Job 1: 1-3, 13-22; 2: 7-10; 3: 1
James 5: 11
Jonah 1: 1-17; 2: 10
Genesis 14: 13, 14
Hebrews 12: 9-11
I have been told that Mr George Ware said, ‘In the ways of God there are four things that God has in His mind: 1) that you should get the benefit from the discipline, 2) that you can help somebody else in the same circumstances, 3) the place that you will have in the millennium, and 4) the place that you will have along with many others in eternity’. All those things you are being prepared for now, they are calculated in God’s ways for those four reasons.
I repeat these four things: the ways of God are for you yourself; then that you can help somebody else when they are in similar circumstances, to help and comfort them and tell them your experiences; then your place in the millennium (who knows, you may be responsible for ten cities, and the things you have learned in this life in the ways of God will be able to assist in that great day where the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah will cover the earth); and finally for your place in eternity. You are being prepared for all those things. Think of that when the ways of God are hard upon you.
Mr Alan Bellamy said in a preaching that none of us is converted apart from the ways of God. Job is an example. Is he like a ‘fair weather’ Christian? When things are going right Job is a happy man. I know that feeling only too well; things seem to be going well, I seem to be prospering in my soul. Job was a great man, and obviously blessed by God, and for someone to have all those things that he had was an evidence of God’s blessing. He had become complacent and self-righteous and when these terrible things happened to Job he was touched to the quick. I speak feelingly; I would say that my experience is that the things that have helped me most in my soul are the things that have touched me most deeply, things that I would not welcome, and yet if I look at them I have to say that in them was the greatest blessing I had for my soul.
Job was taken off balance. First of all the thing that he said when it all happened was remarkable, “Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away”. There was a deep core of integrity with Job. He was a great man, and the work of God in him was very real. When these pressures came upon him his reaction was a right one, “Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away”. But Satan said to God, 'Just go a little bit further, you have taken away all he has, all his family and all the things he has, his animals, his servants, but touch him in his body and see what happens'. So Job had the awful botch; imagine the scales over his body. He had to get a potsherd to scrape himself with. Even then, his wife said to him, “curse God and die”. I wonder whether in the ways of God she thought of what she said then, because that found her out too. The ways of God find us out, but that is the very reason for His ways with us. He finds things out and they become exposed to us and we learn to judge them. That is how the ways of God are used for our conversion. Job’s wife was cut to the quick; she had lost all her family - maybe her daughters were spared because at the end of the book it says that Job had twice as much of everything else as he had at the beginning - but what Job’s wife said is recorded in the Scriptures, and I am sure she regretted having said it. This is a good illustration of what I am saying, that the ways of God find us out. Job was an upright man, he was a righteous man in his own eyes, a man of integrity, and yet God saw that Job needed to be converted, he needed to understand the depths of wickedness, or opposition to God, that that there were in himself, even though he was such a man of integrity. It says, “Job opened his mouth and cursed his day” - you may say it is all very negative, but it is not, because a man of Job’s quality would think about the reaction that there was and he would see things in himself that he had never seen before. He says, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. Can you see how the ways of God are used for our conversion? It is not just the word - you might say you are stretching the scripture because it was Elihu’s ministry that really was the help. It was, but the catalyst for it and the things that brought it all to light, and brought to light Job’s and his wife’s state were the circumstances that occurred.
What does James say about it? James must have been a very feeling man - how he writes Job up, “Ye have heard of the endurance of Job” - think how he writes Job up - “and seen the end of the Lord”. I think that is a wonderful thing - God has an end for you and me, He has a purpose for you and me. It is not going to be all trouble. Hebrews speaks of an “afterwards”. God, if He brings in discipline, has an end in it and He full of tender compassion and pitiful. Let us remember what James could say about Job, with all the terrible things that happened to him. In anything that happens God has a purpose and He has an end in view that will be for His glory and for your blessing.
I read about Jonah and it says, “And Jehovah prepared a great fish” - the ways of God are all designed, I think extraordinarily designed, fitting you perfectly, suited to your failures. I know that the things that in the government of God I suffer because of the things I have done in my history are perfectly suited, so that in those things in which I failed I maintain self-judgement. I know that in myself. How wonderful is the skill of the blessed God in His discipline that He brings in what is exactly suited, not only to keep at bay what naturally would mark you, but to bring in what would be for your blessing. What I think is interesting about Jonah is that this fish was prepared - can you imagine being inside a fish for three days and three nights with no water there? You could breathe, but it says, “The weeds were wrapped about my head” (chap 2: 5), think of that experience. Jonah was not sitting in a comfortable seat with the windscreen in front of him and steering wheel and guiding the fish as to where it would go. He had to go where the fish went, and that is like your discipline. Maybe you have to care for a loved one, maybe you have a difficult child. You have to go where the fish goes, you have no control over the circumstance, you are in that circumstance, you cannot control it, it will control you, just like Jonah’s fish. God prepared that fish. You are in these circumstances, you do not like them; I am sure Jonah did not like it, he had no control of the fish, suddenly it would go one way, then another and then up - just like the ways of God with us, seemingly rough. Had God forgotten Jonah? No, and He does not forget you.
A Holy Father’s constant care
Keeps watch with an unwearying eye,
(Hymn 138)
He did not forget Jonah. Before Jonah had been through this experience he was a wilful man. Job was a self-righteous person; I suppose we are often like that, either self-righteous or wilful, and the ways of God find us out, but they find us out so that we may judge what we find in ourselves, so that we may get help, and so that God will bless us. It says, “Jehovah commanded the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land”.
