And this is what he said: Sermons
This book, so entirely true to nature, presents here one of the darkest moods of the grief-stricken heart. The first state is that of paralyzed silence, dumbness, inertia. Were this to continue, death must ensue. Stagnation will be fatal. The currents of thought and feeling must in some way be set flowing in their accustomed channels, as in the beautiful little poem of Tennyson on the mother suddenly bereaved of her warrior-lord- "All her maidens, wondering, said,
She must weep or she must die." A period of agitation ensues when the mind resumes its natural functions; and the first mood that succeeds to silent prostration is that of bitter resentment and complaint. As we hail the irritability of a patient who has been deadly sick as the sign of returning convalescence, so we may look upon this petulance of grief when it finds at length a voice. We do not blame; we pity, and are tender towards the irritable invalid whose heart we know to be in its depth patient and true; and he who knows the heart better than we do is forbearing with those wild cries which suffering may wring from even constant and faithful bosoms like Job's. We may read these words of passion with consideration if God can listen to them without rebuke. There are three turns in the thought here expressed. I. THE SPIRIT OF MAN IN REVOLT FROM LIFE. Curses on the day of his birth. (Ver. 1-10.) There seems to be some reference to the ancient belief, which we find in later times among the Romans, in unlucky or ill-starred days. Such a day, to the sufferers present feeling, must have been the day of his birth. But he will learn better by-and-by. He cannot see things rightly through the present medium of pain. True religion teaches us - the Christian religion above all - that no "black" days are sent us from him who causes his sun to shine on the evil and the good. It is only ill deeds that make ill days. We have met with Job's complaint again and again in different forms. Men and women have complained that they were brought into the world without their consent being asked, and sometimes passionately exclaim, "I wish I had never been born!" Let us admit what our calm and healthy judgment dictates - these feelings are morbid and transitory; and they are partial, because they represent only one, and that an extreme, mood of the ever-changing mind. We must take our morning, not our midnight, moods if we would know the truth about ourselves. The instinct which leads us to keep birthdays with joy and mutual congratulation should instruct us in our debt of thankfulness: "Thanks that we were men!" II. THE IRRATIONALITY OF DESPAIR. (Vers. 11-19.) But such wishes against the inevitable and for the impossible, the mind, even in the paroxysm of despair, feels to be absurd. It sinks to a degree less irrational in the next wish that an early death had prevented all this misery. Would that a frost had nipped the just-blown flower (vers. 11, 12)! Yet this mood is only a shade less unreasonable than the former. For does not the instinct which leads us all to speak of death in infancy and early childhood as "untimely, premature," rebuke this fretfulness, and witness to the truth again that life is a good? And does not the common aspiration after "length of days," so marked in the Old Testament, supply another argument in the same direction? Job will yet live to smile, from out of the depths of a serene old age, at these passionate clamours of a turbulent grief. Again, he passes into the contemplation of death with pleasure, with a deep craving for its rest. He describes, in simple, beautiful language, that final earthly resort, where agitated brains and restless hearts find at last peace (vers. 17-19). Such a sentiment, again, is common to the experience of suffering hearts, is deeply embedded in the poetry of the world. But how far more common and frequent the happy, healthy mood which finds a zest and relish in the mere sense of existence, in the simple, natural pleasures of every day! The longing for the rest of the grave is the mood of intense weariness and disease; and it is counteracted by the mood of restored health, which longs for activity, even in heaven. Well has that poet, who has entered so deeply into all the phases of modern sadness, sung - "Whatever crazy Sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Hath ever truly longed for death.
