Job's Redeemer: A Discussion on Faith and Resilience

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, welcome to the Bible

Guys. Everyone here, we are Chris. We are Chris and Jeff.

Again. It's good to be back, buddy. If you're following in real

time. Two weeks ago, I was out. Last week, Jeff was

out. We had a spattering of guests. Really fun, kind of a

little buffet of guests spattering. Yes, sounds messy. Yeah, whenever you're

not here, Jeff, everything everything is messy. No, it was.

It was great. It was a lot of fun. But I'm sure that

people who enjoy us together enjoy the fact that you're now back way better and

I'm back. No, No, our guests did a great job, so

thank you. Thank you to all of them. They job, They did

a fantastic job. Yeah, in fact, it was very fun. I

just listened to myself and Quinn this morning. Oh good. Yeah, well

I missed it and I'm looking forward to being back in the studio with you

man getting this thing done. Yes, knocking it out, killing it.

And today we are starting off with a riveting segment of Dad joke competition.

Oh I hadn't even seen that yet, dad jokes. Yes, you haven't

looked at it. I haven't looked at any single joke. We go,

okay, okay, so you want to start here? We go? Sure,

okay. Hey, you hear that the Hulk has started recycling. No,

he's really going green. Oh no, that's terrible. No, No,

I'm not laughing at that. I'm not laughing either. Here's a good

one. I recently took a poll and found that one of the people in

the tent were angry when it collapsed. That's a good one. It's just

so random. It's so random. Of course they were ready to collapse.

That's so funny. And by the way, ten collapsing is not fun as

No, no, it's not. Excuse me, okay, it happened a

few times. Number two, Uh, here we go. Just reading that

there's a small island off the coast of Italy with five million Sicilian people.

That's the biggest number I've ever seen. What, let me read it again,

Sicilian. Just reading that there's a small island off the coast of Italy

with five million Sicilian people. Five million Sicilian, five million Sicilian. That's

the number five million sicilian. Oh wow, that is that was a rough

one. That was rough. On. I want to go on record and

see that's the roughest I've ever seen, because you're supposed to assume that million

Sicilian is like a number, like a big number, million Sicilian. Oh

my goodness, that is just I think. Is that more than a gajillion?

She might have googled the worst jokes ever? Oh no, something,

Wow, that's terrible. This one says once my dog ate all the scrabble

tiles, and for days he kept leaving little messages around the house. That

one's good. That one's good. I like that. That's a good one.

I like that one. Okay, what do you call old woman who

lives at the top of a church tower? I don't know. Bell.

Oh yes, okay. If I would have thought about that for half a

second, long as it was coming out of your mouth, I thought,

well, yeah, okay, let me see. Every morning, after I

get out of the house, a bike comes out of nowhere and runs me

over. It's a vicious cycle. It's a vicious cycle. Okay, all

right, yeah, I get it. Okay, okay, cycles, good

one. All right, how about this one? A Lumberjack went into a

magic forest to cut a tree. Upon arrival, he started to swing at

the tree when it shouted. Wait, I'm a talking tree, Lumberjack grinned,

and you will dialogue die a log? Oh no, no, nope,

yeah, not laughing, man, Your whole set is rough today.

Yeah, it's really rough, and you will dialogue. Yes, I'm a

talking tree. You would die a log. Okay, it's clever, it's

clever. It is clever, but it's Is it possible to stretch to reach

too far? Perhaps? Yeshaps? Yes, Today I learned that if you

turn a canoe over, you can wear it as a hat because it's capsized.

Now that is yeah, So I got a tent one and a canoe

one right up my alley man, Yes, okay, here we go.

I took my dog to the lake yesterday, and notice he floats very well.

He's a very good boy. Good boy, Oh my goodness, gracious

good, he's a good boy. That is terrible. I like your reaction

better than the joke. Okay, I accidentally drank a bottle of invisible ink.

