The Cry of a Soul that Craves Darkness
Job • Sermon • Submitted
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· 19 viewsTimes of trouble should cause you to turn to God. Will you turn to God in faith or in sin?
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This is a difficult chapter that we approach this morning. As Tim and I were talking about this passage and the service plan a while back, I asked what he thought about not having any songs for this Sunday. Now, that is by no means because I don’t like singing! Rather, there are times in life when singing just feels wrong in our very soul. The heaviness of life presses down, and instead of a phrase like, “How can I keep from singing?” Our hearts are saying, “I cannot do it! I cannot sing even if I tried!”
Now clearly, we did not go the route of nixing songs for this morning, but it is important as we turn to this passage in Job, Job chapter 3, that we understand very clearly that there was no singing going on in Job’s heart. But what was going on? We now enter the part of the book where Job is no longer minced in his words. He no longer keeps to short statements. But as he starts to speak more, we now have the beginning of a difficult task that will continue for most of the rest of the book. How do we interpret what is happening?
I can give you an outline of the passage and say what happens here in , and I plan to do that. But the more difficult task is how to see what Job does here. In other words, is this sinful speech, or right speech, or a mixture of the two? So I would ask you to consider that question as I proceed to read the chapter.
Just before reading, there are two main sections to this chapter. The first goes down through verse 10, and it shows Job’s curse. The second goes from verse 11 through the end of the chapter, and it shows Job’s lament. Within these two sections, the end verses are very important, for they show Job’s reasons for what he says previously. So don’t miss verses 10, 24-26.
Please listen carefully then as I read aloud.
You will experience times of trouble during life. Those times of trouble should cause you to turn to God. Will you turn to God in faith or in sin? Now, before I explain my overall understanding of this passage, I would like to turn to a couple later passages in Job. and
And the Lord said to Job: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” Then Job answered the Lord and said: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”
Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.
Why do I read these passages? Well there two truths, among others, that come together towards the end of the book. I think both truths apply to how we should understand Job’s words in chapter three. These are the two truths: Job repents after God speaks, and God says that Job spoke what is right about God himself. Now, the natural question is, “How can both of those things be true?” Now, again, this is jumping ahead into the story, but Job spoke rightly about God himself. Where did he go wrong then? He called God to answer for what he had done to Job. He wanted an explanation. So God responds with over 70 questions for Job to show him that he is entering a realm in which he has no right to be. It is about calling God to answer for his actions that Job repented, I believe.
As our study goes on week by week, we will have opportunity to see the case that Job starts to build against God, calling for him to enter the conversation. But this week we see merely the beginning of Job’s cry of anguish and grief—and it is this part that is perhaps the most understandable. Job wishes he didn’t exist—that way he wouldn’t hurt as he was hurting. And he wonders why he has to experience such trouble that doesn’t even make sense. He wonders why he was allowed to exist if this is how his life is to end. In our limited ways we can see how Job ends up saying what he does here. But this passage is not here merely for a history lesson. We don’t have only so that we know what Job said as he cursed the day of his birth.
So we should ask, “Was this right of Job to say these things?” Here is what one commentator said, “But if Job had sinned in his first speech, there would be no debate. His frequent claims of innocence would be sheer mockeries. Though Job approaches the bring of cursing God, he does not. Instead he vents the venom of his anguish by wishing that he were dead. He survives his darkest hour, since he neither curses God nor takes his fate into his own hands” (John Hartley, 101). Now, God longs to hear the cries of his children during their times of deep grief. That is most certainly true. But this quote brings up something specific that I believe this passage helps us with, and that is venting. What is the right way to deal with anguish? Was he right in how he dealt with his anguish, his loss, his trouble, and his lack of rest? This is the question I want to bring before us this morning and come back to at the end.
