blessed utterance from the heart of the patriarch, was the bow in the
cloud for a moment. It shared the path of Job's spirit with the grief
and heaviness that it knew so well--as Jeremiah's vision by night, and
the Mount of Transfiguration, broke the dreary way of the weeping
prophet, and of the adorable "Man of sorrows." Jer. xxxi. 26; Matt.
xvii. 2. It was the Spirit's power. The poor sufferer was made to look
away from God's dealings _with_ him to His doings _for_ him. For there
is a difference. The one calls the soul into exercise, and often are too
unwieldy, beyond the management of our hearts. Very generally they need
an interpreter. The other takes the soul into entire liberty. They are
so plain that a child may read them. They bear their own meaning on
their forehead. They need no interpreter. God's providences, or His
dealings _with_ us, are ofttimes perplexing, as well as tenderly
afflicting. God's grace in the Gospel, or His doings for us, are such as
cannot either puzzle the thoughts or grieve the heart. They bear their
own witness, and tell a tale of devoted, everlasting love, such as it is
impossible to mistake.
And these are the things we have to do with, every day. If we be
oppressed or fatigued by the current course of circumstances, finding
them weighty, dark, and intricate, it is our privilege, and our duty
too, to pass over, in spirit and in thought, to that calm and sunny
atmosphere in which the Gospel, or God's doings for us, ever invest the
soul.
All this may be seen in Job. That loved and honoured saint is generally
seen grappling with God's dealings with him. The hand of God had gone
out upon all his interests and enjoyments. Loss of fortune, children,
and health, had come, by sore surprise, upon him, and he persists, in
the heat and resentment of nature, to keep all this before his mind. But
in a moment of the Spirit's power he is made to look away from all this,
to turn from God's dealings _with_ him to God's doings _for_ him; and
then he triumphs. Then he can contemplate more than the boils on his
body, even the worms destroying it; but all is light and triumph. Then,
in the face of all enemies, he can sit and sing in spirit, If God be for
me, who can be against me? Romans viii.
Truly blessed is this. The tempter would lead us to judge of God by the
dark shadings of many a passage of our history here. But the Spirit
would have us acquaint ourselves with Him in the beauteous light of the
Gospel, the glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ; and there is
light there and no darkness at all--no shadows which have to be chased
away, no dimness that needs to be interpreted.
But this rather by the way--I have already traced certain combinations
between this earliest and most independent portion of the book of God
and all other parts of it, whether near or distant. And very
establishing to the heart this is. But such combinations or harmonies
may be traced still further--in the _scenes of action_, as well as in
the _actors in the scenes_.
There are "heaven" and "earth" here, as in all Scripture; each, too,
having its "day" or special occasion. See i. 4, 6, 13; ii. 1. There are
also "this present evil world," and "the world to come." At the opening
of the action the scene is laid in this present evil world. It is but
domestic, but all the features of the great world are seen in it. For
each family circle, like every heart, is a little world. Indulgence and
the love of enjoyment appear in the children, and something of the
common "enmity against God" in the wife of our patriarch. Then, again,
there are _natural_ calamities, as from wind and fire and disease; and
there are _relative_ calamities, as from the hand of our neighbour or
fellow-men, as Sabeans and Chaldeans. And all this is the various
casualty of life and human circumstance to this hour. There is stroke
upon stroke, messenger after messenger, turning over every page of the
history. It is but human life _then_ instead of _now_, but the same life
in its losses, crosses, and sore contradictions. There is a little
reality, a little of the "friend in need" who "is a friend indeed," but
there is a great deal of scorn and desertion in the hour of calamity,
still so well known in the world. Job has three friends who sit with him
among his ashes and potsherds, but all beside see him afar off.
Is not all this "the present evil world" drawn to the life?
But at the close of the action, the scene is laid in "the world to
come," God's world and not man's, the world which His energies are to
form, and His principles are to fill. It is the time of refreshing and
restitution. In the 42nd chapter of our Book, we are, in spirit, in the
Millennium. The Holy Ghost gives us this account of it. "Be patient
therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord," are the words which
introduce His allusion to "the patience of Job," and to "the end of the
Lord." The husbandman toils in hope, and gets his fruit in harvest, or
in resurrection. And so did Job endure, till, at last, he that sowed
reaped. The 42nd chapter is the harvest of the husbandman. James v.
