Sunday January 12, 2014 | Jonathan Martin
1 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook,
or press down its tongue with a cord?
2 Can you put a rope in its nose,
or pierce its jaw with a hook?
3 Will it make many supplications to you?
Will it speak soft words to you?
4 Will it make a covenant with you
to be taken as your servant forever?
5 Will you play with it as with a bird,
or will you put it on leash for your girls?
6 Will traders bargain over it?
Will they divide it up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill its skin with harpoons,
or its head with fishing spears?
8 Lay hands on it;
think of the battle; you will not do it again!
9 Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed;
were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it?
10 No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up.
Who can stand before it?
11 Who can confront it and be safe?
—under the whole heaven, who?
12 “I will not keep silence concerning its limbs,
or its mighty strength, or its splendid frame.
13 Who can strip off its outer garment?
Who can penetrate its double coat of mail?
14 Who can open the doors of its face?
There is terror all around its teeth.
15 Its back is made of shields in rows,
shut up closely as with a seal.
16 One is so near to another
that no air can come between them.
17 They are joined one to another;
they clasp each other and cannot be separated.
18 Its sneezes flash forth light,
and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.
19 From its mouth go flaming torches;
sparks of fire leap out.
20 Out of its nostrils comes smoke,
as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
21 Its breath kindles coals,
and a flame comes out of its mouth.
22 In its neck abides strength,
and terror dances before it.
23 The folds of its flesh cling together;
it is firmly cast and immovable.
24 Its heart is as hard as stone,
as hard as the lower millstone.
25 When it raises itself up the gods are afraid;
at the crashing they are beside themselves.
26 Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail,
nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin.
27 It counts iron as straw,
and bronze as rotten wood.
28 The arrow cannot make it flee;
slingstones, for it, are turned to chaff.
29 Clubs are counted as chaff;
it laughs at the rattle of javelins.
30 Its underparts are like sharp potsherds;
it spreads itself like a threshing sledge on the mire.
31 It makes the deep boil like a pot;
it makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 It leaves a shining wake behind it;
one would think the deep to be white-haired.
33 On earth it has no equal,
a creature without fear.
34 It surveys everything that is lofty;
it is king over all that are proud.”
We all have monsters in our life that we deal with. Often, humanity tries to make sense of and control these monsters. In this sermon, Pastor Jonathan Martin shows us how God treats these monsters and how we should react to them.
We all face problems in this world. Every person in every situation will one day face a problem that seems too large and monstrous to solve. Job faced what many believe to be the worst type of situation a human can face. Job was a man of faith and did everything God asked of him. But, everything was taken from Job; all of his possessions, his health and his family. He was left with nothing. And there was an understanding that a monster called Leviathan was the epitome of all the bad things in the depths of the sea.
In the bible, there was a monster called Leviathan which epitomized fear and suffering. God describes this monster in Job 41. He says that the weapons of men cannot do anything to it and that the gods trembled before Leviathan. This myth and metaphor made a monster out of everything that people faced in this world. Leviathan represented pain and suffering, and ultimately fear. God uses this monster as a way to describe how people deal with their fear, pain and suffering.
People always try to control the monster. In Job, we see Job’s friends trying to rationalize everything bad that has happened to Job. They say that Job must deserve this punishment because of something he did. The monster in Job’s life is a product of Job’s sin or wrongdoing. Job’s friends do this because they fear a monster that’s not a result of something they can understand. They can’t understand why something bad would happen unless it’s the result of Job’s sin. To have a monster for another reason would mean that they have no control over whether bad things happen in their life.
We still see this thinking today. It seems that every time there is a natural disaster or something bad happens, people want to stand up and blame others. The earthquake in Haiti was due to witchcraft. Hurricane Katrina was due to the sin of the city. AIDS was due to homosexuality. Even on a local, individual level, we see blame tossed around when bad things happen. We even blame ourselves. This desire to control the source of pain and suffering is alluring to humans, but it ultimately leads us to failure.
The best thing that we can do in our pain and suffering is to realize that the monster is very small to God. God challenges Job and his friends to control Leviathan. He questions their ability to control such a monster. God tells Job that it’s God’s job to tame Leviathan. No man-made weapons will prevail against such a monster. When humans are all out of options (and hopefully before we get to that point), we should trust in God to help us beat Leviathan.
We don’t have to know what to do with leviathan; we only need to trust God. This is a tough lesson, especially when our monsters threaten us everyday. Control is something we want, but it’s not always best for us to strive for it. Learning to trust God and try to see God’s plan to deal with our monsters is our best survival strategy in this world. And, one day, God will deal with all the Leviathans of this world.