Reading:
Job 23:8-14.
"He
hideth himself" (v. 9).
"He knoweth the way that I take" (v. 10).
"He performeth that which is appointed for me"
(v. 14).
The Initial Move with God
This is
one of the most remarkable books of the Bible for quite a
number of reasons, and we may well be thankful that God
had it written, placed it in His Book and has preserved
it throughout all these generations. It has a very great
purpose to serve in His thought, and when you come to the
remarkable things in it, the first is that in this whole
drama - for it is nothing less than Divine drama - God
took the initiative. It is important and helpful to
remember that. I think a lot of people have thought that
the Devil took the initiative, but it does not say so; it
says, "When the sons of God came to present
themselves before Jehovah... Satan also came among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan... Hast thou considered my
servant Job?" (1:6,8). God took the
initiative; God drew the attention of Satan to this man;
God drew out what Satan thought about Job. It was the
initiative of the Lord, not the initiative of the Devil.
I say that is a very remarkable and forceful thing when
you see all that follows. Evidently to the Lord Job had a
very great significance, and He drew Satan's attention to
that significance and then allowed it to be submitted to
Satan's onslaughts.
I am not going to follow that in any full
way, but I do believe that in some measure it is true of
every child of God and of the saints as a body who stand
upon true spiritual ground, that there is a great
significance to the Lord bound up with them, and that He
allows - I was almost going to say submits them to - the
onslaughts of Satan for the bringing out of that
significance to His own glory.
Before we come to the particular phrases
which we have underlined, we might just indicate one or
two aspects of the great significance of the life of Job.
God's Object in His Strange Dealings
with His Children
First of all, God was intending to
establish and reveal a ground upon which Satan is undone
and worsted and brought to the end of his power. It is
interesting to note the disappearance of the Devil from
the book of Job. He is very much in evidence in the
beginning. You hear no more about him after a while and
in the end, while he is not referred to, everything
indicates that he has been completely put to flight and
to shame.
Now I have said I am not going to follow
that through, but that is absolutely true with regard to
the Church. The final issue of the Church after its time
of tribulation, trial, suffering, affliction is this,
that Satan is cast out; and the object of God's strange,
mysterious, deep and sometimes almost unbearable ways
with the Church (the true Church, His people) is to bring
about that issue. Some people think that when you come to
the book of Revelation, Chapter 12, Satan is cast down
from heaven in order to make room for the saints. That is
just the wrong way round. The saints reach there and he
is cast out; he is never cast out until the saints get
there. When the Man-child reaches the Throne, Satan is
cast out. That is the point. That chapter is a chapter of
travail, the culmination of suffering. The Church comes
to the glory and Satan is forced out of the heavens. And
that is one of the big issues here in this book of Job,
explaining everything.
God Deals with His Children According
to His Knowledge of Them
As to Job himself - and this brings us
very much nearer to this chapter - God is clearly seen
here as dealing with His servant according to His Own
deeper knowledge of the man, a knowledge deeper than the
man had of himself. Job had a certain conception of
himself, and outwardly he was right. God's summing up of
him to Satan was that he was not wrong so far as outward
things were concerned. He was a perfect and upright man
(Job 1:8), there was none like him in all the earth if it
were a matter of outward righteousness and good acts, and
that was the realm in which Job lived. But God knew him
inwardly in a way in which Job did not know himself, and
dealt with him according to that deeper knowledge. All
that I am going to say about that for the moment
is this, that when the Lord really does get us in hand
and deal with us, when He does allow Satan to assail and
almost torment us, the result will be seen, not only
finally in one great ascent, but in this - that
progressively and from time to time we recognise and
acknowledge that the Lord has dealt with us quite rightly
and in the only way suitable to us, and that we have been
coming to see what we did not know or believe about
ourselves. He does not standardize His methods and deal
with all His people in exactly the same way. What to one
would be acute agony, to another would be very little
trouble at all. The Lord knows us, He knows the secret
pride of our hearts, the conceits about us which we would
never believe about ourselves and would never allow
anyone else to point out - and if they did, we would be
untouched. He deals with us according to His knowledge;
and in the end, in honesty of heart we have to say, The
Lord's way with me was the only way in which He could
deal with me and get me where He wanted me. That is, we
have come to see that we had certain tendencies,
propensities, certain perils in our makeup, and these had
to be met and dealt with in a peculiar way. The way in
which the Lord has dealt with them was the only way in
which they could be dealt with.
That is one of the secrets of this book of
Job. Job did not know himself inwardly, good man though
he was, and you notice as the Lord puts him through the
fires he is beginning to acknowledge things that he would
never acknowledge before. In the end, this man, who had
earlier told the story of his own goodness, and stood so
strongly on the ground of all the kind things he had done
- how he had never failed to answer to need where he saw
it - in the end he says, "Wherefore I abhor
myself" (Job 42:6); and although it is not so
stated, it can be concluded that Job would have said, The
Lord has taken the only way by which He could bring me to
the place where He wanted me. The Lord had to deal with
him according to His Own knowledge of him. That is what
He is doing with us all.
I wonder how many of us here are now able
to say, with a little knowledge of ourselves, as we begin
to know our own peculiar makeup and perils and
peculiarities and weaknesses, that the way the Lord has
been dealing with us is the only way in which we could be
dealt with effectively? It is a very great thing as we
are able to come to that position, because the heart
acknowledgment is just this - He is faithful and true! He
is faithful with us because He knows us, and He is true
to us because He knows us. That is, in faithfulness and
truth He is dealing with us according to what He knows of
us which we do not know of ourselves, and which we can
never accept from anyone else. That is an issue of this
book, and it is a great issue to come to the place where
we justify God even against ourselves.
God Working to Produce Eternal
Spiritual Values
But then
one other thing in general. God was making something of
tremendous spiritual value for posterity in His dealings
with Job. The story of this book is the story of God's
producing something which for all ages was going to be of
great spiritual value. You cannot fail to recognise how
universal this book is, and how almost timeless it is. It
is evidently a patriarchal book - that is, it belonged to
the time of the patriarchs, probably the time of Abraham.
Job was a Gentile living away somewhere by the Euphrates.
He is a mysterious man. How did he come to know God and
offer sacrifices? Those sacrifices were never on the
Levitical basis. He offered sacrifices lest his sons
should have sinned. This is not the mediatorial sacrifice
of the Lord. There is no reference whatever to anything
like the law of Moses and the sacrifices we have later.
It is much earlier than that, it goes right back to the
beginning of things. How universal and continuous it is!
This scene in the heavens comes into view again and
again. Right up to Ephesians you have it, warfare in the
heavenlies, an interest in this earth in the heavenlies;
and that great universal, spiritual realm, covering all
time - not just the life of a man in some remote place on
the earth - God was doing something to produce values for
His people right on to the end. Who is there among the
Lord's true people who has never been helped by this
book? The more you look into it and think about it, the
more powerful is its ability to help you spiritually.
This book of Job is of tremendous value to the Church.
All I mean to indicate by that suggestion is that in
these dealings with us by God, He is producing something
of lasting spiritual value to serve others. It may be
that some of us are going through something in a
spiritual way like that through which Job went -
disappointment, deprivation, so that God seems to be
against us and the language of our hearts is Job's -
"Oh that I knew where I might find him, that I might
come even to his seat! I would set my cause in order
before him and fill my mouth with arguments"
(23:3,4). This is the common complaint of the heart under
trial. What is the Lord doing with us when He handles us
like that, so deeply, so terribly? He is producing
something spiritual to be of service to others. This is
to be stock in trade for the saints - and not only in the
short duration of this life here on earth. "His
servants shall serve him, and they shall see his
face" (Rev. 22:3). There is work to be done, and the
spiritual measure to which we attain here is the measure
in which we are going to be of use to the Lord afterward,
and so the fires become very intense for some; but He is
producing something of abiding value for others. That is
one of the issues of this book.
God's Hiding of Himself
Now right in that setting come
these words which we hardly need to dwell upon. Firstly,
"He hideth himself." I doubt whether there is
one of us who does not know something of the poignancy
that lies in that statement. "He hideth
himself." That is one of our greatest occasions of
suffering, the fact that the Lord hides Himself. Our cry
all the time is that He will show Himself, come out into
the open, let us see Him and see what He is
doing. But "He hideth himself." He was
enshrouded in the mystery of His ways with His beloved
servant. In all the values of this book, this is not one
of the smallest, that God could say of a man that he is
perfect and upright and there is none like him in all the
earth, and then could hide Himself from that man. You see
the point. Oh, the misrepresentation of God and of Job
which this book brings out! This is one of the things
which God set Himself to destroy out of hand. This
misrepresentation came through Job's friends. They were
pious men, in their way godly men, who said some very
lovely things - and yet they were used by the Devil as
instruments against this choice servant of God. A problem
arises here, which we make no attempt now to answer. Were
the things spoken by these men Divinely inspired
utterances? Can we take them as Scripture? "Lay thou
thy treasure in the dust... and the Almighty will be thy
treasure" (Job 22:24-25) - is that an inspired
utterance, can we take our stand on that? That is
something to be fulfilled as the Word of God, and yet
that - and many another equally lovely thing - was
uttered by men of whom God said in the end "Ye have
not spoken of me the thing that is right" (42:7).)
Here is a man of whom God can say that he is perfect and
upright. NATURALLY He can never say that about
you and me, or about any one of us - though thank
God He can say it of us IN CHRIST. Yet He could
say it of Job naturally as to outward life. He could say
finally of Job that he had said the thing which was
right. "Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is
right, as my servant Job hath." God could speak so
at the beginning and at the end about this man, and draw
Satan's attention to him as the most perfect man on the
earth, and then hide Himself from him in the time of his
anguish. I say the precious thing about that is that
God's hiding does not always mean that God is against
you; it does not mean what these men interpreted it to
mean, that God had a controversy with Job and that there
must be some deep, awful, secret sin in his life which he
was hiding or to which he was blind but which the eyes of
God could see. That is all false, says God: this man is
perfect and upright; and yet under the accusation of
pious men, under the assaults of the devil to this man's
anguish, God hid Himself.
Have you had one boil? You know the misery
and the pain. Job was a man covered from head to foot
with these things. That was only one phase of his
suffering. Children gone, flocks and herds gone, camels
gone, his home gone, his friends gone, and his wife
turned against him saying, "Renounce God, and
die." Job was left like that. And God, affirming
this man's perfection and integrity, still hides Himself.
"He hideth himself." What is our case compared
with Job's? The Lord deals with us in the same way; He
hides Himself. He must have an object which far outweighs
all the dangers of the possibility of His being
misunderstood and misinterpreted. His servant was given
plenty of occasion to say, God is unfaithful, unloving,
unrighteous; He has turned against me; and so on. But God
ran the risk of it because He saw something of value
which far outweighed all that. He knew that in the long
run He would be justified and not condemned. "He
hideth himself." Do not think, my beloved, tried,
pressed brother or sister, that the fact that Satan
assails and things are so difficult and hard means of
necessity that you are under judgment. Even if you are
standing on the ground in Christ of righteousness from
God, and are not persisting in a known course of wrong
over which the Lord has a controversy with you;
even if you are able to say, I stand not on any ground of
my own, but on the ground of His righteousness through
faith, and I repudiate all known, habitual sin: even then
it does not mean that God is necessarily coming out to
you to show Himself always very wonderful. He may hide
Himself, and those who mean well may interpret that fact
the other way. It is one of the most difficult things to
bear when calamity falls; people will come along and say,
The Lord must have some cause for judging you, you must
lie under some condemnation for Him to allow that.
"He hideth himself."
God's Knowledge of our Way in Spite
of His Hiding
The verses with which we began suggest a
picture. Here is Job, as it were, going along a road. It
looks to him like a road through a forest, and the Lord
is somewhere in the vicinity and Job is looking for Him.
He says, The Lord has hidden Himself somewhere in this
forest, He is deliberately keeping out of my way; I
sometimes seem to see an indication that He is doing
something, and I immediately turn first in this direction
and then in that, but I cannot find Him. He is hiding in
the wood and He will not be found by me, but He is
watching from His hiding place. "He knoweth the way
that I take." While He is hiding, He is not
disregarding; while He is hiding, He is not ignoring;
while He is hiding, He is not forgetting.
God's Sovereign Working
Nay, more; He is not only hiding and
looking out and knowing all about me, but He is
instigating it all. "He performeth that which is
appointed for me." He is not only a hidden watcher,
He is a hidden actor, the prime actor, because the cause,
the author, the perfecter. "He performeth that which
is appointed for me: and many such things are with
him." Oh, the faith of Job in the sovereignty of God
through it all! "He hideth" - yes; but "He
knoweth" - yes; but more, "He performeth."
Let us take all the comfort these words should bring to
us as individuals and as the Church as we pass through
the time in which God is doing things of which we have no
knowledge. He is answering a whole universe in His
dealings with us, getting through to issues of tremendous
account. May our faith be sufficient to believe it and to
hold on to this - that "When he hath tried me, I
shall come forth as gold."
From
"This Ministry" - Messages given at Honor Oak -
Volume 3. Originally published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1947, Vol. 25-6.