Job Chapter 37:ALL

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with Pastor David. Chapter 37.

We're getting towards the meat of the matter. After chapter 37, there's five chapters left in the book of Job, but in the next chapter, chapter 38, and for the remaining five chapters, it's God and Job. So in your Bible reading, I would encourage you to go ahead and read from where we are to the end of Job and maybe read it a couple of times. Job chapter 37 verse 1, At this also my heart trembles and leaps from its place. Hear attentively the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that comes from his mouth. He sends it forth under the whole heaven, his lightning to the ends of the earth. After it, a voice roars. He thunders with his majestic voice, and he does not restrain them when his voice is heard. God thunders marvelously with his voice.

He does great things which we cannot comprehend. First he says to the snow, fall on the earth. Likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of his strength. He seals the hand of every man that all men may know his work.

The beasts go into dens and remain in their theirs. From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind and cold from the scattering winds of the north. I want you to know how many terms of cold, ice, frost, snow are included in this chapter.

I want to comment on that in a moment. Verse 9, From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind and cold from the scattering winds of the north. By the breath of God, ice is given and the broad waters are frozen. Also with moisture, he saturates the thick clouds. He scatters his bright clouds, and they swirl about, being turned by his guidance that they may do whatever he commands them on the face of the whole earth. He causes it to come, whether for correction or for his land or for mercy.

Listen to this, old Joe. Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God. Do you know when God dispatches them and causes the light of his cloud to shine? Do you know how the clouds are balanced, those wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge? Why are your garments hot when he quiets the earth by the south wind? With him have you spread out the skies strong as a cast metal mirror? Teach us what we should say to him, for we can prepare nothing because of the darkness. Should he be told that I wish to speak? If a man were to speak, surely he would be swallowed up.

Even now, men cannot look at the light when it is bright in the skies, when the wind has passed and cleared them. He comes from the north as golden splendor. With God is awesome majesty. As for the Almighty, we cannot find him. He is excellent in power, in judgment and abundant justice. He does not oppress.

Therefore, men fear him. He shows no partiality to any who are wise of heart. As much truth as he's sharing, in verse 23 he says, as for the Almighty, we cannot find him.

So he's spiritual and yet there's still, even in Elohim, there's something missing if it will. It's interesting, the chapter mentions voice in verse 2. Here attentively the thunder is voiced. Verse 4, after a voice roars and he does not restrain them when his voice is heard, God thunders marvelously with his voice. We're blessed because we get to hear the voice of the Lord. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, it was a very rare thing for somebody to hear from God.

But you and I, we can talk to God at any time because of what Jesus did. John chapter 10, Jesus said, hey, you know my voice, my sheep know my voice. So if you've been born again, you know the voice of the Lord. The more you listen and respond, the more fondly tuned you are to hear. That's the next life lesson. The more we listen, the more we can hear the voice of the Lord.

The converse is true too. The less we listen, the less we hear. You know the Lord does an awesome thing on a regular basis here. At the end of the service, he begins to move and we sense our need for him, our need for forgiveness, our need for a fresh focus or a course correction. There are some who respond and yet every time there's people who don't respond to the Holy Spirit and actually struggle against it.

I can see it sometimes. Somebody and I can tell they should be down here. But they're bitching and struggling and grabbing the chair and twiddling with their phone. Anything but listening. Anything but come to God. Because we think, well, I won't listen this week, but next week he'll listen again and maybe I'll be more of in a mood to respond.

Yeah, maybe. But what I found is that if you resist the voice of God, you hear it a little less next time and a little less next time and a little less next time until maybe you don't hear it at all. So any time the Lord bids you consider it an honor, privilege, Lord, thank you for speaking.

Thank you for drawing me to yourself. Well, I'm worried what people will think if I go forward. If anybody is thinking about you, they're hoping that you go forward, actually. They may be praying that you go forward instead of, oh no, therefore what's wrong with them? Look, the mature ones in this group understand there's something wrong with all of us, okay? So they're not going to go, oh, so and so went forward. I bet you they used to do and do and so and so and such and such.

No, come on. You know what it's like sometimes? It's like before you come to the altar, come forward, it's like you're in a cloudy day. But if you listen to the Lord and respond, it's like you rise above the clouds and now you can see the sun. On a cloudy day, the sun is still there.

You're just not aware of it. But once you get above the clouds, it's warm and bright, so you got to fly above the clouds. Amen. Verse 7 of chapter 37, he says, he seals the hand of every man that all men may know his work. It's an awesome thing to interact with God, to serve God and watch him do what he does, to draw people to himself.

