Job 14:17-22 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and you sew up my iniquity. I. HE STILL ABOUNDS WITH VARIED FIGURES, THE VERY ELOQUENCE OF COMPLAINT. God has taken his sins and placed them as in a bag, sealed for safety of deposit, that they may be reproduced against him. He appears like an accuser who heaps up scandals and offences against the unhappy object of his wrath (ver. 17). II. IN THIS LIGHT OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE HE FURTHER CONTEMPLATES THE CONDITION OF MANKIND. 1. The impossibility of resistance to their doom. (Vers. 18, 19.) Mountains and rocks are dissolved, hard stones are gradually dislocated, by the continuous action of water; their fragments are carried away by the flood. Much more must the feeble body of man give way at last. And so his mind must surrender the kindled light of God, which God destroys! 2. The overmastering power of God. (Vers. 20-22.) The mighty warrior overcomes the feeble resistance of his foe, and releases him only when he has set him before his face and given him a proof of his pre-walling three So God only releases man in death when all his beauty has passeth away, and there remains but the hideous corpse. In the lower world consciousness fails him; he knows nothing of the things of earth, joyous or sad; can render no help to the dear ones who survive him. In the lower world the dead man, without activity or energy, endures his bodily and mental pain in dreary solitude and stillness. So ends again this address with the gloomiest, most despondent outlook as to the other world, relieved only toe a moment by the fugitive hope of the life to come. LESSONS. 1. The heart has an instinct for immortality, derived from its revolt from extreme pain. Something within us tells us that we were not made to be eternally, irrecoverably miserable. 2. The truth of a future life comes in flashes upon the mind; for its retention we need the support of positive revelation. 3. The natural weakness and frailty of man is complemented by his spiritual power and greatness as partaker of an endless life. - J. Parallel Verses KJV: My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.WEB: My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity. |
    |