70. Despised and Rejected (2)

Hymns: RHC 354 God Leads Us Along, 353 God Will Take Care of You, 339 When I Fear My Faith Will Fail

Job 30:10-22

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. ¹² Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction. ¹³ They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper. ¹⁴ They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.

¹⁵ Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud. ¹⁶ And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me. ¹⁷ My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest. ¹⁸ By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. ¹⁹ He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes. ²⁰ I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not. ²¹ Thou art become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me. ²² Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride upon it, and dissolvest my substance.

Despised and Rejected (2)

OUTLINE

Facing Scorners (v1-14)
Enduring Inflicted Pain (v15-22)

Continued…

¹¹Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.

They expressed the greatest scorn and indignation against him. They spat in his face, or were ready to do so; they tripped up his heels, pushed away his feet (v12), kicked him, either in wrath, because they hated him, or in sport, to make themselves merry with him, as they did with their companions at foot-ball. The best of saints, have sometimes received the worst of injuries and indignities from a spiteful, scornful, wicked world, and must not think it strange; our Master himself was thus abused. [Matthew Henry]

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 very malicious against him, and not only made a jest of him, but made a prey of him – not only affronted him, but set themselves to do him all the real mischief they could devise: They raise up against me the ways of their destruction;or (as some read it), They cast upon me the cause of their woe;that is, “They lay the blame of their being driven out upon me;” and it is common for criminals to hate the judges and laws by which they are punished. [Matthew Henry]

¹³They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.

But under this pretence, they accused him falsely, and misrepresented his former conversation, which is here called marring his path. They reflected upon him as a tyrant and an oppressor because he had done justice upon them; and perhaps Job’s friends grounded their uncharitable censures of him (Job 22:6-10) upon the unjust and unreasonable clamours of these sorry people; and it was an instance of their great weakness and inconsideration, for who can be innocent if the accusations of such persons may be heeded? [Matthew Henry]

Job 22:6-10 For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. But as forthe mighty man, he had the earth; and the honourable man dwelt in it. Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. Therefore snares areround about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee;

They not only triumphed in his calamity, but set it forward, and did all they could to add to his miseries and make them more grievous to him. It is a great sin to forward the calamity of any, especially of good people.

In this they have no helper,nobody to set them on or to countenance them in it, nobody to bear them out or to protect them, but they do it of their own accord; they are fools in other things, but wise enough to do mischief, and need no help in inventing that. Some read it thus, They hold my heaviness a profit, though they be never the better.Wicked people, though they get nothing by the calamities of others, yet rejoice in them. [Matthew Henry]

¹⁴They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.

Those that did him all this mischief were numerous, unanimous, and violent (v14). They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, when the dam is broken; or, “They came as soldiers into a broad breach which they have made in the wall of a besieged city, pouring in upon me with the utmost fury;” and in this they took a pride and a pleasure: They rolled themselves in the desolation as a man rolls himself in a soft and easy bed, and they rolled themselves upon him with all the weight of their malice. [Matthew Henry]

Trampled upon, he seemed to have no recourse. He articulated his misgivings and maltreatment so that we may understand and not be surpised when we, ourselves, face the full weight of human depravity in our trials. How unbearable and yet this is what our Lord speaks about when He said to His disciples:

Matthew 5:10-12 Blessed arethey which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when menshall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great isyour reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

This verse comes after Matthew 5:9 Blessed arethe peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

This 7^thbeatitude has more to do with conduct, the conduct that comes out of a peaceable spirit. The Lord Jesus calls those “blessed” who are peacemakers. He means those who use their influence to promote peace and charity on earth, in private and in public, at home and abroad. They are doing what Jesus Himself is doing.

The “peacemakers” are those who by their deliberate action promote peace to those whom they reach out to. They are ambassadors of God’s peace. This world is struggling to find that elusive peace within the human heart that the peacemaker seeks to enlighten by his testimony.

This world has failed to secure that most elusive commodity called “peace”. The dictionary meaning of “peace” describes the normal, non-warring condition of a nation, group of nations or the world, a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, especially in personal relations and the normal freedom from civil commotion and violence of a community. Peace is described a state of tranquillity and serenity, a state or condition conducive to, proceeding from, or characterized by tranquillity. This world has yet seen true peace. War characterizes all the history of mankind.

When God created the earth, it was to be a peaceful paradise. But Adam forfeited the harmony when he sinned. One writer put it succinctly that Adam’s sin “was like a declaration of war against God’s right to rule His own creation. It broke the peace of Eden. Adam’s rebellion against God had disastrous long-range effects. It set the entire human race at enmity with God. All the evils that disrupt the peacefulness of our earthly existence stem from the curse of sin that began with Adam. Redemption history is the long saga of how God Himself intervenes to save the human race from its own sin, overthrow evil and restore peace to His creation.” It is sin that plunged all humanity in animosity and perpetual war. It is the result of the inherent sin nature, that fallen nature, descended from Adam.

It has been estimated that in the past 4000 years there have been less than 300 without a major war. “Peace is merely that brief moment in history when everybody stops to reload.”

Humanity made an early start to his career of militancy as far back as Noah’s day Genesis 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. From then on, the Old Testament echoes to over a thousand years of armed conflict.

What is the root of the trouble? What is man’s problem? Why the tension, bitterness, strife, conflict, violence, bloodshed and wars? Why is it that while peace is the most significant word in man’s lexicon, it is one of the most elusive word in his experience?

Albert Einstein, who won the Nobel Peace Price for physics in 1921 and whose theory of relativity revolutionized man’s thinking about the nature of time and space. In the course of his lecture in 1948, he made the following comment on the threat of nuclear warfare: “It is not a physical problem, but an ethical one. What terrifies us is not the explosive force of the atomic bomb, but the power of wickedness of the human heart, its explosive power for evil.”

(2) Enduring Inflicted Pain (v15-22)

¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.

He was pushed to the dead end just like the Israelites facing the Red Sea after fleeing Egypt with Pharaoh’s army on the chase behind or as Daniel when he was thrown into the lion’s den for continuing to prayer three times a day facing Jerusalem.

There seemed no recourse for him from the barrage of ill-willed people insisting on falsely judging him guilty just like Naboth in king Ahab’s kangaroo court set up by the evil Jezebel.

¹⁶And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me. ¹⁷My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.

When the body is afflicted and the mind bombarded by provocations. It is indeed hard to bear. Day and night, he felt himself tormented. There seemed no relief.

We may see in Job a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of menand despised of the people(Psalm 22:6; Isaiah 1:3), and who hid not his face from shame and spitting, but bore the indignity better than Job did. [Matthew Henry]

Psalm 22:6 But I ama worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

Isaiah 1:3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: butIsrael doth not know, my people doth not consider.