Sermon Tone Analysis

Needed: An Advocate

Trust - Born wired to expect things ought to be fair in this world.

One of the best-known songwriters in the Christian world today, is Matt Redman.

We sing several of his songs here, including the one we sang this morning: “One Day”.

“Blessed Be Your Name,” “The Heart of Worship”.

Matt is one of the most influential voices in modern Christendom.

Yet, for all the uplifting words in his in his repertoire of songs, the Englishman understands that not everyone enters a spiritual setting ready for praise songs.

“There’s that Psalm that says ‘rejoicing comes in the morning,'” Matt says, “and for some people, it’s not morning yet.

“I think Eugene Peterson (who penned The Message) says that if you look at the Psalms, 70 percent are laments, written from that dark place, crying out to God, asking, ‘What are You going to do about this situation?’

I want to honor that; I don’t want worship that’s escapist.

I don’t want to write songs or lead worship that’s quick to gloss over people’s hurt, with some ‘you know, we’ve covered that bit, now let’s move on.

Cheer up; everything’s going to be OK.’

That’s not the experience of many people’s lives.”

And, Matt admits, that’s not always been the experience of his life.

He was born in Watford, near London, which must have something special in the water, since that hometown has also given us Elton John, George Michael and Ginger Spice.

When Matt was 7 years old, his father committed suicide, although Matt didn’t discover the cause of death until he was about 10. “It’s interesting,” he says, philosophically, “seasons like that either propel you toward God or away from Him.

I think when times like that come in your life, you either go down the path of bitterness and complaint, or you choose to trust God.

Even at that age, I knew enough about God to know that-well I don’t understand this, but God is good, and God is real.

So I actually chose to get more plugged into Him at that young age of 10, after hearing Luis Palau speak at a large rally in a football [soccer] stadium.”

When Matt’s mother married again, he says his step-father “turned out to be quite an abusive guy.

I’ve thought a lot about that Psalm that says, ‘God’s a father to the fatherless’ ().

I would lean on that a lot, when I was 13, 14, 15, and there was a lot of terrible stuff going on at home.

It made me lean on some of those things that I knew to be true about God.

It’s a funny thing, because you never want those things to happen.

No one asks for a painful time, but looking back, you can see how God made me to be fruitful in the land of my suffering.

Being a worship leader now-writing songs-I look back, and I can see that that solidified my walk with Christ, that time.”

Second Comforter comes onto the stage in Chapter 8, with Bildad the Shuhite.

The first of Job’s 3 friends, Eliphaz, started off gently.

He was polite.

He sees Job.

He sees this man suffering.

He knows he’s lost everything.

He’s watched his life - he has seen him carry himself with nothing but the utmost integrity.

This is a good man - Eliphaz knows that.

Anybody can see that.

He must have done something wrong to bring about all of this devastation in life .... Oh but he knows that he’s never seen anything but good from Job’s life.

So he tries to encourage him to think where he possibly could have taken a wrong step.

After hearing the gentleness of Eliphaz and Job’s response to him - he hears Job’s lament -

in chapter 7:15-16 - “I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones.

(16) I loathe my life; I would not live forever.”

“I don’t even want to live anymore in this pain.”

And Bildad has had enough.

He can’t contain himself any longer.

So he launches in, with words of his own, at the beginning of chapter 8.

He doesn’t waste any time in niceties … he gets right to the point in v. 2:

“How long will you say these things and your mouth be a great wind?” (not exactly a compliment nor a nice thing to say).

He’s saying, “Stop being such a WINDBAG, JOB!” “You’re going on and on about your suffering and how innocent you are - and it’s all ridiculous!”

And in verse 3, Bildad gives his argument.

Q (not exactly a compliment nor a nice thing to say).

Verse 3, "Does God pervert justice?

Or does the Almighty pervert the right?" - - - What's he saying?

Bildad is a little more brash (likely younger than Eliphaz) - - - .

He is saying that God is just.

And the reason you are suffering is because of the standards of morality in the universe working themselves out.”

“There is an order in the universe - - and do you think the Almighty God sets aside that order just for you?”

What is that order?

It’s the order that E has already described: "You reap what you sow; you get out of life what you put into it - no more, no less" Bildad’s theology is this: “The righteous are blessed and the wicked are punished.

No errors; no exceptions.

And if you see any exception to that rule - just wait a minute … justice is on the way.

It’s coming quickly and any appearance otherwise, will be reversed any minute now.

What is that order?

It’s the order that E has already described: "You reap what you sow; you get out of life what you put into it - no more, no less" Bildad’s theology is this: “The righteous are blessed and the wicked are punished.

No exceptions.

And if you see any exception to that rule - just wait a minute … justice is on the way.

It’s coming quickly and any appearance otherwise, will be reversed any minute now.

Job's friends believe every suffering is a punishment.

They are not weak-kneed, emotion-driven liberals: they believe in God, that He is sovereign, that He punishes.

They believe that He punishes.

So these are not cowardly, sentimentally driven liberals.

Calvin - in mid 16th century Geneva.

Very first sermon: "There is a key that unlocks the book of Job.

Job's friends have a very bad case, but they argue it extremely well.

Job has a very good case, but he argues it extremely badly."

Job's friends believe every suffering is a punishment.

They are not weak-kneed liberals: they believe in God, that He is sovereign, that He punishes.

They believe that He punishes.

So these are not cowardly, sentimentally driven liberals.

So here comes Bildad: "everybody else lives under the rule of the universal order - you reap what you sow.

God created that order in His almighty power.

Do you think that God would set aside His created order - His rule - just for you?!" Do you see his point?

You are suffering - God is just - THEREFORE - you must be guilty of something.

Bildad goes on and to utter some of the harshest words in this entire book - in Verse 4 - “If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression”.

Job has just lost every single one of his 10 children.

At our distance from Job in space and time, its easy to think of Job’s kids as a THING - one faceless group - nothing more than a possession that belongs to Job.

Remember that they are much more than a soul-less blob … these are 7 young men and 3 young women - each one of them has a name, a face, a personality .... Job loved his kids - prayed for them, sacrificed for them .... he was the most righteous man alive in his day - do you think he loved each one of them any less than we love our kids today?

Put yourself in Job’s place.

And now, your supposed friend Bildad comes along and says, “Your kids are dead because God is just and they got what they deserve”.

And then he goes on to expound his theology - “Obviously your kids sinned worse than you did because they’re dead.

You still have life, which means you must not have sinned as badly as they did.

You still have a chance to make things right with God.”

Verse 6 - "If you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation."

“If you are blameless, like you say you are, Job - then God’s going to bless you.”

The fact that Job's habitation is not being restored .... the fact that he is continuing to decline in health and suffer pain ....

… well, it's all evidence that the judgment of God is upon him.

And the only reason that the judgment of God could be upon him - is because he has sinned .... somewhere in his life - maybe it was in the distant, foggy past - but somewhere along the line - there MUST have been sin.

It's the law of the universe!

It’s a mechanical, merciless law.

Verse 8 - Bildad explains where he finds the authority for his beliefs: “For inquire, please, of bygone ages, and consider what the fathers have searched out.”

“It’s tradition!

The smartest minds of the past have found that this is the way the world works.”