Job 38: God Begins His Response

Job wanted an answer from God, and in Job 38, God has indeed come down to talk to Job out of a whirlwind. Here is how he began the conversation.

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

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

Job 38:3  Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

Verse two most likely refers to Job. He has been receiving some good advice from his friends, albeit delivered in the wrong way. Although I admit that I have been critical of his friends for their treatment of him, what they said was generally not wrong. Their main error was the assumption that Job must have sinned, but if he had sinned, most of their counsel would have been right on the mark. Beyond that, even within their misguided advice, I had tried to point out where they did say things that were true about God. They had a good sense of His character.

Now, God is saying that since you really don’t have much knowledge about what you are talking about and are ignoring counsel, let me ask you some questions. The rest of the chapter kind of goes like this.

Job 38:4  Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

The rest of the chapter is a list of things that God has done. God continues speaking right up until the final chapter when we hear Job respond, but even at this point, we can kind of see where this is going.

One of Job’s main complaints was that he wanted to know what was going on. He wants an answer from God as to why he is suffering in this fashion.

Through this chapter, Job still doesn’t have any answer, but God is basically asking Job if he has any of these answers either. Obviously, as humans we are incredibly limited in our knowledge of the universe and the things of God, and I think that is why God is making this point.

He is asking Job why he is bothering to question what He is doing. He handles all of this other stuff in the universe, so why can’t God watch over one human life?

We will see this develop more, and perhaps that final statement will change, but that is where I have to imagine this statement by God is going to end up going.

Job 33: Use the Bible

In Job 33, I’m kind of happy that we finally see a mature argument being brought by Elihu against Job. I still think that he was slightly mistaken, but at least we get to hear a fresh voice was obviously thoughtful and willing to talk.

Job 33:8  Surely thou hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words, saying,

Job 33:9  I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me.

This is obviously the same point I have been harping on the entire time, but Job never said that he was perfect for his entire life. If he believed that, then why would he have said what he did in chapter 14?

Job 14:4  Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

Job claims that no one can be clean, so that obviously includes him.

However, even though Elihu still seems to be missing this point a little bit, he does get around to articulating a very important truth that perhaps Job did need to hear.

Job 33:10  Behold, he findeth occasions against me, he counteth me for his enemy,

Job 33:11  He putteth my feet in the stocks, he marketh all my paths.

Job 33:12  Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man.

He is essentially saying that God really does not need to answer to us. He is greater than humans, and His purposes are also greater than our purposes. Listen to how he continues.

Job 33:13  Why dost thou strive against him? for he giveth not account of any of his matters.

Job 33:14  For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.

Then he lays out the point that Job is upset because he doesn’t have the answers. Elihu says that that is kind of hard to explain because God has indeed communicated with humans.

That is where I’m going with our application today.

I think that we can fall into the trap of saying God doesn’t tell us anything. We can end up saying that we never get answers even though we are desperately looking for them.

The fact of the matter is that we have a lot of answers. The Bible provides a variety of answers for a variety of situations, and it actually provides a pretty good representation of most of the situations that we can run into.

We might complain about not having answers, but we miss the ones that are right in front of us.

I hope that we don’t do that. Obviously, prayer is incredibly important and we need to be dialoguing with God. However, if we feel like we are not getting answers, we need to not forget about the resources we have right in front of us. God speaks through the prophets and the writers of the Bible. It is a valuable tool for answers.

Job 32: Running Out Of Answers

Job 32 provides us with an interesting narrative of what happens when we follow 1 Peter 3:15.

1Pe 3:15  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

We have now been listening to this debate for over a month (in our time), and Job’s friends obviously just did not understand what was actually happening. They could not stand that Job continued maintaining his innocence. They thought that he must have done something terrible to get all of the problems that he did, and they kept trying to drill that point home.

That being said, Job always had an answer for them, and here is what happened.

Job 32:1  So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.

Basically, they ran out of material to argue back with. Although the second part of that phrase is somewhat perplexing, I think that they basically thought that he was stubborn. They simply thought that he was too conceited; after all, he was claiming innocence which is very difficult to do in this kind of situation.

This approach did not work for the other people who were around them.

Job 32:2  Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God.

Job 32:3  Also against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.

Elihu did not like Job because he was trying to justify himself about being innocent. It seems as if Elihu wanted Job to focus more on why God was just and fair rather than why he himself did not deserve punishment. However, he was also mad at his friends.

They could not find a way to successfully answer Job, but they continued to condemn him. They were being unreasonable, but they were perfectly content in that state.

I mentioned that original verse from 1 Peter because we can see that Job was very prepared to give an answer for his situation. He gave an answer that no one could successfully dispute, and even third parties who were not thrilled with Job recognized that.

Elihu saw the power of reason. He got angry when his three friends continued using bad arguments to justify their claim. We need to make sure that we are not being like his friends.

Although Christians are often accused of being anti-intellectual, that really is not true. There is a rich tradition of history, philosophy and even science to support our faith, and we need to embrace that. We want to end up like Job. We want people to run out of their own answers because then it might be more open to hearing our answers. I would hope that our answers would be Biblically-based and point people towards God.