Job 3

CHAPTER 3THEME: Job’s first discoursehis complaintWe have seen that Job is being made a test case; he is a guinea pig. Satan has challenged God. He has said to God, “You have put a hedge around Job and have given him everything. But if those things are taken away from him, he will curse You to Your face!” Satan was casting a slur upon mankind and a blasphemy upon God. The intelligences of heaven must have cringed and certainly blushed when they heard this highest creature, whom God had created and who had fallen, cast such a slur upon the Almighty God. God permitted Satan to get at this man Job. Satan began to move into this man’s life. We have seen how he took one thing after another away from him in order to break him down. Before we go into the dialogues, I think we ought to pause and see the background of all this again. You and I belong to a lost race. It is difficult to think that you and I are living down here among a bunch of liars and cut-throats and thieves and murderers. We say, “But I’m not like that.” I’m afraid you areall of us are. We belong to that kind of race. That is the reason God cannot take us to heaven as we are. After all, if God took the world to heaven as it is today, we wouldn’t have anything but just the world all over again.

I don’t know how you feel about it, but I see no reason just to duplicate this all again. And God apparently sees no reason to do it either. Therefore He is not taking us to heaven as we are. That is the reason the Lord Jesus had to say to a refined, polished, religious Pharisee, “…Ye must be born again” (Joh_3:7). If it is any comfort to any of us, we are all in the same boat. We talk about “normal” behavior today.

A psychologist is great at that. How in the world does he arrive at a definition of “normal” behavior? What he does is to plot a chart, and where the majority of people are, that is what he calls normal. At one end are the abnormal and at the other end are the supernormalthere are a few who fall at either end of the chart. How does he know that the mass of people in the middle are normal? I don’t think they are.

God says we are all in sin. This creature called man is frail, feeble, and faulty. It is easy to upset the equilibrium of any man. It can happen to any of us. It is easy to depart from the pattern and to tip the scale. Statistics reveal that one out of ten people spends time in a mental institution, and the number keeps increasing. God has placed certain props about man to make man stand straight and upright. The Book of Ecclesiastes puts it like this: “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecc_7:29). God has clothed man with an armor of protection, a security, if you please. God has given certain aids to all men, godly and ungodly alike. He makes it rain on the just and on the unjust. The wicked get just as much sunshine and air to breathe, and their health is just as good as those who are the godly, the believers in Christ.

The Devil knows that if he can get to a man, remove the props, strip him of every vestige of aid, take away his security blanket, he can upset him and turn him upside down, destroy his morale, rearrange his thinking, and brainwash him. Therefore God has placed a hedge about a man to keep the Devil away. Sometimes Satan is permitted to crash the gate, and he will strip a man down to his naked soul. God permitted the Devil to brainwash Job. The Book of Job presents the problem. It states the stripping of a man’s soul. It does not give the solution, although answers are suggested. You must go to the New Testament for the real answer. It is sort of like the algebra book I had at school. The problems were in the front of the book and the answers were in the back. The Bible is like that. You get the problem here, but you must turn over to the New Testament to get the answer. In many respects the Old Testament is a very unsatisfactory book. Nothing is actually solved in it. As someone has put it: The Old Testament is expectation; the New Testament is realization. In chapters 1 and 2, the Devil has been brainwashing Job. He has stripped Job of every vestige of covering. We need to look at this because it will help us as we enter this dialogue that Job has with his friends.

