The Mournful Wail of a Miserable Man, Part 3

Pastor Chuck Swindoll: There are days too dark for the sufferer to see light. There are experiences too extreme for the hurting to have hope. There are valleys too deep for the anguish to find relief. The theory that Corrie ten Boom lived out and put in her book, "There is no pit so deep but that He is not deeper still." Isn't that a great line?
Narrator: What do you do with grief too big for words? What do you do when the loss is so deep, the darkness so complete, that the only thing left is a scream aimed at Heaven? Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll brings his study of Job chapter 3 to a powerful close, with a word of grace for anyone who's ever poured out the unedited, unfiltered wailings of a broken heart. In this passage, we discover that God never rebuked Job for his outburst. God can handle everything we say. Everything.
Pastor Chuck Swindoll: One man writes, "The third chapter of Job must be one of the most depressing chapters in the Bible." While some might be as depressed as Job was and use these verses to give vent to their feelings, few sermons are made from this chapter. Few verses are claimed as promises, and few are remembered for the warmth of their sentiment. It is the lowest of several low points in the book. Afterward, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He doesn't curse God. He curses the day of his birth. There's a difference. There's a difference. To say, "Why was I ever born?" is much different than saying, "I no longer believe in You, God." It's saying, "I am so totally and completely alone, I regret that I ever drew breath." In fact, I regret that I was ever conceived in the womb of my mother. Verses 1 to 10, he regrets his birth. Verses 11 to 19, he wished he'd been born dead. Verses 20 through 26, he longs to die. End of sermon. As I said earlier, if you weren't depressed when you started with me, you will be when I finish. Just pause and remember the aftershock of what is included in the word, Chapter 3, Verse 1, "Afterward." "Afterward." Sitting at the city dump, head shaved, wife wringing her hands, three friends sitting seven days and seven nights, staring, not saying a word. Chapter 2, Verse 13, seeing the pain was very great. After loss of all the children and everything he held dear and ability to make a living, with sores running and scabs pulling loose from those sores, after that, he opened his mouth and out came, "I wish I had never been born." And that's not all he said. If you like marking your Bibles, you will have a field day with the words, "Let" and "May" in verses 3 through 9. "Let the day perish," Verse 4. "May the day be darkness. Let God above care not for it," Verse 5. "Let darkness and black gloom claim it. Let a cloud settle on it. Let the blackness of the day terrify it," Verse 6. "Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months." "Take it out of the calendar. Forget my birthday. Let that night be barren. Let no joyful shout enter it. Let those curse it who cursed the day," Verse 9. "Let the stars of its twilight be darkened." "Let all that happen." I thought it was interesting, while working through this wail, to see what he said in Verse 3. Not only does he regret the day of his birth, he even regrets the conception. "Let the day perish on which I was born," and in good poetic fashion he returns even further, "And the night, let it perish when they said a boy is conceived." And he picks up the thought and says, "Oh, while I'm at it, let Leviathan swallow up the sun of the day." Make it dark. So, Job referring to this ancient creature who will return again in the in the poetry of this text. Not here, but later. And while lamenting that he did not perish at conception and grieving that he lived to see the day of his birth, please notice another interesting comment made in Verse 11. Having said, "Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?" "Why did the knees receive me? Why the breasts that I should suck?" The latter we understand, the nursing of the mother, as Job's mother nursed him, but the knees. How curious. Some say that it has reference to the passing of the child as the mother births the infant. It passes, if you will, through the knees. But this says, "receive." It could be a reference to the mother placing the infant on her knees as she prepares to begin the nursing. It probably better refers to the patriarchal process of a father being given the infant shortly after birth. The child was placed on the knees of the father and he would there give it the family's blessing. And Job says, "Why was I ever so blessed?" "Why did those knees ever receive me?" "Why wasn't it a corpse that they held in their hands?" And then with the thought of becoming a corpse, ghoulish as it sounds, he turns to the blessing of that as he describes Heaven. 13 through 19. Look closely. For now, meaning had I died, I would have been lain down and been quiet. I would have slept then and I would have been at rest. I would have been alongside kings and counselors and princes, Verse 15, who had gold and filling their houses with silver. Verse 17, "There the wicked cease from raging." That's true in Heaven. "There the weary are at rest, prisoners are at ease, they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master." It's a beautiful picture of peace and solemnity and ease. And he said, "Oh, that could have been my lot, but I lived." "And I've lost it all." And as a result, Verse 24, he takes us to his everyday experience, "My groaning comes at the sight of my food." "My cries pour out like water." When someone served him a simple meal, he groaned. The Hebrew word means to shriek. "You take that away. I have no interest in anything to eat." The man, along with the suffering of the sickness, is now starving. And his cries come like water poured out. He speaks of his fears in Verse 25 and his dread, "The things I dreaded have fallen upon me." This may have reference to those days when he was prosperous and life was good, and he, in unguarded moments, wondered if they would remain that. "And my worst fears have been realized, and now dread has fallen upon me." "I am not at ease. I am not quiet. I am not at rest. I am full of turmoil." End of speech. His friends are nearby, staring him down, analyzing him from their vantage point of good health, and beginning their sermons, if you will, as they will soon rebuke him because he's getting what he deserves. If you can