Sunday / Out Of The Whirlwind Job 38:1

1 Job: Lesson 11 Out Of The Whirlwind Memory Text: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. (Job 38:4) Setting The Stage: I think it s safe to say that since the birth of the 24- hour news cycle on cable television, the population has become exposed to more opinions and speculation regarding news stories than perhaps we have ever been since the first news broadcast. Efforts by cable news networks to find enough attention grabbing news to fill up the enormous time vacuum and to maximize viewership, has led many well meaning people to propagate the opinions and speculation as actual fact and news. Add to this phenomena the sound bites picked up by the population on social media, and you have people believing rumor over reality. Now it s true that it can be very hard sometimes for the news media to get the facts. So many things seem to get covered up leading investigative journalists to spend hours, days, weeks, months, yeah, even years to find the truth. So it is refreshing to actually get the truth and hear it from the one who holds the keys that will unlock the door so we can have access to the facts. Job s friends meant well. They sincerely tried to comfort him. Sometimes they said the right thing but at the wrong time, and at other times they said the wrong thing, and those wrong things put God in a bad light. It s important that whatever we say about God that He gets well represented by those who attempt to speak on behalf of Him. Throughout the duration of the conversation between Job and his friends, much of which had to do with God, God is silent. But in the closing chapters of the book of Job God remains silent no longer. Does He agree with Job s friends? Does He agree with Job? Will He answer the questions about suffering? Will He let Job know why he had to go through this experience? Sunday / Out Of The Whirlwind Job 38:1 Job 38:1. God s answer to Job takes up four chapters being broken up by a short, yet significant, confession on Job s part. Chapters 38 & 39 are closely connected and appear as an appeal to Job related to his lack of knowledge about God s creation. Without question is God seeking to broaden Job s concept of Himself. God will end up vindicating Job, but it is clear that His primary purpose is not to settle an argument but to reveal Himself more fully to Job. He doesn t reveal to Job the reasons for His suffering. What is important to God is that Job has a clear

2 understanding of who He is, which will do more to answer the reason why God allowed him to go through the experience of suffering. God doesn t say anything about why the righteous suffer and why the wicked prosper. He doesn t say anything about the future world and how He will right every wrong. God simply reveals Himself His goodness, His power, His wisdom. This revelation of God is designed to help answer Job s problems. Out of the whirlwind. The word whirlwind comes from the Hebrew that means storm or tempest, and it has been used in other instances where God appeared to others. In Isa. 29:6 and Zech 9:14, God speaks of punishment to the disobedient through storm and tempest. You recall that Elijah was taken up to heaven by a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:1). Instead of coming to Job and speaking to him in a still, small voice, He approaches Job in a way that definitely gets his attention. I wonder though, whether this revelation of God speaks more about God s identification with Job s experience that about getting Job s attention. Wasn t Job going through a rough storm himself? Wasn t the loss of livelihood and loved ones a severe tempest that Job endured? Could it be that God was saying to Job that through his trial God had been there all along? Where else has God come close to humanity? In the story of Abraham, God often comes close to him. On one particular occasion, God walked Abraham outside to show him the stars, confirming the promise God had given Abraham that his descendants would be as many in number as the stars of the nighttime sky (Gen. 15:1-6). God came close to Jacob who was concerned about whether God had truly forgiven him for his past indiscretions. That night turned into a night of wrestling and Jacob came out the other side as victor (Gen. 32:24-32). How about when God sent His Son into the world? Matthew 1:23: Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, God with us. It s one thing to know God is near, but how do we experience that closeness so we can allow God to aid us through our challenges? We must let faith penetrate the darkness and clouds to see God standing near. Monday / God s Question Job 38:2 Job 38:2. It s likely that God was addressing Elihu in this instance. Firstly, it would be inconsistent for God to say that Job had darkened counsel when in Job 42:7 He states that Job s friends had not spoken right as Job had. Secondly, Elihu had just finished talking and it seems right that God would address his comments.

3 Job 38:3. God is now talking to Job. Before posing the questions, God encouraged Job to make himself as strong as possible and be prepared to put forth the highest effort possible (girding the loins meant for men to take their long, flowing robes and fasten them with a girdle or belt so they could move without hindrance when running, working, or engaged in battle). Why does God as questions when He knows the answers? You see Him do this throughout history: Genesis 3:9-11: Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? So he said, I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself. And He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Genesis 4:9: Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother s keeper? 1 Kings 19:9: And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? Acts 9:4: Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? Matthew 16:13: When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? God s questions are a rhetorical device used to lead us to the truth. Perhaps you recall those moments when your parents asked you a question and you knew they knew the answer. But it was asked to get you to think, to draw the truth out of you. Good teachers ask good questions to get their students to work through a problem to arrive at a good conclusion. God gave us brains, and He wants us to think, process, and arrive at truth. If God were to ask you a question about the state of your life right now, what do you think He would ask, and what would you answer? Truth can be painful to look at, but when embraced it leads to liberation and freedom. Tuesday / The Lord As Creator Job 38:4-41 We need to understand that God isn t relating facts to Job for facts sake, but revealing Himself. And according to Job s response in Job 42:5, this approach with Job was incredibly affective. God s revelation of Himself to Job challenged his deepest thoughts. His questions are designed to expand Job s concept of the Deity. He wasn t going to receive an explanation about why all these calamities happened

