“God is Good…All the time!”
Am I Better Off Dead?
Job 2:1-10; 3:11, 20-26
Am I Better Off Dead? Here’s the answer: YES and NO–it all depends. If you’re a Christian, yes, heaven is preferable to life, but you don’t get to set your departure time. If you’re not a Christian, no, you wouldn’t be better off dead, and you still have time to do something about it. As we are studying the book of Job, we find a man who has experienced so much pain and trouble that he insists he would be better off dead. In the first chapter we learned about Job losing all his wealth and most of his servants. To make matters worse, on the same day, a storm blew in and killed all ten of his children. The reason Satan brought this trouble on Job was because Satan alleged if Job suffered he would curse God. But instead, Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; May the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21) After round one, the score is Job 1, Satan 0. But the devil isn’t finished yet. Read Job 2:1-10.
In the third chapter, three of Job’s friends come to comfort him, but rather than comforting him they end up tormenting him. Next week, we’ll talk about them as we consider the topic, “With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemies?” But for now, I want you to notice some of Job’s words of agony. He contends he would be better off dead than to deal with all the pain and suffering in his life. Read Job 3:11-13. He was saying, “I wish I had never been born in the first place.” Then he suggests that for him, death would be preferable to this misery: Read Job 3:20-26. Maybe you’ve never expressed it exactly in those words, but at some time, most people have wondered if they would just be better off dead. As we study Job’s suffering and Job’s words in these verses, we can learn three very important lessons.
1. Satan is persistent!
Job 2:7 “Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.” You’ve got to give the devil his due; he is a persistent old dude. Even though Job survived round one, the devil wasn’t through with Job. He gains God’s permission for round two. He is still attacking God’s servants today, so it will help us resist the devil if we can learn some of the methods of his attack.
*Satan can attack your health and your marriage.
Health: Satan afflicted Job with painful sores. Later, Job would describe his physical suffering, Job 7:5 “My body is clothed with worms and scabs; my skin is broken and festering.” (Job 7:5) Every sickness may not be a direct attack from Satan, but we can learn here that, when permitted, Satan will try to attack your health. In II Corinthians 12 the Apostle Paul complained about a thorn in his flesh. Obviously, it was some kind of physical suffering, or he wouldn’t have described it as a part of his flesh. We don’t know what it was, but Paul said it was “a messenger of Satan to torment me.” (II Corinthians 12:7) When the Apostle Peter was telling Cornelius about Jesus he said Jesus went about “healing those who were afflicted by the devil.” (Acts 10:38) Just remember Satan wants to make you miserable, and sometimes he does it by attacking your health.
Marriage: Job lost his fortune, his family, and his fitness, but to add to his suffering, his wife survived. Satan is a sneaky dude. He will attack you by attacking those you love (Job’s children) and he may attack you using someone close to you. In this instance, Satan used Job’s wife. Satan’s allegation is that Job will curse God. That’s exactly what Mrs. Job suggested. She said, “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9) Before we get too critical, we must remember Mrs. Job was suffering greatly as well. She lost ten children, and she watched as her mate suffered physically. We’re wired in such a way that we would prefer to hurt instead of watching someone we love suffer.
The main thing to learn here is that Satan wants to drive a wedge between every husband and wife. Satan wants to drive a wedge between every parent and child. Job told his wife, “You are talking like a foolish woman.” He didn’t call his wife a fool. He said she was talking like a foolish woman. In the Bible, a fool is someone who “says in their heart, ‘there is no God.’” (Ps. 53:1) Job’s wife believed in God–but she spoke foolishly about God, as if God should be blamed for his suffering. But we see Job’s wife stayed with him, and in the end she enjoyed the blessings of God. So, don’t let Satan attack you through those who love you.
2. Christians will sometimes feel like quitting.
Read Job 3:20 -21. In the next thirty chapters you can read questions and statements from Job and his friends that walk right up to the edge of blasphemy. When you read these words, you might wonder if Job was suicidal. No. He was just expressing the intensity of his pain. He is moaning about the fact that sometimes in this world, life can become so painful that you long for the next world. You long to die and go home.
Elijah felt that way when he sat under a Juniper tree and said, “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life.” (I Kings 19:4) Lord, I’ve had enough, please just let me die.” Jeremiah felt the same way when he said, “Cursed be the day I was born! Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow?” (Jeremiah 20:14,18) Even God’s most faithful servants have expressed the same kind of emotion Job experienced. Have I ever felt that way? No, not more than four or five times a day. Of course I have. It’s okay to look at life and contemplate heaven and say, “I’d be better off dead.” That may be true, but that doesn’t mean that we should contemplate ending our lives or quitting on God. Elijah didn’t quit, Jeremiah didn’t quit, Job didn’t quit, I’m not quitting, and don’t you give up, either!
Chances are you’ve seen the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. When Frank Capra released the movie in 1946 it was a box office flop. Since then, however, it has become a Christmas classic and as you know, the movie centers around the character George Bailey. Life has become so painful for George, he runs away from his family on a snowy Christmas Eve. He sits in a bar over a drink and prays, “Dear Father, I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. Show me the way, oh God.” After his prayer, the guy next to him, who is the husband of his daughter’s schoolteacher punches George out for insulting his wife on the phone. Outside George rubs his bloodied lip and says, “That’s what I get for praying.”
Have you ever felt that way? You’re at the bottom of the barrel and you think things can’t get any worse, and then the bottom of the barrel falls out? Then clutching his life insurance policy George decides it would better for everyone if he were dead. We see him standing in the middle of the bridge, gazing down into the icy waters. He’s on the verge of giving up and committing suicide. At that moment, God’s answer to his prayer arrives. Clarence, the goofy guardian angel, falls into the river and George rescues him.
