He Will Rise Up Over the Dust of this World - Brandon Scalf

Heritage Church Tulsa

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All right, church, well, he is risen. He's risen indeed.

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Amen. And if that's true, that Christ is in fact risen, our hope is indestructible.

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Sin cannot touch it, Satan cannot take it, man cannot destroy it, and darkness cannot dim it.

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And it's that hope that we rest in, the risen Christ, this morning, as we turn to the book of Job, a somewhat unorthodox passage of Scripture for Easter Sunday, no doubt, but one we are going to revel in.

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And so, if you would, turn to Job chapter 19. If you don't know where Job's at, that's about halfway through your

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Bible, right before you get to the Psalms. And as you're turning there, please allow me to pray for our time together.

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Once again, that is Job 19, and we will be specifically looking at verses 25 through 27.

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Father, we come before you this morning in awe of your gospel work, in awe that you caused not only our sin to be paid for on the cross on this past Good Friday, but that you raised your

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Son, Jesus, whom you crucified from the dead, sealing for us our justification in your sight and unifying us to his person.

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We thank you for this finished work, and we thank you that we now have a chance to revel in it, proclaim it, and to preach it inside and outside these walls.

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We ask that you would be present this morning and that you would transcend all of our distractions and shortcomings and weaknesses and failures, and that you would help us to see your

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Son more clearly, love him more deeply, that we might be sanctified by his Spirit more fully.

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We ask this in Jesus' meritorious name, amen. When I was 16 years old, my best friend died in a car accident.

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And his tombstone had a sentence written on it that said this, to live is to be loved.

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To live is to be loved. Now, I'm not exactly sure why

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Joe had that written down, that was his name, in many notebooks, but he did.

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And so his grandparents, after his death, finding his notebook, saw this mantra littered throughout everything that he had.

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And I guess what his grandma was thinking was, this must symbolize the heart posture and life of this individual, so much so that it should be put permanently on a piece of stone that would hang over his body.

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Now, when you're younger, you think things like that are, of course, sad and also strange.

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And when you're confronted with death at such an early age, you begin to ask sorts of questions that might seem somewhat morbid.

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But as I got older, I found that, you know, everyone kind of does the same thing.

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And I would talk with my friends, and we would be thinking, well, what would we put on our tombstone? What would we want our tombstone to say that would reflect who we are, what we believed, and what our legacy is?

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In an attempt to find a illustration for this point, you know,

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I saw some people who put on their tombstone, I was sick, I told you so. Other people wrote something to the effect of, you know, here lays such and such, a warrior for the cause of Christ.

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What your tombstone says about you when you die is what you want people to remember.

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And the reason that I begin my sermon this way is because the text that we are going to be looking at today is essentially, precisely, what

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Job wanted written on his tombstone, as it were. Job suffered mightily, as we will get into momentarily.

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He felt alone. He felt the harshest things that this world had to offer.

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And then in verse 23, he says, oh, that my words were written, oh, that they were inscribed in a book that was in an iron stylus, and lead they were engraved in the rock forever.

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And what are those words? Those words are this, which we find in our text.

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So if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and all -sufficient word.

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The words that he once written and engraved on rocks forever are these.

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As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. And at the last, he will rise up over the dust of this world.

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Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall behold God, whom

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

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My heart faints within me. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our

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God endures forever. You may be seated. As we look at the book of Job, we are confronted with the atrocities that meet us in this life.

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It is one of the most studied books. It is one of the most read books. It is one of the most literary -appreciated books, even in secular literature departments at colleges across the country.

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And the reason for that is clear. It resonates with us. It resonates deeply with the human experience of suffering and how that intersects with faith.

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It was quite possibly the first book that was written in the Bible. There's no doubt about it that Job was one of the first human beings ever to exist.

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It's evident from the Scriptures because there are no mentions of Israel in the way that future books would talk about.

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As a matter of fact, he was likely an Edomite. And this book is also filled with lots of unanswered questions, which, that feels like life, right?

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Why do things happen? As a matter of fact, that's the question that Job continues to ask.

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And when you get to the end of it, God essentially says, over and over, I'm not going to tell you.

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So the book of Job actually is centered around three conversations. The first conversation at the beginning of Job is between the devil and God.

