Although there are things to be learned from what God says to Job, I don’t think I would want to hear from God this way.
Probably because it sounds like God is angry. Not the “lose your temper…I’m going to throw something” kind of anger. I think this might be more like the “I have listened to enough crazy incorrect talk about me, and I’m not putting up with it any more” kind of anger.
It’s the kind of response that makes me think twice about telling people “this is what God thinks” or “here’s what the Lord wants you/us to do”. If I am not absolutely certain that what I am saying comes from the Lord, I always try and express that along with my thought. For instance, “I think this is what the Lord wants us to do”. The last think I want to do is be guilty of misrepresenting the Lord himself.
But the reason Job’s friends made the mistake was because God had characteristics that they knew nothing about. In fact, until the Lord revealed himself in his interaction with Job I’m not sure they could have known. So why does God still hold their mistake against them? Probably because ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse. We’ll see this in tomorrows reading, but the Lord makes provision for the friends to be forgiven. Their mistake isn’t permanently held against them.
In this passage God reminds Job that He has created, sustained and ordered things that Job doesn’t even know about. Still today we cannot tell you how the universe was formed, or what holds it together. Only recently have we determined that it’s still growing and moving outward, but we can only speculate as to why. Looking into a powerful microscope we can see small objects operating INSIDE the our cells. There seems to be intelligence and communication there as well as function, but we don’t know how it works. In fact, we only recently discovered that they were there at all.
God speaks this way to Job to remind him that He is beyond searching out. His laws and purposes and plans are so far advanced beyond our limited ability it’s insulting for us to even speak about what we think. And the idea the God would do something unfair has to be a foul smell in heaven. No wonder God seems angry.
But in his anger or disapproval of Job (if that’s even correct) He reveals himself to his child. Job learns as he listens to God. This is a good lesson to remember when we feel like God has left us alone, or that we are being treated unfairly. Thinking about God’s response to Job will cause us to hold our tongue when things aren’t going our way, and the enemy tries to get us to whine about it.
Faithfully,
PR