Another Long-Winded Monologue, Part 3

1:15 Elihu's busy with that long index finger bouncing against the sternum of Job. And probably never himself had one boil. Job's covered with them. Don't be the Pope, Elihu. learn from this man? Well, the first speech he begins in chapter 32 and ends it at the end of chapter 33. And there's a couple of things in it I think are worth mentioning. He speaks first to all the men, verses 6 to 14. Then he speaks to Job and finally gets to his point. Takes him forever, but he finally gets to a point, verse 13 of chapter 33.

2:04 Why do you complain against him? H is capitalized appropriately. It refers to God, Job. Why do you complain against God that he does not give an account of all his doings? Indeed, God speaks once or twice, yet no one notices it. So he's saying God speaks in a couple of ways. first verse 15 in a dream or a vision if you like marking your bible put a little one there that's the first way God speaks at least he did in those days and put a little two by verse 19 man is also chastened with pain on his bed God speaks when you're sick when you're laid aside with unceasing complaint in his bones, describing the pain of life, so that his life loathes bread and his soul favored food. His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones, which were not seen, stick out.

3:06 It's a picture of going hungry and being so sick you don't even want to eat. Then his soul draws near to the pit, He thinks he's going to die in his life to those who bring death. Then he refers to a very interesting observation, a mediating angel. Now look closely.

3:31 He says, God speaks in a dream and a vision in the night, verse 15. And he also speaks even in the pain. There is a message that God communicates in suffering itself. Most people who have gone through deep suffering have a knowledge and a wisdom others of us lack. Why? Because they learned on the bed of affliction.

3:58 And then how do we get the message from God to us? Well, Elihu suggests, look closely, verse 23, there is an angel as mediator for man. one out of a thousand I think you may have never seen this before I confess I don't remember ever reading this before they're rare one in a thousand we would say to remind a man what is right for him let him be gracious to him and say deliver him from going down to the pit and he delivers him from death Let his flesh, verse 25, become fresher than in youth. Let him return to the days of his youthful vigor. Then he will pray to God and he will accept him, capital H, God will accept him. And he may see his face with joy, may restore his righteousness to man.

4:58 Let me pause here and let you look at that. Let your mind turn over what we just read. Now, admittedly, this may be Elihu's opinion, but it is inspired. It comes from the Spirit of God, and it's preserved for us in the sacred text. Now, we have now the Holy Spirit who takes the Word of God and reveals truth to us from the Scriptures. But in those days, before the Bible was complete, God gave His message through dreams and visions. And he spoke in the midst of the pain with mediating angels, communicating. And Job, God's speaking to you in this. Are you hearing what he has to say?

5:43 Interestingly, Job doesn't answer. The second speech begins in chapter 34. Elihu is pleading for his audience. Maybe he's seeing Job drift a little, kind of like Eutychus. Hear my words, you wise men. Verse 2. Listen to me, you who know, for the ear tests words as the palate tastes food. He says it again in verse 16. If you have understanding, hear this. Listen to the sound of my words. Now he speaks only to Job until he gets to verse 33. Then he waits. It's like a pause. In 34, 33, if you'll turn there, shall he recompense on your terms because you have rejected it? for you must choose and not I. Therefore, declare what you know. And I think he waits. And Job doesn't speak. Job doesn't even answer Elihu here. So Elihu gets a little ticked.

6:41 And he ends with a rather strong and firm word regarding repentance. And he now takes up the cause of the other counselors who were blaming Job at every turn. And that continues through chapter 35. In fact, Elihu ends by insulting Job at the end of chapter 35, which is this third speech you may recall in our outline. At the end of it, he sort of levels Job. Verse 13 of chapter 35, Surely God will not listen to an empty cry, implying Job's cries are empty, nor will the Almighty regard it. How much less when you say you do not behold him. The case is before him. You must wait for him. You hear the preaching. And now because he has not visited in his anger, nor has he acknowledged transgression well, so Job opens his mouth emptily. He multiplies words without knowledge. That's really insulting to say it like that.

