I HAVE NOT DEPARTED FROM THE COMMAND OF HIS LIPS:
Not is
again a strong denial, and the Greek translates the Hebrew word for
not (lo) with a double negative (ou me), meaning something like "no,
never" have I departed. Job was not perfectly sinless for only one
Man fulfilled that strict rule, but he was zealous that he might not
withdraw from what he knew was God's command and will.
Departed
(mus) pictures the withdrawing of something (or someone) and thus
pictures a failing to be present. This is the same word used by God in
His exhortation to Joshua just before he began to battle the pagan
peoples in the promised land...
This book of the law shall not
depart (mus) from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and
night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is
written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then
you will have success. (Joshua 1:8)
Job had heeded God's instructions
to Joshua, not departing from partaking of his His trustworthy
Word, and not departing from the word he had taken in. In New
Testament language, Job was like those saints who were...
doers of the word, and not merely
hearers who delude themselves. (see note
James 1:22)
Though trials come, though fears
assail,
Through tests scarce understood,
One truth shines clear--it cannot fail--
My God is right and good. --Hager
Wiersbe
comments that...
God’s Word was his guide as he
walked the path of life, and he was careful not to go on any detours.
But even more, God’s Word was his nourishment that was more important
to him than his daily meals. Like Jeremiah (Jer. 15:16) and Jesus
(Matt. 4:4; John 4:31–34), Job found in God’s Word the only food that
satisfied his inner person. (See Ps 1:2; 119:103; 1 Peter 2:1-3.)
Some people go into the furnace of affliction, and it burns them;
others go in, and the experience purifies them. What makes the
difference? Their attitude toward the Word of God and the will of God.
If we are nourished by the Word and submit to His will, the furnace
experience, painful as it may be, will refine us and make us better.
But if we resist God’s will and fail to feed on His truth, the furnace
experience will only burn us and make us bitter.
Spurgeon
One more sentence remains: "Neither
have I gone back from the commandment of his lips": that is to say, as
he had not slackened his pace, so much less had he turned back. May
none of you ever go back. This is the most cutting grief of a pastor,
that certain persons come in among us, and even come to the front, who
after awhile turn back and walk no more with us. We know, as John
says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had
been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went
out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us";
yet what anguish it causes when we see apostates among us and know
their doom. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil
heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Let Lot's wife be
a warning. Season your souls with a fragment of salt from that pillar,
and it may keep you from corruption.
Remember that you can turn back, not only from all the commandments,
and so become an utter apostate, but there is such a thing as backing
at single commandments. You know the precept to be right, but you
cannot face it; you look at it, and look at it, and look at it, and
then go back, back, back from it, refusing to obey. Job had never done
so. If it was God's command he went forward to perform it. It may be
that it seems impossible to go forward in the path of duty, but if you
have faith you are to go on whatever the difficulty may be. The negro
was right who said, "Massa, if God say, 'Sam, jump through the wall';
it is Sam's business to jump, and God's work to make me go through the
wall." Leap at it, dear friends, even if it seem to be a wall of
granite. God will clear the road. By faith the Israelites went through
the Red Sea as on dry land. It is ours to do what God bids us, as he
bids us, when he bids us, and no hurt can come of it. Strength equal
to our day shall be given, only let us cry "Forward!" and push on.
Here just one other word. Let us take heed to ourselves that we do not
go back, for going back is dangerous. We have no armor for our back,
no promise of protection in retreat. Going back is ignoble and base.
To have had a grand idea and then to turn back from it like a whipped
cur, is disgraceful. Shame on the man who dares not be a Christian.
Even sinners and ungodly men point at the man who put his hand to the
plough and looked back, and was not worthy of the kingdom. Indeed, it
is fatal; for the Lord has said, "If any man draw back, my soul shall
have no pleasure in him." Forward! Forward! though -death and hell
obstruct the way, for backward is defeat, destruction, despair. O God,
grant us of thy grace that when we come to the end of life we may say
with joy, "I have not gone back from thy commandment." The covenant
promises persevering grace, and it shall be yours, only look ye well
that ye trifle not with this grace.
There is the picture which Job has sketched. Hang it up on the wall of
your memory, and God help you to paint after this old master, whose
skill is unrivalled.
I HAVE TREASURED THE WORDS OF
HIS MOUTH:
THE
EXAMPLE OF
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
Here is an
illustrative, convicting example of the practical application of the
truth in Job 23:12. In 1877 William Alexander records
in his treatise "The Witness of the Psalms"...
