Noah, Daniel, and Job are patterns revealing how we can live an overcoming life on the line of life to fulfill the economy of God, that is, how can we live and work according to the vision of the age to change the age; with Noah in particular we see God’s faithfulness to keep His eternal covenant and dispense Christ into us to make us His wise exhibition.
Lord Jesus, we want to be Your overcomers in this age. Show us how can we live an overcoming life today. May we be those on the line of life, living and working in such a way that we fulfill the economy of God. Amen, Lord, grant us to see the vision of the age and live according to this vision today. Dispense Yourself into us more today. Live in us today. May we experience You, enjoy You, and express You for the fulfilment of God’s divine economy! Amen!
This week we come to a new series in our morning revival on the topic of, Noah, Daniel, and Job – Patterns of Living an Overcoming Life on the Line of Life to Fulfill the Economy of God.
We will mainly focus on these three particular persons. This week our focus is on, Living and Working according to the Vision of the Age to Change the Age.
If we think of some patterns of those who overcame and lived for the Lord, we may have many other names in mind, but these particular three, Noah, Daniel, and Job, are mentioned twice in Ezekiel 14.
There, the Lord says that, if the people of Israel sin and are degraded, even though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in their midst, they would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness, declares the Lord Jehovah.
This is very particular and also very significant. We need to be persons who live an overcoming life, even to live in such a way that God considers our living as righteousness.
This means that we need to see the vision of the age and live according to this vision.
For us to live a proper Christian life and church life, we must have a vision; we must have a spectacular seeing of God’s economy, something that will be imprinted on us and will govern us in our daily living.
We need to see the vision concerning God’s work in this age. Each age has the vision of the age, and today we need to see what God is doing, His unique way in this age.
We need to realise that God intends to work Himself into man to be man’s life and everything so that He may gain a group of people who would express Him and represent Him corporately.
May the Lord gain us as a group of people who are like Noah, Daniel, and Job, those who live under the vision of the age to change the age. This will hasten His return and will bring in a change of the age to bring in His kingdom. Amen!
Noah, Daniel, and Job are Patterns revealing how we can Live an Overcoming Life to Fulfill the Economy of God
If we have the vision of the age and read Ezekiel 14:14 and 20 we see that Noah, Daniel, and Job are patterns revealing how we can live an overcoming life on the line of life to fulfil the economy of God.
This is to live and work according to the vision of the age to change the age (Ezek. 14:14, 20; Gen. 2:9; Rev. 2:7; 22:1-2; Matt. 24:37-39, 45-51; Dan. 2:34-35; Acts 26:19; 2 Tim. 4:8).
In Ezekiel 14 the Lord exposes the fact that every man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and goes to the prophet, God will not be found by such ones.
Having idols estranges God’s people from God.
The people of Israel have set up not just outward material idols but they had idols in their heart.
Having an idol doesn’t mean only that we worship a physical exterior idol; rather, idols are things in our heart.
The Lord continues to say that, when a land sins against God by acting unfaithfully and He stretches out His hand over it and breaks its staff of bread and sends a famine against it and cut off man and beast from it, even though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in the midst of it, they could only deliver their own souls by their righteousness (Ezek. 14:12).
Later the Lord similarly says that, when He judges the land, destroys its inhabitants, and no one can dwell in the land, even though these three men were in the midst of it, they could not deliver even their own sons and daughters.
There are four kinds of judgments that God exercises over the land, and then He mentions that, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the midst of the land, they can only deliver their own souls by their righteousness.
This is something very serious. An idol is anything apart from God that occupies our heart.
Worshipping an idol does not mean merely that we go to an idol temple to worship; rather, it is worshipping things set up in our heart to replace God.
In the time of Noah, people were indulging in the pleasures of the world, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.
They indulged in their lust and sin, and they did all kinds of evil things. They were stupefied by the outward world, the entertainment, and all kinds of sins.
In the time of Daniel (approx. 620 BC), he was captured and taken to Babylon, where it was full of idols and pagan gods; under that situation, Daniel had to overcome all the religious superstitious idols.
