Turn back to Job chapter 19. Title of the message, Job's Confession
of Faith. Job's Confession of Faith. Job was a man greatly, greatly
tried of God. Lost everything he had. Buried
his ten children. Lost all of his livestock. Most of his servants were killed. But the one thing he never lost
through all of this, and I can't even begin to try to even imagine
what this was like for him, what he went through. But he never lost his hope in
his Redeemer. Even, I read to you how he said
that God basically had turned on him. God had turned on him. He wouldn't hear him, wouldn't
listen to him. And yet, it seems like right
in this darkness, he flees from God to God. You know, the best place to hide
from the wrath of God is in God. It's in God. David said, what
time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. I'll trust in Thee." And he never
lost hope in his Redeemer. And the first thing I want to
talk about is what Job knew. What he knew. Because he says,
I know. I know. He says this with absolute confidence. Job was a man taught of God.
He knew that man born of a woman was a few days and full of troubles. And the older you get, the more
you learn that. The more you learn it. He knew
that his days, as well as everyone else, was but a vapor. Swifter, he said, than a weaver's
shuttle. Life goes by so quickly. So quickly. I keep telling my
grandson that he's not crazy about going to school. I keep
saying, you got five years left. It'll go by like that. But to
him, it's like, no, it's not. No, it's not. Oh, yes, it is,
Cope. I'm telling you, Cope. It'll
go by so quickly. And it'll just be like a dream. But Joe knew in all of this,
He knew that His Redeemer would come and redeem His soul and
body. You see, redemption is not just
my soul, it's me. It's all of me. It's my soul
and body. And He knew that He is Redeemer.
And another word for Redeemer is Vindicator. Vindicator. that He would redeem it out of
all its trouble, that God would not abandon the work of His hand. He which hath begun a good work
in you, This has been a Scripture that's given me comfort over
the years. He that hath begun a good work
in you will perform it. He will complete it. He will
finish it until the day of Jesus Christ. Until one day you're
standing in the presence of Jesus Christ. He'll not give up on
me. That's what Job's saying. He will not. My Redeemer will
not give up on me. He will not forsake the work
of His hand. He won't do it. Job knew that
his Redeemer would save him and raise him up again in the latter
days. He knew one day he's going to
die. And he was absolutely confident
that I'm coming out of that grave. I'm coming out of the grave. He knew that he would live again. He knew this. Job knew that his
only hope was in his Redeemer if one day One day he would be
vindicated from all the slander that his friends and his foes
were casting upon him. He knew that. All these accusations. He was
going to be vindicated one day from all this. His so-called friends They said the root of the matter,
the problem, Job, for all this trouble is in you. You've done something. You've
done something. Here's a lesson for us. When
a brother or sister is brought into a deep trial of trouble,
don't let the first thought be, what did he do? Or what did she
do? That's the first thought people
want to think. I lost my job one time. I've
lost it two or three times. Just from people going out of
business. They went out of business. And I lost my job and the guy
said, well, you must not be living right. That was the first thing
a man said to me. You must not be living right. They had nothing to do with it.
God put me through that on purpose. to teach me as a young man to
trust Him, because I had a young family, to trust Him. And Job knew that he's going
to be vindicated from all this slander. He knew that his vindicator
lived and would set the matter right. He knew that. He says
in verse 25, I know. I love his confidence. It's almost like He rises up
out of the darkness. It's almost like He rises up
out of the dust He's sitting in, the sackcloth and ashes.
And He said, this is going to be the last thing I see. And
this is the one thing I want written down. I want this on
my tombstone. I know that my Redeemer liveth. He's alive. He doesn't say, I
know that my Redeemer is going to live in the last day. No,
He's alive right now. Job knew that Christ, His Redeemer,
was alive at that time. Because he knew his Redeemer
was God. He knew it. Job knew that he had, and listen,
he had a near kinsman that could redeem him and that would redeem
him. He knew that he had a near kinsman
who had the right and the power to redeem. To purchase him back. He knew
that. and that He was alive and would
stand upon the earth in the latter days, in the flesh. That He as Redeemer is going
to be none other than God incarnate. They knew a whole lot more than
we realize they knew. They knew the gospel. Christ
said concerning Abraham, He said, Abraham saw my day and was glad. He saw my day and was glad."
And Job knew that his Redeemer would be none other than God
incarnate, the Son of God. There's no other way to explain
the longevity of the Redeemer he's talking about. He has to
be God. If He liveth at that time, if
He's going to stand upon the earth in the latter days in the
flesh, He has to be God incarnate. He knows that. He knows that. And He knew that His Redeemer
would come and redeem Him from all His sins. He's not claiming
total innocence here. He knows He's going to be redeemed
from all His sins and set all His affairs right at the bar
of justice. Isn't that our hope? Isn't that
our hope? We have a Redeemer in Christ. that has set the record straight.