Now I'm in the hospital waiting to be seen. Oh no, okay,

Wow, that was really just a I liked mine, I have four

out of five were good. Yeah, I like three out of four for

you for three out of five, five, three out of five yeah,

okay, yeah, I liked zero out of zero for me or zero out

of five, I should say I can't get the numbers, right, Okay,

Oh goodness gracious, well, hey, that is uh, maybe an

appropriate way to kick us off today. I don't know you're back. I

don't know, and big wamp wamps. Yes. So, if you've been

following along, we've been in the Book of Job, which is you know,

Job lived during the time of probably Abraham, Isaac and Jacob right in

that time. And he's going through a rough time and I think you guys

are to say the least. You guys already talked about his buddies, right,

yeah, yeah, we did last time. So we did four episodes

of Job. This is this would be our fifth episode. Yeah, So

his his three buddies show up, you know, with friends like this,

who needs enemies quite honestly, right, they're just kind of going after him.

And in this chapter, specifically nineteen, he finally says, come on,

you guys are busted my chops ten times, you've really you're hurting my

feelings. You're making me mad by the way I feel like now, I

don't feel like you're helping because they start off, Oh, we just want

to help you figure out what's happening, Job, and then by now because

they just keep hammering him and hammering him that if you look at the beginning

of this chapter, he says, I don't feel like you're helping me now.

I think you're trying to just rub it in my face. And he

says, if I've sinned, if this is me and God, then it's

none of your business. It's between me and God. Right, That's what

he says at the beginning, and then he kind of blames God. Have

you ever been there? In verse six he says, it's God who's wronged

me. Yeah, right, Yeah, we were talking about that earlier.

The fact that we went through all of Joseph, and Joseph seems like he

had like the perfect reactions, right, and Job seems like he has the

most unbelievable reactions. But then he finally finally comes around and shows his humanity

in his thoughts. Well, he's frustrated with God, right, but then

he comes into Hey, but everything's going to be okay, and then he's

frustrated again and everything, and I feel like that's me a lot of times,

up and down, up and downs. I think that's everybody, isn't

that. Yeah, so good days and bad absolutely. So. The context

of this chapter is he feels like he's getting roughed up by his friends again,

and he's telling them I think I'm convinced that this is only between me

and God. It's none of your business. But we're just going to read

a few verses today, and these are unbelievable considering I believe these would be

the earliest written words within the Christian and the Jewish religious writings about eternity like

this, because Job was written before Genesism chronologically, yeah yeah right. Job

would have probably been the oldest book written in the Bible. So here's what

he says. We're just going to read Job nineteen twenty three through twenty seven.

And it says, oh that my words could be recorded, Oh that

they could be inscribed on a monument, carved with an iron chisel and filled

with le engraved forever in the rock. But as for me, I know

that my redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last,

and after my body is decayed, yet in my body, I will see

God. I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him

with my own eyes. And I'm overwhelmed at the thought. Right. Then

he goes and says, why do you guys keep persecuting me? So?

Right? But he has this poet this pause so early in the chapter,

he says, hey, this is between me and God. Then he's frustrated

with him for busting his chops, and then he comes back and goes,

you know what, as for me, I know that my redeemer lives.

I wish that all my complaints would be written in stone. And you know,

hey, somebody needs to be keeping a record of this as we sort

this out. Somebody needs to be keeping a record of it. But here's

what I know, no matter what God's good, whether I live or die,

I'm going to see him someday physically. Yeah. And it's really interesting.

We didn't read it, of course, but the very next verse is,

how dare you go on persecuting me? Say it's it's it's his own

fault. You should fear punishment yourselves for your attitude deserves punishment. So he

goes back to, you know, just yelling at his friends. So it

so really this is this uh this this haven, right, it's this this

isle of refuge. In the middle of his conversation and he's like, hey,

the one thing I know, just like you said, my Redeemer Lives.

And how could you not think of that song? Yeah? Right,

And and you know, by the way, that was her only hit.

Yeah, great song. I think it was really great song. When I

listened to that and it still plays, I mean what it was early nineties.

