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Job Chapter
Eight
Job 8
Chapter Contents
Bildad reproves Job. (1-7) Hypocrites will be destroyed.
(8-19) Bildad applies God's just dealing to Job. (20-22)
Commentary on Job 8:1-7
(Read Job 8:1-7)
Job spake much to the purpose; but Bildad, like an eager,
angry disputant, turns it all off with this, How long wilt thou speak these
things? Men's meaning is not taken aright, and then they are rebuked, as if
they were evil-doers. Even in disputes on religion, it is too common to treat
others with sharpness, and their arguments with contempt. Bildad's discourse
shows that he had not a favourable opinion of Job's character. Job owned that
God did not pervert judgment; yet it did not therefore follow that his children
were cast-aways, or that they did for some great transgression. Extraordinary
afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, sometimes they
are the trials of extraordinary graces: in judging of another's case, we ought
to take the favorable side. Bildad puts Job in hope, that if he were indeed
upright, he should yet see a good end of his present troubles. This is God's
way of enriching the souls of his people with graces and comforts. The
beginning is small, but the progress is to perfection. Dawning light grows to
noon-day.
Commentary on Job 8:8-19
(Read Job 8:8-19)
Bildad discourses well of hypocrites and evil-doers, and
the fatal end of all their hopes and joys. He proves this truth of the
destruction of the hopes and joys of hypocrites, by an appeal to former times.
Bildad refers to the testimony of the ancients. Those teach best that utter
words out of their heart, that speak from an experience of spiritual and divine
things. A rush growing in fenny ground, looking very green, but withering in
dry weather, represents the hypocrite's profession, which is maintained only in
times of prosperity. The spider's web, spun with great skill, but easily swept
away, represents a man's pretensions to religion when without the grace of God
in his heart. A formal professor flatters himself in his own eyes, doubts not
of his salvation, is secure, and cheats the world with his vain confidences.
The flourishing of the tree, planted in the garden, striking root to the rock,
yet after a time cut down and thrown aside, represents wicked men, when most
firmly established, suddenly thrown down and forgotten. This doctrine of the
vanity of a hypocrite's confidence, or the prosperity of a wicked man, is
sound; but it was not applicable to the case of Job, if confined to the present
world.
Commentary on Job 8:20-22
(Read Job 8:20-22)
Bildad here assures Job, that as he was so he should
fare; therefore they concluded, that as he fared so he was. God will not cast
away an upright man; he may be cast down for a time, but he shall not be cast
away for ever. Sin brings ruin on persons and families. Yet to argue, that Job
was an ungodly, wicked man, was unjust and uncharitable. The mistake in these
reasonings arose from Job's friends not distinguishing between the present
state of trial and discipline, and the future state of final judgment. May we
choose the portion, possess the confidence, bear the cross, and die the death
of the righteous; and, in the mean time, be careful neither to wound others by
rash judgments, nor to distress ourselves needlessly about the opinions of our
fellow-creatures.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Job》
Job 8
Verse 2
[2] How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long
shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?
Strong wind — Boisterous and violent.
Verse 3
[3] Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert
justice?
Doth God — Heb. The might God, as this word signifies, the
Almighty, or All-sufficient God, as the next name of God implies. These names
are emphatically used, to prove that God cannot deal unjustly or falsely with
men, because he hath no need of it, nor temptation to it, being self-sufficient
for his own happiness, and being able by his own invincible power to do
whatsoever pleaseth him.
Pervert — Judge unrighteously? No, this is inconsistent with
God's nature, and with his office of governor of the world.
Verse 4
[4] If thy children have sinned against him, and he have
cast them away for their transgression;
If — If thou wast innocent, thy children, upon whom a great
part of these calamities fell, might be guilty; and therefore God is not
unrighteous in these proceedings.
Verse 5
[5] If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy
supplication to the Almighty;
Betimes — Heb. rise early to seek him, if thou wouldest seek him
speedily, early and diligently.
Verse 6
[6] If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake
for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
Habitation — The concerns of thy house and
family; which thou hast got and managed with righteousness.
Verse 8
[8] For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare
thyself to the search of their fathers:
Search — Seriously and industriously search the ancient records.
Verse 9
[9] (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because
our days upon earth are a shadow:)
We, … — But lately born, and therefore have but little
knowledge and experience. We live not so long as they did, to make observations
on the methods of Divine Providence.
Verse 10
[10] Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter
words out of their heart?
Utter — Not partially, but sincerely, speaking their inward
thoughts; not rashly, but from deep consideration; not by hearsay, but their own
knowledge.
Verse 11
[11] Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow
without water?
Can, … — The hypocrite cannot build his hope, without some
false, rotten ground or other, any more than the rush can grow without mire, or
the flag without water.
Verse 12
[12] Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it
withereth before any other herb.
Greenness — Whereby it promises long
continuance. Tho' no man cut it down, it withers of itself, sooner than other
herbs.
Verse 13
[13] So are the paths of all that forget God; and the
hypocrite's hope shall perish:
Paths — Of wicked men. By their paths he doth not understand
their manner of living, but the events which befall them, God's manner of
dealing with them.
Verse 14
[14] Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a
spider's web.
Hope — Whose wealth and outward glory, the matter of his
hope, and trust, shall be cut off suddenly and violently taken away from him.
Web — Which tho' it be formed with great art and industry,
is easily swept down, or pulled in pieces.
Verse 15
[15] He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he
shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure.
House — He shall trust to the multitude of his children and
servants, and to his wealth, all which come under the name of a man's house in
scripture.
Hold it — To uphold himself by it. But his web, that refuge of
lies, will be swept away, and he crushed in it.
Verse 16
[16] He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth
forth in his garden.
He — The secure and prosperous sinner may think himself
wronged, when he is compared to a rush or flag. Compare him then to a
flourishing and well-rooted tree. Yet even then shall he be suddenly cut off.
Green — Flourisheth in the world.
Before the sun — Publickly and in the view of all
men.
Branch — His children, who are here mentioned as additions not
only to his comfort, but also to his strength and safety.
Garden — A place where it is defended from those injuries to
which the trees of the field are subject, and where, besides the advantages
common to all trees, it hath peculiar helps from the art and industry of men.
So he supposes this man to be placed in the most desirable circumstances.
Verse 17
[17] His roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the
place of stones.
Heap — Of stones. This circumstance is added, to signify its
firmness and strength, that it was not in loose and sandy ground, which a
violent wind might overthrow, but in solid ground, within which were many
stones, which its numerous and spreading roots embrace, folding and
interweaving themselves about them.
Seeth — The tree reacheth thither, takes the advantage of that
place for the strengthening of itself.
Verse 18
[18] If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny
him, saying, I have not seen thee.
He — God, who is the saviour of good men, and the destroyer
of the wicked.
It — The place; to which denying him, and seeing him, are
here ascribed figuratively.
Not seen — He shall be so utterly extirpated and destroyed, that
there shall be no memorial of him left.
Verse 19
[19] Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth
shall others grow.
Behold — This is the issue of the flourishing state. This all
his joy comes to.
And, … — Out of the same earth or place shall another tree
grow.
Verse 20
[20] Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither
will he help the evil doers:
Behold — God who will not help the evildoer, will not cast away
a good man, tho he may be cast down. Yet it may be, he will not be lifted up in
this world: and therefore Bildad could not infer, that if Job was not restored
to temporal prosperity, he was not a good man. Let us judge nothing before the
time, but wait 'till the secrets of all hearts are revealed, and the present
difficulties of providence solved, to universal and everlasting satisfaction.
Verse 21
[21] Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with
rejoicing.
'Till, … — And what I have said in general of good men, shall be
made good to thee, if thou art such: God will not forsake thee, nor desist from
doing thee good, 'till he give thee abundant matter of rejoicing.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Job》
08 Chapter 8
Verses 1-22
Verses 1-3
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite.
Bildad’s unsympathetic speech
Bildad grasps at once, as we say, the nettle. He is quite
sure that he has the key to the secret of the distribution among mankind of
misery and happiness. It is a very simple solution. It is the doctrine that
untimely death, sickness, adversity in every form, are alike signs of God’s
anger; that they visit mankind with unerring discrimination; are all what we
call “judgments”; are penalties, i.e., or chastisements, meant either
simply to vindicate the broken law, or else to warn and reclaim the sinner. And
so, in what we feel to be harsh and unfeeling terms, he applies at once this
principle, like unsparing cautery, to the wounds of his friend. Bildad tries to
overwhelm the restless and presumptuous audacity of Job with a hoard of maxims
and metaphors drawn from the storehouse of the “wisdom of the ancients.” He
puts them forward in a form that may remind us for a moment of the Book of
Proverbs. “As the tall bulrush or the soaring reed grass dies down faster than
it shot up, when water is withdrawn, so falls and withers the short-lived
prosperity of the forgetters of God. The spider’s web, frailest of tenements,
is the world-old type of the hopes which the ungodly builds.” The second friend
is emphasising what the first had hinted. “There are no mysteries at all, no
puzzles in human life,” the friends say. “Suffering is, in each and every case,
the consequence of ill-doing. God’s righteousness is absolute. It is to be seen
at every turn in the experience of life. All this impatient, fretful, writhing
under, or at the sight of pain and loss, is a sign of something morally wrong,
of want of faith in Divine justice. Believe this, Job; act on it, and all thy
troubles will be over; God will be once more thy friend--till then He cannot
be.” (Dean Bradley.)
