Wisdom Truck 21

 

We come to the climax of our tour of Job, when God himself speaks.  Note that two conditions are now present that were not earlier: one, the back and forth, "woe is me", dialogue between himself and his friends, and two: he was actually ready to listen, after Elihu gave him 'the facts of life', as it were.  To hear God you have to be 1) willing to shut up, and 2) willing to listen.

Now God hits him with a lot in chapters 38-41, but if you take a step back and big picture the passages, it neatly breaks down into 2 sections that are each bookmarked with a question.

SECTION ONE

Question one: 

Job 38:1  Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 

Job 38:2  “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 

Job 38:3  Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 

Question two:

Job 40:1  And the LORD said to Job: 

Job 40:2  “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” 

So big picture:  God starts with telling Job he doesn't really know what he's talking about.  Then, He proceeds to describe to Job all the things that God in His Wisdom has set up:

-38:4-11: The designing of the universe;

-38:12-15 The concept of time;

-38:16-20 The depths of the unseen world;

And so on.  Midway through this, God uses a little of the sarcasm Job used (indirectly) on Him right back:

Job 38:21  You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! 

What God is doing here is destroying Job's right to question Him- God had NO duty to Job, not even that of appopinting a mediator- though He eventually would with Christ!  By calling Job a 'faultfinder', God is pointing out Job's sin- not questioning God, but the attitude that God had wronged him.

SECTION TWO

Question one:

Job 40:6  Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 

Job 40:7  “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 

Job 40:8  Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? 

Question two, this time about midway through:

Job 41:10  No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? 

Job 41:11  Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. 

Who God is talking about we will hit in a second.  This second section turns towards a less esoteric, more in-Job's face showing of the vast difference between God and man.  God does this through the description of two creatures that blows away the entirity of the evolution/10 billion year old universe.

The first of these creatures, described in 40:15 to 24, any little kid could tell you, is a dinosaur- specifically, something like an Apatosaurus.

Job 40:17  He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. 

Job 40:18  His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. 

Job 40:19  “He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! 

Job 40:20  For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. 

Job 40:21  Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. 

Job 40:22  For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. 

Job 40:23  Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. 

I want you to think hard on this:  If this was a creature that died out 70 million years before man existed, and not discovered by man for at least another 3,000 years, WHY would God describe it to him?  The commentators, most of whom never heard of dinosaurs, tried to pass it off as a hippo- and I doubt I need to find a picture of the back end of a hippo to convince you that its tail has very little resemblance to a cedar!  The point was, that this was a creature Job knew he could not kill; and yet, the God Job tried to make himself even with had MADE him, even before He made man.

The second creature after this Behemoth, was called Leviathan.  Again, commentators and skeptics have tried to scale it down into 'a crocodile'.  What crocodile have you seen that could do this:

Job 41:18  His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. 

Job 41:19  Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. 

Job 41:20  Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. 

Job 41:21  His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth. 

..... 

Job 41:27  He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. 

Job 41:28  The arrow cannot make him flee; for him, sling stones are turned to stubble. 

Job 41:29  Clubs are counted as stubble; he laughs at the rattle of javelins. 

Job 41:30  His underparts are like sharp potsherds; he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire. 

Job 41:31  He makes the deep boil like a pot; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 

Job 41:32  Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired. 

You would say, "This sounds like a fire-breathing sea monster"; you would be right.  And if it was a fanciful creature, WHY would God be using it?  If you believe, as I do, the Bible is the Word of God, you have to believe these creatures existed with man. 

In studying this, I found a little corroboration in the form of the Roman Marcus Attilius Regulus, a Counsul and general in the 260s-250s BC.  According to several sources, during his invasion of Carthaginian Africa in 255 BC, his army came to the Bagradas River.  There they encountered a beast much like what was described in Job.  It nearly shattered his army (which was then defeated by Carthage), until a lucky shot from a catapult hit a weak spot in that armor and broke its back.  The finished it off and skinned it, and that skin- 120 feet long, or three times the size of the largest recorded crocodile- was sent to Rome.

Did this really happen? Who knows- a defeated general might say anything.  However the skin was attested to in more than one source.

Point being that after the first line of questioning, Job said, basically, I'll shut up now.  By the second, he saw himself- and God- for what they really were...

Job 42:1  Then Job answered the LORD and said: 

Job 42:2  “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 

Job 42:3  ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 

Job 42:4  ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ 

Job 42:5  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 

Job 42:6  therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” 

Now Job and God were good; because deep in Job's heart, he had never wronged God in disbelief.  The three friends, however, had been deceived by the demonic,and God basically told them, "If you want forgiveness, ask Job to pray for you, because I'm not listening to you."  Which brings us to the flip side of where we started:   3)God can ALWAYS hear; but 4) He won't listen to sin.