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God uses the behemoth and the leviathan to humble Job, remind him of his limits, and that he can't save himself: Jesus is the dragonslayer.

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Paul completes his appeal to the Corinthians to give generously and cheerfully to the service of the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. In this, he gives timeless principles on Christian giving all generations.

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God has cured Job of questioning him and the Holy Spirit is ready to cure us as well. In Job 40:1-14 we learn why we should not question God.

 In 2013, Nik Ripken published a powerful book cataloging a 15-year journey that he had made, studying the experiences of persecuted Christians in the most spiritually hostile places on earth. The book's title, The Insanity of God, caused a lot of consternation, a lot of controversy among believers. Some people considered the title, The Insanity of God, blasphemous. But Ripken's research had led him into some of the most painful examples of the suffering of God's people, places where Christians often cry out with anguish, “Oh God, I thought you loved us! How could you let this happen to us?” Christians attacked, Christians beaten, Christians arrested, slandered, martyred.

Ripken's own journey had included the tragic death of his own 16-year old son from asthma, brought on by an allergic reaction. It happened on Easter Sunday and people asked, how could a loving God let this happen to your family on Easter Sunday? His work led him to Somalia, one of the hardest places for Christians on earth, where Christians systematically are gunned down by Muslim warlords, and roving bands of youth waving AK-47s, and just killing people at random. Led him to Russia, led him to Afghanistan, to China, other places where Christians are suffering all over the world. And the question came up again and again, how could such a powerful, wise, loving God just simply allow this kind of sorrow in the lives of people He loves? It all seems so insane. It was a word that sometimes came up. 

Now the concept behind The Insanity of God comes from 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, where unbelievers look on God sending his own Son into the world to die on a cross, as foolishness. The foolishness of God. So it's in that same family. And we're going to find out in eternity that God has a perfectly rational reason for everything he does. It's going to be deeply, richly satisfying to us to see what those reasons are. And the purpose of this sermon today is to turn the whole thing around and say, what's really insane is for God's people to question God, for God's people to question God, to challenge God, to accuse God, to condemn God in some way of wrongdoing. I think that's one of the main purposes of the Book of Job, to humble us, and quiet us in times of our own suffering before such a majestic God, that we would be quiet under the mighty hand of God and not charge Him with wrongdoing.

The Book of Job addresses one of the deepest and most perplexing issues in the world. The problem of evil, the problem of suffering, problem of pain, different ways to say it. How can a good, powerful, wise, loving God allow such evil and suffering on people who don't deserve it? As we come this morning to this text Job 40:1-14, we come to a critical juncture in the book. Job suffering intensely has accused God more than once, multiple times of injustice in his case. Job then, to some degree, represents the entire human race, the suffering human race in bold questioning of God, to some degree demanding and accounting from God for his actions. This is a common theme in every generation, hauling God into court, cross-examining God, evaluating him. Ultimately perhaps even condemning him, even executing him with slogans such as, God is dead. 

Perhaps no one in my studies or in recent history has been so bold on this topic as Elie Wiesel, the Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp, where 1.1 million Jews were gassed to death. He said that he observed in Auschwitz, three Jewish men holding a trial of God in absentia for abandoning the Jewish people in the Holocaust. Inspired by that, in 1979, he wrote a play called, the Trial of God, set in a Ukrainian village in 1649, after the massacre of some Jewish villagers. And in Elie Wiesel's play, three traveling minstrels arrive in the village intending to put on a play, but instead put on a mock trial of God for the massacre. In his Pulitzer prize-winning book, Night, Wiesel wrote these chilling words:

Blessed be God's name. Why? Why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebel because he caused thousands of children to burn in his mass graves, because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the holy days, because, in his great might, he had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna and so many other factories of death. How could I say to him, blessed be thou almighty, master of the universe, who chose us, among all nations, to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? But now I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God, the accused. My eyes had opened, and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, and without man. 

Well we human beings, when we go through suffering, we're ready to haul God into court. Maybe not to that extreme level, but we're going to be tempted to do it, to question him, to judge him for his actions in our case. C.S. Lewis, in his book, God in the Dock, that's the British of saying, God on trial, said this, "Many people are convinced that whatever may be wrong with the world, it cannot be themselves. Someone else must be to blame for every evil. Hence when the existence of God is discussed, they by no means, think of him as their judge. On the contrary, they are his judges. If he puts up a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty and disease, they will consider it. And the trial may end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the judge's bench, and God is the one on trial."

Now, one of the great purposes I think of the Book of Job is to help Christians put such notions to death. We do not think that this book of Job will cure the rage-filled, unbelieving world of such blasphemy, but it is able to cure us Christians of our version of it. God cured Job of questioning him. And the Holy Spirit is ready to cure us, as well. Now let me say this, this one thing: this book of Job is a very serious book. We have walked through it, and we're almost to the end. What the Holy Spirit, I believe, is saying to me and all of us is we're going to need this book. You're going to need this. Imagine if an angel came down from heaven and sat you down in his glory, and you, after being overwhelmed by his presence, sat and listened to his message and he said to you, one thing, “I want to tell you one thing, you are going to need the book of Job before you die,” and then left. How sober would that be for you? How serious. What are you need it for? Because you are going to lose all of the three categories of earthly blessings that Job lost, possessions, loved ones, and health. You're going to lose them all at some point. You may have significant trials long before you die, where you could lose some things significant to you, and you'll need that. But you'll definitely need it by the end of your life. And so we need to get ready, don't we brothers and sisters? We need to get ready to suffer well. And part of suffering well is to not accuse God of wrongdoing in your case, to not judge him. 

So let's review where we are in the book of Job. God, in Job 38, has showed up in power. Look at Job 38:1-8. "And the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. He said, ‘Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge. Brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you shall answer me.’" Job, in his suffering had demanded a chance to confront God. He was confident he would carry the day, his day in court. He would be able to prove his own righteousness and God's injustice. In Job 31, Job says his righteousness was so pure that he would walk confidently into court to confront God. Verses 35-37 in that chapter, he said, "Oh, that I had someone to hear me. I sign now my defense. Let the Almighty answer me. Let my accuser put his indictment in writing. Surely I would wear it on my shoulder. I would put it on like a crown. I would give him an account of my every step. Like a prince I would approach him." Or as he said earlier in Job 13:22, "Then summon me and I will answer, or let me speak and you reply to me." Speaking to God. So to some degree, Job gets his wish. God shows up in power, in a whirlwind, but he does it in a different way than Job ever imagined. He does it to confront Job in his arrogance. Then God begins to trace out his achievements in creation, and lines them up with Job's obvious limitations. Job 38, he speaks of the inanimate world that he made. The foundations of the earth, the creation and limitations of the oceans, the creation of the sky with its clouds, the ordering of sunrise and sunset, the shaping of the contours of the earth, the mountains and the valleys, the hills and the ravines, the subterranean regions of the earth with its aquifers. It's hidden water tables, the fountains of the deep.

Then the weather patterns, the snow, the hail, lightning, thunder, east winds, rain, torrential downpours and light sprinkles. God's wisdom in knowing how much rain to give to one place and how much to give to another, the dew and the frost, all of these weather patterns. And then the arrangement of the celestial bodies, the distant stars, the constellations, Pleiades and Orion, the distant starlight and all the physical laws that govern the cosmos, inanimate creation. Then at the end of Job 38 and on through Job 39, he talks about animals. The creation and the sustaining of the animal world. 10 creatures, he describes, lions and lioness, how they hunt for their prey. Ravens, how they feed their young. Mountain goats, how they give birth and then the doe also, as she bears her fawn. The wild donkey roaming free in the wilderness, the wild ox with its incredible strength, the ostrich with its foolishness with her young, but also her ability to run fast. The horse with its strength, its fierce courage and breathtaking speed. The hawk with its stunning speed and flight, and the eagle with its amazing ability to soar and its eyesight. 10 creatures. In all of these aspects of creation, God keeps bringing it back to Job and his obvious limitations, limitations of time. “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Limitations of strength. “Do you have the power to do this? Or do you have the power to do that?” Limitations of knowledge. “Do you know how to do this? Do you know when to do that?” 

So a man's stunning limitations are exposed in this abbreviated survey of God's activity in creation and in Providence, in sustaining creation. So he sums it up in chapter 40, where we're at now, Verse 1-2, “The Lord said to Job: ‘Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!’” hence the theme, the topic today. Job is contending with the Almighty. Job is accusing God. The fundamental issue here: mortal, sinful man evaluating and judging and contending with Almighty God. In our arrogance, we use our God-given gifts of thinking and reasoning and evaluation, and turn them around as weapons against the God who gave them to us.

He says in Job 38:36, “Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?” God did. And God made our astonishing minds and our evaluating hearts. And in our arrogance, we turned them as weapons against God. We contend with God, we question God, we judge God. And that is a very great sin. It is the very sin that Job will repent from- is repenting from in this chapter. But also it's very great damage done to our souls; in the midst of our suffering, when we need God the most, to alienate God from us and to make us hostile to God is not therapeutic. It is not therapeutic to vent against God. To blow off steam with these types of blasphemous words doesn't help us. So this is the sin that Job is repenting from, that God is addressing. And we are supposed to learn from it. We don't have to walk through literally all the suffering Job walked through. We can read and benefit. And here's the lesson: when you are suffering keep trusting in God, keep worshiping God. Don't accuse him of wrongdoing. Draw near to God through Christ, and he will help you. Along with this is the issue of discrediting God to justify ourselves, something that God specifically mentions here. As Elihu saw, clearly Job was so certain of his own righteousness that he was ready to question God's righteousness. We discredit God to justify ourselves. It's hard for us sinners, accurately to measure how great a sin this really is. For God's righteousness is infinite and ours, once we have sinned, is non-existent. As it says in Romans 3:10, “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’” 

After walking through God's response to Job, I want to zero in on this issue with four lessons. God is not accountable to us, and we are accountable to Him. And I want to unfold those lessons at the end of the sermon. Now, with all of this, we get Job's initial repentance, what I would call a step in the right direction. Look at verses 3-5, “Then Job answered the Lord: ‘I am unworthy- how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer- twice, but I will say no more.’” Job is instantly humbled by God's overpowering presence, God's mighty words. He repents. He is deeply aware of his unworthiness, his inability to answer God. He realizes that his sinful heart has bubbled up into sinful words. He deeply regrets the things he said about God. He has determined not to speak such sinful words again. 

