Job's Epitaph

23 “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24 Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

Prayer

Before we get to Job’s creed lets look at the circumstances that let to him stating his creed and talk about why he needed that creed.

Exposition

I. If you don’t listen there is no hope – Bildad’s Second Speech. Chapter 18

A. Bildad rebukes Job for the way he is treating his “comforters”. 1-3

1. Why won’t you listen?

a. Think about what we say.

b. Do you think we are stupid?

2. Will everything change because you throw a fit? 4

a. Bildad sees Job’s insistence that God has brought this upon him when he has done nothing to deserve it as Job just throwing a fit.

b. Bildad expresses that God won’t change the proper order of life (the fact that sinful people suffer) just because Job doesn’t like it.

B. Bildad describes the outcome of the wicked. 5-21

1. His light is put out. 5-6

a. God puts out the light of the wicked

b. God snuffs out his life

2. He walks into a trap. 7-10

a. He is in this situation by his own doing.

b. He walks into his own undoing

3. Troubles terrify and chase him. 11

4. He wastes away until he is destroyed. 12-14

a. God will use suffering to consume him.

b. Bildad uses some of the mythology of the day to speak of how Job will be consumed by the servants of hell.

5. The memory of him perishes and there is no hope of resurrection. 15 - 20

a. He will be destroyed out of his tent.

b. His dwelling place will be consumed.

c. He will have no posterity.

d. He will be totally forgotten and never seen again.

e. All people will be appalled at his destruction

6. Such is the place of him who knows not God.

a. the unrighteous and all who do not know God can expect this.

b. Bildad claims to know this will happen to Job because his suffering shows that Job is unrighteous

C. What is Bildad saying?

1. You brought this upon yourself.

2. You are casting yourself into your own judgement (hell) and you will never be seen on this earth again.

D. What’s wrong with Bildad’s speech?

1. These are some of the things the Bible teaches that will happen to the wicked.

2. God says that Job is not wicked but an upright and just man.

3. Bildad still sees that there is only one reason for suffering. (Because his suffering is the worst he has seen, his sin must be very great.)

4. It adds to Job’s suffering. It is no comfort.

II. What to Rest On. Chapter 19

A. Job rebukes his friends 1-6

1. How long will you torment me?

a. Break me in pieces with words

b. 10 times you have cast reproach upon me.

2. Can’t you see how God has put me in the wrong.

a. He is treating me as if I had grievously sinned.

b. I am innocent before Him.

3. God has fenced me into my troubles

a) Satan had accused God of fencing troubles away from Job.

b) Job feels as though God has fenced his trouble in around him.

B. Job describes the troubles God has fenced about him. 7-20

1. God does not answer when I call and works against me. 7-12

a. Won’t answer my cry for help and justice

b. He won’t let me out of my troubles.

c. He has stripped me of my glory.

d. He has sent suffering from every direction and leaves me hopeless.

e. He counts me as His adversary.

f. It seems that He is working against me as with a seige.

2. God has allowed no comforters. 13-20

a) Brothers and those who knew me estranged from me.

b) Relatives and close friends forgotten me.

c) Servants don’t heed.

d) Wife cannot stand to be in my presence.

e) My siblings can’t stand to be around me.

f) Guests and maids look at me as a stranger.

g) Young children despise me.

h) Intimate friends abhor.

i) Those I loved have turned from me.

3. I am barely alive.

C. Job pleads with the 3 friends 21-22

1. Have mercy on me.

a. His three friends have been terrible comforters.

b. He longs that they would turn to be true comforters

2. Why do you pursue me like God does?

3. Why can’t you be satisfied with the suffering I have already experienced?

The next thing Job says you would not expect. Bildad had said that Job’s suffering was so bad that he must indeed be a wicked unrepentant sinner whose doomed is to die and be consumed in hell, never to be seen again.

One might expect that Job would return at this point to some of his earlier statements of desiring to die. Instead, Job answers Bildad’s speech with a confession.

D. Job’s Confession

Job 19:23–27 ESV

1. Job is saying regardless of what you think of me, regardless of how I struggle for answers, I desire that my bedrock belief be etched in stone for all to know.

2. I know (Job declares)

a) I know that my Redeemer lives.

i) From just after the fall a promise was made of a Redeemer to come.

ii) That Redeemer is my redeemer - he is trusting in his Redeemer.

iii) My redeemer lives.

Has lived

Is living

Will always live

b) I know that my Redeemer will redeem me.

c) I know that at the last He will stand upon the earth.

i) Nothing will keep Him from living.

ii) He will be victorious

d) After I have died and decayed, in my flesh, I shall see God.

i) I will live again.

ii) This body itself will live again. (No matter what happens to it now or as it lies in the earth until then.)

iii) My redeemer will provide a way for me to see God with my own eyes.

E. Job ends this response with a warning

1. He is able to persevere and respond to his accusers because of his hope in his Redeemer.

2. If you continue:

a) to pursue me.

b) To assume that I suffer based on some sin I must have.

3. Then be afraid of the sword

a) For wrath brings the punishment of the sword

b) So that you know there is judgment (based of their continued pursuit of an innocent man.

4. Job so believed that he was not suffering for some unrepentant sin that he had committed but he warned that if they don’t quit pursuing this argument God would bring His wrath upon them.

After Job had made this confession, his suffering didn’t all of a sudden disappear. We are only half way through the “discussions” Job had with his friends. His situation didn’t change but it looks like Job changed. He still wants to talk with God about his suffering but his tone changes. He still does not understand but he has hope. He gained that hope by stating the truth to himself and his friends. Because of my Redeemer and His work, I will live again in His presence. I will see God with my own eyes.

Like Asaph in Psalm 73 his perspective changed when he was able to get the truth before his spiritual eye.

We know from the garden prayer that Jesus dreaded the cross, but He endured the cross for the Joy that was set before Him. The writer of the Book of Hebrews exhorts us to take the same path as Job, Asaph and especially Christ.

Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

In what ever we endure, let us continually be looking to Jesus our Redeemer. He endured the cross to provide a way that we might stand before Him in the very bodies we have and see our Redeemer with our own eyes as He endures in victory for all eternity.

Hymn: 94 How Firm A Foundation

Benediction: Romans 15:13 “13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

Related Media

Related Sermons