The Lord Speaks
Job • Sermon • Submitted
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· 7 viewsGod waited to answer Job's complaint so that he could direct Job to himself as the only answer to our problems.
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Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
In our study of the book of Job, we now come to the point that everything has been building up to: God speaks. Throughout the book, Job often expressed his desire for God to speak, even if it meant that his sins would be exposed. There were also times when both Job and his friends assumed that they were speaking for God. But up to this point the Lord had not spoken.
The fact that God condescends to speak to his people is critical. Without a word from the Lord, we cannot know the most important things about ourselves or the world in which we live. Even in the Garden, before Adam and Eve sinned, they were not able to understand creation apart from God interpreting it for them. God told them that they weren’t fish or fowl or beast, but bearers of his image who were to exercise dominion over the rest of creation. The Lord told Adam what he could and could not eat, and that it was not good for him to be alone.
Now, if we need a word from God to understand the universe , then it’s all the more certain that we need him to tell us the way of salvation. Because we’re so dependent on the Word, it’s vital that we be in it all the time. We must be people of the Word.
And yet, there are times when God chooses not to speak. One of those times is recorded in 1 Samuel 3:1, where the prophet wrote,
And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.
Here the word precious (יָקָר) could also mean translated ‘rare,’ which is exactly the point. New revelation was also rare the four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments. In fact, it was so rare that God didn’t speak at all. He was also silent during the speeches of Job and friends.
But in chapter 38 the Lord spoke for the first time since the second chapter, and what he said was not what anyone expected. He didn’t lecture Job on justice. Nor did he correct all the errors of Job’s friends. Instead, he interrogated Job, asking him one question after another after another after another. He did this to show Job how little he actually knew. Then, when the Lord finished his questions in chapter 40, Job responded by saying that he had nothing to say. He said,
Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.
How can any man answer the Lord? No matter how well educated or smart we might be, our severely limited knowledge doesn’t even come close to divine omniscience.
Compassion in a Storm
Compassion in a Storm
The description of God’s speech in verse 1 gives us some helpful insights into what’s going on. To start, note how the writer identified God. He called him the LORD, Jehovah, the faithful covenant God of his people. This is a remarkable contrast to what we’ve seen in the speeches of Job and his friends, where the sacred divine name appears only once. Job used it in chapter 12, when he asked a question similar to what the Lord would later ask him. He said,
Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?
Otherwise, Job and his friends preferred the name God, which emphasizes the might and power of the one who rules creation.
The change of name in our text is important because it suggests that Job’s story is about to focus on a different aspect of God’s character than what Job and his friends had been considering. God’s sovereign rule and raw power are important, but we must temper this with the tremendous compassion he shows to his people.
The other thing that’s important in verse 1 is the fact that God spoke to Job from a whirlwind or storm. This may refer back to chapter 1, where all ten of Job’s children died when a great wind from the wilderness destroyed the house they were in. Job 1:18–19 says,
While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house: And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
It was almost as if the Lord ignored all the speeches of Job and his friends, and said, “Let’s go back to the beginning and I’ll tell you what really happened. I was talking to you in all the bad things that happened.” The raiders that took Job’s oxen and asses and camels, the fire that fell from heaven and destroyed his sheep and his servants, and the wind that killed his children were things that God used to get Job’s attention.
It’s a sad truth that too often we don’t listen to the Lord until he comes to us in a storm. Psalm 29 exhorts us to pay attention when God speaks to us in the storm. It says,
The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD is upon many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; yea, the LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
When there is no storm, we tend to take things for granted. We’re healthy. We have jobs to provide food and other necessities. We have family and friends. We assume that these things will always be there. But when the storm hits, and the Lord takes away the things we’ve become accustomed to, either we must humble ourselves before him and embrace his providences or he’ll humble us in ways that we don’t want. But one way or another, there Lord will make sure that we hear his voice in the storm.
Remember, too, that it was in a storm that Jesus taught his disciples to trust him more. As the wind blew and the waves threatened the ship they were in, Jesus went out to them walking on the water and said,
For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
The same Savior comes to us in our storms. He calms our fears and stills the water.
The Lord’s Questions
The Lord’s Questions
The Lord’s first question to Job is in verse 2:
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Job had spoken to his friends in ignorance. We all have a tendency to that once in a while. But let’s not forget that we have real knowledge in Jesus Christ. His Word gives us truth and light.
