SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/4/2011 8:44:53 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                          Focus:  “Can you Explain My Creation?”

           

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  Job 38:1-38

 

            Message of the verses:  At the end of Elihu’s speech we saw that he was speaking about storms and there is a possibility that there may have been a storm that was on the way, for in that part of the world one can see a storm that is coming off in the distance.  Now as we look at the first verses in Job chapter thirty-eight we see that God is speaking to Job out of the storm.  All of this of course is only speculation, but it could have been the way that it happened.It would be nice to have God speak to us out of the sunshine and not out of the storm, however when we look at different places in Scripture we will see that God did speak out of storms.  In Exodus 19:16-19 we see that God speaks to the new nation of Israel out of a storm from Mt. Sinai.  This is also described in Hebrews 12:18.  In 1 Kings 19:8-11 we see God speaking to Elijah out of a storm, and this can also be seen in the book of Ezekiel chapters one and two.  When believers are going through “storms” in their lives they are probably in a better frame of mind to want to listen to the Lord than when everything is going well in their lives.  Having prosperity and having things going good in your life is not a time when we desire to listen to the Lord.  I once heard Billy Graham speak to the people in a large city in Canada telling them that living when things were going right was the hardest time to stay close to the Lord. 

 

            I have been writing what Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11b on almost every SD stating that it was my desire to learn contentment, and yet when one looks at the life of Paul from the book of Acts and how he has described things that happened to him he did not always have things go right with him and probably the opposite of that would be a fair way of describing how things went in his life, and yet he could write that he had learned contentment.  There were a lot of storms in the life of the Apostle Paul and we can see near the end of the book of Acts that while Paul was being sent to Rome that there was a great storm going on while he was on the boat with many other prisoners, a storm so bad that many had given up hope of life, and God spoke to Paul through an angel telling him that all would survive the storm and they did.  This is just one of the examples of the storms that came into Paul’s life that taught him contentment. “I had a million questions to ask God; but when I met Him, they all fled my mind; and it didn’t seem to matter.”  (Christopher Morley)

 

In today’s SD we will begin to look at the last five chapters in the book of Job through the help of Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s commentary “Be Patient.”  He entitles this final chapter in his book “The Final Examination.”  I wish to quote a paragraph from the beginning or introduction to this chapter:  “God’s address to Job centered on His works in nature and consisted on seventy-seven questions interspersed with divine commentary relating to the questions.  The whole purpose of this interrogation was to make Job realize his own inadequacy and inability to meet God as an equal and defend his cause.”

 

            He goes on to write:  “Then summon me, and I will answer,” Job had challenged God, ‘or let me speak, and You reply’ (Job 13:22 NIV).  God had not responded to Job’s challenge.

           

“God’s address can be summarized in three questions:

1.               ‘Can you explain My creation?’(Job 38:1-38)

2.                ‘Can you oversee My creation?’ (Job 38:39-39:30) Job’s first response (40:1-5)

3.               Can you subdue My creation?’ (Job 40:6-41:34) Job’s second response Job 42:1-6

12/4/2011 5:22:06 PM

 

            In the first two chapters of Job and also in Job 12:9 we have seen that the word translated for God is Jehovah the name speaks of His self existence and is also used in Exodus 33:3 and following, but now that we come to the last five chapters of Job we see this being used of God again. 

           

“Can You Explain My Creation” (Job 38:1-38)

 

            Let us begin with the first three verses of this section:  “1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 2 "Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge? 3 "Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!”  (NASB)

           

            “1 Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind: 2 “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? 3 Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.”  (NLT)

           

            The Living Bible paraphrases verse two like this:  “Why are you using your ignorance to deny My providence?”  We see that God is not questing Job’s integrity or sincerity; He only wants to question Job’s ability to explain the ways of God in the world.  We will see in Job 42:7 that Job had spoken truth about God but Job’s speeches had lacked humility.  Job really thought that he knew God but he did not realize how much that he did not know about God.  Dr. Wiersbe writes: “Knowledge of our own ignorance is the first step toward true wisdom.”  God tells Job in verse three that he better brace himself like a man because it was God’s turn to question Job.

 

            “God begins with the creation of the earth” (Job 38:4-7):  “4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Tell me, if you know so much. 5 Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? 6 What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone 7 as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”  (NASB)

           

            “4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Tell me, if you know so much. 5 Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? 6 What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone 7 as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?’”  (NLT)

           

            I think that this question should be put to all the evolutionist out there in the world for they are trying to figure out how the earth was created so that they do not have to have a Creator to answer to.