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The devil shows up to God, comes before his court, and says, Job is only righteous.

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It only loves you. It only promotes your goodness and greatness in the land because you have given him wealth, prosperity, and influence and lots of family members.

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It was likely that Job was actually a king, the second king of Edom. And, of course,

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God says, no, he is righteous because he loves me. He's righteous because he's godly.

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And nothing that you could do will be able to pull him from his affection toward me.

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And so the devil, of course, is given reins to take everything that Job has.

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His wealth is removed from him. His influence is removed from him. His children are killed in natural disasters.

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And he still does not sin and look away from the Lord. And so, of course, the devil comes back and says, well, okay, but if you touch his body, if you make him ill, he will turn.

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God says, okay, go ahead. And, of course, he maintains his righteousness and he maintains responding in a godly manner.

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The second conversation in the book of Job is between Job and his friends where they come around him and they're trying to get him to own his sin.

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Because, of course, that's the way God's providence works. If bad things are happening to you, it must be because you are a sinner.

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There must be some unrepentant sin in your life that you are continually committing if all of the stuff is going to be removed from you and all of these health problems are coming upon you.

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There must be some reason for that. Of course, they were completely wrong.

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The last friend to come in, Elihu, is actually the only one who begins to speak a little bit of sense.

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And then God in Job is the next conversation. He meets him in the whirlwind and basically affirms all that Elihu has said.

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And he begins to tell him not why he's been suffering. He did not help him understand that he was being tested to prove the validity of his faith and his suffering.

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He didn't tell him about the conversations that he had with the devil. He simply reminded him of one very important truth.

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I am God. I am God. And, of course, at the end of the book of Job, Job winds up repenting.

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He winds up repenting. And he winds up repenting not because he responded to suffering in an ungodly way.

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As a matter of fact, the book of Ezekiel reminds us that there are some men we should look to as far as righteousness is concerned.

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And he says three names. And Job is one of those names.

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He sinned not in response to his suffering but in response to his friends.

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Sometimes friends can be the most unhelpful in times of trial.

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And that is why we must look to the one true God. And so we come to chapter 19.

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And Job is under the weight of having everything removed from him. And we see in verses 1 through 5 that he has concluded that his friends hate him.

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That in verse 6 through 12 his God hates him. And in verses 13 through 22 that his family hates him.

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Every relationship he's ever had has either been removed or has been impacted by this situation.

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His skin is falling off his body. He's suffering tremendously. And yet we get these words.

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The words that he wants essentially, like I said, written on his tombstone. As for me,

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I know that my Redeemer lives. And at the last, he will rise up over the dust of this world even after my skin is destroyed.

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Yet from my flesh I shall behold. So the first thing that I want you to see as we examine this text is the certainty of the

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Redeemer and his redemption. Here on Easter Sunday we proclaim the same truth that he utters here.

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Although with much clearer vision. That our Redeemer lives.

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The thing is, Job did not have the same Bible that we have. He did not have progressive revelation showing the covenant relationship of God and what it means that God is ultimately the

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Redeemer especially through Christ. But he knew. He knew. It says,

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I know that my Redeemer lives. And we can see this littered throughout the book of Job.

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In Job 9, 33 we start to see vague hope and faith and action.

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He says, there is no adjudicator between us. Who may lay his hand upon us both? And in Job 16, 19, he says even now behold my witness is in heaven and my advocate is on high.

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He's being attacked. He's being accused of sin in his life and that may be the reason of course that he is going through all of this suffering and he says,

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I need somebody to act on behalf of me. I need somebody to step in the way and to be a person who will advocate for me and let the truth be known.

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Because everybody around me is saying, this is true of you, this is true of you, this is true of you. That's not true of him.

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And so he says, I know. I have faith essentially that there is someone who will be a

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Redeemer to me. So what is a Redeemer? Well, the word here is the same word that was used over and over in the book of Ruth as we went through that book as a church together.

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And this word here has packed with theological meaning.

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Of course, in the book of Ruth, we know that Boaz redeemed Ruth from her situation. That is, he being the next one in the bloodline was able to marry a person whose spouse had died.

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So Naomi, if you remember, in the first chapter was widowed.

