Amen. Thank you for that. Turn please this morning to Job chapter number 8. Job chapter number 8. And let's go ahead and stand, please. Our portion this morning is actually going to be Job 8, 9, and 10, but we will read Job chapter 8 together. Job 8, 1, then answered Bildad the Shuhite and said, how long wilt thou speak these things? And how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? Doth God pervert judgment? Or doth the Almighty pervert justice? If thy children have sinned against him, and he hath cast them away for their transgression, if thou wouldst seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty, if thou wert pure and upright, surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase. For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of the 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 in utter words out of their heart? Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water? Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish, whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand. He shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure. He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden. His roots are wrapped round about the heap, and seeth the place of stones. If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee. Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow. Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evildoers. Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing. They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame, and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to naught. Let's pray. Lord God, we ask for your help. We ask that you, the author of these words, would instruct us in their meaning. That you would use them to nourish the souls of your people. and perhaps for any who are not yours, that they would be used to bring them to faith. And so again, we pray for your help. We are reliant upon you completely, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. And you may, of course, be seated. Well, it has been, of course, since we were gone for three of the Sundays in February. It has been a while since we have been in this book. It is a book that we have some familiarity with, and we know it, and I would not try to insult you by suggesting that you don't know it, but I would try and offer you a little bit of help thinking about the book as a whole. It's rather a long book. by poetry standards, really by any book of the Bible standards, it's kind of a long book. And I personally, this is just me personally, I struggle to maintain a lot of details at any one time. That's just not the way I function well and I'm very appreciative those in my life who helped me with those details. I tend to always want to have a kind of a broader view of what's going on, a place to plug in details. To that extent, let me suggest to you three broad ways to think about the book of Job. We've talked, one of them I've talked a lot about, and that is that when we come to the book of Job in the first couple of chapters, we learned that Job will suffer in innocence. The narrator to the book, whoever it is that writes this book, lays a firm foundation that Job is genuinely an upright and godly man. Secondly, we learned that Job suffers in isolation. There is a loneliness to what he experiences. He is in the presence of other people. He is even in the presence of the Lord, but he is suffering in isolation. No one really understands. No one grasps what he has experienced, though many talk about it. And thirdly, we learned that Job suffers in ignorance. There is never given to Job an explanation for his misery. There is no nice, neat, tidy, wrapping up the package at the end of the book. There is certainly restoration, but it comes as mysteriously as does the crisis, all of which, by the way, to go into the little bit of the world of application, reminds us that the grace of God itself is unmerited. While it is on the one hand true, in much way the focus of the book, that Job does not deserve the suffering he is experiencing, it is easy to overlook that Job does not deserve the grace that he is receiving. There is another way to think about the book, and this was an Old Testament scholar who gave to us many years ago this way of thinking, not only about Job, but about much Old Testament poetry. And that is that we are introduced, first of all, to an orientation, which again, in this case, is Job's integrity and uprightness. Then there is disorientation, which constitutes, again, the bulk of the book. And then there is reorientation. You'll find this in some of the Psalms. You'll find it at the end of the book of Job. that although Job is never given an explanation for what happens, his entire frame of reference concerning God changes. And that's really the ultimate goal of what God has for us. So that brings us back here. The book of Job, of course, is Old Testament poetry. And by that, I mean there is a distinctive pattern of thought and expression. And for the Hebrews, this took on kind of an era literary formality, and they matched ideas and compared ideas, but I'm not trying to take anything away from the book of Job, but what we have, folks, are a series of conversations. Job has experienced an extraordinary calamity. It is a calamity by every measurable standard you can employ. His health is destroyed. His family is destroyed. His economic situation is destroyed. Instantaneously, without a hint of warning, disaster comes upon him. And his friends come to comfort him. They come to help him. They come to aid him. And of course, we know that They do not really succeed in that. Nobody succeeds in that. The book is a mystery. Structurally, then, there are three main characters besides Job and a series of conversations between them. All three of Job's friends agree, although they have different perspectives on some of the events. All of the men agree that there is an orderliness to God's world that can be relied upon. And the order is this. If you do good, you will receive good. And if you do bad, you will receive bad. Very orderly. I made mention at the beginning of our study of a couple of books by Christopher Ashe. have not read them, they're worth having, but it doesn't matter if you have them. He refers to