Page 117 - Job

into the dustAnd Job says, I knew you would understand this, gentlemen. I
know your theology. The wicked suffer. I am suffering. Therefore, I am
wicked. I reject your theology. I cannot explain it. I cannot convince you
of it. I know I have done nothing. I know I am not wicked. I know I am
right. My prayer is pure. I know what has come upon me has come from
God. I have cried out for Him to say why. I have called upon Him to come
and face me like a man, and He refuses to listen. And so I have one choice.
Since God is too strong for me, I must die. And die I will. But I am going
to go into the grave saying I am right. And one day I have the assurance that
God, who is Holy, will vindicate me somehow.

That is how Job feels. He feels like that is going to end his discussion. The
argument is ended. He sinks back into his bed, and he says it is all over. Job
feels like a man who has lost his wife. They are arguing, why did she leave?
He says, “I don’t care why she left! She is gone; that is what bothers me.
You are not going to help me by telling me why”. And so he feels like that’s
the end of it. He has already closed the argument. But, these good physicians
will not let it lie. Bildad now has to add his two cents. Job keeps trying to
quit, and they keep dragggggging him back in. In Chapter 18 Job speaks in
ruthless severity. Job has given up. His spirit is broken. He doesn’t want to
argue anymore. He doesn’t want to fight God. He doesn’t want to fight man.
He hopes to die and somehow be vindicated. But Bildad will not let it end.
His pride is hurt. Chapter 18, verse 3,
“Why are we regarded as beasts, as stupid in your eyes?”

That is the only thing that is bothering him. You will not accept my counsel.
He thinks Job is expecting too much from God. Verse 4,
“O you who tear yourself in your anger; For your sake is the earth to
be abandoned, or the rock to be moved from its place?”
In other words, Bildad is saying God has established certain unchangeable
laws and He is not going to change them for you. And what according to
Bildad is God’s unchangeable law? Here we go again. The wicked suffer.
You suffer. Therefore, you are wicked. I will not bore you with Bildad’s
speech. I will take the terminal points to illustrate it. Chapter 18, verse 5,

“Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out.”
And then he describes the wicked. And then the last verse 21,
“Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of
him who does not know God.”
In other words, Bildad has done exactly what everyone before him has done,
except he says, Job, God is not going to change His plan for you. And so,

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