Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Job 21:1 But Job answered and said, XVIII. ARE THE WAYS OF THE LORD EQUAL? Job 21:1-34 Job SPEAKS WITH less of personal distress and a more collected mind than before Job begins a reply to Zophar. His brave hope of vindication has fortified his soul and is not without effect upon his bodily state. The quietness of tone in this final address of the second colloquy contrasts with his former agitation and the growing eagerness of the friends to convict him of wrong. True, he has still to speak of facts of human life troublous and inscrutable. Where they lie he must look, and terror seizes him, as if he moved on the edge of chaos. It is, however, no longer his own controversy with God that disquiets him. For the time he is able to leave that to the day of revelation. But seeing a vaster field in which righteousness must be revealed, he compels himself, as it were, to face the difficulties which are encountered in that survey. The friends have throughout the colloquy presented in varying pictures the offensiveness of the wicked man and his sure destruction. Job, extending his view over the field they have professed to search, sees the facts in another light. While his statement is in the way of a direct negative to Zophar’s theory, he has to point out what seems dreadful injustice in the providence of God. He is not, however, drawn anew into the tone of revolt. The opening words are as usual expostulatory, but with a ring of vigour. Job sets the arguments of his friends aside and the only demand he makes now is for their attention. "Hear diligently my speech, And let that be your consolations. Suffer me that I may speak; And after I have spoken, mock on. As for me, is my complaint of man? And why should I not be impatient?" What he has said hitherto has had little effect upon them; what he is to say may have none. But he will speak; and afterwards, if Zophar finds that he can maintain his theory, why, he must keep to it and mock on. At present the speaker is in the mood of disdaining false judgment. He quite understands the conclusion come to by the friends. They have succeeded in wounding him time after time. But what presses upon his mind is the state of the world as it really is. Another impatience than of human falsehood urges him to speak. He has returned upon the riddle of life he gave Zophar to read-why the tents of robbers prosper and they that provoke God are secure. { Job 12:6 } Suppose the three let him alone for a while and consider the question largely, in its whole scope. They shall consider it, for, certainly, the robber chief may be seen here and there in full swing of success, with his children about him, gaily enjoying the fruit of sin, and as fearless as if the Almighty were his special protector. Here is something that needs clearing up. Is it not enough to make a strong man shake? Mark me, and be astonished, And lay the hand upon the mouth. Even while I remember I am troubled, And trembling taketh hold of my flesh- Wherefore do the wicked live, Become old, yea wax mighty in power? Their seed is settled with them in their sight, And their offspring before their eyes; Their houses are in peace, without fear, And the rod of God is not upon them They send forth their little ones like a flock, And their children dance; They sing to the timbrel and lute, And rejoice at the sound of the pipe. They spend their days in ease, And in a moment go down to Sheol. Yet they said to God, Depart from us, For we desire not to know Thy ways. What is Shaddai that we should serve Him? And what profit should we have if we pray unto Him? Contrast the picture here with those which Bildad and Zophar painted-and where lies the truth? Sufficiently on Job’s side to make one who is profoundly interested in the question of Divine righteousness stand appalled. There was an error of judgment inseparable from that early stage of human education in which vigour and the gains of vigour counted for more than goodness and the gains of goodness, and this error clouding the thought of Job made him tremble for his faith. Is nature God’s? Does God arrange the affairs of this world? Why then, under His rule, can the godless have enjoyment, and those who deride the Almighty feast on the fat things of His earth? Job has sent into the future a single penetrating look. He has seen the possibility of Vindication, but not the certainty of retribution. The underworld into which the evildoer descends in a moment; without protracted misery, appears to Job no hell of torment. It is a region of reduced, incomplete existence, not of penalty. The very clearness with which he Saw vindication for himself, that is, for the good man, makes it needful to see the wrong doer judged and openly condemned. Where then shall this be done? The writer, with all his genius, could only throw one vivid gleam beyond the present. He could not frame a new idea of Sheol, nor, passing its cloud confines, reach the thought of personality continuing in acute sensations either of joy or pain. The ungodly ought to feel the heavy hand of Divine justice in the present state of being. But he does not. Nature makes room for him and his children, for their gay dances and lifelong hilarity. Heaven does not frown. "The wicked live, become old, yea, wax mighty in power; their houses are in peace, without fear." From the climax of chapter 19, the speeches of Job seem to fall away instead of advancing. The author had one brilliant journey into the unseen, but the peak he reached could not be made a new point of departure. Knowledge he did not possess was now required. He saw before him a pathless ocean where no man had shown the way, and inspiration seems to have failed him. His power lay in remarkably keen analysis and criticism of known theological positions and in glowing poetic sense. His inspiration working through these persuaded him that everywhere God is the Holy and True. It is scarcely to be supposed that condemnation of the evil could have seemed to him of less importance than vindication of the good. Our conclusion therefore must be that a firm advance into the other life was not for genius like his, nor for human genius at its highest. One more than man must speak of the great judgment and what lies beyond. Clearly Job sees the unsolved enigma of the godless man’s prosperous life, states it, and stands trembling. Regarding it what have other thinkers said? "If the law of all creation were justice," says John Stuart Mill, "and the Creator omnipotent, then in whatever amount suffering and happiness might be dispensed to the world, each person’s share of them would be exactly proportioned to that person’s good or evil deeds; no human being would have a worse lot than another without worse deserts; accident or favouritism would have no part in such a world, but every human life would be the playing out of a drama constructed like a perfect moral tale. No one is able to blind himself to the fact that the world we live in is totally different from this." Emerson, again, facing this problem, repudiates the doctrine that judgment is not executed in this world. He affirms that there is a fallacy in the concession that the bad are successful, that justice is not done now. "Every ingenuous and aspiring soul," he says, "leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate." His theory is that there is balance or compensation everywhere. "Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know, that they do not touch him; -but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in another more vital part. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem, how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual bright, from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a one end, without an other end. This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong things, so soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no more halve things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. For everything you have missed you have gained something else, and for everything you gain you lose something. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate but kills the owner. We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but, should we not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the account." The argument reaches far beneath that superficial condemnation of the order of providence which disfigures Mr. Mill’s essay on Nature. So far as it goes, it illuminates the present stage of human existence. The light, however, is not sufficient, for we cannot consent to the theory that in an ideal scheme, a perfect or eternal state, he who would have holiness must sacrifice power, and he who would be true must be content to be despised. There is, we cannot doubt, a higher law; for this does not in any sense apply to the life of God Himself. In the discipline which prepares for liberty, there must be restraints and limitations, gain-that is, development-by renunciation; earthly ends must be subordinated to spiritual; sacrifices must be made. But the present state does not exhaust the possibilities of development nor close the history of man. There is a kingdom out of which shall be taken all things that offend. To Emerson’s compensations must be added the compensation of Heaven. Still he lifts the problem out of the deep darkness which troubled Job. And with respect to the high position and success bad men are allowed to enjoy, another writer, Bushnell, well points out that permission of their opulence and power by God aids the development of moral ideas. "It is simply letting society and man be what they are, to show what they are." The retributive stroke, swift and visible, is not needed to declare this: "If one is hard upon the poor, harsh to children, he makes, or may, a very great discovery of himself. What is in him is mirrored forth by his acts, and distinctly mirrored in them. If he is unjust, passionate, severe, revengeful, jealous, dishonest, and supremely selfish, he is in just that scale of society or social relationship that brings him out to himself. Evil is scarcely to be known as evil till it takes the condition of authority." We do not understand it till we see what kind of god it will make, and by what sort of rule it will manage its empire. Just here all the merit of God’s plan, as regards the permission of power in the hands of wicked men, will be found to hinge; namely, on the fact that evil is not only revealed in its baleful presence and agency, but the peoples and ages are put heaving against it and struggling after deliverance "from it." It was, we say, Job’s difficulty that against the new conception of Divine righteousness which he sought the early idea stood opposed that life meant vigour mainly in the earthly range. During a long period of the world’s history this belief was dominant, and virtue signified the strength of man’s arm, his courage in conflict, rather than his truth in judgment and his purity of heart. The outward gains corresponding to that early virtue were the proof of the worth of life. And even when the moral qualities began to be esteemed, and a man was partly measured by the quality of his soul, still the tests of outward success and the gains of the inferior virtue continued to be applied to his life. Hence the perturbation of Job and, to some extent, the false judgment of providence quoted from a modern writer. But the chapter we are considering shows, if we rightly interpret the obscure 16th verse ( Job 21:16 ), that the author tried to get beyond the merely sensuous and earthly reckoning. Those prospered who denied the authority of God and put aside religion with the rudest scepticism. There was no good in prayer, they said; it brought no gain. The Almighty was nothing to them. Without thought of His commands they sought their profit and their pleasure, and found all they desired. Looking steadfastly at their life, Job sees its hollowness, and abruptly exclaims:- "Ha! their good is not in their hand: The counsel of the wicked be far from me!" Good! was that good which they grasped-their abundance, their treasure? Were they to be called blessed because their children danced to the lute and the pipe and they enjoyed the best earth could provide? The real good of life was not theirs. They had not God; they had not the exultation of trusting and serving Him; they had not the good conscience towards God and man which is the crown of life. The man lying in disease and shame would not exchange his lot for theirs. But Job must argue still against his friends’ belief that the wicked are visited with the judgment of the Most High in the loss of their earthly possessions. "The triumphing of the wicked is short," said Zophar, "and the joy of the godless but for a moment." Is it so? "How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? That their calamity cometh upon them? That God distributeth sorrows in His anger? That they are as stubble before the wind, And as chaff that the storm carrieth away?" One in a thousand, Job may admit, has the light extinguished in his tent and is swept out of the world. But is it the rule or the exception that such visible judgment falls even on the robber chief? The first psalm has it that the