As you hear Job discussing with his friends you would think he was one of the holiest men who ever lived. He was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; he fed the hungry, and clothed the naked. What a wonderfully good man he was! It was all I, I, I. At last God said to him, “Gird up your loins like a man, and I will put a few questions to you.” The moment that God revealed Himself, Job changed his language. He saw his own vileness, and God’s purity. He said, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
The same thing is seen in the cases of those who came to our Lord in the days of His flesh; those who came aright, seeking and obtaining the blessing, manifested a lively sense of His infinite superiority to themselves. The centurion, of whom we read in the eighth of Matthew, said: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof;” Jairus “worshiped Him,” as he presented his request; the leper, in the Gospel of Mark, came “kneeling down to Him;” the Syrophenician woman “came and fell at His feet;” the man full of leprosy “seeing Jesus, fell on his face.” So, too the beloved disciple, speaking of the feeling they had concerning Him when they were abiding with Him as their Lord, said: “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” However intimate their companionship, and tender their love, they reverenced as much as they communed, and adored as much as they loved.
We may say of every act of prayer as George Herbert says of public worship:
“When once thy foot enters the church, be bare; God is more than thou; for thou art there Only by His permission. Then beware, And make thyself all reverence and fear. Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stocking; quit thy state. All equal are within the church’s gate.”
The wise man says: “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools; for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth--therefore let thy words be few.”
If we are struggling to live a higher life, and to know something of God’s holiness and purity, what we need is to be brought into contact with Him, that He may reveal Himself. Then we shall take our place before Him as those men of old were constrained to do. We shall hallow His Name--as the Master taught His disciples, when He said, “Hallowed be Thy Name.” When I think of the irreverence of the present time, it seems to me that we have fallen on evil days.
Let us, as Christians, when we draw near to God in prayer, give Him His right place. “Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and Godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.”
The Trinity.
“Thou dear and great mysterious Three, For ever be adored, For all the endless grace we see In our Redeemer stored.
“The Father’s ancient grace we sing, That chose us in our Head; Ordaining Christ, our God and King, To suffer in our stead.
“The sacred Son, in equal strains, With reverence we address, For all His grace, and dying pains, And splendid righteousness.
“With tuneful tongue the Holy Ghost For His great work we praise, Whose power inspires the blood-bought host Their grateful voice to raise.
“Thus the Eternal Three in One We join to praise, for grace And endless glory through the Son, As shining from His face.”