Key Truth: Prolonged suffering can drive us to question God’s plan and governance and view death as the only solution to our suffering.

Introduction:

Q: Have you suffered for a season or prolonged length of time? What kind of toll did it take? How did it affect your view of the world, your purpose, your future, and God?

“Everything difficult indicates something more than our theory of life yet embraces.”

George MacDonald, quoted by C.S. Lewis in George MacDonald: An Anthology

Job’s Birth in God’s Plan: Of Curses and Creation Undone:

Job 3:1-10

“But Job is a man bereaved, humiliated, and in pain. His skin is festering and his nerves are on fire. A man of stone or bronze…might remain unmoved, but a real man is all turbulence. The Lord’s testing is not to find out if Job can sit unmoved like a piece of wood.”

Frances I. Anderson, Job: Tyndale Old Testament Commentary

Q: Have you ever cursed the day you were born wishing that you had never been born? What is being said of God in the cursing of the day of one’s birth?

Job’s Death as the Only Solution: Of Laments and Longings to be Cut Off:

Job 3:11-19

“Did Job sin in uttering a curse on his own life? Since life is God’s greatest gift to a human being, a curse on it would not only deny that gift but would also speak against God himself. 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 brink 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 fate into his own hands.”

John E. Hartley, The Book of Job

Q: What is Job’s view of death and the afterlife? What is your view?

Job’s Questions of God’s Governance: Of Moaning and Guttural Cries of Anguish:

Job 3:20-26

“Job will not resort to easy comfort about this not really being the will of God: it must be the work of Satan. Of course, it was the work of Satan. But in God’s universe, even Satan’s work cannot step outside the outermost boundaries of God’s sovereignty. While that is what raises the problem, it is also what promises hope."

D.A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil

Q: What do you fear most befalling you? How does your view of God’s sovereignty affect how you would react?

Application:

“Now the real major burden of the book of Job begins to unfold. Job’s faith does not relieve his suffering, it makes it worse. To some extent it causes it. Job’s faith was based on the living God who cares for his people. It was faith in Yahweh, the Covenant Lord, the God of justice, mercy, and goodness. Job knows God’s grace (why else would he offer burnt offerings?). For him, God in grace prospered the upright man; God, thought Job, blesses the righteous. Now, however, Job has to square this faith with his own desperate situation. Everything Job believed about God was being called into question."

David Atkinson, The Message of Job

Job 3 teaches us that prolonged suffering can:

-drive us to question God’s plan and offer our own

-cause us to view death as the only solution to suffering

-cause us to question God’s governance of our lives

Benediction:

Romans 3:19-26