All Blessings Found in a Knowledge of God

Job xxii. 21-30.

SCRIPTURE is its own interpreter. It is by comparing one passage with another that we arrive at its meaning. Sometimes a flood of h’ght is thrown upon a text by studying it simply in connection with the context. The passage before us is a case in point. The twenty-first verse is the text, the verses that follow, right on to the end of the chapter, we may call the sermon. They are just an unfolding of the truth contained in the text.

Two questions are suggested by the opening words of this passage, ist. How (Ru.i

is God to be known? 2nd. In what does the “good” here promised consist?

I. How IS God to be Known?

Can God be known? Is it possible for finite creatures to comprehend the infinite, the eternal God? No man can know God as He is in Himself. We can only know God in relation to ourselves. We can only know Him so far as He has been pleased to reveal Himself to us.

If God had not sent us a revelation, all our thoughts and conceptions of Him would be nothing more than mere speculation. But in the Holy Scriptures we have an unveiling of His character, a manifestation of His name. God may be known. “Acquaint now thyself with Him.” “But how?” you ask; “what are the means to be used?” The twenty-second verse gives us the answer. “Receive, I pray thee, the law from His mouth.”

God is to be known by a humble reception of the inspired word, the message He has sent. h^-’^^yuUf f h-^ — ^’ “Receive.” Man’s first thought when he begins to seek God is not receiving, but giving, or doing. He thinks, “What shall I bring to God? How may I propitiate my way into His favour? What shall I do to obtain eternal life? How shall I construct a ladder by which I may climb to heaven?” God says, “Receive.” His first word is, Accept. It is not a ladder for you to climb, but a message for you to receive. It is not, in the first place, man ascending, but God descending. God sends you His word, like a ray of light from heaven. Take it in, let it penetrate into your soul. Take down the shutters, and let the light flood your whole being. It comes to tell you what God is. It comes to unveil the truth; not to create what does not exist, but to disclose what is already a fact. It couies to make God known to us, to declare His Name, His Character. To show us Himself.

I Thess
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Jiuih Now such a revelation revolutionizes all our thoughts. It changes all our preconceived notions. It removes our prejudices and adjusts all our conceptions of things. “Behold, all things become new.”

Receive it “from His mouth.” That is, take it directly from Him. Take it as the word of the living God. The Aposde tells the Thessalonian converts that it was this that caused him so much joy. “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” But more than this, we must know what it is to meditate upon it — we must inwardly digest it. “Lay up His words in thine heart.” Perhaps it is this that is especially needed in this busy age. There is much hearing, but how little there is of meditation and of prayerful thought!

God’s word is like seed. Every grain of wheat has a germ of life in it. But how is that life to be called forth into activity? It must be sown. It is not the earth that gives it life. It is not the moisture that quickens it. The life is there already. All it needs is to call it forth. Bury it, and the latent life will begin to manifest itself The imprisoned life will burst forth. So it is with the word of God.

It is full of life. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” But the word needs to be sown in a human heart. It needs to be buried in the minds and affections of men. Hide it there, and it will make itself felt and seen. ‘’ Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.” In that quickening, living, and active word, we shall see a revelation of God. We get to know God by receiving the living Word.

But, again, we acquaint ourselves with John vi. 63.

Ps.c.x

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■If God by entering into a right relation to God.

“Be at peace.” That is, tjike the place of a reconciled soul. Be at peace, not niake your peace with God. Christ has done that. Peace is already made — accept it. Fall in with God’s terms. “Be ye reconciled to God.” Don’t propose any conditions of your own. Come over on His side. This is to return. Don’t argue with God. Qonfession becomes us rather than controversy. * — (

“Put away iniquity far from thy tents.” Separation unto God means separation from all unrighteousness. God and sin are eternally opposed. If we love the one we shall hate the other. Put away iniquity — that is, put away the secret spoils and unrighteous gains, things acquired by violence and extortion and unfair means. You cannot bring them to the light, and ask God’s blessing on them. Well then, put them away.

