SERIES: The Book of Job
The Quest for Wisdom
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction to Scripture reading: I am a spelunker at heart. Nothing causes the adrenalin in my body to flow like a cave. I guess it all began when I was about 9. We were visiting the Mark Andrews family, who lived way out in the country in western Kirkwood on N. Signal Hills Dr. off Marshall Rd., and their two boys took my brother and me to an old abandoned quarry near their house. It lies only about 100 yards southeast of the intersection of Big Bend and 270. We crawled on our stomachs for about 30 feet through this narrow passageway until we came to a small cavern with several passages leading away from it. They claimed one of those passages went all the way to the Meramec River and I was ready to go, but it was over a mile, and we didn’t have time. I dreamed about that passage for years but never had the opportunity to go back to the cave.
Over the years, however, I visited every cave within driving distance of wherever I was. But I also developed a great interest in man-made caves, i.e., mining operations, particularly gold and silver mines in the Rockies. I have explored literally hundreds of old mines in California, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. My wife will never forget one of these escapades on a mountain above Silverton, Co. We were three days into our honeymoon and had driven as high above Silverton as the road would go. I had spotted a particularly inviting mine about another thousand feet above the road, so I parked the car and tackled the steep climb, with Jan waiting in the car. This particular mine shaft was horizontal and very well-preserved. The railroad track for the mining carts was still in place, and with my flashlight I wandered back hundreds of feet, looking for artifacts. I kind of lost track of the time and when I reappeared several hours later, I found my new bride nearly hysterical. Most of my caving has been done solo since then.
I think it’s because of this very personal interest I have in mines and caves that the 28th chapter of Job fascinated me when I first read it. The first half tells the intriguing story of the human quest for treasure below the earth’s crust, as Job extols the tenacity and ingenuity man exhibits in his mining endeavors. He then contrasts that ability with man’s total inability to find wisdom.
Let’s read chapter 28. The Hebrew poetry here is quite difficult, and the KJV translators simply didn’t understand much of it. So, we are reading from the New International Version.[i]
There is a mine for silver
and a place where gold is refined.
2 Iron is taken from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
3 Mortals put an end to the darkness;
they search out the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness.
4 Far from human dwellings they cut a shaft,
in places untouched by human feet;
far from other people they dangle and sway.
5 The earth, from which food comes,
is transformed below as by fire;
6 lapis lazuli comes from its rocks,
and its dust contains nuggets of gold.
7 No bird of prey knows that hidden path,
no falcon’s eye has seen it.
8 Proud beasts do not set foot on it,
and no lion prowls there.
9 People assault the flinty rock with their hands
and lay bare the roots of the mountains.
10 They tunnel through the rock;
their eyes see all its treasures.
11 They search the sources of the rivers
and bring hidden things to light.
12 But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
13 No mortal comprehends its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
14 The deep says, “It is not in me”;
the sea says, “It is not with me.”
15 It cannot be bought with the finest gold,
nor can its price be weighed out in silver.
16 It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir,
with precious onyx or lapis lazuli.
17 Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it,
nor can it be had for jewels of gold.
18 Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention;
the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.
19 The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it;
it cannot be bought with pure gold.
20 Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
21 It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds in the sky.
22 Destruction and Death say,
“Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.”
23 God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
24 for he views the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
25 When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,
26 when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,
27 then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.
28 And he said to the human race,
“The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.”
Introduction to sermon: The flood that has devastated vast portions of the Midwest this summer has created more than a headache for the Army Corps of Engineers, more than an economic problem for the government, more than an agricultural loss of vast proportions, even more than a personal disaster for the victims. It has also created a theological dilemma as people wrestle with the question as to why thousands upon thousands of innocent victims, a disproportionate number of them poor, have had their lives so brutally disrupted. It seems so unfair, and we almost instinctively begin to search for explanations and for things to blame.
Some blame the Army Corps of Engineers; others blame the communities who built dikes and levees; still others blame people who built in the floodplain; but few are comfortable blaming God. As I was driving about a week ago, I heard snatches of a talk show in which Anne Keefe was taking calls from some listeners who had the flood figured out. The flood, said one of them, was a divine judgment on riverboat gambling.
