Elder Goh Kee Tai

Job’s reflection on life and death

Job, ‘a perfect and upright man’, one that feared God and eschewed evil (Job 1:1), was sorely tested for his fidelity and integrity on Satan’s instigation. Satan’s insistence was that ‘Does Job serve and fear God for nothing?’ The notion in man’s mind was that "Righteousness begets prosperity and safety while wickedness would attract Divine fury." Perhaps, even Job thought that. But as the devil insisted, seized all that Job possessed and he would prove Job’s agenda for his steadfastness in the Lord. Thus began this earthly struggle, the result of a heavenly conflict between God and Satan through Job’s suffering.

Job lost all that he had – possessions and children and ultimately his health. Job’s three friends came with intention to comfort him, but soon debated he must have invited the wrath of God because of his sins. They were of no comfort to Job and turned out to be ‘forgers of lies’, ‘physicians of no value’ (Job 13:4), ‘miserable comforters’(Job 16:2) and ‘mockers’ (Job 17:2). To them, Job must have been a wicked man and a hypocrite, and thus God had justly afflicted him with such calamities.

Job felt lost and bewailed all that had befallen him. What was the cause that provoked God to afflict him so severely? Despite his sore trials with intense physical and mental anguish, stripped of all comfort and no respite of his sorrows, he persevered in his unwavering confidence in the Lord, even in death (Job 13:15). His hope was still in God, the Lord of his Salvation (Job 13:16). In the darkest hour of his tribulations, he confessed his profound faith: ‘the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed by the name of the LORD’ (Job 1:21). When his wife urged him to curse God and die, she was severely rebuked: ‘Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?’ (Job 2:10).

However, Job was also a man of like passion as we are, being impatient and speaking rashly at times. He cursed the day of his birth and wished he had died as soon as he was born (Job 3: 3-10). He repeatedly wished that he had not been born into this world but rather died in his mother’s womb (Job 10:18,19). To him, death was preferred as his health was deteriorating rapidly and his body wasting away (Job 7:5;19:20;17:1).

In his sore distress, Job coveted death as a place of rest (Job 3:13). He passionately begged God to cut short his life to end his grievous pains and miseries (Job 6:8,9). He would leave it to God to use whatever means to end his life, even through strangling (Job 7:15).Though Job was desirous of death, yet he would bear his afflictions patiently and not hasten it by taking his own life. He was aware that God, the Giver of life, created him and had providentially cared, preserved and sustained even the thin thread of life as a tiny embryo in his mother’s womb ( Job 10:10-12). While desirous of death, Job was at the same time reluctant to die (Job 7:8,10;14:21,22;17:15,16).

Brevity and frailty of life
Job stated that ‘Man that is born of a woman is of a few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth as a shadow, and continued not’ (Job 14:1,2).

Man was created in God’s image, but because of sin, we are all born sinners, spiritually unclean and naturally depraved: ‘shapen in iniquity, and in sin, did my mother conceive me’ (Ps 51:5). In our present miserable, wretched, corruptible state, this body will decompose and return to dust. Job described the brevity of life and certainty of death as ‘a few days’, not months or years, as we are not certain of the length of our existence on earth. Some perish soon after birth, and some live to a ripe old age. Job himself lived to 140 years (Job 42:16) and Methuselah, the oldest man that ever lived, at 969 years (Gen 5:25,26).

Job aptly compared the uncertainty and brevity of life to that of a flower which withers very quickly; to a fleeting shadow that soon vanishes away (Job 14:2); and the breeze that blows on us and soon is gone (Job 7:7).

Life full of troubles
After the Fall, man was condemned to toil and labour to make a living, because of the curse on the ground and woman was condemned to suffer greatly in childbearing and to challenge the headship of the husband in the home (Gen 3:16-19).

The curse of man’s life is that it is ‘full of trouble’ (Job 14:1). Since sin entered into this world, pain and afflictions, toils and miseries, sorrow and death became the lot of humanity. Death visits all men alike: the rich and healthy as well as the poor and sick; the good and the wicked. Sin and trouble go together: where there is sin, there is trouble.

Our lifespan ordained by God

Job acknowledged the sovereignty of God in our lives. Our Creator is the One Who determines the exact time of our birth and death: the number of days, months and years of our existence on earth. God has fixed the limit and we cannot go beyond it: ‘Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass’ (Job 14:5). For the redeemed, they know that nothing comes to pass in their lives by chance. If God decrees an affliction or death, man has no power to resist or hinder it, nor is our Creator obliged to give the reasons ( Job 9:12 ).

