Job's Terrible Lizards, God Our Creator and Redeemer, 4. Sunday, March 23, 2014

- Long, long ago in the faraway land of Uz, there lived a man named Job.

- Now Job was a God-fearing man who committed himself to living right.

- In his heart, Job only wanted to seek God and turn away from evil.

- In his day, Job was considered to be the greatest of all the people of the East.

- Job had it all! He had family: seven sons and three daughters. He had wealth and possessions: 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys and many, many servants. He was a king among men.

- One would think that Job lived a charmed life.

- Well, one day the angels were presenting themselves to the Lord and who should show up but Satan, the devil.

- And God said to Satan, "What do you think of my servant Job? There's no one like him! He fears God. He's committed to doing what's right, and he turns away from evil."

- "But," Satan replied, "that's just because you protect him."

- "Okay, fine," God allowed, "do your worst. Only do not lay a finger on Job himself."

- Well, Job lost everything. His servants ploughing the fields were all murdered but one, who escaped to tell him the murderers stole the oxen, and donkeys.

- Fire fell out of the sky burning up all his sheep and shepherds, but one who escaped to tell him.

- Raiders stole his camels, murdering the servants watching them, but one who escaped to tell him.

- One more servant arrived to bring Job the tragic news that all his children were feasting at his oldest son's home when a great wind came in out of the wilderness, destroying the home and killing everyone inside.

- "I alone," said the servant, "escaped to tell you."

- Job got up, tore his clothes, shaved his head, fell on the ground and worshiped, saying, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

- In all this, the Bible tells us, Job did not sin or charge God with any wrong.

- So, Satan showed up before God a second time and God said: "What do you think of my servant Job? There's no one like him! He fears God. He's still committed to doing what's right, and turning away from evil, even though you wanted me to destroy him."

- "Skin for skin!" retorted Satan. He'll trade his honour for his life and good health. Let him be diseased in his flesh and bones and he'll curse you."

- "Okay, fine," God said, "do your worst. Only do not kill him."

- Well, after that exchange, Job was covered in disgusting sores from the bottoms of his feet the top of his head.

- Job took a piece of broken pottery so he could scratch the unbearable itching from his sores;

- And sat outside of town in the ash heap where manure and garbage were thrown and burned.

- "Do you still cling to your honor?" His wife raged. "Curse God and die."

- "You speak like a foolish woman who doesn't know right from wrong," answered Job. "Don't we have to accept the bad along with the good?"

- Again, the Bible tells us that Job did not speak sinfully in all this.

- Soon three of Job's friends showed up, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar; after hearing about all of the bad things that happened to Job, they had agreed to comfort Job together.

- After seven days, Job spoke and he asked the question we all ask when we suffer: why?

- That's the point where Job's three friends stopped acting like friends, and for the next 30 chapters of the book of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar blamed Job for his suffering.

- Each of Job's friends took it in turn to tell Job that he must have sinned in some way for God to punish him like this.

- But Job insisted that he did not sin.

- Well, you must have, they claimed.

- Well, I didn't, argued Job.

- You most certainly had to. Well, I most certainly did not.

- Did. Didn't. Did. Didn't. And on and on it went...

- ...Until, the three friends had no answer for Job's final defense.

- And that's where the enraged Elihu, who had showed up sometime earlier, began scolding Job and his three friends until God showed up.

- Everyone else had their opportunity to speak and now it was God's turn.

- Out of the whirlwind, God rebuked Elihu for his arrogant know it all attitude (v. 2), then corrected Job's idea that God abandoned him.

- God asked Job 77 booming questions to restore Job's confidence in God and challenge human centred thinking about his creation.

- God's questions of Job can be divided two ways.

- The first set of questions reviewed the mysteries of the earth and the sky that were beyond Job's understanding.

- E.g., "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" (Job 38:4).

- The second set of questions reviewed the mysteries of living creatures that were beyond Job's understanding.

- E.g., "Can you hunt prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,…? (Job 38:39)

- Before we focus in on the two creatures that we are going to look at today, I want to remind us that everything God lists in these questions is real.

- What are they? The foundations of the earth, the boundaries of the sea, the morning dawn and the spread of daylight, snow, hail, wind, rain, the movement of the stars and constellations, and clouds...

- Lions, ravens, wild goats, deer, the wild donkey, wild ox, ostrich, stork, and the horse all these are real and there are mysteries beyond Job's knowing and still beyond our knowing connected to them all.

- All things that God talked about in these questions are not myths or legends.  They are fact rather than fantasy.

- Job had to have seen them all to know what God was talking about, therefore, behemoth and Leviathan are real as well.

- Again, he had to have been familiar with them to know what God was talking about.

- These creatures were still living at the time of Job around 2200 BC or 4200 years ago.

- The Bible says that humanity has lived with every kind of animal from the beginning.

- 15 “Take a look at Behemoth, which I made, just as I made you. It eats grass like an ox.

16 See its powerful loins and the muscles of its belly.
17 Its tail is as strong as a cedar. The sinews of its thighs are knit tightly together.
18 Its bones are tubes of bronze. Its limbs are bars of iron.
19 It is a prime example of God’s handiwork, and only its Creator can threaten it.
20 The mountains offer it their best food, where all the wild animals play.
21 It lies under the lotus plants, hidden by the reeds in the marsh.
22 The lotus plants give it shade among the willows beside the stream.
23 It is not disturbed by the raging river, not concerned when the swelling Jordan rushes around it.
24 No one can catch it off guard or put a ring in its nose and lead it away.

