Job 3 "Cries From The Pit of Despair"

Christ’s Prophetic Office and the Catechism Prayer

Alright, so, if you guys want to read the answer together with me, please do.

Alright, Christ executes the office of a prophet in revealing to us by his word and spirit the will of God for our salvation.

So that he reveals to us who God is and what his will is, right? And how does he do that? How does he reveal to us the plan of salvation? By his word, by the Bible, right? And by his, remember about this in the adventure club, what we talked about, the holy spirit.

So by his spirit, by his word and spirit, he reveals to us the will of God for our salvation. And that's how Christ does that. People, alright, can I pray for you guys? Alright. Dear Jesus, we pray that you go on to the next chapter.

As you said, a lot of little ones come to you. And that's what I'm hearing. And so, dear all the little ones, let's pray. We pray that in your work, that you are working hard by your spirit, by the word of your spirit.

And here, I hope that you work on what you're doing. That you will save the lives of some of the young people that may be born again. And that they will have a better life for you. We thank you for them.

And in Jesus' name we all pray, amen. Amen. Alright guys, bye-bye.

He's crazy.

Hey, hey, come sit down.

Good job, buddy.

Hey, here, come sit down.

Good job, all of you.

Still one of my favorite parts of church is just seeing those kids. That word catechism is those orthodox Christian doctrines in the form of question and answers. And so that's what catechism means. That's what these kids are learning is the foundational beliefs that each one of us should hold to as believers in Christ.

And so that's remarkable. Today we're going to be in Job chapter 3. So, start making your way there today.

Job chapter 3. Job chapter 3.

As you're making your way there, let us go ahead and begin with a word. I would ask, Lord, as we read this text and we hear the words of a father who has lost everything, Lord. Almost everything. Lord, a father that in his physical life has now lost his family, his possessions, and even his health, Lord, in this text.

Lord, when we consider this, God, I would ask that you would bring to reminding to ourselves that we have something that cannot ever be taken away from us, Lord, and that is you as our rock of our salvation, Lord.

So, God, may in the solemnness of this text, may it be also turned with a hope of a future with you forever, Lord. God, let that be present on our mind as we read this text. And may you be glorified in the reading, the preaching, the singing, and the worship this day.

And we ask this in your name, Jesus.

Job chapter 3.

Job’s Lament Over the Day of His Birth

I will be completely honest with you this morning. This week as I was preparing for today and looking over Job chapter 3, my wife and I, we were sitting at our kitchen table. And I got done reading the text and thinking on it.

And I looked up to my wife and I said, Emily, I don't even know what I'm going to preach on with this text. And she was like, Brayden, what do you mean by that?

What do you mean when you, what are you getting at?

And I was like, let me just read it for you. And I read it and she said, oh, I don't know what you're going to say on this. You might be asking, what are you getting at? What are you getting at, Pastor Brayden?

Why would you say that you don't know what to say on Job chapter 3? Brothers and sisters, in my short life that I have had so far and the time of being a firefighter and a pastor, one of the most difficult and burying things to deal with is to hear the cries of loved ones who are gripping on to those who have fallen asleep.

This is a truth that many of us have seen in our lives and have felt with our own loved ones when we felt that mourning and grief of losing somebody that is near and dear to us. And so even for myself to hear and see these things on a somewhat frequent and regular basis, when I read through this text, it is one that vivid pictures of actual mourning in life come to my mind, and it is a text that is beyond difficult to read.

So today what my plan to do is we're going to read this text. It's 26 verses all here that we're going to read, and we're going to let a lot of it just sink in for what it's saying to us in here. And I want to remind us of some things that have happened to Job.

Job, in the previous text, just turn to chapter 2 with me here shortly. I want to remind you to what has gone on. So in the previous text, in chapter 2, Job has received from Yahweh, ultimately, these boils on his flesh.

These boils that are making him beyond just an immense pain, and the picture of this man, Job, that we have here is one of desolation, of a man that is sitting in ashes, a man that is scraping himself with the clay pots that have broken, and he's itching himself in this way.

You can almost imagine the grotesque picture that would be. I mean, think about it today. You might go into a Fred Meyer in Twin Falls, and you see the homeless man on the side of the road or something along those lines, and you might see something that looks visually not appealing to us.

This is even far worse than that. This is beyond that. So you have this man sitting here scraping his sores with this pot shirt, and his wife comes up to him and he says, Do you still hold fast to your integrity, Job?

Do you still hold fast to these things? Curse God and die. And listen to the words of Job. He says, You speak as one of wickedly foolish women speak. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept calamity?

