Job 4:7-8 “Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright destroyed? ⁸According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble harvest it.”

Ruth E. Knowlton tells the following story:

"Years ago I lived in an apartment building in a large city. The building next door was only a few feet away from mine, and I could look across the alley into the apartment on the same floor as mine. There was a woman who lived there, whom I had never met, yet I could see her as she sat by her window each afternoon, sewing or reading.

"After several months had gone by, I began to notice that her windows were dirty. Everything was indistinct through her smudged windows. I would say to myself, 'I wonder why that woman doesn't wash her windows? They look dreadful!'

"One bright morning I decided to do my spring housecleaning and thoroughly cleaned my apartment, including washing the windows on the inside.

"Late in the afternoon when I was finished, I sat down by the window with a cup of coffee for a rest. What a surprise! Across the way, the woman sitting by her window was clearly visible. Her windows were clean!

"Then it dawned on me. I have been criticizing her dirty windows, but all the time I was observing them through my own dirty ones!"

But what does this have to do with Job? Job’s friends all came to him when he was in need. His friends came when his house was destroyed, his wealth was gone, and his family (except his wife) was gone. By today’s standards, they were very good friends. Job was in trouble and these, his best friends, must have known that he was a righteous man, but they thought that he must have sinned something horrible to get on the wrong side of God in such a manner. After all, its only the sinners who have problems. Those who follow God, sure they may be tempted, sure they may have struggles, but God obviously does not take away blessings!

These friends of Job were well versed in scripture. It may even be that one of these three friends was the one who instructed Job in the way of the Lord, yet they missed something in their theology – by their understanding of God, they were trivializing God. They were viewing Job through their own dirty windows. God does not always do what we think He should do, and when He does, we take the dirt from our window – the dirt of misunderstanding, of guilt, and of pride – and apply it to the work of God.

The friends were wrong and yet right at the same time. God was going to bless Job even further, but God wanted to display His power, His might, and His knowledge. God was pitting His servant against all the wiles of Satan. The friends did not perceive this because although they walked with God, their understanding of Him and His mighty works came from their experiences and the experiences of others who did not fully serve and walk with God to the best of their abilities.

Why Job? The answer is because Job was at that time, probably the closest to God of anyone on the entire earth. That is why Job went through everything.

The friends were right in their understanding, as far as it goes. The friends’ understanding of God, however, was misapplied and taken out of context; people certainly reap what they sow. Job sowed righteousness and uprightness. Job sowed a relationship with God, and so he reaped God’s trust. He reaped the anger of Lucifer. He reaped earthly sorrow and then a deepening understanding of God (but that is later in the book).

Let us therefore serve the almighty with alacrity and strive to be worthy of God’s immense trust and faith as well as Satan’s hatred and disgust.

Isaiah 55:7 “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Last year, I read an excellent thought on the differences between “ways” and “paths.” I do not have time or permission to retell it, but in short, a way is a broad, more traveled road. A way is communal, that is, it is not just one person but many people who travel on it. A path, on the other hand, is solitary by nature since there are just a few people who use it. A path is intensely personal.

Isaiah calls us to turn from our wicked ways. If our ways are wicked that means that there are others, that many people are involved in this wickedness. Our evil, sinful actions are communal and thus will in turn affect the community; as a community we need to respond.

Isaiah then goes on to speak about unrighteous thoughts. The first thing I thought of after reading this was Jesus preaching about sin and that we have sinned if we even only considered it – or thought about it (Matthew 5). Thinking is very solitary and very personal – much like a path within our mind. The mind is where sin originates for us – this is where we sin first. The singul thought then carries over into actions and our actions then affect others and that little path which we traveled in our mind joins into a large way where we travel with many others; a boulevard of wickedness so to speak.

It is the thought that makes us unrighteous and the action that makes us wicked. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10) There are non born who are pure and godly. We all started away from God, but we are offered hope. We have to be willing to change. We need to turn from our actions and leave them behind as we walk towards the cross. Remember that we are walking the wrong direction in the ways of wickedness. We walk contrary to the flow of humanity down this boulevard of broken dreams. We now are having to push and shove our way through the masses. This does not make us popular and people will not like us or feel charitable for us, yet we are not alone. The word “we” by very nature involves more than one person – in our walk towards Godliness and Holiness, Christ walks with us and encourages us. There are many people trying to turn and walk towards God. As we come together in our walk against the crowd and away from wickedness, we can help each other and encourage each other just as Christ encourages us in our travel towards Him. With more people the return towards Holiness becomes easier.

Just as it takes a thought to be unrighteous, it takes thought to begin and continue towards Christ. “If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things” (Philippians 4:8). If we do not think on what is pure and good, righteous and holy, then we cannot continue forward towards God but instead we will be swept away by the crowd down the wicked way as we try to regain our footing.

Today let us begin anew a habit we should have our entire life—a habit of thinking on God and His blessings and His nature. With Christ as our focus and God in our thoughts, we will change not only ourselves, but those we come in contact with as well.

I walked today where Jesus walked,
In days of long ago.
I wandered down each path He knew,
With reverent step and slow.

Nehemiah 8:9 “Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law.”

Listening to a man give his testimony one time, I was shocked at what he spoke of. His entire life, he had been trying to run from God. His life was based on debauchery, sin, and drugs. While staying in a hotel one night, the was so depressed and so lonely that he started looking for something to do. He saw a Bible around and began reading it. He did not know much about the Bible, but he started “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” He read through Genesis and through Exodus, He read about God’s miracles and protection of the Israelites. He read about the chosen people defying God, forgetting God, and sinning. He read and read and read. He saw himself in the Bible. He saw his sins spoken about and he saw the eternal consequence of sin. He realized he was a sinner, and he realized that from what he had read, there was no way to atone for that. There was nothing that he could do to escape his own damnation.

