THE TRIAL OF JOB.
Chapter XXI.
CONCLUSION.
"Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy (James 5:11)."
We may possibly have sometimes wondered that Job should have been set forth as an example of patience, since that word, as commonly used, signifies the quality of enduring affliction calmly, without murmuring or fretfulness, while Job was full of complaints. I trust, however, we have been enabled by the blessed Spirit during these contemplations to understand in some degree wherein his patience consisted, and to see the end of the Lord in his trial.
The primary meaning of the word patience is endurance, continuance; and this we shall find to be its scriptural signification. When our Saviour told his disciples of the fearful persecutions they should endure before his coming and the end of the world, he assured them that not one hair of their heads should fall to the ground, and said, "In your patience possess ye your souls (Luke 21:19)." In the book of Revelation we find this word twice defined in a most remarkable manner. First, in connection with the account of the beast that rose out of the sea, who spoke blasphemies, and had power to make war with the saints and overcome them, and who should be worshiped by all that dwell on the earth, save those whose names are written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world: "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints (Revelation 13:10)." Second, in connection with the proclamation of the angel concerning the punishment that should be inflicted upon the worshipers of the beast; "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:11,12)."
In these two passages and their connections we find but particular illustrations of what our Saviour foretold in the Scripture first referred to concerning the blasphemous deceivers and persecutors that should be encountered by his disciples. "The sword" and "captivity" represent the exercise of worldly power. The nations and powers of the earth, fighting with carnal weapons and leading into captivity, are themselves mutually destroyed in this way; while the saints, against whom their bitterest hatred is directed, though their bodies may be bound or killed, are not harmed as saints. Not one hair of their heads falls to the ground. They cannot fight with the sword nor offer carnal resistance, but "they overcome by the blood of the Lamb." Their continuance in the truth and in hope while enduring opposition is patience, and their victory is their faith; for "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith (I John 5:4)."
The worshipers of the beast, the smoke of whose torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and who have no rest day nor night, represent all followers of false religion and opposers of the truth, who cannot rest, but "like the troubled sea cast up mire and dirt (Isaiah 57:20)," and of whom God has said, "These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day (Isaiah 65:5)." Though false religion bears a most flattering appearance to the worldly mind, and though its teachers have all worldly arts of persuasion to employ in extending it, presenting the glory of the kingdoms of this world to attract men, yet it is not possible for them to deceive the elect (Matthew 24:24), whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. These see the delusion because they have the light of life. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Patience, then, in its scriptural signification, is a quality peculiar to the saints. It is a quality developed, or, we might say, brought into being, by contact with suffering. The hardness of iron is manifested by heavy strokes of the hammer, the purity of gold is exhibited by the fire. By this contact with destructive and tarnishing influences there is developed in these metals the distinct quality of endurance. So the power of God's truth in the soul, the perfection of his work within his people, is tried by contact with that which will destroy anything else but his word and work, and thus endurance or patience is developed. So we are told that "tribulation worketh patience," though only in the saints; false professions are manifested by it, as the counterfeit of gold is destroyed by the action of the fire.
As patience implies a hope and expectation of future deliverance and comfort, so it belongs to the believer in his pilgrimage state. His hope enters into that within the veil, and cannot be destroyed. His expectation looks to the coming of Jesus, and cannot be cut off. He has known the truth, and it can never be unknown. He has seen the light of the Sun of Righteousness, and it shall never depart from him. Now let the sword of persecution come against him; can it destroy that hope, even though it kill the body, since its life is not in this world, but in that which is to come?
Let false teachers gather around with their vanities and delusions; can they make him believe contrary to what his eyes have seen and his hands have handled of the word of life? (See I John 1:1.) Though through flattery or fear working upon his fleshly feelings they should cause his lips to speak falsely for his heart, as Peter's did, and so bring upon him the sharp stings of a wounded conscience, still the denial of his lips would be rebuked by the truth in the heart, and his patience would yet remain.
