Job 38:1-21

William F. Schnell

October 18, 2009

   Today is the third sermon in a series of four on the Old Testament story of Job.  By way of reminder, Job was a righteous and prosperous man who was as pleasing to God as frustrating to Satan.  Satan said to God, “Of course Job is righteous, look how prosperous you have made him.  Let me curse him and he will surely curse you in short order.”  So God took Satan up on his challenge and the latter was able to smite Job with curse upon curse.

   The first sermon in our series was entitled, “The Give and Take of Faith.”  Job responded to life’s undeserved curses saying:  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised (1:21).  Job found a way, even in the midst of undeserved suffering, to praise the Lord.  So far Job is holding on to his faith, even though it is being sorely tested.  Therefore the title of the second message in our series was, “The Testing of Faith.”  Anyone can say they have faith, just like any student can say a lesson in algebra was learned.  But just like a teacher must test students, so must God test our faith to ensure that it is more than mere lip service.

   Job is determined to pass the testing of his faith, but he continues to struggle with the same questions we all ask when confronting the fact of undeserved suffering.  Why is this happening?  Why is it happening to me?  What did I do to deserve all of this?  Some not-so-sympathetic friends are insistent that Job must have done something horribly wrong to deserve the punishment he is suffering, but Job knows better.  And so Job directs his questions to the Almighty, but the Almighty is nowhere to be found.

   That absence ends with today’s text.  God figures that he has clearly prevailed over Satan in the challenge involving Job’s faith.  Job has refused to curse God.  He has kept the faith.  But Job’s questions remain and require a response from God—and what a response he gets!  God responds with a withering tirade complete with sarcasm, only a portion of which we read in our text.  The basic idea is that God is very, very big while Job, in comparison is very, very small.  How can Job begin to comprehend the ways and thoughts of the Almighty?

   When I lived and worked in Milwaukee I had, for several years, a goldfish in a small tank on my desk.  Before I would feed that goldfish, I would rub the tip of my finger across the outside of the tank.  The fish had come to know that signaled supper time.  My fish would then begin to swim excitedly back and forth waiting for the manna from heaven which that magic finger never failed to drop into the tank.  The kids in church were amazed at what an intelligent fish I had.

   But that fish did not know much more beyond the tip of my finger I revealed to it.  It did not know my thoughts or personal history.  It did not know about the truck I drove or the house where I resided.  It did not know about the amazing Apple II computer on my desk or that the ammonia in the cleaning solution the custodian sprayed on my desk one day was deadly to goldfish.  It was just a gold fish, and there was a huge gulf between what that goldfish knew and what I knew.

   But that gulf did not begin to approximate the gulf between what God knows and what we know.  We may be fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator, but next to him we know less than nothing.  As he reminds us in our Call to Worship: “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).  Still, God will sometimes grant us a glimpse of his glory just like I granted that goldfish a glimpse of my finger.

   Job is overwhelmed by this glimpse of God’s glory.  Then Job replied to the Lord… Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.  You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’  My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.  Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:3-6).

   This demonstration of humility before God is what clinched the contest the latter and Satan.  It is exactly what God required of Job before his redeeming power could go to work.  Jesus said …whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:12).  Job humbled himself.   Next week in a message entitled, “The Victory of Faith,” we are going to learn how God exalted Job in a surpassing way—a way that more than compensated for the trouble that Satan had given him.  But we get ahead of ourselves.

   Our lesson for today from the story of Job has to do with “The Mystery of Faith.”  Just because it is not given us to understand why certain things that happen to us in life, does not mean that they are senseless or without redeeming value.  Some things are beyond our ability to comprehend, and for good reason.  If we knew what lay beyond the impenetrable vale of death—if we knew the unspeakable bliss of heaven—why, I am sure that we would all just check out early to get there sooner. 

   What seems like unjust suffering to us may just be God’s redeeming power at work to bless and glorify us in a surpassing way, just like he raised our crucified Lord to glory on Easter morning.  How does he do it?  It is a mystery.  Even after he has already raised us up to something knew and better it often remains a complete mystery to us exactly how he accomplished it.  All we know is that he first had to bring us to a place of complete humility before he could exalt us. 

   We have a wonderful guest with us this morning named Clive Rainey.  You can read all about him on the back of our bulletin where a partial biography has been reproduced.  I am sure that Clive has seen many reproductions of his biography over the years he has been a Habitat for Humanity celebrity.  Clive just happens to be the very first Habitat volunteer of them all, among many other notable distinctions.  Our congregation being a “Covenant Church” with Habitat of Portage County, Clive Rainey represents a distinguished quest indeed.

   But the part of his bio that jumped out at me is the second sentence of the second paragraph.  “He had no idea what lay ahead when he dedicated his life to service.”  Over thirty-three years ago—over 300,000 Habitat houses ago—young Clive Rainey probably had one controlling ambition the first time he picked up a hammer--and that was not to hit his thumb with it.  I just made that up.  I don’t know Clive very well.  We have only had a few moments to get acquainted.

   But I think I can say some things about his life and experience that really, if you will pardon the pun, hit the nail square on the head.  As a Habitat for Humanity volunteer I suspect Clive has known great uncertainty, no small measure of disappointment, occasional doubt and trials of many kinds which have tested his faith and brought him to his knees in humility.  Those experiences don’t usually get included in glowing biographies, but they are precisely the experiences required for God’s redeeming power and amazing grace to accomplish mysterious miracles though the likes of Clive Rainey. 

   Every sermon needs a contemporary illustration of the timeless spiritual truth in a given text of scripture.  I have not offered one today, and I am not going to offer one.  Somehow, without much previous warning or time for preparation, Clive Rainey is going to provide a living illustration of “The Mystery of Faith.”  Let us listen for the Word of God.