Now this is a true mark of godliness. This is the man who lived out a stunning level of righteousness in his life. He was blameless and upright, staggering levels of godliness as we saw in Job 31. He truly did fear God and shun evil. Many times great men and women of the world are proud and very hard to bring to repentance. It is a mark of true godliness that someone is actually easy to convict of sin, if the charge is true. They're ready to hear it. The further you go on in sanctification, the further you go on in holiness, the easier it will be to convict you of sin, not the harder. You become more and more humble and ready to hear and Job is like that. He doesn't defend himself. And so we should be ready for that at any moment, that the Lord through the Holy Spirit bring conviction and we humble ourselves and we yield to it. Job did that, but not deeply enough, it seems. 

It didn't go deeply enough. God isn't through with Job yet. He's going to still work on him. And so he's doing a deep humbling work in Job. He's not about to light quick, superficial work in Job's heart. Sin is deep, much deeper than we think. It has deep roots. And it takes a deep work of humbling to root out and destroy all the sinful motions and aspects of our sin nature. And so God in his goodness to us doesn't deal lightly with our sins either. And so God speaks again from the whirlwind, almost as though Job had never said what he just said. He uses the exact same words he began with, with Job. Look at verses 6-7, “Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you shall answer me.’” That's the exact same thing he said at the beginning. Then he digs into humble Job more, more humble than he has ever been before in his life. Job said, I'm unworthy to reply to you. God essentially said, “Job, you have no idea how unworthy you are. I will show you more how unworthy you are compared to me.” The fundamental issue here is God's commitment to justice. Job has discredited God's justice to establish his own. Look at verse 8, “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” But God's righteousness is infinite. Psalm 36:6 says, “Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice is like the great deep.” That's comparing God's commitment to justice, to mountains and the ocean.

But that's actually nothing compared to the greatest display of justice, God's justice, there's ever been in history. And that is the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross of Christ you'll see the greatest display of God's commitment to righteousness- to justice, there could ever be. As it says in Romans 3:25, what I call the glowing center of the gospel, “God presented him as a propitiation [or a sacrifice] of atonement through faith in his blood.” He did this to demonstrate his justice. It's a demonstration of the justice. The slaughter of Jesus on the cross as a substitute for our sins, is the greatest display of God's justice there could ever be. God would rather slaughter his Son, his only Son, whom he loved, his only begotten Son, his perfect son, slaughter him in the shameful and painful death on the cross, than to allow sinners like you and me into heaven un-atoned for. How could there be a greater commitment to justice than that? God's commitment to justice is like the brilliance of the noonday sun. We can't even look at it. Friends, your commitment to justice and mine is less. That's what we call a preaching understatement. We have less commitment to justice than God does. Ours is like a little match. His is like the sun. That's it. And how could we, sinners like us who have such a flimsy commitment to righteousness and justice, discredit God's justice? 

But he wants to go further. God wants to humble Job more. It reminds me of Paul addressing the issue of God's ultimate sovereignty and salvation. And in Romans chapter 9, he says in verse 20: “Who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?” Boy, we need to drink that in, don't we? That's very humbling. “Who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?” So from verses 9-14, God is making, I think, one central point to Job: “I am God and you're not.” That's what he's saying in various ways. First, the awesome power of God's arm, and then the awesome power of God's voice. Look at verse 9, “Do you have an arm like God's?” This refers to omnipotence. God's arm represents his power to accomplish anything he wants. “Oh man, what about your arm? How powerful is your arm? Do you have an arm like God's? No you don't.” And what about your voice? Look at verse 9, “can your voice thunder like his?” I didn't realize this, but thunder is one of the loudest natural sounds on earth. A single clap of thunder can hit 120 decibels. That's 10 times louder than a pneumatic jackhammer. It's about the same level of decibels as a jet engine taking off if you're standing right next to a jet engine as the plane takes off. Later, I think, in redemptive history, God will speak to His people from the fire of Mount Sinai, with the ground shaking under their feet. God spoke the Ten Commandments beginning with these words: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods beside me.” The voice was so loud and the people were so terrified that they begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear the sound of his voice. So Job, how loud is your voice?

Next Job, what about your appearance? Look at verse 10, “Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.” Job, are you glorious and majestic in appearance? Do people have to hide their eyes because of your radiant light? Whenever God appears in some limited measure of his glory, never his full glory because he said to Moses, “No one can see me and live,” but whenever God shows up, the people are overwhelmed with dread and terror and fall to the ground. What about you, Job? Does that happen to you when you show up? Do people hide their eyes and tremble on the ground? And can you, Job, unleash the mighty power of your justice to humble the wicked of the earth? Look at verses 11-13, “Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at every proud man and bring him low, look at every proud man and humble him, crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave.” This is the program that God has for our sinful human race. We join Satan in his soaring arrogance, thinking we could rise up and challenge God. But we can't. And in order to save us, God must save us from himself, from his own wrath, his own justice against sinners like us. And in order to do that, God must humble us to the core. We need to realize and believe we need a Savior. And Christ is that Savior. God has to humble us because God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God blesses spiritual beggars who know that they don't have anything to offer, and come in broken humility, begging for forgiveness of sins from Christ. And they receive it. They are given the Kingdom of Heaven, if they'll do that. So, Job, if you can do all of these things, verse 14, “Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.”

 Man is constantly on a self-salvation plan. The only way he can save himself from the just wrath of God, is to be as glorious, and holy, and perfect as God himself. And we sinners cannot. So this is the deep humbling work that God did in Job and through him, all of us, as we read these words through faith. Now, what I want to do for the rest of this time is to circle back on this issue of thinking that we can accuse God, that we can judge God, condemn God; execute God for his wrongdoings. Job's basic sin is thinking he could arraign God before the bar of his own justice. I want to draw out four lessons.

Lesson number one: God is not accountable to man. God is not accountable to man. When we suffer, we think to bring God to account; we think to make him answer for why he didn't heal our child. Jesus healed effortlessly. It was not difficult for him to heal any disease and sickness. And he's the same yesterday, today and forever. Why didn't he heal my child? Why did he allow the hurricane to destroy our home when so many other homes were not even touched? Why did the drunk driver kill our beloved mother, and he himself walked away, he survived? We have a certain boldness in this questioning as though we are on higher moral ground than God and God is below us having to answer for what he's done in our lives. But the fact is God doesn't owe anything to his creation at all. Nothing. Look at God's bold action with Job again, verse 6-7: “The Lord spoke to Job out of the storm: ‘Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you shall answer me.’” So God seizes the initiative because he's God. God is not answerable to Job. And so he makes a clear assertion. In the next chapter, chapter 41:11, he says, “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” Do you hear that? “No one has a claim against me that I owe them anything. Everything in creation is mine.” That about says it. 

God will never owe anything to any human being, ever. So therefore, we cannot demand an explanation from God. God made the universe and he can do with it as he sees fit. Daniel 4:35 says this as plainly as any text in the Bible, “All the people's of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” Says it, doesn't it? In other words, God is not accountable to any creature. No one can demand any explanation from God. Now, of course, many people do say to God, what have you done? But all I'm saying here, all the text is saying is: God is under no obligation to answer. He doesn't owe us anything. He is the Creator. He is the King. We are his creatures, to do with as he pleases. Perhaps no writing in the history of the church has said this as well, other than scripture, of course, as the Westminster Confession of Faith. And this is what it says: “God hath most sovereign dominion over every creature to do by them, for them or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth. He is most holy in all His counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands, and to him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience he is pleased to require of them.” That's kingly language, isn't it? That's God the King telling us who he is and who we are.

Lesson number two. Man is accountable to God. Look again at verse 6-7, “Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you will answer me.’” So God appears to Job in a whirlwind. He answers none of Job's questions. Instead he asks him a series of questions. And so that shows plainly that we are accountable to God. All creatures are accountable to God. God made men and angels with moral natures, with varying powers and put them in different levels of responsibility in his universe. And he will hold each of them to account for their position and their abilities. He will demand an accounting from each of them for what they did with their powers and their position. And so to borrow Nebuchadnezzar's words, though no one can say to God, “What have you done?” God does say it to us. For example, after Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in Genesis 3:13, “The Lord God said to the woman: ‘What is this you have done?’” And then in the very next chapter, after Cain murdered his brother Abel, in Genesis 4:10, “The Lord said to Cain: ‘What have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.’” We are absolutely accountable to God. We are answerable to God for everything. Acts 17:31 says, “God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice.” That day is called judgment day. 

Jesus said of that day, Matthew 12:36, “I tell you that men will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” That's just a detail in which Jesus is saying, “Everything, you'll answer for everything.” Or again, Hebrews 4:13, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything's uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” And then that judgment day is depicted for us plainly in the book of Revelation, Revelation 20:11-12, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who is seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were open. Another book was open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” So on that great and terrible day, judgment day, every careless word we have spoken, every action we have done, all the ways we spent our time, our energy and our money, everything we ever did in the body, whether good or bad, we will give an account, and God will evaluate because he is the judge of all the earth. 

Lesson number three. Christ alone enables man to survive that accounting. None of us can survive that accounting. God said in verse 14, “Then I will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.” Well, it can't. Job knew we could not answer God's accusations once in a thousand times. He said in Job 9:3, “Though one wished to dispute with him, he could not answer him one time out of a thousand.” Our only hope, and friends it is a sure and certain hope, is Christ our mediator, Christ our Savior. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin [that's Jesus] to be sin for us [that's substitution] so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.” That beautiful transfer, our guilt, all of it, on Jesus. And he dies under the wrath of God, under the just wrath of God. His righteousness imputed to us freely, and we survive judgment day, and all of that by simple faith in Jesus Christ, not by works. So when God showed up in the whirlwind, Job realized his righteousness was not enough. So it is with us sinners, whom God is saving. We stop accusing God of injustice, instead we seek from God, the righteousness we so obviously lack. And this comes from faith in Christ.

I want to say one other thing under this heading here: Christ's suffering both atones for our sin, but also allows him to understand our suffering. It enables him to be a merciful priest, high priest. He can understand what it feels like to hurt and to suffer loss. The enraged human race accuses God of injustice, because, so they say, he doesn't seem to understand what it's like to suffer here on earth. Well, the incarnation answers that. By his incarnation, Jesus became a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. He is Immanuel. He is God with us, immersed in an ocean of sorrow and pain and death. Jesus was born into poverty, a member of a despised and subjugated race. He was reviled by his own neighbors. His own family at one point thought he was insane, and went to take charge of him. The religious leaders thought he was demon-possessed or Satan-possessed. He had dedicated enemies who plotted every day to kill him. He was arrested. He was tried illegally at night, condemned by the testimony of false witnesses. As soon as he was condemned, his own people began to spit on him, blindfold him and punch Him. He was handed over to the Gentiles and though Pontius Pilate knew he was innocent, he condemned him to death to save his own life. And he had him scourged, and he had him humiliated. And then he had him crucified. 

He walked through the streets of Jerusalem, carrying his own cross, bearing the approach of His own people. He was crucified. He was killed outside the city gates as a reject. And he died alone, crying out in his agony, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The infinite dimensions of his suffering under the wrath of God can never be fully appraised. Make no mistake at all. Jesus's credentials of suffering are in good order. They are greater than yours or mine will ever be. And he has the right to speak to us in our pain. As it says in Hebrews 2:10, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, through whom and for whom all things exist, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” It's an incredibly weighty expression. Jesus has been made perfect through suffering, a perfect high priest.

Fourthly, God will freely explain everything to us in heaven. Though God, as I've already said, does not owe any of us an explanation, yet, as his children, he will draw us into his counsel; draw us into his mind and in his purposes. And in heaven, that process of drawing us in will be perfected. Whenever anyone suffers in this world, they always ask the why question, right? Why did you let my loved one die? Why did you take my possessions from me? Why didn't you heal me of my disease or my sickness, my sorrow? Why? We cannot imagine as believers in the God of the Bible, that God has no answer to any of that. Imagine getting to heaven and you ask him the pointed question, why? And he’ll say, “I actually have no reason for that, I'm so sorry. But I'm so glad you're here now. Enjoy. It's a beautiful place. Why don't we just forget all that?” Can you imagine that? The irrationality of God, doing things for no reason at all? It's impossible. The insanity of God. No, no. He's not insane. He's perfectly sane. As he says, “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. He's a very reasonable God. And he has his reasons. Now you would say, pastor, how do you know that he will explain everything to us? I just know. Well, no, I try to go from scripture and I've already tipped my hand. The whole direction of our salvation is being brought near to God. And that includes being drawn into the mind and the purposes and the intentions of God. His way of thinking, what he's doing in the world that cannot be perfected here on earth, but it will be perfected through our heavenly education.

Jesus said in John 15:15, “I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead I've called you friends because everything I've heard from the Father I've made known to you.” Friends, that's not going to be happening completely here in this world. He doesn't tell us everything. He can't. But in heaven, I believe he will. Or again, this is very powerful and provocative. Genesis 18:17, God, before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah deliberated within himself, not even out loud, but just within himself, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do?” Abraham was called in another place, the friend of God. Abraham didn't know anything about that internal deliberation. God revealed it later to Moses when he wrote the book of Genesis. God's in the business of opening up his mind and his purposes and his intentions to his people. I just believe that's going to be perfected in heaven. William Cooper and his beautiful hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”, put it this way: “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform, he plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.” A few stanzas later, “Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain.” I think that's true. It's not scripture, but I think it's true. The question is, when? When will he make it plain? Is he going to explain it to you here on earth? Mostly not. Do you know, we know more about the heavenly dimensions of Job's suffering than he knew while he was going through it? By reading Job one and two, we understand Satan and all he was doing. Job didn't know any of that. But friends, do you think we know more now the dimension of Job's sufferings, then Job knows now? What do you think? No. I think the education unfolds and continues forever in heaven.

Now we're going to transition to a time of the Lord's Supper. I'll close this time in the sermon in prayer, and then we'll prepare our hearts for the Lord's Supper. Father I thank you for the time that we've had in studying your word. Thank you for the depths of these lessons. We thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the full forgiveness of sins available. We thank you that though you bring us through many dangers, toils and snares, Lord you're with us, and there's a purpose behind all of them. Lord, teach us not to revile you or insult you or vent against you, but instead to draw near you and to put our head on your chest as John did, and to weep before you, and to pour out our grief, and to ask you to help us and to understand your purposes. Lord teach us to draw near. And as we turn now to the time of the Lord Supper, we pray that you would send forth your Spirit to help us enjoy and benefit from it. In Jesus’ name, amen.

We are not owed the answers to our pain on earth and God is not accountable to us so it is insanity to question his actions and will.

The post The Insanity of Questioning God (Job Sermon 26) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Paul is very concerned that the Corinthian church will not fulfill its promise to give generous financial support to the suffering Judean church. He stirs them to generosity by first showing them the example of the impoverished Macedonian Christians, then by the example of Christ.

The post 2 Corinthians Episode 9: Imitating Christ as a Generous Giver appeared first on Two Journeys.

Paul expresses the depth of his emotional commitment to the Corinthians, especially in that he rejoices that the painful letter he wrote them rebuking them for their sins resulted in them being genuinely sorrowful and ardently setting all things right. This gives us a display of the nature of true repentance.

The post 2 Corinthians Episode 8: Paul’s Joy in the Corinthians’ Repentance appeared first on Two Journeys.

God speaks to a suffering Job in a surprising way - He uses his own wisdom in creation to humble Job and cause him to trust God.

Turn in your Bibles to Job 39. We're actually going to do a couple of verses in 38 and on to 39. And as you do, I want to tell you, one of my favorite places on earth is Acadia National Park up in Maine. I've been there many times. It's a long way from here very far north, almost up in Canada. It's a long way north of Boston. It takes a long time to get there, but it is really worth it. It's a spectacular combination of elevation and of rocky shoreline. You know, the Cadillac Mountain is not high. It's not like some of the higher mountains in New England, in the presidential range of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, 6,000 feet, Mount Washington. It's not that, but it's just that the elevations, the high places are right on the coast and you can drive right up to some rocky cliffs and just sit there and look out and you can see, as far as the eye can see, you can see ocean on one side and spectacular rocky coast lines. You can see pine forests.

There's one place in particular that's my favorite. And we usually went there in October. We love to take October vacations, which we will do the next couple of weeks. And we would go up there when I was living in Massachusetts and New England, we would go up there around Columbus Day, around this time of year, and we'd see the foliage. And it was just so beautiful. And there's one place, it was really quiet where you could go and it didn't seem like anybody knew about it. And I would just sit there. And, and down far below was this beautiful blue lake called Echo Lake. And all of these pine trees were surrounding- all these deciduous trees that were just radiant with the oranges and reds and yellows of fall.

And in a certain time, from time to time, you could see birds of prey. I don't know what they were, maybe Peregrine Falcons, or maybe eagles, hawks. All of those are found in Acadia. And you could see them just rising on thermals and they would fly in circles. They would go higher and higher and you could watch them way, way down below you. And they would get higher and higher until they were about eye level with you. And then they would reach a certain height and they'd go right over your heads. You watch the whole thing for free. What a show.

And I thought about John Calvin, the Geneva theologian's statement that this world that we live in is a theater of God's glory. It's a theater of God's glory. Everywhere you look, you can see evidence of the glory of God, if you know what to look for. And the chapter we're going to look at today continues that same meditation that we began looking at last week, the evidence of the glory of God and physical creation. And the basic lesson is going to be, and the overall context of the book of Job, is that we should not murmur against God or question a God who can create the things we see in this world. But instead we should trust him with our lives. That natural creation, nature as we look at the inanimate creation in Job 38 and animate creation in Job 39 is ample evidence of the wisdom and power of God. And you should trust him when you're suffering. That's the overall point here.

Now, I believe that the Bible makes better arguments than that. The Job argument is good. The argument in Christ is better. And so that's why we're going to look at today's chapter, Job 39. Job as we've seen, was a righteous man. He was in anguish over cascading sorrows that God sovereignly brought into his life that had devastated his world. And he had been vocal, very vocal about his displeasure with God and what God had done in his life. Job lost all of his wealth and he lost all of his children. And then in the second stage lost all of his health, in wave upon wave of assaults on his life and sorrows. And though he initially praised God very well and did not sin against God in what he said yet, the trials went on longer than he could bear. And they bore down on him and they ground him down. And at some point he begins speaking disrespectfully about God. He portrays God as somehow delighting in crushing his people. And even worse that God has denied Job justice, that what has happened has been unjust. Now Job's friends came into his situation to try to counsel him, but they did a very poor Job. At one point, Job says, "Miserable comforters are you all," Job 16:2. And again, he says, "You are worthless physicians, all of you," Job 13:4.

But at the end of this incredible book, God shows up. He descends to speak to his suffering child. He comes down to counsel him and he is not a miserable counselor. In fact, he is a wonderful counselor. And God also comes to Job to heal him, first his soul, and then his body. And God is not a worthless physician. Now God's methodology in his counseling and in his healing is surprising. He does not come as we saw last week in that still small voice, that gentle whisper that he used with Elijah on Mount Horeb. Though, we would've perhaps chosen that. Instead, if he's going to come in a wind, he chooses to come in a whirlwind, in a tornado. God comes huge to Job with a mighty voice and with words to match. And that lines up with the level of trial he chose for Job's life. It was industrial strength. Very strong he came into Job's life.

Last time we saw God put Job in his place and also reestablish himself in his own place in Job's mind as the infinitely powerful and perfect God of the universe. And God uses his own achievements in creation, both in the original work of creation, what he made at the beginning, and then in his power and wisdom in both sustaining creation and governing it, running it. And he asked Job some questions to humble him, as we saw last time. "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words, without knowledge?” Job 38:2. Imagine hearing that from God. And then a couple verses later, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me if you understand." Job 38:4.

Now God's point in all of this in Job 38 was to expose Job's limitations, as we saw last time. Job is limited. He's limited in time since he has not existed very long compared to God. He's limited in power because God asked, did you do this? Can you do that? He's limited in knowledge because God asked Job, “Tell me if you understand,” “Surely you know.” But God is infinite. He has no such limitations. He is infinite in time for he is eternal. He is infinite in power for he did all of these things of creation effortlessly, effortlessly by the word of his power. He is infinite in wisdom because everything that God made was exquisitely well constructed. And so in all of this in Job 38, he was saying, trust me, and stop trusting in yourself as Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths." That seems to line up so beautifully with the lessons of Job doesn't it? “Trust in me.”

So we saw on Job 38:1-38 God's activity in creating the heavens and the earth, as well as managing the activities of these inanimate objects. So inanimate objects like the earth, the sky, the sea, the wind, the clouds, the weather, the stars, all of these inanimate objects. Basically, I think of it this way. You could look at Job 38 as the establishment of a blank canvas woven thread by thread, stretched out perfectly flat on a wooden frame that he also made expertly, a large blank canvas of inanimate objects, rocks, water, air, light, sun, moon stars, hills, valleys, rivers, oceans, all of these inanimate things, being a blank canvas for his animate creatures to come and dwell in; animals, men to live out unfolding history.

