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Job 3:1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
Job 3:2 And Job spake, and said,
Job 3:3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
Job 3:4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
Job 3:5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
Job 3:6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
Job 3:7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
Job 3:8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
Job 3:9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:
Job 3:10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

Introduction

The first words to come out of Job’s mouth, as the Old Testament type of each of us when we are confronted with our own fiery trials, is to question why God let us be born and to prefer death to life. Many years later the prophet Jeremiah repeated these words of Job when faced with the rejection of his words from God to His people:

Jer 20:14 Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.
Jer 20:15 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.
Jer 20:16 And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;
Jer 20:17 Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.
Jer 20:18 Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

Throughout God’s Word He reveals to us that it is the nature of our flesh to “contend with God” and to question and condemn His ways.

Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

While contending with God is a necessary evil which has been ordained by our Lord, it is nevertheless an evil which must be acknowledged as such and expunged from our lives. Our flesh itself is nothing more than a necessary evil, the very darkness itself, out of which our Lord calls light.

Job 12:22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Darkness precedes the light in God’s order:

Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

So we begin our lives, both physically and spiritually, in darkness. We begin our lives contending with our Creator. Our original parents contended with their Creator when they believed the lie that they would never die.

Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

What is the Truth? What has God told us?

Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Most Christians believe that lie to this very day to the extent that the one thing with which God Himself agreed with the serpent is the one thing Christians do not believe, and the thing about which God did not agree with the serpent, and which contradicted the Words of God, is the one thing orthodox Christians believe. Truly we are born into the darkness of our spiritually blinded state.

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Joh 9:39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, t hat they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

What orthodox Christian minister believes that God knows and creates evil, and sends evil spirits to do His bidding? Who among us believed that it was God who sent Satan to deceive Adam and Eve, trouble King Saul and send lying spirits to speak in the mouth of King Ahab’s prophets? On this point we have all been guilty of “contending with God”.
Cain contended with God and killed his brother rather than obey God (Gen 4:4-11). Abraham contended with God concerning God’s commandment to cast the bondwoman and her son out of his household (Gen 17:18 and 21:11-12). Jacob wrestled with the Lord all night, until the Lord had to smite his hip and make Jacob lame for the rest of his life. Of course that struggle produced “a prince [ who] prevailed with God”, and that is the very purpose for our own ‘wrestling’ and contending with God. It is through Job’s and our struggles with what God is doing in our lives that we are who we are.

Gen 32:24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
Gen 32:25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
Gen 32:26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
Gen 32:27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
Gen 32:28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

That man with who Jacob “wrestled” was Christ Himself. The only reason “He prevailed not against” Jacob, was because He wanted Jacob to “wrestle… with Him till the breaking of the day” as a type of our struggles with God in the darkness of our nights.

Psa 17:3 Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
Psa 30:5 For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

The Psalms and the prophets are full of our complaints against God and His ways.

Psa 22:1 To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.
Jer 14:19 Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!

It is a severe trial of our faith, such as Job relates to us, which brings us all to question our Creator. What is so puzzling to our natural man is the fact that God has earlier given us a deadly wound, and after that He has been seemingly blessing us for so long up to the time of this 9.0 magnitude “great earthquake”. It is at this point and under these circumstances we will all contend with and condemn our Creator. We have confused our deadly wound with the ‘great earthquake such as has never been’. This is common to all men.

Rev 13:2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
Rev 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

When this “deadly wound” is healed, all that is produced is a perfectly healthy beast, which must yet fact the effects of the seven last plagues which “fill up the wrath of God… against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…” (Rev 15:1-2 and Rom 1:18). Here is what happens after the seventh vial of God’s wrath is poured out upon the kingdom of our beast:

Rev 16:18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

It is here at this point that we are all brought, through the pain of our suffering, to tell our Creator that there has to be a better way. Christ Himself wondered if there were not another, less severe way of accomplishing God’s will. The only difference between Job, who is the type of us, and Christ is that immediately after asking His Father “If it is possible let this cup pass”, Christ said, “nevertheless not my will but thine be done, while Job’s response was more in line with King David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, you and me… “Why have you foresaken me? Why are you so far from helping me…?”
As Job demonstrates us, we have no doubt that there must be a better way. Here is our solution to our suffering. This is Job’s and our better way.

