Life-Study of Job

Message: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

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I. The name
II. The writer
III. The time
IV. The place
V. The form of writing
VI. The contents
A. The expressions of the sentiments of godly men
1. According to the experiences of their godly life
2. Filled with the principle of good and evil
3. Their logic being according to the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
B. In relation to the judgments of God's government
1. God creating the universe according to His economy and for His intention
2. God creating man according to His desire
3. God exercising His governmental control over man
4. Some of His judgments being temporary, and some being ultimate
5. Some people prospering and flourishing for awhile, even though they are sinful and evil
6. Different views concerning God's judgment
7. Job and his friends not seeing the positive aspect of God's economy in dealing with His holy people
8. Through His stripping God dispensing Himself to those who love Him and seek after Him
C. Under the inadequate revelation of the divine truths
1. The divine revelation in the Bible being progressive
2. The divine truths not being revealed in completion until the apostle Paul's time
VII. The subject
VIII. The sections

The Trials of Job (1) _{Message 2}

I. Job the man
A. Perfect and upright, fearing God and turning away from evil
B. Having seven sons and three daughters
C. Having great possessions and many servants
D. Greater than all the sons of the east
E. Sanctifying his children after their feasting together and offering burnt offerings for them
II. A council held in heaven concerning Job
A. Held by God with the angels
B. Satan also coming as one of the attendants
C. God's checking with Satan concerning Job
1. God questioning Satan
2. Satan's answer
3. God asking Satan concerning Job
4. Satan asking if Job fears God without cause
5. God saying that all that Job had was in Satan's hand
6. Satan's evil concept concerning God's dealing with His seeking people being based on his commercial principle of gain or loss
III. Satan attacking Job, and job suffering trials in the matter of his possessions and children
A. Satan going forth from God's presence
B. Satan's attack
1. The oxen and the donkeys being taken away
2. The fire of God devouring the sheep
3. The chaldeans raiding the camels and taking them
4. A great wind causing the death of Job's sons and daughters
C. Job's reaction to his trials
1. Tearing his clothes, shaving his head, falling to the earth, and worshipping God
2. Saying that Jehovah gives and takes away
3. Not sinning nor charging God with unseemliness

The Trials of Job (2) _{Message 3}

IV. A council held again in heaven concerning Job
A. Held by God with the angels
B. Satan coming again as one of the attendants
C. God's Checking with Satan concerning Job
1. God's question and Satan's answer
2. God asking Satan concerning Job
3. Satan saying that all that a man has he will give for the sake of his life
4. Jehovah telling Satan that Job Was in his hand
5. God restricting Satan in the limit of His permission
V. Satan attacking Job, and Job suffering the trial in his body
A. Satan going forth from God's presence
B. Satan's attack
C. Job's pain
D. Job's reaction to his trial
1. His wife's mocking reaction
2. Job's answer and reaction
3. Job not sinning with his lips
VI. A significant, instructive, and unveiling scene
A. At the end of Satan's first series of attacks, Job not praying but blessing God
B. At the end of Satan's second attack, Job suffering very great pain in silence
C. None of Job's friends speaking a word to him
D. Job cursing the day of his birth
E. Job and his three friends being ignorant concerning that most painful and most terrifying occurrence
VII. A step of the divine economy
A. The occurrence being planned by God
B. To carry out the consuming and stripping of the contented Job
C. To usher Job into a deeper seeking after God
VIII. An ugly tool with a dishonorable commission
A. Satan remaining free to be purposely used by God as an ugly tool
B. His commission being dishonorable
IX. A mysterious and glorious consummation
A. Satan's attacks on Job laying a mysterious and glorious base
B. To reach the standard and level of God's eternal economy regarding His chosen ones