There’s something comforting about knowing why something tragic happens. It enables one to keep his faith in a just God, knowing that the flood isn’t His fault; it’s the gamblers’ fault. The only problem is that last Thursday there was a front-page article in the Post Dispatch which indicated that the gambling boats were the only businesses along the river still operating, and that the flood hadn’t even slowed down John Connally in his work to restore the Admiral. So, if the flood is a judgment on Riverboat Gambling, God seems to have missed His target and hit a lot of innocent bystanders.
Another current example of the tendency to seek simple answers to complex issues has to do with the AIDS epidemic. Many Christians have that one solved—it’s a direct divine judgment on homosexuality. Now this explanation may be a bit more reasonable than blaming the flood on riverboat gambling, because most of the victims of AIDS, at least initially, were people who violated God’s moral standards, either through homosexual acts, heterosexual promiscuity, or drug abuse. But now there are a lot of victims whose contraction of the disease cannot be tied to sinful behavior, including hemophiliacs, babies born to infected mothers, and spouses of AIDS-infected partners.
Some would explain this by the fact that innocent people are inevitably affected along with the guilty whenever there is a divine judgment (one might call them collateral damage), but I wonder if we know enough to be dogmatic that the ultimate cause of the AIDS epidemic is a divine judgment on homosexuality. There are so many facts that are not at our disposal and so many innocent victims whose pain can be increased by such snap judgments.[ii]
This struggle we all go through to make sense out of the senseless is what we might call “the quest for wisdom.” Job and his three friends have been engaged in it for most of the book of Job, trying to make sense of Job’s terrible suffering, as you know if you have been with us these past several months. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar remind me of the caller who told Anne Keefe he had it all figured out. These men knew why Job was suffering—because of sin in his life. That’s the only explanation they could come up with that could save God’s reputation as a just and fair God. But they were wrong. Job’s suffering had nothing to do with sin in his life. In fact, the opposite was the case—he was suffering because he was so righteous.
The quest for wisdom had not only failed the three counselors of Job; it had failed Job, too. He knew what the reason for his suffering wasn’t—it wasn’t sin—but he didn’t know what it was. So, he wrote this poem about the Quest for Wisdom, a poem that has much to offer us today since we still struggle with the same quest.
We use the term “wisdom” rather loosely today, so it’s important that we define it in keeping with its biblical usage. I offer the following definition as a summary of all the Bible teaches on the subject: “Wisdom is the power to see, plus the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.” As you can see, wisdom is a step beyond knowledge. A person can have all the knowledge in the world, but if he doesn’t know how to employ it for good or isn’t inclined to do so, he can actually be a very foolish and dangerous person.
The only one possessing perfect wisdom is, of course, God Himself. His ability to “see” is described by the theological term “omniscience;” His ability to choose the best and highest goal and the surest means of attaining it is described by the term “omnipotence.” In God we find infinite power ruled by infinite knowledge, and the result is infinite wisdom. In fact, in Job 12:13 all three of these attributes of God are directly linked together: “To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.”
We, however, do not possess such wisdom in and of ourselves. We need to be reminded, as did Job’s three friends, that God’s wisdom can be trusted even when He leaves us in the dark. And make no mistake, we are in the dark most of the time when it comes to deciphering the great mysteries and dilemmas of life.
But in the first eleven verses of chapter 28 Job begins by exalting human ingenuity, as he establishes that …
Mankind is very clever and capable, as demonstrated by his ability to mine the earth’s treasures. (1-11)
In the first two verses Job informs us that even in his day, 4,000 years ago, there were mines for gold, silver, iron, and copper. These metals are not normally found on the surface, and huge earthmoving equipment was unavailable, so the only way to extract these treasures was to cut shafts in the earth. Darkness, of course, was the single greatest problem for ancient miners. But humans are clever and, according to verse 3, they learned how to put an end to the darkness so they could search the farthest recesses in the blackest darkness. Archaeologists inform us that ancient miners developed means of slanting ventilation shafts in various directions so as to let in the light at various times of the day. But that would only help in the shallowest of mines. So, lamps were designed that were portable and refillable underground. I have here today a miner’s hat I extracted from a mine in the Cripple Creek area of Colorado. This hat is probably from the late 19th century or so, but the technology is centuries old.
