69. Despised and Rejected

Hymns: RHC 459 So Send I You, 445 O Master Let Me Walk with Thee, 421 Have Thine Own Way

Job 30:1-14

¹But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. ²Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished? ³For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. ⁴Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. ⁵They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;) ⁶To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks. ⁷Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together. ⁸They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. ⁹And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword. ¹⁰They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face. ¹¹Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me. ¹²Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction. ¹³They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper. ¹⁴They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me. (Job 30:1-14 KJV)

Despised and Rejected

OUTLINE

Facing Scorners

INTRODUCTION

Our Lord’s words of anguish which the psalmist articulated in Psalm 22 in the face severe persecution is worthy of our mediation as we examine the trials of Job after he was stripped of all the honour that this life can offer. It helps a man of God to see the glory of seeking a higher honour, an honour, which Matthew Henry observed, which comes from God. Of which, if we secure, we shall find it not “thus changeable and loseable.”

Psalm 22:1-2 To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou sofar from helping me, and fromthe words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

Psalm 22:6-8 But I ama worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD thathe would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

Matthew 9:32-34 As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.

It the days of our Lord’s earthly ministry, for all the good that He did, He was framed as the devil. The hatred for the evil one for righteousness will cause him to blaspheme even our Lord Himself! What wickedness and depravity is displayed for our learning.

Those that today cry Hosannah may tomorrow cry “Crucify”!

When David was cursed of Shimei, Pink observed well, “he saw God in every circumstance and owned Him with a subdued and reverent spirit. To him it was not Shimei, not the Lord. Abishai saw only the manm and desired to deal with him accordingly. Like Peter afterwards, when he sought to defend his beloved Master from the band of murderers sent to arrest Him. Both Peter and Abishai were living upon the surface, and looking at secondary causes. The Lord Jesus was living in the most profound subjection to the Father: ‘the cup which My Father hath fiven Me, shall I not drink it?’ This gave Him power over everything. He looked beyond the instrument to God – beyond the cup to the hand which had filled it. It mattered not whether it were Judas, Caiaphas, or Pilate; He could say in all, ‘My Father’s cup.’ Thus, too, was David, in his measure, lifted above subordionate agents. He looked right up to God, and with unshod feet and covered head, he bowed before Him: ‘The Lord hath daid unto him, Curse David.’ That was enough.”

Here Job makes a very large and sad complaint of the great disgrace he had fallen into, from the height of honour and reputation, which was exceedingly grievous and cutting to such an ingenuous spirit as Job’s was. Two things he insists upon as greatly aggravating his afflictionas Matthew Henry rightly observed, “The meanness of the persons that affronted him and greatness of the affronts that were given him. It cannot be imagined how abusive they were.

Facing Scorners (v1-14)

The psalmist described well the affliction went through and our Lord went through to purchase our redemption – Psalm 22:14-24 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look andstare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

Job has these words for his consolation in his present state of distress.

¹But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. ²Yea, wheretomight the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?

The meanness of the persons that affronted him. As it added much to his honour, in the day of his prosperity, that princes and nobles showed him respect and paid a deference to him, so it added no less to his disgrace in his adversity that he was spurned by the footmen, and trampled upon by those that were not only every way his inferiors, but were the meanest and most contemptible of all mankind. None can be represented as more base than those are here represented who insulted Job, upon all accounts. [Matthew Henry]

¹But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock…¹²Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.

They were young, younger than he(v1), the youth(v12), who ought to have behaved themselves respectfully towards him for his age and gravity. Even the children, in their play, played upon him, as the children of Bethel upon the prophet, Go up, thou bald-head.Children soon learn to be scornful when they see their parents so. [Matthew Henry]

³For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. ⁴Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. ⁵They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;) ⁶To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks. ⁷Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.

These men were lazy and would not work and no wonder famine came upon them and they lived the based life like the prodigal son at his lowest.

Luke 15:14-16 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

The difference is that these persons were unrepent unlike the prodigal who came to his senses.

Luke 15:17-20 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

Proverbs 9:7-8 He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man gettethhimself a blot. Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.