life whereof our nerves are scant;
Oh, life, not death, for which we pant;
More life and fuller, that we want." III. INTERROGATION OF LIFE'S MYSTERIES. (Vers. 20-26.) Once more, from longing for death, the distressed mind of the sufferer passes to impatient questioning. Why should life, if it is to be given to any, be given to sufferers who desire death? why should it be given to him who can find no rest, who is ever in dread of fresh woes? This complaint, again, is natural, but it is not wise. We are impatient of pain; we should otherwise have no quarrel with the mystery of being. But pain is a great fact in the constitution of the world; it is there; it is there evidently by Divine appointment; it cannot be glozed over nor explained away. The wisdom of piety is in reconciling ourselves to it as the dispensation of God, in submitting to it as his will, supporting it with patience. Then, "though no affliction for the present be joyous, but grievous, yet afterward it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11). In hope let us - "Strain through years
To catch the far-off interest of tears." To the question of Job the answer is - Suffering is the signet of a majestic being. The light of eternity, falling athwart our tears, forms a rainbow prophetic of our glorious destiny. But the final and most significant of all answers is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is the union of highest life with extremest suffering. Born to suffer, and by suffering to be made perfect, the Lord Jesus Christ supplies for them that trust in him a power by which they can rise out of the mysterious darkness of pain, believing that what is tried, even as by fire, shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at his appearing. The study of this paroxysm of extreme pain of mind will be instructive if it help us to govern any similar moods which may arise in our own minds. LESSONS. 1. There is a natural and precious relief from mental pain in words, "Poor breathing orators of miseries!
Let them have scope; though what they do impart
Help nothing else, yet they do ease the heart." 2. God, our gracious Father, is not offended by our sincerity. Greater than our hearts, he knows all things. This book and many of the psalms teach us a childlike piety by repeating words in which sufferers poured forth all their complaints as well as thanksgivings into the ear of him who misunderstands nothing. 3. There is an exaggeration in all the moods of depression. We are prone to overstate the ills of life, and to forget the numberless hours of joy in which we have instinctively thanked God for the blessing of existence. 4. The very intensity and exaggeration of such moods point forward to a reaction. They will not continue long in the course of nature. God has mercifully so constructed this fine mechanism of body and mind that these extremes bring their own remedy. Patience, then. The hour is darkest that is nearest the dawn. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." - J. The small and great axe there. Notice the sameness of all men in their birth. One and all are equal by nature. All inherit the sin of their first parents. The necessary consequence following from this truth is that there is a need of a "new birth" for everyone that would inherit everlasting life. There is, however, a distinction among men in their lives. There is a vast difference between men, both in spiritual and in temporal things. The inferences are simply these. If we look at men in matters temporal, and receive the truth that God makes one man great and another man small, we learn to be contented in whatsoever position of life God Himself has placed us. We learn that God is willing to make man that which man ought to be, even though He has to work with such wretched materials as we are made of. But whatever men's differences in life, there is nevertheless a similarity in their death. "The small and the great are there." Whether young or old, all must come to this. "He seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish." "Man being in honour, abideth not."() 1. Death seizeth equally upon all sorts and degrees of men. The small and the great are there. The small cannot escape the hands, or slip through the fingers of death, because they are little; the greatest cannot rescue themselves from the power, or break out of the hands of death, because they are big. 2. That death makes all men equal; or, that all are equal in death. As there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory (1 Corinthians 15:41). So there is one terrestrial glory of kings, and another glory of nobles, and another glory of the common people, and these have not the same glory in common; even among them, one man differs from another man in this worldly glory; but when death comes, there is an end of all degrees, of all distinctions; there the small and the great are the same. There is but one distinction that will outlive death; and death cannot take it away; the distinction of holy and unholy, clean and unclean, believer and an infidel; these distinctions remain after death, and shall remain forever. () People JobPlaces UzTopics Answereth, Job, Spake, SpokeOutline 1. Job curses the day and services of his birth.
