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Job Chapter
Thirteen
Job 13
Chapter Contents
Job reproves his friends. (1-12) He professes his
confidence in God. (13-22) Job entreats to know his sins. (23-28)
Commentary on Job 13:1-12
(Read Job 13:1-12)
With self-preference, Job declared that he needed not to
be taught by them. Those who dispute are tempted to magnify themselves, and
lower their brethren, more than is fit. When dismayed or distressed with the
fear of wrath, the force of temptation, or the weight of affliction, we should
apply to the Physician of our souls, who never rejects any, never prescribes
amiss, and never leaves any case uncured. To Him we may speak at all times. To
broken hearts and wounded consciences, all creatures, without Christ, are
physicians of no value. Job evidently speaks with a very angry spirit against
his friends. They had advanced some truths which nearly concerned Job, but the
heart unhumbled before God, never meekly receives the reproofs of men.
Commentary on Job 13:13-22
(Read Job 13:13-22)
Job resolved to cleave to the testimony his own
conscience gave of his uprightness. He depended upon God for justification and
salvation, the two great things we hope for through Christ. Temporal salvation
he little expected, but of his eternal salvation he was very confident; that
God would not only be his Saviour to make him happy, but his salvation, in the
sight and enjoyment of whom he should be happy. He knew himself not to be a
hypocrite, and concluded that he should not be rejected. We should be well
pleased with God as a Friend, even when he seems against us as an enemy. We
must believe that all shall work for good to us, even when all seems to make
against us. We must cleave to God, yea, though we cannot for the present find
comfort in him. In a dying hour, we must derive from him living comforts; and
this is to trust in him, though he slay us.
Commentary on Job 13:23-28
(Read Job 13:23-28)
Job begs to have his sins discovered to him. A true
penitent is willing to know the worst of himself; and we should all desire to
know what our transgressions are, that we may confess them, and guard against
them for the future. Job complains sorrowfully of God's severe dealings with
him. Time does not wear out the guilt of sin. When God writes bitter things
against us, his design is to make us bring forgotten sins to mind, and so to
bring us to repent of them, as to break us off from them. Let young persons
beware of indulging in sin. Even in this world they may so possess the sins of
their youth, as to have months of sorrow for moments of pleasure. Their wisdom
is to remember their Creator in their early days, that they may have assured
hope, and sweet peace of conscience, as the solace of their declining years.
Job also complains that his present mistakes are strictly noticed. So far from
this, God deals not with us according to our deserts. This was the language of
Job's melancholy views. If God marks our steps, and narrowly examines our paths,
in judgment, both body and soul feel his righteous vengeance. This will be the
awful case of unbelievers, yet there is salvation devised, provided, and made
known in Christ.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Job》
Job 13
Verse 1
[1] Lo,
mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.
Lo — All this which either
you or I have discoursed concerning the infinite power and wisdom of God. I
know, both by seeing it, by my own observation and experience, and by hearing
it from my ancestors.
Verse 3
[3] Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.
Surely — I
had rather debate the matter with God than with you. I am not afraid of presenting
my person and cause before him, who is a witness of my integrity.
Verse 8
[8] Will
ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?
Accept —
Not judging according to the right of the cause, but the quality or the person.
Verse 12
[12] Your
remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
Remembrance —
Mouldering and coming to nothing. And the consideration of our mortality should
make us afraid of offending God. Your mementos are like unto ashes,
contemptible and unprofitable.
Verse 14
[14] Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?
Wherefore —
And this may be a reason of his desire of liberty of speech, because he could
hold his tongue no longer, but must needs tear himself to pieces, if he had not
some vent for his grief. The phrase having his life in his hand, denotes a
condition extremely dangerous.
Verse 17
[17] Hear
diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears.
Hear — He
now comes more closely to his business, the foregoing verses being mostly in
way of preface.
Verse 18
[18]
Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.
Behold — I
have seriously considered the state of my case, and am ready to plead my cause.
Verse 19
[19] Who
is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up
the ghost.
The ghost — My
grief would break my heart, if I should not give it vent.
Verse 21
[21]
Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.
Withdraw —
Suspend my torments during the time of my pleading with thee, that my mind may
be at liberty. Do not present thyself to me in terrible majesty, neither deal
with me in rigorous justice.
Verse 22
[22] Then
call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.
Then —
This proposal savoured of self-confidence, and of irreverence towards God; for
which, and the like speeches, he is reproved by God, chap. 38:2,3 40:2.
Verse 23
[23] How
many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.
My sin —
That I am a sinner, I confess; but not that I am guilty of such crimes as my
friends suppose, if it be so, do thou, O Lord, discover it.
Verse 25
[25] Wilt
thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?
Leaf —
One that can no more resist thy power, than a leaf, or a little dry straw can
resist the wind or fire.
Verse 26
[26] For
thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities
of my youth.
Writest —
Thou appointest or inflictest. A metaphor from princes or judges, who anciently
used to write their sentences.
Verse 28
[28] And
he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.
He — He speaks of himself
in the third person, as is usual in this and other sacred books. So the sense
is, he, this poor frail creature, this body of mine; which possibly he pointed
at with his finger, consumeth or pineth away.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Job》
13 Chapter 13
Verses 1-28
Verse 3-4
Surely I would speak to the Almighty.
Man speaking to God
There is a great deal of human speaking that has to do with God.
Most speak about God, many speak against God, and some speak to God. Of these
there are two classes--Those who occasionally speak to Him under the pressure
of trial; those who regularly speak to Him as the rule of their life. These
last are the true Christ-like men.
I. Speaking to God
shows the highest practical recognition of the Divine presence. It indicates--
1. A heart belief in the fact of the Divine existence.
2. A heart belief in the personality of the Divine existence. What
rational soul would speak to a vain impersonality? Man may justly infer the
personality of God from his own personality.
3. A heart belief in the nearness of the Divine existence. It feels
that He is present.
4. A heart belief in the impressibility of the Divine existence. It
has no question about the Divine susceptibility.
II. Speaking to God
shows the truest relief of our social nature. Social relief consists
principally in the free and full communication to others of all the thoughts
and emotions that must affect the heart. Before a man will fully unbosom his
soul to another, he must be certified of three things--
1. That the other feels the deepest interest in him. Who has such an
interest in us as God?
2. That the other will make full allowance for the infirmities of his
nature. Who is so acquainted with our infirmities as God?
3. That the other will be disposed and able to assist in our trials.
Who can question the willingness and capability of God?
III. Speaking to God
shows the most effective method of spiritual discipline.
1. The effort of speaking to God is most quickening to the soul.
2. The effort of speaking to God is most humbling to a soul.
3. The effort of speaking to God is most spiritualising to the soul.
It breaks the spell of the world upon us; it frees us from secular
associations; it detaches us from earth; and it makes us feel that there is
nothing real but spirit, nothing great but God, and nothing worthy of man but
assimilation to and fellowship with the Infinite.
IV. Speaking to God
shows the highest honour of a created spirit. The act implies a great capacity.
What can show the greatness of the human soul so much as this exalted
communion? (Homilist.)
But ye are forgers of
lies.--
Lies easily forged
Lying is so easy that it is within the capacity of everyone. It is
proverbially easy. “It is as easy as lying,” says Hamlet, when speaking of
something not difficult. You can do it as you work or as you walk. You can do
it as you sit in your easy chair. You can do it without any help, even in
extreme debility. You lie, and it does not blister your tongue or give you a
headache. It is not attended with any wear and tear of constitution. It does
not throw you into a consumption--not even into a perspiration. It is the
cheapest of sins. It requires no outlay of money to gratify this propensity.
There is no tax to pay. The poorest can afford it, and the rich do not despise
it because it is cheap. Neither does it cost any expenditure of time. After the
hesitancy of the first few lies you can make them with the greatest ease. You
soon get to extemporise them without the trouble of forethought. The facilities
for committing this sin are greater than for any other. You may indulge in it
anywhere. You cannot very well steal on a common, or swear in a drawing room,
or get drunk in a workhouse; but in what place or at what time can you not lie?
You have to sneak, and skulk, and look over your shoulders, and peep, and
listen, before you can commit many sins; but this can be practised in open day,
and in the market place. You can look a man in the face and do it. You can rub
your hands and smile and be very pleasant whilst doing it. (J. Teasdale.)
Verse 7
Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for Him?
Special religious pleaders
Job finds them guilty of speaking falsely as special pleaders for
God, in two respects. They insist that he has offended God, but they cannot
point to one sin which he has committed. On the other hand, they affirm
positively that God will restore prosperity if confession is made. But in this,
too, they play the part of advocates without warrant. They show great
presumption in daring to pledge the Almighty to a course in accordance with
their idea of justice. The issue might be what they predict; it might not. They
are venturing on ground to which their knowledge does not extend. They think
their presumption justified because it is for religion’s sake. Job administers
a sound rebuke, and it extends to our own time. Special pleaders for God’s
sovereignty and unconditional right, and for His illimitable good nature, alike
have warning here. What justification have men in affirming that God will work
out His problems in detail according to their views? He has given to us the
power to apprehend the great principles of His working. There are certainties
of our consciousness, facts of the world and of revelation, from which we can
argue. Where these confirm we may dogmatise, and the dogma will strike home.
But no piety, no desire to vindicate the Almighty, or to convict and convert
the sinner, can justify any man in passing beyond the certainty which God has
given him to that unknown which lies far above human ken. (R. A. Watson, D.
D.)
Verse 15
Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him
A misinterpreted verse, and a misapprehended God
How often have these words been the vehicle of a sublime faith in
the hour of supreme crisis! It is always matter of regret when one has to take
away a cherished treasure from believing hearts.
