The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 389

Ver. 3.-The search for God. I. ITs B0UBOE, Job is prompted to seek God by his terrible troubles. The false Rccusations make him the more anxious to find the just Judge, who can clear up the dreadful misunderstandings and vindicate his injured cause, Thus the innocent man in trouble needs God. Still more does the guilty man; for no one cRn deliver from sin but he 1Jgainst whom one has sinned. Although it is most evident thnt many who thus need God are not actively seeking for him, yet, even if held back by fear or distracted by worldliness, all men have somewhere in the depths of their hearts the instinct of hunger for God. We need God, and we can have no rest till we find him. II. 1TB HOPE, Job believes that, if only he can find God and come to his seat, justice will be done, and right will be apparent; for Job is only thinking of vindication. No doubt that result will follow. But others also enter into the great human hope for God. If he were only to vindicate the righteous, the great multitude of men could hope for little from him. But the great Judge who does this is the compassionate Father, who has pity on his children's needs apart from their deserts. Thus the hope turns to the mercy of God for deliverance and blessing. Still, it is not wise to separate these two forms of the hope. God can only bless by leading us to righteousness; and it is really for our good that he is just. We need God not only that he may judge the righteous cause, but also that he may make the sinner righteous. III. 1TB DIFFICULTY. Job expresses a deep, heartfelt desire with great anxiety. He has not yet found God. Others have been in the same condition-longing for God, yet finding him not. Where is the difficulty? 1. God is a Spirit. If we try to find God by earthly means we must fail. He is not hidden among the mountains or above the clouds. _He is simply invisible by nature. We must look for him in spiritual ways. 2: • we ai·e sinful. Nothing so blinds us to God as sin. This first of all banishes us to a great distance from God, and then makes darkness about our way back. 3. Lif6 is often perplexing and sorrowful. Job had lost the vision of God in his dorrow, rather than through sin. So had Christ on the cross when he cried, " My God, my God, why ·hast thou forsaken·me?" Great grief seems to blot out the heavens and leave us in desolation. IV. 1TB REWARD. Job did find _God at last (eh. xiii. 5). God has promised that they who seek him earnestly shall find him (Prov. viii. 17), and Christ that if men seek they shall find (Matt. vii. 7). _ 1. God reveals himself to faith. We believe in order tba_t we may see, trust in order that we may know. This is trne of all know- ledge of persons. 2. God is seen in Ohrist. Philip expressed the soul's desire for God when be said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;n and then Christ declared where· the revelation of God was to be seen: "He that bath seen me bath seen the Father "'(John xiv. 8, 9). 3. The full vision of God is dependent on purity of heart. Some knowledge of God can be had without this; but we cannot see him as he is till we are.like him (Matt. v. 8).-W. F. A. Vers. 8, 9.-The unseen God. Job enlarges on the· idea of his search for God and the efforts that he bas vainly made to find him. God is still invisible; searching has not found him. I. T1rn PHYSICAL IIIPOSSIBlLITY OF SEEING GoD. There is more to be said for modem aguostici~m than for eighteenth-century deism. Pure rationalism will not find God. Physical science cannot discover him. The animal is dissected, the metal is melted in the crucible, but the analysis reveals not Divinity. We sweep the heavens with the telescope, and can see no Deity enthroned above the stars. But we are ,·ery foolish if we expect to find God in any of these ways. He is neither seen by the bodily eye nor discovered by the scientific faculty. Science, indetd, points to causation, and reveals order and thought; but she does not say how these things came to be. Natural theology prepares the way for the revelation of God; or, if it may be said that it is a revelation of God, still this comes only in such a large and confusing idea that we cannot find in it what we need-the revelation of our Father in heaven. II. THE MORAL DIFFICULTY OF SEEING GoD. Job's search was not in regions of science. He koked abroad on the great world, Rnd he probed into the deep musings of his own heart, but not as a philosopher seeking for a scientific explanation of the universe, It wu bis deep distress that drove him to God. He missed God in life, in  THE BOOK OF JOB. [oH. xxm. 1-17.