1. Satan stripped Job of material substance. One of the basic needs of man is material substance. An animal is already born with a coat on. When you and I came into the world someone had to furnish us with a coat. Later on, we had to buy our own coat. We have to have food and clothing and shelter. Man needs flocks, herds, barns, and lands. He needs to have things about him. He needs a home. Scripture tells us that God has given us all things richly to enjoy. God wants man to enjoy the things that He has put in this world. Although the curse of sin is on this world, God has provided for man in a very wonderful way. Physical things can be spiritual blessings. Prosperity is a gift of God. There is nothing wrong in building bigger barns. The danger lies in depending on these things, leaning upon them as if that is all there is to life. Actually, I think the prosperity and the affluence of the United States has been giving us a bad conscience for a long time. We have spent billions of dollars passing out crumbs to other countries in order that we might enjoy what we have. It has been to no avail because all we are doing is salving a bad conscience. Our gadgets and our conveniences and our comforts have created almost a prison for us. On holiday weekends I am amazed to see droves of people fleeing to the desert or to the seashore to get away from their electric blankets, their TV sets, their push-button kitchens. They want to rough it, they say. They feel as if they are in prison. The Christian today needs to get alone and take an inventory of himself: Am I trusting in things or am I trusting in God? Job lost all. He went from prosperity to poverty. Job was moved, but he wasn’t removed from the foundation.
2. God permitted Satan to take away Job’s loved ones. You and I need loved ones to prop us up. I think the reason the Lord makes little babies so attractive is so that we will cuddle them and hug them. That is what they need. The biggest thrill I ever had in my life was to hold in my arms our first child, and the Lord took that child. The greatest thrill I have today is to hold our little grandsons. How wonderful it is. God has made us that way. When the child grows older, he still goes to parents for love and sympathy. He hurts his little finger and runs to mama to kiss it. You know that doesn’t do it a big of good, but it sure helps him. Without this kind of love the child develops conflicts and complexes. I believe the psychologist is right about that. Then the time comes for the little eaglet to be pushed out of the nest. The teenager becomes less dependent on the parent, and then one day the love is transferred to someone else. Finally the love passes on to his own children. But we always need loved ones. Poor old Job lost all of his children in one dayseven sons and three daughters!
3. Health is a great factor in the well-being of man. I notice that when the paper lists suicides it often says, “So-and-so had been in ill health.” There are countless numbers of saints who have been bed-ridden and laid aside from normal activity by ill health. Perhaps they have learned to trust God in a way that you and I have not. Satan was permitted to take away Job’s health. That was a tremendous blow to him.
4. Then Job lost the love and sympathy of a companion. God gave Adam a helpmeet. A “helpmeet” means the “other half” of him, the responder, the other part of him. I think God has a rib for every man; that is, He has a wife for him. God has instituted marriage for the welfare and happiness of man. Many a man who stands at the forge of life today, faithful and strong, facing the battle and daily grind, goes home and pillows his head on the breast or in the lap of a wife who understands him, and maybe he even sobs out his soul to her. How wonderful that is! Job had lost the sympathy and compassion of his wife, as we have seen.
5. Job’s friends came to mourn with him, but he found that they were just a mirage on the desert. When he saw them coming, he thought they were an oasis, but they were only a mirage, and he finally calls them “miserable comforters.” We are going to see why. Now what else can the devil do to Job? He has removed all his props. Now Satan will move in and destroy Job’s whole set of values. This is the thing we need to watch as we study the dialogues that ensue.
6. Job loses his sense of worth and the dignity of his own personality. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? God pity the young people today who throw away their lives for a pill or to please a group of evil-minded companions. It is God who attaches real value to man. The Lord Jesus said, “…Ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Luk_12:7). Yet He tells us that the Father knows all the sparrows and when they fall. Do you know what proves we are of more value? It is that Christ died for us. That tells us how much we are worth. We are worth the blood of Jesus Christ! It was during the Dark Ages that Mueritus, a brilliant scholar, fell sick and was picked up on the highway. The doctors, thinking he was a bum, began talking about him in Latin. They said, “Shall we operate on this worthless creature?” Mueritus understood Latin very well. He raised up and answered them in Latin, “Do not call a creature worthless for whom Christ died.” Remember that the Devil tries to cause us to lose our sense of worth and the dignity of our own personality.
7. Job will lose his sense of the justice of God, and he will become critical and cynical before it is over. In studying this book we need to realize that it is inspired just as all the Bible is inspired, but not all that the characters say is true. This is an illustration of what I mean: the Devil was not inspired to tell a lie to Eve when he said, “…Ye shall not surely die” (Gen_3:4), but the record of his lying is inspired. Some folk believe that every statement they find in the Bible is true, but we need to notice carefully who is making the statement. In the Book of Job we will find these men saying things that are not true.
8. Job will also lose his sense of the love of God. The man who said, “…the LORD gave , and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job_1:21), is the same man who later cried, “For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me” (Job_6:4). Then in chapter 9 we hear his cry as, “Oh, that there were a daysman to stand between us.” In other words, “Oh, that there were someone to take hold of the hand of God and take hold of my hand and bring us together!” We will need to go to the New Testament to find the answer to this cry of Job: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1Ti_2:5). Thank God you and I have Someone who is our daysman! I have spent time on this because it is very important to get this background in order to understand the dialogue which begins here and continues through chapter 37. There are three rounds of speeches: (1) By Job, then Eliphaz, and Job answers him, (2) by Bildad, and Job answers him, and (3) by Zophar, and Job answers him. This is repeated three times with one exceptionZophar does not give a third speech. The dialogue is in the nature of a contest. First RoundChapter-102Job3-102Eliphaz, First Discourse4-5-102Job’s Answer6-7-102Bildad, First Discourse8-102Job’s Answer9-10-102Zophar, First Discourse11-102Job’s Answer12-14-102Second Round-102Eliphaz, Second Discourse15-102Job’s Answer16-17-102Bildad, Second Discourse18-102Job’s Answer19-102Zophar, Second Discourse20-102Job’s Answer21-102Third Round-102Eliphaz, Third Discourse22-102Job’s Answer23-24-102Bildad, Third Discourse25-102Job’s Answer26-31Job’s friends have been sitting with him for seven days. Finally Job explodes, under the critical and accusing eyes of his friends, with his tale of woe and a wish that he had never been born.

