The heavens will expose his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him. Sermons
The wicked may hide himself "in his secret places," but his iniquity will be revealed. He cannot escape. For a time he may prosper and may practise deceit; but ultimately his doings shall be made known and meet with their just retribution. The natural consequence of wrongdoing is to go on from bad to worse until at length it bursts all restraint. Even the dull eye of the neighbour will detect the prevailing wrong, but the keen eye of a Divine justice cannot be escaped. Evil outwits itself. Its fruit appears in due time. Faultiness of life and conduct make themselves apparent. But should it be possible wholly to hide iniquity through life, and to die with the dreadful secret locked in the breast of the wrong-doer, yet there still remains a revelation which cannot be evaded. "The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him." This final testimony against ungodliness is. - I. INEVITABLE. II. IMPARTIAL III. DESERVED. IV. SEVERE. - R.G. Because he hath oppressed, and hath forsaken the poor. What is it that excites all this Divine antagonism and judgment? Was the object of it a theological heretic? Was the man pronounced wicked because he had imbibed certain wrong notions? Was this a case of heterodoxy of creed being punished by the outpouring of the vials of Divine wrath? Look at the words again. His philanthropy was wrong. The man was wicked socially — wicked in relation to his fellow men. All wickedness is not of a theological nature and quality, rising upward into the region of metaphysical conceptions and definitions of the Godhead, which only the learned can present or comprehend; there is a lateral wickedness, a wickedness as between man and man, rich and poor, poor and rich young and old; a household wickedness, a market place iniquity. There we stand on solid rock. If you have been led away with the thought that wickedness is a theological conception, and a species of theological nightmare, you have only to read the Bible, in its complete sense, in order to see that judgment is pronounced upon what may be called lateral wickedness — the wickedness that operates among ourselves, that wrongs mankind, that keeps a false weight, and a short measure, that practises cunning and deceit upon the simple and innocent, that fleeces the unsuspecting, — a social wickedness that stands out that it may be seen in all its black hideousness, and valued as one of the instruments of the devil. There is no escape from the judgment of the Bible. If it pronounced judgment upon false opinions only, then men might profess to be astounded by terms they cannot comprehend: but the Bible goes into the family, the market place, the counting. house, the field where the labourer toils, and insists upon judging the actions of men, and upon sending away the richest man from all his bank of gold, if he have oppressed and forsaken the poor. (). But Job answered and said. Homilist. There is more logic and less passion in this address than in any of Job's preceding speeches. He felt the dogma of the friends to be opposed — I. TO HIS CONSCIOUSNESS OF RECTITUDE. If their dogma was true, he must be a sinner above all the rest, for his sufferings were of the most aggravated character. But he knew that he was not a great sinner. 1. This consciousness urged him to speak. 2. It gave him confidence in speaking. 3. It inspired him with religious solemnity. The providential ways of God with man are often terribly mysterious. Under these mysterious events solemn silence rather than controversy is most befitting us. II. TO HIS OBSERVATION OF FACTS. 1. He saw wicked men about him. He notes their hostility to God, and their devotion to self. 2. He saw such wicked men very prosperous. They prosper in their persons, their property, and their posterity. 3. He saw wicked men happy in living and dying. Job states these things as a refutation of the dogma that his friends held and urged against him. III. TO HIS HISTORIC KNOWLEDGE. He refers to the testimony of other men. 1. They observed, as I have, that the wicked are often protected in common calamities. 2. That few, if any, are found to deal out punishment to wicked men in power. 3. That the Wicked man goes to his grave with as much peace and honour as other men. IV. TO HIS THEORY OF PROVIDENCE. Though nothing here expresses Job's belief in a state of retribution beyond the grave, we think it is implied. I see not how there can be any real religion, which is supreme love to the Author of our being, where there is not a well-settled faith in a future state. Conclusion. God's system of governing the race has been the same from the beginning. He has never dealt with mankind here on the ground of character. True, there are occasional flashes of Divine retribution which reveal moral distinctions and require moral conduct; but they are only occasional, limited, and prophetic. No stronger argument for a future state of full and adequate retribution it would be possible to have, than that which is furnished by God's system of governing the world. () People Job, ZopharPlaces UzTopics Clear, Expose, Gives, Guilt, Heaven, Heavens, Iniquity, Itself, Raising, Reveal, Rise, Sin, WitnessOutline 1. Zophar shows the state and portion of the wicked
Dictionary of Bible Themes Job 20:27 5812 concealment Library June 9 Evening
The triumphing of the wicked is short.--JOB 20:5. Thou shalt bruise his heel.--This is your hour, and the power of darkness.--As the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.--Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily PathThe Christian Urged To, and Assisted In, an Express Act of Self-Dedication to the Service of God.
