Job 40:6

In this second speech these impressions go deeper. God will not leave His servant with his lesson half learned. He plows deeper into his heart, until He reaches and judges the hidden depths of pride. So the second speech dwells on this pride, which is so common to the creature. He invites Job, in effect, to see whether he can humble the proud and bring them low. The clear implication is that Job himself belongs in that group.

The whirlwind had lasted a long time, and it is still blowing when the Lord speaks in these verses. The whirlwind itself was meant to impress one thing on Job. Every circumstance of swirling trouble and confusion was under the controlling hand of the Creator. "His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3).

Job had also begged, in his frantic way, for one incomparable favour. He asked that a man, rather than God Himself, might meet him; but he asked to find God too. And so he does. God appears. The Lord Himself gives His answer from the whirlwind... this is the special value of the close of the book of Job: God does not wait till the day of judgment to decide where there is faith to look for Him.

And the Lord does answer out of the storm. He challenges Job to gird up his loins like a hero: let the creature then teach the Creator, since God is now the One asking him questions! What a proud thing the flesh is — no better in the believer than in the sinner! Would Job put God's moral dealings on trial and set them aside? Worse still, would he condemn God so that he himself might be justified? Grace produces the exact opposite in every soul born of God. It produces a readiness to take His side against self, to judge one's own ways, and to bow to His word.

In the call, "Gird up your loins now like a man," we have encouragement as well as rebuke. God is not crushing His poor foolish servant. He is appealing to his reason as well as his conscience... Will Job cancel and deny God's righteous judgment, and condemn God so that he can set up a petty human righteousness? This is what lay at the bottom of Job's complaints. He was suffering trouble he did not deserve. He was a righteous man, yet he was treated as though he were unrighteous.

If Job really is qualified, God in effect invites him to take his seat on the throne of divine judgment. Let him put on his robes of pomp and dignity. Let him dress himself in grandeur and majesty. Let him pour out his anger on everyone who is proud, and bring him low. What awful, holy irony! And yet how just it is on God's part. If Job can sit in judgment on God, then surely he is qualified to run all His affairs better than He can!

People talk as if God's aim were simply to occupy us with His works. God does the opposite. He brings His works forward to turn us away from our own thoughts and bow us to Himself. If the works of God are so wonderful, who is He who made them? And what is man, if he dares to judge such a God? ... He would turn us away from ourselves to trust in Himself. Do you think that after this Job was taken up with behemoth or leviathan? Not at all — he was taken up with God. That was the design of it all.