wicked are "like the chaff which the wind driveth away." The words of that chant may have been in the mind of the author. If so, he disputes the doctrine. And further he rejects with contempt the idea that though a transgressor himself lives long and enjoys to the end, his children after him may bear his punishment. "Ye say, God layeth up his iniquity for his children. Let Him recompense it unto himself, that he may know it. Let his own eye see his destruction, And let him drink of the wrath of Shaddai. For what pleasure hath he in his house after him, When the number of his moons is cut off in the midst?" The righteousness Job is in quest of will not be satisfied with visitation of the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. He will not accept the proverb which Ezekiel afterwards repudiated, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge." He demands that the ways of God shall be equal, that the soul that sinneth shall bear its punishment. Is it anything to a wicked man that his Children are scattered and have to beg their bread when he has passed away? A man grossly selfish would not be vexed by the affliction of his family even if, down in Sheol, he could know of it. What Zophar has to prove is that every man who has lived a godless life is made to drink the cup of Shaddai’s indignation. Though he trembles in sight of the truth, Job will press it on those who argue falsely for God. And with the sense of the inscrutable purposes of the Most High burdening his soul he proceeds- "Shall any teach God knowledge? Seeing He judgeth those that are high?" Easy was it to insist that thus or thus Divine providence ordained. But the order of things established by God is not to be forced into harmony with a human scheme of judgment. He who rules in the heights of heaven knows how to deal with men on earth; and for them to teach Him knowledge is at once arrogant and absurd. The facts are evident, must be accepted and reckoned with in all submission; especially must his friends consider the fact of death, how death comes, and they will then find themselves unable to declare the law of the Divine government. As yet, even to Job, though he has gazed beyond death, its mystery is oppressive; and he is right in urging that mystery upon his friends to convict them of ignorance and presumption. Distinctions they affirm to lie between the good and the wicked are not made by God in appointing the hour of death. One is called away in his strong and lusty manhood; another lingers till life becomes bitter and all the bodily functions are impaired. "Alike they lie down in the dust and the worms cover them." The thought is full of suggestion; but Job presses on, returning for a moment to the false charges against himself that he may bring a final argument to bear on his accusers. Behold, I know your thoughts, And the devices ye wrongfully imagine against me. For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? And, Where the tents in which the wicked dwelt? Have ye not asked them that go by the way? And do ye not regard their tokens- That the wicked is spared in the day of destruction, That they are led forth in the day of wrath? So far from being overwhelmed in calamity the evildoer is considered, saved as by an unseen hand. Whose hand? My house is wasted, my habitations are desolate, I am in extremity, ready to die. True: but those who go up and down the land would teach you to look for a different end to my career if I had been the proud transgressor you wrongly assume me to have been. I would have found a way of safety when the storm clouds gathered and the fire of heaven burned. My prosperity would scarcely have been interrupted. If I had been what you say, not one of you would have dared to charge me with crimes against men or impiety towards God. You would have been trembling now before me. The power of an unscrupulous man is not easily broken. He faces fate, braves and overcomes the judgment of society. And society accepts his estimate of himself, counts him happy, pays him honour at his death. The scene at his funeral confutes the specious interpretation of providence that has been so often used as a weapon against Job. Perhaps Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar know something of obsequies paid to a prosperous tyrant, so powerful that they dared not deny him homage even when he lay on his bier. Who shall repay the evildoer what he hath done? "Yea, he is borne to the grave, And they keep watch over his tomb; The clods of the valley are sweet to him, And all men draw after him, As without number they go before him." It is the gathering of a countryside, the tumultuous procession, a vast disorderly crowd before the bier, a multitude after it surging along to the place of tombs. And there, in nature’s greenest heart, where the clods of the valley are sweet, they make his grave-and there as over the dust of one of the honourable of the earth they keep watch. Too true is the picture. Power begets fear and fear enforces respect. With tears and lamentations the Arabs went, with all the trappings of formal grief moderns may be seen in crowds following the corpse of one who had neither a fine soul nor a good heart, nothing but money and success to commend him to his fellow men. So the writer ends the second act of the drama, and the controversy remains much where it was. The meaning of calamity, the nature of the Divine government of the world are not extracted. This only is made clear, that the opinion maintained by the three friends cannot stand. It is not true that joy and wealth are the rewards of virtuous life. It is not always the case that the evildoer is overcome by temporal disaster. It is true that to good and bad alike death is appointed, and together they lie down in the dust. It is true that even then the good man’s grave may be forsaken in the desert, while the impious may have a stately sepulchre. A new way is made for human thought in the exposure of the old illusions and the opening up of the facts of existence. Hebrew religion has a fresh point of departure, a clearer view of the nature and end of all things. The thought of the world receives a spiritual germ; there is a making ready for Him who said, "A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," and "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?" When we know what the earthly cannot do for us we are prepared for the gospel of the spiritual and for the living word. 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But Job answered and said. Job 21 Job's third answer 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. ( Homilist. ) Wherefore do the wicked live? Job 21:7 Reason for the existence of the wicked on earth Urijah R. Thomas. I. AS WITNESSES TO ATTEST. 