Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, and spread its wings toward the south? Does the eagle mount up at your command, and make its nest on high? On the rock it dwells and resides, on the crag of the rock and the stronghold. From there it spies out the prey; its eyes observe from afar. Its young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there it is.” (Job 39:26-30)

The Birds Of God

Job was learning a valuable but hard lesson. To contend with the Creator and Maker of all things is to experience the wrath of a jealous God. Throughout the travail of Job’s experience of losing everything including his children, admonished by his wife to curse God and die and then to endure the hounding of three friends who comforted the righteous man with their stinging rebukes of divine judgment upon his sinful life, Job faced an angry God who came to him out of a whirlwind demanding an answer why he was rebuking the Lord God Almighty. It was almost more than Job could bear. There was sympathy for the plight of Job but he had forgotten who was in charge of the world and everything in it. In His rebuke of Job, God reminded Job of his place in the order of creation and how the Lord sustained everything in the world by His mighty power.

One of the evidence of the existence of God is found in creation. The sun rises and sets according to divine law, not the will of man. The animals were formed by the hand of God and serve His divine will. For example, the hawk and the eagle fly through the heavens as the Lord created them and designed them to endure great heights. In the busy pursuit of life, most men take little notice of the birds of the sky. Wrapped up in their world of human gain and profit, most men go through life ignoring the evidence of the Creator that fills the sky. Who made the hawk and the eagle to perch on lofty heights, and to pass through the heavens at incredible speeds with eyesight far beyond the ability of man to see? God is asking Job to stop and consider the birds of the heavens. Did the wisdom of man make them and cause them to be the regal birds of prey? Nothing man has done testifies to the majesty of the hawk and the eagle. So how can man contend with God? Job has no answer.

The pride of man to contend with God is a futile attempt of a creature formed a little lower than the angels to stand taller than his Maker. From the beginning when Satan tempted Eve he first attacked the authority of God to deceive her to believe she was smarter than her Maker. She was wrong as was Adam. They both learned God still controlled the world and were expelled from the garden. Every attempt through the history of men trying to build towers to the heavens has been met with the mighty hand of their Maker, Creator, and Judge. Nations rise and fall but God still rules. Plagues sweep the world and generations come and go and life continues because everything is held together by the word of God. Man can’t destroy the world. No nation will rule the world and no man will become the world-wide tyrant. The hawk and the eagle remind humanity of who is in charge.

Uncertainty fills the hearts of a world overshadowed by a virus, political chicanery, civil unrest, and economic fears of what tomorrow will bring. There is a concern for how the church of the Lord will come out of these trials. One of the major impacts of the society of masks is how it has unmasked many weaknesses in the lives of God’s people and the local congregation. History will not be kind to this generation as they face the trials of life that have been common since Eden. It may do well to spend time outside looking at the birds of the sky how they neither plant seed, harvest nor store food in barns, and yet they are cared for. Does the hawk fly by my wisdom and does the eagle mount up at my command? No. I know who commands the birds and I know I am of greater value than the birds. God will take care of me. I will not contend with the One who made me. I will glory in His love and His grace.