Job - The Mystery of Suffering, Death, Resurrection, and Glory
JOB 38:21-32 (this is God speaking to Job)
21 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? (God had been questioning Job about things that Job knew almost nothing about, because Job thought that he knew just about all there was to know of the world, but just because you are born doesn’t make you know everything – and just because you have lived long on the earth doesn’t mean you know everything either – the only source of true knowledge comes from God Himself)
22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, (Job knew nothing of this – but we know today through science and photography that there are not two snowflakes formed with the same identical design, and yet each individual snowflake will have the most amazing beauty of its own – each one is different )
23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
24 By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth?
25 ¶ Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder;
26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?
28 Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
29 Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?
30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? (Notice how God is now changing from earthly mysteries to heavenly mysteries)
32 Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? (“Mazzaroth” is the constellations of the Hebrew Zodiac) or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Job - The Mystery of Suffering, Death, Resurrection, and Glory
**Up until Job chapter 38, Job had only been seeing man born of a woman and his earthly journey of troubles and woes, but when God began to break the seals of the mysteries to Job in chapter 38, He begins to speak to Job of his origin and his destiny. He is wanting Job to look beyond his journey of suffering and death to see his future resurrection and glory - from the dust to the stars.
JOB 38:31-32
31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
32 Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? (Arcturus is a star – the Constellations and the stars)
*Up to this stage, Job was only seeing his earthly journey from the cradle to the grave, and so in Job Chapter 38, when the Lord Himself comes to speak to him (and we know by the message of the hour that this was the seventh seal of the coming of the Lord to Job), that the Lord asks Job “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.”
Up to this point Job had no understanding of his pre-existence, and we know that the revelation of your origin will also reveal to you your destiny. So then the Lord goes on to say “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion; canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?”
**God was showing Job that even though your earthy body has been form from the sand and the dust of the earth like with Abraham, God was wanting Job to look up to his real origin which was the stars, showing him that his Heavenly origin was before his earthly origin just like with Esther, because Esther’s name was changed from Hadassah to Esther, from being linked to the earth to now being linked to Heaven.
So when Job said, “I know my Redeemer liveth,” (and the purpose of a Redeemer is to restore you back to the estate of where you fell from), it was this revelation of the redeemer and redemption that was beginning to dawn clearer to Job.
**And so Job was beginning to catch the revelation of these things, because God was now revealing Himself to Job not as the Creator now, but also as Redeemer, and to show him that what was written in the Zodiac in the heavens, and what is written in nature in the creation (because both the heavens and the earth was the creation), that suffering, and death, and burial, and resurrection and glory is what was being revealed in its story.
**From the earthly to the heavenly – from this body to my theophany – from this pest house to my Father’s house – from this life of suffering and death to an eternal life of peace and joy and pleasures forever more.
**So this was the mystery of suffering and death and Resurrection and Glory that was being revealed to Job.
** We know that the Zodiac begins with Virgo which is the virgin woman who brings forth the seed. Then Aries the Ram is the coming of Christ. Then Aquarius is the pouring out of the water – the Holy Spirit coming into the Church, and when we get to the end of the Zodiac with the revealing of Leo the Lion (that is Christ at His second coming), and then Leo and Virgo are placed together in a marriage of Christ and his Bride.
**So, from Virgo to Leo, is the plan of Redemption shown in the stars.
**And from the foundation of the Pyramid to the Capstone, is the plan of Redemption shown in the Pyramid.
**And from Genesis to Revelation is the plan of Redemption shown in the bible. Three bibles, one author, and each bible is revealing the same redemptive plan of the great redeemer - Christ.
**And that’s why, for God to make Himself known to Job and to reveal Job’s origin to himself, He had to take his thinking back to before the foundation of the world of where he was then, so He asks this question, “Where were you back then?”
***And so then Job’s thinking began to go up onto another level from the level of creation to the level of redemption of going back to what he was before man fell in Eden of when death and suffering had set into the human race, and so now his thoughts were being elevated beyond this temporal life from his birth day through to his death day, and into an eternal thinking – his thinking is being elevated by God from his concept of the suffering and death of this life, to resurrection and glory in a greater life.
JOHN 16:12-13
12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
“He will show you things to come” is a prophetic ministry, a time when the Holy Spirit would be released on a people with a prophetic anointing in order to lead them into the fullness of the unveiling of Christ and their origin and the destiny of their future home.
And these revelations were held back until this end time age because the Holy Spirit had been bound by the ecclesiastical teachings of man for almost 2000 years (a type of these three friends of Job with their combined reasoning powers), but it was promised to be released in the last days by the evening time message.
