Job CXLII

 Job 12:13-25, “With Him are wisdom and strength, He has counsel and understanding. If He breaks a thing down, it cannot be rebuilt; if He imprisons a man, there can be no release. If He withholds the waters, they dry up; if He sends them out, they overwhelm the earth. With Him are strength and prudence. The deceived and the deceiver are His. He leads counselors away plundered, and makes fools of the judges. He loosens the bonds of kings, and binds their waist with a belt. He leads princes away plundered, and overthrows the mighty. He deprives the trusted ones of speech, and takes away the discernment of the elders. He pours contempt on princes, and disarms the mighty. He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings the shadow of death to light. He makes nations great, and destroys them; He enlarges nations, and guides them. He takes away the understanding of the chiefs of the people of the earth, and makes them wander in a pathless wilderness. They grope in the dark without light, and He makes them stagger like a drunken man.”

Try as one might, they would be hard-pressed to find a more profound, complete, and moving soliloquy on the sovereignty of God anywhere. David came close in the Psalms, but his musings had more to do with the greatness of God than the sovereignty thereof. To think that a man wracked with pain, addled by sleeplessness, and contending with worms and sores covering his body had the presence of mind to utter words of such profundity is humbling to the uttermost.

If we’re honest, we must acknowledge that on our best day, in good health, well-fed, and brimming with caffeine, we wouldn’t come close to encapsulating the omnipotence of the God we serve the way Job, a man sitting in the dust and scratching at himself with a potsherd was able to.

Although his three friends showed glimmers of wisdom in their orations, this handful of verses regarding God, His nature, and His immutable will over all that exists is so beyond anything they were able to express that it should have rightly shamed them into silence.

Not only was Job a blameless and upright man, but he was also a man of profound wisdom, light years ahead of his contemporaries, which, given the context of the time he lived in, makes it doubly impressive. Spend enough time in God’s presence, and it is inevitable that His wisdom will be poured into you.

When we desire to know God, He reveals Himself to us. He doesn’t play hide and seek with His children, nor does He keep Himself shrouded in mystery. His desire is for us to know Him just as He knows us. The caveat is that God has never forced Himself upon anyone, nor has He manhandled anyone into spending more time with Him. The desire for more of Him must be a present reality in our lives, springing forth from a sincere heart with no ulterior motives or vested interests beyond a genuine desire for Him. Only then will He reveal Himself to us in a deeper and more profound way.

It is a grace and a gift to be able to come before God, pour out our hearts, and know that He is listening. It is an honor and a blessing to have the opportunity to know more of Him every day. That some would try to blackmail God into giving them material things in exchange for spending time with Him is offputting on its best day. That’s not a relationship but merely feigned intimacy in the hope of receiving the thing you want more than you do God. It’s base usury, and God will not be mocked.  

Job had spent his entire life building a relationship with God, getting to know Him, going beyond the superficial and surface-level understanding of His nature and who He is, and it showed.

There was no uncertainty in Job’s words. He understood that God has absolute authority, absolute power, and absolute sovereignty over all things, whether the kingdoms of men, the rain that falls, kings, princes, counselors, wise men, fools, and everything in between. There is nothing in heaven or on earth that is outside of His purview, nothing that He cannot build up or tear down, illuminate, or confound.

If you are not in constant awe of the God you serve, chances are you do not possess a clear understanding of who He is. That’s as nicely as I can put it without coming across as snarky or condescending.

From Genesis to Revelation, every man or woman who grew in the knowledge of God possessed the requisite reverence for Him. There is nothing trivial about who the God we serve is. That men today can be so dismissive about His authority and omnipotence only shows that they do not truly know Him. They may have a vague knowledge of His existence, but they do their best to strip Him of His authority and sovereignty, attempting to place themselves on an equal footing with Him, some even having the temerity to consider their authority superior to His.

When anyone utters the words, “I know that’s what the Bible says, but I feel differently,” they are essentially subverting the authority of the Gospel and of God Himself, placing their own feelings and opinions above both of these. It’s no small thing, nor is it a negligible offense, because when we are no longer under the authority of God’s word, we are no longer under God’s authority, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. This mindset is the petri dish for all manner of deception, foul doctrine, and unbiblical machinations.  

One cannot read Job’s reply to Zophar and fail to see the deep and abiding reverence he has for God. It is in every phrase, in every sentence, and though he had been brought low and sifted beyond what we can fathom, he had not lost his awe and reverence for the God he served.

My trial does not diminish God’s authority. My testing does not diminish God’s omnipotence. My sifting does not diminish God’s power. He remains God, sovereign over all, and the knowledge of this gives me strength even when I am at my weakest.

God’s nature is not situational. He is a constant. He remains the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He is no less the Alpha and Omega, no less the Creator of all that is seen and unseen just because I’m going through a valley. He is no less present, no less able, no less loving, and whether here or in the life to come, His purpose in allowing me to go through testing will be made evident.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.