June 12

O that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! - Job 23:3.

OBSERVE here the object of the patriarch’s solicitude. Although he does not express the name of God, his mind was full of it. Here we see an addition to his distress; he was now in a state of desertion. God was absent from him. God can never be absent from his people as to his essential presence, or even as to his Spiritual presence; because he hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” But he may be absent as to his sensible presence, or as to the manifestation of his favour and of the design of his dealings with us. This greatly enhances any external affliction.

For the presence of God, which is always necessary, is never so sweet as it is in the day of trouble; and often have his people found, when creatures have withdrawn that God has favoured them with peculiar communion with himself: the less they have had of the world, the more they have had of the Word-the less of earthly the more of heavenly good. But oh, to have tribulation in the world without realizing peace in him, and comfort from him: to say with David, “My bones are vexed,” and to add, “My soul is also vexed; but thou, O Lord, how long?” Yet let none imagine that this is peculiar to them. Isaiah says,” Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.” “He hideth himself from the house of Jacob.” This was Job’s case here. God had retired, and though searching he could not find him. “I go forward,” says he, “but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him. On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him.” Therefore, “O that I knew where I might find him.”

Observe, Secondly, The earnestness of his desire. “That I might come even to his seat.” Nearness to God in duty is a very distinguishable thing from the mere exercise itself. There is such a thing as praying in prayer, and praising in praise, and hearing in hearing. This should be our concern; for in vain we draw near to God with our mouth, while our heart is far from him. To “enter into the secret of his tabernacle,” as David did, to “enter into the holiest of all,” as the apostle speaks of, “by the blood of Jesus,” to get near to his very seat, as Job has it here, to get so near as almost to get away from feeling the influence of the world-leaving it very far behind for the time-to draw so near to him as to see his beauty, and as to feel his influence-so near as to have our hearts fixed and fired and filled too. This is a possible thing, and should be our aim in our public and private devotions, and will be so in proportion as we are concerned to have the life of God advanced in our souls.