Pastor’s Opening

You will always understand a passage of Scripture better if you carefully attend to its connection. The habit of picking out portions from the Bible and separating them from their context may be carried a great deal too far, and in the process the reader may miss the mind of the Spirit, and force upon the words a meaning of his own. If we were to treat men’s books as we do God’s Book we should, probably, be judged to be insane. It is, indeed, a wonderful book to bear such mangling. Every sensible person will see that it must always be wise to study the context, for it is likely enough to cast a light upon the passage in hand. Job in the verse before us is answering Bildad the Shuhite. Now, this Bildad on two occasions had described Job as a hypocrite, and accounted for his dire distress by the fact that, though hypocrites may flourish for a time, they will ultimately be destroyed.

Main Theme(s)

I. Our first thought will be that THIS ROOT OF THE MATTER MAY BE CLEARLY DEFINED.

II. Secondly, let us spend a few minutes in remarking that in our text THIS FUNDAMENTAL MATTER IS MOST INSTRUCTIVELY DESCRIBED by the words which I have so constantly repeated— “the root of the matter.”

III. So I come, thirdly, to dwell upon a further remark:— THIS ROOT OF THE MATTER MAY BE PERSONALLY DISCERNED, AS BEING IN A MAN’S OWN POSSESSION. 

IV. Notice, then, that THIS ROOT OF THE MATTER IS TO BE TENDERLY RESPECTED BY ALL WHO SEE IT.