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“Questions and Answers, Part VII” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd4qtmDGIWQ
We are continuing in our Series, “Questions and Answers.” Tonight, I will present to you, Installment 7. Last week we examined the opening questions in the Book of Job in which we read God first asking in Job 1:8: “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” Satan replied with a question of his own in verse 9: “Doth Job fear God for nought?” Through the rest of the discussion, we examined many facets of these opening questions, ending with God's assurance that He would either empower us to resist temptation, or not allow us to be subjected to the temptations that we could bear.
Satan's initial assault on Job limited him to all that Job had. Satan could not touch him personally, but he pulled out all the stops: All of Job's property was destroyed, all of his flocks and herds were killed or stolen, and all ten of his children were killed when a mighty wind destroyed the house of one of his sons were they had all gathered together. We need to keep in mind two basic things when we read this account:
First, Satan hates all of mankind with a jealous, implacable and insatiable rage. But second, and more important, God draws a line in the sand where Satan's wrath against us is concerned, and when He does, Satan cannot cross it. Make no mistake: Spiritual warfare exists. We are in the battle, we are targeted by the enemy's use of strangers, co-workers and even family to get to us. We wrestle not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). But never forget that, ultimately, this is not a warfare between equals. Yes, Satan has power, but God is Supreme, and He is always in control... period.
Job responded to all of the catastrophe that befell him in a way Satan could not fathom. He said in Job 1:21: “Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” But, remember, Job, himself, was personally unscathed. So in their next conversation in chapter 2, God asks Satan in Job 2:3: “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
Satan goes to a vicious Plan B: “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life” (Job 2:3-6).
The Expositor's Bible says, “As the drama proceeds to unfold the conflict between Divine grace in the human soul and those chaotic influences which hold the mind in doubt or drag it back into denial, Job becomes a type of the righteous sufferer, the servant of God in the hot furnace of affliction. All true poetry runs thus into the typical. The interest of the movement depends on the representative character of the life, passionate in jealousy, indignation, grief, or ambition, pressing on exultantly to unheard of success, borne down into the deepest circles of woe.
Here it is not simply a man’s constancy that has to be established, but God’s truth against the Adversary’s lie; the "everlasting yea" against the negations that make all life and virtue seem the mere blossoming of dust. Job has to pass through profoundest trouble, that the drama may exhaust the possibilities of doubt, and lead the faith of man towards liberty. Yet the typical is based on the real; and the conflict here described has gone on first in the experience of the author. Not from the outside, but from his own life has he painted the sorrows and struggles of a soul urged to the brink of that precipice beyond which lies the blank darkness of the abyss.
There are men in whom the sorrows of a whole people and of a whole age seem to concentrate. They suffer with their fellow men that all may find a way of hope. Not unconsciously, but with the most vivid sense of duty, a Divine necessity brought to their door, they must undergo all the anguish and hew a track through the dense forest to the light beyond. Such a man in his age was the writer of this book. And when he now proceeds to the second stage of Job’s affliction every touch appears to show that, not merely in imagination, but substantially he endured the trials which he paints. It is his passion that strives and cries, his sorrowful soul that longs for death.
A second scene in heaven is presented to our view. The Satan appears as before with the "sons of the Elohim," is asked by the Most High whence he has come, and replies in the language previously used. Again he has been abroad amongst men in his restless search for evil. The challenge of God to the Adversary regarding Job is also repeated; but now it has an addition: "Still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause." The expression "although thou movedst me against him" is startling. Is it an admission after all that the Almighty can be moved by any consideration less than pure right, or to act in any way to the disadvantage or hurt of His servant?
Such an interpretation would exclude the idea of supreme power, wisdom, and righteousness which unquestionably governs the book from first to last. The words really imply a charge against the Adversary of malicious untruth. The saying of the Almighty is ironical, as Schultens points out: "Although thou, forsooth, didst incite Me against him." He who flings sharp javelins of detraction is pierced with a sharper javelin of judgment. Yet he goes on with his attempt to ruin Job, and prove his own penetration the keenest in the universe.
And now he pleads that it is the way of men to care more for themselves, their own health and comfort, than for anything else. Bereavement and poverty may be like arrows that glance off from polished armour. Let disease and bodily pain attack himself, and a man will show what is really in his heart. "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for himself. But put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce Thee openly."