7:44 Eugene Peterson gets the idea when he paraphrases, Job, you talk sheer nonsense, nonstop nonsense. That's the way he ends. And then he goes to his fourth message. And Job patiently waits for him to finish. But you know what? When you get toward the end of Elihu's speech, he gets back on target. In fact, chapter 36 and into 37, he covers four bases. Listen to them. They all make sense. First, God watches over the righteous.

8:22 If the righteous commit a transgression, he lets them know they've done wrong. If they respond to the rod of discipline, he restores them. If they don't, they suffer the consequences. that's awfully good theology one man suggests that chapter 36 is the best theology in the book of Job thus far and he may very well be right now what I love is how he ends it sometime as a sermon ends it reaches its best point doesn't it he comes toward the end and he begins to introduce Job to the way God reveals himself.

9:09 By the way, what do you think of when you think of God? What an intriguing kind of question. What's in your mind? Elihu helps Job grasp a pretty good understanding of the living God. He even says he trembles when he thinks of him. Chapter 37, verse 1. At this, my heart trembles and leaps from its place. Listen closely to the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that goes out from his mouth. He's beginning to picture God in this thunderstorm. Under the whole heaven, he lets it loose and his lightning to the ends of the earth. After it, a voice roars. He thunders with his majestic voice and he does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is heard.

10:01 God thunders with his voice, wondrously doing great things which we cannot comprehend. Now you're talking, Elihu. Now you're on to something. God reveals himself. God shows himself strong. God presents himself in ways that are overwhelming to us. Overwhelming. Unlike the little girl walking beside her mother in a pretty big thunderstorm. and every time the lightning flashed, she turned and smiled. And then walked a little further than lightning and she turned. The mother said, sweetheart, why do you always turn and look at the lightning? She said, well, God's taking my picture. I just want to smile for him. He's not. He's not. It's not about us. It's not about us. It's about himself in his magnificence.

10:53 Nahum writes of it. He has his way in the whirlwind and the storms and the clouds or the dust of his feet. He is transcendent. He is magnificent. He is mighty. He is gigantic. He is everything about us, above us, around us, and within us. Without him, there is no righteousness. There is no holiness. There is no ability to change. There is no truth. God authors it all and Elihu comes to this in the simple form of the thunderstorm and he shows Job of the living God and he begs him to listen to this chapter 37 verse 14 listen Job stand and consider the wonders of God do you know how God establishes them and makes the lightning of his cloud to shine of course he doesn't do you know how God establishes them and makes the lightning of his cloud to shine.

11:53 Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds and the wonders of one perfect in knowledge? He describes it all as a canopy in a few moments. And I love that 22, out of the north comes gold and splendor around God. It's awesome majesty. Is that magnificent? Nothing around us is awesome or majestic. Nothing. We've seen nothing that can be compared to the living God. We sing of it. O tell of his might, O sing of his grace, whose robe is the light, whose canopy's space. His chariots of wrath, the deep thunderclouds form, and dark is his path on the wings of a storm. Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite. It breathes in the air, it shines in the night. It streams from the hills.

12:48 It descends to the plain and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain. Great words from, oh, worship the king. He is great. He is mighty. And we sit in awe and we worship. Job.

13:09 Job. Job. Join me as we worship. Not surprisingly, when God does finally speak 38-1, he answers Job out of a whirlwind. Whirlwind. Whirlwind. And there he is. Wouldn't that have been great to be there? Oh, wow. Don't talk. Don't talk. Don't talk. Don't say a word. Just stare. Sometimes God bursts on the scenes in such a magnificent way, your breath is taken away. I was fishing with my father many years ago, sitting on a slick in the Cronkaway Bay, just this side of Matagorda Bay. We were sitting in a probably 14-foot fishing boat my granddad owned. My dad was in the back by the motor, and I was up front.

14:07 And it was one of those days you could flip a penny, and it would hit the water, you could just count the ripples. I mean, it was slick. And it's just about daybreak. All of a sudden, from the depths came a tarpon. out of the water, you know. I wish I could jump up above this pulpit to do that for you, but I can't. Anyway, I'm sitting there watching this fish come out of the water. My dad, he didn't even turn around. He says, I told you the big ones were down there. What? Cast open it as if I'm going to land that mother of all fish. Out of nowhere, this suddenly appears.

