In this sermon, the speaker discusses the book of Job and the conversations that take place within it. The speaker acknowledges that the book contains 41 chapters filled with various conversations, points of view, and counterpoints. They highlight the poetic language used in the book and describe Job's condition before his trials. The speaker also mentions the presence of "miserable comforters" and emphasizes the need to assess each conversation in order to understand the main points conveyed by the Holy Spirit in the book of Job.

I'll show you how to do it. Except by referring to a great deal of what is recorded in this, whatever it is, forty-one chapters, which is very largely conversation, discussion, points of view and counterpoints of view. I'm up a gum tree myself in going over it with you, because I never had given the time necessary for a detailed assessment of each conversation, and the main point of each conversation is that they are able to do so. But there are many conversations. The three friends each spoke about three times, the talks were recorded, Job, eight, nine, ten times, Elijah came in with a big one, and then God himself came in with a big one. There's a great deal of interchange going on, and whole streams of different comments, questions, remarks, many of them sparkling ones, through the conversations. So I never have sat down and taken each, and assessed each, in the sense in which we could say, well, this is the main point you made on this, or that. So I'm not really capable of presenting what is really said to us by the Holy Spirit through the book of Job. All I can do is a sort of survey, hopping from place to place, from statement to statement, selecting what statements would appear to me to be a more superficial, maybe, general presentation of what these folks were saying, or that person was saying. That's the best I can do, and seeking to bring out the main stream of what is being revealed to us, and said to us by this book. What it does mean, it doesn't make it at all so easy for you also to see, therefore I hesitate about it. There's more than I can contain in my memory, to be able to say, yes, this, this, this, this. I have to refer to those. I have to say, well, here, this, and this, and this, in order to make these in my own mind, the special points of view at the moment that I'm seeking to extract. That makes it more laborious for me, and more laborious for you, especially as, in the main, I don't know if you could follow in the Scriptures, because we should move about here and there. Anyhow, most of you don't. Again, you get the problem of the variety of translations, that what I'm quoting from King James, might not necessarily be at all what you're quoting from some weird, mistaken presentation you have. So, I don't know how to help you out of that one. So, I don't approach this with the same clear-cut approach, maybe, as we looked at the other ones. So, I'm just telling you that as a preliminary. So, as we go along, I have to move over and say, well, now, this line of things on this point, and so on, and turn to the Scriptures and quote the different statements to which we refer, so we get back here, it's the best I can do. I don't reckon it would be that effective, or, maybe, some realistic theories. The other lies, which are more that they're living, and it's finding what they're living. This is more the theory. The living is behind it, of course. Certainly, theory practically lies. I don't mean that. So, we start and proceed on that basis. Now, we understand the basis of this book is God's necessary and purpose action in every life. This is a pattern book. It's a prototype book. It's a prototype because, as far as we know, it's the first book in the Bible. How much Job knew of what other men knew. For instance, David would know what happened with Abraham, and happened with Moses, and happened with so-and-so, and he had the records. Moses himself obviously had the records, he wrote them, of the early days, and the creation, and so on. How much Job knows, he doesn't know. How far back the book was written, but they do say, and there are much evidence I don't know, that it's perhaps the first recorded book in the Bible. And Job stands out by himself in this sense. In some, as someone mentioned earlier, as if we're a lonely figure. In fact, he's a very common figure. Like that. It may be an indication that more people can know God who don't know the God of other ways at all. They do. Because he's not connected, known. He doesn't know any process of grace and revelation which is going on around in history. He's not known, he's not referred to. So maybe it's also a hint to us that there are other people all scattered around the world who have never known the way of God's revelation in terms we know it. And yet something's happening. I don't know. I may be right or wrong in that. The point is, this isn't a man book, it's a God book. It's God's determined and necessary way of producing a perfect relationship. Of leading, of bringing a man on into the union and communion by which he knows God and knows himself. And knows how they interrelate and lives in the confidence and liberty of what has become real to him and which he can now transmit to become real to other people. That's what the