Confusion from the Heart of the Hurting

Backround

Good evening, glad to have you all here tonight. Were going to continue our study through the book of Job, and the goal of this book is to show us, and remind us of the sovereign plan of God during suffering. If you’ll remember Job was considered both by God and man to be the most righteous man alive at this point in history. Not only was he walking in righteousness, but also living with God’s hand of blessing upon his life. He had land and cattle, herds, and flocks. Which is this day and time represented great wealth, but he also had sons and daughters, which in this culture and in the eyes of God is a symbol of blessing and honor. So the first part of the book was about how Job lost it all, he lost his children, he lost his wealth, he lost his health. But ultimately this was allowed by the hand of God to come upon Job.

Yet through all of that pain and suffering Job never wavered in his faith filled trust of the God he served. But as we will see in the next few chapters, Satan made life so uncomfortable on Job that he began to lose heart. Tonight were going to hear Job begin to speak for the first time in 7 days and 7 nights. If you remember Job’s friends came to see Job in his pain, they said he was unrecognizable as he sat in dust and ashes, with boils covering his body from head to foot, as he sat in the dust he used broken pottery to cut the sores open and drain out the fluid and reduce inflammation.

While all of this was going on there was no comfort at home, his wife was so bitter and heartbroken that she yelled at him to curse God and die. Job rebuked here for talking the way she did, and told her that she was speaking like an unbeliever.

That’s what tonight’s lesson is on the confused speech that flows from the human heart during true suffering.

It never fails tragedy strikes a believer and in the midst of turmoil, they begin to say things they don’t mean. I think we have all been in circumstances in life where we just can’t understand why this painful thing has happened or is happening to us, and in the midst of that pain we begin to think wrong about the problem at hand. We forget the truth from God’s word only because the grief is too much to bear and all we can see is the tragdey which brought it all on.

I realize that most of you in this room are not here, but there some who we may find around us who are this way. So when we encounter a fellow believer who is hurting we can consider Job and understand the way their hearts are feeling.

Job Breaks the Silence

Job’s friends arrive and because he was in such great pain they sat down with him and began to weep, none of them spoke a word to him. IN our passage tonight Job himself breaks the silence.

Job 3:1 ESV

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

Let’s diagnose Job’s hurting heart.

Job Preferred Nonexistence to Life

In his grief Job begins to curse the very day he was born! It is as if Job is saying here “I wish i would have not been born then i wouldn’t have to deal with the pain this world brings.”

Job curse his day… this thought is expressed in a series of wishes.

First Job curses the day of his birth and the night of his conception together. He wishes his birthday would “perish”

Job 3:3 ESV

“Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’

The word to perish means to strike from the record to wipe it clean from the historical record.

Job was washed out in spiritual depression, wishing his life had never even come into existence.

The next two verses focus on the day. Job wishes that “darkness” would sieze that day.

Job 3:4–5 ESV

Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

Job 3:4

For the ancients darkness symbolized everything that was evil, fearsome and mysterious. Job wants that day so thoroughly to be hidden away that not even God would inquire after it. He asks for thick darkness and the shadow of death to claim his birthday as part of their domain. The point is Job’s birthday should have never happened in his eyes.

Now by saying these things what he is not realizing is, that by doing this he is questioning God about his plan, while it is not blatant, it is happening inadvertently. To wish you werent alive is to say that somehow the God who created you was wrong to have ever allowed your birth. So here we are beginning to see a crack in the armor of the most righteous man on Earth.

So the first curse Job calls on is on his day but the second curse he calls down is on the night.....

Job 3:6–7 ESV

That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry enter it.

Job continues on in his painful speech requesting that his own night of conception should be cursed by those who were believed popularly in this time had the power to cast their spells on a day by making them dark with misfortune. These people were called enchanters and they were believed to have the power “rouse up leviathan” the dragon. these enchanters were thought to have the power to set this dragon in motion.

Now as we get further along in the study what we will see is that Leviathan sounds much more like a dinosaur rather than a dragon as we understand dragon.....

Job 3:8 ESV

Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.

Job 3:9 ESV

Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning,

Why this bitter curse on the night of his conception?

He is wishing at this moment in time to go back in history and have his mothers womb closed. He is in deep despair and it infuses everything he is saying.

Job 3:10 ESV

because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes.

He Prefers Death to Survival

Job 3:11–12 ESV

“Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

Job 3:

If conception had to be a reality then Job begins to ask why couldn’t he have died as an infant. In the ancient world it was not uncommon for women to die during childbirth. So what Job is saying is, with all the children who died at birth why couldn’t I have been done the same way. Do you see how this man has gone from being the most righteous man on Earth to in an instant talking like a mad man?

This is not Job talking this is the sadness of Job talking. As believer this is important for us to understand. There is a time to listen, a time to talk, and a time to be silent. It is ok to tell someone you dont understand… It is actually preferable that we not act holier than thou when someone experiences tragedy. We are not the end all be all, and we need to know that yes the word of God helps the hurting but people who are battling deep pain cannot receive clearly some times the word due to the screaming pain within their hearts.

This is where Job is.

Job 3:13–15 ESV

For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.

Job 3:13-15

Job 3:16 ESV

Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light?

He believes that death will bring him peace of mind.

Job 3:17–19 ESV

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

Job 3:17

Job feels nothing, he sees no one, he thinks of no one.

The only way someone can have this response is if they are choosing to look and linger in the pain of the loss, rather than look to the face of the sustainer and figure out how to go on with the life that has been given to them.

I mean let us consider, by making these statements:

He is questioning the judgment of God for bringing him into the world

He is wishing he was dead

HE is ignoring the fact that he still has a wife to take care of

He is ignoring the loving friends who traveled great distance to see him.

all life is to him is pain and he wants relief.

Job Preferred the Grave to Misery

Job 3:20–26 ESV

“Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

It is here after all these words have been spoken that his friends speak:

Eliphaz: you reap what you sow

Job 4:7-8

Job 4:7–9 ESV

“Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

Bildad: “JOB SHOULD REPENT”

Job 8:1–6 ESV

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation.

Job 8:1-

ELIHU REBUKES JOB’S THREE FRIENDS:

Job 32:1–22 ESV

So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong. Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he. And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger. And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said: “I am young in years, and you are aged; therefore I was timid and afraid to declare my opinion to you. I said, ‘Let days speak, and many years teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand. It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right. Therefore I say, ‘Listen to me; let me also declare my opinion.’ “Behold, I waited for your words, I listened for your wise sayings, while you searched out what to say. I gave you my attention, and, behold, there was none among you who refuted Job or who answered his words. Beware lest you say, ‘We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not a man.’ He has not directed his words against me, and I will not answer him with your speeches. “They are dismayed; they answer no more; they have not a word to say. And shall I wait, because they do not speak, because they stand there, and answer no more? I also will answer with my share; I also will declare my opinion. For I am full of words; the spirit within me constrains me. Behold, my belly is like wine that has no vent; like new wineskins ready to burst. I must speak, that I may find relief; I must open my lips and answer. I will not show partiality to any man or use flattery toward any person. For I do not know how to flatter, else my Maker would soon take me away.

Job 32:1-