Believers Tested by Trials
(No. 2732)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 23, 1901.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
OCTOBER 17, 1880.
"Behold, Igo forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot
perceive Him: on the left hand, where He works, but I cannot behold
Him: He hides Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him: but He
knows the way that I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as
gold." Job 23:8-10.
JOB, as we noticed in our reading, was at that time in very deep
distress. I commend this fact to the notice of any here who are very
sorely tried. You may be the people of God and yet be in a terrible
plight, for Job was a true servant of the Most High, yet he sat down
among the ashes and scraped himself with a potsherd because he was
covered with sore boils and, at the same time, he was reduced to
absolute poverty. The path of sorrow has been trod by thousands of holy
feet–you are not the first one who could sit down and say, "I am the
man that has seen affliction." You were not the first tried one, you
are not the only one and you will not be the last one. "Many are the
afflictions of the righteous." So let this be some comfort to you–that
you are one of the Lord's suffering children, one of those who have to
pass through rough roads and fiery places in the course of their
pilgrimage to Heaven.
Job had to experience one trial which must have been very keen, indeed,
for it was brought about by his three choice friends who were evidently
men of mind and mark, for their speeches prove that they were by no
means second-class men. Job would not have selected for his bosom
friends any but those who were of high character, estimable in
disposition, and able to converse with him upon high and lofty themes.
Such, no doubt, those three men were and I expect that when Job saw
them coming towards him, he looked for a store of comfort from them,
imagining that they would at least sympathize with him and pour out
such consolations as their own experience could suggest, in order that
he might be somewhat relieved. But he was utterly disappointed–these
friends of his reasoned that there must be some extraordinary cause for
such unusual distress as that into which Job had fallen. They had never
seen wrong in him, but, then, he might be a very cunning man and so
have concealed it from them.
As long as they had known him, he seemed to be a generous, liberal
soul, but, perhaps, after all, he was one of those who squeeze the
uttermost farthing out of the poor. They could not read his heart, so
they put the worst construction upon his sorrows and said, "Depend upon
it, he is a hypocrite! We will apply caustic to him and so we will test
him, and see whether he really is what he professes to be. We will rub
salt into his wounds by bringing various charges against him." And they
did so in a most horrible fashion. That is a cruel thing for anybody to
do and one that cuts to the quick. Possibly, some people who used to
court your company and would not let you go down the street without
bowing to you–now that your circumstances are changed, do not
recognize you. Or if they cannot help seeing you, they appear to have
some distant recollection that, years ago, you were a casual
acquaintance, or, perhaps, if they do speak in a kind, friendly way,
though their words are smoother than butter, war is in their
heart–though their words are softer than oil, yet are they drawn
swords.
You must be a bad man because you have come down in the world–it
cannot be that you are the respectable person they thought you were, or
you would not have lost your estate, for, in the estimation of some
folk, to be respectable means to have a certain amount of cash! The
definition was once given, in a court of law that if a man kept a
carriage and one horse, it was proven, by that fact, that he was
respectable. That is the way of the world–respect and respectability
depend upon so much money–but the moment that is gone, the scene
changes. The man is the same–yes, he may be a better and a nobler man
without the money than with it–but it is only noble men who think so.
It is only right-minded persons who judge not by the coat or the purse,
but who say, with Burns–
"A man's a man for a' that,"
whatever may be his condition. Character is the thing to which we ought
to look–the man himself, and not merely his surroundings. But Job had
to bear just that ignoble sort of scorn that some men seem to delight
to pour upon the sorrows of others!
