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Job Chapter
Twenty-three
Job 23
Chapter Contents
Job complains that God has withdrawn. (1-7) He asserts
his own integrity. (8-12) The Divine terrors. (13-17)
Commentary on Job 23:1-7
(Read Job 23:1-7)
Job appeals from his friends to the just judgement of
God. He wants to have his cause tried quickly. Blessed be God
we may know where
to find him. He is in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself; and upon a
mercy-seat
waiting to be gracious. Thither the sinner may go; and there the
believer may order his cause before Him
with arguments taken from his
promises
his covenant
and his glory. A patient waiting for death and judgment
is our wisdom and duty
and it cannot be without a holy fear and trembling. A
passionate wishing for death or judgement is our sin and folly
and ill becomes
us
as it did Job.
Commentary on Job 23:8-12
(Read Job 23:8-12)
Job knew that the Lord was every where present; but his
mind was in such confusion
that he could get no fixed view of God's merciful
presence
so as to find comfort by spreading his case before him. His views
were all gloomy. God seemed to stand at a distance
and frown upon him. Yet Job
expressed his assurance that he should be brought forth
tried
and approved
for he had obeyed the precepts of God. He had relished and delighted in the
truths and commandments of God. Here we should notice that Job justified
himself rather than God
or in opposition to him
2. Job might feel that he was clear from the
charges of his friends
but boldly to assert that
though visited by the hand
of God
it was not a chastisement of sin
was his error. And he is guilty of a
second
when he denies that there are dealings of Providence with men in this
present life
wherein the injured find redress
and the evil are visited for
their sins.
Commentary on Job 23:13-17
(Read Job 23:13-17)
As Job does not once question but that his trials are
from the hand of God
and that there is no such thing as chance
how does he
account for them? The principle on which he views them is
that the hope and
reward of the faithful servants of God are only laid up in another life; and he
maintains that it is plain to all
that the wicked are not treated according to
their deserts in this life
but often directly the reverse. But though the
obtaining of mercy
the first-fruits of the Spirit of grace
pledges a God
who
will certainly finish the work which he has began; yet the afflicted believer
is not to conclude that all prayer and entreaty will be in vain
and that he
should sink into despair
and faint when he is reproved of Him. He cannot tell
but the intention of God in afflicting him may be to produce penitence and prayer
in his heart. May we learn to obey and trust the Lord
even in tribulation; to
live or die as he pleases: we know not for what good ends our lives may be
shortened or prolonged.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Job》
Job 23
Verse 2
[2] Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier
than my groaning.
To-day — Even at this time
notwithstanding all your pretended
consolations.
Stroke — The hand or stroke of God upon me.
Groaning — Doth exceed my complaints.
Verse 3
[3] Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come
even to his seat!
O — I desire nothing more than his acquaintance and
presence; but alas
he hides his face from me.
Seat — To his throne or judgment-seat to plead my cause
before him.
Verse 5
[5] I would know the words which he would answer me
and
understand what he would say unto me.
Know — If he should discover to me any secret sins
for which
he contendeth with me
I would humble myself before him
and accept of the
punishment of mine iniquity.
Verse 6
[6] Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but
he would put strength in me.
No — He would not use his power against me
but for me; by
enabling me to plead my cause
and giving sentence according to that clemency
which he uses towards his children.
Verse 7
[7] There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I
be delivered for ever from my judge.
There — At that throne of grace
where God lays aside his
majesty
and judges according to his wonted clemency.
Dispute — Humbly propounding the grounds of their confidence.
So — Upon such a fair and equal hearing.
Delivered — From the damnatory sentence of
God. This and some such expressions of Job cannot be excused from irreverence
towards God
for which God afterwards reproves him
and Job abhorreth himself.
Verse 8
[8] Behold
I go forward
but he is not there; and backward
but I cannot perceive him:
Is not — As a judge to hear and determine my causes
otherwise
he knew God was essentially present in all places.
Verse 10
[10] But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried
me
I shall come forth as gold.
Gold — Which comes out of the furnace pure from all dross.
Verse 11
[11] My foot hath held his steps
his way have I kept
and
not declined.
Steps — The steps or paths which God hath appointed men to
walk in.
Verse 14
[14] For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me:
and many such things are with him.
Performeth — Those calamities which he hath
allotted to me.
And — There are many such examples of God's proceeding with
men.
Verse 16
[16] For God maketh my heart soft
and the Almighty troubleth
me:
Soft — He hath bruised
and broken
or melted it
so that I
have no spirit in me.
Verse 17
[17] Because I was not cut off before the darkness
neither
hath he covered the darkness from my face.
Because — God did not cut me off by death.
Before — These miseries came upon me.
Covered — By hiding me in the grave.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Job》
Job 23:12
Would you cook a meal for
yourself even if you didn’t feel like cooking? You probably say
“Yes
food is
necessary.”
Did
you skip your devotions today? If your answer is
“Yes
I was too tired to
study God’s Word
” then consider the words in Job 23:12
where Job affirms that
God’s Word is more precious to him than his necessary food. It doesn’t matter
if you don’t feel like learning God’s Word. It is necessary to your life as a
Christian.
23 Chapter 23
Verses 1-17
Verses 1-6
Oh
that I knew where I might find Him.
The cry for restored relations with God
The language of the text is exclusively that of men on the
earth
--although it also characterises the state and feelings only of some of
the guilty children of men. Some among the human race have already sought God
and found Him a present help in the time of trouble. The desire expressed in
the text is that of one under affliction. It is either the prayer of an
awakened sinner
crying and longing for reconciliation
to God
under deep
conviction
and full of sorrow and shame on account of it: or the cry of the
backslider awakened anew to his danger and guilt
under God’s chastisements
remembering the sweet enjoyment of brighter days
and ardently longing for its
return.
I. It implies a
painful sense of distance from God. Men of no religion are far off from God
but this gives them no concern. The presence of Christ constitutes the
believer’s joy
and he mourns nothing so much as the loss of God’s favour. Sad
and comfortless as the state of distance from God must be to the believer
still he is painfully conscious of his own state
and crying like Job
“Oh
that I knew where I might find Him!” The occasions that most generally give
birth to the complaint and cry in the text are such as these.
1. Bodily suffering
or the pressure of severe and long-continued
outward calamities
may contribute to enfeeble the mind
and lead the soul to
conclude that it is forsaken by its God. The dispensations of Divine providence
appear so complex and difficult
that faith is unable to explore them
or hope
to rise above them. The mind magnifies its distresses
and dwells on its own
griefs
to the exclusion of those grounds of consolation and causes of
thankfulness afforded in the many mercies that tend to alleviate their bitterness.
In reality God is not more distant from the soul
though He appears to be so.
2. Another and more serious occasion of distance and desertion is sin
cherished
long indulged
unrepented of
and unpardoned. This alienates the
soul from God. Sin is just the wandering of the soul in its thoughts
desires
and affections from God
and God graciously makes sin itself the instrument in
correcting the backslider. The righteous desert of the soul’s departure from
God
is God’s desertion of the soul. God is really ever near to man. “He is not
far from any one of us.” But sin indulged
whether open
secret
or
presumptuous
grieves the Holy Spirit
expels Him from the temple He loved
and
cheered by His presence. Let us thank God that distance is not utter desertion.
When the misery of separation and distance from God is felt
the dawn of
restoration and reconciliation begins.
II. As the language
of earnest desire. When “brought to himself” the backslider rests not satisfied
with fruitless complaints
but the desire of his soul is towards his God. It is
one thing to be conscious of distance from God
and quite another thing to be
anxious to be brought near to Him by the blood of Christ. Conviction of guilt
and misery is not conversion. What avails it
to know our separation from God
unless we are brought to this desire and anxiety
“Oh
that I knew where I
might find Him!”
III. As the language
of holy freedom. The text is a way of appeal by Job to God concerning his
integrity. Though he had much to say in favour of his integrity before men
he
did not rest on anything in himself as the ground of his justification before
God. His language expresses a resolution to avail himself of the privilege of
approaching the Most High with holy freedom and humble confidence
to present
his petition.
IV. As the language
of hope. Job could expect little from his earthly friends. All his hopes flowed
from another--an Almighty Friend. Those who wait on God
and hope in His Word
will surely not be disappointed. Then never give way to a rebellious spirit.
Give not way to languor in your affections
coldness in your desires
indifference as to the Lord’s presence or absence
or to feebleness of faith.
Let the desires of your soul be
as David’s
a “panting after God.” (Charles
O. Stewart.)
The great problem of life
This cry of Job is represented to us in this passage as a cry for
justice. He has been tortured by the strange mystery of God’s providence; he
has had it brought before himself in his own painful experience
and from that has
been led to look out on the world
where he sees the same mystery enlarged and
intensified.
He sees wrong unredressed
evil unpunished
innocence crushed
under the iron heel of oppression. He does not see clear evidences of God’s
moral government of the world
and he comes back ever to the personal problem
with which he is faced
that he though he is sure of his own innocence
is made
to suffer
and he feels as if God had been unjust to him. He wants it
explained; he would like to argue the case
and set forth his plea; he longs to
be brought before God’s judgment seat and plead before Him
and give vent to
all the bitter thoughts in his mind. “Oh
that I knew where I might find Him!
that I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause before Him
and fill
my mouth with arguments.“ He feels God’s very presence about him on every side
ever present
but ever eluding him; everywhere near
but everywhere avoiding
him. “Behold
I go forward
but He is not there; and backward
but I cannot
perceive Him. On the left hand
where He doth work
but I cannot behold Him; He
hideth Himself on the right hand
that I cannot see Him.” It is not his own
personal pain that makes the problem
except in so far as that has brought him
before the deeper problem of God’s providence which he now confronts.
Everything would be clear and plain if he could but come into close relations
with God
and that is just what meanwhile he cannot attain. “Oh
that I knew
where I might find Him!”
I. In perhaps a
wider sense than its original application in the passage of our text
these
words of Job are as the very sigh of the human heart
asking the deepest
question of life. Men have always boon conscious of God
as Job was
sure that
He was near
and sure also
like Job
that in Him would be the solution of
every difficulty and the explanation of every mystery. The race has been
haunted by God. St. Paul’s words to the Athenians on Mars Hill are a true
reading of history
and a true reading of human nature; that all men are so
constituted by essential nature that they should seek the Lord
if haply they
might feel after Him
and find Him
though He be not far from every one of us.
It is the deepest philosophy of human history. Even when men have no definite
knowledge of God they are forced by the very needs of their nature
driven by
inner necessity
to reach out after God. Though
like Job
when they go forward
He is not there
and backward they cannot perceive Him. On the left hand and on
the right hand they cannot see Him
yet they are doomed to seek Him
if haply
they might feel after Him
and find Him. Man is a religious being
it is in his
blood; he feels himself related to a power above him
and knows himself a
spirit longing for fellowship with the Divine. Thus religion is universal
found at all stages of human history and all ages; all the varied forms of
religion
all its institutions
all its sorts of worship
are witnesses to this
conscious need which the race has for God. Job may assent to Zophar the
Naamathite’s proposition that finite man cannot completely comprehend the
infinite. “Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the
Almighty to perfection?” But this assertion does not disprove the fact of which
he is certain
that he has had fellowship with God
and has had religious
experiences of which he cannot doubt. All forms of faith are witnesses to man’s
insatiable thirst for God
and many forms of unbelief and denial are only more
pathetic witnesses still of the same fact. Many a denial of the Divine is just
the bitter faith that He is a God that hideth Himself. When men come to
consciousness of self they come also to consciousness of the unseen
a sense of
relation to the power above them. The great problem of life is to find God; not
to find happiness
not even by being satiated with that can the void be filled;
but to find God; for being such as we are
with needs
longings
aspirations
we are beaten with unsatisfied desire
struck with restless fever
till we find
rest in God. The true explanation is the biblical one
that man is made in the
imago of God
that in spirit he is akin to the eternal Spirit
there is no
great gulf fixed between God and man which cannot be bridged over. Man was
created in the likeness of God
but was born a child of God. Fellowship is
possible
therefore
since there is no inherent incapacity; there is something
in man which corresponds to qualities in God. The conclusion
which is the
instinctive faith of man
is that spirit with spirit can meet. God entered into
a relation of love and fatherhood with man
man entered into a relationship of
love and sonship with God. Certain it is that man can never give up the hope
and the desire
and must be orphaned and desolate until he so does find God.
II. If it be true
as it is true
that man has ever sought God
it is a deeper fact still that God
has ever sought man. The deep of man’s desire has been answered by the deep of
God’s mercy. For every reaching forth of man there has been the stooping down
of God. History is more than the story of the human soul seeking God; in a
truer and more profound sense still is it the record of God seeking the soul.
The very fact that men have asked with some measure of belief
though struck
almost with doubt at the wonder of it
“Will God in very deed dwell with men on
the earth?” is because God has dwelt with men
has entered into terms of
communion. The history of man’s attainment is the history of God’s
self-revelation. It is solely because God has been seeking man that man has
stretched out groping hands if haply he might feel after Him and find Him.
Faith has survived just because it justifies itself and because it embodies
itself in experience. Religious history is not only the dim and blundering
reaching out of man’s intelligence towards the mystery of the unknown
it is
rather the history of God approaching man
revealing His will to man
declaring
Himself
offering relations of trust and fellowship. If Christ has given
expression to the character of God
if He has revealed the Father
has He not
consciously
conclusively
proved to us that the Divine attitude is that of
seeking men
striving to establish permanent relations of devotion and love? He
has also given us the assurance that to respond to God’s love is to know Him
the assurance that to seek Him is to find Him
so that no longer need we ask in
half despair
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him!” Prayer
trust
worship
self-surrender
never fail of Divine response
bringing peace and heart’s ease.
When to the knowledge that God is
and is the rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him
there is added the further knowledge that God is love
we receive a
guarantee--do we not?--that not in vain is our desire after Him
a guarantee
that to seek Him is to find Him. Ah
the tragedy is not that men who seek
should have failed to find God
but that men should not seek
that men should
be content to pass through life without desiring much
or much striving
to
pierce the veil of mystery. It is man’s nature to seek God
we have said
but
this primitive intuition can be overborne by the weight of material interest
by the mass of secondary concerns
by the lust of flesh and the lust of eye and
pride of life. A thousand-fold better than this deadness of soul is it to be
still unsatisfied
still turning the eyes to the light for the blissful vision;
to be still in want
crying to the silent skies
“Oh that I knew where I might
find Him!” But even that need not be our condition. If we seek God
as we
surely can
as we surely do
in the face of Jesus Christ
the true picture is
not man lost in the dark
not man seeking God his home with palsied steps and
groping hands. The true picture is the seeking God
come in Christ to seek and
save the lost. (H. Black
M. A.)
Man’s cry for fellowship with God
The provision to satisfy this longing of the soul must involve--
I. A personal
manifestation of God to the soul. It is not for some thing
but for some person
that the soul cries. Pantheism may gratify the instinct of the speculative
or
the sentiment of the poetic
but it meets not this profoundest craving of our
nature.
