#672 Walk In The Garden

“At this also my heart trembles

and leaps out of its place.

2 Keep listening to the thunder of his voice

and the rumbling that comes from his mouth.

3 Under the whole heaven he lets it go,

and his lightning to the corners of the earth.

4 After it his voice roars;

he thunders with his majestic voice,

and he does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is heard.

5 God thunders wondrously with his voice;

he does great things that we cannot comprehend.

6 For to the snow he says, ‘Fall on the earth,’

likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour.

7 He seals up the hand of every man,

that all men whom he made may know it.

8 Then the beasts go into their lairs,

and remain in their dens.

9 From its chamber comes the whirlwind,

and cold from the scattering winds.

10 By the breath of God ice is given,

and the broad waters are frozen fast.

11 He loads the thick cloud with moisture;

the clouds scatter his lightning.

12 They turn around and around by his guidance,

to accomplish all that he commands them

on the face of the habitable world.

13 Whether for correction or for his land

or for love, he causes it to happen.

14 “Hear this, O Job;

stop and consider the wondrous works of God.

15 Do you know how God lays his command upon them

and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine?

16 Do you know the balancing of the clouds,

the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge,

17 you whose garments are hot

when the earth is still because of the south wind?

18 Can you, like him, spread out the skies,

hard as a cast metal mirror?

19 Teach us what we shall say to him;

we cannot draw up our case because of darkness.

20 Shall it be told him that I would speak?

Did a man ever wish that he would be swallowed up?

21 “And now no one looks on the light

when it is bright in the skies,

when the wind has passed and cleared them.

22 Out of the north comes golden splendor;

God is clothed with awesome majesty.

23 The Almighty—we cannot find him;

he is great in power;

justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate.

24 Therefore men fear him;

he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit.” Job 37 ESV

The storm is getting closer, the flashes of lightning are followed by the roar of thunder, and Elihu cannot help but compare this to the majesty and fear of God. God, that is over this, in control during this seeming interruption of tranquility, this somewhat hostile language of the sky. When the storm comes, or when the snow falls, when it is finally here, our hands are sealed against our work. We work no more when the field is covered, and what of the great deluge that stops everything? God has by the power of the rain the ability to uproot and wash away all the work of man's hands. When you see the rainbow in the sky remember the greatness of God, His justice, His sovereignty even in what looks to us as chaos. The beast retreat into their lairs, and so do men, it is time to stop and consider the works of God. Job's every day, his friend's days and reasons, go from business to contemplation, it is a suffering Sabbath that brings these men to contemplate the things of God. What they have thought and held is only in part and does not hold up to Job's plight. 

Elihu wants Job to understand the greatness of God, and this is not all wrong, but he also wants him to repent of something they think Job has held back, and that is not true. Everyone here has had some right and some wrong, but God won't be. Elihu thinks Job should let it go, that God does not owe Job and audience, and I agree, but it is not wrong for us to want to know the Creator. For Elihu it seems enough to know Him through the things He has created, God is beyond us and we should be in fear because look at what He is over, what He has made. He thinks Job does not deserve an audience because he is a man and in the dark, yet Elihu is in this same dark, and even more so as it pertains to his assessment of Job. Sometimes the storm is a good thing, God will often speak to us through those patterns in life that were to us unexpected and the least desirable. He has been there all along, in the storm, the trial of Job, and He can see an end to all of this that they cannot.

And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.

26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.

27 And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.

28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.

29 Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,

30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Acts 16: 25-30