If thou return to the Almighty.
Spiritual Reformation
I. The nature of a true spiritual reformation is here set forth.
1. Reconciliation to God. Men in their unregenerate state are out of sympathy with their Maker. There is an estrangement of soul.
2. Practical regard to the Divine precepts. “Receive, I pray thee, the law from His mouth, and lay up His words in thine heart.” Put thy being under the reign of heavenly laws.
3. Renunciation of all iniquity. “Thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.” There is no reformation where sin is cherished, or where it is allowed to linger.
4. Estimating the best things as worthless in comparison with God. “Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brook. Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver.”
II. The advantages of a true spiritual reformation, as here set forth. Eliphaz says that if Job would only act out his counsel he should, enjoy signal advantages. “Thereby good shall come unto thee.” What is the good” he refers to? He specifies several things.
1. Restoration of lost blessings. “Thou shalt be built up.” All thy losses shall be repaired, and the breaches in thy fortune healed. How much Job had lost!
2. Delight in God. Job had been complaining of the Almighty; and his face was cast down in sadness.
3. Answer to prayer. Prayer is always answered where it leads to a submission to the Divine will; and true prayer always leads to this.
4. Realisation of purposes. Thou shalt form a plan or purpose, and it shall not be frustrated.
5. rower of usefulness. When men are cast down, thou shalt say, “Cheer up.” (Homilist.)
Standing right with God
“Thou shalt have plenty of silver.” But, first, the religion such a motive would produce would be worth little. Religion is not, in its nature, external. And the desire of the silver could only bring to an external conformity to the Divine commands. And, second, the motive cannot be urged. The statement of Eliphaz was grounded in a mistaken view of Divine Providence. Gold and silver are given and withheld as the sovereign Lord sees fit; and their distribution follows not the rules of holy obedience.
I. The hortatory portions or the text.
1. The belief of Eliphaz was, that Job was a great sinner; and he therefore urges the necessity of returning to God. He was mistaken in his particular views of Job.
2. Returning to God, we shall “acquaint ourselves with Him, and be at peace.” The expression implies knowledge and intimacy.
3. Thus standing right with God, a two-fold duty devolves on us.
(1) Due preparation for practice. “Receive the law from His mouth.” Acknowledge Him as supreme Lord.
(2) Practice itself. “Put away iniquity,”--have nothing to do with it personally: “from thy tabernacles,”--allow it not in the circle which thou governest.
II. Blessings shall come from this better than gold and silver.
1. “Good shall come unto thee.” God’s favour, the light of His countenance,--all that makes the true eternal good of the soul.
2. “The Almighty shall be thy defence”: against all real danger. A complete oversight and protection shall be granted thee.
3. “Thou shalt delight in the Almighty”: in the thought of what He is in Himself, and to thee; and in His consciously possessed favour.
4. Thou “shalt lift up thy face unto God.” Thou shalt not now be ashamed. Thou shalt have a holy, humble, but firm and joyful confidence. Sin makes the man afraid.
5. “Thou shalt make thy prayer unto Him, and He will hear thee.” There is permission to enjoy this highest privilege. Pray,--be heard.
6. Thy path shall be truly happy. “The light shall shine on thy ways.” Even providential obscurity shall make spiritual light more visible. (G. Cubitt.)
Returning to God by conviction and progress
In the return of a human soul to God there is decision arising from conviction,--a conviction forced upon the conscience, and will, and reason, and feelings of the heart and mind, from the unanswerable compulsory power of circumstances. With regard to religious conviction as a necessary step to our returning to the Almighty, we may steel our minds against it from many causes; one, say, from the formal custom of hearing sermons. For blended with this kind of hearing may be a self-comparison with the religious teacher himself, and the self-satisfaction which may arise from this comparison. There may stand in the way of this conviction the strong bias of early impressions, of local customs, and of deeply-rooted habits of thought and conception. We may look at religious duties through not only very limited mediums, and therefore partial, but through certain party-coloured ones, and so mistake the broad expansive and glorious character of God’s truth by the disfiguring and narrowing influence of bigotry, intolerance, and prejudice. When a man, however, steadily and fixedly sets the eye of his faith upon the Almighty, as the all-absorbing and exclusive end of his religious convictions and decisions, he returns to Him in the spirit of the prodigal. He returns to God with a humble heart, a humble faith, and a humble prayer. As a result of the return of the soul to the Almighty, it shall “be built up.” This points to a progress of religious life and experience. There is a power exerted, on man’s behalf above and independently of himself. It is “Thou shalt be built up,” not “Thou shalt build thyself up.” The spirit of man assuming the form of a building, in a moral and religious sense, becomes so after the manner of all other structures. It has its foundations in Christ; its gradual rise in the piling up, so to speak, of one virtue upon another, as stone upon stone. But as the earthly building is dependent upon the genius of the architect, so is the spiritual building dependent upon the wisdom and power of the Almighty. We may go where the castle or palace or temple once stood in noble splendour, in proud dignity, and in great strength, but now a crumbling ruin with wails gray with age, battered by the hand of time, or made spectral-like by fire, axe, and sword. But its remaining walls and columns and arches may be restored, strengthened, replenished, and built up again. So with the human soul, its original beauty and grandeur might be defaced by sin, and all its former promises of endurance might be broken by disobedience; but by the grace and mercy of God it may be built up once more. (W. D. Horwood.)