II. A benevolent
manifestation of God to the soul. For an unemotional God the soul has no
affinity; for a malevolent one it has a dread. It craves for one that is kind
and loving. Its cry is for the Father; nothing else will do.
III. A propitiable
manifestation of God to the soul. A sense of sin presses heavily on the race.
So mere benevolence will not do. God may be benevolent and yet not propitiable.
Does then our Bible meet the greatest necessity of human nature? Does it give a
personal
benevolent
and propitiable God? (Homilist.)
Job looking round for God
Job looks round for God
as a man might look round for an old
acquaintance
an old but long-gone friend. Memory has a great ministry to
discharge in life; old times come back
and whisper to us
correct us or bless
us
as the ease may be. After listening to all new doctors the heart says
“Where is your old friend? where the quarter whence light first dawned? recall
yourself; think out the whole case.” So Job would seem now to say
Oh that I
knew where I might find Him! I would go round the earth to discover Him; I
would fly through all the stars if I could have but one brief interview with
Him; I would count no labour hard if I might see Him as I once did. We are not
always benefited by a literally correct experience
a literally correct
interpretation
even. Sometimes God has used other means for our illumination
and release
and upbuilding in holy mysteries. So Job might have strange ideas
of God
and yet those ideas might do him good. It is not our place to laugh
even at idolatry. There is no easier method of provoking an unchristian laugh
or evoking an unchristian plaudit
than by railing against the gods of the
heathen. Job’s ideas of God were not ours
but they were his; and to be a man’s
very own religion is the beginning of the right life. Only let a man with his
heart hand seize some truth
hold on by some conviction
and support the same
by an obedient spirit
a beneficent life
a most charitable temper
a high and
prayerful desire to know all God’s will
and how grey and dim soever the dawn
the noontide shall be without a cloud
and the afternoon shall be one long
quiet glory. Hold on by what you do know
and do not be laughed out of initial
and incipient convictions by men who are so wise that they have become fools.
Job says
Now I bethink me
God is considerate and forbearing. “Will He plead
against me with His great power? No; but He would put strength in me” (verse
6). It is something to know so much. Job says
Bad as I am
I might be worse;
after all I am alive; poor
desolated
impoverished
dispossessed of nearly
everything I could once handle and claim as my own
yet still I live
and life
is greater than anything life can ever have. So I am not engaged in a battle
against Omnipotence; were I to fight Almightiness
why I should be crushed in
one moment. The very fact that I am spared shows that although it may be God
who is against me
He is not rude in His almightiness
He is not thundering
upon me with His great strength; He has atmosphered Himself
and is looking in
upon me by a gracious accommodation of Himself to my littleness. Let this stand
as a great and gracious lesson in human training
that however great the
affliction it is evident that God does not plead against us with His whole
strength; if He did so
He who touches the mountains and they smoke has but to
lay one finger upon us--nay
the shadow of a finger--and we should wither away.
So
then
I will bless God; I will begin to reckon thus
that after all that
has gone the most has been left me; I can still inquire for God
I can still
even dumbly pray; I can grope
though I cannot see; I can put out my hands in
the great darkness
and feel something; I am not utterly cast away. Despisest
thou the riches of His goodness? Shall not the riches of His goodness lead thee
to repentance? Hast thou forgotten all the instances of forbearance? Is not His
very stroke of affliction dealt reluctantly? Does He not let the lifted thunder
drop? Here is a side of the Divine manifestation which may be considered by the
simplest minds; here is a process of spiritual reckoning which the very
youngest understandings may conduct. Say to yourself
Yes
there is a good deal
left; the sun still warms the earth
the earth is still willing to bring forth
fruit
the air is full of life; I know there are a dozen graves dug all round
me
but see how the flowers grow upon them everyone; did some angel plant them?
Whence came they? Life is greater than death. The life that was in Christ
abolished death
covered it with ineffable contempt
and utterly set it aside
and its place is taken up by life and immortality
on which are shining forever
the whole glory of heaven. Job will yet recover. He will certainly pray;
perhaps he will sing; who can tell? He begins well; he says he is not fighting
Omnipotence
Omnipotence is not fighting him
and the very fact of forbearance
involves the fact of mercy. (Joseph Parker
D. D.)
How to find God
There are many senses in which we may speak of “finding God”; and
in one or other of these senses it may be we have all of us yet need to find
Him.
1. Some there are who will confess at once that they are at
times--not always
not often perhaps
but sometimes--troubled with speculative
doubts about God’s existence. So many thoughtful
earnest men around them seem
to regard it as an open question whether the problems of nature may not be
solved on some other hypothesis.
2. Others dislike controversy
and would rather not enter upon the
question whether they have found God. These are Christians
and the first
article of their creed is
“I believe in God.”
3. Some are ready timidly to confess that again and again they have
found their faith in God’s presence fail them
when they have most needed it.
4. A happier group
by a well-ordered life of devotion
and daily
attendance on the ordinances of the Church
are keeping themselves near to God.
And yet even these may have a misgiving that they are growing too dependent on
these outward helps for the sustaining of their faith. Job’s words may well
awaken an echo in all our hearts. “Oh that I knew where I might find Him!”
There is comfort in the fact that holy men of old felt this same desire to find
God in some deeper sense than they had yet attained to. If they felt it
we
need not be unduly distressed if we feel it also. How then are we to seek to
find God? Intellectually or otherwise? Not to mere intellect
but to a higher
faculty
the moral and spiritual faculty. When we speak of knowing a thing
intellectually
we mean that we know it by demonstration of sense or reason.
When we speak of knowing a thing morally or spiritually
we mean that we either
know it intuitively or take it on trust. We do not mean that the evidence in
this latter case is less certain than in the former; it may be far more
certain. Scepticism in religion is simply that failure of faith which is sure
to result from an endeavour to grasp religious truths by a faculty that was
never intended to grasp them. But how am I to know what is a Divine revelation
and what is not? He who is in direct correspondence with God
holding direct
intercourse with God
will not need any further evidence of God’s existence. If
any here would find God
let him first go to the four Gospels
and try to see
clearly there what Christ promises to do for him. Then let him take this
promise on trust
as others have done
and act upon it. And if perseveres
he
will sooner or later most surely find God. (Canon J. P. Norris
B. D.)
The universal cry
When Job uttered this cry he was in great distress. That God is
just is a fact; that men suffer is also a fact; and both these facts are found
side by side in the same universe governed by one presiding will. How to
reconcile the two
how to explain human suffering under the government of a
righteous Ruler
is the great problem of the Book of Job. It is a question
which has occupied the thoughts of the thinking in every age. The form in which
it presents itself here is this
--Is God righteous in afflicting an innocent
man? The friends say there are just two ways of it. Either you are guilty or
God is unjust. It is not so much the character of Job that is at stake as the
character of God Himself; the Almighty Himself stands at the bar of human
reason. The patriarch felt assured that there was a righteous God who would not
afflict unjustly
and he cries
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him!”
Obviously he was not ignorant of the Divine Being
not ignorant of His
existence
but ignorant how He was to be approached.
I. The cry of the
human soul after God. Notice the object of the cry. It is for God. It goes
straight to the mark
right over all lower objects and minor aims. He felt he
had come to a crisis in his life
when none but God could avail. Give me God
and
I have enough. When Job uttered this cry he unconsciously struck the keynote of
universal desire. It is the cry of the human race after God. It is the
instinctive cry of the human soul. Nature told men that there was a God
but it
could not lead them to His seat. The sages went to philosophy for an answer
but philosophy said
“It is not for me.” In view of this fruitless search
a
question might be started
a question easier to ask than to answer
--Why did
God keep Himself and His plans hidden from mankind so long? This is one of the
secret things that belong to God. We cannot tell
and we need not speculate.
II. The gospel
answer to the text. Christ in human form satisfies the longing of the human
spirit. He is Immanuel
--God with us. You will find the Father in the Son
you
will find God in Christ. This cry may come from a soul who has never known God
at all
or it may come from one who has lost the sense of His favour and longs
for restoration. In either case the cry can be answered only in Christ. Have
you found God? If you will take Christ as your guide
He will lead you up to
God. (David Merson
B. D.)
The soul’s inquiry after a personal God
It is characteristic of man to ask questions. Question asking
proceeds from personal need
curiosity
or love of knowledge
either for its
own sake or its relative usefulness. We feel that we are dependent upon others
for some direction or solution of difficulties; hence we ask for direction or
instruction
because the limited character of our nature
and our dependence
upon one another demand it. There are questions man asks himself
in his secret
communion and examination with and of himself; there are some he asks of the
universe; but the greatest and gravest are those he asks direct of God in sighs
and supplications both by night and day. The sentence of the text is a question
which the soul
in its search after God
continually asks; which is one of the
greatest questions of life.
I. The need of the
soul of a personal God. The human soul ever cries for God. It never ceases in
its cry
and is weary in its search and effort in seeking the absolute reality
and good of life. The soul needs an object to commune with
and this it finds
in a Divine personality
and nowhere else. The soul asks
Where is the living
One? The soul needs security
and that is not to be found according to the
language of conviction but in a personal God. The soul seeks unity
hence it
seeks a personal God.
II. The soul in
search after a personal God. So near is the relation between conviction of the
need of God
and the search after Him
that in the degree one is felt
the
other is done. The soul is not confined to one place
or one mode of means in
the search.
III. The perplexity
of the soul in its search for the personal God. The perplexity arises partly
from the mystery of the object of search.
IV. The secret
confidence of the soul in the personal God whom it seeks. There is a general
confidence in God’s mercy and in His all-sufficiency. (T. Hughes.)
Craving for God
These words are the utterance of a yearning and dissatisfied soul.
The words were put into the mouth of Job
the well-known sufferer
whose
patience under accumulated calamities is proverbial. Perhaps Job was not a real
individual
but the hero of a majestic poem
through which the writer expresses
his thoughts on the world-old problem that suffering is permitted by a good God
to afflict even the righteous. Nevertheless
the writer may have had some
special sufferer in his eye. No man without experience could have drawn these
sublime discussions from his own fancy. They reflect too truly the sorrows and
perplexities of human hearts in this life of trial. This man cries out
almost
in despair
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him!” Find whom? God
the
Almighty and Eternal
the Maker and Ruler of all. What a longing! What a
search! In the mere fact of that search the downcast soul proclaims its lofty
nature. And whoever is prompted by his needs and sorrows to cherish this
desire
is raised and bettered thereby.
I. The search for
God. Among the acts possible to man only
is that he alone can search for God.
Strange are the contrasts which human nature exhibits. Language cannot describe
the elevation to which man is capable of rising--the lofty self-devotion
the
quest for truth
above all
the earnest search for God. Of all the many things
men seek
surely this is the noblest
this search for God.
II. The search for
God unavailing. This is an exclamation of despair about finding God. It seems
to be Job’s chief trouble that he cannot penetrate the clouds and darkness
which surround his Maker.
III. The search for
God rewarded. The deep
unquenchable craving of frail
suffering
sinful men to
find their Maker
and to find Him their friend
is met in Jesus Christ. (T.
M. Herbert
M. A.)
Oh that I knew where I might find Him
As these words are often the language of a penitent heart seeking
the Saviour
Comforter
and Sanctifier
inquire--
I. Who are the
characters that employ this language?
1. The sinner under conviction.
2. Believers in distress.
3. Penitent backsliders.
II. Point out where
the Lord may be found.
1. In His works
as a God of power.
2. In providence
as a God of wisdom and goodness.
3. In the human breast
as a God of purity and justice.
4. In the ordinances of religion
as a God of grace. It is chiefly on
the throne of mercy that He is graciously found.
III. From what
sources you draw arguments.
1. From His power.
2. His goodness.
3. His mercy.
4. His truth.
5. His impartiality.
6. His justice.
The text is the language of sincere regret; restless desire;
guilty fear; anxious inquiry; willing submission. (J. Summerfield
A. M.)
Man desiring God
God comes only into the heart that wants Him. Do I really
with my
whole heart
desire to find God
and to give myself wholly into His hands? Do
not mistake
if you please. This is the starting point. If you be wrong at this
point my lesson will be taught entirely in vain. Everything depends upon the
tone and purpose of the heart. If there is one here
really and truly
with all
the desire of the soul
longing to find God
there is no reason why He should
not be found
by such a seeker
ere the conclusion of the present service. How
is it with our hearts? Do they go out but partially after God? Then they will
see little or nothing of Him. Do they go out with all the stress of their
affection
all the passion of their love
--do they make this their one object
and all-consuming purpose? Then God will be found of them; and man and his
Maker shall see one another
as it were
face to face
and new life shall begin
in the human soul. Let me say
truly and distinctly
that it is possible to
desire God under the impulse of merely selfish fear
and that such desire after
God seldom ends in any good. It is true that fear is an element in every useful
ministry. We would not
for one moment
undervalue the importance of fear in
certain conditions of the human mind. At the same time
it is distinctly taught
in the Holy Book that men may
in certain times
under the influence of fear
seek God
and God will turn His back upon them
will shut His ears when they
cry
and will not listen to the voice of their appeal. Nothing can be more
distinctly revealed than this awful doctrine
that God comes to men within
certain seasons and opportunities
that He lays down given conditions of
approach
that He even fixes times and periods
and that the day will come when
He will say
“I will send a famine upon the earth.” Not a famine of bread
or a
thirst of water
but of hearing the Word of the Lord. When men are in great
physical pain
when cholera is in the air
when smallpox is killing its
thousands week by week
when wheat fields are turned into graveyards
when
God’s judgments are abroad in the earth
there be many who turn their ashen
faces to the heavens! What if God will not hear their cowardly prayer? When God
lifts His sword
there be many that say
“We would flee from this judgment.”
