Job 8:1-22

It is dangerous for us to presume that we know the heart and motives of God and the reasons for His dealings with men.  Bildad, the second of Job’s friends to speak, presumes that he knows exactly what God is doing and even why he is doing it.  He considers what he knows about God and then observes the circumstances of Job and then presumes that Job and his family must have sinned against God in order to bring about this calamity.  Once again, much of what Bildad says is excellent theology and great anthropology.  The only problem with his speech is that he presumes Job’s guilt based on results and not on actual observed sinful practice.  We must learn to stop assuming that present circumstances are a result of either condemnation or approval of God.  There are many who suffer but have God’s approval.  There are many who prosper that stand condemned before God.  God is just and He will justly judge all of mankind and He will then dispense the just retribution or reward.  However, His judgment may be “slow” (from our perspective) in coming.  Bildad has two basic messages that are very true; but his timing is off by thousands of years.

GOD IS JUST IN BRINGING RETRIBUTION TO SINNERS: It is clear that Job is suffering in excruciating ways.  Bildad’s error is in presuming that this suffering is a result of personal sin on the part of Job and/or his children.  Certainly all suffering can be traced back to the curse of sin.  However, not all suffering is retribution for sins that we have committed.  Bildad assumes that since Job’s children have all died that either they or their father had sinned to the point that God had decided to remove them from the earth.  Certainly Job and his children were sinners and had sinned many times.  All death is traceable to sin but not all death is retribution for individual sin.  Bildad pleads with Job to recognize his sin and repent of his sin and then plead with God for mercy so that he can be blessed once again.  While it is very true that God is merciful; it is wrong to presume that God’s mercy is demonstrated by material blessings.  Retribution will be or has been exacted for all sin.  It came on the cross or it will come in hell.

GOD IS JUST IN BRINGING REWARDS TO THE SINLESS: Job had experienced tremendous blessing in recent history and we know Job’s future was blessed as well.  However, we can rest assured that these blessings were not God’s rewards for sinlessness.  Job was a sinner.  He was a sinner when he was a wealthy and successful father of ten.  He was a sinner when he was penniless, childless and scraping puss off of his skin with a broken piece of tile.  He continued to be a sinner when his wealth was multiplied, when God gave him more children and his health was restored.  Bildad is exactly right in stating that the life of man is but a shadow and that trusting in our own strength and knowledge is like trusting in a spider web to keep us from falling.  Where he is wrong is in his presumption that the judgment of God takes place during this brief time on earth that he calls a shadow.  The laws of agriculture and nature cannot be applied to the judgments of God.  God’s rewards are given to man by grace and grace alone.  None of them are deserved on this earth and none of them will be deserved in heaven.  When God blesses men with wealth and comfort it is because of God’s grace not because of man’s righteousness.  When God rewards men with eternal crowns when we stand before Him at the judgment seat of Christ it will be because of grace and the cross; not because of our sinlessness.