Job 23:1-6 Then Job answered and said,… Job was justly chargeable with a disposition to self-justification, though he was not guilty of that insincerity, hypocrisy, and contempt of God which his precipitate and unfeeling friends alleged against him. This self-approving temper God took means to correct. One of the methods He used was, hiding His face from him, and leaving him to feel the wretchedness and helplessness of this state of spiritual desertion. The text may be regarded as mirroring the state of one suffering under a conscious absence of God, who longs for the returning smile of His reconciled countenance. I. THE DEEP, PAINFUL, AND DISTRESSING FEELING WHICH THESE WORDS BRING BEFORE US. The language of the text is not the language of one possessing either a false security or a real and solid peace. There is a peace which disturbs the soul, a treacherous calm, the harbinger of the tempest. There is a rest which is not a healthy repose, but the torpor of one over whose members there is stealing the unfelt effects of that lifeless inactivity which so often precedes a second death. Those who are the victims of this fatal insensibility see no danger, and therefore fear no evil. They apprehend no change, and so prepare against no danger. How different is the state implied in the text! The mind, aroused from its carelessness, finds itself wretched and miserable, poor and blind and naked. It knows no peace; it has no comforter. "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" is the language of such a spirit in the hour of its dimness and darkness and perplexity. The language is even more truly descriptive of the feeling of one who, having known the grace of God in truth, has lost his sense of the Divine favour, and walks in heaviness under the chastening hand and frowning countenance of his Heavenly Father. II. THE ARDENT DESIRE. The first symptom of returning health and soundness in the mind is that restlessness which urges the soul to flee again unto its God. Satan has recourse to various artifices for the purpose of diverting the desires into another channel. When God is absent from you, do not rest until He return to you, as the God of your salvation. III. HOLY RESOLUTION. "I would order my cause before Him." There is an important sense in which a sinner may order his cause before God; and there are irresistible "arguments" which he is authorised to advance, and which he is assured will be favourably received. Combined with self-abasement, there should be confidence in the mercy of that God to whom you so reverently draw nigh. Alas! how many there are who will not give themselves the trouble earnestly to desire and diligently to seek the Lord! (Stephen Bridge, A. M.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Job answered and said,WEB: Then Job answered, |
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