As we look at this passage, once again, there are two main sections. (1) Job’s Creation-Reversing Curse (1-10), and (2) Job’s Trouble-Caused Lament (11-26). Now, as this is 26 verses long, I will not be looking to explain each verse in detail. But we will try to understand what is happening in the passage, this chapter’s place in the book, the meaning of the chapter, and its significance for today. So if I leave a question of yours unanswered, you are more than welcome to ask me about it some other time, but I want to make sure we hit the most important issues with this poetic text.
I have taken a long time to get to the text. Let’s not dally any more now and dig right in!
Job’s Creation-Reversing Curse — 3:1-10
Introduction — 3:1-3. We need not doubt what to call this speech from Job. It was a curse. Although his words turn more to a lament starting at verse 11, he is cursing here the very fact that he was born. More specifically, he curses, as verse 3 says, the day “on which I was born,” as well as the night that he was conceived. He then specifically curses his birthday in verses 4-5 and the night of his conception in verses 6-9. As we look at these verses, watch how many things Job wants to go backwards. You will see it time and again, whether from light to dark or alive to dead, he is longing for things to go in reverse.
Job curses his birthday — 3:4-5. In , God said, “Let there be light!” Here Job says the opposite, “Let that day be darkness!” By, “May God above not seek it,” Job is likely asking God to remove his supervision of it, allowing it to fall into darkness. His terminology in verse 5 makes it abundantly clear that he wants the day shrouded in darkness. When “blackness” terrifies the day, that means that night wins and day never arrives.
Job curses the night of his conception — 3:6-9. But Job is not content merely to curse his birthday. No, he also curses the night of his conception. Both his birthday and this night should have been times of rejoicing for his parents, yet once again, Job is seeking to reverse things.
With the night, Job is not seeking just for it to be dark on that night. He wants that night obliterated, swallowed up in thick darkness so that it instead becomes a barren night so that no sounds of joy would be made.
Then we come to verse 8—did this verse stand out to you? Leviathan comes up later in the book of Job, and I plan to deal with this creature more during one of those times, but for now I can at least say that this powerful creature probably represented chaos. The lack of order. I’m not sure if this verse is helpful or not, but says,
In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Job also does not want any signs of the morning to be present during this night. Some of the brightest lights that announce the coming day, Venus and Mercury, are to remain dark. Let the night stay in blackness with no signs of the coming dawn appearing. “…let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning.” What a terrible statement!
Job gives his reason — 3:10. Why is Job pronouncing such a curse against this day and this night? Verse 10 shows us. Because he was born, and now the trouble is too much. If he had not been born, then he would not have known the pain that he is now suffering.
This word for “trouble” is a significant term in the book. Eliphaz wastes little time in using it as he says in and then in
As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.
For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.
Job uses the term again in (translated “misery”) when he says,
so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
Zophar tells Job that if he repents, ,
You will forget your misery; you will remember it as waters that have passed away.
In Eliphaz says,
For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of bribery. They conceive trouble and give birth to evil, and their womb prepares deceit.”
And then Job replies with a statement I have already mentioned before and will probably mention again in the coming weeks, ,
“I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.
So needless to say, his friends here verse 10 loud and clear and proceed to offer their solutions when they speak later. But within this third chapter of Job, we see Job lamenting his trouble and subsequent lack of rest. It is to his lament that we turn soon.
But first, consider just for a moment the result of this curse. What did it produce? We would probably call it a rant, though it is indeed a curse. These shocking words, and the ones soon to follow, bring about round after round of “counsel” from his friends. They are concerned, and for good reason! Job’s grief does not lesson, and his trouble does not disappear. And frankly, if one of our friends was saying something like this, we would be concerned as well!
But was it right for him to curse like this? The distinction between Job cursing the day of his birth and Job cursing the God who gave him life is very, very small. Could these statements be considered statements made in faith? Could they be considered statements that glorify God? By no means do I desire to be the one reviewing Job’s pain-induced statements with a fine toothed comb from my ivory tower, but this is an important question. It bears significance for how we handle that which hurts us and confuses us. We must not overlook this question: does Job honor God in how he handles his grief here?
