The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 657

Worship, which acknowledges the greatness of God, a.nd adores him, not only for might nnd knowledge, but o.lso for righteousness o.nd love, is o. right and fitting exer- cise for a.II spirituo.l beings. 2. For our own guidance and assurance. The confession will help us to obey God. It will o.lso a.id us in the o.ttempt to beo.r the strange dis- tresses of life. When the confession o.dvances beyond wbo.t Job saw, surely submis- sion should be more perfect. If we are to be po.tient when we see that God is almighty and all-wise, we should be confident when we go on to see that he is just and mercifnl.-W. F. A. Ver. 6.-The soul's experience of God. This is o. grand experience for Job to attain to. It is worth all the agony and mystery of his bitter affliction. Suddenly the black: clouds break open and the glorious vision of God appears beyond them. Job now contrasts his new, direct seeing of God with his former hearsay knowledge. I. A BEABBAY KNOWLEDGE OF GoD. This is what Job possessed in the old days. Not that he was without any religious experience in those prosperous times. But the shallowness ofit in comparison with what he has now attained mak:es it look of little worth. Most of us begin in this way. We heo.r of God "by the hearing of the ear." This is especially true in a Christian country. Here we seem to breathe a Christian atmosphere, o.nd Christian ideas float in upon us unsought. But the faint perception of God that is acquired in this way cannot be of very great value to us. Hist-0rical facts can only be known by testimony, and the facts of the gospel must reach us through "the hearing of the ear." But we have got a very little way when we have only come to understand and believe in the historical character of those facts. We are still only among the antiquarian relics at a museum. There is no life in such a knowledge, and it has little influence over us. II; A PERSONAL VISION OF GoD. "Now mine eye seeth thee." Job had longed for 11 revelation of God; at length he has received one. But this was not in a vision like those of Jacob at Bethel or Moses at Horeb. It was not after the manner of the startling appa- rition that Eliphaz describes with so much pomp and self-importance (eh. iv. 12-21). It was the calm inward vision of spiritual experience, which is indeed an experience of God. 1. This has been brought about through trouble. In his great distress Job ho.s been continually seeking God. His grief has strengthened his hold upon the unseen world by making him feel that world to be most real. 2. God has spoken and manifested himself. Religion is not a one-sided effort of man to reach after God. God descends to man, and the communion of God's Spirit with man's spirit is the deepest fact in religious experience. 3. This interior vuion of God is what all out' souls need. We have to go beyond the hearing of sermons to our own personal experience of God. Then we begin to understand him ; then he becomes real to us ; then we can say with Tauler, "I am more certain of the being of God than I am of my own existence." III. THE EFFE<11' OF THE NEW EXPERIENCE. 1. It leads to self-humiliation. It is vain any longer to boast of our own rights and to make the most of ourselves. We cannot think of ourselves but with shame and confusion of face in the light of the new vision of God. When once he manifests himself to us, he is everything. 2. It awakens repentance. In the light of God we not only see our littleness, we perceive our sin. This vision had done for Job what all the harangues of his three friends had failed to effect. They had charged him falsely, and his pride had been hardened by their unjust accusations. God had not charged him at all, but the very vision of the Divine at once revealed his mistaken position to Job. He saw that he had been wrong in arraigning the justice of God. So it will ever be. We never know ourselves till we see ourselves in the light of God.-W. F. A. Vere. 1-9.-Ths accm,ra accused. Job is first dealt with; when he has been brought to a right state of mind, God tums to the three friends. They have been per- mitted to play their part without any interference on the part of God, and perhaps they have regarded his eilBI1ce as a mark of acquiescence. Now their time has come. I. THEY WHO AOOUBE OTBEBB LAY TBBHBELVEB OUT TO BE ACCUSED. Even when they act innoce.ntly this is the case. The censor should be above reproach. His action shows that he is awake to moral considerations, that he is not unable to ?U"' ~& 2x  8H THE BOOK OF JOB. [CB, XLIT, 1-17.