Walking in Darkness
April 29, 2018

Scripture: Job 3

I. Darkness leads you to curse.

A. In Job 3 Job is not talking to anybody. He is just speaking his thoughts aloud to himself. Like one of Shakespeare’s characters in a play, Job is conducting a soliloquy in chapter 3. And the subject of his soliloquy is found in verse 1: Job curses the day of his birth. Normally, you would consider your birthday a happy occasion. But as far as Job was concerned his birthday was a disastrous day of darkness that deserves to be cursed. His birthday was an evil day. Notice how many references there are to darkness in the first 10 verses of Job 3.

B. Clearly, Job’s emotions in this chapter are deep, raw and terrifying. This expression of emotion cuts against how some Christians view the ideal of faith. Job will eventually tell God exactly how he feels and just what he thinks. If you look ahead to the end of the story, you will see that God does not think that Job has done wrong for expressing his thoughts and feelings to Him. Job 42:7: “After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: ‘My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.’”

II. Darkness leads you to sadness.

A. In vs. 11-19 Job speaks some sad words: a lament – a sad poem or a sad song. There is a simple question that fills Job’s sad poem in vs. 11, 12, and 16. Why? There’s a solution that Job comes up with for his sadness. It’s a dark solution, but it is a solution. It’s death. Job is not talking about suicide here. He has no plans to end his life. But he is saying it would have been much better for him if he had died at birth (vs. 13). Death would bring rest (vs. 17).

B. On Good Friday we read what happened in Matthew 27:45: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” The sixth hour is noon. It was completely dark in the middle of the day. Why? God was communicating to the world that this was the darkest day in history. Jesus’ story though did not end on the cross. On Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead. We as Christians will not remain in darkness. It might be the darkness of Good Friday for you today. But the light of Easter Sunday is coming just like it did for Jesus.

III. Darkness leads you to question.

A. In Job 3:20 and 23 we see Job asking the same question he had asked earlier: why? Why was life given to him if he were only to endure such misery? And why has God given him life only to hedge him in according to vs. 23? In Job 1:10 Satan said that God had put a hedge around Job to protect him and his family from all harm. But now in Job 3:23 Job is asking why God has hedged him in this prison of suffering and misery. The reason Job asked the why question so often in Job 3 is because he was asking another question. Where? Where was God when all this suffering happened to Job? The answer to the where question is that God is always on the throne. And the answer to the where question is also found in Psalm 34:18: “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Application:
If you are walking in darkness, God is near to you to save you.

Sources:
The book of Job
Commentaries on Job by Francis Andersen, David Clines, and Christopher Ash