Now this verse, properly translated and rightly understood, means something
quite different from what it has ordinarily been considered to mean. You will
find in the Revised Version a rendering differing from the accepted
one--“Though He slay me, yet will I wait for Him,” it reads. So that instead of
being the utterance of a resigned soul, submissively accepting chastisement, it
is rather the utterance of a soul that, conscious of its own integrity, is
prepared to face the worst that Providence can inflict, and resolved to
vindicate itself against any suggestion of ill desert.” Behold, He will slay
me. Let Him. Let Him do His worst. I wait for Him in the calm assurance of the
purity of my motives and the probity of my life. I await His next stroke. I
know that I have done nothing to deserve this punishment, and am prepared to
maintain my innocence to His face. I will accept the blow, because I can do no
other, but I will assert my blamelessness.” It is a lesson, not in the blind
submissiveness of a perfect trust, but in the unconquerable boldness of
conscious rectitude. There is nothing cringing or abject in this language. And
this is in harmony with the whole tenor of the context, which is in a strain of
self-vindication throughout. But, in order to understand the real sentiment
underlying this exclamation, we must have a correct conception of the theory of
the Divine action in the world common to that age. Job is thinking of Jehovah
as the men of his time thought of Him, as the God who punished evil in this
world, and whose chastisements were universally regarded as the evidence of
moral transgression on the part of the sufferer. It is a false theory of
Providence and of Divine judgment against which the patriarch so vehemently
protests. He has the sense of punishment without the consciousness of
transgression, and this creates his difficulty. “If my sufferings are to be
regarded as punishment, I demand to know wherein I have transgressed.” It is
the attitude of a man who writhes under the stigma of false accusation, and who
is prepared to vindicate his reputation before any tribunal. The struggle
represented for us with so much dramatic power and vividness in this poem is
Job’s struggle for reconciliation between the God of the theologians of his day
and the God of his own heart. And is not this a modem as well as an ancient
struggle? Does not our heart often rise within us to resent and repel the
representations of Deity that the current theology gives? Job had to answer to
himself, Which of these two Gods is the true one? If the God of the theological
imagination Were the true God, he was prepared to hold his own before Him. This
Divine despot, as the stronger, might visit him with His castigations, but in
his conscious integrity, Job would not blench. “Behold, He will slay me; I will
wait for Him. I will maintain my cause before Him.” Now, is this a right or a
wrong attitude in presence of the Eternal Righteousness? Is there blasphemy in
a man’s maintaining his conscious innocence before God? As there was a
conventional God in Job’s day, a God who was a figment of the human fancy,
dressed up in the judicial terrors of an oriental despot, so is there a
conventional God in our own day, the God of Calvinistic theologians, in whose
presence men are taught that nothing becomes them but servile submission and
abject self-vilification. But is that view compatible, after all, with what the
Scripture tells us, that man is created in the very image, breathing the very
breath of God? We have been taught to imagine that we are honouring God when we
try to make ourselves out as bad as bad can be. What are the strange phenomena
produced by this conventional conception? Why, that you will hear holy men in
prayer, men of inflexible rectitude and spotless character, describing
themselves to God in terms that would libel a libertine. This was Bildad’s
theology. By a strange logic he fancied he was glorifying God by disparaging
God’s handiwork. He declares (Job 25:5) that the very stars are not
pure in God’s sight though God made them, and then falls into what I may call
the vermicular strain of self-depreciation. “How much less man, that is a worm
and the son of man who is a worm?” We have to judge theologies by our own
innate sense of right and justice; and any theology which requires us to defame
ourselves, and say of ourselves evil things not endorsed by our own healthy
consciousness, is a degrading theology, one dishonouring alike to man and to
God his Maker. Job’s inward sense of substantial rectitude, both in intention
and in conduct, revolted against this God of his contemporaries who was always
requiring him to put himself in the wrong whether he felt so or not. And Job
obeyed a true instinct in taking up that attitude. God does not want us to tell
Him lies about ourselves in our prayers and hymns. But I will venture to say
that any attitude that is not truly manly is not truly Christian or religious.
“Stand upon thy feet,” said the angel to the seer. The fact is, the conscience
of good or evil is the God within us, and supreme. What my conscience convicts
me of, let me confess to; but let me confess nothing wherein my conscience does
not condemn me, out of deference to an artificial deity. Let us dare to follow
our own thoughts of God, interpreting His relation and providence towards us
through our own best instincts and aspirations. This is what Jesus taught us to
do. He revealed and exemplified a manly and man making faith, as far removed as
possible from that slavish spirit which is so characteristic of much pietistic
teaching. Christ said, Find the best in yourselves and take that for the
reflection of God. Reason from that up to God, He says. “How much more shall
your heavenly Father!” Bildad and the theologians of his school transferred to
their conception of Deity all their own pettinesses and foibles, and
consequently conceived of Him as a being greedy of the adulation of His
creatures, jealous of a monopoly of their homage. One who could not bear that
anybody should be praised but Himself, and who was pleased when they unmanned
themselves and wriggled like worms at His feet. To think thus of God is at once
to degrade Him and ourselves. Let us not be afraid of our own better thoughts
of God, assured that He must be better than even our best thoughts. I say Job
was the victim of a false theology. When he was left to his own healthier
instincts he took another tone. In the early chapters of this book he is represented
to us as one of the sublimest heroes of faith. Under a succession of the most
appalling and overwhelming calamities that stripped him of possessions and
bereaved him of almost all that he loved in the world, he rises to that supreme
resignation to the Divine will which found expression in perhaps the noblest
utterance that ever broke from a crushed heart, “The Lord gave, the Lord hath
taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” It is difficult to believe that
it is the same man who rose to this sublime degree of submission who now adopts
the semi-defiant tone of the words of my text--“Behold, He will slay me. I will
wait for Him; I will maintain my cause before Him.” The fact is that while it
is the same mane it is not the same God. The God of the earlier chapters is the
God of his own unsophisticated heart. In Him he could trust as doing “all
things well.” But the God of this later part of the story is the God of
perverse human invention; not the Creator of all things, but one created by the
imaginations of men who fashioned an enlarged image of themselves and called
that “God.” Job would not have wronged God if he had not had the wrong God
presented to him. It was his would be monitors who had thought that God “was
altogether such an one as themselves,” who were guilty of this crime. And
again, had Job himself been a Christian, had he possessed the ethical sense,
and judged himself by the ethical standards that the teaching of Jesus created,
he would not have adopted this attitude of proud self-vindication. For then,
though his outward life might have been exemplary, and his social obligations
scrupulously fulfilled, he would have understood that righteousness is a matter
of the thoughts and motives, as well as of the outward behaviour. Judging himself
by the moral standards of his time, he felt himself immaculate. It is pleasant
to know from the last chapter, that before the drama closes Job comes to truer
thoughts of God and a more spiritual knowledge of himself. He perceives that
his heart, in its blind revolt, has been fighting a travesty of God and not the
real God. Then, so soon as he sees God as He is, and himself as he is, his tone
changes again. She accent of revolt is exchanged for that of adoring
recognition, and the note of defiance sinks into a strain of penitential
confession. “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (J.
Halsey.)
A trustful resolution
Such was the determinate resolution of the venerable and pious
Job. In the history of this good man three things are evident.
1. That all things are under the Divine control.
2. Piety and integrity do not exempt from trials.
3. All things eventually work together for good to them that love
God.
I. The situation
in which Job was placed.
1. A great change had taken place in his worldly concerns. The day of
adversity had come upon him.
2. But still Job’s case was not yet hopeless nor comfortless. There
was still the same kind Providence which could bless his future life. There
were his children. News comes that they are all killed.
3. Where now shall we look for any comfort for Job? Well, he has his
health. But now this is taken away.
4. There was one person from whom Job might expect comfort and
sympathy--his wife. Yet the most trying temptation Job ever had came from his
wife.
5. Still Job had many friends. But those who came to help him proved
“miserable comforters.” Every earthly prop had given way.
II. Job’s
determination.
1. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
2. Job might confidently trust in the Lord, because he had not
brought his sufferings upon himself by his own neglect or imprudence.
3. Job’s trust or faith was of the right kind. Trust in God implies
that the depending person has an experimental knowledge of His power, wisdom,
and goodness. Trust in God includes prayer, patience, and a reconciliation to
the Divine will. Remarks--
1. What a wonderful example of patience and resignation we have in
Job.
2. What decision of character and manly firmness are exemplified in
the conduct of this good man.
3. How well it was for Job that he trusted and patiently waited to
see the salvation of God. (B. Bailey.)
Perfect trust in extreme trial
To most persons there is some affliction which they account the
extreme of trouble. The estimate of “particular troubles changes, however, with
circumstances.
I. Job’s meaning.
Trust in God is built on acquaintance with God. It is an intelligent act or
habit of the soul. It is a fruit of religious knowledge. It is begotten of
belief in the representations which are given of God, and of faith in the
promises of God. It is a fruit of reconciliation with God. It involves, in the
degree of its power and life, the quiet assurance that God will be all that He
promises to be, and will do all that He engages to do; and that, in giving and
withholding, He will do that which is perfectly kind and right. The development
of trust in God depends entirely upon circumstances. In danger, it appears as
courage and quietness from fear; in difficulties, as resolution and as power of
will; in sorrow, as submission; in labour, as continuance and perseverance; and
in extremity, it shows itself as calmness.
II. Is Job’s strong
confidence justifiable? We may not think all Job thought, or speak always as
Job spoke; yet we may safely copy this patient man.
1. God does not afflict willingly.
2. God has not exhausted Himself by any former deliverance.
3. In all that affects His saints, God takes a living and loving
interest.
4. Circumstances can never become mysterious, or complicated, or
unmanageable to God. We must in our thoughts attach mysteriousness only to our
impressions: we must not transfer it to God.
5. God has in time past slain His saints, and yet delivered them.
III. The example Job
exhibits. Job teaches us that it is well sometimes to imagine the heaviest possible
affliction happening to us. This is distinct from the habitual imagination of
evil, which we should avoid, and which we deprecate. Job teaches as that the
perfect work of patience is the working of patience to the uttermost--that is,
down to the lowest depths of depression, and up to the highest pitch of
anguish. He teaches that the extreme of trial should call forth the perfection
of trust. Our principles are most wanted in extremity. Job shows that the
spirit of trust is the spirit of endurance. We may also learn that to arm
ourselves against trial, we must increase our confidence. True trust respects
all events, and all Divine dispensations. All--not a particular class, but the
whole. All that happens to us is part of God’s grand design and of God’s great
plan respecting us: Let me commend to you Job’s style of speech. To say,
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” will involve an effort, but there
is no active manifestation of true godliness without exertion. Even faith is a
fight. It is one of the simplest things in spiritual life to trust, but often
that which involves a desperate struggle. Ignorance of God’s intentions may
sometimes say to us, “distrust Him”; and unbelief may suggest, “distrust Him”;
and fear may whisper, “distrust Him”; but, in spite of all your foes, say to
yourself, “I will trust Him.” The day will come when such confidence in God, as
that which you are now required to exercise, will no longer be needed. In that
day God will do nothing painful to you. He will not move in a mysterious way,
even to you, and you will chiefly be possessed by a spirit of love; but until
that day dawns, God asks you to trust Him. (Samuel Martin.)
Absolute faith
Faith, like all Christian graces, is a thing of growth, and
therefore capable of degree.
I. Faith is direct
knowledge. It is a kind of intuition.
1. It does not depend, like scientific knowledge, on the testimony of
the senses.
2. It does not rest, like judicial decisions, on the truthfulness of
witnesses, and the consistency of evidence.
3. It is not founded, like mathematical convictions, on logical
demonstration.
4. Intellect combines these together to reveal the soul to itself.
5. Faith thus perceives the wants of the soul, and the fitness of
revealed truth to satisfy them.
II. Faith acts on a
person. Its object is God--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
1. A person is more complex than any proposition, and offers to the
soul an immense number of points of contact. It is an undeveloped universe.
2. A person is a profounder reality than a doctrine. Character is
more steadfast than a theory.
3. God is the universe, and can sympathise with every soul. God in
Christ is a universe of mercy to the sinner.
III. It concerns the
weightiest destinies of the soul and is attested by conscience.
1. It does not tolerate indifference.
2. It arouses the faculties to their utmost.
3. It comes in contact with revealed holiness. The soul cannot rest
in evil. It requires truth and justice.
Without these it is a lever without a fulcrum.