But we are full of doubts about this work within us, whether it is truly the work of God, whether it will endure to the end, and whether we shall not lose our hope and crown. These doubts and fears are the temptations of Satan. He is ever present thus, or endeavors to be, when the sons of God come to present themselves before the Lord, declaring, through their fears and doubts, to God's face that they have some worldly and selfish motive for their service, and that extreme earthly loss and suffering would cause their faith to fail, their service to be discontinued and their hope to be swallowed up in the black gulf of despair. But the Lord has shown us in the trial of Job how Satan is answered and overcome, by allowing all the worldly evils and spiritual trials Satan has caused us to fear to be brought upon us, and all his delusive doctrine to be raised up against us. The lies of Satan are thus manifested to us, for we cannot let go our hope nor make ourselves love false doctrine. He does all he can. When earthly possessions and pleasures are taken from us, he tempts us to turn away from a God who deals so harshly with us. But we know that we have no right to claim good at the hands of God rather than evil, and so the tempter fails. Then he brings out to our view our corruptions of the flesh, causes them to stare upon us, and then taunts us because we dare to hope. And here let us notice in what consists that great temptation from which God has promised to deliver us. He has said that with every temptation he will make a way of escape that we may be able to bear it. (See I Corinthians 10:13.) Now, if the temptation here meant were, when we were tempted to transgress in any way then should we ever yield, we must give up any claim to this promise, since we had not escaped. But the temptation is such as is illustrated in the case of Job as a type. Through the wiles of Satan we transgress in thought or word or deed, speaking as a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus should not, and acting as does not become the gospel of Christ. Thus our depravity and corruptions of the flesh are brought out and manifested to our view, and perhaps in the sight of others. The transgression may be more or less great in the sight of the world. It may be only an unguarded word uttered in anger, which worldly men would count as nothing, or a denial of the faith through fear of man, for which the world would praise us; or it may be what men would esteem a greater transgression. Or at a time when we are not conscious of any present transgression, and when none could be marked against us by any man, we may be so made to feel the burden of our depravity of nature, may be so made "to possess the iniquities of our youth," may have our secret sins so set to our view in the light of God's countenance, that our condition, as we feel it, is just like that of Job according to his bitterest and strongest descriptions of it. Now comes the real time of temptation. Bereft of all worldly enjoyments, perhaps with no outward sign of God's favor, and with our sins and unworthiness all manifested to us, filling our minds with anguish and self-abhorrence, and making us feel as though we are as a lamp despised, as though all must see us as we see ourselves, and so scorn us, Satan tempts us to give up our hope and turn from our trust in God. Our old nature tells us, as the wife of Job did, to do so. We feel the power of the temptation most bitterly. No words can fully express the agony of mind under it. We have to say with Job, "My stroke is heavier than my groaning." Under the most insupportable burden, hedged in on every side, we have in the secret of our souls longed to die, and wondered why light should be given to one who is in such bitterness that he longs for death as for a hid treasure, and murmuringly and pleadingly by turns we have in our inmost thoughts asked God to take us away. For we say to ourselves, or Satan says to us, What a shame and reproach to your God for so vile a sinner to pretend to be his child! And this temptation, the sorest that ever came upon a poor sinner, is not left upon us for a moment only and then removed, but it is continued from day to day through the false doctrine that Satan causes to be preached to us. This peculiar temptation extends through, and is an element in, all the doctrine of the world. Now that we are so self-abased and miserable, it is the time for that trial to come. Our brethren, as false teachers persist in calling themselves while they have any hope of gaining us, gather about, misjudge our case, condemn where condemnation does not belong, reproach unjustly, heap contempt upon us for pretending to hope without doing something to cleanse ourselves and make ourselves acceptable to God by our good works, and then try to force upon us the absolute necessity of their doctrine. All this is Satan's temptation, and it is continued from day to day so long as God's face is hidden from us. The Lord having made darkness, all the beasts of the forest have come forth to terrify us to death (Psalm 104:20). They profess to be friends and to desire to comfort us, but their tongues are "sharp swords," and their bitter words are "as arrows shot out." Satan is most busy now, though he appears to be out of sight. He rouses up our fears and fretfulness and murmurings within, and keeps up the fire of persecution from without. He tempts us to give up our belief in that doctrine which is foolishness to the wise of this world and a stumbling-block to worldly religion; and if this were not the Lord's work within us, or if the Lord's work could fail, we should yield and commence upon the system of man's work. But the truth never was more clear to the poor sinner than when he feels most unworthy. He tempts us with inward fears and outward declarations of our friends that God has become our enemy, and that he really hates us. And if the Lord's work could fail we should sink in helpless and endless despair. But God has put a word within us, and Satan cannot bring us so low as to drown the voice of that word. He cannot prevent our saying in the last extremity, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."
