Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1730
Delivered on Thursday Evening, July 5, 1883
“Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” Job 6:6.
THIS is a question which Job asked of his friends who turned out to be so unfriendly. Thus he battles with those “miserable comforters” who inflamed his wounds by pouring in salt and vinegar instead of oil and wine. The first of them had just opened fire upon him and Job, by this question, was firing a return shot. He wanted the three stern watchers to understand that he did not complain without cause. If he had spoken bitterly, it was because he suffered grievously. He was in great bodily pain; he was enduring great mental depression and, at the same time, he had been smitten with poverty and bereavement. He had, therefore, reason for his sorrow. He had no comforts left and every arrow of grief was sticking in his flesh. If he groaned, he had reason to groan.
His were not sorrows which he had imagined. They were real and true and, therefore, he asks this question first, “Does the wild ass bray when he has grass? Or bellows the ox over his fodder?” If these creatures lift up their notes of complaint, it is when they are starving. When the wild ass cannot find a mouthful of grass, anywhere, then his complaint is heard far and near. When the ox at the stall has no fodder—when he is fastened there and no farmer brings him provision—then he lows and there is good reason for his bellowing. Job seems to say, “I do not complain without cause. If I still enjoyed my former comforts, or even a tithe of them, you should hear no voice of murmuring from me. But I am tried to the utmost. I am grievously afflicted and there is overflowing cause for my moaning.”
He had lost all care to breathe. The zest of life was gone. No joy remained to make existence worth the having. He was like one who finds no flavor in his food and loathes the morsel which he swallows. That which was left to him was tasteless as the white of an egg—it yielded him no kind of comfort. In fact, it was disgusting to him. He was fed, he says, upon meat which yielded him no solace. “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.” Therefore, he virtually asks his friends, “How can you expect me to eat such meat as this without sighs and tears? Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Is there any taste in the white of an egg?”
He means that everything about him had lost its flavor and life had become dull and dreary to him and, therefore, they must not wonder that he uttered words of complaint. The speech, also, to which Job had listened from Eliphaz the Temanite, did not put much sweetness into his mouth, for it was devoid of sympathy and consolation. If you read it at home you will see that it was worthy to be the first of a singular selection of galling utterances. Job, we must admit, was sufficiently acid, himself, and abundantly sarcastic, but his friends produced the irritation and took care to always repay him double for all his wormwood. For every hard speech of his, they returned compound interest. They grieved and vexed his upright soul till he said no more than the truth when he cried, “Miserable comforters are you all.”
Here he tells them that Eliphaz had administered unto him unsavory meat without salt—mere whites of eggs without taste. Not a word of love, pity, or fellow feeling had the Temanite uttered. He had spoken as harshly and severely as if he were a judge addressing a criminal who was suffering no more than he deserved. Looking at the speech—and looking at all his surroundings—poor Job feels that he has very unsavory meat to eat and he asks them whether they expect him to eat it without salt. They have given him something that is no more gratifying to him than the white of an egg and he enquires if they really think that he can accept this at their hands and thank them for their treatment.
We may now forget the much-tortured Patriarch, Job, and apply this text to ourselves. “Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” Three thoughts arise out of it.
I. The first point will be this—A LACK OF SAVOR IS A VERY GREAT NEED in anything that is meant for food. I am not going to deliver a cookery lecture and so I shall not enlarge upon the passage so far as it refers to the bread upon our table, or the food which we eat and drink. Everybody knows that all kinds of animal life delight in food that has a
flavor in it—and even “dumb driven cattle” will turn away from dry, flavorless food and will go a long way to find something that has a juice and a taste in it which suits the palate which God has created in them.
It is exactly the same with regard to the food of our souls. It is a very great fault with a sermon when there is no savor in it. It is a killing fault to the people of God when a book contains a good deal of what may be true, but yet lacks holy savor—or what, in other words, we call, “unction.” Somebody says, “Tell us what unction is.” I can much more easily tell you what it is not! You know a discourse when there is savor in it—and you also know when a sermon is dry, sapless, marrowless. And yet you could not state the difference in words. Some sermons could not even be suspected of anything like unction—their authors would sneer at you if you accused them of it!