Job 14:15 You shall call, and I will answer you: you will have a desire to the work of your hands. It would seem as if in using these words Job had reference to the resurrection of the body. We may regard them, in a more general way, as an assertion of the patriarch's confidence in God; of his assurance that he should be kept unto everlasting life. Believers are invariably witnesses that the more cause a man has to be full of hope and of confidence, the more diligent will he be in the use of appointed means of grace. The privileges of true religion have no tendency to the generating presumption. The man who has the strongest scriptural warrant for feeling sure of heaven is always the man who is striving most earnestly for the attainment of heaven. Never venture to appropriate to yourselves the rich assurances which are found in the Bible, unless you have good reason to believe that you are growing in hatred of sin, and in strivings after holiness. Fear not to take to yourselves all the promises made by God to His Church, so long as it is your honest desire, and your hearty endeavour, to become more conformed to the image of your Saviour. 1. The language of confidence. "Thou wilt call, and I will answer thee." Remember in how many ways God calls. Job's words indicate great confidence of final salvation. We should greatly rejoice to know that you had all been able to cast away doubt and suspicion, and to feel yourselves "begotten again to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled." But we do dread your resting your assurance on insufficient grounds. These are two great features of genuine piety — the not being content with present acquirements, and the resting for the future on the assistances of God. 2. Job strengthens himself in the persuasion that God will have "a desire to the work of His hands." Amid all the reasons which Job might have urged why God should watch over him, he selects that of his being the work of God's hands. There is, however, a second creation more marvellous, more indicative of Divine love, than the first; and on this, probably, it was that Job's thoughts were turned. The human soul was formed originally in the image of God, but lost that image through the transgression of Adam. So marvellous is its restoration, so far beyond all power but the Divine, that it is spoken of as actually a new creation, when reimpressed with the forfeited features. (Henry Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.WEB: You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire to the work of your hands. |
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