WWUTT 904 God Exposes Job's Foolishness?

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The Lord God spoke to Job to show Job just how foolish he was, and the evidence that he used, he drew from creation itself that we all observe all around us when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of the book of Job chapter 39 today.

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God is speaking. Of course, every time we open up the Bible, God is speaking. But in this particular case,

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God is the one speaking. This isn't through a prophet. There isn't somebody who is saying, thus saith the

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Lord and reporting what the Lord had said. This is God actually speaking to Job.

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It started in chapter 38, which was what we looked at last week, and we continue today with chapter 39.

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So all of this is after the young man Elihu had spoken up. After Job and his friends had their discourses with one another, there's this young man who's been present all the while, and he's likely the one who has written the book of Job.

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But he didn't want to speak up, speak out of turn, when all these other men were much more seasoned than he.

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They were older and wiser, and so Elihu didn't find it his place to have to speak into the situation.

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But then once Job had justified himself, and he claimed to know what

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God thought or what God's intentions were, that was when Elihu couldn't sit idly by.

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He had to speak up. And he rebuked Job and exalted the Lord. And it was in chapter 37 when

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Elihu said, "...at this also my heart trembles and leaps out of its place, keep listening to the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that comes from his mouth."

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It's almost as if Elihu is seeing the presence of the Lord coming. I didn't really quite set that up that way last week, but that's what 37 seems to be alluding to, is that Elihu sees a storm arriving, and it is from the whirlwind of the storm that the

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Lord is going to speak. That's how chapter 38 starts. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said.

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So 37 is kind of seeing that coming in, and Elihu is setting the stage for that.

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And here the Lord comes and speaks. So the Lord does not ignore what it was

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Elihu said. Elihu rather conditioned Job's heart, prepared him for the word of God that was about to come.

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And then the Lord rebukes Job and says, "...who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge, dressed for action like a man?

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I will question you, and you make it known to me." And this is even after Elihu has said that Job's counsel is dark.

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So the Lord repeats what it is that Elihu had said about Job. And the words of the

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Lord are powerful, and just speaks to Job out of general revelation. Like how do you even know the depths of the ocean?

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Can you talk about the extent of the earth itself? You don't even know these things that were created.

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So what makes you think that you know the extent of the Creator? That was the nature of God's rebuke in chapter 38.

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And we're going to continue here in chapter 39 with God still challenging

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Job, saying, do you understand the mysteries of the universe? What do you even know about that which has been created?

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That started in 38, God continues that challenge even in 39. So chapter 39 verse 1, "...do

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you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does?

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Can you number the months that they fulfill? And do you know the time when they give birth, when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young?

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Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open. They go out and do not return to them."

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The Lord pointing out creation is still continuing. All these things are happening. All this stuff that happens in nature that man doesn't even observe.

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Can you say where this happens, where these animals were born, where it is that they go?

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I may have shared this story before. I don't remember. But anyway, several years back, it was when

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I was still traveling with a band. We would go around and lead praise and worship concerts and things like that.

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There was a show that we were doing in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. And behind the church that we were performing at was this huge grass pasture.

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It was mostly urban sprawl where we were. But there was just this big grass field right behind the church.

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And then on the other side of that field was a tree line. We had finished up our sound check and everything like that.

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I was just kind of wandering around and praying. And so I decided to walk through that field. I walked all the way out to the tree line out behind the church.

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And when I got to the tree line, there was one of the most beautiful spider webs I had ever seen.

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And a garden spider right in the middle of that web, just finishing up the web, just concluding the construction of that web and then sitting there right in the center of it.

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And I watched as the spider finished the web and then found its place right there in the middle. And it was fascinating to me.

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I kind of looked around behind me and I saw the urban sprawl of the city of Broken Arrow and turned back around and saw this spider making this web.

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And I thought, there is no one else in creation observing this spider making its web.

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And I came all the way from Kansas to walk to this tree line and see that happening. And it's kind of like through general revelation,

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I came to a deeper awareness of all the different facets of creation that God is in control of.

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The things that we don't even think about going on. We're looking at such a narrow picture, just the things that we experience, just what's going on in the world around us.

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We don't even think about all the stuff that's going on all over the planet and even throughout the entire universe, the whole of the cosmos that God has control of.

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In Colossians chapter one, it says he is before all things and in him, all things hold together.

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The reason why things aren't just flying apart and everything goes to chaos and is destroyed is because God is holding all things together.

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He is not the God of the deist who thinks that the Lord just set things in motion and then took his hands off of it.

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And he doesn't ever actually interact with his creation. What kind of God would that be at all?

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But this is the Lord who has created these things and is holding all of these things together.

