My Redeemer Liveth Job 19:25-27 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
A preacher saw a young boy carrying a birdcage with 5 little sparrows in it that he had caught. He asked the boy what he planned to do with the birds. The boy said, “I’m just going to mess around with them. I’ll probably end up giving them to my cat later on.” So, the preacher got an idea. He asked the boy if he’d mind selling the birds. The boy was surprised by the offer, and said to the preacher, “Sure, but these birds aren’t worth anything.” The preacher said, “No matter, how much do you want for them?” So, the boy gave him a price, “$2.00.” The preacher paid the money and took the cage. The little boy asked, “What are you going to do with the birds, mister?” He said, “I’m going to let them go!” “What,” exclaimed the boy, “Why would you do that?” The preacher said, “That’s why I bought them. I wanted to make them free. You see,” he said to the boy, “this is a perfect illustration of what Jesus, our Redeemer, did for us when he came to the earth and died. He found us trapped by the devil in a cage of sin and locked by the law. He paid a tremendous price and bought us so that he might make us free.”
You see the preacher redeemed the birds and Jesus redeemed us. To redeem means to rescue from captivity or bondage and to liberate by paying a price or ransom. You know, like the ransom paid to rescue somebody who’s been kidnapped. The preacher paid $2.00 to buy and release the birds. Jesus gave his life to buy us and give us liberty.
Job said, “I know that my REDEEMER liveth.”
He redeemed you from the bondage of the law.
Right now, whether you realize it or not, you are subject to the law of God. That law dictates the way you are supposed to conduct your life down here. And if you don’t keep that law, you will suffer the consequences. “Click it or ticket.”
Of course, that doesn’t seem to bother most people; they have the idea that the law is a measure of their righteousness. You ask them about Jesus and they immediately say, “I haven’t stolen anything, I haven’t committed adultery, I’ve never killed anyone.” “I have my seat belt fastened.”
But the law is not a measure of you righteousness. It is to point out your unrighteousness! Listen to Rom 4:15, “the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.” The law points out sin and prescribes the wrath of God as its consequence.
If you see the law from God’s eyes (and he’s the judge) you don’t see your righteousness, you see your guilt, “(Rom 3:19) Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”
You see, the way the law works, you have to keep it all, in order to be right. If you only break one part, then you are guilty as if you had broken all parts. “(James 2:10) For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” So, when you say, I haven’t done “whatever” you have done something else wrong. And I’ll give you one that I know you’ve done wrong.
You have broken the 9th commandment. Do you even know what it is? Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Or stated differently, “Lie not one to another.” And I know you have lied because the Bible says, “Let God be true, but every man a liar.”
You say, “Okay, so what, we’ve all committed that sin; God wouldn’t throw a man in hell for simply lying!” And that’s where you are wrong. “… all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” That’s the consequence of lying!
The law is bondage, it’s a trap, and it’s your cage. Gal. 3:10, “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” You are under a curse.
“Man, how do I get out of that trap?” Glad you asked. Like Job, you need a redeemer, someone who would pay a big enough price to get you out of that trap. That redeemer is Jesus. First, he lived a perfect life so that the law couldn’t condemn him. Then he offered himself a ransom to get us out from under the curse of the law. You know how he did it? “(Gal 3:13) Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:” He took the curse of the law for you so you would no longer be under that curse.
Like Jesus said, “If the Son shall make you free ye shall be free indeed” Just like that preacher made those sparrows free.
He redeemed you from the bondage of sin.
Try as you may, you will never quit sinning. You are in a body that was conceived in sin and it will die because of that sin. “The wages of sin is death.”
Religion, psychology, medicine, and the justice system have all tried to cure the problems of sin. Religion through moral creeds, psychology through therapy, medicine through drug cures and surgeries, and the system of justice through laws, courts and prisons. We are just as bad off today as Adam and Eve were when Cain killed Abel. So, now we are trying licentiousness [the lack of moral restraint].
The world has found all kinds of ways to dress up sin and put controls on the body to corral sin, but they have not found a way to deal with the ultimate consequence of sin – death. Rom 7:24, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?”
Well, our Redeemer found a way to deliver us. He became sin for us. He suffered death for us. He went to Hell for us. He paid the price! Like Paul said, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Rom 7:25, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Just like that preacher delivered those sparrows from the death of that cat.
“He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” You see, when Jesus redeems you, you will still die physically, but you will live eternally with him because you die in righteousness not in sin.
He redeemed you from the bondage of the devil.
I don’t know if you realize, you are in bondage to the Devil. You are in his family. The first man born, Cain, was of that wicked one. And yet he was religious. The religious Pharisees were of their father the devil. You are in bondage to the Devil and “the lusts of your father you will do.” He was a murder, they murdered Jesus. Why? They were just doing what their father wanted them to do!
In the world, there are two families: God’s and the Devil’s. 1 John 3:10 says, “in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the Devil.” Everyone born winds up in the Devil’s family. The only way to enter God’s family is through redemption. Galatians 4:4-5, “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” He adopted us out of the Devil’s family and into his own.
Do you know how he did that? He became like the devil, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up.”
To redeem us from the curse of the law, he became a curse.
To redeem us from sin, he became sin for us.
To redeem us from the Devil, he became as the Devil.
Man, what price did he have to pay to do all that?
He redeemed you by his blood.
The preacher paid $2.00 for the sparrows. God paid with the death of his Son for you. As John 15:13 says, “Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Colossians 1:14 says, “in whom we have redemption, through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” Revelation 5: 9 says, “For Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”
He died! He shed his blood! His shed blood is pictured in the Old Testament by the lamb for the coats of skin, by the ram caught in the thicket, and by the Passover lamb. Job said I KNOW my redeemer liveth. When you are redeemed by his blood you KNOW that you are redeemed because the price has already been paid and the Lord has already been satisfied [propitiation].
He redeemed you forever.
Hebrews 9: 12 says, “by his own blood he entered in once to the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for you us. You ask, “How did he do that?” Job said, “my redeemer LIVETH.” He arose from the dead.
While he was in the earth:
He beat sin by never sinning,
He beat death by rising from the grave,
He beat the Devil by coming up out of hell: “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Because he lives, I shall live also! He is alive and so we will live forever.
No other religion, religious leader, or prophet has ever come up from the grave. Jesus is the only one. He is the Redeemer!
Conclusion: Job said, “I know that MY Redeemer liveth.” He made him mine. Those sparrows weren’t free until they left the cage. The preacher opened the door but they had to trust that they were free. They had to leave the cage. Likewise, Jesus did all this for you but you must receive him to be free!
1 John 5: 12 says, “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” John 1: 12 says, “but to as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”
He is the Redeemer. He is alive. But, is he yours?