7th October 2025

7th October 2025


Pray (ACts) 


Read (Job 3) 


Message (Scott Woodburn)


Have you ever got into a endless loop of questions with a child? “Why is the sky blue? Why don’t we have wings? Why do I have to go to bed? Why can’t I have crisps for dinner?” Such conversations never seem to end and more often than not we don’t have all the answers. As a new chapter begins several months have passed since great tragedy swept over Job’s life. He had lost his health and his wealth, he had to listen to his wife's call to apostasy and death and as he sat in ashes there was still no answer as to why such trouble had come. Job had become despondent.


Did Job curse God? By no means. Did Job lose his faith? Absolutely not. Instead, we catch a glimpse of a righteousness man who does not have all the information. He has no clue about the interaction between God and Satan and as the weeks turn into months, Job consistently struggles with the “why” of his circumstances.


There is no hint in this chapter that Job contemplated suicide but we certainly see a man who thinks it would have been better never to have been born. He said “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’” (v3) Have you ever been in such despair? Such an experience is not uncommon. Job looked back to the day of his birth and wished that it would be in darkness (v4a), filled with gloom and deep darkness with clouds dwelling upon it (v4b) and the day never entering the calendar (v6). Indeed, Job wished that he had never been conceived and that barrenness had filled the night of his conception (v7).


There are moments in life so dark and heavy that we cannot find a way out from beneath them. In such moments we can’t help but wonder “why?” Job asks several “whys” wondering why he didn't die at birth (v11), why was he welcomed upon his mother’s knee (v12a), why did he nurse at his mother’s breast (v12b), why was he not stillborn (v16), why is life given to men who will know misery (v20) and why is life given to men whose path is hidden and shrouded in mystery (v23).


Job was a man of faith who had lost everything. Bread and water are the basics of life but Job had received sighing and groaning instead (v24). He has lost his sense of peace as trouble visited his life and what he dreaded most - his perceived loss of God's favour - had appeared on Job's horizon (v25).


There is no point in pretending that we will never experience the darkness of life. Some of you already have and perhaps continue to do so. Job sinned in questioning the day of his birth - God knitted us together in our mother's womb and we have no right to tell Him that He made a mistake. 


Even so, there are times that all we can ask is "why?" We do not have all the answers, we do not understand God's providence and as finite humans we struggle to believe that the best is yet to come. Yet today we know for sure what Job only saw dimly - that the Christ who cried out "why" (Matthew 27v46) has fully paid and met our greatest need at Calvary. A terrible darkness descended upon Jesus (Matthew 27v45) so that even in our worst day we are not without hope. 


Brothers and sisters, hang on and keep on for your "whys" will not tell your whole story and your suffering is not in vain.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q93 Which are the Sacraments of the New Testament?
The Sacraments of the New Testament are Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.
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