“You are a two-faced hypocrite who is under the judgment of God!”
Those are not words from Job chapter 18, those were words spoken to me a couple of months ago. I haven’t been pastoring for about three years, and it was the conclusion of this individual that this was why I wasn’t shepherding a church. But they simply didn’t know the facts.
Bildad didn’t know the facts either (or the heart of Job), but that sure didn’t keep him from sermonizing and from an explosion of misguided and cruel conclusions. The “You are a two-faced hypocrite who is under the judgment of God” is the CliffsNotes version of the Comforters’ theology over these 18 chapters.
Whereas Eliphaz shows (at times) a more kindly and pastoral concern for Job, Bildad just blasts away and becomes downright brutal and cruel. Remember chapter two? “And they (Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar) made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him….they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.” (2:11 & 13). But they got more than a little off track – somewhere they totally lost sight of their objective to bring encouragement to Job.
FI Anderson writes this about these first few verses, “Bildad is more concerned for his own reputation than for meeting Job’s needs…Bildad continues to do what Job has rightly complained about, he kicks a man when he is down.” The Comforters apply their theories & theology instead of applying ointment and bandages. May that indictment never be said of our churches.
18:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite responded, 2 “How long will you hunt for words? Show understanding and then we can talk. 3 “Why are we regarded as beasts, as stupid in your eyes? 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?”
“How long, Job?” Job’s sores irritated him constantly, but Bildad was irritated with Job’s words. Bildad started his first speech (chapter 8) with the same words (How long…). That was the chapter in which he implied that Job’s kids got what they deserved. You get the feeling Bildad is more than a little peeved with Job for even insinuating that their theology (when devastation comes, it proves you are a sinner) could be wrong.
I love the words of Chuck Swindoll in his commentary on Job, “But, like some folks to this day, Bildad’s theology doesn’t have room for mystery. Everything is black and white.” “Bildad’s theology doesn’t have room for mystery.” Bildad didn’t believe “His Name shall be called Wonder-full.” To him, Jehovah is the “Figured-Out God,” the God Who doesn’t do things beyond the comprehension of Bildad.
18:5 “Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out, and the flame of his fire gives no light. 6 The light in his tent is darkened, and his lamp goes out above him. 7 His vigorous stride is shortened, and his own scheme brings him down.
FI Anderson translates the first part of verse 7 this way, “His athletic pace becomes a shuffle…”
18:8 “For he is thrown into the net by his own feet, and he steps on the webbing. 9 A snare seizes {him} by the heel, {and} a trap snaps shut on him. 10 A noose for him is hidden in the ground, and a trap for him on the path.”
Sometimes preachers go overboard with their illustrations. Bildad sure did! There are SIX different Hebrew words for “trap” in these 3 verses – two in each verse. A couple of illustrations would have sufficed, but six? And just what is Bildad trying to say? Just this (as per Hartley), “…it is impossible for any wicked person to escape the heavenly trapper.”
18:11 “All around terrors frighten him, and harry him at every step. 12 His strength is famished, and calamity is ready at his side. 13 His skin is devoured by disease; the first-born of death devours his limbs. 14 He is torn from the security of his tent, and they march him before the king of terrors."
“Terrors frighten him…” Is Bildad referring to chapter 3:25 where Job lamented, “"For what I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.” Probably. The “first born of death” would refer to the plagues of chapter one. Note the words terror, calamity, disease, death, devour, and “king of terrors.” How would you like to sit through that encouraging sermon? To Bildad, “Job’s emaciated body is the convicting evidence of his wrongdoing.” (Hartley)
18:15 “There dwells in his tent nothing of his; brimstone is scattered on his habitation.”
Translation: “Hey Job, unless you repent, fire and brimstone are coming; you are on your way to hell!” Bildad is obviously, in a not so subtle way, referring to the events of chapters one and two.
18:16 “His roots are dried below, and his branch is cut off above.”
Translation: Job, you want to know why devastation hit you and your family? Because the “Below Job” (the root, the hidden and spiritual side of Job) didn’t match the “Above Job” (the fruit or branch, the Job seen by the world). “You’re a hypocrite…you cut yourself off from God (the Root), pretended to be righteous, but your branch withered.”
18:17 “Memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name abroad.”
Translation: You get just an unmarked grave; no ornate sepulcher and no fancy granite headstone engraved with “Here was a truly wonderful person.”
18:18 "He is driven from light into darkness, and chased from the inhabited world. 19 He has no offspring or posterity among his people, nor any survivor where he sojourned.”
Again, a not too subtle implication as to the underlying cause for the death of Job’s kids.
18:20 “Those in the west are appalled at his fate, and those in the east are seized with horror. 21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him who does not know God."
Do you see those last words, “…this is the place of him who does not know God?” You just shake your head at Bildad’s ironclad theology. His speech is the same song as chapter 8, just the second verse. Wait until we get to the 3rd verse of Bildad’s song, it’s even more appalling!
Against the awful backdrop of such heartbreak, devastation and sadness (and the cruelty of the comforters), there is, threaded throughout this magnificent book, the theme that “There IS a God of Wonders, Who is far beyond our galaxy, Who does great things, things which our imagination cannot even comprehend.“
I would like to close with a paragraph from FI Anderson’s commentary (page 190), “Bildad’s description of the fate of the wicked is academic. He does not think how horrible it must be to be God, doing such things to helpless men, however justly. He does not stop to think how horrible it must be to be a man suffering such things, whether justly or unjustly. Bildad recounts the disasters as the outworking of moral laws which control the movements of men around the central God as gravitation governs the movements of planets around the sun. God’s justice consists of His maintenance of these laws, natural and moral. This is a common opinion of philosophers, whose god is a factor in a formula.”
Has the life of Jesus within us given way to merely an academic discussion of “I wonder why that person is hurting?” And has the Incomprehensible God of Glory simply become a factor in one of our theological formulas?
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Deus Absconditus – The Hiddenness of God (Job 17)
The familiar chorus goes,
“Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angels’ wings.
I see glory on each face.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.”
Job used to sing that chorus with his family during church services. But those days were just a distant memory. He would now rather sing, “Deus Absconditus” (When God Moves…And Doesn’t Leave a Forwarding Address”).
“Deus Absconditus” is a Latin phrase that loosely translated means, “God is departed and hidden.” To “abscond” means “to depart in a sudden and secret manner, to withdraw and hide oneself.” In a legal sense it means “to evade the legal process of a court by hiding.” (Remember that in this book, Job has essentially wanted to take God to court, but God has apparently evaded the summons to appear!)
The bulk of the verses of chapter 17 will be found at the end of this devotional, but lets take a look at just a few of them from the version called “The Message.” This speech of Job expresses the agitation of his heart; Francis I Anderson says the words of this chapter “crowd together in brief, jumbled sentences…”
17:1 "My spirit is broken (or ruined), my days used up, my grave dug and waiting. 17:11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out.”
My spirit…my days…my grave…my life…my plans…my hopes. Hartley writes concerning verse 1, “With great emotion Job expresses the depth of his despair in three short lines. His spirit, the desire for life in him, has been broken. Depression is robbing his inner resources for bearing his shame. His days are about to run out. The graveyard awaits him. Completely disgraced, he will be buried in a common grave instead of receiving honorable interment in a noble sepulcher.”
It doesn’t seem like righteousness and depression should occupy the same person at the same time, but at this point in Job they do. He is a man of unequalled integrity, but he is also a very depressed man. Chuck Swindoll uses four key words to describe Job’s state of mind in chapters 16 & 17:
Job is disgusted, distressed, depressed and despondent.
For all practical purposes, it seemed that it was “Deus Absconditus”: God has hidden not only His blessings from Job, but He has hidden Himself!
Verse 11 may be the lowest of lows for Job. Hartley writes, “(His desires), namely to be respected and accomplish good for others, are turned to ashes.”
17:6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face…”
Job has “seemingly” been deserted by God and the theology of the Comforters hasn’t changed one bit. You would think that as the passers-by are repulsed by the site of Job and spit in his face (which is perhaps the most disgusting sign of rejection and revolt), that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (EBZ) would show some compassion and offer to clean off the spittle. But they don’t! They stand aloof, rubbing their chin with their hand as they contemplate Job’s hypocrisy and hidden sin, and conclude, “Well, if God has rejected him, we shouldn’t help.” (To them the ONLY reason God is hidden is because Job is hiding his sin!)
