Your Redeemer Lives

Read Job 18-21
 
Job 19:2, 6 & 20-26  “How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words?...6 But it is God who has wronged me, capturing me in his net…20 I have been reduced to skin and bones, and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth. 21 Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for the hand of God has struck me. 22 Must you also persecute me, like God does? Haven’t you chewed me up enough 23 Oh, that my words could be recorded. Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument, 24 carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock. 25 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. 26 And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!”
ARE you in awe at Job’s pain, Job’s agony, Job’s loneliness, Job’s desperation, Job’s isolation and Job’s sickness? Have you been in such a place? Perhaps you are there now. Do you agree with Job that God has wronged you and captured you in his net? Is he accusing God of sinning?
   “Have mercy,” Job pleads. He wants people to know through the generations to come of God’s unjust afflictions. His testimony is, “My pain is God’s fault. And I want everyone to know.” If you are in such a place, can you now go to Job’s hope?  
   Out of the accusations comes a faithful confession, “I know my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.” How wondrous and full that the man of sorrow becomes a man of hope? He knows nothing of Jesus; yet this is the New Covenant of salvation by grace from the earliest years of the Old Covenant of Law. This is the foundation of all lives saved in Jesus. Regardless of our despair, even if our broken lives are recorded on the mountaintops, we can and do know our Redeemer lives!
   Oh, to know this truth in the deepest darkness of our lives changes everything. When this truth is firm in our minds, we turn from gazing with fearful eyes at the trials and tests, at the enemy seeming to overwhelm us, to looking intently into the joyous face of our risen LORD Jesus Christ. There he is, waiting open-armed to embrace you!
   See your Savior, and watch your fear disappear. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our LORD Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:57) He overcomes death. A decaying body is no obstacle because you will have a new body in heaven. Joy blasts its way into your soul, and you have no room for sorrow, pain or fear. Your heart has only room for joy and hope.
          In his despair, Job knew this eternal hope. God had given to his suffering servant a message of redemption and resurrection. The message surely is for you, too. Lift up your head today, my friends. Smile and rejoice. Your Redeemer lives!