Page 134 - Reading Job to Know God

answers that were given and all the solutions that were proposed actually
added darkness. There is a principle involved here about argument. You
never get anywhere when you argue, and you are going to end up worse
off than when you started. Job started off badly, but he ended up a lot
worse after these debates, and no closer to the truth. If you look at 42:1-2,

“Then Job answered the LORD and said, ‘I know that You can do all
things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Who is this
that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared
that which I did not understand.”
You see, Job applies it to himself. God is not talking to Elihu, He is
talking to Job. Chapter 38:1, “The LORD answered Job.” And then it
says, “Out of the whirlwind.” The question is, was that a literal storm.
Could it have been a tornado or cyclone? Possibly, but isn’t it interesting
that tornados are caused by the collision of the opposites. They occur
when high pressure meets low pressure and hot meets cold. True
opposites were meeting, man and God. I will not rule that out. It says
whirlwind. Chances are, God came in some kind of a storm. But if there
was a literal storm, I believe it was an object lesson picture. Job was in a
whirlwind. He was blown away. He was in a mental tornado, and God
speaks from the chaos.
They had been debating back and forth and it was chaotic, and out of the
midst of that, God spoke.
First of all, I would like to set the stage and examine the question, “What
happened here?” Let’s try and put ourselves in Job’s place. God
overwhelms Job with seventy-nine questions. He asks question after
question. He doesn’t wait for Job’s answer. The fact is, Job probably
could not answer most of them. God just hurls those questions on twenty-
four different subjects. And the result of this great discourse and collision
of opposites is: “The full answer to the problem of suffering and the
mysteries of life”.
All right, let me set the stage and try to bring you into the spirit of what is
happening. Remember now, through the three cycles of debates Job was
getting nowhere with Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. And of course he was
getting nowhere with God. Let me show you some of those verses. Turn
to chapter 9, please. This was the first expression of his challenge to God.
Of course, it shocked the daylights out of his friends when they heard him
say this. Chapter 9, verse 32

“For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him, that we may go
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