Then answered Bildad the Shuite,
and said, How long will it be ere you make an end of words?
Mark, and afterwards we will speak. Wherefore are we counted
as beast, and reputed vile in your sight? He teareth himself
in his anger. Shall the earth be forsaken for
you? Shall that rock be removed out
of his place? Yea, the light of the wicked
shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.
The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall
be put out with him. The steps of his strength shall
be straightened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.
For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh
upon a snare. The djinn shall take him by the
heel, and the robber shall prevail against him. The snare is laid
for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way. Terror shall
make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.
His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and destruction shall be ready
at his side. It shall devour the strength
of his skin, even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it
shall bring him to the king of terrors. It shall dwell in his
tabernacle, because it is none of his. Brimstone shall be scattered
upon his habitation. His roots shall be dried up beneath,
and above shall his branch be cut off. His remembrance shall
perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.
He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out
of the world. He shall neither have son nor
nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.
They that come after him shall be astonished, or astonished
at his day. And they that went before him
were frightened. Surely such are the dwellings
of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not
God. Job had been answering Eliphaz
in the last two chapters. Eliphaz told Job that he said,
you know, your own mouth condemns you. Iniquity flows out of your
mouth. You're the worst kind of a hypocrite.
So Job took two chapters to answer him. And now Bildad is answering
Job. And he's considering Job to be
a very wicked, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing man. But that's
not true. You remember when he said, you
know, over here, and I think it's in verse chapter 16, He says, also, verse 19, chapter
16, verse 19. He said, also now, behold, my
witness is in heaven, and my record is on high. He said, I've
got a witness in heaven. I've got a witness in heaven.
Now they're coming over here and telling him how wicked he
is. He said, I've got a witness in heaven. And I tell you, every
one of us have a witness in heaven. Satan's the accuser of the brethren.
But our Lord Jesus Christ stands up and he pleads his own name.
He's a witness for us in heaven. And when we face God in the judgment,
and all the judgment's done, the only thing that's gonna help
us is Christ saying, they're mine. I witnessed that they trusted
me, believed me, put their rest in me, put their trust in me,
and everything they have, I gave it to them. And these over here,
they didn't trust me. Oh, we'll have a witness. And
he said that. And he said, my record's on high. God's got a
record of everything I've said, everything I've done, and he
got a record. And guess what my record is? Clean, clear, pure,
spotless. And then look what he said in
verse 21. Oh, that one might plead for a man with God. Oh, come plead with God for me. As a man would plead for his
neighbor, trying to save his neighbor out of all of his harm
and all of his danger and all of his troubles, he said, oh,
my man, plead for God. And I tell you, that's what he
wanted. He said, in a few years, I'll be gone, but oh, that I've
got a record in heaven. And then he, you know, and we
went through chapter 17. Now, Bildad, the Shurite, He
comes along and he starts talking to Job. And then he says there
in verse 18, verse 1, then answered, Behold, I am the Shulite, and
said, now he's answering Job. He's answering what Job had said.
He's answering what Job had said. And here's the first thing he
says, and he reproves him. He accuses Job of four things
right here, four things. And the first one he says is
he accuses Job of using too many words. He said, how long will
it be till you make an end of words? Job, you talk too much. You're saying too much. You use
too many words. And when are you going to stop
using words? And remember, Job said, you're
a miserable comforter. You're physicians of no value.
And then they come along and say, when are you going to stop
talking, Job? You ain't saying nothing anyway.
Just shut up. Just shut up. And that's what
he's telling him. And he's talking about, oh my.
And he was accusing him of using too many words. And oh, Job. Bless his heart, I tell you what,
if we'd been in his shoes, we wouldn't have been near as nice
to these fellas as he was to them. But I tell you what, look
what else he says about him. Secondly, he said he's not thoughtful. He's not only accused him of
having too many words, and there is a way in which a man sometimes
uses too many words. But that's not what Job's problem
was. And then he says this, he said, you have no thoughtfulness,
Job. He said in that verse two again, mark and afterwards we
will speak. What he's saying is, Job, what
you've done, you mark. Just stop for a while and mark.
