The conduct to which adverse dispensations should lead
Job was a sufferer. Of his property he was deprived; of his children he was bereaved; in his own person he was sorely afflicted. It would not have been strange had Job given way to murmuring and repining. Unsupported and uncomforted from above, what else can be expected from man when in deep distress, but the expression of uneasiness and fretful discontent? Some, indeed, attempt to bear up under adversity by hard-hearted callousness, and others by a prideful aversion to complain. Job felt what he endured, and he acknowledged what he endured, but his feeling and acknowledgment indicated calm submission.
I. The doctrine taught--the agency of God. His agency in providence. Not to be classed with chance or accident. It would be a mistake to represent God as exercising no providential superintendence, no control, no management, no rule. Some hold that God’s agency is general, not particular, not concerned with details. But great and little are not to God what they are to us. What it was no degradation to God to create, it can be no degradation to God to superintend. A particular agency on His part is the only intelligible notion of God’s agency in providence. The manner in which God’s agency, in the various dispensations of providence, is regarded respectively by the believer and by the unbeliever, constitutes one of the most marked distinctions between the characters of these two classes of person.
II. The lessons which this doctrine teaches.
1. Privation and loss are the doing of Him who neither does nor can do us any wrong. God is never arbitrary, never capricious, never unjust. He is essentially righteous. In no sense can He do that which is unrighteous. He cannot do it from ignorance, or from design.
2. Privation and loss are the doing of Him, all whose doings in reference to us are in accordance with what He Himself is--wise and gracious. Not only is He wise, but all-wise; actually, absolutely, yea, necessarily all-wise. His understanding is infinite. He is gracious. His nature is love. What a proof of this did He afford in devising a plan by which sinners might be rescued from the penal consequences of sin.
3. Privation and loss are the doing of Him who is able, and as willing as He is able, to educe, in our experience, good from evil. Out of the strait in which we are involved there may be no seeming way of escape. But is it irremediable by Him whose arm is full of might, who is equal to our support and deliverance, whatever be our condition? This subject calls for thankfulness; it should produce resignation; it should lead us to prepare for changes. (A. Jack, D. D.)
Who will say unto Him, What doest Thou?--
The Divine dispensations not to be questioned
In the cup of life there are many bitter ingredients. From the day we are born, till the day we die, there is an invariable mixture of joy and sorrow. The world is full of uncertainties. Its best satisfactions are neither substantial nor permanent Religion is not satisfied with directing our attention to second causes. It leads us above them to the First Cause of all things. It conducts us to God; and presents Him to us under the mild aspect of a Father, always mindful of our happiness; and who has given us so many proofs of this in nature, providence, and grace, as to merit our entire confidence and unreserved submission. There is much in the present state of things to perplex the understanding, as well as to wound the heart. I find in the revelation which religion has made to me another and better world, where my perplexities will be resolved, and my troubles cease. In ‘dines of sorrow, philosophy has no effectual help for us. Various and contradictory maxims may be urged upon us, and to all we must reply, with the ancient sufferer, “Miserable comforters are ye all.” But it is not in vain to direct our thoughts to God; to make an oblation of our wills to Him. There is too much disposition in mankind to disregard the providence of God; to overlook His agency in the occurrences of life. What would become of us if our life were an unmingled portion of good; if our day were never darkened with the clouds of adversity? Afflictions are intended as the instruments of good to us. Afflictions, rightly improved, are real blessings. (C. Lowell.)
Submission to Divine sovereignty
Job was afflicted not more for his own benefit than for the benefit of others. His discourses with his friends gave him a good opportunity of justifying the sovereignty of God, in the dispensations of His providence. The friends insisted that God treated every man according to his real character, in His providential conduct towards him; but Job maintained that God acted as a sovereign, without any design of distinguishing His friends from His enemies, by outward mercies and afflictions. In the preceding verses, he gives a striking description of Divine sovereignty.
I. It is the natural tendency of afflictions to make the friends of God realise and submit to His sovereignty. Afflictions always display the sovereignty of God. Whenever God afflicts His children, He gives a practical and sensible evidence that He has a right to dispose of them contrary to their views, their desires, and most tender feelings. Of all afflictions, those which are called bereavements, give the clearest display of Divine sovereignty.
II. Such a realising sense of the sovereignty of God in afflictions, has a natural tendency to excite true submission in every pious heart.
1. While they realise the nature of His sovereignty, they cannot help seeing the true ground or reason of submission.
2. God designs thus to bring His children to submission.
3. It has so often produced this desirable effect in their hearts. Apply the subject.
(1) If all afflictions are designed and adapted to bring men to a cordial submission to Divine sovereignty, then all true submission must be in its own nature absolute and unreserved.
(2) We may assume that we shall have to submit to the Divine sovereignty in the world to come.
(3) The doctrine of unconditional submission to God ought to be plainly taught and inculcated.
(4) If afflictions are designed and suited to make men realise Divine sovereignty, then they always try their hearts, whether they are friendly or unfriendly to God.
(5) The afflictions that bring men to submission must do them good. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Divine providence
These words speak of three solemn and weighty truths.
I. The Lord’s sovereign agency. We see this in families, we see it in provinces, we see it in whole nations. We perceive prosperity or adversity--peace or discord--joy or misery--coming both to individuals and to communities without their knowledge, and often without their concurrence. The human race are subject to other influences besides their own. From the Bible we learn that the smallest, as well as the weightiest affairs, are under Christ’s supervision and control. Nothing arises in this our world by chance or by accident. The same sovereign agency is seen in the issues of life. The keys of the invisible world are committed to Christ’s sole custody. All second causes work out the sovereign will of the Great First Cause. It is He who fixes the precise moment for the removal of men by death from their busy occupations.
II. His irresistible might. This is the groundwork of the patriarch’s argument in the passage before us. Who can hinder Him? Shall the man of wisdom? Shall a parent’s love avert the threatening blow? Shall the tears of a wife? Shall the regrets of an admiring nation?
III. His unsearchable wisdom. The Almighty doeth all things well. From all eternity the Lord has had certain purposes to be accomplished. In some matters the wisdom of the Lord’s dealing is so palpable that we are compelled to acquiesce. At other seasons we are all in the dark. Then it is our privilege to exercise faith in the fatherly care and unfailing love of our Almighty Redeemer. (C. Clayton, M. A.)
