesus in Revelation 3:19 has the sentence in Mind.

Wow!

So clearly, the statement is true.

Yet Eliphaz here (in reference to Job) is misapplying the whole concept!

Job had not sinned, nothing major anyway!

He was not being chastened by God for any blatant iniquity in his life!

Eliphaz almost becomes here a “high and mighty” Pharisee! A spiritual “know-it-all!” As if “one size fits all” in God’s dealing with mankind!

Listen to the man’s (proud) attitude.

Eliphaz to Job: “Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.” Job 5:27

Hear the hubris? “Job, this is for your own good!”

“I have searched this whole thing, all your troubles. Hear me, Job. You have despised God’s Hand of correction … because of your ungodly lifestyle!”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Eliphaz.

Job chapter 3 (where Job indeed “cursed” the day of his birth and the night of his conception) was, in Eliphaz’s estimation, Job “despising” God’s dealings, God’s whippings!

Talk about “misunderstanding!”

How do I know Eliphaz was wrong?

God (later in the Book) says so!

“And it was so … the LORD said to ELIPHAZ the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: FOR YE HAVE NOT SPOKEN OF ME THE THING THAT IS RIGHT, as my servant Job hath.” Job 42:7, precious!

Wow!

Be careful going around telling everyone that YOU have all the answers. And that they had better listen to YOU, “for their own good!”

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Paul in Ephesians 6:1 teaches us to correct each other “in the spirit of meekness.” Something Eliphaz certainly did not do!