Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause." Sermons I. THE PITY OF GOD FOR HIS SUFFERING SERVANTS. (Vers. 1-3.) Jehovah looks down and beholds "his servant Job," as he stands unshaken amidst a very hurricane of calamity, holding to his integrity as something dearer than life; and he condescends to expostulate with the accuser. Has not the trial gone far enough? Is not the test that Job has already undergone sufficient to satisfy the most sceptical observer of his truth? Must the furnace be heated still another degree? But the adversary is not content; and it would appear that, if further trial is demanded, the demand is not to be resisted, according to the laws of heaven. The moral government of the world may require this. Thus, while the pity of God would relieve from further suffering, his righteousness-which is his adherence to fixed law - may require its continuance, until every doubt concerning a particular character be solved. But the language ascribed to the heavenly Father is, meanwhile, full of the tenderest compassion. There is individualizing regard. There is recognition of integrity and innocence. There is profound sympathy. We are reminded of the touching words of Psalm 103., "He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust." II. In opposition to this, we observe THE MALIGNANT PERSEVERANCE OF THE DEVIL. 1. His specious plea against Job. (Vers. 4, 5.) In the form of a proverb he launches a keen insinuation: "Skin for skin;" like after like; one thing after another will a man give for dear life. Job has only made a barter after all He loses all his property; but then he has that left which outweighs all the rest. The loss of goods teaches him to prize the health which is left. He feels the greatness of this blessing as he never felt it before. Any circumstance which teaches us the worth of a common blessing is so far an advantage to us. An eminent living man has said that, given health, we have no right to complain of anything in the world. Job, then, has only been half tempted after all; and the trial will only run its full course when it has assailed this last great, chief blessing - his health of body and of mind. Such is the "case" of the devilish prosecutor against Job. 2. The final test permitted. (Vers. 6-8.) The All-disposer grants the permission: "He is in thy power; but spare his life!" And then a sudden poison strikes through the sufferer's blood; he becomes from head to foot a mass of disease and loathsomeness, sits in ashes, scraping himself with a potsherd, to allay the fearful irritation of his malady. His mind is, of course, deeply affected by the illness of his body. Natural hope is extinct. It is a life in ruins. Yet that Divine and immortal principle we call the soul is still intact, still glimmers like a bright spark amidst the embers of a dying fire. III. TEMPTATION IN THE GUISE OF AFFECTION. (Vers. 9,10.) And now what remains of conscious life is to know one further shock; and the hand of woman, the voice of a wife, is employed to urge the tottering sufferer over the brink on which he sits, into despair and total renunciation of faith and God. Then his wife said to him," Dost thou still hold fast to thine innocence? Say farewell to God, and die!" 1. This is a second signal instance in which, in the Old Testament, woman plays the part of the tempter. There is instruction in this pointed fact. Woman is the weaker vessel, in mind as in body. She has less firmness of intellectual texture. Her weakness as well as her strength lies in feeling. She is quick in impulses, both of good and of evil. She represents passion, and man represents strength. On the whole, she is less capable of strong, profound, patient convictions, less able to take a large view of questions, to look beyond the present and immediate aspects of things. Here is the picture of a lively temper, quick to feel resentment at pain or gratitude for good; but a shallow understanding, unused to meditation and reflection on the deeper meanings of life. Her language is that of haste and passion. But this serves to bring out by contrast the calm, reflective piety, the convictions established by lifelong thought and experience of her husband. 2. The rebuke of Job to his wife. (1) "Thou speakest as one of the foolish women;" that is, thy language is like that of a heathen, not of one who has been trained in the knowledge and worship of the true God. The heathen turn fickly from one god to another as pleasure and pain or the caprice of fancy may suggest. For their gods are but idols, creatures of their own imagination, which they take up and cast down as children with their toys. But there is only one God for me! And that God, the eternally Wise and Good in all that he gives, in all that he withholds! (2) There are two sides of life and the one must be taken along with the other. Here, too, the language of manly reasonableness and of intelligent piety speaks out Life is a garment woven of both pleasure and pain, of seeming good and evil. The one conditions the other. All experience teaches that constant happiness is the lot of none. Why, then, should I expect to be an exception? Surely we are but crude scholars in life's great school, so long as we think we are entitled to immunity from any particular form of suffering. We are still children who think they have a right to their own way, and are astonished to find themselves withstood. "Who told thee thou hadst a right to be happy? Art thou a vulture screaming for thy food?" "Couldst thou, Pausanias, learn 2. Whatever it be in religion wherewith men please themselves, yet nothing pleaseth God better than sincerity and uprightness when it is persevered in under affliction, and in a trying condition. 3. As God is specially pleased with men's sincerity, so it is against this that Satan plants his chief engines and battery. Satan did not assault Job's outward prosperity, but to better his integrity thereby. Nor is it men's formality or outward profession that he doth so much malign, if he can keep them from being sincere in what they do. 4. Albeit it be no small difficulty to stand fast, and to continue straight and upright in sharp trials, yet the truly sincere are, by the grace of God, able to do it, and to abide never so many and sharp assaults. Even weak grace, supported by God, is a party too hard for all opposition. 