I. GOD HAS A RIGHT TO FENCE UP OUR WAY. Job's complaint is sad, but it does not here indicate an injustice. It is hard to be checked and thwarted. Still God is our Master, and he has a right to choose our inheritance for us, setting us in a large place, or in a narrow way, as he thinks best. When we complain, we forget that our will is not the supreme arbiter of our destiny. If God stops our path we have to remember that we are on his land, and have no right of way across it. When, in his bounty, he sets us free to roam over his domain, this is a favour for which we may well give thanks; it is no privilege that we can demand. The opportunities of life, and our freedom to use them, are given by God; and he who gives may withhold.
II. GOD MAY FENCE UP OUR WAY TO PREVENT US FROM STRAYING. We blunder in the darkness. There are precipices over which we may fall, jungles in which we may become victims to prowling enemies, By-path Meadows that may lead us to Doubting Castle. Therefore God shuts us in. We are annoyed at the restraint, but it is for our soul's preservation. Liberty is not always good. God sees when it may be abused; then in his great mercy he withdraws it. Thus the ambitious man fails to reach the giddy height from which he would soon be flung headlong to ruin. Business does not bring one in the wealth that was expected, for God sees that money is becoming an idol. Mary delights are shut off, and a man looks over the fence with great envy towards them; but God knows that they would be poison and death to him.
III. GOD SOMETIMES FENCES UP OUR WAY FOR DISCIPLINE OR PUNISHMENT. We feel ourselves checked and hindered on every side. Our busy activity is stopped. Even our good designs are frustrated. We find it hard to account for such treatment. Possibly it is just the punishment of our sins. This has come not as direct pain and loss, but as hindrance and failure. We feel like the Egyptians when their chariot-wheels stuck in the bed of the sea. But it may be that the cause lies not so much in sin as in a need of wholesome discipline. Perhaps we can serve God better by patient endurance than by vigorous activity. Then what looks like failure is really the divinely chosen method of success. He fences up our way that we quay learn to serve by waiting.
IV. GOD WHO FENCES UP OUR WAY ALSO OPENS IT. The fence is but a temporary structure - not a wall. God checks us for a season that we may use our liberty, when it is restored, with the more enthusiastic energy. While he is fencing up one way he is opening out a new way. We wonder why we are hindered, but if we would but lift up our eyes we might see another path, leading us to a far more noble and Christ-like service than any the path that has been stopped pointed to. Meanwhile let us not complain that our way is hopelessly fenced up till we are quite brought to a standstill. Our fears are premature. The Norwegian fiord seems to be completely locked in by the mountains, and the ship appears to be making straight for the cliffs till a point is reached which suddenly reveals a new expanse of water. We must proceed with the duty within our power, and then the future will open out as we approach it. - W.F.A.
Know new that God has overthrown me.
One thing is to be noticed, with both Job and his friends the existence of God is a part of the problem, not to be discharged from it even hypothetically. The misfortunes of the good, the prosperity of the wicked, the inequalities and the caprices of fate — these are just what have to be reconciled with the existence of a just and all-powerful God. The discussion starts from the supposition of a temporal Providence. All the debate is on what the debaters take to be religious ground. In a certain sense, the idea of God introduces a difficulty into the discussion. If we could look out upon the world as if it had no moral order dependent upon the will of One infinitely good and wise, then the particular difficulty of reconciling things as they are with any worthy conception of Divine power and goodness would suddenly disappear. It is suggested that, when a belief in God is dropped, the difficulty and confusion will disappear. The world, it is true, will be no brighter for the abandonment of faith; but at least no delusive marshfires will lead us astray from the true objects of life. We shall know neither whence we came, nor whither we are going; but we shall live our little day, neither vexed by vain questionings, nor relying upon baseless hopes. No doubt this is true to a certain extent, but only to that limited extent which involves essential and absolute untruth. Theism brings its own difficulties with it into the physical and moral problem of the universe. But what right have we to suppose that any hypothesis, as alone we can conceive it, will explain everything? And have we not the right to turn round upon rival theories, and ask if they can explain more than ours, or whether to them the mystery of the world is not mysterious still? Theism, with all that it is commonly held to involve, is an explanation of the mysteries of nature and of life; but not a complete explanation. Taking its pretensions at the lowest, and the least, it gathers up the facts of life into a unity, and supplies us with a theory in the light of which they may be correlated and understood. More than this, it furnishes a practical rule of living. It is precisely this which the opposite theory cannot do. The very necessity of its nature is to explain