EBZ (Comforters Inc) have sided with the scoffers and the spitters!
17:8 “Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God. 17:9 But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger! 17:10 Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.”
Read the same words from the New Living Translation: 17:8 “The virtuous are horrified when they see me. The innocent rise up against the ungodly. 17:9 The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger. 17:10 As for all of you, come back with a better argument, though I still won’t find a wise man among you.”
The German commentator Delitzsch compares verse 9 to a “rocket burst of light.” Job is a pitiful concentration-camp shadow of a man, and yet he clings to the thought that “he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger!” To paraphrase Job’s tenacious faith, we could put it this way, “My skin testifies against me, my ‘friends’ don’t stand beside me, my neighbors spit at me, and its ‘Deus Absconditus’, yet I know that in the end the righteous will grow stronger and stronger!” Hartley writes, “In Job’s case his righteousness gives him the fortitude to hold to the true way no matter how powerful the opposition. Nothing separates him from God, neither pain nor abuse nor insults nor death.”
17:13 “If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin, 17:14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms, 17:15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that? 17:16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
Chapter 17 doesn’t exactly end on high note; there is just a grim despondency to Job’s final words in this chapter. In every aspect (socially, emotionally, physically and theologically) life seems to be against Job. God has apparently marshaled all of the forces of the universe against one man in the obscure land of Uz.
Conclusion: Frankly, it’s a little tough to find some really uplifting devotional thoughts from this chapter (and some of the others in the middle of this book). How do you encourage people when you are talking about maggots and misery?!?
But let me off just a couple of thoughts:
1. Don’t be too quick to offer superficial remedies to hurting people. God hadn’t moved and Job hadn’t moved and yet there was a terrible darkness.
2. Your broken circumstances and “dreams turned to ashes” may seem to be of no benefit to anyone. Life may seem futile. But God can turn brokenness and ashes into blessings! He did it for Job and He can do it for you!
3. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty helping people out. Wiping the spit off from Job may have been a little repulsive, yet it would have been far more of a blessing than what the professional Comforters had offered.
Chapter 38 (the UnHiddenness of God) is coming….eventually :>)
*********************************************************
Job Chapter 17 (from the version called "The Message"):
1 "My spirit is broken, my days used up, my grave dug and waiting.
2 See how these mockers close in on me? How long do I have to put up with their insolence?
3 "O God, pledge your support for me. Give it to me in writing, with your signature. You’re the only one who can do it!
4 These people are so useless! You know firsthand how stupid they can be. You wouldn’t let them have the last word, would you?
5 Those who betray their own friends leave a legacy of abuse to their children.
6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face;
7 I can hardly see from crying so much; I’m nothing but skin and bones.
8 Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God.
9 "But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger!
10 "Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.
11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out—
12 My hope that night would turn into day, my hope that dawn was about to break.
13 If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin,
14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms,
15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that?
16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
“Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angels’ wings.
I see glory on each face.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.”
Job used to sing that chorus with his family during church services. But those days were just a distant memory. He would now rather sing, “Deus Absconditus” (When God Moves…And Doesn’t Leave a Forwarding Address”).
“Deus Absconditus” is a Latin phrase that loosely translated means, “God is departed and hidden.” To “abscond” means “to depart in a sudden and secret manner, to withdraw and hide oneself.” In a legal sense it means “to evade the legal process of a court by hiding.” (Remember that in this book, Job has essentially wanted to take God to court, but God has apparently evaded the summons to appear!)
The bulk of the verses of chapter 17 will be found at the end of this devotional, but lets take a look at just a few of them from the version called “The Message.” This speech of Job expresses the agitation of his heart; Francis I Anderson says the words of this chapter “crowd together in brief, jumbled sentences…”
17:1 "My spirit is broken (or ruined), my days used up, my grave dug and waiting. 17:11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out.”
My spirit…my days…my grave…my life…my plans…my hopes. Hartley writes concerning verse 1, “With great emotion Job expresses the depth of his despair in three short lines. His spirit, the desire for life in him, has been broken. Depression is robbing his inner resources for bearing his shame. His days are about to run out. The graveyard awaits him. Completely disgraced, he will be buried in a common grave instead of receiving honorable interment in a noble sepulcher.”