Incident. In the midst of a London
season; in the stir and turmoil of a political crisis, 1819;
William Wilberforce (biography)
writes in his Diary --
Walked from Hyde Park Corner
repeating the 119th Psalm in great comfort.
What was the
source of the strength and resolve of William Wilberforce in the face
of tremendous opposition to his efforts to see slavery abolished in
England? Although, the answer is undoubtedly more complex, there is
little question that the fact that Wilberforce had treasured the
words of His mouth in his heart (see
Memorizing His Word) and was able to
meditate (see also
Biblical meditation) thereon,
provided the nourishment of his soul which enabled him to stand fast.
He had eaten God's Word and girded himself about with His Word of
Truth (see notes
Ephesians 6:10;
11;
12;
13;
14),
and God blessed his efforts mightily (see notes
Psalm 1:1;
1:2;
1:3).
On his deathbed in 1833 Wilberforce received word that the British
Parliament had forever abolished the horrendous practice of slave
trading! One wonders how Wilberforce would have been enabled to
persevere (see James 5:11 "endurance
of Job") had he not partaken of the firm foundation of God's
Holy Word! May his tribe increase (see notes
Hebrews 6:11;
12)!
Aldous Huxley
(who I don't think was a believer) made a statement that relates to
treasuring (hiding) God's Word (especially
Memorizing it)
more than one's necessary food declaring that...
Each man's memory is his private
literature. (Interesting thought!)
Treasured
(tsapan/sapan) means primarily to conceal something with a definite
purpose.
Spurgeon
notes
that
what God had spoken to him he treasured up. He says in the Hebrew that
he had hid God’s word more than ever he had hidden his necessary food.
They had to hide grain away in those days to guard it from wandering
Arabs. Job had been more careful to store up God’s word than to store
up his wheat and his barley; more anxious to preserve the memory of
what God had spoken than to garner his harvests. Do you treasure up
what God has spoken?”
Words
(amar) refers most often to direct conversation (Ge 1:3, 3:1, 10, etc,
Balaam's donkey Nu 22:28).
John Wesley
expressed an attitude similar to Job....
I have thought I am a creature of a
day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit
come from God and returning to God; just hovering over the great gulf,
till a few moments hence I am no more seen. I drop into an
unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, the way to heaven—how
to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to
teach the way: for this very end he came from heaven.
He hath written it down in a
book. O give me that book! At any price give me the Book of God! I
have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius
libri [a man of one book]. (John Wesley “Preface to Sermons on
Several Occasions, 1746)
Spurgeon
(Sermon on Job 23:10-12)
II. Secondly, let us take a peep
behind the wall to see how Job came by this character. Here we
note Job’s Holy Sustenance,
I have esteemed the words of his
mouth more than my necessary food.
First, then, God spoke to Job. Did
God ever speak to you? I do not suppose Job had a single page of
inspired writing. Probably he had not -even seen the first books of
Moses; he may have done so, but probably he had not. God spoke to him.
Did he ever speak to you? No man
will ever serve God aright unless God has spoken to him. You have the
Bible, and God speaks in that book and through it; but mind you do not
rest in the printed letter without discerning its spirit. You must try
to hear God’s voice in the printed letter. “God hath in these last
days spoken unto us by his Son”; but oh, pray that this divine Son
may-speak by the Holy Ghost right into your heart. Anything which
keeps you from personal contact with Jesus robs you of the best
blessing.
...you can make an idol of your
Bible by using the mere words as a substitute for God’s voice to you.
The book is to help you to remember God, but if you stick in the mere
letter, and get not to God at all, you misuse the sacred word. When
the Spirit of God speaks a text right into the soul, when God Himself
takes the promise or the precept -and sends it with living energy into
the heart, this is that which makes a man have a reverence for the
word: he feels its awful majesty, its divine supremacy, and while he
trembles at it he rejoices, and goes forward to obey because God has
spoken to him.
Dear friends, when God speaks be
sure that you have open ears to hear, for oftentimes he speaks and
men regard Him not. In a vision of the night when deep sleep falls upon men God has spoken to
His prophets, but now He speaks by His
word, applying it to the heart with power by His Spirit. If God speaks
but little to us it is because we are dull of hearing. Renewed hearts
are never long without a whisper from the Lord. He is not a dumb God
nor is He so far away that we cannot hear Him: they that keep His ways
and hold His steps, as Job did, shall hear many of His words to their
soul’s delight and profit.
God’s having spoken to Job
was the secret of his consistently holy life.
