ELEVEN LECTURES ON THE BOOK OF JOB
PREFACE
Owing to the Author's decease within a comparatively short
time of their delivery, these "Eleven Lectures," reported in shorthand, were
denied the advantage of the Lecturer's careful revision for which they were
waiting before being committed to the printers. Under the circumstances, the
Editor has thought it best to depart as little as possible from the reporter's
transcript, and counts therefore upon the reader's kind indulgence in regard to
any imperfections that may appear in the work. Repetitions there are
throughout, as must be, more or less, in the case of oral delivery.
It
may interest the reader to know that the Author's "Notes on the Book of
Job" appeared in 1879; his "Three Lectures" on the same Book in 1909;
and now his latest commentary in the Volume here put forth. They will be found
mutually complementary, and most helpful. May the Lord richly bless these
Addresses to His own for their comfort and encouragement in trial, that they
may, from the heart, be able to say with the apostle: "Ye . . . have seen the
end of the Lord; that THE LORD IS VERY PITIFUL, AND OF TENDER MERCY" (James 5:
11).
LECTURE 5
JOB.
15-19
In this 15th chapter we have the second debate between Job's
friends and himself. I shall take a view of the greater part of it, if the Lord
will, in a general way tonight.
Although Eliphaz was the more grave and
solid of his friends, they were all infected with the same fundamental mistake.
That is an important thing for our souls. We are so apt to think that we never
make any important mistake. Why should that be so? Are we so different from
others? Are we not very liable to it? You must remember that this is a
practical mistake; it is not merely a dogmatic one. There is no question of
false doctrine of any kind here; but it is the application of truth to the
soul; and it is of great moment to us that God has given us a very early book -
Moses probably the writer of it; but the persons concerned are considerably
before Moses. We see that from the very age of Job, and from all the
circumstances.
There is no reference to the law of Israel; no
reference to the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt; it always speaks of a
particularly early time. Its great point is the dealings of God with man, and
particularly with men of faith. It is not merely unbelieving man; with him it
is always pretty much the same thing. His guilt may be aggravated; and, indeed,
I have no doubt that there is no man now so responsible as those that hear the
gospel - those that have Christianity in a living way presented to them. They
are far more guilty and more to be pitied in one way than even the wild
Tartars, or the subjects of that kingdom (Thibet) that seems now [1903] about
to be penetrated - that practically shut up and sealed kingdom which now is
about to be opened, as far as we can see; surely a rather solemn consideration;
for it would be hard to find another. No doubt, in the wilds and centre of
Africa there may be many tribes that are unknown; but this is a very old
civilization; and its rulers have managed to completely block out light from
every source - to pursue their own devices to their own destruction. But God
will not allow it to proceed further; and although we cannot look for much in
the present state, many may go there as a matter of commerce, or a matter
perhaps of politics, or a matter of ambition of one kind or another - still
there may be children of God mixed up with them, and these, at any rate, can
give a message from Christ.
However that may be, what I am drawing
attention to is the interesting character of this book as the revelation to us
now (and, of course, to the Old Testament saints long before us) of how God
deals with pious men, and that for their souls' good, before there is any
written revelation of God. For this is one of the very first books that ever
was written, as I have previously remarked. Sometimes people forget that
although Job appears far down in the Bible, it is the first book of a poetic
character; the prose books all come before Job, carrying you down past the
captivity to Babylon, and then returning from it; and then we go back to the
poetic books, and the Book of Job is the first one. It answers, therefore, very
much to Genesis; what Genesis is in the first portion of the Bible, Job is in
the second. Then we have the Prophets; but it is the first of the poetic books
that are not the Prophets.
Now as to the attack - for we cannot call
it anything else - that is a serious thing. It is not merely in modern times
that Christians have their differences. We see it is here radical - it belongs
to the human spirit, and it may have a very good source; because we are, as no
doubt Old Testament saints found themselves too, instinctively caring for one
another. These friends of Job were exceedingly troubled as to the man to whom
they had all looked up, and he was considered the most righteous of all men
within their scope; and no wonder, God pronounced him so. They did not know
that. It is a most important thing to make this remark, that we are in a very
different position, for hearing all these debates, from Job himself. How little
did Job know that all that came upon him was in consequence of what passed in
the presence of God in heaven! - everything spoken in heaven about the child of
God, even the trials! This was to be a peculiar trial, but it was all settled
there; Job knew nothing about it. The raid of these Chaldeans, and those we
call "Bedouins," and the like - all that was merely natural; and, no doubt, the
tendency was to regard it merely as the trials of a righteous man and his
family from natural causes.
No, beloved friends; it is not a mere
natural cause to the believer; he is under the eye of God. He was so always;
still more so now. Now we are brought into known relationship with God, and
into the nearest relationship with God. We are put in the place of His own
family; we are His own children, yea, sons of God, for this latter speaks of a
dignity before others; that is to say, we are no longer novices, no longer
babes in the nursery, as was the case with believers in the Jewish system. They
had not arrived at age. The Christian now, if he knows what it is to be a
Christian (a great many, alas! do not know, for they think themselves very much
like believers of old, but that is a mistake), has far superior privileges; and
it is one of the great means of Satan's hindering, to lead people not to
understand the place they are brought into, and, consequently, their
responsibility. However that may be, here we have these undoubted saints that
were all at sea in regard to this terrible calamity, this blow after blow,
tempest after tempest which blew away everything in which Job had once been so
favoured. For God has pleasure in blessing His people not merely in spiritual
things, but where we can bear it. You remember that word of the apostle John,
where he wishes that Gaius might prosper as his soul prospered. If the soul
does not prosper, adversity comes as a great mercy; but where the soul prospers
we may be allowed to feel, and God has pleasure in showing, His goodness in
everything - in family circumstances, yea, in everything, if it be for His
glory. He is the judge of that. But there are continually things that, in the
wisdom of God, are forbidden in this way or that way.
However, I do
not go into that new; but here we have the fact that the two things perfectly
coalesced in Job - that there was not a man upon earth that God had such
pleasure in looking upon as Job, and yet such a man passing through deepest
trial from God. It is a great difficulty with the Jews; they cannot understand
it. They want to make out that Job was an imaginary being, because it seems so
strange to them that after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there should be a man
outside Israel altogether that God had such a high opinion of - and he not a
Jew! Yes. So there it was a great blow to their pride and their narrowness. Yet
were they not all in fact outsiders? They would seem to have been in the
Abrahamic line in one way; but they were not in the chosen line. You know that
Abraham had other children; and they would appear to have been sprung from an
Abrahamic line, but outside that particular covenant; and we have no reason to
suppose that they had the sign and seal of that covenant which, of course, the
Israelites have.
No; the point is God dealing with "man," and with
man's heart and conscience. And what is more, it was not because of any
particular evil. There was the radical mistake of Eliphaz which runs through
his speech that I have just read tonight. He cannot rise above the thought that
Job had seemed everything that was beautiful to our eyes and everybody's eyes,
and he was blessed of God in an extraordinary manner. For he was, as is said,
the greatest man in that part of the East. And now this utter reverse! this
casting him down from what seemed his excellency! How could it be but that, as
God is a righteous God, there must be some terrible iniquity there? So he also
felt that if there was an iniquity, Job must be conscious of it; and yet not a
word from Job! Not a sign that he was ashamed of himself, or that he had
anything to be judged! There was fault in Job; but not the least of the kind
they expected. The fault in Job was this, that Job had a good opinion of
himself, and that Job had great pleasure in everybody's so highly respecting
him. I wonder whether any of us have got that? I am afraid it is a very common
thing. And there is just what people do not find out. They do not learn; they
so little understand this wonderful mirror of the word of God. They do not
understand that here is their own case.
However, I perhaps anticipate.
But we find how very strong is the outburst of Eliphaz - a mild, grave, and
serious man - for this he undoubtedly was. There is no need of our running down
the three friends as if they were something very uncommon. They were very
common indeed. Job rather was uncommon, yea, decidedly uncommon; and that is
what made the example of Job so very pertinent to the object of God - that a
man might be spotless in his way, that a man might be justly respected, but
that when the man that is pious, God-fearing, prayerful and one so loved and
valued and cried up as Job was - when he accepts it as his due, and has great
pleasure in it, God is a jealous God, and will not allow that. And why not? Man
is a sinner! And Job, even though he was now a believer, had sin in him, and
self-judgment was wanting. If self-judgment had been duly exercised, Job would
not have needed this trial. And there is another thing too; that when God does
send a trial, the great call of man is to submit to it without a doubt, without
a question, giving God credit for it that there is no undue severity. Now, on
the contrary, Job felt a very great deal about it, and found fault with God,
and thought that God was dealing very hardly indeed with him. Thus it is that
the way in which this book has been sometimes treated for 1,500 years (perhaps
more) is an entire fallacy.
What I refer to is this: that Job was
considered to be a kind of type of Christ in his suffering. Nothing of the
sort. Quite the reverse. Look, for instance, at Psalm 38 and Psalm 39. There
you have not exactly Christ personally, but the spirit of Christ in the
Israelite, and this will be accomplished in the future day, when there will be
a remnant of Jews thoroughly marked by the spirit of Christ, which will follow
after we are taken out of the way to heaven. They will pass through tremendous
trial, and the remnant will have that spirit of Christ. Those Psalms are
prophetically written for them. No doubt all was written for us. All the Bible
was written for the Christian, and for his use, blessing and enjoyment. But it
is not all about us. This is the mistake that many people make, that because it
is all for our good and for our spiritual taste and enjoyment, therefore, we
are the persons that are meant in it! Not so. There is just what was falsified
- this trying to find the pattern of Christ in it! whereas the very point is
the contrast shown by the rebellious spirit of Job. For there is that. He
charges God with being his enemy, and with tearing him to pieces and casting
him down, making him to be an object of mockery for everybody. Job imputes to
God. Well, no doubt God had allowed all this to come to pass; it could not have
been without it. But it was not God's, it was Job's own mistake; and it was Job
also that had the most agonizing sense of that, because he could not bear the
shame of his friends coming. He bore it all beautifully till his friends dawned
upon the scene. A man when alone can bear; but when there are people that show
no sympathy and no understanding, he breaks loose and lets out, and flings very
improper language about his friends - perhaps they deserved it, but certainly,
certainly not God. And his friends were alive to that. They could see that he
spoke improperly about God; so that he put himself quite in the wrong there.
"Should a wise man utter vain knowledge," for they were quite aware
that there was something very able in what Job said - they called that vain
knowledge - "and fill his belly with the east wind?" No doubt he was
exceedingly wrong. "Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches
wherewith he can do no good? Yea, thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer
before God." Now he did nothing of the kind; Job always clung to God, always
looked up to God, but he said, 'I cannot find Him; He has shut me out,
occupying me with this agony that I am passing through, so that I cannot get at
Him. I know if I could only get there I should find goodness and mercy.' It was
no doubt very inconsistent; but that is always the case with poor man when he
is not in the presence of God. That was one of the grand points that all had.
Job was living, for a man of faith, too much in the good opinion of other
people as well as in his own good opinion. There is where he was quite wrong.
And there is where Christ and Christianity puts us in our true place if we are
faithful - which is, that we have to face a hostile world; that we have to face
not only a hostile world, but even, it may be, fellow Christians, who, if they
are not faithful, are mad against any people that are; because it rebukes
themselves. We have to bear that, and consequently here we are now in the truth
of things suffering with Christ. That is what Christ suffered.
I am
not speaking now of suffering for Christ. Suffering for Christ is where there
is a decided break made. Perhaps we are cast into prison falsely, or it may be
transported falsely, or executed falsely as martyrs and the like - that is
suffering for Christ. But there is another kind of suffering that belongs to
the Christian - suffering with Christ. For instance, suppose that there was a
royal princess of England that was truly brought to God, and who entered really
into the place of the Christian - why, what would be the case of that young
princess? Always suffering. Why? Because every. thing that surrounded her would
be contrary to what belonged to her soul and to her position. Why so? Because
it is of the world, and of the world in its grandest shape, and consequently it
would mark the contrariety. What is the place of the Christian? He is not of
the world. How far not of the world? Why, like Christ. What did Christ do with
the world? Where did Christ ever contribute one iota to what the world likes
and values? Christ appeared to be the most useless of men for the world. He
never made a speech upon science; He never contributed one lesson in learning
or literature. He never gave a vote - if I may speak of voting or anything of
that kind. He never did the slightest thing of that nature. He would not even
judge a case, or arbitrate even when they wanted Him to judge in that informal
way; consequently, there never was a person more completely outside the world
while passing through it. That is where the Christian is. I say, therefore,
that the higher you are up in the world the more you find the difficulty of
being faithful. And that is suffering with Christ, where you feel it. There are
some people who get through things easily. That is not to be admired; it is a
kind of opiate - continually dramming oneself with opiates to drown feeling,
and take everything quite comfortably, no matter what it is, and entirely
losing sight of the fact that we do not belong to these things in which we take
part.
Oh, beloved friends, that is not the way. Our call is to take
part actively for Christ and according to Christ. Our call is to entire
separation to the Lord. Supposing that there was a house on fire next door; it
would be our business to immediately do all we could to help and save both life
and property. That is not worldly; but it would be worldly to go into the Court
and fight for our rights or to refuse to pay our dues if we are called upon to
do so. All that is not only worldly, but it is rebellious. I know what they
call themselves - "Passive Resisters" - but I do not understand that language.
They are active resisters of the law; and if they had any sense of propriety
they would pay their money quietly, or let people take their goods quietly, and
so make an end. I only mention it now to show how completely God's children
have lost the sense of what it is to be a Christian. I am speaking now
practically. I might go further. I maintain that Christians have lost the
doctrine of what a Christian is. It is not that there is a certain blessed
standard that we all acknowledge to be what a Christian is, and that we fall
sort, practically. I believe it will be found that they areas wrong about the
standard as they are about the practice; and one thing I can say for myself,
honestly and truly, that what has occupied me all my life, is cleaving to what
I have found to be the Christian pathway and duty, and seeking to help others
to see the truth and blessedness of it, and to act faithfully according to it.
I am sure I have plenty to judge myself for; but I thank God for every trial
and everything that has made nothing of me. And that is just what Job had to
learn as to himself. He did not know that God was working all this for Job's
own great good, even allowing also what was most repulsive to God - the
disease, and the sweeping away of his family. This was all the devil's doing;
but God allowed it for Job's good, and Job had not an idea of all that. If Job
had understood the end that was coming, and had understood the beginning which
was before all the trial, he would have lost a great deal of the blessing, and
why? Because, then, as now, the child of God is to walk by faith.
People like to walk by sight, and that was the great fallacy that lay under all
the speeches of these three friends. They looked at Job; they looked at what he
was; and they look at what he now is in all this terrible crushing to the dust,
and they said in effect, 'Well, God is a righteous God, and if there were not
some dreadful thing behind all this, God would never have allowed it.' They
were completely wrong, and Job was thoroughly right in saying, 'No, I know it
is not so, and all your talk cannot get rid of the fact that you have most
wicked men that are most flourishing, and you have pious men that are
exceedingly suffering, in the world as it is now.' How is that? Because Satan
is actively working here; because Satan is the one that men follow without
knowing. They are slaves and captives of the devil; and those that are not
slaves of the devil are the objects of his vengeance and hatred. God does not
remove that; He does not put down Satan yet; he is allowed his way. And there
never was a greater proof of it than his leading the world and the Jewish
people to crucify their own Messiah, the Lord of glory. Was there any fault
here? Here you have the crucial proof. Here was the absolutely sinless One and
never such a sufferer.
The whole theory, then, of the three friends
was a falsehood from beginning to end. Yet it is exactly what most people think
to this day. They have an idea that there must be something very wrong where
they see people passing through exceeding deep waters. Now there was something
that Job had not got, and that was to measure himself in the presence of God;
and God never stopped till He brought him into His presence. He interfered in
the most remarkable way; but I must not anticipate. Eliphaz, after having let
out strongly at Job, now falls back upon what was a very common feeling,
especially of the former. Eliphaz was a man that strongly stood for the great
value of experience. You know there are people that are very strong for
experience, and accordingly, as to the great and good men that have been before
- is that a standard? No one denies the honour due to elders, at least no
person with any propriety. But Eliphaz used it in a wrong manner, and told Job,
"Why, you are going against everything that has been held by the best of men
that have ever been. Are you the first man; are you as old as the hills when
you talk in such a manner as this, as if you knew better than any of these most
excellent men, older than your father? and you set up in this way." Well, he
carries on that for some time, and he comes to this; what it must be. "How much
more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? I will
show thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare." He meant Job
particularly there. "I will show thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I
will declare, which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid
it." He looks therefore at old experience, and of the best of men, when men
were not so bad as they were in his time. For that is quite true; man does get
worse and worse, and even he had remarked it.
A famous poet that I
used to read as a boy - a heathen poet - says the very same thing, that no
generation had been so bad as the present one, which is going to bear children
that will be worse than their fathers. At any rate they are not so bad as the
people who think the world is going to get better, for these are most
deplorably wrong. There will be a great change; but what will bring in that
change will not be preachers, nor tracts, nor books, nor education; nay, not
even the Bible, although that is the word of God. But the Bible demands more
than this. It requires that men be born of God; and even in the case of people
that are born of God they are called to judge themselves, just like Job, the
very best of them. That is what he was brought to, and what he was most slow to
come to. Therefore all this reasoning was entirely out of place, and the larger
part of the chapter is description, that when a man is carrying on in this way
it must be that he is always in dread of what is coming. Eliphaz was wrong
about that. Job had no such thought. Job was quite sure if he could only find
God that all would be right, and that He would speak to him, and God would do
all that was good. But he knew that somehow or other God was dealing, in
allowing all these terrible things to happen to him, why he did not know, and
for what end he did not know.
Now we come to Job's answer (Job 16). "I
have heard many such things; miserable comforters are ye all. Shall vain words
have an end? Or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest? I also could speak
as ye do. If your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against
you, and shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and
the moving of my lips should assuage your grief. Though I speak, my grief is
not assuaged." And no doubt Job spoke perfectly truly. He would have been a
comforter of sorrow; he would not have been a physician without any medicine.
They brought poison into his wounds instead of something to assuage. He said,
'I have been pouring out my sorrow, but I am no better for it' - "Thou hast
made desolate all my company. And thou hast filled me with wrinkles." He now
speaks of his own person too. "He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me." He
does not say it was God. I think it is rather too much to suppose that he means
that; but he does mean that God allowed it; and therefore, in a euphemistic way
he says "He." But it was God allowing the devil to do it - his enemy -
otherwise it would be a dreadful inconsistency with the rest of his language
which we are not bound to carry out to more than a superficial inconsistency;
it is not radical. "God hath delivered me to the ungodly" - and he in the most
graphic manner describes his intense affliction. But now (ver. 17), we find Job
in the midst of this making complaint as to prayer being restrained. "Not for
any injustice in mine hands" - that he could say truly. It was not a question
of injustice; it was a question of Job's too great complacency in himself.
"Also my prayer is pure. O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have
no place." He regards himself as if he were a victim to all this enmity that is
shown him. "Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven." You do not find the
others saying that. They did not know as much about heaven as Job; they did not
know God as Job did - not one of the three. "My record is on high." It is the
beginning of a little light that is piercing through the clouds. "My friends
scorn me; but mine eye poureth out tears unto God. Oh that one might plead for
a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!" How the heart of Job was
made to pine for the very thing that Christ must do!
In the 17th
chapter Job carries on, and goes back to his dreadful condition. It was not yet
a settled thing; it was merely a gleam. "My breath is corrupt, my days are
extinct, the graves are ready for me. Are there not mockers with me?" - surely
there were three of them - "and doth not mine eye continue in their
provocation?" If that was the case with these three men who had been his
friends, what was the feeling of all the people round about that knew? You may
depend upon it it would be quite as bad as that of the three friends, or worse.
We must not suppose it is limited to them. It is the natural conclusion of the
natural mind, working upon this thought, that God's moral government is exact
now, instead of knowing that God on the contrary, is waiting for His direct
government, when Christ, who alone is capable of holding the reins and of
governing, shall rule. Therefore, even when the church was formed, the church
was perfectly incapable of judging the world; and of this Popery is a clear
instance. There they have tried to govern the world, and what are they? Why,
the most abominable thing in the eye of God on the earth. There is nothing more
wicked than Popery. You may tell me about all the horrors of heathenism and
Buddhism. Yes, but they do not mix up Christ, or Peter, or Paul, and all the
rest. The Papists know enough of Christianity to make them verily guilty. It is
a great deal more wicked idolatry to worship the Virgin Mary than to worship
Juno or Venus; because the one was pure ignorance under darkness of the devil,
and the other is worshipping Mary after Christ came-after the true light shone.
There is nothing more guilty than what people call Christian Idolatry.
Worshipping the Mass - what is that? That is not confined to Papists now; now
it is unblushingly done - I will not say by Protestants, but by people who
masquerade as clergymen. Surely that is not too severe an expression for it? -
and at the same time they are perfectly in the error of Popery, only they do
not yet own the Pope; but they have all the falsehood of it in their souls.
Well, Job bemoans his condition in a very solemn manner, and compares
what he once was. "Aforetime I was as a tabret," i.e., "I sounded music, as it
were, in the ears of people as I had to do with them." But now a by-word not
merely of the three friends, but "of the people!" "Mine eye also is dim by
reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow. Upright men shall be
astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.
The righteous also" - you see it is turned for good - "shall hold on his way."