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Her children had died and she was left with Ruth. And to be without friends and food and help in that time frame would have been catastrophic.

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She needed a Redeemer. And so the story there is that he redeemed her,

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Ruth and, of course, Naomi along with her, their entire situation making right what was wrong.

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And the same imagery is littered throughout the Old Testament to bring

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God's covenant people out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery. This is another beautiful imagery that is depicted in the word

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Redeemer. That God removes his people from slavery.

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Now, of course, Job had no context of much of what I'm saying now, but he knew that there was one who would be his

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Redeemer. And the King James is translated champion. He knew that God would be his champion.

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And we know that he's speaking of God because he goes on to talk like it's God for one thing, and we'll get to that in a moment, but also it's saying that the

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Redeemer lives. It can also be translated that my Redeemer, the living one.

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And the living one, or the living God, is what God is called throughout all of the Old Testament because we have a

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God who is not dead. We have a God who lives.

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Understanding redemption is so important, in fact, that Puritan Thomas Watson once said, great was the work of creation, but greater is the work of redemption.

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It costs more to redeem us than to make us. In the one, there was but the speaking of a word.

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In the other, the shedding of blood. And so, for him, he needed a

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Redeemer because he needed somebody to be his advocate because he was righteous, and everybody was saying he was sinful.

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But we know, because we look at the Bible with redemptive historical lenses, that this points to a bigger and greater reality found in the redeeming work of our

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Lord Jesus Christ who is our advocate. Though we were not righteous, he is our great

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Redeemer. The second thing that I want you to see in this text is the hope of his future resurrection.

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The hope of his future resurrection. Jesus paid our debt, satisfied

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God's justice for sin, and he redeemed us from the bonds of slavery, and that is what

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Good Friday was all about if you were here. But, as has been said,

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Sunday is here, and resurrection is what we celebrate. He goes on to say,

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I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, he will rise up over the dust of this world.

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Now, of course, you can see the resurrection imagery happening here, but as I said previously, he's looking for an advocate to rise up, to advocate at the end on judgment day, so to speak, or even before he dies.

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We don't know exactly what he is speaking of here, but what is clear is that Job believed that no matter how others saw his life presently, that God would have the last word and finally vindicate him.

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He would rise up. He would have the last word. He would have the last witness. He would have the last voice.

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He would have the last verdict. He would get his truth across.

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And it says that he would rise up, this imagery here, rising up to be this advocate, and he would be over the dust of this world.

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Now, as we look at this particular set of words, you will notice, if you're using the

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Legacy Standard Bible, that there are some words that are supplied here. Of this world is not in the original text.

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That is supplied by the translation team because that's what makes the most sense.

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They're helping us, but thank God that we use a translation that tells us when they are adding something, because most translations keep that hidden.

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So it would read, rather, woodenly, and at the last he will rise up over the dust. And, well, the

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Old Testament uses this particular Hebrew word that they have chosen to translate, dust. It is oftentimes used of the material from which the human body is composed.

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In other words, it is the grave itself. Job is completely convinced that he is about to die.

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We can see this in Job chapter 17, verse 1. He says, my spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me.

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And if he's not convinced he's going to die because of the ailments that he's in, he most certainly knows that he will die. He understands his frailty, which we'll get to here in a moment.

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So, in other words, what Job is saying is he knows his Redeemer is the Living One.

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He lives, and he reigns and rules from heaven. And at the last, that is when he will get the last word, or at the judgment day, when all will be laid bare, he will rise up, but he will rise up over the grave, or over his grave.

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We can see that this word is used this way specifically when we look at Isaiah 26, 19. It says, your dead will live, your corpses will rise.

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You who dwell in the dust that is in the grave, awake and shout for joy, for your due is at the due of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to departed spirits.

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Jesus rose from the grave. And this is a type of shadow pointing to that beautiful reality that we come here today and bask in.

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And the resurrection is so very important. It is the foundation on which

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Christianity stands on. Paul makes this irrefutably clear when he says, if Christ has not risen, then eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

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In other words, if we are not saved by Christ, and Christ has not been risen from the dead, then we've just made up a lot of really stupid stuff.

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And there's so much better things we could be doing with our time. There is better things that you could be doing on Sunday morning.