1. Faith gives rest without indifference.
2. It provides happiness without delusion. (J. Peters.)
Faith’s ultimatum
This is one of the supreme sayings of Scripture. It rises, like an
Alpine summit, clear above all ordinary heights of speech, it pierces the
clouds, and glistens in the light of God. If I were required to quote a
selection of the sublimest utterances of the human mind, I should mention this
among the first, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Methinks I might
almost say to the man who thus spoke what our Lord said to Simon Peter when he
had declared Him to be the Son of the Highest, “Flesh and blood hath not
revealed this unto thee.” Such tenacious holding, such immovable confidence,
such unstaggering reliance, are not products of mere nature, but rare flowers of
rich almighty grace. It is well worthy of observation that in these words Job
answered both the accusations of Satan and the charges of his friends. Though I
do not know that Job was aware that the devil had said, “Doth Job fear God for
nought? Hast Thou not set a hedge about him and all that he hath?” yet he
answered that base suggestion in the ablest possible manner, for he did in
effect say, “Though God should pull down my hedge, and lay me bare as the
wilderness itself, yet will I cling to Him in firmest faith.” The arch-fiend
had also dared to say that Job had held out under his first trials because they
were not sufficiently personal. “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath, will
he give for his life. But put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his
flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.” In the brave words before us Job
most effectually silences that slander by, in effect, saying, “Though my trial
be no longer the slaying of my children, but of myself, yet will I trust in
Him.” He thus in one sentence replies to the two slanders of Satan; thus
unconsciously doth truth overthrow her enemies, defeating the secret malice of
falsehood by the simplicity of sincerity. Job’s friends also had insinuated
that he was a hypocrite. They inquired of him, “Who ever perished, being
innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?” They thought themselves quite
safe in inferring that Job must have been a deceiver, or he would not have been
so specially punished. To this accusation Job’s grand declaration of his
unstaggering faith was the best answer possible, for none but a sincere soul
could thus speak. Will a hypocrite trust in God when He slays him? Will a
deceiver cling to God when He is smiting him? Assuredly not. Thus were the
three miserable comforters answered if they had been wise enough to see it. Our
text exhibits a child of God under the severest pressure, and shows us the
difference between him and a man of the world. A man of the world under the
same conditions as Job would have been driven to despair, and in that
desperation would have become morosely sullen, or defiantly rebellious! Here
you see what in a child of God takes the place of desperation. When others
despair, he trusts in God. When he has nowhere else to look, he turns to his
Heavenly Father; and when for a time, even in looking to God, he meets with no
conscious comfort, he waits in the patience of hope, calmly expecting aid, and
resolving that even if it did not come he will cling to God with all the energy
of his soul. Here all the man’s courage comes to the front, not, as in the case
of the ungodly, obstinately to rebel, but bravely to confide. The child of God
is courageous, for he knows how to trust. His heart says, “Ay, Lord, it is bad
with me now, and it is growing worse, but should the worst come to the worst,
still will I cling to Thee, and never let Thee go.” In what better way can the
believer reveal his loyalty to his Lord? He evidently follows his Master, not
in fair weather only, but in the foulest and roughest ways. He loves his Lord,
not only when He smiles upon him, but when He frowns. His love is not purchased
by the largesses of his Lord’s golden hand, for it is not destroyed by the
smitings of His heavy rod. Though my Lord put on His sternest looks, though
from fierce looks He should go to cutting words, and though from terrible words
He should proceed to cruel blows, which seem to beat the very life out of my
soul, yea, though He take down the sword and threaten to execute me therewith,
yet is my heart steadfastly set upon one resolve, namely, to bear witness that
He is infinitely good and just. I have not a word to say against Him, nor a
thought to think against Him, much less would I wander from Him; but still,
though He slay me, I would trust in Him. What is my text but an Old Testament
version of the New Testament, “Quis separabit”--Who shall separate? Job does
but anticipate Paul’s question. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
shall tribulation,” etc. Was not the same spirit in both Job and Paul? Is He
also in us? If so, we are men indeed, and our speech is with power, and to us
this declaration is no idle boast, no foolish bravado, though it would be
ridiculous, indeed, if there were not a gracious heart behind it to make it
good. It is the conquering shout of an all-surrendering faith, which gives up
all but God. I want that we may all have its spirit this morning, that whether
we suffer Job’s trial or not we may at any rate have Job’s close adherence to
the Lord, his faithful confidence in the Most High. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Peace and joy and chastisement
This sentiment is founded on the belief that God is our
sole strength and refuge; that if good is in any way in store for us, it lies
with God; if it is attainable, it is attained by coming to God. Inquirers
seeking the truth, prodigals repentant, saints rejoicing in the light, saints
walking in darkness--all of them have one word on their lips, one creed in
their hearts. “Trust ye in the Lord forever.” There is another case, in which
it is equally our wisdom and duty to stay ourselves upon God; that of our being
actually under punishment for our sins. Men may be conscious that they have
incurred God’s displeasure, and conscious that they are suffering it; and then
their duty is still to trust in God, to acquiesce, or rather to concur in His
chastisements. Scripture affords us some remarkable instances of persons
glorifying, or called on to glorify God when under His hand. See Joshua’s
exhortation to Achan. The address of Jonah to God from the fish’s belly. It
should not be difficult to realise the state of mind described in the text, and
yet some find difficulty in conceiving how Christians can have hope without
certainty, sorrow and pain without gloom, suspense with calmness and
confidence. I proceed then to describe this state of mind. Suppose a good man,
who is conscious of some deliberate sin or sins in time past, some course of
sin, or in later life has detected himself in some secret and subtle sin, what
will be his state when the conviction of his sin, whatever it is, breaks upon
him? Will he think himself utterly out of God’s favour? He will not despair.
Will he take up the notion that God has forgiven him? He has two feelings at
once--one of present enjoyment, and another of undefined apprehension, and on
looking on to the day of judgment, hope and fear both rise within him. (J.
H. Newman, B. D.)
Trustfulness
Job endured, as seeing Him who is invisible; he had that faith
which has realised to itself the conviction that, somehow or other, all things
are working together for good to them that love God, and which calmly submits
itself without anxiety to whatever God sees fit to lay upon it. Faith
comprehends trustfulness. It is the larger term of the two. None of us can have
lived any length of time in the world without having, as part of our appointed
trial, been visited with pain and sickness, with the loss of friends, and with
more or less of temporal misfortune. How these chastisements have been borne by
us, has depended upon how far we have taught ourselves to look upon them as a
precious legacy from Christ our Saviour, as a portion of His Cross, as a token
of His love. Looking back upon what, at the time, you considered the great
misfortunes of your life, can you not now see the gracious designs with which
they were sent? In this is there not a powerful argument in favour of
trustfulness, and a most satisfactory evidence that “in quietness and
confidence” will be our strength? In proportion as we have the Spirit of
Christ, will be our desire to be made like unto Him in all things; and this
resemblance can never be attained without a following of Him in the path of
suffering, and a submission and trustfulness like His as we pass along it.
There is, however, the danger of our endeavouring, by any movement of
impatience, to lighten the burden which our Heavenly Father has laid on us; of
taking matters, as it were, into our own hands, and so thwarting or making of
none effect the merciful designs of providence towards us. We must take care
that our passiveness and silence are the result of Christian principles. There
is a silence which arises from sullenness, and a passiveness which comes from
apathy or despair. Trials are sent us in order that when we feel their
acuteness, we may raise our thoughts to Him who alone can lighten them, and
bless them to us. We ought to feel that it is sin to doubt the gracious
purposes of God towards us, or to receive them in any other than a thankful
spirit. How mercifully we are dealt with we shall be the more ready to acknowledge,
the more we reflect upon the manner of God’s visitations towards us. But it is
not in personal and domestic trials only that this spirit of trustfulness will
be our safeguard and support. In all those perplexities which arise from our
own position in the Church, and the Church’s position in the world, and which
would otherwise bewilder us, our trustfulness will come to our refuge. And
there never was greater need of a trustful spirit among Churchmen than at the
present time. (P. E. Paget, M. A.)
Fortitude under trial
Trust in God is one of the easiest of all things to express, and
one of the hardest to practise. There is no grace more necessary, and when
attained there is no grace more blessed and comforting. But if blessed when
attained, it is difficult of attainment. It is no spontaneous growth of the
natural mind, but implies a work of grace which the Holy Ghost can alone
accomplish. It requires a deep realisation of the Divine presence, of the
Divine wisdom, and of the Divine love. On our side there must be an active
effort, and an utter renunciation of all trust on that effort, that simple
looking out of ourselves which it is indeed most difficult to reconcile with
the active instincts of the mind.
I. It is amid
sorrow and trial that trust can alone be exercised. No time here on earth is
free from temptation and danger, and therefore no time here on earth can we
cease to rely upon God. The very meaning of trust implies doubt within and
danger without, the man who trusts, if we already knew everything, where would
be faith? If we already possessed everything, where would be hope?
II. This sure
confidence is not the attribute of any trust which we may place in any object.
It is, indeed, the nature of trust to operate in times of difficulty; but yet
the success with which it can do this depends ever upon the nature of that
which is trusted--the foundation on which the house of trust is built. There
are two arguments which single out God as the alone object of our trust. There
meet in God all the attributes which deserve confidence. And they do not meet
in any other; they are not to be found, even singly, in any other.
III. Our trials
ought to make our confidence more deep and constant. Has He not warned us
beforehand of their existence? He has explained the very cause and reason why
they are permitted--reasons to which the conscience and the experience of every
believer will most deeply assent. Then let us pray for grace to hold fast our
hope steadfast unto the end. (Edward Garbett, M. A.)
Joy out of suffering
The joy of the world ends in sorrow; sorrow with Christ and in
Christ, yea, and for our sins, for Christ’s sake, ends in joy. We have many of
us felt how the world’s joy ends in sorrow. We must not, would not, choose our
suffering. “Any pang but this,” is too often the wounded spirit’s cry; “any
trouble but this.” And its cry may bear witness to itself, that its merciful
Physician knows well where its disease lies, how it is to be probed to the
quick, how to be healthfully healed. Job refutes Satan’s lie. “Though He slay
me, yet will I trust in Him.” He holds not back his very, self. He gives up
freely all which he is--his very
I. “Though He slay
me.” Oh, glorious faith of older saints, and hope of the resurrection, and love
stronger than death, and blessed bareness of the soul, which for God would part
with all but God, knowing that in God it will find all! yea, which would give
its very self, trusting Him who took itself from itself, that it should find
again (as all the redeemed will find) itself a better self in God. Till we
attain, by His mercy, to Himself, and death itself is past, there is often
need, amid the many manifold forms of death, wherewith we are encompassed, for
that holy steadfastness of the patriarch’s trust. The first trials by which God
would win us back to Himself are often not the severest. These outward griefs
are often but the “beginning of sorrows.” Deeper and more difficult far are
those sorrows wherewith God afflicts the very soul herself. A bitter thing
indeed it is to have to turn to God with a cold, decayed heart; “an evil thing
and bitter” to have destroyed ourselves. Merciful and very good are all the
scourges of the All. Good and All-Merciful. The deeper, the more merciful; the
more inward, the more cleansing. The more they enter into the very soul, the
more they open it for the healing presence of God. The less self lives, the
more Christ liveth in it. Manifold are these clouds whereby God hides, for the
time, the brightness of His presence, and He seemeth, as it were, to threaten
again to bring a destroying flood over our earthliness. Yet one character they
have in common, that the soul can hardly believe itself in a state of grace.
Hard indeed is it for hope to live when faith seems dead, and love grown cold.
Faint not, thou weary soul, but trust! If thou canst not hope, act as thou
wouldst if thou didst hope. If thou canst see nothing before thee but hell,
shut thine eyes and cast thyself blindly into the infinite abyss of God’s
mercy. And the everlasting arms will, though thou know it not, receive thee and
upbear thee. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Trusting God
I never have delivered a discourse on trust in God but that
someone has thanked me for it. Confidence in Him is a constant necessity, but
there are always some in special need. To fail of this possession is like a
captain’s putting to sea without fresh water, or like a mother who should think
of sending a son to college without a Bible in his trunk. There are sudden
surprises in life, when trouble comes like a cyclone. All we can do is to coil
the rope about the belaying pin and wait. Fair-weather faith is abundant, cheap
and worthless. It is easy to trust God when the larder is full and the
dividends large. Indeed, there is then danger of self-content and self-conceit.
But we want a faith that will hold in the teeth of the tempest. The disciples
did not doubt Christ’s power when peace rested on the lake, but when the storm
came they cried to Him, “Master, save! we perish!” That courage is worthless
which blusters in the tent and retreats at the cannon’s mouth. That amiability
which is seen where there is no provocation, or that temperance which is
maintained where no temptations assail, is of little merit. The trust spoken of
in the text is a childlike faith. We can learn much from the trustfulness of a
child. It feels its weakness, and puts confidence in the parent. If he betray
it, he destroys the child’s confidence. Absence of faith in God is infidelity.
Unbelief is dry rot to the character. A little child is not anxious as to
whether there will be food for the table, or a pillow for its tired head; he
leaves it all to his parent. Much of the worry which nowadays results in
softening of the brain and paralysis, is only borrowed trouble. Why take
thought for the morrow? Our fears strangle our faith. The soul is nightmared.
We grow choleric, and complain of God’s treatment of us. We forget what is left
to us. Some of you have camped out this summer, and learned how much you have
at home is not absolutely needful. I said to a noble Christian merchant, who,
by no fault of his, had suddenly become bankrupt, “Your decks have been swept
clean by the gale, but did it touch anything in the hold?” The thought, he
said, was a comfort to him. I was in a home of sorrow today, where the grief
was peculiarly tender and sore, but there was the hope of heaven when the
beloved went home. God sometimes strips us that we may be freer to run the race
to heaven. The nobleness of this trust is to feel that Christ is left, though
superfluous things are taken. The Bible is left, the Holy Spirit and heaven
remain. No loss is comparable to the loss of Christ from the soul, yet men do
not hang crape on the door, or even have a sleepless night at that loss. But
anxiety for this is wholesome. To be forced to say with the poet--
“A
believing heart has gone from me,”
is worse than to have a house burned, or a child die. Again, the
childlike faith shown in the text is perfectly unsuspecting. See that beggar’s
babe clinging to the mother’s rags that hardly cover it. Why should we, when in
darkened paths, hesitate to trust our Heavenly Parent implicitly? He has
pledged us all things, and doubt is an insult to Him. I stood on the heights of
Abraham a few weeks ago, and recalled the victory of Wolfe, with thrilling emotion,
but did not forget those steps, one by one, through dark, narrow, and
precipitous paths, that led that gallant general to victory. You have your
heights of Abraham to scale ere triumph crowns you. Each one has his trials.
There is a skeleton in each closet, a crook in each lot. Character grows under
these stages of discipline. Trust Him day by day. Live, as it were, from hand
to mouth. Do present duty with present ability. Trust in God for victory, and
be content with one step at a time. (Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D.)
Unconditional trust in God
The measure of our being is the measure of our strength. He only
is really strong who is strong in the Lord. He only who is strong in the Lord
rises superior to circumstances. He whose soul is in his circumstances is weak
in exact proportion as his heart is set upon surroundings. He who gives himself
to the world gets nothing to self--to soul--in return. He who gives himself to
God, though he may receive no objective blessing, gets God in return--finds a
nobler self--saves by losing. Neither worldly splendour, nor state of our
bodily health, affords any criterion to the state of our soul. We are prone to
think adverse things are necessarily punitive. But the trials of Christians are
disciplinary.
I. Job’s words are
autobiographical. They afford insight into the state of Job’s heart, and they
tell us what he had been. Trials not only show character; they reveal history.
When we see a man standing morally erect in circumstances the most dire that
ever fell to the lot of mortal, we cannot doubt that we have insight into his
history. Job had trusted in God, had lived near to Him in the past, and so he
is strong, and rises above circumstances in the adverse present. Character is
not formed by one effort of will, no, nor by ten, fifty, or five hundred.
II. These words are
educational. They teach us that the child of God lives by faith. There are
people who assume, perhaps they really experience a species of trust in God so
long as all goes well with them. When the possessions of the self-complacent
man are lost, we look in vain for evidences of contentment, thankfulness,
philosophic bearing. The child of God does not regard his relationship to God
as simply commercial. The professor only may calculate upon the advantage which,
in a worldly sense, his religion is likely to bring. The child of God has no
such thoughts. Christianity is commercial in the sense that to get we must
give; yet it is not commercial, as we understand the word, for he who gives
most of self to Christ, thinks least about what he receives in return. The
child of God bases his trust upon the last contingency. Like a crane, a waggon,
or a barge, some men can bear only a certain strain. The truth is that the
pruning knife is never welcome, and we always think its edge would have been
less keen had that been taken which is left, and that left which is taken. But
Job could base his trust upon the very last contingency.
III. These words are
prophetical.
1. With respect to this life. What a man is at any time is an index
to what he will be. Our daily procedure goes upon the supposition that our
present character indicates our future. The present indicates the future if we
continue in the same track.
2. With respect to a future life. There is a slaying which is not slaying.
The child of God shall never die. (J. S. Swan.)
Trust without calculation
The friends of Job have their counterparts in every age of the
world. Whenever men are in trouble, there are those who undertake the task of
comforting, without any qualifications for it. They lack sympathy. When it is
expected that they will minister comfort, they bring forth all the stock
sentiments which those who are not in trouble squander upon those who are: the
respectable commonplaces which, like ready-made garments, do not in reality fit
any, because they are meant to fit all. No wise man will needlessly proffer
himself as a comforter. The more wise he is, the more profoundly he will shrink
from intruding upon the sanctity of an afflicted soul. The difference between Job
and his friends is exactly this, that he had gone down to first principles, and
they had not. You can trace beneath all his utterances a something which
enables him to withstand all their poor, superficial talk. What that something
was is set forth in the text. It was a trust in God, i.e., God’s
character, which not even the most crushing stroke of Divine power could
destroy. You will never understand the meaning of faith unless you remember
that it is identical with trust. If we would understand how trust at last
reaches an uncalculating perfection, consider how trust builds itself up in
regard to an earthly benefactor or father. It begins with kind acts. Some one
does something very generous and disinterested towards us. The child becomes
aware of the ever-present care and self-denying goodness of the parent. One
act, observe, does not usually furnish a rational ground of trust. Only when
that act of kindness is followed by others does settled trust arise. Hence
trust is, in fact, confidence in the character of another. The child, after
long experience of the father’s love, acquires such faith in the parent’s
character that it can trust even when he acts with seeming unkindness. There
are cases in which even one action would command the homage of our hearts. It
is by one transcendent act of love that Christ has fixed forever His claim. He
has given Himself for us. However we reach it, this trust is for the man an
all-powerful factor ever after. Once it is placed beyond question that God
loves us, then we will not allow any subsequent chastening, any “frowning
providence” to shake our faith in His unchanging love. Trust such as this is
eminently rational. It rests on evidence. We have proved God worthy of our
heart’s confidence. The trust which is first built up of benefits received
gradually becomes uncalculating. The highest reverence and devotion towards God
is disinterested. Self, or what self may win or miss, fades out of view. The
words are felt to be exaggerated in expressing the joyful and absolute self-forgetfulness
of him who is dwelling in the presence of Infinite Perfection. A heart at one
with God, knowing no will but His, perfect in its trust, carries within it
peace and heavenly mindedness wherever it may abide in this wide universe;
while a heart distrustful of God, swept by gusts of passion and self-will,
lacking the one feeling which alone gives stability, can find heaven nowhere.
Remember that faith may be genuine even when it is feeble. Small hope for you
and me if it were not so. But to the faith which I have been describing all
faith must approximate: so far as faith falls short of it, it is imperfect; and
if we do not aim at the highest, we shall be only too likely to remain without
faith in any degree. (J. A. Jacob, M. A.)
The triumph of faith
Faith is the reliance of the heart on God. On the one hand, it is
not any mere operation of the understanding. On the other hand, it is not any
assurance about our state before God. There are, perhaps, two chief ways in
which we may arrive at the assurance that we are children of God. The one is
looking to Christ; the other is the examination of Scripture, to see what are
the marks of God’s children. When faith is true, there are many degrees and
stages in it. We may have a faith which can just touch the hem of Christ’s
garment, and that is all that it can do; and if it does this it is healing,
because it is true. But there is a wide difference of degree between this
infancy of faith and its manhood. It requires a strong faith to look beyond and
above a frowning providence, and to trust in God in the dark. It is the Word of
God, and not the dispensations of providence, which is the basis on which faith
rears her column, the soil into which she sinks her roots; and resting on this
she can say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” But it is
very important to distinguish between two things which many, and especially
young Christians, often confound together, that is, faith and feeling.
Changeful as we are in every way, there is no part of us so subject to change
as our feelings--warm one day, and even hot, how cold and chilled they are the
next. If we walk, not by feeling but by faith, then, when all around us and all
within us is dark, we shall still cling to God’s faithful Word; we shall feel
that it is we who change, and not God. (George Wagner.)
The perfect faith
When a soul is able to declare that, even under the smiting, ay,
even under the slaying of God, it is able still to trust in Him, everyone feels
that soul has reached a very true and deep, sometimes it must seem a rare faith
in Him. Yet men must have attained this before they can be in any complete or
worthy way believers in God. Merely to trust Him when He is manifestly kind to
them, is surely not enough. The words of the text might be said almost in
desperation. It is a question whether a faith thus desperate is faith at all.
There is something far more cordial about these words of Job. They anticipate
possible disappointment and pain; but they discern a hope beyond them. Their hope
lies in the character of God. Whatever His special treatment of the soul may
be, the soul knows Him in His character. Behind its perception of God’s
conduct, as an illumination and as a retreat, always lies its knowledge of
God’s character. The relations of character and conduct to each other are
always interesting. Conduct is the mouthpiece of character. What a man is
declares itself through what he does. Each is a poor weak thing without the
other. Conduct without character is thin and unsatisfying. Conduct is the
trumpet at the lips of character. Character without conduct is like the lips
without the trumpet, whose whispers die upon themselves, and do not stir the
world. Conduct without character is like the trumpet hung up in the wind, which
whistles through it, and means nothing. It is through conduct I first know what
character is. By and by I come to know character by itself; and in turn it
becomes the interpreter of other conduct. To know a nature is an exercise of
your faculties different from what it would be to know facts. It involves
deeper powers in you, and is a completer action of your life. When a confidence
in character exists, see what a circuit you have made. You began with the
observation of conduct which you could understand; through that you entered
into knowledge of personal character; from knowledge of character you came back
to conduct, and accepted actions which you could not understand. You have made
this loop, and at the turn of the loop stands character. It is through character
that you have passed from the observation of conduct which is perfectly
intelligible into the acceptance of conduct which you cannot understand, but of
which you only know who and what the man was who did it. The same is true about
everyone of the higher associations of mankind. It is true about the
association of man with nature. Man watches nature at first suspiciously,
seeing what she does, is ready for any sudden freak, or whim, or mood; but by
and by he comes to know of nature’s uniformity. He understands that she is
self-consistent. Same is true about any institution to which at last man gives
the direction of his life. We want to carry all this over to our thought of
God, and see how it supplies a key to the great utterance of faith in the text.
It is from God’s treatment of any man that man learns God. What God does to
him, that is what first of all he knows of God. If this were all, then the
moment God’s conduct went against a man’s judgment, he must disown God. But
suppose that the man, behind and through the treatment that God has given him,
has seen the character of God. He sees God is just and loving. He goes up along
the conduct to the character. Through God’s conduct man knows God’s character,
and then through God’s character God’s conduct is interpreted. Everywhere the
beings who most strongly and justly laid claim to our confidence pass by and by
beyond the testing of their actions, and commend themselves to us, and command
our faith in them by what we know they are. Such a faith in the character of
God must shape and influence our lives. (Phillips Brooks.)
Verse 16
For an hypocrite shall not come before Him.