You mark a spot here. You just be quiet. And what you've
done, you've talked without thinking. You've talked without intelligence.
And you don't have no deliberation when you're speaking. You don't
know what you're talking about. That's what he said. You need
to weigh what you say before you say it. And that's what he's
telling Job. And I tell you that's, and here's
the thing about it. They come here to be his comforters.
And then they turn around and mistreat him in such an awful,
awful way. And I tell you this, to say,
Job, you just don't think enough. You're not intelligent enough.
You're not smart enough. You're not weighing your arguments
enough. You're just using a lot of words
and they just don't mean anything. You just don't mean anything.
And that's the difference. You know, whenever you're dealing
with God's word, and this is one thing that's very encouraging
to me. God says that my word, That's the dew comes down from
heaven as the rain comes down from heaven. And don't go back. He says, so my word, it comes
down and said it will accomplish where unto I sent it. It'll do
exactly what I intended for it to do. Now, it don't look like
to us anything's being done maybe sometimes. But something's being
done. Something's being done. And that's
why these fellows are so upset with Job, is because Job would
put them in their places. Job would tell them what they
were actually like. And so they come around and start
talking about Job being a wicked, sorrowful, wordy, unthoughtful,
and then the next word he uses on them, he uses contempt. He
said, you're a contemptuous person, Job. Look what he says there
in verse three. Wherefore are we counted as beasts,
and reputed evil in your sight? You know, you remember when Job
said over here in chapter 17, I believe it's verse 4, This is, he's talking to God
Almighty here. He's talking to God. He said,
God is for me. Everything that happened to him,
he said, God did this. But he says, for thou hast hid
their heart from understanding, therefore thou shalt not exalt
them. And so he turns around and shows contempt for Job. Why
are we counted like a beast before you? Why are we reputed evil
in your sight? And I tell you, Job said, God's
done hid understanding from you. You don't know anything. And
I do know this, that if a man sees anything, knows anything,
has any understanding at all, God himself's gotta be the one
to give it. You know, Houston read it the other night.
He said, I hath not seen, neither has it entered into the heart
of man the things that God hath prepared for him, for them. Well,
it has to, because the next verse says, yea, God hath revealed
them unto us, yea, hath revealed the deep things of God unto us.
So he prepared for us election. He prepared for us redemption.
He prepared for us a sin offering. He prepared for us a sacrifice.
He prepared for us a way to be accepted of God. He prepared
a way for God to be able to show mercy and grace to us in Christ,
and he revealed those things to us. And that's what he's saying
here about Job. Job said, God, you hid things
from them. And our Lord even said one time,
they come to him and said, oh, these people don't understand.
He said, you know why? My Father hath hid these things
from the wise and the prudent. There's times that God hides
things from people. He said, you've hid these things
from the wise and prudent, and then what, who does he reveal
them to? Babies, babes, people who want to learn, people who
can learn, people who need attention, people that all they can do is
make a mess and somebody's gotta clean it up. And that's why he
says, why do you look at us like we are, Job? Why do you look
at us like we are? You must think that we really,
really are evil. And they held, he says, oh, Job,
you're a contemptuous man, that you regard us that way. And then
look what the fourth thing he said about him is. There in verse
four. He teth himself in his anger. Oh my. He says, Job's angry. He said, his anger is out of
control. He said, Joe, your anger is out of control. Oh, shall
the earth be forsaken for you? And he asked him, he said, he
says, he tears himself in anger. He said, he just got beside himself
with anger. He got beside himself, he was
so angry. That's what he's accused him
of being angry, and his anger was out of control. And then
look what he says, he continues to reprove him and says this,
shall the earth be forsaken for you? Job, are you so important? Do you think so highly of yourself?
Do you think so greatly about yourself, and have such a high
opinion of yourself, and such a low opinion of us? Shall the
earth be forsaken for you? Do you think God's gonna forsake
everything, give way to you? Everybody must give way to you.