The proverb put into Satan’s mouth carries a plain enough meaning, and yet is not literally easy to interpret. The sense will be clear if we translate it "Hide for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for himself." The hide of an animal, lion or sheep, which a man wears for clothing will be given up to save his own body. A valued article of property often, it will be promptly renounced when life is in danger; the man will flee away naked. In like manner all possessions will be abandoned to keep one’s self unharmed.
True enough in a sense, true enough to be used as a proverb, for proverbs often express a generalisation of the earthly prudence not, of the higher ideal, the saying, nevertheless, is in Satan’s use of it a lie-that is, if he includes the children when he says, "all that a man hath will he give for himself." Job would have died for his children. Many a father and mother, with far less pride in their children than Job had in his, would die for them. Possessions indeed, mere worldly gear, find their real value or worthlessness when weighed against life, and human love has Divine depths which a sneering devil cannot see.
The portraiture of soulless human beings is one of the recent experiments in fictitious literature, and it may have some justification; when the design is to show the dreadful issue of unmitigated selfishness, a distinctly moral purpose. If, on the other hand, "art for art’s sake" is the plea, and the writer’s skill in painting the vacant ribs of death is used with a sinister reflection on human nature as a whole, the approach to Satan’s temper marks the degradation of literature. Christian faith clings to the hope that Divine grace may create a soul in the ghastly skeleton.
The Adversary gloats over the lifeless picture of his own imagining and affirms that man can never be animated by the love of God. The problem which the Satan of Job long ago presented haunts the mind of our age. It is one of those ominous symptoms that point to times of trial in which the experience of humanity may resemble the typical affliction and desperate struggle of the man of Uz.
A grim possibility of truth lies in the taunt of Satan that, if Job’s flesh and bone are touched, he will renounce God openly. The test of sore disease is more trying than loss of wealth at least. And, besides, bodily affliction, added to the rest, will carry Job into yet another region of vital experience. Therefore it is the will of God to send it. Again Satan is the instrument, and the permission is given, "Behold, he is in thine hand: only save his life-imperil not his life." Here, as before, when causes are to be brought into operation that are obscure and may appear to involve harshness, the Adversary is the intermediary agent.
On the face of the drama a certain formal deference is paid to the opinion that God cannot inflict pain on those whom He loves. But for a short time only is the responsibility, so to speak, of afflicting Job partly removed from the Almighty to Satan. At this point the Adversary disappears; and henceforth God is acknowledged to have sent the disease as well as all the other afflictions to His servant. It is only in a poetic sense that Satan is represented as wielding natural forces and sowing the seeds of disease; the writer has no theory and needs no theory of malignant activity. He knows that "all is of God."
Time has passed sufficient for the realisation by Job of his poverty and bereavement. The sense of desolation has settled on his soul as morning after morning dawned, week after week went by, emptied of the loving voices he used to hear, and the delightful and honourable tasks that used to engage him. In sympathy with the exhausted mind, the body has become languid, and the change from sufficiency of the best food to something like starvation gives the germs of disease an easy hold. He is stricken with elephantiasis, one of the most terrible forms of leprosy, a tedious malady attended with intolerable irritation and loathsome ulcers.
The disfigured face, the blackened body, soon reveal the nature of the infection; and he is forthwith carried out according to the invariable custom and laid on the heap of refuse, chiefly burnt litter, which has accumulated near his dwelling. In Arab villages this mezbele is often a mound of considerable size, where, if any breath of wind is blowing, the full benefit of its coolness can be enjoyed. It is the common playground of the children, "and there the outcast, who has been stricken with some loathsome malady, and is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, lays himself down, begging alms of the passers by, by day, and by night sheltering himself among the ashes which the heat of the sun has warmed."
At the beginning Job was seen in the full stateliness of Oriental life: now the contrasting misery of it appears, the abjectness into which it may rapidly fall. Without proper medical skill or appliances, the houses no way adapted for a case of disease like Job’s, the wealthiest pass like the poorest into what appears the nadir of existence. Now at length the trial of faithfulness is in the way of being perfected. If the helplessness, the torment of disease, the misery of this abject state do not move his mind from its trust in God, he will indeed be a bulwark of religion against the atheism of the world.
