Page 116 - Job

God has come against me. If He would only tell me why. Job’s frustration
was that he was alone on the earth. God had abandoned him, and God had
withheld wisdom from these guys so that they also alienated him. Job knows
in his heart he is right. He refuses to let go of the one thing he has left,
innocence. He was finding it increasingly hopeless to call upon God. Do you
see his frustration? By the end of chapter 16 and the beginning of chapter
17, Job has thrown in the towel. He is ready to die.
Chapter 17:1 and 2,
“My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for
me. Surely mockers are with me, and my eye gazes on their
provocation.”
Remember what Proverbs 17:22 says about a broken spirit. It says, “A
broken spirit drieth up the bones.” And, boy, does it ever! You get
somebody whose spirit is broken and you have a person that is ready to die.
Job holds tenaciously to the belief that his integrity is righteousness. He has
this assurance that his righteousness will not be hidden forever. His innocent
blood will never stop crying to God. His blood is going to appeal to God
until the day a righteous God finally vindicates him and his blood finds a
response. Look at 16: verse 18 and 19,
“O earth, do not cover my blood, and let there be no resting place for
my cry. Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is
on high.”
It is sort of a pathetic scene. Job feels abandoned, and he does not know
why. God has rejected him, and man has rejected him, and he has finally
come to the place where he says I know I am going to die, but I am innocent.
And one day my blood will cry out and God will vindicate me. It is a
pathetic scene. Chapter 16, verse 20. Job lifts his tear filled eyes to God.
“My friends are my scoffers; My eye weeps to God.”
He looks up to the God that he thinks is unjustly bringing him to death, but
he has a hope that even after he is dead and after worms destroy his body, he
will be vindicated. One day everyone will know that he was right. He does
not have any hope for this life. Look at chapter 17:10-16,

“But come again all of you now, for I do not find a wise man among
you. My days are past, my plans are torn apart, even the wishes of my
heart. They make night into day, saying, the light is near, in the
presence of darkness. If I look for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in
the darkness; If I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’; To the worm, ‘my
mother and my sister’; Where now is my hope? And who regards my
hope? Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down

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