Job 17 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2017&version=ESV Most people try not to think about death. They don’t understand it. They don’t know what to think of it. It frightens them. So they don’t think about it. But there are times when death breaks past the barriers and crashes into the mind. And when it does, men and women must grapple with it’s reality, with it’s imminence, and try to understand what it means. When they do, most people make one of two fundamental errors. They often make both!
The first is to think of death as rest without having Christ. People write “R.I.P” on tombstones and some even look forward to death as a way to rest from the troubles of life. But without Christ, without faith in God and in the forgiveness of sins that He brings through His Son, such hope is entirely vain. Because death is not nothing and it’s not a mystery. Death is not rest. Not for those who do not believe. It’s not the stage exit at the end of the play of life as Job’s poor excuses for counselors seem to think. “There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked” (Isaiah 57:21). Death is much worse for the unbeliever than anything in this life.
But there is rest for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9). And that rest is not a “nothingness” either. It’s eternal joy and glory with the Father. Death is much better for the believer than anything in this life! And that’s the other major error that many make with regard to death. Many lament the death of people in this world and blame God for being cruel. And while death is something to lament because of the loss and hurt that it creates here, it is also something to celebrate when it is the death of a believer because of the joy that it brings to them and to God. “Precious in the eyes of the LORD is the death of His saints!” (Psalm 116:15). Job is longing for death still in chapter 17. Even more so perhaps now because of the continued abusive and foolish counsel of his friends. He knows that in death he will have rest, rest from the troubles of this world. Rest from the false accusations of his friends, rest in the eternal joyful presence of His God. That’s the truth about death. No rest for the wicked, eternal rest for those who have faith in Christ!
In Christ Pastor Ude