Job No.7 A glimpse of the resurrection

It's from Job chapter 19. Then Job replied, How long will you torment me and crush me with words? Ten times now you have reproached me, shamelessly you attack me. If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone.

If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me, then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I cry, I've been wronged, I get no response. Though I call for help, there is no justice.

He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass. He has shrouded my paths in darkness. He has stripped me of my honour and removed the crown from my head.

He tears me down on every side till I am gone. He uproots my hope like a tree. His anger burns against me.

He counts me among his enemies. His troops advance in force. They build a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.

He has alienated my brothers from me. My acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My kinsmen have gone away.

My friends have forgotten me. My guests and my maidservants count me a stranger. They look upon me as an alien.

I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to my own brothers.

Even the little boys scorn me. When I appear, they ridicule me. All my intimate friends detest me.

Those I love have turned against me. I am nothing but skin and bones. I have escaped by only the skin of my teeth.

Have pity on me, my friends, have pity. For the hand of God has struck me. Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh? Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever.

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes, I and not another.

How my heart yearns within me. Let's keep our Bibles open at that passage, and let's just pray a moment. Father, we thank you for your inspired word through which you speak to men and women of every generation.

And we ask that right now you will take this word and make it as an arrow that is shot from heaven into the understanding of each one of us. And this we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Sometimes when I've been up at the cemetery for the latter part of a memorial service, I've arrived before the funeral agents, and I've just wandered around the graveyards and seen something of the inscriptions that are upon the stones. Amongst the ones that I recall, actually not from Worthing, but one in Paris, and one from my native, almost native county of Derbyshire. Who are these? From France.

Here is a man who left this world without ever knowing why he came into it. And the one from Derbyshire, well that was on a tomb of a lady who had obviously been a maid, a maid servant, and her life had been filled with activity. And so she had chiseled on the stone, don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never, I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever.

Now according to some of the ancient commentators, those writing two or three hundreds of years before, when you get to the last part of this chapter from the book of Job, what in effect you have is Job determining what will be chiseled into the rock in which his body will be placed. The sepulchral vault you remember, the tomb in which they placed the Lord Jesus, that's the sort of picture that you have in mind, and Job is anticipating the day when he too will be put, his remains, in this tomb. And according to these older commentators, what he's doing here is determining what will be chiseled on the tombstone.

I know, I know that my Redeemer lives. The beginning of time when this book was was written, Job, not a Jew, but nonetheless a patriarch, an old distinguished man from ancient days, wishes that when people pass his mausoleum, the place where he's been buried, that they will recall that Job died in faith. I'll tell you something, you can tell a lot about a person, a person's life by the way that they die, by the way that they approach death.

You want to read Foxe's Book of Martyrs and think of some of the courageous predecessors that we have within the Christian church. Think of Hugh Latimer, as with Ridley, they're about to be burned because of their faith in the biblical doctrines. And they encourage one another and say, well take heart for this day we will light a flame in England that will never be put out.

And I remember the Romanian pastor who once was here in this tabernacle pulpit, who faced by Ceaușescu's security corps, was asked to recant on his faith or else a bullet would be put in his head. And he said, go ahead, fire your shot. My tapes are already sought throughout Bucharest.

When they're baptized in my blood, you'll never stop the message of the gospel in Romania. They kicked him out of the country, they couldn't handle it. But you see my point, the way that he was approaching death, you can tell a lot about a man, about a woman, by the way that they deal with what the hymn writer calls that tremendous hour of passing from this life to the next.

Well here I say in the 19th chapter of Job, we get this dear man positioning himself. And we need to slow down a little bit because I've hardly had chance getting so eagerly warming towards the concept of resurrection, just to give you the run-up to those final verses. This chapter is really like the 8th chapter of Romans.

If you like, in the book of Job, the 19th chapter is a gem in the crown. It is the jewel. Sometimes when running along the seafront, either early in the morning or or towards sunset when it's been a cloudy day, you see the sun just bursting through a gap in the clouds.

