Deliverance from the Pit

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

Job 33:23-24

If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show to man his uprightness:…

Let it never be forgotten that, in all that God does, He acts from good reasons. You observe that the text, speaking of the sick man, represents God as saying, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom." If I understand the passage as relating solely to a sick man, and take the words just on the natural common level where some place them, I would still say that the Lord here gives a reason why He suspends the operations of pain and disease, and raises up the sufferer: "I have found a ransom." There is always a reason for every act of grace which God performs for man. So let each one of us think, "If I have been raised from sickness, if my life, which was almost gone, has been spared, I may not know why God has done it, but certainly He has done it in infinite wisdom and compassion." There is such a thing as sickness of the soul, which is, in God's esteem, far worse than disease of the body; and there is such a thing as recovery from soul-sickness.

I. Now, coming to our text, I shall ask you, first, to look with me upon A MAN IN GREAT PERIL. This is his peril: he is "going down to the pit." That phrase describes his whole life, going down, down.

1. Notice, first, that this is a daily and common danger. If we are unconverted, if we are unrenewed by Divine grace, every one of us is in danger of going down into the pit of woe.

2. Further, there are some who, of set purpose, are going down to the pit. In this chapter Elihu said of some that God sends sickness to them that He may withdraw them from their purpose.

3. There are some, also, who are going down to the pit through their pride.

4. There are others who feel some present apprehension of coming judgment.

5. If you add to all this the fact that the man, as Elihu describes him, was suffering from a fatal sickness, so that he dreaded the actual nearness of death, you have indeed an unhappy case before you.

II. Now let us notice, in the second place, A NEW PRINCIPLE IN ACTION: "Then He is gracious unto him." What does that mean?

1. Well, "grace" means, first, free favour.

2. But grace has another meaning in Holy Scripture; it means saving interference, a certain Divine operation by which God works upon the wills and affections of men, so as to change and renew them.

III. This brings me to my third point, which is concerning how this grace operates. It operates by A WORD OF POWER. This man was going down to the pit, but God said, "Deliver him." To whom is this command spoken?

1. It appears to be addressed to the messengers of Divine justice.

2. More than that, the man was not only bound by justice, but he was fettered by his sin. His sins held him captive, and they were dragging him down to the pit. There was drunkenness, for instance, which held him as in a vice, so that he could not stir hand or foot to set himself free.

3. I see this same man, in after life, attacked by his old sins.

IV. I finish by noticing that, in this case, God supplies us with His reason for delivering a soul, and it is AN ARGUMENT OF LOVE: "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom." Observe that the text says, "I have found a ransom."

1. This ransom is an invention of Divine wisdom. I do not think it would ever have occurred to any mind but the mind of God Himself to save sinners by the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. Notice, next, that God has not only invented a way of deliverance, but He has found a ransom

2. So that it is a gift of Divine love: "Deliver him from going down to the pit." It does not say, "because there is a ransom," or "I will accept one if he finds it and brings it"; but the Lord Himself says, "I have found a ransom." It is the man who sinned, but it is God who found the ransom.

3. And is there not something very wonderful in the assurance of this truth? This is God's "Eureka! I have found a ransom. I did not look for a ransom among the angels, for I knew they were too weak to furnish it. I looked not for it among the sons of men, for I knew it was not to be found there, they were too fallen and guilty. The sea said, 'It is not in me.' All creation cried, 'It is not in me.'"

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