I want, first, to call your attention to Job's desire in the time of
his trouble. It was his earnest desire to get to his God. Secondly, we
will notice Job's distress because he could not find Him. ' 'Behold, I
go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive
Him." And, thirdly, we will consider Job's consolation.''He knows the
way that I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
I. First, then, notice JOB'S DESIRE IN THE TIME OF HIS TROUBLE.
He wanted his God. He did not long to see Bildad, or Eliphaz, or
Zophar, or any earthly friend–his cry was, "Oh, that I knew where I
might find HIM! That I might come even to His seat!" This is one of the
marks of a true child of God–that even when God smites him, he still
longs for His Presence. If you get to the very back of all Job's
calamities, you will see that God sent them, or, at least, permitted
Satan to afflict him. "Yet," says Job, "I will not turn in anger
against God because of this. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in
Him.' Let Him do what He will with me, I will still seek to get near to
Him and this shall be my heart's desire, 'Oh that I knew where I might
find Him!'" An ungodly man, if he has made any pretense of fellowship
with God in his days of prosperity, forsakes Him as soon as adversity
comes. But the true child of God clings to his Father however roughly
He may deal with him.
We are not held captive to God by a chain of sweets, nor are we bought
with cupboard love, nor bribed in any other way to love Him, but now,
because He first loved us, our heart has loved Him, and rested in
Him–and if cross Providences and strange dealings come from the hand
of the Most High, our cry shall not be, "Oh that we could get away from
Him!" but, "Oh that we knew where we might find Him, that we might come
even to His seat!" This is the mark of our regeneration and
adoption–that, whatever happens, we still cling to our God!
For, beloved Friends, when a man is in trouble, if he can but get to
God, in the first place, he is quite sure of justice. Men may condemn
us falsely, but God never will. Our character may be cruelly slandered
and, doubtless, there have been good men who have lived for years under
false accusations–but God knows the way that we take. He will be the
Advocate of His servants when their case is laid before the heavenly
Court of King's Bench. We need not be afraid that the verdict will not
be just–"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
We also know that if we can get to God, we shall have an audience.
Sometimes men will not hear us when we are pleading for justice. "I do
not want to hear a word you have to say," says the man who is so
prejudiced that he will not listen to our plea. But there is an ear
that no prejudice ever sealed! There is a heart that is always
sympathetic towards the griefs of a Believer. You are sure to be heard,
Beloved, if you pour out your heart before the God that hears prayer!
He will never be weary of your cries–they may be poor, broken
utterances–but He takes the meaning of the sighs of His saints, He
understands the language of their groans. Go, then, to God because you
are sure of an audience.
What is more, in getting near to God, a man is sure to have strength.
You notice how Job puts it–"'Will He plead against me with His great
power? No, but He would put strength in me." When once we get to
realize that God is with us, how strong we are! Then we can bear the
burden of want or of pain, or even the sharp adder's tongue of slander.
The man who has God with him is a very Samson–he may fling himself
upon a troop of Philistines and smite them hip and thigh! He may lay
hold of the pillars of their temple, rock them to and fro, and bring
down the whole building upon them! I say not that we shall work
miracles, but I do say that, as our days, so shall our strength be–
"I can do all things, or can bear All sufferings, if my Lord is there."
And, once more, he who gets to his God is sure of joy. There was never
a soul that was right with God and that was unhappy in the Presence of
God! Up yonder in Glory, how gladly they smile! How I would like to
photograph their beaming faces! What a group that would be–of angel
faces bathed in everlasting light and the faces of those redeemed
from among men–all radiant with celestial joy! What gives them that
gladness? It is because God is there that they are so happy–
"Not all the harps above Can make a heavenly place, If God His
residence remove, Or but conceal His face."
Just as the sun makes the landscape bright and fair, so does the light
of God's Countenance make all His people glad. It would not matter to a
man whether he were in a dungeon or a palace if he had the constant
Presence of God! I am not speaking at random when I make that
assertion. Read the record of the martyr days of the Church and you
will understand that the Presence of God caused His persecuted people
to be the happiest in the whole world! No minstrels in royal halls ever
sang so sweetly as did the prisoners of the Lord who were confined in
deep, dark, underground dungeons where they could scarcely breathe. No,
that is not all, for some have been happy even on the rack. Think of
brave Lady Anne Askew sitting on the cold stones after the cursed
inquisitors had torn her poor feeble frame almost limb from limb–and
when they tempted her to turn from the faith, she answered–
"I am not she that lyst
My anker to let fall
For every dryslynge mist;
My shippe's substancyal."
