How Big Is Your God?, Part 1

Guest (Male): The size of your faith is in direct proportion to the size of your God. If you don't fully trust him, won't fully worship him, can't fully surrender to him, then your faith and your view of God are both lacking. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah takes us back to the story of Job, a man with enormous faith in a truly immense God. Listen now as David introduces his message, "How Big Is Your God?"
Dr. David Jeremiah: Say, have you had a bad day? Let me tell you how you can feel better about yourself. Read the first two or three chapters of the book of Job, and you will feel like you're having a good day. Job had some of the worst hours in life recorded in history. Things happened to him you cannot imagine, and they happened in a terrible, unimaginable way. You know, when things like that happen to us, sometimes we get angry, and we get angry with God. You wouldn't blame Job too much if he just decided to do what his wife told him to do: curse God and die. But Job didn't do that. He stayed in the fight, he stayed in the struggle, and in the midst of the struggle, he discovered that he served a God who was a big God. I hope you have a God like that. There's only one God, and he's the God who will help you in your trouble and trials. We're going to find that out today as we open our Bibles to the book of Job. Today is part one of "How Big Is Your God?" from Job 34 to 37. Get your Bibles, get your study guide, get your pen or your pencil, and let's make some notes together as we study the Bible on today's program. Don't forget that the resource for the month of July is this book by Rob Morgan called 100 Bible Verses That Made America. This beautiful book is yours for the asking when you send a gift of any size during this month to help us with the cost of radio production and airtime. You will be blessed by the book because it will help you understand how closely related the foundation of America is to the principles of the Word of God. Many of the major principles upon which this nation was founded come right out of the scripture, and you can find the proof for that as you read this book. 100 Bible Verses That Made America by Rob Morgan is our resource for the month of July. It's yours for the asking when you send your gift to Turning Point today. And now, here is part one of "How Big Is Your God?" Back in the early 1900s, believe it or not, the University of Princeton was Princeton Theological Seminary. It was built and founded for the purpose of training young men to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How far we have come. On the faculty of that school in the early 1900s was a very famous professor by the name of Robert Dick Wilson, who taught Old Testament from 1900 to 1929. One of the students that was in his classes between 1915 and 1917 was a very famous Philadelphia preacher by the name of Donald Grey Barnhouse. Every student of the Word of God knows who that is. They've read some of his books. He's rather famous for one of the great illustrators of the Bible, and perhaps his greatest claim to fame is that Donald Grey Barnhouse gave a series of messages on Romans. Every preacher who's ever preached on Romans has read Donald Grey Barnhouse's commentaries on Romans. For 33 years, Barnhouse was the pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of the great Presbyterian churches in the history of our country. About 12 years after he graduated from Princeton, he got a letter in the mail inviting him to come back and preach in the chapel at the seminary. I have to stop here and give you a little sidebar about this because you may not get the awesome nature of such an invitation. For a young man who's gone to seminary and has been out preaching in his church for 12 years to be invited to come back and preach in the seminary where he got his training, and stand in the chapel where all the faculty who taught him are going to be sitting in front of him. Believe it or not, I had that experience. After I'd been out of Dallas Seminary for a number of years, they invited me to come back and give a week of addresses in chapel. I didn't realize at the time what an awesome thing this was, so I said yes. As the day approached, I began to realize what I had done. I cannot tell you what it's like to think about going and here's the Greek professors over here, and the Hebrew professors over here, and the theology professor here. All these men at Dallas are famous for their writings and famous for their teachings, and I've got to get up and speak. The night before I was to speak the first time, I was in what they call the Prophet's Chamber. It's a little apartment on the campus where they put speakers who come in. Donna didn't go with me because we had little kids then, and she stayed home with the children. I walk in this apartment, and I'm filled with fear. I've got to go and preach at the seminary. These people probably didn't think I was going to amount to much, and now tomorrow, I'm going to set it once and for all that I didn't amount to much. Believe it or not, folks, that night I was really nervous, and I went into the restroom, and I inadvertently opened up the medicine cabinet. The medicine cabinet was loaded from top to bottom with Alka-Seltzer. It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't been the only guy who stayed in the Prophet's Chamber the night before he had to speak at the seminary. Well, Donald Grey Barnhouse came back to Princeton