Vers. 8, 9.-The prayer of despair. This is an awful prayer. Job longs for death1 attd prays God to crush him. Then there will be an end to bis agonies. He h&S rejected his wife's temptation to suicide ( eh. ii. 9) ; but he begs that God will take bis life. L IT 16 WELL TO BRING THE DESPAIR OF THE SOUL TO GoD. The despair is not utter and complete if it has not stifled the fountains of prayer. When it can· be said of any one, "Behold, he prayeth," ail hope is not yet gone. Although for the time being he had lost sight of it, still there is a point on which hope for better days may lay bold. When all things seem to be rushing to ruin, and there is no other outlook for the soul, the outlook to heaven is still open. If we can do nothing else, the way is still before us to cast our burden upon the Lord. Though the very prayer be one of horror and despair, like Job's, still it is a ·prayer. There is the saving element. ·Th'e soul is looking up to God. It is not quite alone in its desolation. ' II. Gon UNDERSTANDS THE PRAYER OF DEBPAIB. He is not like Job's· 'purblind censor Eliphaz, who judged in ignorance and wounded when he thought to heal. The breache.s of conventional propriety in religion, which shock the more precise sort of piety, are not thus misapprehended by God. He viewH all with a large eye of charity, with a penetrating discernment of sympathy. The wild utterance that only scandalizes the superficial hearer moves the compassion of the Father of spirits. He knows from what depths of agony it has been forced, and he pardons the extravagance of it in pity for its misery. III. THE PBAYEB OF DESPAIR IS FOOLISH AND SHORT-BIGHTED. These two words, "prayer" and "despair," are quite incongruous. The one should utterly banish the other. If we quite understood the meaning and power of prayer, despair would be impossible. For prayer implies that God bas not forgotten us; or why should orie pray to heedless ears? When we carry our grief to God we bring it to Almighty Love, and such a haven must b3 more congenial to hope than to despair. ·' IV. Gon BEF'UBEB TO ANSWER THE PBAYEB OF DEBPAIB, '!'here are prayers which God will not answer, and that, not beca.use he is inexorable, but because be is merciful ; and as the mother is too kind to give her infant the flaming candles for which it cries, God i.s too good to bestow on his foolish children the evil things which they sometimes crave from his hand. Thus the very refusal to respond to the prayer is a result, not of OR, VI. 1--30,] THE BOOK 011' JOB. 119
disregl\rding it, but of giving to H more than tho.t superficial attention which would have been enough for an unquestioning response. God sifts and weighs onr prayers. We cnnnot present them ae cheques on the bank of heaven, expecting immediate pnyment, exacUy according to the ineMure of what we have set down in them. God is far better than our prnyers. He exceeds our fears even when we beg him to act nccording to them. His sane miarl corrects the wild fancies of our haste and passion. Therefore we need not shrink from the utmost freedom in prayer. God will not deal with ue according to our words, but nccording to his love and our fa.ith.-W. F. A. Ver.14 (reading the last clo.nee as in the margin of the Revised Version," Else might he forsake the fear of the Almighty ").-The redeeming power of sympathy. Job tells hia friend that he has gone to work in a wrong way, and one which might have had most disastrous results, the opposite of those he aimed at. Eliphaz honestly intended to bring Job to God in contrite submission, but his harsh and unwise conduct was only calculated to drive the troubled man from God in wild despair. He should have chosen the" more excellent way" of sympathy. I. THE SECRET OF THE REDEEMING POWER OF SYMPATHY, 1. By giving strength to endure. 'l'he soul that stands alone may sink down to despair. But "two are better than one." As we help to bear one another's burdens, we lift the crushing load that clrives to rebellion. 2. By softening the heart. The danger of great calamity is that it will smite the heart to hardness. 'fhe most fatal effect is produced when a.II traces of suffering are passed, because the very faculty of feeling is frozen to death. Now, here sympathy has a saving efficacy. The tears that are sealed up in solitude burst forth at the sight of a friend's tears. 3. By revealing the love of God. There is danger lest great trouble should make men doubt God's love, and even come to regard all love as a pretence and a delusion. The world then seems very black and cruel. But a brother's kindness begins to dispel the error. It shows that the world is not wholly hard and cruel and selfish. This kindness is but a spark from the great fire of God's lo,e. From the sympathy of our brother we are led up to the sympathy of our Father, out of which it springs. If there were more human charity in the world there would be more faith in God. Atheism is a product of the despair which sympathy would cure. II. THE EXERCISE OF THE REDEEMING POWER OF SYMPATHY. 1. In -God. Our sympathy is but a copy of God's s~·mpa.thy. His method is to save by love. His goodness leads us to repentance. While we scold, God pities; while we blame, he forgives; while we reject, he invites. He saves the sinner by loving him. 2. In Christ. Christ's great redemption is a. work of sympathy: (1) In its origin. It was sympathy that led to the advent of Christ. This was the ruling principle of his life on earth. This, too, brought him to the cross. He could not save himself, because he would not abandon his sin fol, sorrowing brethren. (2) In it8 application. Chrk't saves men now individually through his sympathy. We have first to see that he understands us, loves us, feels with us. Then he lays hold of us and )i[ts us up. 3. In men. \Ve, too, have to save by our sympathy. The old method of repression, rebuke, ancl repudiation has failed miserably; its fruits are only hatred and despair. It is time w<J resorted to God's method, to Christ's method. We must understand men if we would help them, feel with them if we would restore them. S::i long as we will not show sympathy with our brethren in their trouble and temptation, we cannot save them from their sin and despair. Lowell says- " Far better is it to epel\k One simple word, whioh now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men." W. F.f•• Ver. 25.-Theforce of t'ight words. Job is not so unreasonable as he appears to hlla friends. He will ndmit the force of truth and reason. Only he considers the arguments he ha, heard false and fallacious. I. REASONADLE MEN RECOGNIZE THE FORCE OF RIGHT WORDS. Words may be lika arrows that pierce, like swords that divide, like hammers that crush; or they may be 'l'HE BOOlt OP JOB.