Job's Redeemer

Scripture: Isaiah 53:4, Job 19:25-27, John 1:1-14
Date: 12/17/2016 
Lesson: 12
"Job saw God as Creator; after the cross, we see Him as Creator and Redeemer, or particularly, the Creator who became our Redeemer. And to do that, He had to suffer from sin in ways that no human being, Job included, would or could ever suffer."
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Good morning, friends, welcome again to Sabbath school study hour. A very warm welcome to our friends joining us across the country and, literally, around the world. Also, a warm welcome to the members and the visitors here at the Granite Bay seventh-day adventist church. As you know, we've been studying through our lesson quarterly dealing with the subject of the book of job. Today we find ourselves in lesson #12 entitled job's redeemer - reaching the end of our time studying together in this book of job.

We do have a free offer that goes along with our study today. It is a book written by Joe Crews entitled Christ's human nature and this is free to anybody (in North America) who calls and asks. The number to call is 866-788-3966 and you can ask for offer #703. That number, again, is 866-788-3966. Ask for offer #703 - a book entitled Christ's human nature and I believe this book is also available, for those outside of North America.

Just go to the website, just amazingfacts.org and you can download a copy of this book and you can read it for free. If you don't have a copy of today's lesson, which is lesson #12 in our study of the book of job, you can also download today's lesson at the Amazing Facts website - just amazingfacts.org. Well, before we get to our study this morning, as usual, we like to lift our voices in praise and so I'd like to invite our song leaders to join me onstage. (Soft piano music) thank you, Pastor Ross. It is that season when we go the one hundreds - the beginning one hundreds - of our hymnals and we are singing Christmas songs.

It's by no accident today that we happen to be singing my favorite and debbie's favorite. So we're going to start with o, come all ye faithful - #132 - this one's my favorite. We're going to sing all three verses so pull out your hymnals at home. Thank you for joining us and sing along as we sing about Christ's birth and his redemption and his power in our lives. You know, it is a beautiful thing, as Christians, that we don't have to just think about this Christmas theme only at Christmas time.

Every day he should be living in our hearts, he should be filling us, changing us, and we should always, always in the top of our heads and in the top of our minds, know that he is coming soon and just be ready every day for him to break through those clouds. I am looking forward to that day. He came as a lamb and he's coming as a king and I'm looking forward to that day. Silent night, holy night - hymn #143 - we're going to sing all four verses. At this time Pastor Ross will lead us in prayer.

(Soft piano music) amen. Well, let's bow our heads for a word of prayer before we get to our study. Dear Father in Heaven, what a privilege it is for us, once again, to gather together on this, your Sabbath day, and open up Your Word and study together. And Lord, we invite the Holy Spirit once again to come and guide our hearts and our minds and lead us into a clearer and fuller understanding of this great truth that Jesus is not only job's redeemer, but he's our redeemer. Bless our time together, in Jesus' Name, amen.

Our lesson this morning will be brought to us by Pastor Doug. Thank you, Pastor Ross, and thank you to our musicians. It's fun to have all the extra instruments here - the singers, kind of a little mini choir, and the orchestra and we appreciate that. Welcome to our Sabbath school class, friends, and I think Pastor Ross mentioned we do have a free offer. It's Christ's human nature - good book, and - about our redeemer.

Ask for offer #703 when you request that and it's -study-more. Our lesson is #12 - we're continuing in the study of job. Now, it seems like we've been in job a long time, but we're really not even covering a fraction of the meaty material in the 42 chapters of job. It's one of the biggest books in the Bible. And so, it just - it's fascinating.

Now today is, quite honestly, going to be one of my favorite studies in our lesson dealing with job's redeemer. Not just because it talks about Jesus, but because it gives me a chance - an opportunity - to dwell on my hobby horse in the Bible. My special love, when studying the Bible, especially in the old testament, is to look for the types of Christ. Some of you know I wrote a book - and it sounds like I'm plugging my book - maybe I am. It's called shadows of light: Christ in all the Bible.

I just kind of went through most of the old testament heroes and I say, 'how are they types of Christ?' And I've just been chomping at the bit for a chance to now look at the story of job and say, 'where do we see types of Jesus in the story of job?' And so we're going to do some of that today. But first our memory verse - and you can say this with me - memory verse for our study today, Isaiah 53, verse 4 - Isaiah 53, verse 4. You ready? You want to say that with me? "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted." Now, of course, that is that great chapter we'll talk about later, where it talks about the suffering Savior in the old testament. Alright, so getting into the lesson job's redeemer and, of course, this is springing from that verse you find in job 19, verses 25 through verse 27 where he says, "for I know that my redeemer lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know," - you see, until he's got faith - "that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" You can tell that job believed that even after our bodies are laid in a grave, yet in a resurrected body - "in my flesh I shall see God" - see him face to face.