7-11.
And happy, I may say, is this further witness to the value which a
spirit of confession and repentance has with our God, beloved. As it is
written, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;" and again, "If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins." For I
doubt not, that it was to Job's few words of confession and repentance
that the Lord referred when He turned to the friends and told them, that
they had not spoken of Him the thing that was right, like His servant
Job. They had not made confession at the end, as he had done. And let us
cherish this assurance. There are comfort and strength in it. The
language of repentance prevails. "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning
himself," says Jehovah--and then came the divine compassion: "Is Ephraim
my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do
earnestly remember him still." Or, as we may learn from Hosea, words of
confession and repentance from Israel, in the latter day, mightily
prevail with God. "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast
fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say
unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." "I will
heal their backsliding, I will love them freely," is the divine answer,
with a rich and beautiful chapter of promises.
The consolation of this! the tale it tells us of grace, unwearied,
long-suffering grace! And accordingly Job flourishes again. The Lord is
as the dew to him. He grows as the lily, his branches spread, his beauty
is as the olive tree, his scent as Lebanon. In "the end of the Lord" he
is seen as "in the regeneration," or day of the kingdom, and even others
dwell under his shadow, reviving as the corn, and growing as the vine.
See Hosea xiv.[31]
[31] I do not regard Job so much as a _type_, but rather as a _sample_.
His calling was the common calling, as a dead and risen man. Every
saint, now gathering for heavenly glory, is such. Israel in the
latter day will be as such, and the whole system of the millennial
age. The Lord Jesus holds all things, and exercises His offices,
as the One that was dead and is alive again. But I judge it to be
more fitting to speak of Job as a sample of the common calling,
than as a type. I could not, however, object to the expression,
were it used by others.
Job learnt his lesson through sufferings. The Lord, I may say, did
the same. Hebrews ii. iv. v. He was made perfect for His high
functions in that way. Christ's compassions could not have been
_priestly_, till He became a man, partaker of the flesh and blood
of the children, and suffered as such. And Job's history may be
read as the expression or foreshadowing of all this.
So Israel. They will be as a people who, having destroyed
themselves, have found their help in God. Hosea presents them in
that character. Their language in chapter xiv. is the language of
such a people. And Job's history may be regarded as the expression
or foreshadowing of this also. He revives, he grows again as the
lily, and his branches spread, at the end, as Israel and Israel's
branches will, according to their prophet. So that we may speak of
Job as a type. But I still feel and judge it to be more fitting,
to present him as a sample of us all, in the common faith, as dead
and risen with Christ.
Such was our Patriarch in "the end of the Lord." Another witness he is
that the burning bush is never consumed, because of the good-will of Him
who dwells in it. It may be Israel in Egypt, or in Babylon, the children
in the furnace, or the prophet in the den. It may be a poor elect
Gadarene, beset with a legion, or the patriarch, the sport of wind and
fire and bodily disease, of Chaldeans and Sabeans too, the power and
messengers of Satan let out upon him, still the burning bush is
unconsumed for the goodwill of Him who dwells in it. "We had the
sentence of death in ourselves," says the apostle, as speaking in the
name of them all, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who
raiseth the dead."
Such an one was our Patriarch. And such an one he had learnt himself to
be. In the school of God he had now learnt his calling, as in the
experience of his own soul. But a great lesson it is. A great
difference, I am full sure, between having God in the midst of our
circumstances, and God as Himself the first and great circumstance. The
first was Job's way at the beginning. He would not have been without
God. He owned Him, and gave Him an altar in the family scene. But he had
not said to Him, Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us. He had not,
as Abram did afterward, _come out from circumstances with God_, trusting
Him to surround him with His own circumstances. The power to do this
cries, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth
that I desire beside Thee." For such was the utterance of a saint when
his soul had come forth from the tempest and temptation of seeing
himself second to the wicked in the conditions and circumstances of life
here. Ps. lxxiii.