book is, a transmission to ask what became real to him. So it's a God book. The basis is God's determined purpose of perfect love, the perfect man. A man that is perfect, that is in perfect harmony, union, communion and understanding with him who is the all in all in the universe and a man who is a form of the all in all. And it's a function as such. So, that's our background. In other words, it's a book of perfect love. Quite a perfect love book. Which the natural man seems to take strange forms. Seems to sit around the meaning of suffering. It really sits around the meaning of perfection. The next remarkable fact is that it's God's ways with a man who is already the most perfect on earth. Not the most imperfect. The most perfect. It's God's ways relating to and completing in his revelation with a man who is already the most perfect. Not the most imperfect. The top man in God's sight of human history of that era. That's what God said of him. There's none like him in the earth. A perfect and upright man. One that fears God and is sure of evil. One-eighth. We must understand that the only perfection that can be a perfection for God is a perfection which is in grace. The perfection is imparted from God. Not claimed by man. So when he calls Job the perfect upright man he's not saying Job is upright by his own self-presentation. But because he's in a great relationship with the living God as interpreted in those days. We know that because his great concern was to be sure that his sons were in a great relationship on the basis of sacrifice which was their way through of understanding the necessary atonement that would make a relationship to God possible. And in his concern that his sons' lives should be built on a reality of atonement by which they could be justified people in the sight of God obviously it was primarily his own relationship. So he was a justified man. He knew God as one who was accepted by God. And was not a lost sinner as we would say even in the U.S. in terms of having God but an accepted son. And when we are in an accepted relationship with God that means the spirit has begun its operation in the earth and the spirit is beginning to manifest itself by us. So a justified man is bearing the fruits of justification in his spirit-produced life. Now this is borne out by a very remarkable couple of chapters which burst out of Job's own heart in the course of his agonizing trials as a presentation of the kind of man he was. As one would say, not only boasting at himself but this was a consequence of this relationship he had in the living God which we would say meant the spirit which was causing him to live in a certain way. And those chapters are 39 and 31. And they give an extraordinary account of the life of a man the quality of the life of a man in those wounds that were healed in days. Of course obviously this man wasn't dead but we say darkened days. It's just like a beautiful representation you get of a fruit-bearing Christian life that you can conceive. He starts by saying that he was in a very posthumous condition in those days. He's describing what it was before all this was happening to him. And he speaks in the beginning of it that in those days when I washed my flesh with butter and the rock poured out for me rivers of oil I should say in passing that Joseph Drake, a very poetic book full of marvellous poetic presentations of aspects of living poetic language so perhaps in some way it appeals more to those who love that kind of poetic presentation like a Shakespearean lover or something. It's a wonderful term. It sparked up to us. Like this remark talking about his posthumous condition as his flesh was washed with butter and the rock poured out for him rivers of oil. Now in this condition he was the most respected man in the city in which he lived. Now he lived in some city. You wouldn't know that. You'd think by the first presentation that he was more like a Texas farmer in his hundred thousand acres of land or something with his cattle and sheep but he was a city man. And he was not only a leading man in the city but universally respected. It says in verse 7 when I went out to the gate to the city where I prepared my seat in the street that was the way in those days in which the important men sat like the city council. And so there he had this place and there the whole it says that young and old oh, respect him verse 8 young men saw me and hid themselves sort of with them the preachers the saints talked to me and laid their hands over my mouth and when the ear heard it then it blessed me. When the eyes saw me they witnessed to me. So his whole life Boyle had a great emphasis as being the finest type of man there could be in that city. Now the way he did his the way he his life underlined those facts is very remarkable. He did the whole area. First he was always concerned with the poor. He delivered the poor. Verse 12 When the poor or fathers in need he was the man who came along to solve their problems. That's verse 12. With the lame and then disabled same thing his eyes to the blind and teeth to the lame. So where there are people like we have today are concerned with the people who are physically afflicted blind or chronically afflicted religious they were his concern. And he became eyes to the