1. The amount of freedom with which man is endowed. How free is man compared to everything about him. 2. The wonderful forbearance of God. 3. The existence of an extraordinary element in the Divine government of this world. We know that in heaven beings live and are happy because they are holy; we are taught that in hell there is inexpressible misery because there is such awful sin. But here are men living often to a good old age, often possessing all they can wish of earthly comfort, and yet rebels against God, without repentance, without faith, without love, and we wonder why this world is thus an exception. Earth is under a mediatorial government. This great mystery of Christ's suffering for man, and prolonging his probation, can alone explain the other great mystery, that men of debased spirit and godless life are permitted to live here instead of being banished to hell. II. AS INSTRUMENTS TO DISCIPLINE. 1. In calling out resistance. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; when he is tried he shall receive a crown of life." The wicked are often as the chisel by which God carves out the good man's character, the fires by which it is purified. 2. By calling out the Christian's benevolence. Our compassion, prayers, self-sacrifice, work, are all called forth by the existence of the wicked. III. AS BEACONS TO WARN. 1. As to the progress of sin. 2. As to the effects of sin. IV. AS CRIMINALS TO REFORM. This is the grand end of their prolonged life. The world is a great reformatory. ( Urijah R. Thomas. ) Why do the live G. Brooks. ?— 1. That they may have the opportunity of being reconciled to God. 2. That they may be the instruments of good to others. 3. That they may display the long suffering and forbearance of God. 4. That they may furnish an argument for a future state of retribution. 5. That they may demonstrate the equity of their own everlasting condemnation. ( G. Brooks. ) Why do the wicked live T. De Witt Talmage. ? — They build up fortunes that overshadow the earth, and confound all the life insurance tables on the subject of longevity, some of them dying octogenarians, or perhaps nonagenarians, or possibly centenarians. Ahab in the palace, and Elijah in the loft. Unclean Herod on the throne, and Paul, the consecrated, twisting ropes for tent making. Manasseh, the worst of all the kings of Judah, lives the longest. While the general rule is that the wicked do not live out half their days, there are instances where they live to a great age in paradises of beauty and luxury, with a whole college of physicians expending its skill in the attempt for further prolongation, and then have a funeral with coffin under mountains of calla lily and a procession with all the finest equipages of the city flashing and jingling into hue, taking the poor angleworm of the dust out to its hole in the ground with a pomp that might make the passing spirit from some other world think that the archangel Michael was dead. Go up among the great residences of our cities and read the door plates and see how many of them hold the names of men mighty for commercial or social iniquity, vampires of the century, Gorgons of the ages. Every wheel of their carriage is a Juggernaut wet with the blood of those sacrificed to their avarice and evil design. Men who are like Caligula, who wished that all people were in one neck that he might cut it off at one blow. Oh, the slain! the slain! what a procession of libertines, of usurers, of infamous quacks, of legal charlatans, of world-grabbing monsters. What apostles of despoliation! what demons incarnate thousands of men who have concentrated all their energies of body, mind, and soul into one prolonged and ever-intensified and unrelenting effort to sacrifice and blast and consume the world! I do not blame you for asking the quivering, throbbing, burning, resounding, appalling question of the text: "Why do the wicked live?" ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) And in a moment go down to the grave. Job 21:13 Things contingent upon a moment Anon. Whatever begins, begins in a moment, and whatever ends, ends in a moment. Thoughts and purposes are formed in a moment — plans contemplated for years are decided in a moment — instantaneously. In so short a space everything comes to life and expires. In a moment we plant seed which takes centuries to grow, but which, in a moment only, the storm may cast down to the ground. The lightning may, in a moment, blast the work of a thousand years. A man's character may be ruined in a moment. In a little space of time it begins to go down. Break the law of gravitation, and crash would go creation. Job is moralising thus with his friends, and it seems to him strange that one event befalls the righteous and the wicked. It is a quick text, and has a sudden termination. 1. Life is a very little thing. It may be crushed as we would crush an eggshell. It need not take an hour to strike the blow which shall shiver it. Indeed, the wonder is that with such a little thing we live at all, for death is lurking all around us — the destructive forces so thick, that it seems as if the earth was made of nothing else. The pestilence rings at no man's door to toll of its coming, but it comes suddenly, and sweeps hundreds of men into the tomb. We stand on the grave's brink every day. 2. Some men think death to be a long way off when the precipice is right at their side, and they are liable to fall into it at any moment. The young are not more free from the enemies of destruction than their parents. The great and the small, the good and the evil, are taken away in a moment. What is to rescue us from death's dominion? Moses on Pisgah's top might plead that he was but 120 years old, that his eye was not dim, that he greatly desired to enter the promised land, but the plea was too weak, and he laid him down there on the top of the Mount. The man of business may plead that he is young and healthy, and his plans not yet accomplished; but death is inexorable, and he bows his head and gives up the ghost. Charles I and Marie Antoinette might plead their royal blood, or the popular will in their exaltation, but the executioner's axe severed their heads and their excuses in a moment. Death cares for none of these things. 