Hearken unto this, O Job: stand still, and consider the
​wondrous works of God. Job 37:14

Either to the present clap of thunder then heard; or rather to what Elihu had last said concerning clouds of rain coming for correction or mercy; and improve it and apply it to his own case, and consider whether the afflictions he was under were for the reproof and correction of him for sin, or in mercy and love to his soul and for his good, as both might be the case; or to what he had further to say to him, which was but little more, and he should conclude;

stand still; stand up, in order to hear better, and in reverence of what might be said; and with silence, that it might be the better received and understood:

and consider the wondrous works of God; not prodigies and extraordinary things, which are out of the common course of nature, such as the wonders in Egypt, at the Red sea, in the wilderness, and in the land of Canaan, but common things; such as come more or less under daily observation, for of such only he had been speaking, and continued to speak; such as winds, clouds, thunder, lightning, hail, rain, and snow; these he would have him consider and reflect upon, that though they were so common and obvious to view, yet there were some things in them marvelous and beyond the full comprehension of men; and therefore much more must be the works of Providence, and the hidden causes and reasons of them. (John Gill)

As Elihu spoke a thunder-storm was gathering, and much of the imagery of this chapter is suggested by that fact. The little group listened to the sound of God’s voice in the thunder. Peal followed peal without cessation, Job_37:4. The lightly-falling snow and the drenching showers are alike His work, whether they restrain men from their labor in the fields or drive the beasts to their dens, Job_37:8. From the storm Elihu turns naturally to the winter, with its ice and snow, and the frost that binds up the flow of the streams, Job_37:10. All these perform God’s bidding in the earth.
​
How little we know of atmospheric phenomena! Why the north and south winds blow, what is the real nature of the azure, and what the red and gold of the northern lights! We cannot find out the Almighty. He is great and glorious, and cannot be unjust. But let us be more eager to look for the bright light in the clouds. It is always there. A rainbow for every storm; an arbor for every difficult hill; a sure hiding-place in every tempest. Such is Jesus to all who love and trust Him.  (F.B. Meyer)

Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ,
​and maketh manifest the savor of his
knowledge by us in every place. 2Cor 2:14
The Ministry of the Gospel

The absolute or real character is seen in what it is to God. The gospel not only displays and embodies, but taxes to the utmost, the resources of the Divine love and wisdom combined. And just as the scattered flowers, fragrant shrubs, and sweet incense breathed forth a perfume of sweet savor before the advancing ranks of the triumphal procession, irrespective of its effects on victor and vanquished; so, irrespective of its consequences in respect to those who hear the gospel, the ministry of its glad tidings is unto God the diffusion of a sweet savor.
The critical influence of the gospel is seen in its opposite effects on those to whom it is preached. Paul felt acutely that he could not be the minister of the word of life to men without increasing their responsibility and aggravating the condemnation of those who rejected it. For in proportion to its quickening power of life in those who receive it, does it work death in those who refuse to accept it. The nature of fallen man being susceptible of the application of the divinest means for his recovery, he is, in case of their employment a failure, thereby doomed to a corresponding depth of wretchedness and woe. Let us learn that the character of the purpose of God’s grace and the means for its fulfilment are such as to give Him joy wherever they are proclaimed. What they are to us is determined by our own moral state and character.
(W. Pulsford, Trinity Church Sermons, p. 198)

​In speaking on one of the Beatitudes, Dr. Moberley says that the men who exercise the greatest personal and abiding influence upon their fellows are not the great men of history, but sometimes the inconspicuous men who have lived together in the shade and have cast upon the world some sweet song, some deep thought, which lived after they were gone. He takes as illustration the names of two men who lived about 200 years ago. One of them was the famous Duke of Marlborough, who had the greatest influence perhaps among his contemporaries in setting William the Third on the throne of these realms, who became afterwards one of the greatest generals in history, who won great victories over the Grand Monarch, which will never be forgotten so long as the British flag floats anywhere in the world; and he compares with him who occupied a foremost place in the history of his day, in their present influence over the hearts and souls of men, a certain bishop—Ken—who, because he could not take the oaths of William the Third, was expelled from his bishopric, who lived in poverty, and was regarded with suspicion, but who was the author of two immortal hymns—the simple morning and evening hymns which we all know:

​“Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily course of duty run,”
and the other,
“Glory to Thee, my God, this night,
For all the blessings of the light.”