Bildad’s first speech
I. A reproof that
is severe. “How long wilt thou speak these things?” Job had poured forth
language that seemed as wild and tempestuous as the language of a man in a
passion. But such language ought to have been considered in relation to his
physical anguish and mental distress. Great suffering destroys the mental
equilibrium.
II. A doctrine what
is unquestionable. “Doth God pervert judgment?” The interrogatory is a strong
way of putting the affirmative; namely, that God is absolutely just, and that
He never deviates from the right.
III. An implication
that is unkind. “If thy children have sinned against Him, and He have cast them
away for their transgression.” Surely it was excessively heartless even to hint
such things to the broken-hearted father.
IV. A policy that
is Divine. “If thou wouldst seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication
unto the Almighty.” Bildad recommends that this policy should be attended to at
once, and in a proper spirit. He affirms that if this policy be thus attended
to, the Almighty would mercifully interpose.
V. An authority
not to be trusted. “Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare
thyself to the search of their fathers.” He appeals to antiquity to confirm
what he has advanced. Two things should be considered.
1. There is nothing in past times infallible but the
Divinely-inspired.
2. There is always more of the inspired in the present than in the
past.
VI. A consideration
that is solemn. “We are but of yesterday, and know nothing.” This fact, which
is introduced parenthetically, is of solemn moment to us all. (Homilist.)
Verse 3
Doth the Almighty pervert justice?
Judgment and justice
These two words may be taken as expressing one and the same thing.
If we distinguish them, judgment may serve to express God’s righteous procedure
in punishing the wicked; and justice His procedure in vindicating the righteous
when they are oppressed. Job is unjustly charged, and accordingly he vindicates
himself.
1. Job’s maintaining of his own righteousness is not a quarrelling of
God’s righteousness, who afflicted him. Job held both to be true, though he
could not reconcile God’s dealing with the testimony of his own conscience,
that did evidence his weakness, but not charge God With unrighteousness.
2. As for his complaints of God’s dealings, he was indeed more
culpable therein than he would at first see and acknowledge; yet therein he
intended no direct accusation against God’s righteousness. Learn--
If thou wouldst seek unto
God betimes.
The sinful man’s search
I. What is it that God requireth? A diligent and speedy search. It is
a work both in desire and labour to be joined with God. How must we search?
Faithfully, humbly, continually. Whom we must seek. God, for four causes.
1. Because we have nothing of ourselves, nor of any other creature.
2. Because none is so present as He.
3. Because none is so able to help as He.
4. Because there is none so willing to help as He. When we must seek.
Early. “Even in a time when He may be found.”
II. How is the search to be made? In prayer. Prayer is a shield against
the force of our adversary. Prayer hath ever been the cognisance, and the
victory, and the triumph of the faithful; for as the soul giveth life to the
body, so prayer giveth life to the soul.
III. What effect this seeking and praying should have on us. “If thou
wert pure and upright.” God’s promises for the performance hereof yield unto us
most plentiful matter of doctrine and consolation. In God’s promises note His
mercy, which exceedeth all His works. Note His bountiful kindness, His patience
and long-suffering, and His love. God increase the love of these things in our
hearts, and make us worthy of Christ’s blessings, which He hath plentifully in
store for us; that after He hath heaped temporal blessings upon us, He will
give us the blessing of all blessings, even the life of the world to come. (H.
Smith.)
Verse 6
Surely now He would awake
for thee.
Prayer awaking God
God sleeps, not in regard
of the act, but the consequents of sleep. Natural sleep is the binding or
locking up of the senses. The eye and ear of God is never bound. But to man’s
apprehension the affairs of the world pass, as if God did neither hear nor see.
When men are asleep things are done which they can take no notice of, much less
stop and prevent. Sleeping and awaking, as applied to God, note only the
changes of providence. The words teach--
1. That holy prayer shall certainly be heard.
2. That prayer shall be heard presently, Holy prayers are never deferred
the hearing. The giving out of the answer may be deferred, but the answer is
not deferred.
3. Prayer is the best means to awaken God. Two things in Scripture
are said to awaken God. The prayers of His people, and the rage and blasphemy
of His enemies.
4. Seeing that God is awakened by prayer, our prayer ought to be very
strong and fervent. If God do but awake for us, all is presently (speedily)
well with us. (Joseph Caryl.)
Verse 7
Though thy beginning was small.
The day of small things
Small beginnings, in certain cases, are productive of great ends.
I. The conditions
of success. Though obvious and simple, they are very easily overlooked. A pure
motive seems the first. A double aim rarely succeeds. The man who has only one
aim has only one enemy to encounter. Another “condition of success” may be
found in the nature of the aim. Where we aim at that which is good--that which
conduces to God’s glory, or man’s benefit, or to both--we have singular
advantages on our side. The waves are on the side of God’s enemies; they “cast
up mire and dirt,” but that is all. The current is on the side of His
friends--of those, as we said above, who seek to do good. One other condition
of success, always infallible, if not always essential, is a distinct promise
on our side. What God promises, He predicts; what He predicts, He performs.
II. Some of the
special cases to which these considerations apply. And the preaching of the
Gospel in the world as a “witness,” is that which comes to hand first. How
insignificant and small was its beginning! It is true that other religions also
have prevailed widely from a small beginning, but they are only subordinate
illustrations, so to speak; for they prevailed, so far as they did, from the
modicum of Bible truth which they had in them as compared with the religions
they displaced. Thus, Buddhism and Christianity, for example, were each founded
by one man; but the man in one case was a peasant, in the other was a prince.
So Mohammedanism spread by conquering; Christianity, by being conquered.
Brahminism, again, prevails in India, but in India alone, I believe; in all
other lands it is an exotic which cannot maintain life; whereas Christianity
holds sway, even if hated, among all the leading races of the world. Another
case is that of the growth of grace in the heart. In this let no one despise
the day of small things; let no one be surprised not to find himself a
full-grown Christian in one night. If in other respects your beginning seems
right, it is all the better, if anything, for being small. The work of God’s
Spirit is gradual, as a rule. (Mathematicus, M. A.)
Beginning to be interpreted by the end
If evolution can be proved to include man, the whole course of
evolution and the whole system of nature from that moment assume a new
significance. The beginning must then be interpreted from the end, not the end
from the beginning. An engineering workshop is unintelligible until we reach
the room where the completed engine stands. Everything culminates in that final
product, is contained in it, is explained by it. The evolution of man is also
the completion and corrective of all other forms of evolution. From this point
only is there a full view, a true perspective, a consistent world. (H.
Drummond.)
The beginning, increase, and end of the Divine life
This was the reasoning of Bildad the Shuhite. He wished to prove
that Job could not possibly be an upright man, for if he were so, he here
affirms that his prosperity would increase continually, or that if he fell into
any trouble, God would awake for him, and make the habitation of his
righteousness prosperous. Now, the utterances of Bildad, and of the other two
men who came to comfort Job, but who made his wounds tingle, are not to be
accepted as being inspired. They spake as men--as mere men. With regard to the
passage which I have selected as a text, it is true--altogether apart from its
being said by Bildad, or being found in the Bible at all; it is true, as indeed
the facts of the Book of Job prove: for Job did greatly increase in his latter
end. Evil things may seem to begin well, but they end badly; there is the flash
and the glare, but afterwards the darkness and the black ash. Not so, however,
with good. With, good the beginning is ever small; but its latter end doth
greatly increase. “The path of the just is as the shining light,” which sheds a
few flickering rays at first, Which exercises a combat with the darkness, but
it “shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Good things progress.
I. First, then,
for the quieting of your fears. Thou sayest, my hearer, “I am but a beginner in
grace, and therefore I am vexed with anxiety, and full of timorousness.”
