Job 38
McGeeCHAPTERS 3842THEME: Jehovah and JobWe last saw Job left all alone. Now God breaks in on this man in his weakness. God meets him right at the point of his own inadequacy. God is so great!
Job 38:1
JEHOVAH VS. JOBThe mark of a good teacher is that he begins where a student has left off. He will begin where the student is and will move up to where he wants to bring him. God is a teacher. He will teach Job here. The Lord Jesus Christ is also a teacher, the greatest teacher. He wants to teach us today. Notice here as God teaches Job that He begins right where they left offin nature. A storm is coming up, and God breaks in as the Creator. He begins there, and He will bring this man to where He wants to bring him. The Lord Jesus also taught that way. I don’t think the parables of the Lord Jesus were imagined. He would just stop and observe the lives of the people of that day, and that would be His parable. He would meet them where they were. For example, “… Behold, a sower went forth to sow” (see Mat_13:3-9). There were little hills all through Palestine and, wherever He walked, He would see the sowers sowing the grain. Or, “… The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal …” (Mat_13:33). That was a common experience, and Jesus had watched women do that over and over again. The Lord Jesus began his teaching where the people were, and then He brought them to where He wanted them to be. We find this teaching principle all through the Word of God, which is the greatest teaching available to man. It begins where we are and teaches and brings us to where God wants us to be. I tried to use this principle in my conference preaching. Whenever I came to a different city, I would buy the paper for a few days before the conference. Then I would begin speaking at the conference with some reference to a local situationthe race for mayor, some famous person visiting there, or some kind of scandal in that city. I would try to start with a casual remark about it, probably something humorous. Why? Because that is where the people lived. So we find God breaking in right where Job is. I want to confess as we come to this part of the book that if I felt totally inadequate up to this point, now I don’t even know what to say. I feel like just simply being quiet, closing my Bible and stopping. But we cannot do that, so we will simply read what God says, and I will make a few comments as we go along. JEHOVAH SPEAKS TO JOBGod answers Job out of the whirlwind, out of that storm that has now broken upon Job. God is speaking to him as the Creator.
Job 38:2
We will find that Job will finally be willing to say that he has uttered words without knowledge. That, my friend, is an awful sin. I think we have a lot of it today. Those talk programs on television not only commit this sin but most of them are the most asinine things imaginable. They accomplish nothing at all, but they make for entertainment and are prepared by some light-headed folk. God says, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” One man said he liked the dictionary because the stories in it were so short. Well, there are a great many people who pull a few words out of the dictionary and attempt to put them together. Whether they make sense or not doesn’t seem to be the point as long as they are using big words.
Job 38:3
This is the verse that I have always wanted to put in the front of every book on geology, but they won’t let me do it. It makes no difference whether the book was written by a Christian or a non-Christian; I think it should be put in the book. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.” By the way, where were you? That is a good question. What is it that holds this universe in space? And it is not standing still. You and I are on a little earth that is as unstable in itself as anything can be. There is nothing under it to hold it up. I don’t even know which is underwhat is down or upas far as the universe is concerned. Why doesn’t it start going in some direction? Why does it just go around and around? What keeps it going around and around? Apparently it has been doing this for millions of years. The question is, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” A geologist once took me up to a ridge in northern ArizonaI thought it was a ridge, but it was just sand. I couldn’t understand why sand was piled up there. He kicked away the sand and under it was a petrified log. I asked, “My, where did this come from?” He said, “California.” I said, “Who hauled it in here?” He answered, “It floated in here.” Now if you look at that Arizona desert, it is hard to imagine that there was ever any water that could have floated that log. But, apparently that is what has happened. That log had floated in from California. I asked, “When did that happen?” He said, “Well, about 250,000 years ago.” And he said it like he had been there when the log arrived. Now it may be that he was right. I am not contradicting him and saying that he was wrong. I am saying that there are a lot of folk today who seem to know what took place millions and millions of years ago. God asks, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.”
Job 38:5
The Book of Job apparently comes from the period before any word of Scripture was written. God begins with Job at the point where He began with all men at that particular timeat the point of creation. Paul began at this same point when he talked about the revelation of God to all mankind. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Rom_1:18-20). It is all important for us to see that God was speaking to Job and to all men in that day through His creation. They were close enough to creation that there was no atheism. Instead, there was polytheism. They actually worshiped the creature rather than the Creator. This is what Paul went on to speak of in the first chapter of Romans (Rom_1:21-23). I am not going to attempt to develop this section here. It has to do with creation. It has to do with this physical universe that you and I live in today. And, as Paul says in Romans, creation speaks of God: the person of God, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Creation reveals the greatness of our God. How great Thou art! This is the impression we are bound to get, as God speaks of the fact that He is the Creator and He knows much that man does not know.
Job 38:7
Actually, man is a “Johnny-come-lately” in God’s universe. There was a joy in creation even before man was created. My friend, if you are His son, you are going to have joy in your life. God wants you to have joy. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ …” (Eph_1:3). Blessed! The word is happy. God is happy. He’s joyful and He wants us to be joyful. I hope that the joy of the Lord is your portion today. He wants it to be. There are a couple of interesting verses here:
Job 38:22
Some fantastic interpretations have been drawn from these verses of how snow and hail will be used in warfare, but I am not about to get out on a limb with this. I do know that snow is what defeated Napoleon. Rev_8:7 tells us that God will use hail in one of the judgments of the earth. But here God is simply making the point to Job that His creation is beyond the understanding of man. Only God can know these things. He goes on to talk about the starry heavens:
Job 38:31
What do we know about those tremendous stars out yonder in the heavens? I do not know how much the ancients knew about them, but apparently they knew a great deal more than we give them credit for knowing. It is my understanding that the Egyptians were able to accurately measure the distance to the sun. Therefore they must have had considerable knowledge. Have you known God through His creation? Can you really know God through creation? I think God is making it very clear to Job that the creation reveals His greatness. One can know about God through His creation, but creation will not bring a man to a saving knowledge of God. Chapter 38 has shown God in His past creation. Chapter 39 will reveal God in natureGod as the sustainer of His creation. This is His revelation through His creation right at the present.