#649 No More

“Man who is born of a woman

is few of days and full of trouble.

2 He comes out like a flower and withers;

he flees like a shadow and continues not.

3 And do you open your eyes on such a one

and bring me into judgment with you?

4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?

There is not one.

5 Since his days are determined,

and the number of his months is with you,

and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,

6 look away from him and leave him alone,[a]

that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day.

7 “For there is hope for a tree,

if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,

and that its shoots will not cease.

8 Though its root grow old in the earth,

and its stump die in the soil,

9 yet at the scent of water it will bud

and put out branches like a young plant.

10 But a man dies and is laid low;

man breathes his last, and where is he?

11 As waters fail from a lake

and a river wastes away and dries up,

12 so a man lies down and rises not again;

till the heavens are no more he will not awake

or be roused out of his sleep.

13 Oh that you would hide me in Sheol,

that you would conceal me until your wrath be past,

that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

14 If a man dies, shall he live again?

All the days of my service I would wait,

till my renewal[b] should come.

15 You would call, and I would answer you;

you would long for the work of your hands.

16 For then you would number my steps;

you would not keep watch over my sin;

17 my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,

and you would cover over my iniquity.

18 “But the mountain falls and crumbles away,

and the rock is removed from its place;

19 the waters wear away the stones;

the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;

so you destroy the hope of man.

20 You prevail forever against him, and he passes;

you change his countenance, and send him away.

21 His sons come to honor, and he does not know it;

they are brought low, and he perceives it not.

22 He feels only the pain of his own body,

and he mourns only for himself.” Job 14 ESV

Life is short he thinks now, it is but a fleeting moment, a bottle rocket. God, why do you open Your eyes towards me, from that eternity that I cannot wrap my finite mind about, why do you look in my direction? What is my life that You would even bother to judge it? There is none righteous unto Your standard, so if that is what You expect of me, then looking at my days, the timeline of my life here, this inch within these light years, it is already soiled. I know my own depravity, and I was born in it, so let me be then, I have tried with this unclean frame to do righteously, but it is obviously vain.

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;

11 no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

13 “Their throat is an open grave;

they use their tongues to deceive.”

“The venom of asps is under their lips.”

14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16 in their paths are ruin and misery,

17 and the way of peace they have not known.”

18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Romans 3: 9-19

Trees have hope, I have seen a tree cut down, but then sprout again. It may grow into a tree once more. Job is grasping to understand the afterlife, it is both a mystery and yet a hope to him. It is a change from this, that he may be no more, or is in so much soulful agony that it would seem nice to no longer exist. I have heard many an atheist describe as much to me, and I held this hope myself, that this was it, this was a collection of impulses and stumbling about, then no more. Science would be our guide, and this is the world Job knows for now, it is primitive to our technically advanced egos, what we "now know." You have to credit him this though, even if I disagree with him, these things he says, he says with the light he has and without the light most of us refuse. He did not have the light of the resurrection of Christ, or to see Christ raise Lazarus from the grave. He did not know of the transfiguration, or hear the teachings about a new body, and being made right with God by faith, sanctified in Christ. This poetry is so old, it did not know of things like Elijah being taken up, but maybe he knew of Enoch, yet did not wonder at it so much until now. Dear person living today, read the NT, it is marvelous, it's God's word, and His Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. It is the story of God with us.

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.

6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5: 1-8

How comfortably numb we may become. There have been times in my youth when I had enough money, sex, drugs and accomplices that they and me were a religion to myself. I worshiped at the throne of being entertained or high or drunk, but not wanting to know or think of such an incredible need, eternal ramifications. No wonder I wished it to be true, that I would be no more, and I have looked at disabled people and wondered at their gratitude and happiness, for I needed things they would not bother with. I would rather not live if it were their life, yet they were happier than me. I could not be bothered with such, and cried like the most entitled, arrogant fool, to have to deal with anything I did not want or the knowledge of what I thought I should have. Lord, do please cover my iniquities, remove them from me, let walk in the light of Your truth.