THE.FEAST.OF.THE.TRUMPETS_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-16 SUNDAY_ 64-0719M
243 The Holy Spirit has been bound by these denominational rivers, for almost two thousand years, but is to be loosed in the evening time, by the evening-time Message. The Holy Spirit back in the Church again; Christ, Himself, revealed in human flesh, in the evening time. He said. He promised it.
***So from last week we saw that there was a deep in Job that was squeezed out of him under the immense pressure of him being physically bereft, and then struck with sickness and bodily pain, and then of top of all that having everyone turn against him until even the little innocent children were influenced against him.
Job was being falsely accused and even hated by those of whom he had loved and trusted and that had loved and trusted him – this would be enough to send any person into the deepest of pits – but God could see what was on the inside of Job’s soul of what Satan could not see - that there was an anchor that God had placed there by a revelation that would hold Job through his earthly journey.
JOB 13:15a
15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him:
*This is a testimony of the level of trust that Job had come to with God, even though he could not understand what was happening to him – this is showing us the maturity that we are to also come to in this hour because we will mostly never understand what is happening to us in life also, but we must understand that there is a great purpose and wisdom of God behind every detail of our lives and earthly journey.
*So Job began to see how that God has set boundaries on people’s lives just as He has set the moon as a watchman over that ocean, and so there is a limit to what Satan can do to your life, and so Job began to realize that these things of the worst of what life could throw at him couldn’t kill him, and that they weren’t intended to kill him, but that God was in control of these things for the purpose of Job’s advancement.
***And so then Job began to see that instead of just a whole lot of pointless pain and suffering, that it was actually the grace and power of God at work in his life, and so he began to realise that God knew the pathway that his earthly journey would take, and that there was a purpose in it all, and that purpose was for glorification. JOB 23:10 But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
Gold is deity – and deity is the character of God. In other words “I shall come forth with the character of God.”
I.KNOW_ JEFF.IN EASTER.MESSAGE.BOOK SUNDAY_ 60-0417S
36 It's those crucial hours that press us on to those sacred sands. It was in the Bible. And remember, no matter how great the distress is, Satan cannot take your life until God has finished with you. There is nothing can happen to you unless God permits it. There is no evil can come unless God permits it. And it's for your good He's working that.
Let's think, there when the floods came to destroy the world, it could not destroy Noah. Noah could not be destroyed, because that God had a work for him to do.
41 Satan could not take them. He could not drown Noah in the flood, until the purpose of God had been finished. He could not burn up the Hebrew children until the purpose of God had been finished. He could not kill Job with boils and troubles until the purpose of God had been finished. Neither could the lions eat Daniel until God's purpose had been finished. Neither could death and old age take Abraham until the purpose of God had been finished. And neither can it take you, or can it take me until the purpose of God of our life is finished. So we gather from their consolation.
43 And why does God let troubles come? God harnesses trouble, puts bits in its mouth, and makes it obey Him, and those troubles bring us into a closer fellowship with God.
The very meaning of the name ‘Job’ means ‘persecuted’, ‘hated’, ‘mocked’ ‘harassed’ - it is showing us a mystery of the end time bride in the time of persecution of when the full revelation of redemption will be made clear to us also.
***And it is showing us of how that we will be misunderstood and falsely accused in this age by the combined reasoning of man against the revelation of this hour.
**We see how there were four stages of four disasters of what Satan executed upon Job in the first part of Job’s sufferings, and we also know that there were four stages of disasters that Satan had planned for the Church of God with the palmerworm, locust, cankerworm, and the caterpillar stages in the book of Joel, and we also see the four horse riders of the book of Revelation of the white horse, red horse, black horse, and pale horse of Satan’s ride on these powers – but God promised at the end to restore all that was lost because everything that Job lost by these four stages of Satan’s destructive works was restore to Job again, and we have seen that restoration coming to pass in this last age.
*We also notice that there were at least four of Job’s friends that were with him at the time of his suffering, because at the end we see that this young man Elihu speaks after all the others had finished speaking, and Brother Branham tells us that Elihu represented Christ and that Elihu was also a prophet – and we know that Elihu was also the forerunner to God Himself appearing on the scene, and so it was Elihu that prepared the way for God himself to appear to Job in a whirl wind – so Elihu who is the youngest of them types the end time ministry of the prophet of this day that straitens out Job and his three friends – he makes the path straight for the Lord Himself to appear, just like Malachi 4’s ministry.
*And notice how that when Satan first began to deal with Job at the beginning, how he began from the outside of what was the furthest away from him in the form of his business, and then he came in closer and closer to Job to right to where the dearest thing of where his heart was, which was his children – and Satan did this for the purpose of having the maximum effect on Job.
That is why when you see Satan trying to upset things in your work environment; you know that his real purpose is to try to work his way to destroy you and your family.
***So from this we learn that Satan begins his attacks against man from the outside of his environment, to then work his way closer in, because his plan is to pile on pressure upon greater pressure - he wants to work his way right to what is the most precious thing of your life which is your loved ones and family, and especially your children.
*Look how little Sharon Rose was taken away from Brother Branham, she was the most precious thing to his heart – this was brother Branham’s “Job” experience. And notice how his troubles started from the outside of his life with his environment, to coming all the way in to his family.
THE.COMMUNION_ JEFF.IN ER 21-34 THURSDAY_ 57-0418
35 And after trying to encourage me the best that he knew how, when he left the building, I slipped around and went down into the basement. And when I got there, the hospital at that time wasn't fixed as it is now, and the window was up and the screen was out, and some flies had got into the little fellow's eyes. And I shooed the flies away and looked down at her little body, all drawed, and her little legs moving back and forth. And I said to her, "Sherry, honey, do you know daddy?"
And it seemed like that she was trying to wave her little hand to me: about eight or nine months old. And I looked at her. And she was suffering so hard, a little innocent baby, until one of her little baby-blue eyes crossed. So much pain, oh, I would've took it at any time in her stead.
37 And I knelt down on my knees with the doors closed, and I said, "O God, Father, there lays my wife, the baby's mother laying yonder in the undertaker's morgue. There's Billy Paul on the bed, sick. And here's my baby, dying. You surely, Lord, won't take her. I love her. And she resembles her mother. I want to raise her. Won't You please, O God, spare my baby's life?"
And as I looked up... And as you all know, I've always been subject to visions. It seemed like a black sheet begin to unfold, coming down, as if God took my prayer and throwed it right back in my face. And I said, "What have I done, God? Have I transgressed Your laws, that I should have this punishment? If it is, You just reveal it, and I'll repent. I'll do anything, but don't take my baby." And I seen she was going anyhow. I raised up.
39 And then the tempter came to me. There was the one time in all my life that I can call, was the crucial moment, my Gethsemane. When I was just barely holding to the bed, the devil said, "There you are. That's the reward for trying to serve Him. You mean that He'll take that young twenty-two-year-old mother, and lay her yonder as a corpse in the morgue, and will take the precious baby, your own flesh and blood, and slam your prayer right in your face? And then you mean to say that you'll serve Him?"
I was standing between opinions. It had to be decided. Then I put my hand over on her little head; I said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the Name of the Lord." I felt relief.
I said, "Sherry, honey, daddy cannot go where you are now, but daddy can come someday. I'll lay you on the arm of mother and bury you, but daddy will see you again someday."
**In Job chapter 1, it tells us how many oxen and asses and camels and everything that Job owned. And then in the end of the book of Job it gives us the same stock account but now he gets double the amounts of what he had at the beginning.
So we see that what Satan had done to him actually worked for his good in the plan of God because it ended up being a win-win situation because Job came out of it with a greater character and a greater knowledge of God, and he came out of it with the revelation of the resurrection, and he came out of it with a double of what he had at the beginning as well as all his children on the other side plus 10 more children on this side – so it was win, win, win for Job. James called it the tender love of God.
JAMES 5:10-11
10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
**We know that Brother Branham called the holocaust the tender hand of Jehovah.
***So the suffering that Job went through wasn’t worthy to be compared to the glory that he received at the end – so this is the mystery of suffering and death and resurrection and glory, because even though Job’s life had looked like a complete disaster and failure to the reasoning of man, and to the proof of the man’s intellect, the fact was that all of the suffering in his life had only worked together for the good of Job’s end.
** And so to everyone else it looked like Job was all washed up and finished up, and even to Job himself it look that way also – but it was actually the tender loving hand of God that was working it all out for Glory in the end.
*These three friends of Job represented the wisest of the combined reasoning powers of man, and yet they couldn’t figure out what was happening to Job, and so they put a wrong interpretation on how God was dealing with him – but when we read the story of Job, it is showing us both sides of what is really happening from God’s side of what is really going on, and then from the side of the convincing arguments of Jobs three friends of whom were all interpreting the whole situation of what Job was going through completely wrong because of their reasoning.
