As we noted last week, God spoke in Job Chapters 38-41. God challenged Job, and in a way God also challenged all Job’s friends, and in a way God challenges all people (including every person today), by asking questions which only God can truly answer! The point of God’s questioning is: No matter how smart, how religious, how ambitious a person is, they can never know everything! Only God knows everything!
I believe the main point of what God was emphasizing in Job 38-41 is that people must accept the fact that God is the Creator of everything and knows everything, while people are created beings by God, who can only truly know what God shares!
Again, how do you and I view God today? Because God gave humans brains to think with, many people think they can figure out and know everything! Human beings want to be their own God which is a sin against God! Even as Christians, we accept being saved from our sins, but yet we still want to live our lives our own way! God is a jealous God! It is very important that we are not lured into not humbling ourselves before our Creator God everyday! Be discerning! The world and the devil are anti-God and anti-truth! Who are we truly listening to? Think about that everyday; Who am I really listening to? We must always listen to God! We must filter everything with the mind of Christ!
Open your Bibles to Job 38; we noted last week that God reminds us in Job 38:1-18 that He alone knows and understand the earth and the universe because God created them and humans did not yet exist!
God also reminds us in v19-21 of Job 38 that man cannot fully understand light and darkness!
Read along with me now Job 38:22-38…..
God questioned Job and the rest of human beings (created by God), “Do human beings really know where the snow, hail, lightning, rain, thunderstorms, icestorms, weather of planets and constellations come from, how strong they are, and what they really do?” We’ll come back to this question later in our discussion and applications.
Let’s also read now Job 38:39 - Job 39 this morning….
God continued to question Job and the rest of human beings (created by God), “Do human beings really know about animals and birds, when they hunger or where to find food, who gives birth, which ones stay in the wild, which ones are grown to do heavy work, how the feathers of birds are uniquely formed, how eggs are protected till hatched, how powerful the sense of smell of animals?” Again, we’ll come back to this question later in our discussion and applications.
The major question to Job and all human beings is in Job 38:33…..
And God kept asking Job to give an answer! God made sure that Job fully understood who God is and who he is as a human. Do we understand who we are in relation to God?
Take a quick look at Job 40:1-5….
Job finally confessed to God that he needed to keep his mouth shut and allow Only God to speak! What about us today?
Now, what does the non-believing “world” say about weather and animals? The world can be so convincing without considering God! Can we Christians be lured by the wisdom of the “world” to think we don’t need God?
Here are what scientists will tell us about the weather: Weather is ultimately caused by temperature differences due to variations in solar energy input. These temperature differences cause pressure variations in the atmosphere. The wind blows to try and correct these imbalances in pressure. Regions of low and high pressure moving through an area cause changes in weather as different air masses pass by. Local weather can be predicted by knowing where the High and Low Pressures are in the atmosphere and how much precipitation can be carried by air masses moved by the winds. There are many man-made instruments to determine weather! Scientists will tell us we can know the weather! Sounds impressive doesn’t it?
Scientists will also tell us that we can change the weather!
- Make it rain
- Prevent Storms and hurricanes
- Global climate is changing because of humans
If people leave God out of the science, they can say “we can know and control our weather”!
Can we Christians just nod our heads on this?
Here are things to note about weather science:
- We have “forecasts” (predictions) of weather not 100% exact! Are weatherpeople always right? Do they ever tell us how much snow to the exact inch will fall in Milwaukee?
- Making rain and preventing storms require much chemicals and the right circumstances! Cloud seeding only works to the extent that there is already water vapor present in the air.
- There is no question, we humans are polluting our planet (just think of all the chemicals tried to make rain or prevent a storm!), but can the climate for the entire world actually be changed by it? Here are some thoughts about Global Climate Change:
a. there was no pollution when the Ice Age happened and stopped!
b. global temperatures (according to scientists!) have gone up and own for thousands of years!
c. a volcano eruption can pollute our atmosphere (no one really knows what causes all that energy below ground and when volcanoes can just erupt!) We have hot liquid lava in the middle of our planet earth which we stand upon. Journey to the center of the earth is like a journey to the sun; you will burn and melt within one quarter of the way there!
d. our sun is getting hotter!
And so, although weather forecasting is good and needed for our living, humans cannot truly know and control weather! Although interesting and impressive (all humans are created in God’s image after all), we Christians must not be lured away from God with the “world’s” weather science!
Let’s briefly talk about zoology. Studying animals is fascinating (how many of us love looking at birds, dolphins in the ocean, even in Wisconsin where there are about 2 million of them, we ooh and aaah when we see a deer? It’s like we’ve never seen a deer before!
Here’s what we can say about the wonders of Zoology:
- we have microscopes, we can study cells and organs of animals
- we can understand organ functions, we can study the physiology of animals
- we can see and study how animals can change because of need (micro-evolution)
- we can study and classify the different types of animals
- we can study and predict behavior
Zoology is a wonderful science! However, did you notice that much of zoology science is still being studied! Let’s go back to God’s question in Job 39: “Do human beings really know about animals and birds, when they hunger or where to find food, who gives birth, which ones stay in the wild, which ones are grown to do heavy work, how the feathers of birds are uniquely formed, how eggs are protected till hatched, how powerful the sense of smell of animals?”
The answer to God’s questions in Job 39 is, even today, we are still studying all of that but we are still not sure how exactly they happen! The world who defies God will say, “we will eventually know all about animals through science”! But the truth is, Only God knows the details about every living thing because He created them!
Yes, we are to keep studying the science of weather and animals but we must not omit God the Creator of weather and all living things!
As we noted last week:
Job and his friends said a lot about God but God confronts them that they really can not fully comprehend God and His powers!
Today, people think they have all the knowledge and science to figure out everything and so they don’t believe in God! Pray and know how to share with them the truth of God with love, totally caring for them!
Christians today can get too caught up with the “world’s” wisdom (including meteorology and zoology) that we don’t humble ourselves before our Almighty Creator! How’s our prayer life? How often do we really think about our Almighty Creator God?
Be discerning with the science of weather and animals and not neglect God! Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. Pray always and give thanks!
Benediction: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31…
