Job 25-26

Okay, as I said, chapter 25 and chapter 26 this morning, I think we can get through both of them. And actually these next number of chapters we're gonna move through rather quickly because, not because it's not worth it to look at it and we're gonna stop along the way, but it's basically gonna be from chapter 26 to chapter 32 is really just Job as he, in a sense, ends his words and then in chapter 32, Elihu comes in and he spends a number of chapters, well, not in the chapters, but he spends some time reproving or seeking to reprove both Job and his friends and then certainly at the end of the book, God will come in and clear everything up, at least as he's pleased to do.

So, if you remember when we met last week, we read chapter 24 and it really was Job's response to Eliphaz and now in chapter 25, we're gonna see Bildad and it's interesting to me that this is the end of the, if you will, the words of the friends of Job and they will kind of go out of focus for a while until we get to the end of the book and ultimately, God will deal with his friends and remember what Job has said, Job has said over and over again that his friends were miserable comforters and I don't know about you, but there's enough enemies in the world, I don't need my friends to be miserable comforters.

It's just not what a friend should be, but nevertheless, they have come and sought to bring comfort and then last week, we really focused on the fact that there's always been and there will always be those that have and those that have not, right?

Remember, we talked about that and then we also talked about there's always been the oppressor and if you will, the oppressed and that nothing is new under the sun and his friends have accused Job of being the oppressor and Job has responded to that and the reason, why would they, why do they assume he's the oppressor?

What do you think? I think it's because of what they see taking place in his life. In other words, they assume because Job is suffering that he must have been secretly evil and therefore, he is the oppressor and remember, they made accusations about him that he was cruel and he had no compassion and he took advantage of people and Job comes back in a response to that.

Bildad’s Final Speech and the Limits of Human Righteousness

So now, we come to the point where Bildad, who was the third of the friends to begin his speech, he responds to Job and based on what we talked about last week, what Bildad says in chapter 25 to me, it doesn't follow along and I'll try to explain that to you but what I'd like to do is if we can, just read chapter 25 and chapter 26 and then we'll walk through some of the verses.

Hey, Barry.

So, Job chapter 25, then Bildad, the Shuite answered and said, dominion and fear belong to him, speaking of God, and he makes peace in his high places. Is there any number to his armies? Upon whom does his light not rise?

How then can a man be righteous before God or how can he be pure who is born of a woman if even the moon does not shine and the stars are not pure in his sight? How much less man who is a maggot, at least that's the way my translation says it, and the son of man who is a worm.

Hey, bro.

I'm sorry.

But Job answered and said, how have you helped him who is without power? How have you saved the arm that has no strength? How have you counseled one who has no wisdom? How have you declared sound advice to many?

To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came from you? The dead tremble, those under the waters and those inhabiting them, and Sheol is naked before him, and destruction has no covering, and he stretches out the north over empty space.

He hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, yet the clouds are not broken under it, and he covers the face of his throne and spreads his cloud over it, and he drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness, and the pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof, and he stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he breaks up the storm, and by his spirit he adorns the heavens, and his hand pierced the fleeting serpent.

Indeed, these are the mere edges of his ways, and how small a whisper we hear of him, but the thunder of his power, who can understand? And so, we'll deal with a little bit with what Bildad says, and like I said to you, in chapter 25, Bildad comes in, and Job has just gone through this whole thing about how he's not the one who is the oppressor, but rather, these things happen to all, and it's interesting in verse 25 of chapter 24, as it ends, Job had said this, now, if that's not so, who will prove me a liar and make my speech work?

Nothing. And the connection between chapter, what Bildad says and what Job said is really, it's different. In other words, Bildad doesn't come back and say to Job, no, you're wrong, and that's the very thing that we'll see later on in the book.

The friends could never really convince Job that he was what they made him out to be, and if you will, there's a reason for it, and I think it's important for us to think about this. Many people will say many things about many people, agree?

That we can't control, in that sense, we can't control what people will say about us, and sometimes to us, but if you think about it, what's driving, what's keeping Job afloat, if you think about it? What is it about him?

Because again, he's been blasted by these friends now for quite a while. What's really underneath the surface, if you will, that's keeping Job moving on? What do you think it is? What could it be? What keeps you floating?

How's that? What keeps you spiritually from sinking? What is it?

Faith.

Faith, okay.