Of course, the question that God asked Job in verse 2 was rhetorical. The Lord knew exactly who had spoken words without knowledge. And Job knew the answer too. The question wasn’t meant to get information, but to warn Job to be quiet. His time for talking was over. Now it’s time to listen and to learn.
The Lord made this clear in verse 3 when he said to Job,
Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Quite often in Scripture, the Lord commands men to be men. He has to remind men of this occasionally because men often abdicate their responsibility by going with the flow or letting someone else make their decisions for them. First Corinthians 16:13 is a good example of the kind of admonition that I’m talking about. Paul wrote,
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.
Perhaps we get the idea sometimes that the only thing that defines manliness is combativeness. If we’re not fighting some evil, we’re not the men that we should be. The problem is that fighting is the easy part. Knowing what to fight, when to fight and how to fight is the hard part. And that’s exactly what Job needed to learn.
When the Lord told Job to gird up his loins like a man, he was referring to the way that men used to work. Literally, they would tuck their robes under their belts, so that they could work without their robes getting in the way. That is, they were to concentrate all of their effort on the task at hand. Job’s job was to listen carefully to God’s questions and learn. This was hard for him because he thought he already had God figured out.
So, the first step to being a real man is being quiet and listening when God speaks, especially when we think we have all the answers.
Thirty years ago I attended an RCUS pastor’s retreat in South Dakota, at which Dr. Ray Dillard from Westminster Seminary was invited to speak. While we were there, the subject of creation came up. Dr. Dillard didn’t believe that the days of creation were normal days, and kept insisting that if God had videotaped everything, it might change our minds. After Pastor Howard Hart had heard enough, he said, “The problem is that you don’t have a videotape, but we do have the Word of God.” That ended the conversation. I don’t know whether Dillard ever changed his views (he died not too long afterward), but I think he understood right away that he needed to shut up and listen when God speaks.
The Lord continued to question Job throughout the rest of chapters 38 and 39 and into chapter 40. All of his questions had to do with creation. Each one made the point that God governs the whole universe with wisdom, knowledge and skill. Together they were meant to arouse a sense of awe in Job and thereby encourage him to trust the Lord even more.
This morning I don’t intend to go examine any of these questions in detail, but I want to give you a sense of how they’re organized so that we can consider them in weeks to come. So, here are the subjects:
The foundations of the earth — 38:4–7
The boundaries of the seas — 38:8–11
The beginning of a day — 38:12–15
The depths of the sea — 38:16–18
The alternation of light and dark — 38:19–21
Weather patterns — 38:22–30
The constellations — 38:31–33
The clouds — 38:34–38
Lions and ravens — 38:39–41
Mountain goats and deer — 39:1–4
Wild donkeys — 39:5–8
Wild oxen — 39:9–12
Ostriches — 39:13–18
Horses — 39:19–25
Hawks and eagles — 39:26–30
Of course, Job couldn’t answer any of the Lord’s questions. He wasn’t there when God made the world. He had no idea how it was done or why. And if he couldn’t answer these questions, how could he possibly understand the reason why God brings suffering into the lives of his people? Apart from a word from God, he couldn’t.
This had to have been a humiliating exercise for Job as the Lord asked him one unanswerable question after another in rapid succession. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of men examined for the ministry. Many of them went home embarrassed because they couldn’t answer certain questions. Job didn’t answer a single one.
None of us would have done any better. But thankfully, we know where the answer is. It’s in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the one through whom the Father created all things. Colossians 1 says that he is
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
He knows all the ins and outs of creation because he’s the one through whom the Father made all things. And therefore, as Paul wrote in the next chapter, he is also the one
In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And so, when we lack wisdom and understanding, we must go to him. He is the only one who has the answers to life’s complexities, including the reason for suffering.
But why did the Lord wait so long to address Job’s complaint? He wanted Job to exhaust all human wisdom, which is no wisdom at all, before revealing real wisdom to him. We have to see how bankrupt we are before we look to Jesus Christ for everything that we need. And we find everything we need at the cross, where our sins were laid on him and his righteousness was credited to us, if we believe.
Thus, as soon as God begins to speak, we learn that the real hero of Job’s story is not Job, but God, who alone deserves the praise now and forever. Amen.