But in what form does the question of Job’s continued fidelity present itself now to the mind of the writer? Singularly, as a question regarding his integrity. From the general wreck one life has been spared, that of Job’s wife. To her it appears that the wrath of the Almighty has been launched against her husband, and all that prevents him from finding refuge in death from the horrors of lingering disease is his integrity. If he maintains the pious resignation he showed under the first afflictions and during the early stages of his malady, he will have to suffer on. But it will be better to die at once. "Why," she asks, "dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? Renounce God, and die."
It is a different note from that which runs through the controversy between Job and his friends. Always on his integrity he takes his stand; against his right to affirm it they direct their arguments. They do not insist on the duty of a man under all circumstances to believe in God and submit to His will. Their sole concern is to prove that Job has not been sincere and faithful and deserving of acceptance before God. But his wife knows him to have been righteous and pious; and that, she thinks, will serve him no longer. Let him abandon his integrity; renounce God. On two sides the sufferer is plied. But he does not waver. Between the two he stands, a man who has integrity and will keep it till he die.
The accusations of Satan, turning on the question whether Job was sincere in religion or one who served God for what he got, prepare us to understand why his integrity is made the hinge of the debate. To Job his upright obedience was the heart of his life, and it alone made his indefeasible claim on God. But faith, not obedience, is the only real claim a man can advance. And the connection is to be found in this way. As a man perfect and upright, who feared God and eschewed evil, Job enjoyed the approval of his conscience and the sense of Divine favour. His life had been rooted in the steady assurance that the Almighty was his friend.
He had walked in freedom and joy, cared for by the providence of the Eternal, guarded by His love, his soul at peace with that Divine Lawgiver whose will he did. His faith rested like an arch on two piers-one, his own righteousness which God had inspired; the other, the righteousness of God which his own reflected. If it were proved that he had not been righteous, his belief that God had been guarding him, teaching him, filling his soul with light, would break under him like a withered branch.
If he had not been righteous indeed, he could not know what righteousness is, he could not know whether God is righteous or not, he could not know God nor trust in Him.
If the justice we know is not a {foreshadowing} of Divine justice, if the righteousness we do is not taught us by God, of the same kind as His, if loving justice and doing righteousness we are not showing faith in God, if renouncing all for the right, clinging to it though the heavens should fall, we are not in touch with the Highest, then there is no basis for faith, no link between our human life and the Eternal. All must go if these deep principles of morality and religion are not to be trusted. What a man knows of the just and good by clinging to it, suffering for it, rejoicing in it, is indeed the anchor that keeps him from being swept into the waste of waters.
John Gill writes, “and still he holdeth fast his integrity. The first man Adam was made upright, but by sinning he lost his integrity, and since the fall there is none in man naturally; it is only to be found in regenerate and renewed persons, who have right spirits renewed in them; by which principle of grace wrought in them they become upright in heart, and walk uprightly. The word used signifies "perfection,” which Job had not in himself, but in Christ; though it may denote the truth and sincerity of his grace, and the uprightness of his walk, and the simplicity of his conversation, the bias of his mind, and the tenor of his conduct and behaviour towards God and men;
this principle he retained, this frame and disposition of soul continued with him, and he acted up to it in all things; he held fast his faith and confidence in the Lord his God, and he professed his cordial love and sincere affection for God, and his filial fear and reverence of him; and this he did still, notwithstanding all the assaults and temptations of Satan, and all the sore afflictions and trials he met with; an instance this of persevering grace, and of the truth of what Job after expresses, and this he did, even says the Lord to Satan:
although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause; not that Satan could work upon God as he does upon men, both good and bad, especially the latter; nor could he so work upon him as to cause him to change his mind and will, who is unchangeable in his nature and purposes; but the sense is, he made a motion to him, he proposed it, requested and entreated, and did not barely propose it, but urged it with importunity, was very solicitous to have it done; and he prevailed and succeeded according to God's own determinate counsel and will, though only in part; for he moved him to "destroy him", himself, his body, if not his soul;
for this roaring lion seeks to devour men, even the sheep and lambs of Christ's flock: or "to swallow him up,” as the word signifies; that he might be delivered to him, who would make but one morsel of him, swallow him up alive, as a lion any creature, or any other beast of prey. We say of a man, when he has lost his substance, that he is undone; and in this sense Job was destroyed or undone, for he had lost his all: and this motion was made "without cause", there was no just reason for it;
what Satan suggested, and the calumny he cast upon Job, was not supported by him, he could give no proof nor evidence of it; and it was in the issue and event "in vain", as the word may be rendered; for he did not appear, notwithstanding all that was done to him, to be the man Satan said he was, nor to do the things, or say the words, Satan said he would.
