Job 23:8-12 - Homiletics

Job to Eliphaz: 2. A child of light walking in darkness.

I. THE CHILD OF LIGHT . That Job was entitled to be so described will appear from a consideration of:

1 . The creed he professed. It is obvious that Job believed in:

2 . The character he maintained. Besides being an intellectual believer in God, Job was:

(a) cheerfully, making God's way his way, like the Messianic Sufferer ( Psalms 40:7 , Psalms 40:8 ), and like Christ ( John 6:38 );

(b) perpetually, adhering to God's commandment always. ( Psalms 119:44 ), rendering obedience not alone to precepts which accorded with his inclination, but to every word that proceeded from God s mouth ( Psalms 119:88 );

(c) firmly, holding fast to God's steps by his foot, resisting all attempts to cause him to decline or turn aside ( Psalms 44:18 ; Psalms 119:88 ;

(d) appreciatingly, esteeming the words of God's mouth more than his necessary food (Authorized Version), like David ( Psalms 19:10 ; Psalms 119:72 ), Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 15:16 ), Daniel ( Daniel 6:5 , Daniel 6:10 ), Mary ( Luke 10:39-42 ), and New Testament believers generally ( 1 Peter 2:2 ); according to another translation,

(e) carefully, treasuring up God's Word in his breast, like the Hebrew psalmist ( Psalms 119:11 ); and

(f) sacrificingly, preferring, Gods commandments to the inclinations, resolves, and purposes of his own heart, when at any time these came into collision, like St. Paul ( Romans 7:22 );—all which proclaimed Job a genuinely pious man.

II. THE CHILD OF LIGHT IN DARKNESS . The passage exhibits Job in three different situations.

1 . Encompassed by the darkness . The darkness alluded to not the cloud of outward pain and distress by which Job was overshadowed, but the inward mental and spiritual obscuration which these occasioned—the horrible eclipse which his faith suffered, the terrible revulsion of unrequited love which his soul experienced. A genuine believer and lover of God, who was conscious in his inmost soul of sincerity, who with admirable fortitude had shunned every evil way, and who with unrelaxing tenacity had adhered to the path of truth and right, preferring on every occasion God's will to his own, he had yet lost all sense of the Divine favour as well as all conscioushess of the Divine presence. Though he earnestly longed to meet and made frantic efforts to obtain an interview with God, it was always in vain. "Behold, I go eastward, but he is not there; and westward, but I perceive him not. Northwards where he worketh, but I behold him not; he turneth aside southwards, and I see him not." Job meant that he looked in all directions for some visible manifestation of God before which he might come and plead his cause. Job's spiritual desolation and fruitless longing after God are not without their counterparts in the experiences of Old Testament saints and New Testament believers ( Isaiah 50:10 ; John 20:14 ), who sometimes, like David on account of sin ( Psalms 30:7 ), or like Ethan through calamity ( Psalms 89:46 ), or like Mary through bereavement ( John 20:14 ), or like the travellers to Emmaus through spiritual dejection ( Luke 24:17 ), are altogether unable to realize the comfortable shining of God's favour and Christ's love upon their souls. Job's inward condition had its highest exemplification in the soul-desertion of Christ upon the cross.

2 . Supported in the darkness. As God did not leave Christ entirely without consolations in the hour of his great sorrow, so neither does he leave any of his people ( Isaiah 43:2 ; Hebrews 13:5 ). Job was upheld in the gloom by three considerations.

3 . Emerging from the darkness. Indirectly alluded to, but contemplated as certain.

Learn:

1 . It is better to be a child of light walking in darkness than a child of darkness walking in light, i.e. in the sparks of his own kindling.

2 . Though God's way is sometimes hid from a saint, the saint's way is never hid from God.

3 . It is a special privilege which the good man enjoys that he is never afflicted but with an eye to his improvement.

4 . The severest season of trial through which a follower of God may be called to pass is certain to have an end.

5 . The sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

6 . The only way to happiness for man is the way of God.

7 . It is a sure mark of wisdom to prefer God's commandment to the wishes or resolves of self.