Well, Job chapter 38 and 39 is where we're at tonight as we continue to work our way through the Bible in three years, and so we'll work through a good portion of these two chapters.
But let's start out just by reading verses one through 3 here of Job chapter 38. Here's.
What it says.
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.
And said, who is this?
Who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Now prepare yourself like a man.
I will question you and you shall answer me.
Here in the Book of Job this is an exciting event. A much anticipated event as we get to Chapter 38 and finally God shows up as we've been looking at the Book of Job over the past couple weeks, I've been sharing this outline. You can look at chapters one through three and take in.
The full affliction that Job experienced and the fullness of his trial and the grief that he expressed there in Chapter 3, then chapters 4 through 37, the bulk of the book.
Is he dialogue between Job and his friends and his friends don't really offer any comfort or help.
They really make matters worse as they misrepresent God as they falsely accuse Job of all kinds of perversities and iniquities and things, and Job tries to process what they're saying, tries to process the.
Great pain and things that he's going through and so he's wrestling with life and struggling and asking questions and wondering why God would allow this and why God would do this and why you know God would bring these afflictions into his life.
And so, after this long discourse between Job and his friends and all of them kind of speculating on things that God might be doing and reasons God might be doing this.
Finally we get to chapter 38.
And it begins this next section 38 through 41 of Job is a dialogue between God and Job. It's almost just a monologue with Job just answering a couple words here and there.
But here God shows up and he begins to speak into jobes questions and situation and really bring peace and resolve the issue.
As far as Job is concerned, and then that brings us to the end. In chapter 42, joves restoration and so here now.
That God has shown up and he is on the scene.
There's all of this anticipation, really.
As Ally who the last friend to speak in the previous chapters was talking, he begins to describe this storm that's approaching and and as it's getting closer, he's kind of incorporating that into his message to Job and his friends.
And then now suddenly God speaks out of the storm, the storm that was approaching was not just a natural storm, but.
God has been drawing near and is now right there, with Joe with his friends and he has some things to say.
It's interesting as you look at these chapters.
God does not so much provide a lot of answers as he asks a lot of questions.
In verse three, he says, prepare yourself like a man and I will question you Job.
You've been asking questions.
Your friends have been making accusations.
There's been lots of things thrown up.
But now that I'm here, I'm not going to take your list of questions and then run through them.
No, I'm God.
And So what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you some questions, and in these four chapters.
Depending on how you count up these questions, there's about 60 or 70 questions that God asks throughout these chapters, and so we see him come up and not so much provide all of the answers, and I'm sure that Job is hoping for a lot more explanation before this.
But in the asking of the questions, God really resolves the issue for Job and so although he doesn't give reasons and he asked ask questions, it resolves the issue for Job and Job is settled by the end of this.
After chapters and chapters and chapters of no comfort from Job.
Friends, these questions of God finally bring comfort and settle the heart of Job.
And so as we look at the 1st 2 chapters of this discourse between God and Job, I've titled The Message Tonight Are you ready to understand why?
Are you ready to understand why?
And I would suggest to you that this is really what is happening here, that God is preparing Job for the reality.
That he cannot give an explanation to Job, because Job is not ready to really understand the explanation.
He's not equipped to be able to understand the complexities of what God is doing in the midst of this situation.
These questions that got us.
I would encourage you to read them with a gentle tone.
It's easy, perhaps for us too, especially after working our way through the difficult chapters ahead.
Before this, you know, with the the friends and the accusations and and the battles and the fierce arguments back and forth.
It's it's kind of easy to take that tone into chapter 38 and begin to in your mind, kind of, you know, have this idea of a.
Rough tone of God where God is saying Job?
What do you think you're doing?
You know?
And and I would suggest it's probably not like that.
And I would suggest it this way.
These questions that God asks in these chapters.
This is the kindest, most gentle way that God could have handled the situation with Job.
The series of questions 60 or 70 questions that God asked Job this is the kindest and most gentle way that God could have handled the situation.
You know, for us reading this account, it's interesting to reflect on this idea that you and I even today with the whole book in front of us.
We don't have a full explanation.
For why God allowed this, why God did this and what God did through it, we do have a little bit more back story than Joe Pad.
Write in chapters one and two.
We get that heavenly scene, and so we have a little bit of information.
We get chapter 42 and so we know how it ends, at least in the time frame of jobs light.
We have the beginning of the story, but still we don't know the full account and we have the end of the story but still we don't really know why we don't have the explanations even though we have a fuller picture and a greater extent of information than Jobe had.
As you get to chapter 42, you see that Job life was blessed after all of this and.
His losses were replaced and doubled, and so his livestock were replenished and doubled.
He had 10 more kids, and so his children were doubled because now in eternity he has 20 kids and and so there's this replenishing of those things right?
You can't really look at that and say, well, that's
Why that's why God did?
It because you know he wanted 14,000 sheep instead of 7000 sheep for a Job, like what a miserable explanation for why God would allow this level of suffering in Joe's life.