Now someone's going to read for me, in a moment, Revelation 22:4. Before we get there, I'm also going to go to Isaiah 48:17. Job is talking about the redeemer. A coming redeemer is even an old testament theme. And it says here in Isaiah :17, "thus says the Lord, your redeemer," - God - if your child is kidnapped, if the kidnapper is doing it right, he's supposed to send you a note and say 'there's a ransom.

And if you would like to redeem, this is the price.' Maybe you've taken something before - you needed some money, you didn't have the money, but you had something of value and so you pawned it. And the pawn shop will maybe give you twenty percent of its value, if you're lucky and after you got the money back, you wanted that saxophone, or whatever it was, you wanted it back because you knew it was worth a lot more than $20.00. I had to get some money once and I had a saxophone - I pawned it for $20.00 - I'm speaking from experience. It was worth a lot more than that. They'll only hold it for you for a few weeks and if you want to redeem it, you've got to come back and you've got to give them $30.

00 so they make a profit on it to get it back. It's very expensive money. And so it's the price of redemption. In the Bible, if you lost your property, you could have a kinsman that would be able to redeem your property and they were called the kinsman redeemer, because they were from the right family line - from your family line - and that's the story of Ruth. Naomi lost her property during a time of famine.

They needed somebody to be a redeemer. Boaz was the kinsman redeemer. Well, the human race has been kidnapped and Christ paid the ransom. We're all guilty of sin - the penalty for sin is death. Jesus paid for the penalty with his blood - his death - and he is our redeemer.

So job knew that there would be a redeemer. And, also in that verse, from job 19, talks about 'who I will see for myself. Right now I know about him but I don't see him, but someday I will see him. Of course, when you get to chapter 42, job does see him - or he at least sees what Moses saw. And it says in Revelation 1:7, "behold, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see him.

" Read, for us then, job - I'm sorry, Revelation 22:4 please. "They shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads." You know, the Bible says we're going to see him face to face. Any of you ever sung that song before? It's in our hymn books. I love that: face to face with my redeemer - and so, job is talking about these themes. We have a redeemer that we someday will see face to face; maybe not in this body, which will be destroyed and eaten by worms, but yet in my flesh, a glorified resurrected body we will see him for ourselves.

So we're going to spend the next few minutes looking at not all, but some of the ways that job is a type of Christ. For one thing, have you ever noticed, there's a lot of genealogies in the Bible where it talks about this person - matter of fact, in my personal Bible reading, I'm going through Chronicles right now. And you see a little bit of that in the book of Numbers, but I'm reading through Chronicles and there times when Chronicles may seem tedious. I'm committed - every day except Sabbath, I'm reading through the Bible. Every day - every day - for years - I'm always somewhere reading through the Bible.

I just happen to be in Chronicles now but, you know, I've been reading the Bible so long that it's mentioning these different people and I recognize them and it - you just - every time you go through it you learn some interesting things, but there's no chronicle of job unless job is this king of edom named jobab. It talks about a king of eden named jobab. And some have wondered was that him? And the timing is right so it could have been. But job sort of appears. It says he has all these children, but it - and it names his daughters, which is very unusual; usually it names The Sons.

We don't know the name of any of job's sons, but we know the names of his daughters. Isn't that interesting? And - but it doesn't tell where his genealogy goes. So, like melchizedek, who is a type of Christ who suddenly appears on the scene, we don't know what tribe he's from. We don't know who his ancestors are from. We don't know who his people are - he appears, he disappears, we don't know who his descendants are.

Christ is everlasting to everlasting - the great I am, eternally existent. And so, job is a type of Christ in that respect. He appears - we don't know what tribe he comes from. He disappears - we don't know who his posterity is. And it tells us that job was like Jesus - obedient.

You read in job 23, verses 11 and 12 and it says, "my foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips;" now, is job saying he was sinless? No, but he was saying he was obedient to his father's commandments. Was that like Jesus? If you read in Matthew - I'm sorry - John 15:10, "if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love." So job's a type of Christ in his obedience. Did he view the Word of God as food? Job says, in job 23:12, "I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." Does Jesus say something like that? You know what it is? "Man" - Matthew 4:4 - "man will not" - go ahead, you say it. "By bread alone.