Perhaps thy first fear, if I put it into words, is this: “My beginning is so
small that I cannot tell when it did begin, and therefore, methinks I cannot
have been converted, but am still in the gall of bitterness.” O beloved! how
many thousands like thyself have been exercised with doubts upon this point! Be
encouraged; it is not needful for you to know when you were regenerated; it is
but necessary for you to know that you are so. If thou canst set no date to the
beginning of thy faith, yet if thou dost believe now, thou art saved. Does it
not strike you as being very foolish reasoning if you should say in your heart,
“I am not converted because I do not know when”? Nay, with such reasoning as
that, I could prove that old Rome was never built, because the precise date of
her building is unknown; nay, we might declare that the world was never made,
for its exact age even the geologist cannot tell us. Another doubt also arises
from this point. “Ah! sir,” saith a timid Christian, “it is not merely the
absence of all date to my conversion, but the extreme weakness of the grace I
have.” “Ah,” saith one, “I sometimes think I have a little faith, but it is so
mingled with unbelief, distrust, and incredulity, that I can hardly think it is
God’s gift, the faith of God’s elect.” When God begins to build, if He lay but
one single stone He will finish the structure; when Christ sits down to weave,
though He casts the shuttle but once, and that time the thread was so filmy as
scarcely to be discernible, He will nevertheless continue till the piece is
finished, and the whole is wrought. If thy faith be never so little, yet it is
immortal, and that immortality may well compensate for its littleness. Having
thus spoken upon two fears, which are the result of these small beginnings, let
me now try to quiet another. “Ah!” saith the heir of heaven, “I do hope that in
me grace hath Commenced its work, but my fear is, that such frail faith as mine
will never stand the test of years. I am,” saith he, “so weak, that one
temptation would be too much for me; how then can I hope to pass through yonder
forest of spears held in the hands of valiant enemies? A drop makes me tremble,
how shall I stem the roaring flood of life and death? Let but one arrow fly
from hell, it penetrates my tender flesh; what then if Satan shall empty his
quiver? I shall surely fall by the hand of the enemy. My beginnings are so
small that I am certain they will soon come to their end, and that end must be
black despair.” Be of good courage, have done with that fear once for all; it
is true, as thou sayest, the temptation will be too much for thee, but what
hast thou to do with it? Heaven is not to be won by thy might, but by the might
of Him who has promised heaven to thee. Let me seek to quiet and pacify one
other fear. “Nay, but,” say you, “I never can be saved; for when I look at
other people, at God’s own true children,--I am ashamed to say it,--I am but a
miserable copy of them. So far from attaining to the image of my Master, I fear
I am not even like my Master’s servants. I live at a poor dying rate. I sometimes
run, but oftener creep, and seldom if ever fly. Where others are shaking
mountains, I am stumbling over molehills.” If some little star in the sky
should declare it was not a star, because it did not shine as brightly as
Sirius or Arcturus, how foolish would be its argument! Hast thou ever learned
to distinguish between grace and gifts? For know that they are marvellously
dissimilar. A man may be saved who has not a grain of gifts; but no man can be
saved who hath no grace. Have you ever learned to distinguish between grace
that saves, and the grace which develops itself afterwards. Remember, there are
some graces that are absolutely necessary to the saving of the soul; there are
some others that are only necessary to its comfort. Faith, for instance, is absolutely
necessary for salvation; but assurance is not.
II. Upon this head
I wish to say a word or two for the confirmation of your faith. Well, the first
confirmation I would offer you is this: Our beginnings are very, very small,
but we have a joyous prospect in our text. Our latter end shall greatly
increase; we shall not always be so distrustful as we are now. Thank God, we
look for days when our faith shall be unshaken, and firm as mountains be. I
shall not forever have to mourn before my God that I cannot love Him as I
would. We are growing things. Methinks I hear the green blade say this morning,
“I shall not forever be trodden under foot as if I were but grass; I shall
grow; I shall blossom; I shall grow ripe and mellow; and many a man shall sharpen
his sickle for me. But further, thin cheering prospect upon earth is quite
eclipsed by a more cheering prospect, beyond the river Death.” Our latter end
shall greatly increase. Faith shall give place to fruition; hope shall be
occupied with enjoyment; love itself shall be swallowed up in ecstasy. Mine
eyes, ye shall not forever weep; there are sights of transport for you. Tongue,
thou shalt not forever have to mourn, and be the instrument of confession;
there are songs and hallelujahs for thee. Perhaps someone may say, “How is it
that we are so sure that our latter end will increase?” I give you just these
reasons:--we are quite sure of it because there is a vitality in our piety. The
sculptor may have oftentimes cut in marble some exquisite statue of a babe.
That has come to its full size; it will never grow any greater. When I see a
wise man in the world, I look at him as being just such an infant. He will
never grow any greater. He has come to his full. He is but chiselled out by
human power; there is no vitality in him. The Christian here on earth is a
babe, but not a babe in stone--a babe instinct with life. Besides this, we feel
that we must come to something better, because God is with us. We are quite
certain that what we are, cannot be the end of God’s design. We are only the
chalk crayon, rough drawings of men, yet when we come to be filled up in
eternity, we shall be marvellous pictures, and our latter end indeed shall be
greatly increased. Christian! remember, for the encouragement of thy poor soul,
that what thou art now is not the measure of thy safety; thy safety depends not
upon what thou art, but on what Christ is.
III. Now for our
last point, namely, for the quickening of our diligence.
1. First, take heed to yourself that you obey the commandments which
relate to the ordinances of Christ. But further, if thou wouldst get out of the
littleness of thy beginnings, wait much upon the means of grace. Read much the
Word of God alone. Rest not till thou hast fed on the Word; and thus shall thy
little beginnings come to great endings.
2. Be much also in prayer. God’s plants grow fastest in the warm
atmosphere of the closet.
3. And, lastly, if thy beginning be but small, make the best use of
the beginning that thou hast. Hast thou but one talent? Put it out at interest,
and make two of it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days
upon earth are a shadow.
The intellectual poverty of life
The two unquestionable truths that Bildad here expresses are the
transitoriness and the intellectual poverty of our mortal life. We “know
nothing.” Bildad seems to indicate that our ignorance arises partly from the
brevity of our life. We have no time to get knowledge.
1. We know nothing compared with what is to be known. This may be
said of all created intelligences, even of those who are the most exalted in
power and attainment. “Each subsequent advance in science has shown us the
comparative nothingness of all human knowledge.”--Sir R. Peel.
2. We know nothing compared with what we might have known. There is a
vast disproportion between the knowledge attainable by man on earth, and that
which he actually attains. Our Maker sees the difference.
3. We know nothing compared with what we shall know in the future.
There is a life beyond the grave for all, good and bad, a life, not of
indolence, but of intense unremitting action,--the action of inquiry and
reflection.
I. If we are thus
so necessarily ignorant, it does not become us to criticise the ways of God.
How often do we find some poor mortals arrogantly occupying the critic’s chair,
in the great temple of truth, and even suggesting moral irregularities in the
Divine procedure.
II. Difficulties in
connection with a revelation from God are to be expected. Place in the hands of
one deeply conscious of his ignorance, written with profundity of thought, and
extensiveness of learning, and would he not expect to meet with difficulties in
every page? How monstrous then it is for any man to expect to comprehend all
the revelation of the Infinite Mind. The man who parades the difficulties of
the Bible as a justification of his unbelief, or as an argument against its
Divinity, is pitiably ignorant of his own ignorance. Were there no
difficulties, you might reasonably question its heavenly authorship. Their
existence is the signature of the Infinite.
III. The profoundest
modesty should characterise us in the maintenance of our theological views. It
is the duty of every man to get convictions of Divine truth for himself, to
hold these convictions with firmness, and to promote them with earnestness; but
at the same time, with a due consciousness of his own fallibility, and with a
becoming deference to the judgment of others. The more knowledge, the more
humility. True wisdom is ever modest. Those who live most in the light are most
ready to veil their faces.
IV. Our perfection
is to be found in moral qualities rather than in intellectual attainments. If
our well-being consisted in exact and extensive information of our great Maker
and His universe, we might well allow despair to settle on our spirits. Few
have the talent to become scientific, fewer still the means; but all can love.
And “love is the fulfilling of the law”; and love is heaven.
V. There must be
an afterlife affording opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge. We are
formed for the acquisition of knowledge. If we are so necessarily ignorant, and
there be no hereafter, our destiny is not realised, and we have been made in
vain.
VI. We should with
rapturous gratitude avail ourselves of the merciful interposition of christ as
our guide to immortality. Unaided reason has no torch to light us safely on our
way. Our gracious Maker has met our ease, He has sent His Son. That Son stands
by you and me, and says, “Follow Me.” (Homilist.)
On the ignorance of man, and the proper improvement of it
What do we know of ourselves? We carry about with us bodies
curiously made; but we cannot see far into their inward frame and constitution.
We experience the operation of many powers and faculties, but understand not
what they are, or how they operate. We find that our wills instantaneously
produce motion in our members, but when we endeavour to account for this we are
entirely lost. The laws of union between the soul and the body, the nature of
death, and the particular state into which it puts us; these and many other
things relating to our own beings are absolutely incomprehensible to us. One of
the greatest mysteries to man is man. What do we know of this earth, and its
constitution and furniture? Almost all that we see of things is their outsides.
The substance or essence of every object is unintelligible to us. We see no
more than a link or two in the immense chain of causes and effects. There is
not a single effect which we can trace to its primary cause. And what is this
earth to the whole solar system? And what is the system of the sun to the
system of the universe? And if we could take in the complete prospect of God’s
works, there would still remain unknown an infinity of abstract truths and
possibles. Observe too our ignorance of the plan and conduct of Divine
providence in the government of the universe. We cannot say wherein consists
the fitness of many particular dispensations of providence. There is a depth of
wisdom in all God’s ways which we are incapable of tracing. The origin of evil
is a point which in all ages has perplexed human reason. And then carry thought
to the Deity Himself, and consider what we know of Him. His nature is
absolutely unfathomable to us, and in the contemplation of it we see ourselves
lost. This imperfection of our knowledge is plainly owing--
1. To the narrowness of our faculties.
2. To the lateness of our existence. We are but of yesterday.
3. To the disadvantageousness of our situation for observing nature
and acquiring knowledge.