And when He comes in the last
grand
terrible development of His personality
many will cry unto the rocks
and unto the hills to hide them from His face;
but the rocks and the hills will hear them not
for they will be deaf at the
bidding of God! I am obliged
therefore
you see
as a Christian teacher
to
make this dark side of the question very plain indeed; because there are persons
who imagine that they may put off these greatest considerations of life until
times of sickness
and times of withdrawment from business
and times of
plague
and seasons that seem to appeal more pathetically than others to their
religious nature. God has distinctly said
“Because I called
and they refused;
I stretched out My hand
and no man regarded; I will mock at their calamity
I
will laugh at their afflictions
I will mock when their fear cometh--when their
fear cometh as desolation
and judgment cometh upon them as a whirlwind! Then
they will cry unto Me
but I will not hear!” Now
lest any man should be under
thee impression that he can call upon God at any time and under any
circumstances
I wish to say
loudly
with a trumpet blast
There is a black
mark at a certain part of your life; up to that you may seek God and find
Him
--beyond it you may cry
and hear nothing but the echo of your own voice!
How then does it stand with us in this matter of desire? Is our desire after
God living
loving
intense
complete? Why
that desire itself is prayer; and
the very experience of that longing brings heaven into the soul! Let me ask you
again
Do you really desire to find God
to know Him
and to love Him? That
desire is the beginning of the new birth; that longing is the pledge that your
prayers shall be accomplished in the largest
greatest blessing that the living
God can bestow upon you. Still it may be important to go a little further into
this
and examine what our object is in truly desiring to find God. It may be
possible that even here our motive may be mixed; and if there is the least
alloy in our motive
that alloy will tell against us. The desire must be pure.
There must be no admixture of vanity or self-sufficiency; it must be a desire
of true
simple
undivided love. Now
how is it with the desire which we at
this moment may be presumed to experience? Let me ask this question
What is
your object in desiring to find God? Is it to gratify intellectual vanity? That
is possible. It is quite conceivable that a man of a certain type and cast of
mind shall very zealously pursue theological questions without being truly
profoundly religious. It is one thing to have an interest in scientific
theology
and another tiring really and lovingly to desire God for religious
purposes. Is it not perfectly conceivable that a man shall take delight in
dissecting the human frame
that he may find out its anatomy and understand its
construction; and yet do so without any intention ever to heal the sick
or feed
the hungry
or clothe the naked? Some men seem to be born with a desire to
anatomise; they like to dissect
to find out the secret of the human frame
to
understand its construction and the interdependence of its several parts. So
far we rejoice in their perseverance and their discoveries. But it is perfectly
possible for such men to care for anatomy without caring for philanthropy; to
care about anatomy
from a scientific point of view
without any ulterior
desire to benefit any living creature. So it is perfectly conceivable that man
shall make the study of God a kind of intellectual hobby
without his heart
being stirred by deep religious concern to know God as the Father
Saviour
Sanctifier
Sovereign of the human race. I
therefore
do not beg you to excuse
me in the slightest degree in putting this question so penetratingly. It is a
vital question. Do you seek to know more of God simply as a scientific
theological inquirer? If so
you are off the line of my observations
and the
Gospel I have to preach will hardly reach you in your remote position. (Joseph
Parker
D. D.)
Job’s thoughts concerning an absent God
Whether there ever was such a being as a speculative atheist
it
may not be easy to determine; but there are two classes of atheists which are
very easily found. There are some who are atheists by disposition. There are
also practical atheists.
I. Job’s
condition. “Even today is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my
groaning.” In some this murmuring and repining is a natural infirmity; they
seem to be constitutionally morbid and querulous. In others this is a moral
infirmity
arising from pride and unbelief and discontent
against which it
becomes us always carefully to guard.
II. Job’s desire.
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to Iris seat!”
He does not express the name of God. Here we see an addition to his distress;
he was now in a state of desertion. God can never be absent from His people
as
to His essential presence
or even as to His spiritual presence. But He may be
absent as to what our divines call His sensible presence
or the manifestation
of His favour and of the designs of His dealings with us. This greatly enhances
any external affliction. For the presence of God
which is always necessary
is
never so sweet as it is in the day of trouble. It is a sad thing to be without
the presence of God; but it is far worse to be senseless of our need of it. The
desire after God arises from three causes.
1. The new nature. Persons will desire according to their conviction
and their disposition.
2. Experience. When they first sought after God
they felt their need
of film
3. A consciousness of their entire dependence upon Him. They feel
that all their sufficiency is of God. Observe
in the case of Job
the earnestness
of his desire.
III. His resolution.
1. He says
“I would order my cause before Him.” Which shows that the
Divine presence would not overpower him
so as not to leave sense
reason
and
speech.
2. He says
“I would fill my mouth with arguments.” Not that these
are necessary to excite and move a Being who is love itself; but these are
proper to affect and encourage us.
3. He says
“I would know the words which He would answer me
and
understand what He would say unto me.” In general
a Christian wishes to know
the Divine pleasure concerning him. You will attach little importance to
prayer
if you are regardless of God’s answer to it.
IV. His confidence
and expectation. The power of God is great. Notice the blessedness of having
this power employed for us. “He will put strength in me.” How dreadful must it
be for God to “plead against a man by His great power.” (William Jay.)
Job’s appeal to God
Taking the Book of Job as a whole
it may be called a dramatic
epic poem of remarkable merit
in which the author graphically discusses the
general distribution of good and evil in the world
inquiring whether or not
there is a righteous distribution of this good and evil here on earth
and
whether or not the dealings of God with men are according to character. Job was
saved from consenting to the conclusions of the three friends
through the
consciousness of personal integrity and the confidence of his heart in a loving
God. Job’s struggle was desperate. Those long-continued days and weeks were a
trial of faith beyond our estimate. The question was not whether Job would bear
his multiplied afflictions with a stoical heroism
but whether he would still
turn to God
would rest in the calm confidence of his heart that God would be
his justification and vindication. We now look at this storm-tossed man in his
extremity
and discover him--
I. Anxious to find
how he can get his cause before God for arbitration. Job illustrates what ought
to be true of every man. We should be anxious to know what God thinks of us
rather than what men think of us. We should remember that One is to be our
Judge who knows our heart
before whom
in the day of final assize
we are to
appear for inspection
and whose recognition of our integrity will insure
blessedness for us in the great hereafter.
II. We discover Job
calmly confident that God’s decision of his cause will be just. He does not
imagine for a moment that God will make mistakes concerning him
or that
Omnipotence will take advantage of his weakness.
III. In great
perplexity
because he seems to be excluded from the trial which he seeks. The
lament of this man here is painful and mysterious. Job’s hope had been that God
would appear somewhere. But all is night and silence. This is human experience
caused by human infirmities. Life is a season of discipline
a season of
education and evolution.
IV. We find Job
calm in the assured watchfulness of God over him
and in his confidence of
ultimate vindication. Here is supreme faith in the all-knowing and finally
delivering God. Job’s faith is the world’s need. (Justin E. Twitchell.)
Where God is found
This Book of Job represents a discussion upon God’s providential
relations to the world
and shows how the subject perplexed and baffled the
minds of men in those early days in which it was written. God
in the book
does not give the required explanations; but
pointing out the marks of His
power
wisdom
and goodness
in His natural works
leaves His hearers to the
exercise of a pure and simple trust. With reference to the loss of God’s presence
over which men mourn in our day--this longing to find God and to come unto His
mercy seat
which is so widespread and so unsatisfied--we must not treat it
with reproof due only to moral delinquency or religious indifference; but do
our best to furnish direction which reason and conscience will approve. Call to
mind the circumstances under which men have been thrown into all this doubt and
perplexity. Then we shall find it is not that they have been intellectually
brought into a position in which it is impossible to believe in Divine
communion; but that the special system with which the forms of Divine communion
have
during the last few centuries
been associated
has broken down
and left
men without a perfect basis for their faith
and without an intellectual
justification of the act of Divine communion. If you feel this to be true
if
under the sense of the worthlessness of those systems of divinity which your
conscience even more than your understanding rejects
you are yet longing for
Divine communion
I have now to assert that God is to be found
not through
systems of divinity
or processes of logical thought
but by the simple
childlike surrender of the soul to those influences which God
through all the
objects of truth
goodness
beauty
and purity
exerts directly on it. The
sense of God’s presence is obtained through the pure and quiet contemplation of
Divine objects. “To seek our divinity merely in books and writings is to seek
the living among the dead.” It is only of the knowledge of God in His relations
to ourselves that I speak. In our knowledge of God two elements are necessarily
mingled.
1. There is the feeling which is excited within us when we come
preparedly into contact with what is Divine. The soul feels God’s presence
however He may be named
and with whatever investiture He may be clothed. But
then the understanding interprets the devout feeling Divine objects awaken
by
representing God under such forms as its culture enables it to think out. God
has appointed many objects through which He makes His revelation directly to
the soul. Everything in the natural and moral world
which greatly surpasses
man’s comprehension or attainments
becomes the medium through which God speaks
to the soul
touches its devout feeling
and so reveals Himself. You may say
“It is not feeling I want
but a justification of my feeling; a reconciliation
of my feeling with the facts science
history
and criticism have taught me.”
Nay
it is feeling
intense
irresistible feeling
of God’s presence with us
and in us that we need. No thinking can give you back the God you have lost; it
is in feeling
the feeling awakened by coming into contact with God
that alone
you can find Him. There is
however
one condition--a man must come with a pure
heart
a free conscience
and a purpose set to do God’s will. (J. Cranbrook.)
Job’s spiritual sentiments
These words exhibit a pattern of the frame of spirit habitually
felt
in a good degree
by every child of God
while he is in the posture of
seeking for the presence of God
and for intimate communion with Him.
I. The different
spiritual sentiments implied in this holy exclamation. Here is--
1. A solemn appeal from the unjust censures of men
to the knowledge
love
and faithfulness of God
the supreme Judge. Apostasy from God hath
rendered mankind very foolish and erroneous judges in spiritual matters. The
more of God there is in any man’s character and exercises
the more is that man
exposed to the malignant censures
not only of the world at large
but even of
Christians of an inferior class. For the weakest Christians are most forward to
go beyond their depths
in judging confidently of things above their knowledge.
Against assaults of this kind the children of the Most High have a strong
refuge. The shield of faith quenches the fiery and envenomed darts of calumny
misrepresentation
and malice.
2. An intended bold expostulation with God
in respect of the
strangeness and intricacy of His dealings with His afflicted servant. It is one
of the hardest conflicts in the spiritual life
when God Himself appears as a
party contending with His own children. Job could discover no special reason
for God’s severity against him. His faith naturally vents itself in the way of
humble
yet bold expostulation.
3. A perplexing sense of distance from God. Renewed souls have such
perceptions of God as are mysterious to themselves and incredible to others.
When God seems to hide His face
an awful consternation
confusion
dejection
and anguish are the consequence. This situation is the more perplexing when
as
was Job’s case
there is felt a very great need for the presence of God
and
when all endeavours to recover it seem to be vain. Then the conclusion is
sometimes rashly drawn by the people of God
“My way is hid from the Lord
and my
judgment is passed over from my God.” But in all these afflictions of His
people
the Lord Himself is afflicted.
4. Job’s exclamation expresses most vehement desires after the
spiritual presence of God.
5. What is particularly to be attended to is the nature of the access
to God which Job desired. He was in pursuit of the most near and intimate
communion with God.
II. Bring home the
whole of these sentiments.
1. Such instances of deep and sober spiritual exercise furnish a
convincing proof of the reality of religion
and of the certainty of the great
truths with which the power of religion is so closely connected.
2. The things which have been treated of give us a view of the nature
as well as of the reality of religion.
3. Such characters as that of Job carry in them the condemnation of
various classes of people.
4. This subject may be applied for the encouragement of the upright.
(J. Love
D. D.)
The believer under affliction
Job was justly chargeable with a disposition to
self-justification
though he was not guilty of that insincerity
hypocrisy
and contempt of God which his precipitate and unfeeling friends alleged against
him. This self-approving temper God took means to correct. One of the methods
He used was
hiding His face from him
and leaving him to feel the wretchedness
and helplessness of this state of spiritual desertion. The text may be regarded
as mirroring the state of one suffering under a conscious absence of God
who
longs for the returning smile of His reconciled countenance.
I. The deep
painful
and distressing feeling which these words bring before us. The
language of the text is not the language of one possessing either a false
security or a real and solid peace. There is a peace which disturbs the soul
a
treacherous calm
the harbinger of the tempest. There is a rest which is not a
healthy repose
but the torpor of one over whose members there is stealing the
unfelt effects of that lifeless inactivity which so often precedes a second
death. Those who are the victims of this fatal insensibility see no danger
and
therefore fear no evil. They apprehend no change
and so prepare against no
danger. How different is the state implied in the text! The mind
aroused from
its carelessness
finds itself wretched and miserable
poor and blind and
naked. It knows no peace; it has no comforter. “Oh that I knew where I might
find Him!” is the language of such a spirit in the hour of its dimness and
darkness and perplexity. The language is even more truly descriptive of the
feeling of one who
having known the grace of God in truth
has lost his sense
of the Divine favour
and walks in heaviness under the chastening hand and
frowning countenance of his Heavenly Father.
II. The ardent
desire. The first symptom of returning health and soundness in the mind is that
restlessness which urges the soul to flee again unto its God. Satan has
recourse to various artifices for the purpose of diverting the desires into
another channel. When God is absent from you
do not rest until He return to
you
as the God of your salvation.
III. Holy
resolution. “I would order my cause before Him.” There is an important sense in
which a sinner may order his cause before God; and there are irresistible
“arguments” which he is authorised to advance
and which he is assured will be
favourably received. Combined with self-abasement
there should be confidence
in the mercy of that God to whom you so reverently draw nigh. Alas! how many
there are who will not give themselves the trouble earnestly to desire and
diligently to seek the Lord! (Stephen Bridge
A. M.)
Pleading with God
God hath chosen His people in the furnace of affliction. The
greatest saints are often the greatest sufferers.
I. Where shall I
find God? Where is His mercy seat? Whore doth He graciously reveal Himself to
those who seek Him? I know that I may find Him in nature. The world
the
universe of worlds
are the works of His hands. We may find Him in the Bible
in the secret place of prayer
and in my own heart.
II. How shall I
approach him? Sinner that I am
how shall I order my cause before a righteous
and holy Judge? Prayer is the appointed method
the duty enjoined upon all
the
universal condition of forgiveness and salvation. Why is prayer made the
condition of the blessing? Because it is the confession of my need
and the
declaration of my desire; the acknowledgment of my helpless dependency
and the
expression of my humble trust in His almighty goodness. But all prayer must be
offered through the mediation of God’s beloved Son. And we must come with
sincerity.
III. What plea must
I employ? Shall I plead the dignity of my rank
or the merit of my work
or the
purity of my heart? I will plead His glorious name
and His unspeakable gift
and His great and precious promises. I will plead the manifestation of His mercy
to others
and the numberless instances of His grace to myself.
