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Job: God's Rebuke

The Book of Job

Oct 17, 2021


by: Jack Lash Series: The Book of Job | Category: Humility | Scripture: Job 38:1–4, Job 42:1–6

I. Introduction
A. Last week we looked at the remarkable declarations of faith which came out of Job’s mouth while he was experiencing the intensity of his sufferings. But we need to note that in a full twenty chapters of Job’s speeches, barely a handful of verses can be found of Job expressing faith in God.
1. It was there, but it wasn’t thriving. Job passed the test, but I don’t think he got an A+.
2. Today, we come to God’s long rebuke of Job in Job 38-41.
3. And we’re so blessed to have this rebuke, certainly one of the greatest passages of the Bible, because Job is not the only one who needs it. We all do.
B. The conversation between Job and his friends, whatever we have to say about their attitudes and arguments, is a masterpiece of literature. But now suddenly, all that is completely overshadowed by a speech so majestic, so powerful, so profound, that all the speeches before it seem trivial, shallow, and insignificant.
C. This is the moment Job’s been waiting for, begging for. He’s wanted to hear from God. He’s decried God’s silence in the midst of his agony.
D. He knows that his friends are wrong in their conclusion that his suffering must be a result of wicked living, but he has no alternative explanation – so he’s kind of haunted by the feeling that God is oppressing him unjustly, afflicting him for no god reason. He insinuates injustice with God.
E. Then God speaks. And when God speaks, God really speaks. Four chapters of poignant, piercing questions.
F. In fact, at one point in the middle of the four chapters, Job tries unsuccessfully to get God to stop.
G. It’s so long that we can’t read the whole thing, but here’s how it begins:
II. Job 38:1-4 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.
A. We know this is going to be good by the way God shows up. He doesn’t show up in a limousine; He shows up in a storm. This is often how God shows up when He wants to make an impression (Ps.18:9-12; 97:2).
B. Then God says, 2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” In other words, Who is this who obscures the truth by using words even though he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
C. Then in v.3 God tells Job, “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you answer.”
1. If God ever speaks to you that way, you know it’s not going to be pretty.
D. Then God begins the questions:
1. 4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
2. 5 Who determined the earth’s measurements? Surely you know, Job! Or who stretched out the measuring line to make sure it was the right size?
E. God moves from the focus on the earth, to a focus on the sea: 10 Who set limits on the sea, Job, who told the mighty waves to come this far and no farther?
F. And then on rain, storms and precipitation:
1. 25 Who aims the lightning bolts, Job? 35 Can you send for them, and do they report to you and say, ‘Here we are’?
2. 26-27 Who sends rain to uninhabited lands so that grass might grow there? Do you do that? 28 Are you the one who brings forth rain and dew? 34 Can you shout to the clouds, and make them send a drenching rain?
3. 29 Were you the one who gave birth to the ice and the frost of heaven, Job?
G. All of this is very pointed and laden with sarcasm: 18 Declare it, if you know all this, Job.
1. 21 You must know, for you were born then, right? For the number of your days is so great!
H. Then the Lord points to the stars. 31 Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion, Job? 32 Can you lead forth the constellations in their season?
I. 36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? Was it you, Job?
J. 39-41 Who provides food for the lion to eat, or for the young ravens when they cry out in hunger, and wander about for lack of food? Do you do that, Job?
K. The obvious answer to these questions is God: He was the One who did all these things, not Job. But the point of these questions is to remind Job that he is not God.
1. Who did these things, Job? Was it you?
2. I’ve said before that the first two principles of Christian theology are:
a. There is a God.
b. You are not him.
3. This is what God is teaching Job. “Job, I am god. You are not.”
a. It is a lesson we all need to learn frequently.
b. Because though we are so LIMITED in our knowledge and our power, we are UNLIMITED in our ability to arrogantly put ourselves in the place of God in our own minds and utter words which reflect that arrogance.
III. And that’s just Job 38. In chapter 39, the Lord goes on to ask more questions of Job, this time about various remarkable animals. Questions about the birthing of mountain goats, questions about the roaming patterns of wild donkeys, questions about the impossibility of domesticating the wild ox, questions about the strange habits of ostriches, questions about the impressive bravery of the war horse, questions about how hawks and eagles fly and hunt.