תמתו του τελειοτητος, Polychronius in Drusius; "perfectionem suam", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus. לבלעו "ad deglutiendum eum", Montanus; "ad illum absorbendum", Schultens; "ut absorberem eum", Michaelis. חנם διακενης, Sept. "frustra", V. L. Junius & Tremellius”
Matthew Henry writes, “See, 1. How Satan is condemned for his allegations against Job: “Thou movedst me against him, as an accuser, to destroy him without cause.” Or, “Thou in vain movedst me to destroy him, for I will never do that.” Good men, when they are cast down, are not destroyed. How well is it for us that neither men nor devils are to be our judges, for perhaps they would destroy us, right or wrong; but our judgment proceeds from the Lord, whose judgment never errs nor is biassed.
2. How Job is commended for his constancy notwithstanding the attacks made upon him:
“Still he holds fast his integrity, as his weapon, and thou canst not disarm him - as his treasure, and thou canst not rob him of that; nay, thy endeavours to do it make him hold it the faster; instead of losing ground by the temptation, he gets ground.” God speaks of it with wonder, and pleasure, and something of triumph in the power of his own grace; Still he holds fast his integrity. Thus the trial of Job's faith was found to his praise and honour, 1Pe_1:7. Constancy crowns integrity.
III. The accusation further prosecuted. What excuse can Satan make for the failure of his former attempt? What can he say to {rationalize} it, when he had been so very confident that he should gain his point? Why, truly, he has this to say, Skin for skin, and all that a man has, will he give for his life. Something of truth there is in this, that self-love and self-preservation are very powerful commanding principles in the hearts of men. Men love themselves better than their nearest relations, even their children, that are parts of themselves, will not only venture, but give, their estates to save their lives.
A challenge given to make a further trial of Job's integrity: “Put forth thy hand now (for I find my hand too short to reach him, and too weak to hurt him) and touch his bone and his flesh (that is with him the only tender part, make him sick with smiting him, and then, I dare say, he will curse thee to thy face, and let go his integrity.” Satan knew it, and we find it by experience, that nothing is more likely to ruffle the thoughts and put the mind into disorder than acute pain and distemper of body. There is no disputing against sense. St. Paul himself had much ado to bear a thorn in the flesh, nor could he have borne it without special grace from Christ.
John Gill writes of God's response to Satan, and the limtations He imposed on how far Satan could go: “And the Lord said unto Satan, behold, he is in thine hand,.... Well may a behold be prefixed to this, it being matter of wonder and astonishment that a saint and servant of God should be permitted to be in the hand of Satan; which yet must not be so understood; as if he was off of, and no more upon the heart of God; or as if he was out of the hands of God, and out of the hands of Christ; or as if he was become Satan's property, and a child of his; for neither of these can be true of a good man:
nothing can separate him from the love of God; not Satan and all his principalities and powers; nor can men or devils pluck them out of his hands, nor out of the hands of his son; nor can those who are the children of God be any more the servants of sin, or the vassals of Satan; or in other words, nor can any of them be a child of God one day, and a child of the devil the next, which is the divinity of some men: nor is the sense of this passage, that Satan had leave to do with Job as he pleased, for then he would have utterly destroyed him; but the power granted him was a limited one, as follows:
but save his life: or "soul;” which some understand of his rational soul, that which remains after death, and which, Maimonides observes, Satan has no power over; and according to some the meaning is, do not disturb his mind to distraction, so as to deprive him of his senses, and of the exercise of his rational powers, which through the influence of Satan men have sometimes lost; this is barred against in the permission granted; for otherwise it would not have been a proper trial of Job's integrity; for, should he have been deprived of his reason, and uttered ever such bad things, it would have been no proof of his insincerity;
as may be observed in good men in a delirium, they will utter bad words, and do or attempt to do bad things, which is not to be ascribed to their want of grace, but to their want of reason: but rather "life" is meant; not Job's spiritual life, for that was in no danger of being lost; all the devils in hell cannot deprive a truly good man of his spiritual life; grace in him is a well of living water, springing: up to eternal life; he can never die the second death; his life is hid with Christ in God, and is bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord his God, who so is out of the reach of Satan;
but corporeal life, which the devil by permission may take away, and is said to have the power of death, which by leave he exercised over men, but here he is restrained from it: Job's life must be spared, that it might fully appear he got the victory over Satan, and stood in his integrity; and that he might still glorify God in a course of afflictions he was yet to endure, in the exercise of his faith, hope, love, patience, humility, submission, and resignation of his will to God; and besides, his appointed time was not come, he had many more days, months, and years, the number of which were with God, to live in the world, as he accordingly did.
