Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3269
“Will You break a leaf driven to and fro?” Job 13:25.
POOR Job! Who could have been brought lower than he? He had lost his possessions, his children, his health—he was covered with sore boils—and he was aggravated by the unkind speeches of his friends. In his deep distress he turns to God and finding no other plea so near at hand, he makes a plea out of his own distress. He compares himself to the weakest thing he could think of and then he says to God, the Great and the Merciful, “Will You, so glorious in power and so matchless in goodness—will You break me, who am like a poor leaf fallen from the tree, sere and dry, and driven to and fro in the wind?” Thus he draws an argument out of his own weakness. Because he is so low and insignificant and powerless, he lays hold upon the Divine strength and pleads for pity.
It is a common figure he uses, that of a leaf driven to and fro. Strong gusts of wind, it may be in the autumn when the leaves hang but lightly upon the trees, send them falling in showers around us. Quite helpless to stay their own course, fluttering in the air to and fro, like winged birds that cannot steer themselves, but are guided by every fitful blast that blows upon them, at last they sink into the mire to be trodden down and forgotten. To them Job likens himself—a helpless, hopeless, worthless, weak, despised, perishing thing—and he appeals to the awful Majesty on High and he says to the God of thunder and of lightning, “Will You put out Your power to destroy me? Will You bring forth Your dread artillery to crush such an insignificant creature as I am? With all the goodness of Your great heart—for your name is God That Is Good—will You turn Your Almighty power against me? Oh, be that far from You! Out of pity upon my utter weakness and nothingness, turn away Your hands and break not a leaf that is driven to and fro!”
The apprehension is so startling, the appeal so forcible that the argument may be employed in a great many ways. How often have the sick used it, when they have been brought to so low an ebb with physical pain that life, itself, seemed worthless? Stricken with disease, stung with smart and fretted with acute pains and pangs, they feel that if the affliction continues much longer, it were better for them to die then live! They long for the shades of death, that they might find shelter there. Turning their face to the wall, they have said, “O God, as weak as I am, will You again smite me? Shall Your hand again fall upon me? You have laid me very low. Why do You lift up Your rod again? Break not, I beseech You, a leaf that is driven to and fro!”
Not less applicable is the plea to those who are plunged into the depths of poverty! A man is in trouble arising from destitution. Perhaps he has been long out of work. Bread is not to be found. The children are crying, hungry, starving! The habitation has been stripped of everything which might procure a little nourishment. The poor wretch, after passing through seas of trouble, finds himself no nearer a landing place than before, but—
“Sees each day new straits attend, And wonders where the scene will end.” Passing through the streets he is hardly able to keep his feet from the pavement or his skin from the cold by reason of his tattered garments. Homeless and friendless, like a leaf that is driven to and fro, he say, “O God! Will You continue this much longer? Will You not be pleased to stop Your rough wind, mitigate the sharpness of the winter, ease my adversity and give me peace?”
So, too, with those who are in trouble through bereavement. One child has been taken away and then another. The shafts of death flew twice. Then came sickness with threatening omen upon one that was still nearer and dearer. Still did not the desolation stay its gloomy portents. It seemed at length as though the widow would be bereft of her last and only
child and then she cried, “O God! I am already broken. My heart is like a plowed field—cross-plowed—till my soul is ready to despair! Will You utterly break me? Will You spare me no consolations, no props for my old age? Must I be altogether driven away before the whirlwind and find no rest?”
Perhaps it is even more harassing in cases of mental distress for, after all, the sharpest pangs we feel are not those of the body, nor those of the estate, but those of the mind. When the iron enters into the soul, the rust thereof is poison. “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?” You may be surrounded with all the comforts of life and yet be in wretchedness more gloomy than death if the spirits are depressed. You may have no outward cause whatever for sorrow and yet if the mind is dejected, the brightest sunshine will not relieve your gloom. At such a time, you may be vexed with cares, haunted with dread and scared with thoughts which distract you. You fear that your sins are not pardoned, that your past transgressions are all brought to remembrance and that punishment is being meted out to you in full measure. The threats rise up out of God’s Book and seem to lift sharp swords in their hands with which to smite you. Time is dreadful to you because you know it is hurrying you to eternity—and the thought of eternity stings as does an adder because you measure the future reckoning by the present distress. At such a time, when you are faint with longing, ready to despair and driven to the verge of madness, I can imagine your crying out, “O Lord God of Mercy, I am as a leaf that is driven to and fro—will You quite break me and utterly destroy me? Have compassion, and show Your favor to Your poor broken creature!”
Many a child of God may have used this, and if he has not used it yet, he may still use it. There are times when all our evidences get clouded and all our joys are fled. Though we may still cling to the Cross, yet it is with a desperate grasp. God brings our sins to remembrance till our bones, as David puts it, “are sorely broken by reason of our iniquity.” Then it is that, all broken, we can turn to the Strong for strength and use the plea of the text, “Will You break a leaf driven to and fro?” And we shall get for our answer these comforting words, “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.”