in the chapter that we read in
the book of Job, Job chapter 36, and I want this morning to
direct you to the words that we find here in verse 22. Job 36, 22. Behold, God exalteth by His power,
who teacheth like Him. Job 36, 22, Behold, God exalteth
by His power, who teacheth like Him. It is striking that the
verse begins with that word, Behold. We find it many times
in our Bibles and you know the force of that particular word. It means the eye is to be set
We're to look and to consider the matter very carefully. We're to look into these things.
And that's what I want us to do with the Lord's help this
morning as we come to consider particularly the question that
we have at the end of the verse, Who teacheth like him? The subject matter then is God's
teaching. God's teaching. Now with regards
to this book of Job it has been observed as that the questions
that we find is not the least instructive part of what is such
a remarkable and such a wonderful book. There are a whole variety
of questions that we find scattered throughout the book Satan himself
asked that question in the first chapter. Doth Job fear God for
naught? And then there are those words
we of times refer to them. Words spoken by Zophar in chapter
11. Canst thou by searching find
out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty?
Unto perfection it is high as heaven. What canst thou do? Deeper
than hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer
than the earth, and broader than the seas, the immensity and the
greatness of God, and of course that is spoken of here in the
chapter, in verse 26, behold, again we have that striking word,
consider this, behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither
can the number of his years be searched out." But when that
truth is expressed in terms of those questions that we have
back in chapter 11 at verse 7 following, how forceful are the questions. And of course we see how Job
himself asks many questions In chapter 7 and verse 17, what
is man? That thou shouldest magnify him
and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him. These are questions
that Job puts to God himself. Again in chapter 9 and verse
2, how should man be just with God? Well Job you see in all
the Lord's dealings with him is made to ask questions. as
the Lord deals with us are we brought to that we want to know
the answer to these profound questions again he says in chapter
17 and verse 3 lay down now put me in assurity with thee who
is he that will strike hands with me he wants someone to come
and to stand between him and God he sees the need for a mediator
a days man Someone who will, as it were, bridge that great
divide, not only between the Creator and His creature, but
between Him who is the Holy One and those who have rebelled and
sinned against God. Who is it that will stand forth
and be the surety and the Saviour of sinners? And of course, it
is all ultimately directing us to the Lord Jesus Christ. But
here, in the text that lies before us in chapter 36, the words are
spoken by this man called Elijah. You know something of the structure
of the book, as that in the opening parts we have the cycle of speeches,
these various men, the friends of of Job their miserable comforters
in many ways Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar and they say remarkable
things but they don't really understand Job they speak Job
answers them they speak by turn and that's the cycle of speeches
that we find in the opening section of the book But then, in chapters
32 to 37, we have this other man who comes forward called
Elihu. And he makes a very long speech
at the end of the book. And it's interesting to consider
the name, or the significance, the meaning of the name Elihu.
It literally means, My God Himself. and he says in chapter 33 at
verse 6 Behold I am according to thy wish in God's stead I
also am formed out of the clay and here in this chapter look
at what he says at the beginning verse 2 Suffer me a little and
I will show thee that I have yet to speak on God's behalf
I will fetch my knowledge from afar He says many remarkable
things, wonderful things. And here, in the word that I
want us to consider this morning for our text, in verse 22, Behold,
he says, God exalteth by his power, who teacheth like him. The theme then that we take up
is that of the teaching of God. And what is the teaching of God? Well, we have it of course here
in Holy Scripture. It's God's book. All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God. All Scripture is the very breathings
of God, the words of God. And it is profitable. Peter reminds
us how in the Old Testament those prophets, those holy men of God,
they spake as they were moved, as they were born along, carried
along. instructed, directed by the Spirit of God. We have God's Word then, and
what is God's Word? It's a revelation. And in a sense,
there is that two-fold revelation in Scripture. Principally, it
is the revealing of God. It is God making himself known.