את נפשו "animum ejus", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocccius, Schmidt, Schultens. (z) Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c. 22. p. 398.
V. A permission granted to Satan to make this trial. Satan would have had God put forth his hand and do it; but he afflicts not willingly, nor takes any pleasure in grieving the children of men, much less his own children (Lam_3:33), and therefore, if it must be done, let Satan do it, who delights in such work: “He is in thy hand, do thy worst with him; but with a proviso and limitation, only save his life, or his soul. Afflict him, but not to death.” Satan hunted for the precious life, would have taken that if he might, in hopes that dying agonies would force Job to curse his God; but God had mercy in store for Job after this trial, and therefore he must survive it, and, however he is afflicted, must have his life given him for a prey. If God did not chain up the roaring lion, how soon would he devour us!”
As before in his first assault, Satan pulls out all the stops as, this time, he focuses mad fury upon on Job personally. He is forbidden to take his life, but his original purpose was, all along, to show that now that God's Divine Hedge is gone also from his health and well-being, and he is in agonizing pain, Job will curse God to His face. We read next of Satan putting Plan B into effect: “So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes” (Job 2:7-8).
Albert Barnes writes of the Satan's merciless, all-out attack on Job: And smote Job with sore boils - The English word boil denotes the well-known turnout upon the flesh, accompanied with severe inflammation; a sore angry swelling. “Webster.” Dr. Good renders it “a burning ulceration.” The Vulgate translates it, “ulcere pessimo.” The Septuagint, “with a foul ulcer.” The Hebrew word means a burning sore; an inflamed ulcer, a bile. “Gesenius” is derived from an obsolete root, retained in Arabic, and meaning to be hot or inflamed. It is translated “bile” or “boil,” in Exodus, Leviticus, 2 Kings and Isaiah, and “botch,” Deuteronomy, “the botch of Egypt,” some species of leprosy, undoubtedly, which prevailed there.
It has been commonly supposed that the disease of Job was a species of black leprosy commonly called “elephantiasis,” which prevails much in Egypt. The disease of Job seems to have been a universal ulcer; producing an eruption over his entire person, and attended with violent pain, and constant restlessness. It affects the whole body; the bones as well as the skin are covered with spots and tumors, at first red, but afterward black. It should be added that the leprosy in all its forms involved the necessity of a separation from society; and all the circumstances attending this calamity were such as deeply to humble a man of the former rank and dignity of Job.”
Job's Wife asks the next question in Job 2:9: “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.”
The Preacher's Homiletical writes, “Amazed at her husband’s sufferings and piety. Herself already tempted and overcome. Spared by Satan to and him in his attempts upon her husband. Another of his cruel mercies. She who should have been a comforter now becomes a tormentor. Her former piety now staggered at her husband’s trials. Weak professors readily offended. The case of Adam and Eve expected to be repeated. Satan wise in selecting his instruments. 1. Those who full themselves usually employed in tempting others. 2. Strongest temptations and keenest triais often from nearest friends.
“Dost thou still retain thine integrity?” Already affirmed by God. What is highly esteemed by God often reproached by man, and vice versa . Job, in his wife’s eyes, “perversely righteous and absurdly good” [Sir R. Blackmore]. Perseverance in piety under heavy crosses a mystery to the world.—“Curse God and die.” Three horrid temptations—infidelity, blasphemy, and despair. Probably — “Renounce God, who treats you so vilely.” Includes the idea of uttered reproach and blasphemy.