He became more and more depressed the further he read. There was no escape. He wondered how he could escape hell. He thought about suicide, but realized that would only take him to judgement faster. He was sad. He was in tears. He was weeping and sorrowful, depressed and forlorn.

Reading through Ezra and Nehemiah, I was struck by how similar his situation was to these people who returned from exile. They only knew what they had been taught, but they did not have the Word. When they were read to from the Law of God, they realized their own sin. They realized their own failings, and they realized that they did not have much hope, yet Ezra, the priest, told them that there was no reason to mourn. Why? They were despicable! They were hopelessly condemned by sin. Why should they not mourn? Ezra said that the day was Holy, not because of what they had done, but it was Holy because they had read scripture. They had fellowshipped and come to learn before the throne God almighty. Even then God wanted them to continue on. Even then God wanted them to go forward and continue reading.

The people went and celebrated, not because they had done anything to celebrate, but because that day was Holy.

They started sharing what they had, the gave portions of their banquets to those who had nothing, and they began to obey God’s call to service, to take care of the poor and the alien, to treat all as equals and beloved in the sight of God Almighty.

The people came to remember what the Lord had done for them, and what they owed God. And then the people confessed their sins, as a congregation. Not just one person for his own, but all the people for everyone’s sins. The nation confessed before God.

By this time of the exile, the writings of Isaiah and Micah were freely available. I am certain that they too, just like this man I listened to had read the prophecies of the one who would come to take all sin away.

The Word of God brings everything to light, all our sins, all our temptations, all our faults. The Word of God shows us everything, and if you continue far enough, it shows the answer to our condemnation.

One writer has this to say about hope:

“One of George Custer's young officers was sure he saw a party of Indians a mile away. As the soldier charged, the Indians looked plainer each moment. But arriving at the point, there were no Indians at all-only some buffalo carcasses. Other travelers saw ships skimming across the desert sand in full sail, railroad tracks elevated on pilings, or water birds with brilliant plumage. All of these illusions occur when light rays pass through the atmosphere bent and distorted.

But no optical illusions in nature exceed the illusions that can be left by our own hearts. By diagnosis, the human spiritual heart is "beyond cure." Unaided by God, the response of each of us toward knowing his or her heart must be despair: "Who can know it?" (Jer_17:9). No one can fathom the secrets or pierce the darkness of his or her own heart. This is especially true at the point of the question about whom we trust-here again, our hearts can fool.
But there is hope. It rests in this: God knows your heart (Jer_17:10). He sifts, searches, explores, and probes the human heart. He tests and examines human emotions. This is our hope. When we get to know God, we get to know our own heart. You do not know your heart by looking into it yourself. You know your heart by getting to know God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Let us not forget our own natural condemnation Let us thank the Lord for the hope that He gives us. Let us thank God for His precious gift. Let us remember that everyday that we read from God’s word is Holy. Every time we share in His Scripture, we are dedicating that day to Him. Each moment we seek Christ, we are further blessed by Him.

I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene,
and wonder how he could love me,
a sinner, condemned, unclean.

Matthew 13:24-26 “Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also.’”

Jesus Liked nature and He liked teaching from it. He made all of nature and we know that all the heavens, earth, and all creation declares the glory of the Lord (Psalm 19). Christ uses the metaphor of wheat and tare to show the truth of the world. We are a field of wheat, but there are Tares, or Darnel (Lolium temulentum) that is sown in this field of wheat. Wheat is a useful grain. It is used in the making of bread so we can have sandwiches, hamburger buns, stews, even today’s supermarket meats are mixed with wheat product (or gluten) to thicken and give added flavour. Tare is a weed that looks just like wheat and rye until the grain heads begin to bud. By the time it buds, however, The roots of the Tares are so intertwined with the root system of the wheat that it is impossible to remove this weed without removing the wheat.

Fausset’s Bible dictionary has the to say about Tare: “The seed is like wheat, but smaller and black, and when mixed with wheat flour causes dizziness, intoxication, and paralysis;” Tare grain is poisonous.

Our world is made up of wheat and tares. The wheat gives life, but the tares will take it, or at least cause much pain. The bible says that by our fruit we are recognized (Matthew 7:16) If we make our goal to live like Christ would live, then we are going to be hated and distrusted by the world, we are going to be in constant trouble with those who are not Christians. Weeds are weeds because they try and choke out other plants. Weeds survive by not letting other plants have the nutrients, the sunlight, and the water needed. Weeds try to block the followers of Christ from the nutrition of the Holy Bible, from the Light of His glory, and from His living water. If we live as Christ would, we would be able to feed the world, we would be able to give life to those who are lifeless, we would be able to show beauty to those who live in squalor, and we would be able to help produce more wheat.

If we reap what we sow in our lives, then if we learn Christ like actions and we try to act Christ-like, we will reap Christ-like actions, we will reap a bountiful harvest of those who see us and wonder why we are different. We will be able to sow more wheat. Let us therefore try and become the people He wants us to be. We are the instruments of Christ, and He is the maker of both wheat and tare. He is able to change water into wine, and He can change tare into wheat. He can make those who tried to poison His word and who tried to crowd out His people into one of His own followers, into one who lives on His words and goes out to their community as a witness for Him!

How sweet is the love of my Savior!
’Tis boundless and deep as the sea;
And best of it all, it is daily
Growing sweeter and sweeter to me.