Job's Cursing of His Birthday _{Message 4}

I. Job breaking the silence and initiating the debate by cursing the day of his birth
A. Being disturbed, perplexed, and entangled by his suffering
B. Preferring darkness and abhorring light
C. Preferring death instead of life
D. His sighing coming as his food
II. Job's experience of God's consuming and stripping in the Old Testament being far behind that of Paul in the New Testament
A. Paul being born destined to be crucified and being reborn crucified
B. Paul not being constricted under the pressures on every side
C. Paul being well pleased in distresses for the sake of Christ
D. Paul pursuing to be conformed to Christ's death in the fellowship of His sufferings
E. Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus
F. Paul's outer man being consumed, yet his inner man being renewed day by day
G. Paul magnifying Christ by living Him
III. God's intention with Job
A. To consume the "perfect and upright" Job and to strip his attainments in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness
B. To tear down the natural Job in his perfection and uprightness
C. To have a Job in the line of the tree of life
D. To make Job a man of God

The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (1) _{Message 5}

Eliphaz's Answer to Job by Rebuking
I. After the forced silence
A. Reminding Job of his positive condition in the past
B. Rebuking Job concerning his negative state at that time
C. Eliphaz's word being based on Job's perfection, uprightness, and integrity
D. Eliphaz's word being in the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
II. Eliphaz correcting Job
A. Asking him if a mortal man can be more righteous than God
B. Advising him not to be such a fool as to be smashed to pieces and become nothing
C. Eliphaz's logic concerning man's standing before God being based on ethics according to the short-sighted teachings
III. Eliphaz warning Job not to be the fool slain by vexation and jealousy
IV. Eliphaz implying that Job should follow him to seek after God and commit his cause to God
V. ELiphaz considering that Job was being chastened by God

The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (2) _{Message 6}

Job's Vindication
I. Stating his grievances
II. Challenging God concerning how much God would require of him
III. Blaming his friends for not showing kindness to him
IV. Justifying himself by saying that he was not wrong in anything
V. Expressing that he had the common knowledge of the struggle, the vanity, the trouble, the suffering, and the end of human life
VI. Loathing life and complaining
VII. Job, like his friends, being halted in the knowledge of right and wrong, not knowing God's economy

The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (3) _{Message 7}

Bildad's Rebuttal
I. Bildad being the second one to rebut Job
II. Claiming that all the disasters and the plague on Job were not God's perverting of justice
III. Thinking that Job's children might have sinned against God
IV. Believing that if Job sought God earnestly and made supplication unto the almighty, and if Job was pure and upright, God would rouse Himself for him
V. Teaching Job to inquire of the former generations
VI. Warning Job that all who forget God wither like papyrus and reeds
VII. Declaring to Job that God will not reject a perfect man
VIII. Bildad's logic concerning man's relationship with God being absolutely in the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (4) _{Message 8}

Job's Unyieldingness and Zophar's Blind Argument
I. Job's unyieldingness
A. Boasting in knowing what his friends knew
B. Admitting that he could not contend with God and resist Him
C. Thinking that he could not win his case, even though he was righteous and perfect
D. Considering that he was a man living in the days which were fleeing away
E. Complaining that God ill-treated him without cause on his side and attacked him according to what was hidden in God's heart
F. Wishing that he had died at his birth
II. Zophar's blind argument
A. Zophar being the third one to answer Job in the first round of their debates
B. Feeling that Job was too vindictive
C. Teaching Job that God the Almighty is unlimited
D. Teaching Job about setting his heart right and stretching his hands out to God

The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (1) _{Message 9}

Job's Superiority Complex, Accusation, and Arguments and Eliphaz's Rebuke and Warning (1)
I. Job's superiority complex, accusation, and arguments
A. Job's superiority complex in the matter of knowing God
1. Claiming that he was not inferior to his friends
2. Contemning his friends and asking them to learn of the beasts, of the birds, of the earth, and of the fish
3. Boasting of his superior and broader knowledge of God
B. Job's accusing his friends of being false
C. Job's arguments with God
1. Job's contention with God for his case

God's Answer to Job _{Message 10}

A crucial question
The items in God's answer
Incarnation
Human living
Crucifixion
Resurrection
Ascension
The church as the new man, as the Body of Christ, and as the organism of the Triune God consummating in the New Jerusalem
The main contents of the New Testament

