Job 9:31

I FEEL certain that I am sent on a special errand at this time. Before my mind's eye I see a soul whose awful reflections are hurrying him to despair. He refuses counsel, and will not listen to direction, for dread has made him desperate. I would have a word in the ear of that worried and wearied one. See ye not the man? He has battled long against a dark temptation, but at last he is beaten. He feels that he can hold out no longer.

I FEEL certain that I am sent on a special errand at this time. Before my mind's eye I see a soul whose awful reflections are hurrying him to despair. He refuses counsel, and will not listen to direction, for dread has made him desperate. I would have a word in the ear of that worried and wearied one. See ye not the man? He has battled long against a dark temptation, but at last he is beaten. He feels that he can hold out no longer. He can scarcely take breath; the air grows hot and stifling around him, as he faces the question—what next? Accustomed as I am to look down on these crowded aisles and up at these closely-packed galleries, I feel a strange curiosity as I gaze into the mass; for I know that there is one man among all of you to whom I have a private message. I carry despatches from the King of kings to one who is grievously troubled, and is become as a woman forsaken and despised. My Lord and Master described himself in parable as leaving the ninety-and-nine to seek for one lost sheep: I must now copy his example. You will not grudge me for this service, I am sure. I quit the throng that I may find the bewildered one, and bring him safe and sound to the fold. Turning to my text, let me say, that as one is startled by a shriek, or saddened by a groan, so these sharp utterances of Job astonish us at first, and then awake our pity. How much are we troubled with brotherly compassion as we read the words,—"If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me!" The sense of misery couched in this passage baffles description. Yet this is but one of a series, in which sentence after sentence reveals a fresh chamber of horrors.

[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on the same text is #1908, Volume 32—WASHED TO GREATER FOULNESS.] WE are all, by nature and by practice, unclean in the sight of God. However excellent or virtuous we may seem before man, we have all broken God's Law, for that Law requires perfection and we have been far from it. The Law demands spotless holiness towards God and perfect rectitude towards man and, in some point or other, we have all transgressed that Law—and we have therefore become polluted before the thrice-holy Jehovah. The great question which ought to arise in the mind of every one of us is this—"How can I be cleansed before God?" I. We are called upon to remember, first, that TO BE CLEAN IN THE SIGHT OF GOD IS WORTH EVERY POSSIBLE EFFORT. Job speaks of washing himself with snow water and trying to make himself clean. And this he speaks of right earnestly. However far from the hot plains in which he lived, Job might have to send for snowy water—whatever quantity of soap (for in the Hebrew there is an allusion to soap in the second clause)—however much nitre and soap he might have to take in order to wash himself perfectly clean, it was worth all the expense and trouble if only it could be accomplished. And, dear Friends, we must be clean in the sight of God. We must desire to be clean in the sight of God for, if not, we are the objects of His continual displeasure. ' 'God is angry with the wicked every day." This is a solemn Truth of God which is far too much forgotten in the present day. Many have tried to put the thought of it right on one side and held forth only the Doctrine of the Divine Benevolence.

[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on the same text is #1908, Volume 32—WASHED TO GREATER FOULNESS.] WE are all, by nature and by practice, unclean in the sight of God. However excellent or virtuous we may seem before man, we have all broken God's Law, for that Law requires perfection and we have been far from it. The Law demands spotless holiness towards God and perfect rectitude towards man and, in some point or other, we have all transgressed that Law—and we have therefore become polluted before the thrice-holy Jehovah.

And mine own clothes shall abhor me - Such is thine infinite purity, when put in opposition to the purity of man, that it will bear no comparison. Searched and tried by the eye of God, I should be found as a leper, so that my own clothes would dread to touch me, for fear of being infected by my corruption. This is a strong and bold figure; and is derived from the corrupted state of his body, which his clothes dreaded to touch, because of the contagious nature of his disorder.