THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK OF JOB

By Dr. Samuel Gipp, Th.D.

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The following is from Brother Gipp's booklet, "The Book of Job." This is an excerpt of this work which was originally transcribed from a tape recording. Therefore, the style is oratorical rather than orthographical.

Now, to begin with, let us look at Job chapter 41, and I am going to show you why the book of Job came into existence. In the book of Job the biggest word that ever enters our mind is, "Why?" You can say, God was glorified and all, but the bottom line is, "Why did God allow that to happen? Why did God do it?" The reason you say that, is the same reason you say "why" when you have a flat tire. You know, when the washing machine goes out, it's the same thing. "Why did God allow this? He loves me. Why did he do this?" I have never seen anybody get a flat tire and get mad at the devil. I have never seen anybody's car break down and they get out and say, "Stinkin' devil!" We always say, "Why did you do this?" We love God. We love God . . . till we hit a Pennsylvania pothole. Then we hate Him and the D.O.T.

Now, let's look at Job chapter 41. In Job chapter 41 we find the reason that God brought the book of Job into existence, and why Job had to go through what he went through. It says this. Now, please, let me get this straight too. This is one of those things you have to learn about God. Did you ever see this picture, you know, of a . . . and this is no racial slur, OK? . . . but, of a white arm and a black arm wrestling, and it is good and evil? We get that conception about God and the devil. We get this conception that God is over here and the devil is over here. Why, we know how it's going to end. We know the devil is going to lose, but, she-e-e-w, boy, is God going to be worked out when He's done.

People, the fact is this, God hasn't got a problem with the devil, not even a little one. All right? I mean, God could just exhale and blow him off the planet. He doesn't even have to sneeze. That is what the book of Job is all about. The book of Job is to show you the kind of power our God has over the devil.

I think this Mike Tyson is a good boxer; I really do. Whenever they have a title championship fight, they get up and say, "I'm going to knock him out in the fourth round." The other guy says, "No, he ain't gonna knock me out in the fourth, 'cause I'm gonna knock him out in the first," and all this other stuff. If I were the challenger, and I challenged the champ to a boxing match, and they interviewed him and he said, "Well, I'll tell you what. To give him a break, and to give him a chance, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. For forty days and forty nights before the fight, I'm just not going to eat. That way I'll be very weak and that'll give him a chance." I would be out of town! I would not show up, man! Listen, when our God had to meet the devil in hand-to-hand combat he said, "Before I meet him, I will tell you what I am going to do. I will just not eat for forty days and forty nights. He might have a chance then. We will give him a break. Maybe he will have a chance. And He still put him through the ropes in three punches.

That is the kind of power. Job 41 shows us the kind of power our God has over the devil. Look what it says. "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?" God goes fishing for him. Now, come on, you can talk all you want about the fight and the bass boat and the blue fish, but the bottom line on it is, "Come on devil, bite!" That is what the book of Job is about. He goes fishing and catches him twice.

"Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?" Now, that would be tough as it is. I mean, try to get anybody to stand still enough to pierce their nose. Especially the devil. Yet God said, "I can take the devil and wrestle him and put a ring in his nose." I read a book telling about this guy who had a bull. He said this bull was the meanest thing on the farm. It had killed three other bulls. He said he was leading it one day, and it saw another bull in the pasture and it literally jumped the fence, ran to the top of the hill-PLOOM-gored that bull to death. It also killed a couple of workers. He said, "Nobody could handle it, and one day I put a ring in its nose." He said, "That was still the meanest bull you ever saw till I got a hold of that ring. I would get a hold of that ring, and say, 'Let's go here,' and the bull would say, 'OK, then we'll go over there, wherever you want to go. OK, if you just want me to stay here and eat grass, that's what I'll do."' I mean, look, man, I am telling you, you can be bad all you want. I don't care if you pick up this building; if I can get a ring in your nose, give me the chain, and I will tell you, I know who the boss is, all right? That is what God is saying about the devil. But it gets better.

"Will he make many supplications unto thee? Will he speak soft words unto thee?" You have to street fight to understand that verse. Now, I am sorry, you just have to. You have got to either be on the bottom or the top of a good street fight before you understand verse 3; because, again, before the fight you are both facing off and talking about your mothers, and what you are going to do to each other. But when one of you is on the bottom, you are looking up, telling the other guy how you are friends. "Well, what are we doing this for? What are we doing this for?" Honestly. I remember this fight, man. I got with this guy, and I am hammering on him. Before we got into the fight, we were both going to kill each other. When I was beating on him, he was down there saying, "Sam! Sam! We are friends!" I was just hammering on this guy. That is what the devil does. Do you see that? God is saying, "I will put the devil down till he says nice things to Me and asks Me let him up." Do you realize how humiliating that is? Do you realize how much power our God has? Nobody here is going to pin the devil down and make him say nice things to us. I can't fight him. But I sure am glad that I have the right God.

When I was a Youth Director I would say, "When you knock on the door of a devil worshiper, they don't say, I'm a devil worshiper.' They say (whispering evilly), 'I am a devil worshiper, I worship the devil'"' I said, "Well, just tell them, 'Sorry that you picked a loser."' Say, "My God whipped your god. In fact, I worship the God that your god worships, because He said, 'Thou shalt worship the Lord, thy God."' Two of our girls ran into one of those guys. He came to the door kind of like a cross between Vincent Price and Lurch. These two little, timid girls are scared to death until he said -and he said it just like I told you-he said (whispering evilly), "I worship the devil! " They said they both smiled, and said, "Ah, geeze, too bad you worship a loser. Yeah, we worship the God that your god worships." He said, "Hey, well, I better close this door here," and ran like a scared rabbit.

Look at verses 4 and 5. I like this. "Will he make a covenant with thee?" See that? "Wilt thou take him for a servant forever?" Now look at verse 5. I like this. "Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?" I had a man in my church. He had a bird. He broke his leg, or something, so for entertainment his wife bought him this bird. It was some kind of white bird. It was bigger than a parakeet. It was not a cockatoo, or anything, but it was a Baptist bird, because whenever they ate, it made noise. You had to meet this guy. He had a touch of sadism to him. The bird would make him upset, so he would go to the cage, and he would say, "Shut up, bird!" Do you know what it's like to be a bird in a cage when somebody literally picks up your house and shakes it. I tell you, you lose feathers, you would flap around, you are hanging on upside down, and flipping around Sometimes he would open the door, and he would go to that bird, and go-PING! He would say, "Shut up, bird!" PING! Do you know what it would be like to have someone flip you with the finger that is right about here. Boom! You say, "That bird would have bitten him." It did! He put his finger in the cage, but what do you do when you bite on the end of a telephone pole? You gonna drag him in? Flip him? That illustrated for me the power our God has. Look, that bird did not have a chance. That bird didn't have a chance. That is the kind of chance that the devil has against our God! He said, "I will play with him like a bird." The Lord says, "Do you know what I will do to the devil?" He says, "Hey, guys, let's go pick on the devil. I think I'm going to put a stick in his eye." That is exactly what He does in the book of Job. And Job is the stick.


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