Insight for Living

Chuck Swindoll: God authors it all! He is transcendent, he is magnificent, he is mighty, he is gigantic! Without him there is no righteousness, there is no holiness, there is no ability to change. There is no truth!

Bill Meyer: Sooner or later, every one of us comes to the edge of our own understanding. We've asked our questions, weighed our answers, and still the mystery of God remains just beyond our reach.

Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll brings us to the close of a very long conversation between Job and his insufferable friends. As he describes their long-winded conversation, Chuck helps us trade our small, manageable ideas about God for a vision of his true majesty and might. Let's begin with these helpful highlights from the book of Job.

Chuck Swindoll: Elihu's not a learner. 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: "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 favorite food.

His flesh wastes away from sight and his bones which were not seen stick out. 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, thinks he's going to die, and his life to those who bring death.

Then he refers to a very interesting observation: a mediating angel. Now look closely. 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.

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. 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 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. Job, God's speaking to you in this. Are you hearing what he has to say?

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. "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. 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." 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. Eugene Peterson gets the idea when he paraphrases, "Job, you talk sheer nonsense. Non-stop 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. 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.

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. God thunders with his voice wondrously doing great things which we cannot comprehend."

Now you're talking, Elihu! Now you're onto 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 flash, she turned and smiled. And they'd walk a little further than the lightning and she'd turn.

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.

Nahum writes of it: "He has his way in the whirlwind and the storm and the clouds are 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 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? 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 the 22: "Out of the north comes golden splendor around God is 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 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, it descends to the plain and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain." Great words from "O Worship the King."

He is great, he is mighty, and we sit in awe and we worship. Job. Job. Join me as we worship. Not surprisingly, when God does finally speak, 38:1, he answers Job out of a whirlwind. (Whirlwind sound effect).

And there he is. Wouldn't that have been great to be there? (Whirlwind sound effect). Whoa! Don't talk, don't talk, don't say a word. Just stare. Sometime 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 on 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.

And it was one of those days you could flip a penny and it would hit the water and 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!

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. Whoa! Come out of the water. My dad, he didn't even turn around. He says, "I told you the big ones were down there." (Laughter).

I cast out as if I'm going to land that mother of all fish. Out of nowhere this suddenly appears! 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.

And serving on that same faculty had been BB Warfield and J. Gresham 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 Grey Barnhouse was a student at Princeton Seminary. Barnhouse later went on to Tenth 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 and sat right down close. And I can tell you from experience similar to that when I preach in the seminary chapel at 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.

Barnhouse said when he finished his message, Wilson walked up to him and said, shook his hand, and 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."

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."

Then there are those who have a great and mighty God. And 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.

Barnhouse, anxious to know in which category he was, 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. 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?

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? 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. 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.

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 thirsts to satisfy, exhaustless spring, the waters 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 ministry even when we're away from each other, but not at all away from you. 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, now and forever and ever and ever and ever. And all God's people said, Amen.

Bill Meyer: Great and mighty is our God. When we see him accurately, transcendent, magnificent, sovereign over every storm, our worries fade into proper perspective and worship rises in their place. May that vision of God stay with you long after today's Insight for Living. He's bigger than anything you are facing.

Over the last several weeks, Chuck has been walking us through the Old Testament book of Job. It's a shocking portrayal of human suffering. If you're ready to learn more about Job's story, or if you're looking for a creative way to guide your small group Bible study and lively discussion, we invite you to request the Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook for this series.

It's called Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance. In fact, this Bible study is part of a bundle of resources. The collection includes 22 sermons on CD. It contains the full message you heard today. Plus, the bundle includes Chuck Swindoll's full-length biography of Job.

In his book, more than 300 pages in length, you'll read Chuck's meticulous exposition of Job's story. Along the way, Chuck infuses practical application that equips you to deal with adversity of any kind.

Three powerful resources: the spiral-bound Bible study workbook, the full collection of sermons from Chuck, and his comprehensive biography of Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance. You can find all the details at insight.org/offer, or call us at 800-772-8888.

Finally, I want to point you to an exciting online resource. Chuck Swindoll recently sat down with Dave Ramsey for a candid conversation about money, legacy, and holding it all loosely. The two men go farther back than most of us realize.

Dave first encountered Chuck's Bible teaching decades ago through Insight for Living. To check out the entire interview between Chuck and Dave, stop by this webpage: insight.org/conversations. That's insight.org/conversations. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll describes the next twist in Job's surprising story tomorrow on Insight for Living.