this as the system. He calls this the system. We have God's way of looking at things, Job has his way of looking at things, and Job's three friends have their way of looking at things. And their way of looking at things is really very simple and straightforward. Again, if you do good, you'll get good. And if you do bad, you get bad. So don't sit here, Job, and tell us that you haven't done bad. The evidence that you've done bad is that you're receiving bad. That's their perspective. The comfort that they offer, and they offer it repeatedly, is this, right? We're talking about God. We're talking about God. We're talking about someone who is reliable, faithful, constant, no variation, you do good, you get good, you do bad, you get bad, you got bad. Job, you did something wrong. You did something wrong. Eliphaz has argued it, and now for the first time in chapter 8, Bildad is arguing it. You did something wrong. The evidence is clear. You wouldn't be here if you hadn't done something wrong. That is not Job's perspective. His perspective is much more complicated because he also began by believing, so to speak, in the system. You do good, you get good. You do bad, you get bad. I'm going to do everything I can to do good, to be faithful to the Lord. And I don't know what to make of this because I haven't done anything bad. So they're all approaching life through the same basic lens, and Job's lens is really being rocked. So in chapter eight, to go to our text then this morning, we've kind of walked through the first of Eliphaz's conversation with Job. And again, they will cycle back. This morning we turn our attention to Bildad. And in verses 1 through 22, the chapter that we just read, Bildad explains to Job his perspective. He comes alongside of Eliphaz. He brings a little bit different perspective. Eliphaz has kind of backed up his reasoning through this kind of sort of supernatural, mysterious element. Things happened to me in the night. I kind of had a dream. I kind of had a vision. and all of these things were reinforced to me. And Eliphaz or Bildad takes a little bit of a different approach, but he comes to the same basic conclusion. In verses one and two, we learned that he is angry. He is frustrated. How long are you going to be a blowhard? How long are your words gonna be like the wind? You keep denying. that you've done anything, but we all know how this works. You do bad, you get bad. You do good, you get good. You got bad, you did bad. Let's get to the bad that you did. Let's figure out what it is. Let's fess up to it. Let's leave it. Let's get the good. In verses three and four, he argues for the integrity of God. Because it isn't the existence of God where these men fail, and it isn't the righteousness of God where these men fail. And so he is arguing that God is righteous, his laws are righteous. Verse number three, doth God pervert judgment? No, he would never do that. Or doth the Almighty pervert justice? No, he would never do that. All of his laws are righteous, and all of the decisions that he makes are righteous in and of themselves. And then there is folks, right? To validate his assertion on the righteousness of God, there is this very stinging, bordering on cruel observation. Verse number three, if thy children have sinned against him and he have cast them away for their transgression. Now you gotta go back to chapter one and two to read about what happened to his children. And Bildad would tell you that he understands clearly not what happened, but why it happened. Why did Job's children all die suddenly, disastrously? Well, Bildad has his answer in Job 8.4, thy children sinned against him. Right, and when you do bad, you get bad, He hath cast them away for their transgression. That's the way the world works. There's the world according to Bildad. You do bad, you get bad. And if you think, Job, that your kids are exempt from getting bad for doing bad, well, there it is. That's a crushing thing to say to a man who's suffering Job's experience. And in verse, beginning then in verse number five, down through verse number 22, Bildad turns his attention to Job specifically. In verses five through seven, your rags to riches history might be repeated if you will just but repent, right? Evidently, and there's, I don't wanna get into this a lot, but there's a lot of, anytime you get into poetry, folks, there's a lot of academic debate about the context and the perspective and the meaning of the words. But I would take verse number seven at face value. Thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase. We know that Job was the richest man in the East and evidently he did not inherit that. He didn't start out that way. He started out very modestly. He enjoyed over the course of time many of the blessings of God and increased in wealth and material substance so that he became the greatest man in the East and now it's all gone. And so Bildad says, well, you started out small once. If you'll just get right with God, You can have it all back again. God might bless you again one more time. It doesn't have to be that way, the way that it is. There's still hope for you. And then beginning in verse number eight and down through verse number 22, or verse number 19, he defends his argument. Upon what basis, Bill, Dad, do you stake the claim that if you do good, you get good, and if you do bad, you get bad? What is your authority? Well, again, Eliphaz, his authority was this kind of mystical experience that he had. This kind of revelation that God gave to him or some mystery being gave to him. Bildad is much more down to earth. In verses eight and nine, he makes the argument that this is historically true, right? If you wanna be able to prove What I'm saying to you that if you do good, you get good, and you do bad, you get bad, then just get a history book. Read the history of mankind. This is the way it works. And then in verses 10 through 15, he argues from science or biology, and he goes into the plant world. Verse number 11, can the rush or the papyrus or let's say a cattail, can the rush grow without mire? Can the flag grow without water? Let's just talk about the natural order of things. All right, we're talking about a righteous God who doesn't pervert justice. Just look at the world around