TRUST your GOD who GUIDES the STARS!

 

June 5 Bible Reading: Job Chapters 37-39

TRUST your GOD who GUIDES the STARS! 

"Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?" (Job 38:31-33)

Elihu was still in the process of explaining from his limited understanding regarding his concept that God was too powerful to communicate with people (37:23) that the voice of God shatters through the atmosphere, and God starts speaking directly to Job. God totally ignores Elihu who was speaking and asks Job: "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (38:2). Then, through a series of rhetorical questions, God reveals His power, perfection and infinite wisdom to Job.

God answers Job “out of the whirlwind” (38:1) into the whirlwind where Job was in presently as he was facing the barrage of accusations from his ‘so-called’ friends - through a long series of questions that only God knew all the answers. The questions from God poured out like a deluge and washed over Job and his friends to a point that they were speechless, and could only cover their mouths with their hands (40:4). God’s questions were not intended for generating answers, rather they were intended to amaze and awaken Job and his friends about whom they were all speaking so eloquently so far!

In the midst of His battery of questions, God mentioned about some stars that He had bound, loosened, brought out and guided in their destined paths in the galaxies. It is when we study astronomy (the study of stars) can we really understand the insignificance of human beings in the light of the galaxies and the billions of stars. God questions Job regarding his ability to control the stars and constellations, or keep them in their orbits, or determine their influence over the earth. In light of modern man’s supposedly great control over nature through science, Spurgeon’s devotion on this passage (38:31) is very enlightening:

“If inclined to boast of our abilities, the grandeur of nature may soon show us how puny we are. We cannot move the least of all the twinkling stars, or quench so much as one of the beams of the morning. We speak of power, but the heavens laugh us to scorn. When the Pleiades shine forth in spring with vernal joy we cannot restrain their influences, and when Orion reigns aloft, and the year is bound in winter’s fetters, we cannot relax the icy bands. The seasons revolve according to the divine appointment; neither can the whole race of men effect a change therein. Lord, what is man?”

When troubles come in our lives, let us remember that our God who holds the stars in space also holds His people in His hands. When Job questioned the justice of God, God answered Job by telling him to comprehend His power and might with which He had created the world and to observe His ability to control all the stars so that they travel in their designated path and do not crash and burn the whole atmosphere. God’s power, might and wisdom are truly beyond our understanding! God knows us intimately when we are in any trouble and is watching out for us? Isn’t it a good reason that we can trust in a mighty God - our heavenly Father - who guides the stars and has inscribed us in His palms?

"Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me." (Isaiah 49:15-16)