Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 21:15

What [is] the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?

What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? – compare for similar expressions, Exo 5:2; Pro 30:9. The meaning here is, What claim has the Almighty, or who is he, that we should be bound to obey and worship him? What authority has he over us? Why should we yield our will to his, and why submit to his claims? This is the language of the human heart everywhere. Man seeks to deny the authority of God over him, and to feel that he has no claim to his service. He desires to be independent. He would cast off the claims of God. Forgetful that he made, and that he sustains him; regardless of his infinite perfections and of the fact that he is dependent on him every moment, he asks with contempt, what right God has to set up a dominion over him. Such is man – a creature of a day – dependent for every breath he draws on that Great Being, whose government and authority he so contemptuously disowns and rejects!

And what profit should we have, if we pray unto him? – What advantage would it be to us should we worship him? Men still ask this question, or, if not openly asked, they feel the force of it in their hearts. Learn hence,

(1) That wicked people are influenced by a regard to self in the inquiry about God, and in meeting his claims. They do not ask what is right, but what advantage will accrue to them.

(2) If they see no immediate benefit arising from worshipping God, they will not do it. Multitudes abstain from prayer, and from the house of God, because they cannot see how their self-interest would be promoted by it.

(3) Men ought to serve God, without respect to the immediate, selfish, and personal good that may follow to themselves. It is a good in itself to worship God. It is what is right; what the conscience says ought to be done yet

(4) It is not difficult to answer the question which the sinner puts. There is an advantage in calling upon God. There is

(a) the possibility of obtaining the pardon of sin by prayer – an immense and unspeakable profit to a dying and guilty man;

(b) a peace which this world cannot furnish – worth more than all that it costs to obtain it;

(c) support in trial in answer to prayer – in a world of suffering of more value than silver and gold;

(d) the salvation of friends in answer to prayer – an object that should be one of intense interest to those who love their friends:

(e) eternal life – the profit of which who can estimate? What are the few sacrifices which religion requires, compared with the infinite and immortal blessings which may be obtained by asking for them? Profit! What can be done by man that will be turned to so good an account as to pray? Where can man make so good an investment of time and strength as by calling on God to save his soul, and to bless his friends and the world?

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Job 21:15

What profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?

The profitableness of religion

Let me first lay down the doctrine, that no man can hold the Christian view of Gods personality and dominion without his whole intellectual nature being ennobled. He no longer looks at things superficially; he sees beyond the grey, cold cloud that limits the vision of men who have no God; the whole sphere of his intellectual life receives the light of another world. The difference between his former state and his present condition, is the difference between the earth at midnight and the earth in the glow and hope of a summer morning! This is not mere statement. It is statement based upon the distinctest and gladdest experience of our own lives, and based also upon the very first principles of common sense. The finer and clearer our conceptions of the Divine idea, the nobler and stronger must be our intellectual bearing and capacity. When the very idea of God comes into the courses of mans thinking, the quality of his thought is changed; his outlook upon life widens and brightens; his tone is subdued into veneration, and his inquisitiveness is chastened into worship. Intellectually the idea of God is a great idea. It enters the mind, as sunlight would startle a man who is groping along a path that overhangs abysses in the midst of starless gloom. The idea God cannot enter into the mind, and mingle quietly with common thinking. Wherever that idea goes, it carries with it revolution, elevation, supremacy. I am speaking, please to observe, not of a cold intellectual assent to the suggestion that God is, but of a reverent and hearty faith in His being and rule. Such a faith never leaves the mind as it found it. It turns the intellect into a temple; it sets within the mind a new standard of measure and appraisement; and lesser lights are paled by the intensity of its lustre. Is this mere statement? It is statement; but it is the statement of experience; it is the utterance of what we ourselves know; because comparing ourselves with ourselves we are aware that we have known and loved the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that since we have done so, our intellectual life has sprung from the dust, and refreshed itself at fountains which are accessible only to those who live in God. This, then, is the first position which I lay down for your thought and consideration, namely: That no man can entertain with reverence and trust the idea that God is, without his whole intellectual nature being lifted up to a higher plane than it occupied before; without his mind receiving great access of light and vigour. Do you tell me that you know some men who profess to believe in God, and who sincerely do believe in His existence and His government, and yet they are men of no intellectual breadth, of no speciality in the way of intellectual culture and nobleness? I hear you; I know what you say, and I believe it. But will you tell me what those men would have been, small as they are now, but for the religion that is in them? I know that at present they are very minute, intellectually speaking,–exceedingly small and microscopic. But what would they have been if the idea of Gods existence and rule had never taken possession of their intellectual nature? Besides that, they are on the line of progress. There is a germ in them which may be developed, which may, by diligent culture, by reverent care, become the supreme influence in their mental lives. Please to remember such modifications when you are disposed to sneer at men who, though they have a God in their faith and in their hearts, are yet not distinguished by special intellectual strength. You tell me that you know some men who never mention the name of God, and who, therefore, seem to have no religion at all; who are men of very brilliant intellectual power, very fertile in intellectual resources, and who altogether have distinguished themselves in the empire of Mind. I believe it. But will you tell me what these men might have been if they had added to intellectual greatness a spirit of reverence and adoration? Can you surely tell me that those men would not have been greater had they known what it is to worship the one living and true God? Not only is there an ennoblement of the nature of a man, as a whole, by his acceptance of the Christian idea of God–there is more. That in itself is an inexpressible advantage; but there is a higher profit still, forasmuch as there is a vital cleansing and purification of a mans moral being. Let a man receive the Christian idea of God, let him believe fully in God, as revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and a new sensitiveness is given to his conscience; he no longer loses himself in the mazes of a cunning casuistry; he goes directly to the absolute and final standard of righteousness; all moral relations are simplified; moral duty becomes transparent;. he knows what is right, and does it; he knows the wrong afar off, and avoids it. (Joseph Parker.)

Profitable prayer

You will see at once on looking at the context in what spirit this question is asked. Job puts the words into the mouth of ungodly men, whose prosperity he could not understand, Wherefore, he asks, do the wicked live, become old, yea, wax mighty in power? Describing their outward condition he says, Their seed is established (verses 8-13). But blessings such as these, instead of evoking some such thanksgiving as Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, make them forgetful, even defiant of Him. It is an extreme and offensive utilitarianism which prompts the inquiry, and in these days if it could be proved to a mathematical demonstration that praying always produces material advantage, if prosperity and prayer were invariably associated, as fortunately they are not, the number of knees bent in outward worship would be indefinitely increased, and to all outward appearance we should become a praying nation. But perplexities gather around the subject of prayer to men of a far nobler type than those contemplated in the words before us. The uniformity of so-called nature, the absence of any expression of sympathy visible to human eye, or audible to human ear from either nature, or the God of nature, in times when we are faint with fear or overwhelmed with anxiety; the unchangeableness of God, even the sublime truth of the reality of the Divine Fatherhood lead some to think, Well, if God is in reality my Father, He is sure to do the very best possible thing for me, whether I pray to Him or whether I do not. So let us try and lift up the question of our text into a higher and purer atmosphere than that which, as asked by a godless, material prosperity, surrounds it.