That is where he looked onward to. His record was on high; his witness was in
heaven; he clung to God. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." That was
Job's language; that was his spirit. He had far more faith than any one of the
three.
Then, in the next chapter (18) we have another man, Bildad the
Shuhite, and he speaks still more violently than Eliphaz, "How long will it be
ere ye make an end of words?" He had no feeling for Job whatever; no
understanding. "Mark, and afterwards we will speak. Wherefore are we counted as
beasts, and reputed vile in your sight? He teareth himself in his anger; shall
the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of its place?
Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out." There was a thrust, and a
bitter thrust, at poor Job - "and the spark of his fire shall not shine. The
light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with
him." That is what he counted Job. "The steps of his strength shall be
straitened and his own counsel shall cast him down. For he is cast into a net
by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare" - a mere dream of his own
imagination! And this he pursues to the very end of the chapter. I do not dwell
upon it, in order to come to Job's answer. For it was all a mistake.
"Then Job answered and said (Job 19), How long will ye vex my soul, and break
me in pieces with words? These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not
ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me." And now he takes this ground -
Be it that I have sinned without knowing; be it that I have done something
displeasing to God! - "mine error," he says, "remaineth with myself. If indeed
ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach; know
now that God hath overthrown me" - that was his faith. He takes it all as from
God, without knowing what had taken place in heaven. He was to be made to pass
through the deepest trouble; but the man that was to be proverbial for patience
broke out in a total impatience. There came about the total failure of even a
pious man; not merely of a man; not merely of Adam - for Adam fell; he was not
born after Job, but Job was born after Adam; and yet after all, that a man so
noted for his patience should fail when he was tried! Ah! in Christ there is
the contrast. That is where people are so wrong to make this one the type of
Christ. No, it is a specimen failing, and a man born of God failing. We want
Christ, and cannot do without Christ. That is the true moral of the Book of
Job.
"Know now that God hath overthrown me" - it is perfectly true it
must have been God allowing all this." Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not
heard; I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. He hath fenced up my way that I
cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths. He hath stripped me of my
glory, and taken the crown from my head." All this he felt very deeply. What
right has any believer to a crown now? What right has any believer to glory
now? Has he not an evil nature to be judged constantly, every day? Does this
deserve a crown? Or a man that has that nature to contend with; does that
deserve a crown? The day when we shall be crowned is when we have nothing but
what is of Christ, every bit of the old man completely passed away. There is
where Job had much to learn. "He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am
gone; and mine hope hath he removed like a tree. He hath also kindled his wrath
against me -" - there he was wrong - "and he counteth me unto him as one of his
enemies. His troops come together and raise up their way against me, and encamp
round about my tabernacle. He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine
acquaintance are verily estranged from me." You know what that is to the heart
if you have ever tasted it. "My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends"
- he now gets closer - "have forgotten me. They that dwell in mine house, and
my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. "I called my
servant" - his 'man' or in modern language, his valet "and he gave me no
answer" (vers. 1-20).
How pitiable! He had come down very low to call
upon his dear friends to have pity, and they had nothing but bad suspicion
which wounded him to the quick. "Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not
satisfied with my flesh?" Have not I suffered enough to satisfy you? "Oh that
my words were," etc., not exactly, printed in a book - but that they were
impressed upon stone, or whatever might be the way in which writing was
accomplished in those days. He refers to a very permanent form - "That they
were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my
Redeemer liveth; and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth."
This is a most wonderful expression of faith, and the more so when we compare
it with what we had last Wednesday evening in the 14th chapter - the
resurrection of "man" - not the resurrection of "the righteous," but the
resurrection of man. Job, you remember, begins, "Man that is born of a woman" -
not a word of any one born of God. Man without God, man without Christ, and
what is the end of all that? A tree cut down to the very root may sprout, but
not man; and so long will that sleep be that man will not awake - and the
resurrection of man will not be - "till the heavens be no more."
Is
that the case with the resurrection of the righteous? No. That is what he says
here. He says, "I know that my [Kinsman or] Redeemer" - the One that will
avenge the wrongs of God's people on their enemies; the One that will care for
them in the face of every difficulty and every enemy - "I know that my Redeemer
liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter" - He "the last" is probably the
meaning of it, not "at the latter day." He is the One that when all has failed
will appear. The First will be the Last, as it were, to take up not "man," but
the saint, the believer. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall
stand at the latter [or, last] day" - as "last" is the word - "upon the earth."
This last word is a little stronger too. It is the "dust" - quite a different
thing from the heavens being no more. There will be no dust to stand upon then.
The heavens and the earth will all be dissolved, and it will be a question of
fire destroying everything, as we are told in more scriptures than one,
particularly by Peter. Everything will be dissolved - the very elements. There
will be no dust at all. But here He will stand upon it; His power may reach it;
and it may for aught I know refer to the dust of his people. He is going to
raise them. But at any rate the word is rather vague; and we must not expect
more than just a little gleam of light made known in those days. It is reserved
for Christ to bring out the life of the resurrection.
"And though
after my skin worms destroy this body" - i.e., after the skin is destroyed -
meaning all the frame of the body. "Yet in my flesh shall I see God." That is,
it will be a real resurrection - not indeed "flesh and blood" - but you
recollect it was really Himself when Christ rose. He asked them to feel and
know that there were flesh and bones, but not "flesh and blood," which is the
natural life of man now. When the resurrection comes there will be still the
flesh in a glorious way, and there will be bone in a glorious way; and instead
of it being blood as the source of life, it will be spirit; a divine character
of existence will then be. While there is life, blood can be shed, and the man
dies. The shedding of blood is the great figure of death by violence, and the
blessed Lord knew all that, and passed through it all. But risen from the dead,
the body possessed is a tangible body and can be felt; and although that need
not always be, there is a power of change in this form; and I have no doubt the
same thing will be true of every power. But there is the power. Now we are all
limited; so limited that even a powerful man can be stopped by an oak board of
only an inch, or two, thick. It stops him. And certainly a granite wall could
stop anybody. But when that day is come we shall pass through everything just
as our Lord did. Our Lord purposely came in when the doors were shut. You may
tell me the stone was removed from the sepulchre; but it was not to let the
Lord out; it was to let the disciples in to see that He was gone. What is all
the thickness of the earth to Him? The glorified body has a power of its own.
and can pass through anything.
This is not the case with man now. He
is very limited and feeble; a little thing stops or even kills him. But not so
when the body is raised in power and incorruption and glory; and here then the
Lord comes to claim, and stand upon, the dust as it were. That is the figure,
of course, of dealing with the lower state. The body is destroyed; not merely
the skin, but everything belonging to man in the natural state. But what then?
"Yet in my flesh shall I see God?" Job was to be raised and live again, and to
live in a glorious way, and in the way of power and incorruption. "Whom I shall
see for myself." Ah, he was not in the least afraid of the Lord. He loved to
think of Him, and looked for His intervention with certainty. "And mine eyes
shall behold, and not another." What a contrast with Balaam! Balaam could not
see except prophetically, but not for himself. He had no part nor lot. But Job,
with every part and lot, knew it perfectly. "Though my reins be consumed within
me." That will not hinder it at all.
So then you see this was a
resurrection of the righteous; it is before the heavens are no more. And though
the earth subsists, it will, when it is in a state of ruin, give place to a
complete change - not only one affecting the condition of the bodies of the
millennial saints, but also the earth itself. All creation meanwhile awaits its
deliverance from the bondage of corruption from which it now suffers. And
Christ will accomplish it, for this will be His work. No one need wonder,
therefore, that when that day comes, there will be righteous government on the
earth. No one need wonder that then Satan will be allowed no power. He will be
shut up, and not be allowed to deceive another moment until the end of the
thousand years, and then it will be to act as a kind of sieve, to separate
those that are not born of God from those that are. He will be allowed to do
that, and then will be cast into the lake of fire for ever. But the righteous
will have been reigning for a thousand years before, while the earth still goes
on. You see the great force of it there, and of the Lord coming upon that earth
in a state as low as it can possibly be reduced to under the power of Satan,
just before He comes and delivers it. Oh, may our hearts rest upon Him
entirely, beloved brethren. Let us cleave to the Lord now! and let us remember
that the Lord is served and magnified by simple faith day by day, having to do
with Himself about each thing, and with implicit trust in Him, and judgment of
ourselves! Amen.
LECTURE 6
JOB. 20 - 23
Chap. 20. Job was not a wicked man. There was
the great error of Zophar - of this hasty and violent man; for evidently this
was particularly his character. He was not so much looking at long experience
as did Eliphaz - that was his point - long experience. A valuable thing, but
still it may not be the mind of God. It may be right, or it may be wrong; and
it was wrong in this case, because Job's trial was altogether peculiar. God had
not dealt with any other man in the remarkable way in which Job was tried, and
that is the reason why we have a whole book about him - because he was tried so
specially. No one save the Lord Jesus was ever tried like Job. The trials of
our Lord were far more profound; but in Him. there was nothing but perfection,
and why? Because, to begin with, there was no sin in Him; there was in Job, and
Job did not think about the sin that was in him. Job had no idea of what the
New Testament calls "the old man." He had turned from Satan and from his sins
to God; he was a real, true, saint of God. But he had no notion, nor, indeed,
had anyone among the Old Testament saints, any definite conception of what our
evil nature is. That was a truth that came out after Christ came. It was Christ
that made everything clear, and till Christ came things were not plain. There
was quite enough light to guide; and for that matter all the three friends were
pious men, and Job particularly was; but for all that, Job had to learn that
there was that in him which was proud of the effects of faith in his soul. Job
had too good an opinion of himself.
This is not a very uncommon thing
with a Christian even. I think I know a good many who are not disposed to think
very lowlily of themselves; but I am quite sure (and I have nothing to boast of
myself) I desire to feel thoroughly what I am. Yet I admit we are very often
apt to forget it. There was no question of Job's end, no question but that God
would receive him, and had already received him in spirit; and therefore there
was no fear of death in Job; he looked at it and desired it even; but that
would spoil the great lesson. God would allow him to be tried thoroughly, but
would not allow Satan so to torment him as to end his life - that would
frustrate the lesson he had to learn by agony of suffering and suspicion of his
own friends - his dearest friends, those who had most respected him. They all
gave him up, and thought there was something very bad behind it - there could
not be so much smoke without fire.
That is exactly what people say
nowadays when they see anything particular. The eighteen on whom the tower in
Siloam fell must be the worst people in Jerusalem! 'Not at all,' said the Lord.
God has his own wonderful ways of which we know nothing; but "Except ye repent
ye shall all likewise perish" - by a worse perishing than the fall of a tower
upon you. We find how a man was kept - not faultless, far from it - but
entirely free from all the hidden evil that was imputed to him because of his
terrible suffering, which entirely alienated, therefore, the sympathy of his
friends; and instead of getting one grain of sympathy he got a good many tons
of scorn, and their suspicion that things were very wrong in him.
This
is what entered into all their speeches. And they get worse and worse for a
while, and particularly this one. This is the last of Zophar's; he poured it
out so strongly, that, somehow or other, he was afraid to come forward again.
We find that Eliphaz and Bildad do follow, and Job disposes of them all. They
were completely taken aback by Job's reasoning, and the reason is that there
was a truthfulness about Job that was not in them, although a good deal
remained for Job to learn. Therefore, in comes Elihu, a new personage in the
matter, and after that Jehovah himself. These are facts. This is not an
imaginary tale. There was a real person called Job who went through all this
trial; and there were these three friends; and there was Elihu too; and,
further, Jehovah made His presence and His mind known, and settled the case
brought Job out of all his troubles, and at Job's intercession pardoned the
other three for all their bad and groundless ill-feeling against Job.
Well now, here Zophar comes forward. "Therefore do my thoughts cause me
to answer, and for this I make haste" Yes, and that is just where haste
generally lands us. It is easy for those who are not in trouble to speak, and
to suspect evil of a man that is in the depths. And that is just what this
young man - for he was younger than the others - fell into."Knowest thou not
this of old, since man was placed upon earth" - are you the only man that knows
the mind of God? -"that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of
the hypocrite but for a moment?" Is that all that Zophar had ever learnt? Did
he know of no dealings of God for the trial and good of His children here
below? Had he no thought of God disciplining us? - even before His proper
Fatherly relationship was fully made known and conferred upon us. For now we
are brought into that very place of privilege - we are children of God. The Old
Testament saints were so, but they did not know it. They were saints of God,
and they know very well they were separated to God, and that they were not like
the men of the world. They knew that perfectly, and they were waiting for One
who would settle all questions and make known all things. Even the woman of
Samaria knew that. "When Messias cometh, He will tell us all things." He would
clear up all difficulties.
But Zophar had no difficulty at all. That
is generally the case with people who know very little; they fancy they know
everything. Zophar, therefore, keeps up this - that there is the great fact,
there is a righteous God above, and there are unrighteous, wicked people below,
and God invariably deals with these wicked people now. That was not true. A
large part of the world has always been allowed of God to apparently prosper in
their evil, and the reason is that the time of judgment is not yet come. There
may be judgments; there may be exceptional dealings with the wicked just as
Job's case was a very exceptional dealing in the severity of his trial, and in
the manner in which Satan was challenged by God to do his very worst; and God
was secretly keeping up Job even when he was finding fault with God and
thinking He was very hard upon him to allow all this. But he was kept up not
only for his own good, but for ours. Now we have the Book, and are meant to
profit by it for ourselves and for other people. "Though his excellency mount
up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet he shall perish for
ever like his own dung; they which have seen him shall say, where is he?"
Zophar was not at all wanting in power of expression. He was what you
call an "eloquent" man; in fact, they were all eloquent. They all pleaded their
cause with ability - only there was short-sightedness. They had not before them
this - that it was out of the goodness of God, and for the blessing of Job
himself, that God made Job to recognize his nothingness, and also the evil that
was within, which he had never detected to be, as it is, a sin against God,
i.e., thinking too well of himself, taking credit for what grace had wrought.
For I do not deny that grace had done a good deal for Job. Grace had wrought a
fine character, full of benevolence and rectitude of purpose. Yes, but why did
Job dwell upon it, and think so much about it? Why did Job think so much more
highly of himself than others? All these things were working in Job's mind, and
they must all be brought out. That was a great lesson for Job to learn, and it
came out at the very severe cost of Job's trial and suffering. "He shall fly
away as a dream, and shall not be found." That was true of some cases; but
where were the eyes, where the discernment of Zophar? and this was all that he
saw going on in the world! It was a very narrow way of looking at the dealings
of God. "The eye also which saw him shall see him no more; neither shall his
place any more behold him. His children shall seek to please the poor" - he
supposes that God would still keep up the family, and would deal with his
children - that they would have to restore some of the ill-gotten goods that
their father had acquired.
All this was pointed at poor Job, but not a
particle of it was real. It was nothing but evil surmises. So, he describes his
case in very strong terms, which I need not follow- - all his inward trouble,
and the being forced to give up what he had swallowed down. "He shall not see
the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter." That is, Zophar
recognised that God delights in doing good. Yes, He does; and not merely to the
righteous, but to the unthankful and evil. Is it that He has any complacency in
them? Quite the contrary, but out of His own goodness, as our Lord put it so
simply and so grandly, He causes His sun to shine upon the evil as well as upon
the good, and He sends His rain upon the just as well as upon the unjust. Well,
before all I say now, he is a most wicked man, the greatest enemy of God alive
on the earth, who profits by all these benefits, and never thinks of God at
all. There he is, so utterly insensible - more insensible possibly than the
brute. There is less gratitude than with even the poor irrational brute who
owns his master's kindness and care. This is indeed, an awful thing in a man.
You might find men of the greatest education and of the highest ability, who
are like a stock or a stone before the goodness of God. That you have now. The
New Testament has come in and made it all plain. One word accounts for
everything - unbelief.
The beginning of God's goodness in a man is
when he comes to the sense of his badness, and that is produced by faith. It is
by what God sends. God's word is the foundation and the means by which a man is
brought out of darkness into light, and out of death into life eternal. And
why? Because the word of God reveals Christ. And the believer receives Christ
on God's testimony. Now the great mass of men in our country are rushing either
into infidelity or superstition. These are both of them making more progress
than the truth, at this present moment. God no doubt converts souls too; but if
there are a few souls truly converted, how many go back? and sometimes out of
the very families of those that love the Lord! So it has been for hundreds of
years. So it was at the beginning; so it is now. Some believe the words that
are spoken, and some do not believe them. And as some enter now into endless
and eternal blessing, so others will fall into absolute and everlasting ruin.
Here then, we see the all-importance of our getting the mind of God.
Neither experience will do, nor tradition. Bildad was as fond of tradition as
Eliphaz was of experience; but Zophar, I fancy, was pretty much confident in
himself. And this self-confidence is what makes a man still more biassed than
either the weakness of thinking too much of the wisdom of old age, or of the
tradition of the elders before us. No, God will have His own word; and God is
honoured by our receiving His own word and applying His word, not to other
people merely, but, above all, to oneself. Everything issues from this, "I
believe." That is exactly where all human knowledge fails. Human knowledge -
science for instance - is entirely founded upon the facts that are before our
eyes, or the facts that we gather even if they are invisible to our eyes, that
are ascertained through whatever means, sometimes by the microscope, sometimes
by the telescope - but however it may be, it is all founded upon what is before
man's eyes and before man's mind.
Now the blessing of God is entirely
founded upon divine testimony. You honour God by believing God against
yourself; by believing God against your sins; by believing God, receiving His
testimony about His own Son. But God has love enough in His heart to lay all
our case at all costs upon the Lord Jesus; and He has perfectly met all the
mind of God about it. That is Christianity now; and this, of course, in Job's
days, was yet to be. There was just enough light - a little distant gleam as it
were - a rift in the cloud that showed the Messiah that was to come, but that
was all. There was a little increase of light in the Psalms, and still more in
the Prophets; but the full light was never there till He Himself came. Then it
was not merely a gleam; it was not merely a promise; it was Himself. It was the
Son of God, and eternal life in the Son of God to be given to everyone who
believes in Him. By that I do not mean a mere nominal assent. No, beloved
friends, it is always through our conscience that we are brought into the
truth. There is no divine link with God unless it be the conscience that
acknowledges our sinfulness, and, therefore, casts oneself in faith upon the
Lord Jesus.
Well, now, we do not find anything of this in Zophar; it
is all looking simply at judging wicked men. The judging of a righteous man
never entered his mind, and that was the real question. So he puts to Job the
awfulness of what will come to pass upon the man that goes on in his
wickedness, and does not allow it, but only is clever in hiding it. And really
he had got that in his head about Job, and never could get it out until God
brought down everyone of them into the dust, and they were indebted to Job for
escaping the severe chastening of God. He finishes, "This is the portion of a
wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God." Here is not
the slightest sense of God having chastening dealings with those that He loves
during this time of pilgrimage. Yet this is exactly what God does. This is what
He is carrying on today with you and me. The apostle Peter refers to it
particularly in the first chapter of his First Epistle, i.e., that after we are
born of God we become subjects of the dealings of God as Father. We are judged
every man according to his work now. He will not do that by and by; the future
judgment is entirely in the hands of Christ; and it is particularly said that
the Father has committed it all to the Son; and it is as the Son, and as the
glorified Man too, that the Lord will sit upon the Great White Throne, where
all the evil of all the unrighteous will be judged finally. That is the last
thing before the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
The Father has nothing to do with that; but the Father has everything to do
with watching over our faults, with pruning the vine, every branch of the vine,
and this is what goes on now. It is the Father who is the husbandman, and He
prunes that we may bear more fruit; and if there is no fruit at all, He takes
it away.
Job now answers in the twenty-first chapter. "Hear diligently
my speech." It was a great relief to the tried man to speak out. He had
entirely failed to win their sympathy, but still Job preferred to speak plainly
out, and had no difficulty in meeting anything they had to say. "And let this
be your consolation. Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken,
mock on." It was severe, but still it was not more than they deserved. "As for
me, is my complaint to man?" In the midst of all this he has the deep sense of
having to do with God, and that is true piety. "And if it were so, why should
not my spirit be troubled?" i.e., I do not understand it; that is the thing
that makes it so terrible. "Mark me, and be astonished, and lay your hand upon
your mouth. Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my
flesh." And what was it that made him so afraid? Why, he too saw just the very
opposite of what Zophar only saw.
Zophar confined himself simply to
the particular cases of God's dealing judicially with some specially wicked
men. And there are such cases every now and then. A man calls God's name in
vain, and swears to a downright falsehood - perhaps theft, or any other breach
- and, occasionally, a man drops down dead after it. Well, that is a very
unusual thing. Other people swear to it and keep their money, and try to keep
their character, but all the while they are heaping up wrath against the day of
wrath. Now what made Job tremble so when he saw wickedness prosper? As he says
here, "Wherefore do the wicked live?" He says, 'I can understand it so far; I
can perfectly understand God casting down wicked men - it is only what they
deserve; but it is not the fact, for the great mass of them seem to flourish in
their wickedness for the time.' "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea,
are mighty in power? Their seed is established in their sight with them." It
was not at all passing away like a dream (as Zophar pretended) as a general
role; it was rather the other way. "Their houses are safe from fear." Many a
pious man's house is broken into by a robber; many a pious man's house is burnt
over his head; and here there might be wicked men of the worst character, and
they do not come into these troubles at all!
