Lesson 8 Job Chapter 3

I. Introduction.
A. Job is now a very ill person.
B. Job's three friends have arrived to give comfort.
C. For seven days no one says a word.
D. Starting in chapter three, Job begins to speak (known as Job's lament).
E. It be noted that Job's words reveal a change in mood or attitude.
1. Note chapter 1:21 and chapter 2:10 with the beginning of chapter 3:1-2.
F. In light of his subsequent attitude, it seems that Job's thoughts of God had much to do this change.
1. Previously, Job had viewed God as the beneficent ruler and disposer of events.
2. It appears as we go on through the discourse that allowed suspicions of God's justice and goodness to
intrude in his thoughts.
3. Job sees himself as in the hands of arbitrary power, suffering for what he had not done.
4. Job sees no way of escape, and therefore wishes for death.
G. The lament of Job falls into three strophes (stanzas).
1. Verses 1-10
2. Verses 11-19
3. verses 20-26

II. Strophe 1.
A. Job curses his day.
B. For a child of God to wish he had never been born indicates a complete eclipse of faith.
C. The peril of impulsive speech.
1. Good men sometimes give utterance to sentiments which are a departure from the spirit of religion.
2. Sometimes the the effect of heavy affliction on the mind can seem overwhelming.
D. Job's sufferings urged him to pry into the reasons of a miserable life.
1. Great suffering is often useful to the sufferer.
a. Sufferings help to purify the heart.
b. Suffering teaches man the evil of sin.
c. Suffering develops the virtues (patience, forbearance, etc.).
d. Suffering tests the character.
E. Suffering is often useful to the spectator.
1. It tends to awaken compassion.
2. It tends to stimulate benevolence.
3. It tends to excite gratitude.
F. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is our perfect example./
1. The intensity of His sufferings furnished the occasion for His total obedience to the will and
purpose of the Father.

III. Strophe 2.
A. Job exchanges cursing for wailing.
B. Job now declares his wish that he had died as soon as he was born, or that he had been left without
care or food.
C. Death is here described as a rest in which all have an equal share.
1. Job places all the dead in the condition of unconscious sleep.
D. There are numerous references in the Old Testament to show man in a conscious state after death.
E. In blurring the future, Job shows how far his soul has drifted from the truth of God.
F. Job's statement in chapter 19:25 {I know that my redeemer liveth} refutes his statements on death.

IV. Strophe 3.
A. The last portion of Job's address is rife with inquiries.
B. Job is longing for death because of his misery.
C. Reasons for living.
1. The sufferings may be the very means which are needful to develop the true state of the saint.
2. The sufferings may be the proper punishment of sin in the heart in which the individual is unaware.
3. Sufferings are needful to teach submission
D. In verses 24-26 Job turns from his longing after death to the reasons which make him desire it.
1. His anguish takes precedence over his hunger.
E. Job has lost the sense God's favor.
F. Job fears that God has forsaken him.
G. Job could not withstand the torturing doubt that God had given him over to hopeless misery.