40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Job 19:1-29 (Episode 403)

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Job replies to his friends again. How much longer will they torment him with their presence and words? Everyone has abandoned Job and God seems to be against him. Job wants all his words written down. Despite everything, Job knows that his redeemer lives. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Bible in One Year with Chad Bird Freedom Lessons Album Your God is too Glorious, 2nd Edition by Chad Bird Schweitzer's Psychoanalysis of Jesus Christ: & Other Essays in Christian Psychotherapy by John Warwick Montgomery NWA Conference May 3rd-4th More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, make sure you check out the events page. A handful of tickets left for the Here We Still Stand regional event in Northwest Arkansas this first weekend in May. Come hang out with Chad, myself, and a whole bunch of other people. Come watch a live recording of this podcast.

Watch the magic happen. We're going to be doing that and a whole bunch of other things. Check it out. We'd love to hang out with you. Chad, we are in the Book of Job. We are in Chapter 19. and Job's got to do some replying. I know it's shocking. We've been doing this back and forth now for a while.

We ended last episode with Bildad. He's got some tired arguments, man. I mean, there's some tired arguments that we had to go over saying, look, Job, I'm not going to change my entire worldview and all of my theology just because you're a good guy and you're going through a hard time here. That's not going to happen. and so what you need to understand is that you don't know God. That's really what it is. I've

determined that you don't know God. If you did know God, then you would know why I'm right, why Zophar is right, why your friends are right. And Job is going to give, I think, his best reply yet. Yeah, this is—I mean, if people know the book of Job, they probably know the opening couple chapters and maybe the last chapter but if they know anything in between it's definitely this in fact i mean people probably at least in the tradition that i'm in people have sung about this chapter more than any other chapter of job because there's that hymn i know that my redeemer lives that's like 25 stanzas and so yeah it's a and that scores that's taken from that line i know that my redeemer lives is taken of job chapter 19 so it's it's it's it's a very well-known chapter

it's also uh if you read the commentaries it's it's very disputed um the traditional view that job is actually confessing faith in the redeemer uh the redeemer that we all confess christ uh traditional understanding that's who he's talking about has been disputed and it's been denied that he's talking about resurrection and a whole bunch of other things so there's a lot of controversy that swirls about this chapter, which we'll touch on when we get to it, but definitely is the most well-known confession of Job, and a beautiful confession. I mean, in all the darkness that we've encountered, we've had a few rays of light back in chapter 16, and we're going to have a lot more here in chapter 19, too.

But before we get there, he's going to respond to Bildad, and he's going to kind of lead up to this great confession by talking about all the things that he has been talking about except with even even greater detail here he's going to talk about uh his friends he's going to address them first his air quotes their friends and then he's going to talk about god again and then he's going to talk about how basically man this is a depressing part of this chapter beginning with verse 13 how he's lost everybody you know friends and siblings and close friends and you know even even little kids are making fun of him uh so he's going to kind of set the stage for this flash of of hope and light by first of all talking about some of the things he's been going through it

does seem it starts out it does seem that job 19 that did so this reply in some of the other back and forth. You know, his friends will make some argument, and then Job will come back with an argument, and there's like some sparring going on, right? And Job's got some insults, and he says some funny stuff. Even in the midst of his suffering, he's getting some jabs in and stuff. 19 seems like a shift from that to me. Like, it feels different. It feels Job is starting to tire out and he's getting very not that he's not wasn't honest and raw and that kind of stuff before but i just feel sounds more exacerbated to me yeah and uh you know you hear that too where's that verse at uh we'll get to it in a few minutes but verse 21 when he uh says to his

friends have mercy on me you know that is not something you've heard from the lips of job up at this point. I mean, he, it's not even the way the chapter starts out. You know, he gives it right back to him. He insults him, all that kind of stuff, but he never asked for mercy. So I think even that is indicative of the fact that he is, he's getting worn down by the arguments, of course, by his physical sufferings and the psychological torture that he's enduring and all the questioning and everything else that he's having to confront. So yeah, it's a different tone to the chapter. So here's how it starts out.

