Sermon 42, Job 11:1-6
Babbling.
Prattling.
Loquacious.
Zophat makes his first response and accuses Job of being overly verbose. Calvin makes great use of this idea to present how men explain themselves and seek salvation in their own merits.
I have been watching many self help videos on YouTube. In fact, my algorithm now only suggests self help videos with a very scant spattering of gardening videos and Bible/Calvin videos.
I watch Ryan Holliday on Stoicism, Arthur Brooks on Happiness, Drs. Attia and Huberman on health. And others. I watch these videos to improve my life and, I think, be a better person. There is, upon reflection, some belief that if I can follow their advice then I will achieve some improvement. From that improvement other people, and maybe God, might be impressed with me and think well of me.
However, there is a problem. It’s all babble. Calvin takes Zophar’s statement and admonishes us that babble is always some intention, some angle, to diminish God’s work through Jesus. The truth is that I have no standing before God and hence no claim to perfection. But here is the bigger point, there is nothing I can do to change that. I can’t fix myself. And to believe or hope that I can is babbling and a waste of my time.
So to improve I have to use the authority of the Bible and hope that God will allow me to read it in such a way that I really apply it to myself. That I don’t go through the motions, it isn’t an academic exercise or a competition about fun facts, or geography, or history. It’s about my relationship with God.
“Therefore, let us learn that there is no firm or well-founded teaching acceptable to God except the teaching that debases men, that they have nothing to boast of, which, in brief, confounds them so that they have no other refuge but in God’s pure goodness and mercy.”
With Scripture “God did not intend to feed our curiosity or tickle our ears, but that he intended to build up our souls, which is what we need.”
I have to really internalize how, through the Bible, God is revealing himself to me. And that I must use this to find my own sins and then thank God for his grace. I really mean this.