A. 5-6 Who has given the arid plain to the wild donkey as his home, Job?
B. 9 Is the wild ox willing to spend the night at your manger, Job?
C. 19 Do you give the horse his might?
D. 26 Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars?
E. 27 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up?
IV. Then in Job 40:1-2 the Lord turns up the heat: And the LORD said to Job: 2 “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
A. There are people who always seem to notice what’s wrong with things, and they’re always critiquing things. They are faultfinders. And though they can be irritating, they have a role to play.
B. But, will a faultfinder have the audacity to critique God Himself? 8 “Will you even put me in the wrong?” The faultfinder He’s referring to is Job, of course.
C. At this point, Job was overwhelmed by the Lord’s blistering questions, wanting desperately for it to stop. 40:3-4 Then Job answered the LORD and said: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.”
1. He who wanted his case for being treated unjustly “engraved on a rock forever” (Job 19:23-24) now wants everything he said to be erased. This will be true for many of us.
2. The things God was saying are so striking, so shocking, so shattering that Job went quickly from desperately crying out for God to speak to desperately crying out for God to STOP speaking!
D. But the Lord wouldn’t hear of it. He will not stop. He’s not done. He’s going to finish what He has to say. In 40:6 He answered Job again out of the whirlwind and again said: 7 “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you enlighten Me with your answers.”
E. But this time He adds: 8 Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? 9 Do you have an arm like I do? Can you thunder with a voice like Mine?
F. You want to be God, Job? Go ahead then! Let’s see you try! “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. Pour out your anger till it overflows, look on the proud and bring them low, tread down the wicked. Bury them all in the dust. Then will I also acknowledge you.” Job 40:10-14
V. Job 40:15-41:34
A. Then this great speech of God ends with two long sections of questions about two impressive creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan. Obviously, the original readers knew these creatures well, but for us it is not easy to figure out what specific animals are being talked about.
B. But God asks the same kinds of questions, with the same kind of purpose.
VI. And that brings us to Job’s answer to God in Job 42:1-6. And in this part, in order to understand it, we must realize that twice Job quotes things God said right at the beginning of His speech and then responds to them. The quoted statements of God are underlined.
A. Job 42:1–6 Then Job answered the LORD and said: 2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ (38:2) Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ (38:3) 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
B. And we shouldn’t feel sorry for Job here.
1. As a result of God’s rebuke, Job is transformed. He is more than ready to accept the Lord’s will, not only in this circumstance, but in all circumstances. He repents of his grumbling. He now has the will to do and accept God’s will.
2. Repentance is a great place to be. This is just where Job needed to be, just where he longed to be.
3. He sees things clearly now. The cloud which had hidden his Father’s bright, shining face has disappeared.
4. This not only restores his view of God, he now sees God more clearly than ever before, so that he can say, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” Job 42:5
5. He’s longed for God to show up, and now He has. Job is humbled, and Job is also very grateful.
VII. Now I have a few observations, a few applications, and a word about ostriches.
VIII. Observations
A. God refuses to submit Himself to human challenge. If someone attempts to order Him to answer their complaint, He rejects the summons. He will not allow mere humans to sit in judgment over how He acts. He does not recognize their right to sit in judgment over Him and His ways.
1. The rightness of His actions does not depend on human acknowledgment. He does not need to prove the wisdom of His choices. He is accountable to no man.
2. It’s as if Job summons God to appear as a defendant, but instead God appears as the Judge and orders Job to the defendant’s seat.
B. By manifesting Himself to Job in this way, He cuts Job to the heart for all his rash and impatient utterances about the way God had treated him.
C. Job’s pain had become more important to him than God’s glory. And that’s idolatry. And so he needed to be rebuked, he needed to be humbled, he needed to be led to a frame of mind which is necessary for one who comes into relationship with the holy God.
D. Job was a tough guy. He could handle this. He could “dress for action like a man.” But there are many who could not handle this; they would be crushed. But the fact is, we all need to hear this. So God graciously let’s us listen in to His message to Job, as if we’re overhearing God’s raised voice from the next room.
E. But, in taking this approach, God is not rescuing Himself, He is rescuing Job! Do you hear that?
1. God’s will does not need to be vindicated.
2. But Job does need to be rescued from the self-destructive effects of human presumption. And so do we.
3. God’s rebuke is not punitive. It is not born of wrath, but love.
4. In God’s words, Job recognizes the fatherly discipline God gives to those loves ( Hebrews 12:6).
5. Job’s response is more than surrender or submission, which could be offered even to a despised tyrant. Job’s response is one of happy surrender and loving submission.
