Outline

«　WEEK 4　DAY 2　»

　　Matt. 7:13-14 Enter in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. Because narrow is the gate and constricted is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.

　　The two trees are not for producing materials but for man to eat their fruit (Gen. 3:3, 6b), the fruit of the tree of life becoming food to man for nourishing, for the dispensing of life, and the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil becoming poison to man for killing. To eat means to take in something that is outside of us and then digest and assimilate it. We must be careful concerning what we eat. Surely, today’s television and so many different kinds of newspapers and magazines are branches of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Life-study of Job, p. 194)

　　The two trees, as signs of God and Satan, are the two sources of two categories of men. The first tree is the source of men who seek God as life for their supply and enjoyment, of whom Abel is the leading one (Gen. 4:4). The second tree is the source of men who follow Satan as their poison unto death and eternal perdition, of whom Cain is the leading one (v. 5).

　　The outcome of the two sources becomes two kingdoms on the earth. The first is the kingdom of God, which was first the kingdom of Israel according to God’s Old Testament economy and then the church according to God’s New Testament economy (Matt. 21:43). The second is the kingdom of Satan (cf. 12:26; Col. 1:13).

　　These two sources issue in two lines…The two lines, as the two ways, originate from the two sources.

　　The first way is the way of life, the constricted way (Matt. 7:14), the Way (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:22), the straight way (2 Pet. 2:15), the way of righteousness (v. 21), the way of salvation (Acts 16:17), the way of God (Matt. 22:16; Acts 18:26), and the way of the Lord (v. 25), for men to seek God, to gain God, and to enjoy God in His eternal life as the supply and unto His eternal life as the goal, that they may be born of God in His life and nature (John 1:12-13), transformed and conformed into His glorious image (2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 8:29), and glorified in Him as glory (v. 30; 1 Pet. 5:10a; Heb. 2:10a) to gain Him and participate in Him to the fullest extent. In this way of life are Abel, Seth, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Samuel, all the Old Testament prophets, and all the New Testament believers (11:39-40). God’s purpose in dealing with Job was to turn him from the way of good and evil to this way of life that he might gain God to the fullest extent.

　　The second way is the way of good and evil, the way of death, the broad way (Matt. 7:13), for men to follow Satan to be his children (1 John 3:10a) unto death and his companions in his eternal perdition (Matt. 25:41). In this way of death and of good and evil are Cain, Lamech, Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-cain (Jude 11a; Gen. 4:16-24), Ham, Cush, Nimrod (10:6-12), Korah, Balaam (2 Pet. 2:15; Jude 11b), Saul, Absalom, Antichrist and his followers (Rev. 19:19- 21), and all unbelievers (20:15).

　　These two ways, the way of life and the way of death, lead men to the two God-ordained ends—the New Jerusalem and the lake of fire—respectively… The two ways…constitute the two controlling, ruling, and regulating principles by which men have their relationship with God.

　　The first principle is the principle of life, according to which all men in the way of life keep their contact with God, and by which they seek God, gain God, possess God, and enjoy God, step by step, until they reach the fullest extent.

　　The second principle is the principle of death and of good and evil, in which all men in the way of death follow Satan either consciously or unconsciously, and through which they reject God and His way of life to be Satan’s companions unto death and eternal perdition. (Life-study of Job, pp. 194-196)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Job, msgs. 6—7