But that is not the end of the story. Elihu was only preparing the way of the Lord. In other words, the Lord was not able to appear to Job while he was agitated in his soul.
It was only after Job was quiet, and he was able to listen to the voice of the Spirit within him, that the way of the Lord was opened. And here you find that the Lord appears to Job.
Dear brothers and sisters, a spiritual crisis is not over when you have an interpretation. A spiritual crisis is over only when God appears to you.
Very often, we think that if we can have the explanation—the right explanation from God—then our problem is solved. No. God does condescend to explain things to us sometimes, but, dear brothers and sisters, even with the right interpretation, your crisis is not over yet.
A spiritual crisis is only over when God appears to you. Is it not true in our spiritual life? We are always thinking, “Oh, if only I can have an explanation, then I am satisfied.” Dear brothers and sisters, you know more than you need to know already, and you are not satisfied.
Nothing can solve our spiritual problem. Nothing can lift us out of a spiritual crisis but the appearing of God. Oh, if only God appears to you, then everything is settled. The solution is not in searching. The solution is not in interpretation. The solution is in God.
Very strange: when God appeared to Job, He did not explain. Do you find the angel of God giving Job any explanation of what had happened? No.
Job said, “Here am I. This is my situation. Now answer me. Explain it.” And you know what God did? Instead of answering him, God asked him more questions.
Out of the whirlwind, God spoke to Job.
You know, there was a storm. After the storm, there is bright sunshine. But then there is the whirlwind. You know, sometimes we think that certainly God is not in the whirlwind.
When the whirlwind comes, it blows. It sweeps away everything. It destroys everything. It lifts everything up from the earth. It seems as if a whirlwind is very destructive. It whirls around. It does not seem to have a direction. It confuses. It destroys.
And is it not true that this was Job’s experience? It seems as if Job was in a whirlwind. He had been turning around and around and around, and he was all confused and puzzled. He was lifted from the earth. He was floating in the air. He did not know where he would go. It was all confusion.
How can God be in such confusion? How can God be in that whirlwind? But, dear brothers and sisters, there is one good thing about a whirlwind: if it carries you into the air, it lifts you out of the earth into heaven.
Very often God has to use a whirlwind to deliver us out of ourselves unto Himself. It is a terrible experience, yes. But thank God, He is in the whirlwind. He speaks out of the whirlwind.
Very often, in our time of prosperity and peacefulness, we do not hear God’s voice. In the most unlikely situation, we find not only the voice of God but the presence of God.
You know, one day Elijah was ready to leave this earth and go to God, and Elisha followed him over the River Jordan. Then Elijah said, “Well, what do you want?” Elisha said, “I want a double portion of your spirit.”
Oh, it is a very hard thing—a double portion of the spirit of Elijah. Think of that: the spirit of Elijah. It is a great portion, and yet Elisha wanted a double portion of that spirit.
So even Elijah said, “Well, that is a difficult thing to ask. But if you see me as I go up, then you shall have it.” As they were talking, you remember, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated Elijah from Elisha.
Some people think that Elijah rode on that chariot of fire into heaven, but if you read your Bible, you will find that this was not so. The chariot of fire and the horses divided Elijah from Elisha, but it was a whirlwind that took Elijah. Elijah was raptured in the whirlwind.
And, dear brothers and sisters, that is what you are going to find here. You find this poor Job, who had to be delivered completely out of himself. He was all bound up with himself: full of self-love, self-pity, self-righteousness, and self-vindication. God whirled him around and raptured him out of himself into God.
God began to speak to him. But, you know, the stranger thing is, God did not explain.
Oh, brothers and sisters, as we approach God, how often our mentality is full of the request for an answer: “Answer me. Give me an answer, and I am satisfied. Then everything will be all right.”
But if you know God, you know this is not the right approach to God. God does not owe you an explanation. He is God. He is greater than we are. There is no need for Him to explain His actions.
Do not ask for anything from God. God appeared to Job and asked him more questions. If you read Job 38 and Job 39, I do not know how many questions you can find there.
I tried to count how many questions God actually asked Job, and each time I counted them, I counted them differently. So I do not know. One thing I knew was that there must be over fifty questions.
Job asked God one question, and God turned around and asked him more than fifty questions. It is not for us to ask God questions; it is for God to ask us questions.
Why is it that God asks all these questions? If you read those two chapters, they are beautiful chapters. I can never repeat them; they are so beautiful. But God asks questions concerning His creation.