Who do you think you are? Everything else gotta yield to
you, everybody's opinions gotta yield to you, the whole world
to yourself. And even nature, is nature gonna
have to get out of your way? Is a rock gonna have to be removed
out of its place? Oh, he's just, He knows this
is awful, the way the things that he says about Job. Really,
absolutely awful. But he said four things about
him. He said, you use too many words. I wish I could, you know, I wish
I could, instead of using ten words, I could use seven. Maybe
even cut down to six, where I could use. But that's what they accused
him of, using too many words. You've used too many words. Second
thing, he says, you're unthoughtful, Job. You're not a very thoughtful
person. And then he called him contemptuous. You're a very contemptuous
person, Job. And you're a very angry person,
Job. And I tell you, and when you
find people like this, if there was a person just like this,
that they've been described, they would be a very, very evil
person. It'd be a very evil person. All those things are evil. A
person talks too much, that's evil. And a person that's unthoughtful,
don't think about other people, that's evil. And to be contemptuous,
and there are some people that are contemptuous. Has people
that their characters contemptuous, their beliefs contemptuous, their
words are contemptuous, their characters contemptuous. But yet we ought to be very careful
about what we say who's contemptuous. And then he said he's angry.
And all those things are bad things in an unconverted person. And then look what else he goes
on to say. He says, you got some retribution coming to you, Job.
You got some real retribution coming to you. And he's believing
that, and it's a false and unloving assumption that Job was a wicked
man. And he starts talking about all
the things that would befall him and pursue him and overtake
him. And as a sinner, if a person
was a sinner, this is what would happen to him. But look what
he says. First, there's gonna be desolation
in verses five and six. Yea, the light of the wicked
shall be put out and the spark of fire shall not shine. The
light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out
with it. Oh, he's gonna be, you're gonna be brought to desolation.
The light is gonna go out, Job. Gonna be just like midnight for
you. Your candle's gonna go out. And light and candle and all
this, this represents what a person is in himself. In himself. And light always means prosperity
in the old days, like that light. And he says, oh my. You, you,
here you are. God's gonna turn out your light.
You're gonna be in utter desolation. Every lamp is gonna be extinct.
Whatever fire you got's gonna be put out. It's gonna be cold,
black midnight for you, Job. That's what's coming for you.
And I'll tell you something, if a person is unconverted, that's
exactly what's gonna happen to him. A man that don't know God,
don't know Christ, God's going to put out his light. God's going
to extinguish him. God's going to put him out of,
he's going to be dark as midnight. He said how many times did he
say, gather them up, cast them into outer darkness. Outer darkness. But to accuse Job of that, and
then second thing he accuses him of, He says, Job, you embarrass
yourself, you really embarrass yourself. Look what he said,
you're caught in a trap. Look what he goes on to say here
in verses seven and eight, nine. He said, the steps of his strength
shall be straightened. Now he's a strong man, strong
man. You know, he said in one place,
he said, I'm just almost like a skeleton. But he's saying the
steps of his strength shall be straight and he'll be so narrow
that he won't be able to walk. And his own counsel, what he
thinks for himself, gonna cast him down. His own counsel will
end up destroying him. And then look what else he says.
He is cast into a net by his own feet. He said where he walks
and how he walks and where he walks, you know what he walks,
his own feet leads him into a trap. Leads him into a net. Job walks,
he is such a wicked man that he walks and catches himself
in a trap. He doesn't watch where he's going
and he's caught in a trap. Caught in a trap. And he walks
upon it and he walks on a snare. Walks right up on a snare. And
you know what a snare does? It catches you, and holds you,
and you can't get out of it. He said, that's what he said
in Job's glory. That's all he said. Job, this is how you walk.
This is how you walk. And then, oh my, then he says
this. The djinn shall take him by the heel. And a djinn is still,
that's another kind of a trap. And you know, about the time
he's getting loose and something else grabs hold of him, and then
a robber comes along and prevails against him. Job, everywhere
you go, I'll tell you what, bad stuff is gonna happen to you,
Job. Bad stuff's gonna happen to you. And that's exactly what
religion thinks. That's exactly. But also, again,
let me say this, that if this was an unconverted person, If
Job was like this, and he was like an unconverted person as
the way Bildad's talking about him, these things would be exactly
what would happen to him. He'd be caught in his own traps.
