Job has said many words that need to be addressed. Elihu is in the process of challenging Job on the words Job has said against God. Elihu has been defending God from what Job has said during the time of this trial. Elihu is speaking on God’s behalf (Job 36:2). Further, Elihu declares that he is speaking God’s knowledge and wisdom to Job (Job 36:3-4). In Elihu’s final words, he is going to address one of the biggest issues people have with God and with suffering. The issue is how there can be suffering if God is good and is full of power and strength. If there is a God, then how can there be suffering? How can the righteous suffer if there is a God and this God has power over the world? When we are suffering we can wonder why God does not do something. Why doesn’t God help? Why doesn’t God act? Is God unable to deal with evil in the world? Is God unable to stop the suffering that takes place? Elihu is going to end his speech to Job, the three friends, and anyone else who is listening to him that God is not powerless when suffering.
God Is At Work (Job 36:5-12)
Elihu begins by stating the important foundation. God is mighty. This is not a question. There is no answer that we can give about suffering or about how God runs the world in which we say that God is not powerful. God is mighty. Further, God is mighty in his understanding (Job 36:5). In short, God is powerful and he knows how to use his power. God does give justice to the afflicted and God does judge the wicked (Job 36:6-7). Further, God is at work. He is declaring sins to people through suffering and through events in the world (Job 36:8-9). He is working to open people’s ears so that they will listen to him and turn from their sins through suffering and world events (Job 36:10). God is giving people the chance to listen and change (Job 36:11). If they listen, then there is hope, prosperity, and contentment. If they do not listen, then there is judgment and death (Job 36:12). Elihu’s first defense is very simple. God is powerful and his purpose is to turn people from their sins in the way he runs the world.
Submit To God’s Power (Job 36:13-23)
But there is a problem with the way God runs the world. The problem with the way God runs the world is not a problem for God or with God. The problem is with us. People frequently respond incorrectly to how God runs the world. People often go the wrong direction in their lives when they suffer. In verse 13 we see that the godless get angry at God. They do not seek God for help when suffering. They just get mad at God. They become angry people and are consumed with their own wrath. But what does our anger accomplish? Do we think that we are changing anything about our lives or about how God runs the world by being angry at him? We can be broken by what has happened but being angry at God is not the right answer. God is using pain to talk to us. You see Elihu say this in Job 36:15. God delivers the afflicted by their affliction. He delivers the suffering through their suffering. God opens our ears through our troubles and adversities. It is important to see that anger is isolated as a key problem when suffering and hurting. We even have a saying, “Hurt people hurt people.” When we hurt, our anger destroys others and it destroys ourselves. Anger at God is the worst thing you can do and anger at others is the second worst thing you can do. Please remember what James taught. Human anger does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). Can I make this point in this way: our anger blocks the work God is trying to do in our lives. Our anger keeps us from the transforming work God is doing on us in our trials.
Hardships and trials always have one of two possible outcomes. Your trials will either push you to draw near to God or push you to resist God. We see a great example of this in God’s work on Pharaoh’s heart during the ten plagues of the exodus. The scriptures will say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and will also say that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. How can both be true? They can be true because God allows our trials and works through our afflictions. But our trials either open our eyes to obey God or they harden our hearts further to resist him even more. Every trial is an opportunity to draw closer to God and move further and further from him.
But what happens is that we get angry at God and his power in this world. Our anger leads us to scoff and mockery (Job 36:18). We turn to our wealth to help us rather than to the Lord (Job 36:19). We long for death rather than submitting to God’s power (Job 36:20). We turn to sin rather than deal with the affliction God is using to open our ears to him (Job 36:21). God is trying to move us to blessings and glory (Job 36:16). But we become obsessed with our suffering and get angry with what God is doing (Job 36:17). Job is stuck on how he has been wronged rather than trusting the power of God to work in his life and to work in the world. In short, there are so many pitfalls when we are suffering. There are so many ways to take the wrong path when we are afflicted. We turn to anger. We turn to death. We turn to sin. We turn to every place but God.
Elihu says that we must submit to God’s power and how he runs the world with his power. Why should we submit to his power? Look at Job 36:22-23. “God is exalted in his power; who is a teacher like him?” Who can do a better job at teaching you so that you can enjoy God’s blessings? I love verse 23. Are we going to tell God that he is a bad teacher? Are we going to tell him that he stinks at teaching? You know there were times when I thought I had some bad teachers in school. But I look back and realize that more often than not, the reason why I thought he or she was a bad teacher was not because they were doing a bad job, but because I was not open to the teaching. I was resistant. I did not like the teacher. I did not like the subject. But those were my problems. I was the reason I was not learning. We can do the same thing with God. We do not like how he teaches us. We do not like what he is doing. So we become resistant and shut down rather than open to the lessons he is teaching us.
