'For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift
up thy face unto God. 27. Thou shalt make thy prayer unto Him, and He
shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows. 28. Thou shalt also
decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light
shall shine upon thy ways. 29. When men are cast down, then thou shalt
say, ... lifting up; and He shall save the humble person.'--JOB xxii.
26-29.
These words are a fragment of one of the speeches of Job's friends, in
which the speaker has been harping on the old theme that affliction is
the consequence and evidence of sin. He has much ado to square his
theory with facts, and especially with the fact which brought him to
Job's dunghill. But he gets over the difficulty by the simple method
of assuming that, since his theory must be true, there must be unknown
facts which vindicate it in Job's case; and since affliction is a sign
of sin, Job's afflictions are proof that he has been a sinner. So he
charges him with grossest crimes, without a shadow of other reason;
and after having poured this oil of vitriol into his wounds by way of
consolation, he advises him to be good, on the decidedly low and
selfish ground that it will pay.
His often-quoted exhortation, 'Acquaint thyself with God, and be at
peace: thereby good shall come unto thee,' is, in his meaning of it,
an undisguised appeal to purely selfish considerations, and its
promise is not in accordance with facts. Whether that saying is noble
and true or ignoble and false, depends on the meanings attached to
'peace' and 'good.' A similar flaw mars the words of our text, as
understood by the speaker. But they can be raised to a higher level
than that on which he placed them, and regarded as describing the
sweet and wonderful prerogatives of the devout life. So understood,
they may rebuke and stimulate and encourage us to make our lives
conformed to the ideal here.
I. I note, first, that life may be full of delight and confidence in
God.
'Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Almighty, and shalt lift up
thy face unto God.' Now when we 'delight' in a thing or a person, we
recognise that that thing, or person, fits into a cleft in our hearts,
and corresponds to some need in our natures. We not only recognise its
good, sweetness, and adaptation to ourselves, but we actually possess
in real fruition the sweetness that we recognise, and the good which
we apprehend in it. And so these things, the recognition of the
supreme sweetness and all-perfect adaptation and sufficiency of God to
all that I need; the suppression of tastes and desires which may
conflict with that sweetness, and the actual enjoyment and fruition of
the sweetness and preciousness which I apprehend--these things are the
very heart of a man's religion. Without delight in God, there is no
real religion.
The bulk of men are so sunken and embruted in animal tastes and
sensuous desires and fleeting delights, that they have no care for the
pure and calm joys which come to those who live near God. But above
these stand the men, of whom there are a good many amongst us, whose
religion is a matter of fear or of duty or of effort. And above them
there stand the men who serve because they trust God, but whose
religion is seeking rather than finding, and either from deficient
consecration or from false conceptions of Him and of their relation to
Him, is overshadowed by an unnatural and unwholesome gloom. And all
these kinds of religion, the religion of fear, of duty, of effort, of
seeking, and of doubt fighting with faith, are at the best wofully
imperfect, and are, some of them, radically erroneous types of the
religious life. He is the truly devout man who not only knows God to
be great and holy, but feels Him to be sweet and sufficient; who not
only fears, but loves; who not only seeks and longs, but possesses;
or, in one word, true religion is delighting in God.
So herein is supplied a very sharp test for us. Do our tastes and
inclinations set towards Him, and is He better to us than anything
beside? Is God to me my dearest faith, the very home of my heart, to
which I instinctively turn? Is the brightness of my day the light of
His face? Is He the gladness of my joy? Is my Christianity a
mill-horse round of service that I am not glad to render? Do I worship
because I think it is duty, and are my prayers compulsory and
mechanical; or do I worship because my heart goes out to Him? And is
my life calm and sweet because I 'delight in the Lord'?