It's just awesome. And part of this is a concept here that people are watching the storm and aware that God's doing that. It actually reminded me when I was working for Pastor Greg and we were doing the Harvest Crusade in Winston in 2002, I believe. So guys came from California and during a thunderstorm one day, I wasn't thinking anything about it.

I mean, it was a boomer, you know, radical building stuff, but I just had stuff to do. So the two guys from California were standing at the window. They're looking out the window and then one of them turns to me after thunder pops in, he turns to me and he goes, are we going to be okay? And the immediate picture I got was, you guys are okay when the ground shakes and moves, but a rainstorm is going to freak you out. And it was hilarious.

No way it took him. They wanted to eat barbecue three meals a day because it was a novelty. So every time somebody flew in, Greg or somebody, you know, let's go barbecue, let's go barbecue, let's go. So one day I'm sitting with Mike, he tries to order a regular tea, which if you're on this side of the Mississippi, regular tea, sweet tea. If you're on the West side of the Mississippi, regular tea is unsweetened tea.

So he wanted apparently to have this discussion with the waitress. You know, I get you regular tea, that's unsweetened. No, no regular sweet. Well, I want the regular unsweetened.

Honey, unsweetened is not regular. So then she sits the plate down. I said, yeah, get the plate. So she sits the plate down. He looks at the hush puppies and he goes, what are these? She says, those are hush puppies. You're not from around here, are you?

He said, no, I'm from California. So then that evening they're doing barbecue again. So we go to press these bollies because we'd hit Clark's and all other. So we get over to the press bollies and he says, well, what do I do now? I said, well, get a sandwich. I hadn't got her barbecue sandwich. Get the sandwich.

Okay, all right. I want barbecue sandwich. And she says, you want slaw on it? He said, on what? On your barbecue sandwich.

On top of it? She said, yes, you're not from around here, are you? He said, why do people keep asking me that? But I tell you what, it was such a joy and seeing God work over and over and over.

I mean, I could just go on and on about God, God, God, God. When we set the office up in Winston, I loaded the truck up at the farm with Nora, desk and chairs and tied stuff down. And she said, well, when you get downtown Winston, how are you going to unload this by yourself? I said, I'm not sure. I'm sure God's got a plan.

Wasn't concerned at all. God, you got a plan. You got some furniture in this truck. It's got to get in your office. So that's your problem.

So you got to have a plan. So I get over there, back the truck up to the door. I start untying the ropes and literally, while I'm still untying the ropes, hear a voice from behind me. It says, looks like you need help. Yeah, thank you.

You're good. Turns out this guy was selling newspapers but was a missionary that had come off the field for a little while and really needed some prayer and some encouragement. And I needed furniture. I loaded all the trucks up. We made a swap.

But over and over, I mean, from the meeting, they were praying about having the crusade. And I went to the meeting and I had just closed the business down. And so we had desks and printers and copiers. And they had a list of stuff they needed and we had the stuff on the list. I said, well, yeah, we've got this stuff. And he said, well, what part of it?

And I said, well, pretty much got the whole list. And he said, okay. He said, oh, what do you do?

I said, well, in ministry, I got a home Bible study and teach him a little bit of guitar and stuff. But one of the guys came up and he said, you're really familiar. And I said, where do you go to church?

He said, Anaheim. And I said, well, I've been to your church. That's where I know you from. And then one of the Harvest guys said, yeah, you've been to Harvest too in Pennsylvania. So in this conversation, he says, well, do you have any sort of pastoral letter of reference? And I said, well, I got one from your pastor's pastor, Pastor Chubb. And he said, well, that would do. So the Lord opened the door. I mean, the whole time, it was so God. And I tell you what, we had three nights and I think one of the hot points was when an elder from a Presbyterian church came forward and was born again.

That was awesome. He did not let pride stand in the way. I'm sure he thought, well, I'm an elder. What are people going to think?

I'm a leader in our church and I don't even know God. What are people going to think? But he didn't let that stop him. Will you let it stop you? Pride's a killer, spiritual killer.

And I think Joe picked up a little bit along the way. But when God called, he put it down because he could either hold onto a spiritual pride or grab hold of God, but he couldn't have both. There's an interesting way they hunt monkeys in Africa. They sit out a coconut and they put a little trinket in it and they change the coconut to a tree. Monkey comes by, grabs the trinket and tries to run off, but he can't pull his hand out while he's holding the trinket. He won't let go. As the hunter walks up to kill him, to bash his brains, he won't let go. And he sacrifices his life because he won't let go.