In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. So this is almost immediately after the events that have happened to him here in the previous chapters. And here in verses 11 and on to the end of chapter 2, we see that Job has these three friends who see him in despair and in harm, and they want to go and they want to assist him and be there with him in his mourning.

And so they go and they sit with him for seven days without saying a word is what the text tells us. And so that's where we are at now in chapter 3. Seven days have gone by. You can almost think to yourself, the gravity of what's going on in Job's life may have hit even a little bit harder, right?

It's almost like one of those scenes that you have something bad happens or something that's great that happens, and you say, I'm going to pinch myself to see if I'm not asleep right now. Maybe this is just a dream.

Well, seven days have gone by and Job has not woken up from this nightmare situation that he's in. Seven days have gone by and he has not heard the joy from his son's households in the celebration that we would see in chapter 1.

They're no longer getting together and eating food and drinking wine together as a family. Instead, what Job has been doing in these last week is he's been continually mourning in ashes and death. So all these things build up for us what we are about to read here in these verses.

Seven days have gone by. His three friends are near. He's gotten bad advice from his wife, and all these things are suffering while suffering through the affliction of having boils from head to toe. Let's read verses 1 through 7.

Again, just let this text sink in. And before we even actually read this, I apologize. Before we read this, I need to remind us of something. We just went through what book in the New Testament? The book of Philippians.

We went through that entire book and we saw another man who was suffering in a bad situation in his life. Paul, right? In prison. When we look at this book of Job, I would encourage you when we read this, we'd understand where it was at in the Jewish hands.

It was between the book of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes, and this book of wisdom is what they would consider it, wisdom literature. And so we see in this text the inner workings of a man that is grumbling, a man that is broken, a man that is hurting, a man that is questioning things.

And so you see all this that's taking place. And so when you read this text, know that chapter 3, it is the word of God. It is inspired. It is those things. But what Job is saying in this text is not a good thing.

What Job is going to say in here is not a good thing. Job 3, verse 1. Let not God seek it from above, nor light shine on it. Let darkness and the shadow of death redeem it. Let a cloud dwell upon it. Let the blackness of the day terrify it.

As for that night, let thick darkness take it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the numbers of the months. Behold, let that night be barren, and let no joyful shout enter it.

We'll pause here for a moment to think about what these verses have just said. Before we even give any context or commentary on these verses, I want to pray with us again right over this. Lord, God, I would ask that as we read this, Lord, that we would place ourselves in the shoes of Job, in the sandals of Job, that we would feel the boils in every step that we had, that as we sat to rest, that we would feel the boils on our back, Lord.

That when we read this text, that we would smell the salt from the tears of Job, Lord. That as the previous text has said, that he is sitting in this love of ash, Lord God, that all these things would be brought to our remembrance, and that we would consider how would we want to be comforted, how would we want to comfort somebody else in this situation, Lord.

Think through this, Lord, help us think through this. I ask this in your name, Jesus Christ, amen. So here in verses 1 -7, in verse 1 again afterwards, so this is after the seven days goes on, I want to remind us here in this chapter that Job does not directly curse God.

So in what God has said, that you can afflict him, but he won't curse me, and he gives that over to Satan to do these things. Job never directly curses God here in this chapter. But what is he cursing at in these verses?

His very own life. Actually, his own birth is specifically what he's getting at in this text. Let the day perish on which I was to be born. And the night which said a man conceived, may the day be darkness.

Let not God seek it from above, nor light shine upon it. Now notice in verse 4 that in these sayings that Job is still saying that, God, wouldn't it have been better that your sovereign plan would have included me not being born?

God, wouldn't that have been a better situation for me? This is a man that's pleading from grief and mourning. You have to remember this. But this is Job recognizing that he was born still in the sovereign plan of God, but he's trying to reconcile what he's just gone through, what he is going through.

Again, he's not going to sleep and waking up and seeing his sons or his daughters.

He's continually in turmoil and pain over these things.

And so in this text, you have to see that. You have to recognize this is a man that's trying his best to understand what is going on. And again, this book of wisdom, these wisdom literatures that we have from Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, it goes through questions and what is just, what is unjust, what is right for a man to go through, what is wrong for a man to go through.

Essentially, when you look at Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Job's life is a man that's wrestling with these principles. And so that's what we see in this text. He's wrestling with this. May the darkness, the day of that be darkness.

So may the day that I was born out of my mother's womb and came unto the light, may that day actually have been darkness. Let darkness and shadow of death redeem it. Just imagine being in such a place that you think the redemption that you deserve is actually that you were never even born.