And the blank canvas is ready for the master to paint a masterpiece brushstroke by brushstroke. The animals will come in each with their nature and habitats and instincts and populations, and God will manage their life cycles and their interactions in an ecosystem. But higher than that, higher than that is the unfolding of human history. The story of people, of men and women created in the image of God and what they choose to do. God doesn't mention it directly here in Job. He doesn't talk about that unfolding story, but clearly the book of Job does, talks about Job's story and the whole Bible does. And that really is the masterpiece isn't it? That is the painting that God has made on this blank inanimate canvas. The God who made such a magnificent canvas knows how to paint that masterpiece on it with the unfolding of human history. And it culminates in what goes vastly beyond anything the book of Job focuses on, and that is the salvation of sinners by the life, death and resurrection and the second coming of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. But the point is clear: the God who does all of these things is worthy of our trust.

All right, so let's walk through this incredible chapter now. We begin by talking about how God clearly delights in his creatures. Doesn't he? I mean, as you read this, God is so proud of his animals. I mean, he really enjoys his animals. God made everything and he made it all good. And he has delighted in those things that he made ever since he made them. It says in Genesis 1:31, "God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good." And then I like Psalm 104:31 on this very point, "May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works." I mean, I just think Job 39 is God doing that. That's God rejoicing in his works. You know in the heavenly realms at the beginning of this story, God boasted to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?” But it seems like in this chapter he's saying, “Have you considered my ostrich?” I mean, of all things, imagine coming to a grieving friend and putting an arm around them as they're broken hearted and saying, “Have you considered the ostrich in the midst of your suffering? Let's talk about the ostrich for a while.” Be like, “Are you out of your mind?” But God isn't out of his mind. He just is counseling Job. And effectively does that. “Have you considered the mountain goat and how she gives birth? Have you considered the wild donkey and the wild ox? Have you pondered the attributes of the horse as it runs?” Let the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in his works. You know what he's saying to all of us is, you know, “Your sorrow, your suffering is temporary, but your rejoicing in my works will not be temporary.” We're going to spend eternity celebrating them. So these sufferings are, as Paul will later call them light and momentary. God's delight in his works is not.

And so he is going to ponder each of these 10 creatures in order. There are 10. If you start in chapter 38, as I said, there's a couple of animals that he brings in there. And then chapter 39 is all the animals. So I think that chapter division should have been there, but it was what it was, but he begins in chapter 38 with the lion and lioness and then the raven and then chapter 39, eight more; the mountain goat, the doe, the wild donkey, the wild ox, the ostrich, the horse, the hawk and the eagle. So these are the 10 creatures that God brings out kind of one at a time and talks about a little. Believe me, God could say far more about each of them than he does. He just brings in just a little bit of how much he delights in them. And what does he discuss as he brings out each of these creatures one at a time? Well, he discusses and delights in their capabilities and also their limitations. It's going to be fun listening to God talk about how stupid the ostrich is, we'll get to that, but I find it interesting.

God created their strengths and their limitations. God created their instincts and their behavior patterns. He decided where they would live, what they would eat, what their population size would be. God oversees everything for his glory and his delight and then he actively manages it. He feeds and governs his creatures. And he starts in chapter 38 with the lion and the lioness. Look at verses 39-40. "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket?" And then he goes on to the raven in verse 41, "Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?" So God is declaring that he feeds both of these creatures, both of these species, but they're feeding needs and patterns are very different from each other.

Lions hunt their prey, Psalm 104 says, at night they go out and prowl at night and God provides their prey for them in the form of zebras or gazelles or other large animals that they hunt and kill. Adult lionesses eat about 11 pounds of meat a day, while adult lions eat 16 pounds. On the contrary, ravens are scavengers. They have to scavenge about, and they eat a lot of things. They eat almost everything from small mammals to nesting birds, they eat eggs, they eat berries. They even eat carrion. Now the scripture makes it plain, that God feeds all of his creatures every day, Psalm 104:27-28, "These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up. When you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things." I just want you to picture that. I just want you to picture that in reference to your life, God opening his hand and satisfying you with every good thing. Just know that it is from the hand of God, that all your good things come, vital.

God also decides when every creature will be born. And though it's not mentioned in Job 39, it is mentioned in Psalm 104, when they will die, how long they will live. So look at verses 1-4 of chapter 39, "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth? They crouch down and bring forth their young; their labor pains are ended. Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds; they leave and do not return." So there's no birth clinic out there available for these animals. There's no midwives, no OBGYN. There's no veterinarians to aid the birth process out in the wild. The mountain goat, the pregnant mountain goat roams up on high as usual in the mountain peaks, scrambles on the rocky slopes of the mountain ranges. She is with young. And when the time comes, she gives birth. That's what happens. And so it also is with the doe. She's about to become a mother, but she has no assistance but from God. God knows how long the fawn must develop within her. And what the right number of months is that have passed. Do you know? I didn't know. Maybe you do know. Maybe you're one of the special people here at FBC that knows how long a fawn must gestate within its mother, six months. All right I will forget that fact. A year from now I won't know. It's like, “Pastor, you told us a year ago. It's six months,” but that's what he says to Job. “You don't know, you don't know, I do, but you don't.”

And after the young mountain goat or deer is born, they stay with their mother for about a year. And then, as God says, they leave and they don't come back home. They're no home visits after that, they're done. They thrive in the wilds on their own following innate instincts, that's the word we use for it, and internal programming that God gave them. And they will live on that. God's point to Job here is, “Do you know all these things? Are you watching over them? Do you know what to do? Are you counting the weeks till the time comes?” Now, God does this for every living creature on planet earth, that's mind boggling. For every creature He's doing this.

On the contrary, when God decides a creature must die, it dies. Psalm 104:29, "When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust." Or as Jesus said, very plainly in Matthew 10:29: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father." I'm thinking he means dies; that's why it would fall to the ground. So in other words, when it's time for the sparrow, an individual sparrow on planet earth to die, it dies according to the plan of God. He's managing the populations.

Then he mentions the wild donkey, verses 5-8, "Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied his ropes? I gave him the wasteland as his home, the salt flats as his habitat. He laughs at the commotion in the town. He does not hear a driver's shout. He ranges the hills for his pasture and searches for any green thing." Wild donkeys are extremely territorial, more than dogs or horses. Wild donkeys travel long distances in search of the sparse vegetation they need to survive. God assigned their habitat to them and gives them enough food to survive. And it says, he laughs at the noise in the town because he doesn't live there. It has nothing to do with him. That's the point. He's running free. He goes where he wants to go. He has no driver beating him. There's no harness on him. He's not serving the interest of any master. He's a wild donkey and he enjoys his freedom and, “Job, you didn't give it to him. That was my doing. I gave him his freedom.”

And then there's the wild ox, verses 9-12, "Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Will he stay by your manger at night? Can you hold him to the furrow with a harness? Will he till the valleys behind you? Will you rely on him for his great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to him? Can you trust him to bring in your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?" Well, some animals are domesticated. As the book of James says, when he talks about the tongue, “No man is able to tame the tongue.” He says, all kinds of animals, beasts, creatures have been tamed and are being tamed by man. So man can do that. You can tame them and harness them and use them for purposes. Oxen are definitely among them. They're probably the strongest of all domesticated animals. They're known for their strength. Farmers have used them for millennia to pull the plow and harrow the fields. Proverbs 14:4 says, "Where there are no oxen the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest." Oxen themselves can weigh as much as 2,000 pounds, a ton, and they can pull a ton. It's incredible. They're staggeringly powerful. Now, as I said, many oxen are domesticated, but that's quite a process. There's a certain intelligence that goes to getting them to do all of the functions that God talks about here, but the wild oxen won't do it. They're out free. In any case, God made the oxen like he did. It was God that gave them their great strength. It was God that gave them the capability of being domesticated and used. And then it was God that gave to human beings, the ability to domesticate them. God did all of these things.

And now we come to my favorite, the ostrich. I mean, what do we even say about the ostrich? I actually think one of the sub themes of the book of Job is how not to counsel people like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, don't do that. I don't know about the ostrich. I know that God is doing it here; I wouldn't recommend it friends. But here is the ostrich, verses 13-18, "The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but they cannot compare with the pinions and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain." That's my favorite verse, verse 17, "For God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense." That's God saying that. We'll get back to that in a minute. "Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider." Look, I want to start with the ostrich on just how odd looking she is, in my opinion. Maybe some of you think she's beautiful. I'm not thinking that. I think she's odd looking. She's tall and gangly and ugly and gray. Female ostrich's are about six feet tall. Males can get as tall as nine feet. They weigh about 200 to 280 pounds. They are big birds. Her wings strangely do not enable her to fly, but they do give her balance while she runs.

God says, and this is interesting, "Her pinions and feathers do not compare with those of the stork." It's like, if you want to talk to me about pinions and feathers, we're going to go to a stork, not the ostrich. But it was God that chose that. God said I gave better pinions and feathers to the stork than I did to the ostrich. Then he zeros in on the foolish behavior of the ostrich with her eggs. Ostrich eggs are the largest on planet earth, six inches long, five inches across weighing as much as three pounds. One place I was reading about them said the ostrich egg is not only the largest egg on earth, it's also the largest single cell on earth. But God says that she lays them on the ground and lets them warm in the sand. He said that's foolish. In God's opinion, that's foolish for her to do because a foot may come along and crush it. God says in verse 17 that, “God did not endow her with wisdom." Now just let your mind mull over that for a while. Why didn't he? He could have. He could have made her really smart. He didn't. And it just shows God's providence. He just measures out capabilities and sets boundaries around them. He knows exactly what he's doing with this. Furthermore, he says concerning the ostrich that she treats her young harshly as if they were not hers, but in another place, God zeros in on the zeal that a mother bear has for her young, extremely protective. Proverbs 17:12 says: "Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly." I like that proverb. But the mother bear is going to be incredibly zealous, angry and raged if you touch any of her cubs. Ostrich couldn't care less. It's like it has nothing to do with her.