Some who were tortured, not accepting deliverance, declared, as in the
case of Lawrence, that the gridiron was a bed of roses and that they
never were so joyous as when their body was being consumed in the
fire–every finger being like a lighted candle–for they were able,
even then, to cry, "None but Christ! None but Christ!" It is amazing
how the Presence of God seems to be a salve that kills all pain–an
uplifting, like an angel's wing, that bears upward one who, without it,
would be utterly crushed. The martyr is torn in pieces and full of
agonies–and yet all his sufferings are transformed till they become
sweet harmonies of intense delight because God is with him! Oh give me
God, give me God, and I care not what you withhold from me! "Whom have
I in Heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside
You."
II. The brightness of the first part of my subject will help to make
the second portion all the darker. We are now to consider JOB'S
DISTRESS–the agony of a true child of God who cannot find his Father.
Your experiences are not all alike, Brothers and Sisters, and I do not
want you to try to make them all alike. Some of you have very happy
experiences and very little spiritual trial. I am glad it is so. I only
hope you will not be superficial, or conceited, or censorious of
others. But there are some who know the darker paths in the heavenly
pilgrimage–and it is to those that I specially speak just now. Dear
Friends, I pray you to remember that a man may be a true servant of God
and even an eminent and distinguished servant of God like Job, and yet
he may sometimes lose the light of God's Countenance and have to cry
out, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" There are some special,
superfine, hot-pressed Christians about, nowadays, who do not believe
this. They say, "You ought to be joyous! You ought never to be
depressed–you ought to be perfect!" All which is quite true, but it is
a great deal easier to say so than to show how it is to be realized!
And these Brothers and Sisters who talk as if it were a very simple
matter, like counting your fingers, may someday find that it is more
difficult than they think–as some of us have sometimes done.
Job could not find his God–this is apparently strange. He was a
specially good man, one who did what he could for all around him–a
very light in the city where he dwelt–a man famous in all the country,
yet in great trouble–one might have thought that God would certainly
comfort him! He has lost everything. Surely, now, the Lord will return
to him and be gracious to him and, above all other times, he will now
be cheered with the Presence of God! Yet it was not so. He was a man
who valued the company of God and who cried, "Oh that I knew where I
might find Him!" Yet he could not find Him. It is passing strange, or,
at least, it appears to be so.
Yet notice, next, that it is essentially necessary to some trials that
God should withdraw the light of His Countenance. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, with all the woes that He endured, could not have been made
perfect through sufferings unless He had learned to cry, "My God, My
God, why have You forsaken Me?" When God means to smite any child of
His with the rod, He cannot do it with a smile. Suppose a father is
chastening his son and all the while is comforting
him–where is the chastening? No, the very essence of the medicinal
sorrow that is to do good to our souls will lie in our having to bewail
the absence of the smile of God.
This is essential to our trial, but it is greatly perplexing. I do not
know of anything that so troubles a Christian as when he does not know
where his God is. "God is everywhere," says one. I know He is, but yet
there is a special Presence which He manifests to His people and
sometimes it seems to them as if He were nowhere at all. So Job
exclaimed, "Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward,
but I cannot perceive Him." Tried children of God, you have had this
experience and it is very perplexing because, when you cannot find your
God, you cannot make out why you are being troubled! An affliction that
will talk is always a light one, but I dread most of all a dumb
affliction that cannot tell me why it has come. When I look around it,
and ask, "Why is this?" and I cannot get an answer, thatis what plagues
me much. And when you cannot find God, you do not know what to do, for,
in losing Him, you have lost your Guide. You are in a maze and know not
how to get out of it. You are like a man in a net–the more you pull
this way or that–the more you tighten the bonds that hold you
prisoner! Where you hoped to have relieved yourself, you only brought
yourself into further difficulties in another direction–and this
bewilderment is one of the worst of sorrows.
