The Lord Blessed Both For Donations And Deprivations

“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”—Job 1:21

The patience of Job, of which the sustaining grace of God was the secret, is proverbial. His religion, unlike that of many in the present day, was solid, and being deeply rooted it stood the most fiery ordeals. It permeated and leavened his conduct and speech, whilst the ripe fruits of patient submission to the Divine will and grateful recognition of the Divine goodness were perceptible, even when this goodly branch was apparently sere and withered.

The above words invite our attention to the fact that he blessed God both for what He had bestowed and for what He had recalled.

I.—DIVINE DONATION.

“THE LORD GAVE.” This is true of all desirable possessions. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning.” He who cannot be enriched Himself, is continually enriching the objects of His kindness. Whatever form a blessing assumes—whether providential or gracious—it proceeds from Him. He only is its original Author and Giver.

2. In giving, He acts as seems good to Himself—in a sovereign way and manner—dispensing His favours to whom and how and when and where He pleases, “for who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?”

3. Consider God’s gifts in special relation to His servant Job. He had granted him natural existence. This he himself owns, “Thou hast granted me life and favour” (Job 10:12). This we, too, should gratefully acknowledge. “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

To this was added the rich boon of health, which he seems to have previously largely enjoyed. We that are similarly favoured should be exceedingly thankful for immunity from disease and pain—though this is full often but lightly esteemed: till those who, once strong, have sorrowfully to reflect that they are so no more; for as the poet says:—

“Our blessings brighten as they take their flight.”

It is evident that Job was largely favoured with social and domestic happiness. His wife, it is true, failed under the strain of subsequent trial, but we doubt not that she had proved a faithful and affectionate helpmeet; while his children, when grown up, maintained the happy relations of their childhood, and still loved him with filial affection. How poor are they who are unloved—while love is the best of wealth. His friends, too, though injudicious in their attempts to be kind, were evidently men of weight and worth, and were prompted by the kindest and most sympathetic of motives.

His temporal prosperity was also a gift of his God. The lives of some are passed in prolonged but in effectual struggles to obtain this boon; which attests that “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west nor from the south. He putteth down one, and setteth up another.” Thus we do well to remember that:—

“If light attends the course I run, ’tis He provides those rays;

And ’tis His hand that hides my sun if darkness clouds my days.”

Job’s possessions are enumerated in the first chapter. So wealthy was he “that he was the greatest of all the men of the East.” “The Lord blessed the work of his hands and his substance increased in the land.”

He was highly favoured, too, in the esteem of his fellow-men. Many are misjudged and maligned who deserve to be universally honoured, while he was generally respected and looked up to—consulted as an inflexibly upright man in matters of difficulty, and deferred to everywhere as a wise counsellor. This, too, he owed to his God; and how great the blessing! “A good name is better than precious ointment.”

Moreover, he and his had been Divinely protected. God had kept an unseen “hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he had on every side.” Thus he abode long in peace and prosperity, unmolested by many of the calamities which befall others—an indulged child of providence; one whom heaven favoured with continued happiness.

God’s best and richest gift to him, however, was the unspeakably precious one of “true and undefiled religion”—so that he was perfect and upright—“one that feared God and eschewed evil.” His religion was therefore of the right sort, for it came from the right source; and, like its great Author, was imperishable, for “the faith He gives will perish not—though it by fire be tried.”

“Humility, love, and gratitude,” as Booth tells as in his “Reign of Grace,” are “the vitals of religion.” These Job possessed. Humility and submission appear in the 21st verse, and elsewhere we are assured that his gratitude was as sincere as his love was fervent.

His religion was practical; and while it availed for his own salvation, it led him to seek the welfare of others.

Thus when he surveyed this cluster of Divine gifts—life, health, honour, love, temporal prosperity, public esteem, perpetual preservation, and the salvation of God—is it wonderful that his “rising soul” should have been “transported with the view”—and that he should exclaim, “the Lord gave, blessed be the name of the Lord!”

II.—DIVINE DEPRIVATION.

The scene changes. The great Giver is seen to revoke some at least of His gifts. “The god of this world,” “the prince of the power of the air,” obtains mysterious permission to put the Patriarch’s faith to the severest possible tests. His life—both natural and spiritual—Satan was prohibited to touch; but with this exception he was allowed to bring about the worst calamities his ingenuity could compass. “Behold, he is in thy hand; but save his life!”

How dark and dismal his outlook became. His present evils were great. Much to which all hearts cling so fondly was withdrawn, never—as it seemed—to be restored. Yet reviewing the past, contemplating the present, and anticipating the future, he uses the same language in relation to God’s deprivations as he did with respect to His donations—”The Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Verily, then, we must admit with Macgowan that “the Lord sustains His children with one hand while He chastens them with the other.” He thus preserved His saint from a murmuring spirit.

His words still find an echo in the hearts of many of the saints, who, while they observe the issue and termination of his unparalleled trials, with holy James, view these as exemplifying and confirming the soul-sustaining truth—that “the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.”

See in his words a reverent acknowledgment of Divine agency. As elsewhere Elihu observes of him that “it was God that thrust him down, not man” (chap. 32:13), so he himself here looks higher than all second causes to the Great First Cause Himself. ”The Lord hath taken away.”

He owns the sovereignty of God. This is perhaps the last Divine right which imperious reason admits, and which at times causes no small trial even to those whose hearts are holy. It is far easier to acquiesce in God’s right to bestow, than in His right to recall. Yet this gracious man sweetly and submissively does both—anticipatmg the fine lines of Beddome:—

“My times of sorrow and of joy, great God, are in Thy hand,

My choicest comforts come from Thee, and go at Thy command; 

If Thou should’st take them all away, yet would I not repine; 

Before they were possess’d by me they were entirely Thine.”

It is also evident that in Job’s mind was a calm submission to the will of God, as supremely wise and good. He felt that—though the mystery might be inscrutable—whatever the Lord does must claim the commendation and benediction of His people. We cannot always see His love inscribed on every trial, or His wisdom in the blow which makes us wince or weep—yet “whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” “Why,” then, 

“should we doubt His constant love unmeasurably kind?

To His unerring gracious will be every wish resigned;

Good when He gives, supremely good, nor less when He denies, 

E’en crosses from His sovereign hand are blessings in disguise.”

Is there not also a grateful recognition of the fact that while the Lord had recalled so much, much was still spared to him. The Lord indeed had so impoverished and bereaved him that be was destitute and childless in one day. Yet, mysterious operation of Divine grace, blessed fruit of spiritual teaching—Job kissed the hand that held the rod. Nature would have fretted and fumed, rebelled and grown angry, but grace can respond to the command, “Be still and know that I am God.”

We thus have here an exemplification of the fact that “He never takes away our all; Himself He gives us still.” Job had lost much and was yet to be left to sink lower still. Satan is permitted to afflict his person and shatter his health, that he might experimentally learn that none upon earth, not even his own wife, could help him in his dark and direful extremity. His religion, however, withstood every shock. It was only purified, and rendered more lustrous by his repeated trials.

Thus as grace is needed, grace will be imparted; “as our days, so shall our strength be.” Then

“Let us be patient! these sever affiictions, not from the ground arise, 

But oftentimes celestial benedictions assume this dark disguise.”