“Oh that I were as in months past.”—Job 29:2.
For the most part the gracious Shepherd leads his people beside the still waters, and makes them to lie down in green pastures; but at times they wander through a wilderness, where there is no water, and they find no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainteth within them, and they cry unto the Lord in their trouble. Though many of his people live in almost constant joy, and find that religion’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace, yet there are many who pass through fire and through water: men do ride over their heads,—they endure all manner of trouble and sorrow. The duty of the minister is to preach to different characters. Sometimes we admonish the confident, lest they should become presumptuous; oftentimes we stir up the slumbering, lest they should sleep the sleep of death. Frequently we comfort the desponding, and this is our duty this morning—or if not to comfort them, yet to give them some exhortation which may by God’s help be the means of bringing them out of the sad condition into which they have fallen, so that they may not be obliged to cry out for ever—”Oh that I were as in months past!”
At once to the subject. A complaint; its cause and cure; and then close up with an exhortation to stir up your pure minds, if you are in such a position.
I. First, there is a COMPLAINT. How many a Christian looks on the past with pleasure, on the future with dread, and on the present with sorrow! There are many who look back upon the days that they have passed in the fear of the Lord as being the sweetest and the best they have ever had, but as to the present, it is clad in a sable garb of gloom and dreariness. They could wish for their young days over again, that they might live near to Jesus, for now they feel that they have wandered from him, or that he has hidden his face from them, and they cry out, “Oh that I were as in months past!”
1. Let us take distinct cases one by one. The first is the case of a man who has lost the brightness of his evidences, and is crying out, “Oh that I were as in months past!” Hear his soliloquy:—”Oh that my past days could be recalled! Then I had no doubt of my salvation. If any man had asked for the reason of the hope that was in me, I could have answered with meekness and with fear. No doubt distressed me, no fear harassed me; I could say with Paul, ‘I know whom I have believed,’ and with Job, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth;’
‘My steady soul did fear no more
Than solid rocks when billows roar.’
I felt myself to be standing on the rock Christ Jesus. I said—
‘Let cares like a wild deluge come,
And storms of sorrow fall;
Sure I shall safely reach my home,
My God, my heaven, my all’
But ah! how changed it is now! Where there was no cloud it; all cloud; where I could read my ‘my title clear,’ I tremble to read my damnation quite as clearly. I hoped that I trusted in Christ, but now the dark thought rises up, that I was a hypocrite, and had deceived myself and others. The most I can attain to, is—Methinks I will hope in him still; and if I may not be refreshed with the light of his countenance, still in the shadow of his wings will I trust.’ I feel that if I depart from him there is no other Savior; but oh! what thick darkness surrounds me! Like Paul of old, there have been days and nights wherein neither sun, nor moon nor stars have appeared. I have lost my roll in the Arbour of Ease; I cannot now take it out of my breast, and read it to console me on my journey; but I fear that when I get to the end of the way they will deny me entrance, because I came not in by the door to receive his grace and know his love, but have been deceived, have taken carnal fancies for the workings of the Spirit, and have imputed what was but natural conviction to the work of God the Holy Ghost.”
This is one phase, and a very common one. You will meet many who are crying out like that—”Oh that I were as in months past!”
2. Another phase of this great complaint, which it also very frequently assumes, is one under which we are lamenting—not so much because our evidences are withered as because we do not enjoy a perpetual peace of mind as to other matters. “Oh “says one, “Oh that I were as in months past; for then whatever troubles and trials came upon me, were less than nothing. I had learned to sing—
‘Father, I wait thy daily will;
Thou shalt divide my portion still;
Give me on earth what seems thee best,
Till death and heaven reveal the rest.’
I felt that I could give up everything to him; that if he had taken away every mercy I could have said—
‘Yea, if thou take them all away,
Yet will I not repine;
Before they were possessed by me,
They were entirely thine.’
I knew no fear for the future. Like a child on its mother’s breast I slept securely; I said, ‘Jehovah-jireh, my God will provide,’ I put my business into his hands; I went to my daily labor; like the little bird that waketh up in the morning, and knoweth not where its breakfast is to come from, but sitteth on the spray, singing—
‘Mortal, cease from toil and sorrow
God provideth for the morrow;’
so was I. I could have trusted Him with my very life, with wife, with children, with everything, I could give all into his hands, and say each morning, ‘Lord, I have not a will of my own, or if I have one, still, thy will be done; thy wish shall be my wish; thy desire shall be my desire.’ But ‘oh that I were as in months past!’ How changed am I now! I begin fretting about my business; and if I lose now but a live pound note, I am worried incessantly, whereas, if it were a thousand before, I could have thanked the God who took it away as easily as I could the God that gave it to me. How the least thing disturbs me. The least shadow of a doubt as to some calamity that may befall me, rests on my soul like a thick cloud. I am perpetually self-willed, desiring always to have just what I wish. I cannot say I can resign all into his hands; there is a certain something I could not give up. Twined round my heart there is an evil plant called self-love. It has twisted its roots within the very nerves and sinews of my soul. There is something I love above my God. I cannot give up all now; but ‘oh that I were as in months past!’ For then my mercies were real mercies, because they were God’s mercies. “Oh,” says he, “‘that I were as in months past!’ I should not have had to bear such trouble as I have now, for though the burden might have pressed heavily, I would have cast it on the Lord. Oh! that I knew the heavenly science of taking the burdens off my own shoulders, and laying them on the Rock that supports them all! Oh! if I knew how to pour out my griefs and sorrows as I once did! I have been a fool, an arrant fool, a very fool, that I should have run away from that sweet confidence I once had in the Savior! I used then to go to his ear, and tell him all my griefs.
‘My sorrows and my griefs I poured
Into the bosom of my God;
He helped me in the trying hour,
He helped me bear the heavy load.’
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