The loss of God's Presence is also inexpressibly painful to a Believer.
If you can live without God, I am afraid you will die without God. But
if you cannot live without God, that proves that you are His, and you
will bear me out in the assertion that this is the heaviest of mortal
griefs–to feel that God has forsaken you and does not hear your
prayer– no, does not even seem to help you to pray, so that you can
only groan, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! . . . Behold, I go
forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him."
Then, dear Friends, in closing what I have to say about this dark side
of the subject, let me remind you that it is mar-velously
awakeningbecause the true child of God, when he finds that his Father
has forsaken him for a while, gets to be terribly unhappy. Then he
begins to cry and to seek after God. Look at Job–he hunts for God
everywhere–forward, backward, on the left hand, on the right hand. He
leaves no quarter unvisited. No part of the earth is left without being
searched over that he might find his God. Nothing spreads a real
Christian to his bearings and awakes all his faculties like the
consciousness of his Lord's absence. Then he cries, "My God, where are
You? I have lost the sense of Your Presence! I have missed the light of
Your Countenance."
A man in such a case as this goes to the Prayer Meeting in the hope
that other people's prayers may help to make his sad heart happy again.
He reads his Bible, too, as he has not read it for months. You will
also find him listening to the Gospel with the utmost eagerness and
nothing but the Gospel will satisfy him. At one time, he could listen
to that pleasant kind of talk that lulls the hearers to sleep, but now
he needs a heart-searching ministry and a message that will go right
into him and deal faithfully with him–and he is not content unless he
gets it. Besides this, he is anxious to talk with Christian friends of
riper experiences than his own and he deals seriously and earnestly
with these eternal matters which, before, he perhaps trifled with as
mere technicalities. You see a man who once lived in the light of God's
Countenance and you will find him wretched, indeed, when the light is
gone. He must have his God.
III. Now, lastly, I want to speak, for a little while, concerning THE
TRIED BELIEVER'S CONSOLATION. It is a very sweet consolation–"He knows
the way that I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
God knows and understands all about His child. I do not know His way,
but He knows mine. I am His child and my Father is leading me, though I
cannot see Him, for all around me, it is so misty and dark. I can
scarcely feel His hand that grasps my little palm, so I cry to Him,
"Where are You, my Father? I cannot see my way. The next step before me
threatens to plunge me into imminent peril. I know nothing, my Father,
but You know." That is just where knowledge is of most use–it does not
so much matter what you do not know so long as God knows, for He is
your Guide. If the guide knows the way, the traveler under his care may
be content to know but little. "He knows the way that I take." There is
nothing about you, my Brother, which God does not perfectly understand.
You are a riddle to yourself, but you are no riddle to Him. There are
mysteries in your heart that you cannot explain, but He has the clue of
every maze, the key of every secret drawer–and He knows how to get at
the hidden springs of your spirit. He knows the trouble that you could
not tell to your dearest friend, the grief you dare not whisper in any
human ear!
I find that the Hebrew has this meaning, "He knows the way that is in
me." God knows whether I am His child or not–whether I am sincere or
not. While others are judging me harshly, He judges me truly–He knows
what I really am. This is a sweet consolation! Take it to yourself,
tried Believer.
Next, God approves of His child. The word, "know," often has the
meaning of approval, and it has that sense here. Job says "God approves
of the way that I take." When you are in trouble, it is a grand thing
to be able to say, "I know that I have done that which is right in the
sight of God, although it has brought me into great trial. 'My foot has
held His steps, His way have I kept, and not declined.'" If you have a
secret and sure sense of God's approval in the time of your sorrow, it
will be a source of very great strengthening to your spirit.
But Job meant more than this. He meant that God was considering
him–and helping him even then. The fact that He knows of our needs
guarantees that He will supply them. You remember how our Lord Jesus
Christ puts this Truth of God–"Take no thought, saying, What shall we
eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For
your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things."
