Bildad Comes Again

"When I saw Him He said 'Don't be afraid
I am the Living One.' "
—Rev.1:17,18

One more time Bildad tries to reason with the obstinate Job. Bildad also seems a little hurt at Job's vigorous language in his reply to Zophar. He thinks Job is being unkind to compare his friends to the beasts and count them unclean, calling them his enemies and ungodly, when Job himself was torn with anger! Did the earth have to be abandoned for his sake? The fact of judgment coming on the wicked could not be contradicted. "The light of the wicked will be put out!" Bildad repeats, without even realizing in his own heart what he is talking about.

One more time Bildad describes for Job the fate of the ungodly. Again, all of his illustrations are drawn from a very limited sphere. The light will be put out in the tent of the wicked; a net will ensnare him; a trap will lay hold of him; a noose and a trap are hidden for him. He will walk in terror and calamity is waiting for him; his family will suffer with him. He will be forgotten, and have no "name" or influential position among his friends; he will be chased out of this world and leave no posterity; Yada, yada, yada.

In short, everyone who hears of him will be shocked at his life, just like those who lived with Job were horror-stricken at his fate.

The narrow scope of Bildad's mind is seen very clearly in all this. His one idea of blessing from God is prosperity in his "tent," his family, his own personal circle, and in having a "name in the street" on which he lived!
It was inevitable that Job would be misunderstood by a man like that. How could he comprehend the depth of surrender to God that Job has shown? More than that, how could he understand God's deepest purposes in placing Job in a trial like this?


Job's Reply to Bildad
"How long, how long, Bildad, are you going to torment me and crush me with your words?" Job realizes that all these descriptions of the fate of the wicked are directed against himself. He is wondering why his friends are not ashamed to deal with him like this. "If it is true that I have gone astray" he exclaims, he alone is responsible, "my error remains my concern alone!" His friends had no right to magnify themselves over him, and to take a position of authority and reproach him. However, in defense to Bildad's evident hurt at being counted unable to help Job, he would once more plead his case and let his would-be comforters see whether they were dealing kindly with him.

Bildad had talked about the wicked being cast down into a net by his own doing, but "Know now," Job solemnly says, "God has wronged me, and thrown his net around me."

Job's friends keep encouraging him to get his heart right, and stretch out his hands to God, but he has cried out: "I've been wronged!" and gets no response. He knew God was dealing with him; he knew God fenced up his way and set darkness in his paths so that he could not see one step in front of him. God had stripped him, taken the crown from his head and broken him down on every side so that even hope seemed gone, uprooted like a tree. God had severed him from his brothers and his friends, and left him to suffer his sorrows alone.

"My kinsmen have gone away; my friends have forgotten me." They were glad to know Job in the days of prosperity, they who have eaten his bread and sojourned with him now "count me for a stranger."
His servants also treat him like a stranger. When he calls, they do not answer; he has to beg where once he commanded. "I am repulsive to my wife and loathsome to my relatives, even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me."

Worst of all, the "men of my council, my most intimate friends," the ones who know him intimately, and those who he thought would cling to him and believe in him whatever came, even the ones he tenderly loved "are turned against me, detest me!" Could any man be in a more desolate state?

"What do I have left? Look at me, friends, I have nothing left, but skin and bones. I am escaped with only the skin of my teeth.

"Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me."

Job did not know anything about the scene in heaven when Satan said, "Put forth your hand and touch every thing he has . . . touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse you to your face."

Well Satan did it, and there is no sign yet of Job's renunciation of God. True, he has wept, groaned, kicked, screamed, and whined, but the loyalty of his heart has never been shaken. Sadly, in his mind all of it was coming from the hand of God. He could not understand why the Lord would deal with him like that, why he appeared to be judging him, but he knew that his conscience was clear and that his friends should have given pity and sympathy to him.


Job's Prophetic Vision
Here he is the once honored chief, apparently forsaken by God and man, a loathsome wreck of skin and bones. Being persecuted, he endures; being defamed, he entreats; made as the filth of the earth and the scum of all things, in his hour of deepest degradation and shame, he breaks out into a burst of triumphant faith that, even though his body is being destroyed, he has the glorious assurance that he will yet see God!

Job's spirit is suddenly set free, and breaks out into the light. His Vindicator is living! At the last day, He shall stand on the earth. "What does it matter if worms do destroy this body? I will yet see God . . . I will see Him for myself and He will not be a stranger. Oh, how my inner being is consumed with earnest desire for that day."
Not too long ago Job asked, "Will a man live again?" and he's answering his own question. Not only has he been given a glimpse into things to come for his own comfort, but, moved by the Holy Spirit, he has prophesied of the resurrection, and the coming again in glory of the crucified Redeemer.

In his letters to the Churches, the apostle Paul talked about the gospel being the "purpose of the ages kept hidden for long ages past. That is was destined for our glory before time began," and at last "revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel."

Every once in a while the silence was broken by some brief word from the lips of a man walking in close fellowship with God, giving us a reminder, and a little bigger view, of His plan.

Maybe Job could not give a full explanation of the meaning of his sacrifices as the grounds of his access to God. However, he knew the effect of it in his life, and now in the furnace of trial as he is brought to the extremes, he learns experientially the faith of the resurrection.

Abraham was given the same knowledge in his supreme trial, because he "offered up Isaac, figuring that God was able to raise him up even from the dead."

It was the same God-given faith that enabled believers to endure being beaten to death, not accepting deliverance, "so that they could obtain a better resurrection."

That's the kind of faith Jesus tried to stir up in Martha at the tomb of her brother, and Paul learned in a fuller measure when he was stoned and left for dead in his great "trouble in Asia."

All through the ages, we can see the faith of the resurrection given to the steadfast in moments of supreme surrender and sacrifice to God. It seems that the hour of deepest anguish and suffering is the time when the spirit is freed to break through into a realm of light and knowledge of God never before possible.

I believe that is what happened to Job. During a time of unparalleled suffering, brought down, as he says, to the "skin of his teeth," he cries, "I know my Redeemer Lives!" His heart is filled with a consuming desire for that glorious day when he will see his Redeemer face to face. He will be his Friend and not a stranger. He will stand on the earth as Judge (let the friends remember this, that there is a judgment) and they will have to account to God for their hardness toward Job. "Wrathful are the punishments of the sword."