Job 36:16 Even so would he have removed you out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no narrow place… Elihu tells Job that it is the work of affliction to "lure" him out of a strait into a broad place. I. LIFE IS IN DANGER OF BECOMING NARROW. Various influences combine to narrow it. 1. Selfishness. The disposition to think much of ourselves dwarfs the world to us. But when we are thus living chiefly for our own ends, we are shut into a small circle of personal, private interests, and, the great world being ignored, we ourselves shrink into littleness. 2. Worldliness. When we are absorbed in things of this world, the other and larger world is lost to view. The consequence is that we become short-sighted, and thought and interest are shut in to the domain of the visible and temporal. 3. Conventionality. We lose the courage of personal conviction, and fall back on the ideas and practices of our neighbours. 4. Routine. Since all goes smoothly, the mill grinds on in a dreamy atmosphere of changeless indifference. Then our lives miss the stimulus of a rousing call to arduous service. II. GOD DELIVERS FROM NARROWNESS BY MEANS OF AFFLICTION. 1. A Divine work. Seeing how hurtful the narrowness is, and desiring us to escape from it, he puts forth his hand to draw us out of the imprisonment it involves. It is difficult for one who has fallen into a mountain gorge, and who lies among the stones bruised and battered, to lift himself up and climb the steep and treacherous crags. He who has fallen into a strait in life needs the strong arm of God to draw him out. 2. Accomplished through affliction. God comes to the rescue of his straitened servant. But the method of deliverance is strange and unexpected. Affliction is itself a strait; it seems to press on the soul, to hamper and limit its activity. Yet this is the very instrument employed in delivering the victim of narrowness, Narrowness of circumstances may deliver from narrowness of soul. The very pressure of this new strait rouses us and bids us exert ourselves. Then, as it cures our errors, it leads us out of its own constraints. III. GOD'S DELIVERANCE SETS US IS A BROAD PLACE. First there is a fresh strait, a hard pressure of trouble on the right hand and on the left, with no door of escape. But when the affliction has accomplished its work there is deliverance. 1. Liberty of action. "The truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). God desires his people to serve willingly and lovingly, not with fetters on their ankles. The freedom is of a soul "at leisure from itself." There is a large place with great scope for work, which can only be enjoyed in unselfishness and unworldliness. 2. Breadth of view. It is wonderful how the vision is broadened by the experience of sorrow. Although at first it may be cramped and confined to the immediate present by the absorbing influence of pain, when deliverance comes, this is followed by a wonderful mental expansion. No one knows the depth and breadth of life who has not been through the waters of affliction. 3. Largeness joy. The broad place is open to the fresh air and the bright sunshine. Delivered from dank and dreary narrow regions, we can rejoice in our God-given liberty. This bliss is partly enjoyed on earth; it will be perfect in heaven, the large place of life and liberty. - W.F.A. Parallel Verses KJV: Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which should be set on thy table should be full of fatness. |
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