Does He know all about our need? It is all right then–the Head of the
house knows the need of all the members of His family, and that is
enough, for He never yet failed to supply all the needs of those who
depend upon Him. When I need guidance, He will Himself be my Guide. He
will supply me when I lack supplies. He will defend me when I need
defense. He will give me all things that I really require. There is an
old proverb that says, "Where God is, nothing is lacking," and it is
blessedly true! Only remember that there is an ancient precept with a
gracious promise attached to it, "Delight yourself, also, in the Lord,
and He shall give you the desires of your heart." Believe it, and obey
it, and you shall find it true in your case.
Furthermore, when Job says, "When He has tried me, I shall come forth
as gold," he comforts himself with the belief that God times and
manages all things–that his present distresses are a trial by which
God is testing him. A man who is like solid gold is not afraid to be
tested. No tradesman is afraid to put into the scales that which is
full weight, for if it is weighed, it will be proved to be what he says
it is. When the inspector of weights and measures comes round, the
gentleman who does not like to see him is the man of short weights and
incorrect scales. He who knows he is upright and sincere dares say even
to the Lord, Himself, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and
know my ways: and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in
the way everlasting." We do not profess to be perfect, but we dare
claim to be sincere–and he who is sincere is not afraid of being
tested and tried. Real gold is not afraid of the fire–why should it
be? What has it to lose? So Job seems to say, "I know that God has put
integrity within my spirit and now that He is testing me, He will not
carry the test further than, by His Grace, I shall be able to bear."
Lastly, Job's comfort was that God secures the happy result of trial He
believed that when God had tried him, He would bring him forth as gold.
Now, how does gold come out of the crucible? How does a true Christian
come out of the darkness and obscurity of missing his God for a while?
How does he come out like gold? In the Hebrew, the word has an allusion
to the bright color of the gold, so, when a Christian is tried, is
there not a bright color upon him? Even though he may have lost, for a
while, the bright shining of God's Countenance, when that brightness
returns, there is a luster about him which you cannot help seeing! He
will speak of his God in a more impressive way than he ever spoke
before. Examine the books that are most comforting to Believers and
that satisfy their souls, and you will find that the men who wrote them
were those who had been severely tried–and when they came out of the
fire–there was a brilliance upon them which would not otherwise have
been there. If you walk in darkness and see no light, believe that when
God has tried you, you shall come forth with the brightness of
newly-minted gold!
But brightness is of little value without preciousness–and the
children of God grow more precious through their trials and, being
precious, they become objects of desire. Men desire gold above almost
everything else, yet the Lord has said, "I will make a man more
precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir."
There are some godly men whose company we court and some Christian
women whose society, when they talk of spiritual things, is worth a
Jew's eye to one that is in distress. Happy are they whom God has
passed through the fire–who become precious and desirable when they
come out of it!
And they become honorable, too. "When He has tried me," said Job, "even
though my friends now despise me, when I come forth, they shall have
different thoughts concerning me." They thought a great deal more of
Job when God was angry with them and would not restore them to His
favor until the Patriarch had prayed for them–than they thought of him
when they went to find fault with him! And the day shall come to you,
true child of God, when those who now persecute you and look down upon
you, shall look up to you! Joseph may be cast into the pit by his
brothers and sold into Egypt, but he shall yet sit on the throne–and
all his father's sons shall bow before him!
Once more, you shall come out of the fire uninjured. It looks very hard
to believe that a child of God should be tried by the loss of his
Father's Presence and yet should come forth uninjured by the trial. Yet
no gold is ever injured in the fire. Stoke the furnace as much as you
may, let the blast be as strong as you will, thrust the ingot into the
very center of the white heat, let it lie in the very heart of the
flame–pile on more fuel, let another blast torment the coals till they
become most vehement with heat–yet the gold is losing nothing, it may
even be gaining. If it had any alloy mingled with it, the alloy is
separated from it by the fire–and to gain in purity is the greatest of
gains. But the pure gold is not one drachma less! There is not a single
particle of it that can be burnt. It is still there, all the better for
the fiery trial to which it has been subjected! And you, dear child of
God, whatever may befall you, shall come out of the fire quite
uninjured. You are under a dark cloud just now, but you shall come out
into brightness and you shall have lost nothing that was worth keeping!
