Job 5:23 For you shall be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you. Eliphaz argues that, if Job will but submit himself to the ordinances of God, nature itself will be his ally, and the very stones that obstruct his plough, and even the beasts that ravage his flocks, will become his auxiliaries. Here the seer of visions has touched on a great truth. To be in harmony with the Lord of nature is to be in league with nature. I. WE ARE NOT NATURALLY IN LEAGUE WITH NATURE. This is a paradox in form, yet it is a transcript of experience. The experience is peculiar to man. All other things find their habitat congenial to them. Man alone discovers himself to be as an alien among foes - stones, weeds, vermin, beasts of prey, cruel winds, tempests, earthquakes, frustrating his designs. Two very different causes may account for this discord. 1. Our natural greatness. We are a part of nature, yet we are above nature. In our higher self we cannot be content to take our share with the beasts that perish. Our aspirations lift us out of agreement with the life that is lived by plants and animals. 2. Our sinful fall. We are meant to be above nature, ruling over it. By sin we have fallen below nature, and it has trampled on us. The master has become the slave and victim of his servant. II. IT IS GOOD TO BE IN LEAGUE WITH NATURE. So Eliphaz implies by his promise to Job of this condition as a reward for contrite submission. The Bible nowhere teaches a Manichaean horror of nature. All God's works are good and deserve to be appreciated by us. Neither do we learn from Scripture to entertain a monkish horror of nature. The inherent innocence of every natural power and action is suggested by the biblical description of creation. Therefore we shall make a great mistake if we think we are to escape from the tyranny of nature either by flight or by warfare. We cannot escape from nature if we would. Though we crushed our nature, it would arise and reassert itself. But, supposing our flight or our warfare were successful, that we could absolutely leave or completely extirpate nature, we should only find our lives maimed and impoverished; for nature is part of us, and is intended to be our useful servant. III. WE CANNOT FORM A SUCCESSFUL LEAGUE WITH NATURE BY DESCENDING TO THE LIFE OF NATURE. The sophistry of so-called naturalism tells us that we can. But it is deceptive, christening bestiality with the name of nature. The nature to be imitated is Wordsworth's nature, not Zola's. But Wordsworth's nature is the type and prophecy of the spiritual that is higher than nature. Merely to follow natural impulses is to become swinish, not human, partly because the lower impulses of nature are the most violent, and partly because we have aggravated those impulses by sin. IV. SUBMISSION TO GOD MAKES NATURE IN LEAGUE WITH US. God is the Master of nature, and as we learn to do God's will, nature, which also ultimately does his will, turns to aid us. Physically, the forces of nature work for those who obey the laws of God in nature, and it is to be noted that to obey those laws is a very different thing from being a slave to natural impulses; e.g. the laws of health do not agree with the indulgence of appetite. Spiritually, our obedient submission to God compels the adverse forces of nature to work for our good as instruments of discipline. This was not sufficiently clear to Eliphaz, who made too much of temporal prosperity, and thought that to be the invariable lot of the good man. But the Book of Job reveals it. Thus nature ministers to man when man serves God. - W.F.A. Parallel Verses KJV: For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee. |
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