Or what about a human mother with her nursing infant? God chooses her as a pinnacle example of committed love. Isaiah 49:15, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?" He says, "Though she may forget, I'll never forget you oh Israel." but the ostrich is designed differently by God. God actually seems to insult her for her foolishness, which he effectively gave her. Verses 16-17, "She treats her young harshly as if they were not hers. She cares not that her labor was in vain for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense." But she can run! Verse 18, "Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider." And it's true; ostriches can run in short bursts up to 43 miles an hour. That's unbelievable, 43 miles per hour. Sustained speeds, over long distances, 31 miles an hour. A single ostrich stride can be as much as 16 feet in length. They're covering ground. Now God doesn't say anything directly to Job about him and the ostrich, but it's clear that God is saying, “I made an ostrich. What did you make? Can you make an ostrich? Would you have made an ostrich, if you could have? If you could make one creature, would it be the ostrich? Probably not, but I made her.”

And then he moves from that to the horse. The very thing he just mentioned that she laughs at horse and rider, but then he goes to talk about the horse verses 19-25, "Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a locust striking terror with his proud snorting? He paws fiercely rejoicing in his strength and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing. He does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against his side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement, he eats up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. At the blast of the trumpet, he snorts, 'Aha!' He catches the scent of battle from afar, the shout of commanders and the battle cry." Whenever I think of God's creation of the horse and these incredible verses, my mind goes back to Secretariat winning the Belmont in 1973. One of my favorite sporting moments in history. It was incredible. I remember watching it and as Secretariat just kept going further and further and further away from all the other horses and the commentator, one of the great calls in the history of sports, Chick Anderson saying that, “Secretariat is running like a tremendous machine", one and a half miles setting a record that still hasn't been even approached. Just the beauty of that chestnut red horse, just moving like a machine. It was just beautiful to watch. I can still see it. I watch it probably once or twice a year; just remembering what that was like. And God speaks to Job of that strength and the courage of the horse in battle utterly fearless, ready to go, pawing the ground, ready to charge, no fear at all, going into the bloody fray, speed astonishing, as the horse eats up the ground on the charge, ground shaking beneath pounding hoofs. And God addresses Job directly this time, "Did you give the horse its strength or its beautiful mane? Did you do that?"

And then he finishes with birds of prey, the hawk, and then the eagle verse 26, "Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high? He dwells on a cliff and stays there at night; a rocky crag is his stronghold. From there he seeks out his food; his eyes detect it from afar. His young ones feast on blood, and where the slain are, there is he." I mean hawks are really magnificent creatures, really magnificent, soaring through the air. They're fierce, fierce hunters, swooping down from the heavens at over 150 miles per hour to grab their prey with sharp talons. When they migrate, they fly over a thousand miles from the nesting to the feeding areas. Can you imagine having hawks after you, going after you I mean? What would you do? It's terrifying, but God restrains them, but they have incredible capabilities.

And then eagles are even more amazing creatures than hawks are. They're incredibly strong. An eagle is able to pick up and fly with over four times their own body weight. That's strong, up to 35 pounds. As God mentions, an eagle's eyesight is amazing. Human eyeballs have 200,000 cones per millimeter on our retinas. That gives us our precision and seeing. But eagles eyes have five times the density, 1 million cones per square millimeter. So normal eyesight, we have that rating of 20/20, but eagles are 20/5. So what that means is what looks sharp and clear to us at five feet looks just as sharp and clear to eagles at 20 feet. An eagle flight is, if anything, even more amazing riding thermal columns, as I described. They can ascend to higher than 10,000 feet using thermal currents. They can go for a long time without even flapping. And God humbles Job again and through Job, all of us, asking if hawks fly by our wisdom or if eagles soar at our command. No they don't. They do what they do independent of man. We don't do anything in reference with them, but God does. God created them. God sustains them. God governs them.

And so Job is completely humbled in all of this while God is being exalted. Look again at all the "do you" passages in Job 39. “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth,” “do you? Do you watch over the deer when they give birth? Do you count the months of their gestation period? Do you know the right times for them to give birth?” Job has to confess total ignorance of these things. “Did you let the wild donkey go free? Was that your decision? Did you decide what his habitat would be? Did you provide some green vegetation for him to eat? No, you didn't. What about the wild ox? Perhaps you might have the knowledge to train and domestic domesticate him, but did you give him his mighty strength? No you didn't. What about the ostrich? Can you make such a strange, foolish, but fast bird? Would you ever come up with such a creature and did you design the horse with its stunning speed and its magnificent mane flowing in the wind? Did you give it its courage? And are you in charge of the hawks flying? Do you know how to design a wing with its feathers and its bones and its tendons and the brain of the hawk to use its tail feathers to stabilize him while he rockets to the earth at 150 miles an hour, blinding speeds. And do you command the eagle to fly and does it obey you?” So we see in all of this God's direct activities, not just with these 10 creatures, these are just representative creatures. He does it with all the creatures, all of them. God made each of them. He sustains them by the word of his power. He gives them their attributes, their abilities. He decided how much strength they would have, how much intelligence they would have, what their lifespans, their populations would be, their native habitats, how they would interact with each other in ecosystems. God programs their instincts. They do not think in reason like human beings, they don't study and learn. They have instincts and they react instinctively to do what God designed them to do. Their parents didn't teach them these things. They're not in deer school or wild donkey school for a while and then they graduate. They just do what they instinctively were created by God to do.

And God actively cares for them, feeding them, guiding them, protecting them or giving them over to their prey, as predators. God decides how long they live, when they will die. And he does this, not just with these 10 creatures, but with every creature on planet earth. Now how many are there? I don't know. No one knows. Biologists have recently estimated, this is one of my favorite little stupid moments in my research. Ready? Get ready for some scientific stupidity. Biologists have recently estimated that there are over 8.7 million different species of living creatures on earth, give or take 1.3 million; 8.7 give or take 1.3. I'm a significant figures guy. Where do they come from? Oh, how in the world these scientists have come up with these figures I don't know because these same people say that, get this, 86% of the land species and 91% of the aquatic species have yet to be discovered. 86% have yet to be discovered? Is your mind having a hard time with that? Not 85% have yet to be discovered. All right, let's just say roughly four to five, six million species are known and cataloged and God sustains them all and gave all of them their capabilities and their capacities. And he weaves them all together in a balanced ecosystem that doesn't get out of whack.

Like a number of years ago, when some scientists tried to do an independent closed system ecosystem, which they called biosphere two, honoring the earth as biosphere one. And they're trying to think of some closed systems that could function on Mars, let's say. And they put this- they put eight people in a kind of a dome experience, cut off from everything else. So everything was supposedly self-sufficient within it. And there's all these interactive systems and artificial rainforests inside it, a miniature ocean with a coral reef, a mangrove wetland region, a Savannah grassland region, a fog desert, an agricultural region for human farming and a place for the eight humans to live, probably not very big. Despite the best efforts at balancing the oxygen, carbon dioxide, the waste products and the cycles of life and death among its animals, birds, insects, and microbes, no surprise, the whole thing failed miserably and pretty quickly. The oxygen level kept dropping. If I'm one of the eight people in there that's going to be worrisome. The fish died off very quickly. The populations of greenhouse ants and cockroaches exploded. As I've said before, cockroaches seem to do well everywhere. Oddly, the morning glories overgrew the rainforest crowding out all other plants. So all you got left are morning glories, hope you like them. The best thinking of ecologists and scientists and biologists, and over 200 million dollars could not produce a balanced sustaining ecosystem, but God did it. And God didn't just do it once, he did it twice. He did it with the perfect world where everything was beautifully balanced and then he cursed it and still made it function properly. Now that's incredible! The cursed world is still functioning, amazing! And in all of this, we're supposed to see the wisdom of God and the power of God and the love of God.

And so he brings the lesson home to Job and he convicts Job. Look at verses 1-2 of chapter 40, "The Lord said to Job: ‘Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!’" And so Job sees the point. As Paul says, in Acts 17:24, "The God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth." I mean, that's it, isn't it? “The God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth.” His power and his wisdom and his love are clearly on display in what he has made and such a mighty, wise, loving God can be trusted in whatever he does. Managing your life is small work for God and God doesn't make any mistakes, therefore Job sinned gravely, when he accused God of making mistakes or of wrongdoing and he failed to trust in God. Who does Job think he is? And who do any of us human beings think we are to challenge and question such a God? As Paul said plainly in Romans 9:20, "Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" God is not accountable to us, a point I'm going to make, God willing, in a few sermons: God isn't accountable to us. And neither does God have to answer for any of his decisions about us. God's track record of awesome creation and skillful management of that creation is impeccable. But Job is answerable to God. Job is accountable to God and God demands an answer from him. And so Job begins his process of repentance. Look at verse 3-5, "Then Job answered the Lord: ‘I am unworthy- how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer- twice, but I will say no more.’" Job felt his deep unworthiness. He knew how sinful it was for him not to trust God in the handling of his life's affairs. He's now disgusted at what he said. He's disgusted at the ignorance it displayed. And he resolved not to speak again in the holy presence of almighty God. He knows that God is perfectly worthy of all praise. And he is ashamed of his complaining and his charging of God with wrongdoing. This is what repentance is. It's turning away from sin to God in a right relationship with God.

All right, so finally, what are some lessons that we draw for us today? First I wanted to speak to any that may be here that are non-Christians. Nature can tell you, does tell you every day that there is a God and it tells you some of what he's like, some of what he's like. There is overpowering evidence around you every day of the existence of a creator God, a God who made all things, who rules all things and to whom you are accountable. Romans 1:20 says, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and his divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." What does that mean? God's invisible qualities of his wisdom and his power on display in Job 39 in all of these species and what he does for each of them, God puts himself on display. And Paul says that the creation proclaims the existence and nature of God as a mighty king, a loving provider, a wise ruler and the judge of all the earth. And he says in Romans 1:20 that the evidence of your eyes around you leaves you without excuse. You'll have no excuse on judgment day. Now I know that the existence of God, as you look at creation, that the creation doesn't make God's existence logically inescapable; you're checkmated by it. No, you can, there are ways out. Evolution is a way that people have taken out. They look at it and they say, "Oh, what a wonder that all of this came about by evolution?" Yeah, it's pretty amazing that you think that. I remember a National Geographic article on the body's immune system and they called it a miracle of evolution. I was like, help me with that phrase, miracle of evolution. But that's people suppressing the truth and unrighteousness and hardening their hearts against the clear evidence of God in creation. And so it's not logically inescapable that there's a Creator, but on judgment day, you'll find out it was morally inexcusable not to believe in him.