Renounce all false grounds of trust, and let God alone be thy confidence. This comes out in the words of the twenty-fourth and twenty fifth verses. Mark the contrast. “Lay thou thy treasure in the dust.... And the Almighty shall be thy treasure.” Consider what thy treasure might be. Treasures represent anything which we prize highly, that we value dearly. It may be worldly position; it may be material wealth; it may be natural gifts; it may be intellectual or spiritual powers. All these things, good as they are in themselves, are not to occupy the place that belongs to God alone. The Almighty God Himself is to be thy treasure. All your resources must be in Him. “All my springs are in Thee.” All this will lead to a fuller and deeper knowledge of God. These are the conditions of a true acquaintanceship with God.

Ps. lxxxvii.
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II. In what does the “Good” here
Promised Consist?

/ “Thereby good shall come unto thee.”

Ps iv. 6 There be many that say, “Who will show us any good? “I’hat is what every man professes to be seeking — * good” We may trace the blessings in the verses that follow.

I. Joy in God Belief in God, and reverence for Him there may be without any real delight in the Lord. “For then,” that is, when you have obeyed the directions, fulfilled the conditions, “then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty.” No greater blessing can come upon the soul than this. It is then that the duty-life becomes transformed into the love-life of willing and joyous obedience.

God undertakes to bring it about. He engages to bestow this blessing upon those who fulfil the conditions.

“Thou shalt Hit up thy face unto God.” The soul no longer goes about with a condemned conscience, dejected and disheartened. But in conscious, loving fellowship the believer now looks up into God’s face, realizing that there is “nothing between.”

2. Power in Prayer. The spirit of prayer is a Divine gift. We may observe the practice and habit of prayer without really enjoying the gift of prayer. “Thou shalt make thy prayer unto Him, and He shall hear thee; and thou shalt pay thy vows.”

3. Success in Service. “Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee; and the light shall shine upon thy ways.” t Good success was promised to Joshua.? It was granted to Joseph. /I And also to Daniel. ‘To Nehemiah. Success, however, must not be judged of by outward appearances. It is the smile of God that is the true evidence of real prosperity. This is the

Josh. i. 8.
Gen. xx.xix.

3. 23-.
Dan. VI. 28.
Neh. i. n.

(d n essence or all true blessedness, and this the consecrated soul may always have. It may be always true of the submissive and obedierit believer, “Light shall shine upon thy ways.

4. Faith in Trial. “And when they cast thee down thou shalt say, There is lifting up, and the humble person He shall save.” Confidence, and joy, and hope, in seasons of trouble and adversity, are God’s special gifts. They are included in the “good” here promised.

Lastly. Blessings that shall come through us to oihers. “He shall deliver even him that is not innocent; yea, he shall be delivered through the cleanness of tlune hands” (New Version).

A godly man is not only a restful and peaceful man; he is a public good. Such are the salt of the earth. Let any one be true to God, live near Him, and abide in Christ, and He will become, without any special effort of his own, a channel of blessing to others.

If he is himself in close contact with the Divine Fountain, if the living stream is flowing freely into his own soul, he will not only become a vessel filled, he will overflow, and others will reap the benefit.

“Thereby good shall come unto thee.” How many are trying to seek the good who do not seek God. Of course they fail. But the man who seeks God wholly will find that good will overtake him. It is the same thought we have in Deut. xxviii. 2: “All these blessings shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.” That is, the “good” shall pursue thee as the waters of a flood. You shall be inundated with the blessings of God.

It is when we can say truly, the Lord is my Shepherd, that is when we are following Him, that “goodness and mercy” will follow us, not by following “goodness and mercy,” but by following the Lord, and then they will follow us all our days.

What, then, is it we have to do? Seek

Ps. xxiii. 1,6. / c, ’

/l/.ln,it.3S to know God. Be at peace with Him. Get right with Him. All the blessings and gifts we so much prize, and which only He can bestow, will then come unto us. We need not pursue them — they will overtake us,