Hope in Dark Times (Job 19:23-27)

This sermon was preached on 20/1/2013

The circumstances in which a person says something can often add great weight to what they say. When a rich person in perfect health says that he has no worries about the future we are not surprised. But should that person lose his wealth and his health, and remain optimistic about the future, we would be surprised by his words and wonder what it was that could give hope to him. Such a person was Job, who had been a wealthy person, but through a series of disasters had lost his family, his wealth and his health. 

During those days when all was well, Job had been a believer in God. His prosperity is described in the first chapters of this book. We are also told there about an unseen enemy who was working to get Job to renounce his faith, and that opponent was Satan, the adversary. We also discover that the adversary could not do anything against Job without the permission of Job’s God. If we were reading the story for the first time we might assume that God would have refused to allow the adversary to attack Job because he was a devoted servant of God. Yet Satan was allowed to attack Job fiercely.

Job found he was unable to prevent the onslaught and the consequences. Things got worse and worse instead of getting better. Of course, we know the story and how eventually the trial ended for Job and he was restored to a position of prosperity and promise. But when he spoke the words of our text he was unaware that he would yet know such days on earth. Instead there seemed to be no end to his problems. Nevertheless his faith in God remained strong.

Surely it must interest us to discover what it was that gave this man such hope in the darkest of moments. On what was his confident outlook based? He tells us in Job 19:23-27, a passage of astonishing clarity given the days in which he lived. In it he states that he is looking forward to the arrival of a divine Person whom he would meet after his resurrection from the dead. Let us look at the details of what he says and then consider some personal applications.

The details of his hope

The first feature of Job’s words is that he believes he has a message for all future generations. He expects to die soon, but he does not believe that even his death should make him silent. Although he has been severely assaulted, he is not defeated. Although he has lost much that was valuable for him, he still has what was most precious. Although he is about to die, he does not intend to let people believe he has passed away in darkness. 

We can see his plan in verses 23 and 24. He wants someone to record his words on a scroll and then go to a rock and inscribe them there. The scroll would be used to read aloud to a person or group and here Job wants to tell listeners about what really matters to him. The allusion to the rock could be a reference to the practice of travellers on a journey being helped by words and drawings inscribed on rocks to tell travellers that they were on the right road to their intended destination. S0 despite his sense of darkness in the present, he wants to be a guide to others on their journeys.

Job has had his desire granted because, thousands of years later and hundreds of miles distant from where he was, here we are reading his words and about to think about them. It would be interesting to know how many have read these words down the centuries in a wide variety of cultures and places. So what we have here is what Job regards as crucial knowledge. We can say that he has known both the highs and the lows of life. Out of his comprehensive experience he reveals his priorities, his comfort and his hope. So what does he have to say?

We can see four details in his words. First, he refers to a person whom he calls ‘my Redeemer’; second, he mentions a particular time when his Redeemer will stand upon the earth; third, he anticipates personal involvement in a resurrection experience; and fourth, he is longing for that moment to come.

The Person

The word ‘redeemer’ refers to the individual called the goel or kinsman-redeemer. He was the person who had the responsibility to defend and vindicate the interests of his relatives when they were deprived of everything and in great need. Job needed such an individual because he expected he would soon be dead and he was powerless as he faced that prospect. So who could this person be who would be Job’s relative and the destroyer of death?

Job says something else about his future Redeemer (goel). In verse 26 he says that his Redeemer will be divine. The Redeemer will be God himself, the one who had created Job and the one who remained in control of Job’s circumstances, even the ones that had been most difficult to experience. So we now have three details about Job’s goel: he will be a relative of Job’s, he will conquer death and he will be divine.

While we cannot say how much Job knew about this future deliverer, we know to whom he was referring. Job’s deliverer would be Jesus. He is the eternal Son of God who became a man, thus Job’s relative, and then defeated death by his own death and resurrection. His death was an atoning sacrifice that paid the penalty of our sins and it was followed by his resurrection from the realms of the dead and his ascension to heaven forty days later.

The Time

What Job was probably unable to distinguish was that the coming of the Saviour would be in two stages which we call his first and second comings. The stage that Job refers to here is the second coming of Jesus. So in a sense we are in a similar situation to Job as we wait for that time to arrive.