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Furthermore, we who are in Christ have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us. So how dare we would say that God is some distant being out there that we cannot find, we would never be able to search for and discover.

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He has given us his word and it is through his word, through the preaching of his word that we have come to faith and we are growing in the faith by the spirit of God that is within us.

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The spirit that has been poured into the heart of every believer and every follower of Jesus Christ.

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God is here. And if you are a Christian, he is with you and he is with me.

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There was a conversation that I had earlier this week with somebody who was dogging on evidential apologetics.

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Do you understand what that is? So there's kind of two main facets of apologetics. There's more ways to do apologetics than this.

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But the war of apologetics basically falls into two camps. It's what is called presuppositional apologetics and evidential apologetics.

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Now, apologetics would be a defense of the faith. Presuppositional apologetics would be already presupposing certain things.

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Like, for example, everyone already knows that God exists. So you don't need to try to prove to the atheist the existence of God.

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In Romans chapter one, it says everyone knows the existence of God, but they suppress the truth with unrighteousness.

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So that's what a presuppositional apologist would do.

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They're not trying to prove the existence of God or some of these things that people inherently know, but actually arguing from them rather than arguing for them.

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Okay, does that make sense? So then evidential apologetics is when you're trying to prove things. It's like God created the heavens and the earth.

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Let me prove it to you. You know, look at this, that and the other. So the war that exists between presuppositional apologetics and evidential apologetics is this war of like, which one is better?

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Which one should we be doing? Honestly, I've always found that argument to be kind of fruitless because they're both useful.

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I think we do have to have a presuppositional apologetic because it's what the Bible says.

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It's in keeping with what the word of God says. Romans chapter one, verse 20, where it says, what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

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So they are without excuse for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

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But in their unthankfulness, they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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Do you believe that? Do you? That's what it says in Romans one. So you do you believe that God's invisible attributes have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world?

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Yes. Then we have to evangelize with that understanding, with that faith in what it is that the scriptures say.

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We can't, we can't believe the person that sit, that stands across from us and says, well,

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I don't believe that God exists. Yeah, you do. And the Bible says that you do because I believe the Bible before I believe you.

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Everyone is a liar. So they say what they want to believe, but that's not what they actually believe.

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A person cannot deny the existence of God. It is logically and reasonably impossible to deny the existence of God.

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You can no more deny the existence of God than a Mac computer can gain sentience and deny the existence of Steve Jobs.

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I believe I made that point even just a couple of weeks ago. We would call that a broken computer at that point.

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It's useless. Can't even do the thing that it was made to do. And so that's same way with the person who denies the existence of God.

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They are not doing what they were made to do. And that is glorify God. But we have to speak.

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We have to evangelize. We have to preach the gospel based on certain presuppositions that's necessary.

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But at the same time, I don't think that a presuppositional apologetic approach means that we can't have evidence -based apologetics either.

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It's not one or the other. It's both. They're both useful. And the evidential apologetic can appeal to scripture as well.

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Just as the presuppositionalist can say, well, there are certain things we must presuppose because it's what the scripture says.

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So the evidentialist can also say, we can appeal from evidence because the Bible appeals from evidence.

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God himself is using general revelation here. When he is speaking to Job, he's using just things that are from creation.

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He's pointing out proofs using the things that Job can see and perceive with his own senses.

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Jesus did this with Nicodemus. When he spoke to Nicodemus in John 3, now you might say, well,

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Nicodemus believed in God. Sure he did. But there are still certain presuppositions. When we're talking about presuppositionalism, we're not just talking about the existence or nonexistence of God, arguing from that standpoint.

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There are all kinds of presuppositions that we have, things that we presuppose whenever we come into an argument, presupposing that this person already knows this.

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This person already knows English, right? So we're going to argue using the language of English, and I don't have to prove to you that English is the language that we should be arguing in, you know, and stuff like that.

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Very basic, but that would give you an idea of presuppositionalism. And so there are presuppositions we all have.

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We're all carrying into an argument whenever we are discussing something with somebody. But we also appeal to evidence.

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Jesus did it. God is doing it here with Job. The apostle Paul did it, 1 Corinthians 15, when he rebuked the

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Corinthians for believing in heaven in earthly ways. Paul used earthly examples to show that heaven was a different kind of existence.

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What is sown is perishable, and what is raised is imperishable. And he uses the example of a seed. That's evidential apologetics.

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He's appealing to general revelation, what we can see and observe and appeal to from our own senses.

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And presuppositionally is one of the reasons why, when we're arguing about the existence of God with an atheist, there's no reason to start on that position, because the atheist actually has the burden to prove that God doesn't exist.

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The Christian does not have the burden to prove that he does exist. Why do I say that? Because everything that we know and experience, again, coming to evidential apologetics and general revelation through creation.

