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!

 

Lowest moment?

Yes, in Job chapter 3 the Book’s protagonist laments: “After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.” Job 3:1-2

He “cursed” his day (of birth). Really the night of his conception as well!

After he lost all his possessions.

After his health disintegrated.

After his Wife urged him to curse God.

After his three so-called “friends” came and were “shocked” at Job’s miserable condition. They didn’t even recognize him, he being so grief torn!

“After (all) this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.”

That’s as close as he came to ever cursing God, the abominable act Satan predicted Job would do immediately after all his “calamities” hit him.

Yet Job did NOT curse God, no where in the Book, and at no time in his whole life!

Job here is suffering.

He actually (in chapter) 3 seems to “reverse” the days of creation, thus (somehow) eradicating the very day of his birth! Excising it from the calendar! “Let it (that day) not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.” Job 3:6

But in his reversal, he does not even mention the creation of man!

And at the end of Job’s un-creation poem … he does not find “rest” as God did … rather, “trouble,” the opposite of rest! Read it: “I was not in safety, NEITHER HAD I REST, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.” Job 3:26, the last verse in the chapter.

Job … that discouraged.

That skeptical.

That pessimistic.

That “low.”

But, wait a minute!

Jeremiah (the great prophet) felt that same way on at least one occasion. At a time of “difficulty” in his life and ministry. Listen: “Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.” Jeremiah 20:14-15

And Jonah was that way, nearly. “Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:3, followed soon by: “And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.”

And the great Elijah, too. “But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” 1st Kings 19:4

But note, from Job to Elijah, none committed suicide!

None tried to end his own life. THAT decision rested in the hands of God, His Hands alone!

(However, Samson DID commit suicide … and is still named in the great Hebrews 11 chapter on God’s heroes of faith! Yes, Samson is in Heaven, no doubt! But let me be clear. Suicide is not a proper option for a believer, never. The giver of life, Almighty God, should also be the Taker of life.)

I’m just trying to demonstrate that Job is not that far “out of line” with other Bible “Greats” who also became so discouraged they despised their lives.

One more thought today … Job in chapter 3 (his first major speech in the Book) discussed creation … in an ironic way … but still creation. And our Lord God, in his major Jobian speeches … also discusses Creation! In the proper way, Job chapters 38-41! Thus creation orations “bracket” the whole Book of Job!

I read where the old British Preacher of last century, Joseph Parker, once said: “NO MAN IS AS BAD AS THE WORST DAY HE EVER LIVED. AND NO MAN IS AS GOOD AS THE BEST DAY HE EVER LIVED!”

JOB HAD A “BAD DAY” IN CHAPTER 3.

I ONLY KNOW OF ONE MAN (THE GOD MAN) WHO NEVER HAD A BAD DAY!

WHO NEVER LIVED BELOW HIS POTENTIAL!

AND HE WAS … IS … JESUS!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

 

Yes, Satan actually talks in the Book of Job!

In both chapters one and two.

And looks like he keeps other people talking for him throughout the rest of the Book, until chapter 38 anyway!

And, except for his conversations in the Book of Genesis (the Garden of Eden), these two Jobian dialogues with God are second-in-line (historically) to anything else the Devil may have said in all the Bible!

By studying his wicked strategy, both in Genesis and in Job … we can better appreciate Paul’s words in 2nd Corinthians 2:11. “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” The noun “devices” used here translates “noema,” a Greek word meaning “thoughts!” The very “mind” of Satan!

I am particularly interested in Job chapter 2 today.

There the Devil speaks for a second time, with intensity.

He doubts Job would ever stay true to God … should he lose his health! Should he be threatened with death! Satan’s words: “And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” Job 2:4

Job, the Devil is sure, will give up his God and his faith in that God … before he would ever lose his life serving that God! No man or woman would pay such a price, would love their God that much! So believed the Devil.

Yet Job had just recently lost his ten children, his seven thousand sheep, his three thousand camels, really all his livestock (oxen and donkeys too) via catastrophe … and kept loving God!

“Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.”

But that’s a lie!

Many a Christian has given his or her “all” for Jesus’ Sake!

This verse comes to mind: “They loved not their lives unto the death.” This is speaking of the many martyrs who will die for the Lord during the days ahead. Revelation 12:11, a context that includes the Devil, by the way, his final expulsion from Heaven!

Wow, God had the last word here, didn’t He?

And even Job himself, though he did not know what Satan had said about him, avowed: “Though He (the Lord God) slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Job 13:15

There will be Christians today who will die for their faith. One Mission Agency says nearly 400 a day are giving their lives for Jesus, in 2016 I mean.

Believers who will love Jesus more than their own lives!

Yes, the Devil is wrong.

And not very observant either!

God has always been impressed, thrilled, with faith in the lives of His little children.

Genuine faith.

Long-lasting faith.

Persevering faith.

“Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Revelation 2:10

“Faithful unto death.”

Take that, Devil.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell