Job 18-19
Yesterday, I concluded with: Maybe Bildad’s next word will get us there…inadvertently. Get us where? Get us back to hope!
As is so often the case, the most hope-filled, encouraging words from a particular book of the Bible arrive at the times of darkest despair: Take Jeremiah's incredible words of grace while surrounded by the charred remains of a dismantled Jerusalem (Lamentations 3:19-30). Take Jesus’ words on the last night of his earthly life (John 14:1-6, among others). Take Habakkuk’s words of hope in the midst of famine and failure (Habakkuk 3:17-19). Likewise, Job has reached that moment of hopelessness when God is able to birth real hope in him once again.
In Job 18, Bildad piles on with powerful logic: God punishes the wicked, you are wicked, therefore God is punishing you! In Job 19, Job reviews his present state: God has taken everything away from me, my friends and family have abandoned me, my health has gone, my breath is so bad that my wife can’t stand me! Oh, that my words were written on a stone!
What words?
The words he has said or the words he is about to say?
The words he is about to say.
And why would he want those words inscribed?
Listen: For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will stand upon the earth. After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God—I shall see Him myself—I and not another!
Like Stephen as he is being stoned to death, Job—when closest to death—sees by faith the source of his life and hope: the Redeemer!
Your brother of the Word,
Pastor Gary
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