And that faith has a, that faith is deep-rooted, right? Because again, if you think about it, if it were not so, if we didn't have the spirit of God in us, all the things that come against us, I think, would overcome us.

Wouldn't you think so? In other words, I hate to use this example, if people came up to you every single day and said, you're fat. I don't know why I thought about that as an example,.

But there it was.

Said, you're fat. And everyone you meet says, you're fat. And it just goes on and on and on and on and on. What's the only thing that's gonna help you from thinking, you're fat? The reality is that you know you're what?

Fat.

You're, oh, oh.

That's the reality.

Well, that's true.

You know you're fat in your head.

Well, that's true. Or you know you're skinny, right? I guess what I'm trying to get us to think about is that we have to be those who really have a deep-rooted faith. And it has to be, and you think about how the scriptures talk about that all the time, that there are so many people who are so shallow in their faith, and again, suspect to not even have a real faith, but the person who really has a deep root by the Spirit of God will press on, right?

We will continue. We will not be, we'll be shaken. And I don't think there's, is anybody here wanna say they've never been shaken in their faith? I think we all have. There are many things that externally cause us to feel at that time, sometimes unstable.

But it really is the fire by the Spirit of God within us that keeps us going. And Bildad, as well as Eliphaz and Zophaz, they haven't been able to convince Job that he is what they say he is. And so as you look at chapter 25, Bildad, Job had left off saying, hey, listen, if I'm not telling the truth, if I'm a liar, then how can you convince me I'm a liar?

And then Bildad comes in and he starts talking about, in essence, God again. And it's almost to me as if he's going back to his old, his old argument, which is that, and you look at it, is there a dominion and fear belong to him?

He makes peace in high places. Again, this is God. Is there any number to his armies? And then he says in verse four, how then can a man be righteous before God? So see, Bildad's not gonna deal with Job anymore because he can't.

Job has shut him down at every point by his responses. And so Bildad, to me, he just takes this, this general approach again and says, well, nobody can be righteous before God. And how could he be poor who is born of a, pure who is born of a woman?

And then he makes that great and glorious statement, how much less man who is a maggot. I don't, who's got a different translation than the New King James? Says maggot? Okay. I don't know how people, I would think if you went up to most people generally and called them a maggot, it really would not be the sweetest thing to be said.

Honey, you look just like a maggot this morning. This thing just wouldn't go over well. Or so, but Bildad really can't deal with Job. And the reason why he can't deal with it is because Job continues to hold his ground.

And although Job is confused, because we can't say that Job is, Job doesn't think straight all the time, much like us. And we talked about that a little bit and I will say it for myself and maybe you'll agree.

There are times when I, there are times when I think I'm thinking clearly. And then there are other times when I'm not sure what I'm thinking. And it almost seems to be this movement back and forth in our minds and in our lives, where at certain times we feel very certain, very sure, very settled, very comfortable.

And then other times we're very displaced, if you will. And again, I don't know about you, but I see it in my own life. I think of it sometimes, especially early in the morning. And I really seek, I pray about it a lot.

I want my first thoughts in the morning to be on the Lord. And that's not always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking about a gazillion different things. And it kind of is unsettling.

But I find myself when I get up early in the morning and my focus is on the Lord, I seem to have a clearer understanding of things as the day goes on. Again, I'm not saying that it's this magical form but I do think it's important for us to begin the day with the Lord and end the day with the Lord.

And that it really is, it's settling. And I do think we miss out sometimes because we don't do that. Because we allow ourselves. I was reading in the Psalms yesterday. I mean, I just love the Psalms. I think I probably said that a number of times.

But I came upon a verse again in Psalm 37. You don't have to turn there. But anyway, it says, do not fret because it only causes harm. Do you ever get up in the morning? And I know I'm not anywhere near where I'm supposed to be.

But do you ever get up in the morning and for almost unknown reasons, you feel all agitated. This is Job. If you want to go to Daniel, it's next door.

It's next door?

Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah.

I didn't think he wanted to stay with us. But do you ever get up in the morning and you've got a million different things running through your head? And it really is unsettling. And I thought about that when I was reading the Psalm yesterday where it says, don't fret.

Because in a sense, that's what it is, fretting and being anxious. Don't fret because it only causes harm. And I find in myself that if I allow myself to get carried away with those kinds of thoughts, it kind of sets a tone for the day and it's unsettling.