We could look at chapters one and two and say, well, because it was the bet that God had with the devil, and so you know he had to play this out and and what a miserable explanation just to beat the devil.
You know with Job as the the you know the the the person to live out the pain and the difficulty in that. That's a miserable explanation that that's not why Chapter 42 is.
Not why we don't really fully know why.
Because God was doing much more than that.
Yes, he was defeating the plans and purposes of the enemy.
Yes, he was planning to bless Job in this life above.
Definitely, but there's so much more that we don't see that God doesn't tell us what character was produced in Job through the these events.
What eternal reward did this produce so that as Job entered into eternity he got to reap the benefits of his faithfulness to God in the midst of this great affliction, how many lives do you think have been impacted by the accounts of Job?
How many lives have been encouraged? How many lives have been helped? How many souls have been saved by the account of Job and and it's helped so many ever since you know this all took place that there was great fruit from these events in Job's life.
Think about it more close to home. What good was produced in Job's wife? We see she didn't start out so well there in Chapter 2, right? She was ready to give up on God and walk.
But perhaps through the midst of this situation, God was also doing something not just in Job, but in his wife.
And so there's things that were happening in Job family in his community, and the people around him in all of history that has gone on since then.
And all of eternity that there's so much more to the story.
Than what we have recorded here and what we are able to comprehend.
And that's really the point of all the questions that God will be asking here in these chapters.
It's interesting because I think we fool ourselves very often.
Into thinking that we understand so much, we kind of get lulled into a false sense of security that that we understand how.
The world works.
We understand why God does different kinds of things in different people's lives.
Essentially God is looking at Job in these chapters and saying.
Job, do you really think that this situation is the biggest?
Unknown in your life.
It's not really the biggest unknown in your life.
There's so much more you thought you had.
It all worked out.
Perhaps you knew how to be blessed.
You knew how to you know, manage different livestocks, and raise a family and take care of them.
And walk with.
The Lord and and and it seemed like.
Everything made sense and it all came together.
The things that you thought you understood, the things that you and I today think we understand that we just we just kind of take them for granted and we think.
We have it figured out.
The Lord's questions here tonight remind us we don't have anything figured out. We are so clueless and lost.
Even after building on the the knowledge of previous generations for the past thousands of years.
As you walk through the questions that got asked here, there is so much.
That we do not know.
How many questions do you know the answer to?
I would suggest you there is not one subject.
That anyone could know fully and completely.
There's not one you take any course in life.
You take any subjects in creation.
You take any subjects in nature.
You take any course of study and nobody can know everything about that.
One course of study.
But then there's all these other courses of study.
There's there's.
Just so much.
That we don't know, and it reminds me.
There is never a time that I do not need God.
There's so many times in life where we can walk around like picture Job in the early days, right before all of these events transpired and he didn't have this attitude, but it would be easy in that situation.
That time of blessing.
To kind of feel like.
Like I don't really need to spend a lot of time seeking the Lord.
I don't need to rely upon the Lord all that much.
I've got plenty of resources.
I have all of these things set up and situations taken care of.
And we can in our lives in times of comfort.
Begin to be confused and.
Think that or act in a way that we.
Do not need God.
But there's never a time in my life where I.
Need God less?
And there's never a time in my life when I need God more.
I would encourage you to wrestle with that a little bit. There's never a time where we need God more or less, we always need God, the same amount, and it's 100% right.
It's it's always all of God that we need all the time.
There's times where I'm more conscious of my need because of situations that I'm facing and things that I'm fearful of and.
Things that I'm worried and concerned about.
I'm more conscious of my need for God, but it's not that I needed God more than in those times than I did in the other times that I wasn't so conscious and so aware and so stressed out about how things were going.
And so these questions should bring us to the police, where we are reminded of how much we need God.
It should bring us to the police of absolute surrender.
To God.
When I realize how little control I really have.
When I realize how little I really know.
And where I place my trust and my life fully in the hands of God, it's a gentle way for God to steer Job back to this place of trust and complete an absolute surrender.
To God by asking some question.
If you come up to me and say, hey, Jerry, what programming language should I learn?
You're probably going to.
Experience me asking some questions before I can even attempt to try to answer that question.
Well, I need to ask some questions to find out really like what's your objectives, where are you going for?
What do you what are you seeking to accomplish and where are you coming from?
And and there's some questions that I will need to.
Walk you through to help you try to sort that out.
If you come to me and say, you know I have a dream.
I, I think God wants me to do this.
I'm going to make.
A Google competitor.
That when you search it puts a Bible verse in between all the search results.
And I'm going to do this.
I want to start it by next year and I'm going to do it for, you know, as many languages as possible and.
Using as many Bible versions as possible to get all the good hits you know and to be able to to remind people of the word of.
The Lord as they're.
Searching for things, it's just such a great idea that you might say.
