Job 17 and 18

Introduction

Hope -

A famous America cardiologist noted: “Hope is the medicine I see more than any other. Hope can cure nearly everything.

Another doctor: “If you lead a person to believe there is not hope, you drive another nail in his coffin.”

It has been said that a person can live three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food, but not one second without hope.

Root cause - Job had taken his eyes off a purposeful God in a stage in life that required him to wait.

Vaneetha Rendall Risner - Twenty-one surgeries by age thirteen. Years in the hospital. Verbal and physical bullying from schoolmates. Multiple miscarriages as a young wife. The death of a child. A debilitating progressive disease. Riveting pain. Abandonment. Unwanted divorce.

Taught me that in God’s hands, waiting is not a meaningless pause, an empty space to be rushed past. No, waiting has a purpose, much deeper and more refining than I ever would have imagined.

At first, all I wanted were glimmers of light indicating my prayers were answered and the wait was over. I was waiting for the outcome I wanted, or at least for an indication of where life was headed. Was life going to get better, or would it continue to deteriorate? Would I get what I’d earnestly prayed for, or would God’s answer be no? I wanted to know which outcome to put my hope in.

That’s when I learned that my hope wasn’t in an outcome. It was in God alone. I needed to trust in the goodness of God and lean into him as I waited. I wasn’t watching and waiting for the morning; I was watching and waiting for God.

Job sees that he’s dying

Job 17:1 “My breath is corrupt, My days are extinct, The graves are ready for me.”

Breath - Spirit

It could mean the life force - breath as expressing the dynamic vitality of humankind.

Corrupt - broken, perverted

My days are extinct - My days are cut short.

Job 16:22 “When a few years are come, Then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.”

Job complains about his friends

Job 17:2 “Are there not mockers with me? And doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?”

Job’s three friends were draining him of all hope.

Job wants a quick trial

Job 17:3–5 “Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; Who is he that will strike hands with me? For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: Therefore shalt thou not exalt them. He that speaketh flattery to his friends, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.”

If everyone around him believes he is guilty then his only hope is Heaven.

He needs God to put a pledge (put up bail money - proof to back up words) until he can have his day in court - innocence.

Psalm 119:121–122 “AIN. I have done judgment and justice: Leave me not to mine oppressors. Be surety for thy servant for good: Let not the proud oppress me.”

God’s testimony could change the mind of his three friends.

He believes God understands and is worthy of exaltation.

God is still sovereign - He determined whether his friends had understanding.

Speaking flattery - They are slanderers - They are denouncing his friendship for a reward.

Job’s distressing conditions

Job 17:6–9 “He hath made me also a byword of the people; And aforetime I was as a tabret. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, And all my members are as a shadow. Upright men shall be astonied at this, And the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite. The righteous also shall hold on his way, And he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.”

God made him a byword

He is a tabret - smite, spit

I cannot see very well because of my sorrows

My body is a shadow

The innocent will be aroused at the wicked

v.9 - Job rally’s briefly.

Job’s attitude towards friends

Job 17:10–12 “But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: For I cannot find one wise man among you. My days are past, My purposes are broken off, Even the thoughts of my heart. They change the night into day: The light is short because of darkness.”

v.10 - as if he gives his friends one more chance but concludes there is no wisdom to be found.

His friends call evil good and good evil.

Job’s disappointment

Job 17:13–16 “If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. And where is now my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit, When our rest together is in the dust.”

He thought that he would die before vindicated.

Job’s hope goes to the grave with him.

Conclusion

Focus God’s Purpose

Focus God’s Wisdom

Focus on God’s Love