Maybe my daughter listens to it all times songs. Yeah, and and

everybody waits for the fade out there Natalie Grant, Yeah, I think so,

right during the fade out of the song when she says I spoke to

him this morning, and every he's like, yeah, that's right, this

morning he lives. So if you don't know that song, look up Natalie

Grant and My Redeemer Lives. That's great, that's good. Or Jason Krab

also did it. It's really good, really yeah, really right, I

can't remember. I can't imagine it being better than Natalie's. Well it's good.

So anyways, I think that there's a lot in this really for a

Christian in particular the idea that you know, like we started off, as

we were just getting into this, we started off saying this, it's up

and down, up and down, up and down. And even in this

he's frustrated, he's arguing with his buddies, and then he pauses and has

this really brilliant moment of everything's going to be okay, and God is my

redeemer, right, and then he goes back to arguing with him again.

And this is most of the Book of Job, by the way, most

of the Book of Job is him going back and forth, back and forth,

back and forth on this. But let's talk about this idea of I

know that my Redeemer lives. So the idea of a redeemer. And here's

a great note, by the way, we always love the Life Application study

Bibles. Here's a great note that starts it off. So let's start it

this way. At the heart of the Book of Job comes his ringing affirmation

of confidence, I know that my Redeemer lives. In ancient Israel, a

redeemer was a family member who bought a slave's way to freedom, or who

took care of a widow. And remember that happened with Ruth, Ruth,

and Boaz. What tremendous faith Job had, especially since he was unaware of

the conference between God and Satan. Job thought that God had brought all these

disasters upon him, and faced with death and decay, Job still expected to

see God, and he expected to do so in his body. When the

Book of Job was written, Israel did not have a well developed doctrine of

the resurrection. Although Job struggled with the idea that God was presently against him,

he firmly believed that in the end, God would be on his side.

And this belief was so strong that Job became one of the first to

talk about the resurrection of the body. Isn't that amazing? Yes, So

to think about first of all, let's just talk about the fact that he

was not privy to this private conversation between God and Satan, and he still

believed God was good. Right. Well, I mean, with all the

bad things happened in his life. Well, I mean, it just seems

like moments after the tragedy struck when he shaved his head, yeah, and

he said, you know, Niked came out of Memo's win, came out

of my mothers room and make it all return, and then he says,

shall we not accept the bad along with the good? Who says that?

Yeah, nobody says that, exactly nobody. I'm talking literally, not a

person that I know, you know, I mean, unless they're modeling after

him. I mean, he's the one who had the original thought. Yeah

right, I know we can say it because job's at the bar, right,

but he but man, I mean, just unbelievable. That's that's phenomenal

to me. And I love I love his response, and it kind of

you're right, It does kind of prep us to think a different way.

You know, every great idea is thought first by somebody, right, somebody

has this great idea, and then suddenly we all begin to aspire to it

or or latch onto it and believe it. I think that like Thomas Jefferson,

not a perfect guy, but he's the one who told us all all

men are created equal, right, And ever since, prior to that being

written, it was talked about chit chat a little bit, but not like

at the core of humanity believed. And then and now of a sudden,

you know, he writes it, and America begins to go in that direction.

We haven't perfectly executed on that process. But we aspire to an idea

because in seventeen seventy six some guy wrote it right. Well, it's not

very far off from Job's original thoughts here when he said, oh, that

my words would be recorded, Yeah, and that they would be inscribed on

a monument carved with an iron chisel filled with lead. Hey, if you've

ever walked around Washington, DC, you see those words inscribed. That's exactly

what I was going for. Yeah, that's exactly what you're right. And

so what happens is people have these big ideas and they'll chisel this idea into

humanity's mind, and we think about those things and then we aspire to them.

And so when I read the book of Job, I'm inspired to face

my trials like him. I'm also inspired by the fact that he was up

and down, up and down, up and down, but he kept landing

on the right solutions right, and he felt like he was blaming God through

this whole book. He never understands what happens, never understood what happened through

the whole book. He just felt like God was hurting him on purpose.

