Job chapter 16 verse 22

WHAT did Job know that will help us? Do you experience the emotion of love? Now let me ask you that, once more, with what would be the proper, emphatic- do---you; experience--;--the emotion of, ...love? With the proper spacing to the English words, the point becomes slightly more clear. English is a very dominant and tough language, it’s built for speed, contains a lot of meaning, but we English speaking folk, (including Britain, where as Churchill said, we have “Two peoples (nations) separated by a common language,”) are very busy. We are all about getting it done, the it of what we’re doing, isn’t usually what we’re primarily about; because for about 70 percent of the population it involves making someone else wealthy from the source it that they love. The work we do usually isn’t what we love doing. Seven of ten people don’t work in the area that they love, they toil in an area someone else loves- to put it somewhat cynically they toil (play) in someone else’s sandbox; and as children will at times do, they may need to take a nap- dream during that nap, and wake up realizing, they don’t get a do over. We don’t get a do over on life, “Well yeah Dana, duh,” but you who are “Duhhing,” me right now, live as though you will get endless chances in time to make your errors in life palatable, endless do overs- but we don’t, we’re on a path!

Job (Jobe) chapter 16 - verse 22- let's keep it in context we're looking at verses 18- 22

18 “Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!”
19 Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.
20 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God
21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.
22 “Only a few years will pass before I take the path of no return.

Revelations, you recognize that title don’t you? Almost world over that one New Testament writing has captured and helped, any proper writing about it should include, and helped; people become closer to Jesus. The why of that is an entanglement of faith; real faith, not the plastic get dressed up and go to the church and act it out kind of faith, but rather the tough, “I will not deny Jesus,” type of faith. One of my most precious memories from a fabulous seminary professor that all his “Preacher boys,” came to love, Dr. James C. Taylor, author of “Building sermons to meet peoples needs,” was when he spoke with us about “Quiet love.” Dr. Taylor couldn’t speak of his father without mist coming into his eyes. It is humbling to see that kind of heartfelt devotion, and Dr. Taylor allowed us to see it. He said his father loved roses, and his rose garden, but that in his later years, he could no longer, “Walk amongst the roses,” which is what his father felt the people of God were. Imagine that, a pastor who feels his sheep are roses? Dr. Taylor’s father felt that way, and loved to walk in the morning among his roses, but in later life, he no longer could. So one of Dr. Taylor’s favorite things to do would be to push his father in his wheel chair among his roses. Dr. Taylor asked his father one morning, “Dad are you an optimist or a pessimist?” The question in the late 60’s early 70’s of this country was being looked at; and Dr. Taylor’s father answered, “I’m an apptamist son, I’m apt to feel one way this morning, and apt to feel another tomorrow.” And Dr. Taylor’s eyes would mist, because it was obvious, he missed his father. The revealing of Christ, which is what the actual title of the book we mistakenly call, “Revelations,” is, has brought many people close enough to Christ that they can occasionally get misty eyed over Him. Do you think Job did?

Job chapter 16 verse 22 is the one sentence version of that Revelations! We’re going, all of us, one day, to a place we’ve not yet seen. Job looked through incredible pain, emotional, physical, familial and any other type of pain we can imagine, he had experienced them all; and through that incredible pain he speaks about a God who loves him enough that when the day comes that he goes to a path from which there is no return, and we’re gonna discuss that in the following paragraphs, but consider his eyes, consider Job’s eyes, looking, perhaps now in the pain, even longingly, looking to a place from which there is no return, but don’t miss it- “Don’t miss what Dana,” don’t miss the enormously important term, path.

