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This man seems to be condemned by the moral order of the world, and yet knows that he is innocent. A man in such an awful strait as this may be expected to utter bold words. But Job does not array himself against God. He rather arrays God against God. The God he seems to see against the God he desires to see, but cannot. It is the God within Job that protests against a credal God without. But Job's mistake lay in being angry because he could not get the full vision of God at once. He wanted it immediately. It is only by a long and hard struggle that we can get the vision of God. We must gain the sunny uplands where His face is seen by noble and untiring spiritual effort. There is no short and easy path to the sunlit sky. Further, when Job was challenging God to try him, Job was not aware that God was even then trying him; that in that very perplexity, in that very hiding of God, in that very darkness and conflict, through which Job was then passing, God was already sitting in judgment on him, and proving his life, to see whether it would come forth from the fire as gold.

I. THE GREAT SEARCH FOR GOD WHICH EVERY TRUE LIFE MUST UNDERTAKE. The search must proceed, for there is no true life without the knowledge of God; and there is no full life without the satisfying knowledge of God. The true knowledge of God can only come through struggling. This will appear on the following two considerations.

1. A true knowledge of God is inward riving heart knowledge. And —

2. The true knowledge of God is progressive knowledge. But the truest man in the world may enter into seasons of very great perplexity. God is larger than our thoughts, and grander than our creeds. They cannot express the fulness of God.

II. THE GUARANTEE OF THE SUCCESS OF THIS STRUGGLE TO FIND GOD. "He knoweth the way that I take." The search for God depends on an inner knowledge of God; and we have the paradox, that we do know God, and yet are searching for Him. We know when we have found Him, for He is in our deepest life as an ideal. If our hearts are true, if our lives are sincere and pure, we have the guarantee that we shall at length see God in the fulness of His glory.

III. THE PURPOSE AND ISSUE OF THIS GREAT STRUGGLE. The struggle which is necessary to find God and truth is a test of our character. Truth requires a struggle, the constant use of our best energies. Infidelity is the laziest thing in the world, but it is by heart sweat that truth is found. The struggle to find God preserves the "truth of the life." Life is preserved by progress, and progress involves conflict. Life is movement, stagnation is death. This struggle not only preserves the truth of the life, it purifies and develops it. This is my message — See that you struggle to find God. While you are searching, remember to be true. And search on.

(John Thomas, M. A.)

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KJV: Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him:

WEB: "If I go east, he is not there; if west, I can't find him;