Three things, then, we get in the first sentence,–an exactness of obedience, a tenacity of grip upon that which is good, and a promptness in endeavoring to keep touch with God, and to follow him in all respects. May these things be in us and abound.
We now pass on to the second sentence. I am afraid you will say, “Spare us, for even unto the first sentence we have not yet attained.” Labor after it then, beloved; forgetting the things that are behind except to weep over them, press forward to that which is before. May God give you those sensitive grasping feet which we have tried to describe: feet that take hold on the Lord’s way, and may you throughout life keep that hold; for “blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.”
The next sentence runneth thus: “His way have I kept”; that is to say, Job had adhered to God’s way as the rule of his life. When he knew that such-and-such a thing was the mind of God, either by his conscience telling him that it was right, or by a divine revelation, then he obeyed the intimation and kept to it. He did not go out of God’s way to indulge his own fancies, or to follow some supposed leader: to God’s way he kept from his youth, even till the time when the Lord himself said of him, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” The Lord gave him this character to the devil, who could not deny it, and did not attempt to do so, but only muttered, “Doth Job serve God for nought? Hast thou not set a hedge about him and all that he hath?” When he uttered our text Job could have replied to the malicious accuser that, even when God had broken down his hedges and laid him waste, he had not sinned nor charged God foolishly. He heeded not his wife’s rash counsels to curse God and die, but he still blessed the divine name even though everything was taken from him. What noble words are those: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Though bereft of all earthly comfort, he did not forsake the way of holiness, but still kept to his God.
Keeping to the way signifies not simply adherence, but continuance and progress in it. Job had gone on in the ways of God year after year. He had not grown tired of holiness, nor weary of devotion, neither had he grown sick of what men call straight-laced piety. He had kept the way of God on, and on, and on, delighting in what Coverdale’s version calls God’s “high street” –the highway of holiness. The further he went the more pleasure he took in it, and the more easy he found it to his feet, for God was with him and kept him, and so he kept God’s way. “Thy way have I kept.” He means that notwithstanding there were difficulties in the way he persevered in it. It was stormy weather, but Job kept to the old road; the sleet beat in his face, but he kept his way: he had gone that path in fair weather, and he was not going to forsake his God now that the storms were out; and so he kept his way. Then the scene changed, the sun was warm, and all the air was redolent with perfume, and merry with the song of birds, but Job kept his way. If God’s providence flooded his sky with sunshine he d id not forsake God because of prosperity, as some do, but kept his way–kept his way when it was rough, kept his way when it was smooth. When he met with adversities he did not turn into a bye-road, but traveled the King’s highway, where a man is safest, for those who dare to assail him will have to answer for it to a higher power. The high street of holiness is safe because the King’s guarantee is given that “no lion shall be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon.” The righteous shall hold on his way, and so did Job, come fair, come foul. When there were others in the road with him, and when there were none, he kept his way. He would not even turn aside for those three good men, or men who thought themselves good, who sat by the wayside and miserably comforted, that is to say, tormented him; he kept God’s way, as one whose mind is made up and whose face is set like a flint. There was no turning him, he would fight his way if he could not have it peaceably. I like a man whose mind is set upon being right with God, a self-contained man by God’s grace, who does not want patting on the back and encouraging, and who on the other hand does not care if he is frowned at, but has counted the cost and abides by it. Give me a man who has a backbone; a brave fellow who has grit in him. It is well for a professor when God has put some soul into him, and made a man of him for if a. Christian man is not a man as well as a Christian, he will not long remain a Christian man. Job was firm: a well-made character that did not shrink in the wetting. He believed his God, he knew God’s way, and he kept to it under all circumstances from his first start in life even until that day when he sat on a dunghill and transformed it into a throne, whereon he reigned as among all mere men, the peerless prince of patience. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and of this as one part of it, that he kept the way of the Lord.
Now, dear brethren, on this second clause let me utter this word of self-examination. Have we, kept God’s way? Have we got into it and do we mean to keep it still? Some are soon hot and soon cold; some set out for the New Jerusalem like Pliable, very eagerly, but the first slough of despond they tumble into shakes their resolution, and they crawl out on the homeward side and go back to the world again. There will be no comfort in such temporary religion, but dreadful misery when we come to consider it on a dying bed. Changeful Pliables will find it hard to die. O to be constant even to the end, so as to say, “My foot. hath held his steps, his way have I kept.” God grant us grace to do it, by his Spirit abiding in us.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
