A Witness in Heaven
Job 14-16

A Witness in Heaven - Job 14-16. Have you ever reached the time when you are in too much despair or physically too weak to cry out to God? We know from our own experience that we depend upon the prayer of others when we reach that state.

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2 “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
and fill his belly with the east wind?
3 Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
or in words with which he can do no good?
4 But you are doing away with the fear of God
and hindering meditation before God.
5 For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
your own lips testify against you.
Job 15:1-6, ESV

16 My face is red with weeping,
and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
17 although there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
18 “O earth, cover not my blood,
and let my cry find no resting place.
19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
and he who testifies for me is on high.
20 My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
21 that he would argue the case of a man with God,
as a son of man does with his neighbor.
22 For when a few years have come
I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
Job 16:16-22, ESV

A Witness in Heaven
Job 14-16

As we continue on through the book of Job, Job's friends become less patient and less tactful. Eliphaz blatantly declares that Job does not fear God.

Have you ever reached the time when you are in too much despair or physically too weak to cry out to God? We know from our own experience that we depend upon the prayers of others when we reach that state. As a matter of fact, it is important that we take seriously the duty we have to approach God with the physical and emotional needs of others.

Yet, that is not what Job experienced; he is at a point of total frustration and misery as he cries out, My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness. Yet, even at this point he can not count on the prayer support of his friends; he only receives their contempt and derision.

What we then see in Job is another type of suffering. Satan has attacked him, destroyed his lands and property, taken the lives of his children, and left him with ulcerous sores all over his body in the hope that Job will deny God. Now he loses his dearest friends. Rather than comfort and pray for him, they accuse him of secretly sinning against God. They see his experience as the judgment of God against him for his sins. So, now, Job suffers from the emotional stress of being wrongly accused by his best friends.

What, then, does Job do? Look at what Job declared in Job 16:19, Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high.

What an amazing testimony of a Godly man. Though he loses everything including his dearest family and friends, he trusts in God Almighty. He knows that the witness he has with God is secure, for God is truly righteous.

We know that eventually Job will be exonerated, but we still have several chapters in the Book of Job until we reach that point.

Pray today that your testimony would be as that of Job; that in the darkest of hours God will comfort you with the knowledge that your witness is in God Himself and that it is Christ who testifies for you. No matter what happens to you on this earth, you will always have a witness in heaven!

Praise God for His faithfulness to His people!

A Witness in Heaven

Bible Study Book of Job