You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand. Sermons
I. GOD'S ACTION MAY APPEAR CRUEL TO MAN. God permits or inflicts pain. When man cries for relief, relief does not come - at least in the way expected. It is not easy to see why the suffering is sent. To us it seems unnecessary. We think we could have done our duty better without it. There appears to be an iron fate bearing down upon us regardless of our needs, or deserts, or helplessness. This is brought home to us with peculiar poignancy, under the most trying circumstances. 1. An accumulation of troubles. One man has more than his share of them. Blow follows blow. The fallen is crushed. Tender wounds are chafed. This was Job's experience. 2. The suffering of the innocent. Bad men are seen to be flourishing while good men are in distress. This looks like indifference to moral claims. 3. The overthrow of the useful. Job had been a most helpful man in his time; his downfall meant the cessation of his kind services for many people in trouble. We see valuable lives cut off or made useless, while mischievous people thrive and grow fat. 4. The refusal to deliver. Job had not been proud, unbelieving, self-contained. He had prayed. But God appeared not to hear or regard him (ver. 20). II. GOD IS NEVER CRUEL TO MAN. Job was now charging God foolishly. We have to judge of a man's character by his deeds till we know him. Then, if we become fully assured that he is good, we reverse the process, and estimate any dubious-looking conduct by the clear character of the man In the same way, after we have come to know that God is a true Father, that his nature is love, our wisest course is not to fling off our faith, and charge God with cruelty when he deals with us in what looks to us like a harsh manner. He cannot be false to his nature. But our eyes are dim; our sight is short; our self-centred experience perverts our judgment. We have to learn to trust the constant character of God when we cannot understand his present conduct. III. NARROW RELIGIOUS VIEWS LEAD TO UNJUST CHARGES AGAINST GOD. Job's three friends were to a large extent responsible for the patriarch's condition of mind, in which he was driven to charge God with cruelty. They had set up an impossible rule, and the evident falsehood of it had driven Job to desperation. A harsh orthodoxy is responsible for very much unbelief. Self-elected advocates of God have thus a good deal of mischief to answer for. In attempting to defend the Divine government some of these people have presented it in a very ugly light. Whilst they have been dinning their formal precepts into men's ears on what they regard as the authority of revelation, they have been rousing a spirit of revolt, till what is most Divine in man, his conscience, has risen up and protested against their dogmas. From the days of Job till our own time theology has too often darkened the world's idea of God. If we turn from man to God himself, we shall discover that he is better than his advocates represent him to be. When it is our duty to speak of religion, let us be careful not to fall into the error of Job's friends, and generate hard thoughts of God by narrow, un-Christ-like teachings. - W.F.A.
Thou art become cruel to me. He says that God, who formerly had been kind to him, was now become cruel in His actings and dispensations toward him; and whereas He was wont to support him, He did now employ His power, as an enemy, in opposition to him. Job, in expressing his sorrow and resentments, is too pathetic, and expresseth much passion and weakness, for which he is reproved by Elihu. Considering this complaint in itself, it teacheth —1. It is the way of God's people to take up God as their chief party in all their troubles. 2. God may seem, for a time, not only not to hear godly supplicants, but even to be a severe foe to them. "Thou art become cruel." 3. It is a character of a godly man, that he is sadly afflicted with any sign of God's indignation, or even with the want of an evidence of God's favour and affection in trouble. Wicked men look rather to their lot in itself, without minding God's favour, or anger, in it. 4. Whether the wicked think of God's favour, who never knew it, yet the want of it will be sad to the godly, who have tasted by experience how sweet it is. 5. As God's power, when He lets it forth in effects, is irresistible and unsupportable for any creature to endure it, however fools do harden themselves, so godly men will soon groan under the apprehension thereof. It is indeed a characteristic of godly men that they are sensible of their own weakness, and therefore are soon made to stoop under the mighty hand of God. Learn —(1) All men by nature are apt to have hard thoughts of God in trouble.(2) Temptation may overdrive, even such as are truly godly, to speak that which is unbecoming, yea, worse than they think.(3) When godly men are ready to complain of God without cause, or to give credit to sense, they will readily find their complaints grow upon their hand. (George Hutcheson.) Christian Age. The only safe, sure way of avoiding this terrible peril is to study reverently and carefully what He has told us about Himself. It is a common temptation to accept the statements of others when they have the semblance of authority, and are asserted stoutly, as if they must be true. We may, and we ought, each of us, to become personally acquainted with our Heavenly Father. But our only hope of learning to know Him lies in patiently, lovingly, studying His character as revealed to us in Jesus Christ. His providences, too, often are such that we misunderstand them. Few of us are allowed to walk only in the light of conscious, joyous peace. Most of us sometimes are at a loss how to interpret the Divine dealings with us. There are occasions in some lives when God Himself seems to render it almost impossible to obey Him. Undoubtedly the object of such trying experiences is to develop a mightier faith. There must be always one possible next step forward in the path of duty; or, if there be actually none, this must be because the time to take it has not come, and patient, prayerful waiting is the present duty. We may misunderstand the meaning of what is ordained for us, but we need not misunderstand its purpose. Those who have a faith strong enough to feel that behind the tangled scheme of human affairs God sits calmly directing all things, are wisest and happiest. His providences are meant to teach this, at the least. When the last analysis has been worked out it becomes apparent that the great central, fundamental evil which we most need to guard against, is this of misunderstanding our Heavenly Father. If we can learn to see things from His point of view, to look upon life, duty, pleasure, eternity, as He looks upon them, we shall be assured of safety and peace. Otherwise we never can be.(Christian Age.) People JobPlaces UzTopics Attack, Changed, Cruel, Fierce, Hast, Hatest, Opposest, Oppresest, Persecute, Persecutest, Pursuest, Ruthlessly, Strength, Strong, ThyselfOutline 1. Job's honor is turned into extreme contempt15. and his prosperity into calamity Dictionary of Bible Themes Job 30:21Library Christian SympathyJob, in his great indignation at the shameful accusation of unkindness to the needy, pours forth the following very solemn imprecation--"If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail; or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof; if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; if his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; if I have lifted up my … Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 8: 1863 What Carey did for Science --Founder of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India Whether the Limbo of Hell is the Same as Abraham's Bosom? Of Confession of Our Infirmity and of the Miseries of this Life Epistle xxxvi. To Maximus, Bishop of Salona . Messiah Unpitied, and Without a Comforter Epistle Xlv. To Theoctista, Patrician . No Sorrow Like Messiah's Sorrow Love Second Stage of Jewish Trial. Jesus Condemned by Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. Job Links Job 30:21 NIVJob 30:21 NLT Job 30:21 ESV Job 30:21 NASB Job 30:21 KJV Job 30:21 Bible Apps Job 30:21 Parallel Job 30:21 Biblia Paralela Job 30:21 Chinese Bible Job 30:21 French Bible Job 30:21 German Bible Job 30:21 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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