IX. Applications
A. God is our friend. But sometimes we get too friendly with God. We forget that He is not our peer.
1. In those times, God needs to remind us of who He is, and who we are.
a. He does it here with Job.
b. Jesus pulls rank on His own parents a few times.
2. We need to be ready to recognize these times in our lives when God asserts His will.
3. We need to be ready to shut our mouths.
a. Ecclesiastes 3:7 There is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
b. Sometimes we’re tempted to keep silent when we ought to say something.
c. And sometimes we ought to put our hand over our mouth and just be quiet.
4. God had listened to enough of man’s foolish reasonings.
5. Don’t you realize who I am?
B. God gives us what we need, not always what we want.
1. One of the strangest things about this is that what God says has very little to do with what the five men have been debating over the previous 35 chapters.
2. Job has spent the whole book talking about how He wishes He could face God, to get an answer as to why God has allowed him to suffer so intensely.
3. There are at least three things Job felt like he needed: an explanation for his suffering, comfort in the midst of his suffering, and relief from his suffering. When God finally came to Job He gave him something else entirely.
a. God doesn’t come with an apology, which from the sound of his complaints, Job was looking for.
b. God doesn’t come with expressions of sympathy, nor with an explanation of Job’s sufferings.
c. God doesn’t come with anything Job was looking for. But if we know God, this shouldn’t surprise us. God ordinarily surprises. It’s surprising when God doesn’t surprise.
4. Instead of answering or comforting or delivering, God basically says to Job, “Who are you, O Man, to answer back to God, or to say to Him, ‘Why did You make it happen like this?’”
5. Apparently God isn’t interested in vindicating His decision to allow Job’s sufferings.
6. It turns out that what poor, suffering, miserable Job needed something else more than he needed the thing he thought he needed.
7. We often don’t know what we really need. But God always does. This means that there are times when we feel like we need answers (or comfort, or relief) when what we really need is a rebuke.
C. Wanting to be God
1. There is a faultfinder in us, ready to criticize even God, to correct Him as if He’s our child.
2. There’s a part of us which thinks our view of things is the right one, even if it contradicts God.
3. How hard it must be for God to listen to the things which come out of our mouths!
4. Job 40:8 Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?
5. As He listened to these men arguing, it seems like God heard something different than we heard. It seems He heard a lot of presumption. It seems He heard a lot of arrogance. It seems He heard a lot of impudence. It seems that God perceived that both Job and his friends were far too quick to think they had everything figured out. They were too confident in their opinions. And Job was too willing to question God and to act as if he were God’s judge.
6. There’s a part of us that wants to be God.
7. This is the essence of sin. Every time we sin, we are putting ourselves in the place of God.
8. Believers need to know this and work to check those satanic impulses.
9. We need to ask ourselves, who is God? Is it Him or is it me?
10. If you don’t see in yourself any tendency to want to be god, then we need to insert your name in above Job in the list of the world’s most righteous.
11. And if I do see in myself a tendency to want to be god, then do I grieve over that? Do I ask God’s forgiveness for it? Do I put my hand over my mouth?
X. A word about ostriches
A. Can we end this morning with ostriches?
B. As proof of the fact that we are not reading the outburst of a divine temper tantrum, let’s look at one thing God says in the midst of this long speech.
C. As you know, the ostrich is a huge, peculiar-looking bird, up to 9 feet tall. It has a small head, attached to a large body by a long, skinny neck. Although it flaps its wings, it can’t fly. And instead of building a nest, she lays her eggs on the ground, and leaves them when searching for food, seemingly oblivious to the danger that they might be trampled and all her work will have been in vain. She seems to have no fear for their survival, as if she is callous and even cruel towards her young. Why does she act like this? Because God has made her to be a bird brain. And yet, when she runs from danger, she leaves the horse in her dust.
D. Job 39:13-18 The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? 14 For she leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground, 15 forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them. 16 She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear, 17 because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding. 18 When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider.
E. There is no question here. Just a description of the strange ostrich. What’s God’s point?
F. It turns out that the God who speaks in the whirlwind and who shouts down even the righteous man who dares to question His will is also the God of humor.
G. It turns out that the God of the majestic and the fierce is also the God of the ridiculous.
H. In the midst of this very heavy, intense confrontation, God throws in this comical section about the ostrich! Apparently some of God’s creatures were made for comic relief.
I. What an amazing God we have!
J. Jesus said He was gentle and lowly of heart. How does that fit in with what we see here?
K. Is it possible that behind His frowning rebuke, God hides a smiling face? I think so.