The several sorts of hypocrisy
Job’s friends urged that because God had grievously afflicted him,
he must needs have been a very wicked man. Job in reply maintains his
innocency. He insists that God afflicts for other reasons, in His own good
pleasure. He is sure that God cannot expect from him a false confession, or
that his proceedings should be justified by any wrong supposition. God will, in
the end, distinguish His faithful servant from the hypocrite. The word
“hypocrite” is here used in opposition to such a sincere person as can maintain
his own ways before God.
1. The greatest and highest degree of hypocrisy is when men, with a
formed design and deliberate intention, endeavour under a pretence of religion
and an appearance of serving God, to carry on worldly and corrupt ends. Such
were the Scribes and Pharisees, whom our Saviour denounced. The apostles
describe the same kind of hypocrisy in the characters of the worst men who were
in following ages to arise in the Church (2 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:16; 1 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:11; Titus 3:10; 2 Peter 2:1). This then is the
highest degree of hypocrisy, and the word is now generally used in this worst
sense.
2. There are those who do not absolutely mean to cast off all
religion, nor dare in their own hearts totally to despise it; but yet willingly
content themselves with the formal part of it, and by zealously observing
certain outward rites and ceremonies, think to atone for great defects of
sobriety, righteousness, and truth. Of the same species of hypocrisy are they
guilty in all ages who make the advancement of religion and the increase of the
kingdom of Christ to consist chiefly in the external, temporal, or worldly
prosperity of those who are called by His name.
3. A lower degree of hypocrisy is the behaviour of those who have
indeed right notions of religion, but content themselves with vain resolutions
of future repentance, and for the present live securely in the practice of sin.
Against this hypocrisy, this deceitfulness of sin, our Saviour warns us (Matthew 24:42).
4. The lowest degree of hypocrisy is that of those who not only have
right notions of religion and a due sense of the indispensable necessity of
repentance and reformation hereafter, but even at present have some imperfect
resolutions of immediate obedience, and even actual but yet ineffectual endeavours
after it (Romans 7:19; comp. Matthew 13:5; Matthew 13:20). It is no better than a
secret hypocrisy to account ourselves righteous for not being guilty of other
faults, while the false heart indulges itself in any one known habitual sin,
and speaks peace to itself by attending, only to one part of its own character.
The use of what has been said is that from hence every man may learn not to
judge his neighbour, who to his own master standeth or falleth, but to examine
seriously the state of his own heart. Which, whosoever does, carefully and
impartially, and with the true spirit of a Christian, will find little reason
to be censorious upon others. (S. Clarke, D. D.)
Verse 22
Then call Thou, and! will answer.
The echo
There are places where, if you speak with a loud voice, your words
will come back to you after a short interval with the utmost distinctness. This
repetition is called an echo. The ancients thought this mysterious being was an
Oread, or mountain nymph, born of the air and earth, who loved a beautiful
youth, and because her affection was not returned, she pined away until nothing
was heard but her voice, and even then she could not speak until she was spoken
to. In the text are two kinds of echo. God calling to man, and man answering;
and then man speaking to God, and God answering.
I. God calling and
man answering. It is God who always begins first in every good thing. Our
religion tells us distinctly that it was not man who first called upon God, but
God who first called upon man. God sought man to do him good, even when he had
sinned and deserved to be punished. And that is what He has always done since.
God has not been silent. He has spoken out, not by the dull, unchanging signals
of nature that do the telegraph work of the world, but in human language, in
human thoughts and words. God addresses you personally in the Holy Scriptures.
Will you be silent to Him? Will no response, no echo come from your heart to
His voice?
II. Man calling and
God answering. David once said, “Be not silent unto me, O Lord.” He had prayed,
but he had got no answer. But God was all the time preparing to give him the
answer that he needed. In the natural world you cannot have an echo everywhere.
Sometimes in nature an echo is made more or less indistinct according to the
state of the weather. An echo in nature repeats your very words exactly. Some
echoes refuse to send back a whole sentence, and only repeat the last word of
it. God’s response is an answer to your whole prayer. He often does for you
exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think. Is not it wonderful
that by a breath you can call up such marvellous responses? “He will call upon
Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble.” (Hugh Macmillan,
D. D.)
Verse 23
How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Struggles of conscience
In Luther’s day the precise evil under which men laboured was
this: they believed in being self-righteous, and so they supposed that they
must have good works before they might trust in Christ. In our day the evil
takes another shape. Men have aimed at being self-righteous in quite a singular
fashion; they think they must feel worse, and have a deeper conviction of sin
before they may trust in Christ. It is really the same evil, from the same old
germ of self-righteousness, but it has taken another and more crafty shape. It
is with this deadly evil I want to grapple. In the Puritanic age there was a
great deal of experimental preaching. Some of it was unhealthy, because it took
for its standard what the Christian felt and not what the Saviour said; the
inference from a believer’s experience, rather than the message which goes
before belief. We always get wrong when we say one Christian’s experience is to
be estimated by what another has felt.
I. By way of
consolation. The better a man is the more anxious he is to know the worst of
his case. Bad men do not want to know their badness. It should comfort you to
know that the prayer of the text has been constantly offered by the most
advanced of saints. You never prayed like this years ago when you were a
careless sinner. It is indeed very probable you do already feel your guilt, and
what you are asking for have in measure realised.
II. By way of
instruction. It sometimes happens that God answers this prayer by allowing a
man to fall into more and more gross sin, or by opening the eyes of the soul,
not so much by providence as by the mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit. I
advise you to particularise your sins; to hear a personal ministry, seek a
preacher who deals with you as a man alone by yourself; seek to study much the
law of God.
III. By way of
discrimination. Take care to discriminate between the work of the Spirit and
the work of the devil. It is the work of the Spirit to make a man feel that he
is a sinner, but it never was His work to make a man feel that Christ would
forget him. Satan always works by trying to counterfeit the work of the Spirit.
Take care not to make a righteousness out of your feelings. Anything which
keeps from Christ is sin.
IV. By way of
exhortation.
1. It is a very great sin not to feel your guilt, and not to mourn
over it, but then it is one of the sins that Jesus Christ atoned for on the
tree. It is only Jesus who can give you that heart which you seek. Christ can
soften the heart, and a man can never soften it himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
How many are my sins
The meaning of a question is often determined by its reason,
spirit, tone. At this stage of the controversy between Job and his would be
friends, Job turns his speech from them to God. Smarting under their reproofs,
in perplexity dark and deep about the ways of God, Job turns to Him with
mournful complaint. The faith that breaks forth in majestic tone--“Though He
slay me, yet will I trust in Him”--again seems to be mixed with gloomy doubts;
bitterness and melancholy mark his utterances. He says to God, “How many are my
iniquities and my sins?” We know the end of the story. Job was proved right in
the main. With what motive, and in what spirit shall we ask this question? Is
it wise question to ask? If God were to answer it, literally, directly, and
immediately, would we not be utterly overwhelmed in despair? God answered Job’s
question in a way very different from what he expected. God so revealed Himself
to the patriarch that he exclaimed, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and
ashes.” God will deal very tenderly with a soul sincerely asking the question
of the text. No man will have any arithmetical answer. But a sincere seeker
desiring to know his state as a sinner will come to know enough. Sin has
reference to its standard; to its action; and to its effects. All true religion
has its deep foundation in the knowledge and conviction of sin. It strikes its
strong roots down through the feelings into the conscience. (Donald Smith
Brunton.)
Verse 25
Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro?
A pitiful plea
Poor Job! Who could have been brought lower? In his deep distress
he turns to God, and finding no other plea so near at hand he makes a plea of
his own distress. He compares himself to the weakest thing he could think of.
He draws an argument out of his weakness. It is a common figure he uses, that
of a leaf driven to and fro. To this Job likens himself--a helpless, hopeless,
worthless, weak, despised, perishing thing. And he appeals to God. “Out of pity
upon my utter weakness and nothingness, turn away Thy hand, and break not a
leaf that is driven to and fro.” The apprehension is so startling, the appeal
is so forcible, that the argument may be employed in a great many ways. How
often have the sick used it, when they have been brought to so low an ebb with
physical pain that life itself seemed worthless. Not less applicable the plea
to those who are plunged into the depths of poverty. So too with those who are
in trouble through bereavement. Perhaps it is even more harassing in eases of mental
distress, for, after all, the sharpest pangs we feel are not those of the body,
nor those of the estate, but those of the mind. When the iron enters into the
soul, the rust thereof is poison. Many a child of God may have used this plea,
or may yet use it.
I. The plea is
such as arises from inward consciousness. What plea is more powerful to
ourselves than that which we draw from ourselves? In this case Job was quite
certain about his own weakness. How could he doubt that? I trust many of us
have been brought into such a humble frame of mind as to feel that, in a
certain sense, this is true of us. What a great blessing it is to be made to
know our weakness! But while it is a confession of weakness, the plea is also
an acknowledgment of God’s power to push that weakness to a direful conclusion.
II. This is also a
very pitiful plea. Though there is weakness, yet there is also power, for
weakness is, for the most part, a prevalent plea with those who are strong and
good. The plea gathers force when the weakness is confessed. How a confession
of weakness touches your heart when it comes from your child!
III. This plea is
rightly addressed. It is addressed to God. It can be used to each person of the
Blessed Trinity in Unity. “Oh, the depths of Thy loving kindness! Is it
possible that Thou canst east away a poor, broken-hearted trembler, a poor,
fearing, doubting one, who would fain be saved, but who trembles lest he should
be cast away?”
IV. The plea is
backed up by many cases of success. Give one illustration. The case of Hannah,
the mother of Samuel; or the case of King Manasseh. Or our Lord’s dealing with
sinful women.
V. The text is a
faint plea which invites full succour. It meant this. “Instead of breaking it,
Thou wilt spare it; Thou wilt gather it up; Thou wilt give it life again.” Oh,
you who are brought to the very lowest of weakness! use that weakness in
pleading with God, and He will return unto you with such a fulness of blessing
that you shall receive pardon and favour.
VI. We may use this
plea--many of us who have long known the saviour. Perhaps our faith has got to
be very low. O Lord, wilt Thou destroy my little faith? It is weal: and
trembling, but it is faith of Thine own giving. Oh, break not the poor leaf
that is driven to and fro! It may be your hope is not very bright. You cannot
see the golden gates, though they are very near. Well, but your hope shall not
be destroyed because it is clouded. Perhaps you are conscious that you have not
been so useful lately as you were. Bring your little graces to Christ, as the
mothers brought their little children, and ask Him to put His hands upon them
and to bless them. Bring your mustard seed to Christ, and ask Him to make it
grow into a tree, and He will do it; but never think that He will destroy you,
or that He will destroy the work of His hands in you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
God and human frailty
The thin, frail leaf--would God break that? God, the all-powerful,
dealing with the feeble life of Job! God, perhaps, would bruise the leaf, but
He would not break it.
I. A leaf is the
frailest among frail things. A leaf is, in many ways, a type of man.
Physically, mentally, humanly, morally. We have come into this world with
constitutions tainted by sin, surrounded by temptations to evil.
II. A leaf is the
fittest emblem of man’s mortality. Will the eternal God act harshly with the
ephemeral man? What is it to “break a leaf”? To treat it as a thing of
insignificance, to leave it to the sport of circumstances, to let it be hurried
out of sight as a mean and mortal thing. How delicate is man, physically
considered; how surrounded is he by the majestic forces of nature! Yet God has
plainly said, “I care for this leaf more than for all the works of My hands.”
Mortal though man is, he enshrines within him an everlasting being.
III. A leaf is
subject to a variety of dangers. Blight may settle on it; the tornado might
tear it from the parent stem; the rain and the dew may be withheld; the
scorching sun may wither; the birds of the heaven may devour it. We look at
man, and we say, How subject is he to manifold forms of danger!
