Job: Chapter 8

Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent:

The Green Dragon | The Shire

Eliphaz has no clue of what God truly is nor does he understand the Gospel. He is a man who sees only works and no faith. He believes that Jobs's children were living in sin and were not honoring God, therefore He struck them from the earth. Perhaps God makes mistakes? Who knows. But, you must believe that God is punishing you either for your sins or your children's sins. Either way, God required a sacrifice and now you must seek His forgiveness and actually seek Him. Why aren't you "truly" seeking Christ? Clearly, you must have been playing us all these years and weren't truly living a life that was honoring to God. Plead for mercy, if you are pure and justified, He will forgive you and restore you to the wealthy man that you were before. Stop lying in the dirt like a bum and restore your former glory. You have to earn God's love by seeking Him out, He doesn't give it freely. You must feed your relationship with God, it is a give and takes relationship. God will not accept an evildoer as yourself, you must be blameless before Him. If you rebuke your sins before the almighty God then He will fill you with joy and overflowing happiness. He will shame those who hate you and will bring them to death.

Wow. Perhaps my interpretation of Job 8 is off but Bildad has a very worldly view of God. He believes that God is a performance-type god who will weigh all of the good you do on a scale versus all of the bad. If this is the case, we are all going to hell and have no chance of experiencing the wonderful presence of God in Heaven. We are condemned to a life of sin and will never escape the bonds that hold us down. This isn't the Gospel? This is blasphemous! Our God is the God of perfect love. He cannot accept sin, but He accepts Faith in Him. (Reminder: This is the pre-Christ era.) Job has the understanding that Faith without works is dead and works cannot exist without Faith. Faith will drive works into your life if you believe in who God is and your faith will be fueled by the works you perform through God's love for you. We are meaningless without God, not only are we meaningless, but we wouldn't exist. Bildad is mocking Job because he believes that Job has been lying his entire life, either his children aren't who he has professed them to be, or Job himself has been putting on a façade his entire life. God wouldn't be allowing these things to happen unless you owed him for the sins you have committed - this is the idea Bildad is sharing with Job. He is accusing him of living a life of sin. If God punished us for every sin we committed against Him, we would never stop cease being punished. God is not sitting in Heaven watching us and waiting for us to sin and then strike us with boils. God is gracious, and he is a loving Father who wants what is best for us in all scenarios. He doesn't need us to proclaim His gospel, He allows us to be a part of the story. He can choose to ensure everything goes the way He wants, but He offers us free will and the choice to decide whether or not we live our days for Him or for ourselves. Yes, God knows all things and I believe He knows who will choose to follow Him because he is not constrained to time - He doesn't wait for things to happen, they are - and all things are before Him. There are no surprises to God. Yes, He will allow bad things to occur in our lives, but He sees all things and knows how they will play out. This is where we must rely on Faith.

 Dear lord, there are many things that we do not understand about you. You are above and beyond anything we can imagine or even fathom. You created all things with your voice, that is enough to have us thinking for the rest of our lives. Thank you for sending your son and honoring our Faith in Him and You. We do not deserve your love or grace. I believe in your word, but it is hard to decipher at times, grant me wisdom to read the Bible and understand it in order to be able to benefit others. Amen. 

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