What is there that you can lose? When death comes, what will you
lose?–
"Corruption, earth, and worms
Shall but refine this flesh,
Till my triumphant spirit comes
To put it on afresh!"
When we put on our new clothes, this body that shall have passed
through God's transforming hand–shall we be losers? No, we shall say,
"What a difference! Is this my Sabbath garment? The old one was dark
and dingy, dusty and defiled. This is whiter than any fuller could make
it and brighter than the light!" You will scarcely know yourselves, my
Brothers and Sisters! You will know other people, I daresay, but I
think you will hardly recognize yourselves when once you have put on
your new array. You cannot really lose anything by death! You will not
lose the eyes you part with for a while, for, when Christ shall stand
at the latter day, upon the earth, your eyes shall behold Him! You
shall lose no faculty, no power, but you shall infinitely gain even by
death itself–and that is the very worst of your enemies, so that you
shall certainly gain by all the rest! Come then, pluck up courage and
march boldly on! Fear no ghosts, for they are but specters–there is no
reality about them!
Beloved, note well this closing word. God is here. You need not go
forward to find Him, or backward to hunt after Him, or on the left to
search for Him, or on the right to see Him. He is still with His
people, as He said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world." "Fear not: for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your
name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with
you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk
through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame
kindle upon you." Oh, seek Him, then, every one of you, and God bless
you all, for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOB 23; 24.
Always remember, dear Friends, that one of the great lessons of the
Book of Job is this–that we may never judge a man's character by his
condition. The best of men may have the most of suffering and of
poverty, while the worst of men may prosper in everything. Do not
imagine because a man suddenly becomes very poor or a great sufferer,
that therefore he must be a great sinner–otherwise, you will often
condemn the innocent, and you will, at the same time, be guilty of
flattering the wicked. Job's friends had cruelly told him that he must
be a hypocrite, or else he would not have lost his property and have
been smitten with such a remarkable sickness. So he appeals to God
against their unrighteous judgment.
Job 23:1, 2. Then Job answered andsaid, Even today is my complaint
bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning. "Although my groaning is
heavy, yet it is not so burdensome as my griefs might warrant."
3. Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His
seat! "To His Judgment Seat, that I might plead my cause and vindicate
my character even there."
4-6. I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with
arguments. I would know the words which He would answer me, and
understand what He would say unto me. Will He plead against me with His
great power? "Being the great God, will He silence me by a display of
His Omnipotence? Oh, no! He is too just to do that."
6. No; but He would put strength in me.''He would help me to argue my
case. He would deal fairly with me. He would not be like you so-called
friends of mine, who sit there and exult over my weakness and my
griefs, and torture me with your cruel words."
7-10. There the righteous might dispute with Him; so shouldI be
delivered forever from my Judge. Behold, I go forward, but He is not
there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: on the left hand, where
He works, but I cannot behold Him: He hides Himself on the right hand,
that I cannot see Him: but He knows the way that I take.' 'If I cannot
find Him, or see Him, He can see me, and He knows all about me."
10. When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. This is beautiful
faith on the part of Job. It is very easy for us to read these lines
and to say, "No doubt, tried men do come out of the furnace purified
like gold." But it is quite another thing to be in the crucible
ourselves and to read such a passage as this by the light of the fire,
and then to be able to say, "We know it is true, for we are proving its
truth even now." This is the kind of Chapter that many a broken heart
has to read by itself alone. Many a weeping eye has scanned these words
of Job and truly blessed has that troubled one been who has been able
to chime in with the sweet music of this verse–"He knows the way that
I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
11. My foot has held fast to His steps, His way have I kept, and not
declined. It is a great thing to be able to say that, as Job truly
could, for we have the witness of the Spirit of God that Job was
"perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." It
was not self-righteousness that made him speak as he did–he had the
right to say it and he said it.
