WWUTT 829 Job Pleads for an Arbiter?

In Job chapter 9, Job laments that there is no one to plead his case before God.

But this is foreshadowing to someone who would advocate for us before the Father, Jesus Christ, when we understand the text.

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Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Job. And today we're going to hear from another one of Job's miserable friends,

Bildad, in chapter 8. We've only heard from one friend so far, and that was Eliphaz. And where was that?

Chapters 4 and 5. Then we had Job's response in chapters 6 and 7. And now we're going to hear from Bildad, who's going to say some things pretty similar to what

Eliphaz said, but Bildad will appeal to a different authority. And I'll explain that here in just a moment.

So Job has lost everything. He was a man who loved God and feared him. He was upright. And yet, through Satan, God took everything from him, including his children and even his health.

So Job is wallowing in his misery. He is mourning over the anxiety that he feels, the depression that he is experiencing in his heart.

And his friends are just not helping the situation. So Bildad speaks up in chapter 8, verse 1.

Then Bildad the Shuahite answered and said, How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?

Does God pervert justice, or does the Almighty pervert the right?

If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.

If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation.

And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great. So far, here's what it is that Bildad is saying.

In verse 2, he says, How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? He's rebuking

Job for the words that he has said. And basically, it's just like a storm is coming out of his mouth.

Does God pervert justice? If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.

Now, now, here is the miserable thing that Bildad just said to Job. If your children have died, it's because they deserved it.

Ooh, boy, that's not any help, is it? What great encouraging words from a friend, right?

Your children are dead because they deserve to die. Does God pervert justice?

See, what has happened to you, Bildad is saying, is justice. This is the justice of God that has come upon you.

If this has happened to you, it's because you deserved it. So therefore, you've done something wrong.

And he goes on to say, If you will seek God and you will plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright.

Now, the irony in this here is that Job was pure and upright. That's the way that the book began.

He was an upright man who feared God. Surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation.

And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great. So he's saying, if you do all the right things now,

God will just pour out blessings upon you. But Job had been doing all of the right things and everything was taken from him.

And furthermore, what else is it that Job would be able to do that he wasn't already doing that would make things better for him than they were prior to losing his children and all of this disaster had come upon him?

God will rouse himself for you. He will restore your rightful habitation. How's he going to do that? How's he going to restore the things that had been taken from him?

And Job is going to respond in that way. Coming up here in just a moment. Now, here is Bildad's appeal to authority.

Now, I mentioned to you that Eliphaz appealed to an authority and Bildad's going to appeal to a different authority.

In verse eight, for inquire, please, of bygone ages and consider what the fathers have searched out.

For we are but of yesterday and know nothing. For our days on earth are a shadow.

Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words out of their understanding?

When Eliphaz said what he said to Job, his appeal was to a vision, to a spirit that came to him.

And he said, this is what the spirit has disclosed to me. And then said that to Job. It was just these esoteric voices that he was hearing and revealing new knowledge.

OK. So what Bildad appeals to is not this subjective voice that has spoken into his mind.

Rather, he appeals to tradition. He's saying a very similar thing that Eliphaz has said about you've done something wrong.

You need to confess yourself before God and then God will restore you. You will not be destroyed like your children were destroyed.

But rather, God will make your end better than your beginning. That's what it is that Bildad has said.

And then his appeal to authority to to give some weight to these words that he has said is tradition appeal to the fathers.

Look to the past. Look to what it is that they have said and done. What understanding will you receive from them?

What I am telling you is what we've learned from our forefathers. Then Bildad goes on in verse 11.

Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water?

While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant.

Such are the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the godless shall perish.

His confidence is severed and his trust is a spider's web. He leans against his house, but it does not stand.

He lays hold of it, but it does not endure. He is a lush plant before the sun and his shoots spread over his garden.

His roots entwine the stone heap. He looks upon a house of stones. If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying,

I have never seen you. Behold, this is the joy of his way and out of the soil others will spring.

Behold, God will not reject a blameless man nor take the hand of evil doers.