IV. And what answer
shall I receive? Will God disregard my suit? No. “He will put strength in me.”
He will show me what is in my favour; suggest to my mind additional and
irrefutable arguments. “I shall know the words that He will answer me.” (J.
Cross
D. D.)
Job’s appeal to God
This passage opens with a statement of Job’s dissatisfied
condition of mind (verses 1
2)
followed by a wish that he might find God and
defend himself before Him (verses 3-7); and it concludes with a lament that he
is not able to do so (verses 8-10). In thinking over this passage
remember two
things--
1. The abstract question of the possibility of any man being
absolutely innocent in the sight of God is not raised here. Men are divided
into two great classes--those who (however imperfectly) seek to serve God and
do right
and those who live in selfishness and sin. The former class are
called the righteous. In the relative sense
Job’s claim as to his own character
was true.
2. We are not to find in Job
as he is here exhibited
a model for
ourselves when we are afflicted. Try to separate in Job’s condition those
things in which he was right from those things in which he was wrong. He was
right--
1. In his consciousness of innocence.
2. In using his reason on the great problem of suffering.
3. In wanting to know God’s opinion of him.
4. In his desire to be just before God.
5. In holding fast to his belief in God.
6. Job believed in justice as an essential element in the character
of God
even though he did not see how God was just in the present instance.
Job was wrong--
1. In his imperfect theory of suffering--wrong
that is
in the sense
of being mistaken.
2. In his restless desire to know all the reasons for God’s dealings
with him.
3. In wanting to have God bring Himself down to a level of equality
with him
laying aside His omniscience
and listening
as though He were only a
human judge
to Job.
4. And Job was plainly wrong in his impatient fooling towards God (verse
2). (D. J. Burrell
D. D.)
Verse 6
Will He plead against me with His great power?
Job’s confidence in God
The idea of a God of power is common to all religions. Job felt
that underneath all the mysteries of life there is a Divine righteousness. When
any godly man feels that
he can bear a great deal. It is useless shutting our
eyes to the great difficulties there are in human history
and indeed in every
individual life. We cannot always say that we feel God to be good and wise; but
we know Him to be so; and that is all that is required of our faith.
I. Life in its
phases of development. In one sense prophecies must fail. We cannot prophesy
from the career and circumstances of the grown man
what the coming days will
bring with them
or how they will affect him. The one matter we are sure of is
that God will not plead against the souls that love Him. The immediate
exercises of the Divine will in providence are as wisely employed as the
mediate ones through natural laws. The future can unfold nothing that is not
quite as much the work of Divine goodness as of Divine power.
II. God in His
fatherly character. The more we understand our own nature in its nobler
aspects
the better should we understand God’s relation to His children. If it
were not for our human relationships
how could we understand the relationship
of God to us? The parental relation is common to all nations. Will a parent
plead against his child? Will the Great Father do what the earthly father will
not?
III. God in His
almighty character. “With His great strength.” That is all the more reason that
He should be delicate
tender
considerate
and kind. The strength of God
if
we meditated upon Him apart from His moral perfections
might lead us to the
worship
not of a Father
but of infinite power.
IV. The heart in
its emphatic No! An emphatic answer that. There are some things that the heart
decides at once
and this is one of them. “Has God forgotten to be gracious?”
Let us answer at once
and “No.”
V. Life in its
hidden springs. “He would put strength in me.” This is what we want. Not
absence of temptation or trial. The springs of life
fed by God
need feeding
in proportion to the very strain and exercise of our inner life. The Christian
who has to struggle up the Hill Difficulty
and who passes through those
experiences that tend to exhaust his forces
has much need of the grace and
strength of God.
VI. Life in its
past histories. We find this truth in experience as well as in the Bible. The
ancestry of godliness is not a vain thing. The spiritual escutcheons of our
families have symbols of moral victory in them.
VII. Life in its
retributive aspects. Here we come to a positive instead of a negative view of the
text. Will God plead against us if we live in sin and guilt
neglectful of
Christ
and the great salvation? How can He do otherwise? (W. M.
Statham.)
Verses 8-10
Behold
I go forward
but He is not there.
Obscurity of the Divine working
The perplexities felt by Job on this and kindred problems were not
greater or more harassing than they are to us. Our advanced position in
revelation
in knowledge
in experience
relieves us of no embarrassment felt
by men of ancient times with regard to this greatest of all mysteries--the
mystery of God as He dwells within Himself
and of the methods in which He
governs the worlds of men and things. They seemed to dwell in God’s universe
while He did not always appear to dwell in their individual world. The world’s
ripest religious thought is today what it was at the beginning of time
--a
bright abyss into which men look “by faith
not by sight.” All things are
contained in God: He is uncontained in all. All things reveal God: God is
unrevealed in all. “Behold
I go forward
but He is not there; and backward
but I cannot perceive Him.” There is a presence; but it is veiled. There is
activity; but it is silent.
I. The activity of
the Divine working. “On the left hand
where He doth work.” And we have but to
open our Bible to find how all through its pages this great truth runs as the
soul of its teaching. Events which are held to be quite independent of all
special causation
the Bible puts into the hand of God. “He maketh the sun to
shine.” “He sendeth the rain.” “He maketh the grass to grow.” “He giveth snow
like wool.” “He holdeth the winds in His fist.” “The lightnings go before Him.”
“Fire and hail
snow and vapour
” and the “stormy wind fulfil His word.” All
material forces
as they are set into action and get their interplay in the
management of the worlds
are the servants of God and do His bidding; and they
are forces only so far and so long as they are the channels of His will. A
change in the direction of the latter
a suspension in the purposes of
God
--and all material activities perish. Personal endowments
which we count
innate and constitutional
are His gifts. “There is a spirit in man
and the
respiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.” Talents
whether of the
body or the mind
are distributed by Him. “He holdeth our soul in life.” “He
teacheth man knowledge.” “Genius is His gift; poetry His inspiration; art His
wisdom.” The skill to govern
the heroism to defend
the science to construct
and adorn a nation’s life are conferred by Him. “He teacheth” man’s “hands to
war
” and his “fingers to fight.” There is running through every part of the
inspired volume a profound recognition of law; but it is law into which there
is inserted the ceaseless activity of a Divine volition. A causeless causation
a self-originating
self-acting law is unknown in nature; as it is non-existent
in the creed of those ancient men to whom God revealed the earliest transcript
of His thoughts. This activity of the Divine presence brings human life
with
all its interests
very close to God. It makes each one of our own concernments
real and very precious in its relation to Him. The individual is never
slighted
can never be overlooked
is never forgotten in the magnitudes and the
multiplicities of the Divine care. Amidst the play of His magnificent thoughts
as these embrace the universe of things
His eye is set upon the one as upon
the all
upon the atom as upon the mass. While the magnitudes and the
multiplicities of worlds and systems are within the sweep of His plan
that
plan takes in the obscurest individual
the most insignificant event. How this
is
how it can be
we know not. “Behold
He that keepeth Israel
shall neither
slumber nor sleep.” “Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle: are they not in Thy
book?” If from these general statements we pass on to those that are more
specific in their details
the same truth still more impressively comes into
view. Afflictions are not arbitrary visitations. They are never a lawless or a
purposeless infliction. They are
in some of their visitations
resistless as
the lightning’s flash
and as insatiable as the grave. Now
the Bible tells us
that
in some significant sense
all these afflictions come from God. However
apparently accidental
and without any order in their known antecedents
they
all have a parentage in the providence of God; and they are all made tributary
to a purpose. “He woundeth
and His hands make whole.” He chastiseth
and He rebuketh.
“Thou
O God
hast proved us: Thou hast tried us. Thou broughtest us into the
net; Thou laidest affliction upon our loins.” They are neither accidents
nor
necessary appendages
nor arbitrary adjuncts of our nature or condition as men.
They are methods of training
modes of correction
admonitory whispers
wise
teachings in the dealings of God with us as fallen
as sinful men; and so far
they are fraught with the kindest intentions
and minister to most important
and salutary ends. God does not create evil. He does not necessitate suffering.
He works it into His plan
and uses it for good. Death
avowedly the most
impressive and terrible of all our afflictions
and coming upon us in the most
unanticipated surprises of time and place and mode and victims
is claimed as
the supernatural visitation of God. “The Lord killeth
and maketh alive: He
bringeth down to the grave
and bringeth up.” “It is appointed unto men once to
die.” Whenever it comes
however it comes--whether it be by disease or accident
in youth or in age
at sea or on land--death is the appointment of God
and
comes at His bidding; and the time
the place
the method are to be accepted
and submitted to as being separately in His hand
and determined by His will.
No man ever slips by stealth out of time
or appears unexpectedly in his
Maker’s presence. “The keys of death and of hell” are in the hands of the Lord
of Life. So on the grander scale of national visitations. “His eyes behold
His
eyelids try the children of men.” “He changeth the times and the seasons: He
removeth kings
and setteth up kings.” “He enlargeth the nations
and
straiteneth them again.” When a great nation is suddenly crippled in its
resources
or blighted in its harvests
or wasted by the pestilence; when fires
or floods carry havoc and death among a people; or war lays waste a peaceful
territory
leaving only “its rills of blood and drifts of bones” where once the
homestead bloomed in wealth and beauty; still the demand is
“Shall there be
evil in a city
and the Lord hath not done it?” Are the politics of nations
only a great chessboard on which conflicting politicians play their little
games of ambition
while God is out in the distance
unconcerned in the petty
strife? Nay; through all these strifes and tossings of human pride and
ambitious cupidity
there runs the thread of a Divine purpose
permitting all
holding all
guiding and subordinating all to a determinate end.
II. The obscurity
of the methods of this working. “Behold
I go forward
but He is not there;. .
.He hideth Himself
that I cannot see Him.”
1. There are reasons
depths and mysteries
in the methods of the
Divine working
into which we cannot look; causes in which that working
originates
and purposes which it intentionally subserves
past our finding
out. How
through all this maze of human things
is the Divine will a creative
force? We cannot tell. Sometimes
as if through the small chinks in the
interplay of events
as by a sunbeam sifted through a rift in the clouds
we
seem to got a momentary glimpse of the Actor and His plan. “The Lord uttereth
His voice
”--and we can scarcely doubt whose voice it is
or what is the
message it convoys. But it is not always thus. It is not frequently so. And
least of all is it so with the sufferings of God’s people. However clear our
views
however firm our convictions of the rectitude and wisdom and goodness of
God may be
events are constantly taking place that confound all our reasoning;
and while they tax severely our submission
they impose a heavy tribute upon
our faith. “The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm
and the
clouds are the dust of His foot.” “He giveth not account of any of His
matters.” A silence
unbroken as the grave--absolute
awful
infinite--seems to
mock the agony of the sufferer
without the solace of a momentary relief. “We
wait for light
but behold obscurity; for brightness
but we walk in darkness.”
2. One cause of this obscurity is
undoubtedly
to be found in
ourselves
in the imperfect instruments with which we seek to gauge the
purposes of God. I do not mean in the limitation of our human powers
making it
impossible for the keenest scrutiny to pierce into those abysses of gloom in
which God is surely and silently working; but in our want of a spiritual
temper
the absence of a moral affinity between ourselves and God
which so
surely puts us at a distance from Him
and so leaves the highways of His
providence incomprehensible to us. Our unlikeness to the Divine nature is
I
think
one of the main barriers which shut out the light from the sufferer’s
eye. We do not see so far or so clearly into some of the Divine dealings with
us as we might do
or as God intends we should do
just because the range of
our spiritual eyesight is limited by some inward blur or film. Faith is the
soul’s super sensuous eye; but when it is darkened by the distempers of sin
it
is like a broken lens in a telescope
it fractures and distorts the image. In
those matters it is with our spiritual senses very much as it is with the man
who seeks to get a bold and commanding view of nature’s scenery; almost
everything depends on the position we occupy. To those on the mountain top the
light comes the earliest
and with them it lingers the longest. The air is
purer; the range of vision is wider: while the skies without a cloud seem dark
and distant to those down beneath the shadows in the valley. And so
doubtless
it is in the scope and power of that spiritual analysis by which we seek to
understand the darker mysteries of providence. We lack sympathy with the great
Operator in the intrinsic excellency of His being; and this puts remoteness
upon our position and dulness upon our perception
as we seek to penetrate His
policy in dealing with us. “We see through a glass
darkly.” Hence the
remoteness in which men habitually think of God. The unvisioned eye sees Him
only as a distant presence
a cold and silent spectator on the outermost
confines of nature; or as utterly outside of His own world of men and things.
God is so far off that our voice cannot reach Him
His hand cannot reach us;
and though His arrows fly swift and terrible as the lightnings in their fiery
tracks through space
they do
somehow
seem without a purpose. God reigns over
the world; but we do not see how He governs it. On the other hand
the purified
eye
the soul made clean from sin
pierces the gloom with a quick
intelligent
gladness
that brightens everything
even the dark and sorrowful
into light
and beauty. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show
them His covenant.” Likeness to God
loyalty to conscience
trust in goodness
obedience to truth
--these unseal the eyelids of the soul
and flood with
meaning the purposes of the Divine will.
3. The comprehensiveness of the plan on which providential enactments
transpire
must of necessity entail obscurity in many of its details. “We are
but of yesterday
and know nothing
because our days upon the earth are a
shadow.” Our little world is but an atom of the great whole of men and things.
The great whole of men and things is but an atom in the wholeness of the Divine
plan. That plan must embrace all time and place; all worlds
with their
inhabitants; and all events
with their issues. It takes in time; but then it
takes in also eternity. Hence
first
events are never single. They have their
antecedents
and their consequents. They may be the offspring not of one
antecedent
but of many. To the all-embracing mind of Omniscience
each passing
event of today must intertwine with all the extents of yesterday; as these will
in turn embrace all other events in giving birth to those of tomorrow. So with
the race of man. “We are all links in the great chain which winds round the two
axles of the past and the future.” “We who live
” says Comte
“are ruled by the
dead.” Here
then
is one of our grand mistakes in seeking to understand the
ways of God. We are in too great a hurry to decipher passing events. We look
for reasons too close to ourselves
too isolated and specific in their range;
and so we seek results too immediate in time. While the Supreme Mind
contemplates the whole of life in each link
and the whole of each separate
link in the One chain
we narrow the great drama to one solitary act
and that
beginning and closing in ourselves. We overlook the past
which to many of us
may hold the secret of those very events whose occurrence overwhelms or
distracts us in the present; and we shut out the future as well as the past;
and
yet
both the past and the future may sustain some immediate but
inscrutable relation to the mystery of the suffering present. “God’s thoughts
are not our thoughts
neither are His ways our ways.” What can we
--what can
angel minds know of this strange problem which providence holds for solution?