Then note, that what God had spoken to him he treasured up. He
says in the Hebrew that he had hid God’s word more than ever he had
hidden his necessary food.
They had to hide grain away in
those days to guard it from wandering Arabs. Job had been more careful
to store up God’s word than to store up his wheat and his barley; more
anxious to preserve the memory of what God had spoken than to garner
his harvests.
Do you treasure up what God has spoken? Do you study the
Word? Do you read it? Oh, how little do we search it compared with
what we ought to do. Do you meditate on it? Do you suck out its secret
sweets? Do you store up its essence as bees gather the life-blood of
flowers, and hoard up their honey for winter food?
Bible study is the
metal that makes a Christian; this is the strong meat on which holy
men are nourished; this is that which makes the bone and sinew of men
who keep God’s way in defiance of every adversary. God spake to Job,
and Job treasured up His words.
We learn from our version of the text that Job lived on God’s word: he
reckoned it to be better to him than his necessary food. He ate it.
This is an art which some do not understand-eating the word of the
Lord. Some look at the surface of the Scriptures, some pull the
Scriptures to pieces without mercy, some cut the heavenly bread into
dice pieces, and show their cleverness, some pick it over for plums,
like children with a cake; but blessed is he that makes it his meat
and drink. He takes the word of God to be what is, namely, a word from
the mouth of the Eternal, and he says, “God is speaking to me in
this, and I will satisfy my soul upon it; I do not want anything
better than this, anything truer than this, anything safer than this,
but having got this it shall abide in me, in my heart, in the very
bowels of my life, it shall be interwoven with the warp and woof of my
being.
But the text adds that he esteemed it more than his necessary food.
Not more than dainties only, for those are superfluities, but more
than his necessary food, and you know that a man’s necessary food
is a thing which he esteems very highly. He must have it. What,
take away my bread? says he, as if this could not be borne. To take
the bread out of a poor man’s mouth is looked upon as the highest kind
of villainy: but Job would sooner that they took the bread out of his
mouth than the word of God out of his heart.
He thought more of it than of his
needful food, and I suppose it was because meat would only sustain his
body, but the word of God feeds the soul. The nourishment given by
bread is soon gone, but the nourishment given by the word of God
abideth in us, and makes us to live for ever. The natural life is more
than meat, but our spiritual life feeds on meat even nobler than
itself, for it feeds on the bread of heaven, the person of the Lord
Jesus. Bread is sweet to the hungry man, but we are not always hungry,
and sometimes we have no appetite; but the best of God’s word is that
he who lives near to God has always an appetite for it, and the more
he eats of it the more he can eat. I do confess I have often fed upon
God’s-word when I have had no appetite for it, until I have gained an
appetite. I have grown hungry in proportion as I have felt satisfied:
my emptiness seemed to kill my hunger, but as I have been revived by
the word I have longed for more.
So it is written, “Blessed are
they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be
filled:” and when they are filled they shall continue to enjoy the
benediction, for they shall hunger and thirst still though filled with
grace. God’s word is sweeter to the taste than bread to a hungry man,
and its sweetness never cloys, though it dwells long on the palate.
You cannot be always eating bread, but you can always feed on the word
of God. You cannot eat all the meat that is set before you, your
capacity is limited that way, and none but-a glutton wishes it
otherwise; but oh, you may be ravenous of God’s word, and devour it
all, and yet have no surfeit. You are like a little mouse in a great
cheese, and you shall have permission to eat it all, though it be a
thousand times greater than yourself. Though God’s thoughts are
greater than your thoughts, and his ways are greater than your ways,
yet may his ways be in your heart, and your heart in his ways. You may
be filled with all the fullness of God, though it seems a paradox. His
fullness is greater than you, and all his fullness is infinitely
greater than you, yet you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
So that the word of God is better than our necessary food: it hath
qualities which our necessary food hath not.
No more, except it be this: you cannot be holy, my brethren, unless
you do in secret live upon the blessed word of God, and you will not
live on it unless it comes to you as the word of his mouth. It is very
sweet to get a letter from home when you are far away: it is like a
bunch of fresh flowers in winter time. A letter from the dear one at
home is as music heard over the water; but half a dozen words from
that dear mouth are better than a score pages of manuscript, for there
is a sweetness about the look and the tone which paper cannot carry.
Now, I want you to get the Bible to
be not a book only but a speaking trumpet, through which God speaks
from afar to you, so that you may catch the very tones of his voice.