3. How suddenly, too, his arrows fly. Like that night in Egypt, when suddenly at midnight the gleam of the destroying angel's sword was seen in the darkness, and, in a moment, the firstborn of all that land passed from life to death. The king's son and the chained captive lie side by side in death's embrace, and a kingdom is in tears. How sudden the exit of Dickens, Thackeray, and others, hurried off ere their last chapter was written and last page dried. And sometimes death aggravates his work, and takes thousands on the battlefield, and hacks and tears them ¢o pieces; or, on the steamer, burns and scalds their flesh from their bones. Learn from destructive forces being near not to tempt Providence by carelessness and negligence. A great deal is sot down to Providence which should be set down to ourselves. And let us be always ready, since but a step between us and the grave! ( Anon. ) Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. Job 21:14 The riches of grace William Penner, B. D. Job shows that wicked men may prosper in life and health (ver. 7); in their multitude of children (ver. 8); in tranquillity and safety (ver. 9); in success and increase of their substance (ver. 10); in wealth, security, and pleasure (vers. 11, 12, 13). Job sets down two things — their sin, in the text; their punishment, in verse 13. The text contains three things — Wicked men's contempt of grace. Their contempt of the means of grace. The profaneness of their lives. From the first of these, — a wicked man's contempt of grace, observe this doctrine: — That a wicked man doth not so much as desire saving grace. A true desire of grace is a supernatural appetite to grace not had for the goodness of it. Four things in this appetite — 1. It is an appetite of the soul to grace, when the heart doth even go out of itself for the attaining of grace. A hungry appetite signifies a hunger unfeigned, which is unsupportable without meat, so that he who truly desires grace cannot be without grace: nothing can satisfy him but meat, though he had all the wealth of the world. Hunger is irrepulsable, so he who truly desires grace will not let God alone, but begs and cries for it. And hunger is humble, it is not choice in its meat, it will be content with anything. 2. It is a supernatural appetite, distinguished from that which natural men have, and yet hate grace. 3. It is an appetite or desire after grace not had. No desire is desire indeed, but true desire; because grace is above the reach of nature; because grace is contrary to nature; because grace is a hell unto the natural man. The first step to grace is to see that we have no grace. Grace which wicked men desire, is not true grace. Thy hands and thy heart are full of corruption, so that though grace lie even at thy feet, yet thou canst not receive it up, unless thou empty thy hands and thy heart. Wherefore if there be any lust, though never so dear, any bosom sin, which thou wilt not part with; it is an evident sign that thou hast not a true desire of grace. It is a vehement desire, if true; a lukewarm desire is no true desire. Though delight be an effect of true desire, yet it is also a sign of grace, because grace in potentia is in the ordinance of God. Therefore the man that desires grace, he will delight in the ordinances of grace. The more delays the greater becomes the desire; delays are as oil cost into the fire, which makes the flame the greater. If thy desires be true, thou hast gotten some grace: examine therefore thyself. They that truly desire grace, desire the means of grace. Men that desire a crop of corn, they will be at the cost, charges, and pains, for ploughing, harrowing, and sowing of their ground. How shall we get our hearts truly to desire grace? 1. Learn to know it. Grace is such an admirable thing, that if men knew it, they could not bet desire it. The taste of grace is sweet and dainty, that if we could but once taste it, our hearts would ever water after it, and we should have little lust to the contrary evil. If you would desire grace, then purge out the ill-humours of sin out of thy soul. Fear to offend God, for the fear of evil is the desire of good. The desire of the righteous is only good; he desires God, and Christ, and the eternal love of God in Christ to be manifested to him, and therein he rests himself; but the hope of the wicked is indignation, he only desires the base self of the world; but the wrath of heaven is with that, and he shall bewail his own soul, that for such base things he should refuse the eternal good, and neglect it. In God there is all good. God is such a good, that without Him nothing is good. ( William Penner, B. D. ) The sinner's prayer H. B. Ingrain. I. THIS PRAYER REVEALS TO US THE AWFUL CONDITION OF THE HUMAN HEART. Lower than this neither man nor demon can sink, for what is it but saying, "Evil be thou my good, darkness be thou my light"? Here we have the climax of criminal audacity. The climax of self-deception. And the climax of ingratitude. II. THIS PRAYER SHOWS US THE NEARNESS OF GOD TO MAN. The difficulty is not for man to find God, but to avoid finding Him. There is underlying this prayer a profound consciousness of the Divine presence. The sinner fools that God is near, but he would be altogether without Him, if he could. III. THIS PRAYER EXPRESSES THE CONVICTION OF MEN, THAT THE LORD'S CLAIMS UPON THEM ARE FOUNDED ON REASON AND TRUTH. God invites them to reason with Him, to consider their ways, to ascertain the character of His commandments. They desire not the knowledge of God's ways. It is this reluctance to give the Gospel any attention, this indisposition to think about eternal things, which hardens men in their sin and folly, and ensures their destruction. IV. THIS PRAYER SETS BEFORE US THE GREAT CONTRAST WHICH EXISTS BETWEEN THE CONVERTED AND THE UNCONVERTED. Those who are not converted, pray in their hearts and lives that the Lord will depart from them. The converted thirst after God as the hart pants for the water brooks. V. THIS PRAYER ILLUSTRATES THE LONG SUFFERING OF GOD. The very fact that men offer this prayer and still live, exhibits the Lord's forbearance and compassion in the most striking manner. VI. THE ANSWER TO THIS PRAYER INVOLVES THE MOST SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES TO THOSE WHO OFFER IT. If persevered in, the answer will come. There is a bound beyond which men cannot pass with impunity. It is a fearful thing to be left alone of God, to be suffered to sin unrestrained, and to drink in iniquity like water. This is the result of the prayer being answered. ( H. B. Ingrain. ) The language of impiety B. Beddome, M. A. The more God does for wicked men, the more ill affected they are towards Him. I. OBSERVE THE LANGUAGE OF IMPENITENT PROSPERITY. 1. "They say." They not only conceive it in their thoughts, but utter it in words. Persons are lost to all fear and shame, when instead of suppressing, or so much as concealing their sinful thoughts, they can publish them abroad, and let the world know their strong propensity to evil. 2. "They say unto God." To speak to the Lord is a great privilege, and to do it with humility, reverence, and delight, is an important duty. How opposite is the language we are contemplating. How full of irreverence and daring impiety! 3. "Depart from us." The Divine presence is exceedingly desirable to a good man, nor can he be happy without it; but it is far otherwise with the carnal heart. 4. They impiously say, "We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." Sinners are not only ignorant, but willing to continue so. They dislike the way in which God walks. And they are equally averse to the way in which God has directed His creatures to walk, the way of holiness and happiness, of humility and self-denial, of faith and love, and evangelical obedience. II. THE SOURCES OF THIS IMPIETY. No reason can be rendered for a thing in itself so unreasonable. 1. This ignorance proceeds from pride. 2. From practical atheism. 3. From hatred and aversion. 4. From slavish fear and dread. 5. There is an utter contrariety of nature which renders the sinner averse from God, and from a knowledge of His ways. Reflections —(1) Without considering the depravity of human nature, nothing could appear more unaccountable, because nothing can be more unreasonable, than that man should feel averse from God, and from a knowledge of His ways.(2) If anyone should presume to say to God, "Depart from us; we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways," let him tremble at the consequences. If God takes him at his word, he will be given up to hardness of heart. ( B. Beddome, M. A. ) God repudiated J. L. Burrows, D. D. I. GOD OFFERS TO INSTRUCT AND GUIDE MEN IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS WAYS. Wicked men could not say to God, Depart, unless He came near to them. No truth is more clear than that our Lord really desires to instruct men in His ways, that He may bless them with His favour. In the Bible God has revealed the methods by which we may learn His will, gain His grace, and be saved; and this Word, with all its priceless offers, His providence has placed in our hands. In the whole capabilities of human thought can there be a more wonderful, a vaster idea than this: the absolute and Almighty Sovereign, instead of subduing rebellious subjects by power, perseveringly seeking to win them by love! II. SOME REPEL THESE GRACIOUS OFFERS. The practical response of every unregenerate soul, acquainted with the Gospel, to these proffers of God, is "Depart from me." This is the virtual utterance, not only of the profligate and profane, but of all who practically repudiate the law of the Lord as a rule of their lives. Every sinner makes the gratification of his own propensities and desires — not the will of the Lord — the rule of his life. Even what he does that is right and good, he does because he chooses, not because God requires it. III. THE SINNER'S STRANGE REASON FOR HIS REPULSE OF GOD. "We desire not." Yet the human intellect craves for knowledge. Men want to know what history, literature, philosophy, science can teach. But of the ways of the great God, who made and governs all things, they desire not to know. See some of the causes of this unreasonable aversion. 1. The mode of acquiring knowledge of God is too humbling for the depraved, human will. 2. A subtle, scarcely acknowledged unbelief in the inspiration and authority of the Bible. 3. The supreme reason is the love of sin, 4. Others do not desire a knowledge of God's ways now. Not yet, but at some convenient future season they hope to learn more of this matter. ( J. L. Burrows, D. D. ) What profit should we have, if we pray unto Him? Job 21:15 The profitableness of religion Joseph Parker. Let me first lay down the doctrine, that no man can hold the Christian view of God's personality and dominion without his whole intellectual nature being ennobled. He no longer looks at things superficially; he sees beyond the grey, cold cloud that limits the vision of men who have no God; the whole sphere of his intellectual life receives the light of another world. The difference between his former state and his present condition, is the difference between the earth at midnight and the earth in the glow and hope of a summer morning! This is not mere statement. It is statement based upon the distinctest and gladdest experience of our own lives, and based also upon the very first principles of common sense. The finer and clearer our conceptions of the Divine idea, the nobler and stronger must be our intellectual bearing and capacity. When the very idea of God comes into the courses of man's thinking, the quality of his thought is changed; his outlook upon life widens and brightens; his tone is subdued into veneration, and his inquisitiveness is chastened into worship. Intellectually the idea of God is a great idea. It enters the mind, as sunlight would startle a man who is groping along a path that overhangs abysses in the midst of starless gloom. The idea "God" cannot enter into the mind, and mingle quietly with common thinking. Wherever that idea goes, it carries with it revolution, elevation, supremacy. I am speaking, please to observe, not of a cold intellectual assent to the suggestion that God is, but of a reverent and hearty faith in His being and rule. Such a faith never leaves the mind as it found it. It turns the intellect into a temple; it sets within the mind a new standard of measure and appraisement; and lesser lights are paled by the intensity of its lustre. Is this mere statement? It is statement; but it is the statement of experience; it is the utterance of what we ourselves know; because comparing ourselves with ourselves we are aware that we have known and loved the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that since we have done so, our intellectual life has sprung from the dust, and refreshed itself at fountains which are accessible only to those who live in God. This, then, is the first position which I lay down for your thought and consideration, namely: That no man can entertain with reverence and trust the idea that God is, without his whole intellectual nature being lifted up to a higher plane than it occupied before; without his mind receiving great access of light and vigour. Do you tell me that you know some men who profess to believe in God, and who sincerely do believe in His existence and His government, and yet they are men of no intellectual breadth, of no speciality in the way