Page 75 - Reading Job to Know God

ten verses. But, since he was conceived and he was born, he wishes the
next best thing. Verses 11-19. I wish I had died at my birth. He pictures
death as a great equalizer. Look at these verses. Everybody is on level
ground when they die. It is in verse 13
“For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept
then, I would have been at rest, with kings and with counselors of the
earth, who rebuilt ruins for themselves; or with princes who had gold,
who were filling their houses with silver. Or like a miscarriage which is
discarded, I would not be, as infants that never saw light. There the
wicked cease from raging, and there the weary are at rest. The prisoners
are at ease together; They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. the
small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master.”
Verse 23, he says that His way is hidden. Life is a riddle. He does not
understand. Why was I conceived? Why was I born? Why didn’t I die as
soon as I was born? Why wasn’t I miscarried? Why doesn’t God take me
home now that I want to die? He is in despair here. It seems hardly
possible that the words recorded before this in Chapter 1:21 “The Lord
gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord.” could have been spoken by the same man.

Jesus said of Judas, in Matthew chapter 26, “It would have been good for
that man if he had never been born”. That is because he was going to
hell. That’s why Jesus said that about him. I will not be too hard on Job
yet. Most commentators are very brutal on Job in this chapter. They come
down heavy because of his attitude, but I saw the heavenly side and I am
just a little easy on him. I think you will agree with me when you see it.
There are a couple of principles you can learn from this chapter. Job was
the one who was upright before God and feared God, and yet he was a
victim of this passionate discontent. It is possible that we could be as well.
Job had no idea that God was going to make him a historical symbol of
suffering patience, that God was writing a Bible with his life. He did not
know all of that. Only grace can make a man willing to die when
everything is prospering, and only grace can make a man willing to live
when everything goes against him.
All right, let me make an observation about Leviathan and then we will
take it from the level of heaven. Chapter 3:8 The word Leviathan means
twisted or snaky, with folds or spines or closely interlocked scales. In
chapter 41 of Job, you have a great description of Leviathan. If you read
Job 41, in the margin it says crocodile. It is a description of a sea monster.
In Psalm 104, evidently it is used as a whale or something like that. Once
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