Verse 4 indicates that the prospector generally locates his mine in out-of-the-way places because that’s where the precious metals are found. As one takes Jeep trails through the mountains of Colorado, one is left in awe at the locations of some of the mines. It boggles the mind that the men could even climb up to some of these areas, to say nothing of hauling up supplies, equipment, and food, and then surviving the terrible winter storms that frequent the mountains. But that’s nothing compared to the hardship and danger experienced as the ancient miner descended into a vertical shaft by means of ropes, dangling and swaying, as described in verse 4. Ingeniously they devised pulley systems to accomplish the goal of recovering the treasures.
Verse 5 contrasts for us what takes place on the surface of the earth with what takes place underground in the mines. Above, the fields are plowed and planted and produce food, but below the earth is transformed “as by fire.” This could be a reference to ancient blasting or to the rubble produced by digging, which is similar to the rubble produced by a fire.
Verse 6 speaks of the results of this ingenious search—sapphires and nuggets of gold are obtained. Just how clever is man in his ability to uncover such treasures? Well, according to verse 7, even the bird of keenest eyesight is helpless to spot these precious stones underground. Though the hawk can spot a rabbit from a half mile up and the eagle can pick off a salmon from a rushing river, only man is able to mine for treasure. No beast, including the king of beasts, has the power or prowess to uncover the priceless gems God has placed in the earth’s crust. But the miner, verses 9-11 tell us, “assaults the flinty rock and lays bare the roots of the mountains. He tunnels through the rock; his eyes see all its treasures. He searches the sources of the rivers and brings hidden things to light.”
Verse 11 is probably translated wrongly even by the NIV. The Hebrew literally reads, “He dams up the streams from flowing,” but the translators opted for an ancient variation that seemed to make more sense to them, namely, “He searches the sources of the rivers.” However, the Hebrew makes good sense if one takes into consideration the underground streams which often hinder miners from exploring certain areas. Miners had to learn how to dam up or divert these streams so hidden treasures could be brought to light.
I once talked a friend of mine who had a cabin between Crested Butte and Marble, Colorado, into going with me to explore the old abandoned Ajax mine. For 1200 feet we went back into this shaft, and almost the entire way we were ankle deep in running water. When the water finally gave way to mud and my friend saw a bear track about the size of a dinner plate, he decided that mine had been explored sufficiently and he was out of there! Diverting the water was obviously a major task of the ancient miner.
Well, so far Job has talked of nothing but mining and the amazing human ingenuity in discovering that which he values highly. As to why Job chose mining to demonstrate human cleverness, rather than astronomy or architecture, I do not know. Maybe he was a spelunker like I am. But the fact has been established quite well that of all the creatures on earth, man is the most intelligent and ingenious, and the best equipped to discover the secrets of the earth.
But how does man do when it comes to finding wisdom? Not so good.
Mankind is, nevertheless, powerless to discover wisdom or purchase it. (12-19)
Verse 12 asks and answers the key questions: “But where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell? Man does not comprehend its worth; it cannot be found in the land of the living. The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; the sea says, ‘It is not with me.'” Not only is a man powerless to discover wisdom; he is also unable to purchase it, despite the great wealth he has extracted from the ground. In verses 15-19 a number of precious metals and stones are mentioned, including gold, silver, onyx, sapphires, crystal, rubies, and topaz. I especially like the statement in verse 16 to the effect that wisdom cannot be bought “with the gold of Ophir.” Ophir was a place well-known for its store of gold and precious stones. Its location is unknown today, but it was most likely in southern Arabia. If we were to paraphrase verse 16, it might read this way: “Wisdom cannot be bought with all the gold in Fort Knox.” You can buy an education, you can buy knowledge, you can buy influence and power, but you cannot buy wisdom.
What, then, is Job’s message? Namely, that man’s spectacular success in mining makes his failure to find wisdom all the more remarkable. But perhaps you’re thinking to yourself, “Ah, but I know where wisdom is found—it’s in the Bible. Job was speaking before there was a Bible. In his day it was legitimate to claim that wisdom could not be found. But now we have it.” I don’t think so. Oh, we do have the fullness of divine revelation in the OT and NT, and there’s certainly a sense in which the knowledge of God is more available to us today than to ancient generations. But don’t forget what Job means by “wisdom.” For Job, wisdom is “the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.”
