Page 99 - Job

And he just starts to talk about the shortness of life. It is like one who runs
a race. It is like one of these reed boats that used to go down the Nile. It is
like an eagle that comes down, sees its prey, swoops it and it is gone. That
is life. And then he says, I do not like this – being discouraged, being
pessimistic, being broken spirited. He says, I am just laying here and I am
complaining all the time. I would love to lift myself up and be encouraged
and to take some hope and to lay hold of some light instead of all this
darkness. As a matter of fact, look at verse 27

“Though I say, ‘I will forget my complaint’, I will leave off my sad
countenance and be cheerful.”

As soon as he says I will try to cheer myself up, he remembers again
God’s resolve to hold him guilty. I get crushed over and over again even
though I have not done anything. I try to encourage myself, and then I
remember that God is my enemy. I remember that He is not doing what
Bildad said He was going to do.
You see, Job has this idea. Bildad, you have a great philosophy. God is
discriminately righteous. He judges the wicked and He rewards the
righteous. That is how any “just” God would rule His universe! But that is
not what is happening. So I conclude He is not a just God. Then he ends
chapter 9, verses 30-35, and we see another glimpse of the depths of Job’s
heart.

“If I should wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,
yet You would plunge me into the pit, and my own clothes would
abhor me. For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him, that
we may go to court together. There is no umpire between us, who
may lay his hand upon us both.”
This idea of the “Umpire”, Job 9:33 has been recognized throughout the
ages by every commentator to be one of the great Messianic passages in
the Old Testament. That is, a picture of Jesus Christ. And here is the
idea. Job said I am a man and He is God. There is nobody who can put
one hand on man and the other hand on God and bring us together. Of
course, you see how the Lord Jesus is pictured by that. He was the
God/Man. He was able to put one hand on God and one hand on man
because He was God and He was Man. I Timothy 2:5,
“For there is but one God and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus”.

Although I believe this is Messianic in the sense that the whole Old
Testament is Messianic, I do not think Job had Jesus in mind. I think what

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