Behold God

We're going to read now in the book of Job and chapter 36. Job chapter 36. It's not the final meeting of the conference, still an important meeting to follow, but in our final what we call a ministry session, I want to try to lift your eyes heavenward again.

We're going to notice the words of a man named Elihu. Job chapter 36. Notice verse number 22.

Behold God. You can pause there for a moment. That's what I want us to try to do for the next little while.

That's the the title of my message. It's the objective of my message is to behold God. We've been reminded of of men like an Atkins or a Hitchens or a or a Dawkins and their philosophy is I am great, but they're not great.

God is great. And I think it's healthy for us to think of the greatness of God. Now all that we have heard this weekend is healthy for us.

Very often back home I'll take a van load of young believers and we'll go on a road trip to a conference. We've gone to Newfoundland or down to Maine and Massachusetts more frequently and they know that when they come with me one of the rules of the trip is when we pull away from the conference on Sunday evening we're going to go over all of the messages that we have just heard. That's a great way for you to, it gives you help to apply everything that you have heard to meditate upon that, to think about it and it helps you to consider how you can make this effective in your life.

I encourage you to do that whether as you speak with one another on your way home or around the table this evening or tomorrow. Maybe you'll be tired tonight but you could do it tomorrow. Look at your notes.

If you have made notes go over what you have heard. So on Friday night we were given important instruction reminders of the value and the importance of prayer and then we heard about the the danger or the the warning of of Aedemus, the warning of his life and how he turned away in contrast to that steadfast example of the Apostle Paul. And we thought of how God wants to encourage us and give us grace to endure.

He does that through the scriptures and we looked in the scriptures how how God called Jeremiah as a young man and God wants to call young men and women here to his service in a variety of ways. God is also a God of hope and so not only do we have the hope of future glory that's certain, it's a confident expectation, but God is also able to lead us through our present circumstances. There is hope for future testimony and so many valuable lessons from Ezra and Nehemiah.

They are so relevant, so contemporary, men that were wanting to lead others in rising up to build for God despite opposition and they wanted to maintain a scriptural separation in their service for the Lord. And the all-important truth that we are worshippers of God and this is our great objective is to worship God and to worship him unitedly. And we have a great privilege of being gathered to his name and experiencing that worship and teaching in a corporate sense with the Lord uniquely present residing among us.

And we have the treasure of the Word of God. We want to treasure it and value it and with the Word of God we want to learn more of God and see more of God and see his greatness. So let's try to do that together.

Elihu steps onto the stage of the book of Job, I think with a little more warmth in his heart, a little more than Job's other three counselors. And so Elihu now has an unbroken monologue of six chapters and he maybe doesn't have, well he doesn't have the entire or perfect perspective, but Elihu wisely proclaims the supremacy of God. So let's read his words, a sample of them at verse 22.

Behold God exalteth by his power, who teacheth like him, who hath enjoined him his way, or who can say thou hast wrought iniquity? Remember that thou magnify his work which men behold, every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. Behold God is great and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out. Now I'm going to read those words again making slight emendations to a reading, but please follow with me at verse 22.

Behold God is exalted in his power, who is a teacher like him, or who has prescribed for him his way, who has told him what to do, or who can say you have done wrong or iniquity? Remember to magnify his work which men behold, every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. Behold God is great and we know him not, and the number of his years is unsearchable. God is great.

One of the ways he is great, we have read at verse number 22, is that he is exalted in his power. God is an omnipotent God. That means he is all-powerful.

And one of the ways that God sets himself apart from all others is by his might. And he does things that nobody else can do. He elevates himself beyond all comparison by mighty displays, unique displays of his power like a virgin birth, like the resurrection of the dead, like the salvation of a soul, like the restoration of a believer.

It's the power of God. We stand in awe of God sometimes, maybe it's a little bit in fear, but we stand in awe if you observe the power or the strength of a tornado here, or we at times would see the strength of the wind in a hurricane, or maybe you witness floodwaters sweeping away everything in its path, or maybe it's a sudden flash of lightning that seems to brighten the entire night sky, but Elihu says God holds that lightning bolt in his hand. He's exalted in his power.

So when God speaks to Job a bit later, God is going to emphasize his power in nature. He says, who's the one who has shut the sea? Who is the one that has said to the water, you will come no farther. You will come this far and then you must stop.

