Job 42:5-6 - Homiletics

Hearsay and vision.

I. HEARSAY IS NOT VISION . Hearsay may be distinguished from vision two ways.

1 . In respect of its nature. Hearsay, as the term signifies in common speech, is information received at second hand, by report, in contrast to that derived from personal observation and experience, which it is usual to describe as seeing. When applied to our knowledge of Divine things* the former may be understood as signifying all that instruction which comes to us from without, all that we receive from tradition, whatever is imparted to us by parents, teachers, ministers, that which we extract from catechisms, religious books, and even from our Bibles by our ordinary faculties of perception and reason—in short, everything commonly included in the phrase, "the letter of the truth;" the latter points to such a direct, personal, intimate acquaintance with God and truth as the soul obtains when, breathed on by that heavenly breath which, according to Elihu, is the source of all spiritual illumination, it looks outward and upward through the opened window of faith.

2 . In respect of its effects. "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear," exclaims the patriarch; but what then? This hearsay knowledge left me a prey to serious misconceptions both as to thyself and myself—permitted me to fancy thee an unjust Judge, an inequitable Sovereign, an arbitrary Ruler, an implacable Foe; and myself a harshly treated and cruelly oppressed saint. And so for the most part that knowledge of God which is purely external, intellectual, dogmatical, has little power to change the heart and life, or even to conduct the mind to just conceptions of the character of God. But, on the other hand, when this hearsay has been transmuted into vision, and the soul has arrived at a truthful idea of the character of God as a Being all-powerful, holy, wise, just, and loving,l! immediately the self-righteous sinner is discovered prostrate in the dust, like Job, crying, "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes;" like Isaiah in the temple, "Woe is me!" like St. Peter in his boat upon the sea of Galilee, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!"

II. HEARSAY MAY BECOME VISION . This may be held as proved by the ease of Job.

1 . The manner of its transmutation. An experience similar to that of Job must take place in every instance in which a soul passes from a mere hearsay knowledge to a believing vision of God.

2 . The time of its transmutation. The season in which Job was honoured to receive the sublime theophany which exerted such a marvellous, subduing influence upon his soul, was one of intense bodily affliction, and deep mental and spiritual anxiety; and so mostly it is found that such are the seasons God selects for discovering himself and his grace to the soul. As Christ came to his disciples on the sea of Galilee when they were toiling in rowing, and said to them, "Be of good cheer: it is I be not afraid," no does he still come to souls when they are tossed upon the sea of doubt and fear.