We are confined to a point of this earth, which itself is but a
point compared with the rest of creation. Our subject ought to teach us the
profoundest humility. There is nothing we are more apt to be proud of than our
understanding. Our subject may be of particular use in answering many
objections against providence, and in reconciling us to the orders and
appointments of nature. There is an unsearchableness in God’s ways, and we
ought not to expect to find them always free from darkness. Our subject should
lead us to be contented with any real evidence which we can get. And our
subject should lead our hopes and wishes to that future world where full day
will break in upon our souls. (R. Price, D. D.)
Our days upon earth are a
shadow.
Life a shadow
The author of “Ecce Homo” has remarked that Westminster Abbey is
more attractive than St. Paul’s Cathedral. The reason is obvious. Westminster
Abbey is full of human interest. There lie our kings, poets, and conquerors.
Statues of great men in characteristic attitudes confront us at every turn. St.
Paul’s, on the contrary, is comparatively barren in this respect. An imposing
temple it is, nevertheless, almost empty. As much may be said of Dante and
Milton. The poems of the former are occupied with the hopes and fears, loves
and hates of those who were “of like passions with ourselves,” whereas the
productions of the latter are occupied with heaven and hell rather than with
our own familiar earth. To which of these classes the Bible belongs we need not
state. While Divine in its origin, it is intensely human in its theme, end, and
sympathies. Man’s dangers and duties, character and condition, absorb the
anxiety of each sacred writer. The text reminds us of this. It speaks of life.
Our existence is compared to a shadow. The figure is a favourite one in the Old
Testament. No less than eight times is it used. What does it mean?
I. A shadow is
dark. We always associate the word with that which is gloomy and sombre. And,
alas! how dark is life to many! To them the statement of Holy Writ emphatically
applies, “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full
of misery.” As Sydney Smith observed, “We talk of human life as a journey, but
how variously is that journey performed! There are those who come forth girt,
and shod, and mantled, to walk on velvet lawns and smooth terraces, where every
gale is arrested and every beam is tempered. There are others who walk on
Alpine paths of life against driving misery and through stormy sorrows, over
sharp afflictions; walk with bare feet and naked breast, jaded, mangled, and
chill.” Yonder is a poor lad, a wretched city arab. He cannot read or write. He
does not know that there is a God. He has hardly heard the name of Christ.
Father and mother he does not recollect. His “days upon earth are a shadow.”
Here is a young widow, scarce out of her teens. Less than twelve months ago she
was a blooming bride; now she weeps at her husband’s grave. Her fondest earthly
expectations are blasted. Her “days upon the earth are a shadow.” There is a
large and prosperous household. Father and mother, son and daughter, have a
noble ambition--to excel each other in kindness. Brothers and sisters emulate
one another in affection. On a certain morning, however, a letter is laid upon
the breakfast table which tells them that, by one blow of misfortune, they are
ruined. The home nest is destroyed. They must go forth, separated for life, in
order to procure their subsistence. Their “days upon earth are a shadow.” All
lives are more or less shadow-like.
II. A shadow is not
possible without light. Natural or artificial radiance is essential to shade.
As much may be affirmed of our troubles. They are accompanied by the light of
the Sun of Righteousness. To console us in all trial we have the light of God’s
presence. “When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee.” A vessel
crossing the Atlantic was suddenly struck with a terrible wind. She shivered
and reeled under the stroke. Passengers and crew were thrown into confusion.
The captain’s little girl awoke during the disturbance, and, raising herself in
bed, said, “Is father on deck?” Assured that he was, she laid herself down
quietly and slept again. We may do the same. Calmly ought we to trust our
Heavenly Father, who is always with us in life’s storms. Does the reader
remember the dying words of John Wesley? As he was drawing near his end he
tried to write. But when he took up the pen he discovered that his right hand
had forgotten its cunning. A friend offering to write for him asked, “What
shall I write?” “Nothing but this: The best of nil is, God with us.” Such was
the support of the expiring saint, and such is an unfailing source of strength
to us in every hour of trial. We have also the light of God’s purpose. The very
meaning of certain commonly used words bears important testimony to the kindly
and wise object of the Lord in afflicting us. “Punishment” is derived from the
Sanskrit “pu,” to cleanse. “Castigation” comes from “castus,” pure.
“Tribulation” has grown out of tribulum, a threshing instrument, whereby the
Roman husbandmen separated the corn from the husks. To quote from a living
author: “A Chinese mandarin who has a fancy for foreign trees gets an acorn. He
puts it in a pot, places a glass shade over it, waters it, and gets an oak; but
it is an oak only two feet high. God does differently. He puts the sapling out
of doors; He gives it sunshine and pure air. Is that all? No. Hail whistles
like bullets in its branches, and seems as if it would tear them to ribbands.
But is the tree the worse for it? No; it is cleansed from blight and mildew.
Then come storm and tempest, bowing the tree until it appears as if it must
fall. But only a few rotten boughs are removed, and the roots take a firmer
hold, making the tree stand like a rock. Then comes the lightning, like a
flaming sword, rending down huge pieces. Surely the tree is marred and injured
now! Not at all. The lightning has made a rent through which the sunlight
reaches other parts.” This is a picture of God’s dealings with us. The storms
of trouble develop holiness and virtue. Two men stand by the ocean. As he looks
at the grand green waves, galloping like Neptune’s wild horses, and shaking
their foaming manes with delight, one of them sees in the ocean an emblem of
eternity, a symbol of infinitude, a manifestation of God. But the other, as he
glances at it, sees in it nothing but a fluid composed of oxygen and hydrogen,
forming a convenient means of sending out shiploads of corn and iron, silk and
spices. “To the pure all things are pure.” Let us be righteous, and we shall
find spiritual help in everything. If we have but a heart yearning after
Christ, we shall never fail to get strength and solace from nature, revelation,
and mankind. The same bee has a sting for its foe and honey for its friend. The
same sun sustains and ripens a rooted tree, but kills the uprooted one. The
sane wind and waves sink one ship and send another to its destination.
III. A shadow
against with its substance. It corresponds in shape. The tree has a shadow,
which is its precise similitude. It corresponds in size. A small house or stone
has a small shadow. Life is a shadow. God is the sun. What is the substance?
Eternity. Surely it is not outstraining the figure to say this. Life is a
“shadow of good things to come” in the other world. But is it so? Is life a
“shadow of good things to come”? That depends upon circumstances. The character
of our being hereafter agrees with the character of our being here. The people
of Ashantee believe that the rank and position of the dead in the other world
are determined by the number of attendants he has. Hence, on the death of his
mother, the king sacrificed three thousand of his subjects on her grave, that
she might have a large retinue of followers, and therefore occupy a situation
of eminence. In this horrible custom there is the germ of a solemn
truth. Our moral and spiritual state in eternity are regulated by our experience
in the present. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” “He that is
holy, let him be holy still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still.”
Oh, what a mighty argument on behalf of goodness! Be it not forgotten. God help
us in our daily deeds to remember that our thoughts, feelings, acts, help to
decide our everlasting destiny. May we so affectionately serve Christ and so
zealously bless our fellows that our inevitable future may be bright and
glorious.
IV. A shadow is
useful. It is serviceable in many ways. Sometimes it saves life. The shadow of
a great rock in a weary land is of more value than we in our climate can fully
understand. Distance may be measured by shadows. The height of mountains has
been discovered thus. Time, too, is ascertainable by shadows. Orientals are
known to practise this method of finding the hour of the day. To be true
followers of Christ, our fives, like the shadow, must be marked by utility. St.
John closes his Gospel with these remarkable words, “And there are also many
other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I
suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be
written.” Nay (we feel inclined to say), not so, thou beloved disciple! Surely thou
art wrong. Think again. Withdraw thy hyperbole of enthusiasm. We venture to
correct thee. Less than “the world itself”; very much less will “contain” an
accurate account of all thy blessed Master did. Peter gives us His whole
biography in five words, “Who went about doing good.” Doing good; that was the
entire work of Jesus. Good, good, good, nothing but good. Good of all kinds,
good at all times, good to all sorts of men. To be His real servants, then, we
must distinguish ourselves by usefulness. We can do so. It is astonishing how
much may be accomplished. We have before quoted Sydney Smith; we will borrow
another thought of him. He argues that if we resolve to make one person in each
day happy, in ten years we shall have made no less than three thousand six
hundred and fifty happy! Is not the effort worth making? Let us try the
experiment. It will not be in vain. Neither shall we go unrewarded. No bliss is
like that which attends benevolence.
V. A shadow is
soon gone. It cannot last long. Speedily does it depart. Life is short. Our
sojourn on earth soon ends. Do not then trifle with the Gospel. Your
opportunity for seeking salvation will soon be gone. (T. R. Stevenson.)
Life as a shadow
On the face of the municipal buildings at Aberdeen is an old sundial,
said to have been constructed by David Anderson in 1597. The motto is, “Ut
umbra, sic fugit vita.”
Can the rush grow up without mire?