Job 3:1

JOB’S FIRST DISCOURSEThis is a very beautiful speech, very flowery, but when you add it all up, boil it down, and strain it, he is simply saying, “I wish I hadn’t been born.” How many times have you said that? I’m of the opinion that many of us have said it, especially when we were young and something disappointed us. This is what Job is saying, only he is saying it in poetic language.

Job 3:6

Job is saying loud and clear, “I wish I had never been born.” It is interesting, my friend, that this attitude never solves any problems of this life. You may wish you had never been born, but you can’t undo the fact that you have been born. You may wish that you could die, but you will not die by wishing. It is all a waste of time. It may help a person let off some steam. That seems to be what it does for Job now.

Job 3:13

They built great monuments or great pyramids for themselves.

Job 3:15

He wishes he had been stillborn. Job complains that this oblivion has been denied him. He describes death as the great equalizer. All sleep equally. There are two things Job is saying in this chapter. He wishes that he had never been born. However, having been born, he wishes that he had died at birth. These are his two wishes in this chapter, and he finds no relief from his misery.

Job 3:17

He pictures death as being preferred to life. He says that life is such a burden. He doesn’t want to live. He would rather die. Job says he would welcome death like a miner who is digging for gold and gives a shout of joy when he finds it. He is in a desperate, desolate condition.

Job 3:25

Job had been dwelling in peace and prosperity in the land of Uz, and things had been going so well with him. He was living in the lap of luxury. Everyone was saying, “Look at Job. He certainly has a wonderful life.” Job says, “At that very moment, I was living in fear. And the thing that I dreaded has come upon me.” His tranquility even in his days of prosperity was disturbed by the uncertainty of life. I think that is a fear of a great many people today. They fear that something terrible is going to happen to them. Our problem is that we grab for our security blanket instead of grabbing for the Savior. We ought to be using our Bible for our blanket instead of turning to other things. We need to rest upon the Word of God. One would almost get the impression that Job has lost his faith. He actually has not. This is the bitter complaint of a man who is tasting the very dregs in the bottom of the cup of life. Trouble has come upon him and he does not understand at all why it should have come. It is a monologue of complaint as his friends sit around him. The language is tremendous, but Job does not have the answer. It is black pessimism.