And these are the things we have to do with, every day. If we be oppressed or fatigued by the current course of circumstances, finding them weighty, dark, and intricate, it is our privilege, and our duty too, to pass over, in spirit and in thought, to that calm and sunny atmosphere in which the Gospel, or God's doings for us, ever invest the soul.
All this may be seen in Job. That loved and honoured saint is generally seen grappling with God's dealings with him. The hand of God had gone out upon all his interests and enjoyments. Loss of fortune, children, and health, had come, by sore surprise, upon him, and he persists, in the heat and resentment of nature, to keep all this before his mind. But in a moment of the Spirit's power he is made to look away from all this, to turn from God's dealings with him to God's doings for him; and then he triumphs. Then he can contemplate more than the boils on his body, even the worms destroying it; but all is light and triumph. Then, in the face of all enemies, he can sit and sing in spirit, If God be for me, who can be against me? Romans viii.
Truly blessed is this. The tempter would lead us to judge of God by the dark shadings of many a passage of our history here. But the Spirit would have us acquaint ourselves with Him in the beauteous light of the Gospel, the glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ; and there is light there and no darkness at all--no shadows which have to be chased away, no dimness that needs to be interpreted.
But this rather by the way--I have already traced certain combinations between this earliest and most independent portion of the book of God and all other parts of it, whether near or distant. And very establishing to the heart this is. But such combinations or harmonies may be traced still further--in the scenes of action, as well as in the actors in the scenes.
There are "heaven" and "earth" here, as in all Scripture; each, too, having its "day" or special occasion. See i. 4, 6, 13; ii. 1. There are also "this present evil world," and "the world to come." At the opening of the action the scene is laid in this present evil world. It is but domestic, but all the features of the great world are seen in it. For each family circle, like every heart, is a little world. Indulgence and the love of enjoyment appear in the children, and something of the common "enmity against God" in the wife of our patriarch. Then, again, there are natural calamities, as from wind and fire and disease; and there are relative calamities, as from the hand of our neighbour or fellow-men, as Sabeans and Chaldeans. And all this is the various casualty of life and human circumstance to this hour. There is stroke upon stroke, messenger after messenger, turning over every page of the history. It is but human life then instead of now, but the same life in its losses, crosses, and sore contradictions. There is a little reality, a little of the "friend in need" who "is a friend indeed," but there is a great deal of scorn and desertion in the hour of calamity, still so well known in the world. Job has three friends who sit with him among his ashes and potsherds, but all beside see him afar off.
Is not all this "the present evil world" drawn to the life?
But at the close of the action, the scene is laid in "the world to come," God's world and not man's, the world which His energies are to form, and His principles are to fill. It is the time of refreshing and restitution. In the 42nd chapter of our Book, we are, in spirit, in the Millennium. The Holy Ghost gives us this account of it. "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord," are the words which introduce His allusion to "the patience of Job," and to "the end of the Lord." The husbandman toils in hope, and gets his fruit in harvest, or in resurrection. And so did Job endure, till, at last, he that sowed reaped. The 42nd chapter is the harvest of the husbandman. James v. 7-11.
And happy, I may say, is this further witness to the value which a spirit of confession and repentance has with our God, beloved. As it is written, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;" and again, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins." For I doubt not, that it was to Job's few words of confession and repentance that the Lord referred when He turned to the friends and told them, that they had not spoken of Him the thing that was right, like His servant Job. They had not made confession at the end, as he had done. And let us cherish this assurance. There are comfort and strength in it. The language of repentance prevails. "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself," says Jehovah--and then came the divine compassion: "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still." Or, as we may learn from Hosea, words of confession and repentance from Israel, in the latter day, mightily prevail with God. "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely," is the divine answer, with a rich and beautiful chapter of promises.
The consolation of this! the tale it tells us of grace, unwearied, long-suffering grace! And accordingly Job flourishes again. The Lord is as the dew to him. He grows as the lily, his branches spread, his beauty is as the olive tree, his scent as Lebanon. In "the end of the Lord" he is seen as "in the regeneration," or day of the kingdom, and even others dwell under his shadow, reviving as the corn, and growing as the vine. See Hosea xiv.[31]
Such was our Patriarch in "the end of the Lord." Another witness he is that the burning bush is never consumed, because of the good-will of Him who dwells in it. It may be Israel in Egypt, or in Babylon, the children in the furnace, or the prophet in the den. It may be a poor elect Gadarene, beset with a legion, or the patriarch, the sport of wind and fire and bodily disease, of Chaldeans and Sabeans too, the power and messengers of Satan let out upon him, still the burning bush is unconsumed for the goodwill of Him who dwells in it. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves," says the apostle, as speaking in the name of them all, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead."