My Redeemer Lives

Introduction

Object Lesson:

Motivation

Explanation

Job 19 CSB

Then Job answered: How long will you torment me and crush me with words? You have humiliated me ten times now, and you mistreat me without shame. Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me. If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me, then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in his net. I cry out, “Violence!” but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice. He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through; he has veiled my paths with darkness. He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. He uproots my hope like a tree. His anger burns against me, and he regards me as one of his enemies. His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and camp around my tent. He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me. My relatives stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me. My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight. I call for my servant, but he does not answer, even if I beg him with my own mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife, and my own family finds me repulsive. Even young boys scorn me. When I stand up, they mock me. All of my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me. My skin and my flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth. Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for God’s hand has struck me. Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh? I wish that my words were written down, that they were recorded on a scroll or were inscribed in stone forever by an iron stylus and lead! But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me. If you say, “How will we pursue him, since the root of the problem lies with him?” then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.

Summary of 3 points

Blaming God

Illustration: As a parent you don’t want to do everything for your children. Sometimes you decide there’s more benefit in allowing your child to make mistakes, to learn, and to struggle.

Now to be fair, this comparison breaks down pretty hard when we start comparing me to God. For one thing, I don’t have infinite power. So I couldn’t prevent all harm ever from affecting my children. He could. For another, I don’t have infinite knowledge and wisdom. So I can’t see every possible outcome of every possible moment. He however can.

So these two ideas are not the same, but they have the same sort of Spirit. Because God has infinite power it’s very natural to wonder if God is capable of preventing every bad thing from happening to us, why doesn’t He? Why does He allow bad things to happen to us, even when we are doing our best to live for Him?

Sometimes it can be easy to take this problem and make it an accusation against God. He could have prevented this terrible thing from happening to me but He didn’t. Does that mean He’s to blame for what happened? Now in Job’s case, He doesn’t know the behind the scenes like we do. He doesn’t know that God is allowing Satan to test Job’s faithfulness. So when things start to go Horribly wrong for Job He concludes that God must be attacking Him. He says in Job 19:5-10

Job 19:5–10 CSB

If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me, then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in his net. I cry out, “Violence!” but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice. He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through; he has veiled my paths with darkness. He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. He uproots my hope like a tree.

So is God to blame for Job’s suffering? Job’s friends don’t think so, but for the wrong reasons. They believe that Job earned his suffering through wickedness, so God is just to punish Job. They also don’t have all the information and don’t realize that Job is in fact as innocent as he claims to be. No one is without sin, but Job certainly didn’t do something worthy of losing everything including his children.

Yet Job is also wrong because he doesn’t seem to realize the difference between God’s active will and permissive will. Forgive me some technical theological talk, but there’s a difference between the things that God actively decrees or does, and the things that God simply allows. This is an important theological idea because it’s what allows us to view the Garden of Eden in the right light. God didn’t make Eve eat the fruit of the tree and cause the fall of mankind, but He did allow it.

In this case we know very clearly that Job’s story is a case of God’s permissive will, since we get to see the conversation between Satan and God in the heavenly courts. Satan is the one who wants to attack Job, and God allows it. It wasn’t God attack Job, it was God allowing Job to be attacked.

If God is truly sovereign, then nothing enters our lives apart from either His direct action or His permission, since it is within God’s power to stop anything He doesn’t want to happen. Yet God does allow suffering in our lives. Why is that? Because God in His wisdom knows the end from the beginning, and He knows that in some cases things that seem at first bad can lead to a greater outcome than preventing them.

Consider the case of Joseph and His brothers. God allowed Joseph to be beat up and sold into slavery by his brothers. Then He allows Joseph to be falsely accused of assaulting his master’s wife and sent to prison. If we stop there than it seems fair to ask why God would allow such terrible things to happen to him. Yet because he was in prison he was able to interpret the dream of the King’s cupbearer and then be recommended to the King, leading to his advice saving hundreds if not thousands of lives by God’s giving him the ability to interpret the Kings dream. Joseph realizes this when his brothers come to beg him for mercy after the fact, and he says this amazing thing in Genesis 50:19-20

Genesis 50:19–20 CSB

But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.

So we see that God sometimes permits evil because He can use it for an even greater good. We do not always know what the greater good is, and sometimes we won't see it in this life. But Scripture repeatedly teaches that God never wastes suffering and is able to accomplish good purposes even through evil and pain. In the case of Job, what was the greater good? If nothing else the suffering of Job led to the writing of this book of the Bible, which is one of the greatest treatments of how to live with suffering as believers in God. So through Job’s suffering at least thousands have received comfort and wisdom in their greatest trials. Likewise Romans tells us that every thing will ultimately work out for good for those who follow God, including of course those trials that God has allowed us to suffer. Romans 8:28

Romans 8:28 CSB

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

What I don’t want us to miss here is the understanding that when we go through difficult times it does not mean that God is our enemy. God loves us and wants our good. It’s just that sometimes the greatest good for us means going through suffering first. That can be hard to hear as we go through the suffering, but I think it should ultimately be a comfort. You may not see the value now, but the God who “sees the ending from the beginning” does. He is the one who is with you through the suffering.

Feeling Abandoned

Illustration

Motivation

Explanation

Job 19:13–19 CSB

He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me. My relatives stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me. My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight. I call for my servant, but he does not answer, even if I beg him with my own mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife, and my own family finds me repulsive. Even young boys scorn me. When I stand up, they mock me. All of my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.

Application

Our Redeemer Lives

Illustration

Motivation

Explanation

Job 19:25–27 CSB

But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.

Application

Conclusion

Recap

Summary of 3 Points

Sending