Those were the days - Job 29 - 31185

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When Job says, I longed for the months gone by and for the days that I was in my prime, he's not really asking that there might be a return of the wealth which has been lost. It's not so much the funds and the family that is concerning Job. The thing that once, that causes him to say, I wish I was back in the good old days of yesteryear, is because those were days when he had a consciousness of God.

Look at the latter part of verse 4, when God's intimate friendship blessed my house. This is Job's difficulty you see. He's lost a triplet of blessing.

First of all he's lost the protection of God. Look at the second part of verse 2, the days when God watched over me. Secondly he's lost the illumination which God brings when his lamp shone upon my head.

Verse three and what's more he's lost the guidance that God gives and by his light I walk through darkness. Now if you put those three things together and you imagine Job's circumstances you can empathize you can sympathize with him and understand why he's saying how I long for the months of gone by the days when I was in my prime. Now let me hasten on to make a leading observation and to open it out in front of you.

The experience that you come across in these verses I argue very emphatically is not uncommon. This experience is not an uncommon one. I want to move a motion from this pulpit and I'm expecting a unanimous agreement to what I'm saying that anyone who is more than a year in Christ that is no more than 12 months following their conversion has at some time or other perhaps not using exactly the same language but locked into what Job is here saying and cried oh for the days when I was in my prime, oh for a return of the early period of my Christian conversion.

It's not an uncommon experience and for Job there's every justification at one level for him wanting to turn the clock back for asking God not only to stop the Sun in its course but to bring the past back to the present. You see he was a man who had great influence look at the seventh verse. When I went to the gate of the city you see he's an alderman.

An alderman in those days had a specific place by the gate of the city or by the square of the city where they used to adjudicate in court disputes. And when Job went to his position the young men who saw him stepped aside and the old men who were sitting there rose in respect and influential men when they saw that Job was coming they stopped their conversation and they allowed Job to get on with his business. But all these things you see have changed for Job.

The days as he poetically puts it verse 6 when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil all that's gone the cream is sour the oil has thickened and Job's experience is plagued with unpleasantness and it's because of this that he cries oh for the days when I was in my prime oh for the return of the good old days of yesteryear. But basically I've argued Job wants to go back because of the fact that then he knew God and now it seems as though he doesn't. The days when God watched over me.

Now there are Christian people who will identify immediately with that. You know William Cooper's hymn? Where is the blessedness I knew when first I sought the Lord? The months have gone by the years have been brought into history and when you consider your situation right now you appreciate that you don't have the same spiritual verb and vitality that you used to have. And so you sing as the poet allows you oh for the blessedness I knew all for the return of the days of yesterday.

I wonder if that's just how you do feel this morning. There are a number of reasons why you might have this particular concern. You see maybe you lived during the the ministry of some great man of God.

You sat in the shadow of a leading pulpit. You heard righteousness preached in the great congregation. You were in this swim of things in a real move of God's Spirit and now well the latter house seems not to have the glory of the former.

And the earlier years were much better in your life than your experience now. Or maybe there was time years gone by when you were really at the hub of Christian activity. You led a group.

You were in a ministry. You were the center of at least some attention. And you loved the Lord but you enjoyed the activity in which you engaged.

But now things are that much more different. And it seems as though well you've lost out. You slipped down a few rungs.

You haven't got the same thrill the same enjoyment that you used to have. And so the plea leads your heart. Oh for the days when I was in my prime.

You see my friends there are many examples of this. These sentiments of Job. They are such that we can identify with them.

That's why I say thank God for the honesty of the Bible. Here's Job warts and all and he's looking for the days that have gone and wished that they could come back. I speak with reverence.

But here's our blessed Lord. On that holy pathway from the upper room down to the leafy garden of Gethsemane it's night. The illumination comes from the full moon.

And our Savior's engaged in a holy prayer. He speaks to the Eternal Father and he says Father glorify now thy Son with the glory that we had before the world was. The return of a more pleasant era.

That seems to be in the mind of our Lord Jesus. Yes I argue these sentiments of Job as he longs for the good old days are such that we can identify because this experience is not uncommon. But let me add to that opening observation that with the exception of our Lord Jesus such sentiments as these might well require qualification.