And Dr. Moberley asks—which of these two, the Duke or the Bishop, exercises the greater power in the world to-day? I have no hesitation in replying, he says, it is the inconspicuous bishop, whose name is not even mentioned in some of the standard works of the period. He lives in his hymns. (Note: Memories of Horatius Bonar, 69)

​God gets His greatest victories out of apparent defeats. Very often the enemy seems to triumph for a little, and God lets it be so; but then He comes in and upsets all the work of the enemy, overthrows the apparent victory, and as the Bible says, "turns the way of the wicked upside down." Thus He gives a great deal larger victory than we would have known if He had not allowed the enemy, seemingly, to triumph in the first place.
The story of the three Hebrew children being cast into the fiery furnace is a familiar one. Here was an apparent victory for the enemy. It looked as if the servants of the living God were going to have a terrible defeat. We have all been in places where it seemed as though we were defeated, and the enemy rejoiced. We can imagine what a complete defeat this looked to be. They fell down into the flames, and their enemies watched them to see them burn up in that awful fire, but were greatly astonished to see them walking around in the fire enjoying themselves. Nebuchadnezzar told them to "come forth out of the midst of the fire." Not even a hair was singed, nor was the smell of fire on their garments, "because there is no other god that can deliver after this sort."
This apparent defeat resulted in a marvelous victory.
Suppose that these three men had lost their faith and courage, and had complained, saying, "Why did not God keep us out of the furnace!" They would have been burned, and God would not have been glorified. If there is a great trial in your life today, do not own it as a defeat, but continue, by faith, to claim the victory through Him who is able to make you more than conqueror, and a glorious victory will soon be apparent. Let us learn that in all the hard places God brings us into, He is making opportunities for us to exercise such faith in Him as will bring about blessed results and greatly glorify His name. -- (Life of Praise)

​"Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind,
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy."

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Isa 40:1

Store up comfort. This was the prophet’s mission. The world is full of comfortless hearts, and ere thou art sufficient for this lofty ministry, thou must be trained. And thy training is costly in the extreme; for, to render it perfect, thou too must pass through the same afflictions as are wringing countless hearts of tears and blood. Thus thy own life becomes the hospital ward where thou art taught the Divine art of comfort. Thou art wounded, that in the binding up of thy wounds by the Great Physician, thou mayest learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere. Dost thou wonder why thou art passing through some special sorrow? Wait till ten years are passed, and thou wilt find many others afflicted as thou art. Thou wilt tell them how thou hast suffered and hast been comforted; then as the tale is unfolded, and the anodynes applied which once thy God wrapped around thee, in the eager look and the gleam of hope that shall chase the shadow of despair across the soul, thou shalt know why thou wast afflicted, and bless God for the discipline that stored thy life with such a fund of experience and helpfulness. (Streams in the Desert)

​​God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters. -- (Dr. Jowett)

Voices are ever speaking to us from the infinite; let us heed them.
(1.) There is the voice of forgiveness, Isa_40:2. Are you truly penitent? Have you put away your sin? Have you meekly accepted the chastening rod? Then be of good cheer, this promise is for you. The time of hard service as a conscript (the literal rendering) is accomplished, your iniquity is pardoned, you have received double for all your sins. God speaks comfortably to your heart, that you may be able to comfort others as He does you, 2Co_1:4.
(2.) The voice of deliverance, Isa_40:3-4. Between Babylon and Canaan lay a great desert of thirty days’ journey with mountain ranges, yawning gulfs. But when God arises to deliver His children, “who cry day and night unto Him,” crooked places straighten out, rough ones become smooth, and mountains disappear.
(3.) The voices of decay, Isa_40:6-8. The one herald, speaking from his observation of human mortality, describes man and his glory as the “flower of the field.” But in contrast to this, another voice seems to break in with the eternal word of God, which stands forever. The precepts, promises, and invitations of the gospel are as sure as God’s throne, 1Pe_1:25.
​(F.B. Meyer)

The Aroma of Heaven

"They tell me I must bruise
The rose’s leaf,
Ere I can keep and use
Its fragrance brief.