But there is the awful
end that awaits them, the awakening up like the rich man Dives, "in hades he
lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Ah! that was a solemn thing, but it was
the Lord that gave us that picture. Nobody could speak positively of that till
the Lord came. And that is not describing what will be after the resurrection;
this is what takes place directly after death. And it was not a wicked man as
he appeared in the eyes of the Jews; it was not a man who was a drunkard or a
thief, or a robber, or anything of that kind. He was a man highly respected; he
was a man characterised by self-indulgence. We do not hear of any swearing; we
do not hear of any scoffing. There he was; he acknowledged father Abraham even
in the midst of his torments; and the Lord is the One that describes it. Dives
is anxious about the souls of his five brethren; he was anxious about them.
That is to say, he was a man whom people might consider of high respectability,
but there was no faith, no repentance, no looking to God, no waiting for the
Messiah. He was quite content to enjoy all his wealth; and, as for poor
Lazarus, the dogs might look after him for all he cared about him.
"Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them." Ah! but
it will be. "Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and
casteth not her calf." Everything went flourishing. "They send forth their
little ones like a flock, and their children dance" - everything prosperous and
smiling - "They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the
organ." It is rather serious to find all that with such bad company - a solemn
check for those that are given up. "They spend their days in wealth, and in a
moment go down to the grave. Therefore, they say unto God, Depart from us."
Job's words are far more solemn and more true than the violent Zophar had
painted. "For we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty,
that we should serve Him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto Him?"
It is not meant that they say that to man, but that is what their conduct says
to God.
Therefore there is great force in what we read, "The fool hath
said in his heart, There is no God." Perhaps he never uttered that once in his
life, "There is no God," but it is what his heart says. God reads the language
of the heart. And the evil servant says in his heart, "My lord delayeth his
coming." Perhaps he preached what people call the "Second Coming"; he may have
preached it, but that is what his heart said. He was not really waiting for
Christ at all; he was glad that Christ stayed away. There never was such a
prayer with him as "Come, Lord Jesus." So that it is a very solemn thing - the
way in which the Lord takes the crafty and reads the heart; and therefore, it
is of all importance that we should judge ourselves, and look to the Lord, that
we may have Christ Himself before our souls so habitually that we are filled by
His mind and directed by His love, and led by the Holy Spirit who gives the
needed power and grace to those that look to Christ.
"Lo, their good
is not in their hand; the counsel of the wicked is far from me." Job was
farther from these people than his three friends. It is very possible that
these three friends liked to be on good terms with people that were so
flourishing, for that is a very common snare. People like to be in what they
call "good company," and to be respected by people that are respectable in this
life; but where is Christ in all that? Our hearts are called to be with that
which Christ values, and with those whom Christ loves. I do not say we are not
to have the love of compassion for the very worst of mankind - surely, surely;
but this is a different kind of love altogether. It is loving the family of
God. This is higher than loving an unconverted wife; higher than loving our
children if they are not brought to God. The family of God are nearer to us,
and for all eternity, and we are glad to walk in that faith and love now. "How
oft is the candle of the wicked put out!" There he allows the other side that
they were all harping upon; they only looked at that. "And how oft cometh their
destruction upon them!" There were such cases; he had seen and known them, and
in no way disputed them.
You see, what Zophar and the others press,
was only a half a truth. Now half a truth never sanctifies. What you leave out
is perhaps of equal, or, it may be, of still greater importance, and there was
just the difference. With all his defect, Job really was cleaving to the truth,
and he looked at it with a larger heart and with a more exercised conscience.
There are people moralised, or what you call "sermonised"; but this did not
come from their souls; it was merely their correct talk according to the
thoughts of men. It was not the language really of faith at all. Job's was, in
spite of all its defects. "They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff
that the storm carrieth away. God layeth up his iniquity for his children; he
rewardeth him, and he shall know it. His eyes shall see his destruction" - he
allowed it might run in the family - "and he shall drink of the wrath of the
Almighty." "For what pleasure hath he in his house after him, when the number
of his months is cut off in the midst?" i.e., selfishness is at the bottom of
all these wicked men that flourish in this world. And even their children are
in no way an object to be compared with the number of their own months. That is
what they want - to live as long as possible.
"Shall any teach God
knowledge?" - now he turns to Him to vindicate him - "seeing he judgeth those
that are high. One dieth" - you see he took in the two sides. This very man had
spoken of truth being double; but it was all mere talk; it was not put into
practice at all. It was a wise saw; it was merely an apophthegm, without being
the true expression of his feeling and life. But Job had a reality about him.
"Another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure.
They shall lie down alike in the dust" - and the careless world goes to their
funeral, and thinks they are both all right, that it is all right with them
both. That is what is called "judging with charity" - charitable judgment! They
hope that everybody goes to heaven, unless they are too bad - openly wicked!
Now what is the judgment according to God? That if One died for all, then all
were dead. That is the state of man. There is no question at all of their state
or their end there. And He died for all - all mankind. They are all
inexcusable. And the death of Christ makes them in a worse state if they do not
believe than if Christ had never come and never died. He died for all, that
they which live - ah, there is the difference - they which live, should not any
longer live to themselves. That is what they all did. The dead - the
spiritually dead - live to nothing but themselves. It might be honour; it might
be seeking the applause of mankind and the world; but they live to themselves,
not to Him.
But the Christian, the believer, lives to Him who died for
us and rose again. That is not said to be for all. The resurrection of the Lord
is the pledge that He will be by and by the Judge of those that do not believe.
The resurrection to the believer is the sign-witness on God's part that his
sins are all blotted out. For the One that became responsible for his sins went
down into the grave, and God has raised Him up to show us that our sins are
gone. It was for all that believe, and for none others. And what for the
others? The risen Man is the One that will judge all. That is what the apostle
declared to the Athenians. They were not believers, and therefore he does not
speak of any being justified; but he tells them that the resurrection of the
Lord is the proof and pledge which God has given that He is going to judge all
the habitable world by that Man whom He has raised from the dead. What makes it
so solemn is that it was man that put Him in the grave; it was man that slew
Him. It was God that raised Him up. And that risen Man will judge them all that
are found alive, all the habitable world. It is not the White Throne judgment
here; it is the Lord judging the habitable world when He comes again in the
clouds of heaven. He does not speak here about taking up all that are Christ's,
but of His coming down in judgment upon all that are not Christ's.
"Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine
against me." Here you see he is now returning to their fault through this
narrowness of their view, and the impropriety of allowing people to surmise
evil without the slightest ground in fact for it. No, we are called upon to
live what we know; we are called upon to speak when we do know; but where we do
not know we look to God. "For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and
where are the dwelling places of the wicked? Have ye not asked them that go by
the way? and do ye not know their tokens, that the wicked is reserved to the
day of destruction?" That is the reason why they flourish now. He laid hold of
the great truth morally in a very admirable manner. "They shall be brought
forth to the day of wrath." Not a question of now! These friends were all
looking at the present time as the adequate proof of what God thought about men
- that if He thinks we are all walking well we are flourishing, and if we come
into trouble it is because we are bad people. That was their theory, an utterly
wrong and corrupt theory. "Who shall declare his way to his face? and who shall
repay him what he hath done? Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall
remain in the tomb. The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him" - looking
at the outward appearance - "and every man shall draw after him, as there are
innumerable before him. How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers
there remaineth falsehood? "
Well now, we begin again with Eliphaz
(Job 22). Eliphaz takes it up, and he says, "Can a man be profitable unto God,
as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself?" Yes, Eliphaz, but cannot a
man please God? It is not for profit that a pious man submits to God, and obeys
the word of God, but it is to please Him, and why? Because he loves Him. That
is not working for profit. That is a way in which a Jew did afterwards. "Is it
any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous?" Yes, it was. He was
quite wrong about it. God was pleased with Job - that very man that they were
so insidious against, and against whom they insinuated all kinds of evil. God
pointed out, as you remember, at the beginning of the Book, that there was not
a man on earth that was all round like His servant Job, and yet there was
something there that God meant to bring out, of which Job had no idea, i.e.,
that he never recognized that it was wrong. "Will he reprove thee for fear of
thee? Will he enter with thee into judgment? Is not thy wickedness great? and
thine iniquities infinite? For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for
nought" - now come all his evil surmisings once more - "and stripped the naked
of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink."
Eliphaz is just imagining what he thinks Job must have done to account for the
troubles that he was passing through. "But as for the mighty man, he had the
earth" - Job was the mighty man - "and the honourable man dwelt in it. Thou
hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
Therefore snares are round about thee." You see all the reasoning is quite
mistaken. "And sudden fear troubleth thee; or darkness, that thou canst not
see; and the abundance of waters cover thee. Is not God in the height of
heaven, and behold the height of the stars, how high they are! And thou sayest,
How doth God know?" That was not what Job said at all, but quite the reverse.
"Can he judge through the dark cloud?" Well, undoubtedly he was not a scoffer.
Nothing of the sort. He was a pious, narrow-minded man; and there are plenty of
such individuals. "Yet he filled their houses," etc. (vers. 1-20). There was a
little bit of tenderness in his heart toward Job. "Acquaint now thyself with
him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee. Receive, I pray thee,
the law from his mouth." Eliphaz certainly was nothing like Zophar, nor even
Bildad. "And lay up his words in thine heart. If thou return to the Almighty,
thou shalt be built up." And so it was. Little did he know that that return was
about to be made manifest, to their shame. "Then shalt thou lay up gold as
dust, and light shall shine upon thy ways" (vers. 21-28). And so it did, in the
most marvellous way, and much sooner than Eliphaz expected. "When men are cast
down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble
person. He shall deliver -"
There is a very old mistake in this verse
(30); that word "island" is all wrong. The same word in Hebrew means "island"
and also "not" To give you an instance - take "Ichabod," there you get the "I"
(ee) - used adverbially, meaning "not," for "Ichabod" means "not glory," or
"inglorious" - "the glory is departed." This was the name that the poor wife of
Phinehas gave, in her dying moments, to the son that was born to her - "Not
glory." Well now, that is the word here; and if you translate it as a negative
particle you get the true sense of it - "him that is not innocent." "Island"
only makes nonsense. Nobody could explain it as given in our A.V.; no person
has ever done it nor approached it, and it is an astonishing thing that it
remains. I believe it is all right in the Revised Version; but it is well worth
knowing, because I daresay you have been puzzled to find where "the island of
the innocent" came in. You know there is a proud little corner of Europe that
calls itself "the Isle of Saints." but the isle of the innocent is still more
extraordinary. There has never been such a thing. Man lost his innocence, and
has never recovered it. Man gains holiness by the faith of Christ, but no
recovery of innocence; that could not be. "He shall deliver [him, or] those
that are not innocent" - that is the point of it.
Yes, and God did
that, and who were they? Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They were the people who
were "not guiltless"; they were guilty, they were "not innocent." So that here
are two words rather mauled in this version. The real force is, "He shall
deliver those that are not guiltless," and that was verified in the case of
Job's three friends, little as Eliphaz expected it. They were treated by God as
being guilty towards their dear brother whom they had so misjudged, to whom
they had imputed all kinds of hidden evil, and made him a hypocrite as well as
a naughty man. And Eliphaz here unconsciously gives utterance to words that
came true. We sometimes find that. Words said passingly by a Christian, who had
no idea perhaps that they would ever be verified - and yet how often they have
been - as I have known frequently, from very simple souls. Perhaps only some
poor brother that could not write, or from a poor old sister that could do very
little except mend stockings.
So here we find these words were true.
God has a great deal more to do with any good words which are uttered than we
at all realise. Eliphaz, although he was so wrong, was, nevertheless, allowed
to say words which came true in a marvellous manner about Job himself. "He
shall deliver him that is not innocent," or "not guiltless" - that is the
proper word - "and he shall be delivered by the pureness of thine hands." This
was what God compelled these three men to feel - that Job was more righteous
than they; that his hands were cleaner than theirs. They had defiled their
hands in setting upon Job so foully and so violently; and they owed it to Job
that they were spared their lives.
Job answers in the next chapter
(23) and that is all we can look at tonight. "Even today is my complaint
bitter; my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Oh that I knew where I might
find him!" Ah! there was a pious heart, although he felt and smarted under his
terrible sufferings. He was so pre-occupied that he could not find Him yet. He
did, however, before long. "That I might come even to his seat! 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." Now that
is what he desired. He was not afraid of what God would say. He was sure to be
good because He loved, and because of what Job knew him to be. "Will he plead
against me with his power?" That is what they thought. "No," said he; nothing
of the sort; "but he would put [strength] in me." "Strength" goes a little too
far. It is rather, "he would give heed unto me." "There the righteous might
dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge." I knew it
would be all right if I could only get a hearing. If I could come close to Him,
then He would listen.
"Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and
backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, where he doth work, but
I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see
him; but he knoweth the way that I take." There, you see, was a heart always
turned towards the centre of attraction, always to God. He might waver under
the affliction - just as you knew the needle may be very unsteady for a little;
but leave it to rest, and it always turns to the pole. "My foot hath held his
steps, his way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the
commandment of his lips." He was perfectly conscious of a good conscience. Yet
he had nothing at all, and that was what he had to learn. God had to show him;
because it was not a question merely of an outward blemish that anyone would
notice. This is what people think very proper.
I have been at dying
beds of real Christians, and I am sorry to say, the principal thing that I have
heard from them has been, "I look back upon my long life of following the Lord
Jesus." If Job had said, "I look back upon the tender mercy and the forbearance
of God and His continual support when I never deserved it" - ah! that would
have been all right. I ought perhaps to add that those whom I have heard speak
in that way never had heard the gospel in the way which you all are familiar
with. Still, I do not doubt that they were Christians, but misled by bad
teaching. "My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.
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 in one mind, and
who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth." Job allowed
His entire supremacy; he allowed His sovereignty in the fullest degree. "For he
performeth the thing that is appointed for me; and many such things are with
him. Therefore am I troubled at his presence." He was troubled that there was
something between God and him; something with which God had a question, but
what - he did not understand yet. "When I consider, I am afraid of him. For God
maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me; because I was not cut off
before the darkness, neither hath he covered the darkness from my face."
LECTURE 7
JOB. 24 -
28
Chap. 24. This closes the answer of Job to Eliphaz that we
began on last Wednesday. Job makes it perfectly clear that all things now are
an anomaly - that you cannot judge of God's feeling about the prosperity of man
here below, for the righteous are often far more tried; and it is no proof of
anything wrong on their part, but, on the contrary, God putting them to the
test, to manifest that they really are His; consequently, submissiveness of
heart is what we are all called to under trial, and to perfect confidence in
God. Still, we have an advantage saints of old had not and could not have till
Christ came - not merely Christ's work accomplished, but the light of Christ
shining. They had not that. This was before the law. Nevertheless, we see
clearly that there was light enough for those that looked to God, and that
there was darkness unquestionably, just as there is now, for those that have
not faith in God. Only, the great profitable lesson of the book is the
difference between believers, and why it is. There was a mighty difference
between Job and his three friends, and I have endeavoured to point out wherein
that difference lay. Whatever might be the mistakes of Job, and whatever his
irritation at being accounted a hypocrite by his friends (and if we have ever
known anything like that we can know the bitterness of it), there is no blow so
keen and so deeply felt as that which comes from those who profess to love us.
And yet the devil is always working and trying to set God's children by the
ears.
Well, here we find it in a very extreme form. That is the grand
difference between the history of Job and that of other men. They only knew it
in a measure; but God brought it out in one great display in the case of Job,
who was more tried than any other man ever was. I do not mean that Paul and
Peter and others may not have had trials of their own kind, and, particularly
their life in their hand. That was not the case with Job. There was no question
of life; it was a question of endurance. His life was not to be touched; it
would have entirely spoilt the history if Job had died; but God took care that
whatever his sufferings might be, he was preserved; and preserved to pass
through such a scene as probably was in no other case since the world began,
yet turned to incomparable benefit. That was what God was showing.
Satan never does anything for good - always for evil But in this case Satan had
entirely failed, and it was God that wrought, and wrought particularly by the
unfaithfulness and the unspirituality of Job's three friends. That is the great
moral of the book. It was only then that he began to curse his day - never
before. Whatever came from Satan he bore, and bore it with the fullest courage
and with all confidence in God. But when his three friends began to insinuate
wickedness hidden, and hypocrisy, that was too much for Job; he could not stand
it. He broke out therefore into many a word highly unbecoming; but God made all
allowance for that, because in the main Job adhered to God, and whatever came,
he desired to accept it from God. He could not understand why, but he still
cleaved to God. Now he puts the case himself.
"Why, seeing times are
not hidden from the Almighty, do not they that know him see his days?" i.e.,
there are these times of evil, and how is it that God, who is a moral governor,
and who takes notice of all evil, yea even the words of people (words reveal
the secrets of the heart) - how is it that He allows it to pass` as He does,
and that there is no day of retribution now? Well, we can perfectly answer
that. It is all reserved for Christ. The Father will not judge any man; that is
not what the Father will do. He is showing love because He is a Father, and
showing love because He is God; because God is love just as much as He is
light. And therefore it is reserved for Christ, and the reason is plain. Christ
was the One whom, without the very slightest reason for it, without a cause,
they hated. They hated both Him and the Father; and therefore it is reserved
for the Lord Jesus to execute judgment. All judgment is committed to the Son,
because He is the Son of man, and as the Son of man He has been hated; His
Deity has been denied, and He was accounted as a companion of wicked people. He
was accounted as a Samaritan, and to have even a demon. There was nothing too
bad for man to say and feel.
And these were not the heathen; the
heathen were never so bad as that. It is God's people when in a bad state that
are worse than anybody. That is a thing that many cannot understand and do not
believe. There they are beating their drums and blowing their trumpets in
Christendom as if everything were going on right. Oh, they are ripening for
judgment indeed in England. It is not merely a Kamchatka or in the centre of
Africa; all that is quite a mistake. The more light there is, if people are not
faithful, the worse they are. And therefore our Lord was very clear in showing
that the Jews were the people. It was no question of Sodom and Gomorrah. They
talked about the horribleness of Sodom and Gomorrah. 'Oh,' said the Lord, 'it
is you that are worse than they. It will be more tolerable in the day of
judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah and Tyre' - and all those places that were
regarded as peculiarly wicked - 'it will be worse for Chorazin, Bethsaida and
Capernaum.' Capernaum was the place where He lived. It was accounted His own
city in Galilee. What He thought worse was the rejection of all His light and
all His love. And therefore the nearer you are to the blessing, if the blessing
is not yours the more guilty you are.
But then comes another very
important thing, and that is, that unless our self is judged - unless there is
continual self-judgment going on day by day, we get hard; we lose the unction
of the truth, we lose the power of it in our souls, and thus we may be very
self-complacent, because we know that we believe. That is just where the
friends of Job were. They were quite comfortable; there was nothing amiss with
them; they were all right, but Job! he must be very bad. That was their entire
misjudgment. Now Job faces this question - how is it, if the times are so bad,
that the day of retribution does not come? We do not see it. It is coming; it
awaits the only One that can perfectly deal with evil.
We are all apt
to be very partial. Sometimes there are certain evils very bad in our eyes -
man's eyes particularly. Some people are very hard upon drinking. Well, the
same people are not at all hard upon covetousness. Nevertheless I suppose there
is no one with any judgment but what avows that the spirit of covetousness is
far more blinding and injurious to the soul than even the debasement of a man
getting tipsy. No doubt a tipsy man is an object of contempt to those that are
temperate, and they pass very severe judgment upon him; and there is where the
devil attacks them all. 'Oh, no; I never drink; I never touch a drop; I am a
good man; and they are very bad, they are very wicked!' Well, I do not at all
doubt that they are bad; but I do say other people are worse who have a good
opinion of themselves. There is nothing that God has more an abhorrence of than
a man who thinks well of himself; for however lofty his thoughts he is nothing
but a poor, lost sinner, and if he has not one particular evil he has others
perhaps as bad or even worse. I do not say that to excuse anything.
There are many other ways in which people show that they have nothing in common
with the Lord Jesus, and that they have no knowledge of God whatever. But it is
the Lord that will be the infallible Judge. It is the Lord that will never
swerve to the one side or the other. Everything that is contrary to God will be
met solemnly by His judgment another day; and it is because people did not see
God in Him, but only a man, that therefore He as a man will be the Judge of all
mankind. All judgment is committed to the Son because He is the Son of man.
Well now, Job describes these anomalies that are going on now. He says, "Some
remove the landmarks." That is not at all an uncommon thing. We have the
evidence of it all round about us in London now. There are people that have
encroached upon - taken the common land of this very Blackheath. There you see
in various parts of it where people somehow or other have encroached; they have
laid hold upon what does not belong to them. But it has gone on so long that
the law cannot touch them. There they are in possession; and we know that is a
great thing in the eyes of lawyers although it is quite contrary to law in
itself, but still they cannot touch them. And there are all these anomalies
constantly going on - even in the face of all the censure of the law; here we
have it. If we were in Cornwall or in the south of Ireland nobody would be
astonished; there are plenty of anomalies there; but here you have it in London
before your eyes.
And so it is too in many other forms besides land
grabbing. But this is what is referred to - a very old trick of bad men, and
particularly of men of property, particularly of men of rank and the like,
because having land it gives them the opportunity of stealing a little more.
And so it is with kings. They see there is a nice province just outside France
that would make such a good addition to the Empire, and by and by it is stolen.
Well then again, Germany sees that there is a certain part that gives an outlet
to the sea that they have not, and they steal that and find a pretext of war in
order to take what belongs to Denmark or whatever country it may be. In that
case it was Denmark. That is in our own day - both of these things. And so it
has ever been; and that is in the face not merely of the law, but the gospel;
and these things are done by people that go to church or to chapel and the
like, and there they are professing Christians. And all that by the very
persons who by their position are the guardians of the execution of the law;
yet they are the people guilty of all this wickedness.
