Job 38-42: The Beginning of Knowledge
Is your God a “Big God” or a “Little God”? Now Paul tells us in Romans 11: 33: “Oh, the depth of riches of both the wisdom and judgment of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.”
“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all of these? He who brings the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of earth. He will not grow weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. “(Isaiah 40)
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18)
“If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” (Request of man with son who has seizures in Mark 9) Jesus’ reply: “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
What is the object of your faith? For it is the object of your faith which is most important, not your faith itself. For faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. Because the object of your faith is the Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of earth. In other words how big is your God?
God is not like us. He does not get tired or weary, as we do. There are so many things we finite humans do not understand, God knows everything. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise.
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever!” (Romans 11: 36) God is the source of everything. (From Him) He is the instrument of cause of everything. (Through Him) And it is all to the glory of God. (To Him)
When people choose not to glorify God for these things. To not think of God in terms of Creator of everything, sustainer of everything – they shrink God to a little god. A god of their own understanding. When they choose not to glorify God or give Him thanks for their very existence, their thinking becomes futile and their hearts darkened. (Romans 1)
This is the result of not retaining thoughts of God or thinking of God in the right way. All your thinking becomes futile- useless, vain.
GOD CAN ONLY BE KNOWN AS HE REVEALS HIMSELF TO US.
If we are going to see God as He really is and as He longs for us to see Him, God will have to do it. He will have to reveal Himself to us. For these verses tell us His ways are unsearchable. This is why we are given the Holy Spirit when we are regenerated, born again. For the natural man, who is absent the Holy Spirit cannot understand spiritual truths.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard; Nor have entered the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (I Cor 2) God asked Job- where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? There were no human eyewitnesses to creation. No scientists to observe this miracle. Genesis is a statement of origins. Science can measure laws and observe principles and tell us how they go on, but it tells us nothing of origins. About origins the scientist have theories. Men today had rather believe Darwin than Moses to whom God told the story of creation. So God takes Job back to the basics and the wonder of creation.
“But God has revealed them to us (believers) through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, that we might know the things which have freely been given to us by God.” (I Cor. 2)
God will ask Job three general questions:
- Can you explain my creation?
- Can you oversee or control my creation?
- Can you subdue my creation?
God has revealed Himself through three primary ways:
- Through Nature. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Creation reveals there is a Creator.
- Through His Word. God created communication, language. Man is in a category all his own, for we were created in the image of God. We are not related to animals. Has any animal ever learned to read and write? Do they make clothes, invent elaborate inventions? The porpoise is supposed to possess great intelligence, but I have never met or heard of a porpoise who became a doctor. God created us as receptors of His Word. Our soul’s purpose is to have His Word engrafted in it. ( James 1, Psalm 119)
- Through His Son. And it is in His Word, we meet Jesus Christ. God cannot be known exhaustively. But all you need to know of God is in the person of Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus answered Phillip’s request to show us the Father, by saying, ‘if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.’
God is taking Job through the creation process in broad terms. There are specific steps in the creation told to us in Genesis.
- Creation of the universe. The earth was initially without form and void and in darkness
- Creation of light. One of the great mysteries of entities of the universe. We know what light does, but not what it is.
- Darkness dispelled.
- Atmosphere established.
- Seas appointed boundaries.
- Continents raised.
- Plant life formed.
- Sun, moon and stars appointed to function.
- Marine life created.
- Fowls, birds of the air.
- Creation of land animals.
- Man created.
Hebrews 11:3 tells us: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made by the things which are visible.”
Now God established the laws of creation, none of which have ever been broken. But when He gave the 10 Commandments to govern man, none have been kept, all have been broken.
God wants you to know the truth about Himself.
God wants you to know the truth about yourself.
God wants you to know the truth about other people.
This why we are commanded: To love the Lord God with all our hearts, minds, soul and strength. And to love our neighbors, as ourselves. Do you understand these two commandments are what all scripture is based upon and it deals with knowing the truth about God, others and ourselves.
So God takes Job to through the wonders of creation:
The earth. The seas. The sun and stars. The animals and all their uniqueness. Birds. So God has revealed Himself through His creation. He has revealed Himself through His Word. And lastly and completely He has revealed Himself through His Son.
WHAT MUST I DO TO SEE GOD AS HE REALLY IS?
Is not this the question we want answered? Here is the answer and it is found in two words.
