God Speaks!

Reflection: You might remember the old saying, “Be careful what you ask for?”  For 37 chapters Job has been asking for an answer to his travails, and now God, in chapter 38, speaks to him out of a storm.  You might be wondering a “storm”, why wouldn’t God make His presence known in a more pastoral way, considering the situation with His servant Job. But as we see at Mt. Sinai, when the mountain trembled violent at God’s manifestation (Exodus 19), and in Ezekiel 1, when God came in a windstorm and flashes of lightning, that God often makes appearances this way.  We sense the sheer holiness, and how intimidating it can be when people encounter God in person.

And then God says to Job, “Brace yourself like a man!”  This may well have been a Hebrew word derived from the word for “wrestling”, much like Jacob wrestled with God had received a permanent reminder of the encounter.  Job had been asking for an answer and God wants to make sure he is ready to hear the truth.  It reminds me of Jack Nicholson in the movie, A Few Good Men, when he says, “You want the truth you can’t handle the truth!”  Okay sorry for in any way connecting Jack Nicholson and God!  Forgive me! 

God goes on to describe who it is Job is demanding answer from.  He does it in the form of questions to gauge if Job is in a position to ask for an accounting from the Almighty.  This reminds me of the Reformation, when Luther was challenging the humanist Erasmus by saying “Your God is too small!”  And indeed today, we tend to downsize God to our limited understanding and frame of reference.  By the end of chapter 39, God will ask Job 50 questions which he cannot answer.  One author William Henry Green has captured this well when he writes:

“It might upon the first superficial view of the case appear as though the discourse of the LORD had no particular relevance to the circumstances in which it was uttered. And the question might arise what these appeals to the magnificence of the works of God in nature have to do with the solution of the enigma to which this book is devoted. How do they contribute to the explanation of the mystery that is involved in the sufferings of good men?

The fact is, this discourse is not directed to an elucidation of that mystery at all. It is not the design of God to offer a vindication of his dealings with men in general, or a justification of his providence towards Job. He has no intention of placing Himself at the bar of his creatures and elevating them into judges of his conduct. He is not amenable to them and He does not recognize their right to be censors of Him and of His ways.”

So what is happening here?  Job’s underestimation of God starts to change his overestimation of himself simultaneously as he hears from God.  Before we are too hard on Job, let’s remember his circumstances. I doubt many of us would not be asking the same questions with similar veracity.  We will see in the upcoming chapters God’s grace and mercy, but for today Job needs to reminded who God is and who he is. 

And maybe there is a lesson in this for us today, who tend to take God for granted or underestimate His true nature.  As we consider who God is and what God has done; maybe we might be just a little more in awe of Him.  When we consider this is the same God who laid out the foundations of the deep, drew the lines of the earth, and ordered the planets and stars we might exclaim with the Psalmist, “Who is man that you are mindful of him.”  Then as we contemplate that God stepped out of heaven and became one of us it is even more astounding! 

Psalm 56:9-13

9 Then my enemies will turn back

    when I call for help.

    By this I will know that God is for me.

10 In God, whose word I praise,

    in the Lord, whose word I praise—

11 in God I trust and am not afraid.

    What can man do to me?

12 I am under vows to you, my God;

    I will present my thank offerings to you.

13 For you have delivered me from death

    and my feet from stumbling,

that I may walk before God

    in the light of life.

Job 38

The Lord Speaks

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

2 “Who is this that obscures my plans

    with words without knowledge?

3 Brace yourself like a man;

    I will question you,

    and you shall answer me.

4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

    Tell me, if you understand.

5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

    Who stretched a measuring line across it?

6 On what were its footings set,

    or who laid its cornerstone—

7 while the morning stars sang together

    and all the angels shouted for joy?

8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors

    when it burst forth from the womb,

9 when I made the clouds its garment

    and wrapped it in thick darkness,

10 when I fixed limits for it

    and set its doors and bars in place,

11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;

    here is where your proud waves halt’?

12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,

    or shown the dawn its place,

13 that it might take the earth by the edges

    and shake the wicked out of it?

14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;

    its features stand out like those of a garment.

15 The wicked are denied their light,

    and their upraised arm is broken.

16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea

    or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?

    Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?

18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?

    Tell me, if you know all this.

19 “What is the way to the abode of light?

    And where does darkness reside?

20 Can you take them to their places?

    Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

21 Surely you know, for you were already born!

    You have lived so many years!

22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow

    or seen the storehouses of the hail,

23 which I reserve for times of trouble,

    for days of war and battle?

24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,

    or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,

    and a path for the thunderstorm,

26 to water a land where no one lives,

    an uninhabited desert,

27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland

    and make it sprout with grass?

28 Does the rain have a father?

    Who fathers the drops of dew?

29 From whose womb comes the ice?

    Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

30 when the waters become hard as stone,

    when the surface of the deep is frozen?

31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?

    Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons

    or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?

    Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds

    and cover yourself with a flood of water?

35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?

    Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

36 Who gives the ibis wisdom

    or gives the rooster understanding?

37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

    Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

38 when the dust becomes hard

    and the clods of earth stick together?

39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness

    and satisfy the hunger of the lions

40 when they crouch in their dens

    or lie in wait in a thicket?

41 Who provides food for the raven

    when its young cry out to God

    and wander about for lack of food?

1 Corinthians 10:1-10

Warnings From Israel’s History

10 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.

May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. Psalm 119:76 (NIV)

Just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:5

Father God, you know our unspoken pain and sadness. Console and comfort us with your abiding love. Bless us with a consciousness of your gracious leading. We ask this in the name of your Son, whose sufferings redeem us. Amen.