Job still maintains the higher strain of thought which he took up when he appealed to his Witness in heaven. The one desire of his heart is to be right with God, and he is persuaded that only God himself can make him so.

I. OUR GREATEST NEED IS TO BE RIGHT WITH GOD. What is the use of the flattery of man if God, the one supreme Judge with whom we have to do, condemns us? But, then, where is the mischief of man's censure when our Judge acquits us? Far too much is made of the opinion of the world, and far too little of the verdict of Heaven. We need to rise above the little hopes and tears of human favour to the great thought of God's approval. When we think first of that, all else becomes insignificant. The reasons for doing so should be overwhelming.

1. God knows all.

2. He is Almighty - able to bless us or to east us off.

3. He is our Father. And it is better for the child to stand well with his parent than with all the world.

II. WE HAVE TO OWN THAT WE ARE NOT RIGHT WITH GOD.

1. This is apparent in the experience of life. Job felt there was something wrong between him and God, though the foolish error of his friends had confused his mind, so that he could not see where the wrong lay. The dark shadows that creep between us and God, and hide from us the joy of heaven, are felt in experience. They certainly bear witness to some condition of error or evil.

2. This is also confirmed by the testimony of conscience. A voice within interprets the dark scene without. We learn from Job's distresses that calamities are not necessarily indicative of sin. But we must all own that nothing puts us so wrong with God as our own misconduct.

III. WE NEED AN ADVOCATE TO SET US RIGHT WITH GOD. We cannot represent our own case aright, for we do not understand ourselves, and our "hearts are deceitful above all things." We certainly do not know the mind and will of God. How, then, can we find our way back to him? A trackless desert lies between, and the night is dark and stormy. Even if we were before him we could not answer him "one of a thousand." Thus there is a general feeling among men that some mediator, intercessor, advocate, priest, is required.

IV. GOD IN CHRIST IS THE ADVOCATE WITH GOD THE FATHER. Job could not see as far as this; but he saw the essential truth, i.e. that God must provide the way of reconciliation. Only God can plead with God for man. Therefore we flee" from God to God." We escape from the lower experiences of the Divine in life which strike us as harsh, and even as unjust, to the higher vision of God which reveals him as all truth and goodness. We call upon God in his love to reconcile us with himself. This, the New Testament teaches, he does in Christ, who is the Revelation of God's love. "We have an Advocate with the Father," etc. (1 John 2:1). We want no human priest to plead our cause, for we have a great High Priest who "ever liveth to make intercession for us." When we truly pray in Christ's Name we have a right to trust that he will plead for us. By all the merits of his cross and Passion his pleading is mighty to prevail for the sinner's salvation. - W.F.A.

In these words Job delivers us —

1. The confidence of a godly man.

2. That kind of infirm anguish and indignation, that half-distemper, that expostulation with God, which sometimes comes to an excess even in good and godly men.

3. The foundation of his confidence, and his deliverance from this his infirmity.

(John Donne.)