Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2009
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, February 19, 1888
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5, 6.
JEHOVAH had spoken, Job had trembled. The Lord had revealed Himself, Job had seen Him. Truly, God did but display the skirts of His robe and unveil a part of His ways. But therein was so much of ineffable glory that Job laid his hand upon his mouth in token of his silent consent to the claims of the Everlasting One. God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind concerning the greatness of His power, the wonders of His workings, the splendor of His skill, the infinity of His wisdom. Carefully read that wonderful speech of the Most High to the trembling Patriarch. I dare not call it poetry. For it rises as much above human poetry as the most sublime poetry stands above the poorest prose.
It is simply a statement of facts and these are mentioned in language of the simplest kind. But the overpowering glory of the utterance lies in the facts themselves. These sublime stanzas are spoken in the idiom of God. Those only know the peculiar style of the living God who have become familiar with the sacred Word in Spirit and in Truth and such persons can at once distinguish the speech of Jehovah from that of men. Read the Divine address, that you may see how Jehovah caused the afflicted Patriarch to feel Him near.
In the confession which now lies before us, Job acknowledges God’s boundless power. For he exclaims, “I know that You can do everything, and that no thought can be withheld from You.” He felt that whatever the Lord chose to think or desire He could at once accomplish. Job had a glimpse of that omnipotence of which the height and depth no mind can ever measure.
Job sees his own folly. He speaks like a man in a maze or a muse and he says, “Who is He that hides counsel without knowledge?” Look at the second verse of chapter thirty-eight and you will see that he is quoting what God had said to him. The Lord’s words are ringing in his ears and in his anguish he repeats them, accepting them as justly applicable to himself. It is not far from being right with us when the Words of God can fitly become our words. “The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
And now Job replies, “I am that foolish one—I uttered what I understood not—things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” Job felt that what he had spoken concerning the Lord was, in the main, true. And the Lord Himself said to Job’s three friends, “You have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has.” But under a sense of the Divine Presence Job felt that even when he had spoken aright, he had spoken beyond his own proper knowledge, uttering speech whose depths of meaning he could not himself fathom. Many a holy Prophet has done this, for inspired men are described as those who “enquired and searched diligently; searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.”
It is not the thoughts of the Prophet which have been inspired of God so much as their words. For frequently they were moved to speak prophecies which were quite beyond their own understanding—in fact, my Brethren, are not all the great mysteries of the faith above human thought? And may we not fearlessly assert that no inspired man has ever known all the depth of God’s meaning treasured up in the words which he himself has been led by the Spirit of God to write? Hence I assert that there is a verbal inspiration, or no inspiration at all worthy of the name. Job, as he comes before us in the text, is impressed with his own folly. He had, to a large degree, spoken what he felt sure was true but he now feels that he did not understand what he said.
And he at the same time tacitly confesses that he may have said in his bitterness many an unwise and unseemly thing, and therefore he bows his head before the Lord his God and confesses that he has darkened counsel by words without knowledge and uttered things that he understood not.
Notwithstanding, the man of God proceeds to draw near unto the Lord, before whom he bows himself. Foolish as he confesses himself to be, he does not, therefore, fly from the supreme wisdom. Although he knows that he has babbled ig-norantly, he does not seek to hide from the Lord as Adam did when he sought the shade of the trees of the garden. No, he takes up the Lord’s Words again and is emboldened by them to approach. Read the thirty-eighth chapter, third verse. The Lord there says, “Gird up now your loins like a man—for I will demand of you and you shall answer Me.”
Like a man in a dream, Job accepts the invitation and answers, “Behold I am vile, what shall I answer You? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken. But I will not answer—yes, twice. But I will proceed no further.” This was brave and wise action. Whatever Job might be or might not be, he was a firm believer in his God and in every Word which the Lord was pleased to speak. He held even to discouraging words with desperate tenacity and even learned to find honey in Words which roared like lions upon him. Hence, when he is humbled in the dust, he recollects that God had bid him draw near to Him. And albeit to his fears that bidding may have sounded like a challenge, yet to his faith it becomes an encouragement and he, in effect, replies, “My God, I will venture to take You at Your Word. You bid me come and come I will. Dust and ashes though I am, I will do as You allow me and make my humble appeal to You.”