You must read the word of God to this end, for it is while reading,
meditating, and studying, and seeking to dip yourself into its spirit,
that it seems suddenly to change from a written book into a talking
book or phonograph; it whispers to you or thunders at you as though
God had hidden himself among its leaves and spoke to your condition;
as though Jesus who feedeth among the lilies had made the chapters to
be lily beds, and had come to feed there. Ask Jesus to cause his word
to come fresh from his own mouth to your soul; and if it be so, and
you thus live in daily communion with a personal Christ, my brethren,
you will then with your feet take hold upon his steps; then will you
keep his way, then will you never decline or go back from his
commandments, but you will make good speed in your pilgrim way to the
eternal city. May the Holy Ghost daily be with you. May every one of
you live under his sacred bedewing, and be fruitful in every good word
and work. Amen and amen. (Read the full sermon -
Job 23:11-12 Fair Portrait of a
Saint)
Adam Clarke...
I have esteemed the words of his
mouth] Mr. Good has given a better version of the original: In my
bosom have I stored up the words of his mouth. The Asiatics carry
every thing precious or valuable in their bosom, their handkerchiefs,
jewels, purses, etc. Job, therefore, intimates that the words of God’s
mouth were to him a most precious treasure.
The word of
God reveals the will of God and Spurgeon aptly said of Job
that...
God's will had taken the helm of the
vessel, and the ship was steered in God's course according to the
divine compass of infallible justice and the unerring chart of the
divine will.
MORE THAN MY NECESSARY FOOD:
Let's apply
Job's "Passion Principle" to our lives
--
"I have
treasured the word of God more than ____________."
What is in
that blank for you. What is it that makes your pulse quicken when you
think of doing it? Is it racing down a slope on fresh powder?
...hiking the majestic Rockies? ...watching your favorite football
team on Sunday afternoon? ...eating a barbeque meal with your family
all around you? You know fills that blank for you. It is not "bad"
things, but it is not the best thing. The best thing is the bathing in
the Father's Word, basking in light of His glorious life giving
truths, chewing the cud of word which is more precious than gold, etc.
Why? Ultimately it is that we might know God better and be made more
like His beloved Son...
And this is eternal life, that they
may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent. (John 17:3)
Sanctify them in the truth. Thy
word is truth. (John 17:17)
Spurgeon...
Job 23:13. But he is in one mind, and who can turn him.
God has one mind, and he will carry out what he wills. It is vain for
any man to think of turning him from his eternal purpose.
Job 23:13,14. And what his soul desireth, even that he doth. For he
performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things
are with him.
You will find that men who are much tried fall hick upon the granite
foundation of the divine decree. God has ordained it, so they yield to
it; they acquiesce in it because it is according to the eternal
purpose of the Most High. Though we say little about it now, there may
come a time when some of you will have to say, as Job does, "For he
performs the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things
are with him."
F B Meyer
writes a summation of Job's suffering and endurance in his comments on
Job 42:6...
Now mine eye seeth Thee:
wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
This is the clue to the entire
book. Here is a man, who was universally known as perfect and upright,
one that feared God, and eschewed evil; who abounded in beneficent and
loving ministries to all who were in need; to whom respect and love
flowed in a full tide. He was not conscious of any failure in perfect
obedience, or of secret sin; indeed, when his friends endeavored to
account for his unparalleled calamities by suggesting that there was
some discrepancy between his outward reputation and inward
consistency, he indignantly repelled the charge, and repudiated the
impeachment.
But there were inconsistencies and failures in him that needed to be
exposed and put away before he could attain to perfect blessedness and
enjoy unbroken peace. If man could not discover them, and if Job were
unconscious of them, they were, nevertheless, present, poisoning the
fountain of his being; as a hidden cesspool, whose presence is
undetected, may be doing a deadly work of undermining the health of an
entire household. So God let the man into His presence; and, like
Isaiah, Ezekiel, Peter, and many others, he at once confessed himself
vile. The light of the great white throne exposes all unsuspected
blemishes. Have you ever seen God! Oh, ask for that vision, that you
may know yourself! In proportion as we know God, we abhor ourselves.
Then Jesus becomes unspeakably precious. Through His death we pass
into the true life, and begin to intercede for others. We never have
such power for the blessing of the world as when we lie most humbly at
the feet of God.
After
elaborating on Job's holy character, Spurgeon then
writes...
let us take a peep behind the wall
to see how Job came by this character. Here we note Job's HOLY
SUSTENANCE,
"I have esteemed the words of
his mouth more than my necessary food."
