Msg#1629 Don't Even Ask

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

Job and his three friends spend thirty chapters debating why Job's calamity came upon him. What Job said was right, upright, and justified; what his three friends said was wrong (42:7); but what God said to Job is sobering: “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding” (38:2-4). After rehearsing what he did in six days of creation, God expounds a list of no less than twenty things that confound the small minds of men. The creation account is stupendous; the twenty wonders, overwhelming. God's answer to the query, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” is this, “How dare you even ask!” “Then Job answered the LORD, and said, Behold I am vile; What shall I answer thee?” (40:3-4). God says to Job, but wait, there's more. God then shows himself infatuated with dinosaurs. He describes “behemoth,” which we call a brontosaurus, and then “leviathan” which we call... well, God gives such an epic description of this sea-creature that man has never found the like. God says, “Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride” (41:33-34). Behmoth was the chief of the ways of God (40:19), and leviathan was king over all the children of pride (41:34), and God spends two chapters rubbing them in Job's face because Job dared to ask, “Why do these things happen to me?” Learn two things from Job: don't ask that question, and your Father is way bigger than has come to your mind when you do.

An Essay for week #29 Jul 17, 16

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