"They tell me I must break
The skylark’s heart,
Ere her cage song will make
The silence start.

"They tell me love must bleed,
And friendship weep,
Ere in my deepest need
I touch that deep.

"Must it be always so
With precious things?
Must they be bruised and go
With beaten wings?

"Ah, yes! by crushing days,
By caging nights, by scar
Of thorn and stony ways,
These blessings are!"
Author Unknown

​1Pe 1:25  But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. 
Dottie Rambo - The Perfect Rose
https://youtu.be/NjdpMRIlQnw?si=8T8ZOoYJFObOQW3C

For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her. And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask. And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger. And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her. And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison. And his head was brought in a charger,
and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother. 
​And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it,
and went and told Jesus. Matt 14:3-12
FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE

​In the terror arising from his stricken conscience, Herod made confidants of his slaves, overleaping the barriers of position in his need of some ears into which to pour his fears. He had not finished with John. There is a resurrection of deeds as well as of bodies. The only way to have done with a sinful deed is to confess it and make reparation.
What true nobility John displayed in summoning the king to the bar of eternal justice! He might have said, “It isn’t seemly,” or, “It isn’t politic;” but he puts it on more unassailable ground, which Herod’s conscience endorsed: “It is not lawful.”Herod was luxurious, sensual, superstitious and weak. He was easily entrapped by the beautiful fiend. To tamper with conscience is like killing the watch-dog while the burglar is breaking in.
How splendid the action of John’s disciples! Reverent love and grief made them brave the king’s hatred. In hours of lonely bereavement, the best policy is to go and tell Jesus.  (F.B. Meyer)

​Herodias and her daughter.—Her portrait is drawn in a few strokes, but they are enough. In strength of will and unscrupulous carelessness of human life she is the sister of Jezebel, and curiously like Shakespeare’s awful creation, Lady Macbeth; but she adds a strain of sensuous passion to their vices, which heightens the horror. Many a shameless woman would have shrunk from sullying a daughter’s childhood by sending her to play the part of a shameless dancing-girl before a crew of half-tipsy revellers, and from teaching her young lips to ask for murder. But Herodias sticks at nothing, and is as insensible to the duty of a mother as to that of a wife. We have a hideous picture of corrupted womanhood.

At the time of John’s death he had finished his work. His work was not to preach the Gospel, but to point to, and prepare the way for, Him who did preach it; and if Christ was now come, what more need of John? You may say, perhaps, that it was but a poor reward for John the Baptist, that after he had laboured earnestly as the messenger of Christ, he should be shut up in prison, and allowed to drag on a weary existence there, and at last lose his life to please Herodias. This is perfectly true, if you look at the matter from a merely human point of view. But the question is, not whether a man thinks it time to leave this world, but whether he has done God’s work in it. The lesson He would teach us is, that we should give to Him the prime of our faculties, and consecrate to His service our health and strength, and then leave it to Him, without a murmur or a sigh, to determine, as seems best to Him, how we leave this world when our work is done.
John was the forerunner of Christ; so far, we cannot be exactly like him. But in what spirit did he go before Christ? This is really the question of questions. The spirit in which he went before Christ was that of simple obedience and bold determination to do God’s will. He has taught us that we are to do our duty simply, boldly, and sincerely, as in the fear of God. We are to act as believing that God’s eye is upon us; that He knows our acts, our words, our thoughts; that we are His and not our own; that we have a great work to do for Him, and a short day in which to do it, and a long night before us in which no work can be done.
(Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 248)