Job is urged by his wife to fulfil Satan’s grand desire. 1. Satan’s great work to set men against their Maker and His service. 2. His fiercest temptations often reserved for the time of greatest affliction. 3. Satan tempts men to put the worst construction on God’s dealings, and prompts to the worst means of relief. Points Job to the gulf of Atheism as the only refuge [Davidson]. 4. The holiest saints liable to the most horrid and blasphemous temptations. 5. The flesh in ourselves and others always an antagonist to faith and holiness.
“And die.” As the end of all your trouble. So Satan tempted Saul, Ahithopel, and Judas Iscariot. No suggestion so horrid but Satan may inject it into a believing mind. Job afterwards still pressed with the same temptation to suicide (Job_7:15). One of Satan’s lies, that death ends all. His object to make men die in an act of sin, without time or opportunity for repentance. His friendliest proposals tend to damnation and destruction. Would make men imitators of his blasphemy and partakers of his despair.”
Job responds to her in the Job 2:10 with the final question, tonight: “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”
The Preacher's Homiletical continues, “Job’s continued patience and piety: “But he said unto her.” He did not curse God, and then use Adam’s excuse (in Genesis 3:12 “The woman You gave me...) —“Thou speakest,” Job's reproof is with mingled gentleness and firmness. So Christ reproved Peter (in Matthew 16:23). “As one.” A gentle form of reproof. Husbands are to love their wives, and not be bitter against them (as we read in Colossians 3:19). No fierce or furious language here.
“As one of the foolish women speaketh.” “Foolish,” in the Old Testament, used for “sinful or ungodly.” The language of Job’s wife, that of foolish, profane, wicked women. 1. The part of a fool to deny God and reproach His Providence. 2. Folly to judge of a man’s condition from God’s outward dealings with him. 3. Unworthy thoughts of God the mark of a carnal, foolish spirit. 4. Sin not only vile but foolish,—as truly opposed to man’s interests as to God’s honour. 5. Impatience and passion under trouble the greatest foolishness. Idolaters are wont to reproach their gods in misfortune.
“What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” What is sinful is to be put down, not with rage but with reason. Satan’s horrid and blasphemous temptations are not to be listened to for a moment. Sharp reproof consistent with love and sometimes required by it. He who knows not how to be angry knows not how to love [Augustine.]—“Shall we receive good at the hand of God?” Present miseries not to obliterate past mercies. The greatest sufferer already the recipient of unnumbered benefits. God’s mercies “new every morning.” To sinners all is mercy on this side of hell. Mercy written on every sunbeam that gilds and gladdens the earth.
“And shall we not receive evil also?” “Evil” put for affliction and adversity. All comforts and no crosses, unreasonable to expect and undesirable to receive. Evil as well as good to be not only expected, but thankfully accepted. The question points to the manner of receiving, as well as the matter received. Both equally dispensed by God, therefore both to be reverentially accepted by us.
Both worthy of God to dispense, and beneficial for us to receive. The part of faith and love, to accept troubles as from a Father’s hand. The true spirit of adoption, to kiss the rod and the hand that holds it. Thankfully to accept of good is merely human, thankfully to accept of evil is Divine. In every thing to give thanks, God’s will in Christ concerning us.
Job here is greater than his miseries. More than a conqueror. One of heaven’s as well as earth’s heroes.—“In all this...” his increased calamities as well as his wife’s taunts and temptations. Job is now lying under a quaternion of troubles—adversity, bereavement, disease, and reproach. More, however, yet remained for Satan to inflict and for Job to suffer. Continuance of suffering is often much more trying than suffering itself. Inward affliction to be added to the outward. Much more trying. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear? A hint, perhaps, here given of further trial, with a less gratifying result.
“Sinned not with his lips.” Vented no reflection on God’s character and procedure. The greatest temptation in such circumstances to sin with the lips. The thing Satan desired, endeavoured after, and waited for. The temptation to murmur present, but resisted and repressed. Job still by grace a conqueror over corrupt nature. Not always thus walking on the swelling waters of innate corruption.
Man’s weakness to be exhibited, even in a state of grace. Hitherto Job shown to be the “perfect man” God declared him to be. The Old Testament ideal of a perfect man and a suffering saint. An illustrious type of Christ in His suffering and patience. The type afterwards fails, that in all things Christ may have the pre-eminence.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Questions and Answers, Part VII.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on October 17th, 2018