And this is how I understand this particular chapter. You see Tim preached from the very somber chapter, the 10th, last time did he not? And the reason why we've jumped over to the 19th is not because we feel that what's between is unimportant, but it's a rerun of these somber things that Tim had to dangle before you. And so we're asking you to read those chapters on your own.

But when you come into the 19th chapter, you will see the underbelly, so to speak, of Job's problem. You will see him groping towards a solution. Better than that, you will see him as an eagle who spots the gap in the clouds and soars majestically up high and looks towards the sun.

And when he comes down, he's still got his problems, but the degree of anguish is not so felt from this time onwards in the book. It's as though he's had a divine tranquilizer and he's unable to cope. I was listening to the man who inducted me into the Christian ministry on the radio this morning.

His name is Hywell Davis and he has a program called Morning Has Broken. If you are up at half past six, it's always worth listening to. It's just him singing and he introduces the choice of hymns.

And I was thinking as I was listening to Jack and memories of yesteryear were brought back, what hymn Job might have sung at the beginning of the whole saga of him being tested in his faith. Because that's what happened. Some of your friends weren't in at the beginning, so those of you who have been, just have a little patience as we fill in the fact that Job is being tested, you see.

Not so much tested deliberately by God, but he allows certain things to happen in his life promoted by Satan, because God believes he can trust Job. God believes over against the the libel of of Satan that there is a man right at the beginning of time whose integrity will remain intact no matter what temptations and difficulties might befall him. So I wonder if an appropriate hymn in dedication to dedicate to Job might have been, will your anchor hold in the storms of life? You see, that's the test, isn't it? And it's the test not just for Job, it's the test for you and for me.

Will your anchor hold when there are certain things that blow upon you that would shift you from your mooring? Can you hang in? Can you hang in, Job? Verses one to four, despite the problems caused by your so-called friends, how long will you torment me and crush me with words? Many times, take ten as proverbial, many times you've provoked me, reproached me, shamelessly you attack me. Job, can you hang on, despite your fears? Look at the fifth verse. His fear is that God somehow has wronged him and allowed a net that's inescapable to fall upon him.

Job, will you still believe when your friends prove difficult and when your fears are overwhelming? And Job, what about your fantasies? When they take you almost, make you almost take leave of your of your senses? Look at the tenth verse. He tears me down on every side till I'm gone. He uproots my hope like a tree.

His anger burns against me. He counts me among his enemies. Here is Job, you remember, he's on a rubbish tip because he feels that that's the place where he belongs.

And he thinks in terms of an army building a siege ramp against me and then camping around my tent. It's quite idiotic, of course, but then fantasies basically are. Now, here's my problem.

Or the problem of Job. And maybe yours when your friends and your fears and your fantasies overwhelm you. Just all hold on by your anchor.

What about your family? I mean, look at verse 13 and down to verse 20. There's a list there of people from whom Job drew great strength in days and years gone by. You see, though Job wants God, he also wants men and women.

I do believe in the fellowship of the saints. I could never have been a hermit. I like my own company, but not too much.

I love other people. I love the story, I've told it to you before, but some of you will have forgotten and some of you weren't in. Of a little girl who gets frightened one night and she's in bed and so she slips out of her room and goes into her dad, the mum's bed.

And dad cradles her in his arms and he says, but darling, Jesus was with you. God's there in your bedroom. The little girl in the historic reply said, yes, I know that, but I need someone with skin on.

My brothers, verse 13. My acquaintances, 13b. My kinsmen, verse 14.

My guests, verse 15. My maidservants, verse 15. My servant, verse 16.

Even the breath, my breath is offensive to my wife and I am loathsome to my own brothers. Put that lot together and you understand what I mean when I ask, will his anchor hold when his nearest and dearest don't understand him? For Job, there are three denials. He's denied the solace of company, the respect of employers and the intimacy of family.

And he tells us in the 18th verse that when the urchins are impudent to a helpless old man, one of the most sacred courtesies of Israelite society is flouted. But they are not afraid to insult Job. Why do those urchins have no fear? Because Job is a man whom God has rejected.

That was the theology of the day. Lost his wealth, lost his health. He must have done something awful.

