“I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES…”
Job 19:25
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: Humor about Pastors
1. RENEGADE SONG LEADER
a. Having just preached a passionate sermon on the dangers gossip and tale-bearing, the pastor turned over the pulpit to the song leader for the closing hymn.
b. The song leader, with a twinkle in his eye, had everyone turn to hymn #661 and sing, “I Love to Tell the Story!”
2. PREACHER’S HELLFIRE
a. Fond of spicy food, the pastor kept a jar of pure, hot horseradish on his kitchen table. One evening an unsuspecting dinner guest took a big spoonful of the stuff and was taken aback.
b. When he finally regained the ability to speak, he gasped, “I’ve heard of minister’s preaching hellfire before, but you’re the first one who’s ever passed out samples!”
B. TEXT
“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the earth” Job 19:25.
C. OCCASION OF THE QUOTE
1. The godly old patriarch Job got caught in a war zone, in a battle between Heaven and Hell. All of Job’s property and livestock were destroyed and his 10 children were killed in what looked like judgments from God. When Job had no one left, he fell back on his last resource – his Friend in times of prayer, the Redeemer!
2. Early on in his trial, Job cries for someone to mediate between he and God (Job 9:33, “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together”). Job’s 3 “friends” acted more like prosecuting attorneys than friends, trying to convict him of some sin.
3. As if a courtroom of Law, Job lays out the “case” (13:3,8,18; 23:4; 31:35) for his innocence. But Job can’t find God to present the facts to (13:22,24; 23:3, 8-9).
4. Then he becomes conscious, by way of revelation, that he has always had a heavenly friend and advocate to stand up for him -- the preincarnate Jesus (“Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend,” Job 16:19-21). This is whom he makes allusion to as “my Redeemer” in chapter 19.
5. The Hebrew word for “redeemer” is “Goel.” It was the word for the “kinsman-redeemer” of the O.T. (Lev. 25:25-55; Ruth 3:9,12-13) who had the obligation to redeem a relative in serious difficulty. What Boaz was to Ruth, Jesus is to His Church!
6. So we’re going to look at the 3 characteristics of our Kinsman-Redeemer Jesus and how He will represent us at the Throne of God at the Last Day!
I. JESUS IS OUR CLOSEST RELATIVE
A. STRONGEST MEANING OF “GOEL”
1. In Job 19:25 Job said, “I know that my Goel lives.” This Hebrew word designated his closest relative, who, because of his family connection, was bound to take up his cause.
2. If a man was murdered, the Goel would try to avenge his death. If a person fell into debt, and was sold into slavery because of the debt, his Goel, if he was able, had to redeem him. That’s why he was referred to as “redeemer” (Lev. 25).
3. The most outstanding qualification for the “redeemer” was that he or she had to be the nearest relative. Job knew he had One IN HEAVEN (“Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high” 26:19).
B. JESUS AS OUR CLOSEST RELATIVE
1. Jesus Christ is the closest relative you have, if you’re saved. Your own brothers, sisters, mother or father aren’t as close as He is. Why?
2. Since He knew you from the foundation of the world and has been with you every moment of your life, He is more intimately acquainted with you even than your mother or sister. He alone knows the origins of your motives, your feelings, and is in complete sympathy for you, since He knows every circumstance and pressure.
3. His kinship is superior to your own flesh & blood because he chose to be your relative. Many people wish they weren’t related to their parent or sibling. Not Jesus; He knew all you really were but still chose to be your closest friend. Nothing would satisfy Him except to come to earth and share in your mortality.
4. He’s also a closer relative because your natural relatives will eventually die and you won’t be able to count on their help some day. But Jesus will always be there, both now and forever. He will never fail to be present for you!
C. ILLUSTRATION: TRUST HIM TO HOLD THE ROPE
1. A group of botanists were exploring remote regions of the Alps in search of new species of flowers. One day they saw through binoculars a flower of such rarity and beauty that its value to science was incalculable. But it lay deep in a ravine with cliffs on both sides. To get the flower someone had to be lowered over the cliff on a rope.
2. The scientists needed someone small to lower down the cliff and then raise. They offered to pay a boy well if he would agree to be lowered over the cliff to retrieve the flower below.
3. The boy took one look down the steep, dizzy depths and said, "I'll be back in a minute." He returned with a gray-haired man and said, "I'll go over that cliff and get that flower if this man holds the rope. He's my dad."
4. May God give us the faith of that boy! Have you learned to trust the Lord like that? Are you willing to let Jesus hold the rope of your life, in the face of an impossible situation? Why don’t you say with the boy, "If my Father holds the rope, I shall not fear!" [M. R. De Haan]
II. JESUS AS OUR VINDICATOR
A. JOB’S CONDEMNATION & HIS REPLY
1. It was the kinsman’s duty to defend the rights of his needy relative, so Job says, “I know that my Vindicator lives.”
2. In Job 19 he catalogs how all had forsaken and despised him; his brothers (13), acquaintances (13), relatives (14), friends (14), guests (15), maidservants (15), servants (16), his wife (17), even the neighborhood boys (18), and friends (19).
3. His best friends said he was guilty (9:28; 19:28) and that the things that had happened to him (sores, fire falling, children dying, struck with terror) were judgments from God (8:4; 18:11-19). Bildad said Job was blaspheming God’s character and perverting His justice (8:3).
