My Redeemer Lives

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 152, My Redeemer Lives.

"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth." Job 19:25.

This is, perhaps, the most beloved line in the entire book of Job. And if you've heard it sung, quoted, carved onto plaques, it's worth stopping to actually listen to where it comes from.

In chapter 19, Job is at the bottom of the pit. He has just described how his friends abandoned him, how his relatives pulled away, how even the servants in his own house no longer recognize him. He says, "my breath is strange to my wife." That is the man who declares: "I know that my Redeemer lives."

Notice the first word: know. Not "I hope," not "maybe it's true," not "I'd like to believe." Know. In the middle of the most complete uncertainty a human being can face — destroyed health, an estranged family, a reputation in ruins — there is one thing Job holds with absolute certainty. And that certainty doesn't come from his circumstances. It comes from somewhere else entirely.

And look at the word he chooses: Redeemer. In Job's culture, the redeemer was the closest relative who carried the duty to rescue you — to pay your debt, buy back your lost land, defend your cause when no one else could. This isn't a distant concept. It's intensely personal. "My" Redeemer. Job, who has lost everyone who should have stood beside him, clings to the fact that there is still Someone who takes that position for him.

And notice the tense of the verb: lives. Not lived in the past, not will live someday. Lives — present tense, active, real, right now. Job's hope is not a memory of better days or a philosophical theory about the meaning of suffering. It is a living person, acting, existing, even while everything around Job looks dead.

And then comes the part that points forward: "at the last he will stand upon the earth." Job is speaking of a final day — a moment when this Redeemer will take his stand, visible, on this very ground where Job is suffering right now. This is not some ethereal hope floating in a distant sky. It is a hope that will one day plant its feet on the same dirt where the pain happened.

Now think about this with me: this confession didn't come from someone comfortable. It didn't come from a theologian writing in a quiet study, surrounded by books and warm coffee. It came from a man covered in sores, sitting in ashes, scraping his own skin with a piece of broken pottery. And it is precisely that man who manages to say "I know" with more conviction than many of us manage on our easiest days.

That tells me something, my friend: the strongest faith is sometimes not born when everything is fine. It is born when everything collapses and the only thing left standing is the certainty that there is Someone alive, beyond your circumstances, who will stand up for you.

So today, I want to invite you to do what Job did. Don't wait until you feel like it. Don't wait for the pain to pass first. Say it out loud, right now, even if your voice shakes: "I know that my Redeemer lives." And then choose one person — someone also walking through a hard season — and remind them of that same truth. Sometimes Job's faith grows stronger when it's declared out loud and shared with someone who needs to hear it.

Your Redeemer lives. And one day, he will stand upon this very earth where you are standing now.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.