1 ¶
My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I
will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 2
I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou
contendest with me. 3 Is it good unto
thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine
hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked? 4 Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man
seeth? 5 Are thy days as the days of
man? are thy years as man’s days, 6 That
thou enquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin? 7 Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there
is none that can deliver out of thine hand.
Job, tired of
life, will vent his lamentation in doleful words characterizing the despair of
his soul. He pleads to God not to condemn him and argues that God made him so
why is God slamming him so hard? Why is God angry with Job? God doesn’t judge
as men do. He doesn’t have the eyes of a man or a man’s judgment for He is a
spiritual being, God, our creator. He is not limited in his focus and
understanding like we who are clothed in flesh. Job says, “God, you know I’m
not wicked. You know I don’t deserve this. Why? I am helpless before your power
and there is no one who can deliver me from you!”
We know that
God is just and merciful, even to those who stray, as Israel did.
Lamentations 3:31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will
he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. 33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve
the children of men. 34 To crush under
his feet all the prisoners of the earth, 35
To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the
Lord approveth not.
37 ¶
Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it
not? 38 Out of the mouth of the most
High proceedeth not evil and good? 39
Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his
sins? 40 Let us search and try our ways,
and turn again to the LORD. 41 Let us
lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
Paul said this
of the things written before.
Romans 15:4
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our
learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have
hope.
We, too, as was
Satan, are being taught a lesson in the oldest book of the Bible. We are taught
by this extreme example of suffering placed on Job. We can see ourselves on
both sides of this equation, as his friends and as Job himself. This is one
reason why, Job. So, no man can
stand before God and say, “you didn’t tell me how hard it could be. I didn’t
know the righteous could suffer without a cause.”
8
¶ Thine hands have made me and fashioned
me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me. 9 Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made
me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again? 10 Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and
curdled me like cheese? 11 Thou hast clothed
me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. 12 Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy
visitation hath preserved my spirit. 13
And these things hast thou hid in thine heart: I know that this is with
thee.
God has made
us. Job insists that the God who made
him is destroying him. We are His
creation. It was not an accident or a random event resulting from a long line
of accidents. We are too different from an ape for there to have been enough
time for all of the mutations required to change from an ape-like creature to a
human being to take place successfully as per the Theory of Evolution’s
requirements. I’ve read that each single mutation required for the hundreds
needed to change from ape to man would take six million years. However, even
though the evolutionists think that many mutations worked at one time (certainly
not hundreds) mankind appears suddenly in the fossil record. The answer to
man’s origins cannot be found in the speculations of theoretical scientists.
Atheist
evolutionist Francis Crick, co-founder of the DNA Helix, admitted in his book,
entitled Life Itself, that life could
not have possibly happened on earth by chance, although he attributed its
existence on earth to being sent here by an alien entity or natural events in a
process called panspermia. (16)
Atheist
astronomer and Nobel Prize winner, Fred Hoyle, also insisted that it was
preposterous to believe that life occurred on earth by accident, promoting
life’s origin in a stellar cloud. (17)
However, other
notable scientists such as NASA’s Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee proclaimed
that conditions most likely existed only here for life to exist. (18)
At the end of
the day, we have what is called a
primary source, a first-hand account, of the events of creation given by God,
the creator, to man, with plant life being the first biological life created.
Genesis 1:11
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon
the earth: and it was so.
God created man
to look like Himself as we know that Christ is the visible image of God
(Hebrews 1:3).
Genesis 1:26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Each man and
woman after that is created by God and it is not just that God set up natural
processes that don’t require His direction. Those processes don’t work without
His intervention. Life is a constant miracle. God is not a watchmaker unless
the watch He made requires the watchmaker to turn the wheels and move the
mechanism for it to continue. There is no reason for life, no why, and no
explanation of how without God. We don’t live in a world where miracles happen occasionally.
We live in a world where miracles happen all the time. There is no rational
explanation for life without God, no rational explanation for life’s
continuance without God’s intervention every moment. Job here states that God
made him.
God formed
man’s body, the vessel with which we operate in the physical world, from the
elements of the earth, the dust of the ground.
