Job 2:11–3:26 Hopelessness

Woodland Hills Church of Christ

Job: Hopelessness

Job 2:11–3:26

Introduction: Your ten children have all been killed in a tornado. Those who worked your fields are dead. All that you have worked for in your life is gone. You have nothing. Everyone despises you, believing that God has cursed you for your sins. You have no faithful friends, no one that will share your agony. You sit, blackened by the ashes from an ash heap where you sit somewhere in the corner of the city scraping ugly, oozing, loathsome sores that have broken out all over your body, even in your mouth and throat. The pain is intense. And then your wife says to you, “why don’t you just die?” If that isn’t enough, weeks and months pass, and there is no change (7:2-3). Your condition only worsens and your misery increases. There is no sign of an end. Death would be wonderful, but even death is illusive.

We must be careful to not think, “This couldn’t happen to me.”

1. 2:11-13 Preparing for the Discourses
   1. If Job only knew what we know:
      1. Job does not know about Satan and his discussion with God. When we go through a trial we act like we don’t know it either!
      2. In both 1:12 and 2:6 God put restrictions on Satan. As tough as a trial is, it is always comforting to know that God is above Satan and God is in control. Therefore, no matter what we are called upon to endure, we must always live in hope because Satan is not allowed to do anything without the permission of God. When you are in the midst of trial, remember, God is ruling over the trial! Cf. 1 Corinthians 10:13.
      3. We know these things, but when our trial come, we act like we do not know.
   2. Why isn’t the trial over? Job has clearly passed both tests Satan has given him. He lost his children and all that he had, but did not curse God. Then Satan attacked him with loathsome sores and he has withered away, but still will not curse God. In fact, he has rebuked his wife for even suggesting that he renounce God. Why isn’t the trial over? Well, its not over. The worst is yet to come – he isn’t allowed to die, and time will wear him down. –
      1. This is what we forget about a serious trial. Immediately turning to God after the first impact, might be relatively simple for most Christians. But when the trial persists and even worsens, that initial “Blessed be the Lord,” won’t mean much.
      2. The problem we will see with Job is just because he did not renounce God did not mean he was trusting God through the trial. Same with us.
2. 3:1-26 Cursing the Day of His Birth
   1. Summary of Job’s Introductory Speech:
      1. 1-10: Let the day I was born perish!
      2. 11-19 Why did I have to survive birth? At least in the grave there will be rest.
      3. 20-26 Why is life given to a person who is suffering in misery.
   2. Job does not address anyone specifically. He is not talking to his friends or to God; he is venting his inner feelings. This complaint sets up the responses by the friends. Note: it is Job who breaks the silence. If Job had confessed sins and bemoaned some unrighteousness in his life, the friends would likely have helped him. But because he complains about being alive, they will attack him, and at times do so brutally.
   3. Job expresses the true impact of a serious trial: a recognition that all hope is gone. Note that what Satan has done is not reversible. He will never have his children back, and with the terrible illness he has, in his mind it is certain that he will never regain anything that he has lost. If he doesn’t die, he is doomed to lifelong misery, despair, and the disdain of all around him.
   4. Job’s words also communicate his mental condition after months of suffering. Now we are seeing the greater part of the trial, which increases our learning curve on what to expect in our trials. Job does not complain about the loss of his children or the loss of his possessions. We are hearing the mental pain of a man who is at the breaking point. Have you been there? We say to ourselves, “I don’t think I can do this any more.” We are utterly defeated.
   5. 1:1-10 Cursing the day of his birth. Is there a day or month of the year that you always remember because of a life-changing incident that rocked your world? From that time on, every year you remember, today was the day. For Job, it was the day he was born. A day that was a time of joy and rejoicing for his parents but a day he wishes was removed from the calendar. Let’s treat it as February 30! Look at his curse…
      1. The day he was conceived and day he was born (3)
      2. Both the light and the darkness – the daylight and nighttime (4-6)
      3. May the day be barren and never produce anything again (7)
      4. May the stars never come out so that the day doesn’t exist (9)
      5. Why didn’t that day “shut the doors to my mother’s womb!” (10)
   6. Job’s exasperation toward the day of his birth and wishing it never existed in so many ways that it is almost humorous. “Let it not come into the number of months…let no joyful cry enter it…let the stars be dark and hope for light, but have none!” Relate? Why did that day ever come?!
