44. Mine Tears Unto God

Posted on Posted in Sermon Notes, Prayer Meeting Tagged with , , , ,

Hymns: RHC 355 Day by Day, 108 I’ve a Friend, 358 What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Job 16:6-22

6Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased? 7But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company. 8And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, whichis a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face. 9He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. 10They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me. 11God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. 12I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. 13His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. 14He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant. 15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust. 16My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; 17Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure. 18O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place. 19Also now, behold, my witness isin heaven, and my record is on high. 20My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God. 21O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour! 22When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return. (Job 16:6-22 KJV)

Mine Tears unto God

OUTLINE

  • Grief’s Outcry (v6-16)
  • Griefer’s Comfort (v17-22)

INTRODUCTION

The man of God under trial amidst faltering circumstances finds solace and strength in God. As he faces his fears, he is bidden by the Spirit of God to be strong and courageous, to wait upon his God. The presence of God enables the believer in face of intimidation to keep faith and trust in God that he may say as the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Job has been enduring the trying circumstances of suffering physical affliction and loss. His friends have been miserable comforters accusing him of gross sin against God and suffering the consequences of it in all his afflictions.

Wherewith shall a man find comfort in the midst of such dire distress? Here, we get a glimpse of grief’s outcry (v6-16) and the griefer’s comfort (v17-22).

  • Grief’s Outcry (v6-16)

6Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?

Barnes said well, “But for me, it makes now no difference whether I speak or am silent. My sufferings continue. If I attempt to vindicate myself before people, I am reproached; and equally so if I am silent. If I maintain my cause before God, it avails me nothing, for my sufferings continue. If I am silent, and submit without a complaint, they are the same. Neither silence, nor argument, nor entreaty, avail me before God or man. I am doomed to suffering.”

 7But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company. 

Job turns from complaints against his “comforters” to an enumeration of his own sufferings. He hath made me weary. God has afflicted him with an intolerable sense of weariness. He is tired of life; tired of disputing with his friends; tired even of pouring out his lamentations and complaints and expostulations to God. His one desire is rest. [Pulpit Commentary]

The weary soul finds no solace. One writer said well, “Suffering is stacked upon suffering in our lives because we do not recognize that the “warfare is accomplished”. The war is over! The “middle wall of partition” has been broken down. No need for your life and mine to be “divided against itself” because of these ugly walls of resentment and bitterness and fear and anxiety abd self-pity”. 

Where can man find true peace but with his Saviour. What a friend we have with Jesus.  Eugenis Price further reflected, “For Jesus “made peace by the blood of His cross” and in this great act the walls fell down. The warfare came to an end. Peace became available. The tragedy now is that those of us who receive this peace He made there, walk away from the Cross and forget it. We gorget we have no right to resent. No right to be bitter. No right to be afraid. We have no rights if we follow Christ. This is the freedom. This is the comfort. This is the peace.”

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people… [the] warfare is accomplished … For He is our peace, who hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.

8And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face. 

Not through old age, but through affliction, which had sunk his flesh, and made furrows in him, so that he looked older than he was, and was made old thereby before his time; for this is to be understood of his body, for as for his soul, that through the grace of God, and righteousness of Christ, was without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. [Gill]

9He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. 

God treats Job as severely as if he hated him. That he is actually hated of God Job does not believe; otherwise he would long since have ceased to call upon him, and pour out his heart before him. He gnasheth upon me with his teeth. Mine enemy (or rather, adversary) sharpeneth his eyes upon me; i.e.makes me a whetstone on which he sharpens his angry glances. [Pulpit Commentary]

10They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me. 11God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. 12I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. 13His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. 14He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant. 15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust. 16My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; 

That all about him were abusive to him (v16). They came upon him with open mouth to devour him, as if they would swallow him alive, so terrible were their threats and so scornful was their conduct to him. They offered him all the indignities they could invent, and even smote him on the cheek;and herein many were confederate. They gathered themselves together against him,even the abjects.

V. That God, instead of delivering him out of their hands, as he hoped, delivered him into their hands (Job16:11): He hath turned me over into the hands of the wicked.They could have had no power against him if it had not been given them from above. He therefore looks beyond them to God who gave them their commission, as David did when Shimei cursed him; but he thinks it strange, and almost thinks it hard, that those should have power against him who were God’s enemies as much as his. God sometimes makes use of wicked men as his sword to one another (Ps17:13) and his rod to his own children,Isa10:5. Herein also Job was a type of Christ, who was delivered into wicked hands, to be crucified and slain, by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God,Ac2:23.

VI. That God not only delivered him into the hands of the wicked, but took him into his own hands too, into which it is a fearful thing to fall (Job16:12): “I was at easein the comfortable enjoyment of the gifts of God’s bounty, not fretting and uneasy, as some are in the midst of their prosperity, who thereby provoke God to strip them; yet he has broken me asunder,put me upon the rack of pain, and torn me limb from limb.” God, in afflicting him, had seemed, 1. As if he were furious. Though fury is not in God, he thought it was, when he took him by the neck(as a strong man in a passion would take a child) and shook him to pieces, triumphing in the irresistible power he had to do what he would with him. 2. As if he were partial. “He has distinguished me from the rest of mankind by this hard usage of me: He has set me up for his mark,the butt at which he is pleased to let fly all his arrows: at me they are directed, and they come not by chance; against me they are levelled, as if I were the greatest sinner of all the men of the east or were singled out to be made an example.” When God set him up for a mark his archerspresently compassed him round.God has archers at command, who will be sure to hit the mark that he sets up. Whoever are our enemies, we must look upon them as God’s archers, and see him directing the arrow. It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.3. As if he were cruel, and his wrath as relentless as his power was resistless. As if he contrived to touch him in the tenderest part, cleaving his reins asunderwith acute pains; perhaps they were nephritic pains, those of the stone, which lie in the region of the kidneys. As if he had no mercy in reserve for him, he does not spare nor abate any thing of the extremity. And as if he aimed at nothing but his death, and his death in the midst of the most grievous tortures: He pours out my gall upon the ground,as when men have taken a wild beast, and killed it, they open it, and pour out the gall with a loathing of it. He thought his blood was poured out, as if it were not only not precious, but nauseous. 

As if he were unreasonable and insatiable in his executions (v14): “He breaketh me with breach upon breach,follows me with one wound after another.” So, his troubles came at first; while one messenger of evil tidings was speaking another came: and so it was still; new boils were rising every day, so that he had no prospect of the end of his troubles. Thus, he thought that God ran upon him like a giant,whom he could not possibly stand before or confront; as the giants of old ran down all their poor neighbours, and were too hard for them. Even good men, when they are in great and extraordinary troubles, have much ado not to entertain hard thoughts of God.

To be continued…