Now the greatest evidence though, of God's care for us and God's justice is not found in creation. We can't see in creation evidence of God's justice. We have to see that in history and specifically in his Son, Jesus Christ. And so the New Testament is written (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) giving the biography of Jesus, how he was born of a virgin, how he lived a sinless life, how he taught incredible teachings, such that no one had ever spoken like this man spoke. And how he controlled nature, spoke to the wind and the waves and they obeyed him. How he fed 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. How he could do all of these things. How he lived a sinless life and how, especially he died an atoning death under the wrath of God, for sinners like you and me. And that was the greatest display of the justice of God there's ever been. God would rather kill his own Son than let sinners like us into heaven without our sins dealt with.

But it also shows the love of God. How, in Christ, God has loved us. And finally, in the end friends, I say this to you, my Christian brothers and sisters as well, Christ is God's answer to our suffering. I believe that the arguments of Job 39 are compelling. I think they're strong, but they're just not the best arguments. The best argument of God's compassion for you and your suffering is the death and the resurrection of his own Son, Jesus Christ. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins and trust in him also for the management of your life, through all of your sorrows and your sufferings.

Close with me in prayer. Excuse me. Father I thank you for your wisdom and creation. There is no God like you. There is no one else like you are the creator, the sustainer of all things. And I thank you that you have woven such wisdom and such love and power in creation. But I thank you that the story of Christ is infinitely greater. And how in the story of Christ, we see the answer to all of our sorrows and our sufferings. That Christ is our sin bearer. He is our substitute and he is also wisely running our lives so that we can trust in him. Help us to do that, to trust in him. In Jesus name. Amen. 

God speaks to a suffering Job in a surprising way - he uses his own wisdom in creation to humble Job and cause him to trust God.

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Paul explains that passionate gospel ministry comes with great suffering. He also issues a call for holiness of the church based upon God’s desire to dwell with her.

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Finally, God descends to earth and speaks to Job with awesome power... out of a whirlwind.

Well if you could, and you can't, but if you could be transported back in time by the Spirit of God to any moment in redemptive history, what would you like to go back and see? Where would you like to go? So many options. Love to be there when God created the universe and see it all unfolding step by step. To see the beautiful garden of Eden, to see the beauty of that pristine and perfect world. What would it be like just to be there? Or when Noah got off the arc after the flood, and he offered up the sacrifice, that pleasing aroma to God, and then that rainbow came in the skies and that sense of the beauty, the freshness of a world cleansed from wickedness and sin, a fresh start. Maybe when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and the Angel of the Lord stopped him and a voice from heaven, from the Angel of the Lord said, “Now I know that you fear God.” There's so many options, but for me this morning, at least, I would love to be there when God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind. To just stand there and hear the voice of God. Because I have a feeling that in the end, that's the message of the book of Job. That if God would be with us in our suffering, if he would talk to us, if he would speak to us, if he would walk with us through the water and through the fire, we could make it through anything. If God would be with us and would be for us, we could endure any of the afflictions he would choose to bring into our lives. I know that this is the lesson. And so I want to hear from God this morning, we've come in Job 38 to the climax of the book of Job, four chapter climax. We're not going to get through all of the dimensions, the beauty of God speaking to Job, but we're going to begin. Job 38 begins one of the most dramatic conversations there's ever been in human history. Job, one of the godliest men in history has been yearning for a face to face with God.

This is as close as any man could come, for almighty God descends to earth and speaks to Job with awesome power. The glorious God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind. At last, the seemingly silent God, the invisible God, the omnipotent God speaks, at last. Job assaulted by his sufferings which came upon him wave upon wave has been yearning for the chance to confront God and to interrogate him. Job seems convinced that God has made the same mistake in some ways that his friends did. Essentially Job seems to be operating at least from time to time out of the same faulty theology that they had. The only explanation for human suffering is punishment by a wise God for specific sins that that person has committed, the law of retribution. And he knows that he hasn't committed any great sins. So it must mean that God has, in some sense, made a big mistake.

And all that needs to happen, Job thinks, is to have somewhat of a court trial in which he gets a face to face with God. And the evidence can be presented at last of his basic righteousness, his blamelessness, and God would agree, consent to it. And Job would emerge triumphant in some sense against God, himself, as his unjust adversary. He expected to grill God like a prosecuting attorney and have God answer all of his questions. But this conversation doesn't go anything like Job expected that it would, not at all. Because God being God seizes the initiative here, right from the start. And he asks Job all the questions and demands that he answer God. And as he does all of this, he brings deep repentance to Job and he brings final spiritual healing to Job. And through Job, as we read, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us, to us. So that's what we're getting as we look at Job 38.

This is God's voice; God's voice in the whirlwind and it humbles us. Look at verses 1-2, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ‘Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?’” the overwhelming majesty of God. Now earlier in the book of Job we saw in Job 13:11 this statement, “Would not his splendor terrify you? Would not the dread of him fall upon you?” Yes, it would. It's always the case with these theophanies, these appearances of God in the Bible, whenever it happens, human beings are on their face before him; they're leveled by him. So God determines to appear in majesty with the trappings of power and glory, and to overwhelm Job with his infinite greatness as he did with the Israelites at Mount Sinai. When God spoke to Israel that day, he descended from heaven to earth in clouds and fire, and he made the ground shake under their feet. And his voice was so terrifying that the people begged Moses that God not speak to them anymore less they should die. And God did all this to fill the people with fear. That was his motive, clearly. There's no doubt that God has this capability. He can show up with this level of power. He can cause his glory to shine brilliantly. He can cause the ground beneath our feet to shake and he can speak to us with a voice that sounds like thunder and that fills the whole world with terror. God can do that. He has a dimmer switch on this. He can ramp it up, the display of his glory and his omnipotence, and his majesty to such levels we can scarcely begin to imagine. If he dial it up to 1% maybe, I feel that we would immediately die. “No one can see me and live,” God said to Moses. He has that power and God can choose any level of display he wants with any person at any time.

Then why does he use a whirlwind to speak to Job? He didn't have to use a whirlwind. Why did he do it? He uses the wind, but in overpowering magnitude. I mean, wind can be gentle, like a zephyr, like a fragrant spring breeze, barely causing leaves to flutter. Making a few strands of your hair to dance around your face, making the tall grass sway just a little bit here and there. That's all. That's what the wind can do at that level. That was the choice it seems that God made when he spoke to Elijah on Mount Horeb. God said, “Go out and stand in the presence of the Lord.” So Elijah went out and the Lord passed by Elijah and an overpowering wind at that time, tore the mountains apart. But God was not in that hurricane. And after that mighty wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, there came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And then after that came the sound of a gentle blowing, like a gentle breeze, like a faint whisper, but the KJV calls it a still small voice. And when Elijah heard that still small voice, that gentle whisper, he covered his face and went out into the presence of the Lord and God spoke to him.

So why did God use the gentle whisper with Elijah and this terrifying whirlwind with Job? God seeks to humble Job in order to heal him I believe. God is the perfect counselor and he is also Job's greatest friend. He's the lover of Job's soul. These three counselors failed in their ministry to Job. Their motive initially may have been to help their friend in his suffering, but their theology, their theology was flawed. Theology is the ground beneath your feet as you reach out to help a falling friend. But if your theology is flawed, you're standing on wet rotten wood in a collapsing derelict house. So you cannot catch a falling friend with faulty theology. You cannot lift a falling friend with faulty theology. You have no ground under your feet. You really are falling yourself. So it was with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. In the end their truth system was flawed and their pride kicked in and they doubled down, and they doubled down again on their flawed theology, and they became destructive to their supposed friend. But, this is by the way the greatest understatement of my entire sermon, you ready? God's theology is good. God's theology is actually perfect. God knows what he's talking about. Everything God says is true, and along with that, God is perfectly wise. He is the wonderful counselor and he knows precisely what approach to take to heal Job. He knows what truths to speak to transform Job's anguished heart, and to restore his soul to health. Now, admittedly, I would have to say, it's not what we would've thought a man in Job's situation would've needed. Isn't that true? We would've thought, “God, if you're going to show up in a wind, why don't you choose that little still small voice thing again, that gentle whisper. I mean, don't you think this man's been through enough?” I mean, I would've thought a gentle whisper would've been just a thing for a man like Job in that circumstance. But Isaiah 55 makes it plain. God says this, “My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” It seems like one of the basic lessons of the book of Job is don't question anything God does ever. So that includes this whirlwind strategy. Don't question it, it was the right thing for the moment. He knew what to do. God knew exactly what Job needed here. And none of the things that God said to job were for God's own benefit, but always for Job's spiritual healing and through Job, all of us. Apparently that's what Job needed the most.

He needed to be humbled and put in his place. He needed to be brought to repentance for the hard things he was thinking, the hard things he had said about almighty God. He needed to be brought down a number of pegs to be made to realize that he cannot possibly think to stand toe to toe with God as an equal and debate with him. None of us can. And more than that, Job needs to be brought to a point of absolute trust in almighty God. So what is God's approach going to be? What are we going to talk about over these four climactic chapters? Well, he's going to use something that we have learned to call natural theology, natural theology, to prove his wisdom and power. God's going to speak natural theology. He's going to engage Job in the process so Job is deeply thoroughly humbled. So it's going to be a bit of a conversation, but not really. He's going to bring Job in at some key moments, but just to humble him and he's going to use natural theology. What is that? Natural theology is what nature teaches us about God. What you can learn about God by looking at nature, at creation, that's natural theology. So God builds on Job's experience in the world and stands as the creator, the sustainer, the ruler of everything in the universe. God made it without man's aid. He sustains it every moment without man's aid. And he rules over every moment without man's aid. Excuse me. God will effectively be saying, “Since I have done and am doing all of these things and you have done none of them, you should trust how I'm dealing specifically with your life right now. You should trust me. You are absolutely in no position whatsoever to question me. Just trust me, I know what I'm doing.” That seems to be the lesson.

So that's what we're going to get in these four chapters and more, a lot of details. So he is directly humbling Job and through Job he's humbling all of us. So God sees his control as I said of this encounter. Remember that Job wanted to ask him questions, but it's not going to go that way. It's God who's going to ask him, look at verse three, “Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me.” “Brace yourself like a man.” What an expression. “Get yourself ready Job. Get dressed for battle. Okay, are you ready? Let's go.” There's that sense, “Let's go. You wanted to talk to me, here I am.” And then fundamentally it's, “Who are you to question me?” That's the tone here. Do you see that? Almost all of the roads lead to that. “Who are you to question me?” Verse two, “Who is this?” Who are you? “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” Remember the two basic issues always in life are the same, fundamental aspects of our wisdom. Number one, the knowledge of God and number two, knowledge of ourselves. That's what we're learning. And so God wants Job to see himself properly in light of the infinite majesty of God. That's how that works. “So who are you to question me?”

