Job 16:7-17 - Homiletics

Job to God: resumption of the third controversy: 1. The sorrows of a weary man.

I. DIVINELY SENT . Whether directly addressed in the second person (verses 7, 8), or indirectly alluded to in the third (verses 7, 9, 12, 14), it is ever God to whom Job traces back his sufferings. It is faith's function, as well as faith's delight, to recognize God's hand in affliction as in felicity; but not seldom sense intervenes to misconstrue the end and motive of God's dealings with the saint, and to regard as indicative of anger and enmity what, rightly viewed, is rather symptomatic of affection and care (verse 17; Psalms 94:12 ; Proverbs 3:12 ; Hebrews 12:6 ; Revelation 3:19 ). From the first Job had connected his adversity with God's appointment ( Job 1:21 ; Job 2:10 ). For a long time he had struggled bravely, against the eloquent representations of his friends, to maintain his confidence in God's affection, notwithstanding all untoward appearances. But now, under extreme pressure of misery, he is on the eve of giving way—talking quite openly of God as his enemy, whose wrath tears him and makes war upon him, and whose teeth sharpen themselves against him (verse 9). The stern facts which appear to shut him up to so reluctant an inference are three.

1 . The inward testimony of his own consciousness. Though it would be wrong to say that this witness of an anguish-laden spirit expressed the maturely formed and definitely fixed judgment of the patriarch, it would yet be equally erroneous not to recognize that, for the moment, Job did believe that God had turned against him. Such a complete reversal of a good man's consciousness was exceptional; the result, not of affliction alone, however severe and protracted, but of Satanic influence and temptation. It discloses the extraordinary power the devil has to work upon the human spirit. If he can so handle "a perfect man and an upright," it is not at all surprising he should be able to lead captive at his will "silly women, laden with sins, led away with divers lusts" ( 2 Timothy 3:6 ), and even proud and imperious men who oppose themselves to the truth ( 2 Timothy 2:26 ). It reveals also how far a saint may go in a course of unbelief and backsliding without renouncing his integrity; and is fitted to suggest hope concerning many who are supposed to have lapsed entirely from the truth. It sheds a light upon the Divine Father's forbearance and mercy, that he can see a saint misconstrue his providences, and calumniate his character, and yet lay not his sin to his charge ( Job 42:7 ).

2 . The expressed judgment of his fellow-men. Eliphaz had cited, as one of the items in the sinner's doom, the desolation of his family ( Job 15:34 ), and the obvious allusion to this remark in Job's language, "Thou hast made desolate all my household" (verse 7), seems to intimate that Job regarded the cruel verdict of his friends upon his case as substantially correct. He could see, from a comparison of his sad condition with the sentiments they had uttered, that they, as well as he, had arrived at the inference that God was against him.

3 . The palpable witness of his misery. His emaciated body, his weary and pinched face, his feeble and wasting frame, all covered over with ulcers, seemed to rise up and tell him to his face that God was dealing with him as with a convicted criminal. According to the theology of the period, this was strong circumstantial evidence against the patriarch; but circumstantial evidence often lies. Here it notoriously did, as afterwards it did in the case of Christ, whose marred face was no proof that he was "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted" ( Isaiah 53:4 ). "A marred and meagre visage may testify to our grief, but not to our guilt" (Robinson).

II. EXTREMELY SEVERE .

1 . Their variety. Almost every form of calamity was heaped upon the patriarch.

2 . Their unexpectedness. Job had been at ease, prosperous and contented, fearing God and eschewing evil, when all at once misfortune leaped upon him, and God. seizing him, broke him in pieces. And this was an aggravation of the sufferers distress, that without apparent cause, and certainly without warning, he was hurled from the pinnacle of prosperity to the lowest depths of adversity; as the wicked will eventually be ( Psalms 73:19 ), and as at any moment, though not for the same reason, the godly may be. Therefore let no one indulge in a vain confidence like David, that his mountain shall stand strong for ever ( Psalms 30:6 , Psalms 30:7 ); or like Job, that he shall die in his nest ( Job 29:18 ); or like the daughter of the Chaldeans, that she shall be a lady for ever ( Isaiah 47:7 ); but being forewarned, as the patriarch of Uz was not, let him also be forearmed.

3 . Their violence. Job pictures the dreadful hostility of God against himself by means of three striking figures, in which he represents God as

4 . Their degradation. The abject humiliation to which Job had been reduced by his sufferings is set forth in four particulars.

III. WHOLLY UNDESERVED .

1 . His life had not been wicked. There had been no injustice, wrong, or evil deed of any kind in his hand, as his friends asserted. The hand being the instrument of action, clean hands are the symbol of an upright life ( Job 17:9 ; Psalms 24:4 ). Where the hands are not clean the heart cannot be pure.

2. His devotions had not been insincere. Notwithstanding the imputations of his friends to the contrary ( Job 15:4 ), his conscience told him that his prayer was pure. Genuine sincerity is one of the first requisites of devotion. "When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are" ( Matthew 6:5 ).

Learn:

1 . That the same God who makes a saint weak and weary beneath life's burdens can also impart strength and cheerfulness to bear them.

2 . That one of the hardest works faith has to do is to oppose those representations of the Divine character and providence that are g yen by sense.

3 . That, while the saint's calamities are not always sent in punishment of sin, they are mostly designed to produce within the saint a spirit of self-humiliation.

4 . That God never abandons a saint to the ungodly, though he will yet deliver over the ungodly to perdition.

5 . That, next to the comfortable shining of God's face upon a human soul, which Job at this time wanted, the best lodestar, while struggling over and through a sea of trouble, is the ineradicable conviction of one's own sincerity, the testimony of a good conscience before God.