And again, you think about the Lord Jesus and how he, you read through the Gospels and many times he did what? At night, where was he? He was alone in prayer. You find him early in the morning. Where was he?

He's alone in prayer. And again, you and I really have to think about that. But to get back to this, as he makes this final statement and as we begin to think about it, I want you to just think about how Job's friends really have not been of any real use to him other than to maybe cause him to think more and more.

And I do think a little bit, as we see this now in chapter 26, I think Job is going to kind of boast a little bit, not boast as much as he's gonna come back at him. So let's go to chapter 26 and just read the first couple of verses and maybe you'll pick up on it.

So Job answers and said, so Bildad makes his final stand and Job answered and said, how have you helped him who is without power? And how have you saved the arm of him that has no strength? And how have you counseled one who has no wisdom?

How have you declared sound advice to many? To whom have you uttered words? And what spirit came for you? I think what Job is saying is, you guys haven't done a single thing to me. And basically, who do you think you are?

And I do think that in a sense, he's kind of calling them out a little bit and saying, you know, you guys have come after me, come after me, come after me, and you haven't really moved me from my belief in the Almighty.

And I think that's important for us, not to kind of come back at people, but rather to, and even vocalize and even say it out loud and even respond to people that no matter what people say about us, no matter what people, the accusations that people make, if we truly believe, then we need to stand firm.

And again, that is not the easiest thing to accomplish with all the, if you will, all the anxieties that are in this world. But I think what Job is basically saying to them is, you haven't been able to accomplish what you wanted to accomplish, and you really have been of no service, no use to me.

And just think about that for just a second before we move on. If you had to gauge yourself, if we all had to kind of give a report to ourselves about ourselves, what would it be? Would you say that your life is basically characterized as someone who helps or someone who hurts?

Because it's one or the other. Could we say in our Christian life that we've been a source of encouragement or a source of discouragement? And you might say, well, you know, what's that got to do with Job?

And I do think that you and I really have to see, one of the reasons why Job continues, and as the book continues, that things are getting worse for Job. Things have gone downhill, and I was thinking about it last night.

Remember where he came from. He had, so in a sense, he was on the mountain, right? And then while he's on the mountain, the servant comes and says, hey, guess what? Your sheep are gone. And another one comes.

And guess what? All your wealth is gone. And guess what? All your kids are gone. And he's continually being batted, if you will, by the hand of evil people. And yet Job has, I think he's been kind to his friends.

I mean, he said some harsh things, so it makes me think and ask you guys to think about it. What would people say about us? Would people say that we are a source of encouragement.

To Christ, towards Christ,.

Or a source of discouragement away? And I think that's something that you and I have to examine ourselves continually about. Are we really a source of light, or are we more a source of darkness? Do people really see in us a work of grace?

Does it matter? I mean, if God's gonna save, God's gonna save. But that's not how we should think about it, is it? I mean, we ought to be those who, even towards our enemies, and I was reading a book by John Piper, actually, and the book was about enemy love.

And it was about how much the scriptures speak about loving our enemies. And I don't know about you, but it's hard to love my, it's hard to love enemies. Especially if you think about it from the standpoint of those that are actively seeking your demise.

How do you respond to them?

Were you gonna say something, brother?

You're just yawning away.

Yeah.

So think about that, and so as Job opens this chapter, and he basically says, you guys have been of no real use, and then, in verse five to the end of the chapter, he turns his mind away from them, and he begins to talk about God, and I wanna spend a few minutes on that.

We got a couple minutes, so. Let's just read those from verse five, down through 14 again, just to refresh ourselves. So here's what Job says. He's kind of shut his friends down, and then he says, the dead tremble, and those under the waters, and those inhabiting him, and Sheol is naked before him.

He's speaking of God, right? And destruction has no covering. And the he here is God. He stretches out the north over empty space. He hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds.

I'll stop there for a second.

Here's something interesting. I mean, I don't think Job went to seminary, by the way. I don't even think Job went to Bible college. I don't think Job was a scientist. I don't think Job was any of those things.

And yet, very interesting that Job understands things that are astounding. He knows just that very thought. Here's what he says. He stretches out the north over empty space, and he hangs the earth on nothing.

We'll just think about that for a minute. How many people have said so many different things about how this world came into existence? Let's think about that. I mean, we could go down the evolutionary route, right?