The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (2) _{Message 11}

Job's Superiority Complex, Accusation, and Arguments and Eliphaz's Rebuke and Warning (2)
2. Job's complaint concerning God's severe strictness in dealing with Him
II. Eliphaz's rebuke and warning
A. Rebuking Job concerning his pride and self-righteousness
1. Saying that Job's knowledge was vain as wind, without the fear of God
2. Saying that Job was proud of his superiority
3. Saying that Job was self-righteous
B. Warning Job with the miserable end of a wicked man

God's Eternal Economy as the Answer to the Book of Job _{Message 12}

The ten main items in the economy of God
Divisions resulting from the believers stressing things other than the ten items in God's economy
Learning the items of God's economy subjectively and experientially
One unique God
The Triune God being processed
The Triune God being consummated as the Spirit
Doing everything according to the Spirit

The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (3) _{Message 13}

Job's Rejection of His Friends' Word and His Desire that God Would Adjudicate for Him in His Case in the Painful Situation Caused by God and Bildad's Rebuke and Warning
I. Job's rejection of his friends' word and his desire that God would adjudicate for him in his case in the painful situation caused by God
A. His rejection of his friends' word
B. His desire that God would adjudicate for him in his case in the painful situation caused by God
1. Complaining that God had worn him out and had desolated all his company
2. Crying to the earth not to cover his blood and not to frustrate his crying out
3. Saying that his spirit was broken, that his days were extinct, and that the graveyard was ready for him
II. Bildad's rebuke and warning
A. His rebuke
B. His warning with the pitiful end of the wicked

The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (4) _{Message 14}

Job's Complaint Against His Friends in Their Wrong Reproach and Toward God in His Severe Stripping and Zophar's Anger and Teaching Toward Job
I. Job's complaint against his friends in their wrong reproach and toward God in his severe stripping
A. His complaint against his friends in their wrong reproach
B. His complaint toward God in his severe stripping
1. Saying that God had subverted his cause
2. Saying that God had walled up his way
3. Saying that God had stripped his glory from him and had taken away the crown on his head
4. Saying that God had broken him all around
5. Saying that God had kindled his anger against him
6. Saying that God had removed his brothers far from him
7. Saying that his breath was strange to his wife
8. Saying that his bones cleaved to his skin and to his flesh
9. Wishing that his words were inscribed in a book
10. Knowing that his redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth
11. Warning his friends
II. Zophar's anger toward Job and his teaching concerning the wicked
A. Zophar's anger toward Job
B. Zophar's teaching concerning the wicked
1. Saying that the joyous shouting of the wicked is short
2. Saying that his food is the venom of asps within him
3. There being nothing left of what he has devoured

The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (1) _{Message 15}

Job's Conclusion Concerning Prosperity and Calamity in Human Life and Eliphaz's Logic Concerning the Recompense of Good and Evil
I. Job's conclusion concerning prosperity and calamity in human life
A. His calming word to his friends
B. The prosperity of the wicked
1. Living a long life and being mighty in riches
2. Multiplying in offspring
3. Their houses being free from dread
4. Their cattle breeding
5. Spending their days in prosperity
6. Forsaking God, not desiring to know God's ways
7. Their prosperity being not in their own hand
C. Job's questions concerning God's recompense to the wicked
1. Asking how often the lamp of the wicked is put out
2. Asking whether the wicked become like straw before the wind
3. Saying that God should recompense the wicked
4. Saying that he knew his friends' thoughts and devices to wrong him
5. Asking his friends why they comfort him with vanity
II. Eliphaz's logic concerning the recompense of good and evil
A. His wrong word of accusations against Job
B. Saying that the God-forsaking wicked were snatched away before they died
C. Saying that the God-seeking righteous man will be blessed and delivered by God

God's Intention in His Creation of Man and in His Dealing with His Chosen People _{Message 16}