to preach in the seminary chapel. As he got up to speak, he noticed that his most famous professor, Robert Dick Wilson, had come into the chapel. He walked all the way down to the front and sat right in the front row, right in front of the pulpit. After he had finished his address, Robert Dick Wilson walked up to him, shook his hand, and said, "Donald, if you ever come back here to preach, I will not come to hear you. I only come once to hear my boys preach, and I come to see if they are big-godders or little-godders." Not sure that he understood what he meant, Barnhouse asked for an explanation. "Oh," said Wilson, "it's very simple. Some men have only a little God, and they're always in trouble with him. He can't do the miraculous. He can't take care of life's details. He doesn't intervene on behalf of his people. They have a little God, and so I call them little-godders." "Then there are those who have a great and mighty God. He speaks, and it is done. He commands, and it stands fast. He knows how to show himself strong on behalf of those who fear him." Barnhouse, anxious to know in which category he was, breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the man's final statement. Wilson said, "Donald, you have a great God, and he will bless your ministry." He looked deeply into the eyes of the young preacher, smiled, and walked out. Of course, looking back on it from our perspective, God did bless Donald Grey Barnhouse. He blessed him abundantly, and through him has blessed people like me and some of you who've benefited from his writings. As we begin this message today, I want to ask you this question: What kind of God do you have? That's especially important in the days in which we live. It isn't that God changes sizes, but it is that we, in our appreciation of God, have either a high view of God or a very low view of God. I don't know about the rest of you, but in the world in which I live today, I need a big God. I don't need a puny little wimp of a God. I need a God who is able to do above and beyond all that I can ever ask or think. While I don't necessarily agree with Elihu's approach to Job's friends and to Job, and while he is a little bit arrogant, I do appreciate the fact that as I read the words of Elihu, if he had been that day preaching in the Princeton chapel, I think Robert Dick Wilson would have said to him, "Elihu, you have a big God. You're a big-godder." As we begin this lesson in the 34th chapter, Elihu begins with a plea to those who are going to listen to him. He's going to begin immediately by talking to the three men who've already addressed Job: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. In the first four verses, we read: "Elihu further answered and said: 'Hear my words, you wise men; Give ear to me, you who have knowledge. For the ear tests words as the palate tastes food. Let us know among ourselves what is good.'" As we listen to Elihu, we can pick up a little of his arrogance. He commends himself in a backhanded way. He tells those who are listening to him teach that they're wise and great in understanding. What kind of man does that make him? He's the teacher of the wise and the understanding. He even goes so far as to say, if you listen carefully, you'll notice that my words are as tasty as a good morsel of food. Yes, he did have a bit of an edge to him, a little bit of arrogance. But he's going to do something in his address to these men and to Job that is very valuable. He's going to defend God's justice, and he's going to encourage Job to look to God with the eye of faith. The first question that he wants to answer for Job and for all of us is this: Is the God we serve a just God? Perhaps if I rephrased it like this, it would help: Is the God we serve a fair God? Is God fair? Earlier in his discussions with the three men who had come to help him, Job had denied the justice of God. In fact, here in verse five, Elihu even reminds Job of that. He says, "For Job has said, 'I am righteous, and God has taken away my justice.'" Earlier in the book, back for instance in chapter 19, verses 6 and 7, Job cried aloud, "There is no justice." In chapter 27, verse 2, he said, "God has taken away my justice." Job felt that he had been treated as a sinner when he wasn't a sinner, and that God wouldn't give him an opportunity even to explain himself, which he did not understand. Job believed the only way he can reconcile what was going on in his life and the absence of any word from God was that God had just not treated him fairly. Please remember, friends, we look at this book from the perspective of the first two chapters. We know about the deal that Satan made with God concerning Job. But Job doesn't know that. He's never been told what's going on. He knows he's lived a life of integrity, and he's not violated his relationship with Almighty God, but all of these bad things have happened to him. He's lost his family, his wealth, and the admiration of his wife. His friends trash him. And all of his days, he sits on an ash heap outside of the city with boils from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. All this is going on, and nobody says, "Job, let me explain to you what's happening in your life." Not a word. Remember from chapter two until the end of the book, not a word from God. So Job figures, "You know what? This isn't fair." That's what I'd be thinking. Wouldn't you? "This is not fair. God, I've done everything you've told me to do. I've lived up to your standard. I've been