Laugh at that man. He's God's reject. My friend, God never rejects anybody, nobody here.

But there are circumstances which will befall you in life which would perhaps suggest that that is the case, as is example by Job. So what does Job do? Well in the 21st verse, he appeals to the pity of his friends and he appeals for the justice of God. And then, having cleared the context, I bring you to the marrow, the heart of my text.

And this is from the 23rd verse, almost to the end, but not quite. The Hebrew here is very difficult, notoriously hard to translate, and some people have shied away from it. But actually, it's perhaps got compressed within it some of the most wonderful teaching in the Old Testament.

And as one commentator says, there's no need for the loud note of Job's certainty to be drowned by textual difficulties. So let me try and find out what is the firm ground in these verses. You see, here is Job and he's had all these problems.

He's been able to cope, or seemingly so, with the difficulty of his friends, and his fears, and his fantasies, and his family. How can he cope? Well, because he has this conviction that God is in his circumstances, even though he doesn't know what God is about. And he rises to the greatest heights of almost any man in the Old Testament, as he demands, first of all, a permanent record of his situation.

All that my words were recorded, verse 23, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead. You see, we're back with the concept of the tombstone. What this man wants to say at the beginning of time is, that then, witnessed by others, was someone who retained their faith in God, and who would not blaspheme God, who trusted Him, even though there was evidence to the contrary.

And Job wants that communicated by word of mouth. And then he thinks, well, people will die and the Word may fail, so let's write it down on a scroll. But then a scroll could fade and get torn.

The writing no longer be legible, so let's get a rock, or rather let's get a chisel, and inscribe into the rock my experience. And just in case the winds happen to blow and the rock in some way wears down, let's place within those incisions molten lead, so that when it hardens, there will be for all time this testimony of a man who battled through life and still hung on to the concept that God is, and that God would see him throughout all his difficulties. And you know, my friend, in a way that Job could never have anticipated, his record lives on.

You remember the story of the woman who came to our Lord Jesus and unpinned her hair and washed his feet and put some perfume on it, and the disciples were a little bit annoyed, and Jesus dismissed the objections of his disciples and said, I tell you that wherever the gospel is preached, this act that she has done, as she's prepared my body for the burial, it shall be a memorial unto her. Well, here you have it in the Old Testament, a memorial unto Job. It's written here in Scripture, and those of you who are feeble of faith, who find it so difficult, you can identify with Job, and you realize that his circumstances were worse than yours, because he never had the help that you have.

And so he wants this testimony to be set up at the beginning of time, as to a man who kept faith with God. I know, he says in verse 25, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. Not just a permanent record does Job want to leave, but here is a personal testimony.

Notice, however difficult the Hebrew is, that nonetheless it brings you to a realization that Job is very much involved himself in this pronouncement, I know, my Redeemer lives, my skin, my flesh, I will see God, I myself will see him, with my own eyes, I and not another. Here is Job telling you that his religious experience is a personal thing, and don't you know that when Christian people look down upon the years and see what God has done for them at the cross, they can be forgiven for saying, of the Lord Jesus, he is my Savior. He loved me, and he gave himself for me.

I ask you, do you have this personal experience, this personal encounter with God? We've got the run-up to a general election, and we're all getting confused as to who believes what. Perhaps the greatest amount of confusion is amongst the political parties. I don't speak disrespectfully of politicians, really, they're men who are doing their best, and the best of men are just men at best.

But look, if what I'm telling you this morning is right, and I'm not just some freak preacher, then this is the most important thing that you will ever be asked to consider. Not just a political agenda for the next three or four years, but the way you will negotiate the years of your life and ultimately be carried through into eternity. And this is what Job is going to advise you about, as he tells you that his faith is not limited by the problems that surmount him.

Here is really an Old Testament man living in a New Testament context. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is believing in God.

The greatest compliment that you can pay God is to say, I will trust you. And what God wants are men and women on earth. At the beginning, in the middle of human history, and now towards perhaps the end of the human story, He wants men and women who will believe Him for Himself, who will acknowledge who He is, and will stay any unpleasant answers to any unpleasant questions, which yet have not got an answer, believing that God ultimately will vindicate Himself.