You see that there's nothing that one can get more romantic about than the past. And you can very often exaggerate the value of the past and underrate the value of the present. We're all romantics to some degree.

I've never really agreed with the philosophy of William Shakespeare when he puts into the words of Mark Antony in the funeral oration of Julius Caesar. The bad in men lives after them the good is often third within their bones. I discover that it's very often the good that is noised around and the bad is forgotten.

And the same applies sometimes with the experiences of the past. I love to read history but I dissent to the viewpoint that the Victorian era was such a great era. There are some who will tell us of the full churches of the Victorians and the noble morality of those people.

And you've only to read Charles Dickens and have that blown apart and see that the cobwebs have really just distorted the picture. Full churches yes but there was an element of compulsion in church attendance. Morality well look at upstairs and downstairs and the difference between the way certain people lived to the way the the majority lived the morality of the Victorians well I'll be more convinced if I could find less evidence of the body houses and the mistresses and so on and so forth.

Now don't misunderstand me I don't want to overstretch my case all I am trying to substantiate is this that it is not necessarily the case that the past is as good as or was that much better than the present. I quote there's a universal tendency to exaggerate the past and undervalue the present. But it seems to me that the Bible itself gives little warrant to this viewpoint that it must always be the past that occupies particularly aging people as being the time when they rate God's blessing as being the highest.

You see it seems to me that the whole of Scripture rears up and it argues against this because we find such choice versus as it well for example the path of the just is as a shining light which shines more and more unto the glorious day. Here is not a great light that eventually is reduced to that of a candle. Here is a small light that increases and increases and increases and increases.

Or maybe you like the idea of the Psalmist in Psalm 92 when he has this to say the righteous will flourish like a palm tree they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord they will flourish in the courts of our God they will still bear fruit in old age they will stay fresh and green. The authorized version puts it they shall be fat and flourishing. Maybe you'd prefer the NIV in this occasion.

They will still bear fruit in old age they will stay fresh and green proclaiming the Lord is upright. You see what I am arguing is this that the change of circumstances does not necessarily indicate that God's blessing upon your life is going to be reduced. Rather the opposite could be the case and I shall seek to show you that even for Job though he makes this pronouncement wanting the return of yesterday that his circumstances of the present are not such that God cannot bless him in the most remarkable if at this moment in time for Job the most secret fashion.

So what have I suggested so far? Well these sentiments of Job how I long for the months gone by oh for the days when I was in my prime are sentiments which find common expression amongst people and yet I've gone so far as to argue that they are not necessarily adequate they're not necessarily accurate rather. And let me lead on this for a moment and say that it seems to me that here Job is failing to grasp the total sovereignty of God. He's failing to grasp the total sovereignty of God.

Now one doesn't put such a point to counter Job but likely it's with temerity that I raise this because I recognize the greatness the splendor of Job. Verse 21 of this chapter speaks of men with whom I would identify myself in response to Job. Men listened to me expectantly waiting in silence for my counsel.

After I had spoken they spoke no more. My words fell gently on their ears. They waited for me as for showers.

When I smiled at them they scarcely believed it. I chose the way for them and sat as their chief. You don't likely come to a point like this and say to Job that he has a misunderstanding or a short-sightedness in regard to the sovereignty of God.

But you know the best of men are still men at best. And there was a time when Samuel had to correct Saul. There was a time when Peter had to be corrected by Paul.

And we cannot bend God's Word even for the reputation of such a man as Job. Where lies the problem? Where is his theological error? We speak with tenderness and compassion. But listen to me and apply logic my dear friend this morning.

For you need help as much as Job needed help in his day. How I long for the months gone by. For the days when God watched over me.

When his lamp shone upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness. Oh for the days when I was in my prime. Now tell me what is he inferring? That God is now absent.

That God is now no longer on the scene. Then there was God but now there isn't. Then there was vigilance but now there's carelessness.

Then he was present but now he is absent. And I say that breaks belief in the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God. If it is true as we're told in the first part of this book that the devil goes restlessly to and fro around the world.

How much more true is it that the eyes of God are ever vigilant towards his own people. And you'll get that poetic expression in the New Testament of the eyes of the Lord running around the world. His intelligence is greater than that of the devil's.

The Good Shepherd of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. And when Job is by his his downhill. When he's by the ashes outside the city wall.

It is not true to say that God has not Job within his sights. Here is a failure to grasp total sovereignty. My friend I know not what befell your path this past week.

Let alone this past year or these past five years. I speak tenderly to senior citizens. It may not be easy to go through life on your own now being bereft of your partner.

But the God who was sovereign during the days of your marriage remains sovereign during the days of your enforced widowhood. He is the God who has his eye upon you and his lamp is not extinguished. And by his light however feebly you see it.

You can walk through the darkness. You see Job has failed to appreciate this. And I can say this with sincerity because I so often fail myself in this area.

He's failed to believe that all our tomorrows pass before God ere they reach us. If you forget everything else this morning take that as a boat from heaven for you. All your future he scans before he allows it to be a present reality.

That I must believe because the doctrine is written throughout the whole of Scripture. Jehovah God is not locked in by such categories as the past and the future. He is the eternal I am and there is not one thing that befalls you that he is unaware of.

For his sovereignty remains absolute. Our Lord Jesus Christ we're told in a most mysterious verse in Hebrews, learned obedience through the things that he suffered. And the crucible of suffering becomes an academy in the purposes of God.

And Job is in that crucible. God only had one son without sin. He never had any sons without sorrow.

Our Lord identifies with the experiences of his children. Job in the early books of the Bible and all of Job's descendants who have gone through experiences which are similar at least in principle to the one that he goes through. It is untrue to say those past days were the ones when God was in attendance over me.

But now he's gone out on holiday. You remember the vision that Pharaoh had? The seven fat cows, the seven thin cows. And how mysteriously the thin cows ate up the fat cows.

No wonder Pharaoh was perplexed that Joseph was around. And Joseph the interpreter of dreams, Joseph the man with prosthetic insight, the man who had audience often with God, came and relieved Pharaoh of his ignorance. And he set forth a principle which I think has timeless value.

My friend, when you have the fat years, ensure that you're storing up spiritual food for the thin years. Draw from the bank of the past to enable you to cope with the present. And remember his love in times past forbids me to think.

He'd leave me at last in trouble to think. Each bold Ebenezer, each time that God answered prayer, I hold in review, confirms his good pleasure to see me right through. Job we revere, we honor you, we stand when you come in our presence.

We will close our mouths when you speak, but this thing we will not allow you to get away with. A defective understanding of the sovereignty of God, he is as near to you, Job, even though a dimension is open in your experience of which you are utterly unaware, but he is as near and as caring for you now as he was in the days when your wealth was intact and your family were with you and you were joyous in your household. There's a failure to grasp God's total sovereignty.

And finally, and somewhat quickly, I argue here is a defective view of what constitutes the prime days. Oh for the days when I was in my prime. Have you thought this through my friend? There are three categories to the experience of Job that we know of.

The beginning, which is pleasant at the human level, the materialistic level. The middle, which is the largest part of the category in as much as it takes so many chapters of Scripture to rehearse. And then right at the end, in the final chapter, the last part of Job's career as we know it.

Now think this through for a moment, I think I've got logic on my side. Forget the middle and only have the outsides. Would Job really be significant? If it was a good story at the beginning and a good story at the end, but you knew nothing of the middle, would you really be pouring through the book of Job when you feel depressed and despondent yourself? No you say, I wouldn't.

Why not? Well, you see, it's the contents in the middle that really absorb our interest. Here is a man who's tried, he's under pressure, he's under greater strain than the majority of us have ever been under. And yet what is he able to say? Well he voices such sentiments as these, speaking of God and his own experience at the hands of God.

Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. That's almost an Everest peak in spirituality, but Job is going to beat that one in the grace of God. He will, at one point in his experience, though bitter it be, he will be raised out of it and he will see right through to the beyond.

