From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions
September 27 "But you should say, Why are we persecuting him, seeing
the root of the matter is found in me?" Job 19:28 It is at the root that disease begins, in almost every
plant. If ever you see even a plant in a flower-pot unhealthy, depend upon
it there is something wrong at the root. It is overwatered or underwatered,
or from some other cause the root has become diseased--and the root growth
is suspended or unhealthy. So it is in religion--if there is anything wrong
with a man, it is almost sure to be something wrong at the root. "The root
of the matter," Job said, "is found in me." Job could appeal unto God that
the root of his religion was right. If "the root" had been wrong, "the matter" would not have
been right; but as long as the root was sound, like "the teberinth tree" of
which the prophet speaks, though "it cast its leaves, the substance would
still be in it," to put forth in due time boughs like a plant (Isa. 6:13).
If a man's religion has no root, or if the root be injured by disease, it
will be sure to discover itself in his profession. He cannot have a
prosperous soul--prosperous inwardly and prosperous outwardly--unless the
root be deep in the soil, and unless it be full of active fibers, drawing up
secret nourishment from that river the streams whereof make glad the city of
God. Then he shall be "like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that
reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or
worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go
right on producing delicious fruit." (Jer. 17:8).