Job 17:11

My purposes are broken off.

Broken purposes

What mental anguish is concentrated in these few words! They raise the sufferings of Job from one of mere physical pain to one of mental despair: Let us glance, first, at some objects of human ambition--their wreck, their loss, and their gain.

I. The cherished purposes of life. The generality of persons live without forming any purposes at all. They drift along the current, and laying aside the strength and glory of manhood are nothing but logs. The true purposes of life are not mere languid dreams, or objectless hopes, or anticipations of pleasure, and we must not confound these with the ambition alluded to by Job. But they are the thought out plans and aspirations of a vigorous mind in true earnest.

1. Sometimes these purposes are selfish.

2. Sometimes these ambitions are philanthropic.

3. Sometimes these purposes are religious.

There is the longing to lead a notably pious life, to be a pattern for others to copy, to bring up a godly family, to convert sinners, and to be worthy soldiers of the cross.

II. The broken purposes of life. How often are ambitions formed; how seldom are they realised! Our purposes are always being broken. We have had a cherished plant, and longed to see it flower. But the frost has nipped the bud, and it has withered and drooped. We have had a loved child for whom we cherished a hope of carrying forward the work of our lives. But the loved one had been taken from us altogether or has turned out a sorrow instead of a joy. We have intended to go hither or thither, but the storm has intervened and we have been left behind.

III. The hand of God in the purposes of life. Job did not realise that his purposes had been cut off by God, and that there was an object underlying the sorrow which filled his heart. Neither do men understand that there may be a reason that they cannot fathom which has hindered the success of their cherished hopes. Eternity will show that man’s purposes are broken--

1. Because if successful they would have been injurious to ourselves. Many souls have been saved by being kept from riches or power. Many have been kept from ruin by having their cherished idol taken away.

2. Because they might work some evil for others. We often see instances of misdirected philanthropy. But how seldom we can see behind the scenes, and how little do we know what will really benefit our fellow creatures!

3. Because God sees that we are not fitted for the work,

4. Because He has higher and better purposes for us.

5. Because He desires to bring us to a state of perfect trust in Himself. He crushes our plans to show us how weak, how foolish we are, and to lay us low in humility. How much wiser are His arrangements! (J. J. S. Bird.)

Broken purposes

I. Men form purposes. Mind is active and made to think. Men speculate and resolve. Pleasure and wealth, honour and worldly position eagerly sought.

II. These purposes not always fulfilled. Broken off as threads of the web cut off from the loom (Isaiah 32:1). Impossible to realise. Providence intervenes; man proposeth, God disposeth. Greeks represented the fates as spinning the threads of human life. Procrastination prevents performance. Satan hinders (1 Thessalonians 2:18).

III. This is a sad fact in experience. “My” purposes. Good resolutions formed and never carried out; plans adopted and forsaken; principles never come to maturity, and life wasted in attempting, and nothing done! (The Study.)

Broken purposes

The world is full of broken columns. Every heart carries its own crowded cemetery. The cemeteries in which you lay dead flesh and bones are not the true cemeteries. The graveyards are in the heart. “My purposes are broken off”; this is the cry of a disappointed man; the muffled moan of a baffled hope. It is not the peculiar cry of a Jew, or of a Gentile, of an Orientalist, or an Occidentalist, it is simply the voice of universal man. God has graciously enriched the world with example men; men who have been made to show in their melancholy experience how vain is ambition, how uncertain is expectation, how unstable is strength. Job is such man.

I. As revealing the speculative side of human life. All men have purposes. Man cannot live by history alone; he must strengthen himself by hope. Man puts out his hand and plucks of the tree of tomorrow. Every man speculates concerning the future, and feels himself inspired as he dwells on the charms of the coming time. Man’s power of speculation always exceeds man’s power of realisation. The poetic fancy is in advance of the toiling hand. The wanderer’s mind is at the destination long before the wanderer’s foot has taken the first step of the journey! The power of speculation and the power of realisation are not coordinate. We paint many a fire which we never can enkindle. We plant olive yards which bear no fruit, and dig wells which hold no water. Yet we would not give up this power of projecting ourselves into the future! We would not like to be barred in the small prison called “today.” Not a man but is pleasing himself with some dream of fancy. Each is saying, “The times will change for the better; the cold winds will die out; the sky will be a cloudless arch; I shall walk on a carpet of violets through palaces of perfume.”

II. As disclosing the real side of human experience. “Purposes”!--that is poetry; “Broken”! - that is history! This is a sad combination of words! Life is full of half-built towers. Men had begun to build, but were not able to finish. Life is a pile of fragments. Nowhere is there aught complete. Life is all beginnings; there is no finished pinnacle!

III. As suggesting man’s true course as a speculatist and as a worker. “Go to now, ye that say today or tomorrow,” etc. There is a “tonight” between today and tomorrow. Learn--

1. All purposes against God must be broken off.

2. Form the loftiest purposes for God, and they will be fulfilled.

3. Remember the moral import of uncertainty. (Anon.)