WWUTT 849 Job's Redeemer Lives?

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Will the wicked perish in judgment? Absolutely they will. We may not see consequences for their evil happen to them in this life, but it certainly will happen to them on the day of judgment when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

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Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

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Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Hey, I wanted to apologize for how late yesterday's episode was.

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It didn't show up in your podcast feed until late in the evening. I'm not really sure what happened there.

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I recorded the episode, but maybe when I uploaded it, I didn't submit the changes. I'm not sure, but it was totally on my end, so I apologize.

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And maybe this morning you're not listening to today's episode, but catching up on the one that you missed yesterday because of the late upload.

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We are doing our Old Testament study today, being Thursday, and continuing in the book of Job.

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Today we're picking up in chapter 18. So this is Job's friend, Bildad, who is speaking to him.

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And as things are progressing here, the responses of Job's friends are becoming more terse, and maybe not brief, but certainly more abrasive as they're kind of firing back and forth at one another.

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And Job is gonna respond to Bildad by warning him and the other two friends that they need to be careful with the words that they're saying, thinking that they're in the right and Job is in the wrong because the same terrors that have befallen

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Job could fall upon them as well. These friends of his are speaking like they have all the wisdom and they have all the knowledge, and they're telling

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Job that all of this has happened to you because it's your fault. You have done this to yourself because you've done something wicked and not repented before God.

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But Job maintains his position that he has not done this, but the Lord has done it to him, yet he will continue to call upon God as his redeemer.

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Here we are in Job chapter 18 with Bildad's next response to Job. This is verse one.

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Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said, How long will you hunt for words?

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Consider and then we will speak. Why are we counted as cattle? Referring to how

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Job thinks of his friends. Why are we stupid in your sight? You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you or the rock be removed out of its place?

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And this is Bildad as though he's saying, see our words have a strong foundation.

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Everything that we are saying to you is consistent with general revelation. But what you're saying, would it be as if a rock is removed from its place?

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As though the things that we have observed are not actual, not the way that the world works?

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So then Bildad goes on in verse five. Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out and the flame of his fire does not shine.

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The light is dark in his tent and his lamp above him is put out. His strong steps are shortened and his own schemes throw him down.

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For he is cast into a net by his own feet and he walks on its mesh. And indeed it does say to us in the

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Psalms that the wicked lay a net for themselves. And also in the Proverbs, a person who flatters someone else spreads a net before his feet.

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But the context in which Bildad is speaking here is not like what we read in Psalms.

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That a person, a wicked man will fall into his own pit. But rather Bildad is saying that this is happening with wicked people, with all wicked people.

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Everyone who is wicked, everyone who does evil eventually falls into their own pit. So the reason why this has happened to Job is because he is wicked.

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As I had explained to our Bible study group, because we're going through Job and are a little bit ahead actually of where we are in the podcast.

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But as I explained to my Bible study group, we need to be careful with how we might use the words that Job's friends use.

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And make sure even when we're using Job's words that we're using them in the proper context. Because although there is truth underlying the things that Job's friends are saying, the context in which they're delivered in is worthy of rebuke.

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And in fact, the Lord will rebuke them toward the end of the book of Job. God will say to Job, sacrifice for your friends because they have spoken wickedly.

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They've spoken blasphemously. When Bildad says that the wicked falls into his pit, he's saying this as though this is what's happened to Job.

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Job has therefore done something wicked because all of this disaster has befallen him, cause and effect.

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That's what Bildad is trying to convey here. But Job has argued that the wicked dwell in relative safety.

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I mean, you can look and see that the wicked are still dwelling in their tents. No disaster has befallen them like it's come upon me.

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And Jesus has said also in Matthew chapter five that God sends his son to shine on the just and on the unjust and his rain to fall on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

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So wicked people can experience good times too. It's in the ultimate picture, the big picture when we see that the wicked will not be saved on the day of trouble.

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But in the meantime, in the general ebb and flow of things, the wicked can get away with doing wicked things.

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It's just in the day of judgment, they will not survive. So Bildad is speaking as though judgment befalls all the wicked when they do wicked.

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And yet that's not the way that we see things happen in the world. Yes, the wicked are cast into a net by his own feet, but maybe not in the immediate future.

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Verse nine, a trap seizes him by the heel, a snare lays hold of him, a rope is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the path.

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Terrors frighten him on every side and chase him at his heels. His strength is famished and calamity is ready for his stumbling.