nothing. It leaves the obscurities of life just as it finds them. Pain and sin and loss are with it ultimate facts; nor has it the faintest glimmer of light to throw upon their absolute blackness The case might be different had human nature no side of relation to the infinite, or even were that relation apprehended only by one here and there. The mystery of the universe would be nothing to us if we had no faculty of knowing and feeling it. But, with a few and partial exceptions, this attempt to pass beyond the finite into the infinite belongs ineradicably to us all. A shrewd thinker once said, that if there were not a God, it would be necessary to invent one. Men will never permanently consent to the narrowing of power and life. Eternity and infinity may still hold their secrets in inexorable grasp, but we shall never cease to go in search of them, and to hold ourselves higher and better for the quest. Granting for a moment that these aspirations and longings are mistakes, remnants of a lower state, things out of which we shall grow, is the aspect of the case materially altered? I am still face to face with the facts of existence: I have still to meet, and bear, and make the best of my fate. We cannot permanently silence curiosity as to the universe simply by rejecting a single familiar explanation of it. In ceasing to believe in a God, you bare made absolutely no progress in explaining the mystery of the universe. You have only returned to the standpoint of absolute uncertainty and blank perplexity. Take the mystery of pain, and its correlative mystery of wrong — evil, that is, on its physical and on its moral side. Theism will not explain it. It points out palliations of it. It suggests that it is related to the power of choice in man, and so necessary to the moral government of the world. Still, these answers do not cover the whole question. But is Atheism better off or worse? Are pain and wrong any more endurable, any less weight upon the sympathetic conscience, because they are looked upon as bare, blank, absolutely unexplained facts? Atheism escapes from the characteristic difficulties of Theism only at the price of encumbering itself with a difficulty of its own. According to any theory, there is at least a set of humanity in an upward direction. Theism has hard work to account for the evil in the world; Can Atheism explain the good? How should the whole creation move, to one "far-off event," and rise upon the circling wheels of time higher and ever higher, unless at the call and under the inspiration of God? One more illustration. We all know too well the meaning of human waste and loss. You tell me this is simply a matter of physical law. But, in so saying, have you explained what needs explanation? I cannot answer those questions, I know; but dream not that they do not weigh upon you too. You have to face them as well as I, and to bear the heartache, and the desolation, and the thought of severance,
without the hope of immortality, and the stay of a Divine presence.
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People
JobPlaces
UzTopics
Can't, Dark, Darkness, Fenced, Hedged, Pass, Paths, Placeth, Roads, Shrouded, WalledOutline
1. Job, complaining of his friends' cruelty, 6. shows there is misery enough in him to feed their cruelty21. He craves pity23. He believes the resurrectionDictionary of Bible Themes
Job 19:8 4811 darkness, symbol of sin
Job 19:5-13
5916 pessimism
Job 19:7-8
5567 suffering, emotional
8605 prayer, and God's will
Library
June 28 Morning
I know that my Redeemer liveth.--JOB 19:25. If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.--This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Because I live, ye shall live also.--If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily PathJob's Faith and Expectation
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. C hristianity, that is, the religion of which MESSIAH is the author and object, the foundation, life, and glory, though not altogether as old as creation, is nearly so. It is coeval [contemporary] with the first promise and intimation of mercy given to fallen man. When Adam, by transgression, had violated the order and law of …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2
Job's Sure Knowledge
"For I know that my Redeemer liveth,"--Job 19:25. I DARESAY you know that there are a great many difficulties about the translation of this passage. It is a very complicated piece of Hebrew, partly, I suppose, owing to its great antiquity, being found in what is, probably, one of the oldest Books of the Bible. Besides that, different persons have tried to translate it according to their own varying views. The Jews stiffly fight against the notion of the Messiah and his resurrection being found in …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 50: 1904
I Know that My Redeemer Liveth
Our text deserves our profound attention; its preface would hardly have been written had not the matter been of the utmost importance in the judgment of the patriarch who uttered it. Listen to Job's remarkable desire: "Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!" Perhaps, hardly aware of the full meaning of the words he was uttering, yet his holy soul was impressed with a sense of some weighty revelation …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863
Tuesday in Easter Week. I Know that My Redeemer Liveth . . And Though after My Skin Worms Destroy this Body, yet in My Flesh Shall I See God.