We know how that God is unknowable. We've already referred to those
questions of Zophar back in chapter 11. Canst thou by searching find
out God? We can only know God as God is
pleased to make Himself known, to reveal Himself. And He reveals
Himself generally in His works, His work of creation, the heavens. Says the Psalmist, declare the
glory of God, the firmament, the vastness of the universe,
it's all God's hand work how God reveals something of his
greatness and his glory by his works in creation and then in
his providence how we see him as a God who is faithful how
we are reminded day by day he has declared that as long as
the earth remaineth sea time and harvest cold and heat summer
and winter day and night shall not cease in the vestry before
the service in prayer our brother Martin was referring to God's
faithfulness in the seasons and we've come now into the season
of spring and soon it will be early summer and we we look for
the the cycle of the seasons all because of the faithfulness
of God God has revealed himself in creation revealed himself
in His providence. But it is here in the Bible,
in Holy Scripture, that we have this special revelation. How God has spoken and in speaking
He has declared something of Himself. But there's a two-fold
revelation here. And the Protestant Reformer John
Calvin in the opening sentence of his great work on the Christian
Institutes that systematic theology makes that point that there is
a two-fold knowledge to be gained first the knowledge of God but
also the knowledge of ourselves who teaches like him, how God
teaches and what does he teach us? He teaches us a knowledge
of ourselves and he teaches us that awful knowledge that we
are those who are sinners in the sight of God we are those
who by nature are in a state of alienation from God we are
not those who rightly conform to the image of God or we see
it when we consider the doctrine of God himself in the law in
the giving of the Ten Commandments God is revealing to us that He
is a holy God and a righteous God remember the opening words
of those commandments as we have them back in Exodus chapter 20
God spoke all these words saying I am the Lord thy God and as
He declares Himself to be the Lord God so in the words that
follow the commandments He is revealing to us how He is holy
and righteous and just and how the children of Israel understood
that when those commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy chapter
5 some 40 years later you see after all those wanderings through
the wilderness because of their sinful disobedience because of
their unbelief they were not those who were willing to go
into the land of promise because they were great giants in the
land they were unbelievers and God deals with them and that
generation is destroyed in the wilderness wandering but Moses
brings them now to the borders of the promised land and then
he recounts the commandments there in Deuteronomy chapter
5 And it's interesting to observe what he said, verse 24. He said, Behold, the Lord, the
Lord God, our God, hath showed us his glory and his greatness. They understood that. After those
commandments are recounted at the beginning of that fifth chapter,
They remembered it was a revelation of God's glory, it was a revelation
of God's greatness that they witnessed at Mount Sinai as God
himself descended upon the monks. How God came down and God spoke
to them and they trembled at the presence of God. Look at
the language, for example, previously there in Deuteronomy chapter
4 at verse 12 and some of the following
verses Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 12 the Lord spake unto
you Moses says out of the midst of the fire ye heard the voice
of the words but saw no similitude only ye heard a voice and he
goes on verse 15 take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves For
ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake
unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest ye corrupt
yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any
figure, the likeness of male or female. All that you remember,
God is a spirit. They are not to make images.
They are to reverence God, they are to reverence the name of
God. All our God is a holy God. The
God who will by no means clear the guilt, the God who hates
and abhors all sin. Now it's in the light of who
God is and that revelation of Him in all His holiness and all
His righteousness that we see our sinfulness. Or we see it
as in a mirror. That's what the Word of God is.
James uses that particular figure there in the end of that opening
chapter of his epistle he speaks of looking at ourselves in a
glass, in a mirror and he's speaking of the Word of God. What is the
Word of God? It's a revelation of God and as we look into the
Word of God we should see that image reflected to us our own
image man as he was created was made in the image of God created
after the likeness of God But when we come to behold ourselves
in that mirror, we see how deformed we are, how we are those who
have sinned against God, fallen from the glory of God. This is how God teaches us. He
shows us not only Himself, He shows us also ourselves. This is how God dealt with this
man Job. He was brought to see himself.
Remember what we read at the end, after all these remarkable
experiences of Job as they are unfolded throughout the book.