13. The ease of death.
20. He complains of life, because of his anguish.
Dictionary of Bible Themes Job 3:1-4 5067 suicide
5231 birthday Job 3:1-10 4810 darkness, natural
5827 curse Job 3:1-26 5945 self-pity Library March 2 Evening
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.--HEB. 4:9. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; they . . . rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth . . . Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. We that are in this tabernacle do groan, …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily PathThe Trouble and Rest of Good Men "There the Wicked Cease from Troubling
Sermon 127 The Trouble and Rest of Good Men "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest." Job 3:17. When God at first surveyed all the works he had made, "behold, they were very good." All were perfect in beauty, and man, the lord of all, was perfect in holiness. And as his holiness was, so was his happiness. Knowing no sin, he knew no pain. But when sin was conceived, it soon brought forth pain; the whole scene was changed in a moment. He now groaned under the weight of …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions The Sorrowful Man's Question
"Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?"--Job 3:23. I AM VERY THANKFUL that so many of you are glad and happy. There is none too much joy in the world, and the more that any of us can create, the better. It should be a part of our happiness, and a man part of it, to try to make other people glad. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," is a commission which many of us ought to feel is entrusted to us. If your own cup of joy is full, let it run over to others who …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 46: 1900 A Prayer when one Begins to be Sick.
O most righteous Judge, yet in Jesus Christ my gracious Father! I, wretched sinner, do here return unto thee, though driven with pain and sickness, like the prodigal child with want and hunger. I acknowledge that this sickness and pain comes not by blind chance or fortune, but by thy divine providence and special appointment. It is the stroke of thy heavy hand, which my sins have justly deserved; and the things that I feared are now fallen upon me (Job iii. 25.) Yet do I well perceive that in wrath …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety Whether Servile Fear is Good
Whether Servile Fear is Good We proceed to the fourth article thus: 1. It seems that servile fear is not good. If the use of a thing is evil, the thing itself is evil. Now the use of servile fear is evil, since "he who does something out of fear does not do well, even though that which is done be good," as the gloss says on Rom. ch. 8. It follows that servile fear is not good. 2. Again, that which has its origin in a root of sin is not good. Servile fear has its origin in a root of sin. For on Job …
Aquinas—Nature and Grace Whether it is Lawful to Curse an Irrational Creature?
Objection 1: It would seem that it is unlawful to curse an irrational creature. Cursing would seem to be lawful chiefly in its relation to punishment. Now irrational creatures are not competent subjects either of guilt or of punishment. Therefore it is unlawful to curse them. Objection 2: Further, in an irrational creature there is nothing but the nature which God made. But it is unlawful to curse this even in the devil, as stated above [2960](A[1]). Therefore it is nowise lawful to curse an irrational …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica Whether in the State of Innocence Children Would have Been Born Confirmed in Righteousness?
Objection 1: It would seem that in the state of innocence children would have been born confirmed in righteousness. For Gregory says (Moral. iv) on the words of Job 3:13: "For now I should have been asleep, etc.: If no sinful corruption had infected our first parent, he would not have begotten "children of hell"; no children would have been born of him but such as were destined to be saved by the Redeemer." Therefore all would have been born confirmed in righteousness. Objection 2: Further, Anselm …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica Whether the Blessed virgin was Sanctified Before Animation?
Objection 1: It would seem that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified before animation. Because, as we have stated [4127](A[1]), more grace was bestowed on the Virgin Mother of God than on any saint. Now it seems to have been granted to some, to be sanctified before animation. For it is written (Jer. 1:5): "Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee": and the soul is not infused before the formation of the body. Likewise Ambrose says of John the Baptist (Comment. in Luc. i, 15): "As …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica Whether Servile Fear is Good?
Objection 1: It would seem that servile fear is not good. For if the use of a thing is evil, the thing itself is evil. Now the use of servile fear is evil, for according to a gloss on Rom. 8:15, "if a man do anything through fear, although the deed be good, it is not well done." Therefore servile fear is not good. Objection 2: Further, no good grows from a sinful root. Now servile fear grows from a sinful root, because when commenting on Job 3:11, "Why did I not die in the womb?" Gregory says (Moral. …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica Whether it is Lawful to Curse Anyone?
