Throughout the book of Job, behind Job's sufferings, behind
the trials he endures, we constantly see the abundant
mercy, the overwhelming grace and love of God under his children,
under his servant Job. Though Job felt the suffering he was brought
to endure, though Job felt abandoned and forgotten of God, throughout
this we see God's mercy unto him. God knew the end from the
beginning. God watched over him, God gave
him strength, God gave him grace every day, God kept him in his
hands. Job felt like the hand of God
had gone out against him and yet God kept Job, his servant
whom he loved, in his hands. He loved him, he kept him. And Job, in the midst of suffering,
had these three friends come unto him, so-called friends,
that came to comfort him, that came to counsel him, that came
to give him advice. And yet all that they spake just
added to his suffering. Theirs were not words of comfort,
but words of condemnation. They pointed a finger. They found
fault. They cast him down. And yet,
God kept him and used their words to continually point through
Job and his suffering. unto Christ and his salvation,
of whom Job was a figure, Job was a picture. May we never forget
as we see Job suffering, and as we hear these accusations,
And may we never forget when we're brought to suffer in our
pathway, when we're brought to trial like Job was, that behind
the surface, that behind the immediate that we see, God is
there, watching over his children, using all these things for their
good and for his glory. and forever leading them unto
him, unto Christ, who suffered all, that his people should live. In chapter 8 of Job, the second
of Job's so-called friends, Bildad the Shuhite, answers Job. We'd first heard from Eliphaz,
who found fault with Job and pointed the finger and essentially
said, you can't be innocent Job. None who are innocent perish.
This sort of judgment, this sort of suffering that you're under,
there must be a cause and it must be in you, Job. Repent of
your sin. You've brought it upon yourself. And Job pleads his cause. He feels the arrows of the almighty
have come down upon him. He asks for his friend's pity
and comfort. He says, I don't know why this
has come upon me. And here Bildad speaks and answers
Job again. and essentially comes with the
same accusations essentially points the finger again that
Job must have done something wrong or if not Job then perhaps
his children perhaps one of his children has sinned and Job is
suffering for them and Bildad speaks of the suffering,
the end of those who forget God He says, For inquire, I pray thee, of
the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers.
For we are but of yesterday and know nothing, because our days
upon earth are a shadow. Shall not they teach thee and
tell thee in utter words out of their heart? Can the rush
grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water? While it is yet in his greenness
and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are
the paths of all that forget God. And the hypocrite's hope
shall perish, whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall
be a spider's web. So are the paths of all that
forget God. He asked Job, have you forgotten
God, Job? Without Him you'll perish. We
need Him. We need Him like a plant needs
rain, like a plant needs the sun to grow. We depended upon
God and all those that forget Him shall fade away. Have you forgotten Job, God? Have you forgotten God? Have we forgotten God? Have you forgotten God? Believer, when trouble comes
your way, and trial comes upon you, and you feel alone, and
you feel weak, and you feel like you're sinking, and you cannot
stand, and fear comes upon you, and doubts rush in. Have you
forgotten God? Have you forgotten His grace,
His long-suffering? Have you forgotten His great
mercy towards sinners? Have you forgotten His everlasting
love that He set upon you from eternity? Have you forgotten
His Son, who gave all to redeem you from your sins, to save you
with an outstretched arm? Have you forgotten His love,
His grace, His mercy? He will lift you up. He will
watch over you like He watched over Job. He will give you strength
when you have no strength. He will give you wisdom when
you know not the way. He will say, this is the way,
walk ye in it. He will go before you and He
will go behind you. He will give you food. He will
give you bread and break it and give you to eat. He will give
you the bread of life. He will give you to drink. He
will give you the water of life. He will make you to be the righteousness
of God in Him. He will give you all your need. He will watch over you. He will
take you in His hands. He will lead you safely. He will be your all, in all. Have you forgotten your God,
His grace, His mercy? Perhaps you don't know God. Perhaps
you don't know Christ. Have you forgotten God? Have you forgotten? Have you
turned your heart away? Have you closed your ears? Have you shut God out of your
thoughts and your affections? Man in his foolishness, in his
folly, tries to hide from God. He never considers God. He seeks
after his own things by his own strength. God to him is distant. Man thinks if he cannot see God,
then God cannot see him. Like a child that covers their
eyes, may feel like others cannot see them because they cannot
see them. And yet all the time, God is
there. No matter where we are, no matter
where we go, no matter who we are, no matter how great or how
small, this world is God's creation. Each of us are God's created
souls upon the earth. Our lives are given and sustained
by God. He causes our hearts to beat,
He causes our lungs to breathe the air that He gives, and without
that air, and without the food, and without the water, and without
the sunlight, and the heat, and the warmth that He gives us,
we will perish. So are the paths of all that
forget God. We need him. He keeps us. Have we forgotten him? Do we
choose to forget him? Do we put him out of our mind? Well, he's not forgotten man.
