THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
[p. 24] THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
I wish to show you from this scripture, as the Lord may help me, how recovery comes about, and how man is recovered for God through the Lord Jesus Christ in a spiritual, not in a natural way. We all need to be led on to spiritual lines. This book shows that one may be genuinely converted and have the fear of God before his eyes and yet may be still on natural lines. The first chapter of Job presents to us Job and his household as set up on natural lines, although he was a godly man himself, one whom God had taken account of among all the race, a perfect man, one who eschewed evil, one whom indeed God calls His servant. Now before the Spirit of God proceeds to give us this wonderful course of instruction He sets before us the spiritual pattern. After Job and his family are presented we are told that there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves to God. Now that is a spiritual pattern. It does not go beyond the fact that there was a spiritual pattern. God had sons, and His sons were not lawless; they were not selfish; they thought of Him.
Now that is a spiritual pattern. On the other hand Job’s sons and daughters, although they had a godly father, were not affected by his godliness; they were on natural lines. They were feasting in their elder brother’s house; that is a natural pattern. That is a pattern of things as they are here in this world, formed under the influence of evil; for, remember, that what is natural now in humanity is under the influence of evil. So that is what you have in chapter 1 — a spiritual pattern and a natural pattern. It is for you to determine for yourself as to whether you are on the line of the spiritual pattern presented; whether it is your habit to come up before [p. 25] God, or whether your habit is to frequent the elder brother’s house in a natural way. What marks the sons of God is that they come before God, they present themselves; they give an account of themselves, so to speak. God does not challenge any of them except one. So that it is not the sons of God as they are in heaven, it is what is down here. Satan came amongst them; he always comes to the meetings. But the fact does not prevent the sons being there. It does not say that he went to the elder brother’s house, they were attended to from his point of view. He was not active in that connection. If you leave God out of your calculations Satan is not much concerned about you, for you are cared for from his point of view. Satan frequents the meeting-places of God’s people much more than he does the meeting-places of the wicked.
Well, now, in a word the elder brother’s house represents the natural line. It was a natural precedence to which the elder brother was entitled in the first place. But then what about Job? Where was he? What about your father? Disregard of your parents is disregard of God. God has been pleased to set His authority in those who love you. It makes it easy for you. “Obey your parents in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1). The sons and daughters of Job did not do that, they were on natural lines. They left God out. They left their father out. And what happened to them? If you proceed on natural lines Satan will visit you, not to support you, but as an emissary of God in the way of judgment. Now that is terrible. The house in which they feasted was smitten at the four corners by satanic power. Satan is but an emissary of God, a servant of God, but he can only touch you as God permits. It was his power that brought down that house of the elder brother. You may feast today and tomorrow, but down the house will come and the inmates be destroyed. It is a terrible picture,
[p. 26] beloved friends. If you are on the line of the natural it is disregard of divine order and authority, and from God’s point of view that is sin; a terrible sin. It is a sin that as I said leads to that terrible end.
Now God had His eye on Job. There was one man God had His eye on. God never withdraws His eyes from the earth. Men would be thankful if He did. In fact, they persuade themselves at times that He does not look on. Ofttimes we show that we have much greater fear of the eye of our neighbour than we have of the eye of God, but God looks on. It is not that He is looking for sin. God never looks for sin. He finds it, alas, without looking for it, and it pains Him to find it. The Lord looked down from heaven to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. He found one man good before the flood, that was Noah. His eye rested on that man. He found another man in Job after the flood. The Lord is kind in calling you; would to God that it were accepted. If you are converted His eye is upon you; if you are unconverted His eye is upon you. He appeals to you. He marks your steps from the moment of your birth until He touches your conscience. We are told that His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth.
Satan was walking up and down in it like a roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour. Are you aware of that? Think of him coming up along with the sons of God! How he would have destroyed them! He had taken notice of Job, and he says to God, ‘There is a hedge about him; I cannot touch him’. Thank God for that hedge. ‘Where do you come from?’ God says to him. ‘Give an account of yourself’. Satan had to give an account of himself. God says, “Hast Thou considered my servant Job?” (chapter 1:8). God had His sons there, but He is not numbering Job amongst His sons, He numbered Job amongst His servants. Hast thou considered — not “my son”, but “my servant?” You may well be in dread of Satan. He is a roaring lion, we are told by Peter, seeking whom he may devour. Thank God he cannot devour all, otherwise we should not be here. He is seeking whom he may. Are you exposing yourself to him? Beware! The snare is all about you. Satan had taken an account of Job; he had not been up and down through the earth for nothing. There was one man with the fear of God before him. Satan knew about the hedge. Thank God for that hedge. It may for you be the protection of a parent. That is for salvation. The young man that is followed by the prayers of his mother and of his father is protected. God has placed the hedge there, but the hedge is not sufficient.
