THE book of Job shows us God’s dealings with an individual soul, irrespective of dispensational acting’s. In it different agencies are employed, but all of God. It is not a case of chastisement for sin, such as God’s dealings with His servant David for numbering the people; but it is God disciplining the best man He then had in the world. God said, “There is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.” (chapter 1:8.) Clear however it is, that with all this blamelessness, he knew little of himself or of God. In these weighty lessons, God, through a path of deep, but necessary, sorrow, instructed and blessed His much-loved servant. In the scene of action we find God, Elihu, Satan, Job, his wife, children, property, men around, and friends. Satan accuses, and is allowed to bring fire down “from heaven” to burn up his sheep and servants, to stir up the Sabeans to take away his oxen and asses, slay his servants with the sword, and to move the Chaldean to carry away his camels, and slay the servants with the sword. Besides these calamities Satan is allowed to bring a great wind, and cause the house to fall upon his sons, and kill them where they were feasting; and moreover so to afflict his body with boils that he took a potsherd and scraped himself. His wife too, at this time, instead of being a comfort, bade him “curse God and die.” This brought out not only the afflicted patriarch’s rebuke, but he added, “What? shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?” and the Holy Ghost tells us, that “in all this did not Job sin with his lips.” (chapter 2:10.) These activities of the patriarch’s faith in receiving every calamity from the hand of God, and his entire submission to His will, were all precious fruits of the Spirit in their season. But there are other lessons to be learned in the school of God. However unconscious to himself, his “friends” are now permitted to search him. Their sympathy was very sweet (chapters 2:11-13.) but, in his contentions with them, his own weakness, pride, self-confidence, and other fleshly workings are brought out. Chapters 3 to 31 are taken up with Job and his friends, making statements and replying. In this controversy Job says, “I am not wicked.” (chapter 10:7.) “I know I shall be justified.” (13:18.) “He breaketh me with breach upon breach.... Not for any injustice in mine hands; also my prayer is pure.” (16:14-17.) “His way have I kept, and not declined; neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips.” (23:11-12.) “My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.” (27:6.) “If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot has halted to deceit; let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.” (31:5,6.) At the close of this chapter we read, “The words of Job are ended.” Thus we see that this controversial intercourse manifestly brought out the pride and self-confidence of nature, before, perhaps, hidden from his view; and wholly failed to show him, that in him, that is in his flesh, dwelt no good thing.
Next we are told that Elihu’s wrath was kindled against Job, “because he justified himself rather than God;” and against his three friends, because “they found no answer, and condemned Job.” (chapters 32:2, 3.) He refers Job to the Almighty as the giver of understanding, reproves Job for saying, “I am clean without transgression; I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me. He findeth occasions against me; He counteth me for His enemy,” &c. He assures Job that God is greater than man, that His purpose in His dealings is to hide pride from man, to bring down in order to lift up, and that “He looketh upon men, and if any say I have sinned, and perverted that which is right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.” (chapters 33:12-29.) Elihu also charges Job with multiplying words against God, and multiplying words without knowledge, and bids him hear attentively the noise of His voice, and the sound that goeth out of His mouth. (See chapter 34:37, 35:16, 37:2.)
After this God Himself speaks to His servant, not, as on another occasion to another servant, in “a still small voice,” but “out of a whirlwind.” We are told in the thirty-eighth chapter, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me,” &c. God then speaks to him of His mighty power in creation, of His marvelous ways in providence, His variety of dealings with His creatures, and thus searches Job as to his knowledge and wisdom. Thus Job is now necessarily compelled to weigh himself, and his words and ways, not however in the company of fallible friends, but in the light and presence of Jehovah. Had he ever been really in God’s presence before?
Again, in the fortieth chapter, God speaks to Job as one who was contending with the Almighty, and reproving God. How very solemn! These charges though bring from the patriarch’s lips for the first time the confession, “Behold I am vile.” But true, most true as it was, this general acknowledgment was not enough; God must have particular confession of sins and failure, and the patriarch must be found in his true place, before God can exalt him. Once more the terrible whirlwind is hurled around this learner in the school of God, and again, out of it Jehovah speaks to His servant. Again, He bids him to gird up his loins as a man, and declare unto Him. “Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me that thou mayest be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him? Deck thyself now with majesty,” &c. And again seeks further to instruct Job as to the almightiness of His power, &c.
All this makes Job feel thoroughly what it was to be in God’s presence. Accordingly, we read in the last chapter, “THEN,” not till then, Job answered Jehovah, and said, “I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee.” Thus was he conscious that he himself and every secret thought were before the eye of God. The words that God had spoken to him so fastened themselves on his mind that he repeats them: “Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge?” The effect of which brings the confession, “Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” Then he seems to repeat more of the words which God had spoken to him— “I will demand of thee, and answer thou me,” which bring him truly into the sense of being in God’s presence, and to find his becoming place before Him. Owning the previous soul-distance there had been between him and God, and with all his former knowledge and blamelessness of walk, he with brokenness of spirit exclaims, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” The discipline at last has its right effect. The God-fearing man has now to do with God as it were face to face; and he finds his true place, has a repentant mind, judging himself and his words according to God. He acknowledges that the place of “dust” becomes him as having a sinful nature, concerning which God had said, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;” and he takes the place of “ashes” too, because he feels that the lowest place of humiliation becomes him on account of practical failure; that he is only fit to be consumed by the fire of divine holiness. He not only hates his ways, but he loathes himself. This is enough. Now, Job having got right with God, God reproves Eliphaz and his two friends for their folly, commends Job to them, and expresses His confidence that he will pray for them, when they offer for themselves the burnt-offering which He commanded them to bring. Job is now back again to the altar of burnt-offering, where he had not been since the beginning of his trial. (chapter 1:5.) Thus God begins to restore and honor His tried servant; for “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Lord, help us!
Now look at Job. Instead of being at a distance from God, he is in felt nearness to God— “now mine eye seeth Thee.” Instead of being upon a judgment-seat he falls before it. Instead, therefore, of justifying himself, he condemns himself. Instead of being occupied with the failure and wrong thoughts of others, he sees no one so vile as himself; he says, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Instead of contending with Mends, he prays for them. The trial therefore is at an end. Such discipline is no longer needed. Hence we read, “The Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his Mends.” What important and needed lessons all this sets before us. New companions return, friends are restored, gifts liberally flow in, so that he soon becomes possessed of “twice as much as he had before;” he had too, far greater family comfort and blessing than ever. (Read prayerfully chapters 42:1-15.) No marvel then that the Holy Ghost should say by James, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” (James 5:1111Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. (James 5:11).)