Job chapter 42, the first six verses. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Hear now, and I will speak. I will ask thee, and do thou answer me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see thee. Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes. thus far God's holy word may be seated. Recently my wife took the gun safety course that is offered here periodically at the seminary because she desires to get her permit to carry a concealed weapon. And such courses are not only useful but are quite necessary. Because a gun is a good example of a thing that in order to use it safely and properly, you need to know exactly how it works, what it does, how to handle it. Now what we say about a gun is true of so many different things. There's the old adage that any job is made easier with the right tool. But of course, one can have the right tool and not use it rightly. And thus it's very important, even in the use of tools, to understand the nature of a tool, what it's about, in order to profit from its use. Now these are little figures that set before us the wonderful concept that in order to live correctly and rightly, We need to know God. To know God, not just speculatively, but to know God experimentally. You remember, this is how Calvin opens the Institutes. The two things that we must have to be wise people. We must know God, we must know ourselves. It is through the knowledge of God that we come to the correct knowledge of ourselves, and that knowledge of God, the knowledge of ourselves, then works within us, wisdom. That's really what we see in Job's final confession in chapter 42, verses 1 through 6. It is through the true knowledge of God that Job has come to understand the ways of God in his life and how he should respond. God has set before Job his character as creator. as ruler and provider of all things, and has summed up that revelation with the two wonderful creatures of the Behemoth, the gentle giant of the land, made by God, controlled by God. And then as we saw last week, the Leviathan, a creature that from its description is incomparably physical. Nothing else that we know of in all of God's living creatures can compare with the Leviathan with respect to strength and terror and power. And God uses the Leviathan to direct our attention to Him. The creator of this incomparable creature is in Himself the truly incomparable being. God is in a class of one. He is God, there's none like him, and there is none other. Through this procedure of revealing his nature by his works, God has humbled Job, brought him to an initial repentance expressed in chapter 38, but not finished with him. He then uses the behemoth and Leviathan to bring Job to a point of complete brokenness before God, a point where each of us needs to be and to remain. In these six verses, the Holy Spirit is teaching us that the true experimental knowledge of God produces humility and repentance. True experimental knowledge of God produces humility and repentance. We'll consider three things. The truly repentant person acknowledges the greatness of God. The truly repentant person acknowledges his own sinfulness. And the truly repentant person humbles himself before God. In verses 1 and 2, the Spirit teaches us that the truly repentant person acknowledges the greatness of God. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted." Job speaks again. Now in chapter 38, Job in his confession said, I've spoken once, even twice, and I will speak no more. Is he here violating that resolution already? When he speaks now in the presence of God. Well, no, he's not. And there's two things that we need to note. In the first place, Job's speaking, to which he refers in chapter 38, is the petulant, argumentative speaking that expresses an attitude toward God that is indeed not righteous. Just remember some of the things that Job has said. He cursed the day of his birth. He longed for the day of his death. He said, in fact, that God has not dealt with him rightly, that God has not shown true justice in the world, that the wicked prosper and the righteous limp along, that God even has become the enemy of Job. And in chapter 38, Job is confessing his improper speech. And he says, I've spoken once, even twice, I will speak no more. But moreover, remember that God's been catechizing Job in these chapters. And as God's catechizing Job, he expects now a response from Job. And that's what Job is doing in chapter 42, verse 1 and following. Speaking now in true humility in response to the revelation of God. In his speaking, the very first thing that he does is acknowledge the greatness of God. He's come to understand two things. I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted. He first acknowledges the omnipotence of God. Now, he has confessed the omnipotence of God many times in his speeches earlier in the book. It's not that he's just now come to understand that God can do all things. He's known God well enough to know that God does whatever he pleases. But when he says, I have come to know, or I know now that God can do all things, he's talking about a deeper level of knowledge. He's had a speculative knowledge. He could speak about the omnipotence of God. But he says now he's come to a personal knowledge. He has come to the realization of the power of God through this catechetical process and through his own experience. He's come to know God in a truer and more deep way because he recognizes that God has acted perfectly according to his power. A power that cannot be divorced from his character. Perhaps one of the lessons that Job is confessing here is that God's omnipotence is governed by God's justice. That God does all things by His power, but it's not an indiscriminate power that's divorced from His holy nature. He does right. And that's what Job is confessing. Now connected to that is the sovereign expression of this power, as he goes on to say, and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted." Now, the King James translates this that no purpose of ours can be hidden from God, and of course that's true in terms of God's omniscience. But even the New King James, as well as the other modern translations, follow this as the preferable way to translate the Hebrew words that are here. God has an eternal purpose. It is His decree. And no one or no thing can thwart that purpose and decree