Job answered and said, How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words? These ten times you have cast reproach upon me. Are you not ashamed to wrong me? And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself. 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. So stop there for a minute. Starts out kind of with the same typical Job response,

more or less asking, why do you keep coming at me? So you're tormenting me, you're breaking me in pieces with your words. Of course, this idea of weaponized speech is pretty common in Job and the Psalms as well. So how long is this going to go on? How long are you going to berate me and accuse me and make up lies about me, say things like, well, all this is happening to you because you don't really know God. And then he uses a kind of a stereotypical line here in verse three, these 10 times you have cast reproach upon me. Now, don't get your Bible and put your finger there and go back and start counting to see how many times they've cast reproach upon Job and see if it, you know, count the 10 times. This is just a stereotypical phrase. You have something like

this in Genesis 31, 7, also, where Jacob is talking about Laban, and he says, yeah, he's cheated me these change my wages these 10 times well don't read that literalist too literally it just is a figure of speech basically saying a whole lot you know all these times you have cast reproach upon me and you're not ashamed to to do me wrong so nothing too unusual there uh verses four and five i think are interesting i don't know that job has said anything quite like this before he says even if it be true so he's not saying that it is but even if it's true that i've erred my error remains with myself if indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my discretion argument against me know then that god has put me in the wrong and closed his net

about me and i read that is basically saying listen this is uh if i if i've done something wrong here, then it's still business of yours. This is between me and God, so why are you wedging your way in and setting yourself up as, you know, the judge and the jury in order to pronounce a sentence against me when this has nothing to do with you? Yeah, I think that kind of goes back—we've talked about this a couple times—where there's a sort of ulterior motive to why they're there, and it's, you know, if the most righteous man you know is suffering a whole bunch of stuff uh you might you might go try to figure out why that is uh to make sure that you don't end up in the same position but job seems to and has called that out several times but here

he seems to be saying listen uh if if i've an error then i'm an error and you don't need to be here to try to save yourselves from whatever is happening to me it remains with me like i mean But it's almost like, as he says, indeed, if you magnify yourselves against me, right? So the idea here is that Job is basically calling them out for using him as a contrast, right, for God to look at. So they're there, and they're trying to figure out what it is he did. And the whole time, what they're really doing is trying to make sure that God understands that they understand, right? We know that what's going on here, and we want you to know that we will defend you and defend what you're doing against Job, especially because Job's speech is so brash, and it makes them so uncomfortable. And so, yeah, there's just this whole thing like, look, you can—my error stays with me if indeed I have an error, and there's really—this whole thing where you're trying to make yourselves look righteous in contrast to me is a pretty bad thing to do.

Like, you're hurting me. Yeah, it's funny, too, how all of this is prompted by fear. You know, they're not relying upon being in good standing with God because of His grace and mercy. They're afraid of being in the wrong, afraid of ending up in the position of Job, so they have to convince themselves and think that they're convincing God, too, that everything is good between them because of the fact that everything is okay in their lives right now. So it's totally demotivated by fear on their part. There's no solid foundation they have that's upon the mercy of God. It's all based upon their behavior. and you know if your relationship with god is based upon your behavior then you are definitely

opening yourselves up to being to living with fear because how are you ever going to know if you're going to actually match up to what god expects of you yeah this is this is something that happens in different ways still where maybe you'll maybe you know someone who actually did err right and you know for sure that it and they're they're suffering and your uh your response is uh not to say well i should go to them and uh and and comfort them and and go preach the gospel to them but instead it's uh we would do we probably wouldn't go and do all this we would probably be more if we were concerned about our own righteousness be like why i have to stay away from them uh i don't i don't want god to think that uh i'm with them or that that that we're