We can go through the big bang theory. We can go through all kinds of, we can go through the people who believe that it was the work of alien. I mean, it's just rather bizarre. Think about it. It's rather bizarre how people think that this all came to be.

And yet Job, in all his suffering, all his confusion and torment, he makes this statement that God stretched out the north over empty space, and he hanged the earth on nothing. Now, if you said that to people, if we tell people God created the heavens and the earth, how many people laugh at us?

I don't know. I was watching those, what was that? The thing at DeVos, the meeting of the minds out there in DeVos, was that it? Where all the muckety-mucks got together and talked about where the world is going in one world order.

And I even watched Al Gore stand up and say stuff that just seemed so bizarre. And John Kerry was there. And all the important people, what I thought was really funny, the piece I saw, they first had this African witch doctor who was dressed, do you know what I'm talking about?

The one that was blowing in their face?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They had this lady, and she was, now, these are all supposed to be the minds of the world, right, and they're gathered together, and then there's this lady, and she's from some tribal leader, and she's dressed in all kinds of makeup and got all kinds of things, and she's doing this and chanting, and then she goes and she blows on everyone's head.

She comes up to him and goes, and it's supposed to be a blessing, and it's supposed to enrich the mind, and it's supposed to, and I'm sitting there and I'm watching, I'm saying, these people are crazy.

And they say that we're crazy being Christians? And it was like this great movement of the spirit. I don't even know who the spirit was that was moving, but nevertheless, you think about that, and you think about what Job is saying here, and it's so simple to him, and it's so clear to him, and look at verse 10.

He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness. So I challenged myself, and I asked myself this question. What does the world think? Where does this come from?

Where does light come from? What is light?

Physically, what is light?

How would you define light?

Ah, see?

Well, here's what I did. I wanted to ask the experts not only what light is, where did it come from? So of course, I went to Google. I'm gonna read to you what Google says, because my question was, and I printed it out, how did light come into the universe?

How did it come into the universe?

Well, here's what they say.

About 13 .8 billion years ago, our universe ballooned outward at an incredible speed, and everything we observe today, which had been packed tightly together, expanded in a rolling mass of light and particles.

It took 380 ,000 years for this hot, dense soup to thin and cool enough to allow light to travel through it.

Isn't that amazing?

That it was only 13 .8 billion years ago, and it only took 380 ,000 years. And light, if you think about it, what really is, and it's true in a physical sense, it's the heating up of particles that causes light.

That's actually what causes light to be produced, is that the particles heat up and they expand, and then you have light. But I thought it was so interesting when Job says, in verse 10, he drew a circle horizon on the face of the waters.

At the boundary of light and darkness, the pillars of heaven trembled. That you and I, you know how blessed we are to not have to believe that it took 13 .8 billion years ago for the universe to balloon enough to heat, whatever they say was heated to produce light?

And this is what people really believe. That's amazing to me that people, I don't know how people even get to that point, by the way. How do people determine 13 .8 billion? Yeah, they make it up. Well, if you think about it, so, I remember, and I don't remember much about science,.

But I do remember this.

If you think about evolution, evolution will say something like this. This is where it all started, and evolution says something like this, right? Over X amount of billions of years, agree? That's one of the basic premises of evolution.

That it started, whatever they wanna call it, the start is, whether it's slime, or a frog, or a toad, or whatever it is. And we have made this, of course, over billions of years. We've made this ascension, and we've come to this point, and of course, at this point, we're the tip of the spear, right, we're the crown of it all.

I remember that, and then I remember, I learned about the law of entropy, and I can't spell entropy. So, anyway, there is a law that scientists hold to, and that law says this, that things left to themselves,.

What did you say, Barry?

They do that.

Exactly. That things left to themselves, unattended and unguarded, do this.

Now, isn't that interesting?

That in one way, people say that this whole universe has made this evolutionary climb upward, and yet at the same time, scientists, because they look at certain things and how things decay, that they have come up with this law of entropy that things actually will go downhill by themselves.

Just think about it.

You leave your house for a month, then when you come back to your house, somehow, there's all kinds of things that have decayed.

Right?

I mean, you see an abandoned house, and left there long enough, it what? It rots. So, it's interesting to me that Job could say this, and it just flows out of him that God is the source of it all, including light, including life, including all these things, and yet man, in his foolishness, promotes such unbelievable things, and then they accuse us of being fools for believing what we believe.