of God. We referred last week to Psalm 135, where the psalmist makes this great confession. For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods, whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all the deeps. He's sovereign in the exercise of his power. This ties into what God has said in the application of the general characteristics of the Leviathan in the previous chapter, when God says, who has given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. He's sovereign. righteous and holy in the exercise of His omnipotence. We can easily paraphrase what Job confesses here with the children's catechism. Can God do all things? Yes, God can do all His holy will. He does not act against His nature, thus He would never act unjustly. He never acts arbitrarily. He never acts unfairly. In no unholy manner does God act. But he does whatever he pleases. He pleases that which is according to his perfect and holy nature, set forth in his eternal decree, executed in his providences. And here, where Job is, is where we must always begin in our relationship with God. We must know him. We must know him experimentally, that he's great and glorious. And thus it not only is folly to try to stand against him, but it is absolute arrogance. The Lord does whatever he pleases. And that's a great comfort to us as well. It's a theme that runs straight through scripture. God expresses that when Sarah laughed when he said that she would conceive a son. Is anything impossible for God? When Jeremiah doubts, what's going on God? You tell me to go back to my hometown and pick up an inheritance. I've been prophesying that the people are going into tactivity. And God and Jeremiah say, nothing is impossible for God. It is the language He uses with the Virgin Mary when she says, how can this be? I do not know a man. And nothing is impossible for God. It's the language our Savior uses when the disciples query Him. when he says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And who could be saved then for it? With men it's impossible, with God all things are possible. It's God who does the great and glorious things. And our salvation indeed is a wonderful expression that God does all things whenever He pleases. On the basis of this acknowledgement, we see in the second place that Job then, as a truly repentant person, acknowledges his sin. In verse 3, Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared that which I do not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Job begins with the very indictment of God. God began his speech in seeking to put Job in the proper place where he should be. God said, who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? We notice then that he here in his speech is dealing particularly with Job. That's confirmed now with Job's confession, his acknowledgement. He doesn't simply darken God's counsel, though, he confesses. He says, and who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? He said in all of his speeches, he has besmeared the nature of the reputation of God. He has not understood God and the ways of God, and thus he has made things worse in his interaction with his friends. In the way he's expressed himself, he has set forth great confusion and has besmeared the purposes of God. He then makes a two-fold confession in verse 3, I have declared that which I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me which I did not know. He says I spoke in ignorance. I thought I knew God. I thought I knew enough about God to recognize that I really wasn't getting a fair shake in all that God was doing. And in words of longing for my death and cursing the day of my birth and challenging the justice of God and saying he persecuted me and was my enemy, I simply spoke in ignorance. I spoke as a foolish man, Job is saying. The second part of the confession is the reason he spoke in ignorance was he tried as a finite being to plumb the depths and to speak about the divine being. But that's what he means when he says, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Perhaps you recognize the use of the word wonderful. It's a name and attribute that God in scripture applies to himself and others apply to him. When he comes to Manoah and Manoah's wife and announces the birth of Samson, They inquire after his name. He says, why do you ask? It is wonderful. The psalmist in Psalm 40 verse 5 speaks of the wonder of God's ways. Many, O Lord God, many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which thou hast done. And thy thoughts toward us, there's none to compare with thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous. God is a wonderful being, which means that he is an infinite being, that he is clothed in a great deal of incomprehensibility, and he shines forth on us aspects of his wonderful being, but we can see but glimpses, because his wonder is tied up in his infinity. The same is true with God's works. we see the edges of God in His works. What Job is saying is, I sought to challenge God with respect to His divinity. I thought I could figure out, that I should be able to figure out, that God should be required to give me an answer so that all of this would fall in place and just work out rationally for me in my defense against my friends. And he was failing to recognize that God is wonderful. He does wonders that are innumerable, and we're never going to plumb the depths of those wonders. Although, as the psalmist says, we should meditate on that. We should daily think about the wonderful things of God, his nature, his beings, attributes, his works. wonderful ways of His providence, for these are things that God has designed to thrill us, as well as to humble us, to set us before Him in awe, and fill us with adoration. But we must always remember that He's God. Because He's God, He's wonderful. And we need to acknowledge the wonder of His ways, and not expect to be able to put them all together. This surely holds true As we do in theology, the wonder of God's ways is expressed in the wonder of one God who is three persons. The wonder of God's ways is expressed in the fact that he has foreordained all that comes to pass, and yet every individual is responsible for every act that he performs. Wonderful! beyond our ability to comprehend. Apprehend we do, to the degree that God reveals it to us. We meditate, we plumb, but we must always