And he loved God anyways, and he trusted God anyways. But these phrases

here just kind of make you think, Man, I want to be that

guy. I want to be a guy who just stands up, takes life

as it comes, and says God is still good. Yeah, and it's

because of So do you remember when we were young and this was you know,

we were entry No, I don't remember. Noways got to come up

along now. So when we were young and just entering into ministry. Uh,

you know, even before the Internet, which is crazy, even say,

oh, wowed, there's still clay tablets. Yeah, I know,

right, well, there was sometimes we would buy books that were helps for

sermons. And there was a book that I had in youth ministry and it

was like illustrations in a can you know what I mean? Yeah, we're

in other words, they're not our personal illustrations. They are just these you

know, anonymous illustrations. And I remember one of them talked about a slave

trader. Do you know this one? So just humor me for a minute

here, because it was so powerful, Like I cried every time I spoke

it or read it. But basically, this guy is walking along and he

comes across, you know, a slave trader who's selling slaves publicly and you

know, one by one, you know, they're getting auctioned off. And

then there was this little girl, you know, and she was, you

know, just this timid little thing, and there was other men around them,

and they were bidding higher and higher. And then the illustration went on

to say that these men were shouting, you know, obscene things, and

you know, they really were fighting for her, and and you know,

it was just really descriptive and you just sort of felt the the evil in

that moment. And so then this man, he had a bag of gold

for his trip, and he decides instead of going in that moment, he

decides he's not going to make the journey. He's not going to make this

trade. He's not you know this this would have been all the money that

he would have had, you know, to prepare himself, you know,

but he decides in that moment to give up where he's going and give up

his entire livelihood, and he decides to bid in uh, this entire bag

of gold. And so then he wins her and and so then basically he

grabs her and starts walking up and down the street, and she's talking to

him the whole time, yelling at him and saying you're disgusting and I hate

you and all these different things. But he didn't say a word. And

he's just walking up and down the street and he's looking in the windows of

this town and come to find out he's looking and you know, looking for

some clerical thing. And then he goes inside and she waits outside and he

comes back out and she spits in his face and says, I hate you.

I will never serve you. And then he hands her a piece of

paper and says, you're free. Wow. And I get emotional talk.

I get emotional talking about it just because I remember the story, but it's

also just the concept there. And he says and he says, you're free,

and he says, don't you see you're free? And she she says,

what trick is this? And she, you know, argues back and

forth, and he said, no, no, you don't understand. He

goes, I bought you to set you free. And then and then finally,

when it finally all sank in, she said, are you serious?

Then he unchanged her and he says go and then she she starts to leave,

and then he starts to go back home because he had given up his

you know, all his livelihood, and then as he started going home,

come to find out, she runs back and falls at his feet and says,

where you go, I will go. I will serve you the rest

of my life because you bought me to suit me free. Wow. Well

that's what Jesus did, right, that's the whole role of a Redemand I'm

just a baby buddy. No, No, that's a great, great story.

The role of a redeemer was there were two kinds of redeemers. The

one was for slaves, and oftentimes it would be a family member that would

go and they would work through their life and then go buy a family member's

freedom. Slavery in that day was different. You know, in America and

in the West, we had chantel slavery where people would go and they would

own a person for life, whereas in this time, much of the slavery

in the Middle East was more debt owede or a crime being paid for right,

And there was a season. There was time, ten years, twenty

years, or whatever, and then you were done. You served your term,

but family members could buy you out of that that debt or somebody else

could. So always they were almost always called kinsman redeemers. The other one

would be widows. Right. So like in the Book of Ruth, for

instance, there was no safety mechanism. They didn't have life insurance policies and

you know all those kinds of things, and so family would have to care

for family. The problem was a lot of times a woman would be married

and then taken from her family and her village and would be far far away,

her husband would die, She's not alone and has no way to make

it home. And so sometimes a good gracious family member, often a brother

or an uncle or somebody, would step in and purchase the right to care

for that woman, right that person, and so it would be a kinsman

redeemer. And in this instance here this is what he's saying is and that

man then would step in and say, I'm her provider and I'm her protector.