" "But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Comparing the word of God to bread. Now, one of the types of Christ - Jesus is called 'the servant' - a prophecy about Jesus. For instance, you look in Isaiah 42:1, "behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights! I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the gentiles." Isn't that a prophecy about Jesus? In the old testament he's called 'the servant' - the suffering servant. Is job referred to as 'the servant'? Look in the first few chapters and it says, in job 2, for instance, in verse 3, "the Lord said to satan, 'have you considered my servant job.

..?' And Jesus, of course, said - Matthew 20:28, "just as The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." So Jesus and job both identified as servants. Was Jesus rich? It says, by the way, job 1 through - this man was the richest of all the people in the east. What about Christ? He owns the cattle on a thousand hills - job had a lot of cattle, didn't he? Does Jesus have a lot of cattle? If you want to think about it that way. It says he owns the cattle on a thousand hills; the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Another way job is a type of Christ, he was highly revered by the people.

And job, speaking of his days before his sufferings, it says in job 29, verse 7, "when I went out to the gate by the city, when I took my seat in the open square," - he'd sit there on his throne - "the young men saw me and hid, and the aged arose...the princes refrained from talking," - that's another reason I think that job was a king - if princes refrained from talking and the aged arise - "and put their hand on their mouth;" - there's great reverence for job. You read in job 29, verse 11, "when the ear heard, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw, then it approved me; because I delivered the poor who cried out, The Fatherless and the one who had no helper." Isn't Jesus identified as the one who cares for The Fatherless and the widow? Job was also Christ-like in his ministry, you read in job 29, verse 13, "the blessing of the perishing man came upon me," - he so loved the world, he didn't want us to perish - and he caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." - Jesus healed many widows - I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;" - this is job speaking, but doesn't it sound like Christ? You see what I'm saying? Jesus, of course, was clothed with the robe of God's righteousness - "my justice was like a robe and a turban." - The high priest wore those garments. Christ is our high priest. The ministry of job sounds like the work of Jesus while on earth. This is how job lived and ministered - it says in job 29, verse 15, "I was eyes to the blind, and I was feet to the lame.

I was a father to the poor," - have you read in Isaiah where it talks about - in Isaiah 61 - the ministry of Christ? Open the eyes of the blind and to heal the lame and he goes on to say he cares for the poor and The Fatherless - "and I searched out the case that I did not know." Job 29:17, "I broke the fangs of the wicked and plucked the victim from his teeth." Like David rescued the lamb from the fangs of the lion and the bear, job says he rescued the innocent from the wicked. And you go on to the next section - this is in your lesson under the section under The Son of man. Someone is going to read for me Hebrews 4:15. Just a moment; I'm going to read job 10, verses 4 and 5, describing The Son of man. "Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees? Are your days like the days of a mortal man? Are your years like the days of a mighty man" - alright, go ahead, please, read that for us.

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." Alright, I don't know if you caught the connection here, matter of fact, it ties in well with our offer about Christ's human nature - God became a human. That's why job is saying here, in chapter 10, verses 4 and 5, 'God, do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see like through a man's eyes? Do you see as a man sees? Are your days like the days of a mortal man? Are your years like the days of a mighty man? Did - have you ever heard someone say, 'well, you don't know how I really feel. You've not walked in my moccasins before.' Did God come down and become a man? So job is referring to that and it says there in Hebrews, 'who became a man'. We have a faithful high priest because he was tempted in all points as we are. He suffered as we do.

He - now this - now I'm going to get a little deep here for just a second, but what are some of the characteristics of God? I'll start out: God is omnipotent. What are the other two? Omniscient. Omniscient - he's all-knowing. And - omnipresent. Omnipresent.

When Jesus became a man, could he be omnipresent? That's why he said 'it's expedient that I go away. I could be with one of you at a time, but if I go away, I'll send the Holy Spirit - God, the Spirit is omnipresent and he can be with all of you at once and I will be with you wherever you go through the Spirit. After the resurrection, does Jesus ever appear at more than one place at a time? There's no record of it, anyway. Has Christ forever sacrificed a dimension of his divinity to become a human in that he is not omnipresent right now? That's a question. It's a pretty heavy question when you think about it.