Have you said that Job? It's me, God says. God also asks them, he says, have you entered the storehouses of the snow? Well, my friend Peter could tell you, I think, this winter about the storehouses of the snow. Storehouse number one, if you're wondering where the storehouses of the snow were this winter, storehouse number one was in Prince Edward Island, but storehouse number two, I think, was in my backyard or in the parking lot of the gospel hall that we lost half of our parking lot this winter for a number of weeks with abundant snowfall and it froze and abundant more snowfall.

And so God is maybe telling us that that was just a little foretaste of heaven, all of this snow, because there are storehouses of snow that he has in his possession. And he says to Job, can you bind the chains of Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? God is the one that has determined the movements of the heavenly constellations. He is exalted in his power.

Do you, Job, have an arm like God does? No, you don't. His power in creation testifies to his omnipotence. Jeremiah says, ah, Lord God, it is you who has made the heavens and the earth by your great power, by your outstretched arm.

Nothing is too hard for you. It's a wonderful thing to remember. Behold God in his almighty power.

But then Elihu says, who is a teacher like him? We're going to consider briefly God's wisdom. Who is a teacher like God? Jeremiah has said that while he made the earth by his power, he established the world by his wisdom. And so all of the ingenious discoveries of men in their spheres of learning, which are many and are truly ingenious, they are only examples of God's creatures uncovering the depths and the power and the beauties and the wonders of his creation.

He has allowed them to discover the beauties, the intricacies of his creation. When ancient Egyptians, I think it was, recognized pi as a mathematical constant. A little bit off from what we have today, but they were close.

Or when more modern men discover a new planet. Or when they map the human genome. It's amazing.

But that is man just getting a glimpse into God's wisdom. And so God has revealed his wisdom in a measure in this general revelation of creation around us. Likely some of you here have read a book by Ravi Zacharias called Cries of the Heart.

And in that book, Ravi Zacharias tells of a popular story that he took from his native India and he shared with a little village in Vietnam. And it's about a man who sat under a tall tree, laid in. It was heavy with nuts.

And he looked up into the tree and he said with a bit of a laugh to God, I don't think you are very smart. You have made this huge tree to hold small little nuts. And yet you have such a small tree, a small plant to hold big watermelons.

To me, God, it seems that you have all things out of proportion. That doesn't seem very smart. And then just shortly thereafter, a nut fell from the tree and it landed on his head.

And he said, well, I'm glad that was not a watermelon. And he realized maybe God had a wisdom that he had not contemplated. Ravi does not tell that story to mock education or to glorify ignorance.

He says it is just meant to put a dent in the inordinate pride that arrogates to itself as self-confidence based on man's illusion of omniscience. We like to think that we know so much, but God is the one who is the all wise God. And he has given us more of that wisdom in the special revelation, the general revelation of nature, the special revelation of the Bible of which we've been hearing.

The scriptures actually speak of a hidden wisdom of God. God has made foolish the wisdom of this world, but there is a wisdom ordained before the world for our glory. First Corinthians two.

It's a wisdom. I think it's a wisdom that begins to be unveiled to us when we begin to appreciate the cross. And a treasure house of spiritual truth has been given to us in the words by the spirit, and there is no better instructor than the spirit of God.

This is God's wisdom. Behold God in his wisdom. Behold God in his almighty power.

Then Elihu says, who has enjoined? Who has prescribed for him his way? Who has told God where to go? Who has told God what to do? Who is the one that causes God's actions? So we're considering now God's independence. And when I say that God is independent, I mean that he is self-existent and self-sufficient. God is independent, meaning he is self-sufficient and self-existent.

So the God of the Bible is a self-existent God. His existence is uncaused. Your existence had a cause.

It is your parents. It is the Lord himself. But no one has caused God to come into being.

He is self-existent. He is not a mere superstitious invention of pre-scientific man. It's idols that are the creation of superstitious man.

Man is the invention of a creative and a social and an omnipotent God. And the God of Elihu and the God of Job had no origin. He is an independent God.