That's where Job is at right now. May death redeem this terrible situation I was in, Lord. Lord, if you could turn back the clock of time, just remove me from the picture. Let a cloud dwell upon it. Let the blackness of the day terrify it.

As for that night, let thick darkness take it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months. I remind you, this is the same man that just said seven days earlier.

And so you can see almost the progression of the mourning that's taking place in this text. Just the week prior, he said, Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept calamity? Now he's in a place in such grief and mourning with his friends nearby.

All the rejoicing of my days, all the rejoicing and the prosperity that I have received in my years, may none of it have ever existed because this is immensely painful for what Job was going through. Let no joy enter it.

May no one find joy. May my mother who found joy when I was born, may she not have it because I wish I wasn't born. May my father who welcomed me in as a son, may he never have that moment in life because this is too much for me to bear, is what Job is saying.

Let's look at these next verses again. What Job is trying to say is that there's no amount of previous joy that I've had that can lessen the hurt and the darkness that has now surrounded me. When you read this kind of a text, what you should be seeing is that Job is in the utter pit of despair.

And you're hearing the cries from there. The cries of this man that is in this pit. Let's look at what verse 8 to 15 says for us. Let those who curse it, curse the day who are ready to rouse Leviathan.

Let the stars of its twilight be darkened. Let it hope for light but have none. And let it not see the breaking dawn because it did not shut the opening of my mother's body or hide trouble from my eyes.

Why did I not die from the womb? Come forth from the womb and breathe my last. Why did the knees receive me and why the breasts that I should suck? For now I would have lain down and been quiet. I would have slept then.

It would have been rest to me. With kings and with counselors of the earth who rebuilt waste for themselves or with princes who had gold who were filling their own house with silver. Let's pray over this text before we look at this again.

Lord God, again Lord, remind us of the severe grief that Job is in here, Lord. God, may as Job is saying that death would redeem himself in this text, Lord, may we remember and recall that we have been redeemed in your death and resurrection.

Lord, I ask this in your name, the one who did die for us and rose again. Amen. Verse 8 is an interesting verse that we just need to take note of. There's some commentaries that would disagree with each other on what's taking place in this text.

Some would say that in those days they would have professional mourners. That's what one commentary would say. At a funeral you would hire somebody to come in and make wails and cries for the family, that it was a professional mourner.

That's what one commentary said. It's an interesting thought. So they would say in this, let those who curse it, who curse the day, that's talking about those professional mourners. That's quite an interesting profession.

That's just what one commentary said, and I thought it was an interesting thing to note. What Job is saying is, and then there was another one.

Let me say this.

There's those that would say that Leviathan is this sea animal, which is totally a good reasoning in this text. But they would say that this text here in verse 8 are those that are the sailors that would curse the Leviathan, those that go out on the water and are afraid of it.

And so by their mourning and cursing of this Leviathan, that actually awakens him. That's what some commentaries would say. Regardless in this text, I would remind you of what Job is getting at. He's saying, let those who are loud in the cursing curse that day that I was born.

May they curse that day in which I was welcomed into the world is what Job is saying in this text. May they do it in such a loud way that they raise up this mighty animal, the Leviathan. May they raise it up by doing so and kill the day that I was born.

May that never come about is what Job is saying. So regardless of how we take this verse 8 and who we reply, let those who curse it, just remember what Job is trying to say in here. Let them curse the day I came into this world.

Now this word Leviathan in here, this is something that we will be addressing when we come to Job chapter 41 in a little bit more detail. There's very much debate on what this animal is and was. There's approaches that try to look at this as a mythological situation, and some that would look at this as a naturalistic situation of the Leviathan.

There's even those that are in the Ken Ham creation camp that would say that this is a large, large crocodile,.

An alligator, just abnormally large alligator.

That's what we would see as a description in Job chapter 41. A whale, that this was a large sperm whale is what it's speaking about in this text. It talks about fish hooks in Job chapter 41, so don't think we're ignoring it.

Just know that this sea-slash-land animal, the Leviathan, whatever this animal is, Job is saying, let those curse the very day I was born in this. Let the stars of its twilight be darkened. This is just Job continually going on in this.

Let the stars of its twilight be darkened. Let it hope for light, but have none. Let it not see the breaking dawn, because it did not shut the opening in my mother's body or hide trouble from my eyes.

We'll see this here in a moment, but Job is saying, Lord, I wish I would have never even came out of my mother's womb alive. Lord, you who opened and closed the womb, why didn't you close my mother's womb and make it so I was never born?

