From Light to Dark and Back, Again

"To drive a man from light to dark, and chase him out of the world"
is sad, indeed, and I can't grasp initial hope I'd see.

What caused this state?
What drove him mad?
How did he become a fool?

Verse #2: "Shut up, Fool! I'm tired of hearing your hot air!
You need to know your place! I'll talk with you, again, when I've cooled down!"
WOW! With friends like Bildad, the Shuhite, who needs enemies?

Verse #3: "Do you think I'm nothing more than a dog, that you can kick around with your incessant prattle?
Do you think I'm just phlegm that you can spit out of your mouth?"

Job says nothing because people in his day were a sight more civil in their discourse
than we are today with our popcorn conversations.
The thought is this, "You speak your peace and when you're finished I will say some more if I still have anything to say at that point."

At this point, Bildad turns away from Job and starts preaching to everybody else about Job.

Verse #4: "Like a madman, Job is beating on himself. He thinks his rage will scare everybody else into succumbing to his will.
Is the Earth scared by your rage? (Probably not.)
Will a heavy boulder 'tuck tail & run'? (I really doubt that.)"

Here is a slight aside spoken to the crowd, while looking at Job in a condescending way.

Verse #5: "Actually, Dude, whatever good you thought you did will be totally erased from the record of Time and Eternity,
and any spark of 'trying to get back on track' will be snuffed out before it can burst into flames!"

At this point, Bildad returns to preaching to the crowd.

Verse #6: "For Job everything in his life, and in his home will be...
...darkness instead of light,
...despair instead of hope,
...tragedy instead of victory.
In fact, he won't have a candle of a light to shine,
nor a snowball's chance in Hell of a life to live."

Verse #7: "On top of all that, Job's body will fail him,
like a man with a bad case of arthritis
or advancing ALS.
His wealth will quickly turn to poverty,
and his light heart will transform into crushing depression
in which his own thoughts will fail to lift himself out of the dust."

Verse #8: "Job has been captured by a trap of his own making
for he stupidly walked into the trap without even caring to look to see if there was a trap there.
He was walking in La-La Land when he got caught,
and then he cried out, 'Oh, My, How did that happen?'"

Verse #9: "Furthermore, Job is so dumb that he would walk into the noose of an animal trap,
saying, "WOW! That's cool-looking!" as he is being hoisted up by the foot.
"Job is so dumb that he doesn't know how to keep himself out of a back alley
when a robber is waiting for him.
'Give me all your money!' would become
'Wait! There's more! I have stocks and bonds, too!'"

Right now, Bildad is waxing eloquent and is rather smugly pleased with himself.
Like a preacher, who has worked the congregation into a frenzy of
'Yes, Brother! Preach it!'
Bildad is ready to dance on the refrains in order to heap up the "pats on the back."

Verse #10 - 21: "What is Job like, Folks?
"He's got snares on the ground!"

"Yes! Amen! Preach it!"

"He's got traps up ahead!"

"Yes! Amen!"

"One scare after another keeps him running away!"

"Yes! Amen! Preach it!"

"His strength is withered!"

"Yes! Amen!"

"Destruction is always ready to sideswipe him!
"Destruction wrinkles his skin!
"Even Death's child will eat him up!"

"Yes! Amen! Preach it!"

"His self-confidence will be yanked out of the ground like a gardener pulls out a weed!"

"Yes! Amen!"

"This same gardener will throw him down at the feet of Fear's highest King!"

"Yes! Amen!"

"Fear will live in his house because he no longer owns it!
"The very fires of Hell will burn up everything that he once called, 'Home'!"

"Yes! Amen! Preach it!"

"Like an aged plant, his roots will be dead and dry!
"All of the strong limbs of his 'tree' will be lopped off!"

"Yes! Amen!"

"When he's dead, nobody will remember his name! It'll be like he never existed!"

"Yes! Amen! Preach it!"

"He will be driven from the light in the dark, completely out of the world's consciousness!"

"Yes! Amen! Preach it!"

"Job won't have an heir, nor anybody related to him in all of Mankind!"

"Yes! Amen! Preach it!"

Now, Bildad takes a breath to wrap up his sermon with a BANG.

"Everything about Job's life will forever be so offensive
that it will appear to be nothing more than a bunch of big ol' cow pies,
which smells to the high heavens,
like a feedlot
or a pulp mill!
This means that everybody, who follows him will shake their head in disbelief,
and everybody, who preceded him was afraid to walk down the same road as Job."

"Why is life like this for Job?
It's because he is a WICKED, WICKED man!
He's too sinful for words!
He doesn't know God!
He is the epitome of a God-forsaken, damnable character!"

AMEN!
This sermon is over!
Everybody, go home for fried chicken!

Thus ends the eighteenth chapter of Job,
but thank The Lord this is not the end of the book of Job.

After about twenty more chapters of reprimands from Job's so-called friends,
The Lord stepped in to simply reprimand Job for speaking
when He should have been silent.

The Lord demanded that the friends, including Bildad,
were to repent and to make sacrifices for their own sins,
AND to go to Job to have him pray for his friends
before they could be forgiven for so woefully abusing Job
as well as misrepresenting The Lord's own Character.

The Book of Job ends with things being put right once, again.

Job 42:12 tells us, "So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning:..."

Now, we may all go home in peace
for this life does not always tell the final tale of our lives.
We may look worthless,
wicked,
useless,
and
washed up for all practical purposes,
but The Lord sees the heart of all who come to Him in honesty.

The Lord has the final Word.
He gives His own the final Joy.

Line Count: 114
Verse Used: Job 18:1-21, verse #18 emphasized by repetition.

by Jay O'Toole
on September 30th, 2018