LivePrayerSermon 2732. Believers Tested by Trials
(No. 2732)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 23, 1901.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, OCTOBER 17, 1880.
"Behold, Igo forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: on the left hand, where He works, butI cannot behold Him: He hides Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him: but He knows the way that I take: when Hehas tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23:8-10.
JOB, as we noticed in our reading, was at that time in very deep distress. I commend this fact to the notice of any here whoare very sorely tried. You may be the people of God and yet be in a terrible plight, for Job was a true servant of the MostHigh, yet he sat down among the ashes and scraped himself with a potsherd because he was covered with sore boils and, at thesame time, he was reduced to absolute poverty. The path of sorrow has been trod by thousands of holy feet-you are not thefirst one who could sit down and say, "I am the man that has seen affliction." You were not the first tried one, you are notthe only one and you will not be the last one. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." So let this be some comfort toyou-that you are one of the Lord's suffering children, one of those who have to pass through rough roads and fiery placesin the course of their pilgrimage to Heaven.
Job had to experience one trial which must have been very keen, indeed, for it was brought about by his three choice friendswho were evidently men of mind and mark, for their speeches prove that they were by no means second-class men. Job would nothave selected for his bosom friends any but those who were of high character, estimable in disposition, and able to conversewith him upon high and lofty themes. Such, no doubt, those three men were and I expect that when Job saw them coming towardshim, he looked for a store of comfort from them, imagining that they would at least sympathize with him and pour out suchconsolations as their own experience could suggest, in order that he might be somewhat relieved. But he was utterly disappointed-thesefriends of his reasoned that there must be some extraordinary cause for such unusual distress as that into which Job had fallen.They had never seen wrong in him, but, then, he might be a very cunning man and so have concealed it from them.
As long as they had known him, he seemed to be a generous, liberal soul, but, perhaps, after all, he was one of those whosqueeze the uttermost farthing out of the poor. They could not read his heart, so they put the worst construction upon hissorrows and said, "Depend upon it, he is a hypocrite! We will apply caustic to him and so we will test him, and see whetherhe really is what he professes to be. We will rub salt into his wounds by bringing various charges against him." And theydid so in a most horrible fashion. That is a cruel thing for anybody to do and one that cuts to the quick. Possibly, somepeople who used to court your company and would not let you go down the street without bowing to you-now that your circumstancesare changed, do not recognize you. Or if they cannot help seeing you, they appear to have some distant recollection that,years ago, you were a casual acquaintance, or, perhaps, if they do speak in a kind, friendly way, though their words are smootherthan butter, war is in their heart-though their words are softer than oil, yet are they drawn swords.
You must be a bad man because you have come down in the world-it cannot be that you are the respectable person they thoughtyou were, or you would not have lost your estate, for, in the estimation of some folk, to be respectable means to have a certainamount of cash! The definition was once given, in a court of law that if a man kept a carriage and one horse, it was proven,by that fact, that he was respectable. That is the way of the world-respect and respectability
depend upon so much money-but the moment that is gone, the scene changes. The man is the same-yes, he may be a better anda nobler man without the money than with it-but it is only noble men who think so. It is only right-minded persons who judgenot by the coat or the purse, but who say, with Burns-
"A man's a man for a' that,"
whatever may be his condition. Character is the thing to which we ought to look-the man himself, and not merely his surroundings.But Job had to bear just that ignoble sort of scorn that some men seem to delight to pour upon the sorrows of others!
I want, first, to call your attention to Job's desire in the time of his trouble. It was his earnest desire to get to hisGod. Secondly, we will notice Job's distress because he could not find Him. ' 'Behold, I go forward, but He is not there;and backward, but I cannot perceive Him." And, thirdly, we will consider Job's consolation.''He knows the way that I take:when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
I. First, then, notice JOB'S DESIRE IN THE TIME OF HIS TROUBLE.
He wanted his God. He did not long to see Bildad, or Eliphaz, or Zophar, or any earthly friend-his cry was, "Oh, that I knewwhere I might find HIM! That I might come even to His seat!" This is one of the marks of a true child of God-that even whenGod smites him, he still longs for His Presence. If you get to the very back of all Job's calamities, you will see that Godsent them, or, at least, permitted Satan to afflict him. "Yet," says Job, "I will not turn in anger against God because ofthis. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' Let Him do what He will with me, I will still seek to get near to Himand this shall be my heart's desire, 'Oh that I knew where I might find Him!'" An ungodly man, if he has made any pretenseof fellowship with God in his days of prosperity, forsakes Him as soon as adversity comes. But the true child of God clingsto his Father however roughly He may deal with him.