- Behemoth means huge beast, which many scholars suggest is either a hippopotamus or an elephant.

- Why do they suggest a hippopotamus or an elephant?

- Because they accept billions of years of evolution and refuse to accept a plain sense reading of Genesis 1, that God created the heavens and the earth in six normal days.

- Behemoth cannot be either a hippopotamus or an elephant because this huge beast has a tail as strong a cedar.

- Neither the elephant nor the hippopotamus have tails that compare to the Cedar tree.

- While the hippopotamus lives in a river, the elephant does not; and while the elephant may live near mountains and under trees, the hippopotamus does not.

- What animal best fits the description of this huge, powerful creature which God made?

- The answer is not an imaginary animal because God has been all along describing real animals. God would not give Job examples he never saw; that would be pointless.

- When we remove the impossible then whatever we are left with no matter how unlikely is the truth.

- The best animal to fit the description of behemoth is a sauropod dinosaur like we find in the fossil record.

- The Bible says that humanity has lived with every kind of animal from the beginning.

- Let's look at our second passage where we find our second example, Job 41.

- “Can you catch Leviathan him with a hook or put a noose around its jaw?
2 Can you tie it with a rope through the nose or pierce its jaw with a spike?
8 If you lay a hand on it, you will certainly remember the battle that follows. You won’t try that again!
12 “I want to emphasize Leviathan’s limbs and its enormous strength and graceful form.
13 Who can strip off its hide, and who can penetrate its double layer of armor?
14 Who could pry open its jaws?  For its teeth are terrible!
15 Its scales are like rows of shields tightly sealed together.
16 They are so close together that no air can get between them.

17 Each scale sticks tight to the next. They interlock and cannot be penetrated.

18 “When it sneezes, it flashes light! Its eyes are like the red of dawn.
19 Lightning leaps from its mouth; flames of fire flash out.
20 Smoke streams from its nostrils like steam from a pot heated over burning rushes.
21 Its breath would kindle coals, for flames shoot from its mouth.

25 When it rises, the mighty are afraid, gripped by terror.
26 No sword can stop it, no spear, dart, or javelin.
27 Iron is nothing but straw to that creature, and bronze is like rotten wood.
30 Its belly is covered with scales as sharp as glass. It plows up the ground as it drags through the mud.

31 “Leviathan makes the water boil with its commotion. It stirs the depths like a pot of ointment.
32 The water glistens in its wake, making the sea look white.
33 Nothing on earth is its equal, no other creature so fearless.
34 Of all the creatures, it is the proudest. It is the king of beasts.”

- Many scholars suggest that Leviathan was possibly a crocodile.

- But it seems quite obvious from what we just read that the Bible is not describing a crocodile, but something much greater and more powerful.

- The skilled hunter can take out a crocodile with a single spear, not so Leviathan, spears are no match for him.

- Does the crocodile breathe smoke and fire? No.

- Should we think that because the Bible says an animal breathes fire that it's make-believe?

- Remember all along God has been describing real animals.

- Why would God suddenly give Job imaginary examples? He wouldn't, that would be nonsense to Job.

- Why should we ignore the Bible on this point?

- If creatures exist today like the bombardier beetle who is able to shoot burning hot gas from its behind, then why not fire breathing dragons?

- The answer is not an imaginary animal because God has been all along describing real animals.

- When we remove the impossible then whatever we are left with no matter how unlikely is the truth.

- A couple of more likely prospects than the humble crocodile could be:

- Sarcosuchus imperator, an ancient giant croc.

- Or perhaps the Svalbard pliosaur a monster of about 50 feet or 15 meters.

- Aquatic dinosaurs were created by God on the fifth day and sauropod dinosaurs were created on the sixth day.

- Every culture and people have stories about sea monsters and dragons.

- We human beings have an inborn interest in the creatures God created and the huge ones, we find especially interesting.

- Even 1000 years ago and earlier respected scholars wrote about dragons in articles or papers about animal life.

- Paleontologists tell us dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago and the first dinosaur fossils were not discovered until the 1800s when the word dinosaur, meaning terrible lizard, was coined.

- The evidence in the Bible and from around the globe contradicts the evolutionary story.

- Dinosaurs did not die out 65 million years ago, but much more recently, during the worldwide catastrophic flood of Noah's day.

- Some were saved on the ark but they never multiplied in great numbers again.

- As for Job, he turned away from his doubts and placed his confidence and his hope in God alone.

- God had some harsh words for Job's three friends, but Job prayed for them.

- God gave Job double what he lost, a new family with 10 more children, and he lived a full long life.

- The Bible says that humanity has lived with every kind of animal from the beginning.

- If we can trust the Bible's message about the creatures that God made and when he made them, then we can trust the Bible's message about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to bring us hope.

- Since the Bible is true then evolution is false, and we can place all our hope and trust in the Lord Jesus and he will give us new life.

- Remember, Romans 10:9. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

- The Bible says that humanity has lived with every kind of animal from the beginning. Why? So we can have hope.