Sermon

By Rev NEIL MACINTYRE, Edinburgh.
“Then Job answered and said, even to-day is my complaint bitter, my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Oh! that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat,” etc. (Job xxiii. 1).

(1.) Job was a great and godly man. We have it on God’s authority “that there was none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil.” He was great in many respects, great in godliness, in patience, in troubles and in wealth.

(2.) It is difficult to say when he lived. Some hold that he was a contemporary of Isaac and that he was of the posterity of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. Nahor had a son called Uz who named the land Uz after his own name. Job undoubtedly lived in that land. However, we have no positive proof when he lived.

(3.) In the preceding chapters we have an account of his three friends coming to comfort him but instead of proving his friends they turned to be his enemies. Satan used them with all his other cruel instruments and devices to afflict Job. They accused him of wickedness and hypocrisy and that it was on account of his wickedness that all these sore afflictions came upon him. In spite of all that Satan and men could do and say they could not deprive Job of his hope. His hope was deeper and better founded than that his enemies could deprive him of it. “I know,” he said, “that my Redeemer liveth.” He wished that “these words were now written, that they were printed in a book, that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever.” Why did he wish this? Probably for the reason that other poor, tried, believers coming after him might know and find comfort in the fact that in his severe trials he had hope.

(4.) These friends accused him of complaining more than he should and that his complaints were heavier than his stroke. Job does not deny but he complains but holds that “his stroke is heavier than his groaning.” Let us notice—

I. Job’s complaint—“Even to-day is my complaint bitter.”

II. His desire—“Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.”

III. His purpose if He found Him—”I would come even to His seat, I would order my cause before Him and fill my mouth with arguments.”

IV. His hope—”Will He plead against me with His great power? No, but He would put strength in me.”

I. Job’s complaint—“Even to-day is my complaint bitter.”

It is not often the case with men that their stroke is heavier than their groans. It is the very opposite. We are ready to complain for very little; and when we do, God may visit us with strokes which will give us reason to groan. Just like a father who would chastise his child who cried for no cause, and say, “you may now cry for something.” That was not the case with Job: “His stroke was heavier than his groaning.” If any man had reason to complain, he had. Despoiled in one day of all his substance, family, health, and friends, covered with sore boils from head to foot, sitting among the ashes, scraping himself with a potsherd. He might well say: “I am the man who hath seen affliction by the rod of His mouth; He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light.” If the question were asked of worldly men: Why did Job complain? their answer probably would be: No wonder though he complained having lost 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 she asses. But there is not a word about these things in his complaint. When deprived of all these, he did not complain but said: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” “What,” he said to his wife, “shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” What then was his bitter complaint? It was that God was hiding His face from him.” “When thou didst hide thy face I was troubled” (Ps. xxx. 7). Of all the troubles that may afflict the child of God this is the sorest. If he had the light of God’s countenance shining upon his tabernacle in his troubles he could bear other things. It was this that made Job’s stroke so heavy and his complaint so bitter; therefore, he cries: “Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.”

II. His desire—“Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.”

1. We notice that he does not mention by name the person whom he desires to find. This was a common way the Lord’s people had in expressing themselves. “Saw ye,” said the church, “Him whom my soul loveth” (Song of Solomon iii. 3). Paul says: “For I know whom I have believed” (II. Tim. i. 12). Both the Church and Paul knew that it was quite unnecessary to mention His name for that every child of God to the end of time would understand.

2. Job is here complaining of God’s absence—”O! that I knew where I might find Him.” David said: “From thy Spirit whither shall I go, or from thy presence fly” (Ps. cxxxix. 7). Were David and Job of a different mind regarding God’s presence? No! Job knew as well as David that he could not get away from God’s essential presence. David, on the other hand, would well understand what Job meant. The difference is that Job speaks of God’s gracious while David speaks of His essential presence. They both could make the distinction between the two. When the child of God has His gracious presence, whatever trials and troubles may meet him he could bear them with resignation. This was very clearly seen in the case of the three young men in Babylon in the fiery furnace. But when He hides His face then are they troubled. This was the case with Job.