Job 3:1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
Job 3:2 And Job spake, and said,
Job 3:3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

While we covered this in our study of chapter one, let’s be clear that when Job “cursed his day”, we are speaking of the same “his day” his son’s were celebrating in chapter one.

Job 1:4 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.

“And Job spake and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born”. This was not quite the mindset we have as Job’s first sons and daughters. Job’s sons were celebrating their birthdays as if this necessary evil we call flesh is worthy of a celebration. What is the mind of God concerning ‘our day’? God is very clear on this subject,

Ecc 7:1 A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
Ecc 7:2 It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
Ecc 7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
Ecc 7:4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
Ecc 7:5 It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecc 7:6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.
Ecc 7:7 Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.
Ecc 7:8 Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

Are any of those verses true? We all pay them much lip service but our actions speak so loud God does not hear what we say:

Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

So do we really believe that the day of one’s death is better than the day of his birth? Do we really believe that the house of mourning is a better place to be than to go be with Job’s sons in “the house of feasting” on their birthdays?

Luk 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Who are we fooling? It certainly is not God.
Job’s misery is the figure of the misery that brings us to our struggle with God. His misery, just like ours, is unbearable to such a degree that we prefer death to life. Here is this part of our walk as it is described to us in the New Testament:

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Rev 9:2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
Rev 9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Rev 9:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
Rev 9:5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Rev 9:6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
Rev 9:7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
Rev 9:8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
Rev 9:9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
Rev 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
Rev 9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

Satan is “the angel of the bottomless pit”, and he is sent to torment us as we are typified by Job.

Rev 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

While all the words of Ecc 7:1-8 are true, we still must be born into bodies of sinful flesh before we can learn that the day of one’s death is better than the day of birth or that mourning is better than feasting or that sorrow is better than laughter. That is all counter- intuitive to the natural man. So what does our natural man say when faced with the “great earthquake” which destroys all his worldly possessions and torments him to the point that he prefers death to life? Here is what we all say at that point.

Job 3:4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
Job 3:5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

While our time in these clay vessels is nothing more than “a vapor that appears for a moment, then vanishes away”, it is nevertheless the necessary evil and darkness out of which God calls the light that is our new man. Christ Himself had to empty Himself of His spiritual standing with His Creator in order to enter into a “body of death” and come out of this body of death into a glorified spiritual body.
Christ informs us that it is expedient that He go away, or else the spirit of God cannot come into us. It follows then that it is expedient that we all come in sinful flesh before we can die to that dying flesh and receive Christ as that “spirit of life” within us.

Col 1:26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

That is how God “regards it”. That is how God regards our need to make our appearance in these bodies of sinful flesh and blood, and our contending with Him over this fact is merely part of this necessary evil and part of the darkness out of which we are called.

Jas 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The scriptures reveal that we cannot discern good and evil except ‘by reason of use having our senses exercised’.

Heb 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

But we continue informing God of our solution to the sufferings which we consider to be more than we can bear and definitely more than necessary.

Job 3:6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
Job 3:7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
Job 3:8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
Job 3:9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:
Job 3:10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

“Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes”. We all witness against ourselves that we think there has got to be a better way than the way God has chosen to do the work He is doing within us. We confess in this verse that we believe that there must be a way that ‘Hides sorrow from our eyes’. How does this compare to the mind of God?

Rom 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint- heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
2Ti 2:12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:

Our way of thinking is the exact opposite of wanting ‘sorrow hid from our eyes’, but it is God’s way. God’s ways of thinking really are hidden from our carnal hearts and minds.

1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

It is granted to very few to notice the next verse of 1Co 2:

1Co 2:10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

What God has revealed to us is that if we are given to accept the mind of God over the carnal mind which we are given from birth, then the sufferings of this present age will not be worthy to be compared to the glory which will be revealed in us.

Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Next week, Lord willing we will begin to see how God views the state of death as a state of rest.

Job 3:11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
Job 3:12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
Job 3:13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
Job 3:14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;
Job 3:15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
Job 3:16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
Job 3:17 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
Job 3:18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.