And though he acknowledges that he might die, he is able to say, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom mine eyes shall see for themselves. Now I say, you get no greater verse in the Old Testament than that one. The idea that beyond death there is another life, the idea of resurrection, the idea that I know that my Redeemer liveth, and on the earth he will stand.

Now when does Job come to all these great conclusions? Not at the beginning, and not at the end, although obviously they're there with him at the end, but he's driven to them in the middle. You see this is what makes the book so attractive. This is the reason why we can say that real education begins when a man enrolls in that international school of learning, the school of hard knocks.

When you're up against it, when there are tremendous pressures breaking out on your life, it's then that you really enter into the academy of higher learning. And it's during this period in Job's life that that it is heightened, just occasionally, but don't, because it's only occasionally, undervalue what he has to say. You can find no higher peak in the whole of Scripture than some of the things that Job has to say as he's sitting there by the ash heap outside of his city.

What's happening? Well you see, God is intervening in a most miraculous way in the life of Job. Job has been smitten by Satan. He doesn't appreciate what's going off in the heavenly realm.

He's only coming gradually to an understanding of these great principalities and powers, and the warfare in which a man like Job at the beginning of time is engaged in. But we see, back through the whole sweep of Scripture, a marvelous illustration of wrestling, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. And how God can use even principalities and powers that are malevolent and evil, to bring into a man those virtues that He wants him to acquire.

When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man. When God wants to mold a man, to play the noblest part. When He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man, that all the world shall be amazed.

Watch His methods, watch His ways. How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects. How He hammers him and hurts him, and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay, which God only understands.

While His tortured heart is crying, and He lifts beseeching hands. How He bends but never breaks, when His good He undertakes. For He uses what He chooses, and with every purpose fuses, by every act induces Him to try His splendor out.

God knows what He's about. Oh for the days of my prime. Job man, you're in your prime now.

This is the day of your prime, for this is the day that the Lord has made Job. And ultimately, as you trust Him, the sunshine will break through, and the understanding will become much more clear. But we thank you Job, in the providence of God, that you went through your experience.

And as we dare to create, to correct one aspect of your theology, you help us to realize, to realize what? That the good old days shouldn't rob us of the value of the present days, and cause us to look doubtfully into the future. For all these days are God's days, and the sovereignty of God is available today, as it will be tomorrow, and as it was yesterday. Father it may be that there's been some heart here, in fact we're sure it's the case, for whom this message was tailor-made, may not only have fitted their circumstances, but may it compel them to go out into the rest of this day, believing that their experience is firmly covered by the arms of God.

And may they know that your lamp is still strapped across their forehead, and that your light will therefore illuminate their darkness, and your joy shall be their consolation, and ultimately your explanation shall be their satisfaction. Continue to give us a faith, like Job, and bring us through, and even in the pain of difficulty, help us to be able to say, I know that my Redeemer lives, and one day, in his company, I'll understand what now baffles me. Create a greater faith, O God, amongst this congregation, and take us into that academy of higher learning, where the knocks are seen to be part of your instructive process, for the Savior's sake.

Amen. Let's go to 416 in Hymns of Faith. The hymn chosen, you remember, I mentioned this some while ago by the pastor of the Peking Tabernacle, when he'd been released from jail some 26 years, most of which were spent in solitary confinement.

He went asked by a friend of mine, what he had to say in terms of testimony, in regard to the grace of God, while he was in prison. He simply sang this hymn, All the way my Savior leads me, what have I to ask beside? I plead God that the pastor of Worthing Tabernacle might have a faith, like that dear elderly Chinese brother. 416.

Let's stand, we'll sing the second verse and accompany it. All the way my Savior leads me. Gives me grace for ev'ry trial.

Now, Father, may some of us have found our moorings again this morning, as a result of being here in this tabernacle. Bless your word to our hearts, may it linger on. Bless the fellowship that we've already enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy throughout this day.

Bring us under the sound of the gospel message, and around the holy table of our Lord Jesus this evening. And do us good, and get from our hearts and our lives this coming week, the honor and glory that's due to your name. Father, may your benediction rest upon each one here.

The blessing of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and until that day, when the shadows fade, and we stand in your immediate presence. Amen.