The Trials of Job (1)

0:00We praise the Lord for thy great plan, that we might well in place may be." Welcome to Life Study of the Bible with Witnessly, a program provided by Living Stream Ministry. Witnessly emphasized the experience of Christ as life and the practical oneness of the believers. He was unbending in his conviction that God's goal is not narrow-sectorianism, but the body of Christ. Through his messages in these life studies, he stressed the importance for us to grow in life and to function as Christians so that the body can build itself up. We're happy to bring you recorded portions from his ministry today, along with some of our own thoughts. And we welcome your comments and questions. You can reach us toll-free at Triple Eight Life Study. That's 888-543-3788.

1:02Now let's join today's program. The Old Testament book of Job tells the story of a man whom God allowed to be touched and even damaged by Satan himself. The natural or even religious thought would say that this must have been because of God's judgment upon Job due to some sin or failure on his part. But let's consider for a moment what the Bible has to say about this man, Job. In chapter 1, verses 6-8, then one day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, Satan also came among them. And Jehovah said to Satan, Have you considered my servant, Job, for there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? It's remarkable, isn't it? For not only does the Bible reveal that Job was not a sinful man, quite the opposite, it says that he was perfect and upright,

2:05and one in whom God even boasted of his goodness. So the age-old question persists, Why then did God allow Satan to strip this righteous man of his possessions, his family, his health, and even his most prized attainment, his integrity? That's the subject, not just of our program today, but really of this entire life study of the Book of Job. Ron Kangus has joined us for our second program. Ron, good to have you here. And it's quite an enlightening view of this ancient book, isn't it? It's very enlightening. And the reason for the enlightenment is that the understanding of the Book of Job that we will present in this series of broadcasts links the Book of Job to the New Testament Revelation concerning God's economy to dispense himself and who has chosen and redeemed people in order to be expressed through them in a corporate way.

3:08Many have written or discussed or debated the meaning of the Book of Job all within the box of trying to justify the ways of God to man as Milton put it and paradise lost or to somehow similar to Job's friends to offer some kind of account why this righteous, perfect, godly man would suffer so much. The perspective, not only in this program, but in this entire series based on the life study, is the perspective of God's economy. God wants to fill us with himself, to saturate us with himself, to make himself our unique content and constituent so that we may express him. This is a gloriously positive view of the divine human relationship

4:11according to God's eternal purpose. If we have this view and then look at the person of Job, we will gradually realize it is not sufficient simply to be perfect, inwardly and upright outwardly and to fear God and turn away from evil. It is not adequate merely to be a person of integrity, with integrity as we will see being the composite of the characteristics we mentioned earlier. And if we consider the Book of Job in the light of God's economy, we will see that the answer to the questions raised in that book actually are not answered in the Book of Job itself. The answer is found in Paul's epistles, ultimately in the New Jerusalem, God, in order to have an expression of himself and his redeemed people,

5:12positively must fill us with himself and constitute himself into us. But negatively, that which is not God, even though humanly speaking, it's perfect and righteous, needs to be eliminated to open the way for God to constitute himself into our being. Something like this will be the view that governs our understanding and fellowship on this very intriguing, perennially provocative Book of Job. I look forward to our fellowship together and to giving our listeners, but for many of them will be an unprecedented opportunity to see the Book of Job in the light of God's eternal economy.

6:22Satan, considering the servant Job, says there is none like him on earth, a perfect and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil, and he still holds fast his integrity, though you have moved me against him to destroy him without cause. So let's consider this person Job in light of the divine revelation. Here's what is left with our first portion. Now we come to the trial of Job. Firstly, we have to see Job the man. What Job was as a person was mentioned by God himself. Job, firstly, is perfect, then upright. You add these two things together, perfection, and uprightness. You get integrity. Integrity is a total expression of what he is.