Now, he's all-knowing - he's with us now through the Spirit - he knows everything - he's all-powerful, but is he still human? When he rose, did he still have a human body? It's kind of interesting because God made man in his image and then God re-made himself in the image of man. You ever think about that? So Christ sacrificed a dimension of his divinity, at least temporarily, while he was on earth. How that happens now I'm not sure. You know, he's omnipresent through the Spirit, but we have a priest that has forever connected himself with the human race. What are some other ways that you find the connection between Jesus and job? Well, for one thing, just the whole Great Controversy that - it seems like all of the forces of the devil are bent on trying to get this man to sin.

What was the objective of the devil when Christ began to suffer? Why was Jesus - why was the devil trying to make Jesus suffer? Just retaliation? Just for sinister joy to see pain? Or was the devil trying to get Jesus to sin? He was bending all of the energies of all the of demons to try to get Jesus - the devil would have been very happy if Christ had finally retaliated against the roman soldiers or cursed and lost faith, or something. But Christ said, 'it is finished.' He never sinned. Satan was defeated. What was the objective of the devil with job? God said, 'have you beheld this righteous man?' And the devil said, 'let's see. He's not really going to stay righteous.

Watch what I can do.' And the devil does everything he can. But what is the record in the Bible? In all this, job did not sin or charge God foolishly - did not sin with his lips or charge God foolishly. So the devil failed to get job to sin. Matter of fact, at the end, you find that - and I'm getting ahead of myself - he mediates. Another parallel: when job is going through his sufferings, he may not have had any idea that what he went through was going to end up being a blessing for all humanity for ages to come.

The sufferings of Jesus have blessed all of humanity - what he went through, right? But hasn't the whole world - whenever you go through trials and you think about why - let me tell you i, you know, I've suffered terrible financial loss, I've lost my health, I've lost my family - almost nobody you've met can measure up to what job went through. So job becomes a hero for anybody who's going through trials because you think, if job made it and he's human, by the God of grace, job made it - by the grace of God, I can make it. I said that funny, didn't i? I said by the God of grace - by the grace of God. That's what happens when you preach and you're kind of dyslexic, you turn Your Words around like that. Alright, carrying on, with some of the similarities between Jesus and job.

Was Jesus physically disfigured through his sufferings? You read in Isaiah chapter 52, verse 14, it says, "just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred" - disfigured - "more than any man, and his form more than The Sons of men;" they beat Jesus, they whipped Jesus, his face was swollen, and when job's friends came to see him after he had suffered, was it hard for them to recognize him? Job 2:12, "and when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept;" it says 'from afar'. Where did the disciples behold Jesus on the cross? Do you know, it says 'they stood afar off and they wept as they beheld these things' - similar to job's friends. But then it says he's forsaken by his friends and his family - job 19:13, "he has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My relatives have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me." So it wasn't just job's friends, it was job's family. We already know he lost a lot of his immediate family.

His wife said, 'curse God and die.' He probably had cousins and other relatives in the area. They evidently said, 'oh, he's probably getting what he deserves.' And what about Jesus? Did he have a similar experience? It says in John 7:5, "for even his brothers did not believe in him." And you can read in Matthew 26:56, "...then all the disciples forsook him and fled." Job said to his friends - are you seeing some of the parallels between job and Jesus here? And you can read in job 6:27 - 'you would even cast lots for the orphans and barter over your friend.' So speaking about his sufferings he says you're casting lots and bartering - you're weighing a price to sell out on your friend is what he's saying - you'd barter over your friend. Did they cast lots around Jesus and did they barter him? Did Judas trade him for thirty pieces of silver? Now, I'm just skimming the surface. You go through the book of job and, if you put on your Jesus glasses as you read the book of job, and you start looking at the sufferings of job and you start seeing there's like echoes of Jesus all through the book. Where, you know, one of the great things about Christ's mission is the cross.

The cross tells us about the sufferings of Christ. Paul says, 'I'm crucified with Christ and we're told to take up our cross. All of that is talking about the sufferings that he went through. And, you know, compared to Jesus' life, his 24-hours of suffering was comparatively short but it was the high point of his life - is the cross. Job lived, evidently, over 200 years.

