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8-10-14. Job 18:1-21. Speak The Words People Need To Hear –my devotional

8-11-14. Job 18:1-21. Speak The Words People Need To Hear –my devotional

Job 18:1-21                                                                                                             Kevin E. Jesmer

Key Verse: 18: 2                                                                                                     8-10-14

                     “When will you end these speeches? Be sensible, and then we can talk.”

christian world view

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for feeding my soul every day with you love, grace, and truth. Lord, I need you each day for your strength and your peace. Engulf me with your word today. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Part 1: A Good Counselor Is Not Proud (1-4)

Counseling 101.  In Job 18, we learn more counseling principles. In chapter 8, Bildad had very bluntly insisted that Job was being punished because of his sins. In this, his second speech, he starts out by declaring his resentment that Job did not listen to him.  Look at Job 18 verses 1-4, “Then Bildad the Shuhite replied: 2 ‘When will you end these speeches? Be sensible, and then we can talk. 3 Why are we regarded as cattle and considered stupid in your sight? 4 You who tear yourself to pieces in your anger, is the earth to be abandoned for your sake? Or must the rocks be moved from their place? “ (NIV) He implied that what Job was saying was of no consequence and what the three friends were saying was the only wisdom being spoken in the conversation. His attitude towards Job is not very good.

Bildad appears very proud and disrespectful to me. God gave us each two ears and only one mouth. We need to use them in the proper proportions. Even if we don’t agree with a person, we can take time out and listen. We can try to understand them.  We can study them in hopes that we can reveal the love of God to them. We can agree to disagree. As Christians we should listen more than we speak and love more through our actions, rather that telling people what we want them to hear. People care more about how much we care…not how much we know. They will remember how we made them feel and not how many “facts” we tried to plant into their minds with our own efforts.

Verses 1-4 are spoken by Bildad to Job, but actually they can be turned around and spoken back to Bildad by God himself. He is the one speaking in anger and he is the one demanding that the earth be abandoned so that he can push his own false ideas on Job. Before we try to take the speck out of our brother’s eye, we must take the plank that is in out own eye.

Part 2:  Is This The Fate Of The Wicked? (5-21)

Look at verses 5-21, “The lamp of a wicked man is snuffed out; the flame of his fire stops burning. 6 The light in his tent becomes dark; the lamp beside him goes out. 7 The vigor of his step is weakened; his own schemes throw him down. 8 His feet thrust him into a net; he wanders into its mesh. 9 A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare holds him fast. 10 A noose is hidden for him on the ground; a trap lies in his path. 11 Terrors startle him on every side and dog his every step. 12 Calamity is hungry for him; disaster is ready for him when he falls. 13 It eats away parts of his skin; death’s firstborn devours his limbs. 14 He is torn from the security of his tent and marched off to the king of terrors. 15 Fire resides in his tent; burning sulfur is scattered over his dwelling. 16 His roots dry up below and his branches wither above. 17 The memory of him perishes from the earth; he has no name in the land. 18 He is driven from light into the realm of darkness and is banished from the world. 19 He has no offspring or descendants among his people, no survivor where once he lived. 20 People of the west are appalled at his fate; those of the east are seized with horror. 21 Surely such is the dwelling of an evil man; such is the place of one who does not know God.” (NIV)

Bildad rejected Job’s side of the story because it did not fit in with his outlook on life. Bildad’s description of a person suffering the wrath of God resembles Job’s suffering. Bildad thought that he had God’s universal plan all worked out, and saw Job as an illustration of a person who suffers because of the consequences of his sin. In verse 14, the “king of errors” is a figure of speech referring to death.  Bildad viewed death is a great devourer (18:3). He paints a grim picture of the fate of the sinner. Bildad was saying that Job was wicked and his “false” light shall to be extinguished and Job can only look forward to be eternally condemned. In his world view, there was no hope for Job.

Bildad’s ideas are logical, but they don’t give any hope or encouragement to Job. Rather, they quench hope and plant despair. Bildad doesn’t know the living God, so he only adds to Job’s burden. He is not a good counselor, in fact he is unknowingly promoting the devil’s cause.

Can you image what Job felt like listening to this conversation. How difficult it must have been for Job, especially in his broken state to hear his friends tell him that he did not know God and that he was an object of God’s wrath. In the end, the only thing that a person has is their faith. How terrible it is to cast doubt on a suffering person’s faith and leave that person in hopelessness!

Thankfully even though they tried to crush Job’s faith, Job never lost his faith. Job had another view of death, of suffering and of God. He knew that death was not the end. He knew there was hope in God and God could provide a pledge and an advocate. He knew that God was available to hear his pleas and provide counsel. He was on his way to understanding the Gospel and see things from God’s view.

God’s view of life is presented in the Bible. The Bible is full of words of hope for the suffering. The Bible teaches us that God has the power to devour even death and raise the dead. He wants to make this a reality for all who repent and believe. Here are a few verses that illustrate this.

Psalm 49:15, “But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead; he will surely take me to himself.” (NIV)

Isaiah 25:8, “he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears    from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” (NIV)

 1 Corinthians 15:54-56. “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” (NIV)

Bildad was wrong on so many fronts. For example, in verse 17, he implies that the memory of people like Job will perish. Look at verse 17. “The memory of him perishes from the earth; he has no name in the land.“  History shows that he was totally wrong in applying this to Job. Not only has Job not been forgotten, but to the contrary, few people on earth, have been remembered as much Job is remembered. Job’s memory lives on because he placed his trust and faith in God, and not in himself, in good works or in people. Job’s name is made famous by God himself. It is connected to patience, faith and trust in the Lord throughout the generations. Job is looked on as an encouraging example for any person who has ever undergone trials of any nature. These three friends are the ones whose memory would have been wiped from the face of the earth, if it were not for Job. Job is the reason that their memory lives on. They should be thanking Job rather than cursing him.

Bildad was also implying that a person like Job will have no descendants. Look at verse 19 again, “He has no offspring or descendants among his people, no survivor where once he lived.”  This was also a wrong conclusion. Even Genghis Khan, a very godless man, has millions of descendants. God gave Job seven more son and three more daughters. He was blessed with many fruitful branches in his family tree.

Because Bildad had many obvious errors as he held onto his own worldview, we can easily condemn Bildad and those like him. But we should not. We need to pray for them and gently instruct. Yet, unfortunately, we often act in the same way when our ideas are challenged. We hold onto what is familiar. We are ready to bluntly counsel others according to our own distorted world view and force it upon others, even if we are throwing someone into deep despair. May God forgive us of this and help us all to grow to be wise Christian counselors, leading others to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Not saying anything to people, and keeping quiet, is not an option either. I have experienced the effects of having very little peer feedback in my life. It is not good. We are left to drift with our own thoughts and feelings. We need to say something wise to people who need to hear it. But we need to make sure that what we say is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God and in line with the words of God in the Bible. We need to speak from a Christian world view and tell people about the God who loves them and wants to forgive them and grant them hope, peace and eternal life. They need to hear about Jesus, the advocate given to us by the Father in heaven, the “pledge” that sets us free. We need wisdom to truly help people in their time of need.

Prayer: “Lord, forgive me for holding onto my own ideas and forcing them on others who are suffering. Grant me the wisdom to speak your words with your heart and world view in mind.”

One Word: Humble ourselves and speak the words people need to hear.




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