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The sermon presents Job’s household as a pattern of joyful family fellowship joined to spiritual responsibility. Spurgeon rejects the idea that feasting and merriment are inherently ungodly, teaching that God generously provides good things for people to enjoy and share. Yet every gathering remains morally dangerous because sin may hide even in prosperity and celebration, so families should pray, repent, and remain watchful. Job’s sacrifices point to the necessity of blood atonement, fulfilled in Christ. Finally, the nearness of death calls hearers to live in readiness for eternity and hope for the heavenly feast.
Theological center: Sin is removed through sacrificial atonement fulfilled in Christ, while God’s grace preserves his people for eternal life.
Applications: Sanctify family gatherings · Watch yourself against sin · Live ready for death · Consider joy’s hidden dangers
Primary texts: Job 1:4-5 · Job 1:19 · Ecclesiastes 9:7
“And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually. Job 1:4-5 JOB was an exceedingly happy man before his great trial. He was as much blessed in the fruit of his body as in his basket, and in his store. Our text gives us a very pleasing picture of Job’s family. He was a happy man to have had so many children all comfortably settled in life. For you will perceive that they all had houses. They had left his roof. They had all established themselves, and had so prospered in the world that there was not one of them who had not enough of the world’s goods to entertain all the rest. So it seemed as if Job’s prosperity in his business had attended his children in the different places where they had settled. To add to his comfort, they were an undivided family—not like Abraham’s household, where there was an Ishmael who mocked Isaac. Nor like Isaac’s household, where there was an Esau and a Jacob who sought to supplant him. Nor like Jacob’s household, where there was a Joseph, and all the rest of his brothers were envious and jealous of him. Nor like David’s household, where there was perpetual strife and bickering between the one and the other. Job’s descendants were a large tribe, but they were all united and knit together in bonds of perfect happiness. And moreover they seem to have had a great desire to preserve their unity as a family. Perhaps Job and his family were the only ones who feared God in the neighborhood. They wished therefore to keep themselves together as a little flock of sheep in the midst of wolves, as a cluster of stars in the midst of the thick darkness. And what a brilliant constellation they were—all of them shining forth and proclaiming the truth of God! I say it was their desire not only to enjoy pleasantness and peace, but to maintain it. For I think that these annual meetings at the different houses were intended to knit them together, so that if any little strife had arisen, as soon as they met at the next brother’s house, all might be settled, and the whole host might go on again, shoulder to shoulder, and foot to foot—as one phalanx of soldiers for God. I think Job must have been a right happy man. I do not know that he always went to their…