I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Job chapter 38. Thank you for having me today. It's good to be with you. Thank you for letting us borrow your pastor for the morning as well. We're glad that he's able to be in Shawnee and for the partnership we have in the gospel. I've been preaching through Job chapter 38, not just chapter 38, but through the whole book of Job for most of this past year. And what I found to be helpful in working through these long speeches is not to read an entire passage at once, but to read a portion at a time and then to speak on it and then to continue on with the next portion. So that's my plan for this morning. I'll just be reading a few verses at a time and then we'll consider them together. So we'll begin now with just the first three verses of this chapter. As you listen, remember this is God's Holy Word. So Job 38 verses 1 through 3. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct me. Okay, so who is Job and why is God speaking to him out of the whirlwind? We need to do some review of what's happened in the first 37 chapters to understand where this comes from. If you go back to Job chapter 1, you meet a wealthy, prosperous, influential righteous man." That's his key characteristic, is that he fears God and turns away from evil, and yet we read very quickly in that chapter that God permits Satan to come and to afflict this man. In very quick succession, Job loses his herds, he loses his servants, he loses even his own children. And yet for all of that, he continues in his fear of God. We read at the end of chapter one, well-known words from Job, beginning at verse 20. Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And then we hear the evaluation of these words. Verse 22, through all this Job did not sin, nor did he blame God. So Satan comes again. Satan asks once again to afflict Job this time to take away his health, and God gives that permission, and Satan leaves Job covered from head to toe in painful boils. Job's own wife despairs of the situation, and yet Job continues in his fear of God. Job chapter two, verse nine. Then his wife said to him, do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die. But he said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity? And yet again, an evaluation in all this, Job did not sin with his lips. And so after this, Job has three friends who come to sit with him, to comfort him. and to speak with him. They wait in silence for seven days until Job speaks again. Job begins to speak in chapter three and we read in chapter three something that sounds very different. Afterward, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And that introduces a speech that is a curse. And from there, we don't hear any evaluation of Job's words, what he has said. We hear his friends respond, and we have speeches. They go back and forth and discuss many themes together, but we don't hear God's evaluation. And for that, we wait all the way until chapter 38, the words that I just read. That's why God is speaking to Job out of the whirlwind. God wants to speak to Job about the words that Job has been speaking, and here is what God has to say. Verse two, who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? God tells Job that his words have not been doing good. from that time beginning in chapter three. His words, instead of bringing light, have been bringing darkness. Instead of giving wisdom, his words have been obscuring the truth. That is not to say that everything Job has said has been wrong, but he has been compromised. His suffering has overcome him, and he has been compromised in his fear of God. And so God comes to him. to restore him, and we won't read everything that God has to say. We're going to be reading the first part of God's first speech. God gives two speeches. It's a section where God begins with what you might call the inanimate creation, the physical world before God moves on to speak about the animate creation, animals and things like that in the end of this speech. So we won't consider the whole speech, but we'll consider how God approaches Job, and God has many questions to ask of this man who has been darkening counsel by words without knowledge. And we'll be following those questions in a series of points. If you're looking at the outline, we'll be filling it in with prepositions. So that's how you can keep track. First, the word before. God wants Job to know that angels rejoiced before there were people. Angels rejoiced before there were people. Verses four to seven, God says, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? So God tells Job to consider the basic physical structure of the earth. God speaks with the language of construction. He presents himself like an architect, the one who draws out all the measurements to make sure everything is where it should be. He presents himself as the builder who carefully follows the blueprint so that the earth is put together just the way it is supposed to be. The cornerstone is in just the right place to hold the whole structure together. And God says that He did this, and the angels who are watching, described as morning stars, described as sons of God, these angels who are watching, they shouted for joy. They rejoiced. And of course, this takes us back in our minds to Genesis chapter one. Now, Genesis one doesn't talk about angels, but it does tell us about the creation of the world. It does tell us about God, this master architect, master builder, putting everything in place. And in that chapter, as we read the chapter, we have a repetition that continues, that God, just as a builder might do in process of his work, steps back and evaluates. And every time he evaluates, God saw that it was good. God builds some more and sees that it is good. And he builds some more and sees that it is good. That's the same story that we have in Genesis chapter one. It's a story of a creation worth celebrating. A story of a creation that is worth rejoicing in. Now in Genesis 1, we learn that the people were