We can only estimate because he's referred to as a person of age at the time he's suffering and yet, from that point, he has another group of seven sons and three daughters - names the three daughters - and then he sees his great-grandchildren. So you do the math and job lived to about 200. Now that wasn't that unusual for - like Abraham's father was over years of age, but it was unusual by the time that job lived, during the time of esau - they were only living to 140. So he had an exceptionally long life. By the way, do you know who the last really old person was in the Bible? It's not a trick question.

It's not a joke. How long did Moses live? 120 Years. Who lived longer, Moses or aaron? Aaron. Aaron, I think, lived 123. Who lived the longest - who lived longer than Moses and aaron after Moses and aaron? The high priest - did I hear someone say it? The high priest, during the time of joash, was jehosheba - oh, wait a second, am I saying that right? Jehoiada - sorry, jehoiada - jehoiada lived 130 years, which was very unusual because he lives years after king David where he said 'the days of our years are three-score and ten' - seventy - and if by reason of strength you make it to 80, there's aches and pains.

' That's a rough translation. But every now and then there's one long-liver that shows up and job lived an unusually long time for his age that he was in. Now, jehoiada - 130 years - would have been really sad if he lived during the time just after the flood. They would have thought, 'oh, so sad. And he died so young.

' Right? But by the time he lived 130 it was very unusual. I've heard - they say that the oldest person in the world today is 116 and we had a member of our church - Karen and I went to visit - that was 111 and in napa, but now I'm getting distracted. Okay, back to job. So there's just a few little Amazing Facts I throw in there. So there's all the types of Christ - forsaken by his family, and then it says he's handed over to the unGodly - job 16:11 - "God has delivered me to the unGodly, and turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

" Was Christ handed over to the gentiles? The unbelievers? Yeah, you can read there in John 19:16, it says, "then [he] pilate delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away." And then it talks about spitting in his face - job 30:10, "they abhor me, they keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face." Now, you might wonder, when did that happen in the story of job? You know, there was a period of time when, after he lost everything and he lost his family, and he was struck with this disease and he was sitting out there and his wife said 'curse God and die!' And before his friends got there it says his friends heard about what had happened to him and they came and they met together and they came together. And so, in that interval, maybe some other people in town - after his wife said 'curse God and die' they my have come by and said, 'you're cursed of God!' And spit on him. What a terrible thing to have. Can you think of anyone else who had that experience? Jesus did.

Now someone's going to read for us Matthew 26:67. And I don't think I gave the camera a chance to get ahold of you. Go ahead, I think they're ready. "Then they spat in his face and beat him; and others struck him with the palms of their hands," - Matthew 26:67. Yeah, it says they spit on him.

Not only does it say it there in Matthew, but if you read in Isaiah chapter 53, it talks about that as well. And, not only that, he was struck - you just read that - it says they hit him with the palms of their hands. What about job? Was job struck? We heard about job being spit on. Read in job 16:10, "they gape at me with their mouth" - now some of you may want these notes. Usually, about a week after the program you might say, 'I want those references - it'd be a good study for a class.

' We upload these to the Granite Bay website, so - and I think, also, Amazing Facts' website, so they'll be available. "They gape at me" - job 16:10 - "with their mouth, they strike me reproachfully on the cheek," - they spit on Jesus; they spit on job. Struck Jesus; struck job. The sufferings of job are a type of Christ. Here you've got this holy man - this great man, who the devil is trying to bring down - that God is looking down on, and you see the whole Great Controversy being acted out here.

Furthermore, it's - and that's Luke 22:64 - they blindfolded him and they struck him on the face. That's when they said, 'prophesy, who is it that struck you?' Can you imagine how horrific it will be in the judgment for one of those roman soldiers that actually did that to Jesus? 'Oh, you're a prophet? Prophesy.' You see the King of Kings coming and realize 'I struck him when he was a man.' Mark 15 - I'm sorry, job 30, verse 20, "I cry out to you, but you do not answer me;" - can you think of a time when Jesus was on the cross and it seems like he cried out and there was no answer? Mark 15:34, "...my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When Jesus was on the cross. Now, did Jesus say that statement because he lost faith? 'My God, my God' - who knows what verse that comes from? Christ was quoting the old testament, right? Psalm 22. Psalm 22 - go there real quick - go to psalm 22 - I want to show you something, because I've met people before that thought, 'well, you know, Jesus got discouraged and he gave up and cried out in his despair.' I don't think Jesus was crying out in despair. I don't think Jesus got discouraged.