Such understanding is not routinely available anywhere in the land of the living, because only an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent person could consistently grasp it. Take Job’s own case, for example. Though a blameless and upright man who feared God and shunned evil, Job is suffering terribly. He has lost his wealth, his ten children have all died, his health is gone, and he has no idea why. God ultimately has a high and noble purpose for allowing Job to suffer (we know that from the first two chapters). But Job doesn’t know that purpose. He and his three “friends” are helpless in fathoming God’s purpose.
More importantly, if God were to sovereignly disclose to Job what the purpose was, that very disclosure would defeat the purpose. Do you understand why I say that? Job is suffering because God is trying to prove to Satan (and to us) that it is possible for a believer to trust Him no matter what. If Job knew what the test was for, it would no longer be a legitimate test. It was his faith in the face of the unknown that proved the point.
Job and his friends have debated for three rounds and for many hours, and they are no closer to the truth than they were at the beginning. Oh, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar may think their wisdom has solved the enigma, but Job knows they haven’t. And he knows he can’t explain it either. Nor are we able today, even with the Bible to aid us, to explain the suffering of this terrible flood and decipher exactly what God is up to. Wisdom seems to remain out of reach even for Christians much of the time.
Is it all a hopeless quest, then? Is Job’s theme the theme of an agnostic or a skeptic? No. Mankind may be powerless to discover wisdom or purchase it, …
But mankind can experience practical wisdom as he looks to its source, which is God. (20-28)
I choose the word “experience” carefully. Job is not about to tell us that a person can ever fully comprehend wisdom. There are always going to be unfathomable enigmas in the human condition. Yet something of God’s wisdom in a practical vein is available to us as we search out its source, not in mine shafts, but in God Himself. Job opens this last section of the chapter by telling us where wisdom can’t be found, but then he moves quickly to tell us the good news that …
Wisdom is known perfectly by the Creator. (20-27). “Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell? It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, concealed even from the birds of the air. Destruction and Death say, ‘Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.’ (But) God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells, for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When he established the force of the wind and measured out the waters, when he made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm, then he looked at wisdom and appraised it; he confirmed it and tested it.”
His point seems to be that if you can’t have something that is extremely valuable, the next best thing is to be close to someone who does have it and can let you in on the benefits of it. God has perfect wisdom. We do not have such wisdom but as we draw close to God, we can enjoy some of the benefits of His wisdom.
But exactly how does God impart those benefits to His children? Not the way many Christians suppose. Let me use two examples that shed some light on the nature of God’s wisdom and our relation to it. Suppose you were present at the great Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and had a front row seat along the curb on Fifth Avenue near Times Square. As the parade began you would see pass in front of you the marching bands, the giant balloons, the prancing horses, more balloons, flowered floats, and more balloons. Hour after hour you would sit there wondering what is coming next, forgetting what the order was originally, wondering why Mickey Mouse comes after Miss Piggy, and other great philosophical issues.
But then suppose you were invited to the top of the World Trade Center with the organizer of the parade. There, stretched out along three miles of city streets you could see the entire parade. The organizer explains to you that there is a band every 1500 feet, that the balloons are scattered along the route rather than bunched up because of the time it takes to fill them with helium. The entire parade, which seemed to have no rhyme or reason from the curb now looks like a beautifully designed necklace draped along the city streets. Job is telling us in verses 23 & 24 that God is on top of the World Trade Center. He views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. It’s all a beautiful mosaic to Him.
Another illustration I like to use is that of a beautifully woven Persian rug. The poet John Keats wrote, “a thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and a Persian rug is a thing of beauty. But only if one views it from the top. If you turn it over and look at the bottom you only catch the vaguest semblance of order and beauty—mostly you see chaos, loose ends, confused colors. Job is telling us that God sees the universe and everything that happens as though He were viewing a Persian rug from the top.
Now the mistake many of us make is that we accept all this as true in respect to the unbeliever, but feel somehow that when a person becomes a Christian (or at the very least when he studies his Bible), he is allowed to join God in the Penthouse of the World Trade Center and is now allowed to view the Persian rug from the top side. That is not what the Bible teaches, in my opinion. God is not normally in the business of giving His children special insight into His plan and purpose for the universe. More often than not, according to the Book of Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job and various passages elsewhere, He leaves us in the dark.
