“Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.”—Job 33:24.
Let never be forgotten that, in all that God does, he acts from good reasons. You observe that the text, speaking of the sick man, represents God as saying, “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.” If I understand the passage as relating solely to a sick man, and take the words just on the natural common level where some place them, I would still say that the Lord here gives a reason why he suspends the operations of pain and disease, and raises up the sufferer: “I have found a ransom.” There is always a reason for every act of grace which God performs for man. He acts sovereignly, and therefore he is not bound to give any reason for his actions; but he always acts wisely, and therefore he has a reason for so acting. Writing to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul says that God “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” It is not an arbitrary will, but a will arising out of the wisdom and holiness of his character. So God has a reason for raising men up from their sickness, but that reason is found, not in them, but in himself. The sick man does not give God a reason for restoring him, but God finds it himself: “I have found a ransom.” Possibly, the man does not even know the reason for his restoration; he may be so blind of heart that he does not care to think whether there is any reason for it or not; but God finds a reason for his mercy, and finds it entirely in himself. He is gracious to whom he will be gracious, and he has compassion on whom he will have compassion. So let each one of us think, “If I have been raised from sickness, if my life, which was almost gone, has been spared, I may not know why God has done it, but certainly he has done it in infinite wisdom and compassion: and it is only right for me to feel that a life which has been so remarkably prolonged ought to be entirely dedicated unto him who has prolonged it.”
Having begun my sermon with that thought, I shall take a deep dive, and go to another and a fuller meaning of our text, if not more true than this which I have first mentioned. Beloved friends, there is a higher restoration than recovery from bodily sickness. There is such a thing as sickness of the soul which is, in God’s esteem, far worse than disease of body; and, blessed be his name, there is such a thing as recovery from soul-sickness even to those who are so far gone that they appear to be going down into the pit. God can deal with sinners when they are on the very brink of hell. He can deal in love with them when the soil slips from under their feet, and they themselves are about to dash into that pit that is bottomless. We can come in even then and rescue them to the praise of the glory of his grace.
I. Now, coming to our text, I shall ask you, first, to look with me upon a MAN IN GREAT PERIL.
That man is here to-night, let him look to himself, and may God help him to see himself as a man in great peril! This is his peril; he is “going down to the pit.” That phrase describes his whole life, going down, down, down; and the end of that going down, unless the Lord shall deliver him, will be that, ere long, he will go down finally into the pit of destruction.
Notice, first, that this is a daily and common danger. In some respects, this man in peril is a representative of each one of us. If we are unconverted, if we are unrenewed by divine grace, every one of us is in danger of going down into the pit of woe. Think of it; there may be, my friend, but a step between thee and death. Only the other morning, there was one, well known to many of us, who spoke with his friends apparently in health; he retired from the room for a moment, and they wondered where he was as he did not come back. They sought him out, and found that he was dead; he was gone, as in a moment. Blessed be God, we have a sure and certain hope that, though he has gone down into the grave, he could go no lower, for his soul was at once with his Savior, and out of that grave his body shall arise at the sounding of the last trumpet; but as for un-converted men and women, they may be in hell ere the clock ticks again. It is a terrible reflection, my unsaved friend, to think how little there is between you and eternity. How thin is the wall! “Wall”—did I call it? Rather let me say, how thin the gauze! “Gauze”—did I call it? There is no word in our own or any other language that can adequately express the nearness of eternity. We are here,—and we are gone,—gone into the presence of God in a single instant, gone to render to the Judge of all our last account. You are going, friend, you are going down to the pit unless sovereign mercy shall step in and prevent it.
Further, there are some who, of set purpose, are going down to the pit. In this chapter, Elihu said of some that God sends sickness to them that he may withdraw them from their purpose. Some seem to be desperately bent on mischief, as if they were determined to ruin themselves. How often do we see it in the case of a young man who has been well brought up, when he comes into possession of his money, and gets what he calls his liberty, nothing that he has learnt in his youth appears to restrain him! No tearful admonitions are any check upon him; he appears to be resolved to destroy himself. We have known some cases of that kind, and we know others now. Oh, if they were as determined to be right as they are resolved to be wrong, they might greatly help to turn the world upside down! But, alas! they seem to spare no expense to ensure their own destruction, they are in a dreadful hurry to be rid of all their property, to bring their body into a state of disease, and to bring their soul into a state of damnation. They cannot do enough to secure their own destruction, they even lay violent hands upon their own characters, as if they were insatiably at enmity with their own souls. Many of you know such people as I am describing; and you know that they are going down to the pit. By what are called amusements, by what are said to be pleasures, but which are really only grovelling degradations of the soul to the worst purposes of the flesh, all these men are going down to the pit. It is a dreadful state for anyone to be in, yet I am even now addressing some who are in just such a condition; I feel sure that I am. May the description, brief as it is, be complete enough to let the sinner see himself as he really is,—in imminent peril of going down into the pit!
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