--The rush to which he refers did not grow in the dry and parched land of Uz,
which was the place where Bildad and Job lived. It grew principally in Egypt,
and in one or two places in Northern Palestine. It is no other than the famous
bulrush of the Nile, of which the ark was made in which the infant Moses was
concealed; an ark of bulrush being supposed to be a powerful charm for warding
off all evil. The smooth rind or skin of this remarkable plant that once grew
in great abundance in Egypt, but is now very scarce, supplied when dried and
beaten out and pasted together the first material used for writing on. Our word
paper comes from its name papyrus. Perhaps Bildad, who from his style of speech
was evidently a learned man, possessed an old Egyptian book made of papyrus
leaves, in which he found the picturesque proverb of my text; and it would be a
very curious thing if on the very leaf of a book made of the skin of the
papyrus or rush, there should be inscribed an account of the way in which the
papyrus or rush itself grew on the swampy banks of the Nile. “Can the rush grow
up without mire?” Every plant needs water. Water forms the sap which circulates
through the veins of every plant; it is the internal stream along which little
successions of floats continually go, carrying the materials of growth to every
pair of the structure. In Egypt we see in a very remarkable way the dependence
of plants upon water; for vegetation only grows as far as the life-giving
overflow of the annual inundation of the Nile extends. Beyond that point there
is nothing but the parched, leafless desert. Nothing can be more striking than
the dry, white sand, and the long luxuriant grass side by side. There is no
mingling of barren and fertile soil; and the two endless lines of grey and
green come abruptly into contact. But while other plants thus need water, and
are dependent upon it, they can nevertheless cling to life and preserve their
greenness even during a pretty long drought. The rush, on the contrary, cannot
exist without water, even for the shortest period; and the burning sun of Egypt
would destroy in a few hours every water plant that grows in the Nile, were the
stream to fail and cease to bathe their roots. Bildad tells us this in very
striking language. He says, “While it is yet in its greenness and not cut down,
it withereth before any other herb.” No other plant so quickly withers in the
absence of water, just because it is made to grow in the water. All its
structure is adapted to that kind of situation and to no other. Its material is
soft and spongy and filled with water, which evaporates at once when the
circulation is not kept up. There are in nature two kinds of plants at the
opposite poles from each other, and each wonderfully suited to the place in
which it grows. There is the cactus, found in the dry-parched deserts of
Mexico, where there is no water, no running stream, and no rain for weeks and
months together. It has thick, leathery, fleshy stems instead of leaves,
without any evaporating pores on their surface, so that whatever moisture they
get from the rare rain or the dew by their roots, they keep and never part
with, and therefore they can stand the most intense and long-continued drought,
having a reservoir within themselves. And there is on the other hand the rush
which grows with its root in the waters of the Nile, and, like a vegetable
sponge, cannot live for an hour without that outside water ascending its stem
and flowing through all its structure. You know our own common rush cannot do
without water. It always grows beside springs, and the sources of streams, and
on marshy lands. Wherever you see rushes growing you may be sure that the soil
is full of water; and if the farmer drains the field where rushes grow, they
soon disappear. The moral which Bildad draws from that interesting fact of
natural history is that as the rush requires water for its life, so man can
only live by the favour of God (Jeremiah 17:7-8). Your natural life is
like that of the rush that grows in the water. Seven-tenths of your bodies is
water. Seven-tenths of your bodies came from the last rains that fell. Your
life is indeed a vapour, a breath, a little moisture condensed. You begin as a
fish, and you swim in a stream of vital fluids as long as your life lasts. You
can taste and absorb and use nothing but liquids. Without water you have no
life. You know after a long drought how restless and parched and irritable you
feel; and what a relief and refreshment the rain is when it comes. It shows you
how necessary water is to the well-being of your bodies; how you cannot exist
without it. And if this be the case as regards your natural life, what shall be
said in regard to your spiritual? God is as necessary to your soul as water is
to your body. Your souls thirst for God, for the living God; for He, and He
alone, is the element in which you live and move and have your being. You are
made for God as the rush is made for the water; and nothing but God can suffice
you, as nothing but water can suffice the rush. The rush with its head in the
torrid sunshine, and its root in the unfailing waters is stimulated from below
and from above. Nothing can exceed the luxuriance of the rush, or papyrus, in
the waters of Merom, a lake to the north of the Sea of Galilee. Now, what you
require for your spiritual well-being is that you should grow beside the well
of water that springeth up unto everlasting life. Jesus can be to you as rivers
of waters in a dry place. You can flourish in the withering atmosphere of the
world, and endure the fiery trials of life, just because all your wellsprings
are in God, and the sources of your human steadfastness and hope are high up in
heaven. You are independent of the precarious supplies of the world. The sun
shall not light upon you nor any heat; and the things of the world that would
otherwise be against you will work together for your good. Seek, then, to grow
in grace; for you must grow in something, and if not in grace, then you will
grow in sin and degradation, in conditions for which you were not made, which
will be continually unsuitable to you, and which will make you always wretched.
The soil of grace is the only circumstance in which you can flourish and
accomplish the purposes for which God made you; for there the roots of your
being will draw living sap continually from the fountain of living waters that
perpetually wells up. Growth in grace is not subject to the changes and decays
of earth. It is the only growth on which death has no power. Without Christ you
can do nothing; you are like the rush without the water in which it grows, dry,
withered and dead. With Christ you are like the rush with its root in the
river; you will flourish and grow in that holiness whose end is everlasting
life. You will indeed be a papyrus displaying on its own leaf the reason of its
flourishing condition, in the unmistakably hieroglyphics of nature which he who
runs may read; a living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men. (Hugh
Macmillan, D. D.)
A sermon from a rush
The great hook of nature only needs to be turned over by a
reverent hand, and to be read by an attentive eye, to be found to be only
second in teaching to the Book of Revelation. The rush shall, this morning, by
God’s grace, teach us a lesson of self-examination. Bildad, the Shuhite, points
it out to us as the picture of a hypocrite.
I. First, then,
the hypocrite’s profession: what is it like? It is here compared to a rush
growing in the mire, and a flag flourishing in the water. This comparison has
several points in it.
1. In the first place, hypocritical religion may be compared to the
rush, for the rapidity with which it grows. True conversions are often very
sudden. But the after-growth of Christians is not quite so rapid and
uninterrupted: seasons of deep depression chill their joy; hours of furious
temptation make a dreadful onslaught upon their quiet; they cannot always
rejoice. True Christians are very like oaks, which take years to reach their
maturity.
2. The rush is of all plants one of the most hollow and unsubstantial.
It looks stout enough to be wielded as a staff, but he that leaneth upon it
shall most certainly fall. So is it with the hypocrite; he is fair enough on
the outside, but there is no solid faith in Christ Jesus in him, no real
repentance on account of sin, no vital union to Christ Jesus. He can pray, but
not in secret, and the essence and soul of prayer he never knew. The reed is
hollow, and has no heart, and the hypocrite has none either; and want of heart
is fatal indeed.
3. A third comparison very naturally suggests itself, namely, that
the hypocrite is very like the rush for its bending properties. When the rough
wind comes howling over the marsh, the rush has made up its mind that it will
hold its place at all hazards. So if the wind blows from the north, he bends to
the south, and the blast sweeps over him; and if the wind blows from the south,
he bends to the north, and the gale has no effect upon him. Only grant the rush
one thing, that he may keep his place, and he will cheerfully bow to all the
rest. The hypocrite will yield to good influences if he be in good society. “Oh
yes, certainly, certainly, sing, pray, anything you like.” We must be ready to
die for Christ, or we shall have no joy in the fact that Christ died for us.
4. Yet again, the bulrush has been used in Scripture as a picture of
a hypocrite, from its habit of hanging down its head. “Is it to hang thy head
like a bulrush?” asks the prophet, speaking to some who kept a hypocritical
fast. Pretended Christians seem to think that to hang down the head is the very
index of a deep piety.
5. Once more: the rush is well taken as an emblem of the mere
professor from its bearing no fruit. Nobody would expect to find figs on a
bulrush, or grapes of Eshcol on a reed. So it is with the hypocrite: he brings
forth no fruit.
II. Secondly, we
have to consider what it is that the hypocrite’s religion lives on. “Can the
rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water?” The rush is
entirely dependent upon the ooze in which it is planted. If there should come a
season of drought, and the water should fail from the marsh, the rush would
more speedily die than any other plant. “Whilst it is yet in its greenness and
not cut down, it withereth before any other herb.” The Hebrew name for the rush
signifies a plant that is always drinking; and so the rush lives perpetually by
sucking and drinking in moisture. This is the case of the hypocrite. The
hypocrite cannot live without something that shall foster his apparent piety.
Let me show you some of this mire and water upon which the hypocrite lives.
1. Some people’s religion cannot live without excitement revival
services, earnest preachers, and zealous prayer meetings keep them green; but
the earnest minister dies, or goes to another part of the country; the Church
is not quite so earnest as it was, and what then? Where are your converts? Oh!
how many there are who are hothouse plants: while the temperature is kept up to
a certain point they flourish, and bring forth flowers, if not fruits; but take
them out into the open air, give them one or two nights’ frost of persecution,
and where are they?
2. Many mere professors live upon encouragement. We ought to comfort
the feebleminded and support the weak. But, beware of the piety which depends
upon encouragement. You will have to go, perhaps, where you will be frowned at
and scowled at, where the head of the household, instead of encouraging prayer,
will refuse you either the room or the time for engaging in it.