1. The hand of trial might break us. The difference between what we
can bear and what we cannot may be a very slight degree. God will not lay upon
us more than we are able to bear.
2. The hand of temptation may break us. Our reserves are soon used
up. There is a kind of omnipresence of temptation. Yet no temptation hath
overtaken us, but such as we are able to bear. The resisting power has been
given us.
3. The hand of transition might break us. The leaf has to endure the
most sudden and severe changes of temperature; but these minister to its
strength and life. Think of the changes of human life--from affluence to
poverty, from companionship to solitude, from one estate to another. Then comes
the great change. But all the changes of our life are ordered by God, and leave
us sometimes saddened, but not broken or destroyed.
IV. A leaf is the
wonderful work of God. And a most wonderful work it is. And God made man. From
the first His care has been for His lost child, His voice has been to the sons
of men, and the great atonement has been a sacrifice for the world. We believe
in God’s care for every leaf in the great forest of humanity.
V. A leaf is often
broken by man. God’s tender mercies are over all His works. He will not break a
leaf. Man will. There are those who come near the secrets of human lives, and
could write interesting volumes, if they dared, on broken human leaves. Close
with reflections--
1. Think of the strength of God.
2. Think of the possibilities of life.
3. Think of the position we occupy.
4. Think of the end that is coming. (W. M. Statham.)
A picture and a problem of life
I. A picture of
life. It is a “leaf driven to and fro.” The words suggest four ideas.
1. Insignificance. “A leaf,” not a tree.
2. Frailty. “A leaf.” How fragile. The tree strikes its roots into
the earth and often grows on for many years. But the leaf is only for a season.
From spring to autumn is the period that measures its longest duration.
3. Restlessness. “Driven to and fro.” How unsettled is human life!
Man is never at rest.
4. Worthlessness. A leaf that has fallen from the stem and tossed by
the winds is a worthless thing. On its stem it was a thing of beauty and a
thing of service to the tree, but now its value is gone. Job felt that his life
was worthless, as worthless as a withered leaf and “dry stubble.”
II. A problem of
life. “Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro?” This question may be looked
upon in two aspects.
1. As expressing error in sentiment. The idea in the mind of Job
seems to have been that God was infinitely too great to notice such a creature
as he, that it was unworthy of the Infinite to pay any attention whatever to a
creature so insignificant and worthless. Two thoughts expose this error.
2. As capable of receiving a glorious answer. “Wilt Thou break a leaf
driven to and fro?” Wilt Thou torment me forever? Writ Thou quench my
existence? Take this as the question of suffering humanity, and here is the
answer, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” “I have come
that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly.” (Homilist.)
Verse 26
Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess
the iniquities of my youth.
The iniquities of youth visited
The errors and sins of youth do often entail a very fearful
responsibility and very heavy misery upon after life. Youth, which is the
season of the first, and sometimes of the most violent temptation, is also
unhappily the season of the greatest weakness. Of both temptation and weakness
they are usually quite ignorant. The entrance of the path of active life is
beset with dangers; and many are led away captive by divers lusts before
,reason had fairly become seated upon her throne. These things do not pass over
the mind like an idle wind. The stream of sin cuts furrows deep and wide into
the very substance of man’s moral nature, overturns all that is good and
lovely, overwhelms the fair blossoms and hopes of an intellectual harvest, and
even if it retires, leaves, like the receding tide, but a barren surface,
uncomely to the mental eye, and ungenial to all religious culture. Some of the
evil consequences of early sin are found in the natural tendency of such a
course of life; or, rather, in the effects which the providence of God causes,
even in this world, to follow a deviation from His laws of moral government.
Those who are grossly licentious in their youth pay part penalty by a premature
and painful decay of their bodily faculties. Those who waste early years in
mere frivolity become, in after life, men of confined intellectual views, and
disinclined to all serious occupation. But temporal inconvenience and distress
are not the only evil consequences arising from the iniquities of their youth.
While religion does not discourage cheerfulness in youth, remember how awful is
the warning which she utters to those who regard little else than mere
amusement and present gratification. The habits formed in youth will mainly
influence the whole future life. (J. Chevalier, B. D.)
The aggravations and sorrows of youthful iniquities
Sin is the source of all the sorrows that attend human nature; and
its early workings, in the younger parts of life, lay a foundation for bitter
reflections and for many sufferings afterwards. God’s “writing bitter things
against him” seems to be an allusion to the custom of princes or judges, who
used to have their decrees or sentences written, to signify their certain
establishment. The “iniquities of his youth” were the sins committed in his
younger days. His “possessing” these may relate to his distressing reviews of
them, and to the grievous rebukes which he apprehended befell him on their
account. Doctrine--That the sins of youth are highly provoking to God, and lay
a foundation for bitter sorrows afterwards.
I. Why are the
sins of youth highly provoking to God? Young people are apt to think themselves
excusable for their sins and follies, and to be unconcerned about them. They
imagine that the tricks and frolics of youth are very little, if at all
displeasing to God, and that He will easily excuse and pardon them. But these
thoughts of their hearts are some of their greatest and most dangerous follies.
These lay them open to temptation, and harden and embolden them in the ways of
sin. Such sins are transgressions, and they proceed from a corrupt and depraved
nature, from evil dispositions of heart against the holy and blessed God, and
from a disrelish of Him. Some peculiar circumstances aggravate youthful sins.
1. They are committed against God’s remarkable care and kindness
towards you, while you are least able to help yourselves. What a kind
benefactor has this God been! It must be very provoking in you to sin against
such a kind and gracious, such a merciful and bounteous, such a great and good
God as this.
2. They are an abuse of the most vigorous active part of your life.
“The glory of young men is their strength.” If your strength is prostituted to
sin, what provocation that must be to the God who gave it. In youth your minds
are most active, and capable of being employed with sprightliness and fervour.
3. They are a waste of that valuable time of life which should be
especially employed to lay in a stock for after use and service. The time of
youth is the learning and improving time.
4. They strengthen and increase sinful habits within you. They are a
confirmation and increase of those depraved dispositions that naturally belong
to you as fallen creatures. You hereby consent to them and approve of them.
5. They destroy and pervert the advantage of tender affections. Sins
of youth have a malignant influence upon your affections, making them exceeding
sensual and vain. How dull and cold your affections become with regard to
spiritual things!
6. They have a mischievous influence upon other young people. The
evil example and enticements you set before them, are strong temptations to
them to throw up all religion, and to run into the same excess of riot with
you.
7. You cannot pretend, as some older persons do, that the cares or
hurries of the world are your temptations to sin, or to neglects of the service
of God, and of your soul’s concerns.
II. These provoking
sins of youth lay a foundation for bitter sorrows afterwards.
1. In their own nature they tend to the bitterest sorrows. They
separate between the holy God and you. They bring sufferings in character,
circumstance, health, and lives.
2. They bring dreadful judgments of God in this life. His judgments
concur with the natural tendencies of sin. Youthful sinners forfeit the
promises of long life and prosperity, and expose themselves to the vengeance of
God.
3. It is the fixed appointment of God that you shall either be
brought to bitter repentance for your sins of youth in this world, or shall
suffer severely for them in the next. If you live and die without sorrowing,
after a godly sort, for the sins of youth, and without applying by faith to the
blood of Christ for a pardon, you must unavoidably suffer the vengeance of
eternal fire. Then be convinced of the need of pardoning and renewing grace. (John
Guyse, D. D.)
Age lamenting the sins of youth
It would be hard, in any country which has been evangelised, to
find an individual without some consciousness of sin. As God hath ever revealed
Himself as a sin-hating God, He will never cease, by His dealings with man, to
demonstrate this until the end of the world. The great mass of sinners
certainly do not meet their recompense in this world, but they undoubtedly will
in the next. This is not the great dispensation of rewards and punishments. It
may be laid down, without fear of contradiction, that the consequences of the
sins of the people of God are sure to meet them in this life; not that they may
atone by their sufferings here for sins from whose eternal punishment they are
delivered by the merits of Christ (for that were absurd to suppose), but in
order that they may be better able to understand and enter into the mind of God
with respect to sin, in order that they may feel its hatefulness and be
purified from the love of it. The words of holy Job, which we have taken in
hand to consider, give testimony to this. Job was, in the scriptural sense of
the word, a just or justified man, yet we have him the greatest human example
on record “of suffering affliction.” There is a connection between cause and
effect in every part of God’s moral government of the world, and there never
yet was sorrow where sin had not gone before it; not even the exception which
some might feel inclined to make--the Man of Sorrows, Christ the Lord; He was
afflicted because He bare our sins in His own body. We say then, with respect
to the affliction of Job, that it was by no means an arbitrary or capricious
dispensation of Jehovah. There was sin somewhere, or bitter things would never
have been written against him. Job’s friends were good, though in their method
of dealing with Job, mistaken men. Job denies their (personal) accusation, and
asserts his innocence. Job’s friends were right in connecting sin with sorrow,
but they were wrong in accusing Job of hypocrisy and gross dereliction from
duty. Job was right in vindicating himself from the particular charges, but he
erred in too strongly asserting his general innocence. Job’s error we find out
from this, that his affliction was not removed until he made a full confession
of his unworthiness; and the error of his friends we see in the atonement which
Job was required to make for them. After pleading with God, there seems as if,
suddenly, memory poured in a stream of light along the dark forgotten path of
years gone by, exposing thoughts, words, and actions which he had supposed were
hidden in the irrevocable past. Who can tell the searchings of that conscience,
the clearness with which it saw in each stroke of the rod a remembrance of some
former disobedience, compelling Job to acknowledge the justice as well as the
severity of his punishment. Is it possible that a hoary head found in the way
of righteousness should be thus defiled with the dust of repentance for the
follies of early life; that the crown of gold which had been given to ripe and
righteous age should now be dimmed and tarnished by the memorial of long
forsaken transgression? Yes, David was an old man when he prayed to God,
“Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions.” It may be said that
men do not sin so much from ignorance of the evil of disobedience, as from the
foolish hope that it will be passed over by the Almighty--that it will never
meet them again. It is under this delusion the young man acts, who, plunging
into a course of transgression, takes no heed to cleanse his way according to
God’s Word. Fancy the case of one, the prime of whose life has been devoted to
sensualism. “His bones are full of the sin of his youth.” Sin cannot go
unpunished; it may not be visited here on some, but hereafter their doom is
certain. God will make us feel most keenly the guilt for which He pardons us;
and our transgressions subsequent to our pardon will not be passed over. Think
not, therefore, lightly of sin. Think not that yours will never meet you again.
(C. O. Pratt, M. A.)
The possession of the iniquities of youth in afterlife
There is something striking in the expression “possessing the
iniquities,” etc. It is as though the iniquities of youth so adhered and
cleaved to a man in riper years that there was no possibility of shaking them
off. The sins committed in the spring-time of life tell fearfully on its
maturity and its decline. Two general points of view.
I. The warning to
those who are just at the outset of life. We must make good the truth, and
illustrate the fact, that men possess in afterlife the iniquities of their
youth. The power of the warning must depend on the demonstration of the truth.