God said, “When I created the earth, where were you? When I laid the foundation of the earth, did you do anything? When I set bounds for the sea and set a boundary to it, did you help? When I bring the morning to the day, that everything may be enlightened, what have you done?”
“When I enter into the depths of the sea, or see the gates of death, do you know anything about it? When I bring about the rain, who is the father of the rain? When I bring out the stars in the heavens, are you able to do that?”
“Look at all the different animals: the ostrich, the horse, the eagle, the ass, the goat. Who supplies them with food? Who gives them intelligence? Who leads them? Do you know anything about it?”
Over fifty questions. And you know, all these questions were summed up in one word. You find it in Job 40:2.
Shall he that cavilleth contend with the Almighty?
He that argueth with God, let him answer it.
“You want to instruct Me? All right, instruct Me. You want to reprove Me? All right, answer Me.”
Dear brothers and sisters, of course we will never consciously and purposely take such an attitude. We know that God is greater, amen? We will never consciously and purposely take such an attitude, thinking that we know more than God, that we can instruct God, or that we can even reprove Him. We dare not do that.
But unconsciously, when we are wrapped up with ourselves, we drift into a kind of attitude as if we know more than God and God has to explain His actions.
In other words, how easy it is for us to forget ourselves—not in the right sense of forgetting, but in the wrong sense of forgetting who we are.
We come to forget who we are. We love ourselves, we pity ourselves, and we try to justify ourselves to a certain extent. Then, unconsciously, we forget. We blow up our worth as if we are equal with God—sometimes even greater.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is not an explanation that we need. Job had the explanation already through Elihu, so God did not explain anything. But it is the right attitude that we need. God has to cut us down to size. God has to bring us to our senses. God has to drive us to a point where we see that we are nothing.
You know, especially with a man like Job, who was perfect and upright, one that feared God and turned away from evil, who was prospering under the hand and blessing of God—one who had so much—he was tempted to feel that he had become somebody.
Now he felt that he had a right to demand something. But, oh, brothers and sisters, if God should appear to you, and if He does not explain, at least one thing is sure to happen: when God appears to you, He brings you to your face.
He cuts you down to the right size. You begin to see that you are nothing. In some translations, it says, “I am vile.” Not only nothing, but terrible. “How dare I speak without knowledge?”
Dear brothers and sisters, only an appearing of God will make us see ourselves.
Yes, with Job, you find all the questions related to creation, because this is the Old Testament. But, dear brothers and sisters, today when God appears to us, you will find that there are not only questions related to creation, but there will be questions connected with redemption.
“I have done this. I have done that. I have been crucified for you. I have shed My blood for you. I have given My life to you. Have you done anything? What have you done? What is it that you have not received? What is it that is yours?”
“Do you not owe everything to Me? Am I not God? Do I not have a right over you? Cannot I do anything that pleaseth Me? Is there not a reason for My working? Why can you not trust Me? Why must you question Me? Can you not abandon yourself to Me?”
“Do you not know that I am God? I am your God. And who are you? Nothing. Nothing.”
Dear brothers and sisters, all the trials of Job, if there is no appearing of God, will end up in this question: “Why does this good man suffer?” That he may be brought to his own end; that he may bow down and say, “I am nothing. I am vile.”
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, how difficult it is for God to bring a person to that position—especially when we are blessed by God, especially when we have achieved something. How easy it is for us to become proud and think that now we know something, now we have a right.
We forget that we are nothing before God. It is very hard. We need to be ground in a crucible into that nothingness. But this is a blessed position into which God has to bring us; otherwise, we cannot be fully united with God in one spirit.
When our soul is so big, when our self is so big, we are not able to be united with God in one spirit. Our self has to be crushed and broken. We have to be reduced to nothing in order that he that is joined to the Lord may be one spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, the whole trouble with our union with God, so far as experience is concerned, is not because God is great; it is because we are too great. That is the whole problem.
It is not the smallness of man that hinders that union; it is our greatness. Unless we are brought to nought, union with God is most difficult.
Look at the life of our Lord Jesus. He who was equal with God, and yet He emptied Himself. He took upon Himself the form of a man. He took the position of a slave. He humbled Himself and became obedient to God, even unto death, the death of the cross.
He said, “I can do nothing. I can speak nothing. I am nothing.” And because He is nothing, then God is everything.
