Fourth Sunday After Easter (B C P). Series

Psalm 66:14-20, Job 19:21-27a, James 1:17-21, John 16:5-15.

A). OF ANSWERED PRAYER.

Psalm 66:14-20.

The testimony of the people of God is supplemented with the testimony of one believer: like a good old-fashioned evangelistic meeting, which not only has good preaching, but also individual testimonies to follow. The voice of the one rises above the song of the congregation: “I will go to your house… I will pay my vows, which I made when I was in trouble” (Psalm 66:13-14). The burnt offerings (Psalm 66:15) indicate the whole-heartedness of this believer’s commitment to the LORD.

The choir had sung, ‘Come and see the works of God’ (Psalm 66:5) - but this individual personalises it: “Come and hear… what God has done for me!” (Psalm 66:16). The Psalmist had been in trouble (Psalm 66:14), he cried to God (Psalm 66:17), and God “attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:19). Key to this success in prayer, indicates the Psalmist, was the state of his heart toward God: he cherished not iniquity in his heart (Psalm 66:18).

The Psalm ends as it began: by blessing God. For, “He has not turned away my prayer, nor removed His mercy/ loving kindness from me” (Psalm 66:20). Many Christians can relate to this testimony in their own experience - why not share it with others?

B). THE HEIGHT OF JOB’S FAITH.

Job 19:21-27.

It is bad enough when God appears to afflict us, but it becomes all but unbearable when those who are our supposed ‘friends’ seem to use this as an occasion to reproach us (cf. Job 19:2-3).

JOB 19:21-22. “Have pity upon me, O ye my friends,” pleads Job. It is God who has afflicted me, so why are you persecuting me? Why do you judge me as if you were God, and not rest content with the suffering I have already borne?

JOB 19:23-24. “Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed (literally, ‘inscribed’) in a book! That they were graven (literally, ‘engraved’) with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!”

Something written on a scrap of paper is often lost. Something published in a book may last longer. But something written on a rock may endure, it seems, for ever.

And, in a way, Job’s words have been “written on a rock” – they have been inscripturated in the Bible. Now everyone can know what extremes of suffering a man of God may have to go through, and still maintain his faith!

JOB 19:25. “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”

Whenever I read this, I hear a wonderful soprano voice singing an aria from Handel’s oratorio, ‘Messiah’: “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

The Hebrew word translated “redeemer” referred to a kinsman empowered to redeem the property of a brother who had fallen upon hard times (cf. Leviticus 25:25-28), or to redeem a brother from slavery (cf. Leviticus 25:48-49), or even to marry a brother’s widow to give her deceased husband children to inherit his land (cf. Ruth 4:3-6).

In this verse Job pauses a little from complaining against his friends, and perhaps even against God, to acknowledge God as his Redeemer (cf. Exodus 6:6; Psalm 72:14). Job’s vision is vivid. He had looked for a ‘daysman’ – a ‘go-between,’ if you will - with the ability to ‘lay his hand upon us both’ (cf. Job 9:33). Now he catches a view - if we can but see it - of Jesus, who is both God and man and therefore perfectly qualified to be the only Mediator between God and man (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5-6).

The book of Job is one of the oldest in the Bible. A long time before the 18th century composer! Yet here Job reaches out of the depths of despair to grasp a truth which will yet find its fulfilment, for all of God’s people, when Jesus, our kinsman-redeemer, shall stand “at the latter day” upon the earth.

JOB 19:26. “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

This prophet is on a roll! Job knows he is going to die, and that after death his body shall face decay. But he appears here to anticipate his bodily resurrection. Furthermore, he knows that he shall see God!

JOB 19:27. “Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.”

This is going to be a personal experience. ‘I, even I,’ shall see Him. “Mine" eyes shall “behold” – look upon Him. “Not another” (not a stranger)! Even though “my reins” (literally, ‘kidneys’) be consumed “within me.” ‘Yet in my flesh shall I see God’ (JOB 19:26).