1. The advantages of such a surrender are briefly suggested.-- 2, 3, 4. Advice for the manner of doing it; that it be deliberate, cheerful, entire, perpetual.--5. And that it be expressed with some affecting solemnity.--6. A written instrument to be signed and declared before God, at some season of extraordinary devotion, reposed. The chapter concludes with a specimen of such an instrument, together with an abstract of it, to be used with proper and requisite alterations. 1. AS I would hope, that, …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul Whether the Ashes from which the Human Body Will be Restored have any Natural Inclination Towards the Soul which Will be United to Them?
Objection 1: It would seem that the ashes from which the human body will be restored will have a natural inclination towards the soul which will be united to them. For if they had no inclination towards the soul, they would stand in the same relation to that soul as other ashes. Therefore it would make no difference whether the body that is to be united to that soul were restored from those ashes or from others: and this is false. Objection 2: Further, the body is more dependent on the soul than …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica God.
GLORY OF GOD. God is the chief good--good so as nothing is but himself. He is in himself most happy; yea, all good and all true happiness are only to be found in God, as that which is essential to his nature; nor is there any good or any happiness in or with any creature or thing but what is communicated to it by God. God is the only desirable good; nothing without him is worthy of our hearts. Right thoughts of God are able to ravish the heart; how much more happy is the man that has interest in …
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan The Hardening Operation of Love.
"Being grieved for the hardness of their heart."--Mark iii. 5. Love may also be reversed. Failing to cherish, to uplift, and to enrich, it consumes and destroys. This is a mystery which man can not fathom. It belongs to the unsearchable depths of the divine Being, of which we do not wish to know more than has been revealed. But this does not alter the fact. No creature can exclude itself from the divine control. No man can say that he has nothing to do with God; that he or any other creature exists …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit Tit. 2:06 Thoughts for Young Men
WHEN St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Titus about his duty as a minister, he mentioned young men as a class requiring peculiar attention. After speaking of aged men and aged women, and young women, he adds this pithy advice, "Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded" (Tit. 2:6). I am going to follow the Apostle's advice. I propose to offer a few words of friendly exhortation to young men. I am growing old myself, but there are few things I remember so well as the days of my youth. I have a most …
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times The Barren Fig-Tree;
OR, THE DOOM AND DOWNFALL OF THE FRUITLESS PROFESSOR: SHOWING, THAT THE DAY OF GRACE MAY BE PAST WITH HIM LONG BEFORE HIS LIFE IS ENDED; THE SIGNS ALSO BY WHICH SUCH MISERABLE MORTALS MAY BE KNOWN. BY JOHN BUNYAN 'Who being dead, yet speaketh.'--Hebrews 11:4 London: Printed for J. Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1688. This Title has a broad Black Border. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This solemn, searching, awful treatise, was published by Bunyan in 1682; but does not appear …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 A Few Sighs from Hell;
or, The Groans of the Damned Soul: or, An Exposition of those Words in the Sixteenth of Luke, Concerning the Rich Man and the Beggar WHEREIN IS DISCOVERED THE LAMENTABLE STATE OF THE DAMNED; THEIR CRIES, THEIR DESIRES IN THEIR DISTRESSES, WITH THE DETERMINATION OF GOD UPON THEM. A GOOD WARNING WORD TO SINNERS, BOTH OLD AND YOUNG, TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION BETIMES, AND TO SEEK, BY FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, TO AVOID, LEST THEY COME INTO THE SAME PLACE OF TORMENT. Also, a Brief Discourse touching the …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 An Exhortation to Love God
1. An exhortation. Let me earnestly persuade all who bear the name of Christians to become lovers of God. "O love the Lord, all ye his saints" (Psalm xxxi. 23). There are but few that love God: many give Him hypocritical kisses, but few love Him. It is not so easy to love God as most imagine. The affection of love is natural, but the grace is not. Men are by nature haters of God (Rom. i. 30). The wicked would flee from God; they would neither be under His rules, nor within His reach. They fear God, …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial Man's Misery by the Fall
Q-19: WHAT IS THE MISERY OF THAT ESTATE WHEREINTO MAN FELL? A: All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever. 'And were by nature children of wrath.' Eph 2:2. Adam left an unhappy portion to his posterity, Sin and Misery. Having considered the first of these, original sin, we shall now advert to the misery of that state. In the first, we have seen mankind offending; …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity Job
The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been divided as to how the book should be …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Job 20:27 NIV
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