Job Begs an Audience With God

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Job 13-31
May 25, 2025

Sermon Notes

Job 13:3,13-14:22:

Job to his friends

“I desire to speak to the Almighty and to argue my case with God. Keep silent and let me speak; then let come to me what may. Why do I put myself in jeopardy and take my life in my hands? Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless man would dare come before him! Listen carefully to my words; let your ears take in what I say. Now that I have prepared my case, I know I will be vindicated. Can anyone bring charges against me? If so, I will be silent and die.”

Job to God

“Only grant me these two things, O God, and then I will not hide from you: withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors. Then summon me and I will answer, or let me speak, and you reply. How many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me my offense and my sin. Why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy? Will you torment a windblown leaf? Will you chase after dry chaff? For you write down bitter things against me and make me inherit the sins of my youth. You fasten my feet in shackles; you keep close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet. So man wastes away like something rotten, like a garment eaten by moths.

Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure. Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will you bring him before you for judgment? Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one! Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. So look away from him and let him alone, till he has put in his time like a hired man. At least there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, so man lies down and does not rise; til the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep. 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! If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come. You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made. Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.

But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place, as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man’s hope. You overpower him once for all, and he is gone; you charge his countenance and send him away. If his sons are honored, he does not know it, if they are brought low, he does not see it. He feels but the pain of his own body and mourns only for himself.”

Job 19:25-27: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end, he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

Job 31:35-37: “Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense — let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing. Surely I would wear it on my shoulder, I would put it on like a crown. I would give him an account of my every step; like a prince I would approach him.”

Outline:

1. Review

2. Job has reached an unbearable level of frustration

   • Conversations with his friends has gotten him nowhere

   • His complaints about God have gotten him nowhere

   • His complaints to God have gotten him nowhere

   • Yet through it all, through the tears and pain...

3. Job is about to request an actual encounter with God

   • Job is now on a mission to hear God’s actual voice

   • Job knows his intent is dangerous

   • Despite the risk, Job believes he will be vindicated before God

   • As Job waits, he ponders death and sin

4. Job protests the seeming unfairness of it all

   • Job protests that God seems to think of nothing but sin, and sin leads to death

   • Job longs for a resurrection he thinks will never happen

   • Job needs a mediator to bring these matters to God

5. Lessons