4. Then
the moral purposes which some
possibly many
of our darkest
experiences are intended to accomplish
must not be left outside of the causes
which perplex us. The response
“What I do thou knowest not now
” may indicate
a mercy not less than a necessity. Light
making clear the purpose
might
defeat the end. “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for
the salvation of the Lord.” “Tribulation worketh patience.” By these moral
purposes we mean the sum total of religious gain that afflictive visitations
are intended to secure--first
to the individual sufferer; then
to those with
whom he may be more immediately related; and lastly
to the universal good. All
human events
of whatever order
under whatever apparent exceptions
are to be
construed by the Christian man according to that rule
“We know that all things
work together for good to them that love God”; or by a more distributive
three-fold rule
containing
first
the negative assurance
that “there shall
no evil touch” him; secondly
the positive pledge
that “no good thing shall be
withheld from him”; and thirdly
the constructive
all-embracing promise that
“all things” shall “work together for” his “good.” This threefold promise is
the statute law
the blessed triune charter
under which the Christian lives;
nor is any event ever suffered to befall a good man
but one
or both
or all
three of these great laws come into benignant operation. This is the providence
of grace. And it is in the methods through which these laws come out in their
action
that one source of our perplexity not unfrequently reveals itself. Even
when the vision is the clearest
it is often impossible to see which first
and
sometimes how at all
these several promises are being manipulated in the
interests of the individual man. Sometimes the end proposed is not related
immediately to the means. As in the case of Joseph and Job
Daniel and Esther
the end to be reached appears wholly out of the way of the method employed.
Then
the good contemplated in some dispensations of providence is not single
but manifold. In the history of Joseph
the afflictions of which he was the
immediate victim had a mission backwards into his own family circle
and
forwards into the Egyptian court
and so onward through all the world’s future
history in its preparation through the Jewish nation for the incarnation and
redemption of Christ
--results these
all of which seem to us incongruous and
immeasurably distant in their relation to the “coat of many colours
” and the
exile and slavery in Egypt; yet
to God
they were all braced into a consistent
and instant present
the last link parallel with the first
the first
coincident with the last. The ploughshare of the destroyer goes crashing
through the centre of a household
upturning suddenly its very foundations
and
in the ghastly wreck extinguishes a whole springtime of youthful hopes in a
father’s grave. Do you ask
Why all this? Why does God hide His purpose
and
robe His presence in clouds and darkness even from those who love Him? The
answer
sufficient for us
is
That our manhood may be trained to trust. We
grow strong by endurance. If we knew all beforehand
there would be no room for
faith
for submission
for the balancing of motives. If we knew as God knows
we should be as God.
But we are infants
being trained. Patience is the fruit of trial.
Our faith is born in struggle.
1. Here then is
first
a rebuke to our petulance. It says
“Be
still
and know that I am God!” We are in the dust before Him. “Our God is in
the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.” What can a child
on the
scaffolding of some unfinished colossal pile of architecture
know of the skill
and purpose of its construction? And what are we but baby builders in the plan
of God
--ephemeral insects
whose life is a leaf in the forest of worlds!
2. Let us see how this present obscurity ministers to hope. The
darkness which now envelops the Christian’s path
and which for the reasons we
have shown must continue to envelop it
creates
as it justifies
the
expectation that hereafter
in this or in some other state
light will arise
out of obscurity
and we shall see as we are seen
and “know even as also” we
are “known.” It cannot be that the limitations
the disappointments
the
chafings of a bitter unrest are to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Some of the
sorrowful chapters of life may be made clear even on this side of the screen.
3. Still more fully
still more tenderly
this assurance of light
takes in the future world. “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know
hereafter.” There are profundities in creation which from the beginning of time
have been struggling to get into expression
and have not spoken yet. And there
are mysteries in our human life--events
epochs
dispensations--whose cloudy
advent in time will constitute apocalyptic visions for our studies through
eternity. “The times and the seasons the Father hath put in His own power.” In
the wide uplands and glorious expanse of the eternal life
God will surely tell
thee
thou poor
solitary sufferer
why thou wast left alone
without a
sheltering hand or a counselling voice
when in the inexperienced days of youth
thou neededst them the most. (J. Burton.)
The unseen God “declared”
This passage represents to us a gracious soul
sighing and seeking
anxiously after more personal and peculiar intercourse
and even most intimate
fellowship with its God
and therefore is made to feel painfully the silence
the reserve
and the secrecy
which
as the God of nature and providence
He so
inviolably adheres to.
1. It might relieve us
if God were to reveal Himself
even in any
degree
to any one of our external senses. But He never now condescends to
discover Himself even thus far to the inhabitants of our world. Consequently it
is not unreasonable for us all to dread that there may be some judicial reason
why God is so hiding Himself from our knowledge.
2. This suspicion appears to be confirmed in some measure
or to a
certain modified extent
by our happening to know that there is at least one
other world where the same God has other worshippers
from whom He never did
hide Himself. There may be many more such worlds than one.
3. There was a time when it was far otherwise with this world. At one
time it was so much like heaven
as that the Lord did in those days speak with
a human voice to the man whom He had then just newly created
like unto Himself
in knowledge
righteousness
and holiness
with dominion over all the inferior
creatures whom he saw around him.
4. It tends to aggravate our quite natural and just suspicion
when
we consider that God
who is now so hiding Himself from all the careless
will
not always
nor even will He much longer continue to hide Himself from any one
of us. Relief alone comes
when awakened to a sense of sin
we are led to turn
to the Only Begotten of the Father. He hath revealed Him. (John Bruce
D. D.)
Searching for God
This man seems to be condemned by the moral order of the
world
and yet knows that he is innocent. A man in such an awful strait as this
may be expected to utter bold words. But Job does not array himself against
God. He rather arrays God against God. The God he seems to see against the God
he desires to see
but cannot. It is the God within Job that protests against a
credal God without. But Job’s mistake lay in being angry because he could not
get the full vision of God at once. He wanted it immediately. It is only by a
long and hard struggle that we can get the vision of God. We must gain the
sunny uplands where His face is seen by noble and untiring spiritual effort.
There is no short and easy path to the sunlit sky. Further
when Job was
challenging God to try him
Job was not aware that God was even then trying
him; that in that very perplexity
in that very hiding of God
in that very
darkness and conflict
through which Job was then passing
God was already
sitting in judgment on him
and proving his life
to see whether it would come
forth from the fire as gold.
I. The great
search for God which every true life must undertake. The search must proceed
for there is no true life without the knowledge of God; and there is no full
life without the satisfying knowledge of God. The true knowledge of God can
only come through struggling. This will appear on the following two
considerations.
1. A true knowledge of God is inward riving heart knowledge. And--
2. The true knowledge of God is progressive knowledge. But the truest
man in the world may enter into seasons of very great perplexity. God is larger
than our thoughts
and grander than our creeds. They cannot express the fulness
of God.
II. The guarantee
of the success of this struggle to find God. “He knoweth the way that I take.”
The search for God depends on an inner knowledge of God; and we have the
paradox
that we do know God
and yet are searching for Him. We know when we
have found Him
for He is in our deepest life as an ideal. If our hearts are
true
if our lives are sincere and pure
we have the guarantee that we shall at
length see God in the fulness of His glory.
III. The purpose and
issue of this great struggle. The struggle which is necessary to find God and
truth is a test of our character. Truth requires a struggle
the constant use
of our best energies. Infidelity is the laziest thing in the world
but it is
by heart sweat that truth is found. The struggle to find God preserves the
“truth of the life.” Life is preserved by progress
and progress involves
conflict. Life is movement
stagnation is death. This struggle not only
preserves the truth of the life
it purifies and develops it. This is my
message--See that you struggle to find God. While you are searching
remember
to be true. And search on. (John Thomas
M. A.)
Verse 10
But He knoweth the way that I take.
The good man’s way
A Christian in trouble should seek comfort in himself. His chief
comfort lies in his relation to God. Only sincerity Godward makes such a
statement as this possible.
I. The good man’s
way.
1. It is the way He chooses for me.
2. It is the way of obedience to His will.
3. It is the way His Son trod.
4. It is the way of self-sacrifice for others.
II. God’s knowledge
of the good man’s way.
1. He knows it; for He knows all.
2. He knows it with a sympathetic interest.
3. He knows it when the path is darkest and roughest.
4. He knows whither it leads.
III. The outcome of
a good man’s trials.
1. God sees the discipline to be essential.
2. He fixes its limits.
3. He guarantees the beneficial result.
4. This will be precious and bright in its end. (I. E. Page.)
Whither goest thou
Job could not understand the way of God with him; he was greatly
perplexed. But if Job knew not the way of the Lord
the Lord knew Job’s way.
Because God knew his way
Job turned from the unjust judgments of his unfeeling
friends
and appealed to the Lord God Himself.
I. Do you know
your own way? So far as your life is left to your own management
there is a
way which you voluntarily take
and willingly follow. Do you know what that way
is? Do you know where you are going? “Of course
” says one
“everybody knows
where he is going.” You are steaming across the deep sea of time into the main
ocean of eternity: to what port are you steering? The main thing with the
captain of a Cunarder will be the getting his vessel safely into the port for
which it is bound. This design overrules everything else. To get into port is
the thought of every watch
every glance at the chart
every observation of the
stars. The captain’s heart is set upon the other side. His hope is safely to
arrive at the desired haven
and he knows which is the haven of his choice. He
would not expect to get there if he did not set his mind on it. What is it you
are aiming at? Are you living for God? or are you so living that the result
must be eternal banishment from His presence? If you answer that question
allow me to put another: Do you know how you are going? In what strength are
you pursuing your journey? Is God with you? Has the Lord Jesus become your
strength and your song? Are there any here who decline to answer my question? Will
you not tell us whither you are going? Is anyone here compelled to say
“I have
chosen the evil road”? The grace of God can come in
and lead you at once to
reverse your course. But are you drifting? Do you say
“I am not distinctly
sailing for heaven
neither am I resolutely steering in the other direction. I
do not quite know what to say of myself”? But can you say
“Yes
I am bound for
the right port”? It may be that your accents are trembling with a holy fear;
but none the less I am glad to hear you say as much.
II. Secondly
is it
a cohort to you that God knows your way? Solemnly
I believe that one of the
best tests of human character is our relation to the great truth of God’s
omniscience. It is quite certain that God does know the way that you take. The
Hebrew may be read
“He knoweth the way that is in me”; from which I gather
that the Lord not only knows our outward actions
but our inward feelings. He
knows our likes and dislikes
our desires and our designs
our imaginations and
tendencies. The Lord knows you approvingly if you follow that which is right.
God knows your way
however falsely you may be represented by others. Those
three men who had looked so askance upon Job
accused him of hypocrisy
and of
having practised some secret evil; but Job could answer
“The Lord knoweth the
way that I take.” Are you the victim of slander? The Lord knows the truth. The
Lord knows the way that you take
though you could not yourself describe that
way. Some gracious people are slow of speech
and they have great difficulty in
saying anything about their soul affairs. Another great mercy is
that God
knows the way we take when we hardly know it ourselves. There are times with
the true children of God when they cannot see their way
nor even take their
bearings. Once more
remember that at this very moment God knows your way. He
knows not only the way you have taken and the way you will take
but the way
you are now choosing for yourself.
III. Thirdly
do you
meet with trials in the way? Out of the many here present
not one has been
quite free from sorrow. I think I hear one saying
“Sir
I have had more
trouble since I have been a Christian than I ever had before.” These troubles
are no token that you are in the wrong way. Job was in the right way
and the Lord
knew it; and yet He suffered Job to be very fiercely tried. Consider that there
are trials in all ways. Even the road to destruction
broad as it is
has not a
path in it which avoids trial. Then
remember
the very brightest of the saints
have been afflicted. We have
in the Bible
records of the lives of believers.
Trials are no evidence of being without God
since trials come from God. Job
says
“When He hath tried me.” He sees God in his afflictions. The devil
actually wrought the trouble; but the Lord not only permitted it
but He had a
design in it. Besides
according to the text
these trials are tests: “When He
hath tried me.” The trials that came to Job were made to be proofs that the
patriarch was real and sincere. Once more upon this point: if you have met with
troubles
remember they will come to an end. The holy man in our text says
“When He hath tried me.” As much as to say
He will not always be doing it;
there will come a time when He will have done trying me.
IV. Fourthly
have
you confidence in God as to these storms? Can you say
in the language of the
text
“When He hath tried me
I shall come forth as gold”? If you are really
trusting in Jesus
if He is everything to you
you may say this confidently;
for you will find it true to the letter. This confidence is grounded on the
Lord’s knowledge of us. “He knoweth the way that I take”: therefore
“when He
hath tried me
I shall come forth as gold.” This confidence must be sustained
by sincerity. If a man is not sure that he is sincere
he cannot have
confidence in God. If you are a bit of gold and know it
the fire and you are
friends. Once more he says
“I shall come forth as gold.” But how does that
come forth? It comes forth proved. It has been assayed
and is now warranted
pure. So shall you be. After the trial you will be able to say
“Now! know that
I fear God; now I know that God is with me
sustaining me; now! see that He has
helped me
and I am sure that I am His.” How does gold come forth? It comes
forth purified. O child of God
you may decrease in bulk
but not in bullion!
You may lose importance
but not innocence. You may not talk so big; but there
shall be really more to talk of. And what a gain it is to lose dross! What gain
to lose pride! What gain to lose self-sufficiency! Once more
how does gold
come forth from the furnace? It comes forth ready for use. Now the goldsmith
may take it
and make what he pleases of it. It has been through the fire
and
the dross has been got away from it
and it is fit for his use. So
if you are
on the way to heaven
and you meet with difficulties
they will bring you
preparation for higher service; you will be a better and more useful man; you
will be a woman whom God can more fully use to comfort others of a sorrowful
spirit. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Sustaining consciousness of the soul in sorrow
I. That the great
God was fully cognisant of His individual trial. “He knoweth the way that I
take.” Wherever I am
at home or abroad
in solitude or society
“He knoweth
”
etc. He knows the way I take--the way my thoughts take
my feelings take
my
purposes take. But what support is there in the knowledge of this fact?
1. God’s knowledge of the individual sufferer is associated with the
profoundest love. “As a father pitieth his children
” etc.
2. His knowledge is associated with an almighty capacity to help. The
other sustaining fact of which he was conscious was--
II. That the great
God was mercifully using his trials as discipline. “When He hath tried me.” Why
does He try by affliction?