One of the prophecies said, 'he will not be discouraged.' When Jesus - it was traditional for the high priest to quote from the Psalms during the passover and when Jesus read the first verse in this psalm, he, as our sacrifice and our high priest, was quoting from this psalm. Why did Jesus quote from this psalm? Look at the first verse - psalm :1, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent." There was a day and a night when Christ was suffering for our sins there, crying out. Why did God - why was God silent? After Jesus prayed the third time, 'not my will, but thy will be done', the Lord withdrew from Christ as he does from the lost. He was separated from Jesus as sin separates us from God. It's a rhetorical question.

You know what I mean by rhetorical question? It means a question where you know the answer but you're just getting someone to think. So when he says, 'my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' He's asking us why was he forsaken. You read on in that psalm and you look here, it says - go to verse 12, for instance, "many bulls have surrounded me; strong bulls of bashan have encircled me. They gape at me" - it's talking about his experience on the cross - "they gape at me with their mouths," - verse 14 - "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint;" - he was stretched on the cross - "my heart is like wax; it has melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue" - did job sit in the broken pottery? - "My tongue clings to my jaws;" - job refers to that too - "you have brought me to the dust [of death].

" He put dust on his head when he was in the dump. "For dogs have surrounded me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet." - Now, is that pretty clear? - "I can count all my bones" - none of his bones were broken - "they [look and] stare at me. They divide my garments among them," - so, now this is speculation. I don't know - Jesus is hanging on the cross and there's a thief on the right and the left.

And the thief on the right - I'm speculating again - I don't know. One was a good - one's a saved thief, one's a lost thief - I don't know where the saved thief was, but since the sheep are on the right hand and the goats are on the left, I'm putting him on the right hand. And since you can't prove me wrong, I can do that. So, then the thief on the right, he hears Jesus say, 'my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' And he looks at the sign above the head of Christ and it said, 'this is the King of the jews' and this is a Jewish boy who turned into a thief - he's the prodigal - and he remembers the rest of that psalm - the rest of psalm 22 - 'they pierced my hands and my feet. They gamble for my clothing' - and he just sees them pierce his hands and his feet and gamble for his clothing.

I think the Holy Spirit quickened his mind because, at the beginning of the day when they were both crucified, it says both the thieves started out mocking him. But they, you know, Jesus hung on the cross for six hours - alive - one hour dead - a total of seven hours. And during that six hours - a long time - those things happened - his mind was quickened and he realized, by Jesus quoting psalm 22, this was the Messiah. And he said, 'Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' But Jesus repeated what I just read there in psalm 22 - some of the same things you find in the book of job - the potsherd, the dust, and so forth - the people staring. All right, back to our study of job and Jesus here.

What about job and Jesus? Were their clothing stripped from them? Job says, "naked I came from my mother's womb," - job 1:21 - "and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." And you read in Matthew 27:28 they stripped him. Was there mocking and taunting of Jesus and job? Look in job 16:20, "my friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God." And read in job 30, verse 9, "I am their taunting song; yes, I am their byword." And we already read psalm 22, but I didn't read 7 and 8, "all those who see me ridicule me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 'he trusted in the Lord, let him rescue him; let him deliver him, since he delights in him!" - Isn't that what was happening around the cross that day? Were they mocking Jesus saying, 'if you're The Son of God come down'? Job said, in job 19:9, "he has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head." And you can read - and, of course, on the cross they shot out the lip, they mocked him - they said, 'if you're The Son of God, come down and then we'll believe.' And 'you who destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days' - a lot of mocking happening during those hours he was on the cross. And then job 10:21, "before I go to the place from which I shall not return, to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land as dark as darkness itself, as the shadow of death, without any order, where even the light is like darkness." Was job facing the second death during his sufferings? That land of darkness? And did Jesus face the second death? He did. Then job makes a statement - in the midst of all of his sufferings he makes this amazing statement of triumph. He says, "though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

" Was there a triumphant statement of Jesus on the cross before he died? Yeah. He said, 'father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' - I trust my spirit - and then he cried out and gave up the ghost. A few more things and then I'll move on with the lesson. I know I've covered a lot of this, but isn't this edifying? It's talking about job's redeemer. You find, all through the book of job, he's a type of Christ.

This is why I believe the Bible's a supernatural book. You know, if you talk to - I've got some muslim friends and they say the quran is holy - 'more holy than the Bible - can't trust the Bible - quran - perfect' - and you can talk to buddhists and hinduists and a bagavad gita - and everybody's got their holy book - not everybody, but many religions have their holy book. One of the reasons I believe the Bible is such a supernatural book is, when you read the old testament, you know you're reading things that were written thousands of years before Christ. We know from the dead sea scrolls that date back to 150 - 200 b.c. That the old testament was written before Jesus lived.

