Sunday Post – Job Chapter 38 and Nicole C. Mullen
Frank Holbrook 0 Life in General
In the 38th Chapter of Job we hear the Lord question Job. His questioning gives a hint, but only a hint, of his power and eternal majesty. The portion of the 38th Chapter, verses 4 through 30 (NIV) set forth below is a beautifuly poetic passage you might want to reflect on today:
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
We read His questions, but what was the tenor of His voice? Was he the Angry God of the Old Testament who some believe went away when Jesus broke through with a new revelation of God the Father? Or were the poetic words set forth in Job spoken in kindness by the Eternal God who provided a way of salvation and atonement when there was no other way?
As I did last Sunday, I’m adding a non-Hymnal song that I belive faithfully carries the message of Good News. Nicole C, Mullen’s “Redeemer” echos the words of Job but melds the message of Job with the assurance of salvation in which we find our only help. I hope you’ll listen and hear something you like. Make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
