Miserable Job wailed, “Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!” (Job 19:23-24).

Little did he know that his distress, and even these very words about them, would be entered into the record of God’s eternal Word of God! Job was likely, chronologically, the first Bible Book written. It highlights events that occurred a few decades before Israel escaped Egypt under Moses’ command. Moses later write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). Yes, it seems this Job was the Job who was a son of Issachar (Gen. 46:13), thus making Job grandson of Jacob, great-grandson of Isaac, and great-great-grandson of Abraham.

Job did not know it, and neither did his friends “the miserable comforters,” but God allowed his unpleasant circumstances to transpire in order to hearten the Jewish saints who will be living in the ‘end times.’ We see this in the remarks of the Apostle James writing to Israel (cf. 1:1):

“Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. 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 (compassionate), and of tender mercy” (James 5:10-11).

I Peter 4:19 also summarizes both Job’s plight, suffering under Satan’s reign, and the end-times saints’ dilemma, anguishing under the Antichrist’s brutal rule: “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls (un)to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.” For even in the midst of trouble, God is still hard at work, fully dependable. No matter who opposes His efforts or His people, He will bring His will to pass and He will bring them through it. Right now, in spite of the world’s mess, society’s degradation, God is quite busy doing according to His Divine Counsel and His good pleasure.

The Bible opens, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Creation is divided into two realms—Heaven and Earth. From verse 2 onward until the Apostle Paul’s ministry, we read only about God’s plan for the Earth. This was the situation in Job’s day.

“Jesus Christ… Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:20-21).

“Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

Ever since God placed man on the Earth, the Bible’s focus is the Earth, an earthly kingdom, God’s earthly kingdom.

By the time we come to Paul’s ministry, we read: 

“Now to him [Father God] that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:25-26). Paul is preaching “Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery (secret plan of God), which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest.”

We have now looped back to 1Cor. 2:7-8:

“But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

Not only do we understand more about prophecy than Job did, we also have insight concerning information Job knew nothing about at all.

In Ephesians 3, concluding the first half of the Book, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul wrote:

“[13] Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. [14] For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, [15] Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, [16] That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; [17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, [18] May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; [19] And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

The chapter ends with a marvelous doxology, an expression of praise to Father God:

“²⁰Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, ²¹Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

Paul cannot help but grow enthusiastic as he thinks on the wonderful doctrine he has just penned! He has uttered a prayer for mature saints, and it is no coincidence that that prayer corresponds to our Job Scripture, being written some 1,500 years earlier, and approximately 3,500 years before day.

The completed Bible canon says we can know of God. We need not wonder, groping around in sheer spiritual darkness, fumbling and stumbling, hoping to get a little nugget of truth here and see a speck of light there. we know perfectly well what God is doing.