And the same
thing goes on in the lower strata of society. There they are prompted very
often by want; but then what is it very often that is the cause of want? Why,
for the most part it is dishonesty; it is recklessness as to performance of
their duty. They lose their post. They strive to get rich; they take money that
does not belong to them, and they come under public judgment. That is going on
constantly in the lower just as it is in the higher strata, and the fact of it
is, all is wrong, and will be wrong here below till the Lord Jesus is the One
that executes judgment and that reigns righteously. Nothing will be passed
over; there will be no favouritism, but all will be according to God, and never
before. For any measure of peace or quietness or allowance of what people have
- to be in their possession peacefully - we have reason to thank God very much
indeed. But I am speaking now of looking into things as they really are, and it
does not matter what country you take.
We in England think ourselves a
very righteous nation, and there are many that think we are, as compared with
others; but I have just been referring to things that prove how very hollow all
this pretension to righteousness is. And therefore there is the greatest
possible comfort in looking up to God. There there is absolute righteousness,
and not only that, but active goodness. There there is God caring for His own.
He chastises them because He loves them - where there is something that they do
not see; for very often it is that they do not. Sometimes we are buffeted for
our faults. That is a thing that ought not to be. We ought to suffer for
righteousness rather than for unrighteousness, because "for sins Christ once
suffered, Just for unjust," Who is made infinitely dear to us. But there we
come on Christian ground.
Now Job simply takes up the things that are
around him. "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" - these were what you may call the "respectables" of
society, the people who had flocks and herds, but they wanted more. "The poor
of the earth hide themselves together." Well, now we see another class; we see
the poor and distressed here below. "Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go
they forth to their work" - they are the people that have nothing, now the
"masses," that have no skilled work, but that live merely jobbing about, and in
all the precariousness and the suffering that this jobbery produces. "As wild
asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey" -
before the light, and a prey, because it is not something settled - it is what
they can catch. "The wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children."
Think of that - the barren sands of the wilderness, that is the only
thing, and why? Because they have got no land of their own. "They reap every
one his own corn in the field" - that is the corn of the rich man - "and they
gather the vintage of the wicked." Now they are called not "rich" but "wicked."
"They cause the naked to lodge without clothing" - that is what these wicked
rich do. They have not pity for them; they make use of them for their work.
"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" - describing still
the indigent class that had scarcely any regular work to do, - "and embrace the
rock for want of 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." There might be a sheaf or two forgotten in the
case of harvest, but they have found it out, and they are at them to get back
their sheaf. "Which make oil within their walls." They are employed for their
abundance - they make the oil, but they never have a drop of it for themselves
- "and tread their wine-presses and suffer thirst." There is no wine for them.
"Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out; yet
God layeth not folly to them." God does not take any notice of it, and the
reason is that He is waiting for that day.
Now what a wonderful love
it is to the very persons to whom the gospel is preached. It was to the "poor"
the gospel was preached; they were peculiarly the object of the Lord Jesus.
There never was such a thing before, since the world began. Nobody ever made
them his grand object, and that for eternity. But Job could not know anything
of that. "They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the
ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof." Then he describes a still worse
class. That is a man - whether higher or lower it does not matter - a man of
violence, the murderer. The man who has got his quarrel, and the man that
nothing will satiate but the life of his victim. "The murderer rising with the
light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief" - who will be
ashamed to show that he was robbing the poor. "The eye also of the adulterer
waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me" - the corrupt man -
violence and corruption, the two great characteristics of human evil - "and
disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through the houses, which they had
marked for themselves in the day-time; they know not the light. For the morning
is to them even as the shadow of death; if one know them, they are in the
terrors of the shadow of death." They cannot bear to be known, what they are
and what they seek. There he pursues this terrible picture down to the end of
the chapter, showing that there is an eternal misery and a consciousness of
guilt - for that was a very wonderful working of God.
When man was
first created, he did not know anything about good and evil. He did not know
the difference between them, because no such thing here existed. He was made
perfectly without any evil. There was no evil in man when God sent him forth
from His hand. But directly he fell into sin he acquired the power of judging
what was wrong, and what was right in itself. That is conscience. There was no
need of conscience judging of what was right and wrong when all was good; but
directly man fell, he began to judge good and evil That is what God does
perfectly - man does it in an unhappy, miserable way. It is because he knows of
what is within that he detects it without, and pronounces judgment, but man is
none the better. Now when man is unconverted, he goes on in that kind of
misery, and his use of good and evil is this - there are other men he considers
as bad as, or worse than, himself, and he excuses himself on that ground, and
so he goes on. But when a man is converted conscience turns its eye upon
himself. That is the reason why repentance is indelibly and from the very
beginning bound up with the believer in Christ. Faith and repentance go
together, and the fact of our receiving Christ makes us judge self, and not
merely to spot other people's evil or excuse ourselves.
You see it in
the poor tax-gatherer. When the Pharisee was saying, 'God, I thank Thee I am
not like other men; I am a better-man; I do not drink; I do not swear; I do not
go to gamble or anything of that kind; no, I am a good man, much better than
other people' - there was the poor tax-gatherer, to whose soul God had spoken,
and who, instead of looking to find other people as bad or worse, can only say,
"God be merciful to me the sinner!" It is not merely "to me a sinner." For
many, many years I have been struck with the great beauty of that expression
"God be merciful to me the sinner, if ever there was one. I know my sins and
they are so overwhelming I do not think about others. God be merciful to me the
sinner; me only." That man went down justified rather than the other. It is not
what is called "justification by faith"; but it was the right thing that always
takes place in a converted soul - self-condemnation before God And it is the
light of Christ, somehow entering, that produces that. And therefore now that
the work of Christ is done He is exalted to give repentance and remission of
sins to every one that looks to Him.
So that repentance is a gracious
work; the very opposite of men having a bad conscience. It was man, at any
rate, having his conscience set right to condemn himself. He did not know it
yet. He did not know his sins gone - that is the consequence of redemption.
That could not be till the work of Christ came in. There might be a looking
onward to Christ and His work. Some had a confident hope that the Lord would
take their sins away; they did not know how. But now the gospel is the
proclamation on the part of God of that which clearly explains and fully
accounts for it. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin." We
are glad to believe that - "from all sin." If all our sins are not blotted out
none of them are. If one sin is gone they are all gone. It is only through
Christ, and never does Christ do a thing in a half or niggardly way, as man
does. No; it is complete. Here then Job is simply looking at the terrible state
of these bad consciences, and then goes on to his death, and there the worms
have their feast; that is all he says about it. And if the wicked are exalted,
it is only to go down the more.
Well now we come to Bildad (Job 25).
And Bildad only barely gives the appearance of a speech. It is a very short
one, and it has no kind of application really to Job. They are evidently
obliged to give in, and Bildad, the second of them, he it is that now descants
upon the glory of God. And it is all perfectly true, and very finely stated
too. There is a great deal of what is very beautiful in what Bildad said, only
it had no bearing on the matter at all. "Dominion and fear are with him; he
maketh peace in his high places." Yes, but what troubled Job was that he had
anything but peace in his low place. There he was in this terrible humiliation
and suffering, and he could not tell why it was. "Is there any number of his
armies?" That is all very true; was that any comfort to Job, or any answer?
"And upon whom doth not his light arise?" Well, there might be an implication
that Job was all wrong because he did not enjoy the light, and it was not that
Bildad did. The fact is that he was quiet; he was entirely without any trial;
and he could therefore talk reasonably, and so far quietly; but he had no
understanding of Job.
"How then can man be justified with God?" That
is exactly what Job had said in the ninth chapter, so that he was only
repeating what Job had said a great deal better than he. Job enters into it in
a very full manner, and so strongly that he even puts forth the need of a
daysman, i.e., a mediator, between God and man. He had far more spiritual light
than any of them. "How can he be clean that is born of a woman?" That again is
what Job had already taught. "Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea,
the stars are not pure in his sight; how much less man, that is a worm, and the
son of man, which is a worm?" That was all true, but had no bearing.
Job answers (Job 26), and certainly with quite sufficient keenness, "How hast
thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no
strength? "He was like the poor publican, the tax-gatherer. "How hast thou
counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou plentifully declared the
thing as it is? To whom hast thou uttered words?" He was talking in the air.
"And whose spirit came from thee?" Now he showed that he entered into God's
dominion far more fully and extensively than Bildad had admitted. "Dead things
are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof. Hell is naked
before him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over
the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing" - a very remarkable
anticipation of modern discovery. "He bindeth up the waters in his thick
clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them" - i.e., whether it be the little
rain or the great rain, all is under God's control. "He holdeth back the face
of his throne," etc., etc. (vers. 8-13). "Lo these are parts of his ways" -
they are only the fringes of his ways, which would give the idea - "but how
little a portion is heard of him?" It is only the whisper that we hear now -
"but the thunder of his power" - ah I that is reserved for the day of judgment
- "who can understand?"
Well, in the next chapter (27) would have come
the time for Zophar; but although Bildad had very little to say, Zophar had
nothing. He is fairly out of the debate; and we shall find that Eliphaz does
not return. Job has it now all to himself, and accordingly he gives here what
might have been an answer to Zophar, but there was no Zophar to answer - he was
silenced. They felt now they were fairly out of court. They began with great
vigour; full of confidence that their judgment was a sound one; but Job had
completely answered all their foolish talk, and there they were silent. It is
not that they were yet convinced that they were wrong; but they do what many
people do - they shut up, and have not a word to say, and still are of the same
opinion. But God would not allow it to rest there. God brought them out of
their hiding place, and pronounced upon them; and it was through Job, as we
shall find by and bye, that they were saved, either from a terrible judgment or
death itself.
"Moreover Job continued his parable and said, As God
liveth,who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my
soul; all the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my
nostrils; my lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit." He
still stands to it that all their imagination was false. He said now more
solemnly than ever - it was a kind of swearing to it - As God liveth this is
true. "God forbid that I should justify you." Now he turns upon them; he says
"You are the culprits, not I". "Till I die I will not remove mine integrity
from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go; my heart shall
not reproach me so long as I live." They were, on the contrary, imputing what
was very bad to him in most of their speeches. "Let mine enemy be as the
wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous." That is what he
says. 'It is you that are acting the part of wicked men without knowing it. It
is you that are the unrighteous, not I.' "For what is the hope of the
hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?" It shows that
he had a great abhorrence of it - quite as much as or more than they had. "Will
God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him" Here he describes it to the end
of the chapter. 'Do you think I am going to fight against God in that way?'
"Will he delight himself in the Almighty?" That is what Job did. "Will
he always call upon God?" He called upon God even in that terrible distress. "I
will teach you by the hand of God: that which is with the Almighty will I not
conceal. Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it; why then are ye thus
altogether vain?" 'You know very well that I have been cleaving to God; you
have heard my confession, and why do you impute such a thing as hypocrisy?'
"This is the portion of a wicked man with God and the heritage of oppressors,
which they shall receive of the Almighty." And even if they go on and have
their children multiplied, it will only be deeper sorrow in the end. "If his
children be multiplied, it is for the sword; and they shall not be satisfied
with bread," no matter what he may be appropriating (and so to end of verse
19). This is all totally opposed to their reasoning,and Job rather triumphs
over them in this way. "Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth
him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and
as a storm hurleth him out of his place."
And now in the next chapter
(Job 28), which will close tonight, we have a very remarkable addition - one of
the most striking in the Book of Job. It seems very abrupt. He now turns away
from man altogether in his bad ways, or from vindicating those who really
looked to God; and he locks at the general state of mankind. Not any
particularly evil class or righteous class.
"Surely there is a vein
for the silver and a place for gold where they find it." Gold is not found in
veins like silver, it is in quite a different way - very often in the form of
dust, and sometimes of nuggets. But silver is found in large and rich veins.
"Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone." That is
just exactly where copper is found. Where we read "brass" it is very often
"copper" - chiefly so in the Bible. "He setteth an end to darkness." He now
gives us a remarkable sketch of mining in very early times. "He setteth an end
to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection" - in quest of these precious
metals, gold, silver or the like - "the stones of darkness, and the shadow of
death," i.e., he goes down to the depths of the earth after them. "The flood
breaketh out from the inhabitant" - water there is very dangerous, and so the
great point is to get rid of it safely - to drain it or turn it aside so that
they may work their mine. "Even the waters forgotten of the foot." That is,
waters that people do not walk beside; not the rivers and rivulets and the
like, but water deep in the earth. "They are dried up; they are gone away from
men." There is the drainage in order to carry it on.
"As for the
earth, out of it cometh bread; and under it" - that is deep down in it - "is
turned up as it were fire. The stones of it are the place of sapphires" -
precious stones as well as these metals - "and it hath dust of gold." They do
not enter into these depths; they go up into the heights and they traverse all
the surface of the earth, but the fowls do not venture into the mines where man
goes down. Not even the vulture. The vulture has a keen sight, as we all know,
especially for a dead body, and there they are - God's natural scavengers for
this poor world of death. "The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the
fierce lion passed by it" "He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he
overturneth the mountains by the roots. He cutteth out the rivers among the
rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing," They get a great sensitive
understanding of what is worth - not by any means that they are always right.
Sometimes the miners in our country have thrown away as rubbish what was quite
as valuable as all that their mind was set upon; but as a general rule they
learn what is valuable. "He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing
that is hid bringeth he forth to light. But where shall wisdom be found?" No,
there is no wisdom in all that. There is self in all that. There is what will
make a man rich; there is what will bring money and perhaps distinction; but
where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? Well, it
is not on the earth, and it is not down in these mines of darkness where man is
so prompt to follow for that which he values. Where is it to be found? "Man
knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living."
What a very solemn thing that is! True wisdom and true understanding
not found in the earth at all! It comes down from heaven. It is found only in
Christ; and Christ had not yet come; and further, this is what came out still
more by Christ's rejection and Christ's death. "Therefore the depth saith, It
is not in me." There are silver and gold in the depth, and other like
commodities, and precious stones. "The sea saith, It is not with me.... It is
hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air." It
is not in the skies as far as they are open to the eye. "Destruction and death
say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears." Yes, it was just that very
thing. There was a report of that One who is Himself wisdom, and who is the
Giver of wisdom to the meek. It was by death that it came to us, but they did
not know it.
"God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the
place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the
whole heaven; to make the weight for the winds." It was many hundreds, yea,
some thousands of years after that when man discovered that the atmosphere had
weight. But it did not enter into the philosophy of the philosophers then; they
knew nothing about it. Here is mentioned the weight of the wind. "He weigheth
the waters by measure," so that no matter what comes, the sea is never too
full. There is always going on, the circle of waters - waters rising up in the
form of vapour, and in vast quantities; for the power of the son acts upon the
waters, and there are many tons going up every day. There was a measure for it
all, in God's mind. "When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the
lightning of the thunder, then did he see it, and declare it; he prepared it,
yea, and searched it out. And unto man he said" - there is a wisdom above man -
"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is
understanding." And that is just exactly what is felt when a soul is converted.
He may know nothing more than that; he sees how he has been in almost all evil,
and he departs from it. A real sight of Christ is enough to do that by the
spirit of God, and the fear of the Lord. That is what is abiding even when
souls are not occupied with their evil, and speaking of it - the fear of the
Lord and departing from evil.
But that is not the same thing as the
gospel; it is not the same thing as knowing that all our evil is judged already
in Christ's person on the cross, that our sins are completely gone, and that we
are brought in as children whiter than snow through the blood of Christ before
the eye of God. That is the gospel; and it is after his reception of the word
of truth that man receives the Holy Ghost, to delight in it, and to be the
witness of it; but enjoying it first. Not to speak unto other people at first;
oh, no; that is not the first thing. That is what the vanity of youngsters very
often thinks - but to enjoy it with thankfulness and praise of God, and in
worship of Him; that is what we come to. That is the true effect of the Spirit
of God working. But then there is often a great deal of energy, and people are
often more occupied with the wants of other people than with the infallible
grace and truth of God. If the Lord will, I hope to continue on next Wednesday
evening.
LECTURE 8
JOB. 29
- 32
This is the beginning of Job's last argument. The friends were
quite silenced; he now makes his final confutation; and, indeed, it is more an
appeal than an argument, for he rises above all that they had been pleading and
insinuating.
Here he gives us in chapters 29-31 a very interesting
pouring out of his feelings. The first of these chapters reviews his early days
of prosperity, and we can see the very great complacency that he had in all
that grace had wrought in him. But, alas! there was another thing that ought
not to have been. He took pleasure in his good character. He was therefore in
spirit too much of a Pharisee. "I thank thee that I am not as other men." It
was not but that there was great grace in Job, and that there was a very
admirable character sustained; but why should he talk about it? why should he
think upon it? why should he not think of the source of all the blessing? Why
should he not be boasting in the Lord - instead of an implied boasting in
himself? There was the very thing that God had a controversy with. And we see
that up to this time Job had not got to the bottom of that which God was
ferreting out. Satan had completely disappeared. He is always defeated with the
children of God. He may appear to gain a battle, but the campaign is always
against him; and so it is very marked in the case of Job.
But the
second of these three chapters looks at his downfall; that is the great topic
that is in it. He bemoans his terrible state; and up to the present he could
not withhold the expression that he thought God dealt hardly with him, and was
arbitrary. He could not understand His ways in the slightest degree; nor did he
take in the motive that God had - the gracious purpose. In short, he had not
reached the end of the Lord, because he had not done with himself. That is the
real secret of it.
And the next chapter - the last of his appeal - is
a most impassioned setting himself before God, and implicating judgments on
himself. So thoroughly was his conscience good, that he goes over all the
various snares of a man, and especially a man of position and wealth like Job;
because that always increases the danger, and always makes the difficulty more.
There is no greater mistake than to suppose that poverty is the hard place in
which to serve God. On the contrary, it is when people are no longer poor, and
no longer feel the need of continual dependence upon God - when they begin to
be independent - for the world is not ashamed to call it that. I am sorry to
say that Christians even drop into the language and the spirit of the world.
Job calls solemn judgments upon himself - looking at the various snares - if he
had been guilty in this or that or the other and so on - and the upshot of it
all is that "The words of Job are ended."
We have no more of Job now
in the way of self-defence. We shall find a very interesting new speaker on
which I may say a few words on chapter 32 tonight. But now, first of all Job
says: "Oh; that I were as in months past." Now it is always a bad sign when
people look back to dwell on the past. Are people not to grow? Are children of
God merely to be occupied with the immense favour of God? No doubt it is very
true that one is plucked out of the teeth of Satan; but what is that compared
with the positive knowledge of God? It is a great thing for us; but is not the
knowledge of God infinitely greater than merely the action of divine grace in
rescuing a poor wretched sinner? It is an admirable thing for the sinner always
to feel it; but it is a sad thing when he looks back to it as the brightest of
all things. Why, that means he has been making no progress at all; it means
that he has been all these years afterwards looking back upon that as the
divine moment. Surely divine life ought to be a growing enjoyment; and the more
so as you know of Christ and of God - I am speaking now to Christians, of
course.
But even for Job God never left himself without witness - and
God always met the souls that really walked with Him. Who can doubt but that
Enoch walked with God, and do you suppose that Enoch looked back at the first
glimpse he had of God, and would say he knew God by that? No, far from it, and
shame on all people who talk such language. I do not deny that it is the
language of many a Christian, but that is the most sorrowful thing now - that
Christians forget what it is to be a Christian. They only think of the moment
of becoming a Christian, and they seem to think that that is the great thing.
No doubt it is passing the border, but it is certainly not going into the
brightness beyond it. Where is the feast; where is the joy of the Father; where
is the best robe, and all the other accompaniments? Is that nothing? Well, that
was after. And that is what in an image presents us with the positive place of
blessing. The "grace wherein we stand" - not merely the grace that rescued us,
but the grace wherein we stand. It is a continual place of grace to be enjoyed
more and more as we learn more of God and judge ourselves. But there is where
Job failed. Job admired himself. And so he looks back. "Oh, that I were as in
months past." God was going to do far better. It is true that Job went through
very severe sifting, but that was all for his good; and more than that, it was
for your good and my good, and the good of every believer that has ever
profited by this book since God had it written down. It was meant for the
blessing of all. It was not intended that there should be perhaps another man
to go through the same. God has His economy of good; God has His reserve of
grace; God was pleased that one should have had a very broad back to bear the
trial. We have heard of the patience of Job; but that is the very thing wherein
he broke down, so that he became impatient at last even with God. And the
reason was because he was not yet an utterly broken man - he was given to
knowing about himself.
Oh, how very rarely one finds a saint of God
even now what every saint of God ought to be; but it is a rare thing even among
Christian people. "As in the days when God preserved me; when His candle shined
upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; as I was in the
days of my youth." Why, that is a strange thing - "my youth." No getting on
with God in his maturity or in his old age! What was Job about? "When the
Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me." Was not He with him
then? That is just what he did not see or know. "Whom He loveth He chasteneth";
and that is one of the great lessons of the Book of Job. I admit it was
terrible chastening. And that is where the friends were all wrong; it was so
terrible that they thought it was retributive, and that it was impossible for a
person to suffer to such an extreme degree unless he had been extremely wicked.
And what made it worse was that he looked so good, and therefore they thought
he must be a hypocrite. There they were completely wrong; and the consequence
was that they had to go down lower than Job, and that Job had to pray for them
that they might be spared. And this he did. But, however, I anticipate what we
will have another day.