Now, if you have that dream and you come to me and pitch.
That to me.
I could just crush your dreams and.
Say listen, that's never going.
To happen you you are.
You're not going to be able to do that.
You're not capable or qualified to do that.
Or I could ask some questions.
And I could say, OK, that's a that's a great dream. Great vision. Do you have $100,000 to?
Really, kind of.
Get this started to invest in this, you know.
Just to to get it going.
And if you have $100,000, are you willing to put in about 30 years of effort to be able to build up to this kind of tool?
And you're like, well, no, no, no I don't have $100,000 but also I don't want it to take.
30 years I want to be Google competitor tomorrow.
OK, OK, OK, let me just crush your dreams right now.
OK no maybe.
Not OK. Do you have $5 million to invest in this and and begin? I might try to gently ask you some questions to help you know kind of bring you back to reality of hey, the thing that you're wanting to do.
Two is a little bit beyond what you're really capable of.
And I think that's a.
Maybe not a great illustration, but it's a little bit of an example to help us understand God.
Asking questions here to help Job have a sense and an awareness.
Of where he really.
Is and he thinks he just needs the answer to why this?
Past couple months have been so rough.
But God is saying no Job, you need more me more than that and there's there's much more that that I want to minister to you about in the midst of this situation.
And so let's walk through these questions and you're like.
Finally, I know I've just setting the.
Stage we're not going to go.
Through every verse we're.
Not going to try to answer all these questions that got asked because.
God's Point is not that you can answer them. God's Point is not is that you cannot answer them, and so we'll meditate on some of these questions and help us to understand that we're not really ready. God can't tell us all the wise.
All the things that we wrestle with about why did God this?
Why did God, that or why would God that and?
We're just really not equipped and what we really need to come to the conclusion is God is able to handle all these things.
He's so much bigger than us.
And so our Job is not to figure out why, but then to trust God and be surrendered to him and his plan.
And so we're going to walk through these questions.
Question number one, where were you during?
Creation and here we're going to look at Job chapter 38 verses 4 through 11, but let's just read verses 4 through 7, it says.
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know.
Or who stretched the line upon it?
To what were its foundations fastened, or who laid its cornerstone?
When the Morning Star is seen together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
God says let's.
Take a minute moments and go back.
To the beginning.
When I lead the foundations of the Earth God, here is declaring I am the Creator.
I spoke all things into existence.
That's who I am.
Were you there?
Were you there Job when I did this?
If you have understanding, if you're capable of having this discussion about why, well, that means that you're going to have to have this kind of background, you're going to have this have to have this kind of history in order for you to really understand what God is doing, you need to be able to trace things back.
To the very foundations of.
The earth.
Who determined the measurements?
Of creation.
God saying I did.
Job, did you give me counsel there?
Hey God, I think you should make this about.
You know 12 inches long and four inches wide.
And were you the one who set the boundaries and established these things?
No, God is saying I stretched the line up on it.
I'm the one who determined.
The links and the breaths.
How were the?
Foundations established and what was fastened to them who laid its cornerstone.
God is taking Joe back to creation to say.
Where were you?
This is the kind of history that you will need.
This is the kind of background context that you will need.
To be able to understand all of the wise, to have the understanding of the situation and the life that you are living verse 8 or who shut in the sea with doors when it bursts forth and issued from the womb.
When I made the clouds its garment.
And thick darkness at swaddling band.
When I fixed my limit for it and set bars and doors when I said this far you may come but no farther.
And hear your proud waves must.
The imagery that God uses here justice is cool imagery.
This picture of setting bars and doors and limits and and the proud waves of the ocean like wanting to go further.
But God saying no, you stop here.
And the wave bowed down, and then we said, OK, God says, I stop here, you know there I stop.
God says.
Who did that?
Who set those boundaries?
Where were you when I established these things?
Job you weren't there.
You weren't part of that process.
You don't have the capacity.
You don't have the power.
You don't have the history.
You're really not ready to understand why all of the questions that you ask in all of these chapters.
I I can't really give you those, I can.
You know God could give some.
Inadequate answers, perhaps.
Perhaps he could have, you know, given some platitudes or some placebos, you know that would make Job feel better.
But but God is saying, look, there's there's so much more to this story in the most gentle way God is reminding.
How big he is.
Then look, I've been here from the beginning.
I'm the one who set all of these things in order.
So you should trust me.
And surrender yourself to me.
Moving on to question #2, do you control day and night now? The numbering system that I'm using is not, you know, from the verses, it's just the number of points tonight, so question two do you control day and night? Verse 12 and 13 have you commanded the morning since your days began.
And caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth and the wicked be shaken.
Out of it.
Hey Joe.
Since your days began since you were born.
Were you given the baton of OK now Job?
You're in control.
Of when the sun rises and when it sets, you're the one who is in charge.
You need to make sure that Don knows its place.
The sun sets here arises here and and you're the one in charge of of that course, and you need to make sure that these things go according to plan.