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouting. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame and the tent of the wicked will be no more.

Now, just like what Eliphaz said, there's certainly truth to these words and what

Bildad is saying. But but he's kind of glorifying himself in such a way.

See, the reason why your friends, your three friends here, the reason why we have not suffered what you have suffered is because we're upright and you are not.

See, the wicked is who perishes before God. Such are the paths of all who forget

God. The hope of the godless shall perish again. Such wonderful, encouraging words from Job's friends.

They're saying to him that you are godless. You have forgotten

God, and that's why all of this has happened to you. But again, we saw in Chapter one that clearly was not the case.

When Job's kids would go and have their feasts and their celebrations, Job would go and sacrifice on their behalf just in case during their time of celebration they had sinned against God.

So Job never forgot God. And yet this tragedy has fallen upon him.

So here is Job's answer to Bildad. It's going to take up a couple of chapters here. Chapters nine and ten in Chapter nine,

Job answered and said, Truly, I know that it is so. But how can a man be in the right before God?

If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times.

He is wise in heart and mighty in strength who has hardened himself against him and succeeded.

He who removes mountains and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger, who shakes the earth out of its place and its pillars tremble?

Who commands the sun and it does not rise? Who seals up the stars? Who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea?

Who made the bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south?

Who does great things beyond searching out and marvelous things beyond number?

Behold, he passes by me and I see him not. He moves on, but I do not perceive him.

Behold, he snatches away. Who can turn him back? Who will say to him, what are you doing?

So going back to Bildad's speech, Bildad was saying two things to Job. He was saying that if Job was a blameless man,

God would not have allowed these things to come upon him. And he also says that the tent of the wicked will not stand long.

That was in verse 22. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame and the tent of the wicked will be no more.

And Job's response questions each of those things that Bildad has said.

First of all, if a man were indeed blameless, how would he able to show himself before God, the

God of justice, the God who searches mind and heart? How would he be able to show himself before God as right?

How can a man plead that case? And what we're going to hear from Job in chapters 9 and 10, this speech of his sounds very legal.

It kind of has a lot of legal ease to it. Another thing that Job is going to say, and this isn't going to be so much in this speech, it's going to be in the next one.

In chapter 12, he's going to say, if indeed God does not reject those who are upright, but he brings destruction upon the wicked, then why is it that the wicked prosper?

Why is it that the righteous suffer, but the wicked prosper? In Job chapter 12, verse 6, he says, the tents of robbers are at peace and those who provoke

God are secure, who bring their God, lowercase g, who bring their

God in their hand. So these men are wicked, they are idolaters, and yet God leaves them alone.

Yet here I am, an upright man who has feared God, and all of this tragedy has befallen me.

So that is one of the counter arguments that he's going to make against his friend.

Now, like I said, that comes up in chapter 12, which is the next speech over.

There are some things that Job says here, even in this speech that responds to Eliphaz. So not directly to Bildad, but even some of the things that Eliphaz had said earlier.

One of the things that Job says in verses 11 and 12, he says of God, behold, he passes by me and I see him not.

He moves on, but I do not perceive him. Remember that Eliphaz said that he had a spirit come and speak to him, and the spirit passed by him and uttered these mysteries to him.

Job's response is, I don't get any kinds of word like that. When God passes by me,

I can't perceive him. I don't understand. And when he snatches away, who can turn it back?

Remember what it is that Bildad said. He said that if you are pure and upright, this is chapter 8, verse 6, surely then

God will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.

And so Job says in verse 12, well, he snatches away. Who can turn him back? Who will say to him, what are you doing?

How can I plead this case before God? And how is God going to give me back everything that was taken from me?

So then Job goes on, verse 13, God will not turn back his anger. Beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.

And this is not Rahab in the book of Joshua, Rahab. This is a name of a goddess.

And that's where Rahab in Joshua even got her name from. So anyway, God will not turn back his anger.

Beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab. How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him?

Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him. I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.

If I summoned him and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.

For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause.