blind teeth to the lame. That is verse 15, 16. He he did a number of things one is he didn't stand he didn't compromise his sin. He openly confronted his culprits. And verse 17 I break the jaws of the wicked and cut the claw out of their teeth. He didn't let the wicked get away with it. So he was not just a soft easy man let other people do what they like. You don't get to see as far as he is able the hands in the the sick in the hands of many of the misusing people. Then he said there is nothing to do about himself. He affirmed his moral purity. Of course sex is a prevalent fact in all our humanity to this day. He stuck on this his moral purity. Now this is a great man obviously in this relationship this could have been very easy to his hand. And he made those very interesting remarks. In verse well that's chapter 31 I made my covenant with my eyes why do I should I look upon a maid? I made a covenant with my eyes why do I should I look upon a maid? And he he he put that beautifully to focus and I don't know why else it is put to focus. In the second verse he said if my step had turned out in my way and my heart walked after mine eyes then I should be wrong. I don't know the mark of this statement. He said my heart didn't walk after my eyes and that perfectly fits Jesus' comment that the adulterer is a person who looks after women and desires to seduce her. The adulterer nothing lies in the heart. He said perfectly fits the adulterer is if you look at look at women my mind is so poor in quoting these days in them and as a consequence in your heart you see how you get out of bed. That's what he says Jesus said whosoever looketh on you with a lust after hath seen the adulterer will already be in heart. Heart is when you make a choice. Your eyes lead to your heart. It's very interesting how he said my heart didn't walk after my eyes. Otherwise my eyes can see all sorts of things. OK, that's temptation. That is the thing. If my heart walks after my eyes therefore if I do something I I'd like to do something I shouldn't do. Yes, you see. And he he followed along. If so he said if my heart has been deceived by a woman or if I have laid bait at my neighbor's door then let my wife cry near to another and let others bow down upon her. He's continually saying how he's lived through him these moral fiascos. He said no. If only he had remarkable things which are much more up to date. He said he should have employees. His employees might just as well get the scrapings. He said in verse 13 chapter 1 if I did despise the cause of my manservant or my maidservant then he could say he'd despise the cause so he's concerned for the rights of his employees. That's very modern. If he doesn't use his employees he's concerned for their rights and their needs and their comforts. That's wonderful. You'd call that very Christian today, wouldn't you? At least the social gospel of today, wouldn't they? Then he added I love this house to be a social center. Love company like some other people I know. And I love that way he put it. It's always the poetic phrases you get. In verse 17 if I if I've eaten my morsel alone if I've eaten my morsel myself alone beautiful way of expressing a person who wants to be solitary and doesn't want to express love in his home. And he said if I'd done that he'd be proud of me. He said that's what I haven't done. I haven't eaten my morsel alone. I've loved to share the social fellowship. You can't be a godly man in fellowship if you're on a godly basis. Of course godly people can also have fun. Another little touch. If he found people in low need whatever the speaking about the Atamidu verse 19, 20 if I see any perishable under clothing or any poor without covering if his lords have not blessed me if he cannot wind me the fish in my sheep then shall I be wrong. By the way he said he was concerned he kept covering for the cold. So he had a good warm overcoat or whatever they had on him. Tell her Atamidu. Another little touch. Very important touch. He didn't live for his wealth. Now this is the spirit of God in a man. He was a wealthy man. He didn't live for his wealth. And in verse 34, 31 he said if I made my gold by hope or sent my gold out of my competence if I had just bought my wealth as great because my hand has got much and so on, then I shall be wrong. So he said I wasn't a man who made my gold my hope or my wealth my competence. It was just a means to an end. Yes. That's the fruit of his freedom. Only towards his enemies. It talks on other times I'm talking at this moment much about his enemies but his attitude towards them not that they're down Verse 39 If I rejoice at the destruction of him who hated me or lifted up myself when evil found him See? If I rejoice at the destruction of him who hated me I was glad he got my neck. No, if I wasn't glad he got my neck I was sorry if he did get my neck and lifted up myself with pleasure if evil got him. These are the very interpretations of 1 Peter 13 The just is not in the liquid The just is in the truth This might be a practical presentation of 1 Peter 13 And finally, the doors are open to the home to the people he didn't know the stranger Not only welcome those he did know at the centre of the hospitality but to many people he didn't know came across his path And so