We come to the last chapter and he says, I have heard of thee
by the hearing of the king, but now mine eyes seeth thee, wherefore
I abhor myself. he was abhorrent in his own sight
when he saw what he was in the light of God's teaching of him
how God had shouldered himself, I abhor myself he says and repents
in dust and ashes or in his experience, what did Job discover? he learned
that only God was the one who understood him God exalts us
by His power who teaches like Him how He taught this man Job
Job as I said has to come to that acknowledgement that only
God understands him He says at one point remember He knows the
way that I take He knows the way that I take when He has tried
me I shall come forth as God Even Job's own wife didn't understand
him. What wicked counsel it was that
she gave to Job at the beginning in those opening chapters we
have the setting of the book and all that comes upon Job as
Satan is permitted to trouble him. He's no free agent. He can only do what God permits
him to do. without Job, loses everything. Loses all his possessions. Loses
his children. And then, touched in his own
person, afflicted in his body. What is Job to do? Well, his
wife gives him counsel there in the second chapter. And what
wicked words they are that she speaks then, said his wife, unto
him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Cursed not! and die
but he said unto her thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh
what shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we
not receive evil in all this did not Job sin with his lips
how remarkable how this man is humbled under God's hand, and
yet a man so meek, so submissive to the Lord. All his own wife,
you see, she doesn't really understand him at all. It must have been
a grievous thing too, poor Job, even his very wife, is one who
speaks, he says, as the foolish women speak. In the 19th chapter, And verse 17 he says, My breath
is strange to my wife, though I entreat it for the children's
sake of mine own body. Poor Job, sorely tried, and yet in the
midst of all this it is the Lord, the Lord who knows him, the Lord
who is teaching, the Lord who is instructing him, Look at what he says, or what
Elihu says previously. This man speaks some remarkable
words back in chapter 34 and verse 31. He says, Surely
it is meet to be said unto God. It is proper, it is right. Surely
it is right to be said unto God, That which I see not, teach thou
me. What we don't see, what we don't
understand, we're to ask God to teach us. We're not to listen
to the counsel of foolish men, we're to come to the word of
God. The God who has made us, the God who preserves us. It
is right and proper that we do that. Now, there are those things
that follow when God does come and teach us, when God gives
us that knowledge of ourselves. What follows? How does God teach
us? Well, when God takes us in hand,
He shows us our true selves. He reveals to us what we are
by nature. He brings us to that sense of
our sinnership. That's the teaching of God. Sin itself is of man. There's
a sense in which when God's made Adam, as we read there in the
second chapter of the book of Genesis. We come to the next
chapter, chapter 3, and the record of man's rebellion, man's sin. In a sense, Adam has unmade himself. God made him. Man unmade himself. He was made in God's image. All
sin, you see, is of man. But where there is that real
sense of sin, the conviction of sin, that is the work of God. And this is the first consequence
where God teaches a man. He will see himself, he will
understand something of his own condition as a fallen creature. For all have sinned, says Paul,
and come short of the glory of God. That's a condition of all
men, but how How few have any understanding of that. Though
all are sinners in God's sight, there are but few so in their
own, says Joseph Hart. And they are true words. How
few they are, those who have any realization, any sense of
their sinnership. And this is the ministry of the
word of God, the ministry of the law of God. remember the
language again of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 3 now
we know he says that what thing soever the law saith it saith
to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world become guilty before God well this is the point
the purpose of it to stop men's mouths to bring them up to that
realization of their sinnership the ministry of condemnation
that's the ministry of the law we know that what things whoever
the law saith it saith to them who are under the law that every
mouth may be stopped all the world become guilty before God
for by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his
sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin but then there's a gospel
as well That's what we see in Scripture.
We have the law that was given by Moses, but we also have that
grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ. And now that law
serves the Gospel. Now in the Gospel we see that
provision of salvation that God has made for those who are brought
to a sense of their sinnership. or the Lord Jesus in the course
of his own ministry says they that are whole have no need of
the physician but they that are sick I came not to call the righteous
but sinners unto repentance there are so many who imagine all is
right all will be fine in the end if
there is a God and so many when they speak of
God only speak of God in terms of love and it's a mushy sort
of love maybe some of you were able to watch the the Royal Wedding
just a week ago and we had that American Episcopalian that Bishop
came and he gave an address and all the media thought he was
wonderful and we spoke about the love of God but it was just
a mushy love nothing of God's righteousness or God's justice. Well, we know that that particular
man is a great advocate of all that is contrary to the word
of God, a great advocate of same-sex marriage and all those sorts
of things, a thoroughgoing liberal. This is the sort of message that
is peddled by so many religionists in our day. They don't speak
of the Holy Lord of God and yet Jesus Christ himself makes it
so plain that the ones he's come to save are those who are brought
to that sense of their sins. He comes not to call the righteous.
He comes to call sinners unto himself. Friends, it's not just
that God deals with us as sinners at the beginning of our experience.
