Job 4:21

REFLECTIONS

MY soul! here are some very sweet instructions to be gathered from this chapter. In whatever light Eliphaz, the Temanite, be considered, still the HOLY GHOST can and will make his conduct minister to the glory of GOD, and the good of GOD'S children. His observations, in several parts, plainly teach GOD'S people, whose remains of indwelling corruption are too apt to break out in murmuring under their afflictions, that there is no case, nor situation, in which a child of GOD can be placed, that for a moment can admit of dissatisfaction. But his observations no less teach at the same time, even in this point of view, that godly men make too light of GOD'S afflictions, when they add to the smart, by giving unseasonable addition to the afflicted, in saying or doing whatever may serve to irritate and aggravate their sorrows. Certain it is, that Satan's grand artifice was to vex Job; so to conduct himself that, in the impulse of the moment, he might charge GOD foolishly, and curse him. And if the conversation of Eliphaz, however plausible; had a tendency to accomplish the same end, whatever the Temanite was in himself, he was evidently Satan's instrument to cast down the godly. Methinks I would therefore learn from hence, caution, even in a zeal for GOD and his glory, not to add to an heart that is vexed; but sweetly draw off the mind of any poor sufferer, which comes within my way, from brooding over the affliction; to look at the GOD of all our mercies in the affliction; or, to use the beautiful words of the prophet, to call upon the sufferer to hear the rod, and who hath appointed it. And how should I do this so effectually, either in mine own sorrows, or the sorrows of others, as by looking to thee, thou blessed JESUS, in whose unequalled sorrows every child of GOD would soonest learn to forget his own. Oh! thou blessed JESUS! how doth thy bright example tend to dignify the path of suffering, and to give a lustre to the tears of the heaviest affliction. Oh! for grace to follow thee by faith, to the garden, to the wilderness, to the cross, and there meditate, until the soul goeth forth in the interesting enquiry, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by: behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger?