Job, 1975 Part 1 — Norman Grubb

Job as a Book of Conversations

See how to do it, except by referring to a great deal of what is recorded in this, whatever it is, forty-one chapters, which are very largely conversation, discussion, points of view and counterpoints of view.

After a gum-treat myself of a review, because I never had given the time necessary for a detailed assessment of each conversation, and the main point of each conversation, which they were able to do so, but there are many conversations.

Three friends 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 had sat down and taken each, and assessed each, to 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 central, by the Holy Spirit, to 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 are saying, or that person is saying.

That's the best I can do, and seeking to bring out the mainstream of what is being revealed to us, to say to us, by this, what it does mean, it doesn't make it at all so easy for you, or so interesting, that's why I hesitate about it.

There's more than I can contain in my memory, to be able to say, this, this, this, this, this. I have to refer to notes. 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 probably 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, as I said to the other one, 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 it's 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 you get that clear. It's the best I can do. I don't reckon it would be that effective. So you enlist it to yourself. 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. The theory practically applies. I don't mean that. So you start and proceed on that basis. Now, we understand the basis of this book is God's necessary and purpose action in every life.

Job as a Prototype of God's Work

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 Joe 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 in the early days, in 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's kind of outstripped himself in this sense. In sum, as someone mentioned earlier, as it were, a lonely character. Think of that as a communal 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. No. There's no process of grace and revelation which is going on around in history. Not known. It's not the purpose. So maybe it's also a hint to us that there are other people all scattered around the world who've never known the way of God, revelation, and it's those we know.

And yes, 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 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. Its 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 in the universe.

And a man who is a form of the all in all. And is to function as such. That's our background. In other words, it's a book of perfect love, by the perfect lover. Which the natural man seems to take strange forms.

It seems to set round the meaning of suffering. It really sets round the meaning of perfection. But because he's entered the atonement inside of God, he knew God. As one who is accepted by God. And was not a lost sinner as we would say, even 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.

Job's Righteous Life Before His Trials

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, I don't mean boasting at himself.

But this was a consequence of this relationship he had with a living God. Which we would say meant the spirit was causing him to live in a certain way. And those chapters are 29 and 31. And they give a startling 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 stripped down Christian life that you can conceive.

He did start by saying that he was in a very posthumous condition in those days. He described what he was before all this was happening to him. And he speaks in the beginning of it that in these days when I washed myself with butter.

And the rock poured for me rivers of oil. I should say in passing that Job wrote a very poetic book. It's 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. There's many other wonderful terms that spark up to it. Like this remark. Talking about his posthumous condition. His steps were washed with butter. And the rock poured for him rivers of oil.

Now in this condition he was a universally respected man in the city in which he lived. Now he lived in some city. You wouldn't know that if you think about the first presentation. He was more like a Texas farmer.

And his hundred thousand acres of land or something. He was cattle and sheep. 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, I prepared my seat in the street.

That was the way in those days in which the important men sat. Like a city council. And so he had this place. It says they were young and old. Respecting. Verse 8. Young men saw me and hid themselves.

The priestess, if they talked to me, laid their hands over their mouth. And when the ear heard it, then it blessed me. When the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. So his whole life, Boyle had a great emphasis of being the finest type of man that could be in that city.

Now 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 themselves. When a poor or father is in need, he was the man who came along to solve their problems.

That's verse 12. With the lame and the disabled. Same thing. His eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. There were a lot of people, like we have today, are concerned for the people who are physically afflicted.

Blind or chronically afflicted, religious. They were his concern. And he became eyes to the blind, feet to the lame. That is verse 15, 16. He did a number, several other things. One is, he didn't stand, he didn't compromise with sin.

He openly confronted his conscience. And verse 17, I break the jaws of the wicked. I cut the skull off 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 know, you don't see, as far as he's able, the hands and the... I mean, simply the hands of many of the misusing people. Then he said there was 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, illicit relationships could be very easy to his hands. And he made those very interesting remarks.

In verse, well, that's chapter 31. I made my covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a maid? I made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a maid? And he put that beautifully to focus, and I don't know why else he did put it to focus.

In the 7th verse, he said, If my step had turned out of my way, and my heart walked after mine eyes, then I should be wrong. I don't know the mark of this statement. You see, my heart didn't walk after my eyes.

And that perfectly fits Jesus' comment. The adulterer is a person who looks after women and desires to seduce her. The adulterer is nothing less than the heart. He said, perfectly fits that adultery. If you look at women, I have my mind so poor in quoting these days, 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 a woman to lust after, hath to lose their judgment over their 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. Okay, that's temptation. That is a sin. If my heart walks after my eyes, therefore if I do something, or I'd like to do something I shouldn't do, that's a sin.