How difficult, with reference to the things of the present state of being, it
is to make up by after diligence for lost time in youth. If there have been a
neglected boyhood, the consequences will propagate themselves to the extreme
line of life. The ability changes with the period, and what we do not do at the
right time, we want the strength to perform at any subsequent time. The same
truth is exemplified with reference to bodily health. The man who has injured
his constitution by the excesses of youth, cannot repair the mischief by after-abstinence
and self-denial. The seeds of disease which have been sown while the passions
were fresh and ungoverned, are not to be eradicated by the severest moral
regimen which may be afterwards prescribed and followed. The possession of the
iniquities of the youth which we wish most to exhibit is that which affects men
when stirred with anxiety for the soul, and desirous to seek and obtain the
pardon of sin. The indifference to religion which marks the commencement of a
course will become in later life an inveterate and powerful habit. However
genuine and effectual the repentance and faith of a late period of life, it is
unavoidable that the remembrance of misspent years will embarrass those which
you consecrate to God. Even with those who began early, it is a constant source
of regret they began not earlier. By lengthening the period of irreligion, and
therefore diminishing that of obedience to God, we almost place ourselves
amongst the last of the competitors for the kingdom of heaven.
II. The explanation
which this fact affords of proceedings which might otherwise seem at variance
with God’s moral government. Job spoke matter of fact, whether or no he judged
rightly in the view he took of his own case. The principle is, that the sins
which righteous men have committed during the season of alienation from God,
are visited upon them in the season of repentance and faith; so that they are
made to possess, in suffering and trouble, those iniquities which have been
quite taken away, so far as their eternal penalties are concerned, There is a
vast mistake in supposing that the righteous may sin with impunity. We seem
warranted in believing that peculiar trouble falls on the righteous, because
riley are righteous, and because, therefore, God’s honour is intimately concerned
in their being visited for transgression. If God is to be shown as displeased
with the iniquities of His own people, as well as of His enemies, it must be
seen in this life. The consequences of sin in God’s people must be experienced
on this side the grave. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The sins of youth possessed in afterlife
Job regarded his calamities as the just demerits of his youthful
failures and misdoings. Consider this sentiment--The evil deeds of a man’s
early history are followed by their natural and legitimate consequences in his
after life. Even as it respects (he present state, men cannot sin with
impunity. This sentiment is illustrated--
I. In man’s
physical constitution. Several species of iniquity are followed at an earlier
or later period by consequences seriously felt in our bodily organisation. Many
of the prevalent maladies of mankind are not the direct administrations of
heaven, but the rightful consequences of actions which are violations at once
of physical and moral laws; and if men will be guilty of these violations, God
must work a miracle to prevent those results. Afflictive providences may be
simply the sorrows which individuals unjust and cruel to themselves draw down
upon their own heads. Illustrate by drunkenness, and by the sin of impurity.
Than this crime there is none which more directly and surely entails physical
suffering and death. Would you wish to avoid those maladies which, while they
undermine and ruin the constitution, are the result of men’s own follies and
crimes? Then avoid the practice of sin now. Devote your bodies and spirits to
the service of Christ and the duties of eternity.
II. In man’s
pecuniary interests and social position. Property and a respectable standing in
society are blessings. We may pervert them, and thus use them for evil. We may
apply them to their lawful uses, and thus make them the instruments of great
and permanent good. Nothing more seriously affects a man’s worldly interests
and his social standing than the course and conduct of his youth. Illustrate by
Hogarth’s picture, “The Idle and Industrious Apprentice.” Through all time and
everywhere these two propositions will hold true.
1. If property and respectability are not possessed at the outset of
life, a course of vice in youth will prevent a man ever obtaining them.
2. If possessed at the outset, the same course will certainly deprive
him of their possession. Like all rules, these admit of exceptions. By a course
of vice, we mean certain species of vice, such as idleness, gambling, lying, pride,
dishonesty, immorality. If you yield to vicious habits, your iniquities, like
the wind, will carry you away. Providence will frown on your path. God will not
interrupt His general administrations to work miracles for your advancement.
His blessing will not attend you; and therefore your ways will not prosper.
III. In man’s mental
and moral history. The mental powers we possess are among the chief blessings
we hold from God. Hence the mind should be the object of careful and incessant
culture. Alas! multitudes neglect the culture of the mind for the pursuit of
sensual objects, and destroy its capabilities, either wholly or in part, by
vice. Mental disorganisation is often the direct result of early crime. Early
rioting distorts the imagination and beclouds the intellect. But the most
distressing and fearful part of the inheritance remains. Is no possession
entailed on man’s moral nature? Habits are made by youthful sins. The conduct
of youth becomes the character of the man. Mere inattention to religion in
youth grows and strengthens into a character fraught with imminent danger. You
may not be openly immoral. But if you disregard the claims of the Gospel, you
will grow up to maturity practical unbelievers. Growing in piety as you advance
in years, you will increase in favour both with God and man. Your path will be
one of usefulness, peace, and glory. (W. Waiters.)
The sins of youth productive of the sorrows of age
I. The sins of
youth. Disregard of parental authority, forgetfulness of God, refusal of instruction,
evil company, sensuality, intemperance, vain amusements, etc.
II. The sins of
youth are highly provoking to God.
1. They are committed against His tender care and love towards them
when they are least able to help themselves.
2. They are an abuse of the most vigorous part of life. Then the body
is most active, healthy, and strong; then the mind is clear, and gradually
strengthening, and very susceptible; then the talents can be better consecrated
to the service of God. But all those rich advantages are prostituted to the
service of sin and Satan.
3. It is an awful waste of precious time--that time which should be
employed in gaining knowledge, purity, joy, and Christian experience.
4. They are contaminating in their influence. “One sinner destroyeth
much good.”
5. The sins of youth, if persisted in, will tend to confirm the
person in the commission of crime. The tenderness of human passions gradually
decreases; warnings, etc., lose their influence; afflictions, judgments, death
itself, at length affect not.
III. The sins of
youth lay the foundation for bitter remorse, and sometimes for severe
punishment. They often subject the sinner to judicial punishment in this life.
The sins of youth affect--
1. The body. It is often wasted by disease which sin has produced.
2. The mind. This frequently suffers more than the body. “The spirit
of a man may sustain his infirmities, but a wounded spirit who can bear?”
3. The future. Frequently the prospect is dark and dreadful; a
“fearful looking for of judgment,” etc. Application--
1. Let the young be convinced that they need saving and renewing
grace.
2. Let those who now bear the iniquities of their youth apply to the
Almighty Saviour. (Helps for the Pulpit.)
The man possessing the iniquities of his youth
How very different do what Job calls “the iniquities of his youth”
appear as regards each one’s own early history! One knows of none at all;
another knows of some, but thinks very lightly of them; another “possesses
his,” as Job did, which yet was not in a right way.
I. The iniquities
of youth--what they are. The world judges by a poor standard, and views things
through a perverted medium.
1. Iniquity in youth is of the very same character as iniquity in
after life. Is there not frequent mistake on this point? How common are
falsehoods in early life. Some think lightly of profane language in the young.
There are several sins very common among the young--swearing, lying, stealing,
fornication, etc. This is the fact, the moral law of God is fixed and
unchangeable.
2. The unconverted life in youth is a course of “iniquity.” This some
may think uncharitable; but our question is, How does God view things? How
would He have us to view them? Is the case uncommon, of a man decent, decorous,
virtuous, but one thing lacking, the heart given to God? There is iniquity,
then, in that. For what is iniquity? That which is contrary to what is just and
equal in God’s judgment.
3. In everyone who has been young there has been iniquity. There is
iniquity in original sin, and in all sin in youth.
II. The ways in
which God may “make a man possess the iniquities of his youth.”
1. In the way of retribution. The indulged love of pleasure and
self-gratification in youth deadens the feelings, blunts the affections, and
leaves the man a thoroughly selfish, hard-hearted creature. And if the youth be
merely moral, without godliness, it often grows into the most confirmed
self-righteousness in middle life.
2. In the way of conviction. His method of conviction varies in its
process.
3. In the way of conversion.
4. In the way of consolation.
5. In the way of caution. “Go and sin no more” is the language of
Christ to every pardoned penitent.
6. In the way of godly education of the young.
Some seem to think the consciousness of faults in their own youth
should make them silent as to the faults of the young now, and if silent, then
inactive in endeavours to correct them. This would be to help perpetuate our
own and others’ faults. (John Hambleton, M. A.)
Possessing the sins of youth
Let it be remarked first, that they are the words of a good man. A
second preliminary remark which I make is, that the words of our text were
spoken by this good man when he was well advanced in life. In the beginning of
the book, for example, we are informed that the patriarch had sons and
daughters, and from what is said of their eating and drinking in their elder
brother’s house, it is clear that some of them at least must have come to man’s
estate. Their father must have been in middle life or beyond it. A third remark
is, that these words were uttered by a good man well advanced in life, when he
was under the pressure of severe and complicated affliction. Again, these words
of our text are addressed to God, and that the language of the verse is of a
judicial or forensic character. Job is arguing with God as the judge of the
whole earth. He says in effect, “Thou hast pronounced a severe and terrible
sentence upon me; Thou hast written bitter things against me; Thou makest me to
inherit the sins of my youth; it is obvious to me, from the numerous and
terrible and varied afflictions which are befalling me, that even the
transgressions of my early years, which I thought had been long ago forgotten
and forgiven, are coming upon me, and He who saith, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will
repay’ is demanding reparation.”
I. That youth is a
season often marked by folly and iniquity. A consideration of the nature of the
case would lead us to conclude that this is what might be expected. If a person
were sent to walk in a place where there were many and dangerous pitfalls, many
steep and lofty precipices, many and fierce wild beasts, there would be danger
at any time of his being injured or destroyed, but that danger would be
immeasurably increased if he were sent to walk in such a place while there was
little or no light. In such circumstances it is almost certain that he would
sustain injury,--it is highly probable that he would lose his life. Now,
analogous to the position of the individual supposed is that of a young person
in the world. There are many and dangerous pitfalls, and not a few of these
which are in reality the most deadly are carefully concealed. The wealth and
the honour and the pleasure of the present life have roads leading from them to
great moral precipices, by which has been occasioned the ruin of many souls,
and the poverty and disappointment and disease that exist in the world are
fraught with danger. The young are like persons who walk in the dark--they have
little knowledge or experience of these things; they naturally imagine that
“all is gold that glitters.” Having been treated with kindness and truthfulness
by those with whom they have had to do in infancy, they are induced to put
confidence in those with whom they are brought into contact in after life. The
animal and emotional part of their nature is powerful, while the intellectual
and moral part of it is weak. Passion is strong while there is comparatively
little moral restraint, and the soul is like a ship with its sails spread out
to a fresh breeze, while from a deficiency of ballast there is danger every
hour of its foundering amidst the waters. Not only might we come to such a
conclusion from a consideration of the nature of the case, but the same truth
is suggested by the warnings and exhortations of Scripture. Has it not been
said, “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” “by what means shall a
young man cleanse his way,” “exhort young men to be sober-minded”?
II. It is a very
common thing for men to wish and attempt to get rid of the folly and iniquity
of their youth. This is done in many ways.
1. How many are there, for example, who attempt to get rid of their
sins by excusing them! Have you not heard persons speaking of the folly and sin
that have been seen in the conduct of others in their younger years, concluding
their remarks by saying, “But these were only the follies and sins of youth. We
do not wish or expect to see old heads on young shoulders; we do not wish or
expect to see in the young the staid and prudent demeanour of those who are
more advanced in life; men must sow their wild oats at some period or other of
their lives, and surely it is better far to do it in their early days than
afterwards”? Now just as men are disposed to speak and think of the sins of
others will they be disposed to think and speak of their own; or if there be a
difference, it will be on the side of charity towards themselves.