At the time of Job (approx. 2000 BC), he lived about the same time as Abraham, he was full of self-righteousness, being satisfied with himself and his own uprightness.
So God allowed a series of sufferings to come on him, and Job even challenged God, trying to take God to court, thinking He was dealing unfairly with him.
Even our own self-justification and self-satisfaction are a kind of idol. We worship our own kind of righteousness, our own uprightness.
Whether it is worldly amusements, sin, religious superstition, self-justification, or self-satisfaction in man’s heart, all these can be idols separating man from God and estranging man from God.
However, we need to be like Noah, Daniel, and Job in this age; we need to live an overcoming life on the line of life to fulfil the economy of God.
God wants to become the living spring to us so that we may drink of Him, enjoy Him, and take Him as our supply and everything.
We need to have a living and work that are different from the people of this age; we need to be the overcomers in this age.
We need to overcome the idols and live an overcoming life on the line of life. As we see in Psalm 16:11, we need the Lord to show us the way of His life.
We need to walk on a way that is not the way of law, the way of ethics and morality, even the way of religion; we need to walk on the pathway of life. Life is just God Himself.
We are not just people who know the Bible but we’re those who draw near to Him, are willing to receive God into us, and allow God to fill and saturate us and be everything to us.
We want to be fully joined and mingled together with God, and we live on the line of life, even live an overcoming life, in the organic relationship with God.
May we prayerfully consider the life and work of Noah, Daniel, and Job and be those who live an overcoming life on the line of life to fulfill the economy of God.
May we overcome all idols in our being and around us, and may we live in the mingled spirit. May we be the age-turners the Lord is gaining today.
The Lord wants to return quickly, but He needs a group of people who will cooperate with Him in order to turn the age.
They start by removing any idols from their heart. Anything that replaces God needs to be removed from our being!
Lord Jesus, we want to live an overcoming life on the line of life today, being those who fulfill the economy of God! Amen, Lord, may we see the life and work of Noah, Daniel, and Job, and may we live and work in such a way that we turn this age. Make us Your age-turners today. We want to live and work according to the vision of this age to change this age! Shine on us, Lord, and expose anything in us that replaces You. Expose any idols. May we deal with any sins, any idols, and anything that distracts us from enjoying God in Christ as the tree of life. Oh Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You! We love You supremely and absolutely. We want to deal with anything that is in us which replaces You or takes Your place. May nothing occupy or capture our heart. We want to live an overcoming life in order to fulfill the economy of God and end this age! Amen, Lord, keep us in our spirit, in the organic union with You! May we live by the tree of life, always depending on You in all things!
With Noah we see God the Father in His Faithfulness to Keep His Eternal Covenant to Dispense Christ into us to make us the Wise Exhibition of all that Christ is!
The lives of Noah, Daniel, and Job reveal the Triune God dispensing Himself, working Himself, into us, His chosen and redeemed people, to fulfill His eternal economy.
Actually, the entire Bible was written according to the governing principle of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us for us to experience Him, enjoy Him, and express Him for the fulfilment of His divine economy (see 1 Tim. 1:3-4; Eph. 3:2; 1 Pet. 4:10; Psa. 36:8-9; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:16-19).
With Noah we see God the Father; with Daniel we see God the Son, and with Job we see God the Spirit; the Triune God is dispensing Himself into us to make us the wise exhibition of what He is.
If we look at Noah, what we see is God the Father in His faithfulness to keep His eternal covenant (signified by the rainbow), which is His eternal economy.
God’s economy is to dispense the all-inclusive Christ into His chosen people as righteousness, holiness, and glory to make them the wise exhibition of all that Christ is (Gen. 3:24; 9:8-17; Ezek. 1:26-28; 36:22-38; Matt. 26:28; Heb. 8:8-12; 1 Cor. 1:9, 24-30; 2:9-10; Eph. 2:10; 5:25-27; Rev. 4:3; 21:18-20). Hallelujah!
