07. The misapplication of truth
The misapplicationof truth And now Satan renewed the attack through friend Eliphaz. Poisoned arrows were shot through his lips: ’Thou hast instructed many’ (Job 4:3-8). It is terrible when Satan can thus fix a poor believer’s thoughts on himself. ’What!’ says he, ’is this you? You, that profess so much — you that instruct others — you that are looked up to? Pretty dishonour you will bring upon the name of Christ, if all that you are comes out before the world. Your sin is fearful, from the very profession you make’.
Yes and sometimes he would like to persuade the trembling soul, that its sin is so aggravated, by being so great a professor, that now it cannot be pardoned; and then, if that will not do, quick as thought, he gives the thrust he gave to Job, ’Even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same’.’By the blast of God they perish’. This is the thin end of Satan’s great wedge. It is the first insinuation that Job is a hypocrite. We shall find this wedge driven, blow after blow, as we go on in the book.
Let the believer beware of Satan’s wedge. He may insinuate, ’Yes, it is all quite true for all those that are the Lord’s people. Certainly they have redemption through the blood of Christ. I do not want you to doubt that. But may I not ask’, continues Satan, ’would you be so bad if you were a child of God: are you not a hypocrite, think you?’ This is a piece of ground over which, where the Christian goes, he gets a sore buffeting. But it is quite true that they that sow iniquity reap the same. And it will yet be true. By the blast of God they perish. But then this was misapplied to Job. It would have been misapplied to Peter, though he denied his Lord. It would have been right, applied to Judas. He sowed iniquity. He sought opportunity to betray his Master. Not so Peter. Though in the presence of temptation, he found himself utterly without strength. This is just the difference between a believer and a hypocrite. Sin is not the believer’s object: his lip does not seek opportunities to betray Christ, though, like Peter in the presence of temptation, he may find himself as weak as water.
Now, it was this misapplication of truth that Satan so used in the speeches of Job’s friends. Job 6:1-30 shows that this gave Job a terrible shaking. ’He said, Oh, that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now would it be heavier than the sand of the sea’.’For the arrows of the Almighty are within me; the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit. The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me’. This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If Job had but known it, God was for him.
How great is the distress of soul when Satan can thus insinuate that God is against the believer! How he will magnify every trial, every affliction! ’There’, says he, ’does not that show you are a hypocrite, and that God is against you? There now; He will deal with you as your sins deserve’. Yes, and how ready the unbelieving heart is to say, ’It must be so. Surely no one felt such despairing feelings as I feel. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me. I thought I was such a good Christian, but now I find my sins deserve the lowest hell’. So deep was the anguish of Job under this temptation, that he desired God to destroy him. Whether asleep or awake, he finds no comfort. He finds none that understand his case. And thus he sinks in his bitterness, deeper and deeper. And when the believer is really passing through these deep waters, how few there are that thoroughly understand his case! I only know of one such; I am going to tell about him presently.