We are not held captive to God by a chain of sweets, nor are we bought with cupboard love, nor bribed in any other way tolove Him, but now, because He first loved us, our heart has loved Him, and rested in Him-and if cross Providences and strangedealings come from the hand of the Most High, our cry shall not be, "Oh that we could get away from Him!" but, "Oh that weknew where we might find Him, that we might come even to His seat!" This is the mark of our regeneration and adoption-that,whatever happens, we still cling to our God!
For, beloved Friends, when a man is in trouble, if he can but get to God, in the first place, he is quite sure of justice.Men may condemn us falsely, but God never will. Our character may be cruelly slandered and, doubtless, there have been goodmen who have lived for years under false accusations-but God knows the way that we take. He will be the Advocate of His servantswhen their case is laid before the heavenly Court of King's Bench. We need not be afraid that the verdict will not be just-"Shallnot the Judge of all the earth do right?"
We also know that if we can get to God, we shall have an audience. Sometimes men will not hear us when we are pleading forjustice. "I do not want to hear a word you have to say," says the man who is so prejudiced that he will not listen to ourplea. But there is an ear that no prejudice ever sealed! There is a heart that is always sympathetic towards the griefs ofa Believer. You are sure to be heard, Beloved, if you pour out your heart before the God that hears prayer! He will neverbe weary of your cries-they may be poor, broken utterances-but He takes the meaning of the sighs of His saints, He understandsthe language of their groans. Go, then, to God because you are sure of an audience.
What is more, in getting near to God, a man is sure to have strength. You notice how Job puts it-"'Will He plead against mewith His great power? No, but He would put strength in me." When once we get to realize that God is with us, how strong weare! Then we can bear the burden of want or of pain, or even the sharp adder's tongue of slander. The man who has God withhim is a very Samson-he may fling himself upon a troop of Philistines and smite them hip and thigh! He may lay hold of thepillars of their temple, rock them to and fro, and bring down the whole building upon them! I say not that we shall work miracles,but I do say that, as our days, so shall our strength be-
"I can do all things, or can bear All sufferings, if my Lord is there." And, once more, he who gets to his God is sure ofjoy. There was never a soul that was right with God and that was unhappy in the Presence of God! Up yonder in Glory, how gladlythey smile! How I would like to photograph their beaming faces! What a group that would be-of angel faces bathed in everlastinglight and the faces of those redeemed
from among men-all radiant with celestial joy! What gives them that gladness? It is because God is there that they are sohappy-
"Not all the harps above Can make a heavenly place, If God His residence remove, Or but conceal His face."
Just as the sun makes the landscape bright and fair, so does the light of God's Countenance make all His people glad. It wouldnot matter to a man whether he were in a dungeon or a palace if he had the constant Presence of God! I am not speaking atrandom when I make that assertion. Read the record of the martyr days of the Church and you will understand that the Presenceof God caused His persecuted people to be the happiest in the whole world! No minstrels in royal halls ever sang so sweetlyas did the prisoners of the Lord who were confined in deep, dark, underground dungeons where they could scarcely breathe.No, that is not all, for some have been happy even on the rack. Think of brave Lady Anne Askew sitting on the cold stonesafter the cursed inquisitors had torn her poor feeble frame almost limb from limb-and when they tempted her to turn from thefaith, she answered-
"I am not she that lyst
My anker to let fall
For every dryslynge mist;
My shippe's substancyal."
Some who were tortured, not accepting deliverance, declared, as in the case of Lawrence, that the gridiron was a bed of rosesand that they never were so joyous as when their body was being consumed in the fire-every finger being like a lighted candle-forthey were able, even then, to cry, "None but Christ! None but Christ!" It is amazing how the Presence of God seems to be asalve that kills all pain-an uplifting, like an angel's wing, that bears upward one who, without it, would be utterly crushed.The martyr is torn in pieces and full of agonies-and yet all his sufferings are transformed till they become sweet harmoniesof intense delight because God is with him! Oh give me God, give me God, and I care not what you withhold from me! "Whom haveI in Heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."
II. The brightness of the first part of my subject will help to make the second portion all the darker. We are now to considerJOB'S DISTRESS-the agony of a true child of God who cannot find his Father.