I read about Abraham and his trained servants. We sang that in our hymn:
Thy word, Thyself reflecting,
Dost sanctify by truth,
Still leading on thy loved ones,
With gentle, heav'nly growth.
Thus still the work proceedeth
(The work begun by grace)
In each, made meet, yet training ...
(Hymn 78)
We need training. When I serve, I say to the Lord, 'I want to be a good servant for You. I want to say what You want me to say'. There is training involved in that. It is very humbling to serve, but I think that is part of the training, that we all are in God’s school. There is a book by Mr Stoney, 'Discipline in the School of God', vol 13. We are all in that school, and we are all being trained, whether it is for our own benefit, the benefit of someone else, our place in the millennium, our place in eternity, we are all being trained.
I would like to mention that some children do not pray before they go to bed; parents do not pray with their children before they go to bed. I am not trying to make anyone feel awkward; all I am raising it for is that normally you would teach your children that as they go to bed they pray, you pray with them, or they pray on their own. It is a good training. It says of Timothy, “from a child thou hast known the sacred letters”, 2 Tim 3: 15. That is another good thing, to read your Bible. Mr Walkinshaw used to say that the morning read is very valuable. Read your Bible, young person; become accustomed to it; it is most interesting. A young person said to us locally that it is ever so interesting, it has love stories, war stories, all sorts of interesting things in it. That is true, the Bible is a most interesting and instructive book and you should get to know it. But also a great thing is to speak to God, speak to the Lord Jesus, speak to the Father. I remember reading of a pastor, he made a list of all the things he wanted to pray about and stuck them on the top of his bed, and before he got into his bed he would say to God, ‘Them’s the things I want to ask you for’ and just touched the list on the back of his bed. That is not right; you want to have a relationship with God. God loves to hear you, loves to hear you call Him 'Father'. I love to take that Name on my lips. I relish that, as I speak to God, I say, ‘Father’, with all the depths of affection that it contains -
A Holy Father’s constant care
Keeps watch with an unwearying eye.
Call Him 'Father'. The Spirit cries that. We are sons of God through faith. It says, “because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” Gal 4: 6. Say it! It is a question of relationship, and it is a very blessed thing. In the morning, dear children, say to God, ‘Father’. Tell Him everything, tell Him your deepest needs, bring Him into the simple things, if you have lost your book, or some such thing. Have you ever thought of praying about it? You may have to wait a little while, but it will work if you pray to God to ask Him to help you find something. He will help you.
This is a question of training, getting into good habits and I suppose right throughout your life you will find that is so, whatever you take up. We need training as to assembly manners. I say to those who are younger that you need training in assembly manners. I remember Mr William McKay saying after a morning meeting, that Mr James Taylor said once about somebody that their part was like a beautiful island but it had no relationship to anything else; it was just that beautiful island on its own. I wondered what he was saying, but what he felt was that maybe someone's part in itself was all right, but it did not bear any relation to the rest of the meeting. That is a good assembly thing to learn about. If brothers speak, not to be mechanical, but as you are listening (and that is another part of training) you would link on with what has already been said. In the prayer meeting, do you follow what they say? Do you say, 'Amen'? All these things are training, a question of assembly manners. I think that matter of having an assembly outlook includes that the meeting is not just you on your own and God, but it is a corporate experience, and we should think in that way that our part takes connection from what has gone before and bears some relation to what comes after, not in a legal way, but in a spiritual way. There are all sorts of things like that. I think we need training to have an assembly outlook, that we are committed to what is of the assembly in our local meetings. In all these things, we are all being trained. It does not stop, we are always in the school of God, and you will find throughout your life that there are things you have to learn about assembly manners, “how one ought to conduct oneself in God’s house”, 1 Tim 3: 15.
Abraham had trained servants, three hundred. Think of the power of the man, and think of how those people would be trained in faith, when things came upon them they could trust God. A brother reminded us of the hymn attributed to Mr Darby:
Thus ever on through life we find
To trust, O Lord, is best;
Who serve Thee with a quiet mind
Find in Thy service rest.
Their outward troubles may not cease,
But this their joy shall be -
'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on Thee’.
If you look at the scripture it is almost verbatim, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee”, Isa 26: 3 AV. That is another thing you have to be trained in. Problems come along, you take them to God, but do you really trust Him, do you really think He can bring you through? It is another bit of experience. When problems came along for Abraham’s trained servants they would have turned to God. He was a great man of faith, and he would have trained them to take things to God and trust Him.
I read in Hebrews because God always has an end in mind in His discipline with us. It says that we must not faint, and that is easy to say, “shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed chastened for a few days”, that is our parents, “as seemed good to them; but he for profit, in order to the partaking of his holiness”. Think of that high calling that you have, to be a partaker of God’s holiness. Mr Raven says that these experiences will help you in the sanctuary, that is the most holy place, vol 8 p330. These experiences that are in view of the partaking of His holiness will serve you well in the sanctuary. He also says that you are holy as God is holy (vol 15 p56). “Partaking of his holiness”, what a high calling that is. But, that is the end in discipline, “to the partaking of his holiness”. It says “But no chastening at the time seems to be matter of joy, but of grief; but afterwards yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it”. I do not fully understand that, but I think it means that when discipline comes along it finds out things in you which you judge, and things become regulated in your life, in your relationships with God. That is the “afterwards”, it yields that, it is a peaceful fruit. Things are regulated by those that are exercised by the chastening.
I can tell you simply that I hesitated to speak about this subject, but I thought the brethren would understand the spirit in which I speak to them. In the presence of the discipline that they have, these scriptures would bear on them for their encouragement.
May God bless the word.
Spaldwick
14th June, 2008