Scripture Reading: Job 1:1-5
With this message we begin the life-study of Job. My burden in these messages can be expressed by the following four sentences:
1)God deals with His saints for the purpose that they may gain Him as life.2)God strips His seekers of their possessions so that they may inherit Him in full.3)God works out for His overcomers through affliction an eternal weight of glory.4)God is bringing His lovers into Himself as glory through all things and will glorify them with Himself.
The book of Job is named after its writer, Job, whose name means "hated" or "persecuted," signifying what Job suffered of Satan, the enemy of God. Job surely suffered Satan's hatred and persecution.
In this book Satan as the enemy of God is a mystery to us. We cannot understand in full why Satan still has not only the freedom but also the "civil right" to go to God's place and attend one of the councils held by God with His angels. Of course, what is described in Job 1 and 2 took place two thousand years before Christ died on the cross to destroy the devil, who has the might of death (Heb. 2:14). Since Christ destroyed Satan on the cross, we may think that Satan no longer has the "civil right" to go into the presence of God. However, according to Revelation 12:10, Satan still accuses us in the presence of God day and night. This right will be taken away from Satan at the beginning of the great tribulation. When the overcomers arrive in the heavens, Satan will be cast down from the heavens to the earth. From that time onward, Satan will no longer have the right to come into the presence of God.
The writer of the book of Job was Job. This is confirmed by Ezekiel 14:12, 14, 20 and James 5:11. These verses are a proof of the authenticity of this book.
According to the way of Job's nomadic living (Job 1:3) and the way he offered the burnt offering for his children, this book should have been written at the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 5; Gen. 22:13; 31:54), about 2000 B.C. This means that Job was written five hundred years before Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
The book of Job tells us that Job lived in Uz, a city in Edom (Lam. 4:21), west of the Arabian desert.
The book of Job is poetic in form, with the exception of chapters one and two and the last eleven verses of chapter forty-two. Job is the first of the five poetic books in the Scriptures; the other four are the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.
The contents of the book of Job are the expressions of the sentiments of godly men, including Job, his three friends, and the young man Elihu. This book is the record of the speaking of these five parties plus the speaking of God.
The book of Job, like the Psalms, consists of the expressions of the sentiments of the speakers according to the experiences of their godly life.
Their expressions were uttered before the law was given, yet their sentiments were filled with the principle of good and evil. This is the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Their logic was according to the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and, based on this, they considered very much God's justice and righteous judgment.
The expression of the sentiments of these godly men are in relation to the judgments of God's government. The debates between Job and his three friends were mainly concerning judgment. They reasoned that Job must have been wrong in some regard or aspect and that the things which happened to him were a judgment from God. They may also have thought that Job's children were wrong and died because of God's judgment. Thus, the contents of this book involve the matter of God's judgment.
It was according to His economy and for His intention that God created the universe.
Furthermore, it was according to His desire that God created man that He might express Himself through man. In order to be God's expression, man must be under God's rule, and this involves God's judgment.
It is necessary that God exercise His governmental control over man and judge man according to His righteousness. No one will escape God's judgment. Romans 2:5 and 6 say, "According to your hardness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works." In Acts 17:31 we are told that God "has set a day in which He is to judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has designated." This man is Jesus Christ, who has been charged by God to judge the living and the dead (Acts 10:42). Sooner or later, all will be judged by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some of God's judgments are temporary, like that on Sodom, and some are ultimate, like that at the great white throne (Rev. 20:11-15). Concerning this, 1 Timothy 5:24 says, "The sins of some men are openly manifest, going before to judgment; and for others, they also follow after." The sins of certain persons come to God's judgment earlier, and the sins of others come later. God's judgment, whether earlier or later, depends on His timing.
Because some of God's judgments are temporary and others are ultimate, some people prosper and flourish, even though they are sinful and evil. Some suffer natural calamities because of the curse brought in through man's sin (Gen. 3:17-18). What they suffer may not be due to their sinful deeds. Because Adam fell, committing sin, the curse came in as a kind of judgment. According to Romans 8:20 through 22, "the creation was made subject to vanity" and, subject to the slavery of corruption, "groans together and travails in pain together." This also is a kind of judgment. Because of this judgment, people sometimes suffer natural calamities, even though they may not commit sin. Not all those who suffer a calamity such as a devastating hurricane suffer because they are sinful.