Your experiences are not all alike, Brothers and Sisters, and I do not want you to try to make them all alike. Some of youhave very happy experiences and very little spiritual trial. I am glad it is so. I only hope you will not be superficial,or conceited, or censorious of others. But there are some who know the darker paths in the heavenly pilgrimage-and it is tothose that I specially speak just now. Dear Friends, I pray you to remember that a man may be a true servant of God and evenan eminent and distinguished servant of God like Job, and yet he may sometimes lose the light of God's Countenance and haveto cry out, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" There are some special, superfine, hot-pressed Christians about, nowadays,who do not believe this. They say, "You ought to be joyous! You ought never to be depressed-you ought to be perfect!" Allwhich is quite true, but it is a great deal easier to say so than to show how it is to be realized! And these Brothers andSisters who talk as if it were a very simple matter, like counting your fingers, may someday find that it is more difficultthan they think-as some of us have sometimes done.
Job could not find his God-this is apparently strange. He was a specially good man, one who did what he could for all aroundhim-a very light in the city where he dwelt-a man famous in all the country, yet in great trouble-one might have thought thatGod would certainly comfort him! He has lost everything. Surely, now, the Lord will return to him and be gracious to him and,above all other times, he will now be cheered with the Presence of God! Yet it was not so. He was a man who valued the companyof God and who cried, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" Yet he could not find Him. It is passing strange, or, at least,it appears to be so.
Yet notice, next, that it is essentially necessary to some trials that God should withdraw the light of His Countenance. OurLord Jesus Christ, with all the woes that He endured, could not have been made perfect through sufferings unless He had learnedto cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" When God means to smite any child of His with the rod, He cannot do itwith a smile. Suppose a father is chastening his son and all the while is comforting
him-where is the chastening? No, the very essence of the medicinal sorrow that is to do good to our souls will lie in ourhaving to bewail the absence of the smile of God.
This is essential to our trial, but it is greatly perplexing. I do not know of anything that so troubles a Christian as whenhe does not know where his God is. "God is everywhere," says one. I know He is, but yet there is a special Presence whichHe manifests to His people and sometimes it seems to them as if He were nowhere at all. So Job exclaimed, "Behold, I go forward,but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him." Tried children of God, you have had this experience and itis very perplexing because, when you cannot find your God, you cannot make out why you are being troubled! An affliction thatwill talk is always a light one, but I dread most of all a dumb affliction that cannot tell me why it has come. When I lookaround it, and ask, "Why is this?" and I cannot get an answer, thatis what plagues me much. And when you cannot find God,you do not know what to do, for, in losing Him, you have lost your Guide. You are in a maze and know not how to get out ofit. You are like a man in a net-the more you pull this way or that-the more you tighten the bonds that hold you prisoner!Where you hoped to have relieved yourself, you only brought yourself into further difficulties in another direction-and thisbewilderment is one of the worst of sorrows.
The loss of God's Presence is also inexpressibly painful to a Believer. If you can live without God, I am afraid you willdie without God. But if you cannot live without God, that proves that you are His, and you will bear me out in the assertionthat this is the heaviest of mortal griefs-to feel that God has forsaken you and does not hear your prayer- no, does not evenseem to help you to pray, so that you can only groan, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! . . . Behold, I go forward,but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him."
Then, dear Friends, in closing what I have to say about this dark side of the subject, let me remind you that it is mar-velouslyawakeningbecause the true child of God, when he finds that his Father has forsaken him for a while, gets to be terribly unhappy.Then he begins to cry and to seek after God. Look at Job-he hunts for God everywhere-forward, backward, on the left hand,on the right hand. He leaves no quarter unvisited. No part of the earth is left without being searched over that he mightfind his God. Nothing spreads a real Christian to his bearings and awakes all his faculties like the consciousness of hisLord's absence. Then he cries, "My God, where are You? I have lost the sense of Your Presence! I have missed the light ofYour Countenance."
A man in such a case as this goes to the Prayer Meeting in the hope that other people's prayers may help to make his sad hearthappy again. He reads his Bible, too, as he has not read it for months. You will also find him listening to the Gospel withthe utmost eagerness and nothing but the Gospel will satisfy him. At one time, he could listen to that pleasant kind of talkthat lulls the hearers to sleep, but now he needs a heart-searching ministry and a message that will go right into him anddeal faithfully with him-and he is not content unless he gets it. Besides this, he is anxious to talk with Christian friendsof riper experiences than his own and he deals seriously and earnestly with these eternal matters which, before, he perhapstrifled with as mere technicalities. You see a man who once lived in the light of God's Countenance and you will find himwretched, indeed, when the light is gone. He must have his God.
