Our Daily Scripture – 11/23/23 (Thursday)

SCRIPTURE:  JOB 38

THE LORD SPEAKS (vs. 1-41)

THE LORD ASKED JOB THESE QUESTIONS:

  1.  Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? (v. 4)
  2.  Who marked off its dimensions and stretched a measuring line across it? (v. 5)
  3.  On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? (v. 7)
  4.  Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in placed, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt? (vs. 8-11)
  5.  Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? (v. 12-13)
  6.  Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the dept? (v. 16)
  7.  Have the gates of death been shown to you?  Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? (v. 17)
  8.  Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? (v. 18)
  9.  What is the way to the abode of light?  And where does darkness reside? (v. 19)
  10.  Can you take them to their places?  Do you know the paths to their dwellings? (v. 20)
  11.  Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? (v. 22-23)
  12.  What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? (v. 24)
  13.  Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives. a desert with no one in it to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? (vs. 25-27)
  14.  Does the rain have a father?  Who fathers the drops of dew? (v. 24)
  15.  From whose womb comes the ice?  Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? ? (v. 29-30)
  16.  Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?  Can you loose the cords of Orion? (v. 31)
  17.  Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? (v. 32)
  18.  Do you know the laws of the heavens?  Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth? (v. 33)
  19.  Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? (v. 34)
  20.  Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?  Do they report to you, ‘Here we are?’ (v. 35)
  21.  Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind? (v. 36)
  22.  Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?  Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods old earth stick together? (v. 37-38)
  23.  Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? (vs. 39-40)
  24.  Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? (v. 41)

THOUGHTS:

God spoke to Job out of the storm.  He asked Job a series of simple questions about the universe and its operations.  He began with creation and asked Job about the dawn of the sea to the speed of the light, the measurements of the earth and sea.  Then He turns to inanimate nature – the rain, snow and hail, the stars and constellations.  He asked about animal life, – the raven in the sky wild goats and oxen in the mountain which are protected and provided by God.  God cares for the ostriches, horses, hawks and eagles.  God’s hand is at work in all his creation.

God used Job’s ignorance of the earth’s natural order to reveal God’s moral order.  We cannot judge God based on any standard or criteria because he himself is the standard.  Our only option is to submit to his authority and rest in his care.

No one can completely understand all of the forces of nature nor command them.  Only God has the power to unleash or restrain them. If Job could not explain the common events in nature, how could he explain or question God.  If nature is beyond our grasp, how much more can we understand God’s moral purpose and his standard of justice?