in verse 32 The stranger did not lodge in the street but I opened my doors to the Saddler What presentation could you get of a man whose life bore more recruits this day than that? Now this was no mean man, was it? This was a perfect man perfect because he was perfected in the grace of God through the sacrifice of the spirit he made which for him was equivalent to the sacrifice of Christ and therefore in God's eyes a justified man because he was perfected in God's grace and when you are perfected in God's grace and God has paid off your sin you produce the fruits of God's grace and you live a gracious life What a presentation! Now this was a man because of whom the thunder roared and the lightning thrashed from the throne of God and a perfect man Why? Because perfection I shouldn't say total perfection because of course that's a that's a tautonicologist who'd say it over and over again but perfection is total total perfection is that there is only God and you're self-absorbed in God What happens to you is the point because it's part of what God's doing self has become absorbed in God in other words you've moved beyond the separated self where there's a certain amount of yourself in it in which you are an agent of God a certain amount of yourself in it you're the agent and apart from God what happens to you because you aren't in this union oneness it happens as if you're apart from God what happens to you? So the last element there which is the purpose of the book the last chameleon of the separated self you're still in a relationship of separation not unification so you're still he is he and God is God in a relationship and as a consequence you haven't self, what is so God-absorbed that all that happened to self was just a form of God and it's all he wanted that God should explain himself by any form to himself so there's an element there of self-preservation and a sick concern to retain self-security and that slips out in just one or two of these sentences one is a very famous one in 325 for the thing which I greatly fear to come upon me the thing which I greatly fear to come upon me cause fear is faith and faith is substance so watch what you fear you're believing in you fear it because the fear means you're believing that's real to you you don't like it but you believe in it you're believing that's a real thing what you fear is faith and substance faith therefore, fear therefore is negative faith it's no faith, it's negative faith no positive negative faith it's believing in reality what you believe you get cause faith is substance and you experience what you believe so you better watch cause the whole life is the inner attitude what's the inner attitude cause the inner attitude is the substance and you greatly fear that you believe there are some situations I wouldn't like to be in those situations you got it? I'm sorry, I wouldn't like those situations you believe in them, you got them? so beware and he actually said it another phrase slipped out which is in the 6th chapter of the 7th verse where he said, oh no, I've quit that it's the oh I haven't I haven't read this 7th verse the things that my soul refused to touch are my sorrowful meat the things my soul refused to touch that were offensive to me they're my sorrowful meat so he said, don't you think oh my, I couldn't have that beware you're believing in a rat which isn't good but you've got to find out any good you've got to find out costly because of what's coming out of it I wouldn't have that I couldn't stand being in that condition now you may say you couldn't stand it but you say, of course, OK, it becomes but he meant, I won't have that God saved me from that be careful so you see, the thing is, he's so refused to touch and it becomes his sorrowful meat and he slipped in his his secretly positive hope for life in that chapter he just read that great chapter in 29 he slipped a little sentence in there which I didn't I didn't comment on as he passed I wish to read it now which was perhaps you might have noticed as he passed verse 18 then I said, I shall die in my nest that nice chomping nest where the oil poured on me out of the rock and my thips washed in butter, and that's a bit slippery but may I die, this is a nice nest beware don't get selfish, that means you want just what you want but glory is to be what God has given you this turns out to be hell in the end that's why God didn't leave him there because self-gratification is hell in the end because they're part of a God who's a self-giver which is the only heaven so if I'm not moving in where the God is so great where my life is laid out for others I'd be hell, not heaven because that's the only heaven there is that's why the world can never get a heaven other than self-gratification and it can only be hell that's against the the law of the universe and this is that now, so drink down now, this wasn't his true self his true self was a God-self there was an element there which was there, and had a little hold on him don't mistake it he was a God-man not a flesh-man oh no as we shall soon see his basis was the God's way was his protection God was his receiving joy basically what what God had for him that was what he wanted but a certain element which made him a a little element divided himself he hadn't