Has Thou Not Known, Part One, is the title of tonight's exhortation, taken from Job chapter 38, verses 12 to 24. There are four thoughts which we would like to consider. God who commands the morning also deals with the wicked. Verse 12 to 15. God who created the sea and the breath of the earth also determines the place of the dead. Verses 16 to 18. God who created the lights also beams to light to show the path that leads to the house. Verse 19 to 21. God who brings the snow and the hail and the wind also direct the cause of battles and wars. Verses 22 to 24. When our Lord Jesus came upon earth, his first words when he began his ministry was given in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. to chapter seven, where he began to pronounce and declare the profile of the man that is blessed of God. And the first trait worthy of God's blessing was poverty of spirit or humility, a humbleness of heart. Our Lord says of such is the kingdom of God. He went on to give the second trait, a repentant heart. Such a one will find true comfort. The third trait is a submissive spirit to do the will of God, meekness. Such a one is blessed with God's power, permeating to give life's victories. The fourth trait is a hunger for God's word and his ways, thereby being endued with godly instruction and wisdom for life. So Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be... The last word of the Old Testament is the word cursed. And the first word. In the New Testament, as it were, with Christ coming upon earth, is the word blessed. And what is the blessing that Christ pronounced for his people? The first underlying principle is the humbleness of heart. God sought to put Job in his place so that he would stop making demands to God and willing to submit to God's goodwill for his well-being. You see, God allows us to go through trials, and oftentimes in our trials we frigid, and in our trials we begin to question God. and to demand of God why we are in such a state. Well, and how does God answer Job in all his sufferings? Well, God is going to ask him many puzzling questions. To convince him of his ignorance, Matthew Henry said, and to shame him for his folly, for lifting himself to be as God. That is the gist of the message that God sought to bring to Job. A heart that is lifted up, the Lord cannot use. It is a heart that cannot find its place in the vocabulary and in the created universe where God rules. And our God has a right to govern, A.W. Pink says, his universe for his own glory, just as he pleases as the porter over the clay, that he would mold that clay into whatsoever form he chooses, fashioning out of the same lump one vessel to honor and another to dishonor. So as we turn to God's word and are instructed, we discover a fundamental principle which must be applied to every problem. Instead of beginning with man and his world and working back to God, we must begin with God and work down to man. Isn't it so true? That is the problem with the world today. our enigmas, the things that we cannot solve, the things that we scratch our heads and mourn and cry and frigid and fret after, was because we haven't been directed and been seeking God and looking to God for direction, for instruction, for For guidance, instead of beginning with man and his world and working back to God, we must begin with God and work down to man. Begin the world as it is today and try to work back to God, and everything would seem to show that God has no connection with the world at all. Isn't it so true? If you try to think on your own, with your own heart, with your own mind, try to decipher what's going on, you can hardly know a head or tail concerning what is going on. But if you were to look to God, and if we were to seek His guidance, and by the Spirit of God through His Word, you'll find that we would be guided. And how true it is that men must begin with God. And oftentimes, our trials tear us away from clinging on to God and His guidance and His ways. That's our failing, you see. That's our, well, you may say, that's our spiritual blindness, which God has sought that we would be awakened from. But begin with God and work down to the world and light, and much light is cast on the problem. So why is man always, in a sense, in an enigma, lost, and cannot connect life as it were? It's because he is using his own wisdom. And you see that there is a right way that God has commanded by His commandments, by His grace, by His workings, which the people of God must know, so that the people of God would understand and do the right thing. So the first thought, who commands the morning also, deals with the wicked. Has thou commanded the morning since thy days, and caused the day spring to know his place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? It is turned as clay to the seal, and they stand as a garment. From the wicked is light, Withholden, and the high arm shall be broken. See here, God is interwoven the daytime, nighttime scenario, the changing from dawn to in the break of the morning, to describe him dealing with evil, and dealing with the wicked by his sovereign decree over his created world. And so here you see how it is God who caused the light to shine down to dawn upon the night to give the first light of the morning. and the darkness of the dawn as a flat clay. Here it is described very beautifully, interestingly. A piece of clay is flat. The piece of clay is flat, and