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Apparently, there's a new holiday. Just a few days ago,

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Joe Biden announced that March 31st, today, is the first transgender visibility day. If God raises the dead, it changes how you should look at that.

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If he did not rise from the dead, then we should probably be hanging out with them and participating in that.

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That's what Paul is saying. The resurrection changes absolutely everything!

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John Stott says it like this, Christianity is, in its very essence, a resurrection religion.

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The concept of the resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.

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The reason that we worship Jesus is because Jesus is alive. Amen? Charles T.

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Russell, dead. Mary Baker Eddy, dead.

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Joseph Smith, dead. Mohammed, dead.

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But our Jesus, he lives. And with the eyes of faith,

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Job saw that there would be a day that his redeemer would rise from the dust of this world.

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He would stand atop the grave. And friends, this is so important.

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So important. I want you to see a few reasons to believe in Christ's resurrection, because here's what I know. I know there might be people here who think that's crazier that he did it spiritually.

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No, it was a very physical resurrection, not just a spiritual one. And there are reasons that you should believe it.

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The first would be because the Bible says it happened. There are a lot of really good reasons to entertain the idea that Christ rose from the dead.

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But all of them pale in comparison to the reality that the God -breathed word reveals it to you and I.

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Old Testament prophecies look to the resurrection happening. We just saw that in Isaiah. We're looking at it right now in Job.

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And the New Testament. The historical accounts show it. And the rest of the

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New Testament looks back and produces or helps us understand the theology of what it means that Christ was resurrected.

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The Bible teaches it. We believe it. We love it. We promote it. But God in his grace gives us so many more reasons to believe in Christ's resurrection.

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The second one is that Jesus really died. Now I want to equip you with some of these because there's going to be a lot of people if you really believe the foolishness of the gospel.

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And I say that because that's what Paul calls it. A stumbling block to the

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Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. That is a stumbling block to religious people and foolishness to people who consider themselves to be intellectual.

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Jesus really died. People will say, oh no, he did not die. There was either this thing called the swoon theory or there was mass hallucinations.

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That is that either his body was taken out of the tomb and they pretended because Jesus made it very clear that he would be coming back.

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And so maybe his disciples were like, well we have to make sure that this is true for the rest of history.

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So we'll snatch the body. No one will be the wiser. The problem with that is that the Romans guarded

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Jesus' tomb for this very reason. They knew that Jesus was claiming that he would rise from the dead.

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This is why they had guards set up at his burial site. The New Testament shows us that, but it's also in outside literature.

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When you look at Josephus, for example, they took great precaution to make sure that nobody would steal that body.

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Also, mass hallucinations. Nothing in history has ever produced a mass hallucination where everybody agreed to and saw the exact same thing.

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It's not scientifically possible. Another reason that you should believe

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Christ's resurrection is because there's an empty tomb. There is an empty tomb.

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What many of you may not know is that when someone was buried in a Roman empire, they would roll a very heavy stone that not many people could lift and they would brand it with a

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Roman seal. So if it was opened, you would know.

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And yet we still have this empty tomb. Another reason that you should believe the resurrection because women saw him and reported it as well as others.

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The first one is actually pretty important. Well, all of them are important, but the fact that women saw them and reported it is huge.

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At that time, women were not seen as being intellectually able to participate in any type of government handlings or court handlings.

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And so what they would not allow is for a woman to go into the public square or to a court situation and say, hey,

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I saw this happen. They would immediately throw it out, say that the testimony is not valid.

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And who were the first people that saw Jesus and reported?

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Women. And they kept talking about it. And no one tried to silence them.

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Now, if you were trying to make something up in a culture where women were not allowed to testify and were seen as not good witnesses, you probably would not use them as your first choice to create a lie.

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But if it's true, you let them talk. But also, there were hundreds of eyewitnesses.

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Biblical accounts say that there were hundreds of people that saw Jesus over the course of 40 days, six weeks after his resurrection.

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Paul talks about this in the New Testament. People talked about it at length.

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Well, pastor, you can't use your Bible. Why? Why can't

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I use my Bible? Why can't you use your Bible? Because you know, we know what the

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Bible says far more accurately than any other book in antiquity.