"When I washed my steps with butter" - of
course it is not literal - "and the rock poured me out rivers of oil." You see
that petroleum is an old affair in this world! "When I went out to the gate
through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street! The young men saw me,
and hid themselves; and the aged arose, and stood up." All that was exceedingly
pleasant to Job. And we are apt to think so too - there is nothing, men say,
that succeeds like success, and there is not a more wicked maxim or one more
entirely contrary to God; nothing more thoroughly denying that we are now in
the place of suffering, and of being despised and rejected for Christ's sake.
But that is a worldly maxim, and it is just what the world delights in. Men
will praise you if you do well to yourself, that is, if you are successful -
make a good fortune, and have nice dinner parties, and so on. "The princes
refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth."
Now one of the
beautiful features about Job was that he did not pretend to be noble, and he
did not seek to be a prince. He was like a king in the nobility of his
character - what a king ought to be - he was truly noble in his ways; and all
that would have been admirable if he had not said or thought; for that is the
important point. "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." It
does not mean that other people do not know it, but the wrong is that our left
hand should know what our right hand does, i.e., we ought not to think about
it. It is done to God; and it is merely returning a very little interest for
the wonderful capital - for the spiritual capital that the Lord has put in our
power.
Here you see it was not so. Job was highly pleased, and took
great pleasure in the world thinking so much of him. "When the ear heard me,
then it blessed me" - now he is looking at what you may call the objects of his
kindness and love. For there was both kindness and love in Job. "And when the
eye saw me, it gave witness to me." He was referring to the people that had
been helped out of their manifold afflictions. "Because I delivered the poor
that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him." And that
was really true. God delighted in Job; that was all right; and he found at last
that God did delight in him, but he did not find that till after the trial. He
was buoyed up and raised above the ordinary occupations of men by the homage
that was paid him and the perception of his exceeding kindness. All that lifted
him up. Well, that is a very natural thing; but it is not spiritual; and it is
the very thing that God was putting down severely in him; much more so than in
a very inferior man. The greatest trials that God inflicts are upon the
strongest, those that are able to bear them. Those that know most of His ways -
they come in for it. And that was the case with Job.
"The blessing of
him that was ready to perish came upon me; and I caused the widow's heart to
sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me" - that was very true,
and he looked at his clothing too; - "my judgment was as a robe and a diadem."
Yes, very pleased was Job. "I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the
lame. I was a father to the poor; and the cause which I knew not I searched
out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his
teeth. Then I said, I shall die in my nest." No, no; God was going to disturb
that nice nest of his that was so warm and comfortable. "And I shall multiply
my days as the sand." Why, he had been very desirous that God should cut short
his days; for that was the only way that he saw out of all the trouble he was
passing through. "My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all
night upon my branch. My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my
hand. Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel. After
my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them. And they waited
for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter
rain. If I laughed on them, they believed it not" - it is too good to be true -
"and the light of my countenance they cast not down. I chose out their way, and
sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the
mourners."
You cannot be surprised that the Jews were the first
rationalists; they were the higher critics of a former day. They did not
believe that it was a true story - the philosophic Jews - they did not believe
that. How far it penetrated the synagogue generally we cannot say. I presume
there were simple-hearted men that fully believed every word of it. But one of
the great reasons why the Jews did not accept this history was that Job was not
a Jew. "Oh! that cannot be; why, they are all dogs. Everybody but a Jew is a
dog." And the idea that God did not say it of Abraham that he was of such
integrity that there was nobody like him in all the earth - nor of Isaac, nor
of Jacob! No, this they could not believe. They knew that it was of a patriarch
of those days, and therefore they were dead set against the possibility of such
a thing as God extolling one who was not of the chosen race, one of the family
and of the nation that had the promise.
What is it that makes people
higher critics? It is that they prefer their own thoughts to the word of God.
That is what it is to be an unbeliever; and if it is carried out thoroughly you
are an infidel; you are a lost man. I presume that these Jews fully held to the
other books of the Bible. It is to be presumed so. Perhaps they did not like
some others. I can understand their no more liking the prophecy of Jonah being
given to a Gentile city than that Jonah liked to be the prophet sent there. He
did everything to turn away from it; and when God told him to go east he went
west. When he was told to go to Nineveh he took a ship at Joppa to go west -
just in the very opposite direction.
Well, now, in the next chapter
(Job 30) we have a totally different story. Job now says, "But now they that
are younger than I have me in derision." You can suppose how very painful that
was to a man that had been living a good deal upon the witness of these grand
deeds and the high opinions of him, and the humbler classes, for once in a way,
being entirely along with the grandees. For at times they do truly love to
differ. "Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my
flock." Ah! Job, you can be cutting; you can strike deep if you are so
disposed. He would not have set their fathers with the dogs of his flock! Just
think of it. And he gives his reason. He says, "Yea, whereto might the strength
of their hands profit me?" Job was a wise man, and if he had servants he had
servants that could do their duty. But as very often happens with the most
miserable of the world, they are weak, and unable to do a good day's work, nor
a good hour's work. Whatever they do, they do in a manner that is enough to
provoke any person to look at them. And so he says, "For want and famine they
were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. They were
driven forth from among men (they cried after them as after a thief)" - they
were most disreputable, and Job would not have had one of them on any account
to serve him. He would be very willing to give them food if they were hungry;
and if they had no clothing he would surely have abounded even then. But he
felt it very much that these men should mock him, and should do everything to
deride his sufferings, and not only that with these men in general, but that
the young men tried to trip up his tottering steps! For you know the soles of
his feet were intolerable - from head to foot not only was every nerve, as it
were, active, but the very worms were beginning to prey upon him while he was
alive, through all the sores that were open. It was a most awful case.
Yet what is that compared with moral suffering? Do you suppose the apostle Paul
did not suffer much more severely than with any bodily trouble? He suffered
from false brethren a great deal. And I think he must have suffered from true
brethren very often - perhaps even more, but in a different way. "To dwell in
the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks. Among the
bushes they brayed." He will not allow that they talked - they brayed. "Under
the nettles they were gathered together. They were children of fools, yea,
children of base men" - i.e. of fathers that had not a name themselves - "they
were viler than the earth. And now am I their song; yea, I am their byword.
They abhor me." Think of that - these words were all true. "They flee far from
me." They could not bear to look at him - at the agony, and the terrible effect
of all these sores on his body. They could not go near him. "And spare not to
spit in my face. Because he hath loosed my cord." There was after all what
grieved the heart of poor Job more than anything. It was God. He does not mean
the devil; it was not the devil. "Because He hath loosed my cord and afflicted
me" (and so to end of verse 16).
You see there is no reference to his
three friends now. He is looking really at this tremendous trial that afflicted
his body, and that exposed him to all this disrespect and contempt of the very
lowest creatures on the face of the earth. "My bones are pierced in me in the
night season; and my sinews take no rest. By the great force of my disease is
my garment changed; it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat." Look at the
pain all that would occasion. "He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become
like dust and ashes. I cry unto thee and thou dost not hear me." But God did
hear him. There was a reason why He did not answer; but God did hear. "I stand
up, and thou regardest me not. Thou art become cruel to me." There he was quite
wrong. "With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me. Thou liftest me
up to the wind: thou causest me to ride upon it and dissolvest my substance.
For I know that thou wilt bring me to death" - there he was wrong again. God
had good things in store for Job. "And to the house appointed for all living.
Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his
destruction. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul
grieved for the poor?" - he goes back to that. "My harp also is turned to
mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep."
Well, there
is a third chapter (31) to which we now come, very distinct from either of
these, and this is his final appeal to God. This is all said not so much to his
friends as to God; but he still was harping upon the past in the first of these
chapters; then upon the present misery; now he appeals solemnly to God, and in
the presence of them all.
"I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then
should I think upon a maid? For what portion of God is there from above? and
what inheritance of the Almighty from on high?" None whatever for a corrupt
man, to take advantage of another. "Is not destruction to the wicked? and a
strange punishment to the workers of iniquity? Doth not he see my ways" - he
was a thoroughly pious believing man - "and count all my steps? If I had walked
with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; let me be weighed in an even
balance, that God may know mine integrity." He had a perfectly good conscience,
but that is not enough. There is the great principle of self-judgment; there is
the grand principle also of entire submission to God and vindicating Him - that
He is right and wise in all, not only in what He does, but in what He allows.
It is all for good. It may be very bad on the part of others, as it was on the
part of Job's friends, but God had a good purpose for Job in it all.
"If my step hath turned out of thy way," etc. (vers. 1-12). It is clear that
Job was a most blameless man in his conduct, and even in the state of his
heart. "If I did despise the cause of my manservant, or of my maidservant" - he
now goes to other duties - "when they contended with me, what then shall I do
when God riseth up, and, when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?" etc.
(vers. 13-23). "If I have made gold my hope" - now he turns to a third kind of
snare - "or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; If I rejoiced
because my wealth was great" - and how many do - "and because mine hand had
gotten much," etc., it was not inherited merely; but it was acquired by his own
industry and God's particular blessing upon him.
Now he looks at
another thing quite different - "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the
moon walking in brightness," i.e. in the way of any adoration; in bowing down
to the son or moon, which was the earliest form of idolatry. We do not hear of
Baals or Ashtoreths or any of the disreputable vanities and wickedness of
heathen objects of worship; but here was a work of God of the highest nature,
but no leaning to it in any way - "and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or
my mouth hath kissed my hand" - even the slightest form of acknowledging the
creature! - "this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I
should have denied the God that is above." There we have very sound doctrine.
"If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself
when evil found him" - a very common snare for people. They have a little
pleasure when their adversaries come to grief, or are troubled. "Neither have I
suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul. If the men of my
tabernacle said not, Oh, that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied. The
stranger did not lodge in the street; but I opened my doors to the traveller.
If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom:
did I fear a great multitude" - you observe he was perfectly acquainted with
the very interesting and profitable story of Adam's fall. There we have just
what anyone now, looking back with the light of Christ even, sees. There was
the great sin of Adam. Instead of humbling himself to God, and going to meet
God to tell Him how he had disgraced himself, Adam hid himself away; and the
clothing that he put upon him showed that he was no longer innocent.
"Oh, that one would hear me!" Now here is Job's final appeal. "Behold my desire
is, that the Almighty would answer me" - Job wanted to hear His voice about it
- "and that mine adversary had written a book, Surely I would take it" - if
anyone that wished him ill laid charges "I would take it," he says, "upon my
shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me" - because he was confident that it was
false. "I would declare unto him," i.e. unto the Almighty; it would seem
possibly "the adversary" - "the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near
unto him." I think it is "to the Lord." "If my land cry against me, or that the
furrows likewise thereof complain; If I have eaten the fruits thereof without
money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life! Let thistles grow
instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended."
Well, it was very magnificent; as it had been a justification of
himself. But it was a great mistake as to the secret of God's dealings with
Job, and accordingly a new interlocutor appears. We have not heard of him. It
is a remarkable indication of primitive habits and feelings. He was a young
man. And this absence of any notice taken of him is just in the spirit of olden
manners. And he shows that he perfectly enters into it himself, and in no way
complains of it. Elihu, however, was a man put forward by God, to bring to
naught the pride of age and experience, observation and tradition. Because
there you have what belonged to each of those friends. They were old men, and
they were proud of their place. And Eliphaz, as we know, was a man that
strongly stood upon the judgment and feeling of public opinion - of pious men,
no doubt, but, after all, it was only men's. And one of the wonderful ways of
God is this: that no tradition can ever meet present circumstances. The same
facts even may occur; but they are in a different light, and the circumstances
modify them enormously, and all that has to be taken into account.
Who, then, is sufficient for these things? Our sufficiency is of God. There is
the need of dependence upon God. You cannot pile up wisdom in that way for
divine things. It is all very fair in science, or knowledge, or art, or
literature, or anything of that kind; but it is nothing in the things of God.
Zophar seems to be more confident in himself than in anybody. And Bildad was
one between the two. He was a man of keen observation and good power of
expression. But, however that might be, all had failed, and now Elihu comes
forward.
"So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was
righteous in his own eyes" (Job 32). That was their idea, and there was some
truth in it. "Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu, the son of Barachel the
Buzite, of the kindred of Ram." He belonged to the family of Nahor, the brother
of Abraham. He was not properly one of the chosen family, but he was closely
connected, like Laban and others. He belonged to another branch. "Against Job
was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God." Well,
that was true. He did justify himself. The last chapter which we have just read
is self-justification from beginning to end. It was quite true, as a matter of
fact, but was entirely improper in a question of God's dealings, and why this
great affliction had come upon him. "Also against his three friends was his
wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job."
What was it that hindered these three friends from understanding him? The same
thing that hindered Job - self. Self was not judged. Self is one of the
greatest difficulties in the way of a Christian - in the way of a sinner of
old, and now still among Christians.
"Now Elihu had waited till Job
had spoken, because they were older than he." Well, that was very proper. "When
Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, then his
wrath was kindled." Why? It was not for himself at all. He was displeased with
them all for God's sake. "And Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite answered
and said, I am young, and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid, and durst
not show you my opinion. I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years
should teach wisdom" - and so it should be. "But there is a spirit in man" -
there is something higher than experience - "there is a spirit in man" - it is
the highest part of man's nature. The body is the outward, vessel, and the soul
is that which makes a man to be a man. Every man has his own spirit, but soul
is that which may be in common among men. For instance, John the Baptist came
in the spirit and power of Elias. He could not come in the soul of Elias.
Everybody comes in his own soul; that is the seat of individuality. But spirit
is a man's capacity. You might find half a dozen men with the same capacity;
and we say sometimes, "That man spoke like a Luther; that man wrote like a
Calvin; that man was as earnest in his work as John Wesley; that man was as
diligent in preaching as Charles Spurgeon" - and so on. The spirit of these
different men might be similar in other men, but it is that which gives them
their particular power (or character). But the soul and spirit go together so
closely that no human wit can ever distinguish between them; they are so welded
together, being of a spirit nature. When man dies, his soul goes up and his
spirit too; they both go up; they go up together necessarily.
And so
then it is that we can understand that there is a spirit in man. Spirit is
expressive of spiritual capacity, and that is not to be measured by the
question of experience. A man might have much more spiritual capacity who was
young. That was the case with Elihu. And he says, "The inspiration of the
Almighty giveth them understanding." It was God that breathed into man the
breath of life; and in that breath of life there was not only the soul but the
spirit; and that is the reason why man alone has an immortal soul. God never
breathed into a horse or a dog, or any other animal on the earth, but only into
man; therefore, man's soul and spirit are immortal. But it may be immortal in
hell, or it may be blessedly immortal in heaven! It does not deprive a man of
his being a sinner, nor of his bearing the consequences of it; neither, on the
other hand, does it deprive him - still less - of receiving eternal life from
the Lord Jesus. Then there is another life given to him. "Great men are not
always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment." Far from it. "Therefore
I said, Hearken to me; I also will show mine opinion. Behold, I waited for your
words; I gave ear to your reasons, whilst ye searched out what to say." He
never ventured to interrupt; he never said one word.
Sometimes people
are astonished to find this young man coming forward, after not only the three
friends were silent, but Job too. Then he speaks, and he apologises in these
words that I now read. That is all that I am noticing tonight. "Behold, I
waited for your words; I gave ear to your reasons, whilst ye searched out what
to say. Yea, I attended unto you, and, behold, there was none of you that
convinced Job, or that answered his words." And that was perfectly true. "Lest
ye should say, We have found out wisdom." He saw that it was a question of God.
They had not really brought in the true God as He is. "God thrusteth him down,
not man." That is what Job had said. So far, Job was far more right than his
friends. "Now he hath not directed his words against me." So he says - I am in
a position to be able to speak dispassionately. If he had attacked me because
of anything I had said it might seem self-vindication. But here I must speak
for God, young as I am. "Neither will I answer him with your speeches." They
were entirely powerless. "They were amazed, they answered no more! they left
off speaking" (vers. 1-15). He was full of indignation that they went on still
blaming Job, and could not convince him of anything wrong. They had entirely
missed their way. "I will speak, that I may be refreshed: I will open my lips
and answer. Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person, neither let me
give flattering titles unto man. For I know not to give flattering titles; in
so doing my maker would soon take me away" (vers. 16-22).
And there we
may leave it for the present. If the Lord will, we shall have the rest of
Elihu's admirable address, where he touches the real roots of the question for
the first time - an interpreter who was one of a thousand, as he says himself,
though not referring to himself.
LECTURE
9
JOB. 33 - 38
It is remarkable how worldly minds
dislike Elihu. It is a very old story. It began with some of the famous Jews,
and it has gone down to the present day. They regard him as a particularly
forward young man, and also as full of self-conceit, after all with very little
in it. Now nothing can show more a mind unacquainted with God; because Elihu
has a most valuable place in this book. It is he that for the first time brings
out the blessing of affliction - affliction turned to the profit of the soul.
This was not very much known even in Israel afterwards; for in Israel God was
showing His government of a nation; but that is a totally different thing from
what we find in Job. What Elihu shows is a government of souls, and that goes
on now more than ever in Christianity.
This is what is found in John
15: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." And what does the
Father do? "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away; and
every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it." He purges on the one hand, and
He takes away on the other. If there are those who are totally insensible, He
takes them away; more particularly if they bear His name falsely. But those who
do bear fruit He purges, that they may bring forth more fruit. That was exactly
the case with Job. So also Peter takes it up. He knew what that was. Satan
desired to sift him as wheat. But the Lord prayed for Peter, not merely for
you, but for Peter. And why? Because a dead set was made against Peter. Peter
was lifted up as Job was. Peter was quite sure of his own great love for the
Saviour, and he trusted in his own love - not Christ's love to him. but Peter's
love to Christ; for no matter what the difficulty he might be in, he would be
faithful! Whereas, on the contrary, he slighted the word of the Lord that
warned him of his danger, and that night before the cock crew, he denied Him -
that is, he broke down exactly where he thought it was impossible that he
could.
And so did Job. Job had shown himself a most gracious man in
prosperity, and a most patient man in adversity; and if the trial had rested
there Job would have been more pleased with himself than ever; for what could
we expect more than that a man should be exceedingly kind, and, as men thought,
humble, and always occupied with the activities of benevolence and of
compassion towards the suffering, when he had nothing to trouble him? Then when
he was more troubled, perhaps, than any other man ever was before, he first
lost his property, then lost his children, and then lost all his bodily health
and was reduced to being one of the greatest of sufferers; so much so that he
would have been delighted to have died, but that would not have answered the
end of the Lord The Lord intended that he should live, and consequently that he
must accept the trial from Him; but Job did not understand that. No doubt,
although his wife did not - as a wife nowadays very often does - help her
husband to get wrong, she told him to curse God and die - make an end of it
all. Women are sometimes very impatient; so she was, any way, and gave right
bad advice. He rejected it, but he could not stand his friends' insinuations.
However, as I have gone through that pretty carefully before, I need not dwell
upon it now. But here we have come to Job triumphant over his friends. They are
perfectly silenced. These men of age, experience, and wisdom, did not
understand the case even as well as Job And the reason why they did not
understand it was that Job had more sense of grace in God, which is the real
key of all the dealings of God. They thought everything must be shallow and on
the outside, and yet they were true saints.
But we have to learn, as
one of the great lessons of the Book, that we cannot glory in saints - we can
only glory in God. Though not a few are brought before us, yet they all come
short of it. Even Job, although he found it an easy matter to confute them (and
he seems to have had considerable pleasure in reducing the three, one after the
other, to total silence), he had not yet got to the root of the matter, and
that was - a little complacency in himself - a most insidious evil, and only to
be learnt in the presence of God. And now there is no excuse for us; because
the very object of the death of Christ is not merely that we should be forgiven
and made happy; but it is that we should walk in self-judgment, and also in
confidence in God, and in these two things Job failed; and we are in danger of
failing too. We stop short, just getting the heart and the conscience, when
they have been awakened, to feel what sin is. But that is only the threshold;
that is only the way we enter into the blessing, and the blessing is, to be
brought to God. No doubt there is a great deal in being brought to God; and we
are brought in a very wonderful way to God, on which I do not dwell now,
because it is not what we have here.
But as to Elihu, he lifts up the
veil for the first time off the riddle which none of them had been able to
solve - neither Eliphaz, nor Bildad, nor Zophar, nor even Job. The last words
of Job were that he would not give up his integrity, no matter what came, till
cockle grew instead of barley a thing that could not possibly be. He was
determined to stick to it; and he was quite sure they were all wrong in
thinking that there was anything wrong in him. And yet there was. Not at all in
the way they thought; but it was the pleasure that he took in what grace, which
the Lord had bestowed, had produced in his ways. There was no doubt about that;
but why did he think about it? Why did he not think of God? Why was he not
filled with the wonder of God producing anything that was good in such a
wretched creature as fallen man? Now Elihu comes in; and he had evidently great
difficulty in holding his tongue for a good while. And he showed his great
humility. Because we should not have known he had been there. He suddenly comes
forward at this critical moment, when not only the three, but Job, were silent;
and it was a very hard matter to get Job silent; for he was an excellent
speaker, and he had a great deal to say that was very true; but he did not yet
know himself as God meant him to - as God means us to learn ourselves. That is
the reason the book was given to us - not to learn ourselves in a human way by
our thoughts, but to learn ourselves after a definite sort by the light of God
detecting what nothing else can.