I. Now, in order to give any answer to the question, we must be able to say to whom we pray, and must have some clear idea of what we mean by prayer. Let us address ourselves to these questions first. When we speak of prayer, to whom do we pray? Now it is quite plain that prayer can only be addressed to a personal Being. If we resolve God into an inexorable fate, from the relentless grip of which escape is impossible, then the question of our text is meaningless. Fate implies an inevitable destiny which can in no way be altered. Or if we resolve God into a mere force or energy or tendency, which works mechanically and blindly without thought or feeling or will, the question is equally meaningless. It is simply an absurdity to pray to a force, an energy, or a tendency. Or if God is an unknown God, of whom and of whose character we cannot speak with any certainty, then in no full Christian sense of the word can we pray unto Him. Or, if whilst ascribing such attributes as omnipotence and omniscience to Him, we think of Him as far removed from this world, having delegated its affairs to certain forces which, quite apart from Him, work according to certain laws, as we say, laws which He has established, but with which He has no further connection, then it is simply absurd to pray. Or if we think of Him as arbitrarily working out His own will, that will having nothing whatever to do with the welfare of His creatures, it is manifestly absurd to pray. Now all will admit that such conceptions, so current amongst us, are as contrary as they can be to what Jesus taught us about God. But whilst we may reject them, does our conception of God rise to the level of what Jesus taught us? To many the central thought about God is that which underlies the expression, to many perhaps the most common of all, and that commonness to which we owe, perhaps, more to the influence of the Prayer book than to any other cause, the expression Almighty God. A power which cannot be limited, a pressure from which there is no escape, a nature which knows no change, are the main elements of the conception which many entertain about God. But such physical attributes lay no sufficient basis for prayer. They may exist, to a large extent, in combination with other attributes which render prayer an absurdity. And even if we add intellectual attributes, such as infinite knowledge, a wisdom which cannot possibly err in thought or deed, we are far from having reached the central conception of God as Jesus revealed Him to us. His avowed object in coming into the world being, as He repeatedly assured us, to reveal God, surely the fact is full of significance that He never emphasised these attributes, which we put into the forefront, such attributes as infinity, unchangeableness, eternity, omnipotence, and so on? The great question is, Who is He to whom such attributes belong? To speak of God as the Almighty One, the Eternal One, the Unchangeable One, in inquiring who God is, is about as accurate and full of meaning as if in defining the rose, we were to speak of it as the sweet or the red. We want to know who it is who is infinite, who it is who is eternal, who it is who is omniscient, who it is who is unchangeable. And this is the question which Christ answers. He reveals to us Gods nature, not merely His attributes. He tells us who it is who is almighty, who it is who is unchangeable, and so on. And there is no uncertainty whatever in what He taught. Fatherliness is no mere attribute of God. Father is the one and only word which sets forth His nature; He of whom all these attributes are affirmed is the righteous Father, the Holy Father, the ideal Father. It is the Father, then, who is at the helm of the universe, over all and in all, constrained in everything He does by no law whatever save and except the law of His holy will. It is He to whom the welfare of everyone, without exception, is unspeakably dear, dearer than the welfare of your beloved child is to you.

II. Now let us ask what we mean by prayer. As used in a general and less exact sense, it often includes all that is comprehended in communion with God–adoration, confession, thanksgiving, intercession. In its narrower and more exact sense, it means simply asking, as when our Lord said, Ask, and ye shall receive. The best definition I ever saw of prayer is by the late T.H. Green, of Oxford, when he says, Prayer is a wish referred to God. Now, manifestly, what we ask from God must be regulated largely by what we think about Him. And if we pray to the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, there are certain thoughts about Him which will never be absent when we ask anything from Him. The first is that the Father can grant anything we ask. Here is the true place for omnipotence. His power is not hemmed in by any bounds at all, excepting only those of physical or moral impossibilities. No force limits, for there is no force in which He is not. Force is merely the mode of His working. No law limits Him, for law is simply a term which we use to express what we have learned in apparently the inviolable mode of His action. There is no entity, no being with nature which is outside of Him which controls Him in any measure. Apart, then, from that which is physically and morally impossible, God can do everything. It is not a thing incredible that He should raise the dead. There is no sickness which He cannot heal. There is no calamity which He cannot avert. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. Again, there is no limit on the side of Gods willingness to give us what we desire to have. This is simply an axiom if the great central truth of Christianity is conceded. But all this seems to be completely at issue with the facts which stare us in the face. It seems to be denied point blank by the experiences of life. With unutterable anguish written on uplifted face, and the body bathed in bloody sweat, the cry is extorted from us at all times, Oh, Father, do take this cup away, but it has to be drunk to its very dregs. The breadwinner in some dependent family, who has hardly known an idle hour, who has spent his little all, both of means and strength, on the small country farm he has tilled, obliged to sell everything that he might retain the honesty of his name, drifts into some metropolitan centre. Early and late, week after week, he strives to find employment by which to keep the wolf away from his home, but in vain. As he returns home at night he sees hunger and despair printed on the countenance he loves far better than life. What intensity does the agony of love give to his prayer. But no hand is outstretched, and he dies of a broken heart. If there is no limit on the side of the Fathers willingness to answer prayer, then why, oh! why does He not answer prayers such as these, and save His children from such crushing sorrows? Thomas Erskine, who, being before his age, was of course misunderstood, somewhere asks, If it has taken God untold ages to make a piece of old red sandstone, how long will it take Him to perfect a human soul? Elsewhere he writes, The depth of our misery now is an earnest of the immensity of that blessing which is to make all this worth while. I know of no standpoint whatever, save the one contained in such words as those, from which any light whatever can be seen playing upon the darkness. Nothing can dispel that entirely. It belongs to the primal fact of human freedom. But if it be true that the present life is but the mere tiniest fragment of a fragment in the life of any of us; if it be true that life is unending, that Gods education of us will never cease in any case until we are perfect, then there is no darkness here which may not intensify the brightness to come. So that the one and only answer, and the only limit to Gods answer to prayer is that implied in the words, This is the will of God, even your sanctification; or, in the words which you have in the Epistle to the Hebrews, For our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. Now let us in the light of these truths, remembering to whom we pray, remembering that the only limit to His answers to our prayer is not inability or unwillingness to answer, but the purpose of His holy love to make us perfect as He is perfect, let us in the light of these truths consider the question, What profit shall we have if we pray unto Him? It is perfectly plain from what has been said, that if prayer is true prayer, let it be for what it may, it will have attached to it, if not in word, at any rate in spirit, Not what I will but what Thou wilt. It cannot be otherwise if we have any worthy conception of Him to whom we pray. If that limit is attached to our prayer, there is nothing at all we cannot appropriately make the subject of prayer. Then are we to pray for success in our worldly calling, that God would bless us in our basket add in our store? By all means; only let it be remembered that success in the form in which we should choose it would very probably be about the worst thing for us, and certainly we shall not have it if it would. Are we to pray for restoration to health, when it seems as though life were about to be brought to a premature close, or when someone intensely loved by us seems to be withering away? By all means; only even then we must not forget that in all that is baffling medical skill, God is probably preparing us for the blow, which, just because He is love, He must let fall upon us. The supreme prayer is Thy will be done. Any prayer that overlaps the limits there laid down is the prayer of presumption, not the prayer of true faith. I have not spoken, nor is it needful, of prayer for what are commonly called spiritual blessings. We pray, and properly so, for growth in grace, for purity of life, for joyousness of heart, for control of self, that we may be delivered from uncharitableness, envy, evil speaking, covetousness, that we may be transparently truthful, that we may be patient, generous, brave and strong. But even here we must not forget that the answer to prayer may come just as certainly through failure as through success. It may come through the revelation of evil that is in us, as well as through the subjugation of such evil–that the prayer, Lead us not into temptation, can only be fully answered when we have passed through experiences such that we count it all joy when we fall into direst temptations. That there is profit in such prayer who can doubt, especially for people who have passed the meridian of life, and I trust younger people will realise it by and by. I say that there is profit in such prayer. We may not get the very thing we ask for, undoubtedly often shall not, but is there no profit? If when a father is obliged to say no to his child, he looks with love into that childs eyes, and lays his hand affectionately upon that childs head, is there no profit? We may feel most sensibly the Divine touch, and we may see most clearly the Divine face when the Divine love says no. Some one has said, The man who does all his praying on his knees does not pray enough. Undoubtedly. The Apostolic injunction is, Pray without ceasing. What profit shall we have if we pray unto Him? It will be in a tone of gratitude which becomes deeper and deeper until the end. In that may each of us ask the question we have been considering this morning. (Caleb Scott, D. D.)