So otherwise there's no other options. She's going to be working the streets,

right. She wanted to stay alive, and so the man would step

in. It would cost him money, he'd have to put up, not

quite what we would consider a dowry, but there would be this expectation something

very similar, which would then be her life insurance policy right to take care

of her. And he would say, I'm gonna protect her. I'm going

to provide for her. And this is what he's asking for. His friends

are kind of bullying on him, and he said, man, I need

God to step in and protect me. He's the only one that can provide

for me. And he's the one that can protect me. This is my

redeemer, the one who buys me right. And then he says, and

then I know this, whether I live or die, no matter what,

I'm going to see God with these eyes and I'll be with him. So

while he didn't understand what was happening his life, and I think a lot

of times things happen in our lives we don't understand them. We can't have

confidence like job that God is good and we're going to see him with her

own eyes. And he ends it with and I'm overwhelmed at the thought,

just the idea of heaven, the idea that even though we're sinners. You

know, the book of Hagi has that same story, right, Hagui was

a prophet. God tells Hagi, go marry this prostitute. I go,

oh, I'm a man of God. I can't. He said, No,

God says, go do it. So he does. And then she

after he marries her, she cleans up, she changes her lifestyle, and

then after time she goes back starts working the streets. She runs away from

and he goes and gets her and brings her back, and she leaves and

she runs away again. And then one day he's walking through the streets and

he sees her being sold, and the Bible says he stepped up and bid

on her, and he bought her and then set her free from her slavery

and brought her back into the home again, having completely forgiven her and giving

her another chance. And this is the idea of that redeemer that he's talking

about here. And I think in the middle of all of his stress and

all of his problems, this might be one of the most beautiful things he

writes or says in all of this, as he's looking forward to the fact

that God will provide. Jesus paid the price for you and me. Yeah,

well that's that's what's so great about you know, us living on the

other side of the cross. We could look at a scripture like this and

knowing that job was looking forward to the cross. Right, So this is

in the Bible that says, I know that my redeemer lives capital are so

in either case, you know, God, God, you know, absorbs

or takes away or you know our sin and uh. But but when we

look at it, we know that Jesus Christ, the price that he paid

for us was that God loved us so much that he sent his only son

into the world. And Jesus died on a cross and paid the ultimate price

for our sins. And so we have a debt that we could not pay

and uh, and it's literally impossible for us to pay it, and so

we need someone to take care of that debt. And so that's why when

Jesus comes in and and pays the price. You know, when when I

was when I was in the youth group, we you know, as a

kid back then, we used to sing like little choruses. And then do

you ever see this one he goes he paid a debt. He did not.

Oh o, a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to

rush my sins away. Okay, So anyway, so yeah, that's that's

what it is. So he's so he's capital capital, our redeemer, and

uh, yeah, it's a beautiful thing to know that, you know,

in spite of all of these things, he has paid the price for us.

So you know, whenever we talk about fairness, you know, I

love Andy Stanley how he always says. I've heard him say it like three

times at leadership conferences. He said, fairness ended in the garden. Fairness

ended in the garden of Eden. Doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. And

God is always incredibly unfair to our favor. But but when it comes to,

you know, thinking about hardships that we go through, you know,

our lot in life, living under a broken and messed up world, you

know, we try to say, oh, this isn't fair and look what

they have and why do I have to go through this? And again those

are those are legitimate feelings, those are legitimate things. Depending on what we're

you know, upset about. We could always go back and say, but

guess what you get. Heaven and Jesus paid the price for you. He

died and across for you because he loves you that much. I know that

my Redeemer lies. We can always always say that in the midst of any

trial. That's it. That's the answer, I said, God, Remember

he lives. That's right. Hey, Well, listen. That is our

time, so hopefully we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys. H