8-2-14. Job 16:1-22. Christ: The Only Intercessor Who Can Do The Job-my devotional

Job 16:1- 22                                                                                                        Kevin E. Jesmer

Key verse 16:19-21                                                                                             8-2-14

“Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. 20 My intercessor is my friend  as my eyes pour out tears to God; 21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God  as one pleads for a friend.” (NIV)

Dear Lord heavenly Father, thank you for family and providing the means to bond together during the summer vacation time. This world, and the devil, want to fragment the family and isolate ourselves from one another so that our love for one another grows cold. We become too busy to take time out to show love to one another and to listen and talk to each other. We are losing our ability to laugh together. But you provide the means to strengthen the bonds of love between family. You open opportunities for parents to show examples love and sacrifice to their kids and the kids in turn will learn how to offer up those virtues to their future families. You also help us to store up a treasure trove of memories to draw upon our entire lives. Thank you Lord, for these summer vacation times that you provide. Help us to make the most out of them, while at the same time, showing each generation how to seek “first” your kingdom and your righteousness. Open our eyes to see your glory in Creation and ultimately we may all know your love very personally. Please teach me more about your love and grace through this passage. I pray in the name of the One who bonds us all by cords of unconditional love…Jesus Christ.

Part 1: Counseling Principle 101: Be Empathetic and Humble  (1-6)

Counseling Principle 101: Be Empathetic and Humble. We can learn a very important counseling principle in Job 16. Look at Job 16: 1-6, “Then Job replied: 2 “I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you! 3 Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing? 4 I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you. 5 But my mouth would encourage you;  comfort from my lips would bring you relief. 6 “Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.”  (NIV)

In Job 16:1-6, Job called his friends “miserable comforters.” Their long-winded speeches do not help him because they did not speak in love. They are only speaking in theological correctness and self righteousness. Who were they trying to serve, Job or themselves? I think themselves. Job felt the contents were long winded speeches. Their visit became a debating session instead a time of giving comfort to a suffering friend. Job is not comforted by their words. After calling them miserable comforters, Job cries out to God.

After rebuking his friends he tells them that he would have done differently. Look at verse 5 again, “But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.”  Job thinks he would be respond differently to a suffering soul. May be he would, but maybe he wouldn’t. One never knows how they will respond in the midst of suffering and agony. We have all heard the story of the loving wife and soon to be mother, yelling at the excited father in the middle of delivery, “You did this too me!” People don’t know how they will respond until they are thrust into a suffering situation.

Job concedes that no matter what he says his suffering will not go away. Look at verse 6, ““Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.”  He is approaching deep despair. His friends were not able to help him. There are times when people can not help us. It is good to have people in our lives, but all people have their limitations. Job needed another counselor, the Holy Spirit of God.

We can learn an important principle in counseling others when they suffer…humility and empathy. Philippians 2:3-4 reveals what our attitude must be. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (NIV) The friends were there to visit and counsel Job, but actually they were gratifying their selfish desire to be right in their theological statements. Their words were born out of their selfish ambition and vain conceit. As counselors they needed to be very, very humble. They needed to value Job, seeing him as better than themselves, looking out for Job’s interests and not their own. God did not put them there to gratify their own intellectual and emotional needs. They were there for Job and Job’s needs and to reveal the glory of God.

Part 2: The Only Intercessor That Can Help Us Is Jesus (7-22)

Look at verses 7-22, “7 Surely, God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household. 8 You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me. 9 God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes. 10 People open their mouths to jeer at me;  they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me. 11 God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked. 12 All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target; 13 his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground. 14 Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior. 15 “I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust. 16 My face is red with weeping, dark shadows ring my eyes; 17 yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure. 18 Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest! 19 Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. 20 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; 21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God  as one pleads for a friend. 22 “Only a few years will pass before I take the path of no return.” NIV

In verses 7-14, We find that Job is thinking that his suffering is a result of God pouring out judgment over him for some unknown sin. This is a wrong interpretation of what is happening to him. God is not doing this to him. If we remember the text in the earlier chapters in Job, we can see that is the devil doing this to Job and it was not because of his sins, but because he was testing the metal of his righteousness.