Why did you have to have me be born? And this all raises the question of, does Job know in here that God knows all things? That if he was to be born, that he would have the suffering day that he's in?

Job knows these things, and that's why he's questioning it. He's like, Lord, if you knew I was going to go through this, why didn't you just shut my mother's womb? It's these same questions that we see in Ecclesiastes.

Why do these things matter? Why do the just get raised up, but then they are killed? And the wicked, they seem to prosper. It ultimately is this havel, that this life is a vapor that we have. Why did I not die from the womb?

Come from the womb and breathe my last breath. Job is saying, maybe, Lord, you didn't close my mother's womb, but why didn't you make it so I died as soon as I came out? Why didn't you make it so I choked on my umbilical cord as I came out?

Lord, why didn't you make it so that I came out not breathing? I think you can all rationalize now why the other day with my wife you would say, I don't know what to give commentary on this text. The text speaks for itself in how harsh Job is thinking life is right now.

Why didn't I come out as a blue and black baby? Why did the knees receive me? So now Job's saying, not just from the day I was born, but why is it that, Lord, I kept on progressing in life so that I could crawl on my knees.

Why did my knees make it so I could crawl? Why did my knees allow me to crawl in life, Lord? Why didn't I die before then? At what age does a child crawl? I'm looking to my wife in the back. What time frame does a child start to begin to crawl?

So Job's saying at six and eight months, why didn't I die before then? Days that Job himself doesn't even remember. Why didn't I die during those days? And why the breasts that I should suck on? Lord, why did you make it so I kept on receiving nourishment?

If you knew, Lord, that I would lose my seven sons and my three daughters, why would you allow me to continue to suck on my mother's breasts and grow, Lord? For now I would have laid down and been quiet.

So he's looking back and he's saying if any of those situations had happened, Lord, I would be laying down, I would be quiet. Right now I'm mourning and crying and weeping, Lord, but I would be quiet.

I would have the sense of peace if you would just let me die then, Lord. I would have slept then. I would have not had this bad situation come about. And death itself, it says it would have been a rest to me.

Lord, if you had made it so I died when I came out of my mother's womb, if you had not allowed me to be born, if you had made it so I was to die before I could crawl, Lord, if you made it so I could never receive nourishment from my mom, those things would be rest to me.

It would have been rest to me. With kings and with counselors of the earth who rebuilt the waste places for themselves or with princes who had gold who were filling their house with silver. What Job is saying here is that the kings who set up a situation that they like with the gold and the silver and they build their houses,.

Lord, I seek death. That's what I wish I could have right now, Lord.

Just as the king fills up his place with gold, Lord, I would seek that death would have taken me when I was young. That's the house I want right now. Let's read verses 16 to 19. For why was I not like a miscarriage, hidden away, as infants that never saw light?

There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary of strength are at rest. The prisoners are at ease together. They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master.

Job is now saying in this text, You brought me to my knees. You sustained me in my early years, Lord. Why was I just not killed when I was just a couple of months old in my mother's womb?

A couple of weeks old, Lord.

Why not kill me at the hardship I'm going through right now?

Why not just remove that completely from the situation in the picture?

I would remind you in verse 16 here,.

I think this is truly remarkable. Does Job consider the child that's inside the womb as a human being in this text? He does. He says, Take the miscarriage away, the infant that never saw light. An infant, a human being in the womb is what Job is saying.

That's just important for us as we should and we ought to take a stance for those lives that are inside the womb. Job saw the life he had started even in the womb, not when he was born. He's saying, Take that life away from me when I was in my mother's womb.

The wicked cease from raging, and there the weary of strength are at rest. The prisoners are at ease together. They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master.

Job is saying that those prisoners and those slaves, those workers, that when they're actually in prison, God, they're not under the harsh hand of the taskmaster. That just like if you had taken away my life before I was born, Lord, I would not be under the harsh hand of yourself right now, God.

That the calamity that you have brought to me, God, I would have avoided if you had just let me die. Verse 20 -26, let's read this. Why is light given to him who is troubled, and life to the bitter soul, who long for death but there is none, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who are glad with joy and rejoice when they find the grave?

Why is light given to a man who is hidden and whom God has hedged in? For my groanings comes at the sight of my food, and my roaring pours out like water. For the dread that I dread comes upon me, and what I am afraid of befalls me.

I am not complacent, nor am I quiet, and I am not at rest, and raging comes. Let's pray before we look at this again.

Lord God, we as Christians, Lord,.

