HE KNOWS: The Way We Take!

TOPIC: God's Presence
TITLE: HE KNOWS - The Way We Take!
TEXT: JOB 23:8-10

“Behold, I go forward but He is not there,
And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;
When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him;
He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.
But He knows the way I take;
When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

TRUTH CLAIM/CONTEXT:

THINGS ABOUT JOB -

• Possibly oldest book in the Bible; probably pre-Exodus [absence of “the Law” and presence of long lives, 42:16]
• Job asserts and explains a doctrine of divine providence
• More particularly it reveals that even good men suffer affliction
• Job exhorts us to bear afflictions [as does James 1]
• Without murmur or fingerpointing; nor complaint to God
• Job tells us to wait upon the Lord; deliverance and understanding are revealed in and through the storms of life [38:1]
• God’s ways are higher than ours [Isaiah 55:8, 9]
• God must account for His doings to no man [Ephesians 1:11]
• He is sovereign and just in all He does

SELF-EVIDENT THINGS -

• We will not find God on the horizontal
• Forward and backward ... same as east and west
• Likewise, left and right ... Or north and south; it relates to general human orientation
• The mind of that age had the east as its forward orientation, ergo the west was backward ... no great mystery here
• God is everywhere present; we call it omnipresent …
• The most difficult of times to not see God is in the midst of our affliction
• In the morning the sun rising in the east, till NOON we watch and there’s no God to acknowledge
• We then turn to watch a setting sun for another half day; as it's final light lingers on the horizon …we’ve still not seen Him
• Then we look north, nothing; and south … still nada
• Yet we see His works everywhere that we do not see Him
• How do we not see God when we are looking north, east, south, and west?
• You will want to take bibles in hand and follow along in chapters 38 and 39.

I. WE DON’T SEE HIM IN …

• The foundation of the earth [38:4]
• The plot map of the earth [5]
• Its bases and cornerstone [6]
• The doors that hold back the sea [8]
• The garments for the seas [9]
• The boundaries for the seas [10]
• The dawn [12]
• The springs and recesses of the deep [16]
• The gates of death [17]
• The dwelling of light [19]
• The place of darkness [19]
• The storehouses of snow and hail [22]
• The division of light and the pathway of the wind [24]
• The flood’s channel [25]The thunderbolt’s way [25]

II. WE DON’T SEE HIM IN …

• The time of rain or the lack of rain [26]
• The making of grass seeds sprout [27]
• The Rain, dew, frost, and ice [28-29]
• The making of water as hard as stone [30]
• The ice caps [30]
• The chains of the Pleiades … the cords of Orion [31]
• The Constellations’ seasons … e.g., the Bear with satellites [32]
• The ordinances of the heavens [33]
• The making of the clouds to loose their water [34]
• The cause lightening [35]
• The cause of wisdom or understanding to a mind [36]

III. WE DON’T SEE HIM IN …

• The provision of food for the beasts and their young [39]
• Or for the raven [41]
• The time of birthing for mountain goats or deer [39:1]
• The freedom donkeys [5]
• The domestication of animals to serve man [9-12]
• The stupidity of the ostrich or withholding of understanding from her [17]
• The horse’s strength or his mane [19]
• The horse’s leap [20]
• The flight to the hawk [26]
• The eagle’s decision to fly [27]
  

APPLICATION/CHALLENGE: Then Job answered the LORD and said,

"Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.”

Job 40:3-4

In verse 10 of our passage, the conjunction "but" affirms Job's faith in God remains intact in spite of His inability to see Him.

Verse 11 reads,

"Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; Were He to move past me, I would not perceive Him.”

The quick Christian response is, “So?”

For Romans 8:24 says,

“For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?”

Job expressed earnest desire to be in the visible presence of His God [v. 3]. To be permitted to argue his cause in person [v. 4]. But he knew in his heart his earnestness was in vain.

He looked to all points of the compass, N. S. E. and W. where he might rationally and reasonably expect to find God, but in vain.

• It is not with reason or rationality that we find God … we must reach the point that we see God’s passing in the works of His hands north, east, west, or south through the eyes of our heart by faith.
• It is natural for carnal man to look for things on the horizontal.
• It is his habit to look in all the wrong places for evidence of God’s passing
  

Yet, as we saw, the evidence is all around.

James was right, “Count it all joy when …”

When all is said and done, we “shall come forth as gold.”

"The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb."

Psalms 19:9-10

Homiletics, Job, Preaching, Sermons