4 to him. Instead, what he got was a flow of rhetorical questions contrasting the Lord in His creative might to the transience and ignorance of poor Job. Let s break down chapters 38 & 39: The creation of the world (Job 38:4-7) The sea (vs. 8-11) The dawn (vs. 12-15) Secrets of the sea, light and darkness, snow, hail, floods, rain, lightening, thunder, ice, dew, and frost (vs. 16-30) The stars and the clouds (vs. 31-38) The animal world (Job 38:39-39:30) Job 38:4. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? After referring to the origins of the earth, the sea, light, and darkness, God basically says to Job, that of course he knew all these things because he was born then and because he had lived a very long time (see Job 38:21). Job 38:24. Many of God s questions go back to the basic question of origins. Job s philosophical problem was that he did not understand the source of his trouble. God was not suggesting that He was this source, but if Job could recall creation and the fall, he would understand to some extent the reason for his suffering. Job 38:31. God now points Job to the starry heavens and points to several familiar constellations and asks if Job thinks himself capable of guiding them through space. Unlike Pleiades where gravity keeps the individual stars together in their flight through space, the stars of Orion are traveling apart from each other at great velocity. Can Job bind Pleiades or loose the belt of Orion? Surely not. The author of the lesson suggests that, Had the book been written today, the Lord might have asked, Who binds the quarks [any of a number of subatomic particles carrying a fractional electric charge] in protons and neutrons? Where were you when I first measured out a Planck mass [nature's maximum allowed mass for point- masses in other words, a mass capable of holding a single elementary charge.... If two point- masses of the Planck mass or greater met, they could spontaneously form a black hole]? Is it by your wisdom that gravity bends space and time? The answer to all these questions is the same: of course not. If Job knew so little about the creation, how much could he understand about the Creator? What a powerful contrast between the Creator and the created. What are we in contrast to God? And yet, look at what this God has done to save us and to offer us the hope of eternal fellowship with Him. Wednesday / The Wisdom Of The Wise Job 38; 39; 1 Corinthians 3:19; 1:20, 26, 27

5 Job 38:36. It s easy to be wise in our own eyes. After all, just think about the many inventions we ve come up with and the great discoveries we ve made. Yet discoveries only find out what already existed, and most inventions merely replicate what already exists in the natural world. God thought of it first. For example, helicopters hover, and fly up and down, backward and forward. But helicopters merely imitate what God had already made the hummingbird do. To walk across snow without sinking in and to keep our feet warm we need snowshoes or boots. But snowshoes merely imitate what God had already given the snowshoe rabbit. The rabbit s wide feet keep him from sinking, and the fur on and in between his toes keeps his paws nice and warm. Flippers help us swim with ease under water. But flippers merely imitate what God had already given to the seal with its own built- in flipper system. There is no question that science has revealed to us facets of reality that were previously hidden. Through television we have been able to go where we wouldn t have been able to go before. However, so much still remains for us to learn. In many ways, far from removing the majesty and the mystery of God s creation, science has made it even more fascinating, revealing a depth and complexity of the natural world that previous generations knew nothing about. What can learn from the following verses regarding the limits to human knowledge? 1 Corinthians 3:19: For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He catches the wise in their own craftiness 1 Corinthians 1:20, 26, 27: Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?...for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. Pride has no place in our thinking. We explore and learn many wonderful things, and yet there is still so much more to discover. Our greatest achievements are elementary to God. What is man that God is mindful of us? Thursday / Repenting In Dust And Ashes Job 40:1-4; 42:1-6 Job 40:1-4. What was Job s response to God s revelation of Himself? In chapter 40, it seems as if God is giving Job an opportunity to make a complete surrender at this point. God s question to Job revolves around four verbs contend, correct, rebuke, and answer. Job has heard the profound questions of chapters 38 and 39, now the question comes to him: Can he, the contender, the corrector instruct the Creator of all things? The answer is obvious. Satan predicted that Job would curse

6 God. Job didn t curse God, however, he made a mistake in trying to tell God what to do. Job s response, I am vile, instead of, I am innocent, tells us that God s revelation of Himself has changed Job s entire attitude. 42:1-6. Through the book of Job we have seen Job slowly climbing the ladder from discouragement to faith. He has received a revelation of God few have received. He has listened to God s voice and has had His faith and love renewed in the One who has loved Him all along. When Job had made his complaints, he thought that his reasoning was defensible. But when He came to understand God more fully, his former reasoning lost its convincing power. And isn t that how it often is today? Human reasoning that seems so powerful today turns out to be nonsense tomorrow. Job s willingness to admit his ignorance is commendable. He doesn t try to defend himself or excuse his position. Job s experience has taught him the meaning of faith. His vision of God has enabled him to surrender to the divine will. His commitment to God is now unaffected y his circumstances. He no longer expects temporal blessings as an evidence of heaven s favor. His relationship to God is now on a firmer, more dependable basis than before. Job finds a solution to his problem when he discovers that God is not limited by the traditions men have developed concerning him. This broader understanding that Job reveals when he says, Now my eye sees you, is akin to the experience of faith that is emphasized so strongly throughout the Scriptures. Romans 1:16, 17: For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Galatians 4:3-7: Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father! Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Appeal: Taking a humble posture through life is one of the smartest things we can do. Just when we think we know it all God comes along and blows away our ideas and theories by a revelation of Himself. We are puny and God is Almighty. Let s never forget that.