Job 4
Sermon Bible
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,


Job 4:13-17


I. Consider the spectre itself and its appearance. (1) It was produced by a likeness of moral state. It was a time of thought. But this does not convey all the idea of the passage. The Hebrew word here used for thought comes from a root signifying the boughs of a tree, and it has been rendered, "in the high places of the forests of thought." The mind was wandering amazed; the labyrinthine way stretched out on every hand; the mind trod the dark pathways. (2) Fear anticipated the vision. Fear unbolts the bars of the room and admits the spectre to our presence. Our world is a house full of fears, because the Fall has removed us into the night, away from God.

II. Notice, next, the question. The ghost's question touches very appropriately and comprehensively the whole topic also of the book of Job. (1) How large is the field of thought the message covers. It is the assertion of the purity and universality of Divine Providence. Rising from the small circle of interests, beyond the boundary of our time, the spirit suggests the sweep of Providence. (2) But the ghost's question had another department—it was directed to the defectibility of man. Consider God, but consider thyself—thy littleness, thy narrowness, the limited sphere of thy vision. These two thoughts face each other with mute aspects of despair and power. This is all they will say: Man is weak, God is strong; God is omnipotent, man is helpless. (3) Hitherto the ghost only crushed; it was not the purpose of the spectre to do more. It asked of man the question which had its root only in the eternal and illimitable will. It referred all to God. But the message of the ghost, no doubt, included the following chapter, which must be read along with it.

III. The ghost is asking this question still: "Shall mortal man be more just than God?" Our age is baffled by the same perplexities which alarmed Job and his friends. It is from God Himself that man derives the terrors which scare him. The alarm, the fear, the awe, the moral misery—these are the assertion of the Divine within the soul. To the alarmed conscience now God comes by the Saviour, not by an apparition. The conscience is calmed amidst its highest terrors by the "blood of sprinkling" and by the night-breezes of Gethsemane. From the darkness of Calvary comes a consolation to dispel all evil spirits and all night fears.

E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp, p. 261.

References: Job 4:15-17.—H. Melvill, Sermons on Less Prominent Facts, vol. ii., p. 60. Job 4:18.—E. Monro, Practical Sermons, vol. i., p. 1. Job 4—A. W. Momerie, Defects of Modern Christianity, p. 93. Job 4-5—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. iv., p. 321; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 76. Job 5:6, Job 5:7.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. iv., p. 314.

If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?
Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.
Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.
But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.
Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?
Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.
By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.
The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.
The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad.
Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.
In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:
It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:
How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?
They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.
Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.
William Robertson Nicoll's Sermon Bible

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