IN the Book of Job we have one of the most remarkable accounts on record of resignation to God’s will in the face of the most desolating and upsetting circumstances that could meet a child of God in this world. It was not a single blow that smote the patriarch but a series, all the more trying as they fell upon him when he was in the midst of abounding prosperity. Bereft of all his possessions and his family snatched from him he stands before us as one who might well call forth our pity. But the Book of Job was not written to awaken pity for a sorely stricken man. Its message is forever of interest to the Church of God. To the careful reader, no doubt, the figure of Job in the midst of the desolation that sweeps around him must of necessity arrest his attention and command his sympathy. But while the narrative sets before us the endurance of one who was faced with a series of calamities that seldom befall the lot of men and a faith that seemed to burn brighter the fiercer the tempest raged yet there is something more in this wonderful book. For in it there is presented to us one of the great mysteries of the providence of God towards His people. The correct solution to a seemingly insoluble problem is answered in the book and the answer is God’s. The book opens with a brief account of the character of Job and his great possessions; this is followed by the appearance of Satan on the scene whom the Lord addresses as follows: “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” This question at once awakens in the mind of the Arch-Enemy his hatred to all who belong
to God and he does not hesitate to say that Job is not disinterested in his integrity. But his evil surmising does not stop there. He boldly asserts that if God, instead of blessing His servant as He has hitherto done, would “put forth His hand and touch all that he hath . . . he will curse thee to thy face.” Satan’s lying charge is to be put to the test and the Church of God in all ages is to witness a contest in which it looks like the suffering one is to be overcome in the tremendous onset. Satan receives permission to begin his attack (he could not touch Job without that permission)—”Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand.” No sooner was permission given than Satan struck with a series of blows that were intended to shake to its foundations the faith of the patriarch in his God and if possible show to men that this faith was a weak and useless thing in the hour of trial. As each messenger came with his doleful news to the patriarch one cannot help picturing him as a giant oak smitten by the storms with such vehemence that it must be torn up by the roots. But the victory is not to be Satan’s—faith is not the weak and worthless thing the Devil would make men believe it is. This heavenly grace is shown us as it weathers the storm, growing stronger, and as it endures the hot furnace, growing brighter and brighter. When the last messenger came with his sad tidings Job arose and rent his mantle and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground and worshipped saying: “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.” Job thus acknowledges that his present position was no worse than when he came into the world; neither was it any worse than when he would leave it as far as possession of the blessings he had enjoyed were concerned. But the patriarch’s words are not the confession of the unbelieving fatalist; there is the acknowledgment that all the gifts he had lost were given him of God—it was the Lord that gave. We make bold to say that failure to emphasise this point in the patriarch’s acknowledgment robs it of much of its beautiful spirit of resignation. Instead of fixing his eyes on what he had lost he turns his eyes to the God from whom he had received all these blessings. Job thus rightly stresses the point that all the blessings we possess in this world come
from God and should we lose any of them or all of them then we have no good ground to complain—at the worst when all is gone we are no worse than when we came into the world. This was Job’s philosophy of life which was never yet taught in any of the devil’s colleges and the assertion of which by the lips of the stricken patriarch must at the first stage of the onset have been peculiarly disconcerting to Satan. There is something truly enobling in the utterance—it was the Lord who gave. God was only taking back what He had given and why should a man with such a view of God complain? There is no murmur, no complaint—any secret tendency, if there was such, was silenced and we hear Job saying: “Blessed be the name of the Lord” and we witness a stricken saint worshipping his God. Satan’s lie concerning Job is thus exposed and the character of the tried one comes unscathed through the terrible ordeal. The attempt so far to damage the reputation of Job has miserably failed—”in all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly.” But Satan was not by any means at the end of his resources and in some respects the succeeding onsets were more terrible than the first. Smitten with boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown his wife made to him the terrible suggestion to curse God and die. Satan’s subtlety is seen here in the choice of the instrument he makes use of and his selection of Job’s condition labouring under sore bodily affliction as he was. Then his friends hearing of his sad plight came to mourn with him and to comfort him. His lamentable condition moved them deeply—”they lifted up their voice and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.” So overcome were they that for seven days and seven nights they spoke not a word to him. We are not to think that this grief was a sham and that its outward manifestations were artificial and hypocritical. Job’s condition evidently was so heart-appealing that they could not look on unmoved. Their silence was in keeping with the sad circumstances and it would have been to their own credit had it continued much longer than it did and also more to Job’s comfort. When they did break the long silence they soon revealed what were their thoughts as they viewed the pitiable condition of their friend. They had got hold of a certain truth in God’s
over-ruling providence, viz., that great sinning is visited by sore punishment and this truth they were to press with remorseless logic utterly regardless as to whether it had any bearing on the particular case before them or not. Job must have committed some extraordinary sin ere these unheard of afflictions could have befallen him. Against this the conscience of Job protested with a vehemence that staggered his friends. This led them to say things about Job that had no foundation in fact and which were the fruits of their own fertile imagination. The tender solicitude for their suffering friend as expressed in their early speeches was soon to give place to words of bitterness and charges unjust and cruel fell from lips that began by blessing and ended in cursing. It was quite true that God does often visit great sinning with severe punishment but they erred in concluding that all affliction is punishment for gross transgression. They fell into the same error as the disciples when they asked their Lord: “Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John ix., 2). A man may be guilty of many things and yet be entirely innocent of certain matters with which he is wrongfully charged. This accounts for such expressions in the Psalms and in the speeches of Job that seem to indicate that the arraigned persons are taking up a position inconsistent with what they are as fallen creatures. When Job said “My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go; my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live,” we have not here the words of a man sheltering himself behind the shield of his self-righteousness but the attitude of one rebutting charges of which he was innocent. Job was no self-righteous hypocrite without any consciousness of manifold transgressions; his speeches make that quite plain. A careful examination and just appreciation of the circumstances will make it quite clear that the righteous are justified in vindicating their integrity when unjust charges are brought against them. At the same time many would be ready to say that Job had the worst of the argument and that his friends left the field as masters of the debate. Such an estimation shows how incapable many are in accepting a plausibly presented case which has one fatal and damaging defect, viz., that is quite false. In this particular case the world would be ready to say that Job was speaking
as a self-righteous man who had no sense of his imperfections; such a verdict, as we have seen, would be monstrously unjust. In the wordy ordeal with his friends Job evidently spoke unadvisedly with his lips at least that seems to be the import of the Lord’s words to him: “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” This divine challenge had a sobering and humbling effect upon Job and accomplished in a moment what the long speeches of his friends utterly failed to do. “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth,” and again, “wherefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes”—such were the confessions that came from the lips of Job when brought face to face with the Holy One of Israel. Job’s friends are now summoned before the bar and God’s sentence must have been very disconcerting to men who probably had in their own imagination made a case against Job so flawless in its logical presentation that it was simply irrefutable. The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite who spoke much: “My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.” That does not mean that all they said was wrong and false for no one can read these speeches without being impressed with many beautiful and scriptural truths contained in them. But Job’s friends in their lengthy discourses failed utterly to understand that God’s purpose in dealing with Job was entirely different to what they so persistently argued it to be. Job came out of the terrible ordeal after Satan had done his utmost, refined in the furnace of affliction, and he who uttered the words so full of resignation—”The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”—has the Holy Spirit’s record concerning him: “So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.”
He, who seeth perfectly through all your evils, and knoweth the frame and constitution of your nature, and what is most healthful for your soul, holdeth every cup of affliction to your head, with His own gracious hand. Never believe that your tender-hearted Saviour will mix that cup with one drachm-weight of poison. Drink, then, with the patience of the saints, and the God of patience bless your physic!—Samuel Rutherford.