Dear brothers and sisters, how often we say, “God is everything.” Is He everything? If we are not being brought to nothing, how can He be everything? We are too big.
It takes a crucible, a grinding, the deep working of the cross—many sufferings, perhaps—to bring us to that point of nothing: “I am nothing. I am proud. I am vile.”
Dear brothers and sisters, whenever God appears to you, this will be the result.
You remember Isaiah. When God appeared to him in the temple, he cried out and said:
Woe is me! for I am undone;
because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:
for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
And when Daniel fell down before the Lord, he said, “Oh, my comeliness has turned into corruption.”
Do you say you have seen God? Do you say you have met God? What do you mean? You mean that you have received some light from God? You are being enlightened? You know something about God? You can explain? You can instruct people? Oh, you are all right; you have even arrived somewhere morally and spiritually. Do you mean that?
You have not seen God. You have heard Him, yes. You know Him only by hearing, but not by sight. If you see Him, the one unmistakable mark in your life is this: “I am nothing. I am vile. What can I say?”
Yes, I have lots to say, but I cannot say them. You know, the sign of a child is that a child talks a lot. But the sign of a mature person is silence. He knows too much to be talkative.
What can I say before God? Nothing is to be said.
Do you think this is all? God spoke again. In the second speaking of God, you find that God raised more questions, but God shifted to the moral side.
God said, “Are you able to humble the proud?” Then He used two illustrations: Behemoth and Leviathan.
Now, we do not know exactly what these two animals are. Most likely, Behemoth is the hippopotamus, and Leviathan is the crocodile. God describes these two beasts. God called the hippopotamus the chief of His ways, and God called the crocodile the king over all the sons of pride.
These two animals were fierce animals—uncontrollable, proud, fearing nothing. It was as if God said, “I created you, Job, like this hippopotamus and like this crocodile.”
“You are like a king among men. You are proud, uncontrollable. But are you beyond Me? Are you beyond My control? You think you are a problem, like the crocodile. But are you beyond My control? Cannot I do something to you?”
I hope every time you go to the zoo and see a hippopotamus, you see yourself. Every time you see a crocodile, you see yourself. This is what we are.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how proud we can become. If you want to call it sin, that is your sin. Job is righteous, yes, but he is so self-righteous that his righteousness has become pride.
It was as if God said, “The reason why I deal with you is to humble the proud. You are too proud. You are too proud of yourself. You are too proud of your spiritual achievements.”
“Now I take all your virtues and your works away, lay you bare, and see whether you can still be proud.” And God said, “Do you know why I am dealing with you? To take away your pride, that you may submit yourself with humility into My hands.”
Dear brothers and sisters, therefore you find that after God had spoken, Job said:
I know that Thou canst do all things,
And that no purpose of Thine can be restrained.
Job said, “Yes, God, You are great. You can do anything. And if You have a purpose, no one can hinder that purpose. Oh, Your purpose is not a purpose of harshness or cruelty, but Your purpose is good. Yet I did not know it.”
Wherefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.
“I abhor myself.” You find that Job was brought into an even lower position than nothing. Yes, he was brought into nothing; so far as I am concerned, I am nothing. But he was less than nothing.
He said, “I abhor myself. I am afraid of myself. Terrible! How can I raise myself up against God? How can I question Him? Why should I question You? Does He not know what He is doing?”
“Why not trust Him? I can abandon myself to Him. Why should I hold on to myself? I do nothing. This is worse than nothing. I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Dear brothers and sisters, Job mentioned dust and ashes before. If you read Job 30, you find Job complaining. He said, “Now You have made me dust and ashes, but I am not. I am precious too.”
You know, sometimes we say, “Oh, Lord, I am but dust and ashes,” and by the very tone of it you know we are saying, “I am a precious dust.” You do not mean it. You do not want to be reduced to nothing.
But here you find Job brought to a place where he gladly became dust and ashes. “Yes, You have reduced me to the very last place, and I gladly accept that. I know myself, and I know You, my God. I have seen You.”
Brothers and sisters, there is a great difference between hearing God—knowing God by hearing—and knowing God by sight. Knowing God by hearing will puff you up and make you somebody. But knowing God by sight will reduce you to dust and ashes.
How do I know that I have seen God? I know because I am dust and ashes. I abandon myself. He is God. He is all. And, dear brothers and sisters, when that point is reached, the crisis is over.