had that final crucifixion and resurrection which unites you to God which is rather big a way of settling you a way of fixing that other thing cleared out that doesn't mean it can't occur to you in a a sudden temptation but it means it's not something so deeply sort of hanging around inside anything medical well I wouldn't like that I don't want that it isn't part of you really it's just something which assaults you as you're left outside to put it off again that's the difference that's what God was after no man can be a perfected man until he and God are one and his real being is God fulfilling his perfect God God's love life God's love life to him it is his he is expressing God in his lover life and self is just the agency but a lover life is a self giving life of course is fulfilled that's a lonely perfection that's heaven and this job I haven't got in other words really in our Christian theology he was moving into the school of faith he moved into the birth of faith he was a born again man he was a man of faith he's now moving into the school of faith by which we move on to these latter faiths later because the school of faith is you must also be perfectly just if you're perfectly just then you'd be God so it all fits in with the kind of thing we see in all these lives there's only one way of course there's one one way for God and one way for man that's the background now the starting next revelation which is the heart of the revelation of the book and which is mistaken by so many including Bible teachers because the natural man can't take it unless I see a spiritual man I can't take it and that is that Satan is in a permanent relationship with God of course it's pretty much we call it anthropomorphic terms I mean human terms you can't put spirit things in spirit terms because they can't even do themselves they're mixed up they're flesh and spirit so you can't put spirit things in total spirit terms because we're not just total spirit people we are spirit people of course we're in an utter flesh life so things have to put in flesh forms and phrases and phrases have to be used which is the best that can describe what we can't quite describe in spirit relationships so it's described here that Satan regularly pays visits to God among his sons because of course Satan was a distorted son there's a son going wrong and it's presented as out of the picture as the sons of God coming continually now point to get this is the continuous relationship this isn't the sudden thing that's happening you see so and so and so and so all the time again always it's happening there's no past present future with God it's all one all the present relationship a now relationship between God and this perverted son of his who came in his presence with the sons of God and he's always doing so now the remarkable revelation is that it's a it's a father God sets about using the adversary to perfect his people it couldn't be the adversary doing things and God picking by and I don't know permitting it's God God's God's the main agent actually setting the adversary up to certain actions which we use to perfect his people that when they become perfected they can perfect other people so perfection is union that of course is the only difference if I ask the question like this well God the devil does things and where I must sit by I suppose God said no God meant it God sent him on here that's another matter God sent him on here it isn't God sitting by and devil doing things oh God come rescue me it's oh no this is the way this is the way I'm perfecting you this is my rescue my rescue way to be having bitten up by the devil that's not that's for a rescue that's why God appears a little nasty sometimes you see that's the important point of this that's really the most important basic fact of the book in the first chapter that is the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came among them and then the Lord said to Satan see what does Satan again say this this this to the Lord if the Lord directed Satan to certain ends the Lord isn't directed so we have to say take it all from God God directed certain situations in our lives which God directed should come our difficulties our distresses our sicknesses our diseases our family disorders God directed them now that's a very wonderful thing of course it's a really few and easy thing if God directed them God could have could have kept the book that's a good sentence that makes all the difference isn't it the way God put into action his direction is the ultimate fullness of blessing so you see evil evil doesn't come out it isn't done by God God gives freedom evil is a misuse of freedom Satan is a misuse of free person misusing his freedom we follow people a free person misusing their freedom so God having got persons who are real persons misusing their freedom he would in different ways direct those persons to do certain things the things they do are there definitely things he didn't do because there are people who do those things and they do them when they get a chance he directs them to do those because he's going to use those for purposes to bring somebody closer to blessing and the closer to God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God 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