It is that has that been your role Job since your days began.
God already answering that first question right, where were you?
You weren't there at Creation.
You came along later and so OK.
Well so if you came along later, what role have you had?
Are you in charge?
Of day and night.
Are you in charge of the course?
Of morning and evening.
Verse 14 it takes on form like Clay under a seal and stands out like a garment from the wicked.
Their light is withheld.
And the upraised arm is broken, describing the dawn, the sunrise and, and how?
It just bursts forth.
Wickedness is withheld for the wicked as well.
The light is withheld, and so God here is saying look it are.
You in control of.
That are you maintaining that managing that?
Are you the steward and custodian?
Of the morning and the evening, do you control day and night Job?
If if you're not in that role?
If that's not your capacity and you're not directing the course.
Of the day and the night then I don't think that you're able to handle.
The the real answers that and and the discussion of of what's going on here and and the full effect of what is being accomplished in the midst of this and why it's allowed and what it's accomplishing.
You're really not ready to understand why in the most gentle way.
God is reminding Job how big he is and how little Job is.
Reminding him, reminding us, setting us back in.
Our place that we would trust.
And obey God.
Moving on to the next question and verses 16 through 24. Have you explored the whole planet?
Verse 16 says, have you entered the springs of the sea or have you walked in search of the depths?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
Have you comprehended the breath of the Earth?
Tell me if you know all this.
Job have you explored?
The whole planet.
Have you entered the springs of the sea?
The depths.
He talks about there in verse 16 walking in search of the depths.
It's something interesting to consider because think about us as humanity today. Here we are in the year 2022 and technology has advanced and we have explored.
But you know what's interesting.
Is when it comes to the depths.
The National Ocean Service of the United States tells us that more than 80% of our ocean is unmapped, UN observed and unexplored.
80%.
Of our oceans.
Are not explored.
We've not entered them.
We don't have the capacity to reach them.
It's really difficult to explore the depths of the sea.
And so even.
We don't know exactly when the life of Joab was, but let's say 4000 years later, with all the accumulation of knowledge and information and technology, even still, verse 16 stands out and says look we we still.
Joab himself as an individual, for sure, hasn't none of us as an individual haven't and all of us collectively as humanity.
We haven't searched out the depths.
Job if you comprehended the breath of the Earth.
Now mankind as a whole.
Again, the culmination of thousands of years we have explored much of the Earth's land, but there are still in the year 2022 parts of the Earth.
That people have not been to.
There are still parts of the earth that are unexplored that we.
Know little about.
Most of that is in Antarctica, which you can imagine the harsh conditions there.
There's some peaks and some mountains that have not really been explored that that it's just too difficult to get there.
Even still today you as an individual for sure us collectively as humanity have not fully comprehended the breath.
Of the earth.
God goes on in verse 19, where is the way to the dwelling of light and darkness?
Where is its place that you may take it to?
Its territory that you may know the path to its home.
Do you know it because you were born then?
Or because the number of yardies is great, have you entered the treasury of snow or have you seen the treasury of hail?
Have you reserved which I have reserved for the time of trouble for the day of battle and war?
Job if you figured out where lights.
And darkness comes from.
We know where it comes from because back in the Book of Genesis, God said, let there be light.
And we think about light and we think about these bulbs, right?
But that's not where light comes from.
Where does light come from?
God spoke it into existence.
Were you there Job?
Do you have that figured out?
Do you?
Are you able to take that to its territory?
Do you know the paths to its home?
Do you, do you know how all of that works and.
Are you able to to?
Manage that. Have you explored?
Light darkness.
The fullness of the treasury of snow and hail and God talks about here that the hail reserved for the time of trouble.
That might be a reference to in the Book of Revelation during the Tribulation period, there's times where huge pieces of hail are coming forth from the heavens.
God might be saying just a little bit of a hint, you know.
In the end I'm gonna.
I have this storehouse of hail and I'm going to bring it down.
Have you found that have you have you figured out the plan to the end?
If you figured out you know the the the fullness of prophecy and the Tribulation period, have you have you figured out how I'm going to be bringing those events to pass and?
Resolving those issues in that day, huh?
Have you explored the whole planet?
Again, it's a very gentle way for God to say.
Job you're not quite ready.
You live in this context and you were comfortable in your home and you had your property and your kids had their properties and and you've explored all of that and you were comfortable in that domain.
But that's not the fullness of what you need to be familiar with.
In order to understand what I'm doing.
Again, Isaiah chapter 55. I think I shared it last Wednesday or maybe Sunday, but.
Isaiah 55 God says my ways are not your ways as high as the heavens are above the earth. That's how much higher my ways are than your ways.
These questions are a way of God demonstrating that.
My ways are higher than your ways.
I know much more than you know infinitely more than you know.
I have a greater understanding, a greater wisdom.