afraid of uh sort of guilt by association in the eyes of god and job is kind of saying that's not really a thing that you need to worry about yeah yeah if it were jesus would be in trouble right uh the the friend of sinners who's eating with with tax collectors and sinners but yeah i mean that that's uh that's a temptation that we all that we all live with you know it's this idea well you don't want to get too close to that person you know keep some keep some distance and and if it's not fear of god that prompts that it's certainly fear of what people are going to say or what people are gonna gonna think i mean probably more than it's more of a peer pressure temptation than it is anything else or you're waiting for somebody else to make the first move you know

well somebody else goes and they befriend this sinner or this person who's destroyed their life then maybe i will but so i'm not gonna stick my neck out there be the first person that that tries this so i verse six is uh i don't know that uh this is the best translation of that explain why here. Job says, know then that God has put me in the wrong. And the reason I wonder if that's, I wonder if that's a strong enough translation, because that same verb is used in a couple of other spots, not by Job, but by, first of all, Bildad in Job 8.3, and then Elihu, whom we haven't met yet in job 34 12 so bildad uses it to say does god pervert justice or does the almighty pervert the right so back in job 83 it's translated pervert in perverting justice and

right same thing in eli who's speech in job 34 12 where he says of a truth god will not do wickedly and the almighty will not pervert justice so this same verb occurs here and it's translated no then that God has put me in the wrong. So is that strong enough? Is Job saying that God has perverted that which is right? Is he acting unjustly by what he's doing? I don't know. I'm kind of speculating out loud as to whether Job has said some pretty brash things about God, and maybe this is of a piece of a piece with that he's put me in the wrong has not acted rightly in fact has trapped me his this image of uh closing his net around me that fits with some of that trapping and snaring image that we saw in the in the previous chapter uh when build that was

speaking now job is using this to describe how god has wrapped him up trapped him and in so doing has not acted in a way that is right, at least in Job's experience, it's not right. Yeah, I think kind of what he's saying here is that if you're right about what's going on, then God's wrong. That's kind of the argument, right? Maybe you are right, but if you are, then God is in the wrong. Yeah. It's another one of these cases where, you know from from job's perspective you know if if god agrees with you then i don't really know that i want that kind of god yeah yeah we've all met people like that like uh uh no i if god is actually the way that you describe him i no i don't i don't think i want

to have anything to do with that god because uh he's uh too much a reflection of who of who you are and i mean this kind of this this verse six flows into verse seven where he goes on to say behold i cry out violence but i'm not answered i call for help but there is no justice so again kind of piggyback him off that idea of god's put me in the wrong he says well i'm i'm doing everything i'm i'm crying out violence there's no answer i'm calling for help but there is no justice there's there's no answer from god even though he's trapped me he's put me in his net he's acting violently against me he's done all these things that job has talked about before he's made job his target for his archers he's uh trapped him he's done all these things against job

and there is no justice there's no answer from him and then he goes on in verse uh eight and following, really 8 through 12, to further describe in, you know, imagery that we have seen more times than just once or twice, to describe how God has come at him as an enemy. He's walled up my way so that I cannot pass. He has set darkness upon my paths. He has stripped from me my glory, taken the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope he has pulled up like a tree he's kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary his troops come on together they have they have cast up their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent so god in other words god has uh fully declared war against against

Job, in fact, even gone so far as to count Job as his adversary. So he's not treating him as, certainly not as his son or his friend or even a stranger, but instead as an enemy that you would go to war against, set up your siege ramps around their dwelling places. And that's the way that Job feels God is treating him as, in fact, not just his enemy, but his enemy against whom God goes to war yeah this is all language uh of being uh being trapped right i mean this is like this is like you have no you have no way out uh so you're you're completely surrounded you got someone mightier than you uh that has declared war against you and you are there is no escape right there's no way there's nowhere for him to go yeah yeah that's uh he's he's he's physically

assaulted he's uh his hope is pulled up uh he's surrounded on all sides and there's nowhere that he could go because of course god has has turned against him now that's kind of the vertical dimension of things so he's talked about his friends he's talking then vertically about what god is doing to him and now he's going to in verses 13 and following he's going to document 13 through 19, he's going to document how his closest people, his brothers, he says, those who knew me, relatives, close friends, guests, maidservants, servants, wife, siblings, everybody down to the young children in the streets, everybody in one way or another has distance themselves from Job, or in some cases, openly mock Job, or just don't want to be around

him. So I'll just read all these verses because they all kind of pile up together this list of images of these friends and family that are now estranged from him. He's put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me. My relatives have failed me. My close friends have forgotten me. The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger. I become a foreigner in their eyes. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer. I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy. My breath is strange to my wife and I'm a stench to the children of my own mother. Even young children despise me. When I rise, they talk against me. All my intimate friends abhor me and those whom i've loved have turned against me and i'll stop there

because he's going to talk more about his uh physical condition in just a minute but i mean i don't think he left anybody out there no that's pretty much everybody everybody from yeah from wife to uh to siblings to servants to the children children in the street uh of course this is i mean all of this is literal as well as metaphorical he's just trying to use as many acquaintances and connections as he can to describe the wholesale estrangement that he is experiencing. I think when he says, my breath is strange to my wife, it's probably just meaning that she won't get close to me. Not strange in the sense like she smells his breath and says, that smells strange. It's not a halitosis issue. I think this just means that

you know, if you're in the same bed, then your breathing is close to one another, and that's not happening. She's kept his distance from him, he's sitting out there on his ash heap, scraping his sores, and really now his only companions are the three friends that he's been engaged in this back and forth with for all these chapters. Yeah, I do like the New American Standard translation of verse 17, which you could make your life verse, which is just, my breath is offensive to my wife. New Revised Standard Version, my breath is repulsive to my wife, I am loathsome to my own family. Yeah, you get the point. Yeah, there's definitely no kissing going on, let's put it that way. however you want to take it if you want to take it halitosis or just they're not in the vicinity

of one another uh there's definitely no kind of intimacy that's happening yeah i mean all of this is um you know if you if you're if you're looking at everything he goes as he goes through here uh he's failed i mean like it's interesting to hear it's interesting he says that his his relatives have you know they've so they've failed me so they've not uh been good relatives but then he says my close friends have forgotten me now he's saying this in the presence of three people and so i don't know i don't know if they don't qualify like he does have like a you know there is he doesn't just say my friends he doesn't modify that my close friends they've forgotten me maybe i just left with these three

yeah maybe so because he also says all my intimate friends of horror me uh now maybe that's directed at them i don't know maybe so yeah yeah maybe that's the category that they that they fall into now one thing to keep in mind about this whole section 13 through through 19 with this list of especially family members is that this is a perfect lead-in to what he's going to say when he gets to that climax in talking about the Redeemer, because the Redeemer in Israel was a kinsman. So this was someone who was close to you. This was someone who was part of your family, who would step up and do different things for you, which I'll talk about in just a few minutes. But what a perfect lead-in to what he's going to say about the Redeemer. So I've got

all these people, but none of them can redeem me. I got all these acquaintances, all these friends, all these family members, and every single one of them has in one way or another put a little bit of distance or a lot of distance between me and them. So in other words, my help is not going to come from someone who is around me. My help's not going to, you know, it's not like my uncle from the next country over is going to come and he's going to be my redeemer because I even if that happened it's not going to be enough i need something more i need something higher i need a better and a greater redeemer than all these people who have in one way or another turned their back on me so that's a i think that's one of the reasons that this chapter has all this