He's not forgotten his children. He watches over them. He keeps
them. And he's not forgotten this world.
He's not forgotten you. God has appointed a day when
we shall each come before him, when we shall each meet him.
There is a day when we will face him, though we may not see him
now, though we may deny him. Though in our heart as fools
we may say there is no God, he's not forgotten us and one day
we will stand before him and give an account for what we have
done, fought and said in this world. It is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment. One day we will stand
before him. He's not forgotten us. He's not forgotten you. He's
not forgotten what you've done today, yesterday, what you said,
what you thought. He's not forgotten how we have
turned our backs upon Him. He's not forgotten how we've
heard of God, heard of His grace, heard of His Son, heard the Gospel
and turned our backs and gone another way. He's not forgotten. He came in the person of His
Son into this world. He didn't forget the world. He
sent His Son as a Saviour in this world, who came about in
a world that hated Him and rejected Him. He walked about preaching
the gospel of His salvation. He came unto sinners. declaring
the wonderful works of God, he said, turn unto me, look unto
me all ye ends of the earth and be ye saved. The Lord God looked down from
heaven upon his son and said, this is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased, hear ye him. God says to the whole world,
this is my son, my saviour whom I have sent to save sinners. Hear him, look unto him. And yet man turns their back
upon him. When Christ came, wicked men
took him and rejected him and cast him aside and crucified
him. And we've each done the same
in our hearts. And yet Christ came preaching
his mercy, his grace, his love and salvation. Pointing the way
unto salvation to a world that didn't want to know. Christ made it plain many times
that one day we will meet him. He made it plain where those
who forget Him will go. He declared that we will either
know Him and be with Him forevermore. We're either His children who
will love Him and dwell with Him in eternity to come or we
will be cast out into outer darkness. Far off from the love and the
mercy of God. to a place where our sins will
bring what they deserve. He warned, fear ye him, fear
him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. He
preached the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. who both died,
Lazarus a wretched, weak sinner, who knew the mercy of God, went
from this world into the bosom of Abraham, unto Christ his Saviour,
with whom he would dwell forever. But Lazarus who forgot God throughout
all his days, who turned his back, but the rich man who forgot
God throughout all his days, who turned his back upon God,
was cast out into hell. And there in torment he cries
out to Lazarus. He cries out. He hopes to send the message
back to his children in this world that they should hear what's
to come. But he's told if they won't hear
the prophets, if they won't hear Christ in the gospel, they won't
hear though one should come back from the dead. Christ preaches
salvation to the lost, like you and I by nature, to the forgetful,
and says, look unto me. Yes, there is a day when we will
come before God. And if we've forgotten God, if
we know Him not, if we know not Christ, there is a day then when
we will be judged. Well, Job, in his suffering, and hearing the counsel of his
friends who accused him, who said this has come upon you
Job because you've sinned or your family sinned your children
have sinned you've forgotten God it's come upon you because
of what you've done Job felt as if that judgment of God had
come down upon him already He felt forgotten, he felt cast
out. He must have felt like the Psalmist
did in Psalm 77. Will the Lord cast off forever? And will he be favourable no
more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail forevermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his
tender mercies? Say thou, has the Lord forgotten
me? Has he cast me off? Has his mercy clean gone forever? Why does Job feel like this?