Objection 1: It would seem unlawful to curse anyone. For it is unlawful to disregard the command of the Apostle in whom Christ spoke, according to 2 Cor. 13:3. Now he commanded (Rom. 12:14), "Bless and curse not." Therefore it is not lawful to curse anyone. Objection 2: Further, all are bound to bless God, according to Dan. 3:82, "O ye sons of men, bless the Lord." Now the same mouth cannot both bless God and curse man, as proved in the third chapter of James. Therefore no man may lawfully curse …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica Wesley and his Barber
Thursday, April 11 (Bolton).--The barber who shaved me said, "Sir, I praise God on your behalf. When you were at Bolton last, I was one of the most eminent drunkards in all the town; but I came to listen at the window, and God struck me to the heart. I then earnestly prayed for power against drinking; and God gave me more than I asked: He took away the very desire of it. Yet I felt myself worse and worse, till on April 5 last, I could hold out no longer. I knew I must drop into hell that moment unless …
John Wesley—The Journal of John Wesley The Rich Sinner Dying. Psa. 49:6,9; Eccl. 8:8; Job 3:14,15.
The rich sinner dying. Psa. 49:6,9; Eccl. 8:8; Job 3:14,15. In vain the wealthy mortals toil, And heap their shining dust in vain, Look down and scorn the humble poor, And boast their lofty hills of gain. Their golden cordials cannot ease Their pained hearts or aching heads, Nor fright nor bribe approaching death From glitt'ring roofs and downy beds. The ling'ring, the unwilling soul The dismal summons must obey, And bid a long, a sad farewell To the pale lump of lifeless clay. Thence they are …
Isaac Watts—The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts The Poetical Books (Including Also Ecclesiastes and Canticles).
1. The Hebrews reckon but three books as poetical, namely: Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, which are distinguished from the rest by a stricter rhythm--the rhythm not of feet, but of clauses (see below, No. 3)--and a peculiar system of accentuation. It is obvious to every reader that the poetry of the Old Testament, in the usual sense of the word, is not restricted to these three books. But they are called poetical in a special and technical sense. In any natural classification of the books of the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible The Writings of Israel's Philosophers
[Sidenote: Discussions the problem of evil] An intense interest in man led certain of Israel's sages in time to devote their attention to more general philosophical problems, such as the moral order of the universe. In the earlier proverbs, prophetic histories, and laws, the doctrine that sin was always punished by suffering or misfortune, and conversely that calamity and misfortune were sure evidence of the guilt of the one affected, had been reiterated until it had become a dogma. In nine out …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament One Thing is Needful;
or, SERIOUS MEDITATIONS UPON THE FOUR LAST THINGS: DEATH, JUDGMENT, HEAVEN, AND HELL UNTO WHICH IS ADDED EBAL AND GERIZZIM, OR THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE, by John Bunyan. London: Printed for Nath. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, 1688.[1] ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. According to Charles Doe, in that curious sheet called The Struggler for the Preservation of Mr. John Bunyan's Labours, these poems were published about the year 1664, while the author was suffering imprisonment for conscience …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 Death Swallowed up in victory
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory! D eath, simply considered, is no more than the cessation of life --that which was once living, lives no longer. But it has been the general, perhaps the universal custom of mankind, to personify it. Imagination gives death a formidable appearance, arms it with a dart, sting or scythe, and represents it as an active, inexorable and invincible reality. In this view death is a great devourer; with his iron tongue …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2 Meditations for the Morning.
1. Almighty God can, in the resurrection, as easily raise up thy body out of the grave, from the sleep of death, as he hath this morning wakened thee in thy bed, out of the sleep of nature. At the dawning of which resurrection day, Christ shall come to be glorified in his saints; and every one of the bodies of the thousands of his saints, being fashioned like unto his glorious body, shall shine as bright as the sun (2 Thess. i. 10; Jude, ver. 14; Phil. iii. 21; Luke ix. 31;) all the angels shining …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety 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 3:2 NIV
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