What’s the Purpose of this Mediocre Life?

[Posted July 11, 2021]

Brother,

I’m at that part in the Job series, Ch. 3, where you talk about men wanting to die, as Job cursed his day and wished he had died in his mother’s womb. That was a pretty heavy thing to say, but I believed that in my groaning just recently I have said or thought something similar; something like, “Why was I born?” What’s the purpose of such a mediocre life? Indeed, I find myself lost and ‘not wanting to live’ anymore and hating everything in this world and not caring about people in the street and cars,and cities buildings, and all the works of this life, and nothing has meaning to me anymore. I’m wondering if this is my flesh struggling to survive in these trials because deep down it’s grasping at the things of this life which I am losing and have lost.

F____

Hi F____,

Thank you for taking to time to ask, “What’s the purpose of such a mediocre life?”

The truth is that we are all brought to ask that very same question, when we, like Job, are being judged and shown how self righteous we have been, even as we were “shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin”:

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

If we are shaped in iniquity and conceived in sin, then we cannot possibly bring forth anything other than the fruit of sin simply because that is what God Himself has placed within our members as the master Potter:

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

The lie of ‘free will’ denies that God has made us as we are for His purposes. But what do the scriptures actually teach? This is what the scriptures actually teach about our perceived ‘free will’:

Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Joseph had just reminded his brothers of what they had done to him:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. 
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Twice Joseph reminds his ten brothers that “You sold [me] into Egypt”, and then in the very same breath he tells them and us, “It was not you that sent me hither, but God.”

Is this the only place where we are assured that our will is not even a factor in what God is doing on this earth? No, this is what is taught throughout scripture. The apostle Paul tells us the exact same thing, and he, like Joseph, twice affirms himself in doing so:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

“It is no more I… but sin that dwells in m… there is no good thing… in my flesh”. Is Paul actually saying that we have no free will? Yes, that is exactly what He is saying! In fact two chapter later, in this same book of Romans, he comes right out and says:

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Rom 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

“On whom He wills [He] has mercy, and [on] whom He wills He hardens”. Where is this supposed and fabled ‘free will’ in any of those words?

Paul continues to explain what God is doing in mankind in chapter 7:

Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

There it is! There is a law at work in our members called “the law of sin”, and all the fabled ‘free will’ in the world is helpless against that law which is in our members. From where does this “law of sin” come? There can be but one place:

Jas 4:12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

And just look at what James tells us next:

Jas 4:13  Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
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.
Jas 4:15  For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
Jas 4:16  But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. 

“You rejoice in your [fabled free will]. all such rejoicing is evil”.

So what does our sinful “marred… sinful… iniquitous” condition and composition produce within us? This is what it produced in the apostle Paul:

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

King David tells us the same thing in these words of Psa 107:

Psa 107:25  For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
Psa 107:26  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.

“He commands, and raises the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof… [our] soul is melted because of trouble. [We] reel to and fro… and are [brought to our] wits’ end”. This experience is common to all men. But then what happens after God brings us to “[our] wits’ end”?

Psa 107:28  Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
Psa 107:29  He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Psa 107:30  Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

The apostle Paul concludes Romans 7 with the exact same assurance under the very same circumstance where he, too, informs us “it is not I that do it, but sin that [through “the law of sin… in my members”] dwells within me”, forcing him to ask the question, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”, and this is his answer to his own question:

Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

So you are right now positioned to be be delivered from this helpless  and hopeless condition of which you are now being made aware. “Through Jesus Christ our Lord [you can now be] brought to your desired  haven” and enjoy the peace of mind we all have in the Christ.

I hope this helps you to see why we must all be humbled and brought to our wits’ end until we all ask “What is the purpose of such a mediocre life?” The purpose for “such a mediocre life” is to given up that life and to have life and have it more abundantly in Christ, here in this life, and in the life to come life eternal:

Joh 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 

Mar 10:29  And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s,
Mar 10:30  But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. 

You will receive much encouragement if you are led to join in on our nightly studies with others in the Lord’s flock. Just go to the home page and scroll down to those studies and click on the word ‘here’ at the designated time, and you will be in fellowship with the One who “will bring you to your desired haven”. This is who is that person:

Act 22:8  And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

Your brother in the persecuted “Jesus of Nazareth”.
Mike