Job and his friends might have had different views in what they insisted on and debated about regarding God's judgment. Much of their debate resulted from different views concerning God's judgment.
It is evident that Job and his friends did not see the positive aspect of God's economy in dealing with His holy people. That is, God wants to strip, not to judge, His holy ones that He might gain them so that they might gain Him more.
Job's friends thought that what he was suffering was a matter of God's judgment. However, Job's sufferings were not God's judgment but God's stripping. The Sabeans took away Job's oxen and donkeys, the "fire of God" devoured his sheep, the Chaldeans took his camels, and a great wind caused the death of his sons and daughters (Job 1:13-19). All these things were God's stripping, but Job and his friends regarded them as God's judgment. Throughout the centuries, many readers of the book of Job have had the same concept, thinking that Job suffered because of God's judgment.
Have you ever had the thought that quite often God does something to strip you? Even though you may not be wrong, suddenly certain things happen to you, and God uses these things to strip you. Before I came into the Lord's recovery, the word stripping was not in my spiritual dictionary. I had heard about judgment, punishment, and chastisement but not about stripping. It was from Brother Nee that I learned about God's stripping.
Today in our spiritual dictionary the first word should be Christ, and the second word should be stripping. How much of Christ have you gained? How much of Christ we have gained is according to how much stripping we have suffered. The more we suffer God's stripping, the more we gain Christ.
It is through His stripping that God dispenses Himself to those who love Him and seek after Him. Job lost all that he had, but ultimately he gained God Himself. God stripped his all in order that He could be his all for his full transformation and conformation to the glorious image of God in His Son (Rom. 8:29).
Job and his friends did not have the adequate revelation of the divine truths. As godly men, they expressed their sentiments within the limits of the revelation they had received.
The divine revelation in the Bible is progressive. Up to Job's time the progression of the divine revelation had reached only the level of Abraham's time, that is, that sinners need God's redemption with the shedding of the blood of the burnt offering. Nothing had been unveiled regarding regeneration, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification. These things were not a part of the spiritual culture of Job and Abraham.
Many of today's Christians do not know about such matters as transformation, conformation, and glorification. They may know a little about regeneration and renewing, but most do not know anything about transformation, conformation, and glorification. Did you know about these things before you came into the Lord's recovery? Among today's Christians, the teaching concerning such matters is lacking because the revelation regarding them is lacking. In the recovery, on the contrary, we strongly emphasize transformation. Since the beginning of my ministry in this country, I have been speaking about the exercise of the spirit for the experience and enjoyment of Christ and about transformation. However, for many of the saints transformation is merely a doctrine, not a practical experience in the spirit. The Christian life is a matter of Christ living in us. As Paul says, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). This is the Christian life, and this is the practical, daily experience of transformation in our spirit.
The divine truths regarding such matters as regeneration, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification were not explicitly revealed to man in God's Old Testament economy. They were not revealed in completion until the apostle Paul's time (Phil. 3:8). Paul received a full and explicit revelation of things concerning which Abraham, Job, and his friends had no understanding due to the shortage of the necessary spiritual culture. We should not blame or despise Job and his friends for their lack of understanding.
In Job 42:5 Job said, "I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear,/But now my eye has seen You." We may interpret Job's seeing God as his gaining God. But what does it mean to gain God? In Job there is no further revelation concerning this, for the revelation in this book is not clear, complete, or perfect. The clear, complete, and perfect revelation is found in Paul's writings, especially in Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, the four books that make up the heart of the New Testament. If we read these books, we will have a clear view of what it means to gain God. Unfortunately, many of today's Christians remain in Job's age. I hope, therefore, that this message will help to open your eyes.
The subject of the book of Job is the purpose of God's dealing with His holy one. Job is a book of the debates of godly men concerning the purpose of the sufferings of the saints, that is, the purpose of God's dealing with His people. Since Job is such an early book, it does not contain a clear revelation of God's purpose in dealing with His people. This revelation was given not to Job but to Paul. In Paul's Epistles we see that God's purpose in dealing with us is to strip us of all things so that we may gain God more and more. This is the subject of the book of Job.
Job has six sections: the introduction (1:1—2:10); the debates between Job and his three friends (2:11—32:1); Elihu's answer to Job (32:2—37:24); the dialogue between God and Job (38:1—42:6); Jehovah's dealing with the three friends of Job (42:7-9); and Job's end (42:10-17).
