WATCH: Is it Confidence or Faith?

In this episode we continue our look at Bildad’s first speech in the book of Job.

The godless man is one who forgets God, even despises Him. And this faithlessness in God, creates in the godless man a confidence that is false in nature. Though it is false, it looks like something that can be trusted. This is true primarily because the object of a godless man's confidence are the “things” that he possesses. But we all know too well, that our "things" are all too fragile. Yet, many men tend to depend on them entirely.

This means there is a cycle to this confidence that the godless man has. It starts as a seed. The seed is the faithlessness towards God, the forgetting and despising of God. This can start very small, remember Eve in the garden, the fruit was pleasing to her eye. This confidence then grows very strong and powerful, increasing the godless man's trust on what he has and what he can accomplish. Lastly, this godless man is removed from his confidence and his possessions dispersed, and the confidence itself, personified in the book of Job, goes on to trick another man.

The deep idea that lies behind Bildad’s speech at the end of chapter 8 in Job, is that of sudden reversal. We see the sudden reversal in the life of a righteous man, Job, and we note that he comes away fearing God and blessing God. But what happens when sudden reversal, that is, the taking away of life and the "things" of life are removed in a moment, from the godless man? He withers away.

What is most deceptive about the confidence the godless man experiences however, is that his life, to all the onlookers, seems formidable, grand and nearly impossible to do away with. But that is only a facade.

The righteous man is represented by Job in two ways. The rich man, blessed beyond his wildest dreams. And the man pressed down into desperation by the calamity he experiences. Christian’s ought to know, that our life experience can run the spectrum of these two extremes.

What does the godly, righteous man have then? He has the gift of faith and grace. A gift that God himself provides, a gift that sees beyond the perishable things of the world into the eternal kingdom of God.

Having such faith however means one thing. The world will hate you. The price to follow Christ is often hate by the world. It's not always front and center. But depending on the times, in can be fierce and direct. How we confront this world, either by going along with it, that it might go well for our life on earth, or that we love Christ to the point of being hated by the world, will answer the question that matters most and one we ask over and over in this episode:

Do you have confidence or do you have Faith?