7-25-14. Job 14:1-22. Yes- A Person Will Live Again After They Die–my devotional

Job 14:1-22                                                                                                        Kevin E. Jesmer

Key Verse: 14:14a                                                                                             7-25-14

“If someone dies, will they live again?…”

Dear Lord, my Father in Heaven, thank you for blessing us in so many ways. You bless us with intangible (spiritual) things that are truly worth more than gold to us. We tend to think that more money, more possessions, a bigger house and a new car are the best blessings. But you have taught us that the secrets of the Kingdom of God are the very best treasures that can be bestowed on anyone. Thank you for the intangible gifts, like love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, hope, truth, life direction, comfort, joy, your peace, the Holy Spirit that guides us into all truth, your word in the Bible, and a living hope in your kingdom…and the list goes on and on. Thank you for the tangible gifts also, but if we had to choose, your intangible gifts are so much better and valuable. I choose them the most. Lord, help the world to know how fleeting our lives are and how the material treasures we accumulate are just that…material things…fleeting and perishing in light of eternity. Help each of us to seek your Kingdom and your righteousness. Help us to come to Christ and dwell in your presence daily. Please show me the treasures embedded in this chapter of Job. I pray in the name of the greatest treasure of all…Jesus Christ. Amen.

Part 1: There Is More To Life Than This World (1-12)

Verses 1-12, “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble. 2 They spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure. 3 Do you fix your eye on them? Will you bring them before you for judgment? 4 Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one! 5 A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months    and have set limits he cannot exceed. 6 So look away from him and let him alone, till he has put in his time like a hired laborer. 7 “At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. 8 Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, 9 yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. 10 But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. 11 As the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, 12 so he lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, people will not awake or be roused from their sleep.”  (NIV)

In Job 14:1-9, Job thinks of the mortality of humanity and despairs of life. He wonders why God bothers with people. If indeed they spring up like flowers and wither away, if they are like fleeting shadows, why does God fix his eye on them? He says that a tree has more hope than a person because if it is cut down, it’s stump will sprout again!

Every person longs for immortality, for every person has an immortal soul created in the image of God. Job asks a fundamental question: “If a man dies, will he live again?” Job, in his despair, could not answer this at this time. But God’s answer in Scripture is “Yes” (1Co 15:12-20,49).

Job’s inner anguish is the anguish of billions of people who do not know the Creator God of the Bible. If there is no Creator God then there is no resurrection from the dead. If there is no resurrection from the dead then there is no kingdom of God. A person once said, “I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in the resurrection.” Then how are you going to get there? And if there is no God then who is going to resurrect you? And if there is no Jesus, how can we be prepared to enter such a holy place as heaven and even know the way there? Life without the resurrection is like people floating in a sea of death, desperately waiting for a life buoy that never gets thrown their way.

Job was stuck in deep despair because of not knowing the truth about the Resurrection…as all people would be. People just don’t think about it. So many live their lives as if they are trying to recreate the script of a new TV sit com, where life is just one fun event after another. It never ends until we end. It is like living by the philosophy, “Let’s eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” (1 Cor 15) Surely our lives are meant to be more than just an accumulation of our own pleasures and self absorbed fantasies. But that is all we can do to protect our psyches from the painful reality, that without Christ and a hope in the kingdom of God, the reality that Job explains in verse 2 is true, “They spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.”

Personally I don’t want to spring up and wither away. I don’t want my life to be a fleeting shadow, not enduring. I can’t live in that reality. That is one reason I thank God for sending Jesus into this world. Jesus suffered died and rose again. Through his grace he gives us a living hope in the Kingdom of God. We can be certain of the resurrection because Jesus died so that we can be totally forgiven and made acceptable to God. He rose again on the third day, opening the way for al who believe. Jesus is the way, and the truth and the life. (John 14:6) Peter could not but erupt in praises to God when he thought about the resurrection in 1 Peter 1:3-5, which reads, “3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”  (NIV) If only Job knew this truth. His soul would have been set free even though his body was wracked in pain.

Part 2:  We Need Forgiveness of Sins For Eternal Life (13-22)

Verses 13-22, “13 If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me! 14 If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come. 15 You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made. 16 Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin. 17 My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin. 18 “But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place, 19 as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy a person’s hope. 20 You overpower them once for all, and they are gone; you change their countenance and send them away. 21 If their children are honored, they do not know it; if their offspring are brought low, they do not see it. 22 They feel but the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves.” (NIV)

Job waits for renewal to come (14). Look at verse 14, “If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.”  Job links living again with the forgiveness of sins. He knows that he can only be renewed when God covers his sins. He prays that God may count his steps, but not keep track of his sin. He is almost there. He is coming closer to an understanding of the Gospel. But he is not quite there yet and so in his pain, he despairs. He can’t think of anything but the pain of his own body.

To me, verse 14 is one of the fundamental questions of life. “If someone dies, will they live again?”  It is the same question that a young person may ask their parents, “Where do we go after we die.” or “What happens after we die?” We all want to know the answer to this question. The sad reality is that so many people think that there is nothing after our physical death and only our lives in this world exist. To them, after you die, you simply decompose. But our souls cry out against this conclusion. God has planted eternity in each of our hearts. We know that there is more than this life has to offer. We know that there is something, but we are not sure what. That is one reason why Jesus came. He came from heaven to Earth to show the way. He rose from the dead to declare to all mankind that he is the way to the kingdom of God. We need to look to Jesus to know the way.

Being a sincere religious person can not get you eternal life…..In Job 14:13-22, Job is slowly coming to an understanding of the truth. He is wondering if people will live again after they die. (14) A good thing is, is that he is equating the forgiveness of sin to eternal life. Job states in verses 15-16, “15 You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made. 16 Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin. 17 My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.”  Job thinks that he coming to God for answers and responding to God’s calling him will delight God so much that God will not keep track of his sins and God will seal his sins up in a bag so that his sins will be covered. This will happen because God is our creator and his is happy if his creatures make any step towards him.

Yes, sin is linked to death and the forgiveness of sins is linked to eternal life. Death entered the world because of sin at the time of the Fall. We are born into a fallen world. Sin keeps us separated from God. Sin keeps us from entering into eternal life with the Holy God. On our own there is no way to overcome this problem of sin. We are helpless to be made clean and holy on our own. That is why Jesus came. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. (John 1:29)  Isaiah 1:18 reads, “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”  We are made white as snow because of the Gospel…faith in the blood of Jesus.

But Job has one thing wrong. He thinks it is his sincerity towards seeking God that gets him forgiven. If he is sincere enough and responds to God enough then God will grant him the forgiveness of sins. This is salvation by works. We can never be sincere enough to enter heaven. There are a lot of sincerely religious people out there. They are super sincere. There are some people who are so sincere that they will suffer and even die for their religion. But the reality is, that if they do not know Jesus as their Savior, there sincerity to their religion can never save them. When they stand before the judgment seat of God, and God asks them, “Why should I let you into heaven?” And they say, “Because I was a really sincere person all of my life” they can not enter. But if their sincerity urges them to keep seeking the Lord, in this life, then eventually they will be faced with Jesus and the Gospel. If they accept the Jesus by faith, and not by sincere works, then their sins will be forgiven and they will enter into eternal life. When God asks them the question, “Why should I let your into heaven?” They can say with their heads lifted high, “On my own, there is no reason. But Jesus is my Lord and Savior. He is my Righteousness and on that basis alone I can dwell forever with you, my Lord and my God.”

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the hope that you have given us in Jesus. Thank you for covering my sins with his blood and opening a way to spend eternity with you.

One Word: Yes! A person can live on forever in the Kingdom of God.