What is the latter end of Job? The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. God spoke to Eliphaz and said, “You have to bring seven bullocks and seven rams, and have Job offer a burnt offering for you and pray for you, because you have not spoken rightly as My servant Job.”
Here you find Job. His soul was quieted. All the activities of his soul were quieted. He was able to listen to the Spirit’s interpretation, and finally he was face to face with God. He was reduced to dust and ashes. God had become all to him.
Brothers and sisters, here is a man who was now living in God, in the Spirit. Because of that, all these different parts of his soul were to be redeemed, atoned for, purified, and brought under the control of the Spirit.
First, there is the dividing of the soul and the spirit; and now the soul is brought into subjection to the spirit. This is what you find there.
And the result was a double portion. God blessed Job doubly. Do you know what is meant by double portion? If you read Deuteronomy 21:17, you find that the double portion is the right of the firstborn.
The firstborn is to receive the double portion. Why? Because the firstborn is the beginning of a man’s vigour and strength. It is the right of the firstborn.
Dear brothers and sisters, who is the Firstborn? Our Lord Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. But so far as His relationship with creation is concerned, He is the firstborn of all creation.
In other words, He came into this world with a very definite purpose: bringing many sons into glory. Because of that, He is called the Firstborn. He is to bring many sons into glory.
Whom He foreknew, He foreordained that they might be conformed to His image. Oh, brothers and sisters, what is the eternal purpose of God? The eternal purpose of God is that, through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Firstborn, we may all become sons of God.
That we may all take up His character, that we may be conformed to His image, that He may be formed in us. What the Firstborn is, so are we, His many sons. This is God’s purpose. He wants to bring many sons into glory.
So far as our relationship with creation is concerned, the church has become the church of the firstborn. Hebrews 12:23. Because our Head is the Firstborn, therefore the Body is also firstborn.
In other words, we are made heirs and co-heirs with Christ. We are to receive a double portion—the right and blessing of the firstborn.
Oh, brothers and sisters, this is the end of the Lord. This is the whole lesson of the Book of Job. What is the end of the Lord to be arrived at? The end of the Lord is that Job may receive a double portion.
That from a child, from an adolescent, he may grow into maturity and sonship, and there receive his double portion. This is God’s purpose in Christ concerning His church: a double portion, heirs and co-heirs with Christ.
Oh, and then you find there is spiritual increase. God gave him seven sons and three daughters.
You know, the sons and daughters he had before were born, yes, by the blessing of God, but still naturally possible because he was younger. But at that time, probably he was in his seventies or perhaps a hundred. Humanly speaking, he was not able to bear any sons and daughters anymore.
But now you find there was spiritual increase of such purity, that there was depth. The three daughters’ names were given, and they are very beautiful.
The first daughter’s name was Jemimah, which means beautiful as the day. Beautiful as the day—vibrant, full of life. That kind of beauty.
You know, there are two kinds of beauty. One kind of beauty is like an artificial flower. You can make an artificial flower, and there is a kind of beauty in it. But there is another kind of beauty which is life, full of life.
Here you find the virtues of Job from then onward. It is beautiful every day, because the daughters represent virtue, and the sons represent strength. You find his virtues are like the day, the fruit of the Spirit, full of life.
The second daughter’s name was Keziah, or Cassia: fragrance, full of fragrance—the fragrance of Christ.
And the third daughter’s name was Keren-happuch: a horn of antimony, a horn of beauty, speaking of the power of God. So here you find such spiritual increase that it is full of beauty, full of fragrance, and full of power.
And he was able to see his sons and his sons’ sons to the fourth generation. Very productive. Very productive.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the end of the Lord. James 5:11 says that we have seen the endurance of Job, and we have seen the end of the Lord: that the Lord is full of tender compassion and mercy.
God has no desire to make us suffer. He allows suffering only to bring in maturity. He is full of tender compassion and mercy. May the end of the Lord be wrought in each of our lives.
And this is the story.
Our Father, we have seen the endurance of Job, and we have also seen the end of the Lord. We agree and say that the Lord is full of tender compassion and mercy.
How we praise and thank You, because Your thoughts concerning Your people are noble and manifold. Oh, how we praise and thank You that You are not content with our being little children, but it is Your desire that we should grow into sonship, that we may be heirs and co-heirs with Christ.
Oh, what a blessing. Lord, do open the eyes of our understanding, that we may see the goal that You have set before us, that we may endure the cross for the joy that is set before us.
Oh, may we look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. We bless Your name. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.