Moreover, as Job noted, God is sovereign in decreeing a variety of ways man may die: ‘Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of everything, and the breath of all mankind’ (Job 12:9,10). One dies suddenly in his full strength, being fully at ease and quiet, while another dies slowly and ‘in the bitterness of his soul’ (Job 21:23-25).God is in absolute control of everything. He gives and takes away according to His wise counsel, will and for His own glory. His overruling providence transcends human understanding and knowledge (Job 12:13). May this important fact help us to realise and submit ourselves to His sovereignty that behind every circumstance in our lives, God is at work and in control. Knowing this, then we may experience His peace.

Death, resurrection and judgment

When a man dies, his body wastes away and becomes dust. Job, like the patriarchs of old, believed in life after death. He looked beyond the grave to a life eternal in the world where all is light and where there is no night and where there is one bright eternal day (Rev 22:5). Death is the great separator of body and soul (spirit). Our soul shall be dislodged from the ‘house of clay’ (Job 4:19). The soul lives on as it is immortal, but the body returns to dust: ‘for dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return’ (Gen 3:19). The spirit of a believer returns to His Creator in heaven, while that of an unbelievers goes to hell to be tormented forever (Lk 16:22-24).

Job had been faithful and steadfast in serving God with a clear conscience, so he did not fear death, ‘the king of terrors’ of unbelievers (Job 18:14), but he likened it to sleep. He considered the grave as the bed where the weary saint lies down and rests from all his earthly toils and labour until he awakes on that glorious day of resurrection (Job 17:13).

Job comforted himself with this assurance of resurrection as promised to all believers when Christ shall return to earth to give him the glorified resurrection body when body and soul would rejoin and he would live again (Job 14:14). He declared that at an appointed time in the future, God would call, and he would answer Him: ‘all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands’ (Job 14:14,15). Though his diseased body be destroyed yet it shall be restored. He shall awake and in his flesh he shall see Christ face to face: ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold ’ ( Job 19:25-27).

God also revealed to Job the day of judgment after death. Death is no respecter of persons (Job 3:19). Power, fame and wealth cannot prevent kings and princes from the claws of death (Job 3:14,15). All the worldly differences among men are ended at death. They shall all lie in the grave without any distinction until the general resurrection judgment comes (Job 21:26). The spirit which God gives will return to the Creator for judgment (Job 14:10). Job warned us of the miserable state of death for those who are not saved. They will end in the ‘land of darkness, as darkness itself; and the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness’ (Job 10:22). Sinners will certainly be punished even though they live in prosperity with a long comfortable life in this world: ‘That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath’ (Job 21:30).

Conclusion
Job realised that only God’s favour and love will gender true and real happiness. Job understood the importance of being in close communion with the Lord, and faithfully worshipping and serving Him all his life. He ensured that he and his family were saved and be very conscious of sin and more so, to avoid sinning against God. Knowing God in a personal and an intimate way would strengthen the trust and faith in the Lord (Job 1:5).

Even in the midst of his sore afflictions, Job was not a man without hope at all. The hope he comforted himself with was not with things that are seen and temporal in this life, but rather things not seen that are eternal in the next world.

Job’s faith took a big leap as he went through his sore trials. He declared: ‘But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold’ (Job 23:10). Job’s vision of His Mediator, Jesus Christ (Job 9:33), became clearer when he declared with utmost assurance of that blessed and glorious day of resurrection when he shall behold his Redeemer face to face (Job 19:25-27).

Outside Christ, man has a miserable life - frail and short-lived and full of sorrows. But in Christ, we have the true joy that expands to eternity. He has redeemed us by His precious blood, blotted out all our sins and given us a spiritual inheritance, undefiled, incorruptible and that fadeth not away, reserved for us in heaven (1 Pet 1:4).

Pilgrims and strangers we are, in this world (Heb 11:13). The time of our entry into and exit from this world are entirely determined by the wise counsel of God (Ecl 3:1,2; Ps 31:15). Like Job, our hope is in Christ. Death does not and cannot destroy those in the Lord. We are but asleep resting from our earthly toils and awaiting to be reconciled to God for eternity.

Christ did not give us His life so that we would be healthy and wealthy and free from the troubles of our earthly existence. In this sin-filled world, we will have to encounter tribulations (Jn 16:32). If God permits trials to come into our lives, He has also promised that His grace is all sufficient (2 Cor 12:9). He would not subject us to testing and trials beyond our ability to cope, but will surely find a way of escape for His own (1 Cor 10:13 ). He also promises that all things will work out for good to those who love Him and who are the called according to His purpose (Rm 8:28). So, take heart, brethren. Our God knows when we are sent to the furnace of testing and He will regulate the heat that we be not singed. Rather, that our dross be removed and we come forth as gold.

Like Job, the sole purpose of our existence on earth is to enjoy fellowship with God, to glorify His name and to be ready for heaven. We ought to possess the faith of Job to look beyond this world to eternity with Christ. Amen.