Job pictures his Redeemer as standing upon the earth. Is there anything significant in his posture? I would suggest at least two features. First, he is standing as the conqueror of the enemies of his people. The earth can be described in many ways, and one way is to see it as one large graveyard in which the remains of countless millions lie, having been wounded by death. Thankfully, many of them died anticipating this coming of Jesus. They looked forward to when he would stand there completely victorious over death.

Second, he is standing as the lawful claimant of his inheritance. We can imagine a person coming to his special property and standing on it and saying, ‘This is all mine.’ Here is Jesus standing on a sin-affected earth and saying that it all belongs to him. What a majestic picture of the conquering King, our Brother who will be the claimant of his and our inheritance.

The Involvement

On that amazing future day, Job expects to be fully involved in what will take place. Before that day comes, he expects to die and for his body to disintegrate. When that day comes, he expects to be alive in the same body that died. Away back then, probably before the nation of Israel came into existence, Job affirms his faith in a future resurrection. As he looked at his body ravaged by disease he was confident that it would yet be raised from the dead. This reality was of great comfort to him in his darkness.

Yet he says more. We can look at the resurrection and follow the word with the preposition ‘from’ and stress correctly that we will be resurrected from the dead. But we can also follow it with the preposition ‘to’ and stress what we will be resurrected for. Here Job says that he will be resurrected in order to behold the divine Redeemer. The most precious moments we have are when we can look in the faces of the ones we love. It is good to listen to their voices over the phone and to read their messages on emails. Yet we would much prefer to see their faces as we hear their voices.

Of course, we are not to read this description as if it implied that being with Jesus in heaven is a static experience, as if all we will do is stand in one place and stare at the Saviour. Instead of being static, we will watch him perform his amazing activities throughout the endless ages. There are other pictures of this delightful dependence on Jesus, one being the description of him as the Shepherd who leads his flock to the springs of living water (Rev. 7:17), with each spring being an opportunity to discover what has been provided in God’s eternal plan for his people to enjoy in his presence forever.

The Longing

Having made this wonderful affirmation of his belief in a future resurrection experience with his Redeemer, Job then expresses his anticipation and his longing for that day. His heart faints within him. Job’s experience is like that of the apostle John in Revelation 22:20 when he writes, ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’ Paul also wrote about this expectation in 2 Timothy 4:8: ‘Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.’ 

This outlook has been well expressed in poetic form in the poem by Anne Ross Cousin that is based on the words of Samuel Rutherford:

I shall sleep sound in Jesus, filled with His likeness rise,

To love Him and adore Him, to see Him with these eyes:

’Twixt me and resurrection but Paradise doth stand;

Then, then, for glory dwelling in Immanuel’s land.

Several applications

Thinking about these words brings several applications to mind. The first one to note is the confidence that Job expresses when he says ‘I know...’ Although he is living in difficult circumstances, they do not prevent him possessing a strong confidence in what his Lord would yet do for him. Of course, there were many things about life that Job did not know what the outcome would be. Yet his faith was like an anchor lodged securely in what Jesus would do when he came to earth. And we must do the same. In order to have this certainty we have to make a choice to serve Jesus even when things are dark and difficult.

A second application is the comfort these words of Job bring to those who have lost loved ones who have fallen asleep in Jesus. Job describes not only his future experience, but also their future experience when Jesus returns. They will yet see him in their resurrected bodies. Indeed although they are in heaven as to their souls, they still look forward to the resurrection when they, with all God’s people, will behold the awesomeness of Jesus.

A third application is that we all live in a world in which major crises will come. We see that is the case on international and national levels as well as in individual lives when illness or other tragedies strike unexpectedly and bring an end to things we may have hoped for. When such a crisis hits us in providence, what will we be able to say? Few people have gone through such a crisis as Job did, yet God allowed it to happen. He tells us how he was able to persevere. It was by looking ahead to what he knew Jesus would do for him.

A fourth application from Job’s words is how we are to respond in situations of conflict with the powers of darkness. Job was not aware of all the machinations of the devil against him. But we are, and instruction on how to respond to and in this conflict is one of the purposes of the Book of Job. There is a sense in which this conflict is life-long, but there is also a sense when the conflict is more intense. The conflict occurs in many different ways. Today we face dark spiritual conflict in many of the changes taking place in society. Should the conflict make things difficult for us, what will we be able to say? Hopefully we will all be able to use Job’s words from the heart.