In Job, chapter sixteen, verse nineteen, in faith, the servant of God rose above the doubts about God’s goodness, for he declared God Himself would testify as a witness of his innocence. Job longed for God to plead his cause in the heavenly court of justice. The desire for a mediator to speak with God in our defense became a reality in Jesus Christ, through whom God “reconciled us to Himself, as in Second Corinthians five, verse eighteen.
Job’s condition was very deplorable, but he had the testimony of his conscience that he never allowed himself in any gross sin. No one was ever more ready to acknowledge sins of infirmity. Eliphaz had charged him with hypocrisy in religion, but he specifies prayer, the great act of, and professes that in this, he was pure, though not from all infirmity. He had a God to go to, who he doubted not took full notice of all his sorrows.
Those who pour out tears before God, though they cannot plead for themselves because of their defects, have a Friend to plead for them, even the Son of man, and on him, we must ground all our hopes of acceptance with God. To die is to go the way whence we shall not return. We must all of us, very certainly and very shortly, go on this journey. Should not then the Saviour be precious to our souls? And ought we not to be ready to obey and to suffer for his sake? If our consciences are with his atoning blood and testify that we are not living in sin or hypocrisy, when we go the way whence we shall not return, it will be a release from prison and an entrance into everlasting happiness.
Job, that is, can appeal to God for sincerity. He was his witness, and he will bear record for me. The confidence in God to which Job returns even after the most passionate and irreverent expressions are inspiring. Such is his trust in God that though the experience of betrayal at times into expressions of impatience and irreverence, he is sure to return to calmer views and show confidence in the Most High. The strength, the power, and the point of his expressions of passion and impatience are against his “friends,” but they “sometimes” terminate on God, as if even he was leagued with them against him. But he still had “permanent” or “abiding” confidence in God.