And he followed along. If so, he said, if my heart has been deceived by a woman, or if I've made both of my neighbors go, then let my wife drive her to another, and let others bow down upon her. He was continually saying how he was lived through him, these moral snares.

He said, no, if I were to do remarkable things, which are much more up-to-date, think that he had employees. His employees might just as well benefit, maybe 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 despised the cause.

So he's concerned for the rights of his employees. That's very modern. 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 would, wouldn't it? Then he added, he loved his house to be a social center. He loved 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'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 those things as well, he says, that's what I haven't done.

I haven't eaten my morsel alone. I've loved to share, and have social places, and of course be a godly man in society, but be on a godly basis. Of course, godly people can also have fun. Another little touch.

If he found people in real need, speaking about the Al-Khalili, verse 19, 20, if I see any perishable under clothing, or any poor without covering, if his lords have not blessed me, if he's got not one little fish in my soup, then say I'd be wrong.

But if he's concerned, he kept covering for the cold. See if he had a good warm overcoat, or whatever they had on him. Trying for utter need. 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. Didn't live for his wealth. And in verse 24, 31, he said, if I made my gold my hope, or sent my gold out of my competence, if I was just because my wealth was great, because my hand has got much, and so on, then I'd be wrong.

So he said, I wasn't the 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. And even towards the end of this, it talks on other times, I'm talking at this moment, much later than this, of his attitude towards them.

Not that they're down. Verse 39. If I rejoice that the destruction of him hath hated me, or looked it at myself when evil found him. See? If I rejoice that the destruction of him hath hated me, and bloody got in the neck.

No, if I wasn't bloody got in the neck. I'm sorry if he did get in the neck. I must bless God myself, with pleasure, if evil got in. These are the very interpretations of 1 Peter 13. The justice not in iniquity, but the justice 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, as a friend of hospitality, but he met too many people he didn't know, who came across his path.

And so in verse 32. The stranger did not lodge in the street. I opened my doors to the traveler. What presentation could you get of a man whose life bore more recruits, let's say, than that? Now this was no mean man, was it?

This was a perfect man. Perfect because he's 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 faithless in God's grace.

And when you're faithless in God's grace, God has paid off grace, and you produce the fruits of God's grace, and you live a gracious life. What a presentation. Now this was the man because of whom the thunder roared and the lightning crashed.

For the throne of God. And the perfect man. Why? I didn't say perfect perfection, because of course that's a that's a tautomantologist who'd say over and over again that perfection is terrible. Is that there is only God.

And you're self-absorbed in God. What happens to you isn't 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 and 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, the things that happen to you, because you aren't in this union, oneness, it happens to you.

If you're apart from God, why does it happen to you? So the last element there, which is the purpose of the book, the last element of the separated self, there was still a relationship of separation, not unification.

So it was still he was he, and God was God in relationship. And as a consequence, we hadn't self... that all that happened to self was just a form of God. And that's all he wanted. That God should explain to us by any forms of his self.

So there's an element there of self-preservation. And a sick concern to maintain self-security. And that sticks out in just one or two of these sentences. One is a very famous one, written in 325. For the thing which I greatly fear is come upon me.

The thing which I greatly fear is come upon me. For 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, faith is substance. Faith, therefore, fear, therefore, is negative faith. This is no faith. This is negative faith.

There is positive and negative faith. It's believing in the reality, believing in the reality. What you believe you get because faith is substance. And you experience what you believe. So you better watch because the whole life is the inner attitude.

What's the inner attitude? Because 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've got them. I'm sorry, I wouldn't like those situations.

You believe in them. You've got them. So beware. And he actually said it, another phrase slipped out, which is in 6th chapter, 7th verse, where he said, oh no, I've heard that, it's the, oh I haven't, no, I haven't read this, 7th verse, good, the things that my soul refused to touch are my soulful meat.

The things my soul refused to touch that were offensive to me, they're my soulful meat. So he said, don't just think, oh my God, I couldn't have that. Beware. You're believing in a debt which isn't, which isn't good, but you've got to find a living good.

You've got to find a cost good because it's, because of what comes out of it. So I wouldn't have that. I wouldn't, I couldn't, couldn't stand being in that condition. Now, you may say you couldn't stand it, but you say, of course, it's OK if it comes.

But he meant, I won't have that. God saved me from that. Be careful. So you see, the thing is, he sold a piece of such and then it became his soulful meat. And he slipped in his, his, his secretive, positive hope for life in that, back in that chapter he just read, that great chapter in chapter 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. Um, was, perhaps, you might notice as he passed. Um, verse 18. Then I said, I should die in my nest.

My nice, comfy nest with the oil poured on me out of the rock and my, my six uh, washed in butter and that's a bit slippery. But um, uh, may I die in this is my nice nest. There were. So that's selfish.

That means you want just what you want. But glory is to be what other people need. It turns out to be hell in the end. That's why God wouldn't leave him there. Because self gratification is hell in the end.

Because they're part of a God who's a self giver. That which is the only heaven. So I'm not moving in where the God was so great where my, my life is laid out to 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 under their self gratifications. It can only be a hell. Because it's against the, the, the law of the universe. And this is that now. So think down. Now, this doesn't mean it's true self.

It's true self as a God self. There's an element there which was there and had a little hold on it. Don't mistake it. This, he was a God man. He wasn't a flesh man. Oh no. He was a, as you can see, his basis was the, the, the, the, God's way was his profession.

God was his deceiving joy. Basically what, what, what, what God had for him, that was what he wanted. But a certain element which made him a, a little element divided self. He hadn't had that final crucifixion and resurrection which unites you to God, though you knew it was fixed which is for other people.

Where you're settled, you know, where you're fixed, that hasn't been cleared out. That doesn't mean it can't occur to you in a, a sudden temptation. But it means it's not something you're 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 have to try to put it off again. 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's, God's love life. God's love life. Especially God's love of life. Self is just the agency but a love of life is a self-giving life, of course, is fulfilled.

That's a lonely perfection. That's heaven. And this Job hadn't got. In other words, really, in our, in Christian theology, he was merely he was the school of faith. He'd moved into the birth of faith.

He was a born-again man. He was a man of faith. He's now in the school of faith. By which he'd move on to the latter faith. Because the school of faith is you must certainly be perfectly just. When you're perfectly just, then you can be God.

So it all fits in with the kind of thing we see in all these guys. There's only one way. Of course, there's one one way for God, one way for man. That's the background. Now, the starting, next, revelation, which is the heart of the revelation, the book, and which is mistaken by so many, including Bible teachers, because the natural man can't take it.

Satan's Role in Job's Testing

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 you can't even do it yourselves.

We're not, we're mixed up. We'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, as an utter flesh and flesh.

So things have to put in flesh forms and phrases have to be used which is the best that can describe what we can't quite describe in a spirit relationship. 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 a continuous relationship. This isn't a sudden thing that's happening you see so and so and so and so all the time again.

All the way it is happening. There's no past, present, future with God. It's all one. All the present is a narrow relationship between God and this perverted son of his who came in his presence with the sons of God.

And they were doing so. The remarkable revelation is that it's a father God steps about using the adversary to perfect his people. It couldn't be the adversary doing things and God sitting by and permitting it's God God's the main agent actually setting the adversary on to certain actions which will be used to perfect his people.

When they become perfected they can perfect other people. Because perfection is union. That of course makes all the difference. If I ask the question like this well God the devil's about and does things and where I must sit by and put God's message 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 the devil doing things or God coming to rescue me. It's oh no this is the way I this is the way I'm perfecting you.

This is my rescue my rescue way to have you beaten up by the devil. That's not my rescue. That's why God appears a bit nasty sometimes. 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 sent a Satan. See it wasn't Satan again saying this, this, this to the Lord. It's the Lord directed Satan into the into certain ends.

The Lord didn't direct him. So we have to say because all the time God's directing 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 serious thing if God directed them and God's pretty pretty sensible there's some good sense in him. That makes all the difference isn't it? God is an action his direction.

He can be good because God better does evil. But having having at his disposal one will do evil things he doesn't do the evil things but he he causes that person to continue their own way their own evil things.

If God does the evil things if the evil person does the evil things then God directed him because he's going to use those evil things for the ultimate fullness of blessing. So you see evil evil doesn't come out it shouldn't be done by God.

God gives freedom. Evil is a misuse of freedom. Satan is a misuse a free person misusing his freedom. We fallen people a free person misusing our freedom. So God having got persons who are real persons misusing their freedom he will in different ways direct those persons to do certain things.

The things they do are their deadly sins. He didn't do them. But 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 the fullness of blessing.

And the fullness of blessing is going to be to bless others not to just bless yourself. You can pass on what you get but you've got to get it first in a relationship. So all he said to Satan was this knowing what Satan would say Oh he said Satan have you seen my special line?

Have you seen Job? And God said to Satan have you considered Job? My servant Job those eight? There is none like him in the earth. I wouldn't annoy Satan. A perfect and upright man one that fears God and fears evil.

But Satan of course doesn't know his sin and if he doesn't know his sin he isn't perfect. So don't you laugh if nobody's perfect and everybody is but a nice servant that's all. That's what Satan says.

You can't see you can't see you only see what's wrong. He only saw everybody's liberty. He couldn't see a person a positive of course a person that's good to God. He was living in the in the in the positive ways and the work of God.

Maybe a person a person living in his own ways and within his own ways. Satan laughed and said don't you tell me somebody lives your ways for you and for others and for other people. Give me a chalk and I'll give it to you.

He said that. That was his reaction. The reaction of course of God makes it irrelevant. Satan said to God just said to God the Lord don't fear God for naught don't self-interestly you see don't you kid me Satan said Satan said you know you see everything.

The other you see light darkness light and darkness don't know each other. They know each other. That's why God doesn't know God. He doesn't know sin. They know it. They know it. They know each other.

They're just as amazing. And so darkness doesn't know light. And so darkness can't see light. That's why I'm saying they can't believe there's a real change in you. They don't even pick out the politics on that change because they can't see change.

They see life somehow. They see something different in you. They don't get the white piece. They know what it is. So much to be serious. And then Satan said this. He says perhaps not thou made a hedge about him about his house about all he hath on the other side thou'st blessed the work of his hands and substance increased in the land but put thou hand down touch all he hath in your trusted that face.

Satan having a laugh on God perhaps. He cursed a life which was to be in the will of God no matter what happened to him and that God had some perfect plan in that will and he lived for the will of God he knew that will involved his own disaster, he'd curse you because he lived for his own benefit he'd never take disaster for anybody, he'd curse you.

God knew he presented Satan as a born-again man a born-again has a fixed centre, his centre is God his centre is his Holy Spirit and you can't move him, he's there if you're born again, you're born again, he's got you it's not really you, it's the Spirit of God that's taking you over within and you're living by the impartation you have into you of God as your real self.

You haven't had a life wholly yet, really your real self and so, God says, go to it but God always puts his head into madness. He doesn't allow Satan to do more than he means Satan to do. You get that little touch with the black horse in Revelation who brought famine but see thou preserve the wine, the corn and the oil if you give famine, leave something behind, a little touch don't take it all he said in the Revelation of John when the black horse was representing famine.

Oh, I'll give famine to the... but preserve the corn and the oil the wine and the oil, don't take it all. And so God preserves something. So he wouldn't allow Satan to take more than would just shoot the situation.

And so he said to him, go ahead go ahead. All he hath is in thy power only don't touch him. That was the first phase. So Satan went on and this almost unimaginable disaster fell on Job. Oh, it was the same day that destruction after destruction swept all he had aside started with his cattle which were raided and the servants who were looking after the cattle were killed.

That's verses 13 -15. There was some fire, like a tornado or something fell on where the sheep were and burned up the sheep and the shepherds verse 16. Then another raid by other tornadoes hit their home where they were gathered together having social life together and killed the whole lot, killed all their sons.

So one, I presume, you say week everything he had was swept out. Now, Job already knew the truth. All he needed was confirmation. If you are born again you know the truth. Why? Because John says you have the anointing of the Holy One and you know all things.

You knew that every man teach you all he needs is confirmation, not teaching. He said that to John Pius X says something you have the anointing of the Holy One and you know all things immediately. You know them.

If you are in God's relationship you know the truth. And it may need more confirmation of what it's all about. So it wasn't just really that Job knew something new. Really he needed confirmation of what he already knew, really.

And he had swept out now and became operative in his life. That's why he made this remarkable statement. Far more than most Christians would make today. Verse 21 make it so now out of my mother's womb and make it so I will turn the other the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord.

Mostly we have a double outlook, two power outlook and we see good and evil, we take good from God, evil from the devil and then we assign it. Job didn't the Lord took away. That's really seen through.

So it is already a day Job really saw it. Wonderful statement the Lord gave, the Lord did it, blessed blessed. And that wasn't enough to prove the final point that the real Job was the Christ as we would say, the Christ in Job the Holy Spirit in Job and the faith of God operating.

And so they had another day with another of these interviews between God and his sons which is continually going on. And again God asked Satan where he'd been and then again turned and took him back to Job and said, oh Job you told me you'd curse me if your evil ways swept out of the way he had it, he preserved his integrity.

Integrity is faith, there's only one perfection which is faith. Everything which isn't faith is sin. There's only one sin. Only one sin is sin of unbelief. It's not believing God to be as he is. And Job touched that a bit as we go on on his discernance.

He didn't hear that integrity isn't doing good things. Integrity is believing in the right person. If you believe in the right person you express what you believe. So integrity is God is God only nothing else but sinning and believing on every situation wherever I'm not sinning.

God is sin. What's in the God of faith is sin. That's the only sin of goodness is faith, sin and unbelief. Jesus said a long time ago he said, when the Holy Ghost comes he'll convince you of sin. Because you believe not on me.