RECOVERY
The way of moral death is a sore way. That is what this scripture brings out prior to bringing out the recovery for the sinner. It describes, I suppose, what is literal in the decline of a man, but the Scriptures are moral teaching for us. God has His own ways to bring us to Himself. This scripture brings out that it is “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed” that God can intervene for our blessing. “Then he openeth men’s ears, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his work, and hide pride from man”. Thank God for the fact that He has entered into our lives by way of recovery. That is what our brother has been speaking about. He entered into the life of Ruth with a view to her recovery. “He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from passing away by the sword”. God does that, but there is chastening.
I say again, the way of moral death is a sore way. That is what is seen in the chapter: “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed”. That is the way that we have all been on at some time before God intervened in our lives to bring us to Christ, or when we have failed Him after having come to know Christ. If we have been on a selfwilled way it is a painful way. The pains that are introduced in this section—“He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and with constant strife in his bones”—are the divine handling of us, the divine way to bring us to ourselves, “to shew unto man his duty”. You will notice the note to that word ‘duty’ that it involves self-judgment. What a way it is to realise that “his soul draweth near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers”. I think we can take account of this way which we have been on once recovery comes about. You can look back on it and see the divine hand working with us when what was proceeding was my soul drawing near to the pit, and my life to the destroyers. It is a personal matter. This book is personal. It is a young man speaking in this chapter in relation to Job after very much speaking in the book by him and his three friends. There is an appeal by the speaker for the messenger: “If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his duty”. How he is appealing that there might be light shining for a man in this way, that he might be delivered! God takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner, and I am speaking in a moral sense mainly. God takes no pleasure in that! “And his soul draweth near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers”. It brings out for us as recovered persons the appreciation of the One who said, “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom”. That is the turning-point in the section. It brings out our own helplessness in the situation in which we are. Another has provided a ransom with a view to divine intervention in our lives. It sobers us all to take account of it because these are real matters which enter into the fibre of every believer to some degree or other.
“Then he will be gracious unto him”. What an act of favour of God: “the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all”, 1 Tim 2: 5,6. He is available for all. But this scripture brings out the personal side of it. That is what I want to bring out in what I may say. “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom”: that is me. That is what you have to say: that is me. The duty of man is in relation to self-judgment, but self-judgment in relation to the cross, the cross of Christ, “Jesus Christ, and him crucified”, 1 Cor 2: 2. Such a One as that was crucified. Scripture says of the princes of this world: “for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”, 1 Cor 2: 8. The wisdom that we find in this world will lead to moral death, but there is another kind of wisdom that proceeds from God. What a transformation! —“His flesh shall be fresher than in childhood; he shall return to the days of his youth”. Fine days, the days of youth. Jeremiah brings that out: “when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown”, Jer 2: 2. The young believer is brought back to put trust in Christ. The pathway ahead is through a wilderness, “a land not sown”. There are no roads in the wilderness. Life involves faith in God, but there is a freshness attached to it because the trust is in the One who has become the ransom. Appreciation of Christ is in the One who has been a ransom for me. It involves a freshness in the soul:
O, happy day that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God!
“He shall pray unto God, and he will receive him with favour”. That is the God that we have been brought to know: justified, received into the favour of God—that is Romans 5—leading on through tribulation, endurance, experience, and hope, to the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, the establishment, as another has said, of a beachhead in the heart from which God can operate to secure the whole heart, the whole being. So it goes on through Romans 8—the power of life in the Spirit: “for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (v 14)—to Romans 12, the body laid on the altar, prepared for the Christian pathway as appreciating the One who has become my ransom, who has delivered me. As the apostle says, “Who shall deliver me out of this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”, Rom 7: 24. He is delivered; he has his “freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God” his “fruit” is “unto holiness, and the end eternal life”, Rom 6: 22, 23. These are the blessings that energise the believer as he puts his body on the altar, prepared for a life of committal to the interests of Christ and the will of God.
So “He will sing before men, and say, I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it hath not been requited to me; He hath delivered my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall see the light”. That is the only true life. It is the kind of life that God has in mind for us over against the line on which we once were, brought into a pathway where the end is eternal life. And there is appreciation of the turning-point. What a word that is! —“Then he will be gracious unto him, and say, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom”. May the appreciation of that ransom be ours to appreciate more so that we sing before men. The testimonial side comes out in singing before men: “and say, I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it hath not been requited to me”. “How that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5: 19): what a blessed ministry that was, the Lord Jesus Christ here on earth “reconciling the world to himself”! Then “the word of that reconciliation:” how God would appeal to us! “Be reconciled to God. Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him”, v 21. That is the great divine end; the work of reconciliation has been established. We can lay hold of it and come into the blessedness of it, but it involved “Him who knew not sin” being made “sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him”. Sin has never been overlooked by God. He has “condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8: 3) by the cross of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ had not only to bear our sins in His body on the tree but He was made sin. The cry that rang from the lips of that holy Man was “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matt 27: 46. It is a testimonial utterance too, bringing out that this blessed Man who had ever known the perfection of holy communion with His God should cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” If He had not cried it, we would never have known it, but He cried it. It is written down for us as a testimony that it may affect our hearts in relation to the turning-point in all our lives as to the ransom. May the Lord bless the word for His Name’s sake.
EDINBURGH
14th April 1992