When we suffering we need to pray properly interpret our sufferings, to find meaning in them. When we properly interpret the sufferings then we can grow through them. Those who suffer and see things from Christ’s point of view can grow mature and stronger through their experience. We must pray to be able to interpret things from God’s point of view.

What will you say to God when you stand before God’s throne? In verses Job 16:15-18 Job verbalizes more of his suffering, but he also tries to state his innocence. Let’s look at these verses, “15 “I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust. 16 My face is red with weeping, dark shadows ring my eyes; 17 yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure. 18 Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!” Job feels that he is innocent and he is suffering unjustly. He longs for his cry to be heard, but he looses hope that God will hear his cry, for he thinks that it is God who is inflicting the suffering on him. This is another reason why we must properly interpret what is happening to us. If we believe that God is punishing us, forgetting the God is Love, then we do not know who to turn to for salvation. We do not know where to turn to for justice. The most we can pray for is for our cry to be heard and not forgotten.

Job needs to know the truth about the “lostness” of humanity and hold onto a Biblical world view. We are all born in a fallen world. We are born condemned and are all floating in a sea of death. Jesus is our Savior, our life preserver who saves us from drowning in the sea of death. All of us, even Job have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The only one without sin is Jesus Christ. We were all headed towards hell and condemnation if Jesus had not found us.

Job needs to see that, instead of trying to get everyone to agree that he is innocent. We should never do this. What are you going to say when you die and stand before the judgment seat of Christ? Are you going to argue with God, trying to convince him how innocent you are and how much you deserve to get into heaven? I hope not. The only thing that we can say is I am a sinner who is forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus is my righteousness. Jesus is the only reason and the only way that I could ever be let into heaven, for on my own I can not make it and have even burnt every bridge to the kingdom of God because of my sin. It is only because the righteousness imparted to me by God’s grace that I could enter the presence of the Lord in the Kingdom of God. This gift is freely given to all. It is through faith.

Job is not too far from faith in Jesus. He has almost lost hope, but he holds onto a thin thread and longs to have hope. He says in verses 21-22, “20 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; 21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.”  Job longs for someone who can talk to him and counsel him with words of comfort, truth and humility. But he does not realize that there may not be a person in the entire world who can do that. Deep inside, the one Job longs for is Jesus Christ himself, our intercessor and our friend. Out of his suffering he begins to long for Christ, the intercessor who will plead with God for him as a person pleads for his friend.

In his longing we find a Gospel truth, there is an intercessor for all sinners who have faith.  He is Jesus Christ. Jesus is our faithful High Priest who pleads for us before the throne. His wounds plead our case. We can see what Jesus has accomplished for us through the song written by Charles Wesley in the 18^th Century. The words are very poignantly reveal what the suffering Jesus has accomplished for any who repent and believe.

Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands,
Before the throne my surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.

He ever lives above, for me to intercede;
His all redeeming love, His precious blood, to plead:
His blood atoned for all our race,
His blood atoned for all our race,
And sprinkles now the throne of grace.

Five bleeding wounds He bears; received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers; they strongly plead for me:
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Nor let that ransomed sinner die!”

The Father hears Him pray, His dear anointed One;
He cannot turn away, the presence of His Son;
His Spirit answers to the blood,
His Spirit answers to the blood,
And tells me I am born of God.

My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear;
He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear:
With confidence I now draw nigh,
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And “Father, Abba, Father,” cry.

Thank you Lord for being my friend and intercessor. With you I can stand in my faith and raise my head in joyful expectation of the kingdom of God. Help the whole world to know that you are ready, eager and willing to intercede on their behalf so that they may enter the Kingdom of God and dwell with you forever and ever. They can have you in their hearts right now, as their shepherd and friend, through the Holy Spirit, because of what the Great Intercessor, Jesus has done for us on the cross. Thank you, Lord.

Prayer: Lord, help me encourage others with humility and empathy. Walk with me so that I may find strength and love to share with others.

One Word: My Intercessor is my Friend. His Name is Jesus.