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CHAPTER XXIV.

ON THE BOOK OF JOB.

HAVING evolved the true position of Job from the mystery in which it seemed to be enfolded, and having seen that it was the light of the covenant age Satan would have extinguished in him, I shall now proceed with his history, and first notice his sanctified character in prosperity; secondly, the disturbing power, his sanctified spirit, and integrity in adversity; and, thirdly, the supreme, presiding, controlling

power.

Here we have

"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." (Job i. 1.) no account of Job's early history, but the book at once opens to us an historic prophecy. He was only perfect as justified by faith; and therefore a type of the redeemed Church is at once set before us. 'Job' means, he that weeps, that cries, or that speaks out of an hollow place, which I believe signified the Eternal Spirit, Intercessor in him. (Job xlii. 8, 10;

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Rom. viii. 26.) The Spirit of God and of Christ is always an Intercessor in the true Church.

I shall show later that it is more than probable this history was written by Job himself or some part of his family, -arranged, and added to the books of the Pentateuch, by Moses. Midian, where Moses dwelt forty years (Exod. iii. 1), was only separated from Uz by Moab; he may have found the sublime poem recently written; and God guided him to make it a part of Revelation to a lost world, as it had been to all the country of the east. The original language of the book is Hebrew; but the many Arabic and Chaldee expressions found in it tell us it was not originally written by Moses. Job is supposed to have lived two, three, or even four hundred years; God did thus lengthen his life to set forth a marvellous roll of history as I shall show. Many after the Flood did live even longer than this. (Gen. xi.)

All the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel are found in the book-the doctrine of providence, of human depravity (xiv. 4, xv. 14, 16), of the Atonement (i. 5, xlii. 8), of the Resurrection (xix. 25, 29), of the prevalency of intercessory prayer, of justification by faith, so that we see what a marvellous Revelation it was at that early period.

"And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters." This was the number of Job's children, but this book was historic prophecy; and just as I have shown you the seven in Pharaoh's dreams signified a round period, from the period of seven times seven years constituting a period of

Jubilee, so here these seven sons signify the Antichristian sons of a dispensation; and the three daughters typified the three Churches, the Antediluvian, Jewish, and Christian; so that they date the time of this history. As I have said, it is a continuation of the prophecies of the book of Genesis, or a prophecy parallel with the history of Jacob and Joseph. Job was a type of the Church, during the seven dispensations of the world's history.

"His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men in the east." As after the famine was over, Joseph was in his heyday glory in Egypt, we may suppose Jacob returned to the land of Uz with very great riches; it was a very fruitful land, and well watered; his family were shepherds, skilled in agriculture and in the tending of cattle, so that we understand how he had come in possession of so immense riches. We know how God had almost miraculously prospered Jacob in an adjoining country; in only six years his increase became very great. (Gen. xxxi. 41, xxxii. 14, 15.) It is not likely that the camels of Job were beasts of burden, Jacob mentioned particularly his "milch camels."

"And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and drink with them." Whether we consider these days periods of fifty years, or dispensations, it is the same; the Church

is thus, in the midst of the world, called to eat and to drink with them.

"And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings to the number of them all for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." Cursed God, here means renounced the faith of the Covenant, become profane as Esau. Notice, Job did not suppose that his daughters might have done this, but his seven sons only. How grandly does Job stand here a type of the Great Head of the Church, sanctifying, calling to the sons of men not to reject Him, not so to curse, deny God in their hearts, but to be holy, and be saved. "If ye believe in God, believe also in me." "Thus did Job continually." Such was Job in prosperity, and such is the true Church, one with her Head even in prosperity; but she is surrounded by Satan in these seven sons; they call her to feast with them, and would betray her into corruption did not her Head rise up early in the morning, before the foundations of the earth were laid, offer burnt offerings for her, and sanctify her. As we look at that moment at God in Joseph, in the little Church in Africa, in the land of Ham, and at Job in Asia, in the land of Shem, do we not see the palpable truth of this verse, "The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: but

they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy"? (2 Chron. xxxvi. 15.) Is God in fault that the world is not saved?

How far Job as an individual was right or wrong in suffering this carnal, worldly proceeding of his sons, and even of his daughters, it is not for me to say; we may be in the world, but not of it; we may be Christians without being pedants; and we may be pedants without being Christians. Our Saviour ate with publicans and sinners; and His prayer was one of the most wide, far-discerning that could be presented to His Father: "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." But while we thus venture into the world, or rather remain where God has placed us, witnesses for Him, we must stand stedfast, in some way shed forth transparently "the true light" which dwells within: we must stand as priests of the most high God, intercessors for all around, as Noah the preacher of righteousness stood in the old world, as Joseph stood in "the house of the Egyptian," as Job stood throughout Syria, the land of Ram, and the vast desert of Arabia, as Daniel stood in Babylonia (Ezek. xiv. 14, 20), as Esther stood in the court of Persia (viii. 3, 6): "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" We must send and sanctify all around us, offer for them spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ; and then if they perish, as did the world before the Flood, as did Pharaoh in the Red Sea, as

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