When my name comes up, there's nothing there against me. Nothing. He knew he's going to be cleared
of all charges. I want that kind of confidence.
I want that kind of confidence. Now. Now. I want to live with that kind
of confidence. I want to get up every day with that kind of
confidence in Christ. Now that's God honoring. That's
honoring Christ, to have that kind of confidence in His work,
in His person. He knew, Job knew that he had
a true kinsman that was his true friend and would not leave him
like these other three Yehosh did. Here come his so-called three
friends. They saw Job. When they saw him,
you know, they saw him afar off. They couldn't even recognize
him. And you know, they sat down for seven days and nights and
never said a word. Nobody spoke a word. And it would
have been to their wisdom if it had kept shut. It had just
shut up. But instead, they started...
And the Lord let Satan have his way with these men. Because the trial is not over
yet. He's not going to lose only His
possessions. He's going to lose His reputation.
He's going to lose everything. You know, one time He said, at
one time my steps were buttered. You don't realize how fast God
can remove everything you've got. And you think that won't
happen. You think, He wouldn't let that
happen to me. He did to Job, and I'm not any better than Job.
Not a bit. Job's friends, and the most difficult
part here has to be his wife turned on him. You know, she
said at one time, curse God, why don't you curse God and die? You know what she was saying?
Why don't you curse God and commit suicide? Why don't you go out
behind the barn and shoot yourself? She's telling him to commit suicide. You know, those ten children
were hers, too. Let's not forget that. I mean,
there's a lot of pain going on with her, too. She had to bury
those ten kids just like he did. And all those possessions he
lost, she lost, too. They were hers, too. And she
was having a bad day. And the Lord let Satan... He
let Satan turn everybody on Him. His friends turned on him, his
wife despised him, blamed him for the entire calamity of what
was happening. That had to be so devastating
to him. But through all this trouble,
he didn't turn around and blame God one time. He didn't turn
around and blame and say, that ain't me, it's God. He was saying
some things here concerning God doing things to him, but he never
said to her, It's God's fault. In all his troubles, he never
lost hope in his kinsman Redeemer. I'm coming out of this. Oh, that's
why he said, I'm coming out of this. Now, I may go to the grave. This trial may take me to the
grave, but I promise you, I'm coming out of this because of
my Redeemer. He never lost hope in Him. He
believed He was mighty to save no matter how bad the situation
got. In Christ, we find our kinsman-redeemer. We find our elder brother. That's
how He could be our kinsman-redeemer. Bone of our bone, flesh of our
flesh. He's not ashamed to call them
brother. Anybody in the family you're
ashamed of? Maybe you're the one they're
ashamed of. But Jesus Christ, I remember
one time when I lost my job, first time in my life, I had
to stand in an employment line. I was embarrassed. I'm telling
you the truth, I was embarrassed. But while I stood there, that
scripture came to my mind. He's not ashamed to call them
brethren. I thought, look at the line he
stood in. What a line of criminals. Paul said, oh, wretched man that
I am. What a line of wretched. Our elder brother is our Redeemer. He's all our hope. He's all our
life. For me to live, I want this to
be so true for me and you while I'm here, whatever time God gives
me here. That for us to live is Christ. It's not this job, this is Christ. And not that we just meet together
on Sunday in midweek and then we go home. No. It's Christ. For me, to live is Christ. He's
my life. Oh, I want to get there. Listen, Habakkuk said this, Even
if the mountains depart, and the hills be carried into the
midst of the sea, and there's no cattle in the stall, there's
no fruit on the vine." That's total devastation, isn't it? Yet, I'll rejoice in the Lord. Yet, I'll rejoice in the Lord.
Let Him take everything from me. Everything from me. But there's one thing He won't
take from me. And that's my life in Christ. It says, because He
lives, we shall live also. Our faith and hope in Christ
will be vindicated and we will not be put to shame. Now people
can think we're crazy, nutcase, whatever. But there's coming
a time, and I am totally confident of this, that all our hope in
Christ will be vindicated." Now Job said, his Redeemer liveth.
This was the ground of his hope. This is what kept him going.
