Job 25:1-6
“Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: “Dominion and fear are with God, he makes peace in his high heaven. Is there any number to his armies? Upon whom does his light not arise? How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure? Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes; how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!”
It looks as if Bildad has been chosen to give the final or closing argument for the three, and rejects Job’s claims. That God who established harmony in the original creation and maintained it. We find Bildad asking a series of rhetorical questions implying negative answers. One such question is, how can a person be justified before God? May I take a moment to show you if you’re a searcher or just a religious person without a personal relationship with a Holy God?
In Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Roman 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” How we often play the game, I’m better than that person who goes to church. But the “all” stands, we have all sinned and need to be redeemed. It has been over 50 years since I agreed with God that I had tried to get my needs met outside of Christ, in religion, and being a nice guy, but as I read the Scriptures I understood I needed to be free from the control of sin. In a hotel room at age 27 I opened the Bible to Romans 10:9-10, “and ask Jesus Christ to forgive me and become the Lord of my life. “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes and is justified, and with the mouth, one confesses and is saved.”
In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, we find the Apostle Paul tells us that the grace of God is not found in our power, education, or human wisdom, but in Gods, love, and mercy and in our weakness. He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Verse six, of chapter 25, Bildad has this to say about all mankind, “how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man who is a worm.” In Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” If you buy into Bildad’s understanding of man, you must have a very low opinion of God. We are given so much more information on the value God places on you.
How much are you worth to God the Creator and giver of life? It is found in a verse you may never have read but have heard or seen it on a burger wrapper, a sign, or someone has quoted it in your presence. John 3:16;17 tells how much you are worth to the Father. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Bildad was wrong about a man and yet he was a religious guy, he did not have an understanding of God's love, and grace.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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