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It would be hard, in any country which has been evangelised, to find an individual without some consciousness of sin. As God hath ever revealed Himself as a sin-hating God, He will never cease, by His dealings with man, to demonstrate this until the end of the world. The great mass of sinners certainly do not meet their recompense in this world, but they undoubtedly will in the next. This is not the great dispensation of rewards and punishments. It may be laid down, without fear of contradiction, that the consequences of the sins of the people of God are sure to meet them in this life; not that they may atone by their sufferings here for sins from whose eternal punishment they are delivered by the merits of Christ (for that were absurd to suppose), but in order that they may be better able to understand and enter into the mind of God with respect to sin, in order that they may feel its hatefulness and be purified from the love of it. The words of holy Job, which we have taken in hand to consider, give testimony to this. Job was, in the scriptural sense of the word, a just or justified man, yet we have him the greatest human example on record "of suffering affliction." There is a connection between cause and effect in every part of God's moral government of the world, and there never yet was sorrow where sin had not gone before it; not even the exception which some might feel inclined to make — the Man of Sorrows, Christ the Lord; He was afflicted because He bare our sins in His own body. We say then, with respect to the affliction of Job, that it was by no means an arbitrary or capricious dispensation of Jehovah. There was sin somewhere, or bitter things would never have been written against him. Job's friends were good, though in their method of dealing with Job, mistaken men. Job denies their (personal) accusation, and asserts his innocence. Job's friends were right in connecting sin with sorrow, but they were wrong in accusing Job of hypocrisy and gross dereliction from duty. Job was right in vindicating himself from the particular charges, but he erred in too strongly asserting his general innocence. Job's error we find out from this, that his affliction was not removed until he made a full confession of his unworthiness; and the error of his friends we see in the atonement which Job was required to make for them. After pleading with God, there seems as if, suddenly, memory poured in a stream of light along the dark forgotten path of years gone by, exposing thoughts, words, and actions which he had supposed were hidden in the irrevocable past. Who can tell the searchings of that conscience, the clearness with which it saw in each stroke of the rod a remembrance of some former disobedience, compelling Job to acknowledge the justice as well as the severity of his punishment. Is it possible that a hoary head found in the way of righteousness should be thus defiled with the dust of repentance for the follies of early life; that the crown of gold which had been given to ripe and righteous age should now be dimmed and tarnished by the memorial of long forsaken transgression? Yes, David was an old man when he prayed to God, "Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions." It may be said that men do not sin so much from ignorance of the evil of disobedience, as from the foolish hope that it will be passed over by the Almighty — that it will never meet them again. It is under this delusion the young man acts, who, plunging into a course of transgression, takes no heed to cleanse his way according to God's Word. Fancy the case of one, the prime of whose life has been devoted to sensualism. "His bones are full of the sin of his youth." Sin cannot go unpunished; it may not be visited here on some, but hereafter their doom is certain. God will make us feel most keenly the guilt for which He pardons us; and our transgressions subsequent to our pardon will not be passed over. Think not, therefore, lightly of sin. Think not that yours will never meet you again.

(C. O. Pratt, M. A.)

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KJV: For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.

WEB: For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth: