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Keeping the Faith

Keeping the Faith
July 22, 2018

Scripture: Job 19

I. You keep the faith by remembering your true adversary.

A. In Job chapter 19 Job is responding to his friend Bildad. Bildad had said that Job was suffering because of Job’s own wickedness. Job vehemently denied that he was wicked (vs. 3). Job did not agree that he was wicked. But he did agree with Bildad that God was treating him as if he were wicked. Notice that over and over again Job holds God responsible for the suffering in his life (vs. 6-12). It was God who has allowed this suffering into Job’s life. But there was something that Job did not understand about his suffering: it came at Satan’s hand (Job 1:12 and Job 2:6). His suffering was not at God’s hand like Job thought (Job 19:21).

B. One way that Satan wants to destroy you is found in Genesis 3:1: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”’ Satan wanted Eve to doubt God’s word. She wondered, “Did God actually say?” God’s purposes for Adam and Eve were good. But Satan wanted Eve to doubt God’s word and doubt God’s goodness.

II. You keep the faith by reaching out to others.

A. When Job suffered, he was all alone with his troubles. He had no one who would comfort him or help him. One of the worst things about the suffering of Job was the loneliness of it all. He says in vs. 13 that God “has put my brothers far from me.” In vs. 14 Job says that “my relatives have failed me.” Even Job’s maidservants count Job as a stranger (vs. 15). He says in vs. 17, “my breath is strange to my wife.” She doesn’t even want to be near her own husband; his very breath is repulsive to her. As for Job’s friends, vs. 19 says, “all my intimate friends abhor me.”

B. How much better off would Job have been if he had someone with faith to walk by his side in his time of loneliness? Naomi at least had Ruth to encourage her in her faith while they shared in their struggle of widowhood and poverty. But Job had nobody. He was alone. It’s amazing that Job was able to keep his faith in God during his great suffering. It’s amazing because he was abandoned by everybody who knew and loved him. His three so-called friends weren’t helping Job in his faith. They made things worse by telling Job that he deserved to suffer.

III. You keep the faith by trusting your Redeemer.

A. Job, in spite of his suffering and his great loneliness, comes out with this incredible statement of faith in God in vs. 25-27. What is a redeemer? The word redeemer is one of the most important words in the story of Ruth. Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi talks to Ruth about Boaz, Ruth’s eventual husband in Ruth 2:20: “Naomi also said to her, ‘The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.’” We discover two things about a redeemer in Naomi’s words. First, a redeemer is a defender of someone in need. Second, a redeemer is a close relative of someone in need. Job kept his faith because he knew God as redeemer: his defender and close relative. God was for him not against him. God would vindicate Job as a righteous man by defending His righteousness. Job would see God after his resurrection (vs. 26-27), and he would see God as his defender.

Application:
Keep the faith by believing that God is your redeemer: your defender and close relative.

Sources:
The book of Job
Commentaries on Job by Francis Andersen and Christopher Ash
“For the Love of God” by D.A. Carson