On the nature of acceptable prayer

I. Objections urged against the duty of prayer.

1. Does not the Omniscient God know our wants and desires much better than we do ourselves? Answer–Is not prayer an acknowledgment of our dependence upon God for life, and breath, and all things? Every intelligent creature ought to acknowledge his dependence. Self-sufficiency is not the property of any created being.

2. Another objection is drawn from the immutability of the Divine nature. No petitions of ours, it has been said, can ever change Him. Answer–Though prayer produces no change in God, it may, through the promised influences of His grace, change the temper and dispositions of our minds, and prepare us for the reception of those blessings which He has promised to those who call upon Him in sincerity and truth. The change, then, is not in God, but in ourselves.

3. Another objection–As every event is foreordained, it is vain for us to imagine that Gods eternal purposes can be reversed; or that He will depart from His system in the government of the universe, in order to gratify our desires. Answer–Apply this mode of reasoning to the ordinary affairs of life, and its fallacy will at once appear. The great duties of personal religion rest on a ground of obligation similar to that of all the ordinary duties of life. On the same principle on which the farmer acts, when he ploughs his ground and sows his seed, we are morally obliged to improve all the means and ordinances of religion. Prayer is not inconsistent with the Divine decrees; it is one of the means leading to their accomplishment.

II. The nature of acceptable prayer.

1. Prayer must be the desires of the heart.

2. Prayers must be for such things only as God hath promised to give.

3. They must be fervent and persevering.

4. They must be offered in faith. We must believe that God is able and willing to grant our requests.

III. Point out some of the advantages of prayer.

1. Its fixing the heart upon God, the true centre of its happiness.

2. By fixing the heart on God, prayer prepares it for the reception of His richest blessings.

3. The benefit of prayer is particularly felt in the hour of affliction and distress, and in the immediate prospect of death. In order to give a full and satisfactory answer to the question in the text, consider man in his social, as well as his individual capacity, in social and family worship. (James Ross, D. D.)

Questioning

Men in general are not sufficiently aware of the importance of the manner of asking questions. Of so much importance is the manner, that we could cite good questions as evidences of bad men. For instance, Pharaohs question, Who is the Lord that I should obey Him? Now, in itself nothing could be more reasonable than this question. Pharaoh was a heathen, and this is just the question that a missionary would wish a heathen to ask. There was the question asked by Pilate, What is truth? A proper question, but always cited as a proof of the culpably indifferent state of his mind; for we are told that he did not wait for a reply. The question in our text is a reasonable inquiry, but it is here a part of a speech of the most wicked of mankind. We can suppose it asked in various manners.

1. In a trifling, impertinent manner.

2. In an unbelieving manner.

3. In a spirit of utter impiety.

4. As a grave and proper inquiry.

1. In a trifling manner; just as if a man should say, Dont trouble me! What you say may be very true; but at present I feel no concern about it.

2. In a spirit of unbelief, not exactly that of an atheist.

3. In a spirit of daring impiety. There are spirits that can turn full on the Almighty with a frown of dislike, and can turn away from all appeals to their consciences respecting the claims of God, and the glory of Christ.

4. But we suppose this question asked in great simplicity. Tell us (we might say to the inquirer), have you been long making this inquiry? How long? If only lately, it is very wonderful. How has it happened that you have deferred it so long? How did it not come among your first inquiries? Let those persons who have not made the inquiry, think how strange it is that they have neglected it, while God has sustained them every moment till now, amidst all the manifestations of mercy. (John Foster.)

Is there reason or profit in prayer

Thus spake sceptical men in the days of Job. Thus speak sceptical men now. The question of prayer is not a question of natural science; it comes within the domain of moral science. And moral questions must be judged of by moral evidence. Prayer is a question that lies entirely between God and the soul of man, and is consequently quite removed from the field of scientific research, and out of the region of scientific analysis. Is the soul of man so constituted as to make prayer an essential element of his spiritual being? And has God made known to us His mind and will in reference to prayer? Each Person of the ever-blessed Trinity has made known His will on the subject of prayer. We may answer the question of the text by appealing to the personal experience of multitudes of all past ages. History and biography come in as witnesses to the profit and value of prayer. We learn the value of a blessing by its being taken away. What would be the moral condition of the world were there no prayer? How long would our religion exist without prayer? (Bishop Stevens.)

The profit of prayer

Men are averse to call upon God.

I. Expose and reprove the unworthy, erroneous, and carnal notions some entertain of prayer.

1. They wish to make it subservient only to their temporal interest–pray only for health, prosperity, long life, and yet imagine themselves religious people.

2. Some scorn it altogether, because they do not find it answer this low purpose.

3. Some enter their prayers in heaven only as a sort of debtor and creditor account against their sins.

4. Others view prayer as only intended to be their last resource. When they are at their wits end, then they cry unto the Lord. The iron hand of adversity, but nothing else bends their stubborn knees.

II. There is a higher kind of profit in prayer.

1. Right prayers shall obtain the forgiveness of sin.

2. A new heart is another essential blessing to be obtained by prayer.

3. Another invaluable blessing is the Holy Spirit to dwell in us.

4. Prayer may obtain His delivering grace in all exigencies, or support under them.

5. Prayer shall gain the kingdom of heaven.

III. The ground on which those who pray aright are assured of attaining all this profit.

1. The revealed character of God.

2. The express promises of God are our security. The work and office of Christ form another most important ground of security. He is our intercessor to plead for us, to present our prayers, and enforce them by His own merit. (The Evangelist.)

Prayer a profitable exercise

I. The exercise assumed. If we pray unto Him. Prayer implies–

1. A consciousness of want. Man is a needy creature. Destitution is his inheritance. They are best qualified to pray who know most of themselves.

2. Prayer supposes a Being capable of supplying our wants. This Being must know our necessities, and possess sufficient benevolence and power to supply them. Such is the Almighty. Prayers to saints or angels are impious, as they transfer the homage from the Creator to the creature; and absurd, as angels are as dependent as men.

3. Prayer implies an approach towards the Almighty. Man is an alien from God; far gone from original righteousness. When he begins to pray, his mind turns towards God. Hence prayer is called feeling after God, looking to Him, seeking His face, and pouring out the heart before Him.

4. Prayer includes an expression of our wants. We may express our wants fully; we should do it humbly and importunately. We should pray in faith.

II. The inquiry instituted. What profit should we have, etc. Selfishness is universally prevalent in the world. Wicked men are invariably selfish men. Because prayer is deemed unprofitable, therefore it is neglected. There is no exercise under heaven attended with so much profit as prayer.

1. Prayer contributes to the removal of evil. Of moral evil. Of natural evil–affliction and oppression.

2. Prayer is instrumental in procuring good. All good, for body and soul, for time and eternity. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)

The advantages of prayer

1. The pleasure and satisfaction immediately attending the several acts and instances of a devout temper

2. Prayer by a natural influence calms our passions and makes Us considerate and wise.

3. Prayer establishes our integrity and virtue against temptations; thus makes us happy in ourselves, and gains us the esteem and confidence of others, which are of the utmost advantage in life.

4. Prayer will produce a noble joy and confidence in God, and a permanent cheerfulness and tranquillity, amidst all the uncertainty of events.

5. If we can trust to the clearest dictates of reason, or to the most express promises of revelation, a religious temper and conduct will certainly procure for us peculiar guidance, assistances, and supplies from an ever-present God, though we cannot always distinctly know and assign them.

6. Prayer is the best relief in all distress, and especially when death approaches. (W. Amory.)

Is prayer of any use

1. Doubts arise as to the use of prayer in the minds of men who have no feeling of need.

2. By men who disrelish prayer.

3. By men who have regard to the uniformity of nature.

4. Doubts also arise from the fact that multitudes of prayers seem unanswered. (D. G. Watt, M. A.)

The profit of prayer

It does us good in various ways.