And Job, if you're not able to keep up with that kind of information and that kind of background and that kind of context, I'm sorry I'm afraid.
I can't tell you.
All of the wise.
I can't give you all of the answers that you're hoping for and wanting.
I can't deliver all of that to you.
You're just not equipped and prepared because.
There's so much more than.
What I can just refine down to one or two sentences that I'm doing in your life.
Through the midst of this.
Well, God goes on verses 25 through 30 next question.
Did you set the weather patterns? Verse 24 says.
By what way is light diffused or the east wind scattered over the earth?
Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water or a path for the Thunderbolt to cause it to rain on a land where there is no one uh wilderness, in which there is no man to satisfy the desolate waste and cause to spring forth the growth of tender grass.
Has the rain a father or who has begotten the drops of dew?
From whose womb comes the ice and the frost of heaven.
Who gives it birth?
The waters harden like stone and the.
Surface of the deep.
Is frozen.
Seems to be a reference in many different points to the whole ecological system.
And how God uses the winds too?
Shape the course of weather on the earth.
Dividing the channels for the overflowing water and and moving.
Water and wind and and things from place to place.
Setting the path for the storms the the Thunderbolts.
Even causing it to rain on a land which there is nobody.
And that's interesting.
Thought you know, you always hear the question about if a tree falls over in the forest where nobody is, you know, does it make a sound?
But but thinking about if it rains where nobody is, does it make a?
Sound and why does God have things raining where there's nobody?
Why does God have rain happened?
I was looking at some of the places on the earth that have the most rain and there's some of the.
Least populated places.
The places that have the most rain.
Now part of that is probably because of the difficulty of living with that amount of rain that is happening, but.
But there's all this rain that God is provided.
Meanwhile, California is like thirsty, right?
Like what, why?
Why did God do it?
That way and why?
Does it rain there and not over here and?
And who divided who sent that course?
Who put those things in motion?
And the cycle of ice and the water is hardening like stones.
The surface being frozen.
Who put all of this in place Job?
Did you?
Did you set the weather weather patterns?
Did you design this?
Did you put this in place and say, OK, the wind is going to blow this way and go this course and bring this moisture over here and bring this front over there?
And are you the one who arranged?
Those things, now collectively as humanity.
We could say, well, we've learned a lot about weather patterns.
And yet the joke persists today that nobody can predict the weather right?
And even when the weather weather is predict, predict.
It's still subject to change and still unpredictable.
With with all of our technology and all of our studying and all that we know and all of our you know, weather stations and all these places, we still know so very little.
And we can guess and predict, but.
Proven wrong time and time again.
We we still know so little about how all of this works in the most gentle way God is saying.
I'm the one who did.
This I understand these things.
And you don't, and it's a reminder of of why you need to trust me, because there's so much more going on than you can grasp.
I can't just give you a quick answer and say This is why.
I can give you one thing or two things.
Perhaps I can give you a little hint here and there.
But there's there's so much more going on.
Moving on to versus 31 through 38, we get the next question.
Can you control the heavens? Verse 31. Can you bind the cluster of the ladies or lose the belt of Orion?
Can you bring out Mazzaroth and its season or can you guide the great bear with its Cubs?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you set their dominion?
Over the earth.
Here, God directs Job's attention.
To the stars.
And he speaks of these different constellations.
And he says.
Do you have a hand in that Job?
Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades now?
It's pretty dark on the screen, but there's a picture of the night sky.
Up in the top right.
Yeah, top right is where the Pleiades are.
It's a collection of seven stars that are.
It's a cluster that they're they're close together, quite bright, very easy to spot.
Once you have found them once, you'll be.
Able to find them over and over and over.
They are 19 trillion miles away and it's kind of unique about these stars 'cause it's actually a cluster.
A lot of stars look like they're close together, but they're actually infinitely far apart, right?
But these are actually like a cluster of stars.
And the majority of them are 40 times brighter than our sun. One of them is 100 times brighter than our side. They're very bright.
And they're bound together.
God says.
Did you bind them?
Can you loose them?
Do you have any impact at all?
How much impact do you have on the ladies?
19 trillion miles away. 443 light years so you get.
On your lightyear ship.
With buzz and you go out for 400 years.
And then you tweak the settings on the you know the the cluster of stars there like.
Obviously we have so little impact there.
Can you loose Orion's belt and so they're on the other part of the sky?
There you have the different stars that make up the constellation Orion, right there in the middle is his belt.
And so there's a few stars that are prominent in that.
And God saying, can you separate those stars?
Can you move those stars out of their position?
Obviously the answer to all of these things is no, I can't.
I can't.
I have no impact Job has no impact.
None of us have any impact.
On the stars of the heavens.
Can you guide the great bear with its cuts?
Can can you change the course of the constellations?
In verse 33.
He says, do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you set their dominion over?
The Earth now it's one thing to know the ordinances of the heavens to learn about the constellations and the patterns and which way they go.
And you know what they mean and and so you can navigate by the stars.
