Job 18:12-13

12 His strength ['own] shall be hungerbitten [ra`eb], and destruction ['eyd] shall be ready [kuwn] at his side [tsela`].

13 It shall devour ['akal] the strength [bad] of his skin [`owr]: even the firstborn [bakowr] of death [maveth] shall devour ['akal] his strength [bad]. KJV-Interlinear

12 'His strength is famished, And calamity is ready at his side. 13 'His skin is devoured by disease, The first-born of death devours his limbs. NASB

Now Bildad begins his explanation of the systematic and slow death of the wicked. He is pointing all of this toward Job, making Job his example. Bildad is wrong in his application of this toward Job, but he is correct in the fundamental principles of these results of leading a negative life. Negative toward ones spiritual life, that is.

Again, for emphasis, this applies to anyone who does not make their spiritual life their priority in life. The Hitler's of the world are obvious examples. The criminals of the world are also obvious.

However, the bulk of the negative people in this world are neither in the headlines nor in the history books. They are common everyday folks who get up everyday, go to work, and come home. Look in the mirror and look around you when in public, and you will see many examples of folks, whom you may or may not know, to which these principles apply.

Bildad's lecture is not an instant overnight result of negative volition, but a result of a lifetime of establishing a pattern of negative attitude toward God, toward Christ, and toward ones spiritual life.

The strength and vigor of ones youth, over time, become famished. The normal hunger for happiness becomes transformed into the abnormal hunger of calamity, as in the case of a leach.

'Calamity at ones side,' is a metaphor for the fitting of clothing, such as in tailor made clothing. Catastrophe becomes tailor made for the negative individual, and calamity is fitted to the negative person's life, during the course of their life.

'It,' refers to death, and specifically 'first born death.' Not the death, of the first born, but death that has the attributes of the first-born child.

The first-born child, typically the son, is the sign of the strength and vigor of his parents. He is looked to, to carry on the family name. He is looked to as the strength and continuing power of the family. And in history, the concept of the first born is a very powerful concept.

So, the first born of death is a phrase for the most terrible and powerful of all deaths. It has strength and power, and vigor to continue and to destroy all who oppose it.

Death, and in this case, the very slow death resulting from the process of ones pattern of negative attitude toward truth in life, wears away at ones skin as does a slowly spreading disease. But, far worse, once the skin is consumed, the disease continues into the inner parts of the body until it finally reaches the bone (the limbs), or the core of the human frame.

The person slowly disintegrates into nothingness. And this, of course, is the action that negative volition has on the person's soul. The soul is slowly made to deteriorate, until darkness is all that is left.

In Ephesians we will, someday, study the blackout of the human soul, caused by the scar tissue of human negative volition toward truth. There are charts on the web site picturing the soul of the positive believer, the soul of the negative believer, and the soul of the unbeliever.

For this condition of the soul, there is only one cure, and that is positive volition toward Bible doctrine. But positive volition has to be combined with the elimination of ones former habits, and beliefs, and attitudes.

You cannot keep your former ways and expect to successfully change your ways.

Now is the time to post a prayer.