1. Not that He has any pleasure in our suffering. “He doth not
afflict willingly
” etc. Nor--
2. That He may discover what is in our hearts. He knows all about us.
But He does it--
1. In order to humble us on account of our sins.
2. In order that we may feel our dependence on Him.
3. In order that we may commit ourselves entirely into His keeping.
III. That the great
God would turn his painful discipline to his advantage. “I shall come forth as
gold
” etc. “Tribulation worketh patience
” etc. But how does affliction
benefit?
1. It serves to raise our appreciation of the Bible.
2. It serves to develop the powers of the mind. David’s afflictions
brought out some of the most brilliant of his psalms.
3. It serves to develop the spiritual life.
4. It serves to detach us from the world. It gradually breaks down
the materialism in which the soul is caged
and lets it flee into the open air
and light of spiritual realms. (Homilist.)
When He hath tried me
I
shall come forth as gold.--
Confidence in God under affliction
The very life of religion is communion with God. Everything short
of this is mere formality or superstition. Observe--
I. Job’s dignified
appeal to the Divine knowledge. Charged with being disingenuous and deceitful
Job meekly but firmly refers to Him who “tries the heart and the reins.” “He
knoweth the way that I take.” This expression implies--
1. Consciousness of integrity. The way he took was the way of truth
in opposition to error
deceit
and falsehood; the way of holiness
in
opposition to sin; the way of faith
in opposition to self-dependence.
2. A persuasion of Divine superintendency. “He knoweth.” Job speaks
of it as a fixed and settled principle in the Divine economy
that He knows
because He superintends
all the ways of His people.
3. Entire satisfaction with the Divine judgment. In the estimate
which men form of our character
they may be misled by ignorance
or warped by
prejudice. But with Him this is impossible.
II. Job’s
enlightened view of the Divine conduct. “When He hath tried me.” This refers
either to that scrutiny which he so much desired
or to the affliction with
which he was so painfully exercised. Apply this trial--
1. To your faith. So the apostle applies it. To believe that God
designs mercy while He inflicts punishment
and to rest satisfied that He will
fulfil His covenant
when He seems to be annulling it
is indeed a trial of
faith.
2. To your love. That this should be strong and glowing
when your
peace is undisturbed
is not surprising. The more painful and protracted the
affliction
the more strong and decided the trial.
3. To your resignation. For the exercise of this feeling
affliction
is absolutely necessary. It implies a state of things opposed to our wishes.
Resignation is the yielding of a will subordinated to the will of God.
4. To the grace of patience. Patience waits for deliverance
and
refers the time
the manner
and the degree
to Him who worketh all things
after the counsel of His own will. For patience the name of Job has become
proverbial.
III. Job’s cheerful
expectation of the Divine goodness. “I shall come forth as gold” proved
purified
and declared. Learn
from this subject--
1. The special design of all the diversified afflictions with which
the people of God are exercised. Is it not a design of which you must cordially
approve?
2. Your special duty in affliction. To commit your way
and
in the
exercise of faith and resignation and patience
to refer your cause to Him.
3. What should be your special concern if delivered from affliction?
To ascertain if the result correspond with the design. (Essex Remembrancer.)
The crucible of experience
The greatness of the Book of Job
that which won for it from
Carlyle the eulogium that it is the finest thing ever written with pen
consists in the clear light it throws upon human trial and its issues. It is a
unique manual upon faith
not in a proposition
but in life itself
because
life is in the hands of God and represents
“Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent
Try thee
and turn thee forth sufficiently impressed
”
as Browning
with his glorious optimism
has said. It teaches us a
faith as deep as life
and makes man a sovereign in the world by inspiring him
with an indescribable trust in the order of things. To those who seriously
study the drama of Job
nothing becomes more clear than the fact that it would
be complete without its ending. Job might have died under his affliction. He
might have succumbed after hearing the testimony embodied in my text. He would
have passed to his rest a greater
stronger man than he was before his trials
came upon him. He would have completed his career
bequeathing a healthier
influence to posterity
leaving a more valuable legacy in the world
than he
would have bestowed apart from trial. The Bible
with its high and healthy idea
of manhood
recognises this fact
and sets it forth with great clearness. When
dealing with the goods we come to possess and enjoy
it frequently reminds us
that we brought nothing into the world
and will take nothing from it
except
character; that the only legacy we can leave
determining its use according to
our desires
is the legacy we leave through character. How true this is! We may
be born to affluence only to live in idleness. We may amass wealth by toil
but
we cannot control its uses among those who come after us. We have no
determining influence in the matter. But it is different with the influence we
radiate through character. The thoughts we think
the testimony we bear
the
influences we exert
give us a hold upon life--a sovereignty therein that death
cannot loosen. Browning
with fine spiritual insight
has called the world our
university
and has thus signified that from stage to stage of our life we go
towards the graduation of the soul. It is a Christian idea enforced by genius.
In learning it we achieve the victory of spirit. Our soft and luxuriously
materialistic age builds on happiness without that highest good of men and
women. In any kind of adversity it cries out
where is God? and voices the cry
of the fool. But the world is our university. Christ was crowned on the Cross
and we are all crowned as we share and accept the Cross. It is the condition of
triumph. It is only when we are tried that we come forth as gold. Trial plays a
large and beneficent part in life. It comes to us all very early.
1. It comes into the life of the young man and the woman just
entering the world when their education is completed and their responsibility
has begun. Up to the day of their departure from home their parents have fended
for them
they have been nourished and protected and helped. They have received
all the care bestowed upon them as a matter of course. And when they steer
clear of the dear old home
the day which dawns upon them seems bleak and
unpropitious. The mother’s tenderness is left
the father’s advice is
eliminated; they enter a world of strangers. They realise that they must depend
upon themselves. Clouds gather upon the sky of their imagination
although
these may be dispersed by worth. And just because that fact is true
those
launched may realise that their new day is making them. Before it has long
dawned they may have proved upon the pulses of their experience that they have
begun to think
that they know what prudence is
not by reading about it
but
by developing the virtue; by trial they know what life is
not by dreaming
about it
but by endeavouring it. That experience involves trial
yet it is
that which is amply justified in its issue. It gives an air of decision to us.
It calls our manhood and womanhood into a new dignity. But darker days follow
which must also be measured according to the standard of a worthy faith. There
are
for instance
those days when the old home is broken up
when those at its
head are called into the unseen
and a desolation is made around us; when they
constitute a fellowship our imagination cannot picture
but our hearts must
ever affirm. It is an indescribable loss to have to sacrifice the reverend
members of a true home. And yet we are not to be pitied. In such conditions God
opens up a new opportunity for us. He teaches us initiative. All the
seriousness
all the wisdom
all the tenderness in our natures are evolved. We
become ministers to men and women
not by choice
but by necessity. When this
experience is granted to men and women
their thoughtful contemporaries remark
that while God is making a desolation about them He is at the same time
endowing them with grandeur of character. And again the words are verified
“He
knoweth the way that I shall take; when He hath tried me
I shall come forth as
gold.” The trials to which I have alluded are entirely good. It is good that we
should have to go out into the world and learn responsibility by fighting for
ourselves. It is good that one generation should pass and another inherit the
problems of its representatives. The forms of trial which I have noticed so far
are altogether good; but there are other forms. Many have to battle with
adversity; some have to bear the burden of sickness; others have to experience
ingratitude
and yet the issue of these forms of trial is still good rather
than evil. We may say so without any shallow optimism. There is benefit in
adversity
in whatever form it may reach us. Shakespeare
with his clear
insight and large outlook
has said
“Sweet are the uses of adversity.” And Seneca
has spoken words that deserve to be “written in gold on this point:” No man
knows his own strength or valour but by being put to the proof. The pilot is
tried in a storm
the soldier in a battle
the rich man knows not how to behave
himself in poverty. He that has lived only in popularity and applause knows not
how he would bear infamy and reproach. Calamity is the occasion of virtue
and
a spur to a great mind. Very many times a calamity turns to our advantage
and
great ruins have made way to great glories. Prudence and religion are above
accidents
and draw good out of everything. Affliction keeps a man in use and
makes him strong
patient and hardy. God loves us with a masculine love and
turns us loose to injuries and indignities. He takes delight to see a good and
brave man wrestling with evil fortune
and yet keeping himself upon his legs
when the whole world is in disorder about him. No man can be happy that does
not stand firm against all contingencies
and say to himself in all
extremities
‘I should have been content if it might have been so and so
but
since it is otherwise determined
God will provide better.’“ How wise and
strong these words of the Stoic are. It is a stern world in which we live
even
although it is kind. The price of free rational life is suffering up to man;
and even in humanity itself
through lower to higher natures; while the
justification of suffering is progress. “What made you a Skald?” says a king in
one of Ibsen’s plays
to a poet. “Sorrow
sire
” the Skald answered. Adversity
only baffles us for the moment
and when we struggle with it
we find that we
have been baffled to fight better. All the best men and women of whom we read
in former generations
and all the best men and women we know in our own
generation
have battled bravely with life
and have gained character in the
struggle
have proved
upon the pulses of their experience
the wisdom of
Shakespeare’s words
that the uses of adversity are sweet. They have no quarrel
with life. But there is another form of trial
that which comes to us through
sickness
when it seems laid like a kind of fetter upon the mind. Our
generation is resonant with the echoes of cheap pessimisms
and perhaps nothing
is regarded as justifying these more than human suffering. Why does it exist in
the world at all? Where is God? What is the good of life? So we read
so we
hear. But the significant thing is that the people who so speak and write are
not the sufferers themselves--not even when they have the gift of genius
with
its great capacity for suffering. They show to us invariably
how sublime a
thing it is to suffer and be strong. Who illustrated this fact better than the
late Louis Stevenson
in his brave fight with encroaching death? He of all men
had good reason to affirm that this is of all the worst possible world. Yet of
this very tendency he writes in one of his inimitable essays: “We are
accustomed
in these days
to a great deal of puling over the circumstances in
which we are placed. The great refinement of many poetical gentlemen has
rendered them practically unfit for the jostling and ugliness of life
and they
record their unfitness at a considerable length. Young gentlemen
with three or
four hundred a year of private means
look down from a pinnacle of doleful
experience
on all the grown and hearty men who have dared to say a good word
for life.” Stevenson suggests that the pessimists of our day are not the
children of sorrow
but rather epicures of their own emotions
who prate of a
sorrow which they have not known. Sorrow is silent. Sorrow is a fast of God’s
own appointing
and when men and women really enter upon it
they can say with
Christ
“Thy will be done.” They know that God is trying them in order that He
may turn them forth as gold. There is the trial of ingratitude. That seems
hardest of all to bear. To do good and call forth evil instead of responsive
sympathy. To love
but yet in vain: that nearly breaks the heart. So we say.
But is it really so? Does it not really make the heart? The late Principal
Caird
in his lectures on the fundamental ideas of Christianity
finds in the
distinctive Christian doctrines sanction for the thought that “in the nature of
God there is a capacity of condescending love
of boundless pity and
forgiveness
yea
with reverence be it said
of pain and sorrow and sacrifice
for the salvation of finite souls; a capacity which has been and could only be
revealed and realised through the sorrow and sin of the world.” It is
profoundly true
man’s need is God’s opportunity. And it is true in human as in
Divine relations. Those who bare vexed us most
those who have tried us in the
hardest sense.
have often enabled us to realise ourselves in a way we could
not have done had they not crossed our path. And these testimonies are verified
in the action of our Lord and His great apostle. It was when the agony of
Gethsemane and the bitterness of the Cross were drawing near
when He knew that
men had rejected Him
that our Lord said His Father loved Him because He laid
down His life. It was of Israel
from which he was an outcast on account of his
apostleship
and by whose representatives he was persecuted daily
that Paul
said
“I could wish that myself were accursed for my brethren
my kinsmen
according to the flesh
who are Israelites.” Under the influence of these
testimonies
and in the light of these facts
we learn that even the
ingratitude which wounds love
makes man
and enables him to bear witness to
that deepest and grandest element in his experience which Shelley recognised
when he called him the Pilgrim of Eternity. And that also is growth. Under such
experiences man is still tried
that he may come forth as gold. How much we owe
to men who have been tried in life
and who have proved worthy under their
tests! The lords of literature have been in the crucible of experience. Dante’s
immortal work is the epic of the Middle Ages
and is full of winged words and
seminal thoughts which stimulate our spirits
and fructify in us still. It grew
out of the experience of a man of sad
lone spirit
the son of mental pain. The
lords of literature have been tried that they might come forth as gold. But
these immortals are not the only beings who have been refined and perfected in
the crucible of experience. We can find those who have benefited in this way in
every walk of life. The picture of the radiant young man or woman full of
unspoiled powers
and surrounded by unused opportunities is fascinating. But it
pales before the picture of the man or woman fashioned more grandly in the
stress of life; and sometimes when
in awful cases
ministrant men and women
are needed
people who can say the right word to the anguished and give them
peace
or who can lift the suffering out of pain
you shall note that they are
those with faces lined with sufferings which are past
and full of peace that
has been conquered. These are the final argument
that in the crucible of
experience we are tried that we may come forth as gold. They stand round
Christ
the Head of our humanity
and augment that river of life which
having
its origin in His transcendent sacrifice
streams through our religion
our
philosophy
our literature
and our life
and brings the healing of the
nations. As we consider them
as the light of their witness falls across our
path
faith in life is generated in our hearts. Thus in the power of God we
rival nature. The heavens declare God’s glory
and the firmament showeth forth
His handiwork from season to season. The stars shine in winter and summer
before and after the storm. So they provoke the men and women who tell their
number
and who weigh them
to behave. That is the role of the lords of life
and Christ came
and abides among us
that we might assume it and triumph
therein. Life should not impoverish but enrich us. Through all its vicissitudes
there should be abounding and abiding glory in the firmament of our experience.
(F. A. Russell.)