1. There is a certain relief to our overcharged feelings procured by means of prayer to the Almighty. A striking passage occurs in the celebrated paper by Tyndall, proposing a plan by which the efficacy of prayer should be put to the test. While he distinctly denies to prayer the power of effecting objective results, or results outside of us, Tyndall admits that the exercise is not altogether vain and valueless. It does some good. His words are, There is a yearning of the heart, a craving for help it knows not whence. Certainly from no source it sees. Of a similar kind is the bitter cry of the hare when the greyhound is almost upon her. She abandons hope through her own efforts, and screams. It is a voice convulsively sent out into space, whose utterance is a physical relief. Prayer is a physical relief. Herein is its value, In moments of distress the soul is relieved by giving vocal expression to its anguish. The doom is not averted by the prayer–It can have no possible result of that kind–but the prayer dominates the pain with which the soul anticipates calamity.

2. Prayer is valuable as an intellectual drill. As the mental faculties are brought into exercise by this approach to the Deity, the mind is benefited by prayer in the same way that the beefy is benefited by a turn at gymnastics. The profoundest and noblest themes engage us in our addresses to God; and expressing our thoughts usually in words, we have the additional advantage of being compelled to clearness and definiteness in our conceptions.

3. According to this theory, prayer is valuable in respect of what it does for our moral and spiritual nature. The emotional part of our being is quickened by this Divine exercise. You can at once see how humility, patience, resignation, and suchlike qualities are developed in our hearts by this means. Contact with a Being infinitely holy will also stimulate our admiration and desire for what is pure and good and noble. If I cannot benefit another by my prayers, I can, at least, by the intercourse and fellowship I have with God in them, secure for myself moral impulse and moral tone. Prayer is a means of grace, not in that it secures for our sanctification any supernatural good, but in that it brings us into communication and close converse with a Holy Being. (A. F. Forrest.)

Prayer proved to be a profitable exercise

I. The exercise assumed. If we pray, etc. Prayer implies four things –

1. A consciousness of want. Man is a needy creature. They are best qualified to pray who know most of themselves.

2. Prayer supposes an object capable of supplying our wants. This Being must know our necessities, and possess sufficient benevolence and power to supply them. Such is the Almighty, who is considered in this verse as the object of prayer. Prayers to saints of angels are impious, as they transfer the homage from the Creator to the creature; and absurd, as angels are as dependent as men.

II. The inquiry instituted. What profit should we have? etc. Selfishness is universally prevalent in the world. There is no exercise under heaven attended with so much profit as prayer.

1. Prayer contributes to the removal of evil. Of moral evil. Jabez prayed that God would keep him from evil; and God granted him that which he requested. David said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Of natural evil. Affliction. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them, etc. (Psa 107:6). Hezekiah prayed, and wept in his affliction, and God said, Behold, I will heal thee (1Ki 20:5). Sorrow. I found, said David, trouble and sorrow: then called I upon the name of the Lord, etc. (Psa 116:1-4).

2. Prayer is instrumental in procuring good. All good, for body and soul, for time and eternity, is promised to prayer. And the profit of prayer infinitely outweighs all other profit. It is Divine. Worldly profit consists in flocks, herds, money, etc. This, in faith, grace, love, happiness, etc. It is mental. Worldly profit is sensual, all for the outward man; but he who prays is enriched inwardly; all his intellectual powers are profited. It is comprehensive. Worldly profit is circumscribed and bounded by time; the profit of prayer illimitable. It is universal. Worldly profit affects us partially; this, in body, and soul, and substance.

And the profit arising from prayer is secured without risk, and retained without any fears of deprivation.

1. The conduct of the wicked is impious. They not only live without prayer, but live as if God had no right to exact this duty of them.

2. The conduct of the wicked is erroneous. They consider prayer a profitless exercise, and therefore neglect it. But this calculation is totally unfounded. Prayer avails much.

3. The conduct of the wicked is ruinous. Without prayer salvation is unattainable (Pro 1:24-31). (J. Benson.)

The profitableness of prayer

These words are an objection of bold, ungodly, and profane men against the duty of prayer. The stress of the argument is taken from its unprofitableness; it is said that it does not procure us the advantages which might be expected from it. But because God is pleased to incite us to the observance of His commands by the promise of a reward, and because there are peculiar blessings annexed to this duty of prayer, I shall not insist on the absolute right of God to require it. That prayer is unprofitable, the objectors must show, either from reason or from experience. They must either prove that God cannot hear prayers, or that He doth not; that it is inconsistent with the notion of God that He should be prevailed on by the prayers of men; or that by trial it has been found that He has never been prevailed on. But if men can prove from the nature or the attributes of God, that He cannot be prevailed on by the prayers of men, they need not trouble themselves to prove that He is not. But if we can prove that God is sometimes wrought on by the prayers of men, we need not trouble to prove against them, that He can be wrought upon. The blessings we receive, do, the objectors own, follow our prayers; but they will not own that they are the consequences of our prayers. The objections we now deal with are offered by those who own the being of God, and acknowledge His providence, His power, and His goodness, but raise difficulties concerning the profitableness of prayer. They say God is an unchangeable Being, not only in His nature and essence, but also in His counsels and purposes; and therefore He is not to be moved by prayers to send down gifts upon clamorous and importunate petitioners for them. All change, they say, among men argues weakness and infirmity of mind. Shall we then charge this weakness upon God? He cannot change His purposes for the better, because they are always perfectly good and wise. Whatever difficulties there may be in this objection, they are not so great as to shake our assurance, that God hears the prayers of men. For the unchangeableness of God cannot be better proved from reason or from Scriptures than His readiness to supply the wants of those who call upon Him. It is not more inconsistent with the perfections of God to be wavering and changeable than it is to be deaf to the prayers of His servants, and unable or unwilling to grant their requests. I will try to show that God may be unchangeable, and yet that He may be wrought upon by the prayers of men; or, which is all one, that He may grant those things to men upon their requests, which, without such requests, He would not grant. Gods purposes are not so absolute as to exclude all conditions. He determines to bestow His favours upon men, not indiscriminately, but upon men so and so qualified. God determines to give grace to the humble, and pardon of sins to the penitent. Humility and repentance are therefore the conditions on mans part. God, by His infinite wisdom, foresees the wants and dispositions of all men. One of His required dispositions is prayer. The objectors may however doubt whether the dependence which God requires must necessarily be expressed and evidenced by prayer. For, they say we may trust in God, and yet not call upon Him. Nay, it may even be a sign of our entire trust and confidence, that we submit ourselves implicitly to His will, and do not trouble Him with our requests. To this false reasoning it may be answered, that if this dependence on God means anything, it must be, to all intents and purposes, the same thing as a mental prayer. For prayer consists in the elevation of the soul to God. As to the objection, that if we are worthy of Gods favours, He will grant them unasked; this is frivolous, since in Gods esteem they only are worthy who do ask. Asking is one thing requisite to make us so far worthy; and what for our own unworthiness we cannot hope, we may expect from the goodness of God, through the merits of Christ The more nicely or scrupulously we examine the grounds of this or any other religious duty, the more fully shall we be convinced of the reasonableness of it. Weak and infirm minds, who use to take up duties upon trust, and without trial, are too apt, when they hear anything that looks plausible, urged against the necessity of such duties, to be easily led away. It remains only, that being upon the mature deliberation, and impartial examining the merits of the cause, fully convinced of the reasonableness of the duty, we apply ourselves to a conscientious and faithful discharge of it; that being thoroughly persuaded of the profitableness of prayer, we do not so far overlook our own interest, as by neglect of prayer to lose those many and unspeakable advantages which we may expect from it; but that, by praying to God frequently, humbly, and fervently, we should be able to give the best, the shortest and fullest proof of the usefulness of prayer from our own experience. As we plead experience for the usefulness of prayer, so the objectors plead experience against its being profitable. They say the blessings we pray for are not granted; the evils we pray against are not removed. To make this a convincing argument against prayer, it must be supposed–

1. That because God has not yet regarded our prayers, therefore for the future He will not.

2. That because God has not regarded some prayers, therefore He will regard none.

3. That because God does not answer the particular requests of such as pray to Him, therefore He does not regard their prayers. As the contrary of all these is true, the argument of the objector is a bad one. Prayer is so weighty, so necessary, and so advantageous a duty, that we cannot take too much pains to establish it upon the firmest grounds, and to settle it upon its true foundations. Note the chief of those qualities which are most essential to a valid and effectual prayer.