He was sentenced, he'd be caught by a trap, he'd walk in a snare,
he'd be caught in his own net. He could not get himself out
of the condition that he's in. And all the snares laid for him
in the ground, the trap in the way. And I tell you what, all
this is just, this is metaphorical. These are illustrations, you
know, they just, the real language that he's talking about here.
But everything, he says, oh my, this is what every step you take,
every step you take is gonna be a consequence of your sin.
The snare's laid for you. And I tell you what, Jim takes
a hold of you. He only won't let you go. And
let me give you a third thing that he says about him. In desolation,
Job, you're gonna be embarrassed. God's gonna embarrass you. God's
gonna shame you. And then look what else he says.
You're gonna be surprised. You're gonna be scared. You're
gonna be really alarmed. Look what he says in verse 11. terrors shall make him afraid
on every side, and shall drive him to his feet. His strength
shall be hunger-bitten, and that means he's going to be so hungry
from not having any strength that he's hunger-bitten. He can't even eat. He's in such
bad shape. Destruction be ready at his side. Oh my. Let me show you what Job
said over here in Job 23-25. Look what Job said all the way
back over here. Look what he said about himself. You know in the scriptures say
the wicked pursueth when no man pursueth. Confidence is going to be rooted
out of his his tabernacle. He said, look here, he said, for the thing which I greatly
feared is come upon me and that which I was afraid of is come
unto me. And that's why he says over here,
he said, terror is gonna come on you. Can you imagine anything
more terrible than what Job's already went through? And he
said, this is what's gonna happen to you. And yet this is also,
again, if this was an unconverted man, this is exactly what would
happen to it. He'll say, it shall, in verse
13, it'll devour sin. Sin will devour a person's strength.
Even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength. Death is
gonna come along, and you ain't gonna have no call out of it. You ain't gonna have nothing
to do with it. Nothing to do with it. And then look what he
said in verse 14. Oh, he said, this destruction's
gonna come upon you now, Job. He said, his confidence shall
be ruled out of his tabernacle. What confidence you thought you
had, what confidence you believed you had. He said, you're going
to lose it. He said, God's not going to let
you have any confidence. God's not going to let you have
any confidence in your home. He's not going to let you have
confidence in yourself. God's just going to take away all your
confidence. And Paul said, you know, being confident of this
one thing, there's some things we can be confident of. He which
hath been confident of this very thing, he which hath begun a
good work in you. shall perform it unto the day
of Jesus Christ. Now, can that be looted out of
our tabernacle? No, it can't. Oh, no. God ain't gonna let us
be hungry a bit. No, he's gonna feed us. He's
gonna feed us. I'd love to one of these days
come here and have a fresh loaf of bread right straight out of
the oven to bring here one day. I really would. Instead of you're
all just Feel like a, well, nothing. It's just, you know, and then
look what he says. You know, Job, you got destruction
coming your way. Uh-huh. He says, look what he
says. His confidence shall be rude
of his tabernacle, and listen to this, and it shall bring him
to the king of terrors. Uh-huh. Or his home will be gone,
his tabernacle will be none of his any longer. And then look
what he says. And it shall dwell in his tabernacle. This terror shall dwell in his
tabernacle. He said, you're gonna be scared
of everything. And it shall dwell in his tabernacle. What? This terror. No confidence. Because it's none of his. And
listen to what he says here. And brimstone's gonna be cast
on it. God gonna send brimstone to destroy
it. Oh, Grimstone's going to be...
What he's saying is, is, Job, it's going to be like you didn't
have a life, like you never existed. That's what God's going to do
you. And one of these days, that's going to happen to every one
of us. It's going to be as if we never existed. Sure as the
world, just as... I go out to... Have you ever
been to a graveyard where the stones have been there so long
that there's nothing left on the stone? Just a bare image
of something? You say, I wonder who in the
world that is. They don't have a name on it, don't have a date
on it. They've been there so long that they've just, the weather's
just destroyed them. They just don't exist. They've
been the sight of them. I was down in Grapevine one time
and I come up on an old graveyard on the side of the road and I
went up there and started looking around there. There wasn't a
name or nothing. Just stones stuck in the ground.