Is that you? Are you holding on to something that's keeping you from God? Pastor David will be back in less than one minute as he continues teaching in the book of Job. A great way to start out each day is with a practical email devotional every morning from Pastor David. Visit crossthebridge.com to start receiving yours for free. If you have a cell phone, you can also text the word ENCOURAGE to 94253.

That's 94253 to receive a short encouraging text from us each day. And now, back to the teaching. Verse 11 actually.

I want to point this out. This is 2,000 plus years ago, 2,200, 2,500. And they're talking about the science of there being water or rain in the clouds, which was scientific knowledge that we wouldn't ascertain or be sure of for another 2,000 years. And then they talk about, in verse 12, the cyclonic direction of the clouds. And the scripture uses this weather to talk about God. You always get the feeling there's a storm coming in as he's talking. And he's talking about the clouds and the wind.

And one commentator said that he thought the storm came in and everybody walked away. And it was just Job and God talking in the storm. That's a great tool to use the weather to talk about God or to talk about current events, to talk about God, talk about the Middle East, to talk about God.

Here's a life lesson. Use the known to introduce the unknown and the natural to introduce the supernatural. Use the known to introduce the unknown and the natural to introduce the supernatural. In John 4, Jesus used the water at the well with the water to use the natural to introduce the supernatural, the known to introduce the unknown.

It's a great evangelistic tool. The Lord will show you something and just run with it, or somebody will say something as you pray for opportunities. Now look at verse 17. He talks about the garments are hot, and again there's clouds, there's ice. It's interesting, in the book of Job, snow is in there five times, frost is in there twice, cold is in there twice, ice is in there three times. And I read a thing when we were at the Creation Museum in San Diego. They talked about this, that perhaps the writer of Job was recording the end of the ice age.

I thought that was an interesting, interesting theory. Let's understand that from Job 1, and it's important, that Job was a good man. He was a godly man. The writer of Job records that, and God Himself does. Why? Because God wanted us to be clear and not to assume that because something bad happens, it means the person is bad.

Now that's something we all assume it really is, and it's something we have to pull out by the root. Because when we hear something bad happens to somebody, what's the first thing? Oh, what did they do? And maybe sitting there starting to go, well, no, no, no, I think God was judging the sin in Job's life. No, wait a minute, let me prove to you that bad things happen to good people. Painful things, injuries happen to good people. I can prove it with one word, Jesus. Was Jesus bad?

No. But what happened to Him? He's crucified. Oh, what did He do wrong? Nothing. Matter of fact, it was our wrong He was being punished for. Would you have assumed that Jesus did something wrong? Do you assume somebody else has done something wrong when something goes wrong? Man, what did He do?

What are they doing? Be careful because you know what pops up in my mind is you'll be judged by the judgment you need out. So be careful of that. Be careful of assuming because again, Job is a good guy, the life lesson. If Job was beyond just a good man, he was a godly man. The writer of Job and the Lord Himself called Job blameless and upright. Let me say it again, Job was beyond just a good man, he was a godly man. And the writer of Job and the Lord Himself called Job blameless and upright. Now, look at verse 22.

This guy is hitting it out of the park and talking to Job. The verse 22, he comes from the north as golden splendor with God His awesome majesty. As for the Almighty, we cannot find Him.

Can't find Him. Elihu begins this thing of, oh God is so powerful and so far off and so it's so hard to know Him because He's so powerful and so far off. That's the argument of the agnostic. Our problem with knowing God is not because He's so powerful and it's not because He's so far off because He's not so far off. Our problem in knowing God has nothing to do with Him being far off or His power. It has to do with our sin. That's what keeps us from knowing God. Not because God's not available. Aren't you glad God's always available?

I was just freshly so appreciative the other day. I got on one of those phone trees, you know, press one. If so, press two. And I had this really weird thought. I thought, I am so glad God does not have a phone tree.

Can you imagine, you know, Lord need talk to you. Well, press one. If this is a salvation prayer, press two. If it's a prayer for healing, press three. If you want to know something from the Word, press four to set up an appointment next week. Voicemail's full. It's not like that, is it? He is God of the universe, created everything, powerful and listening.

He wants to talk to you more than you want to talk to Him. And I was thinking yesterday, it's almost tragic the way people will post a thought or a picture on Facebook and just some people are almost, it's like they're desperate for somebody to like them. And then when somebody, you know, puts a nasty comment, they're usually somebody to, you know, they just shoot them down in flames.

