Job 3
RileyJob 3:1-26
JOB—OR IS BIRTH A ?Job 2:11 to Job 3:26.JOSEPH PARKER calls attention to the fact that Job has made but two speeches since the Book opened. “Both of them are admirable—more than admirable, touching a point to which imagination can hardly ascend in its moral sublimity.” The first is recorded in Job 1:20-21 :“Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,“And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord”.The second is equally as religious as the first and is recorded in Job 2:10, “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil”?Then a long silence ensues. There are times when “silence is golden.” The man who can hold his tongue thereby reveals the most marvelous self-control; and the man who can restrain his speech in the time of suffering is the man to whom God is likely to speak by His Spirit. It has become a proverb among us that if a man cannot say something good it is better to be silent. For seven long, suffering, intolerable days Job illustrated that moral axiom. This is all the more remarkable when we remember that his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar sat around about him, within reach of a whisper. To lose one’s property is sad enough; to see destroyed one’s servants—those with whom he has lived in the most intimate relation, is a bereavement; to bury a single child almost unbearable, but to have ten taken in a single night, and then to say, “Blessed be the Name of the Lord “ is a revelation of the sustaining grace of God.
Let it be understood, however, that the billows of sorrow, rolling in upon the soul, are not so difficult to endure as are those same waves when they recede. At the sea-shore people often successfully breast the incoming white caps, to be caught by an under-tow, carried beyond their depths, and drowned.
Many a man have I heard at the side of the coffin say, “The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the Name of the Lord,” who, a week later, was in so much deeper grief, that he joined with Job in questioning whether birth was a blessing.Permit three statements concerning this question: Satan Creates this Question; Sympathy Complicates this Question; Discouragement Insanely Discusses it.SATAN CREATES THIS He is the author of life’s deepest sorrows. There may be some in this audience who question whether there be any devil. I am unable so to do. When light fades from the earth I shall question whether there be a sun, not before; when love is no more to be found in the universe I shall question whether there be a God, not until then; and when devilishness cannot be discovered among the children of men I shall question whether there be a devil, not until that day. From the standpoint of the Bible, the devil is the author of life’s deepest sorrows. The record in Genesis is the basis for Milton’s statement that“He brought death into the world and all our woe”,while other sentences from this sacred volume charge to his account both sin and sorrow.When Job was smitten in the loss of property, servants and children, Satan is charged with being the author of these successive disasters; and when Job finds himself covered with “sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown” the inspired record says, “So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job” with these same (Job 2:7).Saul, of the Old Testament, behaved as he did, and suffered the consequences, because Jehovah gave him up to the evil spirit which he had encouraged to inhabit his heart.
The average man and woman have no difficulty in believing that where sin produces sorrow Satan is back of it; but they forget that where sickness smites, and sorrows come in consequence, the Scriptures attribute them to the same source. Let the miracles of Jesus Christ instruct us here.
When one brought his dumb son to Jesus what were the words of the Master? “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the Spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out” (Mark 9:25-26). When they brought to Him the bound woman, who for eighteen years had never been able to lift herself up, and by the word of Jesus she was made straight, and glorified God, what is His explanation? “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day”? (Luke 13:16). When the man of Gadara is cured of his insanity, Scripture explains that unspeakable affliction by saying, “Often-times it (the unclean spirit) had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters” (Luke 8:29).What emphasis all this gives to the text, “He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil”, and to the injunction of Peter, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”. Yes, Satan is the author of life’s deepest sorrows.He never suggests a possible profit as a result. From the Divine standpoint, afflictions may, by the over-ruling grace of God, be made to work together for our good.
For the young man or woman facing trials and meeting difficulties and enduring discouragements, it is written, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth”. For believers, the Word is spoken, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations”.
For the enheartenment of his suffering ones God hath said, “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, * * then are ye bastards, and not sons”.But the devil never makes such a suggestion. On the contrary, his thought is voiced in the language of Job,“Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night which said, There is a man-child conceived.“Let that day be darkness; Let not God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine upon it.“Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.“As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it; Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months.“Lo, let that night be barren; Let no joyful voice come therein.“Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan” (Job 3:3-8, A. S. V.)I used to wonder what was meant by this phrase, “Let them curse it that curse the day who rouse up leviathan”, but I find a satisfactory explanation in the fact that “leviathan” is the dragon then supposed by the Orients and Ancients to have had his home in the heavens and to follow the sun and the moon, and to be able, on occasion, to even enfold, or swallow them up, and swing a great darkness over all the earth.