But that's what he said, Job, that's what's gonna happen to
you. Well, that's gonna happen to all of us. And that's alright. That's okay. We're like John
the Baptist, you know. Are you he? No, no, I'm not.
No, I'm not him. He must increase, I've got to
decrease. He's everything, I'm nothing. And that's what it amounts to.
I tell you, if our homes don't exist anymore, and if we don't
exist anymore, and we'll just go into our long home, and one
of these days, down to a hundred years from now, there may not even be a graveyard
where we're at. They may decide to dig it all
up and build condominiums on it. That's how important we are.
And that's what they send to Job. He's the king of terrors.
Can you imagine them talking about the king of terrors coming
upon Job? And here comes Job. He's sitting there. He's been
to a prayer meeting. He's been praying. He's been
seeking the Lord. He's offered sacrifices for his
children. And here he is, he's seeking
the Lord. And here comes a man who said, you've lost everything.
All your cattle, everything. Sibeans has come and stolen. And here comes another bad news. And then the last thing was a
tornado come and killed all your children. Could you imagine the
terror in that man's heart, the grief in that man's heart? And
then somebody say, Job, God's gonna bring you to the king of
terrors and he gonna put brimstone on your house. Brimstone on it. And oh my, he
said, look what else he said. His roots, in verse 16, his roots
shall be dried up from beneath, and above shall his branch be
cut off. He said, he's just gonna dig
him up and cut him off. And listen to this, his remembrance
shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in
the street. Joe, now you know he said at
the gate, he was one of those fellas that was so important,
he said at the gate, and people come to him for advice. I mean,
Job was somebody at one time, and now he said, listen, he said,
Job, he said, there ain't nobody gonna remember you. Your remembrance
gonna perish from the earth, and they ain't even gonna name
a street after you. They ain't even gonna name a street after
you. You know, there's a lot of folks down here
that get roads and lanes and things like that named after
them, you know. Down where we used to live in the country after
they, you know, we lived, they didn't have a name for it. And
decided, you know, they were going to name all of them and
they named it Bowling Road. You know why? Because the first folks
that moved on that was named Bowling. So they named it Bowling
Road. But I could have kicked up a
little bit of dust and said, well, Bell's lived down there
now. It's been named Bell Lane. But you know, but he said, there
ain't even going to be no street, remembers you, Job. You walk
down the streets. You used to walk down the streets,
you used to be somebody, but now your name is not even gonna
be remembered. You're not gonna, the streets
not even gonna know you walked on them one of these days. You
walked on them one of these days. Huh? Oh my. And all you remember is your
name was heard in the street. People would pronounce your name.
People thought you was very important. They don't even know the names
of the street. They don't even know you walked on the streets.
That's what he's saying that's gonna happen to Job. And that'll
happen to all of us one of these days. And I tell you, he said,
and then look what else he said, you ain't even gonna have no
family left on this earth. And then he says this, he shall
be driven from darkness. He said, he'll be driven out
from light into darkness and chased out of the world. That
means that he's going to go to his grave. Going to go to his
grave. And then look what he says. He
said, you ain't going to have no children left even. You ain't
going to have no family left at all. None left whatsoever.
