Lenten Study Job Ch 37
The majesty, power, and awe that is the divine. Elihu lays out God in a few ways we might not have thought about before. Job has been flirting around the edges of usurping God’s authority even if he didn’t mean to do it. Elihu isn’t about to let Job do that.
"There was a man in the land of Uz" by andrevanb is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.Caption
1 “At this also my heart trembles, And leaps from its place.
2 “Listen closely to the thunder of His voice, And the rumbling that goes out from His mouth.
3 “Under the whole heaven He lets it loose, And His lightning to the ends of the earth.
Job 37:1-3 (NASB)
The majesty of God. Assigning the sound of God’s voice like the rumbling of thunder or the boom after a lightning strike is very appropriate.
4 “After it, a voice roars; He thunders with His majestic voice, And He does not restrain the lightnings when His voice is heard.
5 “God thunders with His voice wondrously, Doing great things which we cannot comprehend.
Job 37:4-5 (NASB)
Imagine the sound of God’s voice as one of those lightning strikes that hit close to where you are during the storm. The flash and cacophony followed almost as though it came before the sight of the strike. Your heart skips a beat from the start as everything in the world is drowned out by the crash and rumble of that strike. God has spoken. Who can contain that, stop that, or in any way redirect that?
6 “For to the snow He says, ‘Fall on the earth,’ And to the downpour and the rain, ‘Be strong.’
Job 37:6 (NASB)
These things are in the power of God to control. The majesty of His decisions directs the precipitation when to fall, where, and in what form. Man does not control this and cannot. God alone directs the weather.
7 “He seals the hand of every man, That all men may know His work.
Job 37:7 (NASB)
Talk to any atheist or worldly person who denies God. Ask them to control the weather. Right then and there, make it rain or snow, the wind to blow or stop. They will change the subject, talk about something else, or attack you for somehow being deficient. Anything accept admit that they cannot, in fact, do what you’ve asked. They are not God. If you state that “only God can do those things,” they immediately begin drawing out scientific explanations for condensation, wind flow, temperature variation, and so on. Their final defense is to ask you to ask God to do it. Of course, God does not dance for their amusement or ours, and they present back that is “proof” He does not exist. The fact remains that they cannot control the weather, just as any other person cannot also control the weather. It is God’s alone to do as He wills.
8 “Then the beast goes into its lair And remains in its den.
Job 37:8 (NASB)
Human beings instinctively know what and who God is. We’ve been created to know this in our hearts though some work very hard to deny this truth. In the end, Christians sleep in the embrace of the Holy Spirit while those who deny God sleep alone as beasts in a cave.
9 “Out of the south comes the storm, And out of the north the cold.
10 “From the breath of God ice is made, And the expanse of the waters is frozen.
11 “Also with moisture He loads the thick cloud; He disperses the cloud of His lightning.
12 “It changes direction, turning around by His guidance, That it may do whatever He commands it On the face of the inhabited earth.
Job 37:9-12 (NASB)
The very science the Atheist would like to point to as proof that God does not exist is proof He does. The rules are orderly, one building on another, incapable of being anything other than what the math indicates it should be. Just as its creator intended it. This order doesn’t occur by accident, chance, or luck. Someone set it up this way. God ordered creation as He saw fit, and it is still doing what it is supposed to do as ordained by its creator.
13 “Whether for correction, or for His world, Or for lovingkindness, He causes it to happen.
Job 37:13 (NASB)
This is not predestination; a “God wills it” passage of scripture. This explains that what the rules of science God set up say should happen, happen. Things happen this way because they cannot happen any other way. Two plus two is four as a truth. There is no other way to say it when you take two of something and put them with two of something; you have four of something. This is an absolute truth, not your truth or my truth. This is the truth of God, the truth of math, the truth of science. It can be no other way because He created it to be no other way.
14 “Listen to this, O Job, Stand and consider the wonders of God.
Job 37:14 (NASB)
Elihu has set up the majesty of God to introduce Job to a humbling statement that comes next.
15 “Do you know how God establishes them, And makes the lightning of His cloud to shine?
16 “Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, The wonders of one perfect in knowledge,
17 You whose garments are hot, When the land is still because of the south wind?
Job 37:15-17 (NASB)
Today’s scientists know so much more than the men and women of education in Job’s day. They can probably answer all these questions with almost near certainty. Such answers today might look like we are gods to a man of Job’s day, but a truth slips by if we aren’t careful here. The weatherman gets it wrong as often as he gets it right. Scientists are still discovering things about the physical world. Mathematicians still make discoveries about how numbers work all the time. Physicists discover ever more complex facts about the nature of the universe almost daily. We do not know everything there is to know yet. We are not God.
18 “Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror?
19 “Teach us what we shall say to Him; We cannot arrange our case because of darkness.
Job 37:18-19 (NASB)
This is something of a rhetorical question to Job. Elihu and all of them know Job cannot do these things. Job never claimed to be able to do them, well, not in those words. When Job claimed that God had made a mistake, he implied he knew more about the situation than God because Job was explaining to God how He got it wrong. This assumes a higher role in creation over God, and that cannot be. This was not Job’s intention, but it was what the implication was nevertheless.
20 “Shall it be told Him that I would speak? Or should a man say that he would be swallowed up?
Job 37:20 (NASB)
Man cannot pass judgment on God or God’s actions. We can say what we think, but we can also be wrong about what we think. God is the one who is right, always.
21 “Now men do not see the light which is bright in the skies; But the wind has passed and cleared them.
Job 37:21 (NASB)
When the sky is cloudy, is there light behind those clouds? Yes, we know that the sun is still there. But we cannot see it because our eyes don’t penetrate the clouds until the wind blows them away, revealing the light.
22 “Out of the north comes golden splendor; Around God is awesome majesty.
23 “The Almighty—we cannot find Him; He is exalted in power And He will not do violence to justice and abundant righteousness.
24 “Therefore men fear Him; He does not regard any who are wise of heart.”
Job 37:22-24 (NASB)
Trying to find God, see Him, and see where He lives is like looking at the sun with the naked eye. You can’t do it, and if you try, you will blind yourself so that you can’t see anything at all. This is what it is like trying to find the majesty and splendor of God. Because He is an unknown as something we cannot find, see, touch, or feel, human beings fear things we don’t know. However, we do know Him. God gave us His Word in the Bible specifically so we would know Him. In His Word, He explains to us how to live and be wise. He also explains that He does not bring calamity to people living wisely; by His ways. Will bad things happen to those wise people? Yes, but God does not cause bad things to happen to them. God doesn’t cause those things. The orderly rules set in motion result when God said, “Let there be light.” Those things are no more caused by Him than gravity when a stone drops, yet that is how He set it up and wanted it. We would do well to respect the rules God put in place and try to live, as best we can, the way He asked His children to live.