Job 10

Job 10:1

Because Job has no mediator, no man to represent him before God, he will just speak in the bitterness of his soul. He is weary of life, and he is going to say exactly how he feels. He is plain and honest about his sad plight and his wretched condition.

Job 10:2

God is going to answer him on this before we are through the book. God is going to show Job something about himself, something that all of us need to find out about ourselves.

Job 10:3

Job cannot understand why he must suffer so while there are wicked men who are not suffering. By the way, that was the problem that confronted David. That is a problem that has confronted me. As a pastor I have wondered sometimes why God would let certain wonderful, godly men suffer while at the same time godless meneven men in the churchseemed to get by with sin. They seem to get by with it for a time, but I notice that in time God deals with these people. Even so, there are times when we all ask this question. You see, this book faces up to the questions of life. It is right down where the rubber meets the road.

Job 10:4

Job bewails his condition and his sad plight. He wonders whether God really sees him in his true condition. Here is another reason that God became a man down here: now I have the assurance that there is a Man in the glory who understands me. Because He was a Man like I am, He knows exactly how I feel. There is not a pulsation that ever entered the human breast that Jesus Christ did not feel when He was here on this earth. My friend, He knows how I feel. He knows how you feel.

Job 10:5

Job now begins to defend himself. He is not willing to admit that there is a great sin in his life. He says that he finds himself in a pretty awkward situation. “God knows that I am not wicked, and yet I cannot get out of His hand. I must go through all thisand I don’t see why I should be put through this.” Job was a man who needed a little humility, and God is going to give him that humility. Have you ever noticed that humility and patience are qualities that God doesn’t hand over to you on a silver platter with a silver spoon for you to lap up? You don’t become humble that way. Patience and humility are fruit of the Holy Spirit produced in your life through trying experiences. God is going to produce both humility and patience in this man Job. In the New Testament we hear about the patience of Job. James writes, “…Ye have heard of the patience of Job,” but he also adds, “and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (Jas_5:11). It wasn’t that Job was naturally a patient manthat quality would have increased his self-confidence and his conceit. Actually Job was not patient. We have seen that his patience broke down, and he is crying out to God in impatience. But when we see the “end of the Lord,” that is, the outcome of the Lord’s dealing with him, then we see that God was making him patient, and God was giving him humility. It is God who does this, you see.

Job 10:19

Job is back at the thing he started with and will stay with it part of the way through this book. During this time of testing, death was something that he desired. He felt that death would put him out of his misery. It would get him away from this scene. He would welcome it as sleep, as something that would put him in a place of unconsciousness. Now if you think you can draw something from this book to sustain the doctrine of soul sleep, you are entirely wrong. Job will say before we get through this book, “For I know that my redeemer liveth …yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job_19:25-26). My friend, this book does not teach soul sleep at all. But at this point, Job is wishing that he had never been born. He wishes for complete oblivion. That is something you can wish for, too. Job was not the only one who did that. Elijah wished it. Jonah wished it.

The only thing is, it won’t do you one bit of good. To wish you hadn’t been born is a complete waste of time. And, by the way, wishing you were dead won’t help either. No one ever died by wishing. I always suspect that most of us who say we wish we were dead don’t really mean it. We are just talking.

When people face death, they really want to live. I suspect that if Job had really faced up to it, he didn’t really mean he wished he were dead either. But right now he is pouring out his soul, and there is a breaking down of the dignity of this man. God is going to need to get through to his heart. A lot of God’s saints today have proud, hard hearts. Sometimes God must deal with us as He dealt with Job.