imagine. One man writes, "These are the harshest words Job utters against himself in the entire book." They startle us. His friends, too, are shocked. They fear his faith in God has melted into distrust. Why would one who refused to curse God be so hostile toward his own life? The contrast between the Job of the prologue and the Job of the poem could not be sharper. Ever felt like this? We've come a long ways in church history in the last four decades. My little segment of ministry has happened in about a four-decade period of time. I began seriously to minister a year before I was out of seminary in 1962, and that puts me right about 40 years now. Early, early on, when you suffered from a depression that resulted in this kind of thinking, you never told anybody. I don't remember not just one course. I don't remember one line from one of my professors who ever even addressed mental illness. From 1959 to my graduating in 1963, not once. Christians didn't have that. The first book I read on the mental and emotional struggles of a Christian was, "Why Christians Crack Up," by Dr. Marion Nelson, and it was considered heresy by many evangelicals. "Christians don't crack up," was the common belief. "You don't have breakdowns." You know what the word was that was used of those who struggled emotionally back in the early and mid-60s? "Nervous." "She's nervous." And if you ever, God help you, if you ever had to be hospitalized, there just wasn't a Christian word for it. And you didn't tell a soul. Shame upon shame that you didn't trust the Lord through your struggle and find him faithful to help you with your depression. I remember being told by a prof who talked to us about doing funerals that if you did funerals for those who committed suicide and they happened to have been Christians, never mention that they were Christians. It didn't sound right then, and it doesn't sound right now. And I didn't know enough to know that Job 3 was in the book back then. Or I would have loved to have said, "What about this?" Oh, but this old salt has come through a number of things since 40 years ago. And I've buried many a Christian who took her own life or his life. It's always heartbreaking. But I never once would put them down. My heart goes out to them. And you're not nervous. Who knows the reason? The spectrum is broad. I wouldn't even begin to name the possible reasons. I just know that we are still human. We are human beings, even though we claim Christ as Savior and Lord. Ours is a fallen world and depraved nature has run through us too. Sometimes more obviously than they run through the lost. The ugliest letters I've ever received have come from fellow Christians, who wrote me in Christian love, of course. You understand. So, I want to say, back then, if you sought out help from a psychologist, you were nervous, but I want to tell you today, if you're struggling, you need help, and you need a good Christian psychologist, the most intelligent thing you can do is find one and go. And go as long as you need to go. And be sure that that psychologist or psychiatrist really really does know the Lord Jesus and really is able to give you direction so that you can work your way through it, and I say to you, God bless you for every hour you spend finding your way out of the hole that you have been in for whatever reason. I don't know that I would have been as mature enough earlier in my life to do this, but I think at the end of hearing Job, as he's crushed with his head in his hands and probably pouring out tears. I could not have restrained walking over and throwing my arms around him and telling him how much I love him and respect him. Though I don't understand how terrible it must be. And I say to everyone who has engaged in the work of psychology and psychiatry, who know our Savior and appreciate his word and believe in its truths. I say, "Go for it!" Help all you can, as long as you can. And our prayers are with you. Now, having said all that, there are three closing practical lines I want to give you. Then I want to tell you a story that's true and I'm I'm through. Rather briefly now. Number one, there are days too dark for the sufferer to see light. There are days that are just too dark for the sufferer to see light. That's where Job is. Some of you have not seen light for a long time. I'll say more to you in a moment, but just stay with me. Second, there are experiences too extreme for the hurting to find hope. There are some experiences too extreme for the hurting to have hope. And third, along with that, similar sounding words, but the details are different. There are valleys too deep for the anguish to find relief, meaning on their own. There are days too dark for the sufferer to see light. There are experiences too extreme for the hurting to have hope. There are valleys too deep for the anguish to find relief. And the theory that Corrie ten Boom lived out and put in her book, which is so good, "There is no pit so deep but that he is not deeper still." Isn't that a great line? Those who are depressed don't know that and can't reason with that. They would deny that because they sense the distance between them and God and it's confusing. Now, having said all of that and sounding so nice to those who are struggling, let me add, some people like to be victims. Okay? Some people enjoy the role of victim, and they milk that for everything it's worth, and they they love to just manipulate people and say they're just strugglers and they can't seem. I'm not talking to you. You need to get your stuff together. That's the other side of me here, you know. Before you think I'm this soft teddy bear, I'm a "get your stuff together" guy also. And if you if you milk that, if you manipulate others because of that, you're enjoying your your struggle and you're going in the wrong direction. And a good, a real good psychologist or psychiatrist will tell you that, but that's I'll leave it up to her or him to do that. During Cynthia's and my student years at Dallas, a man in a class just behind ours, I was in class of '63. Dennis Guernsey was in the class of '64. Dennis and Lucy became friends of ours because we both lived in campus apartments, which, praise God, had been torn down and they're. But back then, we lived right on campus, and when you lived in campus apartments, there were only 10 of them, and so you got to know everybody around, and you hung out, and you know how it is in school, you're good friends. And Dennis and Lucy became