Dennis Gibson observed well, “Harmful Reproofs: Wisdom warns her maidens, and all messengers of the Gospel, that they will meet with scorners and wicked men (v7-8). They are to summon them, but are not to pursue them by telling them their faults. Reprove not the scorner! These only mock the message and misuse the messenger. Few can stand their malicious eye when they become, our enemy.

The Recognition of Scorners: They have no spiritual light. They are self-ignorant, proud, without modesty or tenderness for others. They laugh at the good and boast of their evil. They rejoice in iniquity and glory in shame. The wicked man is the same. Solomon intends by these expressions to point to those in the lowest grade of sin, hardened and incorrigible. There are scorners, however, who are ignorant rather than willful. Paul was an ignorant scorner, and how bitterly he regretted it (1 Tim. 1:13-15). The Jews, on the other hand, would hear no reproof, and willfully turned their backs on everlasting life (Acts 13:45-50).

The Realisation of Ambassadors: They must realise that such reproof is often love’s labour lost and only brings the reprover more remorse and abuse. You have trampled on a snake that will send more of its venom into you. They become incensed and you receive only malice in return. Their pride was pricked. You have struck a piece of wood that flies up and hits you. They are like the lady who didn’t like what she saw in the mirror and so smashed it.”

⁸They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. ⁹And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

Job described his plight in the face of such scorners. They reviled him and abused him.

¹⁰They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.

Our Lord Himself faced such dire affliction and insults – Matthew 26:67 Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote himwith the palms of their hands …

Matthew 27:30 And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.

JC Ryle observed well here, “Let us observe, in the first place, the extent and reality of our Lord’s sufferings.

The catalogue of all the pains endured by our Lord’s body is indeed a fearful one: seldom has such suffering been inflicted on one body in the last few hours of a life. The most savage tribes, in their refinement of cruelty, could hardly have heaped more agonizing tortures on an enemy than were accumulated on the flesh and bones of our beloved Master. Never let it be forgotten that He had a real human body, a body exactly like our own, just as sensitive, just as vulnerable, just as capable of feeling intense pain. And then let us see what that body endured.

Our Lord, we must remember, had already passed a night without sleep, and endured excessive fatigue. He had been taken from Gethsemane to the Jewish council, and from the Council to Pilate’s judgment hall. He had been twice placed on his trial, and twice unjustly condemned. He had been already scourged and beaten cruelly with rods. And now, after all this suffering, He was delivered up to the Roman soldiers, a body of men no doubt expert in cruelty, and, of all people, least likely to behave with delicacy or compassion. These hard men at once proceeded to work their will. They “gathered together the whole band;” they stripped our Lord of His raiment and put on Him, in mockery, a scarlet robe, they “plaited a crown of thorns,” and in derision placed it on His head. They then bowed the knee before Him in mockery, as nothing better than a pretended king. They spit upon Him. They smote Him on the head. And finally, having put His own robe on Him, they led Him out of the city to a place called Golgotha and there crucified Him between two thieves.

But what was a crucifixion? Let us try to realize it and understand its misery. The person crucified was laid on his back on a piece of timber, with a cross-piece nailed to it near one end — or on the trunk of a tree with branching arms, which answered the same purpose: his hands were spread out on the cross-piece, and nails driven through each of them, fastening them to the wood; his feet in like manner were nailed to the upright part of the cross. Then, the body having been securely fastened, the cross was raised up and fixed firmly in the ground. And there hung the unhappy sufferer, till pain and exhaustion brought him to his end — not dying suddenly, for no vital part of him was injured; but enduring the most excruciating agony from his hands and feet, and unable to move. Such was the death of the cross. Such was the death that Jesus died for us! For six long hours He hung there before a gazing crowd, naked, and bleeding from head to foot —His head pierced with thorns, His back lacerated with scourging, His hands and feet torn with nails, and mocked and reviled by His cruel enemies to the very last.”

Those that today cry Hosannah may tomorrow cry “Crucify”!

Facing Scorners (v1-14)