Christ has prayed for each of his children, as he did for Peter, that when Satan has them to sift them as wheat their faith shall not fail. The Lord will try his people as gold and refine them as silver. He will keep them in the fire until the dross is thoroughly removed. He will reprove their rebellious murmurings by the voice of his servants and by his own all-penetrating voice out of the whirlwind; he will show them that they are not less worthy of his love when they see their own corruptions and are covered with shame and self-loathing, than when those corruptions are hidden from their view and they are self-complacently at rest–that his love is not theirs because of any goodness or beauty in them, but that he has loved them in Christ with an everlasting love, having chosen them in him before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and without blame before him in love. When they are tempted to think that now certainly they can hope no longer, because they are so vile and have wandered so far that they can never claim or receive his favor again, he will manifest a way through Christ for their escape. They shall endure to the end through the power of the truth. They shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, and they shall finally be brought to the shores of everlasting deliverance, to the praise of the riches of his grace. For he is very pitiful and of tender mercy, and his faithfulness cannot fail; and though he speak against his chosen in their backslidings and through their trial, yet does he earnestly remember them still (Jeremiah 31:18-20).
The admonitions and reproofs of Elihu, corresponding with those of our Saviour and his apostles, are given to the saints for their comfort. They are to restrain their feet from the way of evil and keep their tongue from speaking guile. They are so to order their walk and conversation as to adorn the doctrine they delight in and honor the God they adore. They are to let patience have her perfect work. There is somewhere within us, since first we hoped in Christ, a calm and serene certainty of final deliverance into eternal joy. This divine assurance is in some deep and secret recess of our being–not always within the scope of our consciousness, not easily kept in our wavering, unsteady sight in time of trouble, but is like some faint star in the infinite depth of heaven that now dimly appears, and now seems to recede from our view into the fathomless depth. But it is always there, and always steadily influences us. In the deepest darkness and bitterest anguish and amid the most harassing fears it is there yet. It is the certainty of the faith of the Son of God. It is that principle by which he saw through the darkness of death and beheld the joy that was set before him. It is the patience of the saints. Tranquil and quiet, it looks on while we groan in sorrow and pain, sees us tossed to and fro with fears and sinking with self-abhorrence, and knows that all is for our good and God's glory. When we lose all sight of the way, and cannot possibly see how we can escape, that calm certainty is there. This is patience. When this shall act outwardly upon our lives, then we shall cease to murmur; shall go serenely through darkness; shall rejoice in tribulation; shall be meek and humble before God in word and action, and mild with our fellow-men; shall walk softly in the bitterness of our souls and endure chastisement willingly; shall boldly fight against all error, yet answer our opposers with no railing accusation nor desire to take vengeance on our enemies. Thus we shall let patience have her perfect work. For here we have only to endure and wait, calmly reposing upon the faithful word of God.
Thus wisdom points out her ways to her children, in which they shall find pleasantness and peace. But let them take heed also that they give no place to false suggestions of Satan that for their correct walk they are to receive eternal life as a reward. Let them rather contemplate continually the view that God has given to their faith of the Church complete in all her members, always perfect and upright in her glorious Head, finally delivered from all her trials and all her enemies, and exalted to shine in superlative excellence and glorious beauty, fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners.
The end of the Lord is accomplished in the trial of Job and of all his children. In sweet humility we are made to submit ourselves to his will. Then we rise up in his strength, and receive an abundant entrance into his everlasting kingdom. We have contemplated the endurance of affliction. But oh how sweet, how blessed when the mind is allowed to dwell upon the rapturous delights of life for evermore! To receive the soft impressions of an abiding peace in God and joy in the Holy Ghost! To contemplate the heavens of eternal glory, never more to be clouded, and dwell in the light of God! Then the soul becomes as a watered garden, fresh and fragrant with joy and praise.
If we have yet more trials to endure, and must now turn back again to darkness and warfare and sorrow, let us endure patiently, knowing that the trial of our faith is more precious than of gold that perisheth, and that the Lord, who works all things for our good, will not withdraw his mercy and loving-kindness from us. Let us quietly and trustfully wait the time of his blessed and final appearing. It will be only a few more days, and then our weary, toilsome way will close in unending rest, every sorrow give place for ever to unspeakable joy, and all the mists and shadows that have hung about us here upon the earth be lost in everlasting glory.