If you think about it, it just doesn't make sense, but yet Job is able to, by his understanding, and again, this is a man who is truly being pressed out. He is really, he's struggling, but you see, the Christian mind,.

Well, if you think about it,.

If you think about this word, worldview, the world of unbelievers has a worldview somewhat similar to this, and there's variations to it, right? But basically, the world of unbelievers can't understand how things came to be, and so they formulate all kinds of bizarre things, right?

Like, you look at a tree, or you look at a rock, and you say, this rock is four and a half million years old. I mean, and that's all because they do that by carbon dating and whatnot, right, and all those other things, and that the light from the stars took billions of years to get here.

My point is, the worldview for an unbeliever, and the worldview for a believer are totally different, aren't they, right? Because although this might be the understanding of the unbeliever or some variation of it, we as believers, we as those who have been quickened by the spirit of God, we don't understand all the details, but our worldview is simple, isn't it?

God, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and God formed the light, and that's what, and they wanna make fun of us because we believe that God said on that day that he was pleased, he separated the darkness from the light.

And it didn't take God 380 ,000 years to heat up the universe to accomplish that. So when you think about that and you think about what Job is saying, it's fantastic, and so he, let me just finish this before we leave.

So in verse 11, he says, "'The pillars of heaven tremble in astonishment "'at his reproof,' "'and he stirs up the sea with his power, "'and by his understanding, he breaks up the storm. "'By his spirit, he adorned the heavens.

"'His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.'". Now, some people have tried to bring in the thought of the evil one, the devil, because in certain places, he's known to be what?

A serpent?

And so I did a little bit of research as much as I could, and here's what I came up with. In those days, there was actually, it was fairly well-known that there was a constellation, and the constellation known at that time was of a dragon, of a serpent, of, if you will, Leviathan.

And so when he says that, "'By his spirit, he adorned the heavens, "'and his hand pierced the fleeting serpent,' "'I'm not so convinced that he's making an allusion "'towards the evil one, "'but rather that he's talking about, if you will, "'this constellation that was known at that time.'".

Because remember this, just like we would say, I was walking the dog this morning, and I saw the Big Dipper again, and I even saw the Little Dipper, but I don't know about all the other ones.

That are out there, right?

There's the bear, and there's a whole bunch of things.

That are out there, right?

The twin, was it the twin sisters or twin brothers.

Or whatever it is.

But there was a thought in those days that there was a constellation, they had named it after a serpent or a dragon, and I think that's what he's alluding to. And then let me just close it with this. In verse 14, I've had underlined in my Bible probably for, I don't know, probably 40 years.

Because to me, this is such a glorious summary of as Job makes all these, if you will, simple yet eloquent statements about how everything came to be. And then he says this in verse 14, "'Indeed, these are but the mere edges of his way.'".

In other words, think about it. How small a whisper we hear of him, of all that we could comprehend, is but a drop in the bucket of the greatness of God. And you know what? If you let that thought expand in your mind, it'll take us to places that are unimaginable to allow ourselves to see that everything that we perceive is but a drop in the bucket of the greatness of God.

Right, just like every once in a while, they'll say we discovered a new universe, we've got a bigger telescope, we've discovered this, we've discovered this, we've discovered this. Well, guess what? If God allowed us 100 ,000 years more before he returns, we'll still be discovering whether we go up, whether we go out, whether we go down, whether we, and you'll see it when we get to chapter 28.

He talks about the things that God hides in the ground, physically hides in the ground. And we'll deal with that. But just think about that, friends, as we leave, that our God, the God we serve, he is so much bigger, so much greater than the sum of all the thoughts of men.

And if we would only allow that to, that's what I wanna do when I wake up in the morning. I wanna think about the greatness of God. Unfortunately, sometimes I wake up and I think about the greatness of Andy.

And then I wake up another morning, I think about the stupidity of Andy. But if we would just allow our minds to be carried away, even with the simple things of the creation itself, how it would, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament show forth its handiwork, and those are just but the mere edges.

Of his ways. So, as I said, next week we'll, he talks more about God's majesty, and we'll just spend a few minutes. I don't know of anything better to meditate on than the greatness of God, because God is great.

So, Gary, how about you close, and we'll be out of here.

Father, thank you for your word.