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We have far more manuscripts that testify of the valid nature of the words on our page than any other book that has been written in human history.

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Not only that, but it is written closer to the date of these things happening than most other things in history that have been written as well.

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For instance, everything that we know about Alexander the Great was written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years after the death of Alexander the

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Great. Liberal scholars could date books in the

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New Testament to being 80 years after the events happening. So yes, this is a valid historical document.

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It's not just a religious textbook. And it tells us that Jesus rose from the dead.

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Another reason that you should believe the resurrection is the radical change in the disciples.

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One reason you should believe the Bible is because the heroes of the story are not heroes. The disciples were always messing up.

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They were completely cowardly, and they never understood what Jesus was talking about. Now, if you were going to write something,

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I don't know, namely a gospel that talked about you and your relationship with the Son of God, you might, if you were making something up, make yourself look a little better.

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But the reason you should believe the resurrection is because those men who were that way were emboldened as soon as Jesus rose from the dead.

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Judas betrayed him. Peter denied him. The rest of his disciples, if you were here on Friday, scattered and left him.

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But after Jesus rose from the dead, they became courageous warriors for Jesus' name and His cause.

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Except for Judas, because he hung himself in shame and guilt. And most of them died martyrs' deaths.

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Peter, the one who denied him three times, may be the most cowardly out of them all.

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Church history records that he was crucified upside down because he did not want to be crucified like his

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Savior. He was not worthy to be crucified right side up. Paul was beheaded.

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John was put on an island and boiled alive. And they all did this.

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Why? Because they saw Jesus risen indeed.

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Children, would you look at me? Did you know that Jesus really rose from the dead?

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And did you know that that should change the way that you live your life? It should change the things that you prioritize, and it should give you courage when you're scared.

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Especially when you're talking about Jesus and telling your friends about Jesus. Because the

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God who raised Jesus from the dead is with you. And that's what these apostles understood even to the point of death.

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Another reason you should believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is because the entire Jewish religion flipped upside down.

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Nothing in history before that or since has happened.

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Think about it this way. The same group of leaders who crucified the Lord Jesus Christ because he said he was

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God within 30 years of Jesus' death had new church planting campaigns all around the city, turning their tabernacles into houses of worship for the

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Lord Jesus Christ. The day of worship changed for all of them.

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The sacrificial system was abolished. And only a small remnant of people during that time rejected the

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Messiah. Why? Because Jesus rose from the dead.

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And the last reason that you should believe, although there are many more, that Jesus rose from the dead is because you're sitting in these pews right now 2 ,000 years later.

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Jesus promised Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail against his church and it hasn't. In fact, it's only grown.

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The third thing that I want you to see now that we have looked at the certainty of the

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Redeemer and his redemption and the hope of his future resurrection, his future, our past,

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I now want you to see the reality of human frailty. He moves on and says in verse 26, even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh

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I shall behold God. That first line, even after my skin is destroyed, is something that all of us need to reckon with.

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Even after my skin is destroyed. The King James version renders this, and I like it a lot.

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It says, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet from my flesh

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I shall behold God. He's saying I'm going to die.

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Even after I die, something is going to happen. He's speaking about his death and the decomposition of his body, going into that same grave that Jesus will stand over.

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Why? Because the wages of sin are death. And one thing that we don't often think about, as we ought to think about, especially on Resurrection Sunday, is that we all are promised the grave.

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There's not one of us sitting in these chairs that will escape death unless the

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Lord returns tomorrow. We all will grow older, we will all get sick, we will all have issues, and we will all be returned to the earth because, as I said, the wages of sin are death.

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Jesus did not decay in the ground, and yet we will go where the worms, as the

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King James says, will eat our body. What does the reality of human frailty as shown in Job's suffering remind you of?

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Does it remind you of the importance of placing your hope in Christ? Does it cause you to think about what's to come?

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Well, it did for Job. It did for Job, which is the fourth thing that I want you to see.

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The end of all pain. He goes on and says, not only is he going to die, not only is his skin going to be destroyed, not only is he going to be in the grave, but from his flesh he will behold

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God. Now there's a lot to look here, look at here.