Praising God’s Power (Job 36:24-37:24)
Now it is important to see the transition here. Elihu is going to describe God’s power so that we will praise him. You see Elihu begin this idea in Job 36:24-26. Praise God’s great work. God is exalted beyond our knowledge. He is eternal. But Elihu has not just simply dropped this idea and is telling us to look at the creation and praise him. No, what Elihu is doing is teaching us that we need to praise his power in our suffering. Keep this in mind and I will explain as we look at how Elihu ends his instruction.
Elihu notes how God uses the rain and speaks about the water cycle (Job 36:27-28). But can you understand his power as he spreads out the clouds and how his thunder roars from his pavilion (Job 36:29-30)? He spreads his lightning around and covers the depths of the sea. Have you ever looked outside and thought it would certainly rain, but then it didn’t? It seems to happen here regularly. Or has the news told us how we would have a strong hurricane hit only to barely have anything happen at all? A few years ago we were told we were going to be hit by a hurricane and have power loss and all that but then nothing happened. Memes filled social media that said, “Never forget” and then there was a picture of one plastic chair fallen over in the yard. There was so much certainty that this would be bad and it wasn’t. Who can understand his spreading of the clouds? Who can understand how God does this and what he is doing? In one moment a storm is judging people and the next moment it is giving food in abundance (Job 36:31). With his power, he makes the lightning hit its mark.
As Elihu is talking you have the sense that a storm is brewing around them all at that moment. In Job 37:1 Elihu says that his heart leaps from his chest. It appears that the thunder has just crashed, giving everyone a moment for their hearts to jump. In this Elihu describes the thunder as God’s majestic voice. What is Elihu’s point? “He does great things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). God uses his great power to do things that we do not understand. Elihu further intensifies this idea. He tells about how God brings the snow and the torrential rains (Job 37:6-7). He brings ice storms and windstorms (Job 37:9-10). Now look at verse 13. “Whether for correction or for his land or for his love, he causes it to happen” (Job 37:13). God acts through the storm. Was the storm to correct people? Was the storm to take care of the land? Was the storm to show his love? We do not know. God uses his great power to do things that we do not understand. So Job, teach us what we should say to God about what he is doing in the world and what he is doing in our lives (Job 37:19)! You cannot even look at the sun but you are going to tell God that he is not using his power correctly (Job 37:21)? God uses his great power to do things we do not understand.
But the point is not about creation. The point is about your life. God does great things with his power that we do not comprehend. Therefore, you do not know what he is doing in your suffering. Just as God is accomplishing his purposes in nature, he is accomplishing his purposes in your trials. God’s power is to leave us in wonder and in awe of him, not full of anger or pride. But Elihu says there is something that we can know in our suffering. Look at verses 23-24. God does not violate justice. God is abundant in righteousness. God does not look favorably or show regard to those who are wise in heart.
When suffering and trials happen, God is at work. God is not powerless. God’s power is at work. In our suffering, we will say that we do not understand what God is doing. We do not understand why God has said yes or said no. We do not understand why the trial starts and when it will stop. We do not understand. Elihu’s point is very simple. Exactly! God uses his great power to do things we do not understand. Faith is good with this truth. This is what faith is. This brings us full circle in the book of Job. Did God have to allow Satan to do what he did to Job? No, God could have told Satan no. But God is purposeful in how he runs the world and how he runs our lives and we must accept what he is doing and what he has done.
I want to come back to the words of Martha who again showed this kind of faith.
So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” (John 11:20-22 ESV)
Does Martha question God’s power? No. Martha knows that Jesus had the power to save her brother. Does Martha question God’s goodness? No. So how does she cope with this? How do you deal with the fact that Jesus had the power to do something but did not do it? Martha does not understand why. Even though she does not understand, she does know that her confusion will not lead her to anger, to pride, to sin, or to death. It will lead her to be left in awe and wonder because she knows that Jesus can do anything and she will be with him to see what happens next. God’s power is at work. Will we embrace God’s power to work in us or resist God’s power and remain in anger, pride, and sin?