God's intention being to work Himself into man
God coming out of eternity and entering into time to be an extraordinary human being named Jesus
Christ's living a genuine human life to express God in his humanity
Christ's crucifixion accomplishing the eternal redemption of God
In his resurrection Christ regenerating God's chosen people to be the many sons of God as the members of Christ to constitute His Body
The Spirit being the consummation of the Triune God
The Spirit being the aggregate of the divine blessing of the gospel given to us
Doing everything and being everything by the Spirit, with the Spirit, in the Spirit, and through the Spirit

The All-Inclusive Spirit as the Consummation of the Processed and Consummated Triune God _{Message 17}

God's move
The Triune God being the Spirit
The three of the Divine Trinity being different but not separate
The steps of the process of the Triune God
His incarnation
His human living
His all-inclusive death
His resurrection
His ascension and descension
The consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God being the Spirit

The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (2) _{Message 18}

Job's Desire to Clear up His Case with God and His Knowledge Concerning God in His Dealing with All Kinds of Men and Bildad's Concluding Word
I. Job's desire to clear up his case with God
II. Job's knowledge concerning God in his dealings with all kinds of men
A. God's dealing with the ones who seize others' possessions
B. God's dealing with those who rebel against the light
C. God's dealing with those who sin
III. Bildad's concluding word
A. Saying that God has dominion
B. Saying that no one can be righteous before God

Our Unique Need—the Processed and Consummated Triune God as the All-Inclusive, Life-Giving Spirit _{Message 19}

The ingredients of our abundantly rich God
The Triune God being wrought into us in his consummated state
The only one who can be a Christian — the processed and consummated Triune God living in us as the consummated Spirit
The marriage of the consummated Triune God and the glorified tripartite man

The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (3) _{Message 20}

Job's Final Speaking to His Three Friends (1)
I. Rebuking bildad sarcastically
II. Showing off his superior knowledge concerning the unlimited power of God
III. Holding fast insistently to his righteousness and integrity
IV. Teaching his friends high-mindedly concerning the hope of the profane man
V. Showing off his high-pitched knowledge concerning the way to find wisdom and understanding

The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (4) _{Message 21}

Job's Final Speaking to His Three Friends (2)
VI. Dwelling on his excellent past
VII. Sighing over his miserable present

God's Move in Christ to Bring Forth the Body _{Message 22}

Two kinds of sufferings
The move of the processed and consummated Triune God
God's corporate move revealed in acts through revelation
The two mysteries being the contents of the divine economy
The processed Triune God as the consummated Spirit being in our spirit
Spiritual breathing
Being deified that we may become the corporate expression of the Triune God

The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (5) _{Message 23}

Job's Final Speaking to His Three Friends (3)
VIII. Boasting of his uprightness, righteousness, integrity, and perfection
A. Restraining the lust of his flesh in fearing God
B. Not walking with falsehood and after deceit
C. Abhorring adultery as a heinous act
D. Not despising the cause of his servant or maid in his fearing God
E. Taking care of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the needy
F. Not trusting in gold and rejoicing in wealth
G. Not rejoicing at the misfortune of the one who hated him
H. Feeding everyone and lodging all the sojourners
I. Not covering his transgressions and hiding his iniquity because of the fear of the great multitude
J. Not securing land without money or causing its owners to lose their life
IX. Job's three friends ceasing to answer him
X. Job's exposing of himself through his eight times of speaking to his three friends
A. Self-righteous
B. Full of reasons
C. Blaming his friends for not understanding him
D. Complaining that God was not fair in treating him in an unexplainable, severe way
E. Expecting and waiting to clear up his case with God
F. Knowing God in the vain knowledge inherited from tradition
G. Having not received the divine revelation concerning God's ultimate goal to be gained, partaken of, possessed, and enjoyed by His chosen people
H. Darkened by the success and attainments of his natural being
I. Blinded by the concept of his natural understanding
J. Groping in darkness and in blindness concerning his relationship with god according to what God wants
K. Contented with what he had become
L. Being unaware of his miserable situation before God