That is why you must never trust in your reasoning or the reasoning powers of others.
JOB 38:1-4
1 ¶ Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
4 ¶ Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
And so the Lord came to Job in Chapter 38 and told him, “Enough. You are talking about when a man is born of a woman, and you are saying that everybody that is born only comes to suffer and then to die and be buried, and what is the purpose of that, and that it would be better if man was never born if that is all there is to life.”
And so God gave Job a shock when He said, “Where were you before the foundation of the earth was laid?”
**God is asking Job about if he knew where he was before the world was even formed. And so this is the same revelation that has to be made clear to us also in this hour.
*God was showing Job that before he came into this world through his mum and dad, that he had already existed somewhere else, and that because he was alive before he came to this world, then there was no way that death could destroy him after he left this world. So God was showing him that even if death were to strike you, you are going to appear again because you have a Redeemer.
And it is this same revelation that has returned to us in this day.
*This was what God showed Paul, and showed Brother Branham, and is now showing us – a future of Glory after this life of suffering and trials is over.
**Before Brother Branham had the experience of beyond the curtain of time, he said that he used to be afraid of dying, because he didn’t want to be a spirit floating around on a cloud with a harp, because that was his concept of what happens when you die – but when he goes beyond he curtain of time, then he realised that that place was more real than this world is real, and that he had a real body there, and there were real people there that he had known before back on earth, and that he could feel them just like you can feel people here, and that it wasn’t like a half dreamy type of experience – and so because of that experience, the fear of death left him, and so this is the same revelation that has been given to us through that experience also, because we know that our spirits will take up their new abode in another body just as soon as we leave this one - it is only leaving our loved ones behind on this side that is the hard part.
If we have been associated with the 7th angel’s ministry here, then we will also be associated with his ministry over there in the new land.
MY.LIFE.STORY_ LA.CA FOOTPRINTS.BOOK SUNDAY_ 59-0419A
215 I had to work. We was way in debt and hundreds of dollars of doctor bill, and nothing to pay it with. And I just had to work. And I seen her two or three times a day, and every night, and then when she was in that condition.
I said, "What do you mean, 'Call' you 'back'?"
216 She said, "Bill, you've preached about It, you've talked about It, but you don't have no idea what It is."
I said, "What are you talking about?"
217 She said, "Heaven." She said, "Look," she said, "I was being escorted Home by some peoples, men or women or something. They was dressed in white." And she said, "I was at ease and peace." Said, "Big pretty birds flying from tree to tree." She said, "Don't think I'm beside myself."
He continues the story in…
HE.CARETH.FOR.YOU_ PHOENIX.AZ V-14 N-5 TUESDAY_ 60-0301
88 Two or three days after that, I watched a dear Christian, my sister-in-law, my brother's wife, die, and seen her raise up and look at the robin setting in the tree, and sing, "There's a land beyond the river."
There my wife died, me holding her hand, saying, "Bill, you've talked about it; you've preached about it; but you don't know how glorious it is to move from this life to another." All these things there that I'd seen Him do...
And, oh, he said, "Now, He's took everything that you've got, what does He mean to you now?"
I said, "Thou the stream of all my comfort, more than life to me; whom have I on earth beside Thee, or whom in Heaven but Thee?" Oh.
He said, "Does it mean that to you?"
And I said, "It means that to me."
92 I went on up on the hillside there where she was buried. And I set there a little while, and seemed like an old dove come out, would sing, or coo, late of the evening while I set there and thought of her, and the baby laying down there on her arm. And seemed like the breeze, blowing through the pine trees, would sing.
There is a Land beyond the river,
That they call the sweet forever,
And we only reach that shore by faith decree;
One by one we gain the portal,
There to dwell with the immortal,
Someday they'll ring those golden bells for you and me.
93 Last things I told my wife when she died and I kissed her good-bye... She said, "Don't live single, Billy. Get some good woman that's filled with the Spirit of God to raise my children." She didn't know the baby was going to die the next day. And she said, "I'll meet you in that morning." She said...
I said, "Stand over there at the east side of the gate. And when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and those children of the Kingdom coming in, just start screaming, 'Bill! Bill!' as loud as you can. I'll get the children together and meet you there." That was my last date with her. And by the help of God, I'll still cast all my cares on Him with the comfort of the Holy Spirit, that someday I'll make that date real, when I meet her there.
By the grace of God, I'll stay on the battlefield and preach till all my life is wasted away for the Kingdom of God.