What a voice this truth has for us! Some may listen to it for _comfort_,
others of us of feebler faith for _warning_. The world and pride and
selfishness form the circumstances out of which the call of God summons
us; and religion, in a sense, may have brought God into them; but faith,
in its simplicity, forms the other, and God has not to be brought into
them, for He is there from the beginning, the great Framer or Artificer
of them all.
One repeats this truth, for it is, as I judge, the great secret of this
Book. Our Job at the end learnt the power of the call of God. And this,
I may say, imparts a just and spiritual bearing to all he now does, as
well as invests his whole estate with the beauty and stability of
millennial days.
He was, at the beginning, as a _prophet_, _priest_, and _king_, and so
is he again, at the end. But he is so after a new order, exercising his
different functions more according to the mind of God. As a _prophet_,
he had, at the beginning, too confidently assumed to be the interpreter
of God and His ways; but now he says, "I will demand of Thee, and
declare Thou unto me." He will be a disciple of the Lord, ere he teach
others; he will have his ear opened, ere his tongue be loosed. Isa. 50.
4. Such is the purifying of his prophetic ministry. He will know
nothing, save as he learns it from God. His doctrine is not _his_ now.
As a _priest_, at the beginning, he had stepped in between God and his
children, to heal probable or dreaded breaches. But he does not seem to
wash his own clothes, while sprinkling the purifying water on others.
Num. xix. 21. He wanted to remember that he himself was also in the
body, temptable like the weakest. Gal. vi. 1. But now he is _accepted_
himself. Job xlii. 9; Ezek. xiv. 14, 20. As a _king_, his honours now
come after his afflictions, his glories after his sufferings; and also
after he prayed for his friends, is his captivity turned. He exercises
grace, ere he is again entrusted with power--all this being according to
the great originals. "Ye are they which have continued with Me in my
temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath
appointed unto Me."
In these ways, he is prophet, priest, and king, _after a_ _new order_,
and all is refined in the furnace, like gold tried in the fire.
And he is the father of a family again, a family also, as I may again
say, of a new order--nothing has to be corrected among them, but all is
in happy, holy fellowship, the heart of the father turned to the
children, and the heart of the children to their father. At the
beginning he had to watch their ways, and provide for the evil they
might have committed. But at the end there is nothing of this; their
father has only to see them with admiration and delight. They awakened
_fear_ at first, but now _contentment_.
And further, in this beautiful millennial or resurrection scene, which
thus closes this story, the stormy wind is hushed, and the lightning of
the thunder strikes no more. In this day of a second Noah, such as Job
was (the lord of a new world), the waters which once "prevailed" are now
"assuaged." And the Chaldeans and Sabeans no longer spoil the spoil, and
prey the prey. There is "no adversary nor evil occurrent," no "Canaanite
in the house of the Lord" now. Nothing hurts or destroys in all the holy
mountain. The Lord delivers His people from those who served themselves
of them.
All this is pledged and pictured for us here. And what may be said to be
of still deeper value to us, the great enemy himself, the ready and
wishful agent of all the mischief and sorrow that had come in, is gone
likewise. At the beginning he is in the action, exercising himself as an
accuser in heaven, and as a tormentor on earth. And it is for the
comfort of the tried saint, that the hand of both God and the enemy are
engaged in his trial; the enemy (as here with our patriarch) seeking to
cast his crown to the ground, and to cast his fair memorial with God in
the dust, the Lord purposing (and performing it) to brighten that crown,
and still further to bless the heir of those dignities and joys. It is a
comfort to the saint, in the day of trial, to remember this. But, at the
end, the enemy is gone. The purpose, in the wisdom of God, for which he
had been used, is answered, and he is gone. The discipline of Job had
ceased as in his destruction.