Man Moving in God's Move and God Moving in Man's Move _{Message 24}

The principle of God's move on earth
Christians being mysterious because they move in God's move and God moves in their move
The realm of ethics and the realm of God
The Spirit and we being one
Not taking any action apart from the all-inclusive Spirit

Elihu's Turn to Speak - Chapters 32—37 (1) _{Message 25}

Elihu's First Correction and Refutation of Job
I. His anger being kindled
A. Against Job
B. Against Job's three friends
II. Waiting to speak because the others were older than he
III. Being full of words, his spirit constraining him, and his inward parts being like new wineskins that were about to burst
IV. Declaring that his words would manifest the uprightness of his heart
V. Correcting Job, telling him that he was not right in saying that he was clean and without transgression
VI. Refuting Job
A. Saying that God speaks to men and instructs them that he may turn them aside to be kept from the pit and from perishing
B. Saying that God takes care of a man chastened with sickness, being gracious to him
VII. Charging Job to hear him and be silent, so that he might teach him wisdom

Elihu's Turn to Speak - Chapters 32—37 (2) _{Message 26}

Elihu's Second and Third Corrections and Refutations of Job
I. Elihu's second correction and refutation of Job
A. Asking the wise and knowledgeable to hear his words
B. Correcting Job for saying that he was righteous and that God had taken away his right
C. Condemning Job
1. Saying that he went in company with the workers of iniquity
2. Saying that he had spoken without knowledge
D. Refuting Job
1. Saying that God would never do evil
2. Saying that God governs and judges the nations and men not to fit Job
II. Elihu's third correction and refutation of Job
A. Correcting Job further by checking with him concerning his answer
B. Elihu's refutation of Job before his friends
1. Charging Job to look unto heaven and behold the skies
2. Teaching Job that men cry out to God because of oppressions and cry for help because of the mighty arm

A Person in the Spirit _{Message 27}

In spirit on the Lord's day
Seeing visions in spirit and becoming a person in the spirit
Learning to remain in our spirit
enjoying Christ and the church in the Spirit
The prevailing prayers of a person in the spirit moving in the Lord's move

Elihu's Turn to Speak - Chapters 32—37 (3) _{Message 28}

Elihu's Final Word to Job
I. Elihu having more to say for God
II. Showing Job that God takes care of the righteous
III. Warning Job that he was filled with the judgment of the wicked
IV. Admonishing Job not to let wrath allure him into scoffing toward God
V. Reminding Job to magnify God's work in the universe and exalt His greatness
VI. Charging Job to consider God's wondrous acts in the skies and on the earth
VII. Instructing Job to fear God

God's Appearing to Job with the Divine Unveilings _{Message 29}

I. God's appearing to Job
A. Jehovah answering Job out of the whirlwind
B. Jehovah charging Job to gird up his loins like a mighty man
C. Jehovah's questioning of Job
1. Asking him about who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge
2. Asking him whether one who finds fault shall contend with the Almighty
3. Asking him if he will annul God's judgment
4. Asking him if he had an arm like God's
D. Job answering Jehovah
E. Jehovah charging Job to deck himself with majesty and excellency and array himself with honor and splendor
F. Jehovah saying that He would praise Job
II. With the divine unveilings
A. Concerning the universe
B. Concerning the animals
C. Nothing concerning the purpose of God in dealing with Job

The Final Outcome, Under God's Consummation, of the Progressive Divine Revelation in the Narration of the Story of Job _{Message 30}

I. Job gaining God in his personal experience and abhorring himself
II. God condemning Job's three friends for not speaking concerning Him that which was right, as His servant Job had
A. Job's three friends not being right concerning God's purpose in dealing with His people
B. Job being right because his concept in general was not based on the principle of good and evil
C. God not making His purpose in dealing with His people clear to Job
III. God paying no attention to Elihu
IV. God charging Job's three friends to go to Job and offer a burnt offering for themselves
V. Job praying for his friends, and God turning the captivity of Job
VI. All the physical blessings with which God blessed Job being to show Job God's lovingkindness and faithfulness in his latter days
VII. James considering Job as an example of suffering and of endurance