Well, Elihu had been silent. He was a
young man compared with them, and he had a very strong sense of propriety; and
accordingly he would not think of interrupting, or of entering in, even when,
one after another, the others subsided. He might have spoken then, but no! he
waits till the whole thing was closed by Job's fervent utterance, in which he
showed that his good opinion of himself was as great as ever it was, and all
that God had done had not brought him down in his own opinion of himself. This
was what roused Elihu. He was indignant that the others could not see. He saw
it clearly enough; that Job was insubmissive to God, and that Job spoke in a
very improper way about God. Afterwards he said the right thing. You must not
suppose that when God compared him with his three friends it was with regard to
these speeches. No, no; Job had a wrong spirit while they were going on, and
resented in the highest degree the bad thoughts the others had of him. But does
that make a man bad? What is the opinion of another man? what does he know
about it? So that if a person is quieted before God, he can afford to take it
all quietly. It is very bad for the others; but it does not make him a bit
worse. Job, however, had not learnt this; he broke down in the very matter of
patience. Yet we have heard of the patience of Job. There was nobody like him
for it; but he broke down in the very thing in which he was apt to be a little
proud.
Elihu makes a great deal of apology. That is what these proud
men do not like. They are men inflated with the pride of man's heart; and
scholars - even scholars in the Bible, learned men in the scriptures - are just
as apt to be carried away by notions of their own importance as other people
are; and that is what is the key to all these depreciatory views of Elihu. They
know nothing about God. They are eloquent of the wonders of a man's mind and
perhaps the outward works of God; all that, they may be, but they do not know
anything about the dealings of God. There are thousands of men that have
written of the scriptures who have never seen their sinfulness before God, who
have never been brought to measure self in the presence of God. And accordingly
these men all hate Elihu, and speak with the utmost contempt not only of him as
an upstart of a young man that was full of himself, but also of what he said;
thus deprecating his speaking at all. For he was very sorry to be obliged to
speak. He had no desire to put himself forward; but there he was, quite
contrary to all his own intentions or his own desire, compelled to speak on
God's behalf against that which he felt was so unworthy in Job even. Indeed, he
does not say much about the others. They were silent; they had passed away just
as Satan had previously. Satan disappears and we do not hear of him after in
this book; he was thoroughly beaten; and then the other three evidently had to
give up and surrender; they had nothing more to say. Indeed, they had said a
great deal too much.
But now (Job 33) was Elihu's turn; and after all,
Job had not said the thing that was right. So he begins here. The 32nd chapter
was merely a preface, speaking of his own shortcoming, and at the same time, of
his entire conviction that he saw a truth that neither Job nor the three
friends had seen; and this he must have out.
"I pray thee, hear my
speeches, and hearken to all my words. Behold, now I have opened my mouth" - he
had been very slow to do it - "my tongue hath spoken in my mouth. My words
shall be of the uprightness of my heart" - it is all genuine and sincere,
whatever these physicians of no value say, these higher critics - "and my lips
shall utter knowledge clearly." And so they did. "The Spirit of God hath made
me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. If thou canst answer me,
set thy words in order before me, stand up. Behold, I am according to thy wish
in God's stead." Job, while his heart went out towards God, was afraid that it
would be too overwhelming; and yet he wanted to find Him; but still he was
afraid. He wanted some one that could speak in a human tongue to him - could
speak thoroughly for God. Well, Elihu does that in his measure. Elihu is an
interpreter, one of a thousand, and he therefore does speak for God - just what
Job had wanted, only very far short of the Great Interpreter - very far short
of Him who is the Chief of the Prophets, who is the Lord God of the Prophets,
as well as a Prophet. Very short, indeed, of Christ! Still the presence of
Elihu is a witness to sovereign grace. It is the rarest thing in the world to
find a man that has learnt so of God as Elihu had. And it was purposely
intended to bring down the pride of the older men. And Elihu felt that; but
still he made them apologies; for he was very unwilling indeed to appear to be
setting them in order and correcting the folly that had come from them. He is
occupied with Job rather - and that is a very fine trait in him. He does not go
round Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and show how wrong they had been; but the
great point remains still to be settled.
There was no solution of the
riddle yet. Elihu contributes for the first time. Not completely - it required
God to do that - and God did appear; I do not say how. I do not say that He
took the shape of man, as He often did in the Old Testament. We do not read of
anything of that here. It may merely have been a voice for that matter. But we
shall see, when we come to that part, that it was a divine voice; there is no
mistake about that. Here, however, it is a man, as he says, and a young man,
too, "I also am formed out of the clay. Behold, my terror shall not make thee
afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee," etc. (vers. 7-11). Job had
complained of God's hand. There were two great faults in what Job had said. He
thought too well of himself, and he found fault with God. That is what is
clearly put here by Elihu. "Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer
thee, that God is greater than man. Why dost thou strive against him? for he
giveth not account of any of his matters." He had entirely fallen short of the
reverence due to God - entirely forgotten the infinite distance between God and
man; the majesty of God; and therefore, instead of finding fault with himself
for being so far short, he found fault with God. He did not understand His ways
fully. Now he ought to have credited, though he did not understand them. "For
God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not" (vers. 12-14).
Now he brings in the fact that God carries on His wonderful way in the
midst of all, in a ruined world with everything out of order and Satan
triumphing, and in fact the prince of the world, and the god of this age, as
scripture calls him, at any rate in the New Testament; although they very
little understood that yet. But we ought to know it. Well, God, in the midst of
all this, carries on His wonderful way, and did so before there was a Bible.
You must remember that when the circumstances of Job occurred there was no
written revelation. Genesis and Job were probably written very near one
another: practically at the same time. There is no reference to the law; there
is no reference to the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, in Job; and although
there was some distance between Job's country and Egypt, the Book of Job shows
that he was well acquainted with the great features of Egypt; that he was well
acquainted with the crocodile and the like. There is a magnificent description
of it in this very book, and many other things that show that the country of
Egypt and its people were quite familiar to Job. He only lived on the edge of
the desert, and a little, therefore, to the east of the Holy Land; perhaps the
north-east; but at any rate, it was in that part of the country. Elihu belonged
rather to another part. He was the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred
of Ram. "Ram" is the same word (only another form) as "Aram," i.e., Syria, that
part of the country of Asia north of the Holy Land. He belonged, therefore, to
a race akin to the Holy Land, but not belonging to it strictly, and that is
what makes the great interest of the book - it is God and man. It is not Israel
at all; it is purposely God dealing with man, and God dealing with man's soul.
It is far more important that a soul should be right, and this we find most
carefully shown in this book. So much so that Job was brought into the best
blessing he ever knew while he was still under the effects of his trial, and
the external blessing had not yet been conferred; but it followed immediately
he could bear it.
God therefore, Elihu says, often deals in a dream of
the night (ver. 15). I dare say some of you have had these visitations. It is
certainly not for me to beast of anything; but I think that I have had
consciously God whispering little things to me about myself, and advising me to
take care what I was about, and compelling me to judge myself in a way that I
had not done before; and I conceive that it is very probably so in this case.
It is nothing miraculous at all. We may perhaps not count with God; but this no
doubt is just where we fail, in not attaching the importance that we ought to
do, and this although we have His word. But still God is a living God, and God
has to do with every one of us in this way. There can be no doubt that here
Elihu speaks about it as a certainty in those days; and why it should not be in
our day, I, for one, have never learnt. I believe it is all a mistake to
imagine it is not so. The great point is that it is altogether inferior to the
word. This is where we have our great advantage; and all these excellent people
that come before us in this book had it not. Oh no, scripture is of enormous
value, and we show our great lack of faith by not estimating it, and making it
the grandest point of every day's life - to learn God more and better by His
word, now especially as we have Christ, who is not merely the Interpreter, "one
of a thousand," but alone; alone, above all - Moses, Elias, no matter whom -
Jesus only. Well, "In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep
falleth upon men" - it is not seeing a spirit, as Eliphaz did. That I do not
pretend to. It has never been my lot, nor, I suppose, yours; but here it is
another thing. It is in sleep; and it is a dream; plain, simple, positive fact,
but still it is God deigning to help us. And He loves to do that in ways that
we do not always perceive, but He is always doing so in one way or another,
except where Ephraim is joined to his idols - "let him alone"! That is a
terrible word.
"Then he openeth the ears of men" (ver. 16). That is
what is shown in this chapter. It is not "believing" men; it is any man, in
order that he might believe. But still, when we do not behave as saints, we may
get a little word just showing us where we are, that we are "walking as men,"
as the apostle said. "That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride
from man." You see, it is one that had never yet been broken. "He keepeth back
his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword." He was on the
straight way to it. "He is chastened also with pain upon his bed." It is not
only these dealings with the soul, but also with the body. There he touches the
very case of Job. "And the multitude of his bones with strong pain: so that his
life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away" -
how true it was of poor Job "that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were
not seen, stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to
the destroyers. If there be a messenger with him" - that is exactly what Elihu
was - "an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness":
i.e., what becomes him. And what is it that becomes a man? Self-judgment. He is
a fallen man. He may be a believing man, but still, he is a man, as we can say,
with the flesh in him; and that flesh may be working strongly, as it did in Job
as well as the others. "Then he is gracious unto him." Directly the man bows,
directly there is submissiveness to God - that is the uprightness of man. This
is what is done when a man is converted, i.e., he bows to God, but also when a
man gets away, like Peter, it may also be said, "When thou art converted." For
the restoration of a man is very much of the same character as when a man is
converted. He is turned back to God. He has been forgetting God, and he turns
back and remembers Him. That is how it was with Peter; and that is what we
sometimes find also. "Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from
going down to the pit, I have found a ransom" (vers. 17-24).
Now I do
not think you could find in all the rest of the Old Testament such a
description as here of God's dealing with the soul that is wrong, or that has
got wrong. I do not remember any so graphic, and so personally applicable; and
it would be hard to find it in the New Testament, except where the Lord gives
us the Prodigal. There I admit that we have a perfect picture. We could not
have here all that the Lord shows of the prodigal son; but here it is a
wonderful thing, especially so precious at the early day. But it does not mean
that the ransom was yet offered; but there it was before God, answering to that
word in Rom. 3: "the pretermission" of sins - a passing over, not a
"remission," for this latter could not be true of an Old Testament saint.
"Remission" is what particularly belongs to the New Testament. But there was a
"pretermission" - a "passing over" by God. It was like a bad debt, and the
creditors saying, "It is no use; we must pass it by; we must not expect
anything." That is what God did. There was "the forbearance of God." But now it
is not the forbearance of God at all; and it is not "pretermission." It is
"remission" now. It is God's righteousness clearly manifested, and that is,
that Christ has borne our sins, and therefore it is a righteous thing to blot
them out. It is not merely saying, "Poor fellow, he cannot pay"; but here is
One that has paid, and paid in the most glorious manner; more wonderful a great
deal than if there had never been sin; more glorious to God and more blessed
for man. Because, on the contrary, it was giving us up as a bad job where it
was merely "forbearance" and "pretermission"; but now it is triumphing.
You recollect that remarkable word which I think is quite
misunderstood - "come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3: 23). Does this apply
to the believer? On the contrary, no believer comes "short of the glory of
God." And how is this? Why, because there is One in the glory who bore my sins
on the cross, And He who is in the glory of God is my life and my
righteousness. Therefore it is that we, believers, do not "come short of the
glory of God." There was that great fact, not merely a mighty work upon the
cross, but the Lord Jesus connecting that work with the glory of God, and
giving us the wonderful impulse and strength of knowing that we do not come
short of the glory of God. That was a thing that could not be at the beginning.
It could not be without - not only sin forgiven, but Christ glorifying God
about sin, and consequently going up Himself into the glory of God, and this as
our Saviour. Well, we have not this here; nothing like it at all, but simply "I
have found a ransom."
"His flesh shall be fresher than a child's; he
shall return to the days of his youth; he shall pray unto God, and he will be
favourable unto him; and he shall see his face with joy." We have here nothing
at all about the two natures. That the Old Testament saint never understood.
There is no such thing as the intelligence of that great truth in any part of
the Old Testament. And man is incapable of profiting by, or understanding, it
until he sees Christ by faith; sees the Son and believes in Him. Now we are
capable. Now we are made to understand it simply and fully. "He looketh upon
men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it
profited me not" - there you see, is just what the repentant soul says. It is
not called "repentance" here. It is in Jeremiah. Jeremiah, brings it out very
beautifully in the 31st chapter, before he introduces the new covenant; but
here we have the thing, repentance, although the word is not employed. "He will
deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. Lo,
all these things worketh God oftentimes with man" (vers. 25-30). It is very
comforting to think that that was what God was doing, and was known to be
doing, in those days. Because the gospel was not preached then. There was, no
doubt, the precious revelation of "the Seed of the woman" that was to be
bruised, and which was to bruise Satan; but after all, although that is a most
wonderful word, and not less wonderful now than it ever was - most wonderful to
think of now - yet it was almost all they had then.
There was a little
more that came in with Noah, as a type - the deluge, and man passing out of it;
and then Abraham as the chosen one, and the seed that belonged to that stock;
because. they all knew that thence was to be the Messiah. All the believing
Jews were perfectly aware that Abraham's Seed, represented by Isaac, was to be
the Messiah. And how beautifully it was confirmed by Isaac being the one that
was offered up in a figure, and was received, as it were, from the dead, God
forbidding Abraham to put him to death! but he was under sentence of death for
three days, and then it was, at the very critical moment, he was delivered!
Not so with our Lord. Here everything was perfect. Everything here was
carried out in all its fulness of blessing, but it could not be in any other
than Jesus. So Elihu calls Job (ver. 31) to mark all this, and hearken; and
then if he has anything to say he would be very glad to hear, because he wanted
to justify him. There is, you see, the great difference between Elihu and the
others The others wanted to condemn him. They were quite sure there was
something altogether bad there, and they wanted to have it out. Therefore they
were on their mettle to try and discover what it could possibly be; and so they
grew more and more angry with Job, because instead of acknowledging it he told
them that they were botchers. Instead of being physicians of any value they
were mere bunglers, and everything was a mistake and a blunder on their part,
and no doubt they were very angry.
Well, Elihu proceeds (Job 34), and
now he blames Job again. He says, "Hear my words, ye wise men, and give ear
unto me, ye that have knowledge. For the ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth
meat. Let us choose to us judgment: let us know among ourselves what is good.
For Job hath said, I am righteous" (vers. 2-5). And he was, in the sense in
which his three friends denied; but he was not righteous in glorifying God. No,
he found fault with God. "For Job hath said, I am righteous: and God hath taken
away my judgment. Should I lie against my right? my wound is incurable without
transgression." Well, he says that is insufferable; such language is highly
improper. "What man is like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water "; for
there was a good deal of the pride of his heart that came out in Job. "Which
goeth in company with the workers of iniquity." He says: 'It is bad enough for
unbelieving men to say something like that; but you - Job!' "Therefore hearken
unto me," etc. Now he appeals to Job. "Who has given him a charge over the
earth, or who has disposed all the world?" Who is one that has committed
anything to him, to dispose of the whole world? Who has done that for God? "If
he set his heart upon man" - He has only to leave man, and he perishes.
You see, Elihu had not in the least that idea which many pious men
have now, that all the world goes on well by the principle of gravitation.
Well, there is not a doubt God gives an impulse to all the heavenly orbs, and
the earth among the rest. He gave them their motion; but then it is God who
keeps it up. Men attribute this to second causes. But it is not in the way of
motion to be perpetual. That is all a great mistake; there is no such thing,
and God it is that keeps everything going, and if God were to withdraw for a
moment the immediate action of His power, everything would collapse. That is
what Elihu teaches here. "If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto
himself his spirit and his breath - all flesh shall perish together, and man
shall turn again unto dust. If now thou hast understanding, hear this: hearken
to the voice of my words. Shall even he that hateth right govern?" That is, he
shows the monstrousness of Job finding fault with God. "And wilt thou condemn
him that is most just?" "Why," he says, "it is not fit to say so to a king." A
king may have his faults, but his office is one that demands reverence from
men. We are not only to fear God' but to honour the king. Here you have it. He
was anything but, what people call, in these days, "a liberal." "Is it fit to
say to a king, Thou art wicked?" etc. (vers. 18-21), Every now and then God
does allow, and what is the effect of it? A revolution. People do not know why
it is; but when men are always crying for some change, or something new, God
allows it to come, and they are overwhelmed. It is the very thing that they do
not want; because the upshot, almost always, of a revolution of men against
government is that there is a worse government that follows. But there is a
true despot at the same time flattering the people while he is taking advantage
of them in every possible way. "For he will not lay upon man more than right,"
etc. (vers. 23-27).
Then he shows another side, when God gives
quietness. God, after all, spite of the restless wickedness of the devil, is
always above him. Not only above man, but above Satan and all his power. "When
he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hideth his face,
who then can behold him? whether it be done against a nation, or against a man
only; that the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared. Surely it is
meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement" - that is what he was
pressing upon Job. "I will not offend any more" etc. (vers. 29-36). Job had
spoken very unguardedly. "For he addeth rebellion unto his sin, he clappeth his
hands among us, and multiplieth his words against God."
Now again, we
come to a further step (Job 35). "Elihu spake moreover, and said, Thinkest thou
this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness" - which was not only that
he spake against God, but he thought so much of himself - "My righteousness is
more than God's." That is what he practically meant, although he would not have
said it. But Elihu put his finger upon the spot. "For thou saidst, What
advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have if I be cleansed
from my sin? I will answer thee, and thy companions with thee. Look unto the
heavens, and see, and behold the clouds which are higher than thou." Can you
bear in the face of that to speak against Him who is above them all? For man
cannot look the sun in the face; who then is he to look God in the face? "If
thou sinnest, what doest thou against him?" etc. (vers. 6-16). So that whether
it was decrying God, or setting forward himself, Job was wrong on both counts.
Well, he goes on further still (Job 36): "Elihu also proceeded, and
said, Suffer me a little, and I will show thee that I have yet to speak on
God's behalf. I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe
righteousness to my Maker. For truly my words shall not be false; he that is
perfect in knowledge is with thee. Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not
any" (vers. 1-5). What a wonderful saying! People might have thought, and do
think, that the greater the majesty of God, the less He takes notice of the
very smallest thing on earth. It is all the other way. And God shows His might
by His being able to grasp everything, and take notice and show His concern
about the smallest insect. "He preserveth not the life of the wicked" - His
great concern is man, but He takes in everything - "but giveth right to the
poor. He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous." That is the great point
of this chapter. In the 33rd it was "man," but here it is "the righteous" man
that He more particularly looks at. The discipline that God exercises over man
in order to win him to God is far more strictly over the righteous man, to keep
him right; that if He has justified him it should not be to His dishonour. For
it is a terrible thing when a saint of God gets wrong. "But with kings are they
on the throne; yea, he doth establish them for ever, and they are exalted. And
if they be bound in fetters and be holden in cords of affliction" - and
sometimes kings come under these things very decidedly - "then he showeth them
their work" (vers. 6-12). It is not entirely occupied with the righteous; but
it is particularly with kings. "But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath: they
cry not when he bindeth them. They die in youth, and their life is among the
unclean." But what He has pleasure in is this: "He delivereth the poor in his
affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression. Even so would he have removed
thee" - he applies it to Job - "out of the strait into a broad place, where
there is no straitness, and that which should be set on thy table should be
full of fatness." It was to be accomplished strictly, exactly, as Elihu
explained it. "But thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the wicked: judgment and
justice take hold on thee." Job was not yet right. There was a process going on
under Elihu, and it was shown by this - that he never interrupts him. It is not
without a little proof that Elihu saw signs as if he were going to speak, but
he stops him. I need not enter into the proof of that new.
Then he
says: "Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke"
(vers. 13- 26). He is infinitely above our thoughts. "For he maketh small the
drops of water." Elihu illustrates it by God's power with outward things. And
if that is the case with so small a thing as the rain, how much more with a
thing so great as the soul of man; the soul of man that is due to the
inbreathing of God Himself? "They pour down rain according to the vapour
thereof, which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly. Also can any
understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacle?" The
speaker takes up the same line of argument that Jehovah does when He speaks out
of the whirlwind in the latter part of this book. "Behold, he spreadeth his
light upon it," etc. (vers. 27-33) For the cattle are very sensitive to a
thunderstorm, and show that they regard it as a very serious matter; there are
men who only harden themselves. But here Elihu gives his last words, and is
very much occupied with describing a thunderstorm. For he had proper thoughts
about God even in outward matters.
"At this also my heart" - that is a
very different thing from the mere instinct of the cattle - "my heart
trembleth," etc. (Job 37: 1-8). Even the beasts have more sense than some men.
"Out of the south cometh the whirlwind," etc. (vers. 9-12). That is, he shows
the absolute sovereignty of God. And if that is true about natural things, is
it not still more necessary in spiritual things? "He causeth it to come,
whether for correction" - that is, what he was showing about the dealings with
Job - "or for his land, or for mercy. Hearken unto this, O Job; stand still,
and consider the wondrous works of God. Dost thou know when God disposed them,
and caused the light of his cloud to shine? "What do you know about it all?"
Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him which is
perfect in knowledge?" etc. (vers. 13-19). That is, that with even those men of
God, it is only in part we know. There is great darkness even now. "Shall it be
told him that I speak?" "Oh," he says, "I should be frightened if such a thing
were to be. I speak in the presence of God." "If a man speak, surely he shall
be swallowed up," etc. (vers. 20-24). There was just where Job had made a
mistake. He was wise of heart, and he admired the fruits of grace, and all that
was quite inconsistent with what was due to God. And here ends Elihu.