And I thought, man, that is so sad. People are, please like me. Jesus loves them. Not only can they have likes, they can have love, God's love. And we're playing tiddlywinks with these likes and ignoring God's love. Our days are full and our lives are empty. That's not the way God designed it.

It's not the way He designed it. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you.

Thank you that you're so available. God, thank you that right now we're not listening to a recording. God, thank you that you want to talk to us more than we want to talk to you. God, you love us more than we could possibly love you. Lord, you want to bless us more than we can begin to understand. But Lord, you want us to come to you first. You don't want us just to seek the blessings. You want us to seek He who blesses.

God, you don't want us just seek in the healing but to seek the healer. Thank you for realizing that we are but dust is what the word says. Lord, you took dirt and blew in it and created us.

Created in your image. And Lord, this world and even through our own efforts, we distort, we destroy that image. But Lord, we need you to restore that image. We need you to fill us with your spirit and fill us with love because the world is hurting for love.

The world needs hope. But Lord, if we're empty, we have nothing to give. So Lord, help us to be filled. Help us to draw closer to you. And God, when you pulled our hearts to come to you, Lord, help us understand how precious that is. How precious it is for the Holy Spirit to tug. Help us not to resist. Help us to not think of all alone. I got to go.

I got somewhere to be or something else to do or I'm worried what people will think. If God is inviting you to draw closer, be more concerned with what He thinks than what the people around you are thinking. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Once you decline or turn away, the conviction, the convincing, the Holy Spirit wooing you.

Once you refuse, the conviction turns into condemnation which is paralyzing spiritually. So Lord, we thank you for tonight. We thank you for freedom.

We thank you of how you blessed Job. And God, we ask that you would help us to see in our lives if there's anywhere, God, that we are blaming you for something somebody else did. We're blaming you for something that happened. Lord, help us to bring that to the surface and ask for your forgiveness. Because God, if a loved one was taken out by a drunk driver, that's not you. If somebody has health problems from things they've done or things they've eaten, that's not you either. God, when we mess up because of our own sin, that's not you either.

Lord, give us clarity. God, help us to repent for anything that we're laying at your feet or blaming you for. The death of a loved one, an accident that happened, a failed marriage. Some of you had bad things happen and you ask, where was God? Where was God when I was being hurt? He was standing right beside you weeping and coming up with a plan on how he was going to heal you of those hurts.

Not only was he not distant, he was right there in the middle of it. That's your Jesus. That's your savior. That's your messiah. When you have problems, reach up to your messiah. When you got issues, reach up to your messiah. When you need healing, reach up to your messiah. When you need forgiveness, reach up to your messiah. So, Lord, we thank you for this evening and now, God, as you have spoken to us, as you have shared your word with us, Lord, as you have initiated now, it's our chance to respond to you in your word and your rulings. You've been listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge, Weekend Edition.

Tune in again next Saturday afternoon at 4 30 Eastern and 1 30 Pacific time as Pastor David continues teaching lessons from the life of Job on most radio stations. Friends, God loves you and wants you to experience his peace, forgiveness, and life. The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. How do you receive this gift of everlasting life from God? First, acknowledge you're a sinner in need of forgiveness. Believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and died for you on the cross, taking your sin upon himself to provide forgiveness for you.

Then ask for him to enter your heart in life, turning away from your sins, that is your own selfish desires, and then open your heart to follow God's plan for your life. You can start your new life by praying something like this from your heart. Dear Jesus, I believe that you died for me, that I could be forgiven.

I believe you are resurrected, that I could have a new life. Lord, I have done wrong things and I'm sorry. Please forgive me for all of those things and please give me the power to live for you the rest of my life. In Jesus' name, amen. My friend, if you prayed that prayer today for the first time or are coming back to God after wandering away, please let us know. Email PastorDavid at CrossTheBridge.com and share your good news. That's a great first step to growing in your new faith. We'd love to email you back some more ways to continue in this wonderful adventure of faith.

Remember that you are not alone and you are loved. Also, don't forget to visit CrossTheBridge.com to discover more resources provided at no charge to help you learn more about the Bible. If you'd like to help us share God's Word with others, please click on the donate button and support this program with your regular gifts. And tune into Cross the Bridge weekend editions each Saturday and Sunday on this station or on the CrossTheBridge.com website. God bless you and have a great day.