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It consumes the parts of his skin. The firstborn of death consumes his limbs.

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He is torn from the tent in which he trusted and is brought to the king of terrors.

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In his tent dwells that which is none of his. Sulfur is scattered over his habitation.

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His roots dry up beneath and his branches wither above. He is thrust from light into darkness and driven out of the world.

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He has no posterity or progeny among his people and no survivor where he used to live.

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Now that's a particularly sharp argument because Bildad is saying that the wicked have no posterity.

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They have no one to carry on their line. They have no one to inherit their inheritance.

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Just as Job has no children left. They were all killed at the start of the story.

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So Bildad is saying, you're wicked because you've lost all your children and there's no one to carry on your name.

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Therefore you must have done something really bad to deserve this. Last couple of verses.

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They of the West are appalled at his day and horror seizes them of the

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East. Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. Such is the place of him who knows not

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God. Bildad suggesting that Job does not know God.

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But here's how Job replies. Job chapter 19. Then Job answered and said, how long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?

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This is a sharp rebuke of his friends. These 10 times you have cast reproach upon me.

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Are you not ashamed to wrong me? And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

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If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me, know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me.

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Job is saying that God is the one who has done this. Verse seven, behold,

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I cry out violence, but I am not answered. I call for help, but there is no justice.

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Now this is very similar to a way that Habakkuk has started his prophecy.

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The book of Habakkuk chapter one. He says, oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear?

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Or I cry violence to you and you will not save. Why do you make me see iniquity and why do you idly look at wrong?

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Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth.

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That's very similar. It looks very close to what Job has said here. And indeed we do find inspiration throughout the rest of the scriptures in the

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Old Testament and in the New Testament from the words that Job speaks in his book.

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Behold, I cry out violence, but I am not answered and I call for help, but there is no justice.

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Verse eight, he has walled up my way so that I cannot pass and has set darkness upon my paths.

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He has stripped me. He has stripped from me my glory and taken the crown from my head.

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He breaks me down on every side and I am gone and my hope he has pulled up like a tree.

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He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary. His troops come on together.

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They have cast up their siege ramp against me and in camp around my tent.

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Now, of course, this may be metaphorical, but it may also be a literal reference to the angelic army of God, one that is spoken about prominently in the book of 2

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Kings. Verse 13, he has put my brothers far from me and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.

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My relatives have failed me. My close friends have forgotten me. That's an interesting point.

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These words that his friends have levied against him, saying things like,

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Job, you're wicked and that's why all of this has happened to you. They are character attacks.

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They have forgotten who Job is and the integrity by which he walked, the righteousness that he had before God and the fear of the

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Lord that was in his heart. They have forgotten this of Job's reputation.

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My close friends have forgotten me. The guests in my house and my maid servants count me as a stranger.

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I have become a foreigner in their eyes. No one has respect for him in his own home and we've seen that even from his wife in chapter two.

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I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer. I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.

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My breath is strange to my wife and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.

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My brothers and sisters are appalled at me. Even young children despise me. When I rise, they talk against me.

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All my intimate friends abhor me and those whom I loved have turned against me.

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My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. This is how emaciated he is.

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He's loss of energy, loss of muscle mass because of his sickness that has afflicted him and his loss of appetite and loss of sleep.

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He goes on to say, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me, oh you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me.

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Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

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Oh, that my words were written. Oh, that they were inscribed in a book. Oh, that with an iron pen and lead, they were engraved in the rock forever.

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For I know that my Redeemer lives and at last he will stand upon the earth.

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Of course, that is prophetic pointing to Christ. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh,

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I shall see God. And see, there's something prophetic about the dead in Christ will rise.

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Those who have died and have been buried in the ground, yet our bodies will be made imperishable by him who has the power to subject all things to himself, as Paul wrote about in Philippians chapter three.

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Again, the words of Job in Job chapter 19, verses 25 and 26.

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For I know that my Redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

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And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh,

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I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another.

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My heart faints within me. This is Job saying that it's amazing to me to consider it, to ponder it, but it is the only hope that he has, especially when his friends lend him none.

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Verse 28, if you say how we will pursue him and the root of the matter is found in him, be afraid of the sword for wrath brings the punishment of the sword that you may know there is a judgment.

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This is Job saying judgment will come upon man and only those who fear God will survive.

