Highlighted Text: Job 42:5
Full Text: Job 42, 2 Cor. 12

Sight | We can read about God and study His Word and yet never be changed. God is just an idea until He comes and speaks into our hearts. Before God spoke to him, Job was quick to remember his own righteousness. When he heard God’s voice, however, he fell in brokenness and confessed, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you”[1].

Perspective | Job immediately had two new senses about the Lord – that His sovereignty was absolute: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted”[2], and that His wisdom was infinitely superior to human knowledge: “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” [3]. In light of having these two new senses about God, Job also had a new sense about himself: “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” [4].

Sense | This is what happens when we see God. We don’t have to ask God to show us our sin for what it is; we merely need to ask God to open our eyes to see Him in His magnificent and sovereign holiness. When our eyes behold His glory, we automatically see how utterly different we are from Him [5]. Then what happens to us? Do we become joyless and depressing people? No! We get a brokenhearted joy and a childlike faith that trusts in God. As Jonathan Edwards wrote, “The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires; their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble, broken-hearted joy, leaving the Christian more poor in spirit, more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior” [6].

Prayer | Lord, When we’re not in your presence, it’s easy to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We praise our own abilities and knowledge instead of your sovereignty and wisdom. Yet, when the reality of your holiness comes bursting forth into our hearts, we see how unworthy we are – apart from Jesus – to live in your mighty love. Therefore, make us broken and changed people, who trust in you with childlike faith. Make our objections to you give way to our worship of you. Give us a sense of your holiness so that we live in confession. Amen.

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Footnotes

[1] Job 42:5 ESV  |  [2] Job 42:2 ESV  |  [3] Job 42:3 ESV  |  [4] Job 42:6 ESV  |  [5] Isaiah saw the Lord and proclaimed, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Is. 6:6 ESV), and Peter saw Jesus perform a miracle and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk. 5:8 ESV).  |  [6] Jonathan Edwards. Religious Affections. (portion in italics is taken from 1 Peter 1:8). Elsewhere Jonathan Edwards elaborated on the experience of David Brainerd, “I saw that I had been heaping up my devotions before God, fasting, praying, pretending, and indeed really thinking sometimes, that I was aiming for the glory of God; whereas I never once truly intended it, but only my own happiness. I saw, that as I had never done any thing for God, I had no claim on any thing from him, but perdition, on account of my hypocrisy and mockery. Oh how different did my duties now appear from what they used to do! I used to charge them with sin and imperfection; but this was only on account of the wanderings and vain thoughts attending them, and not because I had no regard to God in them; for this I thought I had. But when I saw evidently that I had regard to nothing but self-interest, then they appeared a vile mockery of God, self-worship, and a continual course of lies; so that I now saw that something worse had attended my duties, than barely a few wanderings; for the whole world was nothing but self-worship, and a horrid abuse of God. I continued, as I remember, in this state of mind, from Friday morning till the Sabbath evening following (July 12, 1739) when I was walking again in the same solitary place, where I was brought to see myself lost and helpless, as before mentioned. Here, in a mournful melancholy state, I was attempting to pray; but found no heart to engage in that or any other duty; my former concern, exercise and religious affections were now gone. I thought the Spirit of God had quite left me; but still was not distressed; yet disconsolate, as if there was nothing in heaven or earth could make me happy. Having been thus endeavoring to pray though, as I thought, very stupid and senseless for near half an hour, then as I was walking in a dark, thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing; nor do I intend any imagination of a body of light, somewhere in the third heavens, or any thing of that nature; but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before, nor any thing which had the least resemblance of it. I stood still, wondered, and admired! I knew that I never had seen before any thing comparable to it for excellency and beauty; it was widely different from all the conceptions that ever I had of God, or things divine. I had no particular apprehension of any one person in the Trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost; but it appeared to be divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable, to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that he should be God over all for ever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in him; at least to that degree, that I had no thought (as I remember) at first about my own salvation, and scarce reflected there was such a creature as myself.” See how Brainerd FIRST saw his own sinfulness and wretchedness and THEN saw the unspeakable joy of the Lord – so much that he even forgot about himself! This is the process that God uses to show us who He is and who we are in light of who He is. This is how He makes us brokenhearted in joy and childlike in faith. See Jonathan Edwards. The Life and Diary of David Brainerd.