34. Knowing God

Hymns: RHC 25 The Lord Is King; 29 I Sing the Mighty Power of God; 370 Nearer, My God, to Thee

Job 12:12-25

¹²With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. ¹³With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding. ¹⁴Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening. ¹⁵Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth. ¹⁶With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his. ¹⁷He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools. ¹⁸He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle. ¹⁹He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty. ²⁰He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. ²¹He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty. ²²He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death. ²³He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again. ²⁴He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. ²⁵They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man. (Job 12:12-25 KJV)

Knowing God

OUTLINE

• God Does 

INTRODUCTION

Can a man know God? God reveals Himself to us. That is how we know Him. It reveals Himself to us in nature, His creation. He reveals Himself to us through His prophets in the Old Testament. And in the fullness of time through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the apostles whom Christ raised up to write the New Testament Scriptures. Job is the first book of the Bible, chronologically speaking. Job was a man who knew God. He was one in intimate fellowship with God. He sought God through daily prayers and understood how God is to be approached.

In our text in Job 12:12-25, Job speaks of the wisdom, power and sovereignty of God. It causes us to humbling bow in adoration and submission toward God.

• God Does 

¹²With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. ¹³With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding. 

Matthew Henry said well, “This is a noble discourse of Job’s concerning the wisdom, power, and sovereignty of God, in ordering and disposing of all the affairs of the children of men, according to the counsel of his own will, which none dares gainsay or can resist.”

He asserts the unsearchable wisdom and irresistible power of God. It is allowed that among men there is wisdom and understanding (v12). But it is to be found only with some few, with the ancient,and those who are blessed with length of days, who get it by long experience and constant experience; and, when they have got the wisdom, they have lost their strength and are unable to execute the results of their wisdom. 

But now with God there areboth wisdom and strength,wisdom to design the best and strength to accomplish what is designed.He does not get counsel or understanding, as we do, by observation, but he has it essentially and eternally in himself, (v13).”

¹⁴Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening. 

God’s power and sovereign will over the affairs of men cannot be stopped. None can stay His hand. He does as He pleases – the Malay word “Suka”. 

Truly, He alone can create, and he alone can destroy. Nothing can be annihilated but by the same Power that created it. This is a most remarkable fact. No power, skill, or cunning of man can annihilate the smallest particle of matter. Man, by chemical agency, may change its form; but to reduce it to nothing belongs to God alone. In the course of his providence God breaks down, so that it cannot be built up again. See proofs of this in the total political destruction of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, and other cities, which have broken down never to be rebuilt; as well as the Assyrian, Babylonian, Grecian, and Roman empires, which have been dismembered and almost annihilated, never more to be regenerated. [Clarke]

¹⁵Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth. 

When the Israelites were confronted with the dead end of the Red Sea, God parted the Red Sea so that they went over on dry land. It was the only escape as Pharaoh’s army came close to destroy them.

Psalm 136:12-16 With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him which divided the Red sea into parts: for his mercy endureth for ever: And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy endureth for ever: But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him which led his people through the wilderness: for his mercy endureth for ever.

The Israelites saw the parting of the Jordan River so that they would walked on dry land.

Joshua 3:5-17 And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you. And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap. And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people; And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.

¹⁶With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his. 

Having this strength and wisdom, he knows how to make use, not only of those who are wise and good, who willingly and designedly serve him, but even of those who are foolish and bad, who, one would think, could be made no way serviceable to the designs of his providence: The deceived and the deceiver are his;the simplest men that are deceived are not below his notice; the subtlest men that deceive cannot with all their subtlety escape his cognizance. 

The world is full of deceit; the one half of mankind cheats the other, and God suffers it to be so, and from both will at last bring glory to himself. The deceivers make tools of the deceived, but the great God makes tools of them both, wherewith he works, and none can hinder him. He has wisdom and might enough to manage all the fools and knaves in the world, and knows how to serve his own purposes by them, notwithstanding the weakness of the one and the wickedness of the other. 

When Jacob by a fraud got the blessing the design of God’s grace was served. [Matthew Henry]

¹⁷He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.

The events of war are also in his hand. It is he who gives victory; through him even the counsellors – the great men and chief men, are often led into captivity, and found among the spoils. [Clarke]

¹⁸He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle. ¹⁹He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty. 

The bond of kings here means that by which they bind others. Their power over others he loosens or takes away. And girdeth their loins with a girdle – That is, he girds them with a rope or cord, and leads them away as prisoners. 

The whole series of remarks here refers to the reverses and changes in the conditions of life. The meaning here is, that the bonds of authority which they imposed on others are unbound, and that their own loins are bound with a girdle, not a girdle of royal dignity and ornament, but such a one as they are bound with who are servants, or who travel. [Barnes]

²⁰He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. ²¹He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty. 

The Apostle Paul observed well this paradox of God using the seemingly useless and put to nought the supposedly “wise”.

1 Corinthians 1:25-29 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.

²²He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death. 

This may refer either to God’s works in the great deep, or to the plots and stratagems of wicked men, conspiracies that were deeply laid, well digested, and about to be produced into existence, when death, whose shadow had hitherto concealed them, is to glut himself with carnage. [Clarke]

²³He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again. ²⁴He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. 

He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them – He has entire control over them. The sources of prosperity are in His hand, and at His pleasure He can visit them with famine, pestilence, or war, and diminish their numbers and arrest their prosperity. 

And straiteneth them again – The idea is, that He increases a nation so that it spreads abroad beyond its usual limits, and then at His pleasure leads them back again, or confines them within the limits from where they had emigrated. 

Of the chief of the people – of the rulers of the earth. By withdrawing from them, He has power to frustrate their plans, and to leave them to an entire lack of wisdom.

And causeth them to wander in a wilderness – They are like persons in a vast waste of pathless sands without a waymark, a guide, or a path. The perplexity and confusion of the great ones of the earth could not be more strikingly represented than by the condition of such a lost traveller. [Barnes]

²⁵They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.

They are like persons who attempt to feel their way along in the dark. And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.

Job had shown them that he was as familiar with proverbs respecting God as they were and that he entertained as exalted ideas of the control and government of the Most High as they did. [Barnes]