A couple of times over the past six weeks, I have sat, I was going to say one-on-one, it's one-on-two with a Chinese couple who has, they have come to our ESL Bible classes and they wanted to meet individually to discuss a little bit more about the Bible. And I was happy to do that. And so we met first at the university campus and they explained to me their atheistic background and how difficult it is for them to believe the Bible, but they're interested in the Bible.

They're curious about it and they have so many questions because their knowledge of the Bible, they say, is so limited. They had come to our ESL classes when we were going through the story of Joseph. And I was trying to draw these comparisons from Joseph to Christ.

I was making limited progress with them because they knew nothing. I needed to start at a more basic level with them. And they said they had all sorts of questions.

They didn't know much about the Bible. So I said, well, would you like me to give you a summary of the Bible's message? And I was going to be happy to do that. I didn't know what I was going to say, but I was interested to hear what I was going to say and trying to summarize the Bible in five minutes.

But they said, no, we would like to start with our questions. I said, OK, what's question number one? I'm all ready to go. They said, where did God come from? That wasn't what I was expecting.

It's the same question that we as children ask our parents. But remember that scene when God is sending Moses to deliver his people? And Moses says, well, what if they ask me who sent me? Whom will I say? And God says, I am sent you. I am that I am.

There is no one to give direction to God. There is no higher authority to which he can appeal. There is no one to prescribe for him his way.

He is independent. He is self-existent and he is self-sufficient. He does not depend upon another.

He does not require another. And I love the words, they are humbling, but I rejoice in the words at the end of Romans 9 to 11, where Paul has unfolded something by the spirit. He has unfolded something of God's great purposes and God's great program for the ages.

And he says, oh, the depths of the richest of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out who has been his counselor, who has told God how he should go about it, who has given it to God that he would owe it back to him. For from him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever. From him, he's the source of it all.

Through him, he's the means of it all. Unto him, his glory is the purpose of it all. God alone is entitled to move the affairs of the universe for his glory.

It's not being selfish, it's being God. And he is not dependent upon our help. All of this obviously relates to God being sovereign, right? He is the potter and we are the clay.

And he has us in his hands. We would like sometimes we act as if we could put God in our hand, but we can't. We're in his hand.

This independence of a sovereign God, I think, bears a very practical implication then in our life. It's highlighting our sinfulness, actually. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says, was this referred to already this week, and maybe how man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

But we twist that and we make our chief end is to exalt ourselves and to please ourselves. And when we try to take things into our own hands or when we take the credit or when we live as if we are independent of God, but maybe we fail to consult him or we fail to give him the glory or we do not express dependence upon him or we're not seeking him in worship. It's as if we are living independently of our maker, as if we are self existent and self-sufficient creatures.

Ours is the kingdom, the glory, the power and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Not amen.

No, it's his. So we are not to prescribe to God his way. And more than that, we need to allow God to prescribe our way.

God is different from us. We're not God and we're not to play God. We need to let God be God.

So Elihu has said, God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him? Who has prescribed for him his way? Or who can say to God, thou hast wrought iniquity? We're thinking now of the sinlessness of our God. And one of the most fascinating things of God is our tendency to stand in judgment against a sinless God.

That's the idea behind the title of C.S. Lewis' collection of essays, God in the Dock. C.S. Lewis says, ancient man wisely approached God just like an accused person would approach his judge. But for modern man, man has made himself the judge and he has put God in the dock.

And he may wisely choose or kindly choose to grant God an acquittal. But the important thing is that man sits on the bench and God is in the dock being judged. That idea is subtly so prevalent.

It dominates the thinking of our society today, I think, as if we are the standards of righteousness. As if 21st century Western man has a right to dictate what is good and what is right. We need to get that idea out of our heads.

We don't set the standards. God does. Now I will confess that the judgments of God and the sufferings and chaos of our world at times are not easy subjects.

They're not easy to deal with. But we are not in a position to tell God what is right and what is wrong. Because we're observing God through the prism of our own sinfulness and our own self-importance.

God is light and in him is no darkness at all. And remember at the end of that final judgment, when men appear before God, they stand at the great white throne. It's a white throne because that's symbolizing the purity of his judgments.

And the books are opened because the sentence that is going to be carried out will be perfect judgment, perfect justice. It will be according to the evidence. God's judgment is just.