a good husband, a good father, raised a bunch of good kids. And look at what's happened to me. It's not fair. God, you are not just." And Elihu says, "Let me help you with that, Job. Let me defend the justice of God." In this chapter, he begins by presenting three arguments in defense of God's judgment. First of all, verses 10 through 15, he tells Job and Job's friends, "If God is not just, he is not God." Look at verse 10, chapter 34: "Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: Far be it from God to do wickedness, And from the Almighty to commit iniquity." Verse 12: "Surely God will never do wickedly, Nor will the Almighty pervert justice." Do you remember back in the book of Genesis when Abraham was pleading for Lot, pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah? In chapter 18 of Genesis, verse 25, he made this statement. He said, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Absolutely. Warren Wiersbe writes that if God is truly God, then he is perfect, and if he is perfect, he cannot do wrong. "An unjust God," said Wiersbe, "is as unthinkable as a square circle or a round triangle." God is always true to his righteous character, and he can never act in contradiction to it. 31 times in the book of Job, God is called the Almighty. The possibility that the Almighty God of the universe could do wrong and deny Job the justice that he deserved is just not possible in the realm of Elihu's thinking. So he says, first of all, "Let me tell you what I know. If you say God is not just, if God is unjust, he can't be God." For us, if you think God is unfair, let me just put you straight. If you think God is unfair, then you don't have a God, because an unfair God is no God at all. Then he goes on to say, "Now let me say something else about this matter of the justice of God. If God is not just, he cannot even govern." Verse 17: "If you have understanding, hear this; Listen to the sound of my words: Should one who hates justice govern?" Do you want an unjust governor in this world? Of course not. We've dealt with that in the past, maybe some of it even now. But you don't want an unjust God in heaven. What Job and his friends are being told by Elihu is this: "Don't say that the problem you have is that God is unjust, because if he's not a just God, first of all, he can't even be God, and if he could be God and he were unjust, he couldn't govern." So there's two things you need to remember. Then finally, he says to him, beginning in verse 21 of chapter 34, "If God is unjust, then he's not good." He says, "You say that God is unjust. If that is true, it's got to be one of two things. He's unjust because he cannot see what's going on, so he doesn't know what to do. Or he sees what's going on and for some reason he doesn't choose to tell us; he does something that doesn't seem like it should be done." Now here's the problem. In our realm today, a human judge hears a case, and because of his human limitations, he makes the best decision that he can. And let's face it, sometimes he's wrong. But Job wanted to present his case before God, and God wouldn't let Job come. The honest problem is this: What could Job contribute to God's knowledge of his case, because God already knew everything anyway? Job says, "Let me have a moment with God so I can tell him what's going on." Hello? God already knows what's going on. He's the perfect judge. Notice in this text, it tells us why he's such a perfect judge. First of all, he sees everything. Verses 21 and 22: "For His eyes are on the ways of man, And He sees all his steps. There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves." Elihu says, "Don't think about sneaking up on God with some new information. God sees everything." Not only that, God knows everything. Notice verse 23: "For He need not further consider a man, That he should go before God in judgment. He breaks in pieces mighty men without inquiry, And sets others in their place. Therefore He knows their works; He overthrows them in the night, And they are crushed." When God puts a man on trial, listen to me carefully, he never has to cross-examine him. When God puts a man on trial, he already knows what is in man. He's not obligated to conduct an inquiry. He doesn't have to go gather more information. God's knowledge is not skewed like man's. He judges with perfect wisdom and knowledge. He knows us as we are. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Psalm 139 puts it this way: "O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought while it is afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether." You say, "Pastor Jeremiah, that's pretty good information to know about old Job." It's pretty good information for us to know about ourselves. While we may not be in Job's situation, we all one of these days, one way or the other, are going to stand before the Judge of all the earth. Now let me just explain to you what I mean by that. If you're not a Christian here today, if you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, at the end of time on this earth, you will stand before God at what they call the Great White Throne Judgment. It's a fearful, awful moment when it is too late for you to become a Christian, and the judgment is simply the passing of the sentence of eternal death upon your soul. For you will live forever outside of the presence of God. You say, "Pastor, I sure am glad I'm a Christian. I don't have to worry about that." Amen, me too. But there's another judgment in the