The Chapter 30 Diner (8)

 

 

Three questions (Proverbs 30:4): "Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?" This brings to mind questions that God Himself asks Job:

 

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who set its measurements? Who enclosed the sea with doors? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season?”

 

These are just a few of the many questions that Yahweh asks Job in Job chapters 38 – 41, questions coming one after another and overwhelming Job to the point where he says to God, “I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). It is a good thing to see our Creator and to do so by not looking into a mirror, but to consider creation and know that there is indeed One who is greater than I am, than you are, than we are.

 

Agur had friends, Job had friends, but other than young Elihu who finally had enough of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar; Job’s friends added to the confusion, they did not lend themselves to thoughtful and prayerful discourse and friendship. While Agur provides us with a picture of humility, “Surely I am more stupid than any man,” Job and three of his friends attempt to not only out posture one another, but they foolishly try to out posture God, they speak as if they are not in His Presence, as if He does not know what they are saying and what is in their hearts; they frankly talk too much and they talk as if they know the mysteries of life, including why Job is experiencing terrible loss and affliction.

 

However, when Yahweh began speaking they all shut up. All of a sudden these four wise men were dumb, for they could not answer God’s questions. They had talked and talked and talked for chapter after chapter, and all of a sudden they have nothing to say. They hear all of God’s questions, and yet they cannot answer even one of them, until Job gives the only answer that is appropriate, “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth….I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 40:4; 42:6).

 

This reminds me of a time when an employee of mine accidently called me on his cell phone and didn’t know he had done so. I overhead him talking to some of his staff about me and something I had talked to him about. As I listened I realized that he hadn’t really understood what I had told him; he especially didn’t understand my reasoning behind a decision I’d made. Job and three of his friends talked and talked about God, yet they didn’t know what they were talking about – and God was listening. God is always listening, we would do well to remember that, for Jesus says that we’ll account for every idle word we have spoken. I think that this is especially true of our presumptuous words, our pompous words, our posturing words.

 

Paul considered himself “the least among the apostles,” Agur thought himself stupid, the centurion whose servant was dying considered himself not worthy that Jesus should come to his home. Paul writes in Galatians 6:3, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” We know that pride comes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Paul also writes (1 Cor. 10:12), “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”

 

Agur was not as stupid as he said he was, and yet he was and he knew it, and yet he wasn’t as is evidenced by what he shared with his friends Ithiel and Ucal. But what about Job and his three friends? What about them, these men who knew all the answers, answers to questions that perhaps no one was even asking?

 

(I do want to mention that when we are in deep pain and affliction, as Job was, that we can lose our equilibrium; during these times we need others to carry us, to wait with us, to be patient with us, we need friends who know how to just be quiet and “be” with us, reassuring us of God’s love and care for us. We need to give others in affliction room to say what they need to say, and we need not be the righteous theological police critiquing their words, we need to be friends and trust our friend to God.)

 

Well, what do you think? Who shall we have coffee with this morning? Who shall we learn from as positive and godly examples? Who shall we suggest others model themselves after? Shall it be Job and his three friends, or shall it be Agur and the boys?