And when you read these prophecies - you read the story about Joseph being a type of Christ - betrayed by his brothers, sold for the price of a slave, forgiving - he's a type of Christ. Moses stretching out his hand on the mountain - Samson stretching out his arms and dying. I mean, there are so many types of Christ in the Bible and you read them and you go, 'this can't be a coincidence. It's a supernatural book.' And job is the oldest book as far as, you know, when the events transpired, probably the first book Moses wrote there in the wilderness. And you see all the types of Christ and the suffering there.

Jonah - sleeping in a boat during a storm - they wake him up and say, 'aren't you afraid we're going to perish?' That's a type of Christ. And Jesus said Jonah would be a sign. And so you see all these old testament types of Jesus and I - there's hundreds of them from gideon to jeptha to Ruth and just - Esther - just types of Christ. You could not manufacture that. And then you look at the life of Jesus and all the old testament is like a kaleidoscope of the life of Christ.

David - type of Christ. So job is one of the great ones in the Bible, that's why I'm getting so excited. Sorry. Alright, where was i? Oh, they were stripped of their clothing, mocking and taunting - oh, job and Jesus are both merciful mediator - someone's going to read for me 1 Timothy 2:5 - John, you'll have that? Let me read what it says in job, "now therefore," - God told job - "take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to my servant job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant job shall pray for you." - Job says this - or God says this to the friends - "for I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly;" - your sins. In other words, if it isn't for the intercession of job, God is going to punish the friends of job.

So job is a priest who intercedes for them to be forgiven. Do you see that? Now go ahead and read for us 1 Timothy 2:5. 1 Timothy 2:5, "for there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus." You know what a mediator is? If two people can't come to some agreement, you know, you get a go-between. On the old cook stoves in the kitchen - now they're a little more complex and they're probably digital with a screen and a genie, but it used to be you had three settings on your stove - you had the gas stove - you had low, medium, and high. Between the low and the high there was the medium.

And here on earth you've got the low, and up in heaven you've got the high, and we need a medium. We need someone who's a mediator - who's in the middle - that's what that means. Jesus is in the middle to reconcile us to God. The cross is a ladder that connects heaven and earth. Moses went up the mountain to mediate for the people.

He kind of said, 'alright, Lord, I'm going to go halfway to heaven' - not that you get halfway to heaven by climbing a mountain, but it's a symbol of that - and he would hear from God. He'd come down to the people - he was a mediator. Job was a mediator. Not only was job mediating at the end of the book, for his friends, but at the beginning of the book when his sons would feast and all of them would invite their sisters and brothers on their respective birthdays, then job would be afraid. He'd call the family together and he would then intercede.

He'd sacrifice and he'd mediate for the family. So job is the great mediator from the beginning to the end of the book. He's a priest. And is Jesus our high priest? So you see this similarity here all through the story. Alright, let's go to that next section - the death of Christ.

And you read here in 1 John 2:6, "he who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked." Christ gave us an example about how to live and he sealed that, of course, by his death. You read in Galatians 4:19, "my little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you," - it says he's an example. God wants the life of Jesus reproduced. Not only are we to walk as he walked, but it says Christ must be formed in you. God was reflected in job; Jesus reflected God; we are to reflect Jesus.

You'll do well if you reflect the righteousness of job, too, in your life. That's why Paul says - I always used to wonder about that. You know, as a Christian you always say, 'follow Jesus.' But Paul actually said, 'imitate me' - 1 Corinthians 11:1 - this is fun because it's Corinthians 11:1, right? 1 Corinthians 11, verse 1, "imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ." So don't follow any pastor or apostle except as they imitate Christ. If I accused you of being an imitator, would you be complimented? It depends on who you're imitating. If you're doing your best to imitate Christ, then that's a good thing.