**********The parallel to the creation account—should that go somewhere?**********
Job’s Trouble-Caused Lament — 3:11-26
Why did he not die at birth? — 3:11-15 Job now launches into questions that have to do with him questioning why he was permitted to live at birth. Job is not the only believer to do this in the Bible. is also hard to read.
Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?
Why did he live to see the light of life? — 3:16-19
Being born, received on someone’s knees, and then nursing seems to be a progression of the parents accepting and caring for a newborn child. In his current state of grief, Job wishes he had died during this time instead of being cared for. Then he would have been able to lay down, have quiet, sleep and be at rest. That he would see dying as an infant as a positive thing shows how far Job is trying to reverse things surrounding his life.
Later in the book Job regains a right way of looking at the realm of the dead. show us this.
before I go—and I shall not return— to the land of darkness and deep shadow, the land of gloom like thick darkness, like deep shadow without any order, where light is as thick darkness.”
But in , we get a picture of just how grief-stricken Job is, that he would see death in such a positive way. Perhaps one thing that helps him in this moment view the realm of the dead in such a way is that other powerful people of the past also populate this realm. Kings, counselors, and princes are there as well—people who did great deeds and possessed great riches.
Why did he live to see the light of life? — 3:16-19 Job’s next question shows he would rather have been a stillborn child. Now, if you are still having trouble seeing Job as going too far in what he says, consider this question in verse 16. Does not your very nature tell you that this question is wrong? This is all the more difficult of a question when we consider the millions of children in this very nation who were not naturally stillborn but were murdered before having ever seen the light. There is something very unnatural about Job’s question in verse 16. God has made us by our very nature to protect human life. And here Job wishes he had been stillborn. What a heavy question that he asks—and this shows how heavy and unwanted a burden life itself is for Job.
Those who no longer see the light—those who are dead—cease from troubling and are at rest. But this isn’t all that Job says. No, he even envies the wicked here, for it is the wicked who cease from troubling! Again, Job is longing for the reversal of how God has made things, and he is not currently seeing things as they really are. This is not an accurate picture of what death brings! Former prisoners are at ease together, and the slave is free of the master. Death is not the great liberator, yet Job is giving voice to such thinking in this passage.
Why do any troubled souls see the light of life? — 3:20-22
By comparing verse 16 with verse 20, we see that “light” is a reference to living, to being alive. Job questions aloud why it is those who are miserable, who are bitter in soul, who are alive. In positive terms he describes their longing for death—even going so far as to say that they search for death even more than they would search for a hidden treasure!
As I read verse 22 I want to ask Job, “Do these people with bitter souls really rejoice exceedingly when they die?” Yet in his grief-stricken state, Job believes this to be true. Perhaps here is helpful.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.
Yet Job sees nothing worth waiting for. He desires death. He desires an end to his grief, and he thinks that the grave is his solution. If your thoughts echo Job’s here, please listen. This is important. Death is not something to seek out. It is not a treasure that you should worship. It is not a time of exceeding joy. Your mind might tell you these things, and maybe there are even others who in their state of being deceived give you this message, but it is wrong. God created Adam and Eve to live, not to die. To know Jesus Christ is to have eternal life—it is to have true life from God. Jesus himself said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life...” Elsewhere he says, in , “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” If you are thinking that death looks awfully good right now, please, I urge you, come talk to one of us afterward. Let us show you how God gives hope to the hopeless and life to those who previously did not know him.
Why does God hide direction from those who see the light of life? — 3:23
And now verse 23 shows how much Job’s life itself has been reversed. Satan claims in that God had put a hedge of protection and blessing around Job’s life—though Job knew nothing of this conversation that God had with Satan. Now in 3:23 Job uses this word negatively to show how God was trapping him. His way is hidden, and he continues in this miserable state of life, not knowing why life has turned so trouble-filled. God is keeping him from any escape from his situation. He cannot get out, and to follow the picture a bit more, help cannot get in to him. And who has done this to Job? “…whom God has hedged in?” He has gone from saying, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (1:21) to “Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?”
