For you will forget your misery, recalling it only as waters gone by. Sermons
I. THE METHOD OF REPENTANCE. 1. "Prepare thine heart." Give the heart its true direction - from evil towards God. 2. "Stretch out thine hands towards God" - in prayer - the true sign of repentance, the sign of lowly self-abasement, the very confession of sin, the opening of the heart with the lips to renounce evil, to sue for pardon. The hands stretched towards God is the human sign of return to him. 3. Put away iniquity. The actual renunciation of evil, forsaking and abandoning it with the heart and hands and voice lifted to God, is the certain and indubitable evidence of true repentance. No sorrow for sin becomes repentance until sin is by the sorrowing heart renounced. "If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away." II. THE ENCOURAGEMENT TO REPENTANCE. 1. "Then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot," i.e. of guilt. Thy heart, cleared of its guilt, shall be free and joyful. 2. And with consciousness of the Divine forgiveness thou wilt be able to look up without fear - "to lift up thy face" - to God. 3. Then sorrow shall be supplanted by peaceful joy. "Thou shalt forget thy misery." Thy grief shall leave no more trace than waters that flow by. 4. Then brightness shall dawn upon thy life, over its remainder shall be a time of gladness; "as the morning shalt thou be." III. THE REWARD OF REPENTANCE. The encouragements to repentance are in themselves part of its reward, though that reward will be only truly, because only perfectly, found in the subsequent days of the life. Beautifully and cheeringly does this friend paint the rich prosperity of later days even to the overwhelmed sufferer. Although an error lurks beneath it all, which the teaching of the entire book is designed to correct; yet out of the bright encouragements, as out of an early morning, the full promise of blessing to the repentant arises. "Thou shalt be secure." The sense of security will take possession of the breast from which condemnation is removed. The assurance of the Divine forgiveness is a pledge of the Divine love, and the forgiven one hides in the God against whom in his folly he had sinned. Hope illumines the future, and his spirit, braced with holy courage, takes its rest in safety. He can lie down in peace and sleep, for he has gained a new trust in God. He defies his foes. Prosperity returns; "many make suit unto him: Such is the rich reward promised to Job by his friend, should he repent of his sin. True, as a great principle for human conduct it, however, lacks a correctness of application, for Job is not suffering for his sins. But every smitten one may learn the wisdom, the comfort, and the happy consequence of true repentance. - R.G.
Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away. Job's misery was extreme, and it seemed as if he could never forget it. He never did forget the fact of it, but he did forget the pain of it. Nothing better can happen to our misery than that it should be forgotten in the sense referred to in our text; for then, evidently, it will be clean gone from us. It will be as it is when even the scent of the liquor has gone out of the cask, even when the flavour of the bitter drug lingers no longer in the medicine glass, but has altogether disappeared. If you look carefully at the connection of our text, I do not doubt that you will experience this blessed forgetfulness. When we are in pain of body, and depression of spirit, we imagine that we never shall forget such misery as we are enduring. And yet, by and by, God turns towards us the palm of His hand, and we see that it is full of mercy, we are restored to health, or uplifted from depression of spirit, and we wonder that we ever made so much of our former suffering or depression. We remember it no more, except as a thing that has passed and gone, to be recollected with gratitude.I. I am not going to limit the application of the text to Job and his friends, for it has also a message for many of us at the present time; and I shall take it, first, WITH REFERENCE TO THE COMMON TROUBLES OF LIFE WHICH AFFECT BELIEVING MEN AND WOMEN. These troubles of life happen to us all more or less. They come to one in one shape, and perhaps life thinks that he is the only man who has any real misery; yet they also come to others, though possibly in another form. The Lord of the pilgrims was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief"; and His disciples must expect to fare even as their Master fared while here below; it is enough for the servant if he be as his lord. You, who are just now enduring misery, should seek to be comforted under it. Perhaps you will ask me, "Where can we get any comfort?" Well, if you cannot draw any from your present experience, seek to gather some from the past. You have been miserable before, but you have been delivered and helped. There has come to you a most substantial benefit from everything which you have been called to endure. Let us gather consolation also from the future. If, as the apostle truly says, "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous," recollect how he goes on to say, "Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." "Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away." How will that be? 1. Well, first, by the lapse of time. Time is a wonderful healer. 2. Ay, but there is something better than the lapse of years, and that is when, during a considerable time, you are left without trial. That is a sharp pain you are now enduring; but what if you should have years of health afterwards? Remember how Job forgot his misery when, in a short time, he had double as much of all that he possessed as he had before. There is wonderfully smooth sailing on ahead for some of you when you are once over this little stretch of broken water. 