^ Phillips Brooks, Addresses, 10.
JOB I. 9 i7
And lit up all her life with radiance new, —
The happy service of a yielded heart.
With comfort that He never ceased to give,
Because her need could never cease, she filled
The empty chalices of other lives.
And time and thought were thenceforth spent for Him
Who loved her with His everlasting love.^
1 F. R. Havergal, "Under His Shadow" {Poetical Works, 789).
JOB-PS. XXX.
The Deeps of God.
Literature.
Barton (G. A.), The Boots of Christian Teaching as found in the Old
Testament, 103. Bigg (C), The Spirit of Christ in Common Life, 53. Burrell (D. J.), The Wondrous Cross, 154. English (W. W.), in Church Sermons, No. 29. •^Eyton (R.), The Search for God, 1. Hadden (R. H.), Selected Sermons, 47. Hutton (A. W.), Ecclesia Discens, 11. Leach (C), Old Yet Ever New, 290. Macintosh (W.), Rabhi Jesus, 31. Matheson (G.), Times of Retirement, 234. Moffat (H. B.), in Sermons from the "Pulpit," No. 141. Momerie (A. W.), Defects of Modern Christianity, 337. Ritchie (A.), St. Ignatius' Pulpit, 150. Russell (A.), The Light that Lighteth every Man, 149. Simeon (C), Works, iv. 372.
Terry (G. F.), The Old Theology in the New Age, 43. Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xviii. No. 1128. Voysey (C), Sermons (1876), No. 9. Cambridge Review, vi. Supplement, No. 132 (Robertson). Cliristian World Pulpit, xxxix. 333 (Hocking) ; Ixiv. 401 (Gibbon). Church of England Magazine, xxii. 356 (Ayre) ; xxiii. 421 (Webster). Church of England Pulpit, liii. 2 (Lias).
The Deeps of God.
Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ?— Job xi. 7.
1. These words occur in the first speech of Zophar the Naama- thite. What is Zophar's creed ? It is that wherever there is suffering, there is sin, real and tangible sin, proportional to that suffering. God governs this world by rewards and punishments, and those rewards and punishments are distributed here below with unerring justice. It follows therefore that Job, this seeming saint, is really a man of heinous sin.
And having said this to his brother in his pain, and dis- charged that which, he honestly believes. Job's words had made the duty of others (v. 3), by speaking sharply where sharp words were needed, he points Job to the high and mysterious nature of the God against whom he is in rebellion. " High," he tells him, "that nature as Heaven, deep as the deep underworld; it stretches beyond the bounds of earth, and is broader than the broad sea. His power, too, is irresistible, and His eye sees at a glance concealed iniquity. How small before Him the wisdom, or rather the ass-like folly and petulance of man." ^
2. The words of the text are sometimes read as a question whether God be discoverable by the eftbrts of the natural mind. The margin, " Canst thou find out the deep things of God ? " suggests that the question is not whether God be discoverable at all, but whether He be wholly discoverable ; not whether He can be found, but whether He can be comprehended. No Hebrew writer would have thought of putting the question whether God could be found or was knowable ; the question, however, whether He could be wholly known, whether there were not deeps in His
^ Dean Bradley.
22 THE DEEPS OF GOD
nature xinf a thorn able by the mind of man, was a question which, with a view to right conduct under trying providences, many felt themselves compelled to put.
More literally rendered it would read — " Hast thou arrived at the inner deeps of God, or arrived at the outermost bounds of Shaddai." Zophar challenges Job, and asks whether he has reached either the centre or the circumference of Deity ? Had he either arrived at the inner thought or purpose, or scanned the unlimited range of the operations, of God ? The one presents the microscopic, and the other the telescopic, aspect of investigation. Zophar asks whether in either direction Job had found out God. The question is not whether Job had found God, but whether he had found out, that is, comprehended, God. Then by a series of graphic images he seeks to impress upon Job the fact that, compared with God's omniscience, his very knowledge was utter ignorance. His perceptions at best were dull and very limited. Poor ignorant man, how could he comprehend Him who was infinite, or judge Him who was far beyond the scope of his investigation ?
^ " Canst thou by searching find out God ? " No ; and why ? Because I never begin to search for Him until I have found Him ; God alone can create the search for God. That is the great difierence between things material and things spiritual. In material things the search precedes the finding; in spiritual things the finding precedes the search. When a man goes out to seek for gold you may infer that he is materially poor, but when a man goes out to seek for God you may conclude that he is spiritually rich. In the case of the gold we see the shadow be- fore we touch the substance ; in our experience of God we first touch the substance and then see the shadow. When a child stretches out its hand and cries for the moon it is seeking some- thing which it will never find ; but when a man stretches out his hand and cries for holiness, he is seeking sometliing which he has found already. No man can pray for the Divine Spirit except by the voice of that Spirit. Why is our Father so eager that we should pray for the Kingdom ? Is it because our prayer for goodness will make us good ? No, it is because our prayer for goodness proves us to be good already. When did Abraham begin to search for the land of Canaan ? When he got into it. He wandered up and down seeking the promised country; and he was there all the time, folded in her bosom. So is it with us.