Job 19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth
Have you ever opened your eyes on the morning after a big day and said to yourself, “Now what?” After graduation, marriage, or some great success, you might think, “Now what? This is the end.” You have been working toward some goal all these days and now what do you do? The point is that time is on a continuum, but we chop time up into arbitrary finite units like days, hours, weeks, months, or years. It is easy to confuse arbitrary units of time with the end, like the end of college is graduation, the end of dating is marriage.
Oftentimes politicians bend the stats with arbitrary units of time. Someone says, “Numbers don’t lie.” They most certainly can lie because people can lie and they can use numbers, words, or what they don’t say to lie. It is often the case in life that we can’t see the truth because of the way truth has been edited for us or how we have ourselves have edited the truth. We have all seen videos online that portray one thing, but when you see the full video, it obviously shows something totally to the contrary. The question is always, “What have you cut out? How have you edited this?”
In Job 19:2, Job says to his friends, “How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?” Job’s friends had been accusing him in his misery that the only reason this calamity had befallen him was because he had sinned in some specific way. What follows in Job 19 is the obvious truth that this is not the end. Verse 25 is like an inspired exclamation, but how Job could even understand what he was saying I do not know. In verses 25-27 Job says, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the later day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself.” What Job is saying is that this is not the end. The way you esteem your life and the world is often dependent upon how you edit. Are you just chopping off the past and the future and looking at this snapshot of the moment? For all of us, this is not the end.
Some should be encouraged by this fact. Job says, “I know that my redeemer liveth…and though after my skin worms destroy this body.” Job says, “I know and though. I know that there is a greater reality regardless of what may be happening.” Your faith determines in some measure your sight. In other words, whom you believe determines what you see. This is not the end and some should be encouraged by that.
This is not the end. Some should be wise because of this truth. Verse 28 says, “But ye should say, Why persecute we him?” Job is saying to his friends, “I know this is not the end. I know my redeemer lives and He will judge. And you should wonder why you are persecuting me.” This is a perspective based on his perspective. In other words, he is assigning what they should do based on what actually is before them.
Not long ago, we finished a major project on the Bill Rice Ranch, one for which we have been praying and raising money for a year. The day after the project was completed, we thought, “Now what?” The truth is that I now do know what because there is always more to do, but the point is to realize this is not the end whether it is success or failure. This should encourage us and help us to be wise.
For some, the fact that this is not the end should make them afraid. Verse 29 says, “Be ye afraid of the sword…that ye may know there is a judgment.” Job is saying, “This is not the end. There is a judgment. There is a God.” People once showed Jesus some calamity that happened in the area, the implication being that those people must have been big sinners, and Jesus said, “Do you think they are worse sinners than you are? No, unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” So, this is not the end. Success is not eternal and neither is failure until the end. Some should be encouraged, some should be wise, and some should be afraid.
In the fall of 1942, the Nazi commander Rommel was on the run in North Africa, and there were those who encouraged Winston Churchill to ring out the bells of victory. Churchill was optimistic but a little more reserved, and he said something to the effect, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”
Friend, I don’t know what you are experiencing in your life right now, but now is not the end. It may not even be the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning. This life is but a brief prelude to something far more important. This life is important. We can enjoy what God gives us now, but whether you are enjoying life or enduring some hardship, this is not the end. That should affect the way we view both God and our existence.