It doesn’t seem like righteousness and depression should occupy the same person at the same time, but at this point in Job they do. He is a man of unequalled integrity, but he is also a very depressed man. Chuck Swindoll uses four key words to describe Job’s state of mind in chapters 16 & 17:
Job is disgusted, distressed, depressed and despondent.
For all practical purposes, it seemed that it was “Deus Absconditus”: God has hidden not only His blessings from Job, but He has hidden Himself!
Verse 11 may be the lowest of lows for Job. Hartley writes, “(His desires), namely to be respected and accomplish good for others, are turned to ashes.”
17:6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face…”
Job has “seemingly” been deserted by God and the theology of the Comforters hasn’t changed one bit. You would think that as the passers-by are repulsed by the site of Job and spit in his face (which is perhaps the most disgusting sign of rejection and revolt), that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (EBZ) would show some compassion and offer to clean off the spittle. But they don’t! They stand aloof, rubbing their chin with their hand as they contemplate Job’s hypocrisy and hidden sin, and conclude, “Well, if God has rejected him, we shouldn’t help.” (To them the ONLY reason God is hidden is because Job is hiding his sin!)
EBZ (Comforters Inc) have sided with the scoffers and the spitters!
17:8 “Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God. 17:9 But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger! 17:10 Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.”
Read the same words from the New Living Translation: 17:8 “The virtuous are horrified when they see me. The innocent rise up against the ungodly. 17:9 The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger. 17:10 As for all of you, come back with a better argument, though I still won’t find a wise man among you.”
The German commentator Delitzsch compares verse 9 to a “rocket burst of light.” Job is a pitiful concentration-camp shadow of a man, and yet he clings to the thought that “he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger!” To paraphrase Job’s tenacious faith, we could put it this way, “My skin testifies against me, my ‘friends’ don’t stand beside me, my neighbors spit at me, and its ‘Deus Absconditus’, yet I know that in the end the righteous will grow stronger and stronger!” Hartley writes, “In Job’s case his righteousness gives him the fortitude to hold to the true way no matter how powerful the opposition. Nothing separates him from God, neither pain nor abuse nor insults nor death.”
17:13 “If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin, 17:14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms, 17:15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that? 17:16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
Chapter 17 doesn’t exactly end on high note; there is just a grim despondency to Job’s final words in this chapter. In every aspect (socially, emotionally, physically and theologically) life seems to be against Job. God has apparently marshaled all of the forces of the universe against one man in the obscure land of Uz.
Conclusion: Frankly, it’s a little tough to find some really uplifting devotional thoughts from this chapter (and some of the others in the middle of this book). How do you encourage people when you are talking about maggots and misery?!?
But let me off just a couple of thoughts:
1. Don’t be too quick to offer superficial remedies to hurting people. God hadn’t moved and Job hadn’t moved and yet there was a terrible darkness.
2. Your broken circumstances and “dreams turned to ashes” may seem to be of no benefit to anyone. Life may seem futile. But God can turn brokenness and ashes into blessings! He did it for Job and He can do it for you!
3. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty helping people out. Wiping the spit off from Job may have been a little repulsive, yet it would have been far more of a blessing than what the professional Comforters had offered.
Chapter 38 (the UnHiddenness of God) is coming….eventually :>)
*********************************************************
Job Chapter 17 (from the version called "The Message"):
1 "My spirit is broken, my days used up, my grave dug and waiting.
2 See how these mockers close in on me? How long do I have to put up with their insolence?
3 "O God, pledge your support for me. Give it to me in writing, with your signature. You’re the only one who can do it!
4 These people are so useless! You know firsthand how stupid they can be. You wouldn’t let them have the last word, would you?
5 Those who betray their own friends leave a legacy of abuse to their children.
6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face;
7 I can hardly see from crying so much; I’m nothing but skin and bones.
8 Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God.
9 "But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger!
10 "Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.
11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out—
12 My hope that night would turn into day, my hope that dawn was about to break.
13 If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin,
14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms,
15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that?
16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
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