God’s deeper good
During the week that has passed since our service of last Sunday
morning
more than one friend of mine has spoken to me about the teaching which
was given from this pulpit. One of them half jocularly addressed me in this
fashion: “Did I truly understand you to say that you could wish for your
friends’ adversity rather than prosperity? Because
if so
I cannot say that
that is what I should wish for you
or
indeed
for any of human kind; and were
I endowed with omnipotence I certainly should not employ what you call ‘God’s
evil’ as an experience for the righteous.” My friend’s statement contains a
good deal of what is common or popular feeling in respect to that insoluble
subject
the mystery of evil; but as his particular statement contains so much
that the ordinary right living man feels to be a just statement of his
perplexity in regard to God’s dealings with him
I must return to that subject
this morning. To begin with
I must say that my general statement that for my
friends I could wish adversity rather than prosperity ought
perhaps
to be
differently phrased. Then I am sure there would be no difference of opinion
between me and anyone present. I would rather state it thus
--For my friend I
could rather wish the fruit of adversity when adversity achieves its highest in
the human soul. Let me put to you a rhetorical question
the answer to which
will be in your mind and heart as I put it. Suppose you had to live your life
over again
there is not one of you who would wish to live through just the
same set of experiences as you have already had. You could wish that the dark
days and the times of deep sorrow might not come again
but I am perfectly sure
that you would wish you might have the results of those experiences
without
the history. Then I think we are agreed to say that the best we could wish for
our friend is that which we actually know from experience comes only hand in
hand with adversity
that adversity succeeds in achieving the highest
though
we might not wish for him the pain of the adversity itself. If I were endowed
with omnipotence
my friend
your pathway would always be fair; and yet if
adversity were the necessary price to pay
and if I knew it must be paid for
making you the noble man you are
then I would let adversity come upon you with
all its might. But the objection of my friend strikes deeper. It amounts to
this--God’s ways are inexplicable. It is the righteous and not simply the
guilty that have to suffer as the world is now organised. We could understand
His dealing if the inevitable sequence of wrong-doing were pain
but we fail to
understand it when the righteous man suffers equally and indiscriminately with
the guilty. Moreover
is it not often that God’s sternness causes moral harm
rather than moral good? I understand the feeling that is behind an utterance of
that kind. It means this--If I were God I would make the world differently.
There
I think
I have stated our friend’s real meaning with perfect frankness.
Now
allow me to say that when we talk about evil as an intruder
we are
in
nine cases out of ten
obscuring the issue which is really present to our mind.
Good has not yet come. Evil is relative
negative
primitive. Our experience of
what is evil is our conception of an absent good
and the fact that we can see
a thing is evil is in some way a promise of a coming good. Let us leave it
there. Your generous impulse to say if you had the power evil would be excluded
from the world
is really some sort of prophecy of what God intends to do. Now
there has never been given a good and sufficient answer to this urgent question
of the human heart. It is the old
old theme
the theme from the Book of Job
from which I have taken my text this morning. But I venture to think
though no
complete answer has ever come
the answer is that submission to the will of God
introduces us to a harmonious experience. Observe the theme of the book from
whence our wondrous text is taken. Job
the central character
appears as a
righteous man who is yet a sufferer; but he is not a sufferer for any worthy
cause for which a man might be glad to suffer
nor apparently is he a sufferer
giving any striking testimony on behalf of a noble cause. Many such testimonies
have been given
and have robbed martyrdom of its agony. But Job is made a
sufferer without seeing why
and is it any wonder that he feels that his
suffering cannot be a punishment for his offences? He asserts his own righteousness
not in any arrogant fashion
and not as though God had no fault to find with
him. He says
“This sternness in God’s dealing with me cannot be the fruit of
my own wrongly lived life.” His friends defend God and say that Job is being
righteously chastised; and the writer of the book
one of the oldest books in
the Bible
has it before him to show that the righteous man
though afflicted
is more righteous than those who defend God’s judgments upon him. Job’s reply
and its wonderful insight are expressed in the words of the text
“He knoweth
the way that I take
” what does human judgment matter to me? He knoweth the way
that I have been living
uprightly
in the fear of God
dealing honourably with
men. Then Job says that he had lived righteously
and his pain was in no sense
his own desert. “He knoweth the way that I am taking with my life; when He hath
tried me
my innocence shall shine out.” I am not sure whether we are entitled
to read into the text that Job’s faith rose to a higher altitude there and affirmed
that “as the outcome of what God hath done I shall be a better man
a deeper
nature
nobler
stronger
wiser.” Perhaps he did not mean that
but it is at
least open to that interpretation to my that he did. “When He hath tried me
not only will my innocence shine out as gold and show that God is not punishing
me
but rather fashioning me; not only will mine innocence shine out
but my
nobleness will be beaten out and gained and won.” Now we will never get any
nearer to the solution of the problem of what we have called “God’s evil
” and
which I now call “God’s deeper good
” than that. Here I pause to read to you an
experience
the experience of a young man
it is true
but not
I venture to
think
a crude one. Humanity at its highest
I mean its highest point of
spiritual knowledge
has never got higher than this
which is from Mr. John
Morley’s Life of Gladstone
and the passage from which I quote is one of
Arthur Hallam’s letters written to his friend Mr. Gladstone when both were at
Oxford. Mr. Morley
commenting on it lower down
says that of course it is a
young man’s way of looking at an old problem
but you will admit that he got
very near the solution of the problem. “The great truth which
when we are
rightly impressed with it
will liberate mankind
is
that no man has a right
to isolate himself
because every man is a particle of a marvellous whole; that
when he suffers
since it is for the good of that whole
he
the particle
has
no right to complain
and in the long run
that which is the good of all will
abundantly manifest itself to be the good of each. Other belief consists not
with theism. This is its centre. Let me quote to this purpose the words of my
favourite poet. It will do us good to hear his voice
though but for a moment.”
Then he quotes from Wordsworth’s ”Excursion” the lines well known probably to
everyone as well as to myself--
“One
adequate support
For
the calamities of mortal life
Exists--one
only: an assured belief
That
the procession of our fate
howe’er
Sad
or disturbed
is ordered by a Being
Of
infinite benevolence and power
Whose
everlasting purposes embrace
All
accidents
converting them to good.”
I know not whether Mr. Morley could himself subscribe to that
but
from words of his own
used later in the book
I almost feel that he could. He
is speaking of Mr. Gladstone’s view
I think
of the work of Napoleon
and
comparing it with that of worthier servants of destiny. He says
“Our work is
to use the part given us to use
to use the parts that go to make up the life
and to use them with a feeling of the whole.” Now that is the point that I wish
to emphasise most expressly in your hearing. We do not live for ourselves. I am
quite of those who think that if God’s only purpose in the disciplining of
mankind were to produce noble character we might be fairly entitled to say to
Him
“Then you might have produced it in some other way.” God could. It is not
beyond His power. God could make a noble man without sending him through the
furnace. But if it be true that we are only a little corner in the life of the
universe
living not our own
but the life of the whole
and if it be true that
we are living
not simply for ourselves but for God
it adds a dignity to our
conception of our destiny. And
though I preach confidently in this way an
optimism
I trust I do not preach it superficially or crudely. I do not preach
an optimism because I ignore the dangers and the possibilities of a pessimism
nor because I possess no acquaintance with the darker side of life
but the
optimism of the Christ is mine. Did Jesus ever act or speak as though He would
ignore the seamy side of existence? We lesser beings
following feebly and
haltingly in the steps of Jesus Christ
must try to see with His eyes even from
our Calvary when it comes
and it is not Calvary all the time
and to believe
nay to be sure that in our Father’s hands are all our ways. God will care for
the least as for the greatest. We are not only instruments in His hands
every
one of us is also an end. I would add to this one or two reflections with which
I close.
1. The first is that if you could see things as they really are
there would be no trouble
nor care
nor fear left in your experience. It is
just because you cannot see that these things seem to dominate your life. Faith
is eminently reasonable in that it lifts the soul to an altitude whence it can
take a calm and wide view of existence as a whole. Faith is an approximation to
seeing things as they are. Life to many of us seems like a dream. In a dream we
take a distorted view of realities which in our waking life do enter into our
experience
but not as we dream them. It is the limitation that makes the
mystery
the limitation in greatest part it is which is the failure.
2. Then I would say also this--pain is not an end in itself. That is
the mistake of asceticism. When it is misapprehended it crushes men and does
them harm. Pain is simply a means to an end
and its culmination must be joy if
God is just. Pain is not the end
it is only the beginning
it is the creaking of
the door as it is opened into heaven. We are helping God
do not let us forget
that for a moment
and our consciousness of helping Him begets a harmony here
and now. We are not left unto ourselves all the time. Some of our best service
is done by suffering. But lest I leave you with a morbid impression in your
mind
I would remind you of this
that struggle and discipline and battle and
defeat sometimes do not take interest from life at all
they add zest to it. We
ought to be thankful that God gives us the opportunity of playing the hero
of
being a man; and we feel somehow--although we cannot make it clear in
syllogistic fashion
for there is something higher than logic--day by day
in
the small things as well as in the great things of life
we feel somehow that
the universe is rightly organised
and victory is made possible in Godlike
fashion for the children of God. Now
before I close I want to make you feel
that what I am saying is real--I know it is
but I never could demonstrate
this
and never will be able to do it. When we get down to the deeper good we
find it is always purchased
as the highest Christian experience is and always
has been
by the willing acceptance of the Cross. Let every man say as he
thinks of God’s dealings with him today
“‘He knoweth the way that I take
’ and
mean to take. I cannot see
yet I will be true. He knoweth all the time. He
shall find me pure gold. I will be true to the best He has shown me
I will not
fail my Heavenly Friend. ‘Though He slay me
yet will I trust in Him.’ And He
will not destroy
‘for the Lord is mindful of His own.’“ (R. J. Campbell
M.
A.)
On affliction
1. The best saints have in them a mixture of dross.
2. Trials
and sometimes fiery trials
are necessary to separate the
dross from the gold. God has various methods of trying mankind.
3. The prospect of being benefited and brightened by affliction
reconciles believers to the severest of trials. “Tribulation worketh patience.”
“Patience worketh experience.” “Experience worketh hope.” It may be that we are
so often afflicted
because we have so much dross
that requires the fire
and
many times a fierce fire
to separate it from the metal. (S. Lavington.)
The purification of the mind by troubles and trials
The afflictions of life
though often grievous enough in
themselves
become much more so by that state of doubt and perplexity into
which the mind of the sufferer is brought by them. He is tempted to despair
as
thinking God has forsaken him; or to impiety
as imagining there can be no God
who governs the world in wisdom and righteousness. In such a case
a wrong
notion of human life is at the bottom of those desponding and murmuring
thoughts
which arise in our hearts
on finding ourselves encompassed and
oppressed by a larger share than ordinary of its cares and troubles. We look
not forward as we ought to do. This life is no more than a preparation for
another. There is no need to prove that this life is a state of trial. In
general
we sink under temptation
because we do not sufficiently accustom ourselves
to expect
and are therefore unprepared to encounter it. With this idea--that
the present life is a state of trial--firmly impressed upon our minds
we
should then stand armed for the fight
and by Divine assistance be enabled to
overcome. Of the temptations or trials to which we are subject
some proceed
from without
and others from within. The world endeavours at one time to
seduce
at another to terrify us from the performance of our duty. Another
source of trouble and uneasiness is that produced by the cross tempers
untoward dispositions
and other failings of those about us. Other trials have
their origin from within
from the frame
or constitution either of body or
mind. Either sickness or melancholy. Time would fail to enumerate all the different
temptations that arise in our minds. They are as many and as various as our
different passions and propensities
each of which will
at times
strive for
the mastery
and all of which are to be kept
with a strong and steady hand
in
due subordination and obedience. (J. Horne.)
Saints compared to gold
I. Gold is
generally found buried in the earth
mixed with sand or other material
and
therefore requires to be dug out and separated from those materials. So
Christians have been taken out from the elements of this world. They have been
hewn from nature’s quarry by the hammer of God’s Word and made separate (Ephesians 2:1
etc.).
II. Gold
though
regarded as a pure metal
has yet some dross in it. At the same time
there is
not any metal more free from dross and rust than gold. Christians
though holy
and precious to God
are not without sin; there is some dross of corruption in
the best of them.
III. Gold is refined
in the fire
by which it is rendered pure
solid
and strong. Christians are
put into the fire
or furnace of affliction
to purge and to refine them from
their dross (Zechariah 13:9; 1 Peter 4:12-13; 1 Peter 1:7).
IV. Gold is
precious. It is esteemed the most valuable on earth. Hence things of very great
value are in the Scriptures represented by gold. Christians are a precious
people
the excellent ones in all the earth. God esteems them as His portion.
V. Gold is very
pliant. You may bend and work it as you please. So are Christians. God having
infused His grace into their hearts
they have hearts of flesh; and God
by
putting them into the fire
makes them more resigned and teachable
while
others rebel and repine.
VI. Gold
though it
be frequently put in the furnace
loses nothing but the dross. The fire
purifies it and cannot destroy its precious nature. However fierce and raging
the flames
gold retains its excellency. So the people of God endure the trial.
They are not burned up or consumed in the furnace of affliction
though heated
sevenfold.
VII. Gold is often
formed into vessels for the pleasure
honour
and use of princes. So God forms
His people for most excellent service--vessels of honour to hold the treasure
of the Gospel
to communicate it to others (2 Corinthians 4:7)
and are stewards
of the Gospel.
VIII. To obtain
gold
men endure much fatigue
losses
sacrifices
etc. So Jesus Christ endured
great pain and loss for His people. He laid down His life for them.
IX. Gold is useful.
It is that by which we obtain what is essential for life
etc. So Christians
are useful--in their families
neighbourhood
to the world at large. They seek
the salvation of sinners and the glory of God. The purposes of God
in
reference to the diffusion of His glory in the world
will not be affected
without them. (Homilist.)
Verse 11-12
My foot hath held His steps.
The fair portrait of a saint
Job has
in this part of his self-defence
sketched a fine picture
of a man perfect and upright before God. He has set before us the image to
which we should seek to be conformed.
I. Inspect this
picture of Job’s holy life.
1. Job had been all along a man fearing God
and walking after the
Divine rule. His way was God’s way. He knew no rule but the will of the
Almighty. This is a great point to begin with; it is
indeed
the only sure
basis of a noble character.
2. Consider Job’s first sentence. “My foot hath held His steps.” This
expression sets forth great carefulness. He had watched every step of God to
put his foot in it. He had observed the steps of God’s justice
that he might
be just; the steps of God’s mercy
that he might be pitiful and compassionate;
the steps of God’s bounty
that he might never be guilty of churlishness
or
want of liberality; and the steps of God’s truth
that he might never deceive.
