Making Waves: Season 2

Jim Ayer

Adventist World Radio

Season 2, Episode 11: Eastern Orthodox Icons

Season 2, Episode 10: Secret of the Cave of the Seven Sleepers

Season 2, Episode 9: From Israel to Ukraine

Season 2, Episode 8: At the Jordan River

Season 2, Episode 7: Ukraine’s Oldest Monastery

Season 2, Episode 6: The Land of Dacha

Season 2, Episode 5: Garden of Gethsemane

Season 2, Episode 4: In Tula, the City of Weapons

Season 2, Episode 3: The Roots of Christianity

Season 2, Episode 2: Entering the State of Leo Tolstoy

Season 2, Episode 1: High Communist Party in Russia

The Book of Job as Sacred Literature

Jan Haluska

Southern Adventist University

The Book of Job as Sacred Literature- 6 (Overview 2)

Again, and this is our last lecture on Job online because of the snow day.

Father in heaven, help us be wise, even though this is now some distance between the students and me.

Electronically help that we will be united in your service and in the dedication to reading your word righteously and well and wisely.

Well we ended by talking about how Elihu, though he doesn't have any references between himself, between his section and any other section of the Book of Job, he certainly could have been stuck in, but that's the view of the fictionalists and if it's not fiction how come?

Well he's a kid and so nobody has to talk to him or about him, he's allowed by grace to speak even though he doesn't have the status to do it.

He goes up against the comforters too, But he says that Job is wrong because he's not justifying God.

If you remember, what's our job as Christians?

Our fundamental job is to vindicate the character of God.

And Job has been so self-centered, Understandably so, but again this is a young man.

Young men tend to be very critical of older people.

Nobody can be righteous before the Lord, he says.

He who doesn't understand how Job was justifying himself instead of God.

Remember early on, the Lord gave, the Lord taketh away.

Says Job, in all this did not Job sin with his lips.

There's a wonderful story about a lady who ran a Christian kitchen, Christian restaurant, and who would constantly be saying praise the Lord.

And 1 day she had a whole stack of dishes and she's walking along soapy hands and drops the dishes And everybody stopped and listened.

Sure enough, her first word was, Praise the Lord.

Because that justifies, vindicates the character of God.

Well, is it okay to say what we don't feel?

Is it, Is it okay to obey, even to say what we don't feel?

Did she feel at that moment the disappointment?

I don't know, possibly, But she still said, praise the Lord.

That's an understanding that even if we don't feel like it, God is to be praised.

But in the midst of that suffering, we have no excuse for not saying, praise the Lord.

But under grace, possible and in fact even natural.

But remember, everything that's natural is not easy.

If you look at a little child learning to walk, what does it feel like?

It's hard to learn to walk when you have a kid.

So much tries to get up, gets up on all fours, crawls away, tries to get up, boom, gets up again, tries it again.

Doesn't have very far to fall, that's good.

But the kid has to work at what's natural.

But finally, for a Christian, it's the end point.

Remember, Gethsemane, Jesus didn't feel like going to the cross.

But then he said, not my will, but thine.

You're done doing what you know you should do saying what you know you should say even when you don't feel like it.

It is if you mean it hypocritically, if you're pretending in front of people that you're feeling as you don't.

But when you're talking to God, you can say, I don't feel like praising you right now, Father.

Help me say, praise the Lord and mean it.

So Elihu was right but he needs 1 more thing.

Christ calls us to come out of ourselves.

It's part of the big lesson of the book of Job.

So then Elihu is finished and Job and the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind.

What's happening with this whirlwind business?

When a whirlwind comes, everything is displaced.

And our first encounter with God when he takes us apart may be chaos.

When I gave my heart to the Lord, I was on my knees.

And I felt when I said, yes, I will follow you as though I had just exploded.

And that all the pieces were in the air, and I prayed, when you put them down, help me be intellectually wise.

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