Read Job 13:20–14:22
Questions from the Scripture text: What two things does Job ask God not to do to him (Job 13:20-21)? What does he want God to show him (Job 13:23)? How does he regard God’s perceived silence (Job 13:22, Job 13:24)? What effect does this have upon him (Job 13:25)? In what manner is he concerned that God might be dealing with him (Job 13:26-27)? What condition highlights man’s inability to change himself (Job 13:28–Job 14:4)? Who is sovereign over him, i.e., able to change him (Job 14:5)? Apart from grace, what would be best for man (Job 14:6)? How is a tree different than man (Job 14:7-10)? How is man more similar to a lake bed or river bed (Job 14:11-12)? Since Job has gospel hope for eternity (Job 14:16-17), what would he rather have from God than his recent experiences (Job 14:13-16a)? What happens with man’s hopes and initiatives in this world (Job 14:17-22)?What hope can Job have in the midst of his pain in this world? Job 13:20–14:22 looks forward to the hearing of God’s Word, publicly read, in the holy assembly on the coming Lord’s Day. In these thirty-one verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the believer’s hope is in God Himself, Who makes us new, forgives our sins, and desires us as the work of His hands.
Job is determined to trust in the Lord (Job 14:15) to be his salvation (Job 14:16). What does that look like in such painful circumstances as he finds himself? We can learn much from his basic prayers.
Don’t leave me alone, Job 13:20–22. This may sound inconsistent. Several times, we have seen Job ask that if God is going to continue to deal with him as He appears to be, just to leave him alone. But Job has come to an important conclusion: even though he cannot see it now, God is the God of gospel grace in Whom he has trusted. So, he prays that God would not leave him alone (Job 13:21a), and that God would deal with him according to grace (verse 21b). If God is your only hope, then cry out to Him not to withdraw His hand from you, but to deal with you graciously as your Hope instead of your Terror.
Show me my sins, Job 13:23-24. This is a profound little section. Job believes that it is an act of enmity (Job 13:24) when God hides His face instead of showing us our iniquity, sin, and transgression (Job 13:23). Job has repented of what he knows of. His friends have insisted that he suffers because of unrepented sin. But if Job is to repent, he needs to know what his sin is. It would be enmity indeed if God gave him over to sin to such an extent that he didn’t even know what his sin was. It might feel easier to our conscience, and especially to our pride, to be ignorant of our sin or to take it lightly. But that is not grace. If you are looking to God for true grace, then ask Him to make you know your sins.
But don’t treat me according to those sins, Job 13:25-28. This has been Job’s fear throughout: what if the Lord is actually dealing with me according to my sins (Job 13:26)? He is sovereign over the whole of our life (Job 13:27). If He deals with us according to our sin, we shall be destroyed and incinerated instantly (Job 13:25, Job 13:28).
Make me a clean thing, Job 14:1–4. Man was not created to be “of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1-2). Job is engaging the Lord in light of his fallenness. Even if God shows him his sins (Job 13:23–24), Job can’t cleanse himself from himself (Job 14:4). He needs God to give him a new nature. If the only principle upon which the Lord deals with him is one of justice (Job 14:3), then Job is done for.
Get me safely to eternity, Job 14:5–22. In the balance of the chapter, Job notes that he doesn’t have any inherent life in himself, like even the stump of a tree does (Job 14:7-8). Rather, he is like a riverbed of a river that has long since dried up (Job 14:9-12). As Ecclesiastes also observes several times, a man’s accomplishments in this life do not have “staying power” (Job 14:18-21), however much he agonizes over his endeavors (Job 14:22).
So, if Job’s life is going to be one of misery and pain under the apparent wrath of God (Job 14:13b), it would be better for him to be hidden by God in his grave (verse 13a) until the time of his redemption comes. He would rather just wait for the resurrection (Job 14:14), in which he is confident that he will know the grace of God (Job 14:15). His ultimate hope is in God and His forgiveness (Job 14:16-17). Note that, while Job is asking God to spare him the balance of the miseries of this life, it does not even cross his mind to take his own life. As he hopes in God for eternal forgiveness and blessedness, he does not even consider committing such a sin as suicide.
Instead, here he is with eternal hope in God, asking for a word from God that he might have resolved his perplexity about the pain in his life. By the end of the book, he would know God better. And we, with the cross and the resurrection as finished events, know even more fully this grace of God and our eternal hope in Him! Let us live in that hope, sure that when our hard service is over, our change will come (Job 14:14), and that God Himself will bring us out of the season of misery (Job 14:13), that He might delight in us, whom He has transformed (Job 14:15) and whose sin He has forgiven (Job 14:16-17).
What miseries are you enduring? How do you know that God is not treating you according to your sin? What hope do you have for when your life in this world is done? What hope do you have even now, as the work of God’s hands?
Sample prayer: Lord, two things we desire from You: that You would not withdraw Your hand far from us, and that the dread of You would not make us afraid. Make us to know our sins, and make us to know Your forgiveness and cleansing of sin. Since a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean thing, grant that Your Spirit would make us to be clean things. Give us to worship You from the new life that is in us from Christ. Come, now, and call; and, we will answer You. Desire us as the work of Your hands, covering our iniquity, and giving us to live, and work, and worship by Your grace in Christ, through Whom we ask it, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP51B “From My Sins, O Hide Your Face” or TPH433 “Amazing Grace!”
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