You're not going to have a son left. Of course he didn't have
any sons left, or daughters, either one. He said, you're not
going to have a son left. You're not going to have a nephew
among these people nor any remaining in his dwelling. God ain't going
to let nobody in your family, if He's going to leave you without
anybody to even remember your name. Remember your name. And you know, one of these days,
a man, you know, he carries his father's name. And if he has
a son, he carries his father's name. If he has a son, he carries
his father's name. But one of these days, there's
going to be the last one born by that name. And that name will
go out of existence of that family. Because the father carries the
name. You know, they pass the name
on and on. That's what they're saying about Joe. Said, you ain't
got nobody to carry on your name. You ain't got nobody to carry
on your name, Joe. Said, you're gone. Does it make
any difference if anybody knows? Does it really make any difference
if anybody carries on our name or not? Does it really? Does it really make any difference
whether anybody calls our name or not? Remembers our name or
carries our name on and on and on? And then look what it says now. And then it says, and they that
come after him, in verse 20, they that come after him shall
be astonished at his day. They'll come after him and they'll
say, oh boy, Job, boy, I was astonished at
what happened to him. I was just absolutely astonished.
And I was astonished at his day, that the things that he went
through. And listen to this. And as they that went before were
frightened. You know what that means? We're afraid that what
happened to Job will happen to us. We're afraid that what happened
to Job will happen to us. And that's what he was afraid
of. And I tell you, you know, Job lost his sons, he lost his
children, and they said, well, whatever happened to Job might
happen to us. And while he was alive, they were astonished at
him. And this is the last thing. And surely such, surely such
are the dwellings of the wicked. And this is the place of him
that knoweth not God. Now that's some pretty harsh
words to be putting on Job. But now if you went back down
through here and looked at every one of these things that we dealt
with, everything that was talked about. This fellow was talking
about how wicked people are, how sinful people are, and the
consequences of sin, even though Job wasn't that way. False accusation
of Job. But you look at everything that
was said here, everything that was talked about. As a man, as
without God, and without Christ, and without hope in this world,
that's the consequences, that'll be the consequences of his life.
Everything about him will be the consequences of his life. He said, oh listen, you'll run
around telling everybody what you got, you'll be, you'll just,
words, words, words, talking, talking, talking. As a fellow
I know, that when I see him coming, I go some other way, because
he gonna talk you to death. Gonna talk you to death. I know
a couple people like that. When I see him coming, that's
awful, you know, that you're that way, because they're gonna
talk you to death, and you got to be, Nice enough to stand there
and listen to Adam and say, well, look at you. But as you know,
and that's what we're saying. Then he starts talking about
how wicked and the king of terrors and sin would reign and your
house would not have no company. And all these things that people
that are without God, without Christ, if this person was like
this right here, If a person was as bad as he depicted Job
to be and the consequences of Job's life and sin, if a man
without God and without Christ, that would be him to a T. What would happen to him, that's
what would happen. And I'll tell you, that's my children, that's
your children, that's our grandchildren, that's your grandchildren, that's
your fathers and mothers, that's my family. That's what's gonna
happen to them. And if you tell them that, they
don't believe it. They just do not believe it.
They can't believe it. But do you think about God said,
I'm gonna take your amendments away, I'm gonna put brimstone
on your house, I'm not gonna leave your amendments to you
anywhere. That'd be an awful condition
to be in, without God and without Christ. Be an awful position. But ain't you thankful, ain't
you thankful, and bless His holy name, that God in Christ called
us unto Himself, gave us a new heart, gave us a new nature,
gave us new desires, gave us a new attitude, gave us a will
to worship Him, adore Him, and we really, really, really don't
care what people, you know, our name, when our name's gone, it's
just gone. We're gone. We're going, I remember,
I remember lots of people. I got pictures in there of fellas
been gone for years and years. But I can remember them. But
then there's other people that I cannot remember. I can't even
tell you where they're buried. And you know, here's the thing
that we do. We go out. And we pick out our
grave and put our name on it. Make sure we get our spot. I'm not slighting you for it,
I'm not. But I'm not, but that's the way we are. That's mine,
that's mine right there. That's mine. Well, a hundred
years from now, Nobody's gonna know. And I'm not, please don't
misunderstand me, I'm not chiding you, I'm not making fun of you,
I'm just telling you how we are. How we are. And, you know, I've
forgotten my name on there, all I gotta do is put the date when
I'm gone. Can somebody please do that for me? Go up there where
you get your tombstones and they'll say, listen, Donnie Bell died
on such and such a day. They said, oh, we'll go out there
and put it on there.