The Last of the Human Advice
I’m not
going to lie. I am excited that this is
the last chapter of human advice.
Beginning tomorrow, we get to read God’s response to everything that’s
happened in Job in the prior 37 chapters.
I’m really looking forward to putting this human wisdom behind us and
hearing from God directly.
But, we
have one more chapter to deal with in Elihu’s portion of the book. I have to be honest. Except for the snafu he made yesterday, it
has been advice from a pretty good spiritual perspective.
This
chapter is likewise an awesome chapter as Elihu continues his focus on
God. Elihu reminds us that the snow
falls on God’s command. The rain falls
on God’s commands. In fact, it is even
God who loads the sky with moisture so that the clouds can even bring the rain
or the snow! Elihu tells us that the
peals of thunder and the flashes of lightning are evidence of His voice. It is even God who balances the clouds in the
sky in the first place!
What is
the conclusion that Elihu reaches through this vast discovery? Who can question the greatness of God? Who can question His power, His command over
nature, or even His presence in our life?
Who are we to come and speak to God as though we deserve that
right? Who are we to think that we even
deserve to be acknowledged in His great presence? What can we do in comparison to what God has
already set in motion – much less what He will continue to do in the future?
Elihu uses
God’s greatness to come to an absolute place of truth. What can mankind do but fear God? That is an incredibly true question. However, remember that in the ancient times
fear didn’t mean a phobia as much as it meant a healthy respect formed out of
awe. I am to fear God, but that doesn’t
mean I am to be afraid of God.
Since
Elihu speaks so much about weather in this chapter, let me give a weather
related example. I am in awe of the sheer power of tornados. I remember living in Minnesota – which is
famous for having plenty of twisters in the late spring and summer. One day I remember sitting out on the front
lawn staring up in amazement as I counted 7 orange funnels in the sky around
me. Fortunately, these were all small
tornadoes that did hardly any damage besides knocking a few limbs off of
trees. But that was a day that I learned
to respect the tornado – even to be in awe of its power. I am not paralyzed by the thought of a
tornado striking my house, but I am in awe of the power that a tornado can
display should it want to strike my house.
In a
similar way of thinking, that’s the point Elihu is making to Job and the three
friends. We are not supposed to fear God
in such a way that we are phobic in relationship to Him. We need not live every moment of every day in
fear that He might judge us and strike us dead.
But we are to live our life in complete and utter amazement and awe at
just what God is actually capable of doing.
Yes, occasionally that will evoke some feelings of fear. But we need not be phobic of God.
I’d like
to give a modern example of Elihu’s argument.
I confess that I am a science nut – especially when it comes to the
universe. I don’t always agree with the
scientific perspective on creation or how the universe will eventually come to
an end, but I still like to listen and have it expand my mind. One day I was watching a show with Brian Cox
as the narrator. He made the claim that
scientists have now come to believe that the end of the universe will come some
point trillions upon trillions upon trillion upon trillions of years into the
future. I wish I could remember how much
time he said exactly, because it is a really big number. In fact, he said that the number of years is
so big that if every atom in the universe represented one year that the universe
had left to live, there wouldn’t be enough atoms in the whole universe to
represent the amount of time left.
That’s a really big number!
Why is
this cool? Well, it is cool because he
then made a very interesting claim. He
said that this number is important to him because when we compare the amount of
time that our earth will actually be capable of supporting life to that big
number what we discover is that life can only exist on earth for one billionth
of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a percent. To be honest, I think I left out a few
billionths in that last sentence. In
other words, our earth can support life for an infinitesimally small percentage
of the time that our universe can exist.
Brian Cox said that was amazing to him because it demonstrates to him
that the time we have here is pretty special.
Compared to the life span of the universe, the time for life to be able
to exist on earth is absolutely microscopic.
Why have I
made you read through all of that science?
Well, for me it shows a reason to be in awe of God. When God created the universe, He knew where
to put life so that it would thrive. He
knew that the time frame for life to exist on the place where He put us is so
small that mathematically we struggle to even represent it numerically. He had a very small window of time with
little margin for error. Yet, our God
managed to hit that window of time perfectly.
He knew the right place, the right time, and the right way to bring life
into existence on this planet of His creation that we call home. He gave us the right atmosphere, the right
layers in the atmosphere to keep out the harmful cosmic stuff. He gave us the exact distance from the sun we
need to support life. He gave us large
outer planets to gravitationally speaking help shelter us from meteor
strikes. I can go on and on with how
infinitesimally small the odds of life happening on earth actually are. But the reality is that He did it. He was able to put life into that infinitesimally
small window of opportunity. That’s
amazing. It’s awe-inspiring. It is something to ponder as we hear Elihu
talk about the greatness of God and how we have no right to do anything but to
fear Him.
Once we
realize that the only right we have is to fear Him … then we realize how great
it is that He invites us into more than that.
He invites us into a relationship.
He invites us into a meaningful life experience that exceeds what we
deserve and what we are capable of producing on our own. Indeed, God is good. As we close out the human speeches in the
book of Job, I hope that you are filled with this sense of awe of how good God
actually is.
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