Reading Scripture with Redeemer, Langford
3024 Jacklin Road V9B 3Y9 Victoria, BC, Canada

Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul (Job 3:20) Going beyond the question of why bad things happen to good people, Job asks why God bothers to give life to those who undergo misery. We know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-5), but this is poor comfort to those whose souls are thoroughly embittered by their suffering. One of the survivors of the Cambodian genocide, w...ho lost his family and witnessed great horrors, described himself as a broken glass. Years later, he has put the pieces back together but he is still fractured. Cracks remain even after fitting everything back into place. In order to make the glass truly whole again, the glass needs to be melted down and reforged. We are incapable of doing this. We can place fractured pieces side by side but we remain fractured. We can have a job, a place to live, a car, and everything but still break down and cry at night. Only God can completely reforge us. He not only places everything back into place but smooths over the cracks to make things even better than they were at the beginning. When our Lord raises us up from dust and fits our bodies back together from the grave, they will made new. This perishable flesh will receive the immortal and imperishable image of Jesus Christ within it. Our imperishable lives cannot fracture or shatter. This is the light of hope we receive in our misery now. We may be bitter in soul, but the hope of Christ’s resurrection shines in us. In Jesus, we have more than the bare means to live this life. He heals our fractured souls piece by piece and breathes new life into us. See more

Captives also enjoy their ease [in death]; they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout. The small and the great are there, and the slaves are freed from their owners. (Job 3:18-19) Death has been called the great leveller. No matter who you are, no matter what privileges you enjoy, you will experience death. There is no distinction, every person has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God to receive death as a result of sin (Romans 3:23; 6:23). When Jesus died on behalf ...of sinners to save them from death, he was not addressing a side issue of the human condition. Jesus healed something no human being has ever overcome on their own. Only the Lord can give life, and only the Lord can raise life from death. People scramble to try to escape death. There are products to hide aging, drugs and surgeries to live extra months or years, and all kinds of scientific pursuits to preserve minds and bodies that began as science fiction but are seeking to become science fact. Can anyone escape death? No. After sin entered into the picture, God separated humanity from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22). God does not want us to live forever in our sinful condition. Our sin is either destroyed by Christ on the cross, or it is swallowed up in our death. Since God wants all sinners to live, He desires that Christ bring us to repentance that we may live (cf. Ezekiel 18:23, 32). From the greatest man of the East like Job, to slaves and servants like Onesimus (Philemon 10), God desires all people to be saved. Our Lord does not want you to be levelled by death but raised up to everlasting glory through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. See more

In death the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest. (Job 3:17) The majority of the people who commit suicide do so because to escape the pain they are in. Job is not actively suicidal, but he does see the attractiveness of death compared to a life of pain. Job recognizes that it is the Lord who gives and the Lord who takes away (Job 1:21). God alone is to create life and take life. So forcefully does our Lord command us not to murder, He also commands tha...t we are not even to think about someone in anger (Matthew 5:21-22), for that is murdering the person in your heart. Our God has given us the gift of lifethe gift of experiencing all that He has to offer us and coming to live with Him in eternal blessedness. This gift is precious. Trying to take life from anyone through murder is an affront to God, the source of life. So, what of suicides? God alone knows their hearts and knows who belongs to Christ. Christ died for sinners; he died for murderers. People who commit suicide are sinnersmurderers of themselvesand Christ died for them. We have all fallen into sin and acted against God by disobeying His laws, including murdering others in our hearts through anger. Christ died for us and redeemed us by his sacrifice. We do not know the hearts of committers of suicide, and we have lost the chance to find out, but they are in the hand of God now. He who did not spare His own Son for our sake will take care for those lost to suicide and place them where they need to be. See more

For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at restwhy was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day? (Job 3:13, 16) Job considers how much better it would be for him to be dead than to be alive. Although Job is not actively suicidal (since he rejected his wife’s suggestion of immediately cursing God and dying, Job 2:10), the man displays some thoughts characteristic of suicidal behaviour. He asks ...if it would be better if he was not alive. Job is blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil, and even he can succumb to dark thoughts. Even the most devout Christians can feel depressed and desire a peaceful death instead of a tumultuous life. You are not alone if you have thoughts like these and you do not suffer as one without hope. If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:11-12) The light of Christ has shone in the darkness from the beginning and the darkness has never overcome it. Like Job, you might wonder if you should have been ever seen the light of day, but the light of Christwhich enters into your darknessdispels the darkness of death. In him is life, and he brings this life to you. Jesus shines his light within you even when you have depressed or suicidal thoughts. Happy thoughts do not make you a Christian, the light of Christ that saves you from sin and death makes you a Christian. See more

Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? (Job 3:11) Why was I even born? Or, as Job phrases it, why didn’t I die right away? Part of the abortion debate is on whether it is better for a child to die in the womb or to live through substandard living conditions. Is life worth it, even when it is painful or difficult? God would certainly say it is, otherwise He would have not given the child in the womb life at all. Hardship and pain do not define your lif...e. The overcoming of hardship and pain is what matters. True, sometimes the horrible aspects of life can overwhelm and defeat us, but the greater truth is that Christ Jesus has already conquered the evils of this world. Jesus told his disciples that he had already overcome the world to prepare them for the coming hardship of persecution (John 16:32-33). We might feel like the world is killing us and we would rather to have died already, like Job wished, but we are more than conquerors through Jesus who loves us (Romans 8:35-37). Nothing can separate us from his saving love. It is not the life without hardship that is worth living, but the life with Christ that is truly worthy to live. Depriving any infant of life in Christeven those who are yet to be bornis the real evil, not living in hardship. The war has been won by Christ when he overcame all evils on the cross. Sin? Defeated. Death? Broken. The devil? Bound and tethered. In Christ, we rise above that which attempts to overcome us because Jesus raises us above it all. See more