You you can know a lot and learn a lot and collectively over the past several 1000 years, we've learned a lot.
But still know so little.
But then God says, can you set their dominion over the earth?
Can you change their orbits and their rotations?
Can you manipulate the the courses and the paths that are happening across the universe?
And obviously, the answer to that is no.
Verse 34 can you lift up your voice to the clouds?
That an abundance of water may cover you.
OK, so let's bring it closer to home.
You can't manipulate the stars.
Light years away.
Can you just make water rain down on you?
Here's the weather report for the next 10 days.
There's no rain.
In the forecast.
And so 1234567 there's 7/8 of us.
So let's each take a.
Day and we'll try to make it rain.
On our day.
We can't do it. We can't lift up our voice to the clouds and say, alright pour out water we we don't have that kind of capacity and verse 35 he says, can you send out Lightnings that they may go and say here we are?
Do you have lightning in your tool belt?
You just pull it out and say.
All right, you're going to go this way, and.
The description of this picture when I found it was big lightning over little town had his Indian picture or what, but Big Lightning over little town.
That was a bad joke.
I really apologize.
OK Native American picture is what I meant to say.
That was even worse joke and Nelson is going to kick my.
Hindquarters later, but.
Look at the Lightning, the course that it goes.
It goes all of these different directions and God is saying can you can you send it out?
Can you take?
A lightning can you send it and?
And send it out in the way that it should go.
Is that in your tool belt?
Is that something that you get to do?
And of course the answer is.
No, over and over we're understanding you can't.
Compete with God.
You don't have the capacity of God.
You can't control the heavens.
You weren't there Job at the beginning.
You don't have the understanding that's necessary.
You don't have the background.
You don't have the context in the most gentle way God is.
Reminding us how big he is.
And why?
We should trust him.
Because he is the one who knows all these things.
Who can handle all of these things?
Who set all of these things in place?
Well, next question Job can you provide for the animals versus 39 through 41?
Can you hunt the prey for the lion or satisfy the appetite of the Young Lions when they Crouch in their dens, or lurk in their layers and light and wait?
Who provides food for the Raven when its young ones cried to God and wander about for lack?
Of food.
Who provides for these animals, can you?
And perhaps you can catch one lion.
And risk your life.
And take care of it and provide food for it.
Can you provide food for all the lions?
All the lines are hungry.
Is that your responsibility are?
You able to.
Take care of them and provide for them the Ravens when their young ones cry.
Out to God.
The little true birds chirping 'cause they're hungry can can you provide for them and make sure that all the Ravens are?
Taken care of.
Remember, Jesus says later on in the New Testament, he says there's not a Sparrow that falls to the ground without the father knowing about it.
The the the Ravens.
Here the lions here.
These are not just like random things that God like.
Who cares, Ravens fend.
For yourself like you guys gotta figure that out.
God says no.
I I got that I'm going to take care of the Ravens.
I'm going to be the one who provides for them.
I'm going to want to be the one who figures out how they're going to.
Eats and what they're going to feast on and what?
What they're going to enjoy for their next?
Meal, I'll take care of that Job do.
You take care.
Of that, do you have that kind of impact?
Charles Spurgeon says all of us.
Then all the beasts and the birds, all the creatures are entirely and absolutely dependent upon God.
And unless he helps them, they cannot help.
We can't provide for the animals.
We don't have that kind of capacity, but God does.
And so we can trust him to provide for us.
Well, moving on into Chapter 39, we get the next question. Are you involved in the.
Birth of animals.
Do you get a little text message alert every time?
Hey, a deer was born versus?
Do you know what the time when the Wild Mountain goats bear young?
Or can you mark when the deer gives birth?
Can you number the months that they fulfill or do you know the time when they bear young?
They bow down, they bring forth their young.
They deliver their offspring, their young ones are healthy.
They grow strong with grain.
They depart and do not return to them.
The birth of animals is interesting thing to consider.
Right?
Different animals have different.
Gestation periods.
Different animals treat their young differently.
There's not a one set pattern that all creatures follow.
They all have different time periods.
They all have different.
Ways in which they go about some of them.
Give birth and then leave and the kids are left to fend.
For themselves.
Some of them.
The parents stick around and they're protected.
Are you are you involved in that Job?
Are you the one who's instructing?
The bear.
OK now it's time.
To give birth.
To bring forth the young now it's time.
Do you get a notice when when a deer gives birth?
Or are you part of that?
Are you aware of what's happening in the animal Kingdom?
Job if if you can't keep up.
With what's happening in the animal Kingdom?
You're not really equipped to be able to handle the whys and the answers that you're looking for in the midst of this situation Job, I can't give you all the answers that you're looking for.
But I can remind you.
That I am involved in all of these things I'm not distant enough, far off and and unaware of what's happening.
I'm involved intricately even.
In the life of these animals that are out in the wild that nobody else cares about, I care about them and I know it's happening in their lives.
