19. took up the cudgels for: came to the defence of.
68 Baffled to Fight Better
Everything a man can rely upon has disappeared, and yet Job does not curse God; he admits that his former creed is not right, neither are his friends right, yet he declares steadily that in the end God will be justified.
that He is cruel? Most of us are hypocrites, we are too afraid to state the thing as Job did. We say right out, "God is cruel to allow me to go through this, and I refuse to believe in Him any more." Job stuck to his point that when everything was known it would not be to God's dishonour, but to His honour.
(c) In the Despair before Men ( Job 17:11–16) Job cannot hide his despair. For unfathomable pathos, verse 11 is unequalled in any language under heaven:
Because of this war, a great number of men in lesser degree have arrived at the place Job has got to, their creeds about God have gone, and it would be the height of absurdity to pretend that their former beliefs of God are true as they see Him now. It does not follow because a man has lost belief in his beliefs that therefore he has lost faith in God. Many a man has been led to the frontiers of despair by being told he has backslidden, whereas what he has gone through has revealed that his belief in his beliefs is not God. Men have found God by going through hell, and it is the men who have been face to face with these things who can understand what Job went through. All the impatience and irritation against the religious life, so called, is accounted for on the same line as Job's revolt against religious pose—"If they would only stop their pose and face facts as they are; be reverent with what they don't understand, and assist me in my faith in God." Job's friends were in the right place when they sat with him dumbfounded for seven days; they were much nearer God then than afterwards. Immediately they took up the cudgels for God,19 they took on a religious pose, lost touch with the reality of actual experience, and ended in being bombastic.
My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the possessions of my heart. ( Job 17:11 rv mg)
A certain type of religious hypocrisy makes men hide what they feel, but Job has come to the place where he cannot hide it—"I cannot pretend that I am comforted of God," he says. If only Job could have taken on the pose that he had the comfort of God, his friends would not have challenged him, but he says, "I have no comfort; I do not see God, neither can I talk to Him; all I know is that my creed and former belief must be wrong. I do not know what to accept, but I am certain God will prove that He is just and true and right, and I refuse to tell a lie in order to help Him out."
This attitude of religious faith is finely expressed by the Psalmist—"Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy"(Psalm 43:4). This is sublime faith, the faith that Jesus demanded of John the Baptist. ". . . And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." Will I stick to it, without any pretence or humbug, that God is righteous, although everything in my actual experience seems to prove
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the BItterest hurt In lIFe
Job 18–20
Nay but much rather let me late returning Bruised of my brethren, wounded from within. Stoop with sad countenance and blushes burning. Bitter with weariness and sick with sin,— . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Safe to the hidden house of thine abiding Carry the weak knees and the heart that faints, Shield from the scorn and cover from the chiding, Give the world joy, but patience to the saints.
expect it in a measure. "My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. . . . All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me" ( Job 19:14, 19).
1. The Removal of the Atmosphere of Comradeship ( Job 18) There is always an intangible something which makes a friend, it is not what he does, but what he is. You feel the better for being in the presence of some men. Job is suffering because his friends have turned against him; he has lost the atmosphere of comradeship. He has no explanation for what he is going through, no line of exonerating God.
F. W. H. Myers The bitterest hurt in life is to be wounded in the house of your friends; to be wounded by an enemy is bad enough, but it does not take you unawares, you
19. took up the cudgels for: came to the defence of.
The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers 69
(a) The Dignity of Withdrawal ( Job 18:1–4) Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? Mark, and afterwards we will speak. ( Job 18:1–2)
the wicked man is a covert description of Job in his present condition. He recounts what Job has gone through and makes it the experience of a thoroughpaced hypocrite—"I have satisfied my mind that you are a hypocrite; you are suffering because you are bad." Bildad airs his complete knowledge of the psychology of wickedness as God must deal with it, but evidently with as complete an ignorance of God as of man. His indignation with Job is petty, you can almost hear him puffing with righteous annoyance. The friends' speeches prove that when Providence or suffering contradicts any form of credal belief, the holder of the creed becomes vindictive in trying to justify what is threatened, and no longer discerns the truth.
In this withdrawal of comradeship there is an acuteness of suffering which is difficult to state. Job is hurt, and his friends not only tackle his belief, but they have withdrawn all support from him. The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold. The friends have stopped giving this kind of sympathy to Job, instead they say, "We know why it is you suffer." By sticking to his creed a man is able to withdraw with dignity simply because there is so much he does not see.
Bildad is certain that Job is wrong and he is right, and the puzzling thing is that Bildad can prove his statements, while Job has to remain silent. This is one of the biggest stings in life. When a man gets to Reality he has to get there alone, there is no comradeship. He may have had comradeship up to a certain point, then he is told, "Now we have to leave you, you are outside the pale." The men who act like this have the logic of it on their side, but the man who is face to face with facts knows that logic is only an attempt to explain facts, it does not give us the facts. The man who does not believe that the basis of things is tragic may get the best of it in argument, but the man who gets the best of it in fact is the one who believes in God yet has to remain inarticulate.
2. The Reaction of the Affection of Courage ( Job 19) (a) The Appeal of Discouragement ( Job 19:1–5) Then Job answered and said, How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? ( Job 19:1–2)
"Discouragement is disenchanted egotism" (Mazzini), i.e., the heart knocked out of self-love. Job had been in love with his creed, now belief in his creed is gone and he is completely at his wits' end, and from the centre of his discouragement he makes his appeal to the men whom he had a right to expect would stand by him. "You take the side of the Providence of God," he says, "which undoubtedly seems my enemy." This chapter is not only an expression of real agony and sorrow, but also of the stout integrity which will not allow itself to tell a lie for the honour of God. "God seems to be my enemy providentially," says Job, "and you say it is because I am bad; but I say that that is not the reason."
Bildad describes the worst man he can think of, and Job says, "All this has happened to me, and you say therefore I must be a bad man, but I say I am not. You have the logic of your creed, while I have the reality of my experience. The God of your creed is One who would make me an atheist. The God who will explain my experience I have not yet found, but I am confident there is such a God, and meantime I refuse to accept your counterfeit of Him."
(b) The Account of Desolateness ( Job 19:6–20) Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with His net. Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, and there is no judgement. ( Job 19:6–7)
There are countless experiences like Job's to-day; men are being called atheists who are not atheists at all but are simply rebelling against the presentation of God which is being thrust upon them. If to accept a presentation of God means the denial of things he knows to be facts, a man is in a better case who says with Job, "I will not accept an explanation of God which makes me call a fact not a fact."
Job's statements are not coloured, he simply states what has happened to him—everything has gone and no explanation has been given him. There is no bright side to some troubles. There is no reasonable hope for countless lives on account of this war, and it is shallow nonsense to tell them to "cheer up"; life to them is a hell of darkness of the most appalling order. The one who preaches at such a time is an impertinence, but the one who says "I don't know why you are going through this, it is black and desperate, but I will wait with you," is an unspeakable benediction and sustaining. Job has no one to do this for him, his one-time friends simply add to his bitterness; they too have been hit along the line of their creed, and they are indignant and talk only on the religious line.
(b) The Discourse in the Withdrawal
( Job 18:5–21) Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. . . . Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God. ( Job 18:5, 21)
A man has to cover his retreat somehow, and Bildad withdraws in a cloud of rhetoric; his description of