And so he is going to expose three basic limitations of Job and through Job, all of us, we have the same limitations. First of all, knowledge: “Job you know almost nothing. I am omniscient.” Secondly, time: “Job, your lifespan is very brief. You haven't been around very long. I am eternal.” And then thirdly, power: “Job, you have very little power. Actually, you're very weak. I am omnipotent.” So these basic limitations he's going to expose and then through Job, us. Also along the way God is going to use irony and perhaps some sarcasm. And people don't like that word sarcasm, but I don't know what else to do with some of the statements. We'll see it very plainly at one point. But he says, “Tell me, since you know. You were there, weren't you? At that point, remember when I made everything. Teach me Job, I'd really like to know. Have you done this? Have you done that? Can you do the other?” That's just sarcastic or ironic to some degree. God is using this as a technique.

All right. So let's look at those limitations. We need to be humbled in this way. Fundamental aspect of our salvation is our humbling. When we get to heaven, we will be leveled when it comes to pride, leveled. We will be so perfectly humble in heaven. The more humble we can be now on earth, the better. So let's look at these limitations. First of all, knowledge, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” So when a wise man speaks, his words bring light, right? They bring enlightenment that represents insight, wisdom. “But Job when you speak, it just gets darker. It's like what comes out of your mouth are thick, dark clouds of ignorance that cover over light. You're darkening my counsel and you're speaking words without knowledge. That's ignorant words. Job, you are actually shockingly ignorant. There is so much you don't know.”

Now, the human mouth displays the arrogance of the human heart. Jesus said, “Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.” So what's in your heart out it comes out the mouth. And it says in James 3, “The tongue makes great boasts.” That's who we are. We're very arrogant. We need to be humbled. Secondly, the issue of time, “You haven't been around very long, Job.” Look at verse four, “Where were you when I laid the Earth's foundation?” And then later in verse 21, “Surely you know, since you were already born! You have lived so many years!” That's an example of that sarcasm that I was talking about, verse 21. So, “You're limited in time. You haven't been around very long.”

Thirdly, power. You're limited in power. You are very weak. Verse 12, “Have you given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place?” So it's not just power, you're limited in authority, “Go ahead, speak to the dawn and let it obey you.” Or again, verse 34-35, “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do the lightning bolts report to you and say, here we are, what do you want us to do?” So anyway, this is the counseling strategy that God takes with Job and through Job to every generation of his suffering people since then. God vigorously puts us in our place so that we will suffer well and we will not question his wisdom, his power or his love. 

Secondly, God's power in creation educates us. So let's just drink in this natural theology. Let's just learn what God talks about. God's three great works when it comes to the physical creation, the physical universe. First of all, God originally created it out of nothing by the word of his power. Secondly, God sustains it every moment by the word of his power. Thirdly, God rules over it actively, every moment, by the word of his power. These are the displays of God's power in the physical universe, his great works. Creation, sustaining, and governance.

And he begins with the earth's foundations. Look at verses 4-7, “Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know. Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footing set or who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” So he begins with the planet, the earth, the ground under our feet. The earth is solidly set. It cannot be moved, another scripture said. God laid the foundations of the earth permanently. This is the stage, the physical stage on which the drama of human history and redemptive history has been unfolding. He marked off the dimensions of the earth, knowing how large to make it. He laid the foundations of the earth, and he says, verse 7, “While the angels watched him in sang for joy.” Most of your translations say, sons of God, one translation just tells us what that is, angels. We know that there's no humans at that point. There's no physical earth out of which they were made yet. So the angels are the audience and they're enjoying it. God does these things for an audience. Everything's a theater. We are the knowledgeable beings, angels and humans, who watch what God does and praise him for it. Animals don't do that. Rocks and rivers, and trees don't do that, we do. And so before, in verse 7, before this adoring audience of angels, he laid the foundations of the earth. They were his first audience and they applauded him. Then he discusses ocean's boundaries, verses 8-11, “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds, its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?’” Well, that's awesome. I mentioned last week in Japan, seeing the after effects of a tsunami, a hurricane, and just the thrashing of the ocean, the raging power of the ocean is terrifying. Think of the might of the billowing waves. Think how destructive they are on cities who are built on the coast, when the tsunami hits and tidal waves come crashing down. Nothing created by man can restrain the oceans. And there's certainly more than enough water to 100% inundate planet earth, Noah's flood proved that. But God restrains the oceans. He sets boundaries for the oceans, limits. And they are, apparently very fragile. The sand dunes with the little wispy grass and you're not allowed to walk on them. Have you ever been there with all those warning signs about walking on the fragile dunes? They're very fragile. It's like, “That's it God? That's the limit? That's the boundary?” Yep. It's enough. It'll stop. The proud waves halting right here. This is the limit. Here your proud waves must halt. The limits of God. God limits all of his creation. Every created thing has boundaries and borders, and limits, and he upholds them. God says to Job, “I'm the one who did this.” He openly tells him.

And then he gets to day and night, verses 12-15, “Have you ever given orders to the morning, [Job], have you ever shown the dawn its place that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal, its features stand out like those of a garment, the wicked are denied their light and their upraised arm is broken.” So God set up from the beginning, the rhythms of evening and morning. As you read in Genesis, there was evening and there was morning, the first day. There was evening and there was morning, the second day. There's this rhythm of days, of sunrise and sunset. On the fourth day of creation, God created the sun to govern the day and the moon to govern the night. He also created the stars. And God gave orders to the sun and the moon in terms of their boundaries, in terms of what their task would be. He controlled the rotation of the earth as we understand it, to make each day as long as it should be. God figured all that out, and in the language here, God claims to give orders to the morning, to command when it should be morning. This is not the machine, the mindless machine of the Deists. You know how they said, it's like a clock that God made all the gears and the springs and wound it up and just lets it run. The mindless creation, the machine of the Deists, that's not it. God gives orders to the dawn when it's time for the dawn to come. He's in charge of it. And as the sun rises, the contours of the earth become increasingly visible to the naked eye. As the light kind of shines more and more over the terrain, you can see the high places and the low places, it takes shape like a seal. So this could go back to the original creation, but it seems to be more what it looks like when the sun rises. “Did you, Job, command this, the morning, would it obey your voice?” And he notes with the rising of the sun, the wicked crawl back into their dark caves, no longer able to do their deeds of darkness. This is a picture of God's sovereign control even over the rebellious of the earth. So God is ruling over even the wicked of the earth. He doesn't talk about it much, but he does that.

Then in verse 16 he talks about the sources of the sea. Verse 16, “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?” He speaks, it seems, of the sources of ocean water from the bottom of the ocean floor. He uses language asking if Job has ever walked there or walked on the ocean itself. When Noah's flood broke on the earth, it wasn't just 40 days of rain, but in Genesis 7:11 it says, “all the springs of the great deep broke forth.” So from down below, there was this pressured water and it just roared up. God's in charge of all that, as though there's hidden sources of ocean water deep within the earth's crust that God unleashed; God's in control of that.

And then verse 17-18, the vast dimensions of the earth: “Have the gates of death been shown to you, [Job]? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?” The vast expanses, the dimensions of the earth, “Tell me if you know all this.” This speaks of the dimensions in details of planet earth, including the subterranean regions, the deep regions of the earth, where the dead are buried. The actual dimensions of caves and deep crevices and sinkholes, even down to the core of the earth itself. “Job, have you ever seen these? Do you have any sense of the vastness of the earth's size and dimensions?”

And then again, light and darkness, verse 19-20: “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?” So he goes back to the sun and moon perhaps, but even more to light and darkness itself. The nature of light, how it works, what it is physically, and then darkness as well. God's in charge of all of this, the light of the world, how it shines and where. I wonder if at this point Job doesn't have any idea what God is talking about. I mean, that's the point, isn't it? You don't know how to do all this. Like Jesus said to Nicodemus about being born again, “I've spoken to you in earthly language and you don't understand what then if I speak in heavenly language? There's whole levels of communication I could be using here and you wouldn't have any idea what I'm talking about.” And so he takes a little bit of a break for sarcastic mockery, as I mentioned, verse 21, “Surely you know, [Job], for you were already born! You have lived so many years!” I just find that interesting. People say often God has a sense of humor. There's not a lot of evidence that he does, but we have a sense of humor and we have a sense of that. It's like, “All right Job, I'm ready, ready to listen since you're so old and you've learned so many things.” So again, he is humbling him. And then he deals in verses 22-30 with weather patterns of every kind, snow, hail, lightning, wind rain, thunderstorm, dew, ice, frost, freezing water, and the effects of the rain watering the earth.

Look at these verses. Verse 22, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens, when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?” Honestly weather patterns are beyond most ability of human beings to comprehend. Certainly beyond anyone to control. We can barely comprehend what has happened. The rhythms of meteorology and some of the best among us who have spent a life studying this can give us a five day forecast. And sometimes four out of those five days are right. Maybe even all five. Those are good days. I wouldn't want to be a meteorologist. I don't know how they do what they do, but God's going beyond this. God actually controls staggeringly huge movements of air, massively huge. And he controls temperatures, cold fronts, warm fronts, thermals rising, does all of this. And he knows how much rain to give each region of the earth to produce the exact outcome he desires. He waters, the text says, the desert regions with just the right amount, as well as the grasslands, the tropical rain forest, the wheat fields for us in Kansas, the corn fields in Iowa. He's controlling all of that.

And his power is beyond comprehension. God doesn't just know the weather patterns or predict them. He's controlling them. He's controlling the movements of air. And then he goes to the stars in verses 31-33, the constellations and the laws of physics, “Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the chords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominions over the earth?” So at this point, God raises Job's eyes up to the heavens like he did with Abraham. Look up at the stars, look at the staggering dimensions of outer space, clearly beyond man's control. No doubt about that. We have no control over that. Most of it is beyond man's even observations. We don't even know how big it is, how many stars there are. We're never going to reach even the closest stars. Stars are given to give light to the earth, but also to humble us, because the nearest star Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years away. So you're not going to get in your vehicle and dial up the cruise control to one light year, and then in four of those, you'll be there. You'll never make it. The only thing we ever made that has left the solar system, Voyager, at its rate it would take 73,000 years to get there. Like, “Oh, we got much better technology than Voyager now, we can go twice as fast.” Okay. Then that's 37,000 years maybe. One of you will do the math and come back at me. I know that.