Well isn’t that a kick in the teeth? Man cannot discover wisdom, God has perfect wisdom, but most of the time He refuses to share it with us. Where does that leave us? Well, says Job in the last verse,…
Wisdom is available to mankind as he learns to fear the Lord and shun evil. The wisdom man receives in this way will not be the full wisdom of God; instead, it will be a derived wisdom, a practical wisdom which enables him to see just enough of God’s ends and means that he can cope with the unanswered questions. As one writer put it, “What is this wisdom that God gives? It is not a sharing in all His knowledge, but a disposition to confess that He is wise, and to cleave to Him and live for Him in the light of His word through thick and thin.” And that gives us at least a hint as to what it means to fear the Lord.
The concept of the fear of the Lord is one which has puzzled many Christians. The word “fear” at times conveys the notion of terror, but fear can also mean “awe or reverence,” and this is the most frequent usage in relation to God. The one who “fears” the Lord refrains from treating Him as common or ordinary but rather worships Him as the almighty, infinite, omniscient and omnipotent Sovereign and Lord. This kind of fear is almost always connected with piety and righteous living.
Let’s examine some of the verses that speak of the fear of the Lord. Ps. 111:10 reads, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.” The exact same statement is made in Prov. 9:10, and again with very slight changes in Prov. 1:7 and Prov. 15:33. What these verses are saying to us is that without a proper awe and reverence and respect for God, and without obedience to His commandments, wisdom is unavailable to humans. It’s out of reach.
The reason for that should not be too difficult to grasp. Remember, God is the only one in the Penthouse; the only one who consistently views the rug from the top side. Our ability to grasp even a fleeting glimpse of His purposes depends entirely upon our relationship with Him. As we draw near to Him, He will give us just enough insight to cope. The Apostle Paul had what he called a thorn in the flesh, and God kept him in the dark about it even though he prayed three times to have it removed. God didn’t remove it, but upon reflection Paul decided that at the very least God was using it to keep him humble. That’s wisdom.
Very closely tied to the fear of the Lord is the second prerequisite for wisdom given in verse 28, and that is to shun evil. Prov. 8:13 reads, “To fear the Lord is to hate evil,” and numerous other passages relate the fear of God and right living. The idea seems not to be so much that “God will zap you if you sin” as it is that “true respect for God mandates that we live by His standards.” The wise man will obey the moral law of God because of his love for God, his love for others, and his love for himself.
May I remind you of one very interesting fact? In the very first verse of the Book of Job we were told that Job was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. By the definition of wisdom found in Job 28:28, Job was a wise man. That didn’t mean he knew all the answers, that God had let him into the penthouse, or that he had seen the top side of the Persian rug. As a matter of fact, none of these things was true of Job. But he did know who had the answers and was willing to trust Him. The last two verses of Ecclesiastes sum up this 28th chapter of Job beautifully: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
Conclusion: Do you sometimes wonder what God is up to? Do you question what He’s doing in your life and long to get a better look at the whole parade? Well, join the club. But the only insights you receive may come by way of a simple trust in and obedience to God. Perhaps you are saying, “I want to have that kind of relationship with God, but I don’t know how.” It’s not complicated. He simply asks us to acknowledge our sinfulness and to put our faith and trust in His Son, who died in our place and paid the penalty for our sin. No one deserves your trust more than someone who is willing to die for you. I’m going to offer a sinner’s prayer, and if it expresses the desire of your heart, I encourage you to repeat it silently after me.
Benediction: I Tim. 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen!”
DATE: July 25, 1993
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Wisdom
[i] The entire section of ch. 26-31 claims to be a soliloquy by Job, but some scholars have challenged the right of ch. 28 to stay where it is. They claim it doesn’t fit at all into Job’s complaining mood. So, they have either left it out altogether or moved it to the end of the book. I personally believe it is always a risky venture to rearrange the Scriptures without any manuscript evidence to support the change. Far better to see this poem on wisdom as a unique pearl of truth in a sea of negative verbiage.
[ii] God’s dealings with His creation are perfect, but we cannot recognize them as such unless we know the goal for which He is working. And it is exactly here that many go wrong. They read that “God is love” and wrongfully conclude that God intends a trouble-free life for all, irrespective of their moral and spiritual state. They also conclude that anything painful and upsetting indicates that either God’s omniscience or omnipotence or both have failed. But God’s wisdom is not, and never was, designed to keep a fallen world happy or to make ungodliness comfortable. Not even to believers has God promised a trouble-free life. He has other ends in view than simply to make it easy for everyone.