Job - Overview

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*



   *T4201R - JOB - OVERVIEW - THE PURPOSE OF SUFFERING*


 *1. 1:1 (1-2) PROLOGUE. “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was
Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and
turned away from evil.” *Father, like Job we who live godly in Christ Jesus,
do suffer persecution. But Kingdom principles are in this realized, for we
are then identified with Christ in His suffering (Colossians 1:24). *Hallowed
be your :name.*


 *2. 3:11, 16 (3) JOB'S OPENING LAMENTATION. “Why did I not die from the
womb? Why did I not give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 16 Or as a
hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light.” *O
Father, our hearts go out to Job, for we know the true nature of his
testing, and the end from the beginning. In the dumbness and mystery of
suffering, may we accept Your will. *Your :kingdom come.*


 *3. 13:15; 14:14 (4-14) FIRST TRIAD. “Behold, he will slay me; I have no
hope; Nevertheless I will maintain my ways before him. 14:14 If a man die,
shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, Till my
release should come.” *Father, we are strengthened immeasurably by the
example of Job. He clawed his way to faith and trust! *Your :will be done,
As in heaven, so on earth.*


 *4. 19:25-27 (15-21) SECOND TRIAD. “But as for me I know that my Redeemer
lives, And at last he will stand up upon the earth: 26 And after my skin,
even this body, is destroyed, Then without my flesh shall I see God; 27 Whom
I, even I, shall see, on my side, And my eyes shall behold, and not as a
stranger, My heart is consumed within me.” *What a testimony of
revelation-faith! Father, we bless You for such revelation to Job and man. *Our
:daily :bread Give us this day.*


 *5. 23:10, 12 (22-37) THIRD TRIAD. “But he knows the way that I take; When
he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. 12 I have not gone back from
the commandment of his lips; I have treasured up the words of his mouth more
than my necessary food.” *Yes Father, trial and temptation is the way of man
in this life. Always be with us in them, that we may come forth as gold. *And
forgive us our :debts, As we also have forgiven our :debtors.*


 *6. 38:1-2 (38-41) GOD'S CLOSING INTERVENTION. “Then Jehovah answered Job
out of the whirlwind and said, 2 Who is this that darkens counsel By words
without knowledge? *O Father, restrain us from foolish words! Hold us back
from speaking during the throes of testing! *And bring us not into
temptation.*


 *7. 42:5-6 (42) EPILOGUE. “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees you; 6 Wherefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and
ashes.”* Yes, this is as it should be. A revelation of You, Jehovah Father,
puts us in right understanding and relationship. *But deliver us from the
evil one.*


 *NOTE: First Quote, p.10: *There are things in our heavenly Father's
dealings with us which have no immediate explanation. There are *
inexplicable* providences which test us to the limit, and prove that
rationalism is a mere mental pose. The Bible and our common sense agree *that
the basis of human life is tragic*, not rational, and the whole problem is
focused for us in this Book of Job. Chapter 13:15 is the utterance of a man
who has lost his explicit hold on God, but not his implicit hold - “Though
He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (R.V., “wait for Him”). That is the
last reach of the faith of a man. Job's creed is gone; all he believed about
God has been disproved by his own experiences, and his friends when they
come say, in effect, 'You are a hypocrite, Job, we can prove it from your
own creed'. But Job sticks to it - 'I am not a hypocrite, I do not know what
accounts for all that has happened, but I will hold to it that God is just
and that I shall yet see Him vindicated in it all'.


 *Second Quote, p.103: *Because a man has altered his life it does not
necessarily mean that he has repented. A man may have lived a bad life and
suddenly stop being bad, not because he has repented, but because he is like
an exhausted volcano. The fact that he has become good is no sign of his
having become a Christian. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. The
apostle Paul never forgot what he had been; when he speaks of 'forgetting
those tings which are behind', he is referring to what he has attained to;
the Holy Spirit never allowed him to forget what he had been (*see* 1
Corinthians 15:9, Ephesians 3:8, 1 Timothy 1:13-15). Repentance means that I
estimate exactly what I am in God's sight and I am sorry for it, and on the
basis of the Redemption I become the opposite. The only repentant man is the
holy man, i.e., the one who becomes the opposite of what he was because
something has entered into him. Any man who knows himself knows that he
cannot be holy, therefore if he does become holy, it is because God has
'shipped' something into him; he is now 'presenced with Divinity', and can
begin to bring forth 'fruits meet for repentance'.


 A man may know the plan of salvation, and preach like an archangel, and yet
not be a Christian (cf. Matthew 7:21-22.) The test of Christianity is that a
man lives better than he preaches. The reality of the heredity of Jesus
Christ comes into us through regeneration, and if ever we are to exhibit a
family likeness to Him it must be because we have entered into repentance
and have received something from God. If the disposition of meanness and
lust and spite shows itself through my bodily life, when the disposition of
Jesus Christ is there, it will show through my bodily life too, and one need
never be afraid that he will be credited with the holiness he exhibits. “Now
my eye sees You,” said Job, “wherefore *I* abhor myself” (“*I *loathe my
words”, R.V. marg.) “and repent in dust and ashes.” When I enthrone Jesus
Christ I say the thing that is violently opposed to the old rule. I deny my
old ways as entirely as Peter denied his Lord.


 Jesus Christ's claim is that He can put a new disposition, His own
disposition, Holy Spirit, into any man, and it will be manifested in all
that he does. But the disposition of the Son of God can only enter my life
by the way of repentance.


 (The above quotes are taken from “Baffled to Fight Better,” Oswald
Chamber's Commentary on the book of Job. The book is well worth while
procuring and reading. - J.A.W.)



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