Job 1:14

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"And there came a messenger unto Job" Job 1:14

As a matter of literal interpretation this was simple enough; but regarded suggestively the thought admits of large and useful expansion. Messengers are always coming to men; if not living messengers, living messages impulses, words of exhortation, encouragement, warning, the whole ministry of truth and light. A voice came to Samuel in the darkness; we have seen already in earlier studies how many anonymous ministries there are in life, men coming in the darkness, figures appearing in visions, voices heard in dreams, events forcing themselves upon religious attention. There are many practical messengers coming to the cry of the heart every day: messengers of poverty, pain, bereavement; men requiring intellectual help, spiritual comfort, commercial direction: children needing to be trained, nurtured, directed, stimulated in right paths, protected from diabolical assaults. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Providence itself is a great messenger and a great message. If we choose to play the fool we can deafen ourselves to every voice and blind ourselves to every token: we can go up and down the earth saying that we hear nothing, see nothing; that we are practical, and that we pay no attention to the emotions of the soul, the peculiar actions that stir the inner being. That certainly is one way of living; it is the poorest, meanest way of all; it is the way of the flower that has but a small root, and because there is no deepness of earth it will soon wither away. He who dwells in daily communion with God fears no messenger who can come to him, even with evil news. The fear of God takes away all other fear. The surprise of the saintly soul is but a superficial or transient wonder; it does not affect the fountain and reality of his faith. "If thou forbear to deliver him that is drawn unto death, God will judge thee; if thou sayest, Behold, I knew it not, he that searcheth the heart will bring thee to the judgment seat." To the man who listens there is many an appeal; to the man who is wakeful there is many a passing vision from which he can learn abiding truths. A messenger has come to every one of us to declare the everlasting gospel. He flies abroad in the midst of heaven; he proclaims his truth regardless of age, condition, or estate; his message is to every creature under heaven: it is a message charged with good news, meant to redeem and save and bless the heart. Happy is the man who sees this messenger, and hears him, and provides for him a guest-chamber in his heart.