Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1379
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, October 21, 1877
“Behold, God is mighty, and despises not any: He is mighty in strength and wisdom” (or, in strength of heart) Job 36:5.
WE cannot wonder that, in the extreme bitterness of his soul, Job was driven to utter some expressions which he would not, afterwards, have attempted to justify. Among the rest Job had thought and almost said that God had despised him. In the 10th chapter, at the 3rd verse, he appealed to Him thus, “Is it good unto You that You should oppress, that You should despise the work of Your hands?” Elihu, in his zeal to vindicate the righteousness of his Maker, fixes his mind, as I think, upon that expression of Job and meets it with a positive denial, proving his point from the might and the great-heartedness of the Lord. He had promised to fetch his argument from afar and, therefore, he does not argue against God’s despising any from His mercy or goodness.
Nor does he give us a commonplace reason for his assertion, such as would easily have suggested itself even to the thoughtless, but he grounds his declaration that God despises no one and, consequently, not Job, upon the fact of God’s being mighty. “Behold, God is mighty, and despises not any: He is mighty in strength of heart.” That form of argument would not have naturally occurred to you or to me. We might even have been inclined to argue the other way and say— He is so mighty that He cannot be expected to consider such feeble things as His creatures and He despises them all! And it is, therefore, little wonder that He should despise Job among the rest. Elihu, with far better judgment than the most of us possess, draws quite the opposite inference and declares that because God is mighty, therefore He despises no one!
Facts are convincing arguments and if you carefully observe, you will see that usually those persons who despise others are weak and, if weak nowhere else, weak in understanding. Those little men who are dressed in brief authority are often harsh and tyrannical, but the truly great are courteous, tender and considerate. The strong have no reason to be suspicious and jealous and, therefore, they are free from envy. They are void of fear of the power of others and, therefore, they become anxious that their own power should not be oppressive to the weak ones around them. They become considerate of others because this furnishes a fit sphere for the use of their strength. Yon man who is only strong in appearance and is really feeble, despises others because he dreads them—and knowing how much he deserves to be despised, himself, he pretends to look down upon his neighbors.
It is your half-educated man who sneers. It is your pretender to gentility who gives himself airs. Wherever anything is mere pretense, it endeavors to shield itself from criticism by casting sarcasms upon its rivals. It is said of the Pharisees that they trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and despised others. Had they been truly righteous, they would not have despised others, but because they had a mere veneer of religion, a superficial varnish or gilding of righteousness—or something that looked like righteousness—they looked down with supreme scorn upon all who did not make the same show as themselves.
God is so great in all things that He despises none! He has no rivals and has no need to sustain Himself by lowering the good name of others. He is supremely real. He is so true and thorough that in Him there can never be so much as the thought of despising any in order to guard Himself. His power is not soon awakened to war because it has no opposition to fear. His might is associated with gentleness—fury is not in Him because it is such great might that when it is once in action it devours His adversaries as flame consumes the stubble! God is too great to be contemptuous, too mighty to be haughty.
Note, too, that mere brute force may despise the weak, but the might here ascribed to the Lord is of a higher order. His might is seen not only in that power which rocks the solid world with earthquakes and shakes the heavens with tempests, but in that nobler form of might which reveals itself in wisdom and nobleness of mind. The power of His arm is
equaled by the greatness of His spirit. His might lies in His heart—in His understanding and in His love. He is mighty in spiritual things, in sublimity of thought, grandeur of motive, nobleness of spirit and loftiness of aim. When you perceive the exaltation of the Divine Mind and the sublimity of the Divine Character, you perceive the reason why the Lord does not despise any.
To put my meaning into one cumbersome but expressive word, it is the magnanimity of God which prevents His despising any. The sun is so glorious that it refuses not to shine upon a dunghill! The rain is so plenteous that it declines not to drop into the tiny flower cup! The sea is so vast that it does not hesitate to waft a feather and God is so mighty that He rejects not the praises of babes and sucklings. If God were little, He might despise the little. If He were weak He would disdain the weak. If He were untrue He would be supercilious to those about Him. But, seeing He is none of these, but is God Over All, blessed forever, the Only Wise God, we have to deal with One who, though He is high, has respect unto the lowly! Our God is One who, though He humbles Himself even to observe the things which are done in Heaven, yet despises not the cry of the humble! The magnanimity of God is the reason why He despises no one. By the aid of the Holy Spirit we will, this morning, first dwell upon the doctrine and then consider its practical uses.