3. Some, too, we know, whose religion is sustained by example. It may
be the custom in the circle in which you move to attend a place of worship;
nay, more, it has come to be the fashion to join the Church and make a
profession of religion. Well, example is a good thing. Young man, avoid this feeble
sort of piety. Be a man who can be singular when to be singular is to be right.
4. Furthermore, a hypocrite’s religion is often very much supported
by the profit that he makes by it. Mr. By-ends joined the Church, because, he
said, he should get a good wife by making a profession of religion. Besides,
Mr. By-ends kept a shop, and went to a place of worship, because, he said, the
people would have to buy goods somewhere, and if they saw him at their place
very likely they would come to his shop, and so his religion would help his
trade. The rush will grow where there is plenty of mire, plenty of profit for
religion, but dry up the gains, and where would some people’s religion be?
5. With certain persons their godliness rests very much upon their
prosperity. “Doth Job serve God for nought?” was the wicked question of Satan
concerning that upright man; but of many it might be asked with justice, for
they love God after a fashion because He prospers them; but if things went ill
with them they would give up all faith in God.
6. The hypocrite is very much affected by the respectability of the
religion which he avows.
III. We have a third
point, and that is, what becomes of the hypocrite’s hope? “While it is yet in
its greenness and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the
paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish.” Long
before the Lord comes to cut the hypocrite down, it often happens that he dries
up for want of the mire on which he lives. The excitement, the encouragement,
the example, the profit, the respectability, the prosperity, upon which he
lived fail him, and he fails too. Alas, how dolefully is this the case in all
Christian churches! Yet again, where the rush still continues green because it
has mire and water enough on which to feed, another result happens, namely,
that ere long the sickle is used to cut it down. So must it be with thee,
professor, if thou shalt keep up a green profession all thy days, yet if thou
be heartless, spongy, soft, yielding, unfruitful, like the rush thou wilt be
cut down, and sorrowful will be the day when, with a blaze, thou shalt be
consumed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
So are the paths of all that forget God.
Withering paths
I. Consider the
sin of forgetting God.
1. It is a very common sin. Thousands never think of Him except in
times of trouble.
2. It is an inexcusable sin. They are dependent upon Him. He is
constantly revealing Himself to them.
3. It is a sin of God’s children (Jeremiah 11:31 Jeremiah 23:23-29 ?). We should live to
Him every waking hour. Nothing should be too trifling about which to talk to
Him.
II. To forget God
is ruinous. Our life paths fade away like the rush without mire and the flag
without water.
1. The path of inner progress. Men feel that without God they make no
moral advancement. True manliness withers; they become moral skeletons. Truth,
moral vitality, courage for the right, honour, integrity, all fade away from
them, and they are like a withered rush. No one is self-adequate. God is the
fountain of life. The highest archangel would cry, as he looked towards the
Life-giver of the universe, “All my springs are in Thee.” The forces of death
within us surely conquer, unless they are subdued by the incomings of God’s
life.
2. The path of outward actualities. The way of life yields little
true joy if God be forgotten. There may be worldly success without it. A man
may get rich or high-positioned, but he fails to gain the highest
satisfactions.
3. The path of posthumous influence. The way of life is
impressionable. We all leave footprints upon it. The footprints of the good are
more lasting than the evil. Evil is everywhere to be rooted up. It is a fact
that the influence of the good is more permanent than the evil. Compare the
influence of Alexander and Socrates, Nero and Paul, Queen Mary and Knox,
Voltaire and Wesley, etc. The good parent and the wicked one. The name of the
wicked shall rot. Think of the folly of forgetting Him. Why should you do this,
and die? The withering of a flower may awaken a sigh; the fading away of an oak
a tear; but what sorrow should there be over a man fading away into a demon!
(W. Osborne Lilley.)
Forgetfulness of God
1. The hypocrite is a forgetter of God.
2. Forgetfulness of God (howsoever it seems no great matter, yet) is
exceeding sinful, a wickedness of the highest stature. Forgetfulness of God is
therefore a great wickedness, because God hath done so many things to be
remembered by.
3. Forgetfulness of God is a mother sin, or the cause of all other
sins. First, a forgetfulness that there is a God. Secondly, a forgetfulness
who, or what manner of God He is. Thou thoughtest that I was such an one as
thyself (Psalms 50:1-23). Thirdly, to
forget God, is to forget what God requires; this forgetfulness of these three
sorts is productive of any, of every sin.
4. They that forget God shall quickly wither, how great and
flourishing soever they are. (J. Caryl.)
The hypocrite’s hope shall
perish.
The sin of hypocrisy
A common objection against religion is the existence of hypocrisy.
The infidel uses it, the scoffer employs it, and the indifferent, who admit the
obligation of religion, yet object to its restraint, always fall back upon the
prevalence of hypocrisy. Nothing can be more absurd than for the people to cry
down religion because of hypocrisy; it is like a man denying the existence of a
subject because he saw a shadow, or asserting that because he had received or
seen a few counterfeit sovereigns, there was not a piece of pure gold in the
mint. The way of the hypocrite is such as Bildad describes; a brief season of
profession, terminating in the extinction of what seemed spiritual life, when
all his self-confidence proves to offer no better security than the flimsy web
or house of the spider. The rush and flag are succulent plants, and can only
live in miry or marshy spots; withdraw from them the moisture on which they
grow, and you destroy them. So the hypocrite has no abiding principle of life
in him, nor any aptness to derive benefit from those deep or heaven-sent
sources which impart nourishment to the believer; some flood of excitement
bears him up, some unwholesomeness in the soil enables him to look flourishing.
The hypocrite is like the rush or the flag in his material; cut one of these
and you will find but pith, or an arrangement of empty cells, you will not find
the substance of the oak. Again he springs up all at once from the ground; the
smooth stem of the rush, or the broad, waving leaf of the flag will represent the
hypocrite’s profession. There is a peculiarity in the common rush; you never
can find one green at the top, get it fresh and flourishing as you will, it has
begun to wither. Find the hypocrite ever so promising, there will be something
to tell you, if you look narrowly, that his religious life has death in it
already.
I. The origin of
hypocrisy, or the assumption of a character which does not belong to us. In the
first instance it comes from low notions of God, arising out of our deceived
understanding. Hypocrisy argues a sense of obligation on the part of the
hypocrite. He knows his responsibility, but having no clear notion of the
purity and all-seeing eye of God, he puts on a form of religion while destitute
of the power; he thinks that God is like himself, and therefore that he can
deceive Him. These persons are without a relish for that state of mind which
religion requires, the new heart, the right spirit, the single eye, the death
unto sin, the life unto righteousness. Man must have a religion, so a religion
he assumes.
II. The general
character of hypocrisy. How can we avoid setting down as a hypocrite the man
who, devoid of Christ in his heart, attends religious services? One
characteristic is self-deception. A man begins by dissembling with God; he proceeds
to deceive his fellows; at length he palms the cheat upon himself. Nothing is
so irksome even to the sincere Christian as the duty of self-examination. Where
self-love is predominant, it is easy to believe that the man will, in the first
place, shut his eyes to his faults: a false standard of holiness being set up,
he will soon find others worse than himself; this will comfort him; he will
substitute single acts for habits, or momentary feelings for abiding and
governing principles of conduct.
III. The
consequences of hypocrisy. The scoffer laughs at what he considers a
satisfactory proof that there is no such thing as true religion. The careless
or indolent content themselves with their present neutral (as they suppose it)
condition, and think it better not to go any further in their profession. The
child of God trembles and feels cast down. Yet there is good brought out of all
this by God. The best method of avoiding the sin of hypocrisy is to have this
constantly in our minds, that we have to deal with a God who is about our path,
and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways, one on whom there can be no
deception practised. Let us then seek to have that oneness of spirit by which
only we can serve Him. In our religion let the heart agree with the head, the
hands, and the feet. (C. O. Pratt, M. A.)
The hypocrite-his character, hope, and end
These words are supposed to be a quotation from one of the
fathers. We can see that the quotation may begin at Job 8:11, but it is not easy to see where
it ends.
I. The character
of the hypocrite. All hypocrites belong to the class of those who forget God.
In outward appearance, to the eye of man, they appear to remember God. Their
outward services; their regular observance of everything that is external in
religion; the words which they use; the subjects on which they converse--all
appear to mark them out as those who remember God. But, in all this, as the
very word hypocrite indicates, they are but acting a part. There is no reality
in their services; no correspondence between their outward lives and the state
of their heart; the two are altogether at variance. They are anxious for the
praise of men; and so they are careful to adapt their outward lives--that which
is seen of men--to a religious standard. They care not for the praise of God;
and so they neglect their hearts, and withhold them from Him to whom they are
due. All is show; there is no fruit. We meet with solemn examples of this character
in the Scriptures. It is the motive; it is the power of godliness; it is Jesus
dwelling in the heart; it is walking as in the presence of God,--it is this
that constitutes the difference between the true Christian and the hypocrite;
between him who serves God in truth, and him who serves in appearance. Then let
us seek truthfulness of character and reality.
