After the days of his sons' feasting were over, Job offered sacrifices of atonement for them, lest in the midst of their enjoyment they might have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. He was afraid lest their pleasures had done them harm, and he wished, if it were so, to remedy it.
I. "It may be," said Job, "that my sons have cursed God in their hearts." The blasphemy of the heart is the natural child of prosperity where man is corrupt and God is pure. Prosperity makes a man feel strong in himself and confident, but it does not make him feel grateful, because, knowing God to be a holy God, and himself to be alienated from Him, he cannot think that his good things are God's gift, but rather that they are enjoyed in spite of Him. So then he learns to hate God; and the more he enjoys his earthly good things, the more he hates Him.
II. The first beginnings of this feeling are a sense of weari ness and impatience when any pleasure is interrupted, or for a short time deferred, by a call to offer up our prayers to God.
The two things seem to us unsuitable to one another. Whenever we find our duty dull, then the thought of God becomes dull to us also; we are in the first beginnings of cursing Him in our hearts.
III. If we believe that our pleasures are the gift of God, that God loves us, and that these, as well as all other things which we enjoy, are the fruits of His fatherly affection, then we need no sacrifice of atonement to sanctify our joys to us, and to save us from the punishment of inward blasphemy; all is atoned for, all is peace and safety; for we have received the Spirit of adoption, and cry, "Abba, Father," and the Spirit itself witnesseth with our spirit that we are the sons of God through Jesus Christ.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 93.
References: Job 1:5. C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays,p. 385; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 362; E. Monro, Practical Sermons,vol. i., p. 347. Job 1:6. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs,p. 115.