God's Intention in His Appearing to Job _{Message 31}

Exposing Job
Job being in the primitive stage of the divine revelation
God's desire to bring Job into another realm
The realm of the old creation and the realm of the new creation
The believers today living in a time after the completion of the divine revelation
God's chosen people realizing and experiencing Christ for the consummation of the Body and the preparation of the bride
Rising up to be overcomers by taking care of the two spirits

The Completed Divine Revelation in the Entire Scriptures Concerning God's Relationship with Man (1) _{Message 32}

I. From God's creation of man to the calling of Abraham
A. God creating man and wanting man to take Him as life
B. After man became fallen, God promising the fallen man that Christ would come as the seed of woman
C. God regarding man and being pleased with man in the burnt offering
D. God judging the corrupted world with the flood and saving Noah and his family
E. God judging the rebellious man at Babel
II. From the calling of Abraham to the decree of the law through Moses
A. God regarding man in the burnt offering
B. God promising Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed
III. From the decree of the law through Moses to the first coming of Christ
A. God decreeing the law to expose the incapability of the people of Israel in keeping the law
B. God granting the people of Israel the tabernacle with the priesthood and all kinds of offerings
C. God promising the people of Israel that he would be incarnated through them to be their Christ
D. God promising the people of Israel that Christ would come to them as their everything
E. God promising the people of Israel that He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh
F. God promising the people of Israel that He would covenant with them to work Himself into them

The Central Point of God's Appearing to Job _{Message 33}

Job not knowing that God is unlimited and unsearchable and not understanding how much God could be to him
The divine revelation in the New Testament unveiling what was on God's heart when he appeared to Job
God reducing Job to nothing and maintaining his existence that God might impart himself into him

The Completed Divine Revelation in the Entire Scriptures Concerning God's Relationship with Man (2) _{Message 34}

IV. From the first coming of Christ to the manifestation of the new heaven and new earth
A. God coming to be conceived in a human virgin and to be born of her to be a man
B. Jesus Christ, as the incarnated God and as the embodiment of the Triune God, dying in His humanity a vicarious and all-inclusive death
C. Christ overcoming death and entering into the all-producing resurrection and being begotten to be God's firstborn Son
D. Christ accomplishing the all-transcending ascension to the heavens
E. In His death, resurrection, and ascension Christ making all His believers one with Him
F. God redeeming us in Christ
G. God having put us into Christ
H. God having regenerated us through the resurrection of Christ
I. God consuming us, putting us into Christ's death for our fellowship of His sufferings
J. God the Father being embodied in God the Son, God the Son being realized as God the Spirit, and God the Spirit coming to indwell us to be the reality of the Triune God
K. The Spirit of reality revealing many things to the believers concerning the mystery of the Triune God being the reality in the believers
L. The Father, the Lord, and the Spirit as the Triune God becoming the source, the element, and the essence of the church as the Body of Christ
M. Christ as the divine portion allotted to the saints by God and as life to the believers having become all the members of the new man
N. God wanting to make Christ, the embodiment of God, everything to us
O. God in Christ carrying Out his transforming work on us until His transformation consummates in the New Jerusalem

The Completed Divine Revelation in the Entire Scriptures Concerning Man's Need Before God _{Message 35}

I. The man created by God in his image needing to take God as his life
II. The fallen man needing to receive Christ for his redemption that he might be justified by God in Christ
III. Redeemed man needing to offer Christ as the burnt offering that he might be regarded by God
IV. The people chosen by God needing to receive and answer God's call
V. A man in the incarnated God as his tabernacle not needing to build up himself in human virtues, such as perfection, uprightness, and integrity, as Job did, but needing to seek after God and to enjoy God with God's people
VI. The ones chosen and called by God needing to believe into Jesus Christ
VII. The believers in Christ needing to grow in the divine life of Christ that we may be transformed into what Christ is through the life-dispensing Spirit, that we may be built up to be the Body of Christ and to be the new man as God's new creation
VIII. A regenerated, transformed, and glorified saint in Christ having nothing to do with the natural man and not needing to build up himself with the natural human virtues