created last, they were created on day six, so if the angels were watching this, they must have been created sometime before people were there, and that's the point of what God is saying, that Job, before you existed, before even the human race existed, there was joy, there was rejoicing, because God's creation was so good. Now you might want to keep a finger in Job chapter three. We're going to flip back to those words a few times because God is going to be pointing things out to Job that are related to Job's curse. Remember the summary of what Job did. Job cursed the day of his birth. Chapter three says, Job said, this is verse two and three, let the day perish on which I was born and the night which said, a boy is conceived. What Job did when he began cursing is going after creation. He began attacking creation. He said, my birth, my conception, anything that has to do with my existence, I wish that it could just be blotted out. Job was saying, the pain that I have experienced, the suffering that I am going through is so great that it's not worth it. There's just no way to justify it. There's no way to explain it. There's no way it's right. I wish that the whole thing could be destroyed. Job extended from his own existence to the calendar itself. Verses six and seven, he says, as for that night, let darkness seize it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months. Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful shout enter it. He wants the entire calendar to be adjusted. And notice specifically verse seven, he says, let there be no joyful shouts. There is nothing to celebrate about this creation that God has made. And God says, before I created you, Job, I was creating, and what happens when I create is there's joy. Because when God creates, it is good. And so God tells Job, angels rejoiced before there were people. Next, as we continue on, we hear the preposition around. God says that he keeps a boundary around the sea. Verses eight to 11. Or who enclosed the sea with doors? When bursting forth it went out from the womb. When I made a cloud its garment, in thick darkness its swaddling band. And I placed boundaries on it, and set a bolt and doors. And I said, thus far you shall come, but no farther. And here shall your proud waves stop. God keeps a boundary around the sea. This is a different set of questions. As we go through these, you'll hear many questions where God uses the passive voice. And so you know God did it, but God doesn't say, I did this. In this set of questions, though, God says over and over, I did this. Verse nine, verse 10 and 11, I made, I placed, I said. God is, in a way, going out of his way to take credit for what happened in this part of creation. What is it that God is taking credit for? The creation of the sea. God wants Job to know that He especially takes credit for that chaotic, wild, dangerous thing called the sea, the ocean. that massive, uncontrollable body of water. It's something that bursts forth in the beginning. It's something that has proud waves. It's something that needs strong boundaries. You need to close the door and bolt it shut to keep this thing contained. It is something that is extraordinary and powerful, and God says, it's my baby. God says, this is my little baby. I made the cloud its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band. It came out from the womb, and I wrapped it up, and I can hold it like a little baby. In chapter three, Job was cursing a birthday. And God says, now let's have a birthday celebration. Let's celebrate the birthday of the sea, the day that it came out and was born as I created it. Now God has not yet arrived at the topic of Job's curse. Why is Job cursing? Well, Job is cursing because of the terrible suffering and evil that came upon him. God has not arrived at discussing and addressing evil. but he's getting closer, he's taking a step closer. Foundational statement, verses four to seven, everything I make is good, is worth rejoicing in. Next, God says here, even the chaotic, even the dangerous, is something that's a part of my good creation. What overwhelms you is God's little baby. God has a boundary around the sea. Third, God tells Job that the wicked are broken after dawn. The wicked are broken after dawn, verses 12 to 15. Have you ever in your life commanded the morning 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? It is changed like clay under the seal, and they stand forth like a garment. From the wicked their light is withheld, and the uplifted arm is broken. God now speaks directly to the topic of Job's concern, the presence of evil in this world, the presence of wickedness in this world. And God says in big picture summary, when wickedness comes in to harm my good creation, that wickedness is destined for judgment and for destruction. That wickedness, that evil, is not going to last. And so now God, very directly, is rejecting what Job has said. He's rejecting Job's curse. He's using this image of light and darkness, which is something that Job already did in Job chapter three. If we go toward the end of that chapter, I'll read verses 20 to 22. Job asks the question, why is light given to him who suffers? and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death, but there is none, and dig for it more than hidden treasures, who rejoice greatly and exult when they find the grave. Job asked the question, why light? Why do I have to continue to live? Why do I have to continue to see the sun? Why can I not just be shrouded in darkness and disappear? And God tells Job, you have everything upside down. Light is not what destroys. Light is my plan for redemption. Light is my plan to remove wickedness from this world. Light is what comes. And as the sun rises, as the light comes, the wicked are broken. Their uplifted arm is no longer able to do its work. And of course, as God picks up on this metaphor that Job has used that is many other places in the Bible, it anticipates for us what we hear at the coming of Jesus Christ. This image of