His ways are righteous. This same Elihu will testify in chapter 37 that God who is great in power, though he is great in power, justice and righteousness he will not violate. If we had the power of God, we would use it at our whim for our own pleasure and probably break every other law.

But though he is great in power, justice and righteousness, he will not violate. He is a good God who is patiently bearing with a very, very broken world. So remember that an overarching message of the book of Job is let God be God.

And I know that's easier to say than to really believe and live. Because in the context of Job, that isn't only applicable to God's judgments, but it's applicable to our trials. God has done no iniquity.

He can do no wrong. And so Elihu wisely turns us to God's works of creation. Because you believe in an intelligent designer.

And just as you believe there is intelligence in the design of creation, there is also an intelligent designer at work in your sufferings. And the God who brings pattern and beauty out of creation is able to bring pattern and beauty out of the trials and the low points and the struggles and the hardships of your life. He's an all-wise God.

He is good and faithful and he does no wrong. His power, his wisdom, his independence, his sinlessness. Come down to verse number 26.

God is great and we know him not. God's transcendence. God is great.

That's not meant to be a cold, empty phrase that someone utters with a sword to an enemy's neck. Those are words of worship from a humble and believing heart. God is great.

That word great is actually a very rare word. It may only be in the book of Job, I think. It's used again in the next chapter, in chapter 37.

But it's very fitting that a unique word is used to describe our transcendent God. He's great. To say he's transcendent is to say he's beyond our universe.

He exceeds our thoughts of excellence. He is greater than our minds. He cannot be fully known or comprehended.

Behold, God is great and we know him not. I balance that by reminding us that in some sense, God must be knowable. Because we say that to be saved is to know the Lord.

John 17 and 3 says, this is eternal life, that they might know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. If we are going to worship God, we must know something about God. We must know who we worship.

Worship is meant to be intelligent. Worship is not defined by unintelligible babble. Worship is not defined by loud music.

Worship is meant to be intelligent. That's why Paul is so upset. One of the reasons in Acts 17, when he's there and the Athenians are worshiping and they have that altar, he sees all of these idols and their superstition and they have the idol, they have the altar to the unknown God.

And Paul is grieved at their ignorance and their idolatry. He wants worship to be given to the true God. And he says, the one that you do not know, I'm going to declare him to you.

Or in John 4, the Lord Jesus comes to that Samaritan woman and he says, you worship what you do not know. They that worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth. And so to worship God, we must know truth about God.

And our transcendent God is a personal God who's revealed himself in his son and in his word. And yet in one sense, Elijah is exactly right. He is unknowable in his fullness.

He's greater than our minds can comprehend. There are many examples of that. The Trinity is one classic example.

I know that you know the truth of the Trinity and you are able to explain it to others, but there's still something about it that's a little bit hard for us to fully fathom. That's part of God being God. Several years ago, there were a couple of Jehovah's Witness ladies that so-called that came to my door.

And in the course of our conversation, I probably didn't get very far in the conversation. I don't think I accomplished very much. But in the course of that conversation, not surprisingly, we turned to the subject of the Trinity because they do not espouse that.

And they said, but isn't there something wrong with that Trinity? Because you can't fully understand it. I mean, don't you want a God that you can relate to more? Don't you want a God that you can understand more, that is more like you? I said, well, not really. I said, this is one of the things that I like about God.

This is why I worship God, is that he is greater than me. If he was like me, I would not need to worship him. This is part of God being God.

J. I. Packer has written a book called Knowing God. And he says, if you want to get a sense of God's greatness, you want to remove from your thoughts, any limits, anything, any limits on God that would make him small, remove those from your thoughts. And he goes to Psalm 139, no boundaries to the presence of the Lord with us.

Because if there was a God whose presence we could evade, he would be a very small and trivial God, omnipresent. Not only does he know where we are, but he knows our hearts. He knows our hypocrisy.

He knows our self-reserve. And Packer says, living becomes a very awesome business when you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the company of an omniscient creator. And so recognize there are no limits to his presence and his power.

And then Packer, he says to get another sense of his greatness, you got to turn to Isaiah chapter 40. I love Isaiah 40. I don't know if you're allowed to have favorite chapters in the Bible, but if you're allowed, Isaiah 40 might be my favorite chapter in the Bible.

John's my favorite book if I'm allowed to have a favorite book. And if I'm allowed to have a favorite chapter, it's Isaiah 40. It's been a great encouragement to me.

Just a few times in my life when I thought it was my job to carry the weight of the universe, which by the way is very heavy, that's why it's not our job to do that. But when I thought it was my job and I was weakened by that, Isaiah 40 strengthens us. And Isaiah 40 is written to a despondent people, a people against whom the tide has turned.

They have ceased to believe that God's cause is going to triumph. And God says, tell those people, behold your God. And you see the forces of nature and the might of the mountains.

God has weighed them in his scales. Or maybe you fear the power of nations around you. They are like a drop out of his bucket or like dust on his scales.

Or you see the wicked rulers of this world. God brings the princes to nothing. He'll blow upon them and they wither.

To whom then will you liken me? To whom am I equal, says God. There is no one. He's transcendent.

He exceeds them all. Behold your God, Isaiah says. Behold God, Elihu says.

Josiah Condor wrote many hymns. He only had one of them published in the Believer's Hymnbook. But in my ever so humble and subjective opinion, I think it's the very best one in there.

We're going to sing just a couple of verses of 352 that says, Thou art the everlasting word, the Father's only son, God manifestly seen and heard, and heaven's beloved one. Let's sing verse one and four. Verse one and four of 352.

Of God art thou that every every knee to thee should bow but the high mysteries of his name angels grasp transcend the father only glorious claim the son can comprehend of God thou God is great in his transcendence. Only the father fully comprehends the son. Only the son fully comprehends the father.

And the number of his years are unsearchable, his eternality. Not only is there an everlasting future, but an everlasting past. Psalm 90 says, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

He inhabits eternity and his years are unsearchable. This is what, this is what racks my brain. I remember as a child on multiple occasions asking my mother, where has God come from? And how could he have been forever? How is that possible? And my brain felt like it was going to explode because it's too much for us to realize and understand.

He's an eternal God. And underneath you are the everlasting arms. His omnipotence, his wisdom, his independence, his sinlessness, his transcendence, his eternality.

And just before I close, I want to remind you that our transcendent God is not a distant God. And in the words of Acts chapter 17, this great God is not very far from every one of us. Or in the words of Galatians 3, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts.

That spirit in Romans 8 makes intercession for us with groanings which we cannot utter. And that spirit within us enables us to say, Abba, Father, to the great transcendent God. Great is the mystery of godliness, that our God was manifest in the flesh.

What a mercy and a wonder that our God is a self-humbling God who, being in the form of God, did not think that's something to be used for his own advantage. He takes upon him the form of a servant and he humbled himself. And the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily, the fullness of it.

It's wonderful then to trace all of those attributes of God that I have mentioned and to see them in the life and experience of Christ. This perfect combination of deity and humanity in one. So there he is on the boat and the disciples see him calming the sea.

And they say, what manner of man is this that the winds and the sea obey him? But just moments before that, he is still the omnipotent God and yet he was asleep on a pillow. It's amazing. Or the eternality of the Son of God.

Micah says, out of you Bethlehem Ephratas shall come unto us, one whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting. John records the Lord Jesus boldly saying, before Abraham was, I am. The number of the Son's years are unsearchable.

And yet in the mystery of the incarnation we have thought earlier today of those words from Psalm 102 where he says, he has shortened my days. His years are unsearchable and yet he was cut off out of the land of the living. And the eternal Son of God whose years are unsearchable hangs upon a cross in shame and he says it is finished and he bows his head and he dismisses his spirit and they take the body of Jesus, wrap it in linen cloths and they lay it in a tomb.

Tis mystery all, the immortal dies. Who can explore his strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine. Tis mercy all, let earth adore, let angel minds inquire no more.

The greatness of our God. Elihu says, behold God. Leave with a vision of God and while the world looks at you in mockery at times and wonders at why you would spend a weekend at a conference and they wonder what's going through your mind, well I want God to go through your mind.

They don't know what they're missing. They're without God and without hope in the world. They're missing God and it's great to be a worshipper of God beloved.

It's the highest privilege. We belong to him and we have the privilege of obeying that command of scripture that says you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. He is worth it.

He is great. Exalt him, honor him, love him, worship him and serve him alone forever.