15:04 And so does our God, Job. Job. Listen. He's here. He isn't silent. He speaks. And there's no voice like his. Robert Dick Wilson was the professor of Old Testament and Semitics from 1900 to 1929 at the great old Princeton Seminary, back when it was straight, back in the days when its theology was evangelical.

15:41 And serving on that same faculty had been to B.B. Warfield and J. Gracia Machen, great names. Machen later left and began Westminster Seminary, and Robert Dick Wilson left with him. They formed a new school. But anyway, from 1915 to 1917, Donald Gray Barnhouse was a student at Princeton Seminary.

16:09 Barnhouse later went on to 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia to serve as a pastor for 33 years. But before then, after graduating, about 12 years passed, and they invited Barnhouse to come back to the seminary and to preach in Miller Chapel. And Barnhouse loves to tell the story of just before he got up to preach, Robert Dick Wilson walked in, came all the way down near the front, sat right down close. And I can tell you from experience similar to that, when I preach in the seminary chapel in Dallas, and I'm surrounded by those who taught me theology and the languages and whatever. It's pretty intimidating. You have to do a lot of self-talk to get over it. And I'm sure that's what Barnhouse went through when he saw his old prof, Dr. Robert Dick Wilson. Brilliant mind, great man.

17:06 Barnhouse said when he finished his message, Wilson walked up to him and said, shook his hand, said, if you come back, I will not come hear you preach. I only come once to hear my boys. And I come only to see if they are big godders or little godders.

17:27 Not sure that he understood what Dr. Wilson meant by that. Barnhouse asked for an explanation. Oh, he said, it's very simple. Some men have only a little god. And they are always in trouble with him. He can't do the miraculous. He can't take care of life's details. He doesn't intervene on behalf of his people. They have a little God, and so I call them little godders.

17:59 Then there are those who have a great and mighty God. That's good. He speaks, and it is done. He commands, and it stands fast. He knows how to show himself strong on behalf of those who fear him. Barnow's anxious to know in which category he was.

18:25 Breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the man's final statement. You, Donald, have a great God. and he will bless your ministry. He paused, looked deeply into the eyes of the young preacher, smiled and said just before he turned to walk out, God bless you, Donald.

18:52 God bless you. How big is your God? Big enough to intervene? big enough to be held in awe and ultimate respect and trust, big enough to turn your worries into fodder so that he can put it all in perspective.

19:21 Little godders, big godders. When God is too small in our minds, our problems are magnified and we retreat in fear. and insecurity. Job was not one of those. When God becomes great in our minds, our problems pale into insignificance, and we stand in awe, and we worship the King. Ours is a great God. Great and mighty is our God. Will you bow with me, please, before him?

20:08 The words are many used for him, transcendent, inscrutable, incomprehensible, magnificent, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent, holy, just, good, gracious. don't forget mysterious incomprehensible self-sustaining he doesn't come to our rescue because he needs us he comes because we need him he doesn't speak because he thinks he needs to be heard he speaks because he knows without his voice, without his message, without his word we are in a morass of trouble and misery and worry. If you've never met the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand that that's essential if you wish to know a God this size.

21:12 Jesus alone said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. He's the only road to take to God. It's one way, His way. We worship you, our great and mighty God, this day. the one who transcends time and space the one beyond our comprehension full of a grace that is not in us a goodness we have never known in ourselves mercy and love that knows no limit almighty magnificent victorious sovereign holy just in a day of many voices all of them loud much noise enormous confusion and chaos bring us often to the simple truth that you love us and your plan is best and your motive is right and it is for your glory and therefore for our good.

22:51 Deliver us from every pursuit of our own selfish happiness, a desire to please what we want and to find our satisfaction in you, great God. Whom have we, Lord, but thee, soul thirst to satisfy, Exhaustless spring, the water's free All other streams are dry And so we worship you, our God We have done so with our songs We have done so in the reading of the word We have done so in our giving We have now done so in our silence before you Minister and continue ministering even when we're away from each other, but not at all away from you.

23:47 Unto him who is able to guard us from stumbling and present us faultless, faultless, before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power.