The substance of Christianity
By: H.K. Holland
Tags: Bible, Religion And Spirituality, Religion, Christianity, Church

"If you should say, 'How shall we persecute him?-- Since the root of the matter is found in me.'" Job 19:28.

Some music first..🎺🎸King of Anything🪕🎼🎹🎹🎹🎹 By Sara Bareilles... I dare you not to love this song..🤣😂😂

It is a lovely song...😍😍

Okay, now read this as you listen to that song.....🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼 Who cares if you disagree?🎼🎼🎼🎼 Nice beat...😂😂😂

You will always understand a passage of Scripture better if you carefully attend to its connection.😊

The habit of picking out portions from the Bible and separating them from their context may be carried a great deal too far and in the process the reader may miss the mind of the Spirit and force the words a meaning of his own.😏

If we were to treat people's books as we do God's Book we would probably be judged to be insane.😒

It is indeed, a wonderful book to bear such mangling! Every sensible person will see that it must always be wise to study the context, for it is likely enough to cast a light upon the passage at hand.🤷🏿‍♂️

Job, in the verse before you, is answering Bildad the Shuhite.👳🏿‍♂️

Now, this Bildad on two occasions had described Job as a hypocrite and accounted for his dire distress by the fact that, though hypocrites may flourish for a time, they will utterly be destroyed.

In the two bitter speeches which he made, he described the hypocrite under the figure of a tree which is torn by the roots, or dim even down to the root.☺️

In his first address, in the 8th chapter and 16th verse, he says of the hypocrite, "He grows green in the sun, and his branches spread out in his garden. His roots wrap around the rock heap. And look for a place in the stones. If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, 'I have not seen you.'"😅

Explanation: Even the very root of the hypocrite was to be pulled up, so that the garden in which he once flourished should not remember that he had ever been there! 🤣🤣

Pleased with his metaphor, Bildad, in the 18th chapter, uses it again. He says, in the 14th verse of the chapter, "He is uprooted from the shelter of his tent, and they parade him before the king of terrors..his roots are dried out below, and his branch withers above."

This then, was his mode of attacking Job. He set forth, by the emblem of a tree, the state and fate of the false-hearted----they might flourish for a time, but they would wither at last, even down to the very root, dried up and blasted by the justice of God.🙂

The inference he meant to draw was this,----"You, Job are utterly dried up, for all your prosperity is gone and, therefore, you must be a hypocrite!" 😌

The assault was very cruel, but the sufferer successfully parried it.

"No," says Job, "I am no hypocrite. I will prove it by your own words, for the root of the matter is still in me and, therefore, I am no hypocrite. Though I admit that I have lost branches, leaves, fruit and flowers, yet I have not lost the root of the matter, for I hold the essential faith as firmly as ever, and therefore, by your own argument I am no hypocrite.

You should say, "Why do we persecute him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?"😉

So you see...there is a something in true religion, which is its essential root.🤷🏿‍♂️ It has fundamental matters which cannot be dispensed with under any circumstances.

There is a something which is vital, without which there is no spiritual life.🙏

Banange, you can be wealthy. You can be the wisest person. You can be the most influential person on earth.....but without this.....hmm....🤦🏻‍♂️

We are not left in the dark as to what this essential matter is! If we read the verse in its own connection, apart from any extraneous suggestion, there will be no doubt about its meaning.

Start at the 25th verse and read on as Job spoke. He tells us plainly what is "the root of the matter."

Here it is---"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

😂😂😂

This knowledge of the Redeemer is evidently the root of the matter.

Selah.

Back to "King of Anything" by Sara Bareilles....it is a nice song....🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼

Yours truly,

H.K. 🇳🇱

Recommends "King of Anything," by Sara Bareilles.😂

12/07/20