I cannot enlarge on chapter 1, but I thought it worth while to show you how you have the pattern of what is spiritual and the pattern of what is natural. God sets out at the beginning what He is going to end with. He gives you the pattern. Now, He says, I am going to work out that pattern. And He works out that pattern in Job. He brings Job to that pattern. God will never give you up; He will bring you to correspond with the pattern that He sets before you at the beginning. What is the pattern? Why it is Christ. Paul’s gospel presents the pattern. Paul presents both parents, the father and the mother, in order to bring in a spiritual family; that is what he is aiming at, and he wants you to get on to the spiritual line, that you derive from spiritual parentage; and belong to a spiritual family. The moment you get into that circle you will cease to respect the elder brother. You will always find that the elder brother brings trouble. Cain brought it; Ishmael brought it; Esau brought it; Reuben brought it. When the elder brother sees the younger brother feasting in the father’s house he says, “Thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my
friends” — not your friends (Luke 15:29). Look at the grace of God entreating him to come in! But he did not come in; he was utterly unfit for the house in the state in which he was.
Man knows something about the natural dignity of the elder brother deserving precedence, and he holds to it. It is the stock-in-trade of the worldling. But it is vanity, nothing more; there is nothing in it. Now Paul brings in in his gospel the father and the mother. We have the pattern of the heavenly presented to us in Paul’s gospel. “God”, he says, “who called me by his grace”. Paul did not come; he did not pretend to come. God called him, and he says it was “to reveal his Son in me” (Galatians 1:15,16). It is a spiritual pattern. Jerusalem had no place in it at all; that is Hagar. It was “to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the nations”. The grace of God never gives up any one of us until He brings us back to that glorious pattern that we all should be conformed to the image of God’s Son. Think of the design God has in His mind! The moment you see it you give up the natural.
As I said, God proposed to set out the pattern before Job in chapter 1 in His sons coming up before Him. Now, He says, I am going to work out on that line; your house is not in order; your sons do not regard you; but the difficulty is with yourself. Well, there are long chapters in which Job has a great deal to say. What can he speak about? There is no reference to the sons of God on his part. If they are referred to it is God himself who refers to them. In chapter 38:4,7 He appeals to Job, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? ... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” God refers to the sons. Job had a great deal to say; every one in Job’s condition has a good bit to say, but it is counsel darkened by words without understanding, without knowledge. It is a [p. 29] wonderful moment when Job ended them himself. “The words of Job are ended”. He thought he had said enough. It was not that he had laid his hand upon his mouth; his mouth was not stopped yet. No; he was his own judge of what he had said, a man of wisdom on his own account, who would say just so much and no more. A man’s mouth has to be stopped not by himself, but by God. Job’s three friends were not able to do it. Even Elihu was not able to do it. A man in Job’s state has great pretensions and a great estimate of himself.
Now God is not going to leave it that way. He is not going to allow you to decide when you should stop speaking. He undertakes to shut your mouth. God is not only going to convict a man. The three friends of Job condemned him and they could not convict him. That was why Elihu’s anger was kindled against his friends. You may see one of the Lord’s people turning aside for a moment, and you condemn him, but you cannot convict him. To condemn him, without convicting him is sin. Convict him first and then condemn him. “Those that sin convict before all” (1 Timothy 5:20). Do not condemn without convicting. That was the reason why Elihu was enraged with the three friends of Job. They condemned him, he says, but they did not convict him. Job said, ‘My words are ended’. They saw that he had the last word; they could not answer him. If any mouth is to be stopped God will stop it. “That every mouth might be stopped”. He has arranged for that, even Job’s, in spite of his oratory. He was a wonderful speaker; his speeches contain very wonderful things, that are recognised by the Spirit of God as right, but his mouth had to be stopped, and it was effectively stopped. How? By the Lord Himself. The Lord takes him in hand. Your parents cannot help you; your best friend cannot help you. God alone can do it, and He does it effectively. So Job turns round to God at the end and says, “thou canst do everything”. That is a wonderful discovery, and yet it is obvious. There are miracles being performed every day. If I understand what a miracle means, it is something done outside human power. A miracle has surely been performed on me and on you. Every convert is a testimony to what the power of God is. God can convert; He can do anything. It is as if Job said, You brought this to pass in me, you can do anything. How persistent Job was in his self-righteousness. He said, You have brought me down; you have succeeded; I know now that you can do anything.
The greatest thing was to raise up the Lord Jesus, and God has done that. He had been calling Job’s attention to the heavens and to the earth, the works of His hands. Job says, I see that you can do everything. Well, we may say much more than that as Christians. We see more than Job could have seen. We see what God has done in Christ. We see the exceeding greatness of His power. The visible things are all witnesses to the things that are unseen, even His eternal power and divinity, but they are not the witnesses to the exceeding greatness of His power, that refers to the resurrection of Christ. We say with much more force, Thou canst do everything. He has taken Christ out of the stronghold of death and He has set Him down at His right hand in heaven. There is the witness to the exceeding greatness of His power.