3. Where, it may be asked, is this person who has this bitter complaint and earnest desire to be found? He is only to be found in one place and in a particular condition.
   (a) If you should go to heaven and come back to this earth and that you were asked: Did you hear any in heaven having this complaint, ‘Oh! that I knew where I might find Him’? No, you would answer, there is no such complaint in heaven. They never lose His presence there. They behold His face continually. Their sun shall not go down. They had their days of desertion while in this world but now they shall never again lose His presence or doubt their interest in Him.
   (b) Should you go to the lost in hell would you hear this complaint there? No, you would hear much weeping and wailing and crying: Oh! that I could find a place where I could get out of God’s sight, but none saying, Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.
   (c) Go to the world and what should you find there? They are concerned about their business, their pleasures, and vanities. Their chief concern is: What shall I eat and what shall I drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed? but no thought about the eternal interests of their immortal souls.
   (d) Where then is the person to be found? and what is his condition? The language can only be applied to one person in the world and that is the child of God who experienced God’s gracious presence and fellowship but now has to mourn His absence. It is when God hides His face that he has this bitter cry: “Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.” Now, it is true that one cannot miss that which he never possessed and that makes the difference between the hypocrite and the true child of God. The hypocrite, whatever he may profess, never experienced the Lord’s gracious presence and, therefore, cannot miss it but the true believer enjoyed His favour and fellowship and mourns over God’s absence. Like Jeremiah: “The Comforter who shall relieve my soul is far from me” (Lam. i. 16). So the cry of the poor man now is: “Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.” But this is not always the condition of the child of God. The church could say: “I have found Him whom my soul loveth.” When she found Him she could not then say that He was lost to her. It is only when God hides his face that they have this bitter complaint.

