Job 13:24 Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy? It has ever been a longing of the suffering heart of man to know why afflictions are permitted. Job is a striking example of the sufferer reduced to questioning. He makes his appeal for the reasons. "Wherefore hidest thou thy face?" Others have urged this inquiry. Even the Exemplar of all patient, submissive, trustful, obedient sufferers cried aloud, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But the answer comes not to Job with the quickness he may have desired. Yet though he giveth none account of his ways, all may be assured his purposes are wise and good. In the light of later teachings we may read "the end of the Lord." That which we "endure" we know "is for chastening." This, then, is the answer in general to the cry, "Wherefore hidest thou thy face?" Then, as far as we can interpret the answer to the cry to which no answer is immediately given, we may say - I. A reason for sorrow may be found in ITS FITNESS TO BE A TEST OF FAITH. That faith should be tested, and so developed and perfected, is an obvious propriety. But for such testing it would be a dead, inoperative faculty. As the wing of the young eagle is strengthened by the demands made upon it when borne aloft, and then committed to its own unaided effort, so faith grows in strength by every appeal made to it. It is here experience is gained. By this men grow. The heart is made acquainted with "the ways of the Lord." The exercised faculty becomes familiarized with its duties. It learns to bear a heavier strain. Each successful performance of duty leaves it better fitted to act in future. The strong faith is the faith that has berne the severe test. II. A second reason may be found in THE NECESSARY DEVELOPMENT OF PATIENCE. The heroic fortitude of the soul that can endure "as seeing him who is invisible" is not gained with suddenness. By slow steps is this height reached. By slow accretions is this grace perfected. The man unaccustomed to discomfort is unwilling to leave his freedom and ease, and to undertake toilsome and painful service. Sorrow oppresses the soul, but it thereby develops that power by which the soul is upheld. The slothful, self-indulgent spirit is unfitted for hard toil; and the world needs the willing labourer. There is a schooling of the soul by self-denial, by fasting. The substitute for the self-imposed training is the divinely imposed trial. The trial of faith is very precious if it leaves the soul steadier in patient endurance. By such trained souls is the world's great work to be done. III. SORROW PERFECTS THE SOUL IN A LOWLY SUBMISSION TO THE DIVINE WILL. "It is the Lord: let him do as seemeth him good," may be a defiant cry of rebellion: "Do thy worst;" or it may be a lowly, trustful, resigned committal of the life to the Divine purposes: "What he wills is best." The school of affliction is a hard school, but its patient scholars are well taught. And though "no affliction for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby." IV. SORROW MAY BE THE MEANS OF EVOKING THE MOST SINCERE AND BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES OF OBEDIENCE. The histories of human suffering present us with examples of consummate and unflinching obedience, rendered in unquestioning acquiescence in the Divine purpose and in the pure love of the heart. The highest point ever reached by the obedient spirit was that of our great Pattern, who, in the depth of darkest affliction and sorrow of soul, patiently reiterated the sublime expression of a wholly consecrated service, "Nevertheless not my will, but thy will, be done." - R.G. Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? |
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