7:28Then he tells us here he has a great position. He became a great man, greater than all the sins of the East. Then every time we listen to this, every time when the children have feast. After that, right way Job offers something to God for them, on the one hand to redeem them, and on the other hand to sanctify them. Very godly man, a godly father, right? You could see Job was as a person, great God. In the human eyes, no problem. Was there any problem with Job? No problem. But listen, you say Job was of no problem, but there was a need for God to hold a

8:40council in heaven with angels. You say Job was of no problem, but Job was a concern to God. God did have a loving concern. Even God boasted to say that how God Job was, right? Yet only God knew that there was some need with Job. Job was short of something. If this is not recorded in the Bible, I cannot dream that Almighty God would have a conference, a council held in heaven to talk about you. That is really an interesting insight. Here is God convening a council in the heavens and the

9:41subject is just this one upright, righteous, so-called perfect man. It is extraordinary, isn't it, that the Lord would convene such a council that really does indicate there was something that he knew that needed attention. God is a, to say the least wise and sovereign God, and he would not hold or convene such a council without a reason. He knew the enemy who was roaming around on the earth would come, probably uninvited, and God questioned Satan, and then deliberately pointed out Job. We're interpreting here. We admit that, but our interpretation is surely founded on the divine revelation. God actually needed Job to be broken down in his natural perfection.

10:48God knew that Job did not have a problem. He was perfect and upright, but he had a need which got himself, and God's economy positively is God's adding himself to us to make us his expression. But there's a negative side. We may say a destructive side, a stripping side, which requires that ourself, our natural life, our natural constitution be touched. God will not do this. The Holy Angels will not do this, but there is a cruel and evil being who likes to do this kind of thing. So God, in a wise way, set up a situation where Satan would volunteer to do this kind of negative work that needed to be done so that Job could be constituted with God,

11:55built up with God, to become a God man for God's expression. God's wisdom here is indescribably wonderful. We should not think that Satan was taking advantage of God. Rather, God was using even Satan for his economy because there needed to be a being so pernicious that he would carry out the work in Job, the stripping of his attainments. Left to himself, Satan would not have stopped Job would have been annihilated, but God set the limit, and God determined the outcome, and God in his wisdom even used his enemy. Our God, Chris, surely is a wise God. Ron, I want to come back to this point because you raised something here that

13:03I think undoubtedly is a new thought to many of our listeners that God could use even Satan. The life study, the printed life study, message points out that in Isaiah and Ezekiel, God had already pronounced a kind of judgment and condemnation of Satan, and yet here Satan roaming about, and even showing up, as you said, uninvited at this council in the heavens, and God allows him to seemingly persuade him to be able to touch this upright person. This somewhat matches a new testament context whereby the Lord Jesus selected these 12 disciples among them, even one whom he said was a devil, Judas. No doubt the Lord knew then that what Judas was going to ultimately do. Again, this is somewhat integrity, but I think we have a good solid standing, don't we? Oh, we do, that the Lord is God for new, but Judas would do, but God's economy for its fulfillment required someone to betray the Lord Jesus,

14:10and Judas fulfilled that function. We know that the devil entered into his heart. I mean, he was one with Satan, and the parallel is very fitting between Satan in the book of Job and Judas utilized by Satan in the New Testament, that God needs something to be carried out in his economy, but that thing can only be accomplished by an evil person or by God's enemy himself. And actually, Chris, the case with Judas is not the only illustration of this principle in the New Testament. In the gospel of Luke, the Lord told all the disciples with Simon as their representative. He said, Simon, Simon, Satan has, desired, has asked for you all that he may sift

15:16you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith would not fail. This implies some kind of conversation again, where those disciples, they were ambitious, they were competing with one another. They were in themselves. They needed to be sifted as wheat. Who would do such a thing? Well, there's an enemy who delights in doing it, and God allows him to do it and uses him while he's doing it to carry out his economy. And with Paul and 2 Corinthians, he speaks about the abundance of revelations. Then he said, a messenger of Satan, you know, this thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, was from Satan. But God allowed some tormenting thing from Satan to be inflicted

16:16upon Paul to have the purpose of humbling him so that he would not be exalted because of the abundance of revelation. So we see consistently throughout the Scripture, God's wise use of his enemy, Satan, the devil, because only that pernicious evil, cruel being would do certain things within the limits of God's sovereignty. They need to be done in the lives of God's people so that their being will be opened up for God to work himself in Christ into them according to his economy and for his glorious corporate expression. I find this view of Job in the light of all these cases astounding, it's eye opening, it's enlightening, it's satisfying, and it's deeply