the piece of clay is dark by itself. But if you were to form it, Formed it into something, into a seal. A seal is a stem, and a seal has its shape. As the light shines, you find that, ah, the day awakes, and you begin to see the morning, just as when we were attending our sunrise service. Isn't it so true that in the darkness, we see nothing? But when the first light came and we began to see the light, and how that sudden change, I don't know if you observe, for those who are awake and not asleep, but are fully observant, you will see that there's a change, just as this time during our sunrise service. Each time you can observe a change, suddenly, the light comes. Suddenly, from the darkness of the death of Christ, came the truth of the resurrection of the open tomb, of the empty tomb. And so God, working out His plan, as the darkness turns to light, You'll find that there is a contrast, there's a comparison, there is a picture that is being described here. That the wicked, as it were, is shaken out, out of it, like a piece of cloth, tablecloth. As it's described, you shake off the dirt out of the out of the cloth you pull and you wring it, all of it falls off. Here you see the comparison here as God who is in sight of the happenings that is in the world today, is also able to bring forth righteousness and justice and holiness according to his character upon this earth. And so, in the vicissitudes of the confusion of life that men seem to be in, he's always so puzzled, he's always so think that life is so incomprehensible, life is such a mystery, would find that with God, there is an order to life. There is a beauty to life. There is life with God. And this is what God is trying to bring the picture over to Job, that there is a mourning to the sad darkness of the misery, of the trials that we may be in, that God does sovereignly judges over the earth, and that righteousness prevails upon the earth. And so, as you think of it, Matthew Henry says, it is quite out of our power to alter the course of events. We can't stop the morning from coming. Job, the Lord says, has thou commanded, God asked to Job, has thou commanded the morning since the days begin? Has thou at any time raised the morning light sooner than its appointed time? We cannot, right? And we have to wait for the morning. And Are we in any way able to direct the divine counsels, Matthew Henry says, the way by which God's providence is worked out to favor one thing and to disfavor another thing? To chasten one and to uplift another? Well, it is in the hand of God. And for the evildoer, you'd find that light seemed to be a picture of its doom. When light comes, those who are doing evil, you find that they would love darkness rather than light. As our Lord came upon earth, how he did all the things that benefit and help to save men from their misery and their sins, and yet men would reject him. What a confused world we are in. What a confused people we are. Why are we like that? So God is seeking that we would understand good from evil, right from wrong, and understand the matter of things rather than to be engulfed in our own little thoughts and to be lost. Job 24, verse 13 to 16. There are those that rebel against the light. They know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night as a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, no eye shall see me, and disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime, they know not the light. Christopher Ashe said, well, because the wicked love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil, because the murderer and the adulterer prefer to do their deeds, evil deeds, under the cover of darkness, because evil is by nature seductive. But God, God is a great judge, who sends forth the beams of the morning light to detect the criminals, so that their purposes would not only be defeated, but they would be put to shame, and they would be punished. And how their high arm does raise itself against God and against man, but how it is broken. how wonderful it is that we have a world in which God rules and that there is righteousness and there is peace with God in the picture. That is why we say, when the Lord Jesus came upon earth, in Luke 178, by the tender mercies of our God, the day spring from on high has visited us. To give light to those that sit in darkness, whose heart are turned to it as the clay to the seal. How wonderful it is for us to know the gospel. That upon the cross, sins were dealt with. that the wickedness of the human heart is broken and there is remedy for the human soul. So here, you see how God commands by light and darkness in his way by which He deals with and judges the wicked. God who created the sea, the second thought, and the breath of the earth also determines the place of the earth, of the dead. Has thou, verse 16 says, entered into the springs of the sea? Has thou walked in the search of the death? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Do you know concerning death, Death is a, Matthew Henry said, a grand secret. We all don't know what is death. Do you know what is death? We don't know except, you know, we go to a funeral and a person stays breathless after that. But what happens to the dead? We don't know. Except God would illumine us that there is a place called hell for the departed soul. without God. And so, are we so smart? Are we so knowledgeable? We cannot be. And that is why you see this verses begin with, has thou, has thou. God asks us specifically this question. As we consider and have a right understanding of God in our hearts, in our lives, it must cost us to realize that we don't know and that all the knowledge of the world that we are in and the world beyond is given by the wisdom and the grace of God so that we may realize how ignorant we are, how we are so lost to the state of our being. So when God asked this question, have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Do you know when you will die? In other words, do you know your time? Do you understand that appointed time for yourself? How disaster will come, how disease will come? We don't know. We cannot describe what death is. How the body and soul is separated at death. How we do not know. Except God would illumine us. God would show us that the departed, dead, without God, would fall into a place that God sought to describe to us called the lake of fire. so that we will understand that, well, it's like a pool, a body of water, as it were, but it is, in fact, engulfing fire. A lake of fire is being described. to help us to understand in our own limited way, in our own limited vocabulary, limited understanding, the place of death. So, especially in the, you know, we claim ourselves to be living in the 21st century, whereby we claim that seem to know many things, the explosion of knowledge, and yet, as we think about it, we know nothing, as it were. The things that truly matters, but we are, you know, laughing ourselves to our grave, as it were, like Cain building his city and calling it after the name of his son. As men begin to build for themselves in this world a place, well, we realize that How fleeting is his existence on earth. And we can't tell, we cannot measure. Has thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? Can you tell what it is to transit from life into eternity? So as God asks this question, has thou not known? Do you know of these things? To help us to realize that, you know, even in our suffering, Can God not allow it? Who are we to demand of Him? So as you think of it, let us realize that it is not that grim as we think, but if you would begin with God, and understand His creative purpose for our existence, then you realize that our existence is indeed very meaningful. Because God has created us to have fellowship with Him. And in our fellowship with Him, we enjoy the blessings of this created world that He has given us. And he has done so, placing us in families to help us to understand the familiar relationship, helping us to understand heavenly things, as it were, by our earthly models. So that we, in being guided by his wisdom, can find, as it were, our bearing for life, so that we would know that, you know, absent in the body is to be present with the Lord in heaven, that there is indeed a very real place called heaven, that we would take hold by faith, and there's such a thing as the resurrection of the dead at the end, that God, who makes all things reveals to us, and helps us to understand why we die, because we have fallen short of the glory of God, so that we'll be put, as it were, in our place that we may learn to subsist under God. What a blessing it is to be protected, as it were, God protecting us. You know, when Ruth went back to went to Israel with Naomi. She said, it is said that she come under the wings of the God of Israel to be protected by God, that he would, you know, when he came back, they came back to Israel, find a place of abode for them, a field that they can glean. Whereas in Moab, there was famine. God guided them. God showed them to subsist under God. What a blessing it is. And we who know God, and have our spiritual eyes open? Are we excited about it, to share it with the people around us? Or are we living flickering subsistence, clinging on to this world, and not ready for the world to come? which will in no time overtake us. You see, these are things that God wanted us to think about. God wants Job to see. So that in the light of all that is happening in our lives, we know that God is working out something good. Something good for Job's life. While he was suffering, God is working out a way by which He would help Job to know that there's a sovereign God that rules the universe. And that when we know Him and know Him well, know Him intimately, that knowledge and that relationship would make our life on Earth very purposeful and meaningful and very precious. So that we know that our time here is so limited. Whatever we waste would have been wasted. but whatever that we do that impacts eternity would have its eternal rewards. So may we be awakened to the realities of the divine knowledge of this world so that we'll not be sucked in by the world and be engulfed in its misery and be lost in its pain and be attracted by its pleasures. May God help us. May the Lord strengthen His people as we learn the ways of God the paths of righteousness and the way of eternal life. May the Lord guide us. Let us pray. Father, we thank Thee for Thy Word. Strengthen us by Thy grace and grant us to understand the deep mysteries of Thy purpose for our lives, so that our lives would be meaningful, our lives would be purposeful, and our life will have eternal impact. Lord, while we are here, grant us understanding by Thy grace. This I pray with thanksgiving through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.