Clarence arranged for George to see what life would be like if he had never been born. In one memorable scene, George visits a cemetery and sees a tombstone of his brother that says, “Harry Bailey 1911-1919.” Earlier in the movie George had rescued Harry from an icy sledding accident. George looked at the tombstone and said, “That can’t be true! Harry’s a hero, he flew in the war; he saved all those people on the transport!” Clarence says, “Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn’t there to save them because you weren’t there to save Harry.” Then Clarence gives the most powerful line in the entire movie: “Strange isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
Not long after that we see George on his knees saying, “Help me, Clarence. Get me back. I don’t care what happens to me. I want to live again. I want to live again. Dear God, let me live again.” I would tell you how the movie ends, but you already know. You may be thinking, “My life isn’t very wonderful. Nobody cares about me. Nobody would even miss me if I died.” There are people who care for you, and God cares. Jesus said God notices and cares when a little sparrow falls to earth, and if His eye is on the sparrow, you can know He watches over you.
3. We can maintain our spiritual integrity when suffering.
Job 2:9 “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” Even though the devil is persistent in his attack against you, and even though you may go through periods of deep depression, you need to know you can maintain your integrity. What is integrity? According to dictionary integrity is the quality or condition of being whole or undivided. (from Latin integritas from integer). Let’s start with the word “integer.” In math, an integer is a whole number. It is a number that isn’t fractional, or divided. Five is an integer, Five and three quarters is not an integer. To maintain your integrity means your mind and heart are not divided—they are whole. So, when it comes to the Christian life, integrity means that you fully trust God without a divided heart or a fractured mind. When you are suffering there are two things you must do if you are going to maintain your integrity:
*Trust God’s plan and grace. At the very time Job felt God had forsaken him, God was actually giving Job personal, almost microscopic attention. When you think about it, in one sense God was putting His entire divine reputation on how Job would respond to this kind of suffering. Satan had declared before thousands and perhaps millions of heavenly creatures that Job would break and curse God when he suffered enough. God, who is omniscient, knew without a doubt Job would trust Him.
Like us, when Job was suffering, he couldn’t understand the details of God’s plan, he just had to trust that God HAD a plan. He didn’t understand it at first, but that’s what suffering does—it helps us understand that God has a plan. In the last chapter of the book Job says, “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2) Sometimes you just simply have to believe God even when you don’t have any evidence that things are as God’s says. You may be in the midst of suffering and you can’t see any evidence of God’s hand–that’s when you just have to trust his plan.
But instead of trusting His place, when we are hurting, we often put our eyes on our hopeless circumstances and we beg God to change our circumstances. Church, if you’re looking at your bad circumstances, your eyes are focused on the wrong thing. You should be looking for God–you should be looking to see what God is doing. And even though, you may not see His hand or face, you can always trust His grace. Even though Job suffered terribly and experienced deep misery, he never gave up on God. Even though he asked some questions that would make us think he wanted to die, he never gave up. He never sinned against God by blaming God. He did not curse God and die. He did not try to end his life. He stuck it out. He maintained his integrity to the end.
As we come to a close this morning, we need to remember that Job was human, which means that through his suffering Job’s eyes stayed filled with tears, but Job didn’t let his tears obscure his vision by just focusing on his suffering, but instead he let his tears magnify his sight and by doing that, he was able to look into eternity. By faith he looked 2,000 years into the future and he saw a Redeemer who would stand as the ultimate King over all of God’s creation. He knew one day He would see God. This is the key passage to the entire book. Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God;” (Job 19:25-26)
In Jerusalem there is a Holocaust Museum dedicated to the memory of the millions of Jews who were killed by the Nazis in World War II. It has been said that going through the museum is a very depressing experience because you see these horrible pictures and read the accounts of the ghettos and the concentration camps. But in the midst of all the dark tales of suffering, there is one amazing story of how God can transform horror into hope.
In one of the German concentration camps there was a young lady named Rachel. She endured great hardship from being made to work in the snow with inadequate clothing. She watched in horror as many of her friends and family members were killed. Then one day, the guards left unexpectedly. She didn’t know the war was over. Later that day some American soldiers arrived to set the prisoners free. One young American soldier told Rachel he had come to rescue her and for her to gather her few possessions. Then he held the door for her and said, “After you, ma’am.” Rachel started to cry. He asked, “What’s wrong, ma’am?” She said, “I can’t remember the last time someone held a door open for me. It’s the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a long time.” The soldier stayed in touch with Rachel after she was relocated, and they became friends. Later they fell in love and were married.
That’s what God can do. He can take the most terrible situation imaginable and make something beautiful out of it. Our God is an awesome God and I’m glad He’s in control. Whenever you go through tough times, you can either look for the junk or you can look for the joy. Job looked for the joy and in the end; God rewarded Job’s persistence and patience. It says in Job 42:12 that “the Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.”
If the Lord tarries in His return, we are all going to face death. For some of us, we will be better off dead–it will mean heaven and paradise for us. If you don’t know Jesus as your personal savior my advice to you is to take all the vitamins you can buy, workout 7 days a week, don’t smoke, don’t drink, and don’t eat fatty foods. In other words, you should do everything you can to try to delay that day, because this life is as good as it will ever get for you. Isn’t that scary? But my friend, you can turn from your sins and place your faith in Jesus today, and you can be ready to die.