The Eastern magicians pretended to have power to rouse him up to make war upon the sun and moon. When they wanted a curse upon a day they sicked on the dragon that he might extinguish the light.
Job, in his bitterness, joins with them in cursing the day of his birth, for he is under the spell of Satan’s suggestion that sorrow and suffering could produce only baneful results. The sorrow that is from God worketh repentance unto salvation; a repentance which bringeth no regret; but the sorrow of which Satan is the author worketh death. The man, therefore, who is enduring great affliction, and who sees no possible good to come from it, ought to understand perfectly that Satan hath blinded his eyes, that he is the author of all his reasonings.Satan often advises suicide as the solitary escape. Daily some coroner’s jury delivers a decision to the effect that, “This man came to his death by suicide.” It would be more accurate still if they said, “This man came to his death by Satan’s suggestion.” One servant Satan has had who never knew any allegiance to another master, and who never received a suggestion from any other source, namely, Judas Iscariot. Though he lived with Jesus three and a half years, and was treasurer of the little company that made up the embryonic church, there is no indication that anything Jesus ever said influenced him. “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” Satan’s mastery of him was complete. This man sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.
It ostracized him from the companionship of the disciples. Long since he had lost caste with the Jews, and now this position as a man hated by every one, becomes unendurable, and his master suggests a way of escape, and that was the way of self-destruction.
I doubt if any man ever died by his own hand, whether in his mind or out of it, but the devil was there. Shakespeare means to present Hamlet as beside himself when he says: “To be or not to be: that is the question:Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or, to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die; to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heartache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;To sleep; perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause; there’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life:For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumelyThe pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thoughtAnd enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.” THIS God forbid that I should speak a word against sympathy. It is one of the graces of fallen human life; it is one of the loudest hints of our former holy estate. The man without it is either a marvel or a monster. And yet, undoubtedly, it complicates the question as to whether birth is a blessing.It accentuates rather than assuages suffering.
When great grief comes upon people, they bear it with the least fortitude in the sight of their loved ones. The best music is often set to the strain of sympathy and the hearts of the bereaved are not balsamed but broken by the rendition of the same at funerals.
The old heathen custom was to hire mourners whose wailing voices stirred the soul to the depths, and the modern Christian custom is little better, except for the fact that sometimes the words of the music linger with consolation; but the music itself only opens new fountains of feeling and deepens the whole sense of sorrow.Again, sympathy excites the disposition to relate and re-experience the same. When one has lived through a sorrow, and almost lived it down, and then comes face to face with a dear friend, the temptation is to rehearse and live it over again. What child was there ever content to let the wound remain covered after mother came? She must see how deep it is; and while she looks, he must look with her. A man is not a whit different from the child. Not a gash in body or soul but we are tempted to bare it to the gaze of those we trust; and while we are about it we must ourselves suffer the fresh sight.
Did it ever occur to you that this is illustrated by the death of Lazarus? Mary and Martha had laid their brother away, and while doubtless hot tears had scalded their cheeks, it was only when Jesus came that Mary, falling at His feet, was unable longer to restrain herself, and in utter anguish cried, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died”.
Her weeping was such that the Jews who saw her were incited to weep with her; and even Jesus groaned in spirit and was troubled (John 11:32-33).Its expression increases in the sorrowful the feeling of ill-favor. Job could better have borne his grief had not these three men sat about him with sad countenances. It never increases one’s courage to. feel that other people are discouraged, nor relieves one’s sorrow to feel that other people are sorrowful for him. On the contrary, it weakens the will; for the moment, at least, it unmans one. It would be hard to find a more perfect illustration of this fact than Irving’s “Life of Columbus” contains. He tells us, “Moved by envy and sustained by vilest slander, Boladila sent Columbus to Spain in irons.
When the Queen beheld this venerable man and saw all that he deserved, and all that he had suffered, she was moved to tears. Columbus had borne up firmly against the conflicts of the world; he had endured with lofty scorn the injuries and insults of ignoble men; but when he found himself thus kindly received, and beheld tears in the benign eyes of Isabella, his long-suppressed feelings burst forth; he threw himself on his knees, and for some time could not utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbings.” Sympathy will never settle the question as to whether birth is a blessing.