1. Trust in Him to whom we pray.

2. Attention of mind whilst we pray.

3. A fervent desire of that for which we pray.

4. The deepest humility of soul and body in the act of praying.

Argue the following points–

(1) The same prayers repeated may be of some force; so that Gods disregard of our first prayers is no good reason why we should desist from renewing our petitions.

(2) Other prayers substituted in the room of those which have not been heard, may be answered; so that Gods disregard of some sort of prayers is no reason for our intermission of all.

(3) Though God does not grant the particular requests of such as pray unto Him, He may yet regard their prayers; so that Gods absolute and peremptory denial of our requests is no good argument against praying unto Him. (Bishop Smallridge.)

Is prayer useless

Whether prayer ought to have any place in the sphere of human life is clearly a question of very grave importance. To Christians, prayer is the simple necessity of a newborn life–the instinctive utterance of conscious want; and God can no more disregard it than a tender mother can jest with the cry of her helpless babe. Without prayer, religious duty would degenerate into treadmill drudgery–begun with reluctance, ended with a sigh of relief. Outside the pale of the Christian Church too many there are in every social grade who look on prayer as a symptom of intellectual feebleness, of superstitious alarm, or of fanatical delusion. Examine the grounds on which this notion rests, more especially as it is held by those who have picked up a smattering of our modern science and philosophy.

1. Prayer is assumed to be useless, because of the immutability of Gods character. There is no logical resting place between theism and atheism–between a God absolutely perfect, and no God at all. Grant His existence, and every excellence must belong to Him, so completely and finally, as to be incapable either of addition or subtraction. Why hope to move such a Being with mortal entreaties? What response can they have but their own sad echoes? The objection thus urged is based on a fundamental misconception. Rightly understood, prayer is not intended to change God; it is designed rather by its reflex influence, to change ourselves; to lift us into the circle of His transforming fellowship. Immutability must not be confounded with insensibility. The crowning glory of Gods nature is, that He feels appropriately towards all things, unalterably pained with what is wrong, unalterably pleased with what is right; and the supreme object of prayer is to bring us into such relations to Him that the benignant fulness of His Godhead, free from all fitful caprices, may flow forth with unvarying willingness and certainty for our help and happiness.

2. Prayer is assumed to be useless, because of the fixity of Gods purposes. Every being gifted with intelligence acts more or less from deliberate predetermination. How much more must this be the case with Him who is the great fountain of intelligence, and who ordereth all things according to the counsel of His own mind! This is the simple truth, but does it present any valid argument against the worth of prayer? Does not prayer run parallel with Gods designs, not counter to them? Does it not ask what is agreeable to His will; not what is contrary to it? Is it not itself an ordained part of the Divine scheme–a something enjoined by the eternal Maker and Ruler of us? Heavens decrees no more forbid supplication than they forbid effort. Intercession with God is not an attempt to frustrate His purposes, but to obey and carry them into harmonious fulfilment.

3. Prayer is assumed to be useless, because of the unchangeableness of Gods laws. Laws of nature, men call them. Laws of God, whereby nature is governed, would be a more accurate and equally scientific definition. It is said, Will prayer alter, by so much as a hairbreadth, the course of that huge machinery, named the System of the Universe, any more than the shriek of perishing villages will arrest the avalanche, or extinguish the volcano? This reasoning leaves untouched the whole realm of the supernatural; and, after all, it is spiritual benedictions with which prayer is chiefly concerned, and which constitute the richest heritage God can bestow, or man receive. With respect to the physical, it is not sound philosophy to represent the world as a piece of clockwork, wound up millenniums ago, and left to run its round without further dependence on the Divine Artificer. He who made the world sustains it; is the source of all its energies, the guide of all its movements. Even human skill can utilise natures laws. Is the Creator more impotent than the creature?

4. Prayer is assumed to be useless, because of the infinitude of Gods wisdom and love. No incident in our chequered history, be it great or small, is hidden from His omniscient gaze. Why tell Him that of which He is already fully cognisant? Since He comprehends what we need better than we do ourselves, will He not grant or deny all the same, whether we ask or not? But prayer was never meant for any purpose so impertinent as to inform the Deity, or to teach wisdom and understanding to the Most High. But it does not follow that His blessings will be dispensed alike, sought or unsought. Prayer is the sign of moral fitness to receive. Because God is love, it is lame logic to conclude that He must lavish His treasures equally on those who solicit and on those who spurn them. Heavens kindness is not an amiable weakness, blind, impulsive. Prayer takes what love offers, and what, without prayer, can never be personally appropriated.

5. Prayer is assumed to be useless because of the withholding of Gods answer. It can hardly be denied that there is much praying that ends in nothing. It falls still-born from the lips, and is buried in the dust of abortive and forgotten things. What is the use of presenting requests which are thus unheeded? But to argue after this fashion is to jump at totally false conclusions. While we are waiting, the answer may already be given in another shape. May there not be an indolent proneness to beseech God to do precisely what He expects us to do, and what He has given us the power of doing ourselves? Does delay necessarily mean denial? Surely there are causes enough to account for unanswered prayer, without impugning its efficacy when rightly offered. Instead, therefore, of pleading untenable objections, let the worth of prayer be tried and tested by individual experience. (L. B. Brown.)

The profit of religion

There have always been men who estimate the value of a thing by its marketable and commercial qualities. What will it profit me? is the question that precedes every outlay and governs every action. These men have no eye for the spiritualities, the sentiments, the unuttered and unutterable glories of life. How much will it fetch? is their only method of determining the worth of a thing. That was the way the men of Jobs time estimated the religion he professed. Religion to them was an investment. Jobs acquaintances are not all dead yet. Blot out the notion that has possessed us, that, somehow, it will be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked hereafter, and how many of us would say the prayers we now say, or participate in the forms and rites of worship that now engage our attention? We are religious because we think it pays. We have a kind of ineradicable notion that it will pay still more in the life to come. So it comes that religion may be degraded into the most absolute selfishness, and the highest and holiest functions of life be turned into an investment that savours of mammondom.

I. What is religion? What do we mean by service? Religion is not an observance, but a life; it is the conscious union of the soul with God, manifesting itself in conduct, and uplifting itself in speech. It is the carrying of the Divine principles of integrity, honesty, charity, love, peacefulness, and goodwill, into the daily rounds and daily duties of our common life. Serving God is the unforced obedience of love; the fulfilling of the will of God in every sphere of life to which it shall please God to call us; to work and act and think as those whose aim is to carry out the purposes of God. If you would know how to serve God, learn how to serve humanity by living for it in loving ministrations, and, if needs be, by dying for it. God is neither served nor flattered by words, or postures, or gesticulations, or the observance of days and times. He who serves his brother, Ms neighbour, even in the humblest spheres, and by the humblest means, serves God. They also serve who only stand and wait.

II. What will be the result of all this? What rewards does God offer? Should I be far wrong if I were to say, None? God has no system of conferring favours. He does not pay for service with Caesars coin. So far as the world goes, religion pure and undefiled is not a stepping stone to its most valued things. It was once the stepping stone to a Cross. Serving God is not incompatible with worldly wealth; righteousness and religion need not be barriers in the way of worldly progress. But God does not pay men for service in that way. Let me point out what my conceptions of the results of serving God are.

1. It links us to the Infinite and the Eternal. It stamps this poor, imperfect life with the Divine insignia. It touches the sordid things of earth into sanctities and sacrednesses.

