Introduction - Chambers, Oswald
Baffled to Fight Better
Job and the Problem of Suffering
Oswald Chambers
First published in 1917
This edition ©1931 Oswald Chambers Publications Association
Scripture versions quoted: KJV; RV
IntroductIon
Source
These were talks given by Oswald chambers to sol- diers during the evening classes at zeitoun, 1 march 10april 4, 1917.
Publication history
This material was first published as a book in December 1917. It was printed by the Nile mission press 2 in cairo, and shortly thereafter was published in England.
Subsequent editions were published in Britain and the us.
In the autumn of 1916, chambers had just begun his second year as YMCA secretary to British common- wealth troops at zeitoun camp, near Cairo.
For several weeks during the months of October and November, chambers personal bible reading each morning centered in the book of job. Excerpts from oswalds personal diary best express the impact of job on him and his vision of what job would mean to people after the war.
October 7, 1916: how profoundly in harmony with fundamental life the third chapter of job is in its actually apparent discord. How many a man and woman could say in deepest anguish wherefore is light given to him that is in [deep] misery, and life unto the bitter in soul? Deeper and deeper grows the conviction that tragedy is the basis of things and redemption the way out.
October 8, 1916: the fourth and fifth chapters of job make most stately reading. The searching of vv. 36, chap. 4, read with Romans 2:2124, is a most beneficial thing for those of us who are always talking to others. It is easy to become an intolerable prig, a dogmatic superior person, without knowing it.
October 10, 1916: job 6 is a fine full expression to multitudes in the valley of agony and sorrow just now. I believe of all the books of consolation none will be so great or grand as the book of job because an expression to sorrow, as to joy, means a great rising to face life again as its master.
October 14, 1916: job . . . As i read him this morning . . . Is not affected or sentimental, but gripped by the real and appalling agony of mystery and pain, free from spite, and yet so honest in expression of pain and distress.
October 28, 1916: job 23 is surely the classic of deep woe rolling out across the very universe: oh that i knew where i might find him! All through the book of job there is a heartbreaking devotion to god in the midst of inexplicable complexity of sorrow. I feel growingly sure that job is the book of consolation for the sorrow- tossed and bereaved and broken by the war, for not only is the voice of human suffering expressed here better than anywhere, but the very breath is drawn in the fear of the lord, and the heart is strong in the hope that grades higher than faith.
October 30, 1916: job 24 reminds me of ibsens plays more than of any recent thing. Ibsens clear- sightedness and his sense of the inexorable results of sin without any sense of forgiveness, seem to me most massively expressed in this chapter.
November 1, 1916: there was nothing of the pharisee about job, he sticks to it that he is not a sinner, and he also sticks to it that god is just, knowing implicitly that a lie could never justify god, even if it apparently justified bildad & co. And of chapters 2931, what can one say it is a never-to- be equalled expression of vast personal sorrow and agony. Chapter 31:3537 is jobs autobiography, written in tears and blood. And now the words of job are ended, and still no light and no way yet.
November 3, 1916: the remaining chapters of job keep my mind and heart in a glow of lifted wonder and worship.
Oswald gave these talks to British troops in the spring of 1917. Because the men were always in training and transition, few could attend all the classes. This, along with their heartfelt response to the mes- sages, undoubtedly caused Oswald and biddy to consider publishing all of the talks in this series. Almost as soon as the talks on job were ended, biddy was working to transcribe her shorthand notes and prepare them for publication. On April 5, 1917, oc wrote to a friend in England, hope to send you a book on job soon (at least biddy does, i take no more responsibility after having spoken my mind).
In a diary entry for august 13, 1917, oc noted: i am at present, with biddys help, getting the last sheets of my talks on job read for the printer, the book is to be entitled baffled to fight better. When chambers died suddenly and unexpectedly in November 1917, baffled had already been sent to press in Egypt. Baffled to fight better is one of only three books compiled and printed before chambers death. The other two are biblical psychology (1912) and studies in the sermon on the mount (1915).
The title comes from Robert brownings asolando:
one who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, never dreamed though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better sleep to wake.
Contents
Foreword to the first edition …………………….45
Foreword to the third edition ……………………45
The unseen universe ……………………………..46
Dazed and amazed ………………………………..47
The passion of pessimism ……………………….49
The light that failed ……………………………51
De profundis …………………………………………53
The interrogative plaster …………………………55
Agnosticism …………………………………………..57
Bombast ……………………………………………….60
On the trail ………………………………………….61
Ponderosity……………………………………………64
The frontiers of despair …………………………66
The bitterest hurt in life ……………………….68
The primal clash …………………………………..70
Parables ………………………………………………..73
The passion for authority ……………………….76
The passion for reality …………………………..79
Locks v. Keys …………………………………………81
Disguise of the actual …………………………….83
Foreword to the First edit Ion (1917)
This book is comprised of talks given nightly by reverend Oswald chambers to the men at the imperial school of instruction, 3 zeitoun, Egypt, during the spring of 1917.
The one who spoke the words is now in the pres- ence of the king, serving him day and night in his temple, and our prayer is that this book may serve to quicken in us all a personal passionate devotion to Jesus Christ. Our lord himself was the one lode- star in the life of my husband, and every recalling of him is an incentive to follow his ways in Christ.
For himself so shadowed forth in every look and act our lord, without whose name he seldom spoke, one could not live beside him and forget. B. C.4 Egypt, 1917
Central hall, Westminster, London , s. W.
It is with sincere pleasure that i write a few prefatory words to this last message from reverend Oswald chambers.
The church of Christ has sustained a great loss in the passing of our dear gifted friend.
Reverend Oswald chambers was a scholar, a burning evangelist, a teacher of the word of god, who taught in faith and verity.
He was full of the holy ghost, and turned many to the lord. There is pathetic interest in these musings on the great drama of sorrow, which was also a true history.
Many will read them with tearful eyes as they recall their departed author.
All, i am sure, will read with profit: may our friends lessons be messages of god to us all.
May we live in full consecration as he did, and whether we fall asleep in Jesus, or remain till the lords return, may we be absolutely faithful! Dinsdale t. Young
Foreword to the third edit Ion (1924)
These talks were given in the y. M. C. A. Huts, zeitoun, Egypt, to the men in the Egyptian expeditionary force during the early part of 1917. They were not given with the thought of publication, and the book is compiled from my own verbatim notes.
In November, 1917, gods call came to my husband for other service in his presence, and the idea came to me that to publish the talks he had been giving to the men in egypt (and previously at the bible training college, London), would serve some purpose of gods, and the work was started with the prayer that the written messages might bring a knowledge of his truth to many as the spoken mes- sages had ever done. This book was the first one to be published and was widely circulated amongst the men in Egypt and Palestine, many of whom had heard the talks given, an edition being also published in England at the same time.
I have a practically inexhaustible supply of notes, and other books will be published from time to time. By his faith, he is speaking to us still. (Hebrews 11:4, moffatt).
B. C. 200 Woodstock road, oxford October 1923
3. The Imperial School of Instruction was established at Zeitoun in September 1916 by the British Command to train troops primarily in infantry weapons and tactics.
4. Biddy Chambers: although Mrs. Chambers was editor, compiler, and often publisher, she never identified herself by name in any of the books.
5. Dinsdale T. Young (1861–1938), noted Methodist minister who influenced Chambers, especially during Oswald’s years at Dunoon Theological College in Dunoon, Scotland, 1897–1906