focus upon family members because that's going to be the perfect segue into what he says about the heavenly redeemer in just a minute but right before he gets there and that will start with verse 23 he's got a couple more things to say here he says my bones stick to my flesh my bones rather stick to my skin and to my flesh and i've escaped by the skin of my teeth so this is one of the this is one of those uh phrases by the way that has been just kind of adopted wholesale into the english language as a direct result of the king james version also like it's one of those things yeah there's so many things that we say that you're like do you don't realize yeah you don't realize like what does that mean

so like with i mean you know my bone my bones stick to my skin into my flesh uh i think that just means that he's you know real skinny he doesn't he's just he's skin and bones right that's another way of saying i'm skin and bones here that's all i got right uh i'm wasting away But I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. We all know what that means because it's something we use. We know what it means when people say that. But when you think about it, you're like, that makes no sense at all. Yeah.

Yeah, there's a couple things that are interesting here. First of all, ordinarily, we would say that my skin sticks to my bones, right? not my bones stick to my skin oh i can't even talk my bones stick to my skin so i just learned this this morning so the the hebrew verb that's used there is uh same verb that's used back in genesis 2 about uh the man shall cleave to his wife it's usually translated as uh i hold fast to or cleave to so israel will cleave to to the lord uh jeremiah has that image about how as a as the the loincloth of a man clings to his body so israel is to cling to god is it so its idea of one thing usually it's something inferior sticking to something something else or dependent upon

something else so what you would expect this to read would be my skin sticks to my bones the bones being that which is stable and the skin sticking to them but this is the opposite my bones stick to my skin is the idea of uh you just fall apart i mean everything is like kind of topsy-turvy here and your skin is holding up your bones instead of your bones holding up your your skin i always picture by the way uh the concentration camp pictures yeah and when i when i see something like this yeah i think i escaped the skin of my teeth is uh probably almost uh a uh a uh ironic way of saying that's all i got i've escaped yeah and only thing i have here is the skin left in my teeth even though you really don't have any skin on your teeth but uh that's the that's the metaphor

here that's all i got uh it's just a little bit left that's all i've escaped with that's my only the only thing that i have but of course we've used it different sort of way yeah to escape by the skin of your teeth would be to um well i i sort of like what i imagine like uh imagine someone shot at you right and uh it didn't hit you but if there were like if you had a skin on your teeth it would hit you like like you're you're you're escaping so narrowly that you're you're going to use an example of something that doesn't actually exist where it's like man like that that took the skin right off my teeth and you're like okay so that means it was like there was no distance between you and that thing right so to escape by the skin of your teeth is to to have the narrowest

of escapes right right right yes yes that's it and no before you run to the mirror there is no skin on your teeth so you continue brushing your teeth uh you uh you don't have any skin yet to worry about on those all right and then uh we come to the verse now that i mentioned earlier in this episode where he says have mercy to his friends he says have mercy on me have mercy on me oh you my friends for the hand of god has touched me why do you like god pursue me why are you not satisfied with my with my flesh so i don't know exactly all he means by have mercy on me but at least entailed in that is stop attacking me with your words yeah so god has attacked me and he's pursuing me so why are why are you devouring me why are you not satisfied with my flesh

this is probably a there's an idiom that we find in daniel where it's usually translated something like accused maliciously but in aramaic it's literally eat the pieces of someone so it's the idea of like we use the phrase backbiting as a you know way of talking about someone who's not there talking evil about someone who's not there idea of like you know chomping down on them that's kind of the same idea they're they're not satisfied with his flesh that is they're eating him up with their words, and Job is basically begging them to stop. Yeah, the idea is that, I mean, kind of like, take a look at me, man. Do you really have to insult me and hurl insults at me?

Look at what's going on here. I mean, you can even say, look at my flesh, right? Look at me in the flesh right now, I think. There's not much left, so please don't be devouring what it means. Come on, man. It seems like too much. Yeah, don't beat a guy when he's already down. I've gone through—have a little bit of mercy on me. Yeah.