4. But Job answered, “I am innocent! My Vindicator lives and will someday rise to defend me!” (27:5-6; 19:25)
B. JESUS IS OUR VINDICATOR
1. It is not easy for Christians to live in this world without being slandered and misrepresented; we can hardly utter a word without having it twisted and misconstrued.
2. Don’t be too concerned about defending yourself. God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” When he comes, all will be cleared up in that day, so leave the accusations alone, knowing that your Vindicator lives.
3. When Satan, the accuser of the brethren, tries to condemn you, remember to answer him with the truth that your Justifier lives. The apostle John wrote, “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” 1 Jn. 2:1.
4. Thank God we have someone who will speak to the Father in our defense, who is on our side! What a relief.
C. ILLUSTRATION: HE DIDN’T DEFEND HIMSELF
1. English evangelist George Whitefield (1714-1770) received a vicious letter accusing him of wrongdoing. His reply was brief and courteous:
2. "I thank you heartily for your letter. As for what you and my other enemies are saying against me, I know worse things about myself than you will ever say about me. With love in Christ, George Whitefield."
3. He didn't try to defend himself. He was much more concerned about God’s opinion than man’s opinion. [Daily Bread, August 18, 1992]
4. Monuments are often built with the stones thrown at people during their lifetimes. If you are a Christian, you can expect folks to criticize, but you ought to live so nobody will believe them.
III. JESUS AS OUR REDEEMER
The third meaning of the word Goel certainly is “redeemer;” to “buy back those who’d been sold, or to restore their inheritance.” That’s why Job could say, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”
A. WHAT DID HE REDEEM US FROM?
1. By His blood Jesus redeemed us FROM ALL OUR SINS (Eph. 1:7). Paul wrote, “I am carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14) but Christ has come, and broken the power of sin in us, so that its reigning power is subdued (Rom. 8:3).
2. “Christ has redeemed us from the CURSE OF THE LAW, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree” Gal. 3:13. “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” Gal. 4:5. Praise God for that!
3. “You were redeemed from the EMPTY WAY OF LIFE handed down to you from your ancestors” 1 Pet. 1:18.
B. HOW DID JESUS REDEEM US?
1. BY HIS BLOOD. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed…but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” 1 Pet. 1:18-19. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” Eph. 1:7. “You were bought at a price” 1 Cor. 6:20.
2. BY HIS SUFFERINGS. Our Debts weren’t just material, they were moral. The only price that could save us from slavery and death was the price of Blood; the suffering of Jesus at the whipping post and the crucifixion. “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…” Isa. 53:10.
3. BY HIS DEATH. “So that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” Heb. 2:14.
4. THE EXTREMES OF HIS REDEMPTION ILLUS.
a. Some of the early church teachers pointed out that a single drop of the blood of Christ would have been sufficient to redeem the whole race of mankind.
b. Since that’s true, we see the marvelous extreme of the love of God, that though so little was sufficient, God still had Jesus shed ALL His blood so that we could be saved to the uttermost!
c. If you had been the only one person who were lost,
Jesus would still have gone to the cross for you alone! The Good Shepherd will leave the 99 and go in search for the one lost sheep!
C. HE BOUGHT BACK OUR LOST INHERITANCE
1. We had lost everything because of our father Adam’s sin and become the servants of sin and Satan. But what Adam lost in the Garden of Eden, Jesus began redeeming in the Garden of Gethsemane!
2. Jesus has opened the way to Paradise and eternal life and we can now eat of the Tree of Life. We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, through the wondrous redemption which he worked on the Cross of Calvary.
3. You can personally say, “I know that my Redeemer lives!” He redeemed my life sin and from the pit of hell. He will redeem me from the power of the grave, and has reserved a mansion for me in His golden city, New Jerusalem!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: The Czar and the Soldier.
1. In the late 1800s there was a young man in the Russian Army who was wild & reckless. He was drinking and gambling and ran up a huge debt, for a commoner.
2. A large sum of money had to be paid the next day to his creditors. If he didn’t come up with the money, he would go to prison. He was terrified of being put in the prison.
3. That night he sat in his barracks, adding up his debts, and trying to think of some way to pay them. He listed all of them in a long column followed by the staggering total.
4. At the bottom of the page he scrawled the words, "Who is to pay this"? Exhausted, he laid his head upon his desk and fell asleep.
5. That night the Czar, according to his custom, was walking through the barracks while the soldiers slept, and happened to come upon the young soldier sleeping. He saw the column of debts, and when he read the question: "Who's to pay them?," he wrote underneath the name "Nicholas."
6.When the young man awoke he found written at the bottom the signature of the Czar of all the Russias. What did it mean? He couldn't believe it but after a few hours the money came from the Emperor himself.
7. This story can’t be proven, but one thing IS certain: the great Emperor of Heaven has taken up your list of sin-debts and written across them, “Paid for by the Blood of Jesus Christ which cleanses from all sin!” D.L. Moody
B. THE CALL
1. How many of you have had hard trials lately and your faith has been shaken? I want to encourage you to put your trust in you Redeemer, who won’t fail you!
2. How many of you want to put your faith in Jesus Christ who purchased your salvation of Calvary’s cross? His blood is enough to save you!
3. Some of you have been waiting for the “perfect” moment to surrender your life to Christ. God says that “Today is the Day of Salvation – Now is the appointed time!” God commands you to wait no longer. Surrender to him now.
4. I want all of those who’ve raised their hands to join me at the front. Let’s pray and give it all to Jesus!
[This is a rewrite of Charles Spurgeon’s message, “Job’s Sure Knowledge.”]