2. Add the inward peace and satisfaction which comes from the consciousness of being identified with the Infinite and the Eternal; the consciousness that we are fulfilling the highest end of our being, and that, come life, or come death, God is the strength of our life, and our portion forever. Some will ask, Does not God reward service with heaven? No; service is heaven, here and hereafter. Heaven will be the result of character–developed, ripened, sanctified to the service of God. There can be no heaven for the man who has not learned to do the will of God. (W. J. Hocking.)

Of the reasonableness of religion

Religion, or the service of God, is an equivalent expression for a virtuous and good life. Religion is grounded on the very best reason, having its foundation in these three things–

I. The existence and nature of God. The being of a God is not an idle, fanciful notion, but a sacred and eternal truth, witnessed by the whole universe; so that we may as reasonably doubt whether anything at all is, as whether there be a God, who is the cause of all other things. Gods working everywhere is a plain proof of His presence everywhere. The same God, whose presence, power, and knowledge are infinite, is likewise most holy, just, good, merciful, faithful and true, and in all these attributes is without variableness, or shadow of turning. Religion must be a reasonable service, being founded in the existence and nature of this Almighty Being.

II. The nature of man. It is therefore reasonable. Creatures that are part bodies and part souls. Our bodies surrounded with innumerable dangers, and naturally weak and defenceless; subject to manifold wants, passions, and diseases. Our souls of a rank and order much advanced above our bodies; possessed of powers and faculties excellent in their nature, but that may become the foundation of our guilt and shame, and the means of our greater torment and misery. Religion only can preserve the peace of the mind, or restore it when lost. It is not peace alone that religion bestows, but pleasures too. The soul lives when our body dies.

III. Religion is founded in the relation betwixt God and man. I am related to God as the author of my being, and all belonging to it. God is the fountain of happiness, the object as well as the author of it. Reflections–

1. How thankful we should be for the Gospel of our blessed Saviour, and how very highly should we value it.

2. Christianity is wonderfully suited to the nature of man as a fallen creature.

3. Appeal to every mans conscience, whether it be not a plain case what his choice ought to be? (H. Grove.)

The claims and rewards of Gods service

This question is not difficult to answer.

I. Consider these motives which ought to induce us to serve God, drawn from his character and relations. Service supposes superiority; for the greater is served by the lesser; also a right to our services, and an ability to reward them. We therefore assert as motives to the service of God–

1. The justice of His claims, grounded on His sovereign greatness; grounded on the end of our creation; grounded on His providential goodness. Consider how His claims receive additional strength from the doctrine of the Gospel, by which we are declared His purchase. At what a price did He redeem us!

2. The rewards He gives to His servants. In the present life He gives peace of mind; the supply of every want; protection from danger. In the future–what?

II. Improve the subject.

1. Think of the pleasure of serving God.

2. Think of the improvement of all our powers–for all the advantage is ours.

3. Think, by contrast, that if you do not serve God, you serve the god of this world. Think of the future rewards of ungodly service! (J. Walker, D. D.)

Profit in service and prayer

A not wholly illogical induction of the facts of life. The wicked prospered, the righteous cast down. What is the good of serving the Almighty? Answer–

I. Almighty will make it right hereafter. But–

1. This narrow range of prayer must have help now.

2. There is no other world here or nowhere is whole fact, i.e., no different administration hereafter. Justice is sovereign here and now.

3. No force with Job and his friends; knew little about hereafter, of rewards and punishments. They inclined to think Gods service paid here. Answer–

II. Gods service is rich in reward, here and now.

1. Gods service is compliance with His laws, which always pays.

2. Servant of God makes best use of what he has. Lords poor better off than the devils poor.

3. His service pays in character; makes a man unselfish.

4. Pays in spiritual rest and joy.

5. Pays to pray to God, for He answers prayer. Indirectly. Dont always get what is asked for, but something better. Directly. Often get very thing asked. Scepticism says, Would have got it, anyhow. Faith answers, God, not anyhow, heard me. Almighty is not then a blind force, not a chemical affinity. Almighty is a Sovereign whose it is to say whether He shall answer prayer at all, and when and how. Jehovah God, who shall reign forever and ever. (John S. Plumer.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 15. What is the Almighty] What allegiance do we owe to him? We feel no obligation to obey him; and what profit can we derive from prayer? We are as happy as flesh and blood can make us: our kingdom is of this world; we wish for no other portion than that which we have.

Those who have never prayed as they ought know nothing of the benefits of prayer.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

What excellency is there in him? and what advantage have we or can we expect from him?

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

15. (Compare Jer 2:20;Pro 30:9, Margin, Ex5:2).

what profit (Job 35:3;Mal 3:14; Psa 73:13).Sinners ask, not what is right, but what is for the profitof self. They forget, “If religion cost self something, thewant of it will cost self infinitely more.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

What [is] the Almighty, that we should serve him?…. “Who is he” t? as some render it; or what is there in him, in his nature, in his excellencies and perfections, that should oblige us to serve him? One would think the attribute of “Almighty”, they own and acknowledge, is sufficient to engage to it, since he is the lawgiver that is able to save and to destroy, even to destroy with an everlasting destruction, both body and soul in hell, who obey him not; but fulness of riches, power, and authority, swell the mind with pride, and put men on asking such questions, and running such lengths as these; see Ex 5:2. The question is full of atheism, and suggests there was nothing in God excellent or worthy of any regard, or on account of which he should be served and worshipped; as if he was a mere idol, which is nothing in the world; and that he was indeed nothing in it, neither did good nor evil, nor concerned himself with the affairs of men; had forsaken the earth, and took no notice of what was doing is it; at least, the question supposes that such think themselves under no obligations to serve him, and shows them to be sons of Belial, without a yoke; that they neither are nor can he subject to the law of God without his grace; they are not willing God should reign over them, nor to be obedient to his commands and ordinances; but are for freeing themselves from all obligations to him, and choose to serve various lusts and pleasures; be the vassals of sin and Satan, rather than be the worshippers of God:

and what profit should we have if we pray unto him? Prayer is one part of the service of God, and may be here put for the whole: this, as all the rest, is very disagreeable to a natural man, who, as he is biased entirely by profit and gain, thinks there is nothing to be got by religious exercises; he observing, that the worshippers of God, as to external things, fare worse than those who do not pray unto him, or do not serve and worship him; see Mal 3:14; though there is much profit, and many things, and those most excellent and valuable, got by prayer; for whatsoever good men ask in prayer, believing, they receive, Mt 7:7. The Targum is

“if we pray in his Word,”

in the name of the essential Word, the Son of God; whereas to ask or pray in his name is the only way of succeeding; and such, who do ask in faith in his name, have what they ask for, Joh 14:15.

t “quis est?” V. L.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

THE PROFIT OF PERSONAL RELIGION

Job 21:15

THIS text phrases a question which occurs again and again in the Book of Job. As far back as its first chapter Satan charged Job with serving God that he might secure a selfish profit from the same. When his counsellors were about him we hear Eliphaz, the Temanite, putting into the lips of wicked men this phrase, What can the Almighty do for them? (Job 22:17). While just a little later Elihu quotes Job, perhaps unjustly, with having said, It profiteth a man nothing that he should delight himself with God (Job 34:9).

The question of the profit of personal religion is as old as the ages; and yet as new as the hour in which we live, and I want you to think with me about it for a while. This text, strictly applied, would cover only the profit of prayer, but more liberally interpreted, the whole subject of religion.

THE QUESTION OF PROFIT

One essential in clear thinking is the definition of terms. When we employ the word profit what do we mean? Gain in gold only? God forbid! That is not the greatest profit. Exaltation to position? That is not sufficient!

Profit cannot be expressed in dollars and cents. At this very point many people get wry notions of religion. Think of a man uniting himself with a church, and rendering it an indifferent service for two or three years and then dropping out. When

the Pastor visited him he said, Well, I have been a member of that church for three years. It has never turned any money into my pocket as yet; never helped me in securing a position; nor in any way profited me so far as I can see. Could religion be reduced to a grosser conception, or phrased in sentences more intensely selfish?