Bible, and some of you know about it. It's called the Bema seat, or the Judgment Seat of Christ. That judgment occurs right after the Rapture, and when you come before that judgment, you're a Christian. Your sin's already dealt with. You won't have to deal with your sin. But the Bible says we're going to stand before the Lord and give an account of the things we have done in the flesh since we have been Christians. Now, not our sins, but our service. Have we served the Lord? Have we honored him with the gifts that he has given us? Sometimes I think this, and maybe you think this too: I've tried to serve the Lord the best I can, but knowing what I know about the deception of the human heart, sometimes I wonder if I've ever done anything for God with a totally pure and undiluted motive. Have you ever had that thought? Because even in our best moments when we're serving God, sometimes we have a personal agenda or a hidden motive. The Bible says when we stand before God someday, and he's going to look at all the things we've done, he will not only see the work we have done, but he will see the reason why we have done what we have done. And that ought to drive us to our knees more than it does. God sees everything, and he knows everything, and the Bible says he judges everything. Verse 26: "He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others, Because they turned back from Him, And would not consider any of His ways." Since God sees the depths of the heart and understands the thoughts of the mind, we cannot say that God is unjust when he judges us. He knows us more than we know ourselves. And he holds the whole world in his hands. Since all of these things are true, Elihu wants to know how Job can feel justified in continuing to question God and demand that God give an account for his actions. You don't go to the most powerful one in the world and make any demands about anything. And he says to Job, "You need to remember, my friend, that the God you are questioning knows everything there is to know about you." Are you a man of integrity? Yes. Have you cursed God and asked to die? No. But in between those two things, there's a lot of room for Job to give an account. Not only does God judge everything, but he controls everything. Listen to this, verse 31: "For has anyone said to God, 'I have borne chastening, I will offend no more; Teach me what I do not see; If I have done iniquity, I will do no more'?" "Should He repay according to your terms, Just because you disavow it? You must choose, and not I; Therefore speak what you know." That's kind of a convoluted paragraph, but let me tell you what it means in the words of Ray Stedman, who wrote about it. He said, "God's decisions cannot be questioned because he is absolute sovereign over individuals and nations, and he accepts no substitutes for righteousness." People sometimes want to come to God on their own terms and invent their own salvation. They say, "I promise I'll be a better person. I promise to reform." But reform is not what God wants from us. Our Lord is not in the business of reforming people; he's in the business of renewing people. He doesn't want to make us better; he wants to make us new. He doesn't want to take the old us and clean it up; he wants to make a new us. He wants to make us born again. God desires our repentance and our relationship, not our reform. It's not enough to say to God, "I'm guilty, but I'll try not to do that again." What God demands of us is unconditional surrender, completely giving up the right to run our own lives. This is what God seeks from us, and he will not accept any other basis for a relationship with him. You cannot change God's mind about what he's declared in his Word. So we have here a denial of the justice of God, a defense of the justice of God, and then in the 35th chapter, we have a description of the justice of God. God is just whether we accept it or not. It makes no difference what we do or what we say. God is who he is, and he's not changeable. He is the immutable, unchanging God of the universe. And that's the teaching of the book of Job, and the teaching of the entire Word of God. The Bible says, God says, "I change not." And the Bible says of the Son of God that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. You can trust God to be the same whenever you are in touch with him. He is the same God, and that is a wonderful truth, and that's part of the majesty of the God that we serve. We'll have part two of this lesson from Job tomorrow right here on Turning Point. I hope you'll be with us as we continue our discussion of making sense of it all, seeing the world with a biblical perspective. These messages are on CD, and they're coordinated with a study guide, both of which you can get from davidjeremiah.org. That's our website. Go there, find out all that we have to help you understand the Word of God, especially these passages we're studying right now. And then be sure to join us tomorrow right here on this good station.
Guest (Male): For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, "Making Sense of it All," please visit our website, where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of Robert J. Morgan's inspiring book, 100 Bible Verses That Made America. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, available in your choice of handsome and durable coverups. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, "Making Sense of it All" on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.