II. The hope of the
hypocrite. The Christian’s hope is laid up in heaven. It is an anchor of the
soul, sure and steadfast. The hypocrite’s hope fastens itself on some vain
thing in the present life, some worldly gain, the praise of man, or some
pecuniary benefit. And there is no single character in which there is so little
hope of any real and saving change as in that of the hypocrite. But what is the
issue and end of the hypocrite’s hope, and of himself? The hypocrite, being
destitute of the grace of God, cannot grow, but must wither away. Without the
grace of God we are but as some succulent plant, when the moistened mire and
water are withdrawn from its roots. It needs not to be cut down by the hand of
man, but withers speedily in consequence of the lack of moisture. We may,
however, explain the “mire” and the “water,” not of inward grace, but rather of
outward prosperity; and then the meaning will be this--It is only in
circumstances of outward prosperity that the hypocrite can appear to flourish.
Let these be changed let sifting trials come, as they will come, to try the
heart, and he is as a rush or flag from which the “mire” and “water” are removed;
he suddenly disappears, his hope vanishes, and he himself is lost. Another
illustration is used. The hypocrite’s hope is compared to a “spider’s web.”
Beautifully formed as such a web is--a masterpiece of ingenuity and
arrangement--it is easily swept away. A gust of wind, or the hand of man may
carry it away in a moment. The poor spider may cling for
safety to his house or web, woven out of its own body, but it cannot shelter
him (Job 8:15). What a vivid picture of the
hypocrite’s trust! His confidence of success rises high, when suddenly the hand
of God sweeps away the spider’s web, and the poor deceiver falls, clinging to
its ruins Our subject has led us to speak of the thorough hypocrite, but we
ought to remember that there are many degrees of this sin short of downright
hypocrisy. Simplicity and transparency of character--one of the most beautiful
graces of the Christian character--may be wanting. (George Wagner.)
The hope of the hypocrite
It is thought that this passage is a quotation introduced by
Bildad from a fragmentary poem of more ancient date. Desirous of fortifying his
own sentiments by the authority of the ancients, he introduces into the heart
of his argument a stray passage which had been carried down through successive
generations. The moral of this fragment is that the “hypocrite’s hope shall
perish.” This is presented under three images.
1. That of the bulrush growing in a marshy soil. Rush and flag may
represent any plant which demands a marshy soil, and imbibes a large quantity
of water. When the hypocrite is compared to a rush which cannot live without
mire, and the flag that cannot grow without water, we are instructed as to the
weakness and unsubstantial nature, of his confidence; and when it is added that
“while yet it is in greenness, it withereth before any other herb,” we are
reminded of the brevity and precariousness of his profession. Take the reed out
of the water, and plant it in any other soil, and you will see it hang down its
head and perish utterly. You have no need to tear it up by the roots, or to cut
it down as by a reaping hook. All that you have tot do is draw off the watery
substance on which it depends for nourishment, and which it copiously imbibes.
Thus too it is with the profession and confidence of the hypocrite. To prove
the worthlessness of his hope, it is enough that you abstract from him the
enjoyments of his past existence--the mire and moisture from which he derived
his fair show of appearances in the flesh. But for the favourable condition in
which he happened to be placed, he would have never appeared religious at all,
and that being changed, his declension is rapid and inevitable. “The
hypocrite’s hope shall perish.” He is himself frail as a reed, and that which
he leans upon is “unstable as water.” Has then the hypocrite hope? Yes, for
such is the deceitfulness of the human heart, that it can even cry peace when
there is no peace. Thinking the Deity to be altogether such an one as himself,
he has accustomed himself to call evil good and good evil. As the man is, so is
the god that he creates for himself. And hence it is that even the hypocrite
has a hope. But it is a hope which must perish.
2. That of the spider’s web, swept away in a moment by the breath of
the storm. The web of the spider is carefully and ingeniously constructed; but
nothing is more easily brushed aside. The insect trusts to it indeed, but in a
moment of time, he and it are carried away together. The hypocrite, too, has
reared for himself what he supposes will be a comfortable habitation against
the storm and rain. Not more slender is the thread spun by the spider than is
his fancied security. Let trial or calamity come, and it will avail him
nothing.
3. A plant that has no depth of earth for its roots, but which seeks
even among a heap of stones for wherewithal to maintain itself. The metaphor is
drawn from an object with which the observers of nature are familiar. When the
roots have only a slender hold of a heap of stones, they are easily loosened,
and the tree falls prostrate. Such is the attachment of the hypocrite to the
place of his self-confidence. Into every crevice of his fancied merits does he
push the fibres of hope. On the hard rock of an unconverted heart he flourishes
awhile. Learn--
The hope of the hypocrite delusive
I. What is meant
by the hypocrite? All hypocrites may be comprehended under these two sorts.
1. The gross dissembler, who knowingly, and against his conscience,
pursues some sinful course, endeavouring only to conceal it from the eyes of
men. Such an one as Gehazi, or Judas.
2. The formal, refined hypocrite who deceives his own heart. He makes
some advances into the practice of holiness; but not being sound at the heart,
not being thoroughly divided from his sin, he takes that for grace which is not
sincerity, and therefore much less grace; and being thus deceived, he misses of
the power of godliness, and embraces only the form (Matthew 7:26-27). Both these hypocrites
agree in this, that they are deceivers. One deceives the world, the other
deceives himself.
II. What is meant
by the hypocrite’s hope? Those persuasions that a man has of the goodness and
safety of his spiritual condition, whereby he strongly persuades himself that
he is now in a state of grace, and consequently shall hereafter attain to a
state of glory. This hope is not in the same proportion in all hypocrites.
Distinguish in it these two degrees.
1. A probable opinion. This is but the lowest degree of assent.
2. A peremptory persuasion. This is its higher pitch and perfection.
It seems seldom to be entertained but where hypocrisy is in conjunction with
gross ignorance, or judicial searedness. Proposition--
I. A hypocrite may
proceed so far as to obtain a hope and expectation of a future blessedness.
1. Hypocrites have and do obtain such hopes. Evinced by two
arguments. From the nature and constitution of man’s mind, which is vehement
and restless in its pursuit after some suitable good. It is natural for man,
both in his desires and designs, to build chiefly upon the future. Man
naturally looks forward. Every man carries on some particular design, upon the
event of which he builds his satisfaction; and the spring that moves these
designs is hope. Hopes of the future are the causes of present action. It
follows that the hypocrite has his hope, for he has his course and his way,
according to which he acts, and without hope there can be no action. The other
argument, proving that hypocrites have their hopes, shall be taken from that
peace and comfort that even hypocrites enjoy; which are the certain effects,
and therefore the infallible signs of some hope abiding in the mind. Assuredly,
if it were not for hope, the heart of the merriest and most secure hypocrite in
the world would break.
2. By what ways and means the hypocrite comes first to attain this
hope. By misapprehending God. By his misunderstanding of sin. By mistakes about
the spiritual rigour and strictness of the Gospel. By his mistakes about
repentance, faith, and conversion.
3. By what ways and means the hypocrite preserves and continues this
false hope. Those methods by which he first gets it, have in them also a
natural fitness to continue, cherish, and foment it. Three ways more.
Especially--
II. The hypocrite’s
fairest and most promising expectation of a future happiness will in the end
vanish into miserable disappointment.
1. Prove this proposition. From clear testimony of Scripture. A
spider’s web may represent a hypocrite’s hope in the curious subtilty, and the
fine artificial composure of it, and in the weakness of it; for it is too fine
spun to be strong. From the weakness of the foundation on which the hope is
built.
2. Show what are those critical seasons and turns in which more
especially the hypocrite’s hope will be sure to fail him.
III. Make some use
and improvement of the foregoing discourse. It shall be to display and set
before us the transcendent, surpassing misery of the final estate of all
hypocrites, whose peculiar lot it is to hope themselves into damnation, and to
perish with those circumstances that shall double and treble the weight of
their destruction. In this life the heart of man is not capable of such
absolute, entire misery, but that some glimmerings of hope will still dart in
upon him, and buoy up his spirits from an utter despondency. But when it shall
come to this, that a man must go one way, and his hopes another, so parting as
never to meet again, human nature admits not of any further addition to its
sorrow; for it is pure, perfect, unmixed misery, without any allay or
mitigation. Those appetites and desires, the satisfaction of which brings the
greatest delight; the defrauding of them, according to the rule of contraries,
brings the greatest and the sharpest misery. Nothing so comfortable as hope
crowned with fruition; nothing so tormenting as hope snapped off with
disappointment and frustration. The despairing reprobate is happier than the
hoping reprobate. Both indeed fall equally low, but he that hopes has the
greater fall, because he falls from the higher place. (R. South, D. D.)
Whose trust shall be a spider’s web.
The spider and the hypocrite
In physics, in morals, in religion, reality has no respect for
those who have no regard for truth and fact. Abused nature, undeterred by rank,
plies her scourge on all the votaries of sin. Reality does not in moral matters
seem to many so honest and severe. Fancy and imagining hold here a completer
sway. Men propose to sip the sensual sweet and decline the sensual bitter. In
religion, reality might seem to reign without a rival, for here is no dreamland
for fancy, but the field of revelation for the activities of mind and heart.