This is what Job did. I know that my Redeemer lives, and I, wretched though I be, boils all over my body, and I'll cast to my family, I who are the buffoons, the joke of the buffoons, of the urchins, I, Job, who really am very much like the ashes on which I sit, I know that my Redeemer lives. And I tell you that you can be in one of the slums of Nairobi, or you can find yourself in a Bihar refugee camp in Bangladesh, with nothing going for you, but if you know that your Redeemer lives, you're better off than many people in Goring, and Charmondeen, and Central Worthing, and East Worthing.

If you know that your destiny is secure, that as you came into life naked, and you'll go out through life naked, from life naked, if you know that in that second nakedness, you go into the presence of Almighty God, then I tell you you're richer than Maxwell was when he rode the crest of the wave financially. I know that my Redeemer lives. Job's faith has a foundation, you see.

It's not just the will of the wisp, it's not just fantasy. He anchors this, I know that my Redeemer lives. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

My Redeemer, what does that mean? Well, it means his goal. It means his nearest kinsman. He tells us in the 20th verse of the 16th chapter, my intercessor is my friend.

He knows that one day will come into this world someone who will so identify with Job, that he must be esteemed as the closest person that he knows. How in old testament parlance, the kinsman had great responsibilities. You remember the story of Ruth and Naomi, and how Boaz came along and married Ruth, because she was the childless wife of one of his relations.

So, our Lord Jesus plays the part of the kinsman. This is what Job is saying, one will come along, and he will remedy all my deficiencies. But that word Redeemer here not only means kinsman, it also means advocate.

You remember Job has asked for an advocate, somebody to take his brief and present it before God. My beloved friend, don't you know that that's part of the brief of our Lord Jesus? Love's Redeemer, plead for me. You say sometimes, brother, why are you so strong in the pulpit, on your affirmations? I'm strong because I know Him.

The strength comes not from me, from my credibility. That's up to question. But you see, we have a man, the God-man, the Redeemer, who comes as our kinsman, takes upon himself the consequences of our sins, and he pleads our cause in the heavenlies.

We have an intercessor, we have a high priest. You remember this is the whole teaching of Hebrews. So much of Hebrews is actually anticipated by Job.

It's quite incredible. He wants a kinsman. He wants an advocate.

He wants a Savior. And this is what our blessed Lord is. And so, Job, as he makes reference to the assistance that God will give, he says, my.

It's a language of appropriation. My Redeemer. It's a language of choice.

My Redeemer. It's a language of faith. It's a language of love.

It's a language of assurance. As one ancient commentator puts it, this little word is like the honey on Jonathan's stuff. It enlightens the eyes and puts strength into the soul.

My Lord and my God, he loved me and gave himself for me. I know that my Redeemer lives. And? Well, Job goes to the ultimate, doesn't he? At the end, after my skin has been destroyed, with my own eyes, I will see God.

I didn't actually read Martin Lloyd-Jones's book of nursery rhymes. I'm looking forward to being given a copy after this morning's address. But here is the good doctor.

Christian man. It's a Christian man who can be certain about the ultimate when he is most uncertain about the immediate. Do you hear that? It's a Christian.

He doesn't understand everything. If a Christian tells you that, then you must say that he's claiming too much. We have been given a limited revelation.

We're able to cope with life as it is, but there are certain problems that are unresolved, even for Christian people. But you see, the Christian is always sure of the ultimate, even when he's not too sure of the immediate. And this is Job.

I know that after my skin has been destroyed, the Egyptians tried to preserve their pharaohs, and to some degree, they were successful. Many ancient tribes have tried to preserve their people, and their success was very limited. Whether your body is one day exposed to the fires of the crematorium, or whether it's placed in a coffin and sunk in the earth, you know that Mother Earth will consume the child, the children that she has borne.

Thus thou art, and to thus thou shalt return. There is no way of being an exception to the rule. But listen, he who spoke the creative word at the beginning of time will speak again.

