We shall read, this evening, in the Book of Job. May the good Spirit instruct us during our reading!
Here we shall see Job in a very melancholy plight, grievously distressed in mind, and yet, for all that, holding fast to his God. We do not want any of you to get into this gloomy condition, but if you are in such a state as that, or if you ever should be, may you behave as well as Job did! It needs a deal of grace to travel all right in the dark, to keep in the good way when you cannot see it, to cling to God when you cannot even feel that he is near you; but the Lord can give grace even for such an emergency as that.
Job 23:1-2. then Job answered and said, Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
Job admitted that he groaned, but he claimed that he had good reason for doing so; that, indeed, the source of his grief was greater than the streams of his grief, so that he could not, even with his groans and tears, express half the anguish that he felt.
Job 23:3-4. Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
Good men are washed towards God even by the rough waves of their grief; and when their sorrows are deepest, their highest desire is not to escape from them, but to get at their God. «Oh that I knew where I might find him!» Job wanted to spread out his whole case before the Lord, to argue it with him, to present his petitions to the Most High, and to find out from God why he was contending with him. It is all right with you, brother, if your face is towards your God in rough weather. It is all wrong with you, brother, if the weather be very calm, and your face is turned away from your God.
Job 23:5. I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me.
I am not sure that Job would know and understand all that God said. the Lord says a great deal, even to men like Job, that they do not easily understand, and it is not for us to require that God should explain everything to us. He giveth not account of any of his matters. Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?» Our wisdom will be to plead with God our suit for pardon and for mercy, and to ask him at least to make us understand the way of salvation, that we may run in it, and be at peace with him.
Job 23:6. Will he plead against me with his great power?
«If I were to go to God, and urge my suit with him, would he crush me with the might of his majesty? Would he overwhelm me with his omnipotence?»
Job 23:6. no; but he would put strength in me.
Such was Job's faith in God, that he was sure he would rather help him than hinder him: «He would put strength in me.»
Job 23:7-8. there the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there;
«I look to the future, I try to forecast the clays that are yet to come, but I cannot see God there.»
Job 23:8. And backward, but I cannot perceive him:
«I remembered the days of old; I turned over the pages of my diary; but I could not find him there.» there are cases in which one who is a true child of God cannot for a while find his father. do not condemn yourself because you are in the dark; on the contrary, recollect then that there are many who fear the Lord, yet who walk in darkness, and have no light. Let all such trust in the name of the Lord, and stay themselves upon their God, and in due season the light will come to them.
Job 23:9. 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:
If this is the case with you, be thankful that you want to see your God. Let your very desires after him, your anxiety because you miss him, and the sorrow of your spirit when you are, apparently, deserted by him, encourage you to believe that you are one of his children. Another woman's child will not cry after you, dear mother; it is your own child that cries after you, and if you were not a child of God, you would not long and cry for the joy of his presence. If you were not his child, that presence would be no delight to you, it would be your dread.
Job 23:10. But he knoweth the way that I take:
Oh, what a mercy that is! «I cannot see him, but he can see me; my grief hath blinded mine eyes with floods of tears, but nothing blinds his eyes. Like as a father pitieth his children, so does he pity me, and regards me with the full observation of his gigantic mind: ‘ He knoweth the way that I take.'»
Job 23:10. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
It is grand to be able to say that while you are in the fire. It is very easy to say it about another man who is in the furnace; but when you are in there yourself, then to say, «I shall come forth as gold,» is the sublimity of faith! It is a very simple matter to say, «If I were again put into the fire, I know I should come forth as gold;» but it is when the burning heat is melting you, when you seem yourself to be shriveled up in the crucible, and so little of you is left, then is the time still to say, «When the Lord hath finished his work upon me, when he hath thoroughly assayed me, I shall come forth as gold.»
Job 23:11. My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.
You cannot talk like that in the time of trouble if you have not led a sincere, and upright, and gracious life. those battles into which men come in the Valley of Humiliation, are often brought about by their tripping when they are going down the hill. Our sins find us out at length; but if God enables us to walk uprightly, then we feel very confident, not in our own uprightness, but in God's love and grace.
Job 23:12-13. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. But he is in one mind, and who can turn him?
Job looks at his grief, and says concerning it, «It is according to God's mind that I should have this grief, and who can turn him?» there may be times when God wills that his servant should be in trouble; and when God lets down the iron bar, who eau lift it up? When he shutteth up a soul in doubting Castle, how shall it escape until he wins its deliverance?
Job 23:13-15. And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him. Therefore am f troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him.
Yet he longed for him. So, sometimes, we long for the presence of God, yet that presence strikes us with a solemn awe whenever We are favored with it. We ask to see our Lord, yet when we do see him, we have to say, with John, «When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.» Or perhaps we are like Peter who, when the Lord Jesus was in his boat, fell down before him, and cried, «depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.» the majesty of Christ's pure presence was too much for poor imperfect Peter; so is it for us.
Job 23:16-17. 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.
Now you see where you might be if you had Job's experience. If you are not there, be very grateful; and if you are there, say, there is a better man than I am who has been this way before me. I can see his footprints on the sands of time, and I am encouraged by his example to trust my Lord in the darkest hour.» You are not the only man who has been in the coal- cellar; there have been better men than you in the dark places of the earth before now; therefore, still have hope, and be confident in God that in his own good time he will deliver you.