I know that, my mom, she was, you know, among other things she was an actress and she used to have fun - she had friends from all over the world with different accents and whenever she'd get on the phone with her different friends, she'd imitate them. And my brother and I always knew who she was talking to. All of a sudden she had an english accent and we said, 'oh, she's talking to so and so.' And then she'd have a New York accent and we'd say, 'oh, she's talking to shirley.' And she'd just - for her own entertainment - she'd just try to talk like the person she was talking to. And would it be that every Christian would spend all their time studying the life of Christ and saying, 'I want to be like Jesus.' And imitate him, amen? Matthew chapter 11, verse 29, Jesus said, "take my yoke upon you and learn from me," - we're to do everything we can to emulate the life of Christ - to study that. Oh, let me finish that verse - "for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

" You know, that's the only place we're really going to find peace. Everybody imitates somebody, whether you want to or not. You might think, 'I'm my own person.' No, you're not. Why do you speak the language you speak? Because you imitated the people speaking that language around you. Why do you eat the food you eat? Because someone fed you that food and you copied them.

Almost everybody is the sum total of people that we've looked at, whether it's your mother or father, over the course of your life. And some of you thought, 'I'm never going to be like my mother and father.' And then you hear yourself - how many of you - and then you hear yourself saying the very same things your mother and father said, in spite of yourself? Isn't that right? So we all imitate - kids start dressing in these bizarre fashions and you think, 'where in the world do they come up with that?' Sure enough, there's a record album, there's some music video, there's some hero in hollywood they saw do it and they start to do it. No one would ever wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm going to have a purple mohawk.' (Laughter) oh, maybe somebody - I guess someone in hollywood did and that's where everyone got the idea. So imitate Christ. Now - and then there's a whole section and I don't know if time - we're going to have time to read that whole section in Isaiah 53, where it talks about the sufferings of Jesus, and if you read that, you know, well, let's go there real quick and we'll read some of it.

It's that beautiful passage that describes the sufferings of Jesus and you can't look at the sufferings of job and not wonder about that. By the way, how many of you remember when Philip was instructed to go to the desert out in the middle of nowhere - the evangelist Philip - and while he's in the desert, he runs into an Ethiopian official who has just come from worshiping in Jerusalem? He's on his way back to Ethiopia and he's either parked or riding along in his chariot and he's reading from the book of Isaiah and he's reading chapter 53 and he's reading about the sufferings and he's wondering, 'who is this suffering?' And at that very moment he invites Philip up into his chariot and Philip said, 'you're reading about Jesus.' And you would think he was talking about job. And you can read, for instance, in Isaiah chapter 53, verse 4, "surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquity." Have you ever thought that job was wounded for you? Job - meant to say 'job' not 'Jesus'. Are you encouraged by job's fortitude under suffering? Yes. All things work together for good.

Job was allowed to be afflicted and God actually had to withdraw his protection so job could be afflicted that it might, to later generations, be a source of encouragement - and also to rebuke the devil - "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. By his stripes we are healed." - Of course, Jesus was whipped and that's what the stripes mean - "all we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." And when that Ethiopian treasurer read that 'the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all' it can't be misunderstood - Christ was a sin bearer. He is the lamb of God. Alright, and then, one of the last things: satan unmasked - John 12:31 through 33, "now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And i, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself.

" He's talking about the ruler of the world being cast out. There's this interesting section in the end of job, when you're reading the book of job, and he's talking about the characteristics of God and he talks about these different animals - and what's the last animal that job talks about? He talks about the mountain goat and he talks about the ox and he talks about the donkey and he talks about the hawk and he talks about the horse - who remembers what the last animal is? It's called leviathan - verse - chapter 41 - "can you draw out leviathan?" And after he gets done talking about leviathan, this serpent, this monster, then God appears to job. Who is the one who deals with the leviathan? Jesus. Christ - the - Michael fights with the dragon and so he's saying, 'look job, you're wondering what's going on - why you're suffering like this. It's the leviathan.

And you can't - you can't overcome the leviathan, but I can.' And so, it's interesting, this leviathan, I believe, becomes a type of the devil and he's the one - a lot of time God spends talking about the leviathan. Who instigated this whole battle in the book of job? The devil does - the dragon instigates the whole thing. And then, finally, he is rebuked in the end. You know, the Lord appears and the Lord talks to job. The devil never appears again in the book of job.

He has to withdraw in defeat. 'Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Anyway, we can see the redeemer in the book of job, amen? I want to remind our friends watching that we do have a free offer and it's called Christ's human nature and it is a classic by Joe Crews and we'll send it to you for free - only if you promise you will read it and share it with someone else. -788-3966 - I think you can also request this online. Just - you can download it and read it there for free.

If you do call in, ask for offer #703. God bless you 'till we study our next chapter in the book of job.

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