Poor Peter! Before his baptism of the Spirit, he fell into such error, and on one occasion, he said to Jesus, We have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore? As if the question of increased treasure were the only possible profit in this present life. Some years since a steamer laden with passengers from the gold fields of the Klondike, homeward bound, struck an iceberg off the coast of Alaska and went down. The next day a newspaper flashed the news from one end of the land to the other, containing the testimony of the saved of the sights upon which they had looked in connection with their shipwreck. Two of them were after this manner: Mr H had forty thousand dollars in gold dust, which he abandoned and reached the shore in safety. Mr. K had forty thousand dollars in gold dust to which he clung and weighted by his treasure, he sank and we never saw him any more!

The man who considers an increase of silver and gold as the only possible profit will pay the price of life for his philosophy and will be raising the question, For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

The question of profit does not necessarily involve position. There are men who love prominence and power beyond all possible possessions. The successful world is somewhat equally divided between commercial men and professional men. The former deliberately declare wealth to be the chief good; and the latter are as evidently in search of honor instead. But as a mans life consistent not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth so also a mans life consisteth not in the possible eminence to which he may attain. The best and wisest men I have known have been willing to put aside proffered position when it conflicted with their personal relations with God. And they have considered such action, not loss, but gain.

The riches of this present life are not expressed by silver and gold; and position and power only. Dr. John Robertson, when he was yet proclaiming the Gospel of the Son of God, told the story of the man who went from New York to his home in Brooklyn, bankrupt. Entering his house he flung himself down without eating and moaned, It is all gone! Our firm has stopped payment! We have nothing left! We are not only bankrupt but our reputation is ruined! And the strong man was inconsolable in his grief. While he lay there repeating over and over, All is gone; nothing left! his little daughter, a beautiful curly-headed child, entered the room. With a soft tread, and a sympathizing heart, she pressed her curly head against him and said, Papa, I am left. And the wife, sitting by and hearing the words, came and said, I am left. And the old grandmother, from her corner, came and said, Son, and all the promises are left. God is not dead! He sat up and cried, Forgive me, I did not appreciate how much I had left

There was a day when Saul was on his way to Damascus. He was the best educated young man of his time; he was descended from the noblest house of Judah; he was the most promising young official in the Sanhedrin; his inherited wealth was such as to make a living easy; and the following of his profession a delightful pastime. But ere the journey was done Jesus was revealed to him as Lord. His family disowned him; his inheritance was taken away; his official position was lost; his good name among the Jews became a hissing and a byword. Go, stand before that scholar and ask him whether there be any profit in personal religion, and listen to the eloquence of his answer:

If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more;

Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the Law, a Pharisee;

Concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the righteousness which is in the Law blameless.

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith;

That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death;

If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing (Php 3:4-16).

Profit, then, is measured by personal godliness. Jesus once faced a company who were so sordid that even His eloquence could not win them from questions of silver and gold. His appeal was, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. And His assertion was, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you, as if the Kingdom of God was the essential good; or, as Henry Drummond, puts it, Summum bonum, or the highest possible profit. Mr. Tanksley, meeting an old colored man said, Good morning, Uncle Ned. Do you carry any insurance? Does I cary what? asked Uncle Ned in surprise. Do you carry any insurance? Is your life insured? asked Mr. Tanksley, by way of explanation. Bless Gawd! yas, yas, replied the colored man, long agolong ago. In what company? Im a Baptis, sah; Im a deep-watah Baptis, said Uncle Ned. How long since you joined? I jined, said Uncle Ned, de same yeah dat de stars fellI reckon you know how long dats been? Thats a long while, commented the insurance man. Quite a long while. Does your company pay any dividends? Boss, said Uncle Ned with a broad grin, dat is a question way out ob my reach. Why, Uncle Ned, a dividend is interest paid on your money; and if youve been paying your money into one company for more than thirty years, surely you ought to have been receiving your dividends long before now, especially if it is an old-line company!

Well, said Uncle Ned, hit sho is a ole-line compny. De Lawd sot hit up Hissf way bac yon-dah on Calvarees tree. But I aint nebeh heard tell o no dividens, ner nuthin o dat sawt. De fac is, it is free! I aint neber paid nothin to be insured. I has done got my soul sabed widout a cents cost.

Oh, I see, said Mr. Tanksley, You have misunderstood me, Uncle Ned. You are talking about your soul. Dat is what I was. Well, I want to talk to you about your body. You may have an accident, or sickness, or death. Yes, sir; I may hab dem all!

Now, insurance cant prevent them, but it can help you in your time of trouble. Well, sir, if dat is what you mean by gettin insured, den it mus be de ole-line companys all right, cause I hab been in de ole-line since de stars fell, and it sho has hepped me in time of trouble.

Personal religion is profitable at every point.

Does it pay, I wonder, to toil for gold

Till the back is bowed and bent,

Till the heart is old and the hair is white,

And lifes best days are spent:

Till the eyes are blind with the yellow dust

That we strive for day by day,

Till all we hear is the coins dull clink

I wonder, does it pay?

Does it pay, I wonder, to never stop,

In the ceaseless rush and care,

And list to the songs of bird and brook,

Or wander through woodlands fair:

To never think of what lies beyond

The narrow sphere of today,

Till the new life dawns on our untried souls

I wonder, does it pay?

Godliness is profitable for the life that now is.

That brings us to the discussion of the second subject:

THIS PRESENT LIFE

The life that now is. Man is threefold in his naturebody, soul (or mind), and spirit. Does the service of God profit for this present life? I make three assertions without fear of successful contradiction.

FirstThe body is better off for true religion. Did you ever ask yourself why it was that the children of the Puritan parents endured hardship, survived starvation, conquered climate, cleared forests, overcame the aborigines, and finally, when the demand was made upon them, though so few in numbers, were more than a match at arms with the great mother country, England? The practice of the precepts of Jesus Christ by their fathers produced a generation of children in whose veins the blood ran clear while the heart beat strong; and they were men of might and power. They were not; the weaklings such as Sodomites have brought forth from time immemorial; but men who literally filled up the description of the Anakim of old, given by the ten cowardly spies.

Dwight Hillis was altogether right when he said, The childs birth-stock of vital force is his capital to be traded upon. Other things being equal his productive value is to be estimated mathematically upon the basis of physique. Born weak and nerveless, he must go to societys ambulance wagon, and so impede the onward march. Born vigorous and rugged, he can help to clear the forest roadway, or lead the advancing columns. Fundamentally man is a muscular machine for producing the ideas that shape conduct and character. All fine thinking stands with one foot on fine brain fiber. Given large physical organs, lungs with capacity sufficient to oxygenate the life-currents as they pass upward; large arteries through which the blood may have full course, run, and be glorified; a brain healthy and balanced with a compact nervous system, and you have the basis for computing what will be mans value to society. There has never been introduced into this world anything that contributes to physical manhood comparable to the religion of Jesus Christ.

A mans mind is invigorated by the religion of Jesus. The worlds one ideal, when considered from a moral standpoint, is the Man of Nazareth. Never man spake like this Man. The educated of two thousand years have frankly confessed His splendid superiority. Some of you remember the cartoon designed for the French Pantheon, called The Staircase of Voltaire, in which that great infidel is represented at the top of the staircase, while the many philosophers of the age are pictured as ascending to his presence, or descending therefrom. It is said that the purpose of the cartoon was to present the idea that Voltaire was the great teacher of his age, and that only as men went to him to have their opinions corrected, their minds filled with instruction, were they fitted to descend into the midst of the masses and teach what they had thus learned. It is nothing short of sacrilege to give to this bigoted unbeliever such exalted position; or even, by suggestion, to set him up as the teacher of teachers. It is the concession of infidel and believer alike that this position belongs to the Man of Nazareth.

