Earlier this week, I ended up having a flat tire out on Hwy 64. It seemed like no big deal at first. I’ve changed many tires for myself and others, so I knew exactly what I needed to do. Everything was going great until I was putting on my spare, and I dropped all my lug nuts. As soon as they hit the ground, they rolled right into the middle of the road. I wasn’t thinking at all, and I chased right after them. As soon as I did, I looked up and saw a massive semi heading right at me at full speed. I didn’t have enough time to react, so the truck just hit me dead on at full speed. Needless to say, that wasn’t a very good day. Now, if you didn’t believe what you just read, you would be right in doing so because as you see there isn’t any evidence of that type of collision. If there were that large of a collision between myself and a semi there would have to be some evidence. I would bear the marks of that encounter. I would have been changed in some way because of that collision, but I am not, so you know it didn’t happen. The same is true of those who have had a collision with God. There is always evidence of this because their lives are changed forever. We see Moses encounter God and as a result his face was shining with a radiant brilliance and everyone knew he had been with God. Jacob wrestled with God and left with a new identity, a new understanding of God, and a new physical limitation because of his encounter with God. The disciples had an encounter with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and went from timid fishermen to bold, mighty men of God. Saul met Jesus on the Road to Damascus and everything changed about him. He was no longer a persecutor of the church. He was a member and encourager of the church. When someone encounters God, there is always proof. However, encounter is too gentle of a word because when the sinfulness of man intersects with the holiness of God it’s more than an encounter, that’s why I said it’s a collision. It’s a beautiful collision, but it’s a collision nonetheless. As we continue in our study of the book of Job we need to understand that Job was a man on a collision course with God.
Last week we saw a man named Elihu who helped Job to stop having tunnel vision and start seeing the bigger picture of what was going on in his life. He was setting the stage for this collision. As Elihu finished speaking with Job and his friends, he ended with this statement recorded in Job 37:23-24 - ”We cannot imagine the power of the Almighty; but even though He is just and righteous, He does not destroy us. No wonder people everywhere fear Him. All who are wise show Him reverence.” He focused one last time on the power and justice of the Lord God Almighty, trying to get Job to see God for who He really is. When he finished neither Job nor his friends responded to anything that he shared. They just sat and reflected upon the truth that Elihu had spoken into their lives. It was then that a storm approached — a whirlwind. I can just imagine what was going through Job’s mind when he saw this whirlwind. His mind had to have gone back to the storm that killed his children, and he probably thought that God was going to finish him off in the same way. He sat and waited. What he thought would collide with him and destroy him did collide, but instead of destroying him, it restored him. It was because God was in this storm. It’s this beautiful collision that I want to focus on as we finish off our sermon series this morning. If you have your Bible’s turn with me to Job 38 as we see the first part of this collision.
The Storm Speaks - Job 38:1-4
Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.
In the Bible when God speaks, many times He begins His addresses with the words, “Do not fear”. Job does not get those same words that have comforted so many throughout the Bible, but instead he is met with the blunt force of the Almighty. It’s not because God doesn’t want to comfort Job at this moment, but God knows that sometimes He has to get our attention in other ways in order to bring us to Himself — the ultimate source of peace. When God spoke from the whirlwind, Job was consumed by the presence of God and God then had Job’s full attention. As God begins to speak, He contrasts Himself with Job. As we saw last week, when God speaks He speaks with His almighty and perfect knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Those attributes are present in all God does. Then God points out that when Job speaks, he does not speak with those same attributes, but rather he speaks out of ignorance. He wasn’t calling Job dumb, but was telling Him that he truly didn’t understand the things that he spoke about previously. The problem was Job was ignorant but didn’t see his ignorance, but rather he was sure that he knew what he was talking about when it came to God and His ways. Hosea 4:6 says “My people are destroyed because of their ignorance” and that’s where Job was. He didn’t know what he didn’t know about God and that was causing a problem in his relationship with God because he did not see God for who He truly is. That’s what had caused Job to speak about God the way he had spoken ever since chapter 3. We can do this as well. We can think we know about God, but if we are not taking our stand upon God’s unchanging Word, we will find ourselves operating out of the same ignorance that Job was. God’s first words should be enough to shake Job (and us as well) to understand God is God alone and we are not, but evidently that wasn’t enough for Job. That’s why once God confronts Job's arguments from ignorance, He doesn’t stop there, but moves into providing evidence of this truth. Therefore, because of Job’s unwillingness to take God at His perfect Word, God tells him to buckle up because things are about to get tough. If you have ever had test anxiety, you will understand why Job had to buckle up for the next part of God’s address. He tells Job that He has some questions that Job must answer and proceeds to ask 77 of the most difficult questions Job has ever had to face. I’m not sure what Job thought he was going to be asked, but I know He was not prepared when God asked “Where were you when I...?”.
We all have a tendency to oversimplify many problems in life. For example, many people will tell an addict, “Just stop”, and expect them to be all fine because of that advice. The truth is there is much more going on with addiction than just a battle of the will. There are physical, mental, communal, and spiritual components that most will never see but all need to be addressed to find freedom from addiction. If we view the complexity of worldly issues this simply, just think about how we handle the unsearchable wisdom of God. That is what God is trying to bring to the attention of Job. He wants Job to understand that his understanding is limited by time and scope, neither of which are a hurdle for God. That’s why God is perfect in His wisdom and understanding, He has no barriers to either because He is God the Almighty. God continues to show Job his errors throughout chapter 38 & 39 by asking Job about his whereabouts during creation, about his understanding of the mysteries of the oceans depths, and about the laws of science that God had personally set in motion. He speaks of death, of light and darkness, of the weather, of the stars, and about the detailed lives of animals. This entire time God was showing Job the mysteries of His own creation, His control over it, and His care for it that Job could never fully understand. This was to show why Job was erroneous in thinking God had made a mistake. God had way more information and wisdom than Job would ever have. Where Job was limited in many ways, God was not. This line of questioning shows us why we are told to “trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not upon our own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5), because God knows all and He knows best. Just like Job, God speaks in the storms in our lives as well. We need to make sure we are listening to His voice. We have to trust Him because He is God and we are not.