SEEK HIM.
God longs for you. Do you understand the intensity of the word – longs, or longed? It speaks of a deep desire. It is like the deer who pants for water. A thirst which needs to be quenched. A love which wants to be returned. An expression of deep, intense love.
Listen to these expressions of this deep longing of God for you:
“ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Luke 13) This is Jesus speaking about: How often- they were on His mind, and how He longed for them to know Him.
“ As He ( Jesus) approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it, and said, “ If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace- but now it is hidden from your eyes. “ (Luke 19) Jesus wept over them because of His intense longing for them to know Him.
Jesus wept because they did not know He came from God. Although the signs and miracles He did were clear proof of who he was.
But even in His dying moments, Jesus still desired for all of us who did not know Him to be forgiven. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
God tells us through Jeremiah:
“I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
When I first got saved, I was reading the Bible and the AA “Big Book.” I read in the AA Big Book, ‘half hearted efforts never work. But rarely have we seen it fail when one works the steps with their whole heart.
At that moment, I purposed in my heart to work the program whole heartedly. To do what I was told to do, whether I understood it or not.
Seeking God requires the same type of effort. God, Himself, has told us half-hearted efforts will not work. It must be whole hearted. It requires everything in your being, your heart, your mind, your emotions, and your body.
God must look in your heart and at your life and see that it says to Him: I want to know you. I want to see you. I long to see You as Your really are!!
Here is the process as described by Jesus:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! (Luke 11: 9-13) Our Heavenly Father is the source of all good gifts.
God promises you will find Him when you seek Him. He promises to give you the Spirit so you can know Him.
One of the reasons we do not know God as He longs for us to know Him is we are unwilling to follow what we already know.
Proverbs 2:1-5 sheds more light on this subject for us:
“My son, if you, accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and the find the knowledge of God. “
Did you notice all the personal pronouns? You accept, you store, you turn your ear, you apply your heart, you call out, you cry aloud, you look, you search…
It is yours for the asking, seeking and knocking.
It requires you accept, obey, learn, treasure and store up the Word of God.
It involves submission, surrender, a teachable spirit a deep desire to be taught by the Spirit of God.
It involves a passionate prayer life. It means your time in the Word and your prayer life are a priority of your life. It is the first thing you do each day- all through the day and into the night. And here is your motivation: you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Wisdom will enter your heart. Psalm 1 tells us you will be blessed. Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you from evil.
Job had been talking about how he was without sin; how he had walked uprightly and was blameless, feared God and shunned evil. Job’s behavior and actions were not the problem, but the testing had revealed his attitude was wrong. His thinking about God was not right.
God has revealed Himself to Job in a way Job had not understood before. He has experienced God in a way which he could not have experienced otherwise.
Listen to Job’s confession: “My ears have heard of You, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42: 5, 6 True repentance. A knowledge of the truth about yourself and God.
Now God deals with Job’s three friends: “I am angry with you because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as before. All his brothers and sisters who had known him before came and ate with him – comforted him, consoled him and gave him each a piece of silver. (God uses others to prosper us.)
“The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. (This is twice as much as before.)
He also had 7 sons and 3 daughters. So now Job had 10 children on earth and 10 children in heaven, so in eternity he would have twice as many children as before.
Here is what I also conclude: Job lived to be 140 years of age. So in keeping with the doubling of everything – Job was 70 years old when all of this happened! What a great lesson of encouragement for me, as I am also 70 years old.
What a picture of God’s grace. What a story of God’s Sovereignty. From the very beginning we see God was in control. He allowed the devil to do these things to Job. But God set the boundaries which the enemy could not pass.
God caused or allowed it to start and God ended it.
Job had learned about God first hand through this experience. He like Isaiah saw God, high and lifted up and confessed I am a man of unclean lips. Job said I am vile, I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes.
Truth about God always comes through personal experience.
Creation tells us God made us with eternity in our heart. We want somewhere to live. Something to do. We want someone to love and someone to love us and something to look forward to.. And God created Adam with all these desires, and this is why God created Eve and marriage between a man and a woman. God gave us these desires and He longed to fulfill those desires in the way they were designed to be fulfilled.
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.”
We were created by Him and for Him. He longs for us to know Him as He really is. He sent His Son to show us who He is. Look to Jesus and you will see God as He longs for you to see Him.