3. And besides the lapse of time, and an interval of rest and calm, it may be — it probably is the fact with God's people — that He has in store for you some great mercies. When the Lord turns your captivity, you will be like them that dream; and you know what happens to men who dream. They wake up; their dream is all gone, they have completely forgotten it. So will it be with your sorrow. Be of good courage in these dark, dull times, for, mayhap this text is God's message to thy soul, "Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away." It has bee so with many, many, many believers in the past. What do you think of Joseph sold for a slave, Joseph falsely accused, Joseph shut up in prison? But when Joseph found out that all that trial was the way to make him ruler over all the land of Egypt, and that he might be the means of saving other nations from famine, and blessing his father's house, I do not wonder that he called his elder son "Manasseh." What does that name mean? "Forgetfulness" — "for God," said he, "hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house." II. I should be greatly rejoiced if, in the second place, I might speak A CHEERING WORD TO POOR SOULS UNDER DISTRESS ON ACCOUNT OF SIN. 1. Well, now, I exhort you, first of all, to look to Christ, and lean on Christ. Trust in His atoning sacrifice, for there alone can a troubled soul find rest. There was never a man yet who, with all his heart, did seek the Lord Jesus Christ, but sooner or later found Him; and if you have been long in seeking, I lay it to the fact that you have not sought with a prepared heart, a thoroughly earnest heart, or else you would have found Him. But, perhaps, taking Zophar's next expression, you have not stretched out your hands toward the Lord, giving yourself up to Him like a man who holds up his hands to show that he surrenders. Further, you may and you shall forget your misery, provided you fulfil one more condition mentioned by Zophar, and that is, that you are not harbouring any sin: "If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles." "Oh!" you say, "but how am I to do it?" Christ will help you. Trust Him to help you. Oh, do see that you let not wickedness dwell in your tabernacles, you who are the people of God, and you who wish to be His, if you would have Zophar's words to Job fulfilled in your experience, "Then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear: because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away." III. Now let me tell you HOW SWEETLY GOD CAN MAKE A SINNER FORGET HIS MISERY. 1. The moment a sinner believes in Jesus Christ with true heart and repentant spirit, God makes him forget his misery, first, by giving him a full pardon. 2. Next, he rejoices in all the blessings that God gives with His grace. IV. THIS TEXT WILL COME TRUE TO THE SICKENING, DECLINING, SOON-DEPARTING BELIEVER. If thou hast believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and if thou art resting alone upon Him, recollect that, in a very short time, "thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away." In a very, very, very short time, your suffering and sadness will all be over. I suppose the expression, "waters that pass away," signifies those rivers which are common in the East, and which we meet with so abundantly in the south of France. They are rivers with very broad channels, but I have often looked in vain for a single drop of water in them. "Then," perhaps you ask, "what is the use of such rivers?" Well, at certain times, the mountain torrents come rushing down, bearing great rocks, and stones, and trees before them, and then, after they have surged along the river bed for several days, they altogether disappear in the sea. Such will all the sorrows of fife and the sorrows even of death soon be to you, and to me also. They will all have passed away, and all will be over with us here. And then, you know, those waters that have passed away will never come back again. Thank God, we shall recollect our sorrows in heaven only to praise God for the grace that sustained us under them; but we shall not remember them as a person does who has cut his finger, and who still bears the scar in his flesh. We shall not recollect them as one does who has been wounded, and who carries the bullet somewhere about him. In heaven, you shall not have a trace of earth's sorrow; you shall not have, in your glorified body, or in your perfectly sanctified soul and spirit, any trace of any spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) People Job, ZopharPlaces UzTopics Flowing, Forget, Memory, Misery, Pass, Passed, Recalling, Remember, Rememberest, Sorrow, Trouble, WatersOutline 1. Zophar reproves Job for justifying himself5. God's wisdom is unsearchable 13. The assured blessing of repentance Dictionary of Bible Themes Job 11:13-17Library The Eternity and Unchangeableness of God. Exod. iii. 14.--"I AM THAT I AM."--Psal. xc. 2.--"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."--Job xi. 7-9.--"Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." This is the chief point of saving knowledge, … Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning God Incomprehensible and Sovereign. Whether God is a Body Whether Security Belongs to Magnanimity? Whether Confidence Belongs to Magnanimity? Whether God is a Body? The Character of Its Teachings Evidences the Divine Authorship of the Bible Differences in Judgment About Water Baptism, no Bar to Communion: Or, to Communicate with Saints, as Saints, Proved Lawful. "Boast not Thyself of to Morrow, for Thou Knowest not what a Day May Bring Forth. " Whether There Should have Been Man Ceremonial Precepts? "And we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. " Characters and Names of Messiah Divine Impartiality Considered. Letter ix. Meditation. An Exposition on the First Ten Chapters of Genesis, and Part of the Eleventh Brief Directions How to Read the Holy Scriptures once Every Year Over, with Ease, Profit, and Reverence. Of the Name of God Thoughts Upon Self-Denyal. John Bunyan on the Terms of Communion and Fellowship of Christians at the Table of the Lord; The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, Job Links Job 11:16 NIVJob 11:16 NLT Job 11:16 ESV Job 11:16 NASB Job 11:16 KJV Job 11:16 Bible Apps Job 11:16 Parallel Job 11:16 Biblia Paralela Job 11:16 Chinese Bible Job 11:16 French Bible Job 11:16 German Bible Job 11:16 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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