_Then answered Bildad the Shuhite._ BILDAD’S UNSYMPATHETIC SPEECH Bildad grasps at once, as we say, the nettle. He is quite sure that he has the key to the secret of the distribution among mankind of misery and happiness. It is a very simple solution. It is the doctrine that untimely death, sicknes... [ Continue Reading ]
_Doth the Almighty pervert justice?_ JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE These two words may be taken as expressing one and the same thing. If we distinguish them, judgment may serve to express God’s righteous procedure in punishing the wicked; and justice His procedure in vindicating the righteous when they are... [ Continue Reading ]
_If thou wouldst seek unto God betimes._ THE SINFUL MAN’S SEARCH I. What is it that God requireth? A diligent and speedy search. It is a work both in desire and labour to be joined with God. How must we search? Faithfully, humbly, continually. Whom we must seek. God, for four causes. 1. Because w... [ Continue Reading ]
_Surely now He would awake for thee._ PRAYER AWAKING GOD God sleeps, not in regard of the act, but the consequents of sleep. Natural sleep is the binding or locking up of the senses. The eye and ear of God is never bound. But to man’s apprehension the affairs of the world pass, as if God did neith... [ Continue Reading ]
_Though thy beginning was small._ THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS Small beginnings, in certain cases, are productive of great ends. I. The conditions of success. Though obvious and simple, they are very easily overlooked. A pure motive seems the first. A double aim rarely succeeds. The man who has only o... [ Continue Reading ]
_For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow._ THE INTELLECTUAL POVERTY OF LIFE The two unquestionable truths that Bildad here expresses are the transitoriness and the intellectual poverty of our mortal life. We “know nothing.” Bildad seems to indicate t... [ Continue Reading ]
_Can the rush grow up without mire?_ --The rush to which he refers did not grow in the dry and parched land of Uz, which was the place where Bildad and Job lived. It grew principally in Egypt, and in one or two places in Northern Palestine. It is no other than the famous bulrush of the Nile, of whic... [ Continue Reading ]
_So are the paths of all that forget God._ WITHERING PATHS I. Consider the sin of forgetting God. 1. It is a very common sin. Thousands never think of Him except in times of trouble. 2. It is an inexcusable sin. They are dependent upon Him. He is constantly revealing Himself to them. (1) In nat... [ Continue Reading ]
_Whose trust shall be a spider’s web._ THE SPIDER AND THE HYPOCRITE In physics, in morals, in religion, reality has no respect for those who have no regard for truth and fact. Abused nature, undeterred by rank, plies her scourge on all the votaries of sin. Reality does not in moral matters seem to... [ Continue Reading ]
_Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man._ MORAL CHARACTER DETERMINES A MAN’S DESTINY I. The real condition of the good. By the real condition we mean the relation of the soul, not to the circumstantials and temporalities of existence. 1. It is a condition in which they will never be deserte... [ Continue Reading ]