III. Now, lastly, I want to speak, for a little while, concerning THE TRIED BELIEVER'S CONSOLATION. It is a very sweet consolation-"Heknows the way that I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
God knows and understands all about His child. I do not know His way, but He knows mine. I am His child and my Father is leadingme, though I cannot see Him, for all around me, it is so misty and dark. I can scarcely feel His hand that grasps my littlepalm, so I cry to Him, "Where are You, my Father? I cannot see my way. The next step before me threatens to plunge me intoimminent peril. I know nothing, my Father, but You know." That is just where knowledge is of most use-it does not so muchmatter what you do not know so long as God knows, for He is your Guide. If the guide knows the way, the traveler under hiscare may be content to know but little. "He knows the way that I take." There is nothing about you, my Brother, which Goddoes not perfectly understand. You are a riddle to yourself, but you are no riddle to Him. There are mysteries in your heartthat you cannot explain, but He has the clue of every maze, the key of every secret drawer-and He knows how to get at thehidden springs of your spirit. He knows the trouble that you could not tell to your dearest friend, the grief you dare notwhisper in any human ear!
I find that the Hebrew has this meaning, "He knows the way that is in me." God knows whether I am His child or not-whetherI am sincere or not. While others are judging me harshly, He judges me truly-He knows what I really am. This is a sweet consolation!Take it to yourself, tried Believer.
Next, God approves of His child. The word, "know," often has the meaning of approval, and it has that sense here. Job says"God approves of the way that I take." When you are in trouble, it is a grand thing to be able to say, "I know that I havedone that which is right in the sight of God, although it has brought me into great trial. 'My foot has held His steps, Hisway have I kept, and not declined.'" If you have a secret and sure sense of God's approval in the time of your sorrow, itwill be a source of very great strengthening to your spirit.
But Job meant more than this. He meant that God was considering him-and helping him even then. The fact that He knows of ourneeds guarantees that He will supply them. You remember how our Lord Jesus Christ puts this Truth of God-"Take no thought,saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knows thatyou have need of all these things." Does He know all about our need? It is all right then-the Head of the house knows theneed of all the members of His family, and that is enough, for He never yet failed to supply all the needs of those who dependupon Him. When I need guidance, He will Himself be my Guide. He will supply me when I lack supplies. He will defend me whenI need defense. He will give me all things that I really require. There is an old proverb that says, "Where God is, nothingis lacking," and it is blessedly true! Only remember that there is an ancient precept with a gracious promise attached toit, "Delight yourself, also, in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." Believe it, and obey it, and youshall find it true in your case.
Furthermore, when Job says, "When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold," he comforts himself with the belief that Godtimes and manages all things-that his present distresses are a trial by which God is testing him. A man who is like solidgold is not afraid to be tested. No tradesman is afraid to put into the scales that which is full weight, for if it is weighed,it will be proved to be what he says it is. When the inspector of weights and measures comes round, the gentleman who doesnot like to see him is the man of short weights and incorrect scales. He who knows he is upright and sincere dares say evento the Lord, Himself, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my ways: and see if there is any wicked way inme, and lead me in the way everlasting." We do not profess to be perfect, but we dare claim to be sincere-and he who is sincereis not afraid of being tested and tried. Real gold is not afraid of the fire-why should it be? What has it to lose? So Jobseems to say, "I know that God has put integrity within my spirit and now that He is testing me, He will not carry the testfurther than, by His Grace, I shall be able to bear."
Lastly, Job's comfort was that God secures the happy result of trial He believed that when God had tried him, He would bringhim forth as gold. Now, how does gold come out of the crucible? How does a true Christian come out of the darkness and obscurityof missing his God for a while? How does he come out like gold? In the Hebrew, the word has an allusion to the bright colorof the gold, so, when a Christian is tried, is there not a bright color upon him? Even though he may have lost, for a while,the bright shining of God's Countenance, when that brightness returns, there is a luster about him which you cannot help seeing!He will speak of his God in a more impressive way than he ever spoke before. Examine the books that are most comforting toBelievers and that satisfy their souls, and you will find that the men who wrote them were those who had been severely tried-andwhen they came out of the fire-there was a brilliance upon them which would not otherwise have been there. If you walk indarkness and see no light, believe that when God has tried you, you shall come forth with the brightness of newly-minted gold!
But brightness is of little value without preciousness-and the children of God grow more precious through their trials and,being precious, they become objects of desire. Men desire gold above almost everything else, yet the Lord has said, "I willmake a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir." There are some godly men whose companywe court and some Christian women whose society, when they talk of spiritual things, is worth a Jew's eye to one that is indistress. Happy are they whom God has passed through the fire-who become precious and desirable when they come out of it!
And they become honorable, too. "When He has tried me," said Job, "even though my friends now despise me, when I come forth,they shall have different thoughts concerning me." They thought a great deal more of Job when God was angry with them andwould not restore them to His favor until the Patriarch had prayed for them-than they thought of him when they went to findfault with him! And the day shall come to you, true child of God, when those who now persecute you and look down upon you,shall look up to you! Joseph may be cast into the pit by his brothers and sold into Egypt, but he shall yet sit on the throne-andall his father's sons shall bow before him!
Once more, you shall come out of the fire uninjured. It looks very hard to believe that a child of God should be tried bythe loss of his Father's Presence and yet should come forth uninjured by the trial. Yet no gold is ever injured in the fire.Stoke the furnace as much as you may, let the blast be as strong as you will, thrust the ingot into the very center of thewhite heat, let it lie in the very heart of the flame-pile on more fuel, let another blast torment the coals till they becomemost vehement with heat-yet the gold is losing nothing, it may even be gaining. If it had any alloy mingled with it, the alloyis separated from it by the fire-and to gain in purity is the greatest of gains. But the pure gold is not one drachma less!There is not a single particle of it that can be burnt. It is still there, all the better for the fiery trial to which ithas been subjected! And you, dear child of God, whatever may befall you, shall come out of the fire quite uninjured. You areunder a dark cloud just now, but you shall come out into brightness and you shall have lost nothing that was worth keeping!What is there that you can lose? When death comes, what will you lose?-
"Corruption, earth, and worms
Shall but refine this flesh,
Till my triumphant spirit comes
To put it on afresh!"
When we put on our new clothes, this body that shall have passed through God's transforming hand-shall we be losers? No, weshall say, "What a difference! Is this my Sabbath garment? The old one was dark and dingy, dusty and defiled. This is whiterthan any fuller could make it and brighter than the light!" You will scarcely know yourselves, my Brothers and Sisters! Youwill know other people, I daresay, but I think you will hardly recognize yourselves when once you have put on your new array.You cannot really lose anything by death! You will not lose the eyes you part with for a while, for, when Christ shall standat the latter day, upon the earth, your eyes shall behold Him! You shall lose no faculty, no power, but you shall infinitelygain even by death itself-and that is the very worst of your enemies, so that you shall certainly gain by all the rest! Comethen, pluck up courage and march boldly on! Fear no ghosts, for they are but specters-there is no reality about them!
Beloved, note well this closing word. God is here. You need not go forward to find Him, or backward to hunt after Him, oron the left to search for Him, or on the right to see Him. He is still with His people, as He said, "Lo, I am with you always,even unto the end of the world." "Fear not: for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When youpass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through thefire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." Oh, seek Him, then, every one of you, and God blessyou all, for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOB 23; 24.
Always remember, dear Friends, that one of the great lessons of the Book of Job is this-that we may never judge a man's characterby his condition. The best of men may have the most of suffering and of poverty, while the worst of men may prosper in everything.Do not imagine because a man suddenly becomes very poor or a great sufferer, that therefore he must be a great sinner-otherwise,you will often condemn the innocent, and you will, at the same time, be guilty of flattering the wicked. Job's friends hadcruelly told him that he must be a hypocrite, or else he would not have lost his property and have been smitten with sucha remarkable sickness. So he appeals to God against their unrighteous judgment.
Job 23:1, 2. Then Job answered andsaid, Even today is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning. "Although my groaningis heavy, yet it is not so burdensome as my griefs might warrant."
3. Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His seat! "To His Judgment Seat, that I might plead mycause and vindicate my character even there."
4-6. 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. Will He plead against me with His great power? "Being the great God, will He silenceme by a display of His Omnipotence? Oh, no! He is too just to do that."
6. No; but He would put strength in me.''He would help me to argue my case. He would deal fairly with me. He would not belike you so-called friends of mine, who sit there and exult over my weakness and my griefs, and torture me with your cruelwords."
7-10. There the righteous might dispute with Him; so shouldI be delivered forever from my Judge. Behold, I go forward, butHe is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: on the left hand, where He works, but I cannot behold Him: He hidesHimself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him: but He knows the way that I take.' 'If I cannot find Him, or see Him, Hecan see me, and He knows all about me."