   7. In other words, if this is what my life must be, what was the point of being born? This existence is beyond reason. If you have never faced a really bad trial, it is difficult to relate to wishing you weren’t born.
   8. In 1:11-26 Job takes the complaint to another level:
      1. First, notice that in this section Job’s complaint focuses on why? Verses 11-12, 16, 20, 23. The question indicates the confusion Job has over the trial. His whole universe and his perception of God and how God operates in the world has been turned upside down.
      2. Consider this question of “why.” The question seems to say, “Life must have some purpose, otherwise why should life be given to any human being? And if life is given, and misery and bitterness of soul leave one without hope, why would that one not be allowed to die?
   9. Verses 24-26 Job gives the reasons for his despair
      1. Notice verse 24. This is the second time Job has mentioned God in his speech (4). However, in each case Job does not speak directly to God, but speaks about God. But there is a clear complaint about God in this verse. God has hedged him in making it impossible for him to escape the trial, specifically allow him to die!
      2. Verse 25 reveals more of Job’s thinking: “For the thing I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.” In other words, this has been his worst nightmare. When we compare God’s commendation of Job, we can see that Job’s good life, though we later know is out of love for God, carried with it an expectation that a relationship with God also carried the benefit protection from bad trials – an obvious similarity to Satan’s accusation.
      3. The key to this response is universal: it is a cry for justice and fairness. Shouldn’t life deliver fairness? Shouldn’t God order the world with justice?
3. Lessons
   1. Can you relate to Job’s initial response of desiring death? If you were in his condition, would that thinking be reasonable? “Please let me die!” Consider that others who were faithful had this response:
      1. Elijah: “Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.” (1 Kings 19:1–5 ESV)
      2. Moses: “Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.” (Numbers 11:10–15 ESV)
   2. Now think biblically. Is death an appropriate desire? Is it a godly desire?
      1. Therefore, remember this! In the midst of the worst trials is when the same thoughts of Job enter your mind. These are not suicidal thoughts. Job is not interested in taking his own life, though that may have been what his wife was urging (“Curse God and die”). No, it is Job’s complaint against life. Why would this be dished out on him and yet not be allowed to die? In other words, what a waste! I’m of no use to myself or anyone else.
      2. When your trial comes, you may commiserate with Job in this chapter.
   3. Notice the essence of Job’s desire for death. It is that he would have rest and peace (vs. 13, 17, 26). What is the problem with this? Nothing wrong with desiring rest and peace! Job is not cursing or renouncing God. However, this is an illustration of what happens when the pain of a trial is so intense that all we can think about is relief.
      1. When escaping pain swallows us up and dominates our thinking [which is exactly what happens in severe trials], we begin to look for and demand any path possible to end the suffering.
      2. In this condition, we will typically fall into one of two sins and possibly both:
         1. We are vulnerable to simply choose sin in order to find a brief escape from the agony of the moment. Job refuses to do this.
         2. Or, because we are so completely focused on our own agony and the unfairness of what is happening (especially compare to others!), we forget the purposes of God in the trial and the trust we ought to have that God loves us and is reigning in this trial.
         3. You will notice that Job says nothing about God as a rescuer or comforter in the trial. Further, Job says nothing of the good days that he had prior to his trial. It is as if the trial has swallowed up everything that was before it. Death seems to be his answer to everything about his plight, and yet he has certainly exaggerated death’s benefits.
   4. Final message of chapter 3: What has the trial caused Job to do? He has been forced to rethink the purpose of his life and rethink his position in the presence of God and his relationship with God. The other day, the thermostat in my house began to act up. Now who thinks about their thermostat? As long as it turns the heat and air on and off and maintains the desired temperature setting, I just figure its going to keep doing that forever! And it does…until it doesn’t.
      That is our life. We think our life is going to keep repeating the day before like clockwork. And when it doesn’t, confusion and panic reigns. Daily annoyances, we deal with, but when our lives explode with loss, pain, and confusion, it rocks our world and confusion takes over. We are literally lost as in a deep forest with no directions on how to survive. That’s why we prepare.

Berry Kercheville

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