Some make religion their mirror, in which they see themselves the end of their
whole devotion. Some overact their part in the temple, the more easily to
overreach their brethren in the market. Some forge the name of God to the
cheque of a sanctified deportment and present it for golden profits at the bank
of Christian confidence. These are the hypocrites who trust that God will not
expose them this side the grave; but their hope shall be cut off; “their trust
is as a spider’s web,” which, while very beautiful in its structure, is equally
fragile as to its texture, and, though adequate to the builder’s purposes, yet,
being self-spun, self-built, is destined to be swept away.
I. Beautiful as to
its structure. Admirable is the fairy architecture of the spider’s web. This
tracery of insect art, on hawthorn or holly fence, seen before the sun grows
hot, strung with beads of dew, asks no painter’s skill, no poet’s eulogy; its
beauty, like the sun’s glory, is its own evidence. Beautiful, too, is the
hypocrite’s trust, and the religion that trust inspires. The hypocrite’s
religion satisfies the eye; it is the bright cloud which for the moment passes
for the sun itself; it is the sacrifice without spot or blemish in the skin; an
argument constraining charity to hope it is pure and right in heart. To men’s
sight the hypocrite’s religion is like the spider’s web, beautiful in its
structure, but when tried it is found to be--
II. Very fragile in
its texture. This is no disparagement to the web. For such a tiny weaver, it is
strong and wonderful. Were man as insignificant as the spider, his paltry trust
would be no indignity; being but little lower than the angels, a hypocritical
trust merits the comparison. God hangs great weights on small wires; the
hypocrite hangs them all upon the semblance of them. There is nothing real but
his wickedness, nothing true but his deception.
III. It is adequate
to the owner’s purposes and successful in securing them. The hypocrite, wanting
to fly with the doves to their windows, decks himself with their feathers. All
of the true prophet is his hairy garment. His success often equals the
completeness of his disguise. Charity hopes that under the leaves there is
fruit; that behind the smile there is the loving heart; that the fragrance of
profession steals from the true flower of grace within. It is adequate to his
purposes, and too often successful in securing them. The spider ensnares his
prey; the hypocrite does make a gain of godliness, and a ladder of religion.
IV. Their trust,
being false, shall, with all that rests upon it, be utterly swept away. The
truth, holiness, and honour of God require it. Hypocrisy! It is a tomb with the
lettered porch and golden dome of a temple. It is deception sublimed to a
science. The hypocrite takes the precious name of Christ as an angler does a
worm, and, thrusting it on the hook of his crooked purposes, angles for
suffrages or lucre. But the pious dissembler will exhaust his last resource,
and wear out his last disguise. This human spider may take hold with his hands,
and pursue his close-couched schemes in the great King’s palace, but coming
judgment will sweep him and them away. The anger of the Lord will smoke against
the hypocrite. No sacrifice can be presented without salt; no service can be
accepted without sincerity. (W. G. Jones.)
False and true hope
(with Hebrews 6:19):--The world is full of hope
of various kinds. Alike in the dreams of childhood, the resolves of youth, the
purposes of manhood, and the more chastened anticipations of old age, we may
see its power displayed. The faculty of hope is a great motive force of human
action.
I. False hope is
as a spider’s web. Because--
1. Not altogether destitute of beauty. Such webs are often beautiful,
especially those kinds which in summer time we see spread upon the hedgerows,
or festooned between the garden trees. They attract our admiration as we behold
them sparkling in the sunlight. Fair, in external appearance, are the hopes
which even the impenitent cherish. The power of hope will often enable a man,
who is entirely destitute of the grace of God, to paint the future in roseate
hues, to dream dreams of possible excellence, and call up visions of the glory
of heaven, which, though unsubstantial as gossamer, are not without their
attractive features.
2. Self-derived. It is well known that spiders produce from their own
bodies the, glutinous fluid with which they form their webs. Even so the hopes
in which the wicked indulge are self-produced. They are merely the creations of
their own fancy.
3. Exceedingly frail. How slight and strengthless is the spider’s
web: The fall of a leaf will destroy it, a gust of wind will sweep it away.
Significant emblem in this respect of the weakness of false hope!
II. True hope is as
the anchor of the soul. Because--
1. It connects its possessor with an unseen world. When an anchor is
cast overboard from a vessel, it drops out of sight, beneath the blue waves, which
act as a kind of veil to hide it from view. The sailor sees it not, though he
knows and feels that it is there. He perceives that his ship is anchored,
though the secrets of the anchoring ground are concealed from his gaze. Even so
the apostle describes the Christian’s hope, “as entering into that within the
veil.”
2. It possesses enduring strength. When once the anchor is embedded
in the ground, with what a firm grasp does it hold fast the largest vessel! An
emblem this of the strength of true hope! It is both “sure and steadfast,” for
it rests not upon the broken promises of man, but the unchanging promises of
God; it clings not to the sand of human support, but to the rock of Divine
strength.
3. It gives the soul calmness and security amid the storms of life.
Though the gale may blow fiercely, the ship rides safely in the bay. Held
firmly by the friendly anchor, it scarcely moves from its moorings. Even so,
the soul that anchors itself in the Divine power and the Divine love abides
calm and secure through every tempest of trial. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace,” etc. (George John Allen, B. A.)
Hope as a spider’s web
A similitude of great elegance and significance. We may observe a
great analogy between the spider’s web and that in a double respect.
1. In respect of the curious subtilty and the fine artificial
composure of it. The spider in every web shows itself an artist: so the
hypocrite spins his hope with a great deal of art, in a thin, fine thread. This
and that good duty, this good thought, this opposing of some gross sin, are all
interwoven together to the making up a covering for his hypocrisy. And as the
spider draws all out of its own bowels, so the hypocrite weaves all his
confidence out of his own inventions and imaginations.
2. It resembles it in respect of its weakness--it is too fine spun to
be strong. After the spider has used all its art and labour in framing a web,
yet how easily is it broken, how quickly is it swept down! So, after the
hypocrite has wrought out a hope with much cost, art, and industry, it is yet
but a weak, slender, pitiful thing. He does indeed by this get some name, and
room amongst professors; he does, as it were, hang his hopes upon the beams of
God’s house. But when God shall come to cleanse, and, as it were, to sweep His
sanctuary, such cobwebs are sure to be fetched down. Thus the hypocrite, like
the spider, by all his artifice and labour, only disfigures God’s house. A
hypocrite in a church is like a cobweb in a palace--all that he is or does,
serving only to annoy and misbecome the place and station that he would adorn.
(R. South.)
The hope of the hypocrite
I. The character
of the hypocrite. He hides wickedness under a cloak of goodness. He derives his
honour from his birth; the child of God from his new birth. He serves God with
that which costs him nothing. He is only disposed to some virtues. He puts
reason in the place of religion. His virtues are only shining vices. He hears
the Word without real benefit. He is the “stony ground.” Sometimes he trembles
under the Word, but he shifts it off. He is a seeming friend, but a secret foe,
to the Gospel. If he pray, it is with his tongue, not with his heart. He acts
according to his wishes. He is wavering and double minded.
II. The hope of the
hypocrite.
1. The trust, or hope, of the hypocrite is a spider’s web, because he
forms it, as it were, out of his own bowels.
2. Because the profession and all the works of the hypocrite are weak
and unstable. There is some curiosity in the spider’s web, but there is neither
strength nor stability.
3. The spider makes her web to catch and ensnare. So the hypocrite
ensnares the simple; he makes gain of godliness.
4. The hypocrite, like the spider, thinks himself perfectly safe;
when once lodged in his profession he apprehends no danger.
5. In the issue the hope shall perish as does a spider’s web. When
the house is swept, down go the spiders’ webs. (T. Hannam.)
Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man.
Moral character determines a man’s destiny
I. The real
condition of the good. By the real condition we mean the relation of the soul,
not to the circumstantials and temporalities of existence.
1. It is a condition in which they will never be deserted of the
eternal. “God will not cast away a perfect man.” Whatever may be the
alternations in the life of the good, whoever may shun and reject them, the
Great One will never forsake them. All men, said Paul, forsook me; notwithstanding,
the Lord stood by me.
2. It is a condition in which God will inspire them with happiness.
“Till He fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing.” He not
only never deserts them, but He always blesses them. He “fills them with joy
and peace in believing.” Although Bildad did not regard Job as a good man, but
on the contrary considered him to be a great sinner and a great hypocrite, he
here assures him that if he were good, his Maker would never desert him, but
always be with him to inspire him with joy. Goodness is blessedness.
II. Thy real
condition of the wicked. What is the true moral state of the ungodly? It is
here given negatively and positively.
1. The negative form. Neither will He help the evildoers. They need
help; they are involved in difficulties and exposed to dangers. But He will not
help them.
2. The positive form. “They that hate Thee shall be clothed with
shame, and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought.” The wicked
here even hated the godly, but the time comes when they shall be abashed and
confounded on account of their enmity. They have frequently here grand
“dwelling places,” mansions, and palaces as their homes, but all are temporary.
They shall come to nought. (Homilist.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》