Why? or with friends like these who
come in the midst of his suffering and show no grace, no mercy,
no pity, but just find fault when they come with further accusations,
more condemnation. How beaten Job must have felt. Oh, Bildad asks, well, if you
haven't sinned, Job, maybe your children have sinned. If thy
children have sinned against him, and he hath cast them away
for their transgression, if thou wouldst seek unto God bidtimes,
and make thy supplication to the Almighty, if thou wert pure
and upright, surely now he would awake for thee, and make the
habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. Oh, you say you're
innocent, Job. Well, maybe your children have
brought this upon you. What a wicked family you are. Either you've sinned, Job, or
if you think you have and it must be someone in your family.
God is angry with you. Well, did Job suffer for the
sins of his children? Was Bildad right? Not according to the Lord in
his record of Job in chapter 1. We know from chapter 1 that
God said of Job, has thou considered my servant Job? Has thou considered,
my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a
perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth
evil? We know that when Job's sons
went and feasted in their houses, and their sisters went with them,
that we read that Job sent and sanctified them and rose up early
in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number
of them all. For Job said, it may be that
my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did
Job continually. Job's love for his children was
such that he remembered them every day. He made offering for
them every day. Oh no, this that came upon Job
wasn't because of his children. God knew Job's heart. God knew
that even if his children sinned, Job loved them. Job was concerned
for them. Job made offerings for them. Job sought the Lord's mercy and
grace to be upon them. Job sought the Lord's forgiveness
for them. Job loved them. Job did everything
he could for them. This was not because of Job and
not because of his children. Hast thou considered my servant
Job, the Lord asks. Now this came upon Job because
God would try him and bring him through the trial by faith. Because God would set Job as
an example, as a comfort to all his children, for when they came
into suffering. And because Job was set forth
as a picture of the suffering Saviour, Jesus Christ. No, Bildad was wrong. Miserable
comforters, i.e. all, Job would say to these friends.
Miserable comforters. All he can think of is judgment. All he can do is condemn. Bildad repeats the same claims
as Eliphaz. Eliphaz asked, whoever perished
be an innocent, Job. You must be guilty. And yet we know of his innocence. And we saw through this how this
pictured Christ, innocent in himself, but he bore the judgment
of God against the sins of his people. Whoever perished being
innocent to life, I said. But Bildad goes further. Either
Job sinned, or his children sinned. He says, God will not cast away
a perfect man, Job. If you're innocent, he wouldn't
cast you away. So it must be your children.
One way or another, Job must be guilty. God is just. He punishes the wicked and he
blesses the righteous. That's all that Bildad can see. Bildad, just like Eliphas, can
see nothing but law. Nothing but the justice and the
righteousness of God. All he can see is a legal rule. If you do good, you are blessed
and rewarded. If you sin, you will be condemned.