First, then, God spoke to Job. Did
God ever speak to you? I do not suppose Job had a single page of
inspired writing. Probably he had not -even seen the first books of
Moses; he may have done so, but probably he had not. God spoke to him.
Did he ever speak to you? No man will ever serve God aright unless God
has spoken to him. You have the Bible, and God speaks in that book and
through it; but mind you do not rest in the printed letter without
discerning its spirit. You must try to hear God's voice in the printed
letter. "God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son"; but
oh, pray that this divine Son may-speak by the Holy Ghost right into
your heart. Anything which keeps you from personal contact with Jesus
robs you of the best blessing. The Romanist says he uses a crucifix to
help him to remember Christ, and then his prayers often stop at the
crucifix, and do not get to Christ; and in like manner you can make an
idol of your Bible by using the mere words as a substitute for God's
voice to you. The book is to help you to remember God, but if you
stick in the mere letter, and get not to God at all, you misuse the
sacred word. When the Spirit of God speaks a text right into the soul,
when God himself takes the promise or the precept -and sends it with
living energy into the heart, this is that which makes a man have a
reverence for the word: he feels its awful majesty, its divine
supremacy, and while he trembles at it he rejoices, and goes forward
to obey because God has spoken to him. Dear friends, when God speaks
be sure that you have open ears to hear, for oftentimes he speaks and
men regard him not. In a vision of the night when deep sleep falls -
upon men God has spoken to his prophets, but now he speaks by his
word, applying it to the heart with power by his Spirit. If God speaks
but little to us it is because we are dull of hearing. Renewed hearts
are never long without a whisper from the Lord. He is not a dumb God'
nor is he so far away that we cannot hear him: they that keep his ways
and hold his steps, as Job did, shall hear many of his words to their
soul's delight and profit. God's having spoken to Job was the secret
of his consistently holy life.
Then note, that what God had spoken to him he treasured up. He says in
the Hebrew that he had hid God's word more than ever he had hidden his
necessary food. They had to hide grain away in those days to guard it
from wandering Arabs. Job had been more careful to store up God's word
than to store up his wheat and his barley; more anxious to preserve
the memory of what God had spoken than to garner his harvests. Do you
treasure up what God has spoken? Do you study the Word? Do you read
it? Oh, how little do we search it compared with what we ought to do.
Do you meditate on it? Do you suck out its secret sweets? Do you store
up its essence as bees gather the life-blood of flowers, and hoard up
their honey for winter food? Bible study is the metal that makes a
Christian; this is the strong meat on which holy men are nourished;
this is that which makes the bone and sinew of men who keep God's way
in defiance of every adversary. God spake to Job, and Job treasured up
his words.
We learn from our version of the text that Job lived on God's word: he
reckoned it to be better to him than his necessary food. He ate it.
This is an art which some do not understand-eating the word of the
Lord. Some look at the surface of the Scriptures, some pull the
Scriptures to pieces without mercy, some cut the heavenly bread into
dice pieces, and show their cleverness, some pick it over for plums,
like children with a cake; but blessed is he that makes it his meat
and drink. He takes the word of God to be what is, namely, a word from
the mouth of the Eternal, and he says, "God is speaking to me in this,
and I will satisfy my soul upon it; I do not want anything better than
this, anything truer than this, anything safer than this, but having
got this it shall abide in me, in my heart, in the very bowels of my
life, it shall be interwoven with the warp and woof of my being."
But the text adds that he esteemed it more than his necessary food.
Not more than dainties only, for those are superfluities, but more
than his necessary food, and you know that a man's necessary food is a
thing which he esteems very highly. He must have it. What, take away
my bread? says he, as if this could not be borne. To take the bread
out of a poor man's mouth is looked upon as the highest kind of
villainy: but Job would sooner that they took the bread out of his
mouth than the word of God out of his heart. He thought more of it
than of his needful food, and I suppose it was because meat would only
sustain his body, but the word of God feeds the soul. The nourishment
given by bread is soon gone, but the nourishment given by the word of
God abideth in us, and makes us to live for ever. The natural life is
more than meat, but our spiritual life feeds on meat even nobler than
itself, for it feeds on the bread of heaven, the person of the Lord
Jesus. Bread is sweet to the hungry man, but we are not always hungry,
and sometimes we have no appetite; but the best of God's word is that
he who lives near to God has always an appetite for it, and the more
he eats of it the more he can eat. I do confess I have often fed upon
God's-word when I have had no appetite for it, until I have gained an
appetite. I have grown hungry in proportion as I have felt satisfied:
my emptiness seemed to kill my hunger, but as I have been revived by
the word I have longed for more. So it is written, "Blessed are they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled:"
and when they are filled they shall continue to enjoy the benediction,
for they shall hunger and thirst still though filled with grace. God's
word is sweeter to the taste than bread to a hungry man, and its
sweetness never cloys, though it dwells long on the palate. You cannot
be always eating bread, but you can always feed on the word of God.