light is exactly what the New Testament gives us as one of the key ways to consider the ministry of Jesus. John chapter one, in the beginning was the word, referring to Jesus Christ, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him. And apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life. And the life was the light of men. Jesus' ministry. is a ministry of life. Jesus, as the eternal Son of God, is the creator of this world. Jesus is the source of life and light from the very beginning. Jesus is the one who did that creation. But Jesus, as He took on flesh, as He dwelt among us, continued that ministry. And so John, as he writes about what Jesus did in the past, switches to speaking about the present. He said, in Him was life. Life was the light of men. Right now, the light shines. in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The light is shining. The light is exposing wickedness. The light has entered into a conflict with what is evil, and the light has won the battle. Just as God said to Job, It is when the light comes that the wicked are destroyed, that the wicked are broken. It's very helpful to think of the story of Job and the ministry of Jesus together because it teaches us something about how God destroys wickedness. As we consider the ministry of Jesus Christ, the one who came, the one who broke the arm of the wicked, how did he accomplish that? He did not accomplish it. by coming as a victorious king who was defeating everyone, who was putting everything in his place, who was establishing a clear, visible, outward kingdom on this earth where wickedness could no longer exist. The way that he brought his light was by humbling himself, by taking on the form of a servant, by suffering, by going through pain. by experiencing something far worse even than what Job experienced in all of his terrible suffering. The way that Jesus conquered wickedness was by subjecting himself to wickedness that killed him, that put him on a cross even to the point of death. And so the story of victory over evil is the story of innocent suffering. Now Job doesn't know all these details. Job, the righteous man, who had terrible suffering and who could not understand how it could possibly have any meaning, he doesn't have all the details of Jesus Christ. And yet God gave us his story so that we could learn and we could apply it in our own stories. So that when suffering and pain come into our lives, we don't begin to curse. We don't begin to say it's not worth it, there's no way that this can make sense, there's no way that this could ever be justified. We don't say that darkness is better than light, we don't say that death is better than life. We say no. God has sent his son. I'm not going to curse the light. I'm going to endure and I'm going to trust in him. God wanted Job to know that the wicked are broken after dawn. Now this is the basic, we have the basic building blocks for what God wants to teach Job. God has much more to say, but just to outline it in summary, God says, what I create is good. God says that all of it is under my control, even those dangerous and chaotic things in my creation. And God says that I'm going to destroy wickedness. He's not giving Job the details, but he wants Job to have that foundation of truth. as he continues then to explore the theme of God's wisdom. So we'll continue to consider these things. Next, God tells Job that the gates of death and darkness are below the deep. The gates of death and darkness are below the deep. Listen to verses 16 to 18. God asks, have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell me if you know all this." Again, we can go back and consider Job's words. Job chapter three, verse five. Speaking of the day of his birth, Job says, let darkness and black gloom claim it. Let a cloud settle on it. Let the blackness of the day terrify it. And Job considered blackness and darkness, and considered death itself. Job 3 verse 13. Job said, if I had died, now I would have lain down and been quiet. I would have slept. I would have been at rest. And God challenges this theory of Job's, that if I could die, then I would have rest, by simply saying, Job, have you been there? Have you traveled through the darkness to the other side of death? Have you opened those gates and walked in to see what is on the other side? We understand where Job is coming from. Job wants the pain to stop. How do you know the pain is going to stop? Have you been on the other side? How do you know that death is a solution? So God tells Job very plainly, you need to stop trying to solve this problem with things that you know nothing about. It's a good reminder for us too. However great the pain may be, turning toward the darkness instead of the light is not going to resolve this problem. Next preposition is beyond. God tells Job, light and dark have a home beyond the horizon. Verses 19 to 21, where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place? That you may take it to its territory, and that you may discern the paths to its home. You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great. Again, God ties together these themes, light and darkness, that he's been using, and he just says to Job, you don't have control over either of these things. You know, as humans, we can never travel to the horizon. We can know that there is light and there is darkness and that there's a meeting of light and darkness that happens, but we can't actually get on the journey and go walk to that place. We can do a lot of cool things with scientific study and understand what's the sun doing and the moon doing and all of these sorts of things, but to actually travel there and God says imaginatively not only to travel there, but could you go there and then could you control it? Could you say now it's time for the sun to do what it does and now it's time for the moon to do its thing and now it's time for light to come and time for darkness to come. course it's absurd. And I think perhaps God has this final note about the length of Job's life to remind him that it's not like if I give it some time I'm going to figure this one out. I'm going to solve the problem of controlling light and darkness. Their home is beyond the horizon. My place is humbled before God. Next, God tells Job, weapons are stored behind the weather patterns. Weapons are stored behind the weather patterns, verses 22 to 24. Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hill, which I have reserved for the time of distress, for the day of war and battle? Where is the way that light is divided, or the east wind scattered on the earth? God is again shifting with his metaphors. Now he's going to the idea of battle. Now, what do we do to prepare for battle? Well, humans, we have armories, we have other ways of storing things up so that we can have our weapons in place so that when the war comes, we are prepared for the fight. Now, God does not need human weapons for fighting, and God says, I have my own arsenal stored up, available whenever I want it. Snow, hail, lightning, wind, all of these things, God says, I have at my disposal. And we can go through human history and see that God has won many battles, regardless of what one side or the other had, based on his use of his resources. Why does this matter? Well, God wants Job to remember that God is not disengaged from the world. God is not just watching what happens. God is a master general. Job, as he has suffered, he's described his suffering fairly, in one sense, as being like an ambush. As he was somebody who was secure, who was fearing God, who was doing the right thing, and suddenly, out of nowhere, He was attacked, and it was all taken away. But what Job has also done is he has said, God attacked me. Job, of course, doesn't know about Satan. He doesn't have that detail, and so he has said, God attacked me. And God doesn't here tell Job the details, but God affirms, yes, Job, I am a master general. Yes, I am a warrior. But Job, you need to be trusting me, not accusing me. Next, away from. God says life is thriving away from populated lands, verses 25 to 30. Who has cleft a channel for the flood or a way for the thunderbolt to bring rain on a land without people, on a desert without a man in it, to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to make the seeds of grass to sprout? Has the rain a father or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb has come the ice, and from the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? Water becomes hard like stone, and the surface of the deep is imprisoned. God takes Job another direction. He asked Job to contemplate the deserts, contemplate the land that is not populated, contemplate the things that are going on beyond where humans are caring for creation, and God says that my care for my creation extends to all those places. It is complete. Even where there is no human life, the plants will grow in their proper time, as is appropriate. And so Job, think about water. Think about that source of life. Think about the remarkable properties that water has. Think about the rain and the dew and the ice and the frost. All of these things are from God. All of these things are designed by God. All of these things, God returns to the same metaphor of birth. Just as God gave birth to that great body of water, the sea, and is a metaphor of his creation, so also each of these things, every form of water, is like God's little child kept in his fatherly care. The next preposition is ahead. God tells Job a leader marks out a path ahead of the constellations, verses 31 to 33. Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season and guide the bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens or fix their rule over the earth? As we think about the stars, the constellations, and nature in general, we often think in terms of laws, in terms of patterns, of consistent things that happen. But we need to be careful when we talk about natural laws that we aren't trying to talk about something that is as if it is self-controlling or self-governing or simply physical. Or to say it another way, we should not think the stars simply come out on their own every night. What God says happens. is that these things are not self-governing, but they're like animals that Job would have cared for himself in the past. And they need to, some animals, be put on a leash. They need to be tied and guided. You need to take your animal to water so it will drink. These constellations need a guide. They need a leader. They need somebody to tell them, here's where you're going to stand tonight. Here is your place. And so the remarkable properties that these things have, the rules that they follow, the ordinances that they follow, they are not simply random, they are not self-governing, they are appointed and governed every day by God in His careful control. And so God reminds Job of this. Job, again, chapter three, had included this theme in his curse. Job chapter three, verse nine, speaking of the day of his birth, he said, let the stars of its twilight be darkened. Let it wait for light, but have none, and let it not see the breaking of the dawn. Job said, I wish that those constellations would never have come out. I wish that the sun would not have risen. And God says to Job, I was doing that. I do it every day. I did it on that day. I led them out to their place. and told them where they need to be. Finally, God teaches Job, wisdom is dwelling inside the clouds. Wisdom is dwelling inside the clouds. Verses 34 to 38. Can you lift up your voice to the clouds so that an abundance of water will cover you? Can you send forth lightnings that they may go and say to you, here we are. Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom or tip the water jars of the heavens when the dust hardens into a mass and the clouds stick together? Here God finishes his tour of the inanimate creation. As I mentioned earlier, next he'll go on to talk about all sorts of animals, and there are many lessons for Job to learn from them. But as God finishes this tour of inanimate creation, he takes us to what is one of the most random parts of creation that we can think of, in that he describes the clouds and the rain. When do the clouds go to a certain place or take a certain shape? How much rain falls? How hard? All of these sorts of things. There's no way that we could ever begin to track those sorts of things. To us, they're random. And yet, God says, consider the wisdom of the clouds. Consider the fact that these clouds, for as long as the creation has existed, have sustained life on the whole Earth. Can that be accomplished without intelligence? Certainly there are times of famine, there are times when there's too much rain, and yet the overall pattern is that the entire Earth has continued to be sustained. It's almost as if the clouds are wise. Now God's point to Job is not to think that clouds actually have brains inside of them or something like that. God wants Job to know, again, God is wise. God is guiding all of his creation. God is teaching all of his creation exactly what it is supposed to do. And so it is successful. Job has darkened counsel by words without knowledge. And God wants Job to look up at the clouds and confess that God is wise. Confess that there is no one like God in wisdom. That God is governing over all things. That God even governs over the suffering and the pain that perplexes us the most. And he never fails in his purpose. And so as we consider this passage for ourselves, as we consider how to apply this, let's put ourselves in Job's shoes. Ask yourself, can you answer Job's questions? Or excuse me, can you answer God's questions that were given to Job originally? Now apply them to yourself. Can you answer God's questions? And I hope that this tour of creation gives you a reminder of just the impossibility in any direction for you to govern this world. That's clearly supposed to overwhelm us. If you try to engage your mind in any one of these sets of questions and say, could I do that? Of course you pull back and say, no, that's impossible for me. God is the one who was over all these things. God goes before and around and after and below and beyond and behind and away from and ahead and inside. God does all these things. I pretty much stay here. That's what I do. And so the questions put us in our place. And yet part of the wisdom of God's speech is that it is not simply an overwhelming speech to show us God's greatness, but he also designed this speech as an empowering speech, as an affirming speech, as a speech that can build you up. Consider these questions again. Can you answer God's questions? Well, I decided I would go ahead and take the test. In my translation, there are 24 question marks, because there's multiple parts to these questions. So how many questions are in this test? It's hard to know. I had 24 questions in my translation that I've been using. I took the test, and I scored 21 out of 24. Pretty good, right? That's a solid B in most schools. Consider some of these questions. Verse two, who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? I know the answer to that question. Well, it's Job. And then, by extension, it's me. Or next, verse four, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Not there. I know the answer to that question, too. Verse five, who stretched the line? God did. Verses six and seven, on what words bases sunk? Okay, I don't know that one. What's holding it all together? I can't answer that question, so I didn't get that one right. Verses eight through 11, who shut the sea in? God did. I know the answers to most of these questions. Three of them I couldn't answer, the rest I'm fairly confident I got right. The answers are along these lines. No, I can't, and yes, God does. Do you see what these questions do for you? These questions empower you, they build you up to pass the test because they remind you about some basic information that you can get correct. The information that you know is who you are and who God is. And if you keep that information in order, not only can you do well on God's tests, but you can do very well in life. That's what God wants you to understand. If you get confused on these issues, if you are confused about who God is and who you are, if you start to put yourself in control and try to be sovereign over things that you're not sovereign over, you'll start failing this test. But if you keep these things in order, This speech will empower you to be exactly what a human is supposed to be. It will empower you to be a humble person, to be a faithful person, to be someone who depends on God for everything that you need, and who glorifies him for what he does. That's the purpose of God's test. And you're supposed to pass this test. It's designed for you to succeed. It's designed to call you to trust in the sovereign God, the one who made all things good, who made a creation worth rejoicing in, the one who controls all things, the one who has a plan and a purpose, even for evil and suffering, who promises to destroy the wicked, and who has confirmed that by sending his son, Jesus Christ. And so he calls you. to remember these things, to keep these things in order, to pass this test and the test of life by trusting in him. Let's pray together. Our Lord, we stand in awe of your great wisdom. We stand in awe of what you have done and what you continue to do in the creation and governing of this world. We look at all these different areas of life and remember how weak we are, how foolish we are, how incompetent we are. And yet, Lord, you have chosen to build us up in faith. You've chosen to build us up as your creatures who can understand the questions you ask us and who can give a response. So Lord, help us to do that. Help us to give glory to your name and not to take any for ourselves. Help us to turn to Jesus Christ. Help us, especially as we face our allotted portion of pain and suffering in this life, to do so depending on you, trusting in your purpose and in your goodness. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.