Noah speaks forth God the Father. The work that he did for God and the rainbow in the clouds show us how God the Father is faithful.
Man sinned to the uttermost; all the thoughts of his mind were sinful, for he became flesh. God hated the flesh so much that He repented that He had made man on the earth.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of God. He found favour in the sight of Jehovah. So God showed him how to build an ark before the flood came. He worked for more than three hundred years to build the ark.
Then the flood came, and all men besides Noah and his family were destroyed.
After the waters subsided, God put a bow in the clouds, a rainbow, making a covenant with Noah that never again would He destroy the earth with a flood.
With Noah we see God the Father who keeps His covenant (Gen. 9:12-17). God is faithful; He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13). Once God speaks something, He will keep His word, for He Himself is faithfulness.
God is faithful, through whom we were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 1:9).
If we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Whenever a cloud comes, whenever problems and situations come, we must call on God’s faithfulness.
When we feel we are weak, we must call for God’s faithfulness, asking Him, Lord, You are faithful; I’m weak, but You must make me strong according to Your word!
We are all living under the covenant with God’s faithfulness as the sure sign that the flood will not come; this is the church life. If we look at the rainbow, though it is made up of different colours, there are three basic colours: red, yellow, and blue.
As they shine and refract, these three combine to make a rainbow.
Blue signifies God’s throne, the foundation of which is righteousness (Psa. 89:14); blue, therefore, signifies God’s righteousness.
Yellow signifies God’s glory as in the glowing electrum. And red signifies God’s holiness, the sanctifying fire that separates and consumes.
What we have with the rainbow is God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory.
The Lord Jesus came and died on the cross to satisfy the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory. After His resurrection, He is now our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).
In ourselves, we are short of God’s glory, we’re under God’s righteous judgment, and we’re kept away by God’s holiness.
But by faith in Christ, we are in Him, and we now look like God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory! Amen!
With Noah we see how God is faithful to keep His covenant by dispensing the all-inclusive Christ into us as righteousness, holiness, and glory to make us the wise exhibition of all that Christ is! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah for God’s eternal intention to dispense Himself with all that He is into us! Amen, Lord, we open to Your divine dispensing today. Thank You, Father God, for being faithful to keep Your eternal covenant! You are faithful to carry out Your eternal economy to dispense the all-inclusive Christ into us. We open to receive the divine dispensing of all that Christ is into us. Amen, Lord, dispense Yourself into us as righteousness, holiness, and glory to make us the wise exhibition of all that God is! May we realise that in ourselves we’re short of God’s glory, we are under God’s righteous judgment, and we are kept away by God’s holiness. But hallelujah, by faith in Christ are put in Him, and in God’s sight we look like righteousness, holiness, and glory! Praise the Lord, it is of God that we are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God, both righteousness and sanctification, and redemption! Amen, Lord, may we become and bear the testimony of Your rainbow in the church life today!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 134-145 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Noah, Daniel, and Job – Patterns of Living an Overcoming Life on the Line of Life to Fulfill the Economy of God (2026 International Chinese-Speaking Conference), week 1, Living and Working according to the Vision of the Age to Change the Age – day 1.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Will you be an overcomer? / Christ is calling now! / Will you then be such a follower, / Though you know not how? / Will you be an overcomer? / Will you make this choice? / Christ is calling, Christ is calling, / Listen to His voice! (Hymns #894 stanza 1 and chorus)
– When Noah worked upon the ark as God to him decreed. / So many others watched, yet to his words they gave no heed. / But Noah heard the voice of God and did His word obey; / His business was to build the ark; he couldn’t waste a day. / Now Jesus’ testimony, we in the churches see / The ark of testimony built in each locality. (Hymns #1268 stanza 1 and chorus)
– As Thou art faithful to perform / Thy promise and Thy call; / So, feeding on Thy faithfulness, / I take Thyself withal. / The rainbow round about Thy throne / Thy faithfulness declares; / This attribute forevermore / The holy city bears. (Hymns #18 stanzas 7-8)
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