The next words of my text will help us to answer. 'Thou shalt lift up
thy face unto God.' That is a clear enough metaphor to express frank
confidence of approach to Him. The head hangs down in the
consciousness of demerit and sin. 'Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me,' wailed the Psalmist, 'so that I am not able to look up.' But
it is possible for men to go into God's presence with a sense of
peace, and to hold up their heads before their Judge and look Him in
the eyes and not be afraid. And unless we have that confidence in Him,
not because of our merits, but because of His certain love, there will
be no 'delight in the Lord.' And there will be no such confidence in
Him unless we have 'access with confidence by faith' in that Christ
who has taken away our sins, and prepared the way for us into the
Father's presence, and by whose death and sacrifice, and by it alone,
we sinful men, with open face and uplifted foreheads, can stand to
receive upon our visage the full beams of His light, and expatiate and
be glad therein. There is no religion worth naming, of which the
inmost characteristic is not delight in God. There is no 'delighting
in God' possible for sinful men unless they can come to Him with frank
confidence, and there is no such confidence possible for us unless we
apprehend by faith, and thereby make our own, the great work of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
II. So, secondly, note, such a life of delighting in God will be
blessed by the frankest intercourse with Him.
'Thou shalt make thy prayer unto Him, and He shall hear thee, and thou
shalt pay thy vows.' These are three stages of this blessed communion
that is possible for men. And note, prayer is not regarded in this
aspect as duty, nor is it even dwelt upon as privilege, but as being
the natural outcome and issue of that delighting in God and confident
access to Him which have preceded. That is to say, if a man really has
set his heart on God, and knows that in Him is all that he needs,
then, of course, he will tell Him everything. As surely as the
sunshine draws out the odours from the opening petals of the flowers,
will the warmth of the felt divine light and love draw from our hearts
the sweet confidence, which it is impossible not to give to Him in
whom we delight.
If you have to be driven to prayer by a sense of duty, and if there be
no impulse in your heart whispering ever to you, 'Tell your Love about
it!' you have much need to examine into the reality, and certainly
into the depth of your religion. For as surely as instinctive impulse,
which needs no spurring from conscience or will, leads us to breathe
our confidences to those that we love best, and makes us restless
whilst we have a secret hid from them, so surely will a true love to
God make it the most natural thing in the world to put all our
circumstances, wants, and feeling into the shape of prayers. They may
be in briefest words. They may scarcely be vocalised at all, but there
will be, if there be a true love to Him, an instinctive turning to Him
in every circumstance; and the single-worded cry, if it be no more,
for help is sufficient. The arrow may be shot towards Heaven, though
it be but slender and short, and it will reach its goal.
For my text goes on to the second stage, 'He shall hear thee.' That
was not true as Eliphaz meant it. But it is true if we remember the
preceding conditions. The fundamental passage, which I suppose
underlies part, at least, of our text, is that great word in the
psalm, 'Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the
desires of thine heart.' Does that mean that if a man loves God he may
get everything he wants? Yes! and No! If it is supposed to mean that
our religion is a kind of key to God's storehouse, enabling us to go
in there and rifle it at our pleasure, then it is not true; if it
means that a man who delights himself in God will have his supreme
desire set upon God, and so will be sure to get it, then it is true.
Fulfil the conditions and you are sure of the promise. If our prayer
in its deepest essence be 'Not my will, but Thine,' it will be
answered. When the desires of our heart are for God, and for
conformity to His will, as they will be when we 'delight ourselves in
Him,' then we get our heart's desires. There is no promise of our
being able to impose our wills upon God, which would be a calamity,
and not a blessing, but a promise that they who make Him their joy and
their desire will never be defrauded of their desire nor robbed of
their joy.
And so the third stage of this frank intercourse comes. 'Thou shalt
pay thy vows.' All life may become a thank-offering to God for the
benefits that have flowed unceasing from His hands. First a prayer,
then the answer, then the rendered thank-offering. Thus, in swift
alternation and reciprocity, is carried on the commerce between Heaven
and earth, between man and God. The desires rise to Heaven, but Heaven
comes down to earth first; and prayer is not the initial stage, but
the second, in the process. God first gives His promise, and the best
prayer is the catching up of God's promise and tossing it back again
whence it came. Then comes the second downward motion, which is the
answer to prayer, in blessing, and on it follows, finally, the
reflection upwards, in thankful surrender and service, of the love
that has descended on us, in answer to our desires. So like sunbeams
from a mirror, or heat from polished metal, backwards and forwards, in
continual alternation and reciprocation of influence and of love,
flash and travel bright gleams between the soul and God. 'Truth
springs out of the earth, and righteousness looks down from Heaven.
Our God shall give that which is good, and the earth shall yield her
increase.' Is there any other life of which such alternation is the
privilege and the joy?