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I. ITS COURSE.

1. A course of conduct. Job speaks of his foot holding, etc. He is reviewing his actions. It would have been of little use for him to have vindicated his creed and his sentiments if his conduct had been faithless. The most important question is as to how a man lives, not as to what he thinks or how he feels.

2. A continuous course. It is a way, and Job has had to keep to it, A momentary spasm of virtue will not satisfy the requirements of the Divine Law. To achieve a single heroic deed that makes the world ring with one's fame, and then sink into idle apathy, is not the way to earn the commendation, "Well done, good and faithful servant!

3. A Divine course. It is easy to persist in one's own way. The difficulty is to leave that and to accept and follow faithfully in God's way. Yet he has marked out the course of service for every one of his people, and the plain duty is to find it and follow it.

4. An arduous course. It is not easy to keep to God's steps. The way is narrow (Matthew 7:13, 14). Many temptations urge us to forsake it for flowery paths or for the broad road. The Christian life is a course of self-denial. The path leads uphill. Even while we only think of standing still we are really slipping back It is a mistake to suppose that the Christian life is necessarily a growth and a progress. There is danger of worse than stagnation, of declension and decay. We may have done well in the past, and yet have been hindered later on in life. To be true Christians we must be ever watchful, earnest, active in pressing forward along God's way.

II. ITS INSPIRATION. How is it possible to be faithful, keeping continuously to God's way?

1. My the guidance of revelation. Job has been following God's commandments. We cannot follow God's way without the aid of light from heaven. Instinct and conscience are our natural guides; but instinct is blind, and conscience has been in some cases perverted. Therefore God has given us the more sure word of prophecy." God's Word is a lamp to the feet of his people. This is its chief object. Difficulties are felt as to certain questions about the Bible, e.g. how to reconcile Genesis with geology, how to settle the relation of the Law to the prophets, how to harmonize the gospel narratives. But these questions do not touch the main purpose of the Bible, which is to be a guide to conduct. The righteousness of the ten commandments, the blessedness of the sermon on the mount, and, above all, the glory of Christ, still shine from the sacred page as beacon-lights undimmed by the clouds of controversy that gather about quite secondary points.

2. In the power of affection. Job has set a supreme value on the words of God's mouth. Their truth and goodness and beauty won the heart of the author of the hundred and nineteenth psalm. We have still greater attractions in the New Testament. Christ, the living Word of God, draws men to himself by his love and by his sacrifice of himself, so that when he is known and loved faithfulness becomes possible for his sake. Christians are called to walk, not only in the steps which God has marked out for them, but in those which Christ has trodden, which he has made sacred by his own presence. - W.F.A.

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KJV: My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.

WEB: My foot has held fast to his steps. I have kept his way, and not turned aside.