Verse 23 begins this famous section of Job chapter 19. Oh, that my words were written. Oh, that they were inscribed in a book. Well, I got good news for you, Job. Yeah, right. Got good news. oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever for i know that my redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been thus

destroyed yet in my flesh i shall see god whom i shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another my heart faints within me and then i'll just go ahead and read the next that's kind of the end of that section, but I'll read the last two verses. If you say, how will we 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 that there is a judgment. So those last couple of verses are addressed by Job to his friends. So back to verse 23. Yeah, Job wants there to be some sort of written record of everything that he has been protesting saying with regard to his innocence the fact that he does not that this you know punishment doesn't fit the crime as it

were that what he's suffering is not a result of something he has done and he he wants this not to be just kind of you know get a piece of paper and a pencil and write it on there he wants these things to be uh engraved in fact when he says oh that they were inscribed in a book now the word that's used there for inscribed is not your typical word for right it's more of the idea of like making in incision or engraving on something so people some people even suggested that he's has in mind something like one of the dead sea scrolls was a copper scroll where you had indentions made in the copper itself so this idea of making a permanent record or engraving it on the rock with an iron pin and lead um i think all the way back to the medieval commentator

rashi the idea has been like you engrave something on the rock and then you fill in the crevices with lead that's the idea is so we're gonna we're going to leave a permanent record here is what job Job is asking for. He wants everything that he's been saying, including what he's about to say, to be engraved on a rock so that future generations can read it. It's always going to be a testament there to what he has to say. Yeah, I mean, to hear what he's doing, I mean, give me that iron pen, give me that chisel, right? We're going to start, what is an iron pen? it's a it's a chisel right and you're gonna start hammering away uh to to engrave this into rock forever and yeah i think this is like really cool that that job says this he says oh that my words

were written that they were inscribed in a book uh because job is obviously not writing these things down and his friends aren't writing these things down uh but it and i don't we don't know who wrote these things down, but what we do believe is that God had these things written down. So, I mean, the ultimate author of Job would be the Holy Spirit through somebody. And so part of this sounds like Job—this is sort of a desire of Job, and he's sort of saying this to his friends, saying this to God, saying it to—just casting it out there, oh, that my words were written in and inscribed in the book, and this part God kind of gives him. It's cool that God's not afraid of Job's arguments being written down, and in fact gives Job what he wants in this.

We're talking about it a long, long, long time later. God's like, yeah, I'm going to have all these words written in the book, actually. I will do that, because I'm not going to run—I don't need to run away from this. And then the other thing that's cool about it is that this for is interesting, right? Because he wants these words written down, and the reason he wants them written down, it seems, because he says for, or you could say because, right? I want them written down because I know that my Redeemer lives. That's why I want them written down. That's pretty cool. Not just that so that everyone can know I'm right, or everyone can know how great I suffered. No, I want them written down because I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last,

He will stand upon the earth. Yeah, it's a fantastic confession. I mean, it kind of falls into what he was talking about in chapter 16, where he has this advocate in heaven. He knows that he's he's got to have somebody on his own he doesn't have enough he can't have some sort of other person in his family he's going to help him so he needs this uh in hebrew this goel this sometimes translated often translated as redeemer sometimes as like vindicator or champion and the redeemer was someone usually you know as a near relative and they would buy back family property or they would you know if you got into slavery debt they would take take you out of that pay your debt or marry a widow and raise up children for the dead husband you know all these

things that redeemers did and that's what joe believes that he has and i'll have it i know my redeemer lives this is a living a living redeemer it's not someone who is in the past or not someone who is yet to come but already that redeemer redeemer lives and that he will at at the last stand upon the earth and after job's skin has been destroyed yet in his flesh shall i see god so i you got to wonder what all job realizes with regard to the truth and the depth of of his words because you know people take this a lot of different ways but in the the full light of the revelation of scripture man job has packed into these words incarnation resurrection the the final coming of christ uh his work of redemption everything is compressed within