He had watched God’s steps of forgiveness
that he might forgive his
adversaries; and His steps of benevolence
that he might also do good and
communicate
according to his ability
to all that were in need. Job had
laboured to be exact in his obedience towards God
and in his imitation of the
Divine character. There is no holy walking without careful watching. The
expression here has something in it of tenacity; he speaks of taking hold upon
God’s steps. Many Orientals have a power of grasp in their feet which we appear
to have lost from want of use. An Arab in taking a determined stand
actually
seems to grasp the ground with his toes. Dr. Good renders the passage
“In His
steps will I rivet my feet.” So firm was his grip upon that holy way which his
heart had chosen. The way of holiness is often craggy
and Satan tries to make
it very slippery
and unless we can take hold of God’s steps we shall soon slip
with our feet
and bring grievous injury upon ourselves
and dishonour to His
holy name. To make up a holy character
there must be a tenacious adherence to
integrity and piety. Again
to make a holy character
we must take hold of the
steps of God in the sense of promptness and speed. Easterns say of a man who
closely imitates his religious teacher
“his feet have laid hold of his
master’s steps
” meaning that he so closely follows his teacher that he seems to
take hold of his heels. It is a blessed thing
when grace enables us to follow
our Lord closely. You know what came of Peter’s following afar off; try what
will come of close walking with Jesus. Three things
then
we get in the first
sentence--an exactness of obedience; a tenacity of grip upon that which is
good; and a promptness in endeavouring to keep touch with God
and to follow
Him in all respects. Consider the second sentence. “His way have I kept.” Job
had adhered to God’s way as the rule of his life. When he knew that such and
such a thing was the mind of God
either by his conscience telling him that it
was right
or by a Divine revelation
then he obeyed the intimation
and kept
to it. Keeping to the way signifies not simply adherence
but continuance and
progress in it. He had not grown tired of holiness
nor weary of devotion
neither had he grown sick of what men call straitlaced piety. I like a man
whose mind is set upon being right with God. Give me a man who has a backbone.
The third clause is
“And not declined.” He had neither declined from the way
of holiness
nor declined in the way. Some turn from God’s way to the right
hand
by doing more than God’s Word has bidden them do. They invent religious
ceremonies
and vows
and bonds
and become superstitious. Turning to the left
is being lax in observing God’s commandments. He had shunned omission as well
as commission. Job had not begun by running hard
and then got out of breath
and flagged. One more sentence remains. “Neither have I gone back from the
commandment of His lips.” As he had not slackened his pace
so much less had he
turned back. You can turn back
not only from all the commandments
and so
become an utter apostate
but there is such a thing as backing at single
commandments. You know the precept to be right
but you cannot face it; you
look at it
but go back
refusing to obey. Job had never done so. Going back is
dangerous. We have no armour for our back
no protection in retreat. Going back
is ignoble and base.
II. How Job came by
this character. Note Job’s holy sustenance. God spoke to Job. “The words of His
mouth.” What God had spoken to him he treasured up. Job lived on God’s Word. He
esteemed it more than his necessary food. Not more than his dainties only
for
these are superfluities
but more than his necessary food
which a man esteems
very highly. The natural life is more than meat
but our spiritual life feeds
on meat even nobler than itself
for it feeds on the bread of heaven
the
person of the Lord Jesus. Remember
then
that you cannot be holy unless you do
in secret live upon the blessed Word of God
and you will not live on it unless
it comes to you as the Word of His mouth. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 15
When I consider
I am afraid of Him.
God’s displeasure a source of fear
Notwithstanding the general evenness of Job’s temper
and his
quiet submission to Divine providence
there were two things which touched him
more sensibly than all the other circumstances of his afflictions. That God
should seem so much displeased with him
as to single him out as a mark to
shoot at
when he was not conscious to himself of any such impiety to deserve
it
according to the common method of His providence. And that his friends
should call in question his sincerity in religion
and suspect him guilty of
hypocrisy and secret impiety; because they concluded that such signal
calamities could hardly fall upon any man that was not guilty of some such
great crime towards God. The words of the text may be understood--
I. With respect to
Job’s apprehension of God’s displeasure against him. He declares his firm
resolution never to let go his confidence in God
whatever became of him; but
the presence which troubled him was the great appearance of God’s displeasure.
1. What made Job so afraid of God when he considered
seeing he
insists so much on his own integrity? Doth not this seem to lessen the comfort
and satisfaction of a good conscience
when such an one as Job was afraid of
God? We reply that mankind ought always to preserve a humble and awful
apprehension of God in their minds. And that from the sense of the infinite
distance between God and us. Moreover
the best of mankind have guilt enough
upon them to make them apprehend God’s displeasure under great afflictions.
Job’s friends insist much upon this
that God may see just cause to lay great
punishments upon man
although they may not see it in themselves. But God may
not be so displeased with such persons as lie under great afflictions
as they
apprehend Him to be. This was the truth of Job’s case. In the hardest condition
good men can be cast into
they have more comfortable hopes towards God than
other men can have. Two things supported Job under all his dismal
apprehensions. The reflections of a good conscience in the discharge of his
duties to God and man; and the expectation of a future recompense
either in
this world or in another What apprehensions of God may we entertain in our
minds
when even Job was “afraid of Him”? None ought to look upon God as so
terrible
as to make them despair; and men ought to have different
apprehensions of God
according to the nature and continuance of their sins.
II. With respect to
Job’s vindication of himself from the unjust charge of his friends. As though
he were a secret hypocrite
or a contemner of God and religion
under a fair
outward shew of piety and devotion. Job declares the mighty value and esteem he
had for the laws of God; and the fear of God in him came from the most weighty
and serious consideration. Two things are implied--
1. That men’s disesteem of religion doth arise from the want of
consideration; from their looking on religion as a matter of mere interest and
design
without any other foundation: and from the unaccountable folly and
superstitious fears of mankind
which make them think more to be in it than
really is. Although the principles of religion in general are reasonable enough
in themselves
and the things we observe in the world do naturally lead men to
own a deity
yet when they reflect on the strange folly and superstitious fear
of mankind
they are apt still to suspect that men
being puzzled and
confounded
have frighted themselves into the belief of invisible powers
and
performing acts of worship and devotion to them. But this way of reasoning is
just as if a man should argue that there is no such thing as true reason in
mankind
because imagination is a wild
extravagant
unreasonable thing; or
that we never see anything when we are awake
because in our dreams we fancy we
see things which we do not. Application--The more men do consider
the more
they will esteem religion
and apply themselves to the practice of it.
Two things may be commended--
1. To consider impartially what is fit for men to do in religion.
2. To practise so much of religion as upon consideration will appear
fitting to be done. God infinitely deserves from us all the service we can do
Him. And we cannot serve ourselves better than by faithfully serving Him. (E.
Stillingfleet
D. D.)
On the effects of consideration
Job here declares
in language of great sublimity
the
unsearchableness of God. It was not a hasty glance at the character of God
which gave rise to the fear which the patriarch expresses. His fear was the result
of deep meditation
and not of a cursory thought. Deep meditation brought under
review many attributes of the Almighty
and there was much in these attributes
to perplex and discourage. It may have been only the unchangeableness of God
which
engaging the consideration
excited the fears of the patriarch. But we
need not limit to one attribute this effect of consideration. That the fear or
dread of God is the produce of consideration; that it does not therefore spring
from ignorance or want of thought; this is the general truth asserted in the
passage. A superstitious dread of a Supreme Being is to be overcome by
consideration; and a religious dread is to be produced by consideration. The
absence of consideration is the only account that can be given of the absence
of a fear of the Almighty. It is not by any process of thought that the great
mass of our fellow men work themselves into a kind of practical atheism
Man is
answerable for this want of consideration
inasmuch as it is voluntary
and not
unavoidable. The truths of revelation are adapted according to the constitution
of our moral capacity
to rouse within us certain feelings. By fixing our minds
on these truths we may be said to insure the production of the feelings which
naturally correspond to them.
See how the fear of God is produced by considering--
1. What we know of God in His nature. We know how powerful a
restraint is imposed on the most dissolute and profane
by the presence of an
individual who will not countenance them in their impieties. So long as they
are under observation they will not dare to yield to impious desires. There is
nothing so overwhelming to the mind
when giving itself to the contemplation of
a great first cause
as the omnipresence of God. It is not possible that the
least item of my conduct may escape observation. The Legislator Himself is ever
at my side. The more I reflect
the more awful God appears. To break the law in
the sight of the Lawgiver; to brave the sentence in the face of the Judge;
there is a hardihood in this which would seem to overpass the worst human
presumption. It is not the mere feeling that God exercises a supervision over
my actions
which will produce that dread of Him which Job asserts in our text.
The moral character of God vastly aggravates that fear which is produced by His
omnipresence. We suppose God just
and we suppose Him merciful
and it is in
settling the relative claims of these properties that men fancy they find
ground for expecting impunity at the last. However on a hasty glance
and
forming my estimate of benevolence from the pliancy of human sympathies
I may
think that the love of the Almighty will forbid the everlasting misery of His
creatures
let me consider
and the dreamy expectation of a weak and womanish
tenderness will give place to apprehension and dread. The theory that God is
too loving to take vengeance will not bear being considered. The opinion that
the purposes of a moral government may have been answered by the threatening
so as not to need the infliction
will not bear to be considered.
2. The connection between consideration and fear will be yet more
evident
if the works of God engage our attention; His works in nature and in
redemption. There is nothing which
when deeply pondered
is more calculated to
excite fears of God than that marvellous interposition on our behalf which is
the alone basis of legitimate hope. God in redemption shows Himself a holy God
and therefore do I fear Him. (Henry Melvill
B. D.)
Of the fear of God
In this chapter Job gives a noble description of the sense he had
upon his mind of the invisible omnipresence and omniscience of God. To a man of
virtue and integrity
the consideration of this great truth is a solid ground
of real and lasting satisfaction. Take the expression of the text as containing
this general and very important proposition
--that the fear of God is the
result of consideration
attention
and true reason; not of empty imagination
and vain apprehension. By the “fear of God” is understood
not the
superstitious dread of an arbitrary and cruel Being
but that awe and regard
which necessarily arises in the mind of every man who believes and habitually
considers himself as living and acting in the sight of an omnipresent Governor
of perfect justice
holiness
and purity; who sees every thought as well as
every action; who cannot be imposed on by any hypocrisy
who
as certainly as
there is any difference between good and evil
cannot but approve the one and
detest the other; and whose government
as certainly as He has any power at
all
consists in rewarding what He approves
and punishing what He hates. This
fear of God is the foundation of religion. The great support of virtue among
men is the sense upon their minds of a supreme Governor and Judge of the
universe. The ground of this fear is reason and consideration.
1. As to the ground and foundation of religion. That there is an
essential difference between good and evil
man clearly discerns by the natural
and necessary perception of his own mind and conscience. ‘Tis not a man’s
particular timorousness of temper
nor tradition
nor speculation
that makes
him see when he is oppressed or defrauded
that these actions are in their own
nature unrighteous
and the person who is guilty of them worthy of punishment.
Laws do not make virtue to be virtue and vice to be vice
but only enforce or
discourage the practice of such things.
2. As religion and superstition differ entirely in their ground and
foundation
so do they likewise in their effects. “By their fruits ye shall
know them.” Religion makes men inquisitive after truth
lovers of reason
meek
gentle
patient
willing to be informed. Superstition makes men blind and
passionate
despisers of reason
careless in inquiring after truth
hasty
censorious
contentious
and impatient of instruction. Religion teaches men to
be just
equitable
and charitable toward all men. Superstition puts men on
undervaluing the eternal rules of morality. (S. Clarke
D. D.)
Verse 16
God maketh my heart soft
and the Almighty troubleth me.
God the softener of the heart
This is not a Jewish idea. The dispensation of Moses was a
religious state
in which the harder features of the Divine countenance were
brought to light
and by which the severer characteristics of the Divine nature
were developed before the people
rather than their opposites. The ideas with
which the dispensation familiarised their minds were more especially those of
justice
judgment
retribution
and punishment. To speak of the softening of
the heart
and to ascribe
as Job doth
the process and the operations by which
it is softened unto God
must project our thoughts to other days which the
“prophets and kings” have “desired to see
” but
except by faith
“did not see
them.” It directs us to “the days of the Son of Man”; it leads us to think of
the humanity of God
with all its consequent and concurrent tendernesses
towards our own. Hardness of heart or spiritual insensibility is no isolated evil.
It hath a numerous progeny. Hardness of heart
let it take what shape it will
is something to be prayed against. There is a moral ossification of the heart
as well as a physical The Pharisees of our Lord’s day were thus morally
diseased. These hard bones
these intractable sinews of a perverse disposition
and a rebellious will
these “horns of the ungodly
” must be broken
dissolved
ground to powder. Let it not be supposed that this softness of heart can be any
reproach to us
or is in any way derogatory to moral and intellectual
manliness. Our nature cannot be too tender so long as it is not weak. The
sensibility of woman
joined with the intellect of man
would not render us too
sensitive. Piety is softness of heart
tenderness of affection
sensitiveness
of conscience to Godward. But how does God make the heart soft? He doth it by
the influence of His Holy Spirit. This is so obvious as to need no proof. But
the Spirit useth different means
and operateth upon us in a variety of ways
not only through the particular channels which He hath ordained
but in all
manner of ways. Some other methods may be mentioned.
1. God maketh the heart soft by the influence upon us of the natural
world.
2. By His Holy Word. This is an agency whereby the Spirit of God more
peculiarly worketh upon the soul; and the natural objects to which the Word is
compared show how softening its influences are. Dew; showers; small rain; snow;
honey out of a rock; all which similitudes bespeak its tender
melting
mollifying power.
3. By the discipline of life. Trouble is a mighty mollifier of the
heart. Trouble prepareth us for the sympathies of Nature and the consolations
of God’s Word. Next to the Lord Jesus it is humanity’s best friend
and the
more as it is no man’s flatterer. (Alfred Bowen Evans.)
“God maketh my heart soft”
Prosperity is often a curse
adversity is often a blessing.
Observe the advantages of affliction. Confine attention to the softening of the
heart.
1. The Scriptures speak of the hardness of the heart as the cause of
impenitence and unbelief. Suppose that you were offered
on the one hand
temporal prosperity with a stony heart
or temporal prosperity with a new and
softened heart
what would be your choice? If you are in adversity it may be
that God saw prosperity to be dangerous for you. It is the Almighty that
troubleth you. Thank Him for having troubled you. Pray Him to soften your heart
wholly.
2. Since God certainly designs affliction for your profit
have a
care that you do profit by it.
3. How are we to profit by affliction? To this end
we must repent us
truly of our sins past
and resolve
by God’s grace
to abandon them. Our good
resolution must not be impulsive and evanescent
it must be deliberate and
decided
in order that it may be permanent. God has promised to help us
and He
alone can give us the strength to succeed; but He requires a concurrent will.
If you would profit by affliction
you must be “instant in prayer
” and
diligent in the study of God’s Word. Learn
then
to look at affliction in the
true light
and from a Christian point of view. It is designed by God to make
your heart soft. (James Mackay
B. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》