If we have any experience of the grace of God, we'll have
some realization of our sins. But it's not just at the beginning
of the Christian's experience, it's a constant experience of
the child of God. And we see it. We see it in what's
written in this particular chapter. Look at verse 7. He says, He
withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous. He's speaking
of God, he's Elijah. And God doesn't ever withdraw
his eyes from the righteous. What does God do then? Look at
verse 8. If they be bound in fetters and
beholden in cords of affliction, then He showeth them their work
and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He is constantly
teaching us. We learn more and more of our
sinnership. more and more of our need of
the grace of God we are to grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ what is that growth in
grace? it's not a growth in conscious goodness it's a growth in thought
necessity that's the language of our articles of faith the
gospel standard articles that article that speaks of growth
in grace what is it? oh it's that greater sense of
our sins before God That's the mark of those who are the Lord's
children. God doesn't withdraw His eyes
from them. They're the righteous. That's
what it says here in verse 7. They're the righteous, they're
those who are the justified. They're those who are accounted
righteous before God because they have the righteousness of
Christ imputed to their account reckoned to them. Their sins
have been blotted out. by the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus. He has died in their room and
in their stead, but not only paid the price of their sins,
He's also clothed them with His righteousness. But God doesn't
withdraw His eyes from these. He still deals with us. He teaches
us. Who teaches like Him? here is
the consequence in the first consequence we might say when
God teaches us the truth about ourselves we have a sense of
who we are a sense of our sins but there's also this and it's
important that we recognize this also there is to be a sorrowing
over sin in the godly That sense of sin will bring a sorrow. There will be that godly compunction. There will be that real repentance,
you see. Oh, this is what distinguishes
the godly from the ungodly. Here at verse 13 we read concerning
the hypocrites. Hypocrites in heart, it says,
heap up wrath. They cry not when He bindeth
them. Or when God deals with them,
they don't cry to Him. We know that all people have
their troubles. It's not just the Lord's children
who have their trials and tribulations and difficulties and problems.
In this very book, in chapter 5 and verse 7, we're told man
is born unto troubles. as the sparks fly upwards. It's
inevitable. All men, believers, unbelievers,
will have troubles in this life. But here is the difference, you
see, the child of God, the godly man, in the midst of all that
trouble, there's that exercise. Hypocrites in hearts, heap up
wrath, it says. They cry not when he bindeth
them. How different, how different
with the godly. Or what exercise when the Lord
is dealing with them. And this is the case with Job
throughout the book. How the Lord is dealing with
him. His desire is to understand. We refer to the various questions
and the many questions that Job himself asked at the beginning.
We spoke of those questions. You see the godly are exercise.
as the Apostle says there in Hebrews 12 no chastening for
the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward
it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who
are exercised thereby or there's fruit but that fruit comes about
through that exercise in their soul or what do we know of these
things friends? Woe to them that are at ease
in Zion. Let us not be at ease. But take
account of the Lord and the Lord's dealings. Behold God, exalt us
by His power. Oh, teach us like Him. But God in His teaching doesn't
just give us the knowledge of ourselves. Important as that
is, vitally important, but ultimately It is that knowledge of God.
And it is that knowledge of God as the Saviour of sinners. Oh, what is God's gracious purpose
in all of His teaching? Well, I read those few verses in John chapter 6, because there
we see the gracious purpose of God. We began at verse 37, "...all
that the Father giveth me," says Christ, all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me and he that cometh to me I shall in no wise
cast out and then at the end of that short reading no man
can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him says
Christ and I will raise him up at the last day it is written
in the prophets and they shall be all taught of God Every man
that hath heard and have learned of the Father cometh unto me.
There's the teaching of God. There's the teaching of God.
All that come unto the Lord Jesus Christ, they have heard of the
Father. They have been taught of the Father. This is the great
purpose of God's teaching. God exalteth by His power. Who teacheth like Him? Or think of the power that he's
spoken of here, the power of God. He exalts by his power. What does God do with that sinner
that he's having dealings with, that sinner that he has brought
into the very dust, into that realization of what his true
state is, as one who has transgressed, one who was conceived in sin
and shapen in iniquity, one who sinned in Adam. One who is a
sinner from his birth. What does God do with this man
when he deals with him? He exalts him. He brings him
out of nature and he brings him into grace. Out of nature into grace. Look at that remarkable book
by the Scots minister Thomas Boston. Human nature in its fourfold
state. And I would commend it to you,
human nature in its fourfold state. What is the fourfold state?