within these verses the living redeemer the one who at the very end is going to stand up on the earth and even though job's skin has been destroyed meaning he's going to die yet in his flesh he's going to see god which of course is exactly what awaits us on the day of resurrection your skin my skin our bodies are going to go into the grave they'll be destroyed and yet in our flesh not just in our spirit or soul or some kind of disembodied sort of way but in our flesh in our resurrected bodies, we shall see God for ourselves. Our eyes shall behold him and not another. Just an incredible confession with regard to who Christ is, his work, and then what awaits us in the resurrection. Yeah, it's not as though Job is talking about some kind of Gnostic,

like I'm gonna go and be with God or I'm gonna sense God or whatever like now this is this is very I mean he's talking I mean he's talking about right before this like his bones clinging to his skin I mean it's all very fleshy and earthy and then he says yeah and this flesh is going to be destroyed but also in this flesh I'm going to see God like with my eyes I'm going to see him. Yeah, it's an awesome confession. And I love that he's saying all this based on, hey, I wish all my words were written down, and even though God gives him that, because God's not running away from these words, it also tells you that Job doesn't think anything that he said will prevent this from happening, right? So Job's not running away from anything that he said either.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's sticking by what he said, and he's at the same time sticking by this confession of hope and faith that you know in the end he is going to be able to lay eyes on the god that he's talked about so much and the god who is actually his redeemer that's a man it's it's an incredible confession especially knowing where it comes from i mean if this were you know david said this or joshua or moses or whoever else it would still be a powerful confession but when you realize who said it and the condition in which he said it then it becomes all the more powerful because here's a guy who is literally wasting away and yet he knows that after he does finally waste away he's going to get flesh again and he is going to see with his own eyes his his

Well, what this does in Job is it makes sense out of the way that someone with faith, how they actually experience life and how they experience faith in God, which is in one breath, you can say that, and Job does, right before this, say that God has kindled his wrath against him and that he counts him as his adversary. that god is against me like i am his his opponent and yet you say but that's also my redeemer and you're like well that just seems like bipolar like that doesn't seem like what in the world but if you've lived long enough you know that that's how it feels sometimes and that and that saying something like um god has kindled his wrath against me god is it god it feels like God is against me, are not words that come out of faithlessness. That's not what they are, right? That's just the experience that you're having. That's just being honest with what's going on. Those two things aren't opposed to each other the way that we would think that they are.

But which is it, man? Do you have a Redeemer, or do you have an enemy? Like, what do you got? yes yeah yeah the psalms do this we haven't recorded it yet uh but when we get to record psalm 13 it does that same thing you know it begins with how long how long how long how long it just cries out to god or for help because of the suffering and then two verses later i've trusted in your steadfast love my heart shall rejoice in your salvation so it's up and down you know it is is is god attacking you or is he your redeemer well Well, that's the experience of faith, in which you say yes to both of those. Yeah, and what you're saying is that, well, right now it feels as though He is my enemy,

but what faith does is—this is the same thing that happens with your experience as a Christian, when you have to deal with the fact that you're a sinner and a saint, and sometimes the one that feels more concrete is the sinner, because you know that's true. I mean, there's like loads of evidence that that's true. Empirical evidence. Yeah. But the one that's actually more concrete is the saint part, because that's the one that endures forever. And so what's also true is that Job can say, right now it appears that God's against me. It seems that we are at war. but the question is what faith does is it tells you who God

will ultimately be for you and this is what Job is doing here right now all this is going on but on that last day who is God going to be for me he's going to be who he said he would be for me which is he's going to be my redeemer and he'll move from

faith to sight with my eyes and no longer believing but seeing with his own eyes his redeemer Yeah, that's it. All right, man, we are out of time, so we will leave it there. We will be back next episode, and we'll see how the friends respond to that. I mean, that was pretty good. Is this where they break down and say, you know what, Job? We hear you. We apologize. I guess we'll find out next episode. Chad, I'll see you then. All right, see you then. We'll see you next week.