Immediately we find the Lord interposing; that I reserve for our next occasion.
LECTURE 10
JOB
38-41
Chap. 38: 1-38. The last three verses of this chapter
properly belong to the next chapter, as we there enter upon animate nature. All
that we have here is in regard to what is called inanimate nature. Yet it is a
part of the creation of God quite as truly as is animate nature. Still, this
latter rises above everything that is without life. For life is a very
wonderful thing, even in an animal, however small, and distinguishes it from
all that never had life. But here we have Jehovah speaking, and it was Jehovah
who spake at Sinai and in a way suitable to the law. Because the law of God if
given to man - sinful man, as it was - must be a ministration of death and
condemnation. It is because of defect in human law that a bad man escapes, and
therefore the better the law the greater certainty that it will reach one who
deserves to be punished by it. And God's law is perfect for the object for
which He gave it as the rule for fallen man upon the earth, to curb and
restrain him; and if he be not curbed or restrained, to condemn (and in effect
ending in death).
But here there was quite a different reason why God
spoke; because there was an end, for those who believed - to know that God
cares for them, and this too, entirely independent of Israel and the very
special dealings of God for the chosen people. God's eye and God's hand too are
ever in exercise over every creature on the face of the earth. It does not
matter how small or how great; it does not matter how violent or how peaceful;
this makes no difference, they are creatures of God. And God has to do with
them, as He shows here. This was a grand lesson for Job. He had forgotten that
God has to say to the very hairs of our head, for they are all numbered; and
that not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowing. But God takes it in
according to His own grandeur, and His grandeur is quite beyond man's ability
to comprehend, and this was exactly the object - to show the folly of Job
venturing to judge God's dealings, venturing to pronounce, or to find fault for
a moment. In an early chapter of the Book you may remember that Job wished that
God would only lay aside His alarming nature, and allow him to approach Him
that he might plead his cause, and that he might defend himself before God.
Here came the answer. I need not say it was to be an answer to every person, to
everyone that has the fear of God, in all ages. The value of this Book does not
at all diminish by the light of Christ. On the contrary, we ought to understand
the Book a great deal better for that light.
Here, then, we have
Jehovah - you observe this name has not appeared after Job 2 (except in Job 12:
9) in the historical part. But now before the proper history is concluded (the
last chapter is the concluding chapter of the history), before that it brings
Him in again. We have Him speaking according to His authority, according to His
relationship; and that is just exactly what "Jehovah" means. It is God not
merely in the abstract, but God in relation to man upon the earth. And hence He
answers Job. But He answers him here because it was a rebuke out of the
whirlwind. "Then Jehovah answered Job out of the whirlwind." It was meant to be
a rebuke and that Job should really feel it and profit by it. And it is a
terrible thing where God does not rebuke a soul upon the earth. What does it
mean? It means judgment by and by for ever. Those that are brought into
relationship livingly with God have His interference - not merely the fact that
they are in relationship, but the proof of it. And He was giving this grand
light upon how it acts and how Job ought to have been - if he did not enter
into it - ought to have been on his guard against setting up his own judgment
about God. This is what He is overthrowing, in these chapters.
"Who is
this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" He does not mean that
Job did not know Him at all, but He did mean that his knowledge was limited,
and that he had no adequate knowledge as to the dealings of God. "Gird up now
thy loins like a man" - like a hero - "for I will demand of thee and answer
thou me." That was a remarkable word. God is going to ask him a number of
questions. Job had been questioning the dealings of God. Now God retorts upon
him; now He says, I am going to ask you, and answer Me like a man if you can.
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" What an
overwhelming question! What did Job know about it? "Declare, if thou hast
understanding." He had none. "Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou
knowest?" He did not know. "Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon
are the foundations thereof fastened?" Because there are two things true of the
earth. Stability for the time - that is what is referred to here, and why
foundations are spoken of; and there is another view given in this very Book of
Job, that it is suspended upon nothing. That never entered into the mind of
anyone until comparatively late. Even the men of science have only just come to
that. But there it was in Scripture before them. It is hung upon nothing. So
that it has great stability and regularity in its course, so firmly are the
foundations laid; but on the other hand the mighty power of God is shown,
because, although it is hung upon nothing of the creature, it hangs entirely
upon God's power.
"When the morning stars sang together and all the
sons of God shouted for joy?" The angels were made before the earth was made,
but this is not at all referred to in Genesis 1; and the reason is plain. The
point in Gen. 1: 1, is simply to give, first of all, the creation of all the
universe where there was nothing. I do not say out of nothing - that is folly;
but where there was nothing, God created the universe, the heavens, the earth,
and all their host, but in a very different state from what it is in now. Then
the next verse shows a complete collapse that subsequently took place - what
people call chaos; and the heathen always began with chaos, but we begin with
God the Creator. But that chaotic condition was of all importance for man when
man should be created upon the earth. Because how was man to get down to the
bowels of the earth? How was he to know that there were treasures of gold,
silver, precious stones, and marble and slate, and granite, and all the other
most useful things that God had created? They were down deep in the earth, and
the only way in which man could even suspect and learn certainly of their
existence, and, consequently, to lock for them, was by that confusion which
brought up some part of that which was buried deep in the earth. So that all
mining was founded upon that very fact of the power of God that caused the
inner contents of the earth to appear, at any rate, on the earth's crust. Be.
cause what is deep in it no one can tell; no man can tell. Man has never
penetrated but a very small way - I suppose not more than the thickness of an
orange peel compared with the orange - so little, into the bowels of the earth.
What fills it, therefore, they do not know. They may reason; and as to what one
man reasons, another man reasons to the contrary. They really do not know; and
this is the thing that Jehovah was causing Job to realise - his total
ignorance.
What is the effect, then, on a pious man that really
believes in Him and His guidance? What is the effect of knowing our ignorance
to be so immense? Reliance upon God. There was the great thing in which Job
failed, murmured and found fault. He could not understand it. He might have
believed and ought to have believed, and that is where we find our failure too,
for we are quite as ready to reason and murmur as Job. Well, now, He speaks
here clearly of the creation, and He carries that on in the verses which
follow.
"Or who shut up the sea?" He had looked at the earth, and now
he looks at the sea. "Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth,
as if it had issued out of the womb? When I make the cloud the garment thereof,
and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it." Well, it was a very bold child,
this new ungovernable creature that came into existence! And therefore He
speaks about covering it up and swaddling it. "And brake up for it my decreed
place and set bars and doors and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no
further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed" ? For who can control the
ocean? "Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days"; now He looks at the
vicissitudes of day and night, and He says now, 'Was it you that set this all
agoing, or do you know anything about it, how it was done?' . . . "Hast thou
commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the day-spring to know his
place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth" - that is, when the
son rises to gild it as it were - "that the wicked might be shaken out of it?"
Because the darkness of the night is exactly what gives the opportunity for
murder and burglary and all the other knaveries of men more than any other
time. "It is turned as clay to the seal" - because when the earth is in
darkness just like that, no more can you discover it than the clay before it is
impressed with the seal. But the moment the light shines, there you find its
conformation and its beauty as God fixed upon it - but in the dark there is
nothing to be seen. "And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the
high arm shall be broken." Then He turns to the sea again in another way. Not
the rushing of the waters controlled by the power of God; but here He looks at
the source of it. "Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou
walked in the search of the depth?" - the abyss.
Now He goes down
lower still, because Sheol, or Hades, as we have it, that is, the receptacle of
departed spirits - is represented under the figure at any rate, and it may be
the reality, of the heart of the earth. It is not the same thing as the lake of
fire, but here we have a prison for those that have died. "Have the gates of
death been opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of
death? "
Now He comes up to the surface. "Hast thou perceived the
breadth of the earth?" What do you know about it? "Declare if thou knowest it
all. Where is the way where light dwelleth?" (vers. 18-21). And He shows that
God has a store that man knows nothing about, which is caused to act whenever
it pleaseth God. "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow, or hast
thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of
trouble, against the day of battle and war?" Look at the case of the Amorites,
who, on the way to Beth-horon, fell by the hail stones that God rained upon
them. And, again, He rained fire and brimstone, in other cases, on the cities
of the plain. "Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters; or
the way for the lightning of thunder; to cause it to rain on the earth, where
no man is?" Well, God does think of animals, He thinks of even the insect; He
thinks of where no man is; there He has His thoughts and His plans and His
goodness.
"To satisfy the desolate and waste ground and to cause the
bud of the tender herb to spring forth?" And it is remarkable how much rain has
to do. People have been lamenting the immense and abnormal rain that we have
had lately. But I saw a letter of an expert upon it, who looks forward, if God
is pleased to give a good spring, that there will be an exceptional harvest.
The fruit of it will be far beyond what has been had in England for many a day
and many a year. That is in the hands of God. I do not pretend to say; let
these men fight it out. "Hath the rain a father? Or who hath begotten the drops
of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath
gendered it?"
Then He looks also at the various stars and
constellations. He asks, now what have you to do with them; do you know
anything about how they came there. and how they have been ranged there? "Canst
thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades" - it is rather the bands of the
Pleiades - at any rate it is a counterpart of the bands of Orion - "Canst thou
bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?" They say that the signs of the Zodiac are
here referred to, but whether that is the case is very uncertain. "Or canst
thou guide Arcturus with his sons?" "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?
Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?" Conditions have an immense
effect upon the earth. All is having an influence either of a terrible kind or
a beneficent kind. Who is it that has fixed all that? Was it you, Job? "Canst
thou lift up thy voice to the clouds that abundance of waters may cover thee?
Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are?
Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the
heart?" It comes down to man now. "Who can number the clouds in wisdom? Or who
can stay the bottles of heaven" - well, all that is perfectly simple to God,
and God has command in every whit of it - "when the dust groweth into hardness,
and the clods cleave fast together?"
Well, now we come to animate
nature. Clearly these three verses (39-41) ought rather to be the opening of
Job 39. "Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion?" It says, That is what I do, I
find food for the lions and for the young lions too. There they are crouching
in their dens, "and they abide in the covert to lie in wait." I do not allow
them to die for want of proper food. "Who provideth for the raven his food?" It
is not only the great lion, but the comparatively small raven when his young
ones cry unto God - there it is, they cry unto Him. They do not murmur; they
cry. They tell their want, God has put that into them. It is a cry, and God
hears it as directed to Himself. "They wander for lack of meat." But He hears
and answers.
"Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock
bring forth" (Job 39: 1)? They are very inaccessible as a general role to man.
They are found in the great heights of the mountains. "Canst thou mark when the
hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? Or knowest thou
the time when they bring forth? They bow themselves; they bring forth their
young ones, they cast out their sorrows; their young ones are in good liking" -
though they are hunted to death, and man is fond of feeding on them, yet God
provides for them - "they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto
them. Who hath sent out the wild ass free?" That is also an animal that shuns
the human race. "Or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?" (vers. 1-8).
Thus we have had the wild goats, and then, the wild ass; and now, what
is called here, a "unicorn." I do not know why this name has been given to it.
There is but one animal with a single horn, the Indian rhinoceros, found only
in Southern Asia, but here it should be the wild ox. "Canst thou bind the wild
ox with his band in the furrow?" We have the wild goat (ver. 1), the wild ass
(ver. 5), and now the wild ox (ver. 9). They follow one another in rotation.
This is a more powerful animal than either of the others. There is a rising in
the scale. "Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? Or wilt thou
leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy
seed and gather it into thy barn? "
Well, now we come to a very
peculiar phrase. There is really nothing here about peacocks at all. It is a
mistake. A peacock we find for the first time in Solomon's day. They were
brought from India or from Ceylon; and it is curious that the name of the
peacock as given in Kings and Chronicles is Sanscrit, not Hebrew. It is the
language of India, the old classical language of India. But this is quite a
different thing. It should read, "The wing of the ostrich waveth joyously; is
it the pinion and plumage of the stork?" (ver. 13). It is really the ostrich in
the first part of the verse, and the stork in the latter. There is a kind of
contrast of the ostrich with its great fluttering and also its stupid
indifference to its young with the stork. The stork is the most affectionate
bird that God created. There is no bird that has such a great care for its
offspring; and for that reason there are people in the world who allow them to
be kept and honoured, and not a soul must injure them under penalty. I believe,
in Holland to this day, that the storks are found in buildings of any height;
and they are allowed not merely on the firs of the forest, but they are very
fond of being near mankind, and they often build their nests in chimneys and
the like, and in lofty places; and people have such a respect for a bird marked
by such affection that they will not allow anyone to shoot or injure them in
any respect,
Now that is the bird that is contrasted with the ostrich.
The ostrich on the contrary leaves its young just to get through as they can,
and exposes its eggs in the sand and leaves them there to come to maturity or
to be destroyed. She does not care about them. And this is referred to -"which
leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust, and forgetteth that
the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened
against her young ones, as though they were not hers; her labour is in vain
without fear; because God hath deprived her of wisdom." And who is to dispute
with God? The God that gives one bird its remarkable character of affection
takes away the commonest sense even from another bird of immense power and
great swiftness so that an ostrich could outrun a racehorse for awhile - "she
scorneth the horse and his rider."
Now he comes to the horse itself;
and the war horse in particular. "Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou
clothed his neck with thunder?" What have you to do with it? "Canst thou make
him afraid as a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible" (vers. 19 -
25), Well, it is a splendid description indeed, but it is all for the purpose
of overwhelming Job with the folly of his pretending to talk about God. Now He
looks at the hawk, and the eagle more particularly. "Doth the hawk fly by thy
wisdom?" Who was it that conferred these peculiar powers on all these animals
and birds? "Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?"
(vers. 26-30).
And at this point Jehovah appeals to Job again (Job
40). "Moreover, Jehovah answered Job and said, Shall he that contendeth with
the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it." Then Job
does answer. "And Job answered Jehovah and said, Behold I am vile, what shall I
answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth." Jehovah repeats what He said
before, "Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that thou
mayest be righteous?" That is what Job had done. "Hast thou an arm like God?"
Who are you to talk to God about Him as you have done? "Or canst thou thunder
with a voice like him?" Well, now, "Deck thyself" with the excellency of God if
you can. There was Job - a poor woebegone man with all his flesh corrupt, and
the very worms feeding upon him before he had died - in the greatest possible
misery of his body. "Deck thyself with majesty and glory." "Cast abroad the
rage of thy wrath; and behold every one that is proud, and abase him." Why do
you not put down all the bad people in the world? "Look on every one that is
proud, bring him low" (vers. 1 - 14). But he was entirely dependent upon God.
That is the reverse of the picture. God now takes up in the latter
part of His discourse but two animals, and of an amphibious nature. They were
neither among the beasts of the earth proper, nor were they birds of heaven.
They were a mixture of animals that could enter upon the land, and could also
betake themselves to the waters. And these are described under the name, first,
of "behemoth," and secondly, of "leviathan."
"Behemoth" means what is
called the hippopotamus. It ought not to be called a river-horse, at all, which
is what "hippopotamus" means, It is a river-ox. It is like an ox rather than a
horse; of course, with its own peculiarities; and they are very peculiar. But
still it is very much more after the appearance and habits of an ox than it is
of a horse. And these two creatures were well known, particularly on the Nile.
Both of them were familiar in the waters of the Nile; and in Arabia in the
desert, to which these speakers all belonged more or less - the edge of it or
beginning of that which abutted on the desert - they were familiar by report,
if not by actual visit to Egypt. They were familiar with these animals. They
have been very much misunderstood by learned men. They have called them all
sorts of strange things. For instance, many will have it that "behemoth" means
an elephant, but when you read the account you will see it is very unlike an
elephant, except that it is a big creature and with enormous strength, but
beyond that, nothing.
"Behold now behemoth*, which I made with thee"
[vers. 15 - 24). When I made you I made him. "He eateth grass as an ox." I
have, therefore, good reason for saying that it is a river-ox, and not at all a
river-horse. "Lo, now, his strength is in his loins and his force is in the
navel of his belly." I rather think that the expression in the 19th verse
means, not that he makes the sword to approach unto him to kill him, but that
He that made him made him a sword - made him a scythe; it is a scythe rather
than a sword, and that is pretty much what the tusk of a hippopotamus is. It
has great power in cleavings of all kinds, and in cutting. "Surely the
mountains bring him forth food" - he can go to the mountain if he likes, in the
neighbourhood of it - "where all the beasts of the field play. He lieth under
the shady trees" - that is where he loves to be - "in the covert of the reed,
and fens."
Well now, in Job 41, comes a still longer description of
"leviathan," and I understand that to be the crocodile. The crocodile is a very
formidable beast. It is not so shy of the human kind; on the contrary, it preys
upon men, women, and children, if it can get hold of them. It is not therefore
at all so strange as the "behemoth" that we have been reading about.
"Canst thou draw out leviathan* with an hook?" You that can do such wonders;
you can talk about God; and you can judge for God, and you can find fault with
God! Well, can you catch leviathan with an hook? You ought to be able to do
that. "Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?" (vers. 1 - -8). Be
off with you! Do not you fight him. "Behold, the hope of him is in vain."
Spears or arrows are nothing to him and even a musket ball has no power to
pierce the skin of a crocodile. "His scales are his pride," because it is not
only his enormous strength, and his practical invulnerability to any ordinary
weapon, but there he is so confident in it himself.
* "The leviathan here
described seems to be, beyond doubt, not the dolphin or the whale, as some
learned men have argued, but the crocodile. So most have been convinced since
Bochart"
So that here we may stop tonight. It suffices to show what
God uttered to overwhelm Job in his self-confidence, and to show that his
ignorance was so great, his powerlessness was evident; his lack of wisdom to
enter into even the outer works of God. And, after all, what was God speaking
about? Earthly things. Everyone of these things is merely of a natural kind,
and has to do with what is visible, with what is seen and temporal And if Job
is so utterly unable to answer one of these questions - and in point of fact
they are not answered to this day with all the brag of science - still, if that
is the case about earthly things, what about the heavenly? What about the
eternal things? There we are entirely and absolutely dependent upon God. We
know nothing but what He tells us, and this is all our blessing - this is what
we are waiting for - the unseen and the eternal, and, consequently, we of all
people ought to be thoroughly dependent, looking up, confiding, and believing.
If the Lord will, next Wednesday evening I hope to conclude the Book,
and to say a little of its general character also, besides saying what is
necessary upon the particular chapter itself - the 42nd.
LECTURE 11
JOB 42
We have now the
great object of God manifested. It would not at all have been so well for Job
to have heard it before; but he had to walk very simply, and to learn to
confide in God; to be perfectly sure that God could not fail to be faithful and
gracious. Yet the trial was severe; and we knew that Job broke down, as every
one since the world began has done except the Lord Himself. And indeed, it is
very instructive to contrast where the Lord speaks of His suffering, with the
irritation that was shown by even so admirable a man as Job. But still we have
had the whole case out; and nothing can be more beautiful and striking and
instructive than the book locked at as a whole.
You will observe that
it is only in the closing chapter that we have the story and bringing in of
"Jehovah" in the dealings with Job. No doubt in what the Lord said to Job, we
have it too, but that is coming to the conclusion of the book. In the parts of
the book that precede we have nothing of the kind except in the first two
chapters. There we have Jehovah the moral Governor, and that not in the way of
a nation, but applied to one single soul, yet no doubt other people were tried
and brought into blessing; or, at any rate, they had mercy shown to them, as in
the case of the three friends. But what we find is that everyone concerned,
except Elihu, has to be truly humbled. Elihu is very peculiar, because he takes
no part, and we should not have known there was such a person; and he only, and
suddenly, appears when the friends of Job had all been silenced, and Job had
nothing more to say; for when Elihu spoke, Job was silent still, he could not
answer. Still all was not yet wrought completely in his soul till Jehovah
appears.
But now it is very striking to see that in this Book we have
all the great elements that appear in the rest of the Old Testament. We should
not have known there was an Israel from this book. We have no reference to the
law that was given by Moses, nor to the peculiar place in which the sons of
Abraham were set. The very object of the Book is to show that God remains God,
and more than that, that "Jehovah" (the covenant name of God) would skew He had
intimate personal dealings with a pious man, and in point of fact one that was
chosen by God for this great trial - the most faithful man then found upon the
earth. Even Jacob was not one fit for such a trial, even supposing Jacob and
Job had been contemporaries. For although there was a great deal that came out
very beautifully as Jacob grew older in the way, there was an immense deal that
had to be sifted; there was a great deal that he had to be sorry for, and that
he was chastised for at various times of his life, from early days
comparatively till his later ones. So that Jacob was not at all as suitable a
person as Job.
Job seems to have been a man sheltered (if I might so
say) by God, so that he knew very little of the corruption that was in the
world through lust. As far as he was concerned he seems to have been prospered
in a way that very few men have been; for although he was a pious man, and
therefore liable to be imposed upon by the wicked men of that generation, as
such men usually are, yet he was really a prince among men. But the sorrowful
thing was that Job thought a great deal of it; he admired himself a great deal
too much; and further he liked his "nest." He hoped that he would never have
that nest disturbed, and that he would die in his nest, as he said. But God
intended to teach him a very severe lesson before that came to pass. In point
of fact he became more blest than ever; and there we find ourselves very much
upon Old Testament ground. He got large flocks and greater herds; and he had
possessions too in the way of love; everybody could not do too much for him
after he came into prosperity. That is the way of this world, and that was the
way of even Job's friends. But he had more camels, more horses, more herds, and
fairer daughters at the end than at the beginning. That is all entirely outside
what we know.