He will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness. If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty.

If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me.

Though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. I am blameless.

I regard not myself. I loathe my life. It is all one.

Therefore I say, he destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.

The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges.

If it is not he, then who is it? So Job agrees with Bildad that God is indeed just.

But Bildad has told Job that he needs to confess himself before God and then God will restore to him all the things that were taken from him.

But Job is basically saying to Bildad, there's no room for me to do that. You and Eliphaz and basically his three friends, you've already passed judgment on me.

You're already accusing me of being guilty of something, which again, in his response to Eliphaz, he said, you're not able to show me what it is that I've done wrong.

So you've not given me any room to be able to repent of this thing that you say I've done wrong and can't even name.

Furthermore, he says, this sentence that you say, God will execute on me for being in the wrong.

God's already done it. If I'm wrong and God brings this kind of judgment upon a person that's wrong, then he's already done it.

So there's no, there's nothing for me to plead there. There's nothing for me to declare my innocence for.

There's no room for me to be able to do this. All of these things have already happened. You've passed judgment on me.

And God has already carried out the sentence based on the theology of what Job's friends are saying.

God will not turn back his anger beneath him. Bowed the helpers of Rahab is what he said in verse 13 in verse 21, where he says,

I am blameless. I regard not myself. I loathe my life in context here.

What Job is saying is that if he pleads himself as blameless before God, God would find his words to be wanting.

But Job, unbeknownst to him, has actually said the same thing that God said of him in chapter one.

When God was speaking about Job to Satan, he said, if you considered my servant Job, he is blameless.

So God has said this of Job, but Job is saying he would not be able to plead his case before God because God, who is the ultimate judge, would not find his words to be enough.

So then going on, verse 25, my days are swifter than a runner.

They flee away. They see no good. They go by like skiffs of reed, like an eagle swooping on the prey.

If I say I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face and be of good cheer. I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent.

I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain? If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye, yet you will plunge me into a pit and my own clothes will abhor me.

For he is not a man as I am that I might answer him that we should come to a trial together.

There is no arbiter between us who might lay his hand on us both.

Let him take his rod away from me. Let not dread of him terrify me.

Then I would speak without fear of him, for I am not so in myself.

What Job is lamenting here is the fact that there's no arbiter between him and God.

There's no one who will help him plead his case before God that can help

Job in a legal manner, present himself before the judge in a way that Job might be seen favorably before the judge.

Now, the interesting thing about that is, is that this is foreshadowing Christ because Jesus is our he is our arbiter before God or the way that John puts it in first John chapter two.

He is our advocate, meaning that Jesus speaks favorably of us before the father.

In first John to my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So Jesus Christ is one who pleads our case before God. And in fact,

Christ has paid our sin debt that we owed God. We read in Colossians chapter two, verse 14, that he canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

And remember, it is those very rulers and authorities who have executed these miseries upon Job, Satan, who who brought all of this disaster upon him and upon his family and even upon his health.

And Christ has conquered them by his victory upon the cross. And it is through Christ that we have an advocate before the father.

So we know there is somebody who is pleading for us favorably before God. But the righteousness that he presents before God is not a righteousness of our own.

It is the righteousness of himself. We've been given the righteousness of Christ. So there's no way for God to say that we are not good enough for we have been made righteous by the grace of God through his son,

Jesus Christ. Now, this has been Job's responses to his friend. That was that was chapter nine.

His response to Bildad in chapter 10. He is going to present a plea before God, and we'll wait to get to that next week.

That's where we'll pick up in the next part of our study of the book of Job. Let's conclude with prayer. Our great

God, we thank you for the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ has died on the cross for our sins so that we have right standing with God.

All who believe in him who have put their faith in Jesus. Our sins are forgiven, and we have fellowship with you.

And so I pray you would convict our hearts that if there is any sinful way in us, that we would confess our sins before God and that we would desire to walk in righteousness before you, obeying the commandments of our

Lord and Savior Christ. For this is our demonstration of love for him. Lead us in these paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

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