5. It is an act of Divine wisdom, when things of the world are going to ruin, not to cast away piety also, and a good conscience; or, because God strips us of outward contentments, therefore to turn our back upon that which ought to be a cordial under all pressures: for this is commended as an act of great wisdom in Job, when other things were pulled from him, still "he held fast his integrity." To take another course will nothing benefit men, or ease their griefs, but doth indeed double their losses. (George Hutcheson.) 2. That whatsoever a godly man loseth, he will be sure to lay hold of his graces, he will hold spirituals, whatever becomes of temporals. As it is with a man at sea in a shipwreck, when all is cast overboard, the corn that feeds him, and the clothes that cover him, yet he swims to the shore if he can, with his life in his hand. Or as it is with a valiant standard bearer, that carries the banner in war, if he sees all lost he will wrap the banner about his body, and choose rather to die in that as his winding sheet than let any man take it from him. 3. That grace doth not only oppose, but conquers Satan and all his temptations. He doth prevail in his integrity (so the Hebrew may be rendered in the letter). 4. That true grace gains by opposition. True grace is increased the more it is assaulted. (J. Caryl.) (H. E. Stone.) The lowest step of the religious life is obedience to the moral law, and our time can never be lost when we are gazing at those simple, infinite, eternal sanctions. This is to all Christian life as the primitive granite on which the world is built. The man who strives to be faithful to the moral law, be he even a heathen or a publican, may be nearer to the kingdom of God than they who, in theologic hatreds, systematically violate its most essential precept: "Obedience is better than sacrifice." The sum and substance of the moral law, as Christ set it forth, is truth and love. Only a few men are, in the highest sense, men of principle. A man of principle is one of the noblest works of God. He has learned the sacredness of eternity, the awful axiomatic certainty of law. Two most necessary cautions.1. None of you may suppose for a moment that it needs no more than an appeal to reason and to conscience to secure obedience to this moral law. This, as all history proves, is a vital error. 2. You cannot see the face of God unless you keep your bodies in temperance, soberness, and chastity. It is not the grandeur of the moral law alone which can help you in this. You have to hear the voice of Christ. (Dean Farrar, D. D.) Although thou movedst Me against him 1. That Satan is an earnest and importunate solicitor against the people and Church of God.2. That pure, or rather impure, malice stirreth Satan against the people of God. 3. That God doth afflict His people sometimes without respect unto their sins. Thou didst move Me against him without cause. 4. That God will at the last give testimony for the clearing of the innocency of His servants against all Satan's malicious accusations. (J. Caryl.) The expression "although thou movedst Me against him" is startling. Is it an admission, after all, that the Almighty can be moved by any consideration less than pure right, or to act in any way to the disadvantage or hurt of His servant? Such an interpretation would exclude the idea of supreme power, wisdom, and righteousness which unquestionably governs the book from first to last. The words really imply a charge against the adversary of malicious untruth. The saying of the Almighty is ironical, as Schultens points out: "Although thou, forsooth, didst incite Me against him." He who flings sharp javelins of detraction is pierced with a sharper javelin of judgment. Yet he goes on with his attempt to ruin Job, and prove his own penetration the keenest in the universe.(R. A. Watson.) People Bildad, Eliphaz, Job, ZopharPlaces UzTopics Abstaineth, Adversary, Although, Aside, Blameless, Cause, Considered, Destroy, Destruction, Escheweth, Evil, Fast, Feareth, Fearing, Fears, Firm, Hast, Heart, Hold, Holdeth, Holds, Incited, Integrity, Job, Keeping, Keeps, Maintains, Move, Moved, Movedst, Moving, None, Note, Nought, Perfect, Reason, Righteousness, Ruin, Satan, Servant, Shunneth, Shuns, Sin, Swallow, Though, Turneth, Turning, Turns, Upright, Whole-heartedOutline 1. Satan, appearing again before God, obtains further leave to tempt Job.7. He afflicts him with sore boils. 9. Job reproves his wife, who moved him to curse God. 11. His three friends console with him in silence. Dictionary of Bible Themes Job 2:3 5297 disease Library February 24 EveningShall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?--JOB 2:10. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.--O Lord, thou art our father, we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.--It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good. Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.--Whom the Lord loveth … Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path Resignation. It is Indeed a Greater Fight of Patience... Whether Death is Essential to Martyrdom? Jesus, My Rock. Illness and Patience of the Saint. The Story of a Priest whom She Rescued from a Life of Sin. The Christian Described Touching Jacob, However, that which He did at his Mother's Bidding... Of his Cross what Shall I Speak, what Say? this Extremest Kind of Death... Jesus Defends Disciples who Pluck Grain on the Sabbath. Elucidations. Meditations for one that is Like to Die. Adam's Sin Consolations against Impatience in Sickness. Job Links Job 2:3 NIVJob 2:3 NLT Job 2:3 ESV Job 2:3 NASB Job 2:3 KJV Job 2:3 Bible Apps Job 2:3 Parallel Job 2:3 Biblia Paralela Job 2:3 Chinese Bible Job 2:3 French Bible Job 2:3 German Bible Job 2:3 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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