The Significance in the Sequence of Job and the Psalms _{Message 36}

I. The sequence of Job and the Psalms being very significant spiritually
II. A comparison of the two books
A. The book of Job being a record of human views based on human concepts
1. Bearing divine revelation only concerning the burnt offering, God's judgment, and some of God's attributes
2. Not indicating whether Job or his three friends or Elihu sought to gain God as their attainment and enjoyment
3. Its contents being the expressions of human sentiments in natural views and concepts
B. The Psalms being a book of mixtures
1. In a great part being mixed with the psalmists' expressions of their mixed sentiments
2. In a significant part being mixed with the divine revelations of Christ with God in His house and in His city
III. The function of the book of Job in the Scriptures
A. To minister to its readers a picture of man's concept concerning God's dealing with His holy people
B. To expose the deficiency of the divine revelation in Job's age
C. To serve the Bible readers with a negative background so that they will proceed further in seeking the divine and spiritual truths
D. To stir up the Bible readers' hunger and thirst for knowing Christ as the centrality and universality of God's eternal economy
E. To empty the Bible readers' spirit that they may have more room in their spirit to gain God in His riches more and more
F. To serve the Bible readers with a capacity to understand the secrets in the Psalms
IV. The function of the Psalms
A. To fill the gap which is left at the end of the book of Job
B. To show the Bible readers how the Holy Spirit turned the psalmists from the law to Christ
C. To minister to the Bible readers the all-inclusive Christ in God's economy
D. To help the Bible readers to know that the divine revelation is progressive until it reaches the high peak of the New Jerusalem

Two Trees, Two Sources, Two Lines, Two Principles, and Two Ends in the Divine Revelation of the Holy Scriptures _{Message 37}

I. Two trees
A. The Bible, as a full record of the divine revelation, being a book of signs
B. The two trees being the two most striking in the first group of signs in Genesis 1 and 2
1. The first being the tree of life, as the highest sign
2. The second being the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as the highest negative sign
3. Both signs signifying persons
4. The first tree signifying God only as life
5. The second tree signifying Satan as death
6. Good and evil not being signified by two trees but by one tree — the second tree
7. The genuine good being God Himself
C. The two trees not being for producing materials but for man to eat their fruit
II. Two sources
A. The two trees, as signs of God and Satan, being the two sources of two categories of men
B. The outcome of the two sources becoming two kingdoms on the earth
III. Two lines
A. The two lines being the two ways
1. The two lines, as the two ways, originating from the two sources
2. The first way being the way of life
3. The second way being the way of good and evil
B. These two ways leading men to the two God-ordained ends
IV. Two principles
A. The two ways constituting the two principles
1. The first principle being the principle of life
2. The second principle being the principle of death and of good and evil
B. God's purpose in dealing with Job severely
V. Two ends
A. The two ends being the two destinations of the two ways
1. The destination of God's way of life being a city of water of life
2. The destination of the way of death and of good and evil being a lake of fire of brimstone
B. The New Jerusalem being a dynamic incentive and the lake of fire being a solemn warning

An Additional Message — The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Economy _{Message 38}

I. The divine economy being God's eternal plan to dispense Christ into His chosen people
II. The divine dispensing being to impart Christ as life and the life supply into His believers
A. In God's redemption
B. In God's salvation
C. In saving sinners
D. In nourishing the new believers
E. In perfecting the saints
F. In prophesying
G. In building up the Body of Christ
III. The divine dispensing being carried out by the Spirit of life
IV. The way to receive the divine dispensing
A. To drink the Spirit
B. To live and walk by the Spirit

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