A Mother Earth will release the atoms, the molecules that have been the constituent part of your body, and it will come together again, bone upon bone, sinew upon sinew. It will be a body of renewal, not made for time, but made for eternity. Job says this, I know that though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, and I will see him for myself.

Job, how can you be so sure? You're whistling in the dark. Job, you're fantasizing the ashes. You've breathed them into your lungs, and there's been some chemical freak as a result to cause you to romanticize.

But Job says, no, my hope is built not on my fantasy. My hope is built on the fact that my Redeemer lives. And when the kinsman Redeemer came into the world, he said, I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes on me shall never die. Do you believe this? He addressed the question to a woman. But do you know there's only one gospel? It's retrospective and it's prospective.

Those who live before the days of Christ nonetheless are blessed with the blessings that he gives. Do you believe? Yes, says Job, I believe. I believe in you.

I believe that you will live forever and that somehow I am entangled with you. That you have embraced me, O love that will not let me go. I know that my Redeemer lives, and in my flesh I shall see God with my own eyes.

And not another. He's not saying that nobody else will. But he's saying that he'll see for himself.

Sometimes when our brothers and sisters come back from abroad, they tell us of the horrendous situations that confront them in third world countries. And occasionally as they're given a gift of speech and as a burden is conveyed, you see the problem with them. Their eyes become your eyes.

Now Job says, this won't be the case. At the end, I will see God with my own eyes. And that's the most important thing that you need to have in mind as your goal.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Every eye will see him, says David. I will be satisfied when I arise, when I awake in thy likeness.

The path of the just is as a shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day. Our even tide, it shall be light. Do you want more scriptures? There are five that just tripped from my mind.

I could give you dozens that speak of the greatness and the grandeur of the glory that there is for the Christian person at the end. So why be so distressed about the intermediate and the problems that baffle and have no easy solution when you know that the end is guaranteed in the person and on the authority of the one whoever lives to make intercession. You see that last line in the 27th verse? It is impossible to translate it.

How my heart yearns within me. A literal one would be, my kidneys have gone into my heart. That just makes the mind blow, doesn't it? Now don't be worried about this in the inspiration of scripture.

You see, even the people who wrote scripture had problems. Now Tim and I understand it, I even more than he, because he can get his words out more clearly I think at times than I can. The Apostle Paul can understand this because, you see, when you go to his epistle to the Romans, sometimes he's almost deluded in the power and the majesty and the love of God, and he breaks every rule of the Greek language in trying to get across just how big God is.

And I say, thank you, Paul. That justifies me for the many times I butcher the Queen's English. You see, there are some things that so arouse the soul, even of the writers of the Old and the New Testament, that they can't compress it.

Words are feeble vehicles to be able to withstand the pressure and the weight of some of these truths. So here is Job, and he's elated as he soars like an eagle above the clouds, and he takes a look towards the sun, and he knows what's out there, and he says, my heart, my kidneys, my reins, my innermost being, it yearns to be with this great God. Forgive the emotion, but how do you preach this stuff without? You know a great deal about a man and a woman in the way that they face death, because death has no exceptions.

We all go that way. But here's a man at the beginning of time who will teach you how to face death, because he knows that his life is bundled up into the purposes of God, and he stacks everything on God, and God's not going to let him down. He's not going to fail.

Job, will your anchor hold? Are your fears? Are your fantasies? Your friends? They've let you down? Job, will your anchor hold? I, he says, I know. I know. I, Job, know that my Redeemer lives, and he will come back to this earth, and restore it to its pristine glory, and on that occasion, I, Job, will be reborn, will be resurrected to live with God in the new heavens and the new earth eternally.

Do you? Let's listen to a song. Upon, upon. Come destroy this body.

Yet in my soul shall I see God. Yet in my flesh shall I see God. I know my Redeemer lives, and so come destroy this body.

Yet in my flesh shall I see God. Yet in my flesh shall I see God. Shall I see God.

My Redeemer lives, risen from the sleep of his Christ, risen, for now is Christ risen from death. Holy.