17:19encouraging. Well, let's take a minute going back to witnessly because we want to pick up the point here that you just mentioned. There is a purpose and that purpose is not just that God would allow his people to suffer, but there's a goal in view in God's economy and we'll take a brief look at it in this final portion. God knew how should be done. Everything that Job had, everything that Job possessed, the cattle, the horrors, and the children, and eventually his integrity and his attainment, his success in being perfect and upright, big success. And that success, integrity became a big attainment. That was his qualification and that was also his standing. He was very content, he was a satisfied person on this earth, so he became great in name.

18:27Well, he was, considering this way, supposedly, God in Heavens would say, Manchell, what shall I do with you? You are full of possessions, full of children, full of these, full of your attainment. Yeah, you don't have me within you, you don't have me, you think about it. So, you are very good that this uninvited one came in on his own orientation. God was happy. Here is one in the whole universe that would fulfill God's intention. Intention of what? Intention of striping Job. Eventually, who is the winner? Who gains? God, who loses? Satan. This was the council held in Heavens, decided that an ugly angel, Satan would go

19:34to damage a lover of God. Satan, he does not know that God's purpose, in dealing with his lovers, even in the way of loss, is that they may gain him to the fullest extent. But more than the loss of all that they have other than God himself, that God may be expressed through them for the fulfillment of the purpose in his creation of man. Ron, again, the Bible is marvelously consistent as he was speaking here concerning Satan's apparent victory over Job, but ultimately, who won, who lost, and how often has that same analogy been made concerning even the Lord Jesus on the cross in the New Testament? This is God's economy, isn't it? Who wins, ultimately? In the short run and according to the outward appearance,

20:39Satan is victorious. It seemed that he virtually destroyed Job. It seemed that he had done a way with the Lord Jesus, but Satan doesn't get the last word. God is not only the beginning, he's the ending, he's not only the first, he's the last, the alpha and the omega, and the work that Satan does under God's wisdom and sovereignty on us, the people of God, ultimately, and eventually opens the way for God to add himself into our being to fulfill his purpose in Genesis 126, that we would express God in his image and represent him with his authority. Therefore, the outcome is not that God's chosen people are damaged and destroyed by Satan,

21:49but that God uses Satan on the negative side, along with his work on the positive side to build himself into us, and the result is a God-man, a corporate God-man, the church, the body of Christ, expressing God and dealing with God's enemy. This means that those who were damaged by Satan and then constituted with God will be the ones whom God will use to execute His judgment upon the enemy who rebelled against God and damaged them. Seen in this light, we can realize that Satan's undoing of us actually leads to the undoing of himself, because God comes in as the God of resurrection, to dispense himself into us,

22:57to make us the same as He is in life and nature, but not in the Godhead for His expression. Now God has a corporate person, the new man, the body of Christ, bearing His image and representing His authority. Once this glorious purpose has been carried out, at the end of the millennium, God will have no further use or need for the devil, and then the devil will go to the place prepared for Him, the lake of fire, and we will become the city of God, the New Jerusalem. Praise our glorious wise and sovereign God. Amen and amen. Ron, you mentioned the Apostle Paul's writings in the New Testament, how you feel if we close the program today. I just read one verse from Paul. I think it confirms everything we've tried to bring forth today. Philippians chapter 3 verse 8, but moreover, Paul writes, I also count all

24:04things to be lost on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, that I may gain Christ. Amen. That's our life study for today. We invite you to contact us, I'll give you a toll free number so that you can get the printed messages if this is revealing the book of Job to you in a fresh way, a way you've never considered. I can't recommend this printed written message or these messages strongly enough. If you'd like to find out, call us toll free 1-888-Life Study, 888-543-3788. We'd love to hear from you. You can also send email to us at radioatlsm.org. For Ron, Kangus, I'm Chris Wilde. Thank you very much for listening today. Are you enjoying this program online or on a smartphone right now? Did you know there's

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