You have given us a sufficient way to answer any of these questions, Lord, in ways that maybe we don't know why, but you've given us these answers, Lord, even in this book of Job at the end, Lord. God, may we be reminded of these truths and know that we have a plan that is in your Son, Jesus Christ, today, Lord.

God, we have found life in your death, Lord, and we thank you for this, and we say this in your name. Amen. Lord, why is the sun shining on my life that is bitter and troubled?

Why, Lord?

Why is it that I long for death now, but I can't find it? Death, if you'd granted that to me before in my life when I was young, Lord, why can't that be the case? I seek it, I desire that, but that's not the case, Lord.

There is no death there. I dig for it. Lord, I want this more than any treasure. I dig in the hills for gold. There's those that look for special hidden treasures in the mountains, and, Lord, I want death in my young years far more than any of those people seek for gold and treasure who are glad with joy and rejoice when they find the grave.

Job's saying that those that are joyful, they don't rejoice when they find the grave, but, Lord, I'm rejoicing if the grave is in front of me.

Because I have no joy.

Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden and whom God has hedged in? Job is saying, my life is so dark right now, Lord. Why is it that you're making it so I continue to live? And, Lord, this life you've given to me is hedged in by you.

This is, again, Job, I'm reminded and remarkably blessed by how Job, even in the midst of his suffering and his mourning and these questions, he's still recognizing, Lord, you didn't have me die when I came out of my mother's womb.

Lord, you didn't have it so I couldn't latch to my mother's breast. You didn't make it so I couldn't crawl. You brought me here, Lord. You hedged me in. He still recognizes God's sovereignty, even in the midst of his crying and his distress.

Job, think about this for a minute, church. Job, just two weeks prior, spent a week seeing his son celebrate with food and wine. He was most likely at some of those celebrations and seeing the joy in the food.

And now, who's he eating with now? An empty table. There's no one there. His sons are gone. I see the sight of food and groanings come. And my roarings pour out like water. Now, this could be said that Job is throwing up because of this stuff.

When he eats food, the severe distress that he's having, it's running out of him like water. His health is deteriorating in this. He's not in good shape. Or it could just be speaking about that his mournings are just running out of him.

There's no turning off the faucet for him. There's no damming the water back. That it's just a flood of emotion for the dread that I dread comes upon me and what I am afraid of befalls me. Dread of dread has befallen Job in this text.

I would ask you, do you not see that here, church? This text, this chapter, is a place that no one ought to put themselves in, in the sense of we should not be questioning our Creator for what the events are.

It's this hard balance in life. In the previous text, in chapter 1, we would see that at the loss of his family, Job was able to worship God in his mourning. But now he's seemingly questioning the motives of why God has brought certain things to pass.

I would argue that this is a text that we should try to avoid in our own speculations as we question what's going on around us. We shouldn't question why the Creator's sovereign hand has brought certain things to pass.

But there are ways that we can mourn the loss of loved ones and the loss of property, the loss of health. We can mourn these things in a way that worship God, according to Job 1, verse 21, I believe it was.

But this text, this is a man that has, I would argue, is beyond broken in this text, it seems like. It's a man that has been kicked in the mud in some of the most dreadful ways imaginable. Reading this text, you might say, Brayden, I thought I was coming to church today, not a funeral.

Brothers and sisters, we have to ask ourselves some questions.

When we come to this text. How would your response be if you lost your entire family? It's easy for us to say, ah, we're much better than Job, right? It's easy for us to look at the life of Paul and say, ah, if Christian persecution was to come to me, I would never do anything wrong.

I would go to prison with a smile on my face. I would approach the sword with rejoicing to meet Christ. And that should be the attitude that we ought to seek. But it's easy to say those things. It's another thing when the blade is sharpened and the prison door is unlocked and the walls are caving in on you.

It's another thing when you actually lose someone that you love. It's another thing, even in Job's case, to lose his entire family, save it be as wide. So how would you respond? Let's ask this question.

How would you as a friend of Job respond to this? Seven days have gone by. You guys have sat there in silence, maybe some hugs, maybe a lot of tears, most likely a lot of tears. And now there's words that are being uttered.

How are you going to respond when your friend asks you this? I would encourage you, as we're going to see in chapter 4 next week, don't respond like this next friend. Some things he says sound great and some things not so great.

And that's where they get rebuked in Job 38 -42. They all get rebuked in their responses to Job from this chapter. So this is going to be a chapter that carries us through the entire book. This grief and mourning and severe distress is going to carry us through in the responses of the friends and ultimately the response of God.