of intellectual culture and nobleness? I hear you; I know what you say, and I believe it. But will you tell me what those men would have been, small as they are now, but for the religion that is in them? I know that at present they are very minute, intellectually speaking, — exceedingly small and microscopic. But what would they have been if the idea of God's existence and rule had never taken possession of their intellectual nature? Besides that, they are on the line of progress. There is a germ in them which may be developed, which may, by diligent culture, by reverent care, become the supreme influence in their mental lives. Please to remember such modifications when you are disposed to sneer at men who, though they have a God in their faith and in their hearts, are yet not distinguished by special intellectual strength. You tell me that you know some men who never mention the name of God, and who, therefore, seem to have no religion at all; who are men of very brilliant intellectual power, very fertile in intellectual resources, and who altogether have distinguished themselves in the empire of Mind. I believe it. But will you tell me what these men might have been if they had added to intellectual greatness a spirit of reverence and adoration? Can you surely tell me that those men would not have been greater had they known what it is to worship the one living and true God? Not only is there an ennoblement of the nature of a man, as a whole, by his acceptance of the Christian idea of God — there is more. That in itself is an inexpressible advantage; but there is a higher profit still, forasmuch as there is a vital cleansing and purification of a man's moral being. Let a man receive the Christian idea of God, let him believe fully in God, as revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and a new sensitiveness is given to his conscience; he no longer loses himself in the mazes of a cunning casuistry; he goes directly to the absolute and final standard of righteousness; all moral relations are simplified; moral duty becomes transparent;. he knows what is right, and does it; he knows the wrong afar off, and avoids it. ( Joseph Parker. ) Profitable prayer Caleb Scott, D. D. You will see at once on looking at the context in what spirit this question is asked. Job puts the words into the mouth of ungodly men, whose prosperity he could not understand, "Wherefore," he asks, "do the wicked live, become old, yea, wax mighty in power?" Describing their outward condition he says, "Their seed is established" (vers. 8-13). But blessings such as these, instead of evoking some such thanksgiving as "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits," make them forgetful, even defiant of Him. It is an extreme and offensive utilitarianism which prompts the inquiry, and in these days if it could be proved to a mathematical demonstration that praying always produces material advantage, if prosperity and prayer were invariably associated, as fortunately they are not, the number of knees bent in outward worship would be indefinitely increased, and to all outward appearance we should become a praying nation. But perplexities gather around the subject of prayer to men of a far nobler type than those contemplated in the words before us. The uniformity of so-called nature, the absence of any expression of sympathy visible to human eye, or audible to human ear from either nature, or the God of nature, in times when we are faint with fear or overwhelmed with anxiety; the unchangeableness of God, even the sublime truth of the reality of the Divine Fatherhood lead some to think, "Well, if God is in reality my Father, He is sure to do the very best possible thing for me, whether I pray to Him or whether I do not." So let us try and lift up the question of our text into a higher and purer atmosphere than that which, as asked by a godless, material prosperity, surrounds it. I. Now, in order to give any answer to the question, WE MUST BE ABLE TO SAY TO WHOM WE PRAY, and must have some clear idea of what we mean by prayer. Let us address ourselves to these questions first. When we speak of prayer, to whom do we pray? Now it is quite plain that prayer can only be addressed to a personal Being. If we resolve God into an inexorable fate, from the relentless grip of which escape is impossible, then the question of our text is meaningless. Fate implies an inevitable destiny which can in no way be altered. Or if we resolve God into a mere force or energy or tendency, which works mechanically and blindly without thought or feeling or will, the question is equally meaningless. It is simply an absurdity to pray to a force, an energy, or a tendency. Or if God is an unknown God, of whom and of whose character we cannot speak with any certainty, then in no full Christian sense of the word can we pray unto Him. Or, if whilst ascribing such attributes as omnipotence and omniscience to Him, we think of Him as far removed from this world, having delegated its affairs to certain forces which, quite apart from Him, work according to certain laws, as we say, laws which He has established, but with which He has no further connection, then it is simply absurd to pray. Or if we think of Him as arbitrarily working out His own will, that will having nothing whatever to do with the welfare of His creatures, it is manifestly absurd to pray. Now all will admit that such conceptions, so current amongst us, are as contrary as they can be to what Jesus taught us about God. But whilst we may reject them, does our conception of God rise to the level of what Jesus taught us? To many the central thought about God is that which underlies the expression, to many perhaps the most common of all, and that commonness to which we owe, perhaps, more to the influence of the Prayer book than to any other cause, the expression "Almighty God." A power which cannot be limited, a pressure from which there is no escape, a nature which knows no change, are the main elements of the conception which many entertain about God. But such physical attributes lay no sufficient basis for prayer. They may exist, to a large extent, in combination with other attributes which render prayer an absurdity. And even if we add intellectual attributes, such as infinite knowledge, a wisdom which cannot possibly err in thought or deed, we are far from having reached the central conception of God as Jesus revealed Him to us. His avowed object in coming into the world being, as He repeatedly assured us, to reveal God, surely the fact is full of significance that He never emphasised these attributes, which we put into the forefront, such