ITDiscouragement magnifies one’s misfortune. It tends to make mountains out of mole hills. Did you ever think of Jonah wanting to die because he had been disappointed in that God did not sweep the city with destruction? That was not a great misfortune; but his grief discouraged him and his life seemed intolerable. Did you ever think of Elijah, under the juniper tree, crying unto God to take his life because a woman had threatened him? It was not a great misfortune—many have experienced the same—and yet his discouraged spirit made him magnify it, and it seemed an occasion worthy of death.
Did you ever think of Haman, going home from the king’s court and suffering the disappointment that Mordecai was not prostrating himself as he passed, and calling his wife and friends, to recount unto them his riches and his honors, and all the things which were done unto him of the King, and adding, “Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself”; then adding the bilious remark, “All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate”? He did not belong with the company of those who can say with Shakespeare’s Duke: “Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court?Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,The season’s difference, as the icy fang And churlish chiding on the winter’s wind,Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say This is no flattery; these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am.’Sweet are the uses of adversity,Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:And this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in everything,I would not change it.’ And Amiens added, and it is true: ‘Happy is your grace,’That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style!”Discouragements minimize our favors. Men easily forget what God has wrought in times past. The yesterdays seem to fade from their view. In this whole malediction of Job’s, recorded in the third chapter, there is not a reference to the riches of the past, when his children were in health and his delight; to the honor given to him by his fellow countrymen, so that he was the greatest of the children of the East. It is all gone out of his mind. I confess to you that I have always admired the Irish because of their ability to make the most of a hard situation.
It is related that one of them, lying in a dead drunk, was heard to say between his hiccoughs and groans, “But I had a mighty good time!” And another, seeing an infuriated bull tossing a man, held his sides with laughter, the thing was so dexterously done. But finally the bull turned his attention to him and gored him mercilessly, and threw him aside.
As he dragged himself to his feet he exclaimed, “I’m glad I laughed when I did, or I wouldn’t have had my laugh at all.” There is hard sense in such a view. Why should a man concentrate his thoughts absolutely on the sorrows of today to forget the joys of yesterday and the possible pleasures of tomorrow?Such discouragement totally discredits God. I call your attention to the fact that whereas Job worshipped God, acknowledged Him as the giver of all good, and even praised His Name in connection with his suffering, and defended His right, having given good, to send something of evil should He desire, now he only names Him to make his maledictions more terrible. It is a practical turning from a praiseful to a profane use of that great word “God,” to use it for curses and not for comfort! No man ever conquered after that manner. A discouraged man is a defeated man.
David seems to have so understood; hence his cry, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance” (Psalms 42:5).You will recall that the man who destroyed Doubting Castle and killed Giant Despair was Mr. Greatheart—the man who best believed in God.
No man will ever conquer Giant Despair apart from the Father. When God set forth for us, by the pen of inspiration, the most wretched state into which a man can come, he speaks of him as “having no hope, and without God in the world”. And when He wants to present the way by which men are saved, He says, “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:24-25). You say you have little hope. Make the most of what you have, and God will grow it. Newman Hall tells the story of a man who had completed a tall chimney and the scaffolding was taken down. They forgot to leave up the ordinary rope by which the superintendent descended.
Discovering that he was on this impossible height with no rope, he became dizzy and seemed about to cast himself down. His little boy rushed to the home and shouted, “Mother, mother, they have forgotten the rope and papa is going to throw himself down.” She paused a moment to think and pray, and rushing to the scene, she cried, “Wait, John! Take off thy stocking; unravel the worsted.” He did so. “Now tie it to a little mortar and lower it carefully.” Down came the thread until it was within reach and seized by one of the watchers. They fastened some string to the thread. “Now pull up.” They fastened the rope to the string. A few seconds and it was in his hand. He is descending; his feet touch the ground, and turning to his wife, he exclaimed, “Thou hast saved me Mary!” Then Hall adds, “The worsted thread was not despised: it drew after it the twine, the rope, the rescue!”Ah, my friend, thou mayest be sunk very low down in sin and woe; but there is a thread at least of Divine love, that comes from the throne of Heaven, and touches even thee.
Seize that. It may be small, but it is golden.
Improve what you have. Walk in the light given and God will grant more, and the day of your redemption will be speedily at hand.