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I hope you're following all of this. But anyway, making appeal to just creation itself, what we know is design, what we inherently know is design.

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The device that you are using to listen to this podcast did not come into existence by accident.

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And you know that. There is not even a part of you at all that assumes that any of this stuff came into existence by accident.

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You know for certain that there is a guy named Gabe Hughes, who is on the other side of this broadcast, who's reading the

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Bible to you and explaining what it means. You don't think that this is some ethereal voice from out in the void that is just materialized into your listening device.

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And there's not really a person behind it. Nobody believes such things. Nobody believes anything came into existence by accident.

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Everything that we know and experience with our bodies came into existence from somewhere.

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It all has an origin point. We can't point to a single example of anything that has ever come into existence by accident or even life coming from non -life.

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No one has an example of this. And so the atheist has the burden of proof to say that all these things came into existence by accident.

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The creationist does not have the burden of proof to say that all of this came into existence by creation.

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Because what we inherently know and experience every single day is the origin of the things that we are surrounded by and use and live our lives by, et cetera, et cetera.

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So we can appeal to creation to give evidential proofs of things that we all inherently know and try to pull back that veil that hangs over the conscience of men because of their unrighteousness.

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We do so with the word of God because it's only by the word of God that a person is saved anyway.

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And we also taking God's example can do so by appealing to the very things that he has made around us.

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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That's Romans 1 .18. This is a technique, by the way, that Francis Schaeffer referred to as taking the roof off.

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So we as Christians, we have a certain worldview and the house in which we dwell is built soundly upon a solid foundation of Jesus Christ.

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But the person who holds a worldview that is through any other lens but Christ has built for themselves a structure on the sand.

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You know, talking about the making a reference to the parable that Jesus gave at the end of the

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Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. The wise man built his house upon the rock. The foolish man built his house upon the sand.

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And now you have that Sunday school song in your head, right? So anyway, so the person who has constructed their worldview and it's unsound, you have to take the roof off to show them the flaws that exist in the structure that they have created.

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And so that's what we do whenever we do apologetics. We show the flaws in a person's worldview.

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God is doing that here with Job. He is revealing to him the flaws and the things that he has said, the presuppositions he's had about God, which are wrong presuppositions.

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And so the Lord continues here in Job 39 verse 5, who has let the wild donkey go free, who has loose the bonds of the swift donkey to whom

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I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place.

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He scorns the tumult of the city. He hears not the shouts of the driver.

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He ranges the mountains as his pasture and he searches after every green thing.

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Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger? Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes or will he harrow the valleys after you?

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Will you depend on him because his strength is great? And will you leave to him your labor?

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Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?

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The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love?

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For she leaves her egg to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground, forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them.

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She deals cruelly with her young as if they were not hers, though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear because God has made her forget wisdom and has given her no share in understanding.

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When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider because ostriches run faster than horses even.

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Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? Do you make him leap like the locust?

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His majestic snorting is terrifying. He paws in the valley and exalts in his strength.

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He goes out to meet the weapons. He laughs at fear and is not dismayed. He does not turn back from the sword.

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Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear and the javelin. With fierceness and rage, he swallows the ground.

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He cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. When the trumpet sounds, he says, Aha, he smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.

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This is just brilliant poetry here. Verse 26, Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south?

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Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold.

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From there he spies out to pray. His eyes behold it from far away. His young ones suck up blood.

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And where the slain are, there he is. So this is the

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Lord using creation to show Job how his worldview has been flawed.

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How he thought he knew God. God is showing him, you don't even know creation. You don't even know what it is that I have made.

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So what makes you think you know the intentions of the maker? What makes you think you know me? Do you know this?

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Can you see this? Can you observe this? Can you control this? Do you even know the fierceness of this as it exists in the universe?

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Then what makes you think you know the one who designed it? And therefore Job is embarrassed before God.

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This is what we see in chapter 40. And I'll come back to this again next week. The Lord said to Job, shall a fault finder contend with the

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Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the Lord and said, behold,

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I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

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I have spoken once and I will not answer twice, but I will proceed no further. So what's

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Job's response now to having been put in his place by God with the words that God has spoken in chapters 38 and 39, using creation to prove the point that Job has no idea what it is that he's talking about.

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How does Job respond? By not talking at all. He's going to close his mouth and he's not going to speak.

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Ah, ah, ah, ah. That was not the response that Job should have made. He should have fallen on his face before God and worshipped him.

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But that wasn't Job's response. So God is going to speak to him again until Job gets the point.

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Right? So that's where we're going to pick up next week as we continue in chapter 40. And we're going to read about dinosaurs.

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Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.