The End of Our Words

If my land has cried out against me and its furrows have wept together, if I have eaten its yield without payment and made its owners breathe their last, let thorns grow instead of wheat, and foul weeds instead of barley. The words of Job are ended. (Job 31:38-40 ESV). Those of you who know me, also know that I am rarely at a loss for something to say. Often, I catch myself not coming quickly enough to the end of my words. Well, finally we get to this part of the Book of Job and see that he has reached the end of his words; he has nothing more to say. Baffled, questioning, tormented, yet unwilling to forsake God, he falls silent. There are some summary principles we might review. First, our theology is too small for our God. We think we know the Bible, we think we have God boxed in, and we understand how He is going to act. And just as surely as we do, God is going to do something that will not fit our theology. He is greater than any human study of Him. He is not going to be inconsistent with Himself; He never is. He is not capricious, acting out of anger and malice. He is a loving God, but His love will take forms of expression that we do not understand. Up to this point Job has had his faith in the rule of God, but now at last he has begun to reach out tremblingly to exercise faith in the God who rules. Second, our view of ourselves is impossibly inadequate. Job has been defending himself, and he has been remembering all his good deeds. When trouble strikes we all tend to wonder why these things should befall us. We tend to justify ourselves with self-defense. All this makes us realize that we have little understanding of the depths of sin's attack upon us and the depravity of our hearts. The one thing God teaches us by these pressures and problems of life is to understand that there are depths of sin within us of which we are not yet aware. There is no sin beyond the reach of our internal depravity. The seed of every sin lies within us all. Third, we need to see that self-vindication often explains the silence of God. God is always patient to allow us to speak. He will not talk over us. He is not in a political debate. You’ve all seen those shows where each participant is trying to make their point so passionately that neither can be heard. As long as people are defending themselves, God will not speak over them. There is a theme that runs all through the Bible.This is true in our lives as well. That is why Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount by saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit (cf. Matthew 5:3), those who are bankrupt in themselves, who have come to the end. When we shut up and stop defending and justifying ourselves, God will rise to show us his plan and purpose bringing victory to our lives. That is what we will see in the book of Job at the end; God will begin to speak on Job's behalf. Maybe it’s time to come to the end of your words too.