And, let me be careful to say, God has indeed carefully overseen this testing of Job. Satan is the tool that is striking God’s servant. Yet that tool could do nothing against Job without God’s permission. And God gave that permission. Job, God’s servant, is hurt and frustrated. He is mourning even as his physical body is wracked in pain. His words here of God are not necessarily wrong, but neither are they his attempt to draw near God in faith. Which direction is he moving: toward or away from God?
The cause of Job’s lament — 3:24-26
says,
I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
The same word for “moaning” is behind the word “sighing” in verse 24. uses the same word for “groaning” in our passage when it says,
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.
Job never wanted to be here. He took steps to keep himself from coming to this point of grief and loss. He feared that this might happen, and he served God as he knew was right. Yet, here he is. Dread befalls him. “I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.”
Have you ever enjoyed blessings from God’s hand, or tried to enjoy them while yet fearing that someday those blessings, whether people or things, might someday be gone? Job had that fear too. And here, his fear has become reality. Rest and enjoyment are gone. He sees no way of going back to those blessings. Trouble comes, consuming his view. He sees nothing else.
Conclusion
If this were merely a lesson on , perhaps we would close our Bibles, thinking, “I am glad I am not Job,” pray, sing, and go home, wishing that this week’s message had been a bit more upbeat. But I had posed a question at the beginning, and these times are not merely for filling our heads with more facts about Biblical texts. The meaning of this passage is fairly straightforward: Job cursed the day of his birth and the night of his conception while questioning why he continued to live. But what is the significance? Why does this matter for God’s people today? Now that question is more difficult to answer. But sometimes the difficult questions are the most important.
Was Job right in how he dealt with his anguish? That’s a hard question! I want to be careful in how I proceed here, but we really should interact with this hard question. And to be careful, I will answer it indirectly. Consider where this questioning led to for Job. He has much more yet to say in this book, but listen to , one of the last statements he makes before his words are ended and God later speaks. Here is what Job says later.
Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!
So the questions that he asks in , believe, remained and later led him to call God to account. He was not running to God only in faith. That faith was mixed, I think, with an attitude that believe God owed him something of an answer.
Now in , his thinking was highly emotional, and none of us stand here to fault him for his great grief. But even here he is bothered deeply that he does not understand why his life is so bad. He doesn’t understand why trouble has come upon him and his family. And that later turns into an attitude that starts to make a demand of God. That attitude is not good. It is wrong. Was Job right in how he dealt with his anguish? I would say his reaction in was natural and dangerous. Natural in that grief was overwhelming him. Dangerous in that even here he is starting to lash out at God.
In a rather helpful and convicting article entitled, “Anger at God,” David Powlison says this, “When we don’t get what we want from another person, what is our normal reaction? Anger. The same is true between us and God.” To help us normalize anger and see what demands we are making of God, he offers three questions for the reader to answer: “Which of your expectations have been met with disappointment? What demands are you making of life—of God—that are not being answered? Which of your firm beliefs is God contradicting?”
Now, see how often Job uses terms related either to “trouble” or “rest” in this passage. Then read verse 25. Job had been looking to God for protection and rest. All he has now is trouble. And he doesn’t like it one bit.
Powlison hones in on some wrong advice about anger. One thing people might say is that anger is neither good nor bad. Yet amoral anger does not exist biblically. Anger is either right or wrong. He also mentions the advice to vent your anger at God. Yet how are we to justify anger towards God? That is a sin! It is something we must confess! Rather let God’s people recognize, albeit imperfectly for sure as we deal with raw emotions at times and the weight of loss and grief, that perhaps the very trouble we experience at times is from our loving Father who is revealing to us yet another idol that we treasure or yet another way that we view him wrongly. Job had to learn this, and we at times do as well.
To close, I am going to read from Lamentations 3.
Lamentations passage!