Sermon Tone Analysis

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

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,

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.