12. 13. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips; I
have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. But
He is of one mind, and who can turn Him?' 'His mind is made up to
chasten me. He means to afflict me again and again, so what can I do
but yield to His will?"
13. And what His soul desires, even that He does. There is, on Job's
part, a reverential bowing before the Supreme Power–an acknowledgment
of God's right to do with him as He wills.
14. For He performs the thing that is appointed for me: and many such
things are with Him. "More arrows to pierce me, more sorrows to grieve
me."
15-17. Therefore am I troubledat His Presence: when Iconsider, I am
afraid ofHim. For God makes my heart soft, and the Almighty troubles
me: because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither has He
covered the darkness from my face. He wished that he had died before
those evil days had come upon him; and that is the way that a good man,
an undoubted saint of God, is sometimes driven to speak. There are,
perhaps, some who will say, "Then we don't want to be children of God
if that is how they are tried." Ah, but that was only the sorrow of an
hour. See where Job is now! Think of what he was even a few days after
he made this mournful complaint, when God had turned his sighing into
singing, and his mourning into morning light! In the next Chapter, Job
speaks of those who were the reverse of himself–wicked and ungodly men
who, nevertheless, prospered in this life.
Job 24:1. Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they
that know Him not see His days? "Why do they live so long? Why do they
appear to have such prosperity?"
2-4. Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and
feed thereof They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the
widow's ox for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way: the poor
of the earth hide themselves together. "They are hard-hearted enough to
rob even poor widows and orphan children."
5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work
Like wild asses, their work consists in going forth to do mischief.
5. Rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yields food for them and
for their children. For there are some so hard that they would skin a
flint, and out of the wilderness would manage to get food. Yet such
hard oppressors of others sometimes seem to prosper for a while.
6-12. They reap everyone his corn in the field: and they gather the
vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge without clothing,
that they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers
of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter They pluck
the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor They
cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf
from the hungry; which make oil within their walls, and tread their
winepresses, and suffer thirst Men groan from out of the city, and the
soul of the wounded cries out: yet God
lays not folly to them. He lets them alone, leaves them to do as they
please. So it seems, but this is not the Day of Judgment, and this is
not the place of final retribution! Now and then God flashes forth His
anger against some gross sinner or some national crime, but as for the
most of men's sins, He bears with them till that tremendous day shall
come which draws on apace, when He shall hang the heavens in sackcloth,
and hold the last assize, and every man shall receive according to his
works.
13-17. They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not
the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. The murderer rising
with the light kills the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief
The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, No eye
shallsee me: and disguises his face. In the dark they dig through
houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime: they know
not the light. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death:
if one knows them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.
These are the men who plunder secretly, who rob, yet cannot bear to be
known as thieves.
18. He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth.
There was no curse upon Job, and no curse can come near the true child
of God. His scanty portion is still blest. But the large portion of the
ungodly is cursed even while he is on the earth!
18-20. He beholds not the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat
consume the snow waters: so does the grave those which have sinned. The
womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him. What a
sarcastic utterance! This man, who lorded it over others–how glad the
worm shall be to get at him! This fat worldling shall be a rich feast
for the worms!
20. He shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a
tree. It shall snap off and be brought to an ignominious end.
21-24. He preys on the barren that bears not: and does not good to the
widow. But God draws the mighty away with His power: He rises up, but
no man is sure of life. Though it be given him to be in safety, whereon
he rests; yet His eyes are upon their ways. They are exalted for a
little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the
way as all others, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn. In the
East, they generally reap their harvest by just taking off the tops of
the ears of corn and leaving the straw. Thus will the wicked be cut
off.
25. And if it is not so now, who will make me a liar, and make my
speech worth nothing? Job challenges all men to contradict what he
affirms–that the righteous may be greater sufferers, and the wicked
may for a while prosper, but that God will, in the end, overthrow the
ungodly and establish the righteous.