But then that's the nearest star. The Pleiades that he mentions, the stars that make up that constellation group, is 100 times further away than that. We'll never make it. We just look at it. Job has absolutely no control over the stars. He cannot bind their chords or loosen them, whatever that means. He cannot bring any star forth, but God actually controls each star, because of his mighty power not one of them is missing and he knows each of them by name, Isaiah 40:26. It's interesting, he talks about the laws of the heavens. Like long before there was Newton figuring out the laws of gravitation or Einstein, figuring out the laws of light and of relativity, God knows, verse 33, the laws of the heavens, all of it. And then whether, again, verse 34-35, “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you and say, ‘here we are?’” “Are you in charge of the wind and the rain, and the clouds? Can you control all that?” Now, interestingly, in verse 36, for the only time in these four chapters, the only time, God addresses human capacity. He doesn't talk about man pretty much at all in these four chapters. I find that interesting, but here he mentions it briefly. Verse 36, “Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?” So he's saying, “I created you in my image, and I gave you a brain.” The human brain is the most complex physical thing God ever made. The number of neural interconnections in the human brain are equal to, they tell us, the number of leaves in the Amazonian rainforest. God made that. He made your brain to do what it does. It is made in the image of God. And so your reasoning powers, your thinking, your analytical powers, your understanding, God did that. And he's greater than all of it for he made it. Man's understanding is like a flickering candle compared to God's omniscience. But this capability is still an astonishing display of God's creative power. And then he goes one more time to human limits and to weather again. Verse 37-38, “Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?”

All right. So God's basic natural theology approach, I think comes in two main parts, not counting Behemoth and Leviathan, we'll get to in due time. Basically you've got inanimate objects and then animals. Those are the two basic approaches. So we've done all this inanimate stuff. The foundations of the earth, the oceans, the weather, the wind, the clouds, the stars, all this inanimate creation and how God runs it. Then he starts getting into animals. Now I know this is still chapter 38, but if I can tell you, the chapter divisions are not inspired by God. They were done by monks, I guess at some point, or somebody did them. I don't know who divided up the chapters. Some of the divisions are excellent and wonderful, and shouldn't be changed others are a bit confusing. So this one, I'm just going to put a line across here and say the two animals he discusses here we'll talk about next time with all the other animals. And there are 10 of them, one after the other, each of them with their capabilities, each one with their domains and God feeding them and caring for them and all that. We'll get to that God willing next week.

So that's natural theology. That's what God's saying. Now, God's truth as revealed in scripture is higher and clearer. The book of Job is clearer than looking at creation itself. We learn more from scripture. So again, keep in mind the whole book of Job and the context, Job's sufferings, the problem of human pain. That's what we're addressing here. God is addressing the problem of human suffering. The problem of pain that comes in our lives, the afflictions that come and hurt us deeply, and he wants to help us. And this is how he's helping us. This is how he wants to help us. This is God's answer. What is it? The God who made all these things and wisely sustains them, and powerfully sustains them, knows also how to run your life. “Trust me, trust me, I have earned, I should have earned your trust.” That's the argument that's going on here. We know there's stronger arguments. I know in the New Testament, the giving of Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection. We'll get to that in a moment, but this is what's happening in this chapter. “Know me. Look at creation.” The astounding evidence of God in creation. The clearest description in scripture of natural theology is in Romans 1:20 and following, “Since the creation of the world,” that text says, “God's invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” So let's not be fools. Let's look at nature. Let's look at creation and say, “The God whom I love made all these things. When I look at this creation, I see how powerful he is, how wise he is, how loving he is.” And if we don't, then our foolish hearts are darkened. We're not glorifying God as God and giving thanks to him.

So do that, and as you're doing that, know yourself. What do you think you should know about yourself? You should be humble. You should be humble in reference to God. You should know yourself. You're a creature, you're created in the image of God. That's true. That's your exaltation. But you are not God, that's your humbling. So fall down before God in humble worship, renounce all arrogant claims and charges against him. And in suffering, especially, trust God that he is wise. He knows what he's doing. The same God who orchestrates the weather patterns, who moves masses of warm air in one direction and cool air in another to produce exactly the right amount of rain and sunshine for the crops, God knows how to orchestrate your life. And not only that, he knows how much you can handle.

We would've been, admit it, extremely gentle with Job. We would've had God be gentle with Job. In terms of the trials that he brought, we would've had fewer, less. We feel that God maybe wasn't gentle. But I'll tell you this, God was effective. The level of trial he brought in Job's life was the right amount to achieve what he wanted. And the counsel, the approach to counseling was just right. So therefore, suffer well, suffer well. Look at creation and realize that God is in control and knows exactly what he's doing in your life. Trust him; speak words of confident faith to him when you're hurting. When you're hurting, speak words of confident faith, “God, I trust you. I know you love me. I know this is working in good purpose in my life.” Say those things to him. Pray your pain back to him. Be patient in affliction.

And as you study creation, learn the attributes you can learn from creation. You can't learn all of them. There are some attributes you can't learn from creation. I mentioned that last week. I don't think you can learn God's justice in creation. You have to look at what he does with people. And in the end, his justice will be vindicated. We'll talk about that. But what can you learn? Well, Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field,” right? Consider them. David said in Psalm 8, “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers.” So you got this considering thing going on. So consider the lilies of the field. And what do you get, according to Jesus, when you do? You realize you shouldn't be anxious about your life, what you'll eat or drink or about your body, what you'll wear. Look at the lilies of the field. If God clothes them better than Solomon, he knows how to take care of you. So what you get from looking at that creation, you get a sense of God's love, his love. And when you look up to the stars in the night sky with Psalm 8 in your mind, and you say, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have made,” you know what I think, I think, “what is man?” So you get humbled by that. And you also have a sense of God's infinite power and your lowness. So you get humility from that.

And what do you get when you consider the complex ecosystems, about the animals and how they relate to their terrain and all that? We'll get more of that, God willing, next week. But the Psalmist does that in Psalm 104. You realize that God has a place for every creature and every creature is in its place. And it lives as long as it's supposed to and it eats what it's supposed to, and it functions like it's supposed to, and all of it interacts in amazing ways. So what do you get when you meditate on that? A display of God's wisdom, wisdom. Psalm 104:24, “How many are your work O Lord. In wisdom, you made them all, the earth is full of your creatures.” Now, look at the three attributes we've just seen. God's love when you consider the lilies. God's power, when you consider the heavens and God's wisdom, when you consider the animals and the ecosystems, and their relationships to each other. Those are the three attributes people always question when it comes to human suffering, always. Either God's not loving or he is not wise, or he is not powerful or none of the above. But when we look at creation as Christians, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we see differently, we see differently.

Now, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Job's real problem was not his sufferings. The loss of his possessions, his children's health, that wasn't his real problem. His real problem was his own deeply embedded sin. Deep inside his heart there were sinful attitudes toward God, and it took this level of pressure, pressure, to bring them bubbling up to the surface. And they came, didn't they? God knew they were there. And so he puts pressure on Job to bring him to humbling so that he can have mercy on him, that he can heal him from those things. And he's going to be humbled. The fear of the Lord in all of this brings it to the surface and saves him. In Job 42:5-6, this is where we're heading, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. And I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” So humble yourself.

Let's do a little logic problem. Job is the godliest man alive. One that God boasted about as blameless and upright, a man who it says feared God and shunned evil. That's who Job was. If I can just be general with you folks and with myself, that's not who we are. We're not blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil like Job, not to his level. So here's my logic problem: If a man like Job as good as he was needed this level of humbling, how much do you think we need? Certainly not less. And this humbling is designed to get us ready for suffering. So either you're going through suffering right now, or you will someday. The best thing you can do in either case is to fall down before almighty God and humble yourself. Tell him that he is your everything and that he is everything, and that you are nothing. Scuttle your pride. Tell him that you trust him and whatever he chooses to do with your possessions or with your loved ones, or with your help, he has the right to do.

Now, as I finish this morning, I want to bring to you the sweetest meditation that I had on this chapter. It's not in the chapter at all, but I'm just moving out further to the whole scope of 66 books of the Bible and all of what God is saying to us. I want to bring your mind to Christ. I want you to think with me together about Jesus Christ. We need to see the infinite majesty of Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the exalted perfect God man. And unlike Job, this is beautiful, he actually can answer each of God's questions to Job, all of them. Christ is actually perfect in wisdom. Christ is actually eternal in his person and Christ is actually infinite in his power. So look at the questions that God asked Job, and imagine him asking them of Jesus. Look at verse 4, “Where were you, [Jesus], when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Well, according to John 1:3, “Through Christ, all things were made and without him, nothing was made that has been made.” Or even better, this will blow you away. Hebrews 1, in which we have an intra-Trinitarian conversation going on, in which the Father is exalting the Son, “To which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I've become your Father?’” He's talking, the Father's talking to the Son. Keep that in mind. Then you get to Hebrews 1:10-12, God the father says to Jesus the Son, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands.” Wow. That's Jesus. That's our Savior that God is talking to, “They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe they will be changed. But you remain the same and your years will never end.” He is eternal. That's Jesus. What about walking on the sea? Look at verse 16 again, “[Job], Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?” Imagine him saying that to Jesus, “Actually, father, I have. I have walked on the billowing waves of the sea of Galilee.” Mark 6:48-51, “About the fourth watch of the night. Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out because they all saw him and were terrified. And immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.’ Then he climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down and they were completely amazed.” What about the storm? Verse 34-35 of Job 38, “[Hey Job], can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you and say, ‘here we are?’” In other words, “Job, do you control the weather?” What about Jesus? Oh, you know he does. In Mark 4:37-41, “A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples went and woke him saying to him, ‘Teacher don't you care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Peace, be still.’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. And he said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ They were terrified and asked each other, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.’” And at the second coming, Jesus is going to come riding on the clouds. Matthew 26:64, “In the future you'll see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” He's going to be riding on the clouds. And best of all, what about the gates of death? Look at verse 17, Job 38:17, “Have the gates of death been shown to you, [Job]? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?” Well, Jesus has not only seen them, he's blown them apart, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

By his mighty death and resurrection Jesus has destroyed the power of the grave; death could not hold him. And if we trust in Christ, if you trust in Christ as your Savior, death won't hold you either. He's going to bring you through the gates of death into everlasting life. For he says, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” So God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind and restored his soul. But now, right now, God is speaking more clearly through his Son. Trust in him, put your faith in him. He is the perfect Son of Man who can answer all of these questions on our behalf and will be eternally worshiped at the right hand of God, forever. Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the things that we've learned already in Job 38. There's a lot to cover. Thank you for speaking the truth to us. Thank you for Christ who died and who rose again that we might have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.