Do you think there is a brother who cannot be recovered? The Lord can do it. “Who then can be saved?” (Matthew 19:25). Do not say that; do not give him up. The disciples said to the Lord, “Who then can be saved?” Let us not say that a brother cannot be saved. Job says to God: You can do everything. That is his answer. God can do everything. Hence the Lord says, “All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27). The rich man might as well try to get into the kingdom [p. 31] as a camel to go through the needle’s eye. Who can be saved? All things are possible with God. God can reduce the size of that camel. He knows how to do it. Conversion brings down the size. The difficulty with the man is that he is too big. You cannot reduce his size, but God can.
Well, Job says, You can do everything. My thought was to show you how that God sets up Job on spiritual lines, and the first thing after his mouth is stopped he abhors himself. Now, he is to be a benefactor. Do not spurn those people even although their speeches were against you, pray for them. Pray for your persecutors. The first thing is that Job prays for his friends, and God accepts the face of Job. That is the reading of it. God loves a praying face. Job never looked so well as when he was praying; neither does any one else. You never look so well in God’s account as when you are praying. He accepts the face of a praying man. Is it your habit to pray? “Let me see thy countenance”, He says (Song of Songs 2:14). He loves to see a sinner look up. The woman who was bent for eighteen years was always looking down. To look up is that you change your countenance. God looked at the Lord Jesus praying, and it drew from His heart the expression, “my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight” (Matthew 17:5) He transfigured Him while He was praying on the mount of transfiguration. It is said that God accepted the face of Job, as I understand the reading of chapter 42:9.
Now, after Job is accepted, after he is recognised, for to accept his face means that he is adopted, to put it into Christian language; after he is adopted, he is no longer a servant, but a son. His countenance God accepts, and then he has a spiritual income. He has twice as much as he had before. Now, what would that be put into New Testament language? What would it be for the Christian? Think of the gift of the Spirit. Can you measure it? It is not [p. 32] anywhere measured by fourteen thousand sheep, as we get here. That does not measure it. Fourteen thousand is just a suggestion as to the wealth with which the believer whose face is accepted of God as a praying man is endowed. The gift of the Spirit in Scripture is connected with prayer. The Lord received it while He was praying, and after He went to heaven He asked for the Spirit in order to shed it forth. Think of the wealth, think of the blessedness of coming to the living God!
You can look up into the face of God. God loves to look into the countenance of a praying man. See the effect! His friends are really restored instead of being judged. And now Job is on spiritual lines. All his friends come. As to his sisters, we do not hear anything of them in chapter 1 but in chapter 42 it says, that his brethren and his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, were accepted of God and set on spiritual lines. What you have on these lines is brothers and sisters, all sympathisers; the sphere of your acquaintance is now spiritual it is a family connection, so it widens out your acquaintances. How well off you are! How well off Job was!
I am simply endeavouring to describe to you what God brings about for any one believer through the glad tidings. It is a wonderful result. You are set up down here; your face is accepted; and you are surrounded by family relations, by sympathisers, and by those who bring presents to you; you are an object of affection on every hand. It is a reality. These are the actual effects of the gospel down here.
Then there is just one other thought, and that is, Job has another family. He now has twice as much wealth, yet he has not any more children, but they are of a different order. There is not a word said about the elder brother. There is no elder brother amongst the brethren in this sense, the Lord Jesus is [p. 33] supreme but He is not an elder brother. There is no reference to an elder brother in the last chapter; that order of things has been wiped out. It was wiped out in the first chapter, and we can thank God for it. Room is now made for the new family, and we get their names. There is not a name of any of the sons or daughters given in the first chapter. Here we have the names of the daughters; they are signalised in that way. I have no doubt each name has its own meaning, because names are never given for nothing. The more one reads Scripture the more one is convinced that every word is there for a purpose, every letter, so that the names have meanings. What I would like to say further is this, that the three daughters of Job are given an inheritance, not in their elder brother’s house, but among their brethren. Is not that where you want it? If you love the brethren you do. You do not want your inheritance anywhere else; you want it amongst the brethren. Job is on spiritual lines now, and the inheritance is amongst the brethren; you could not get a more spiritual idea than that.
God is endeavouring to bring us on to spiritual lines, that things should be spiritual. We have to touch the natural, just touch it lightly, and press on to the spiritual. The spiritual is what is to abide eternally. So we find that the spiritual man lives on. Job lived for one hundred and forty years after that, and he saw four generations. It was not generations after the flesh; it was generations after the Spirit, and it rejoiced his heart.