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One of the most beautiful things that, if you're not careful, you'll miss, he says, from my flesh I shall behold

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God. He just said he's going to die, his skin is going to be destroyed. But here he says from his flesh he shall behold

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God. Who? The Redeemer, the living one, the one who will rise up over this grave.

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What Job is saying here, and what you should believe, is that he will also be resurrected.

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Not spiritually, but physically, in the flesh. And God is going to be right there.

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And it's not divorced from the Redeemer's redemption and his vindication.

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So Job's theology of resurrection is relational or covenantal and centered on the

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Redeemer. That is union with Christ. The reason that the resurrection is so important is because if you've been paying attention to the book of Ephesians as we've been walking through it, we have been in Christ, what?

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We've been resurrected with him. We've been, what? Thrust into heaven with him.

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And we sit spiritually and reign with him. And so for Job, and for Paul, and for every other

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Christian in the world, him being risen from the dead is the only way that we rise from the dead.

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And because he rises from the dead, we too will no longer sit in a grave filled with worms, but on the last day he will rise us all from the dead.

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This is what Job is seeing. His Redeemer lives and he will rise up and he will vindicate

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Job over the grave and though he dies, he will yet in his flesh, with his own eyes behold

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God. How is that possible? How is it possible? Well, Good Friday.

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Which is why all of you should have been here. Because you do not get

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Resurrection Sunday without Good Friday. You don't get life without Jesus' death.

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And because of his death, and because he tasted it, we now taste and join in his resurrection.

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Christ tasted death for all those who would hope in him. Hebrews 2 .9 says, but we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels,

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Jesus. Because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

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How could we live? Because Jesus tasted our death. Christian.

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This is why the psalmist says in Psalm 27, 13 and 14, I would have despised unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living.

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Hope in Yahweh. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Hope in Yahweh. Why? Because Jesus takes away the sin of those who would trust in him.

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And because of those who have trusted in him are unified to his life and to his death. They too will be raised to a newness of life where they will actually be with.

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See, the end of the Bible is not that we would be saved and sucked out of this place and we would just go dwell in heaven and play on harps for the rest of our life.

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As sin is so often depicted in movies and in cartoons. The end of the story of the

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Bible is that God saves a people for himself. And he is creating a new heavens and a new earth.

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A new heavens and a new earth. And he will, Jesus, come back after having been in heaven sitting on his throne to come, he will come back to conquer the last enemy which is death.

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And he will dwell on this earth with us.

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And we will live before him and we will behold his glory.

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And we will labor unto the Lord and we will live unto the Lord. Everything, everything, I always make the joke because it's true.

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Everything that you guys do is holy if you're doing it unto the Lord. This is what the scriptures say.

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All your labor is not in vain no matter what it is. See, oftentimes people look up at this pulpit and they will say, oh, like, that's the most holy job that you can do.

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No. Everybody else is going to keep doing their jobs except for doctors and preachers. And the new heavens and new earth were out of a job.

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But the rest of labors are going to continue on because we will be here on a recreated earth with our

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Savior and we will behold his glory. So for the

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Christian friends, death is not the gateway into an ultimate darkness but rather it is a means of meeting with, living with, and loving forever the

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Christ who saved us. Which is why I often say heaven is not a place for people who are scared of hell but rather heaven is a place for people who love

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Jesus. And that goes for the new creation where we will dwell in restored and remade flesh.

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What a beautiful reality. Fifth thing that I want you to see is the cry of the

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Christian heart. Being resurrected alongside our

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Christ is awesome. It's going to be wonderful. But if that's what you're looking forward to, you've missed it all.

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Because what Job doesn't do is rejoice in being resurrected. He rejoices in the fact that he will behold his

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God. He continues on, I shall behold

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God and whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me.

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What Job is doing here is reminding us to gaze upon God and all his glory throughout eternity was his only joy.

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It was the hope that he had. It's what he desired. He would see

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God face to face. What an all consuming vision.

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Friends, the cry of the Christian heart is not that, well, Jesus was resurrected and so I'll be resurrected.

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The cry of the Christian heart is, I will be resurrected and I will see God. I will dwell with God.

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He will wipe every tear from my eye. You see, what Job didn't know, that we know now looking on this side of things, is that he will have all of these things before he dies restored back to him.

