“My Redeemer Lives”
Job 3-19
October 26, 2003

Background

A.       Oswald Chambers:

1.    Job - How to suffer

2.    Psalms - How to pray

3.    Proverbs - How to act

4.    Ecclesiastes - How to enjoy

5.     Song of Solomon - How to love

B.        Tennyson wrote, “Job is the greatest poem, whether of ancient or modern literature,”

C.       Contains: 3 rounds = 32 speeches, of 8 people,

D.       After the first two chapters describing the great scene in Heaven and Satan’s testing of Job here on earth, Satan slips into the background and now uses Job’s friends like “fiery darks” and “thorns in the flesh.”

E.        Why does man suffer? Suffering = sin & visa versa: is partially true, man suffers because of sin. But, that is only true in the broadest since that with Adam’s sin, sin entered into creation and mankind along with creation fell.

F.        Job’s friends now test his soul with some of the humanistic philosophies about God that are still very much alive today.

1.    If you are doing well it is because God is happy with you.

2.    If you are doing poorly it is because God is not happy with you.

3.    Good people are blessed in this life.

4.    Bad people are judged in this life.

5.    People serve God because God bribes them to love Him

G.       Our method this morning

1.    We are going to condense and comment on Job 3-19.

2.    We are going to specifically examine 3 ancient questions and two remarkable statements of Job.

I. Why Did I Not Die at Birth? (3:11)

A.       Why am I here?

1.           Suffering causes us to question many things: why, what went wrong, who is really my friend, etc.

2.           Job and his friends had an assumption that life is about quality and quantity. This week brought to our national attention the plight of Terri Schindler-Schiavo a brain disabled woman. The arguments to end her life ranged from quality of life to the quantity of money it takes to keep her alive at tax payer’s expense.

B.       Why can’t I just die when life gets tough? (3:20-21)

1.    If life is just about being happy, then all divorces are justified.

2.    How many parents have spoiled their children into rebellion and said, “All I wanted is for them to be happy.”

II. How Can a Man Be Righteous Before God? (9:2)

A.       Man is so inferior to God (9:1-20)

B.        Man needs a mediator (9:33)

2 Tim. 2:5 “There is also one mediator between God and human beings—a human, Christ Jesus.”

III. Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I Trust Him (13:15-16)

A.       Trust in the nature of God (13:15)

B.        Prayer for the presence of God (13:21)

IV. If a Man Dies, Shall He Live Again? (14:14)

A.       The question of life after death

B.        The unshakable hope that remains

V. I Know that My Redeemer Lives (19:25)

A.       The words engraved on a rock

B.        The hope of the resurrection

a.       Job’s redeemer is a kinsman redeemer. e.g. the story of Ruth

b.      Jesus, our kinsman redeemer