I know that my Redeemer liveth . . and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. From the Lesson. [1 Cor. 15:53] 7,7,7,7,7,7 Jesus meine Zuversicht [86]Louisa Henrietta, Electress of Brandenburgh. 1653. trans. by Catherine Winkworth, 1855 Jesus my Redeemer lives, Christ my trust is dead no more; In the strength this knowledge gives Shall not all my tears be o'er, Though the night of Death be fraught Still with many an anxious thought? Jesus my Redeemer lives, …
Catherine Winkworth—Lyra Germanica: The Christian Year
My Beloved Put in his Hand through the Opening, and My Bowels Thrilled at his Touch.
The Well-beloved, notwithstanding the resistance of his Bride, [29] puts in his hand by a little opening which yet remains to Him, that is, a remnant of abandonment, in spite of the repugnance of the soul to abandon herself so absolutely. A soul in this degree has a depth of submission to every will of God that will refuse him nothing; but when he unfolds his plans in detail, [30] and using the rights He has acquired over her, calls for the last renunciation and the extremest sacrifices, then it …
Madame Guyon—Song of Songs of Solomon
Whether the Essence of God Can be Seen with the Bodily Eye?
Objection 1: It seems that the essence of God can be seen by the corporeal eye. For it is written (Job 19:26): "In my flesh I shall see . . . God," and (Job 42:5), "With the hearing of the ear I have heard Thee, but now my eye seeth Thee." Objection 2: Further, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxix, 29): "Those eyes" (namely the glorified) "will therefore have a greater power of sight, not so much to see more keenly, as some report of the sight of serpents or of eagles (for whatever acuteness of vision …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Whether in the Resurrection the Soul Will be Reunited to the Same Identical Body?
Objection 1: It would seem that the soul will not be reunited to the same identical body at the resurrection, for "thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare grain" (1 Cor. 15:37). Now the Apostle is there comparing death to sowing and resurrection to fructifying. Therefore the same body that is laid aside in death is not resumed at the resurrection. Objection 2: Further, to every form some matter is adapted according to its condition, and likewise to every agent some instrument. Now the body …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Whether it Will be Identically the Same Man that Shall Rise Again?
Objection 1: It would seem that it will not be identically the same man that shall rise again. For according to the Philosopher (De Gener. ii): "Whatsoever things are changed in their corruptible substance are not repeated identically." Now such is man's substance in his present state. Therefore after the change wrought by death the self-same man cannot be repeated . Objection 2: Further, where there is a distinction of human nature there is not the same identical man: wherefore Socrates and Plato …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Whether it was Necessary for Christ to Rise Again?
Objection 1: It would seem that it was not necessary for Christ to rise again. For Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iv): "Resurrection is the rising again of an animate being, which was disintegrated and fallen." But Christ did not fall by sinning, nor was His body dissolved, as is manifest from what was stated above ([4293]Q[51], A[3]). Therefore, it does not properly belong to Him to rise again. Objection 2: Further, whoever rises again is promoted to a higher state, since to rise is to be uplifted. …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Whether Subtlety is a Property of the Glorified Body?
Objection 1: It would seem that subtlety is not a property of the glorified body. For the properties of glory surpass the properties of nature, even as the clarity of glory surpasses the clarity of the sun, which is the greatest in nature. Accordingly if subtlety be a property of the glorified body, it would seem that the glorified body will be more subtle than anything which is subtle in nature, and thus it will be "more subtle than the wind and the air," which was condemned by Gregory in the city …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Whether the Dead Can be Assisted by the Works of the Living?
Objection 1: It would seem that the dead cannot be assisted by the works of the living. First, because the Apostle says (2 Cor. 5:10): "We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done." Therefore nothing can accrue to a man from the works of others, which are done after his death and when he is no longer in the body. Objection 2: Further, this also seems to follow from the words of Apoc. 14:13, "Blessed …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
The Helpless State of the Sinner under Condemnation.
1, 2. The sinner urged to consider how he can be saved from this impending ruin.--3. Not by any thing he can offer.--4. Nor by any thing he can endure.--5. Nor by any thing hr can do in the course of future duty.--6-8. Nor by any alliance with fellow-sinners on earth or in hell.--9. Nor by any interposition or intercession of angels or saints in his favor. Hint of the only method to be afterwards more largely explained. The lamentation of a sinner in this miserable condition. 1. SINNER, thou hast …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul
Whether it is Necessary for the Salvation of All, that they Should Believe Explicitly in the Mystery of Christ?
