Job 7:11-16 - Homiletics

Job to God: 2. The opening of the third controversy.

I. A DANGEROUS RESOLUTION .

1 . The purport of it. To complain, not merely to repine against the misery of his lot, but to express his sense of Jehovah's cruelty in first afflicting him and then vouchsafing him no response to his solemn and pathetic appeal. If murmurings against one's outward estate are sometimes natural and even excusable, they are always perilous, even where not actually sinful. Those who begin by finding fault with their portion, generally end by reflecting on him by whom their portion has been bestowed. That Job did not curse God to his face, as the devil predicted, was a wonder, and was due more to grace than to himself. When the soul is in anguish it is better to be silent than to speak, to imitate David ( Psalms 39:9 ) than to copy Job.

2 . The spirit of it. With vehemence: "I will speak;" the tense expressing energy of language with passion: "In the anguish of my spirit;" with bitterness: "I will complain in the bitterness of my soul;"—all which were unwarrantable aggravations of his original offence, although Job, by commencing," I also," "I for my part," appeared to think he was not transgressing the bounds of right. And certainly language as vehement, extraordinary, and audacious can be quoted from other lips than Job's, language not usually blamed as sinful; e.g. Jeremiah's ( Jeremiah 15:18 ). Still, men are prone to forget that, in contending with God, they have absolutely no "right," so called, and certainly none to address him with irreverent presumption or insinuate aught against his loving-kindness or justice.

3 . The reason of it. "Therefore;" i.e. partly because his sufferings were great, and partly because his life was vanity, but chiefly because God was silent and did not condescend to listen to his prayer; not one of which reasons, nor even all of them together, were sufficient to justify his violent proposal. Great sufferings are no excuse for great complainings, since they are in themselves no more than man deserves, are always sent in love, and are capable, if accepted with meek submission, of yielding the highest good. So far from the transient and irrevocable character of life inducing querulous behaviour, it should prompt man to turn its golden moments to the best account; while God's silence cannot give man the right to murmur, since God ever knows the best time to speak, whether in vindication of himself or in answering his people ( Psalms 1:3 ).

II. AN IRONICAL INTERROGATION .

1 . The comparison made. Almost impertinently, surely unbecomingly, Job asks whether God regarded him as a sea or a whale; i.e. as a mighty conflux of waters, a fierce, heaven-assaulting ocean, or as a huge aquatic monster, a great and terrible dragon of the prime, of which he was afraid and upon which accordingly he required to set a watch. Job's intention was to say that surely God did entertain such a notion of the poor emaciated skeleton upon whom he was heaping such gigantic calamities. It was strangely irreverent, on Job's part. so to speak, and wholly untrue besides. God esteemed neither him nor any of his intelligent creatures as a sea or a monster. God never speaks depreciatingly of man, and man never should of himself. Nor does God ever treat man like a sea or a whale, but always with a due regard to his intelligent and moral nature, in which respect man should copy God in dealing with himself. Least of all can it be raid that God is ever afraid of man; the only being that man can really injure by his insubordination and wickedness is himself. Yet, though incorrect in the sense intended by Job, it is sometimes sadly true that the heart of man is as restless ( Isaiah 57:20 ), insatiable ( Ecclesiastes 1:7 ), violent (Jud Job 1:13 ), destructive ( Joshua 24:7 ), noisy ( Jeremiah 6:23 ), as the sea, and as ferocious and ungovernable as the great monsters it contains.

2 . The proof given. As the turbulent ocean requires to be bounded and restrained, and leviathan to he held in chains, so, says the patriarch, with grim irony, "thou settest a watch on me." Job was right in still recognizing God's hand in his afflictions. Whatever be the second causes, the First Cause in all calamity that befalls a saint, as indeed in everything that happens, is God ( Job 2:10 ; Isaiah 45:7 ; Amos 3:6 ). Yet he erred in his interpretation of God's purpose in these afflictions. God watches over seas and whales, and over suffering men and saints at the same time, i.e. always, and by the same right—the right of his Divine sovereignty; and in the same way, by sending his omniscient glance into every corner of the universe; but not in the same spirit, watching ever against seas and whales, but always over men and saints; or for the same purpose, in the ease of seas and whales to restrain them from doing damage in his world, in the case of men and saints to rejoice over them to do them good.

III. AN UNJUST ACCUSATION .

1 . The charge . "Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions" (verse 14). These dreams and visions, horrible shadows cast upon the background of his wakeful and excited imagination by the terrible disease from which he was suffering, were of a character entirely different from the dreams and visions depicted by Eliphaz ( Job 4:13 ) as visiting the good man from God. In the distemper of his spirit, Job imputes them to God, whereas they ought to to have been properly ascribed to Satan. Had he simply desired, to recognize the Divine hand in his sufferings, his language would have been becoming and worthy of imitation; but if, as is more probable, he actually meant to charge God with being. the immediate Author of those pale phantoms and shadowy apparitions which banished sleep from his pillow and made him shiver with ghostly fear, he was surely verging on the borders of blasphemy. If not so heinous an offence as ascribing God's work to the devil ( Matthew 12:24 ), imputing Satan's work to God is wholly without excuse.

2 . The time. "When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then thou searest me with dreams." The best-founded expectations of man are not unfrequently disappointed. Even couches, formed for ease and comfort, often fail to impart them. They who most long for sleep's refreshment have sometimes the greatest difficulty in obtaining it. It is vain to look for comfort in affliction, or ease in the midst of pain, to either beds or couches, or any instrument whatever apart from the Divine blessing. The true Source of consolation for diseased bodies, distressed minds, and disturbed spirits, is God ( Psalms 42:5 ; Psalms 147:3 ; Isaiah 25:4 ; Isaiah 51:3 ; Isaiah 66:5 ; 2 Corinthians 1:3 , 2 Corinthians 1:4 ; 2 Corinthians 7:6 ). And as God delights to visit his suffering people on their beds ( Job 35:10 ; Psalms 41:3 ; Psalms 42:8 ; Psalms 77:6 ), so the devil seldom fails to shoot his sharpest arrows and muster his fiercest terrors during the night.

3 . The result.

Learn:

1 . The danger of too exclusive meditation on the vanity of life. It is apt, as in Job's case, to foster sinful thoughts concerning God.

2 . The propriety of always keeping a bridle on the lips ( Psalms 39:2 ). When Job removed restraint from his mouth he spoke in anguish, complained in bitterness, questioned with irreverence, accused with rashness, desired with vehemence, entreated with impatience.

3 . The tendency of the human heart, especially when blinded by grief and agitated by passion, to misconstrue God's providential dealings with itself.

4 . The certainty that good men may have much of the old unrenewed nature in them, lying unsuspected till occasion calls it forth. One would hardly have anticipated the outburst of temper which Job here displays.

5 . The duty of thanking God for such common mercies as beds to sleep on and ability to use them. Many have beds who cannot sleep, and some would sleep who cannot find the beds.

6 . The wickedness of, in any circumstances, undervaluing God's great gift of life. Life in the midst of suffering may often more glorify God than existence in the midst of ease.

7 . The inexpediency of rashly concluding that one's days are vanity, since a man may be most useful when he least suspects it. Probably Job never served his age and generation so well as when passing through this terrible baptism of pain, sorrow, and temptation.