4. What steps was Job now to take to find this Person whom he had lost? He did not sit down and say, as many do, if God purposed to save me I will be saved so I will take my ease and wait His time and not trouble myself. Now, we are much greater fools regarding our soul’s salvation and eternal things than we are about our bodies and worldly matters. We do not say: I will live as long as God purposed I should; so, I will neither eat nor drink. No, we do not act on that principle regarding our natural life. If we did it would be suicide. We use means to preserve our lives and should we not use the means God has appointed for the salvation of our souls and which He has put at our disposal? This is what Job did. The matter is of such vital importance to him that he is not to leave a stone unturned.
   (a) He is to go forward: “I go forward.” What does he mean by “going forward?” We take it that he is to use the means appointed by God. When a man turns his back upon the means of grace he forsakes his own mercy. Whenever a sinner is awakened by the Holy Spirit to a sense of his lost condition, however careless he may have been before, he is now diligent in the public and private means of grace, and his cry is: “Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.” It will be true of him as of Paul—”Behold he prayeth.” Job went “forward” in that sense. He often found Him in these means, private and public. There were days in the past experience of the Lord’s people when, perhaps, they would not listen to a gospel sermon, or read a chapter of God’s Word or bend their knees in private, but He was there. But now they go forward but He is not there. They may hear many sermons, read, and pray, but these fountains in which they used to get such refreshing drinks are dried up, and their complaint is: “Oh! that I were as in months past as in the day when God preserved me, when His candle shined upon mine head” (Job xxix. 2). “I go forward but He is not there.”
   (b) What next is he to do? Will he say: I did my duty. I went forward and did not find Him and I will do nothing more. No, the matter is of greater importance than that. He is to go “backward.” What does he mean by going backward? Can it mean that he would go back to his former way of living? when he walked according to the course of this world and was indifferent to the things of God and eternity. No doubt Job lived such a life, like other careless sinners, before he knew the Lord. But could he go back to that mode of life? Well, had he been a hypocrite, as Satan and his three friends tried to make him out to be, probably that is what he would have done. But Job could not do this; neither can any child of God. They may fall into sin but they cannot continue in it. It is made bitter to them and they get repentance. That was clearly seen in the case of David and Peter. Whatever the Lord will do with them in the end they cannot go back to “those things whereof they are now ashamed” (Rom. vi. 21). For the time past of their life has sufficed them to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. What did Job mean by saying?—”I go backward but I cannot perceive Him.” It may mean that he went back on his former experience to see if he could find any proof that it was the Lord who began the work in him. He remembered the days of old when he thought the Lord delivered him from the fearful pit and put his foot on the Rock and a new song in his mouth. The candle of the Lord was shining on his tabernacle. He thought then he would never doubt nor forget that deliverance. But now when he goes back to those days “he cannot perceive Him.” When he is in darkness under the power of unbelief, and Satan tempting him, he is ready to conclude that it was a delusion—”I cannot perceive Him.” This is often the experience of the Lord’s people and yet in all their doubts and fears it is to him they go and cannot give their up hope—”Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.” The late Rev. M. MacRitchie, Garabost, Lewis, used, we are told, a very apt illustration in speaking of Job in his distress. He said: “I compare Job to a stern-boy [the boy that attended to the fishermen’s lines and bait when fishing] who lost his knife and he was useless without it. He ransacked the whole boat searching for it but could not find it. At last he opened his mouth to ask his companions if they saw it when the knife fell from between his teeth. This was the case with Job, the Lord whom he was seeking was in his very cry. “Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.”
   (c) When he did not find Him either in going forward or backward, is he to give up the search?” No! He is “to go to the left hand where he doth work.” Who are on the “left hand?” The unconverted. Surely, one might say, he would not find Him there. Perhaps he might find Him there when no where else. He may not be able to find the marks of the Lord’s people upon himself yet when in the company of the ungodly He may find that there is a difference between him and them. It is told of a godly girl from Strathy, who was in the habit of going to work at the harvest, that one year she fell in with a number of careless girls. She rebuked them for their wicked conduct. They retaliated, you are nothing better than ourselves. “Well,” she replied, “when I am at home among the Lord’s people I will be afraid I am not one of them, but when I am in your company I find I have something you haven’t got.” God works among the wicked in His providence and grace giving them warnings and invitations, but “they do not behold him.” The Lord’s people often found Him on the “left hand” in seeing the difference between themselves and the world; and in the mysterious ways He came in His providence to deliver them.
   (d) What next is Job to do? Is he to give up seeking Him? No! As already stated he is not to leave a stone unturned until he finds Him. He goes to the right hand—”He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him.” What do we understand by “the right hand?” We might take it in two ways. 1. It might be taken as the Lord’s people. They are the people of His right hand. They often found Him in the fellowship His people when assembled together particularly at communion seasons when they could say “It is well to be here.” How sad they felt in parting with one another! As one expressed it: “When will the communion be that will have no Monday?*”. Job goes to “the right hand,” God’s people. Why does he go there? To see if he has any resemblance to them. But “He hideth Himself that I cannot see Him.” He could see Him in others but not in himself. The Lord’s people are a strange people because what they take as true marks of grace in others they take those as the very reverse in themselves. For instance, when they meet one mourning over his corruption, carnality, and spiritual death they take that as a real sign of grace whereas in their own case they put it down as proof that they have none. Such was the case evidently with Job when he went to the right hand—”I cannot see Him.” He found himself so unlike, the Lord’s people and afraid of not being of their number. 2. The “right hand” might be taken to mean God’s blessings. We read that, “At His right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. xvi. 11). Job experienced these pleasures in the past but now God hides His face and he is troubled. God’s promises, which before gladdened and comforted him, are now silent. That is a trying experience to the child of God. He goes to the Word but cannot see Him. He puts a vast distinction between the letter and the Word coming with power and unction. He searches the Word but “he cannot see Him.” That will keep him a poor dependent beggar at God’s door of mercy. These were the steps Job took. He could not rest until he found Him and he did. If we seek Him we shall find Him for He promised, ‘Seek and ye shall find.’

III. His purpose if he found Him—“I would come even to His seat, I would order my cause before Him and fill my mouth with arguments.”