Hushed be the noise and the strife of the school,

Volume and pamphlet, sermon and speech,

The lips of the wise and the prattle of fools;

Let the Son of Man teach!

Who has the key to the Future but He?

Who can unravel the knots of the skein?

We have groaned and have travailed and sought to be free;

We have travailed in vain.

Bewildered, dejected, and prone to despair,

To Him as at first do we turn and beseech:

Our ears are all open! Give heed to our prayer!

Oh, Son of Man, teach!

The spirit is inspired by the religion of Jesus. From the day when they crucified Him, His call to the noblest of men has resulted in utter consecration. What other philosophy ever made souls to be so sincere; accomplished in them such courage; wrought through them such heroism; made of them such martyrs, as the religion of the Man of Nazareth? Truly, as the poet said:

If a man aspire to reach the throne of God,

Oer the dull plains of earth must lie his road.

He who best does his lowly duty here

Shall mount the highest in a nobler sphere;

At Gods own feet our spirits seek their rest,

And he is nearest Him who serves Him best.

THE ETERNAL PROSPECT

We have already appealed to the inspired Word, Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come.

There is a hereafter! Men may be as unbelieving as they will; that in no wise militates against the fact of the great future. Prof. Austin Phelps once told the story of a distinguished professor in Germany, Dr. Paulus by name, who in his teaching had opposed the belief in immortality, and had done his best to so impress his students. When he came to die he sent for a number of the students, and when they stood about the bed, he said, Gentlemen, I have sent for you to show you how a man believing and teaching as I have done, can die. I do not want any one to think I weakened at the last moment. I am about to die and that will be the end of it. While the students stood about the bed the old professor sank into a comatose condition. Suddenly he started up, and with a strange light in his eyes, cried, There is a hereafter! And then sank on his pillow and died. Possibly he had had a vision. Who knows? At any rate God would not permit him to leave the world, leaving as his last testimony to it such a lie, for there is a hereafter! The religion of Jesus Christ deals with it.

It illuminates the valley of death. Victor Hugo, that marvelous man of Letters, and greatest of all French authors, said, I feel in myself the future life. I am rising, I know, toward the sky. The sunshine is over my head. Heaven lights me with the reflection of unknown worlds. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose, verse, history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, songI have tried them all. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. I can say, like so many others, I have finished my days work, but I cannot say, I have finished my life. My days work will begin the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes in the twilight to open with the dawn. My work is only beginning.

That is the thing of which Mr. Moody was thinking, aye, rather that is the fact which Mr. Moody was experiencing, when he said, Earth is receding; Heaven is openingGod is calling. This is my coronation day!

It promises victory over the grave. How can we forget the illustration that A. J. Gordon used of the man who had lost his child, his darling. His heart was broken. In his bereavement life seemed not worth the living. Under the cover of darkness he sought the cemetery and slept on her grave. While he slept he dreamed. He saw One descending from Heaven. His hair was as white as snow; his eyes were as flames of fire; his feet as brass; at his side a girdle, and on the girdle a great key, and as he approached the grave that locked in the loved one, he laid his hand upon it, and with a voice like the sound of many waters, was heard to say, Fear not; I am the First and the Last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death, And from that moment his sorrow was gone, for though he waked, he remembered that the Master shall

descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we that are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (1Th 4:16-17).

That is our profit; every grave shall open and the bodies of every believer and every babe shall rise transformed and glorified. Such is the eternal prospect.

The religion of Christ pictures an open Heaven. Neither death nor the grave is the end, for beyond that lies the City of God, four square, almost unthinkable in its extent and inconceivable in its glory, the eternal habitation of the redeemed. Have you ever read the Rabbinical tradition of the death of Aaron? On one side of the great priest stood his brother Moses; and on the other side of him, his son Eleazar. They kissed the dying man on the brow and took from him his priestly vestments to clothe Eleazar with them. They took off one portion of the sacred apparel and laid that on Eleazar. As they stripped Aaron a silvery veil like a cloud fell over him like a pall and he seemed to sleep. Then Moses said, My brother, what dost thou feel? I feel nothing but the cloud that envelops me. The cloud surrounds me and bereaves me of all joy. Then the soul of Aaron was parted from its body, and as it went up, Moses cried again, Alas, my brother, what dost thou feel? And the spirit replied, I feel such joy that I would it had come to me sooner!

Such is the Christians conception of stepping from this world into the next. As he dwelt upon the certainty of that coming, Lord Tennyson wrote:

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me;

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

15. What is the Almighty The almost identical language of Pharaoh. (Exo 5:2.) The reason for their repulse of God is threefold and comprehensive they desire neither his knowledge, service, nor worship.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 21:15 What [is] the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?

Ver. 15. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? ] Here the rottenness of their hearts blistereth out at the lips of these rich wretches, these fat bulls of Bashan, such as was Pharaoh, that sturdy rebel, who asked this very question in the text, What, or who, is the Almighty? &c., Exo 5:2 ; and hath a large reply made him by one plague upon another, till he was compelled to answer himself, The Lord is righteous. (He seemeth to rehearse the very words of Pharaoh. Diod.) Forced he was to speak fair while held upon the rack, if nothing else, yet that he might get off. Such queryings as this carry greatest contempt in them, and would lay the Almighty quite below the required duty; as if Almighty were but an empty title, and that he could do neither good nor evil, Zep 1:12 , that it was to no purpose or profit to serve him, that the gains would not pay for the pains, &c.

And what profit should we have, if we pray unto him? ] Heb. If we meet him, viz. by our prayers, Jer 7:16 Amo 4:12 Mal 3:14 , See Trapp on “ Mal 3:14 “ Children will not say their prayers unless they may have their breakfast; nor hypocrites pray but for some profit. They pretend sometimes to meet God, but they draw not near with that true heart, mentioned Heb 10:20 ; in seeking God they merely seek themselves, as Spira said he did. In Parabola ovis capras suas quaerunt. No penny, no Pater Noster our Father. And as the wolf in the fable having spelled Pater, and being bid put together, said Agnus; so when these pray, their hearts are upon their half penny, Eze 33:31 They follow Christ for the loaves, and serve him no longer than he serves their turns.

– Rarae fumant faelicibus arae.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

What. ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.

THE ALMIGHTY. Hebrew Shaddai. App-4.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

What is: Exo 5:2, Psa 12:4, Pro 30:9, Hos 13:6

and what: Job 34:9, Job 35:3, Isa 30:11, Mal 1:13, Mal 1:14

if we: Isa 45:19, Mat 7:7, Joh 16:24

Reciprocal: Gen 4:14 – from thy Gen 25:32 – and what Job 1:9 – Doth Job Job 2:9 – retain Job 8:3 – Almighty Job 8:6 – thou wert Job 22:2 – as he that Job 22:17 – Depart Psa 14:4 – and Psa 73:13 – Verily Psa 73:27 – lo Psa 94:4 – boast Psa 119:155 – for they Psa 139:20 – for they speak Pro 1:29 – that Isa 43:22 – thou hast been Jer 9:6 – refuse Jer 44:16 – we Jer 44:18 – we have Hos 7:13 – fled Zep 1:12 – The Lord Mal 3:14 – It is Mat 25:24 – I knew Mar 5:17 – General Luk 8:37 – besought Luk 19:21 – because Rom 1:28 – as they did Rom 3:11 – seeketh Jam 3:5 – so

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job 21:15. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What is he to us? What excellence is there in him? What advantage have we, or can we expect from him? Strange that ever creatures should speak so insolently respecting their Creator, on whom they are every moment dependant for life, and breath, and all things! that ever reasonable creatures should speak so absurdly and unreasonably concerning their Redeemer and Saviour, their Governor and their Judge! The two great bonds, by which we are drawn and held to religion, are those of duty and interest; but here they endeavour to break both those bonds asunder. They will not own that they owe him any worship or service, nor will they believe that they should be a whit the better for serving him.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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