Page 76 - Reading Job to Know God

in Isaiah it is used as a serpent. But it is a monster with scales. Some
people think it refers to a dragon. The point is that Job was looking for
someone to curse his birth who wasn’t afraid to rouse Leviathan.
All right, let’s go upstairs to the level of heaven. I suggest that under each
of these there is a spiritual truth, a principle. Job’s birthday is just a
picture of something. Leviathan is just a picture of something, and when
we get what that something is, you will see how chapter 3 is the
preparation for all of this. What is pictured by the mourning over Job’s
birthday? There is a spiritual mystery in this. Those expressions of misery
are the expressions of miserable humanity. It is bigger than Job’s
birthday. He is declaring the wretchedness of the birth of the whole
human race. In other words, he is saying my natural birth is under a curse.
He is mourning life on earth. He speaks in the chapter as a prophet. He
is describing the condition of fallen humanity. It is the same thing David
said when he sinned. He said in Psalm 51:4, “In sin, my mother
conceived me.” He was mourning the fact of the old sin nature. He looked
back at his natural birth and saw the problem.
I believe the underlying cry of Job’s heart, the real depth of the problem,
is this. I want a “new birth”. That is what he’s really asking for. The
natural birth and everything that goes with it is cursed. He is not saying I
st
hate October 1 or whatever day his or your birthday falls on. He is
saying I curse what comes out of man and woman naturally. What I am by
nature is ruined. He was crying out for deliverance by a new birth. John
3:4-6,
“Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? He
cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can
he?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of
water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit’ ”.
What is pictured by Leviathan? More than a crocodile. More than a sea
monster. Ezekiel 29:3 uses the same word symbolically for Egypt. He
calls Egypt Leviathan. As a matter of fact, there is an ancient coin of
Julius Caesar with a crocodile on it and the words Egypt underneath.
Egypt was pictured by the crocodile. Look at Job chapter 26, please, and
verse 13

“By His breath the heavens are cleared; His hand has pierced the
fleeing serpent. (The fleeing serpent is Leviathan).
Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; and how faint a word we hear
76