Job 7:21

It is a figure, from one seeking a sick man in the morning, and finding he has died in the night. So Job implies that, if God does not help him at once, it will be too late, for he will be gone. The reason why God does not give an immediate sense of pardon to awakened sinners is that they think they have a claim on God for it.

NO man should rest until he is sure that his sin is forgiven. It may be forgiven and he may be sure that it is forgiven—and he ought not to give rest to his eyes, nor slumber to his eyelids till he has been assured, with absolute certainty that his transgression is pardoned and that his iniquity is taken away. You, dear Friends, may be patient under suffering, but not patient under sin. You may ask for healing with complete resignation to the will of God as to whether He will grant it to you, but you should ask for pardon with importunity, feeling that you must have it. You may not be sure that it is God's will to deliver you from disease, but you may be quite certain that it is His will to hear you when you cry to Him to save you from sin. And if at your first crying unto Him, you are not saved, seek to know the reason why He is refusing to grant you the blessing you so much desire. It is quite legitimate to put this question to God again and again, "Why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?" We also ought to press this matter home upon our own heart and conscience, to see whether we cannot discover the reason why pardon is, for a while, withheld from us, for God never acts arbitrarily and without reason. And, depend upon it, if we diligently search by the light of the candle of the Lord, we shall be able to find an answer to this question of Job, "Why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?" Job's question may sometimes be asked by a child of God, but it may be more frequently asked by others who, as yet, are not brought consciously into the Lord's family. I. I shall first take our text as A QUESTION THAT MAY BE ASKED, AS IN JOB'S CASE, BY A TRUE CHILD OF God—"Why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?" Sometimes, beloved Friends, this question is asked under a misapprehension.

And why dost thou not pardon - These words are spoken after the manner of men. If thou have any design to save me, if I have sinned, why dost thou not pardon my transgression, as thou seest that I am a dying man; and to-morrow morning thou mayest seek me to do me good, but in all probability I shall then be no more, and all thy kind thoughts towards me shall be unavailing? If I have sinned, then why should not I have a part in that mercy that flows so freely to all mankind? That Job does not criminate himself here, as our text intimates, is evident enough from his own repeated assertions of his innocence. And it is most certain that Bildad, who immediately answers, did not consider him as criminating but as justifying himself; and this is the very ground on which he takes up the subject. Were we to admit the contrary, we should find strange inconsistencies, if not contradictions, in Job’s speeches: on such a ground the controversy must have immediately terminated, as he would then have acknowledged that of which his friends accused him; and here the book of Job would have ended.

And why dost thou not pardon my transgression? - Admitting that I have sinned Job 7:20, yet why dost thou not forgive me? I shall soon pass away from the land of the living. I may be sought but I shall not be found. No one would be injured by my being pardoned - since I am so short-lived, and so unimportant in the scale of being. No one can be benefited by pursuing a creature of a day, such as I am, with punishment. Such seems to be the meaning of this verse.