           

            We see in these verses the Master Builder who plans what He was going to do as a careful builder would today when building a building, for he would survey the site, then mark off the dimensions, he would pour the footer, lay the cornerstone, and finally erect the structure.  Job was not there when all of this happened, nor were there anyone else there, for only God was there along with the angels as seen in verse seven.

 

            “Let us consider the seas” (Job 38:8:11): “8 “Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; 9 When I made a cloud its garment And thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 And I placed boundaries on it And set a bolt and doors, 11 And I said, ’Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop’?”  (NASB)

           

            “8 “Who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb, 9 and as I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it in thick darkness? 10 For I locked it behind barred gates, limiting its shores. 11 I said, ’This far and no farther will you come.  Here your proud waves must stop!’”

           

            God now speaks of when He caused the seas to come together in the place where He wanted them to go and stop where He wanted them to stop.  We are talking about day two of creation when God separated the waters that were made the first day, as the whole earth was water at that time. “2 Pe 3:5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water.”  In day two of creation it was as if the Lord cut the waters with a knife and part of them went upward towards the heavens and part of them stayed upon the earth and then it was upon day three that God separated the waters from the dry land and this is what we see in these verses. “9 Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. 10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.”  (Genesis 1:9-10)  We see the word “gathered” in verse nine of Genesis one and when the OT was translated into the Greek language, which is called the Septuagint, the Greek word that is used for gathered is the word “synagogue.” I thought that this was interesting because that word synagogue means a gathering place, and that is what the Lord did with the seas, He gathered them into the place where He wanted them and the rest was dry land.

 

            “God Now Speaks of the sun” (Job 38:12-15):  “12 "Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, And caused the dawn to know its place, 13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, And the wicked be shaken out of it? 14 “It is changed like clay under the seal; And they stand forth like a garment. 15 “From the wicked their light is withheld, And the uplifted arm is broken.” (NASB)

 

            “12 “Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to rise in the east? 13 Have you made daylight spread to the ends of the earth, to bring an end to the night’s wickedness? 14 As the light approaches, the earth takes shape like clay pressed beneath a seal; it is robed in brilliant colors. 15 The light disturbs the wicked and stops the arm that is raised in violence.”  (NLT)

 

            When we go back to the book of Genesis and chapter one we will see that God created light on the first day and that He created the things that would give off light on the fourth day.  This had always been a bit confusing to me that light was created on the first day and the sun, moon, planets, and the stars were created on the fourth day.  Light was something that did not exist before in God’s creation, but we see in the Scriptures that God is light and if anyone who is human would look at God they would die because of His light.  What God created on the fourth day was the things that would give off this light and when you look at Genesis 1 it reads as if it were an afterthought, although it wasn’t.  What I am speaking of is the creation of the stars that seemed to be like an afterthought, but they too were all planed out.  “14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.”  Notice that after each creation day God would say the name of the day, in this case “forth day” and would also say that this was “evening and there was morning.”  He is saying that each day was a normal solar day of twenty-four hours.  The Hebrew word for day is “yome” and when that word is used with a number like in all of the days of creation it means twenty-four hours.  The word is also used to say things like “The day of the Lord” and this would mean a longer period of time, but not when it was used to describe creation, for it always used the number.  Look at Genesis 1:5 “5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

 

            Again we must remember the spiritual aspect of “light” for Jesus said that He was the light of the world, and in John 8:12 we read “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.’”

 

            With that I will end this SD and pick up the rest of the first main point in the next SD.  I have been looking forward to get to this part of the book of Job and so I wish to take my time going through it, trying not to miss any of the important things that God is saying to Job.

           

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I realize that Job was not sinless, but from the first and second chapters of Job it shows his great integrity, but as in all sinners born of the seed of Adam there were things that were not right as discussed in earlier SD’s.  Job did not know God as well as he thought he did and none of us will know God like we should or could know him.  The Apostle Paul penned these words not too far from the time that he would depart this earth:  “8  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”  (Philippians 3:8-10)

            Paul was probably the most spiritual man to ever walk this earth other than Jesus Christ our Lord, and yet towards the end of his life he still had a desire to know God. Stay in the Word my friends, Stay in the Word.

                       

                        My Steps of Faith for Today:

 

1.               Continue to learn to know God by staying in His Word.

2.               Be humble about what God is teaching me willing to share it with whoever God desires me to share it with.

3.               Continue to learn contentment.

 

12/4/2011 6:43:37 PM