Satan had understood Job. He knew the workings of that corrupt nature,
which his own lie had formed in the garden of Eden. He had said, "Doth
Job fear God for nought? Hast not Thou made an hedge about him?... Touch
all that he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.... Skin for skin;
yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." And serious and
terrible is the thought, beloved, that he knows us so thoroughly, and
understands the springs of thought and will within us. But though he
thus understands _Job_, he did not understand _God_. The counsels of
grace are above him. And by reason of this, he has been always, in the
history of this world, defeating himself, while thinking that he was
getting advantage of us; for he has to meet God in the very thing he
does, and the purposes he plans, against us. When he interfered with
Adam in the garden, he encountered God to his confusion, and the promise
to Adam announced his own doom. When he provoked David to number the
people, Ornan's threshing-floor was disclosed, and the spot where mercy
rejoiced against judgment becomes the place of the temple. When he
sifted the Apostles as wheat, he was answered by the prayer of Jesus,
and, instead of faith failing, brethren were strengthened. And, above
all, when he touched Jesus on the cross, the very death he inflicted was
his own perfect and accomplished ruin. So, in every trouble which he
brings on any of us, he finds, or is to find, sooner or later, that he
has met the mighty God, and not the feeble saint. He entered Job's nest
that he might spoil it, and leave it driven and wasted. He came into
another garden then. But God was there as well as his servant Job, and
in the end Satan is confounded.
Thus is it with the saints and their enemy. They shall take the kingdom,
and in the kingdom Satan shall have no place. Out of the trials which he
had raised around them and against them, they come forth to wear their
crowns, and sing their songs. And, instead of his appearing again "among
the sons of God," the mighty angel shall lay hold on him, and cast him
into the bottomless pit.[32]
[32] It has been observed by another, that Satan is _always_ defeated.
This thought seems to get the most striking confirmations from
Scripture, beyond the cases mentioned above.
He is the instrument, the willing instrument, of destroying the
flesh; but that destruction ends in _the saving of the spirit_. 1
Cor. v. 5. He receives, gladly receives, one that is judicially
delivered over to him; but all that ends in _such an one learning
not to blaspheme_. 1 Tim. i. 20. He sends forth his messengers as
thorns in the flesh, delighting to do so, as being bent on
mischief, having been "a murderer from the beginning;" but this
still works good, for _the servant of Christ is thereby kept from
undue exaltation_. 2 Cor. xii. 7.
These are illustrious exhibitions of the devil being _always_
defeated. Because they show this--that he lends himself directly
to his own overthrow. His own weapon is turned against himself.
The one whom he assails is, by the very assault, given strength or
virtue against him.
Happy assurance! our great adversary is never victorious! It is
the pricks he kicks against.
This is full of blessing--and this is millennial blessing, shadowed here
in this beautiful story. But there is more. There will be no question in
the millennial heavens about the saints, as there was about Adam in the
garden, and about Job in the beginning of this Book. The tree of
knowledge tested the creature whom God had just made. But in the age of
the resurrection, in the heavens where Job and all the children of the
resurrection will be, there will be no such test. There will be no
question about man. There will be silence in heaven as to man, for the
great Kinsman has answered all questions, and man is glorified there.
Such are the changes which have arisen, ere we leave this divine,
inspired story. Has not the _trial_ of faith been _precious_, as St.
Peter speaks, when we can talk of such changes? The enemy is gone. His
ministers, or messengers, the wind and the fire, the Chaldeans and
Sabeans, take their commission no more. Job, too, has changed his mind,
and made his confession to God--his friends have changed their mind, and
humbled themselves to him. But there is One who abides the same. He has
no step to retrace, no word to recall, no deed of His hand, or counsel
of His heart, to alter or repent of. Other scriptures tell of Him, that
He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever," and that with Him
there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." And this precious
tale about Him and His doings so illustrates and exhibits Him.
There is never entire calmness, or the absence of all haste and
distraction, where we are not conscious that our _strength is equal to
our business_, whatever it may be. Nor is there, when we are not equally
conscious of _integrity or righteousness in that business_. The
consciousness of both righteousness and strength is needed in order to
fit the hand to do a deed, or the foot to take a step, with entire ease.