He's eternal. He has no beginning of days or
end of life. Although his humanity had a beginning,
but not his deity. Not his deity. He's God. He's
God. And my Redeemer is life and the
giver of life. My life comes from Him. That's
where it comes from. The life that I have, the Spirit,
even the natural life comes from Him. He's the light that lights
every man that comes into the world. When we die, the Scripture says
the body goes back to the ground and the Spirit goes back to God
who gave it. But my Redeemer is life. Life,
now listen, life is a person. It is a person. Eternal life
is not how long it is. Eternal life is Christ Himself. If I have eternal life, I have
Christ. Life is a person. No man, no
sickness can take my life if God has given me life, spiritual
life. It's the life of God in the soul.
I can't lose it because my life is hid with Christ in God. And
there's no safer place for it to be than in Him. My Redeemer. is my life, my Redeemer,
is my righteousness. I don't have any apart from Him.
You know, apart from Jesus Christ, apart from His righteousness,
righteousness does not exist. Self-righteousness is just another
form of sin. That's all it is. It's another
form of sin. It's not righteousness at all. My Redeemer is my righteousness. I'm so glad I don't have to produce
one. I can't even drive the speed limit. Can you? You know, that's what
the law requires. Every jot and tittle. There are 600 and some laws given. I bet you can't quote five of
them. And you're gonna keep the law? Jesus Christ did. He kept the
law absolutely perfect. Thought, word, and deed. And His obedience,
and I never heard this until I heard the gospel. I never heard
about His righteousness being mine. I just heard about accepting
Him as your personal Savior and you won't go to hell. God demands righteousness. Accept your righteousness. Exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. You will in no
while enter the kingdom of God. And there's only one righteousness
that exceeds His. It's without spot or blemish. I may sit in sackcloth ashes
for a while like Job, but even so, in my Redeemer,
I'm always righteous. Always. I may not look like it
or act like it, but I am. I am. There will always be accusations
cast upon me. Some will be true. Some won't
be true. Yet in my Redeemer, I'm righteous and I'm always
justifying." Always justifying. I read to you there what Job
was saying, that God, He stripped me of my glory. He destroyed
me on every side. He said He's kindled His wrath
against me. He counts me as one of His enemies.
That's some pretty hard stuff. But you know, at the end of his
trial, God said to Job's friends that Job, he said the same thing
at the end of it, he said at the beginning of it, he's a righteous
man. He's a just man. He never mentions any of this.
And Job says some pretty hard things in some of these chapters.
It's never mentioned. Because God saw Job, sees Job,
sees us, His people, those who believe in Christ all the time. All the time. Scripture says, Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. It's God that justifies Him.
Is there any above God? There is none above God. If there's
none above Him, if He doesn't condemn me, no man can condemn
me. No man. The attention here is on my Redeemer.
Without Him, I'm nothing and can do nothing. And my Redeemer
is my wisdom. It's through Christ that I know
the Father. How do you know the Father? No
man knoweth a father save the Son. And he to whomsoever the
Son will reveal. He's come and given us an understanding. who God is, who He is, and who
we are. And then we have Job's assurance
here of his interest in Christ. I know that my Redeemer, not
a Redeemer. He didn't say, I know a Redeemer
liveth. I know my Redeemer. It's personal. It's personally mine. Through
all His trials and losses, He never lost hope in His Redeemer. This kind of assurance only comes
from knowing the Redeemer. There's someone else said the
same thing. Paul, I know, I know whom I have
believed and I am persuaded that he's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. That's the exact same
thing Job is saying. The exact same thing. Lack of faith is our fault, isn't
it? It's our fault. I thought last
night we have all that we need to have all the faith and assurance
we need. You know that? I have all I need. I have the Word of God. We have
the Holy Spirit. You're sealed with the Holy Spirit.
If you believe the gospel, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit.
Christ is in you. It's not like He's sitting way,
way out there in the eons of space. He's right here. He's in you. He's in you. The problem is we don't avail
ourselves of the means as much as we should. I was telling someone
the other day, I said, all these years, I've believed the Gospel
for about 40 years. I said, I ought to know this
book, be able to recite Scripture from Genesis to Revelations. I'm ashamed to have little I
can do that. This is our life. Christ is our
life and He's only known it through this Word. His Word, preaching, what we're
doing right now, prayer. Oh, I tell you, I just don't
think we even begin to comprehend prayer, to come into the presence
of God. You know, we can't come into each other's
presence just any time we want to. When I was a kid, I just
couldn't run into mom and dad's presence any time I wanted to.
I had the door shut. And they didn't always listen
to me when I was speaking. Really? You know, I've tried, I've really
tried, try harder to listen to my grandkids because I didn't.
