Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1255
“Then call, and I will answer: or let me speak, and You answer me.” Job 13:22.
JOB might well have been driven frantic by his miserable comforters. It is wonderful that he did not express himself far more bitterly than he did. Surely Satan found better instruments for his work in those three ungenerous friends than in the marauding Sabeans, or the pitiless whirlwind. They assailed Job remorselessly and seemed to have no more hearts of compassion than so many flint stones. No wonder that he said to them many things which otherwise he would never have thought of uttering and, a few, which I dare say, he afterwards regretted.
Possibly the expression of our text is one of those passages of too forcible speech. The tormented Patriarch did what none but a man of the highest integrity could have done so intensely as he did. He made his appeal from the false judgement of man to the bar of God and begged to be forthwith summoned before the tribunal of the Judge of All, for he was sure that God would justify him. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him: but I will maintain my own ways before Him. He, also, shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before Him.” He was ready to appear at the Judgement Seat of God, there to be tried as to his sincerity and uprightness!
He says, “Only do not two things unto me: then will I not hide myself from You. Withdraw Your hand far from me: and let not Your dread make me afraid.” He offers, in the words of our text, to come before the righteous Judge in any way which He might appoint—either he will be the defendant and God shall be the plaintiff in the suit—“Call and I will answer,” or else he will take up the part of the plaintiff and the Lord shall show cause and reason for His dealings towards him, or convict him of falsehood in his pleas—“Let me speak, and You answer me.” He feels so sure he has not been a hypocrite that he will answer to the All-Seeing, then and there, without fear of the result.
Now, Brothers and Sisters, we are far from condemning Job’s language, but we would be quite as far from imitating it. Considering the circumstances in which Job was placed. Considering the hideous libels which were brought against him. Considering how he must have been stung when accused so wrongfully at such a time, we do not wonder that he thus spoke. Yet it may be that he spoke unadvisedly with his lips, but, at any rate, it is not for us to employ his language in the same sense, or in any measure to enter upon self-justification before God! On the contrary, let our prayer be, “Enter not into judgement with Your servant: for in Your sight shall no man living be justified.”
How shall man be just with God? How can we challenge His judgement before whom the heavens are not pure and who charged His angels with folly? Unless, indeed, it is in a Gospel sense, when, covered with the righteousness of Christ, we are made bold by faith to cry, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies, who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that has risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.”
I am going to use the words of Job in a different sense from that in which he employed them and shall apply them to the sweet communion which we have with our Father God. We cannot use them in reference to our appearance before His Judgement Seat to be tried, but they are exactly suitable when we speak of those blessed approaches to the Mercy Seat when we draw near to God to be enriched and sanctified by sacred communion. The text brings out a thought which I wish to convey to you—“Call, and I will answer: or let me speak, and You answer me.” May the Holy Spirit bless our meditation.
The three points this morning will be, two methods of secret conversation—“Call, and I will answer: or let me speak, and You answer me.” Secondly, the method of combining the two, and here we shall try to show how the two modes of conversation should be united in our communion with God. And thirdly, we shall show how these two modes of fellowship are realized to the full in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our answer to God and God’s answer to us.
I. First, then, here are TWO METHODS OF SACRED CONVERSATION BETWEEN GOD AND THE SOUL— sometimes the Lord calls to us and we reply, and at other times we speak to God and He graciously deigns to answer us. A missionary, some years ago, returning from South Africa, gave a description of the work which had been accomplished there through the preaching of the Gospel. Among other things, he pictured a little incident of which he had been an eyewitness. He said that one morning he saw a converted African chieftain sitting under a palm tree with his Bible open before him.
Every now and then he cast his eyes on his book and read a passage, and then he paused and looked up a little while, and his lips were seen to be in motion. Thus he continued alternately to look down on the Scriptures and to turn his eyes upward towards Heaven. The missionary passed by without disturbing the good man, but a little while after he mentioned to him what he had seen and asked him why it was that sometimes he read, and sometimes he looked up? The African replied—“I look down to the Bible and God speaks to me. And then I look up in prayer and speak to the Lord, and in this way we keep up a holy talk with each other.” I would set this picture before you as being the mirror and pattern of communion with Heaven—the heart hearkening to the Voice of God—and then replying in prayer and praise.