Verses 5 through 12 is the next question.
Do wild animals serve you?
Who set the wild donkey free who loose the bonds of the aniger whose home I have made the wilderness and the barren land his dwelling.
He scorns the tumult of the city.
He does not heed the shouts of the driver.
The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searches after every green.
The Wild donkey has some specific characteristics.
He's loosed.
He's on his own.
He's wild.
And untamed verse nine.
Will the ox the wild ox be willing to serve you?
Will he bed by your Manger?
Can you bind the wild ox in the furrow with ropes, Kenny plow or Willie plow.
The valleys behind you when you trust him because his strength is great.
Or will you leave your lever to him?
Will you trust him to bring home your green and gather it to your threshing floor, where you look to your ox and say, OK, I'm going to go have dinner?
Ox you go finish the field, put it in the store house and.
I'll come and check your work after I'm done eating like that's not going to happen.
You don't have that kind of control over tamed oxen, much less.
The wild ox.
Now there's different ideas about what God is talking about.
The wild donkey, the aniger that he makes reference to here the wild ox.
There's different animals that God might be speaking about and, and you could think about an ox in the sense of, like you know, a typical cow.
You might see a Norco that kind of type of size.
And wheat and that kind of thing.
But but there's also some wild oxen that you're probably less familiar with.
There's this one here I can't pronounce it spelled GAUR governor. You know the girl, but this this wild ox is usually between 8 to 10 feet long and about 7 feet high. It weighs.
An adult weighs 15.
To 2200 pounds, sometimes up to £3000, but so you know figure in the the £2000 range as an average.
So I looked up my 2009 Honda Civic. It weighs about £2500 this animal. This wild ox weighs as much as my car.
Does this wild ox serve you?
You know?
Are you going to be the one bossing this around?
Is this going to be listening to you?
Is this the kind of impact that you have an influence that you have? Do wild animals serve you now? There's an older now. It's extinct kind of ox that was in existence in the early 1600s.
Which was even bigger than this and so many speculate that God was talking about that one.
But obviously we don't know for sure, but we we get the point right, these wild animals.
Maybe put it this way Job when you.
Get ready for the day.
Is it like a scene from Cinderella?
Or all the wild animals coming in and helping you get dressed and taking.
Care of your chores and.
Maybe that's too girly.
Are you like Aquaman and you can just you know, call all of the creatures around you to serve you and and to set things in order for you?
Do wild animals.
Serve you.
God can say this wild animals serve me.
And if I want them to go somewhere, if I want them.
To do something they will do it.
This is the kind of influence that I.
Have on them.
Well, next question Verses 13 through 18.
Do you influence animal behavior?
Verse 13.
The wings of the ostrich waved proudly, but are her wings and pinions like the kindly storks.
For she leaves her eggs on the ground and warns them in the dust.
She forgets that a foot may crush them, or that a wild beast may break them.
She treats her young harshly as though they were not hers.
Her labor is in vain without concern because God deprived her of wisdom and did not endow her with understanding.
When she lifts herself on high, she scorns the horse and its.
There's sometimes that I read through these things and I wish I could retain all of the details and stats and information about all of these things right.
There's there's so much here.
God uses the example of an ostrich.
It's a.
It's a strange bird.
It's got wings and it waves them proudly, but they don't.
Do anything they.
It can't fly, so why does it have wings?
And when it stands up, it is tall.
Usually I think 7 feet tall is what my memory is providing me at the moment.
That may be inaccurate.
So you can.
Google that later in the Google Bible search that someone going to dream about and build but it.
It's an interesting creature.
It behaves differently than everything else.
It doesn't care about its young.
Like most creatures you know, you think about a Penguin, right?
And the the coddling and they're taking care of the egg.
That ostrich is like, who cares?
It's just an egg.
Why does the ostrich behave that way?
Verse 17 because God deprived her of wisdom.
Joe, were you part of that?
Did you have an influence on the animals behavior?
Did you make a decision about?
Do you know why the ostrich behaves this way and?
What is the purpose in all of that?
In the most gentle way.
God saying, I know all these details, I have all these things worked out.
These things are my doing.
Going on, did you do you give the animals strength versus 19 through 25? Have you given the horse strength?
Have you clothed his neck with Thunder?
Can you frighten him like a locus?
His majestic snorting strikes terror, he paused in the valley, and rejoices in his strength.
He gallops into the clash of arms.
He mocks at fear and is not frightened.
Nor does he.
Turned back from the sword.
The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and javelin.
He devours the distance with fierceness and rage.
Nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded the blast of the trumpet, he says Aahe.
He smells the battle from afar.
The Thunder of captains and shouting.
Here, God describes a warhorse.
And it was a long time in my life before I ever grasped hold of the concept, even like a horse race that I just thought it was, you know, the horses were just kind of forced into it.
They didn't care one way or the other like there was no competitiveness in the horse, but.
