Yes, he spoke. His words are before us. Like a wise man, he went back to first principles. He said:
“Circumstances are nothing; they are temporary arrangements. The man is not what he has, but what he is. I do not hold my life in my hands, saying ‘It weighs so much,’ and count up to a high number.”
Job went back to first principles—back to elementary truths. He said:
“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither [that is, as I began]. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away [as He had a right to do; I had nothing of my own]. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Could Job look over the ages that have been healed and comforted by his example—stimulated to bear the ills of this life by the grateful memory of his invincible patience—surely, even now, in Heaven, he would be taking the reward of his long-continued and noble endurance of the divine visitation.
It may be so with you, poor man or woman. You do not get all the sweet now. This shall be a memory to you in Heaven, long ages hence. The wrestling you have now may minister to you high delight, keen enjoyment and rapture pure and abiding. Who can tell when God’s rewards end? Who will venture to say: “This is the measure of His benediction?”
God is able to give and to do abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. Should any one inquire of you as to your compensation, say: “It is given by instalments—today and tomorrow, in death; in the resurrection, all through the ages of eternity. Ask me thousands of ages hence, and I will reply to your question concerning compensation.”
Life is not limited by the cradle and the tomb, and it is not between these two mean and near points that great questions are to be discussed or determined.
Job has been read by countless readers. His was, of course, a public trial—a tragedy that was wrought out for the benefit of multitudes in all generations. Nevertheless, it is literally and pathetically true that every man, even the most obscure, has his readers—fewer in number, it may be, but equally earnest in attention.