He knows nothing else. If Bildad was blessed, then he
looked upon himself and said, the Lord's rewarded me for my
righteousness. If Job is in trouble, he looks
upon him and says, God must be angry with you for your wickedness. All he can see is law. All he
can see is works. He knows nothing of grace. Nothing of grace. and nothing
of the gracious workings of God in his children. Nothing of the
work of God in the hearts of his children. And the goodness
of God in the way he deals with his children, even bringing them
into trial, even bringing them into suffering, to do them good,
to bless them, to lead them by faith, looking unto Christ alone. The suffering that came upon
Job was not a judgment. It was not condemnation. And
it was not due to Job or his children's sins. The suffering
that came upon him was a blessing sent of God. a blessing sent
of God, to lead Job to Christ and Christ alone, to cause him
to wait upon his Lord, to trust in God his Saviour, to look up
beyond all that could be seen, to look up beyond all that was
outward unto his Redeemer. I know, I know that my Redeemer
liveth, Job cried. God blessed him in the gospel. God blessed him by showing him
Christ in his place. Whatever you suffered, Job, Christ
suffered more. Child of God, whatever you suffer,
Christ has suffered more in his love for you. to save you and
deliver you both from this trial and everlastingly from your sins. Oh, they just saw judgment. Poor Eliphaz, poor Bildad, blinded
by their religion, blinded by the law. All they could see was
the curse. The curse, the wrath of the law. They knew nothing of grace. They posed the question of forgetting
God, as though Job had forgotten. When in reality, they'd forgotten. They'd forgotten the great mercy
and love of God. the long-suffering of God, how
God watches over His children, and how God will deal rightly
with them, bringing them through trial for their good and the
good of others. Why did Job suffer? As we've
seen before, Job's sufferings were not judgment. They weren't
because of his sins. They weren't even because of
his children's sins. God brought this upon him to
lead him to Christ and to Christ alone. And to lead us as we read
of his suffering unto Christ and Christ alone as we see him
pictured in Job and in his sufferings. Job suffered for his good and
for the good of others. as a picture of Christ in the
gospel. A picture of Christ. Did Job
suffer for his children's sins? No. But Christ did. In these words of Bildad, again,
all they can see is a legal rule. And they only have half a knowledge
of the truth of God. They never see the grace of God.
And yet, even in their words, the Lord would point us to Christ. If thy children have sinned against
him, and he hath cast them away for their transgression, Thou
would seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to
the Almighty. If thou worked pure and upright,
surely now He would awake for thee, and make the habitation
of thy righteousness prosperous. Well, Christ's children had sinned
against God. And He had cast them away for
their transgression. They were under the wrath of
God. They had sinned. And Christ came to seek unto
God, to make supplication to the Almighty for them. He was
pure and upright. And God awoke for Him to make
the habitation of His righteousness prosperous. Christ came to suffer
for the sins of His children. He came for them. He took their
sins upon Him. He loved them and He gave Himself
for them. Oh, how we see this in Job. Oh, how these words take us straight
to Christ. The justice that Bildad saw,
the justice that Eliphaz saw, came down upon the Son of God. who though he himself was innocent,
he took the sins of his children, the sins of God's children, and
bore them. And the justice of God was poured
out upon God's own Son. He suffered that they should
be spared. Christ suffered that Job should
be spared. Christ suffered, child of God,
that you should be spared. He suffered for the sins of his
children in order that he should be gracious. In order that God
could be gracious, he satisfied the demands of the law. Their
sins, our sins. If we're His, our sins brought
down judgment upon our heads. Our sins brought down the penalty
of the law against us. The soul that sinneth, it must
die. It must die. And either we will die in our
sins as those that have forgotten God. For one must come in our
place and take that judgment, that penalty, in order that he
might be gracious unto us. In order that he should take
our sin away and make us the righteousness of God in him. Yes, Christ suffered for the
sins of his children in order that he should be gracious. Had
God forgotten to be gracious to Job? No. In all that came upon Job, God
was setting His grace upon him, though it seemed otherwise. When
we're brought into trial it may not seem like the grace of God
is upon us. It may not feel like God is merciful
to us. It may not feel like His love
is upon us. But in all these things He works
them for good. He leads us unto Him alone. He's using them for good. He's
pointing us to Christ who suffered all for us in order that we should
be made the righteousness of God in Him, in order that we
should have life in Him. Has God forgotten to be gracious
to Job? No! Has He forgotten to be gracious
to us? Where are you? Where are you? Have you forgotten
God? Have you forgotten His Son? Have
you forgotten His great love towards sinners? Do you feel
like Job, cast out, forgotten? Do you feel like the psalmist
in Psalm 77? Do you feel alone? Do you cry
out, will the Lord cast off forever? Will he be favourable no more?
Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail forevermore? Have God forgotten to be gracious? How for ye in anger shut up his
tender mercies? O Lord, have ye forgotten to
be gracious? Is that where you brought to
feel? Well, no, he hasn't. He hadn't forgotten, Job. He
never forgets his children, no matter where they are. He has
not forgotten to be gracious. He does not cast off His children
forever. He shows them favour to the end. His mercy is not clean God forever. He loves them and He loves them
with an everlasting love. He will never lose them. They will never be plucked from
His hands. He will never leave them, nor
forsake them. He loves them everlastingly. He's there every day, even in
the trial, even when He doesn't seem to be there, He's there. We may forget Him. We may not
see Him. We may not feel His presence. We may cry out unto Him and feel
like He doesn't answer, but He's there and He's not forgotten.
He never forgets His children. He never forgets His mercy unto
them. How can He forget them? He gave
His Son for them. He gave nations to save them. He gave everything to deliver
them. He loves them eternally. He never
forgets. He never had forgotten Job. The
very trials Job was put through were sent for his good out of
love. And the very trials God sends
his children are sent for our good. Job's trial was sent for
our good. The trials sent unto us are sent
for our good. They lead us unto Him, unto Christ,
to His feet, to His cross. They lead us to the One who suffered
for His children, who suffered for the sins of His children,
who suffered for the unbelief of His children, who suffered
for the iniquity of his children, who suffered for the forgetfulness
of his children. He leads us under him. He suffered
for their salvation. He suffered that they should
live. Christ died that his people should
live forevermore. Christ was made sin, that they
should be made the righteousness of God in Him. Christ was nailed
to a cross and cast out and forgotten, that God should bring His children
into His presence, under His bosom, to wrap His arms around
them forevermore, that He should bring them into peace. into an
everlasting kingdom, into union with his son forevermore. He
suffered for his bride, whom he loved. Yes, Christ suffered
for God's children. He died for them. He loves them. And he will never leave them.
We read in 1 John 2, I write unto you, little children, Because
your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. Every one. Every sin. Every transgression. Every doubt. Every fear. All unbelief. All forgetfulness. All the doubts and the fears.
He suffered for all. They're all forgiven. They're
all blotted out. He sees nothing but the perfection
of His Son in His children. They are one with Him. Because as it is appointed unto
men once to die, but after this to judgment, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for Him
shall He appear the second time without sin under salvation. Yes, there's a day when we will
stand before Him. And for those who've forgotten
Him, For those who never come to know Him, for those who push
God out of their thoughts until their dying day, they will stand
before Him, guilty in the judgment. But if He suffered for them,
if God comes unto us who once forgot Him, and says, I've never
forgotten you. I gave my son for you. You're
my child whom I love. I gave all for you. You are mine. Come unto me. Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Hear my son. Come unto me and live. My Son bore the sins of many. If He comes unto you by His Spirit
and says unto you, I bore your sins, your unbelief, look unto
Me, then He will appear unto you when He returns again. When you look unto Him the second
time, He will appear unto you. unto salvation. He will come
unto you and lead you into eternal glory. And then you will forget
all the suffering, all the hardship, all the tears, all the trial. It will be gone. It will be as
nothing for He will lead you into His banqueting house. He will draw you as His bride
under His table into His banqueting house. He will set His love upon
you and you will be with Him forevermore. Oh, do you know
this Saviour? Do you know Him? Does He know
you? Has He given all for you? Oh
may God give us grace to stand. May he give us faith to look
beyond the trial, beyond the darkness here below, to the light
that shines from heaven above and to Christ who loved us and
gave himself for us if we're his. Oh God give us grace in
Christ alone. May we know that he will never
leave his children. He will never leave us, nor forsake
us. He will never, ever forget. He has not forgotten to be gracious.