You cannot eat all the meat that is set before you, your capacity is
limited that way, and none but-a glutton wishes it otherwise; but oh,
you may be ravenous of God's word, and devour it all, and yet have no
surfeit. You are like a little mouse in a great cheese, and you shall
have permission to eat it all, though it be a thousand times greater
than yourself. Though God's thoughts are greater than your thoughts,
and his ways are greater than your ways, yet may his ways be in your
heart, and your heart in his ways. You may be filled with all the
fullness of God, though it seems a paradox. His fullness is greater
than you, and all his fullness is infinitely greater than you, yet you
may be filled with all the fullness of God. So that the word of God is
better than our necessary food: it hath qualities which our necessary
food hath not.
No more, except it be this: you cannot be holy, my brethren, unless
you do in secret live upon the blessed word of God, and you will not
live on it unless it comes to you as the word of his mouth. It is very
sweet to get a letter from home when you are far away: it is like a
bunch of fresh flowers in winter time. A letter from the dear one at
home is as music heard over the water; but half a dozen words from
that dear mouth are better than a score pages of manuscript, for there
is a sweetness about the look and the tone which paper cannot carry.
Now, I want you to get the Bible to be not a book only but a speaking
trumpet, through which God speaks from afar to you, so that you may
catch the very tones of his voice. You must read the word of God to
this end, for it is while reading, meditating, and studying, and
seeking to dip yourself into its spirit, that it seems suddenly to
change from a written book into a talking book or phonograph; it
whispers to you or thunders at you as though God had hidden himself
among its leaves and spoke to your condition; as though Jesus who
feeds among the lilies had made the chapters to be lily beds, and had
come to feed there. Ask Jesus to cause his word to come fresh from his
own mouth to your soul; and if it be so, and you thus live in daily
communion with a personal Christ, my brethren, you will then with your
feet take hold upon his steps; then will you keep his way, then will
you never decline or go back from his commandments, but you will make
good speed in your pilgrim way to the eternal city. May the Holy Ghost
daily be with you. May every one of you live under his sacred
bedewing, and be fruitful in every good word and work. Amen and amen.
GEORGE MULLER
TREASURED THE WORD
MORE THAN HIS NECESSARY FOOD
Listen to the words of the great
saint of yesteryear,
George Müller
(1805–1898). Observe carefully what made him "tick" and methinks why
God used him so mightily in His kingdom work. May the tribe of men
like Job and
Müller
increase in our day of in which delight in the Word seems to be sorely
wanting and/or waning...
In 1841 Muller made a life-changing
discovery. The testimony of this from his autobiography has proved to
be of tremendous value in my life, and I pray that it will also bear
fruit in yours:
While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a
truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the
benefit of which I have not lost, though now … more than forty years
have since passed away.
The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great
and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have
my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was
not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord;
but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man
might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the
unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to
relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as
it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in
the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day
by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.
Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years
previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after
having dressed in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important
thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God
and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted,
encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst
meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion
with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament,
from the beginning, early in the morning.
The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s
blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word
of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out
of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for
the sake or preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake
of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be
almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been
led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to
supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to
prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or
less into prayer.
When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession,
or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or
verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as
the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that
food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of
this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving,
supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my
inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and
strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in
a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased
to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to
become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the
public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for
the profit of my own inner man.
The difference between my former practice and my present one is this.
Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and
generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all
the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer.… But
what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an
hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of
having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and
often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first
ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only
then began really to pray.
I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished
by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I
speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy
of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious
Word.
It often now astonished me that I did not sooner see this. In no book
did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter
before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this
matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as
plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to
do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.
As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except
we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the
morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for
that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man:
not prayer, but the Word of God: and here again not the simple reading
of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as
water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering
over it, and applying it to our hearts.…
I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual
profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it
myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my
fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I
ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God
to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever
had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I
can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the
soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what is
when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the
temptations of the day come upon one! (quoted from John Piper's book
Desiring God)