I know I didn't as much to my sons. When they were young, growing
up, I was busy. Yeah, what do you want? Yeah, okay. All right,
all right. And that's about the way we listened. But we have
the privilege, and I want to express, try to stress this,
we have the privilege at any given time to walk right in to
the Creator of the universe, into His presence, and lay out,
cast our cares upon Him, and leave Him there. We have this
privilege. We have the right to walk right
into the Holy of Holies. through the blood and righteousness
of Jesus Christ. He said, whatever you ask in
my name, now we know this, whatever we ask must be in accordance
with the will of God. Because you and I, like children,
would be asking for candy all the time. Wouldn't we? I know
who we are. You're just like me. But we have that privilege, that
blood, ball, right. I have a right. to walk right
up to the throne of grace and bear my soul. I don't care if
it's over a headache or a heartache. That's a blood-bought right.
And brethren, if we would avail ourselves of that, and if we
would avail ourselves of that concerning this congregation,
you'd be surprised what God could do here. The gospel could be
preached throughout this world right from this congregation.
if we believe God, if we avail ourselves of prayer. And if you
want to hear a message when you come here, you want me to hear
me preach the gospel in power? Pray for me. Charles Spurgeon,
someone asked him what was his secret of success. You know,
he was one of the most powerful preachers of his day. And he
said this, my people pray for me. He said, that's it. They
pray for me. You and I would see amazing,
I believe amazing transformation if we availed ourselves at the
throne of grace. In honor of Christ, my soul.
What the privilege we have. All right, let me get back on
my subject here. Paul said this in one place,
he said, Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Lord,
that God give us this excellent knowledge of Christ above all
else, no matter what it costs. No matter what it costs. Then
Job says, and I'll wind this up here, in verse 26, And though
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I
see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold,
and not another, though my reins be consumed within me. This desire
is consuming me. This desire to be with Christ,
to see my Redeemer, to be raised again is consuming me. I'm going
to read something I wrote down on the back of this. I read this. I thought this was good. The
glorious end of trials is when they create in the saint of God
a yearning desire to go home. Isn't that good? When the trial
leads us to see the highest truth, and not just what's in front
of us, not just our aching heart, but when the trial leads us to
see the highest truth, in the gospel, in Christ, to
see the spiritual application and not just these physical things.
Paul said, I have a desire to depart and be with the Lord,
which is far greater. I believe that's the grand design
of trials. Job knew that his Redeemer redeemed,
not tried to redeem, redeemed, that he would be so victorious
that He would come back out of the grave no matter how long
He lay in it. Let my skin worms have their
day, for soon I'll have mine." Our redemption is so complete
that God will raise our body up from the grave incorruptible. Incorruptible. And we will stand,
listen, we will stand in the same body, yet without sin. And we're going to see God with
our own eyes and not another's. You're not going to have to have
a preacher every week tell you the gospel. Tell you about Christ. You're going to stand there and
talk to Him. You're going to stand there and look at Him. You're going
to be holding with your own eyes, these own eyeballs. And right
here, I'm going to see Him again. They're going to see Him. Take
sin out of these bodies and they're perfect. That's the only problem
with the body. You see it. That old grunt nature
of flesh is gonna be gone. It's not gonna come back. But
this body of flesh, it'll be flesh and bone. That's what it'll
be. Flesh and bone. Not flesh and
blood. Because right now the scripture
says that the life of the flesh is in the blood thereof. Where
the life of this flesh is Jesus Christ. Job knew with his own eyes he
wasn't going to see God. You know, no one ever has looked
upon God and lived and sinned. No one can look upon Him and
live. We will. We will. As we are right now,
we only know in part, preach in part. But in that day, in
that day, that which is in part will be done away, and we'll
know, even as we are known, we'll behold God even as He is. We'll know what holiness, true
holiness is. We'll know it. We'll know what
life really, really, this is life. This is life. We'll know what true kindness
is without a thought of sin. We'll know what true joy is. Our Redeemer has stood upon this
earth. He has redeemed us by His blood and now we await His
return. Is that not what we're doing? Are you really looking for the
Lord Jesus Christ to return? Is that what you're looking for? If we could just look for Him
to return like we look for a raise, My soul, what a day. Come and get us, body, soul,
and take us out of this world, out of this grave, and take us to glory. What I'm
telling you is real. Someone said that religion was
the opium of the people. Well, this is not. This is not. I know that my Redeemer
liveth. Can I say that? Can I say that
from my heart? Can I say in the darkest hour,
I know my Redeemer liveth? I know that. He's all my hope
and He's all my desire. All right, Craig. Number 258, he hadeth my soul.