Job
8 reminds me of a bad crisis intervention. Job’s friends have been
sitting with him for a week trying to pressure him to confess his
sins. They are convinced that Job and his family have been involved
in some kind of activity that lead to Job hitting bottom. Sadly,
most of us would have come to the same conclusion if we had not read
the first two chapters! Bildad
the Shuhite, the
second of Job’s counselors, now speaks to Job.
“How
long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind.
Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right?
When your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to the
penalty of their sin.”
Basically he says, “Listen wind bag, God is perfect, He convicted
your children as proof of their guilt, so therefore you need to come
clean”. Like many cults today, he mixed a little truth in with his
condemnation and misrepresents God completely. Yes, God is perfectly
righteous, but His patience is incomprehensible. Most aberrant
religious groups have the same message: If your do
enough
good stuff, you can become worthy. Jesus taught the “Good News”,
not the good works. He often asked the sick or the lame, “Do
you believe?”
He never asked, “Do you deserve?”. John 3:15 says of Jesus,
“that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life“.
Trying to earn forgiveness by being good enough is exhausting
because it is backwards. Here is the truth, after
we receive God’s forgiveness
it is a joy to serve God out of thankfulness. If you are tired of
striving to try to earn God’s love, Jesus is speaking to you, “Come
to Me, all you
who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”
(Matthew 11:28).
Next
Bildad continued his assault on Job and the truth with more backwards
theology. “But
if you will look to God and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure
and upright, even now He will rouse Himself on your behalf and
restore you to your rightful place“.
I have heard this one many times, and probably said it myself. “I
need to get right with God before I can go to church”. This
popular belief is responsible for keeping more people away from total
forgiveness than any other because we know we are far from holy on
our own. I believe Satan uses this to keep us away from the
blessings of God. Hidden in this statement is another popular image
that is also totally false. God is our Heavenly Father, not our
great-grandfather. There is no need to wake Him from his nap to
present your goodness. There is no reluctance on God’s part; God
loves to bless His kids! I remember the night we brought our first
child home from the hospital. Every peep he made had me at his
crib-side making sure he was safe. If I can be that attentive to my
child, “How
much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask
Him!”
(Matthew 7:11).
The
chapter ends with Bildad making a number of statements based on the
assumption that Job had first turned from God. Sadly, his
“evidence” is Job’s loss of wealth. “Can
papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh? Can reeds thrive without
water?”
This is the danger of judging someone’s heart based solely on
outward appearances. God alone can see the heart of man. “Such
is the destiny of all who forget God… What he trusts in is fragile;
what he relies on is a spider’s web“.
This is the question of the ages. If you don’t trust God, what do
you trust? He uses this circular logic to convict Job, “Surely
God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of
evildoers“.
He is saying, since God has rejected you, you must be guilty. There
is a real sense of distance in his tone. He tossed some wisdom to
him, and said, let me know how that works out for you. Anyone that
has been through real hardship has experienced that feeling of
separation. I believe there is only One that fully identifies with
that type of isolation. “He
was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with
suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised,
and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and
carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten
by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he
was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace
was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed”
(Isaiah 53:3-5).
This is why I know NOTHING “will
be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus
our Lord“.