some of our best, and we we just loved him. And they had a little baby boy, whom Dennis just loved. He just loved him. Dennis was sort of jerked up, my mother would say. Raised by an irresponsible mother, and I don't know that I ever heard him tell about his father. But this little boy became for him his reason to go on. And he and Lucy were such great parents. We had our Kurt by then, and they had their their son. And after I graduated, I went on to ministry, and Dennis, after he graduated, moved to Los Angeles, where he then went to USC to earn his PhD in psychology because he felt, courageous decision back then. He felt that that he could help people who struggled as he had struggled growing up. And indeed, he did. But while studying as a PhD student, their little boy, at age four, stumbled into a pool of a neighbor and drowned. And they lost him. And it devastated Dennis. He told me the story later. He said, "I got in my car, having lost my boy. And I grabbed that steering wheel, and I drove about every freeway in Los Angeles, and I screamed out to God. The grief and the anger and the sorrow and the loss." "And he said, 'I I said things that I'd never said before to anybody.' I said it all. I just vomited it out." About dawn, he drove back into his driveway. Shirt was dripping wet with his sweat. He turned the key off, hand still gripping the steering wheel. And he said, "I was comforted with one thought, God can handle everything I said." Isn't that a great line? God can handle everything I just said. In years to come, the Lord gave them two wonderful girls, and they grew them up right. There was no one ever to take the place of that little boy. Dennis has since died of brain cancer. But I'll never forget, God could handle everything I said. There is no blast against Job at the end of Chapter 3. God doesn't say, "Shame on you, Job." God understood. And he understands you. He can take it. And the best part, he'll never tell on you. Job has it all recorded for preachers to work on for centuries. Yours and mine will remain a secret inside our cars, and in the back part of our bedrooms, and out under the trees of the forest. He can handle it all. Let it all out. Let it all out. Let it out. You never fully get over grief until you express it fully. Job has to express it. And I salute him. May we bow our heads. Oh, I don't know where you are today in all of this. You might even in a candid unguarded moment say, "Move over, Job. I I know exactly where you are." I'm there right now. Or it may be that you've come through that kind of thing, and how wonderfully fitted you are now to understand those who go through it. You of all people would be the one who would never have a word of criticism for Job. You've been there, you've done that. I just want to say to you who who are there and have never found the Lord Jesus, the real sad part of the story for you without Christ is that even when you work through your struggle, you won't have peace. And maybe all this struggle is designed to bring you to the cross. I'd like to think that. That He's brought you down to the black hole of where you are and is is stand with you through that so that you'll look up and see the one who died that you might know a lasting, in fact, ultimately, an eternal peace with Him. Because you understand, if you died today without Christ, you have no idea what misery is about until that moment of your death for the rest of your days. So, come, please. Don't delay. Just understand that the penalty was paid in full for your sins and the sins of the whole world. And He stands ready to receive you if you place your faith and trust in the one who died for you and rose from the dead and lives for you. Thank you for going with us, our Father, all the way to the valley of death's dark shadow. Thank you for being there as we go through it, though we don't sense your presence. And for being there as we come out of it. Thank you for giving light in our most desperate moments. Thank you for giving us hope when our hurt can't be described in words. Thank you for rescuing us from the valley. In the name of Jesus. Thank you for being so good. Everyone said, Amen.
Narrator: There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. Job discovered that. Dennis Guernsey discovered that on the freeways of Los Angeles in the darkest night of his life. And perhaps you're discovering it right now. You see, God never rebuked Job for what happened in Chapter 3. He understood every word and he understands yours. You're listening to Insight for Living. Our Bible teacher Chuck Swindoll is just getting underway in his comprehensive study on the life of Job. He titled today's message, "The Mournful Wail of a Miserable Man." If you're ready to learn more, or if you're looking for a creative way to guide your small group Bible study in meaningful discussion, we invite you to request the searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbook for this series. It's called, "Job, a Man of Heroic Endurance." In fact, this Bible study is part of a bundle of resources. This collection includes 22 sermons on CD or MP3. Plus, Chuck's full-length biography of Job. In his book, which is more than 300 pages long, you get to read Chuck's portrayal of Job's story, and along the way, Chuck infuses practical application that equips you to deal with adversity of any kind. The bundle for Job includes three powerful resources, the spiral-bound Bible study workbook, the full collection of sermons from Chuck, and his comprehensive biography of Job, "A Man of Heroic Endurance." You can find them online at insight.org/offer. Or call us at 800-772-8888. That's 800-772-8888. Not too long ago, Chuck invited his friend and colleague, Pastor Greg Laurie, to sit down for a conversation. There's something special about hearing two trusted voices chatting honestly about their lives. During their conversation, both men openly admitted their struggles and how God's grace shapes the way they lead and love. To see and hear the entire interview between Chuck and Greg, go to insight.org/conversations.
Narrator: Ever received bum advice from a friend? I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll describes how to respond to bad counsel. Tomorrow, on Insight for Living.
Narrator: The preceding message, "The Mournful Wail of a Miserable Man," was copyrighted in 2002, 2004, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindoll, Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.