Man in his innocence. When God creates him, he comes
pristine from the hand of God. God looks upon his work of creation,
it's very good. But then, the next state is man
a rebel, a sinner, a fallen creature, alienated from God. But then
there's that third state. when God raises that sinner out
of what he is by nature into grace. When the sinner is saved,
converted, and then ultimately there is that final state of
man in glory. And that's the ultimate, you
see. That's the great purpose of God. to take the sinner unto
himself, even to all the bliss of heaven. Human nature in its
fourfold state. But how God works, you see. Oh,
how God works. He brings the sinner out of that
sinful nature into the state of grace. Dear old Joseph Hart
says, only he who made the world can make a Christian. no true
that is only the God who made the world the God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness the God who said let there be
light and there was light that God who commanded the light shines
in the heart to give that light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ what does Paul say you know the
words of so many scriptures There in Ephesians 2.10, we are His
workmanship, He says. His workmanship, God's workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works. That's what God does
when He saves a man. It is a work, a mighty work that
God accomplishes, likened unto the great work that God did when
He made all things out of nothing. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature, he is a new creation. All things are passed
away. Behold, all things are become
new. He exalteth. Behold! Oh, consider this great truth. God exalteth by His power. Oh, the power of God. The exceeding
greatness of His power to us who do believe, according to
the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when
He raised Him from the dead, the same as was there in the
resurrection of Christ. Thy dead men shall live, says
Christ, together with my dead body shall they arise. This is what God does. It's the power of God bringing
to that knowledge of salvation, that knowledge of the Saviour,
the Lord Jesus. Behold, God exalteth by His power. What does David say? In Psalm 14, He brought me up
also out of a horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set
my feet upon a rock, and established my going. Is that what God does?
when He delivers us out of ourselves, the horrible pit, the miry clay,
and sets us upon that rock which is none other than the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself. Oh, it's profitable, this teaching
that God gives. Who teaches like Him? Again, look at the language,
Isaiah 48, 17, I am the Lord thy God, it says, which teacheth
thee to profit. Oh, this morning what is it that
we know of these profitable teachings of God? The knowledge of ourselves,
but also the knowledge of Himself. there are two aspects to it of
course there's a negative and there's a positive we can't avoid
these things when God deals with us when God shows us ourselves
the Lord Jesus comes remember not to call the righteous but
sinners we have to have that sense of our sins look at what
is written earlier here in chapter 5 there in chapter 5 at verses 18 and 19, He make
us sore, He says, and bind us up, He wound us, and His hands
make whole. He shall deliver thee in six
troubles, yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. All there are deliverances with
God. But how at times He makes His people sore, how He warns
His people, how He wounds His people. I, even I am he, he says, and
there is no God with me, I kill and I make alive, I wound and
I heal, neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. When God is pleased to deal with
us, to take us in hand, to instruct us, to teach us the dealings of God, the ways
of God. Oh, how mysterious they are and yet it's profitable we
know God's Word itself is profitable but it's not enough to have that
Word before us on the page of Holy Scripture we want God to
bring that Word home to apply it and to write it upon the fleshy
tables of our hearts and to make us understand and to rejoice
in the profitability of it you see ultimately What God does
is bring the sinner to that knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh,
there's the prophet. When we're brought to consider
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and that great work that
he accomplished here upon the earth. All which is written in
the prophets, remember, they shall be all taught of God. Every
man therefore that has heard and learned of the Father Christ
says, cometh unto me. That's the end. It's that coming
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Life eternal. That's the end. Life eternal to know Thee, the
only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. Or we can
only know God in and through the Lord Jesus. It is in Him,
you see, that that revelation of God comes to its wonderful
climax. Our God in these last days has
spoken unto us by His Son. That's the revelation that we
have. It's in Christ. It's a consideration of the person
of the Savior. the great mystery of godliness,
God manifest in the flesh, the God-man who has come and stood
in that law place of his people and answered for them before
all the demand of that holy law of God he is their surety and
as he has answered for them by living a most righteous life,
a sinless life, a perfect life so he has died as their substitute
and in his own person born all that punishment of their sins
these are things we are familiar with but all that God would teach
them to us and reveal these things increasingly in our souls when Peter made his confession
that great confession in Matthew 16 thou art the Christ The Son of
the Living God. What does the Lord say? Blessed
are they. Simon by Jonah, flesh and blood,
I have not revealed it unto them, but my Father which is in heaven. It's a revelation. That's what
God does. He grants us a revelation of
the Lord Jesus. He reveals Him in our souls.
He pleads God, Paul says, to reveal His Son in me. and ought to be in Him. Of Him
are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is
written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Would
we be wise? It is the Lord Jesus who is made
unto His people wisdom. None teach us like Him. Behold, O let us mark that word, and
fix our eye upon this text, and desire that the Lord would bring
the words into our very hearts, write them deep in our souls. Behold, God exalteth by his power,
who teacheth like him. May the Lord be pleased then
to bless his word to us. Amen.