2. How often do we attempt to palliate our sin and folly when we
cannot altogether excuse them! There, for example, is the sensualist. When he
thinks and speaks of his past conduct does he not seek consciously or
unconsciously to diminish its enormity? Listen to him and observe the fine
names which he is accustomed to use, and the convenient coloured roundabout
phraseology in which he wraps up and paints his wickedness. He has been a
drunkard, that is, he has not been once, but many times in a state in which the
powers of mind and body were incapable, through the influence of intoxicating
drink, of doing that for which God designed them, he could not think, and talk,
and walk like a man; yet he speaks only of “living somewhat freely, of being a
little elevated at times, of having occasionally taken a glass too much,” and
when men speak of him as a drunkard he regards it as a gross insult.
3. Again, how often do we attempt to get rid of our sins by making
some kind of atonement for them. They are willing to mortify themselves, and
they engage in a course of obedience and worship with an earnest desire to make
up by zeal and punctuality now for their lack of service in other days;
ignorant of the free spirit of the Gospel of Jesus, they serve God in a spirit
of bondage, their consciences meanwhile echoing the terrible declarations of
the Scriptures, “By the deeds of the law no flesh living can be justified.” “Cursed
is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of
the law to do them.”
III. It is a very
common thing for God to show men the fruitlessness of all such attempts as
those of which we have been speaking and to make them possess the iniquities of
their youth. There are some philosophers who hold that no thought or feeling
which has ever passed through the mind of man is lost, but that it lives,
although it may be in some dark recess of memory, and may at any time be
brought forth in vividness and power; and there are many facts within the
circle of the experience of all of us which suggest the great probability at
least of this notion. The thoughts and feelings of man’s soul are not like the
rays of light--those of today having no connection with or dependence on those
of yesterday; but they are like the branches of a tree resting on and nourished
by the roots. The roots of a man’s life are in the past, and he cannot, even if
he would, break away from it. The gentle soul of an aged Christian, filled with
the full assurance of hope, will sometimes shudder at the recollection of
sinful passion long ago pardoned and subdued, even as the dark blue glassy
surface of a tropical sea will sometimes heave from the influence of some
remote ocean storm.
1. We observe then, first, that God often recalls our past sins to us
by means of the dispensations of providence. When a man feels himself
prematurely old, and knows, as he often does, that decay is the fruit of what
he himself sowed in other years, how can he fail to read his sin in his
punishment? But it is not only when there is a close connection between the sin
and suffering that sin is brought to remembrance. There is sometimes in the
very nature of the event that which is fitted to suggest scenes and
circumstances of our past life. Look, for example, to the case of Jacob. He was
deceived by his uncle Laban, and brought by a trick to marry Leah instead of
Rachel. The conduct of Laban was a severe affliction to Jacob at the time, and
it proved the source of discomfort and domestic strife afterwards; is it not in
the highest degree probable that when the patriarch was so deceived and made to
smart in this way, he thought of the fact that he himself had been guilty of
conduct very like that of his uncle when he went in to his old blind father and
said, “I am thy elder son, thy son Esau”? The case of Jacob’s sons in the land
of Egypt is a very striking illustration of this. “We are verily guilty
concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought
us and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.”
2. Again we observe, that God often recalls past sins to us by the
preaching of the Gospel. The woman of Samaria said of Jesus, who had preached
the Gospel to her, “He told me all things that ever I did.”
3. Now why does God thus make a man possess the sins of his youth? Is
it not that we may feel our need of the mercy which God has provided for us in
the Gospel of His Son? (J. B. Johnston, D. D.)
The sins of youth in the groans of age
The popular thought is, let age be grave, and youth be gay. I
question its rightness for two reasons.
1. Because where there is not godliness there is the strongest reason
for the greatest gravity and gloom of spirit.
2. Where this godliness is, there is even stronger reason for joy in
age than in youth. Call attention to the solemnity of youthful life.
I. Youth has its
sins.
1. Want of knowledge. Youth is a period of ignorance and
inexperience.
2. The force of passions. In the first stages of life we are almost
entirely the creatures of sense: physical appetite, not moral ideas, rule us;
we are influenced by feeling, not faith; the mind is the vassal of matter.
3. Susceptibility to influence. This is a characteristic of youth;
the sentiments, language, conduct of others are powerful influences in the
formation of its own. Character is formed, in fact, on the principle of
imitation.
II. The sins of
youth descend to age. Job regarded himself as heir to them; they were his
heritage, he could not shake them off. Youthful sins are bound by the
indissoluble chain of causation to the man’s futurity. There are three
principles that secure this connection.
1. The law of retribution.
2. The law of habit.
3. The law of memory.
III. Their existence
in age is a bitter thing.
1. They are bitter things to the body in old age. Every sin has an
evil effect on the physical health.
2. They are bitter things to the soul in old age. To the intellect,
the heart, and the conscience.
IV. They are a
“bitter thing” in age, even where the sufferer is a godly man. Old errors
cannot be corrected; old principles cannot be uprooted; old habits cannot be
broken in a day. The conclusion of the whole is this,--the importance of
beginning religion in youth. The chances are that unless it is commenced in
youth, it will never be commenced at all. There are but few conversions in
middle life. As we begin we are likely to end. (Homilist.)
The iniquities of youth repossessed
I. Explain the
language of the text.
1. “Thou writest bitter things against me.” This refers either to the
record which God keeps of our offences, or to the punishments which He has
decreed against us. Men cannot bear to be reminded of their sins. God keeps a
record. There is an avowed and express purpose for which our sins are written
down. With every sin God writes a curse.
2. “Thou makest me to possess the inequities of my youth.” The
conscience of the sinner himself is also made the depository of his manifold
offences. It is an unspeakable mercy, if, by any means, God makes us to possess
or remember the iniquities of our youth. But the manner in which He does this
is often most painful and distressing. He sends affliction upon men in such
ways that they are often compelled to see the very sin which they have
committed in the temporal chastisement which they suffer. Some sins are brought
to our recollection--
1. By bodily diseases.
2. By the ruin of our worldly circumstances.
3. By our feeling the influence of bad habits.
4. By trouble of conscience and a restless mind.
II. Apply the
subject to various characters.
1. Awaken those who are secure and asleep in a careless and
irreligious life.
2. Affectionately warn young people against the temptations to which
they are exposed.
3. Speak words of comfort to the humble-minded. (J. Jowett, M. A.)
The influence of youthful sin
Among the reminiscences of a political leader published by a
Boston journal, is one of a national convention of the party to which he
belonged. He says that the first day’s proceedings developed the fact that the
balance of power in the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency would rest
with the delegation from a certain State. The delegates met in caucus at night
with closed doors. In the discussion that ensued, the name of a prominent man
was urged, and was received with favour. Only one of the delegates, a judge of
some eminence in the State, knew him personally, and he not intimately. He was
asked for his opinion. In reply, he said that he was at college with the
prospective candidate, and he would relate one incident of college life. He did
so, and it showed that the young man was in those days destitute of moral
principle. The delegates were satisfied that, although brilliant, he was a man
they could not trust, and they unanimously resolved to cast the votes of the
State for his rival. The next day the vote was given, as decided, and the man
to whom it was given was nominated and elected. Little did the young college
man think, when he committed that escapade, that a score of years later it
would be the sole cause of his missing one of the great prizes of earth--that
of being the ruler of millions of people. But sin is always loss, and unless it
is blotted out by the blood of Christ, it will cause the sinner to lose the
greatest prize attainable to a human being in the world beyond the
grave--eternal life (Luke 13:3).
Verse 27
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
Footprints
True religion there cannot be without an abiding sense of our
responsibilities. We must discover and realise our moral obligations, or we can
never meet and discharge them. What is meant by moral responsibility? It
implies that God will call man to account for his whole character and conduct,
and will render to every man accordingly. To every man time is a state of
probation, and eternity a state of retribution. The doctrine of our
responsibility lies within us, graven on our very being by the Spirit of God
Himself. We are apt to forget the extent of this responsibility. We look upon
it as a mere generality. Note, then, we are responsible for our thoughts and
our actions. The responsibility extends to every word of our lips, and to every
stepping of our feet. As we walk, we write the history of our movements--write
them down forever. Some footprints can outlive ages, as the geologists show us.
God will remind you that He put a print into the heel of your foot, that He
might bring you into judgment for your movements upon earth. Here is a thought
upon a part of our responsibilities we are apt to forget. We cannot move but we
carry with us our Christian obligations, and our consequent relationship to the
day of judgment necessarily attending those obligations. Every single step has
left behind it an eternal footprint which determines in what direction we walk,
in what character we move.
1. Wherever we move we carry with us our personal and individual
responsibility. In every change of place and contact with man on the travel we
act as beings who must give an account to God. Then call to mind the
obligations that rest on you.
2. We are all so constituted as to exert a relative influence on each
other. There is no member of the human family who does not sustain some
relation, either original or acquired, either public or private, either
permanent or temporary; nor is there any relation which does not invest the
person sustaining it with some degree of interest. Do we think as we ought of
this? (J. C. Phipps Eyre, M. A.)
Verse 28
And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is
moth-eaten.
Rotten establishments
“A revival of commercial confidence cannot be expected so long as
rotten trading establishments continue to deceive the world.” The cause of bad
trade is that we have neglected personal religion, and have been almost eaten
up by a selfish cancer. There would never be either a failure or a panic if all
commercial men made the Lord Jesus their secret but active partner in every
business transaction. We are apt to consider a defect in our character to be
nothing more than as a spot of rust on a bright fender by the kitchen fire. It
is really the fruit of a spiritual dry rot, which while we appear pious and
respectable in outside show, is eating away the inner strength of true manhood.
When love and benevolence fade it is on account of a rotten thing which
consumeth the good actions of a Christian, as a moth consumes a garment. Years
ago, our Christian light shone brightly--some of us were the life of religious
meetings, the pioneer in saving the lost, the foremost in every good work. Once
some of us felt that we had something to live for, but a stupor has come over
us, and we have lost all anxiety to fulfil our destiny. Inquire into the
private history of those who exhibit feebleness and decay in their Christian
life, in the hope that we may discover our evils and obtain a remedy. Consider
private prayer. The cause of neglect may be an indulged sin. Look at the
motives of your actions. Look into the shop window of your religion. A word to
those who are outwardly respectable, but are inwardly bound by a secret chain
to some evil thing. It is of your own will that you are bound to your sin. You
might escape, if you would. Have you chained yourself to sin? (W.
Bird.)
Struggles of conscience
I. A little by way
of consolation. We desire to comfort you who wish to feel more and more your
sins. The best of men have prayed this prayer of the text before you. Remember
that you never prayed like this years ago when you were a careless sinner. Then
you did not want to know your guilt. Moreover, it is very probable that you do
already feel your guilt, and what you are asking for you already have in
measure realised.
II. A few words of
instruction. See how God will answer such prayers. Sometimes by allowing a man
to fall into more and more gross sin. Or by opening the eyes of the soul; not
so much by providence, as by the mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit. How can
we get to know our sins and the need of the Saviour?
1. Hear a personal ministry.
2. Study much the law of God.
3. Go to Calvary.
III. A few sentences
by way of discrimination. Discriminate between the work of the Holy Spirit and
the work of the devil. It is the work of the Spirit to make thee feel thyself a
sinner, but it never was His work to make thee feel that Christ could forget
thee. Satan always, works by trying to counterfeit the work of the Spirit. Then
take care thou dost not try to make a righteousness out of thy feelings.
IV. A last point by
way of exhortation. It is a very great sin not to feel your guilt, and not to
mourn over it, but then it is one of the sins that Jesus Christ atoned on the
tree. Come to Jesus, because it is He only who can give you that heart for
which you seek; and because He can soften thy heart, and thou canst never
soften it thyself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》