Job 35:10-11 But none said, Where is God my maker, who gives songs in the night;… I. WHAT SEASON OF OUR LIVES IS DESCRIBED UNDER THE IMAGE OF NIGHT? Night is the time of darkness and of gloominess; when we can see nothing and can do nothing, as we can in the bright and cheerful light of day. As such it fitly represents a time of ignorance, and unbelief, and sin. It also represents a time of adversity and of affliction, whether of a public or a private nature. The season of suffering is, to the unconverted person, a season of gloom and heaviness. How cheerless is the chamber of sickness to the eye and the heart of an unsanctified sufferer! II. WHAT IS THE REAL CHRISTIAN'S SPIRIT AND TEMPER AND CONDITION IN THESE DARK SEASONS OF SUFFERING? Singing bespeaks an easy, contented, and happy state of mind. We seldom if ever hear a person singing who is very unhappy. But this excellent gift and faculty may be and often is abused. There are different sorts of song, and different characters who sing them. We should not understand the word "songs" in our text, only in its literal meaning. It also represents that sweet and composed and resigned spirit which the Christian sufferer experiences inwardly when all outward things are dark about him. "Songs in the night" describe that peaceful and composed frame of mind and soul which the Christian sufferer enjoys in his darkest night of suffering or sorrow. III. WHO IS TO GIVE US THIS CHRISTIAN SPIRIT, TEMPER, AND CONDITION? Even the Lord, our Maker, and Preserver, and Saviour, and Comforter. A heavenly mind and spirit can only proceed from heaven. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature"; and as such he receives a new nature, and a new spirit, and he sings a new song. He sees everything with different eyes; he receives everything with a different spirit; he bears everything with a different temper; he no longer looks upon himself, or his condition in this world, as he once did. It is no longer his rest; it is a school in which he is to learn lessons of heavenly wisdom; a warfare, in which he is to fight the good fight of faith. (Robert Grant, B.C.L.) Parallel Verses KJV: But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;WEB: But none says, 'Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, |
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