Later on in life, I began to understand, you know, there's there's like a eagerness and it's like, yeah, I want to go there's there's.
These things, built into some of these creatures that.
They have this strength.
They have this.
Personality, they have these features and characteristics.
God says, did you do that?
Was that was that your doing?
And of course, not. It was God's duty.
Job if you can't fully understand the horse and if you weren't involved in the shaping of their nature and their characteristics, you're really not ready to understand why.
You're not able to process all of the answers to the questions that that you're seeking.
What you really have to do is come to the place where you trust me because.
I do know and I did set these things in order and I am involved to this degree. Well finally Job. Do you teach birds to survive verses 26 through 30?
Does the hawk fly by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the South?
Does the ego mount up at your command and make its nest on high on?
The rocket dwells and resides on the crack of the rock and the stronghold.
From there it spies out the pray, its eyes observe from afar its young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are there.
It is.
God just kind of running through.
A few selections of creatures that he has created.
Does the hawk fly by your wisdom?
Did you teach it how to do that?
Did you teach the hawk?
Did you set the feathers on the hawk and you know design that in a way that it would be able to soar in the way that it does.
Think about the eagle that mounts up on high.
Now what if the eagle mounted up on high and had poor eyesight?
But no, God says from there it spies out its prey.
It size observed from afar.
I designed it to live on high with this keen sight so they could live on high and spider prey from apart like this is all intricately woven together and designed.
Incredible truths here to consider the design speaking.
Of a designer creation.
Speaking of a creator, did you?
Did you do this?
Did you teach birds how to survive?
Job that was my doing.
And all of this God is being incredibly gentle.
Asking Job questions.
To help him process to help him understand.
Kind of reset the context of his mind so many times in our lives, especially the midst of pain and affliction.
We can feel such demand or like like we're owed like we deserve something, right?
We we deserve answers from God.
And God says let's step back.
A little bit.
Were you involved in creation?
Do you understand the the ways of the weather?
Do you have an influence in the stars and the galaxies of the universe, or are you part of the you know process and design of the animal Kingdom?
There there's a lot more going on here Joe then.
Then you can fully understand.
And so I can't give you.
The answers.
I can give you some things.
And God could have given.
Him some things and I would suggest that.
Chapters one and two in Chapter 42 are some of the little hints of things that God gave Job later on.
But but they're just little glimpses.
This isn't the whole story.
This isn't the reason why you know, sometimes we look at an experience in life and we say, well, God did that so that this other event happened, you know?
Affliction car accident? But then I got this nice new car and so this equaled that that's why God did that, and it's so simplistic. God God's not just doing one thing with any situation.
He's doing 75 million things with every situation.
Working out his plans and purpose is working out his promise of good to those who love him and are the called according to his purpose.
I like this quote from JB Phillips.
He says if God was small enough for us to figure out, he wouldn't be big enough for us.
To worship.
If we could answer all these questions if we could.
Have similar parts in all of these things as God does he he would not be a big.
Enough God for us to worship.
But all of this.
Resets our mind, resets our context, resets our understanding in the most gentle way to help us understand he is God.
And there's never a time in my life.
Where I need God less or more.
I'm conscious of it differently at different times.
But I always need God the same amount, and so really the times where I am crying out to God and relying upon God with every moment with every breath, like those are the the most real moments that the most accurate moments.
From the times where I'm just barely giving God a care or thought.
Those those are the times that I'm so oblivious.
To the reality of how much?
I really need God.
Are you ready?
To understand why through this series of questions.
God helps Jove answer this himself.
I'm really not ready as he gets a chance to speak in Chapter 41. He says I really have nothing to say.
In Chapter 2 went 42 when he gets to speak, he says.
Yeah, you know the things I said before I was talking about things that were two wonderful things I didn't know.
I really didn't understand.
And through this.
Series of question questions God helps Job understand.
He really didn't know he didn't have the capacity to know God was doing so much more and is so much bigger.
And so his part, his place, your part in my place.
Is not to get the answers not to figure everything out, not to know.
Everything that we want to know.
Our part is to recognize God's place.
And place our lives in his hands.
Trust him completely.
With all that, we have absolute surrender.
To the Lloyd, let's pray, Lord, I pray that you would help us to remember, continually and consistently, God.
Lord, your place.
In all of creation your place but in.
All of history.
Your place in the day today, your place and every aspect of our lives.
Even Lord our every breath in every moment.
Lord, we are completely dependent upon you.
Sometimes we are more aware of that than other times.
But Lord, I prayed that you would help us.
To grow in that awareness.
But you told us that apart from you.
We can do nothing.
And so it would help us to look to.
You to rely upon you.
To trust you to fulfill your word.
To trust you to figure out more the things that need to be changed and need to be accomplished.
Lord, may we look to you for direction and not try to provide you with direction.
Lord, may we?
Place ourselves in.
Your hands and rest in your plans.
I pray this in Jesus name.