Now we know that this ease marks all the ways and operations of God. He
is ever at work (to speak after the manner of men) in the full
possession of this undistractedness of which we are speaking. We might
judge this from the necessary glory of His godhead. But the ways of
Jesus on earth always exhibited this, and He, as we know, was God
manifest in the flesh. And this ease and calmness, in which all the
operations of God proceed, tell us, that though they may to us appear
strange and even wilful, as Job thought them, yet is He able to
interpret them every one, so as to be justified in His sayings, and
clear when He is judged. And this is happy. "The bud may have a bitter
taste," and "blind unbelief is sure to err." These things are so. But
"God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." We know how our
Job was tried--deeply, variously, and, as might be thought, wantonly,
needlessly; for he walked in the fear of God, and in the service of his
generation. But "the end of the Lord" is more than vindication. It is
display. The trial is found to be unto praise and honour and glory. The
light of the coming day, rebuke what it may, will have only to set off
and reflect the excellency of Him with whom we have to do.
Thus have we lingered, for a little, over these bright notices of
millennial days, "the days of heaven upon earth," which shine at the
close of this lovely as well as serious and instructive tale of
patriarchal times. But there is more.
At the beginning, Job held all his blessings with reserve and suspicion.
He was not in safety, nor at rest, nor in quiet; yet trouble came. "The
thing which I greatly feared is come upon me," says he, "and that which
I was afraid of is come unto me." It must needs be so. The instability
with which departure from God has affected every possession and every
profit here makes this necessary. But, at the end, there are no "fears
within," any more than Chaldeans or "fightings without." No shadow
crosses the settled sunshine that rests on all around him, or the calm
light which fills all within.
And further--his kinsfolk and acquaintance, at the end, seek him again.
They ought, indeed, never to have deserted him. For we deceive ourselves
if we think that we must be right if we _grieve_ those whom God is
_disciplining_. This is often very far indeed from being the case. The
Lord said in Zechariah, "I am very sore displeased with the heathen that
are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward
the affliction." So also is Isaiah xlvii. 6--and so Obadiah 10-14, to
the same effect. We are more commonly, perhaps, in God's mind, and act
as the living vessels of the Spirit, when _soothing_ such. And sure I am
it was so in Job's case. Had his former friends known God's way, they
would have dealt very differently with him. They would not have left
him. The very fact that "the hand of God" had touched him, as he so
deeply expresses it, would have been the occasion of "pity," as he
further says, from his friends.
However, as part of the bright sunshine that gladdens his estate at the
end, his kinsfolk and acquaintance again seek him. And they do so to
_congratulate_ as well as to _compassionate_ him. And if they talk to
him of past griefs, it is but to heighten his present joy--as Israel
afterwards, in their triumphant feast of Tabernacles, might make booths
and sit under them, in grateful remembrance of wilderness-days.
All these are happy reverses, and the latter end of our patriarch is
twice as good as his beginning. But among all the gladdening
anticipations which shine in the latter page of this history there is
none which more captivates the heart than _the reconciliation_. The
patriarch and his brethren, as the narrative largely tells us, and as we
well know, had sadly fallen out by the way, as they walked along the
high road of "this present evil world;" but as soon as they enter "the
age to come," the strife of tongues and stir of war are heard and seen
no more.
This is truly welcome to the heart. For what joy will it be to be
delivered of selfishness and pride, and many other workings of an
ungenerous and perverted nature. How are the pleasures of the heart
spoiled by such robbers continually! What a thing a page of history is!
What a record of the agitations of envy and ambition and revenge! Is it
not misery thus to see men "hateful, and hating one another," and then
to remember that we are still alive and active in the midst of the same
elements? But another thing is in our prospect; and it is the way of the
wisdom and grace of God again and again, in the progress of His Word, as
here in the 42nd chapter of Job, to give us a mystic picture of it. Then
man, as _deceived by Satan_, shall give place; and man, as _anointed by
God_, shall prevail. Then shall be known the joy of getting out of such
darkness into such light, of beholding the Sun again, after centuries of
midnight gloom.