Broken but not Repentant - Job 40:3-14
Then Job replied to the Lord, “I am nothing—how could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say.” Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: “Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. “Will you discredit my justice and condemn me just to prove you are right? Are you as strong as God? Can you thunder with a voice like his? All right, put on your glory and splendor, your honor and majesty. Give vent to your anger. Let it overflow against the proud. Humiliate the proud with a glance; walk on the wicked where they stand. Bury them in the dust. Imprison them in the world of the dead. Then even I would praise you, for your own strength would save you.
Job just had a collision with God in chapter 38 & 39, but God was not through with him yet because Job was not where God needed him to be to restore him. Job understood his ignorance and was sorry for it, but he was not yet repentant of it. Many times people are sorry for what they did, especially when they get caught, but they don’t want to repent and turn from the behavior that caused the problem in the first place. That was Job’s issue here. He was sorry, but he hadn’t turned his back on his sin that caused his incorrect view of God to begin with. God confronts Job again by telling him to buckle up once more but instead of continuing on focusing on His glory that is revealed in nature. This time God addresses the specific problems that Job had verbalized that we looked at last week — God’s justice and His might. God starts with three questions. In these questions He is asking, “Do you deny my wisdom? Do you condemn my justice? Do you doubt my power?”. Job didn’t answer but he knew that through his foolish words that might have come through in his pain and his actions with his friends the answer was yes. However, it’s at this moment that the tone of the conversation changes, God no longer asks questions, but He now commands Job. These commands are to clothe himself in the attributes of God and see how he would fair being God. This seems ludicrous, but trying to be God is the basis for all our sins that separated us from Him in the first place. It’s exactly what Satan promised Eve in the Garden, if you disobey God you will be just like Him. She thought she could and she tried. It brought the brokenness that sin always brings — in her life, in her family, and in her world. God tells him to try to judge perfectly, try to bring people to repentance, try to bring perfect justice to the world and if you are able, to do it perfectly. Then God says the unthinkable. If Job is able to be God, then God would praise him, because there is no need for Him because Job would be able to save himself. This is a truth that we see in the New Testament. When we are told that we are saved by Grace through faith and not of our works. Why? Because if we could be saved by our works, we don’t need God and we don’t need Jesus. Because we can’t, we desperately need Jesus because He is our only hope. That’s why we proclaim Him every week, because He is the ONLY hope for all of humanity. We are not just a bunch of people who like to get together and talk about Jesus, we are His blood-bought church that Jesus promised not even the gates of Hell would prevail against. It’s not because we are a bunch of good folks. It’s because we have all been saved by His grace. It was in this harsh discourse that Job finally got it and we see the beauty in the collision.
The Beauty of the Collision - Job 42:1-6
Then Job replied to the Lord: “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me. You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’ I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”
Job starts his response to God with the words, “I know”. He’s no longer basing his words off of what he thinks, what he feels, or on his circumstances. He is basing them upon what he knows from God’s Words. He affirms that God is almighty and that He is all powerful and no one can stop Him. This implies that God’s plans are almighty as well, even if Job didn’t understand them. Then he takes a step that is necessary. He takes responsibility for his words. No excuses, he just says “It is I that was ignorant”. He recognized that God was greater and recognized his desperate need for Him. Then he declares the good that has come from all of his pain. I heard about you before, but now I’ve seen with my own eyes. He had done what the Psalmist encourages us to do in Psalms 34:8 — He had tasted and seen that the Lord is good. He didn’t understand totally, but He trusted God because He is almighty. Almighty in His power, His wisdom, and His ways. It’s then that he repents from all he had done. It was then that God restored Him. Through the storm in his life, God spoke and he was changed forever. He had a more intimate knowledge of God that wasn’t from someone else, but from His own personal experience. Beauty had come from the collision, from the storm, from his pain all because God used it for His glory.
As a nine year old boy, I had a collision with God. My sin and His holiness collided and I realized I was lost because of my sin and needed a savior. The moment I put my faith in Jesus I was changed forever. However, that wasn’t my only collision with God. God’s Word is alive and sharper than any two edged sword and through the power of the Holy Spirit it cuts through our souls. As we walk with Jesus and we are in the Word each day God confronts and corrects us through His Word daily, but there are still times when God collides with us in a grand way that gets our attention. As a twenty year old young man, I was struggling with situations and circumstances in my life. I was angry, I was frustrated and I turned to God for help. I opened my Bible looking for answers and God pointed me to Job 38. When I read God’s words, it was like God was speaking directly to me, “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words?” He had my attention and my ignorant outlook was in a collision with God’s almighty wisdom. As I continued to read, sentence after sentence was directed right at me and my situation. I thought I had all the answers. I thought I knew who God was, but line after line. I was under the conviction that God didn’t have His proper place in my life because I had the wrong perspective of who God was. I was elevating myself and my own understanding higher than God, but by the end of my encounter with God, I knew I had to change — everything was different. It was then I repented and gave everything I was holding back in my life to God. It was then that He started to call me to full-time ministry. God took brokenness and pain in my life and made something beautiful of it, just like He did with Job. When Job saw God for who He truly is and realized who He was and realized his place, he repented. When he did God blessed him and restored him and he went on to live a rich and full life. Maybe you too need a collision with the Almighty God this morning.