Genesis 2:7
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Psalm 100:3
Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we
ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Psalm 139:14
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous
are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I
was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Isaiah 64:8
But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our
potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
God created
man’s soul, the seat of will and self-identity, as he did the soul of all
living things that have one.
Isaiah 57:16
For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the
spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.
Job 12:10
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all
mankind.
He created our
spirits, the vehicle by which He knows us inwardly and by which we know Him
when we are saved.
Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD,
searching all the inward parts of the belly.
Zechariah 12:1 The burden of the word of the LORD for
Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the
foundation of the earth, and formeth the
spirit of man within him.
Notice that Job
talks about God clothing him with skin, bones, flesh, and sinews as a limiting
factor on his soul. Our body is not who we are. Our soul is who we are and if
we are God’s through Jesus Christ it will live forever and if we are not God’s
then it will suffer eternal torment. The body you looked on in a coffin was not
the person you loved, but only a shell, what was left of the vehicle in which
they moved in this world.
Importantly,
the Christian’s body is to be the Temple of God (1Cor. 6:19). It is to be the
residence of God’s Spirit. Job acknowledges that God is his creator and has
power over him.
(16) Francis
Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature
(New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1982).
(17) Fred Hoyle
& Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution
from Space (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1984).
(18) Peter Ward
& Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why
Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (Gottingen, DE: Copernicus
Publishing, 2003).
14 ¶ If I sin, then thou markest
me, and thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity. 15 If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be
righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore
see thou mine affliction; 16 For it
increaseth. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion: and again thou shewest thyself
marvellous upon me. 17 Thou renewest thy
witnesses against me, and increasest thine indignation upon me; changes and war
are against me. 18 Wherefore then hast
thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no
eye had seen me! 19 I should have been
as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the
grave. 20 Are not my days few? cease
then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, 21 Before I go whence I shall not return, even
to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; 22 A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and
of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.
Job goes on to
say that he is fully aware that he cannot escape from the consequences of sin.
He knows if he is wicked he’s in trouble but even if he’s righteous, as he
claims, he is afraid to even look up. He is confused as Christians often are
when trouble comes out of nowhere and they don’t see how they could have
deserved it.
God’s judgment
on him, he believes, has been extreme, and unexplainable. God is at war with
him, it seems (see 6:4.) Job asks why he was even allowed to be born, why he
didn’t die as a miscarriage, or perhaps today as an aborted child, in
repetition of his complaint in chapter 3, verse 11. He points out again that
his days are numbered (see 7:6 and context) and asks why God won’t leave him
alone. He knows that death is next for him and cries out in the way the average
person feels about death.
David referred to
the shadow of death, but from a much different perspective in my own father’s
favorite chapter in the Bible.
Psalm 23:4
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Isn’t it ironic
that if an unsaved person lives a horrible, wasted life they may come to a
point where they either drink themselves to death or put a gun to their head and
end it all even though Hell and eternal suffering await them? A Christian,
however, who has lived as a miserable failure in life but has the promise of
eternal life with Christ usually, but not always, will reject that answer to
his self-disappointment knowing that God will call him home when God is ready
and to take one’s own life is a type of rejection of God’s sovereignty over his
life. It seems like it should be the opposite, doesn’t it? You’d think
logically that a person who has wrecked his temporal life, when he comes to
Christ, would make every effort to end his life so he could experience that joy
with God sooner, rather than later, and that the unsaved wreck of a wretch
would want to extend his life as long as possible in the hope of a few small
joys before that great void ahead of them that awaits them in their minds.
Job wishes God
would take into consideration his suffering. David cried out;
Psalm 25:18
Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.
Job pleads for
a respite, some time to catch his breath, as in 9:18. Anyone who has suffered
in physical pain from cancer or any other painful disease knows what it’s like
to wish for just a little time without pain. I can remember my grandmother
rubbing her gnarled, arthritic hands and groaning softly in unremitting pain.
Anyone who has suffered from deep, clinical depression also knows the wish to
just have a moment of relief from the mental agony.
The attack on
Job from his friends, Satan’s unknowing proxies, will now intensify.
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