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Only those who fear the Lord when he comes to stand on the earth will have their bodies raised to be with his, but those who do not know

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God will perish in judgment. Chapter 20, this is Job's friend Zophar.

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Then Zophar the Nehemiathite answered and said, therefore my thoughts answer me because of my haste within me.

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I hear censure that insults me and out of my understanding, a spirit answers me.

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This is Zophar saying that Job is telling them to be quiet and if you don't be quiet, judgment is gonna come upon you.

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In Proverbs, it says that a person seems wise until he opens his mouth and speaks. And in Ecclesiastes, Solomon says that a fool multiplies words.

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So here Job has told his friends to be quiet lest judgment come upon them and Zophar is saying, well, because you've told me to be quiet,

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I'm all the more motivated to speak. Verse four, do you not know this from of old since man was placed on earth that the exalting of the wicked is short and the joy of the godless but for a moment?

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And again, that's absolutely true but that's in the ultimate narrative, not necessarily in the immediate context.

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Verse six, though his height mount up to the heavens and his head reached to the clouds, he will perish forever like his own dung.

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Those who have seen him will say, where is he? He will fly away like a dream and not be found.

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He will be chased away like a vision of the night. The eye that saw him will see him no more nor will his place anymore behold him.

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His children will seek the favor of the poor and his hands will give back his wealth. His bones are full of his youthful vigor but it will lie down with him in the dust.

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Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue, though he is loath to let it go and holds it in his mouth, yet his food is turned in his stomach.

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It is the venom of cobras within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again.

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God cast them out of his belly. He will suck the poison of cobras. The tongue of a viper will kill him.

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He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds. He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down.

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From the profit of his trading, he will get no enjoyment for he has crushed and abandoned the poor.

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He has seized a house that he did not build. In James 4, verse 13, we read, come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and build and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.

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Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

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Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

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As it is, you boast in your arrogance and all such boasting is evil.

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And that's similar to what Zophar is saying here, but Zophar does not have the fear of God.

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So he and the rest of Job's friends could learn from James's words.

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Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

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This is the thing about the terror that comes upon the wicked, the judgment that befalls them.

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It's because they did not fear the Lord. They did not care for his will.

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They attempted to do their own and it led to their own destruction. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end is death, as it says in Proverbs.

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So that's what Zophar is arguing for here is that the wicked will eventually fall into their trap, but he doesn't understand the reason why.

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And that being that it's because it's the Lord's will. That's what Job has said. Job has said all of these things that happen are

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God's will. It's God's will whether the wicked live or die. It's God's will whether Job lives in prosperity or that he lives in the anguish that he is in right now.

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Job understands that, but his friends do not. Verse 20, because he knew no contentment in his belly, he will not let anything in which he delights escape him.

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There was nothing left after he had eaten, therefore his prosperity will not endure. In the fullness of his sufficiency, he will be in distress.

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The hand of everyone in misery will come against him. To fill his belly to the full, God will send his burning anger against him and rain it upon him into his body.

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He will flee from an iron weapon. A bronze arrow will strike him through. It is drawn forth and comes out of his body.

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The glittering point comes out of his gallbladder. Terrors come upon him. Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures.

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A fire not fanned will devour him. What is left in his tent will be consumed.

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The heavens will reveal his iniquity and the earth will rise up against him. The possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God's wrath.

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This is the wicked man's portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God.

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And again, this is Zophar's very loving rebuke, I say that very sarcastically, of Job because these closing statements that he's made here is exactly everything that happened to Job.

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His heavens will reveal his iniquity and the earth will rise up against him. Well, where his children had dined, there was a wind that struck the four corners of the house.

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So it came up from the earth and killed them. It says the possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God's wrath.

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Well, that's what happened. A foreign people came and dragged away Job's possessions. And Zophar says, this is the wicked man's portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God.

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All of this has happened to Job because he's wicked. That's Zophar's argument. But that is, of course, we understand not the case.

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Job is not guilty of the things that his friends are accusing him of. And he has not done this to himself.

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It is rather the Lord who has willed it to happen. So if it be the

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Lord's will, we must say so be it. As it says in Ecclesiastes, who can straighten what he has made crooked and instead understand the words of Job from the very beginning of this story, blessed be the name of the

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Lord. Let us praise him in any and all circumstances for his name is great and his love endures forever.

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He is still our Redeemer and he will deliver us in the end.

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Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word,