Why focus on a term? Doesn’t that tend to slant reality of the word out of context? Context, the grand sentencing of truth; should never be left behind in studying the Bible, a book of truth, revealed truth, something that those without faith find many times, aggravating. For example, some who claim they are atheistic, meaning from the Oxford dictionary, “...lacking belief in the existence of God,:" these are people who, I believe still presently, Dr. Richard Dawkins, https://www.richarddawkins.net/ is a representative iconic world recognized figure; claim they don’t believe in God. Without getting off track (O.K. it’s a small pun, allow it won’t you?) when you consider context, these folks, don’t. Joe Rogan is one of my favorite comedians, which my Christian brethren and sisters must find nutty behavior, why listen to such “Filth,” because Joe does love to throw around the “F-bomb,” in his comedic onslaughts at my stomach muscles- Joe interviews Richard Dawkins frequently on his Podcast, I take it in on YouTube, and the reason is simple, Joe brings up points of view that Christians won’t. It’s not that they don’t know them, it’s that we tend to focus, carry our lives in a context, which has nothing to do with atheism or it’s ideas. Consequently we don’t have a language to discuss intelligently with these folks what we believe- because just as John the disciple wrote when revealing Christ, and centuries before him, Job, utters and it’s recorded, from his pain, we’re on a path- the atheistic think we’re nuts, think faith is crazy, think Job is myth, I know Job isn’t a myth, nobody could do the kind of analytical thought he did and be crazy (we spoke of this in a previous writing) and that faith, the element which says in our lives we’re on a journey of faith; is one we’ve got to figure out how to make sensible to those who are not hearing it. How important, therefore, is context, and the answer must become, extremely important, they need faith, we all need, faith.

Path, it is, a path, a “arch” Hebrew for path, near as I can determine from some pretty amazing sources, you might want to check out, http://www.scripture4all.org/ , not endorsing them, you understand, but they seem to be pretty real? That’s somewhat of a problem in todays world, when you get into ancient literature, if you aren’t an expert on that language, enough to bring it into the current time; then you’re going to have to trust someone to do so. Would it be possible that God, who inspired men of old to write truth, (see cf. 2Tim 3:16) might still be at work, guiding this present time as God so patiently and lovingly through Jesus, does? Or even more exacting, through the Holy Spirit, does? Job says we are on – and the Hebrew word is an intensely interesting one, we are on a “arch” - a path. Wow- an arch- brings to mind – many things that word. It’s a powerful one, it’s a powerful place, in the coming together of a doorway which joins two sides of a buildings entrance, is the high point of precise pressure, the “arch,” which if it’s off, the whole edifice might collapse!

Further Job is imaging the very essence of faith, based not on some whimsical notion, but based on the reality of what he has seen, his entire family dead, buried, gone. They’ve not been able to reverse that, they haven’t come back, they are gone, and Job feels that pain from them being gone. It’s an ache inside, if you’ve ever had someone die you were close to you know that ache- and it returns, just at the place where your ribs join, at the arch, there, that ache comes, doesn’t it? Isn’t that amazing, you are built, you are constructed- it’s no accident of force acting on your genes that makes you what you are, it may have some influence on the path of the created being Adam (Hebrew- ‘Adm’ literally, three letters, 'man' but it sounds like what we translate as -’Adam,”) that God made on the sixth day, but isn’t such still probably at work? Quick side note, God’s time isn’t human, we’re linear, God isn’t, we’re bound, God’s not- and we don’t get that, and scientific atheists miss it every time. Here’s the relevant point out of that, nobody being human would have been smart enough to come up with such a tale- we’re smart, us creative types, but we’re not that smart. So did it happen, you bet, is the story one that was passed down from Adam’s kids on, you can trust that to be true. Are there subtle interpretive points about the Hebrew and the scrolls and all the intensely senses based historically accurate translative arguments going on, yes, they are, but this fact above all else remains- the Bible, despite the best efforts of every powerful greed based ego based organization on the planet trying to wipe it out, is still here and it will be here for all eternity- and the reason for that is so simple it just drives the atheists nuts, it’s the word of God!

The reason we need to speak faith to one another, especially now, is that there are a lot of forces at work in this world, some of them by sheer apathetic misunderstanding of the truth of love, some of them as aggressive agents of hatred, and these forces must be and can only be confronted and silenced by faith. The reason faith can respond is it isn’t led by created by or comes into existence through a human agency; it is from God. God is in this entire sequence of sad events in Job’s life- so much so that centuries later Paul would quote what he had seen written. The story of Job isn’t a story about Job, it is a truth about how those who suffer can make it through that suffering, it isn’t to placate people in pain, it is to solve the situation with the truth about why such isn’t the final destination for you, it is for us all, the path from which there is no return. Where are you going finally, what can you know about that ultimate place? We’re going to be getting together on the book written by the man who is the half brother of Jesus, I believe, a man named James, he also understood suffering, maybe not as well as Job did, but he also knows that we are all on a path, a journey, and where we go to, none of us get to come back from, save one. That one is singularly pointed out to us, Job knew Him as his intercessor, we know Him as, Jesus Christ, God’s only son.