Job and George Bailey

ob 3:1-2 Jobs spoke after seven days and nights of silence.

V1-10

·       V1 Job cursed his day: the day he was born

·       V3-4, 6,7,  Job wanted the day he was conceived and the day he was born to as if they never were. Job felt God should never allow the sun to come upon his day again.

·       V5 Job first mentions “the shadow of death”. This phrase is seen 8 more time in the Book of Job.

Ø    Job 10:20-22 Job felt that the “few days” he had left were under the shadow of death and the darkness of the grave.

·       V8 Job said instead of mourning for me curse that day.

Ø    There are those who will never waste a chance for a good mourning. If you are not sad enough they will work to make you sad. These are those of whom Job speaks that are ready to raise up their mourning (they are usually women)

Ø     (Jer 9:17-18) Professional mourners.

·       V10 Job, it would have been better if he was never conceived in his mother’s womb.

V11-19 Job felt it would have been better if he died at birth and went and went to a place of which he knew than he would have never seen sorrow.

·       V14 Where kings who had built their city and that city would become empty after he died. (Job 17:16)

·       V15 Princes could not take their wealth with them in death

·       V16 Babies who died in birth.  (2Sam 12:23)

·       Vs 18-19 prisoners, the small and great, servants all rest on equal terms. Free from the wicked and oppressor (Vs17,18)

Ø    Job felt it would have been better to die at birth than live as if God was against him. Job 10:2

V20-22 Wherefore: (V18-19) Since Job knew suffering ends in death for those like himself (Those who feared God, eschewed evil, upright and perfect in God’s eyes).

·       V20a The light (Job 33:30; Ps 56:12-13; Rev 9:6): the light of the living; Gen 1:3-5 the light of morning

·       V20b-21 For what reason does death not come to those who seek it to end suffering?

·       V22 These long for death and are glad when they are in the grave. Those in the grave are conscience, they know where they are.

·       Why forced to face another day just like the one before?

Most of us have seen the movie “It’s A wonderful Life”. Where a guarding angel stops George Bailey from committing suicide and teaches how he changed the lives of those around him.

Unlike George Bailey, Job never attempted to take his life or even hinted that he considered killing himself. Job feared God; Job knew God

·       De 32:39; 1Sam 2:6; Ps 68:20

Job felt it would have been better if he never lived.

Better for whom?

·       His seven children in 1:2 who were in the place where Job longed to go?

·       Those mentioned in Job 4:3-4?

·       Better for his three friends?

·       Better for us?