be willing to stop where scripture stops. We must never forget that the secret things belong to God. The things revealed are for us and our children, that we may obey Him. And so Job confesses his sin. He owns the indictment. He has by his actions hidden the wonderful counsel of God because he spoke in ignorance and he spoke of things too wonderful for him. Well, these two acknowledgments bring us to the third. Truly repentant man acknowledges the greatness of God, acknowledges his sin, and we see in the third place, truly repentant man is then humbled before God. Job expresses his humility in verses four and five. Hear now, and I will speak. I will ask thee, and do thou instruct me. I've heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee. Job now speaks. God has told him to speak. And Job says, hear me, Lord, now I speak. Notice the tone is very different. He speaks, and he asks for instruction. God has begun to be his mentor. He says, I place myself under your tutelage. He says, now I will speak, hear now, and I will speak, and I ask of thee to instruct me. Which is how we need to live every day, every moment in the presence of God. It's how we should study scripture. It's how we should go about the doing of theology. It's how we look practically at all the circumstances of life. Not dictating to God. But your servant listens. Speak now. I'll ask of you. That's what we say to God. Don't demand an answer. Don't be careless and complain against the ways of God. But you see, Job humbles himself and he asks God to be his teacher. He says, I've heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee. Again, he is confessing in humility. But up to this point, his knowledge has been primarily a speculative knowledge. He has known a great deal. For a man in his day with the limited resources of revelation, he knows a great deal about God, and he is indeed a godly, righteous, holy man. But through the process of his trials and of God's challenge, he now has come to a different kind of knowledge. Knowledge expresses, but now I have seen thee. Now, I don't think he's having reference to the fact that God spoke to him out of the storm. There's nothing in the text to imply that God came forth out of the storm and appeared before Job in some visible manifestation of theophany. He came in the storm, he spoke out of the storm. Job is not referring as much to what he saw as to what has happened in his heart through what he heard. Because as God has spoken to him, he, like the men on the road to Emmaus, could say, truly, my heart has burned within me. Because the Spirit of God made the reality of what God was saying real to Job. The revelation of God, coupled with his trials and afflictions, brought him to this point now of a deeper and more profound knowledge of God. a truly experimental knowledge of God. Such a knowledge may only be had through the experience of truth. And one of the primary reasons that God sends us our trials and afflictions from little bitty niggling things that interrupt the course of the day to serious terminal diseases or great financial difficulties or persecution, accidents, whatever it might be, These things are by the Spirit woven together with the revelation of our lives to bring us to this solid footing of a true experiential knowledge of God, which is what we long for. It's what we must have. It's what God has designed for us. All truth revealed is to bring us to this personal, relational knowledge with God. Notice, as Job says this, that he has, in fact, an intuition of grace. He wants God to teach him, because now he's coming to understand. He recognizes God's dealt with him in a gracious manner. Not as he deserved. But God has come very patiently. God hasn't chided him. God didn't beat him over the head the way the enemies did. God never indicts him for awful hypocrisy or gross corruption. No, God's dealing with the heart of a godly man. And Job recognizes the grace of God in how God has dealt with him. Notice as well that there is a new tone. As Job says, now I will speak, hear me, and I will ask and instruct me. There's a complacency, there's a peace, there's hope now in these words. Job doesn't know the why's, but he's come to know the who. And he's settled now. And he is able now to acquiesce humbly to the purposes of God in his life. But also I will remind you that Job came to this experiential knowledge of God still with scanty revelation. We have the full revelation of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. who is the effulgence of divine glory. The revelation of the invisible God is in Him. And it's in Christ Jesus, in the wonders of the Incarnation, in the depth of the love and the profound wisdom of God and the plan of redemption that we come to know God in this deeply personal way. To know Him in this way, our Savior prays in John 17, is to have eternal life. To know God through Christ Jesus, by resting in Him through repentance and faith. This is the knowledge that we can say even more confidently than Job, I heard of Him with the hearing of the ear, but now I've seen Him with my eye. You see your God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. and we truly love and adore Him. With the expression of humbling humility comes as well an expression of sorrow and abhorrence. Therefore I retract, a very weak translation of the word here. Therefore I abhor, I abhor, I hate. We have to add the word myself and what I've done But that's what Job is saying. He now reflects on his language. The attitude behind that language. He is filled with a godly sorrow and abhorrence for what he's done. And how he has sinned in his attitude and words against this most glorious and wonderful God. This of course is the ground of all true repentance, to be humble to the point that we see ourselves as God sees us. And we hate what we see. We hate what we see. We don't hate ourselves in the sense because we are children of God, we're made in His image, we're redeemed in Christ Jesus. But we hate that sin that yet remains within us. We hate the action by which it breaks out. And we ought to be filled with an abhorrence. We ought to shudder at the thoughts of things we've done in the past, of what we've done today. We recognize that every one of these things are against this holy, wonderful, powerful God. To know Him experimentally humbles us, humbles