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But friends, the story of the Bible is that if you are in Christ and you are resurrected to another life in him, you will also be given back everything that has been taken from you.

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Maybe not riches and gold and all of these other things, but you will get more than that in Christ Jesus.

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Being in relationship with Christ Jesus and dwelling in the presence of God the Father, being empowered by the

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Holy Spirit, hearing the beauties and glories of who Jesus is for the rest of eternity is more than enough to pay you back for a lifetime of hell.

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And I do mean that because this earth is the closest thing that you will ever get to hell if you are a

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Christian. And if you do not know Jesus, if you have not bowed your knee to him, this is the closest to heaven that you will ever taste.

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And let that worry you. Does your heart yearn to behold

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God? Well, if you're not yearning to behold God now, you won't then. Behold this

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God. Behold this God. Think about this

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God. Live for this God. Die, if it so means you have to, for this

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God. And be with this God for eternity. These truths are what caused a hymn writer to write these famous words.

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There in the ground his body lay, light of the world by darkness slain. Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again.

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And as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me, for I am his and he is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ.

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Our Redeemer, who secured on Good Friday our redemption by paying for our sins, now rises from the dead on Easter Sunday, sealing our justification.

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God, as it were, puts a stamp of approval on the finished work of Christ, and those who are unified with him are going to be resurrected as well on the last day.

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And they will live and bask in the glory of God. So how do we use this text?

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I have just a few things that I want to say before we leave this morning. I want you to remember that those who trust in Christ are cleared of the charges against them because they have a redeeming advocate who has secured our justification by his resurrection.

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The resurrection is what everything stands on. And you see,

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Job here needed vindication because he was in the right, but praise be to God that we, on the last day, will have an advocate, even though we lived in rebellion against him.

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You see, we can't stand before anyone and say, we have not sinned.

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And Jesus marched up that hill in Golgotha, and his hands were pierced, he bled his blood, and he absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf.

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The punishment that was due us, and then he rose, having paid the sin that man owed.

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He kicked open the grave and secured for us life eternal.

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This is why Romans 4 .25 says, he who was delivered over on account of our transgressions or sins, and was raised on account of our justification.

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And here's what that means, friends. Though you are an unworthy sinner, though you have rebelled against your

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God, he has saved you and caused you to walk in his statutes. And when we stand before God on judgment day, he will rise up like Job's redeemer, and he will advocate for us, and he will say, on the merits of the blood that I spilled down this cross, you will dwell with them forever.

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On the merit of my work, these are your sons and your daughters. On the merit of my work, they will be resurrected to a newness of life.

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Oh, our redeemer does in fact live. Secondly, we will be resurrected because our redeemer has been resurrected, because of our union with Christ.

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Where he goes, we go. Because as you have learned as we've walked through the book of Ephesians, Christians are in him.

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And thirdly, we will remember, or remember rather, that we will behold our

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God forever. So the beauty of Christ's resurrection, and the beauty of our resurrection, is not just that we don't die.

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It's that we get God. We get God. We get him.

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We get him. We get to bask in his greatness, his goodness, and compassion.

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And friends, I stand up here week in and week out, and I attempt to preach the gospel, and to show you the beauties and glories of Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us.

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And friends, if that does not enthrall you, not because of any oration or anything like that, that heaven and the new heavens and new earth being resurrected unto a newness of life with the resurrected one, it will, oh, it would be horrible.

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You must understand that God is the gospel. In the work of Christ, we get

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God. In the resurrection of Christ, we get the last thing

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I will say in closing to those of you who have rejected at this point in your life the free offer of God's gospel in Jesus Christ.

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I want you to understand that what we said about death is true. It's coming for you.

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But the difference, and there is a difference between what will happen to us as God's covenant people, who have trusted in him by faith and the work of his son,

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Jesus Christ, is that you will die and then bad things will just continue to happen to you for the rest of eternity.

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But on Easter Sunday, with pierced hands, Jesus says, come, come.

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Bow your knee to this king who was risen and really risen from the dead. Trust in him.

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Believe that his death was substantial enough to forgive you of your iniquities, to thrust you into a life that is meaningful, where you will eventually dwell with God and behold his glory forever.