I am made to possess months of vanity.
The wasted weeks of sickness
“Months of vanity” indicate a protracted time of uselessness, when no good cause is furthered by us, and we ourselves seem rather to be failing in piety than growing in grace; a time of suffering without Divine consolation; months which look not even like months of discipline, because no good end seems to be served by the affliction. The modes of spiritual distress are almost as varied as the modes of spiritual progress.
I. The experience of “months of vanity.” We must carefully distinguish between these and months of sin, or of punishment for sin.
1. Job’s “months of vanity” were the result of disastrous circumstances.
2. Sickness was another factor of Job’s distress.
3. Job suffered from the injudicious sympathy of his friends. There was no lack of tenderness in these men. They were, however, wholly mistaken in the man; they wholly misread the meaning of his affliction and the purpose of God.
4. Job was in the hand of Satan. Are there not times when every woe is aggravated, and all the sufferer’s courage sapped by the consciousness that no help is being vouchsafed? There are powers of evil which make themselves felt, thoughts that come charged with doubt, despair, and death. These are the things that try a man, seeming to make his life valueless and his piety a dream.
II. The Divine meaning in these “months of vanity.” All this takes place in the providence of God. The consciousness of the sufferer is no true exponent, as his past experience is no measure of the Divine purpose.
1. These “months of vanity” revealed the energy of Job’s endurance. There are Christians whose mere endurance is a greater triumph of grace than the labours and successes of others.
2. See the manifest victory of Job’s faith. His utterances become more and more the utterances of faith. The manifest victory of faith becomes an enlargement of faith.
3. An enlarged thought of God was another of the fruits of Job’s “months of vanity.” (See the last chapter.)
4. The profound compassion and awe awakened in others by the sight of the good man’s sufferings. We always need to have a new flow of sympathy, to be disturbed in our self-complacency; the tragedy of life unfolds itself to us; we are awestricken to mark God’s dealings with human souls. We learn in what a man’s life consists; we watch with patience for the assured victory of the human spirit. Life becomes nobler and grander; homely piety takes on a new dignity as the infinite possibilities of the patient soul appear. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)
The design and improvement of useless days and wearisome nights
I. Useless days and wearisome nights may be the portion of the best of men. To those who, like Job, are righteous and upright in the sight of God, and have been, like him, healthy, vigorous, and useful, “months of vanity” are months void of health, activity, and usefulness. But this to an aged Christian is not so grievous as that there are months of vanity in which he is capable of doing little for the glory of God and the good of his fellow creatures. An ancient writer calls old age “a middle state between health and sickness.”
II. Months of vanity and wearisome nights are to be considered as the appointment of God and to be improved accordingly. God intends hereby--
1. To restrain an earthly spirit, and bring His people to serious consideration and piety. In order to restrain the inordinate love of the world, God is pleased to visit men with pain and sickness. He gives them time to think and consider.
2. To exercise and strengthen their graces, especially their humility, patience, meekness, and contentment. It is very difficult habitually to practise these virtues, especially if we have long enjoyed health and ease. But when God toucheth our bone and our flesh, He calls us to and disposeth us for the exercise of them.
3. To promote the good and advantage of others. It is the observation of a lively writer “that God makes one-half of the human species a moral lesson to the other half.” Thus He set forth Job as an example of enduring affliction and of patience.
4. To confirm their hopes and excite their desires of a blessed immortality. They tend to confirm their hopes of it. Reflections--
(1) They whose days are useful, and their nights comfortable, have great reason to be continually thankful.
(2) Learn to expect and prepare for the days of affliction.
(3) Let me exhort and comfort those who are afflicted as Job was. (Job Orton.)
On sickness
When any disease severely attacks us, we are ready to imagine that our trouble is almost peculiar to ourselves; attended with circumstances which have never been before experienced. So we think, but we are deceived. The same complaint has been formerly made; others have exceeded us in sufferings, as much as they have excelled us in patience and piety. There are disorders which make our beds uneasy. Some circumstances render the night particularly tedious to those who are sick.
1. Its darkness. Light is sweet.
2. Its solitariness. In the day the company and conversation of friends help to beguile the time. At night we are left alone.
3. Its confinement. In the day change of place and posture afford temporary relief. At night we are shut up, as it were, in a prison.
4. Its wakefulness. If we could get sleep we should welcome it as a very desirable blessing. It would render us, for a time, insensible to pain. Sometimes we cannot sleep. Suggest some useful reflections--
(1) Be thankful for former mercies.
(2) Be humbled for former sins. Observe the latter part of the text. Our disorders may be not only painful to ourselves, but offensive to those who are near us. Then be not proud of your bodies. Never boast of their strength or their complexion; for both may be destroyed by a short fit of sickness. Learn the much greater loathsomeness of sin. And rejoice in the prospect of having better bodies hereafter. (S. Lavington.)