In short, we do not find suffering with Christ, or
suffering for Christ, throughout the Old Testament. Nor is it the ordinary way
in which God acted then. I was only reading this morning in a little paper that
came from Spain; and the great object of the person who wrote that paper - who
has been seen in this room, too, though not in communion with us - was that the
ways of God were always the same. That is where our good sister is altogether
wrong. The ways of God differ greatly; the ways of God were quite different in
paradise from what they were outside paradise; and they were different after
the flood from what they were before; and they were different in Israel again
from what they had been before the law was given; and they are still more
different now that Christ is come and that redemption is accomplished. I
suppose people mean by it that God's character is always immutable. Certainly
that is all right; God does not change; but God in His sovereign wisdom takes
different ways in dealing with every one of us. At the same time there are
general ways that subsist at particular times. There are deeper ways now than
ever, since Christ came, and we are expected to enter into the ways of God, as
well as His counsels which are now revealed for the first time. Heavenly
counsels they did not know anything about in Old Testament times. They knew the
purpose of God for the earth; they gradually knew that better and better as
things went on, and as the regular prophets who wrote their prophecies began to
appear. But the ways of God are always according to what occupies Himself, and
what He is doing in a general way. Yet at the same time He carries on a moral
government with every one of us, so that we have to do with Him.
And
that was what Job had to learn - that there was, unknown to himself, what was
inconsistent with the presence of God. It was not that he doubted a Redeemer;
he fully believed in one; but that was a different thing. And people may
believe in the Saviour now, and yet may never have been brought personally into
the presence of God as a practical thing. It is quite a different thing to have
it, as the philosophers say, "objectively," from what it is to make it our own
"subjectively." That was just exactly where Job was. He had no subjective
knowledge of it; he had not appropriated it to himself. He rejoiced in the
goodness of God. He was a faithful man. We see him acting as a priest, but not
as a king; and we have it in a more glorious manner at the end of the book than
at the beginning; because we find he had certain fears about his sons and his
daughters, but when he had gone through all, he had no fear at all. There was
no reserve; he was not at all afraid of anything coming. But he was put into
the extreme suffering that might belong to any man. At first the sufferings
were such as were common to man. It is not an uncommon thing for a very rich
man to become very poor. It is not an uncommon thing for a man to lose all his
property. It may be not merely by robbery, but by other means sometimes through
lack of wisdom and other people taking advantage, and so on; there are many
ways in which there may be a very great reverse; and further, a person might be
suddenly changed from glowing health to be the most miserable object possible.
But I do not call these spiritual sufferings; they are what are common
to man. It might be so with an unconverted man; only there was this peculiarity
about Job, which he did not know at first - that God was allowing Satan to
bring all these things. Satan's pleasure and hope was to entangle Job's feet
and cast him down, and that he would curse God. That was what Satan dearly
longed to bring about. God allowed him to have his way, but not to kill Job.
That would have been agreeable to Job; but it would not have brought out the
great moral of the tale, which is, blessing brought into his soul by the very
things that seemed to be against him, and not merely by the things that he
experienced. When he began to find fault, he had to learn that that very God
was One who never could swerve from what was excellent, and that in all this He
had a purpose of blessing for Job. Not merely in his having outward blessings,
i.e., of a temporal kind, but blessing for his soul.
And all this is
very striking in so early a book as this of the Old Testament. For there is no
reason to doubt that it is quite as early as the Book of Genesis, and very
probably written by the same man. It is earlier, I do not hesitate to say, than
the Book of Exodus. It may have followed Genesis or not; that I cannot say.
They may have been comparatively together. It might even have been before
Genesis, as far as that is concerned; but it is extremely early, and before
Israel's history as a nation began. There is, in the book, no coming out of
Egypt, crossing the wilderness, and going into the land - not even the
slightest allusion to any of them. Had these things then taken place an
allusion would have been very highly appropriate; but there is nothing of the
kind.
Still, there we have the great elements that we find elsewhere
in the Old Testament. The place of sacrifice - you know how very early that
came in - from the Fall; and how the first great action of Adam's sons was
decided by faith or the lack of faith - Cain bringing a mere offering which
would have been all very well after a sacrifice, but showing a total lack of
sense of sin, and also of what-was due to God. Abel on the contrary brought his
sacrifice; there was death brought in between him and God. That looked onward
to the death of Christ; but I am speaking now simply of the sacrifice; and
Abel's faith, therefore, offered that sacrifice. That answers to the death of
Christ now. Any attempt to stand before God without that now, shows that I have
no proper sense of sin, or of God's holiness. I neither know myself nor Him;
else I should surely lock to the one great sacrifice that completes and
terminates all others - the sacrifice of Christ.
Well, then again, we
find another very important truth from the beginning of it, and that is, the
connection of heaven with man upon the earth, and that which is about to take
place in man on the earth, arranged in heaven before it reaches the man
himself. Well, that is true now; that is going on still. We find that is
carried on afterwards. We see it in David - another phase of it - Satan's
opposition, in the last chapter of 2 Samuel (and in 1 Chronicles, repeated in
another form); and, further, in the Book of Kings we have it. But this Book of
Job was written hundreds of years before. So that it was perfectly original in
Job's case. It had not been written in any other book until long after. And
there we find another terrible personage; not only the angels, familiar with
the presence of God, and God telling out before them what is going to be upon
the earth; but the devil, man's great enemy; yet withal the perfect supremacy
of God in His love and in His power. He particularly brings Job's case before
Satan; and He (what we may call) glories in Job before the devil; and the
devil, of course, is excited to every kind of spite and jealousy because of
that very thing; and God allows all this to be, knowing perfectly well, but
always working by His own grace, that in due time all would be set right. It
might require His own personal intervention, and that is one of the great
peculiarities of the Book of Job.
But we find the same thing in
Zechariah - Jehovah speaking to Joshua, and Satan resisting; and this in one of
the latest books of the Old Testament. So that here we find that Job has the
same great truth in an earlier form - at the beginning of the Old Testament -
of what afterwards is found near its end. Because Zechariah was only just
before Malachi, and in fact they may have been contemporaries. They were
post-captivity prophets. And then comes the great trial. And the remarkable
thing is, first of all, Satan was entirely defeated. Satan could do nothing
with Job. He did his worst, and all that time Job was seen at his best.
But there was that in Job's heart that must be got out somehow; and it
is remarkable that the friends of Job, not the enemy, seem to have been the
means. And God has a very humbling lesson for them, as He has a humbling lesson
for Job. They got it all round; and, in point of fact, Job's friends were more
ignorant of God's ways than Job; and they took a very bad view of his case, and
this, when it is about a good man, is always a danger. There may be something
that the Lord has to chastise; but very often those who try to do it only show
their own shallowness, and also that they are very unspiritual - that they do
not enter into the mind of God about it. That was the case with the three
friends of Job. I have no doubt that they were highly respectable, and that
they were also thought to be very pious men indeed. And I do not doubt it. But
pious men have to find their level.
And so it was with Job and his
three friends, and the great debate goes on; and they are sitting, who had come
to sympathise; and the end of their looking at him and seeing the terrible
state in which he was, was that they had not a word to say to him; and Job
could not understand that. If they had not been there he might have stood it.
But sometimes we can bear alone what we cannot bear in the presence of other
people, and that was the case with Job. And Job accordingly, after bearing this
for seven days and nights, their sitting demure, judging him all the time, with
not a word of sympathy - this aroused Job, and he broke forth into expressions
that were certainly very unlike his habit, and anything but glorifying to God.
And then came their doubts of him, growing more and more passionate, until they
began to think he must be a very wicked man. They went upon the ground that
what occurs now is according to the absolute character of God.
Why, it
is not so at all. If things were according to God's mind now, there would be no
such thing as war; there would be no such thing as intriguing; there would be
no such thing as people taking advantage one of another; there would be no such
thing as robbery or drunkenness or any other kind of wickedness allowed. There
will be a day when that will be the case, and when the state of things on earth
will answer to the mind of God in heaven. Why, that is what is expressed in
what is called "The Lord's Prayer" - "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in
heaven." That will never be till the Lord reigns. And these men had the very
foolish notion that no pious man walking properly could ever suffer, and that
if a person came into very great suffering it was because he was a very great
sinner, and, if nobody knew it, he must be a hypocrite.
That was the
"amiable," or "loving," or whatever you call it - self-righteous really - -the
"self-righteous" judgment, with gross ignorance of both God and man, of the
three friends of Job. Well, he resisted it and resented it; and he accordingly
told them very plainly that they were physicians of no value at all; that they,
instead of giving him comfort, on the contrary cauterised his wounds, and that
they only inflamed them - in point of fact, that they were comforters of no
value whatever, at the same time that they thought they were the wise men; and
so he stopped, and whenever they uttered a word, he uttered a better; and so at
last compelled them to silence. Then it was that we find Elihu, who appears
very opportunely, and in what is very beautiful to a spiritual mind who would
understand it, for he was a young man, and they were old - he had kept silence
until they had not a word to say - not only the three men, but Job also, for he
had come to the end of his long parley; and until that was the case Elihu never
opened his mouth. But when he did, he told them plainly that he was obliged,
young man as he was, to speak for God; and that he was indignant, first that
the three men had entirely misinterpreted Job, and secondly that Job had
misinterpreted God; and therefore that Job deserved to be rebuked, and that he
must tell him plainly where he was wrong. But after he did that, he
disappeared. So that he plays the part of an interpreter, one of a thousand.
This is what Job had wanted at the beginning because he was terrified when he
thought of the majesty of God; and he wanted some one that was of clay like
himself.
'Well,' says Elihu, 'I am a man of clay like you; and there
is nothing to frighten you in me, and therefore I will tell you the truth, that
you have been speaking in a way altogether unbecoming a saint of God. You have
allowed yourself to be roused and inflamed by the bitter reproaches of others
and you have vented it upon God; your proper place was to remember that God was
carrying on His discipline - that He does that even with the unconverted, and
still more with the converted, that they might walk consistently. This is what
He was doing with Job; and Job's place should have been to judge himself, and
submit to God.' Well, that was exactly true. And the Lord then intervenes in
the case; and He overwhelms Job by a succession of questions that one of the
most scientific men that ever lived could not answer.
One of the
things in which the Germans have been successful - not about the Bible; there
they are nowhere; but about matters of science on this earth; they have had
some very able men of late years, and nobody perhaps was a greater oracle in
science and in knowledge of the world generally than the famous Baron Alexander
Humboldt; and these words of Jehovah astonished him; and he acknowledged that
what Job could not answer, the men of science cannot answer yet. It is
overwhelming to them; because although men of science are very clever about
secondary causes, they are always stopped by primary causes. They never can
arrive at the great cause, and they do not want the great cause. The reason is
this - that nobody ever learns God by knowledge or by wisdom. We learn God by
our want of Him. We learn God when we are poor sinners overwhelmed in our
souls. And who can meet us but God? Repentance, therefore, is always toward
God; and repentance means that I take the place of nothing but a sinner; for
God will show me mercy; and God shows it in our Lord Jesus. However, Job did
not know and could not know the Lord Jesus as we know Him; but he was waiting,
for Him. That is another grand truth that comes out.
No doubt the way
in which Job looked for the Lord was rather as a Kinsman-redeemer who would
also be an avenger on the enemy. Well that is very natural. "The Seed of the
woman shall bruise the serpent's head." That is the proper Old Testament idea.
But he could not enter into it as yet. It was not given for a great while
after. There is a most remarkable Psalm of David - Psalm 22, and the most
remarkable in the Book of Psalms in that way. And it is not the only one. We
have a companion one particularly in Psalm 102. And we have another that is
more with reference to the Avenger in Psalm 69. And there are two others that I
need not dwell upon now; but at any rate, in the Old Testament there is One
that is coming to avenge. And therefore Israel looks, at the coming of the
Lord, for their enemies to be destroyed at the same time that they themselves
are delivered. That is not our faith at all of the Lord's Second Coming. We
look to go up to heaven as the Lord went up to heaven. It will make no
difference to the earth, and men will not see it; they will know that we are
gone somehow or other, as they knew about the Lord.
That was a nine
days' wonder, and was soon forgotten. And so it will be then. One would think
that it would make a great impression all over the world as to the saints
disappearing; but it will be a day when they are given up to hardness of heart,
and when judicial blindness will fall upon them, so that God will not therefore
be working to awaken their souls. He will, by converted Jews, send out the
everlasting gospel to the Gentiles, and there will be a very great gathering of
converts, Jews as well as of the Gentiles too; but that is during the time that
we are up in heaven before the Lord appears. But the view of the Saviour as
dying for us, and consequently giving the meaning of all the sacrifices - all
this was very much hidden from the Old Testament saints. Why, even the apostles
did not understand it till the Lord rose. They had no idea of it, and did not
believe He was going to die; and I have very little doubt that Judas flattered
himself, when he was getting the money for selling the Lord, that the Lord
would escape out of their hands; and when he found that the Lord was going to
die, he committed suicide. He gave himself up entirely to despair and to the
devil.
But in Isaiah 53 we have a very luminous prophecy. Yes, it is
all very luminous to us now; but what was it in Isaiah's day? It is very
doubtful whether any of them understood it. Look at that good treasurer that
came up from Ethiopia to worship at Jerusalem, reading from that very chapter,
and not understanding what it meant. He did not know at all. It is very
possible that the treasurer had heard of the death of the prophet of Nazareth,
but he did not connect it with the chapter at all. And as I have said, the
apostles themselves were never clear about it till the fact had taken place.
And it was only after the Holy Ghost was given that there was any power to
proclaim it; but after the Lord breathed upon them, they do seem to have
entered into it during those forty or fifty days - forty while the Lord was
with them, and ten days later before the Holy Ghost was given. So much as there
is even of types of it in Scripture, so little does man put things together;
and so much are we beholden to the Spirit of God for giving us to understand
the Scriptures.
Now, I refer to that because we have again, let me
mention, another thing very remarkable, as showing how far they had got - the
two resurrections. Job 14, as I have already pointed out, is with reference to
the resurrection of man, and this is only when the heavens are no more. But in
Job 19 it is the resurrection of the saint; and there is brought in the
Redeemer, and the Redeemer standing upon the dust of the earth; that is before
the heavens are no more. You see that exactly agrees with the two resurrections
in Revelation 20; the resurrection of the saints while the earth is still going
on, and the resurrection of the wicked after heaven and earth are all
completely dissolved, and are to reappear as the new heaven and the new earth.
But Job does not speak about that. Isaiah does, but applies it to Israel. He
takes a very contracted view; he was not allowed to see it fully. But 2 Peter 3
brings it out fully as a matter of doctrine; and John, in Revelation 21, has a
heavenly vision that manifests it to us and makes all plain.
Well,
Jehovah overwhelms Job; but even He does not speak of the sacrifice of Christ.
What Job confesses is, his impropriety, the forgetfulness of his own ignorance
and of God's omniscience - for Job had pretended to understand what God had not
yet revealed to him. It was not yet revealed. It was after this. But what is a
man to do when he does not understand? Why, to look up confidingly to God; and
secondly, to judge himself, lest he might allow any thoughts that were wrong.
Job was wrong in these two ways, but is completely set right; for these
wonderful questions of the Almighty laid Job in the dust for the first time.
And the Lord stopped in the middle of it and addressed himself to Job, and even
then Job said, "Behold I am vile." He now had come down to a thought of
himself. It is not merely that 'I was vile before I knew anything of Thee,'
but, 'In spite of all that Thou hast been to me, and in spite of all the grace
shown me, I am obliged to come to this, "Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer
Thee?" Well, nothing at all. That man that was such a fine answerer of others,
and particularly eloquent about himself! For there is as grand a description as
you can have of an admirable saint, in Job 31. But the misfortune is, it was
Job talking about himself. Now, it is a fine thing to be eloquent about other
people's goodness; but it is not a fine subject for oneself, and there is what
betrayed Job. He had the greatest pleasure in thinking of the great honour
showed him, and how the nobles held their tongues when Job uttered a word, and
how everyone bowed down to Job. And now it had come to this! that he was the
ridicule of all the naughty little boys, and that the bigger boys tried to
entangle his feet and push him down - and all the rascally ways of a wretched
world - just such things as would be now if people saw a grandee that had come
down to be going in filthy rags in the street, and all his body a mass of
corruption!
Oh, it is a terrible plight, and an awful thing! But how
good the result was! Well, now, he says, "I will lay mine hand upon my mouth" -
that mouth that talked so well! "Once have I spoken; but I will not answer;
yea, twice; but I will proceed no further." That was one good sign. But now
after the Lord had brought it fully out, what He dwells upon are two things in
particular - His supremacy, and also His power, accompanied by the most tender
care; not merely of good animals, such as sheep and lambs, or the like, but of
lions and lionesses, which certainly are very redoubtable. And the eagle - an
object of interest to God particularly; yea, and further, He had chosen to make
the ostrich; and although the ostrich is no bird of flight, but simply a very
fast runner, still, there it was, and could beat a racehorse for a good while.
Who is it? - was it you, Job, that managed all these things? Was it you that
cared for them all, provided for them all? Were you born when they began? In
fact, Job was thoroughly laid low on every point, and, in every possible way,
overwhelmed with the sense of his ignorance and presumption in talking about
the far more wonderful ways of a God dealing with a man's heart, man's soul,
man's circumstances now. The Lord does not express that last part. It was God
showing His majesty, power, wisdom and goodness in outward things. If that were
true of God, how much more in spiritual things? And this is the great lesson of
the Book that Job had to apply. And it had its effect.
"I know that
thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee." Not
only no word; he had spoken wrongly. "Who is he that hideth counsel without
knowledge?" Why, it was himself; he owns it. This is his great confession, "I
have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear" - I knew it objectively; but now
that I have made it my own, applied it to my own soul, my own circumstances, my
own state - "now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in
dust and ashes.' There was the great moral victory that God had accomplished in
the face of Satan and in the face of the three friends of Job, and in the face
of Job himself. For what he had said might have provoked anyone but God. And so
it is that we see the wonderful goodness of the Lord in the midst of it all.
"And it was so, that after Jehovah had spoken these things unto Job,
Jehovah said to Eliphaz the Temanite" - why did He speak to him? He observed
that none of these three men said a word. They did not profit by it like Job.
If they had properly profited by it they would have joined Job and said, 'O
Lord, forgive our folly; we have sinned not only against Thee, but against our
dear friend Job.' But no, they held their tongues, as so many people do when
they are very wrong. They say nothing. They ought to speak out. "My wrath is
kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me
the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath." When was it that Job spoke
the thing that was right? The first statement which I have just now read from
Job 40, after the Lord had first spoken; and then the second statement that the
Lord added. It was not his fine speeches. That was not the thing at all that
the Lord valued. It was his humbling himself and taking the true place. And the
Lord put the others in their place. They did not humble themselves. But the
Lord threatened them, and told them - not that they had spoken now, for they
had not spoken - "My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two
friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant
Job hath. Therefore take unto you new seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to
my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering, and my servant
Job shall pray for you" (vers. 7, 8). He had to become an intercessor for them.
"For him will I accept."
It was all perfectly clear now; so clear,
that he could act for those who were wrong. "Lest I deal with you after your
folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my
servant Job." Now they were bowed; and accordingly they that were sitting in
judgment upon Job, took the place of being offenders against God, and looked to
Job to entreat the Lord for them.
"And Jehovah turned the captivity of
Job, when he prayed for his friends." There was the returning them good for
evil. He prayed for his friends. "Also Jehovah gave Job twice as much as he had
before." Then we find everybody turning round (ver. 11). "So Jehovah blessed
the latter end of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand
sheep" - just twice what he had before. Now that will be accomplished - what
answers to that - on the earth.
This is not heavenly recompense at
all, but what will be the case with man on the earth. The Old Testament does
not take you off that ground, and even in Job, who was not a Jew, we find the
same thing. The time when Israel will be blessed will be the time when the
nations will be blessed. Israel is the first-born of the nations, and they will
come in subordinately to the Jew. But that time is not arrived, and it will be
the perfect contrast of this time. Our place is in Christ, just as,
figuratively speaking, mankind was in Adam, as being the one who was the father
of them all. Now there is another head, and we are spoken of as being in Him -
in Christ. And another thing is true "At that day, ye shall know." The great
truth of the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, is that in
Ephesians we are in Christ for all our blessing; and in Colossians it is Christ
in us in order that we may fulfil our responsibility of manifesting Him who is
in us. So that if the one is the great comfort of the Christian, the other is
the solemn reminder to the Christian. "Ye in Me" - there God was blessing; "I
in you" - that you may count upon Me, to fulfil your responsibility here below.
Well, we have nothing of that kind here; but we have everything that heart
could wish here below. Job was a far greater man than ever - if you count that
to consist in the vast things that he possessed; and, further, he was blessed
in his family particularly.
"After this lived Job an hundred and forty
years." I do not mean by that, and I do not think the words are intended to
convey, that Job lived 140 years after this was over, but that the whole life
of Job was 140 years; a very respectable age - very. It was not so long as that
of Abraham or Isaac; but it was, I think, something about as much as Jacob's,
thereabout in a general way, and greater than that of Moses. So it was before
Moses, who in his psalm (Ps. 110) tells us, that "the days of our years are
threescore years and ten," etc. Moses seems to have been the writer of the
Book. He and his brother Aaron did not arrive at 140, but Job did. But if you
suppose him to have lived 80 years before the 140, it would make him far older
than any of the patriarchs. I do not mean some of the elders before the Flood,
but after the Flood people did not live to such great ages - except
immediately. And so the Book ends with Job dying full of years.
W. Kelly