Job 28:28 And to man he said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. There is nothing that man doth more earnestly pursue and hunt after than wisdom and understanding; and there is nothing that God is more desirous that he should obtain. And yet such is the obstinacy of our will, and the perverseness of our nature, that when God shows us the true wisdom, and the way to it, we will not follow His directions, but seek for it according to our own fancy, where it is never to be had. The devil overthrew our first parents by persuading them to aspire to a greater measure of knowledge than God had thought fit to bestow upon them; and he hath all along made use of the same temptation to the ruin of their posterity. Those who, one would think, should be the best able to resist his temptations (I mean the "learned"), are oftentimes most easily foiled by him. Their great learning and parts, most excellent endowments, which might be very serviceable to God's glory and the good of His Church, he persuades them to abuse in the maintaining of wrangling disputations, and unnecessary (sometimes dangerous) controversies. In this text, and chapter, Job's three friends are very bold, and foolishly positive in their assertions concerning God's decrees. As if they had been of God's privy council, had stood by Him, and thoroughly understood the whole design of His providence in afflicting so severely His servant Job, they presently conclude him to be a most grievous sinner. All this Job hears and endures with patience. He was sensible enough that God had afflicted him, and he knew too that it was not for his hypocrisy, but for some secret end best known to His infinite wisdom; and therefore he inquires not after it, but labours to perform his own duty, and to receive evil from the hand of God, if He sends it to him, as well as good, and patiently to bear whatsoever burden He lays upon him. This is all the wisdom he aspires to; he meddles not with God's secret council, nor searches after the knowledge which he knew was "too wonderful for him." God understands the way of wisdom, and He only understands it; and He will have none else to understand it, or meddle with it. I. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE "FEAR OF THE LORD"? The fear peculiar to wicked men is not wisdom, but folly and madness — it is sin. Some men so fear God as that they will endeavour to abstain from gross and scandalous sins; but not out of any true love they have for God, or any hatred they bear to sin, but merely out of self-interest, that they may escape that vengeance which they know will one day be executed upon the ungodly. This fear is not in all men a sin; it is in some a virtue, and if it be not the wisdom here in the text, yet it is at least a good step toward the obtaining of it. Nay, this fear of God's wrath is so far from being unlawful, that it is absolutely necessary. The true fear is such as proceeds from love, it is indeed nothing else but love, not of ourselves, as the former fear, but of God, as the only object that can deserve our affections. This grace may be styled indifferently either fear or love. This is the fear which supported Job under his mighty afflictions. II. WHAT IT IS TO "DEPART FROM EVIL" Or sin; the only thing in the world which we can properly call evil. For everything is good that God hath made. To depart from this evil of sin in the name and fear of the Lord, is the greatest wisdom that man is capable of. But then we must be sure to do it in the fear of the Lord. (1) This departing from evil in the fear of the Lord is our greatest wisdom, because it will deliver us from the greatest evil, both here and hereafter — from sin and hell. This fear secures us from all other fears whatsoever. (2) This wisdom procures for us the greatest good. (3) This, of itself, is sufficient to make us eternally happy. (Samuel Scattergood, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. |
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