1. The first thing he purposed was “to come to His seat.” Job had a case which could only be settled at God’s seat. What was this seat? God has, at least, two seats; a throne of mercy and a throne of judgment. We take the seat here to be God’s seat of judgment. Job was unrighteously charged by his accusers. Satan accused him of serving the Lord because of how good He was to him in His providence. His three friends accused him of hypocrisy and wickedness but Job desired to come to the seat of Him who knew his case perfectly and would give righteous judgment. He, therefore, wished to bring his cause before this Judge for the purpose of vindicating his character and confounding his adversaries.

2. He was to “order his cause before Him.” When one is to appear before the judge he usually has his case prepared before hand and his arguments arranged. This is what Job purposed, not so much for the information of the Judge, for He knew his case perfectly, but for the conviction and confusion of his accusers. There was to be order in his pleading, not the confused, hysterical ravings such as are often seen and heard at so-called revival meetings, which we are expected to accept as the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not the Author of confusion. The first thing that would be in Job’s “order” is that he would have high and reverential thoughts of God. The nearer a sinner gets to the Most High the more he stands in awe of His majesty. It is our ignorance of Him that would make us presumptuous before Him. The second thing in the “order,” I would say, is that he would take a low humble place as a sinner. Grace does not puff up but humbles. This was clearly seen in the case of Isaiah when he had the glorious vision in the temple: “Woe is me,” he said, “for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips” (Isai. vi. 5).

3. The next thing he purposed to do was “To fill his mouth with arguments.” He is not to use these arguments to establish his innocence absolutely before God but to vindicate his character before his false accusers. Job knew perfectly well that he was far from being innocent before the omniscient, holy eye of God. He shows this in chapter ix. 2-3, where he says: “But how should a man be just with God? If He will contend with him he cannot answer Him one of a thousand.” What arguments was he to use? Some plead their morality, some their liberality to Christ’s cause, and others their religious duties and profession and such like. These, no doubt, are very beautiful and proper in their own place, but will never fill our mouth or be accepted as a ground of our acceptance with God. What arguments then can a poor sinner use to plead with God for His favour. There is only one plea and that is Christ’s finished work. That argument is so rich and full that the guiltiest sinner will not be rejected who comes with it. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do” (John xiv. 13). We have no merit of our own but the Lord who is rich in mercy is ready to forgive the greatest sinner out of hell who comes pleading the merits of Christ’s atonement. “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” The late Rev. Lachlan Mackenzie, in mentioning arguments sinners might use in pleading with God, said: “Plead that He would have more glory through Christ in your salvation than in your destruction.”

IV. His hope—“Will He plead against me with His great power? No, but He would put strength in me.”

1. Job was anxious to know what the just Judge had to say regarding his case. He comes to His seat. If his Judge would justify him and he had a hope he would, then he could treat with disdain all the accusations of his accusers. This is the desire of all believers. They would know what God has to say concerning their case. It is not with men they have, or wish, to reckon but with God. If they had the assurance that He was on their side they would not fear what man could do.

2. He asks the question: “Will He plead against me with His great power?” He answers himself and says: “No, but He would put strength in me.” We think that Job is here as it were trembling between unbelief and faith. Unbelief is ready to say He would plead against you and would be just in doing so—”If I justify myself mine own mouth shall condemn me.” Well, if our hearts condemn us God is greater than our hearts. But faith gets the victory and says: “No, but He will put strength in me.” What was he to strengthen? He would put strength in his faith, enabling him to trust in Him. The Lord did this for Paul when suffering in the prison at Rome. “I know,” he said, “whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day” (II. Tim. i. 12). He would put strength in him to wrestle at a throne of grace. He would put strength in him to suffer patiently and fight his enemies though they were so numerous and strong. His promise to His people in every age is, “my grace is sufficient for you and my strength is made perfect in weakness” (II. Cor. xii. 9).

3. Lastly, he hoped “to be delivered from his judge.” Who was this judge? Satan and men were unrighteously judging and condemning him but he hoped and believed that God would acquit him from their false accusations, and so He did. This will be true of all who trust in Him. “Their enemies shall be found liars and they shall trample upon their high places.” In conclusion, Job sought the Lord and found Him. If we seek Him we shall find Him also, for he said not to the seed of Jacob seek ye me in vain. We should, therefore, seek Him and not rest till, like Job, we find Him.