Job 9:29-31

29 If I be wicked [rasha`], why then labour [yaga`] I in vain [hebel]?

30 If I wash [rachats] myself with [sheleg] snow water [mayim] [bamow], and make my hands [kaph] never [bor] [bor] so clean [zakak];

31 Yet ['az] shalt thou plunge [tabal] me in the ditch [shachath], and mine own clothes [salmah] shall abhor [ta`ab] me. KJV-Interlinear

9 'I am accounted wicked, Why then should I toil in vain? 30 'If I should wash myself with snow And cleanse my hands with lye, 31 Yet Thou wouldst plunge me into the pit, And my own clothes would abhor me. NASB

Wickedness is the saturation of decay within a thing. If you were to take a piece of fresh meat, set it out at room temperature, or even warmer, then by morning and certainly in a couple of days, you would have a smell that would turn your stomach.

The meat would fill the room with a putrid stench that you could never get rid of.

Now, suppose you were to pick up that decaying meat and wash it. Then wash it again, and again, and again several times. Suppose you wash it with the purest of melted snow water. Would it come clean? Would you be able to get all of the decay out of the meat so that you could cook it and make a healthy meal of it?

No.

The meat is rotten through and through. And if rotten through and through, if every cell within the meat was bad, then why would you waste your time in trying to clean up something that could never be cleaned?

Such is the pattern of activity of humanity. In our life, people are born spiritually dead. Even those who believe in Christ, start out with an infant level of spiritual growth.

There is only one way of advancing and enhancing your life, and that is by pursuing the path which God has laid out for us all, for advancing and attaining spiritual maturity.

Apart from spiritual resources within us, we are no better than that piece of rotten meat. Through and through, we are rotten to the very core of our existence.

As unbelievers, there is nothing we can do by ourselves to clean ourselves, and make us free from that rottenness. We studied in Isaiah, that our best righteousness is no better than filthy, never been cleaned menstrual rags.

And once we believe in Christ, then we still have to find our cleanliness within the fellowship sphere environment which God has invented for us. Out of fellowship, we are no cleaner than unbelievers.

Mans righteousness, which is mans self produced good and perfection, is rotten at best. It matters not whether you are a believer or an unbeliever.

God has defined us as unclean, wicked, rotten. If that is so, then why would anyone try to clean up, by themselves, something that is impossible to clean?

Everyday of your life that you ignore your spiritual life, you are doing just this. You might as well write on both sides of a piece of paper, 'Stupid, turn this paper over.' How long would it take you to figure it out?

And yet, God has given us the answer to our two sided piece of paper, in the form of Bile doctrine, and still the bulk of the world ignores it. They keep turning the paper over, and over, and over, and over their whole life and end up clueless.

So, at the end of ones life, at the end of the life of the failure, he finds himself tossed into the garbage pit. When they took out the trash, they usually dig a hole or find some deep pit, and throw their garbage into it. Then it is set on fire or they bury the garbage in order to keep the decaying stink down.

The clothing of the wicked, is their life. Their clothing is their pattern of life which they wrap themselves in during their whole life.

Just as their life is filthy, so too, their clothing is filthy. They are one and the same.

Job is suffering horribly. He did nothing to deserve his condition, and yet here he is suffering as no one has ever suffered in life. Covered with maggot-infested sores, bothered by flies, repulsive because of his foul body odor, he is just miserable.

That is the condition of humanity. This is your condition. No matter how much soap and water you use, no matter how much perfume you use, no matter how much polite rhetoric you speak, no matter how much exercise, diet, health, or any other beliefs you might follow in life in order to elevate yourself above the average person, it is impossible to clean away the carnal stench of your sin nature.

Job is portraying to us, the human condition. We are all in a sorry state when we try to live our life apart from God. Job's condition is a picture of life without God.

How many are jealous of Jobs condition? How many wish they could be as diseased as Job was?

Remember that even in suffering, there is no righteousness. Do not think that you can get points for suffering. Spiritual growth and the spiritual life is not enhanced or advanced by means of suffering per se.

Suffering may teach you dependence on God and provide you with some incentive to be humble, putting your arrogant and belligerent attitude in its place, but don't go out beating yourself thinking that you are impressing God.

Only one thing impresses God, and that is Himself, His essence, His nature, His doctrine. These are all perfect. In order to gain Gods attention, you need Him, in you, and that is where Bible doctrine comes into your life.

Faith in Christ started your spiritual life. Bible doctrine continually learned and used, advances your spiritual growth. Your spiritual life is the only thing you have which has intrinsic value. Everything else in life is no better than putrid meat.

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