10. When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. This is beautiful faith on the part of Job. It is very easy for us toread these lines and to say, "No doubt, tried men do come out of the furnace purified like gold." But it is quite anotherthing to be in the crucible ourselves and to read such a passage as this by the light of the fire, and then to be able tosay, "We know it is true, for we are proving its truth even now." This is the kind of Chapter that many a broken heart hasto read by itself alone. Many a weeping eye has scanned these words of Job and truly blessed has that troubled one been whohas been able to chime in with the sweet music of this verse-"He knows the way that I take: when He has tried me, I shallcome forth as gold."
11. My foot has held fast to His steps, His way have I kept, and not declined. It is a great thing to be able to say that,as Job truly could, for we have the witness of the Spirit of God that Job was "perfect and upright, and one that feared God,and eschewed evil." It was not self-righteousness that made him speak as he did-he had the right to say it and he said it.
12. 13. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips; I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessaryfood. But He is of one mind, and who can turn Him?' 'His mind is made up to chasten me. He means to afflict me again and again,so what can I do but yield to His will?"
13. And what His soul desires, even that He does. There is, on Job's part, a reverential bowing before the Supreme Power-anacknowledgment of God's right to do with him as He wills.
14. For He performs the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with Him. "More arrows to pierce me, moresorrows to grieve me."
15-17. Therefore am I troubledat His Presence: when Iconsider, I am afraid ofHim. For God makes my heart soft, and the Almightytroubles me: because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither has He covered the darkness from my face. He wished thathe had died before those evil days had come upon him; and that is the way that a good man, an undoubted saint of God, is sometimesdriven to speak. There are, perhaps, some who will say, "Then we don't want to be children of God if that is how they aretried." Ah, but that was only the sorrow of an hour. See where Job is now! Think of what he was even a few days after he madethis mournful complaint, when God had turned his sighing into singing, and his mourning into morning light! In the next Chapter,Job speaks of those who were the reverse of himself-wicked and ungodly men who, nevertheless, prospered in this life.
Job 24:1. Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know Him not see His days? "Why do they live so long? Whydo they appear to have such prosperity?"
2-4. Some remove the landmarks; 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: the poor of the earth hide themselves together."They are hard-hearted enough to rob even poor widows and orphan children."
5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work Like wild asses, their work consists in going forth todo mischief.
5. Rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yields food for them and for their children. For there are some so hard thatthey would skin a flint, and out of the wilderness would manage to get food. Yet such hard oppressors of others sometimesseem to prosper for a while.
6-12. They reap everyone his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge withoutclothing, that they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock forwant of a shelter They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor They cause him to go naked withoutclothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry; which make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, andsuffer thirst Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded cries out: yet God
lays not folly to them. He lets them alone, leaves them to do as they please. So it seems, but this is not the Day of Judgment,and this is not the place of final retribution! Now and then God flashes forth His anger against some gross sinner or somenational crime, but as for the most of men's sins, He bears with them till that tremendous day shall come which draws on apace,when He shall hang the heavens in sackcloth, and hold the last assize, and every man shall receive according to his works.
13-17. They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. Themurderer rising with the light kills the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief The eye also of the adulterer waitsfor the twilight, saying, No eye shallsee me: and disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses, which they hadmarked for themselves in the daytime: they know not the light. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: ifone knows them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death. These are the men who plunder secretly, who rob, yet cannotbear to be known as thieves.
18. He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth. There was no curse upon Job, and no curse can come nearthe true child of God. His scanty portion is still blest. But the large portion of the ungodly is cursed even while he ison the earth!
18-20. He beholds not the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so does the grave those which havesinned. The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him. What a sarcastic utterance! This man, who lorded itover others-how glad the worm shall be to get at him! This fat worldling shall be a rich feast for the worms!
20. He shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree. It shall snap off and be brought to an ignominiousend.
21-24. He preys on the barren that bears not: and does not good to the widow. But God draws the mighty away with His power:He rises up, but no man is sure of life. Though it be given him to be in safety, whereon he rests; yet His eyes are upon theirways. They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all others, andcut off as the tops of the ears of corn. In the East, they generally reap their harvest by just taking off the tops of theears of corn and leaving the straw. Thus will the wicked be cut off.
25. And if it is not so now, who will make me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing? Job challenges all men to contradictwhat he affirms-that the righteous may be greater sufferers, and the wicked may for a while prosper, but that God will, inthe end, overthrow the ungodly and establish the righteous.