The Book of Job
Book of Job, 63
Footsteps of Mercy
Job 33:23-24
Pastor’s Opening
WHEN God has distinct and definite purposes of mercy towards an individual, he often begins with stern discipline, and brings him low by affliction and sorrow. As the good husbandman cuts down the trees and makes a clearance of the soil before he sows the grain and prepares for a harvest, so does our God cut down all our goodly cedars, our pleasures, and our pride, in order that the heart may be afterwards ploughed, broken, harrowed, and made ready to receive the good seed of the word. Elihu describes this preparatory breaking-up process as being brought about by sickness. It is often so: I doubt not, that a sick-bed is one of God’s best orators to the sons of men.
Scripture Citation and Verse(s)
Job 33:23-24
“If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto men his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.”
Main Theme(s)
I. When God has thus, in the way of providence, prepared any human heart for a work of grace, one of the first means of blessing the chosen man is TO SEND HIM A MESSENGER.
II. Now, secondly, wherever this divine messenger comes, according to the text, HE REVEALS GOD S UPRIGHTNESS.
III. The third stage is this— “THEN HE IS GRACIOUS UNTO HIM.
IV. Let us proceed to the next stage— GOD DELIVERS THE SINNER.
V. The last thing is that GOD EXPLAINS TO THE SINNER WHOM HE DELIVERS THE REASON OF HIS DELIVERANCE. “Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom.”
