IMITATE THEIR FAITH/JOB - "Out of the Windstorm"

 As Elihu spoke, he often mentioned wind, clouds, thunder, and lightning.  He said of  Jehovah:  "Listen carefully to the rumbling of  his voice." Moments laer Elihu referred to a "storm wind." (Job 37:2, 9)  It seems that as he spoke, a storm was brewing, growing steadily more intense. Finally, it was an all out windstorm. And then something far more dramatic happened.  Jehovah spoke!- JOB 38:1. 

When reading the  book of Job, it is a wonderful relief to come to these marvelous chapters containing Jehovah's speech to Job. It is as if a windstorm of truth were blowing away all the empty speeches, all the false words of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Jehovah did not even address those men until later. His focus was on Job alone; he firmly  addressed his beloved servant as a father would correct a son.

Jehovah knew Job's pain. And he felt pity for the man, as he always does when his beloved children suffer.  (Isaiah 63:9; Zechariah 2:8) But he  knew too, that Job had "speaking without knowledge," making his own problems worse.  So  Jehovah corrected Job by questioning him extensivel.  "Where were you, he began, "when I founded the earth? Tell me, if  you think you understand." At the dawn of creation,  "the morning stars," God 's family of angels, shouted in applause over the wonders of creation.  (Jon 38:2, 4, 7) Job, of course, knew nothing of this.

Jehovah went on to speak of his creative works.  In a sense, he gave Job a brief tour of what humans today might call the natural sciences, touching on a number of animals then found in Job's part of the world-the lion, the raven, the mountain goat, the wild donkey, the wild bull, the ostrich, the horse, the falcon, the eagle, Behemoth (evidently the hippopot amus), and finally Leviathan (likely the crocodile).  Imagine the privilege of attending a lecture about the natural world deliverd by the Creator of the universe! _

Next time: IMITATE THEIR FAITH/JOB - Teaching About Humility and Love

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