us in our sin, so that we then truly abhor and hate what we do against God and against others. And thus he repents. Therefore I abhor and I repent in dust and ashes. He's confessed his sin, he's humbled himself in sorrow, and now expresses this holy resolve that he turns away from it. He is renouncing all that he has done, all that has been exposed. And he does so in expressions of the depth of his sorrow. In Job's day, it is customary to cover oneself or to sprinkle one's head with dust and ashes as a sign of grief. Remember, Job might still be sitting on the ashes. He sat there as an expression of personal grief. But now it has turned into an expression of personal sorrow over his sin. Not what's happened to him, but what he's done in response to what's happened to him. Now that was in Job's day a way that people expressed the depth of abhorrence and sorrow. But don't forget what God says through Joel, rend your heart and not your garment. How today do we express our abhorrence? Well, there will be brokenness. There will be times of tears and great, deep grief over our sin. But one of the ways that we really show the depth of our sorrow is through what God's told us to confess our sins to one another as private sins, but particularly in public sins, I think the principle that comes from Job repenting in dust and ashes is the willingness to stand before the people of God and say, this is what I did. I've dishonored the name of God. I am truly broken. I confess. I repent. And I ask your forgiveness as well. And that's why church discipline is so important in the whole process of serious sin, of helping one come to a genuine brokenness over sin. Now, note the difference between Job's, and I mistakenly said chapter 38, Job's first expression of repentance when he acknowledges that he has misspoken in chapter 40. Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am insignificant What can I reply to thee? I lay my hand on my mouth once I've spoken, and I will not answer even twice, and I will ask no more. Now that was a genuine expression of repentance. But we noted in the process of looking at that, that God had not yet brought Job to where he wanted him. Notice the progression in repentance. I'm insignificant. That's a good place to start. I'm contemptible. But now, I hate myself. I hate what I've done against God. I've spoken, but now he comes out quite clearly and says, I've spoken in a way that dishonors God. I've spoken in foolish and in ignorance. I spoke in pride. I thought I knew God, and now I realize that I really didn't know a great... I perhaps knew a great deal about God, but I didn't know God experimentally. I hadn't been brought to Him in the way He designed through my trials. And now He says, I repent. An open manifestation of my brokenness. You see, this is the repentance that God is seeking in each of us. Again, just to remind you of the summary of repentance and the definition in the Shorter Catechism, what is repentance unto life? Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, see Job had that, acknowledgement of the mercy of God in Christ, he understood the reality of grace. With grief and hatred of his sin, he abhors himself, turns from it unto God, with full purpose of an endeavor after new obedience. My friends, that is the repentance that God wants from you and me. We've noted that our repentance is often itself full of weakness and sin. We should never be satisfied with what levels we've come to, never satisfied with the depth of sorrow over our sins. We need to study repentance to understand its nature and what God requires of us in it. And then that God, we plead with God that he would shape our hearts in true, ever-growing, deepening repentance. That we will grow in the practice of repentance. That we will grow in the sorrow over our sins. That our resolution to turn from sins and endeavor after new obedience will become increasingly strong. For this is what God has designed for us. But remember where it all begins. It's the true knowledge, the true experimental knowledge of God that's going to produce the humility that's necessary for true repentance and the acts of repentance. And so, above studying repentance, make it your lifelong passion to know God. And to know God not just speculatively, but experimentally. You're in a context where you're learning a lot about God. A lot about God's truth and revelations. A lot about God's ways. And a temptation can be, in this context, and as young ministers of the gospel, that you will be content with that speculative knowledge. That speculative knowledge is only the foundation. It does not make you a good theologian. it will not make you a good pastor and preacher. We must strive after the experimental knowledge of God. Never being content with what we know and what we've experienced, but praying for and longing for greater personal realizations of all the truths of God that we study. using then the experiences of our lives that God has designed wisely, individually for each one of us, using those to interact with what we know and are learning about God, to find that truth, put deeply into our hearts and souls, and never be content. Always be longing for greater experimental knowledge of God. I look back to when I sat where you sat, our city, and think really how little I knew experimentally. I had a lot of speculative knowledge. Early years of ministry, how little I knew experimentally. I mourn over that. And I want better for you. As a seminary, we want better for you. We're not content with head knowledge, you know that. But you must have a heart that's hungering and thirsting to know God in this way. And of course, above all else, study Him in Christ Jesus. For in Him will be all that you need to learn about and to know about God in a deep and personal way. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, Help each of us as we go through life to be able to say time and again, I knew of you by hearing, but now I've seen you. We pray that your spirit will be active in our own study of scripture, our listening to lectures, our preaching, that He will bring that experimental element. And that our own preaching then would never simply rely upon communicating knowledge, but longing for the Spirit to ignite that knowledge and to cause all your people to experience the truth of it. In Christ's name, Amen.