attributes as infinity, unchangeableness, eternity, omnipotence, and so on? The great question is, Who is He to whom such attributes belong? To speak of God as the Almighty One, the Eternal One, the Unchangeable One, in inquiring who God is, is about as accurate and full of meaning as if in defining the rose, we were to speak of it as "the sweet" or "the red." We want to know who it is who is infinite, who it is who is eternal, who it is who is omniscient, who it is who is unchangeable. And this is the question which Christ answers. He reveals to us God's nature, not merely His attributes. He tells us who it is who is almighty, who it is who is unchangeable, and so on. And there is no uncertainty whatever in what He taught. Fatherliness is no mere attribute of God. Father is the one and only word which sets forth His nature; He of whom all these attributes are affirmed is the righteous Father, the Holy Father, the ideal Father. It is the Father, then, who is at the helm of the universe, over all and in all, constrained in everything He does by no law whatever save and except the law of His holy will. It is He to whom the welfare of everyone, without exception, is unspeakably dear, dearer than the welfare of your beloved child is to you. II. Now let us ask WHAT WE MEAN BY PRAYER. As used in a general and less exact sense, it often includes all that is comprehended in communion with God — adoration, confession, thanksgiving, intercession. In its narrower and more exact sense, it means simply asking, as when our Lord said, "Ask, and ye shall receive." The best definition I ever saw of prayer is by the late T.H. Green, of Oxford, when he says, "Prayer is a wish referred to God." Now, manifestly, what we ask from God must be regulated largely by what we think about Him. And if we pray to the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, there are certain thoughts about Him which will never be absent when we ask anything from Him. The first is that the Father can grant anything we ask. Here is the true place for omnipotence. His power is not hemmed in by any bounds at all, excepting only those of physical or moral impossibilities. No force limits, for there is no force in which He is not. Force is merely the mode of His working. No law limits Him, for law is simply a term which we use to express what we have learned in apparently the inviolable mode of His action. There is no entity, no being with nature which is outside of Him which controls Him in any measure. Apart, then, from that which is physically and morally impossible, God can do everything. It is not a thing incredible that He should raise the dead. There is no sickness which He cannot heal. There is no calamity which He cannot avert. "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think." Again, there is no limit on the side of God's willingness to give us what we desire to have. This is simply an axiom if the great central truth of Christianity is conceded. But all this seems to be completely at issue with the facts which stare us in the face. It seems to be denied point blank by the experiences of life. With unutterable anguish written on uplifted face, and the body bathed in bloody sweat, the cry is extorted from us at all times, "Oh, Father, do take this cup away," but it has to be drunk to its very dregs. The breadwinner in some dependent family, who has hardly known an idle hour, who has spent his little all, both of means and strength, on the small country farm he has tilled, obliged to sell everything that he might retain the honesty of his name, drifts into some metropolitan centre. Early and late, week after week, he strives to find employment by which to keep the wolf away from his home, but in vain. As he returns home at night he sees hunger and despair printed on the countenance he loves far better than life. What intensity does the agony of love give to his prayer. But no hand is outstretched, and he dies of a broken heart. If there is no limit on the side of the Father's

21:1-6 Job comes closer to the question in dispute. This was, Whether outward prosperity is a mark of the true church, and the true members of it, so that ruin of a man's prosperity proves him a hypocrite? This they asserted, but Job denied. If they looked upon him, they might see misery enough to demand compassion, and their bold interpretations of this mysterious providence should be turned into silent wonder. 21:7-16 Job says, Remarkable judgments are sometimes brought upon notorious sinners, but not always. Wherefore is it so? This is the day of God's patience; and, in some way or other, he makes use of the prosperity of the wicked to serve his own counsels, while it ripens them for ruin; but the chief reason is, because he will make it appear there is another world. These prospering sinners make light of God and religion, as if because they have so much of this world, they had no need to look after another. But religion is not a vain thing. If it be so to us, we may thank ourselves for resting on the outside of it. Job shows their folly. 21:17-26 Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between one wicked man and another, into the wisdom of God. He is Judge of all the earth, and he will do right. So vast is the disproportion between time and eternity, that if hell be the lot of every sinner at last, it makes little difference if one goes singing thither, and another sighing. If one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched, will be the same to them. Thus differences in this world are not worth perplexing ourselves about. 21:27-34 Job opposes the opinion of his friends, That the wicked are sure to fall into visible and remarkable ruin, and none but the wicked; upon which principle they condemned Job as wicked. Turn to whom you will, you will find that the punishment of sinners is designed more for the other world than for this, Jude 1:14,15. The sinner is here supposed to live in a great deal of power. The sinner shall have a splendid funeral: a poor thing for any man to be proud of the prospect of. He shall have a stately monument. And a valley with springs of water to keep the turf green, was accounted an honourable burial place among eastern people; but such things are vain distinctions. Death closes his prosperity. It is but a poor encouragement to die, that others have died before us. That which makes a man die with true courage, is, with faith to remember that Jesus Christ died and was laid in the grave, not only before us, but for us. That He hath gone before us, and died for us, who is alive and liveth for us, is true consolation in the hour of death.