you. It is a cause and effect world. If you don't have water, you don't have life. These are the scientific facts. The wicked are just like that. Verse number 13, soar the paths of all that forget God and the hypocrites hope shall perish. You stop watering, whoever does the gardening, if you have a gardener in your house, if you stop watering the plants, they die. See, cause and effect, that's the way it works for the wicked. Cause and effect, do bad, get bad. Do bad, get bad. And then in verses 20 through 22, Bildad urges Job to not miss the lesson. Don't ignore the history books. Don't ignore the biology books. Don't be stubborn. Don't be hard-headed. Don't be obstinate. This will become, again, a recurring theme. You've done something wrong. You deserve what you have received. And you need to own up to it. You need to own up to it. And so verses 20 through 22, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evildoers, right? Because if you do good, you get good. And if you do bad, you get bad. And what else would you expect from a righteous God? What else would you expect from the God who is righteous? Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing, they that hate thee shall be clothed with shame, and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to naught. If there is repentance, there will be restoration. What kind of God else is he? What other kind of God is he? This is what you should expect. That brings us then to 9 and 10, which we will not read in detail, but which are Job's response to Bildad's critique. Job, you're just a blowhard. God is righteous. The world operates along very simple principles. They're found in the history books. They're found in the biology books. And you are not immune to them. You are not exempt from them. There are no special treatments for the Jobs of this world. But, says Job. Verse number one, then Job answered and said, I know it is so, the truth. Because Job had always operated along the same lines of reasoning and understanding. But, but now I have a question. How can a man, how can a man be just with God? Right? You keep telling me to get right. So let me ask you a question. What do I have to do to get right? What does getting right entail? Verse number three, if he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. How do I get right with God? I couldn't answer one question out of a thousand if he posed them to me. Which is really kind of prescient because when God will begin to ask Job questions, we will discover Job can't answer any of them. One out of a thousand is a pretty good batting average. In verses four through 10, Job, again, How can a man be right? How can a man be justified? I can't answer any of his questions, and I cannot contend against his strength. Verses 4-10. What do you want me to do? What does a man do in this situation? Verse 11, Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not. He passeth on also, but I perceive him not. I don't even know if he's there. You keep telling me all these things to do, and I don't even know where he is. And then in verses 12 through 15, he says, who can resist his actions? Verse number 12, behold, he taketh away who can hinder him. Who will say unto him, what doest thou? It is hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. And then down to verse number 16, if I had called and he had answered me, yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice? Even if I called to him and he granted me an audience, I'm not even sure that he would be listening. That's what Job says. Look at what's happening to me. Verse number 20, if I justify myself, my own mouth will condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. My own words would be used against me. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want from me is the question. And as we see, we'll see folks up and down throughout the book of Job. wavers between great faith and great despair. It's what happens. It's what happens. And in verses 21 through 24 of chapter number nine, we see him in a moment of despair. Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul, I would despise my life. This one thing, therefore I said it, he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covereth the faces of the judges thereof. If not, where and who is he? I'm not entirely sure I trust him. I can't contend with him. I can't answer his questions. I'm not strong enough to fight with him. I'm not sure that I could see him if he was there. I'm not sure that he's listening if he said he was. And I'm not sure that I am totally convinced of his goodwill and intentions. And then beginning in verse number 23 through the end of the chapter, He just laments the futility of his life. My life is empty and worthless. Look at verse number 25. Now my days are swifter than a post. The idea there, the fastest known traveler at the time was the mailman. My days are swifter than a man riding full speed on the back of a horse. They flee away, they see no good, They are passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that hasteneth to the prey. There's nothing good left for me. Nothing good at all. And if I try to forget how sad I am, and again, I'm not reading the entire chapter, if I try to forget how sad I am, won't I have to give an account of that? And if I do try to get myself clean, verse number 30, if I wash myself with snow water and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. If I do try to cleanse myself, God will just throw me back in the dirt. That is how I feel. And there is no help, verse number 33. Neither is there any dazement betwixt us. a judge, an advocate, right? God is irresistible. I am insignificant. And there's nobody to help. That's where Job is. So I agree with you, Bill Dad, in principle, but it's more complicated than that. Because you keep telling me to get back to God and to get back to God and to get back to God. And I don't even know what to think about God. which brings us to chapter 10. For all of that, Job now turns his language not to Bildad, but to God himself. This is what he says to God. And here is a place, right, where we want to remember that Job is speaking in faith. What does Job say to God? Well, I think we, some level, we could probably spell it out for ourselves. We could think about it ourselves. He asks God in verse number one through seven, what are your motives? What are you doing? What are you doing? My soul is weary of my life. I will leave my complaint upon myself. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say unto God, do not condemn me, show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee? Is this good to you to do this? Verse number four. Hast thou eyes of flesh, or seest thou as a man seeth? Are thy days as the days of a man, or thy years as man's days, that thou inquirest after my iniquity and searchest after my sin? Thou knowest not that I am not wicked and there is none that can deliver out of thy hand. Why me? And what are you getting out of this? What's in it for you? You know that I'm not wicked. You know that I've done nothing against you. And yet here I sit completely empty and powerless. What is your motive? What are you after? And then in verses eight through 17, he asked this question, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? And what are you doing? Verse number eight. Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about, yet thou destroys me. Have you made me just to kill me? Or like I'm a toy. Have you made me just to kill me? And then you get down to verse number 17 and he concludes, thou renewest my witness against me and increases thine indignation upon me. Changes in war are against me. It sure looks to me like you're just out to get me. What are you doing? This is what I would say to God. Why are you doing this to me? And just what is it you're doing? And then in verses 18 through 22, he comes to this question. Why won't you just kill me? Why do you keep torturing me? Why won't you just kill me? And there are folks who in their moments of desperation not only wish to die but take their own life, are there not? Suicide is not confined to unbelievers. Why don't you just kill me? Just kill me and get it over with. So there is our first conversation between Job and Bildad. Not a hallmark moment, is it? Not really a hallmark moment. A man who is a friend And one of the amazing core components of the book of Job, folks, is that in spite of all these conversations, it appears that they remain friends at the very end of the book. Their friendship survives these brutal conversations. A man who is trying to help, but doesn't really know what he's talking about. He's trying to help a man who is in the throes of catastrophe and doesn't understand them in his own right. So let me then suggest to you three ways that we learn something from Job and Bildad. Number one, this is a lesson about the Bible itself. There is a lesson for us about the Bible itself. We have a far greater understanding of the way God orders suffering in a sinful world because of books like Job. And I hope that none of you would disrespect it by not reading the lengthy poetry sections because they are difficult at times to read. One of the things that we would say to Job right, from the vantage of our New Testament Christianity is that God knows what he's doing, Job. It's okay, Job, we know God knows what he's doing. Well, folks, as you are laboring through Job 3 through 37, I would remind you that God knows what he's doing. So there is a lesson for us about the Bible itself There is a lesson for us about just the observation of suffering. It's not accidental, I think, that the lengthiest portion of the book of Job is the disorientation both of Job and his friends. Everybody's talking. People are trying to help. Nobody's getting it right. And it goes on and on and on. But folks, doesn't our suffering really unfold like that? Then there is a lesson about God himself. It is true that God is not responding. Job keeps talking about all the things he would say to God, he'd like to say to God, that he'd like God to say to him, and they are met with stony silence. But it would be equally a mistake to think that God is somehow ignoring God has heard every word. God has heard the words of Eliphaz and Bildad and Job. He will hear every word. And when we get to the end of the book, right, he will levy his assessment. Eliphaz and company did not say the right things about God or Job. So God is not responding, but God is not ignoring. The kind of questions that Job asks are the kind of questions that people have historically asked about God. If God is real, why doesn't he show up? There are lots of people who would like to make the argument that they would be much more inclined to believe God if he would just do something instantaneously in the way of response. Or they ask, is God really righteous? Because what is happening doesn't look like it's really righteous. Or they ask, well, why doesn't God? Or they ask, why did God? The questions don't change. The language changes and the structure of the sentences change, but the attitudes of the heart don't change. Where is God? Is God real? Does God care? Why doesn't God? Why does God? And the book of Job deals with all of those things. And then there is a lesson about faith or an application about faith. The real demonstration of Job's faith. Here's the demonstration of faith that I would like. I have genuine faith, only good things happen to me. And you could go home today and put on your television set and you could probably find 25 guys who would tell you that very thing. That if you have the right kind of faith and the right kind of quantity, only good things would happen to you. Or as a now dead Baptist preacher used to love to say to the people, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. But the reality of the demonstration of Job's faith is his tenaciously clinging to God when he doesn't really have a clue what God is doing. Job, what do you know? I know there's God and I know I didn't do anything wrong. That's what I know. That's what I know. I didn't do anything to deserve this. And I know there's a God who is big and strong and righteous. That's what he knows. It really is kind of an Old Testament dimension to what I addressed in adult Sunday school with reference to the Thessalonians. That Paul did not view their persecution as a flaw to be fixed. If you guys had better faith, you wouldn't be persecuted, but as the normal course of Christian living. Let's pray together this morning. Father.