Objection 1: It would seem that it is not necessary for the salvation of all that they should believe explicitly in the mystery of Christ. For man is not bound to believe explicitly what the angels are ignorant about: since the unfolding of faith is the result of Divine revelation, which reaches man by means of the angels, as stated above [2287](A[6]; [2288]FP, Q[111], A[1]). Now even the angels were in ignorance of the mystery of the Incarnation: hence, according to the commentary of Dionysius (Coel. …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Whether There is to be a Resurrection of the Body?
Objection 1: It would seem that there is not to be a resurrection of the body: for it is written (Job 14:12): "Man, when he is fallen asleep, shall not rise again till the heavens be broken." But the heavens shall never be broken, since the earth, to which seemingly this is still less applicable, "standeth for ever" (Eccles. 1:4). Therefore the man that is dead shall never rise again. Objection 2: Further, Our Lord proves the resurrection by quoting the words: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Whether after the Resurrection the Saints Will See God with the Eyes of the Body? [*Cf. Fp, Q , a ]
Objection 1: It would seem that after the resurrection the saints will see God with the eyes of the body. Because the glorified eye has greater power than one that is not glorified. Now the blessed Job saw God with his eyes (Job 42:5): "With the hearing of the ear, I have heard Thee, but now my eye seeth Thee." Much more therefore will the glorified eye be able to see God in His essence. Objection 2: Further, it is written (Job 19:26): "In my flesh I shall see God my Saviour [Vulg.: 'my God']." Therefore …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
The Impassibility and Immortality of the Risen Body.
Besides the attributes which immediately flow from the fact that our animal bodies will rise spiritualized, there are two more qualities, which we shall now consider; namely, the impassibility and immortality of our risen bodies. 1. Impassibility implies the total loss of the power of suffering. What an enormous capacity we have for suffering! The power of receiving pleasure through our senses is only as a drop in the ocean, when compared to our manifold capacities for suffering, in every faculty …
F. J. Boudreaux—The Happiness of Heaven
The Resurrection
'Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.' John 5:58, 29. Q-38: WHAT BENEFITS DO BELIEVERS RECEIVE FROM CHRIST AT THE RESURRECTION? A: At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgement, and made perfectly blessed in the …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity
Whether Explicit Belief in the Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ is Necessary for the Salvation of Everybody
Whether Explicit Belief in the Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ is Necessary for the Salvation of Everybody We proceed to the seventh article thus: 1. It seems that explicit belief in the mystery of the incarnation of Christ is not necessary for the salvation of everybody. A man is not required to have explicit belief in matters of which angels are ignorant, since the faith is made explicit by divine revelation, which reaches men through the medium of angels, as was said in the preceding article. …
Aquinas—Nature and Grace
The Resurrection of the Dead
There are very few Christians who believe the resurrection of the dead. You may be surprised to hear that, but I should not wonder if I discovered that you yourself have doubts on the subject. By the resurrection of the dead is meant something very different from the immortality of the soul: that, every Christian believes, and therein is only on a level with the heathen, who believes it too. The light of nature is sufficient to tell us that the soul is immortal, so that the infidel who doubts it …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856
Of the Last Resurrection.
1. For invincible perseverance in our calling, it is necessary to be animated with the blessed hope of our Savior's final advent. 2. The perfect happiness reserved for the elect at the final resurrection unknown to philosophers. 3. The truth and necessity of this doctrine of a final resurrection. To confirm our belief in it we have, 1. The example of Christ; and, 2. The omnipotence of God. There is an inseparable connection between us and our risen Savior. The bodies of the elect must be conformed …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Christian Struggling under Great and Heavy Affliction.
1. Here it is advised--that afflictions should only be expected.--2. That the righteous hand of God should be acknowledged in them when they come.--3. That they should be borne with patience.--4. That the divine conduct in them should be cordially approved.--5. That thankfulness should be maintained in the midst of trials.--6. That the design of afflictions should be diligently inquired into, and all proper assistance taken in discovering it.--7. That, when it is discovered, it should humbly be complied …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul
Christ the Mediator of the Covenant
'Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant,' &c. Heb 12:24. Jesus Christ is the sum and quintessence of the gospel; the wonder of angels; the joy and triumph of saints. The name of Christ is sweet, it is as music in the ear, honey in the mouth, and a cordial at the heart. I shall waive the context, and only speak of that which concerns our present purpose. Having discoursed of the covenant of grace, I shall speak now of the Mediator of the covenant, and the restorer of lapsed sinners, Jesus the Mediator …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity
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