1 Sam 22:8, "For all of you have conspired against me so that there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you who is sorry for me or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in ambush, as it is this day." 
	We are in consideration of that battle which rages in each one of us. We may not like to admit it, we may hate facing it, and we may think that we have conquered it. However, the despicable fact is that the residue of our old nature often rears its ugly head. This is frequently on the basis that our selfish ego has not received the proper recognition for all the suffering and the abuse and the neglect that our minds conjure up that we have to endure. We use this injured ego as justification for the manner in which we embrace our poor, self-pitiful lack of recognition in the eyes of those who we think should be offering it to us. 
	This was such the force of the imagined threat that Saul perceived, that he ordered the complete annihilation of the priests of the Lord at the city of Nob. There was no other justification for that awful bloodshed than that they must have been party to the Davidic plot to overthrow the kingship of Saul, so they had to die.
	Most of the time our propensity for self-pity is not as brutally violent as evidenced in the case of Saul. There is that, however, within humanity in which this self-absorption brings such manifestation that one can get to the point of losing any interest in the things that surround us. We tend to lose our focus and our ambition and our energy and just sit in our self made mire. We wallow even to the point of crying out that we would be better off dead. This evident attitude may well come from circumstances that seem to be overwhelming and beyond our capacity to endure. 
	One of the great examples found in the Bible of this sense of utter hopelessness and lack of desire to do much more than sit on the ground was Job. He manifested that sense of being absolutely beyond even the hope that God could do anything other than put us out of our misery. We will spend some time with this man who suffered tremendous loss on this earth as a father and a well-to-do man of honor in his community. 
Throughout this book of Job, we ride the crest of the waves of Job’s anguish and hopelessness and putting the blame upon others and upon God. Job was then brought to his senses by the very voice of God which shook him out of his miserable pity and into the reality that God has all things well in His hands. 
	We begin with the discourse recorded in Job 16:6-17:16, which shows us the depth of the depressed state of Job’s mind and heart. He was so caught up in the loss of children and wealth and social standing that it was so very difficult for him to take his eyes off his plight. He was floundering in his egocentric rumination concerning the disasters that had befallen him. 
We could fully excuse his self-piteous proclamation due to the multitude of dire events that led almost to the point of his being desirous to just lie down and die and have done with life. Please turn to it and read this passage exclaiming Job’s severe loss of any will to go on any longer.
	Job 16:6-17:16, "If I speak, my pain is not lessened, And if I hold back, what has left me? "But now He has exhausted me; Thou hast laid waste all my company. "And Thou hast shriveled me up, It has become a witness; And my leanness rises up against me, It testifies to my face. "His anger has torn me and hunted me down, He has gnashed at me with His teeth; My adversary glares at me. "They have gaped at me with their mouth, They have slapped me on the cheek with contempt; They have massed themselves against me. "God hands me over to ruffians, And tosses me into the hands of the wicked. "I was at ease, but He shattered me, And He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces; He has also set me up as His target. "His arrows surround me. Without mercy He splits my kidneys open; He pours out my gall on the ground. "He breaks through me with breach after breach; He runs at me like a warrior. "I have sewed sackcloth over my skin, And thrust my horn in the dust. "My face is flushed from weeping, And deep darkness is on my eyelids, Although there is no violence in my hands, And my prayer is pure. "O earth, do not cover my blood, And let there be no resting place for my cry. "Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, And my advocate is on high. "My friends are my scoffers; My eye weeps to God. "O that a man might plead with God As a man with his neighbor! "For when a few years are past, I shall go the way of no return. "My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, The grave is ready for me. "Surely mockers are with me, And my eye gazes on their provocation. "Lay down, now, a pledge for me with Thyself; Who is there that will be my guarantor? "For Thou hast kept their heart from understanding; Therefore Thou wilt not exalt them. "He who informs against friends for a share of the spoil, The eyes of his children also shall languish. "But He has made me a byword of the people, And I am one at whom men spit. "My eye has also grown dim because of grief, And all my members are as a shadow. "The upright shall be appalled at this, And the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless. "Nevertheless the righteous shall hold to his way, And he who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger. "But come again all of you now, For I do not find a wise man among you. "My days are past, my plans are torn apart, Even the wishes of my heart. "They make night into day, saying, 'The light is near,' in the presence of darkness. "If I look for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness; If I call to the pit,' You are my father'; To the worm,' my mother and my sister'; Where now is my hope? And who regards my hope? "Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?" 
	Not many among us have gone so far down this road of loss and disaster with the utter sense of abandonment by any and all whom we hold near and dear. We can offer up our condolences and our heart-felt grief as we consider all that Job endured in the course of those few days. He was battered and abused by the arrows of this age as it was all unleashed upon Job’s heart and soul and mind. 
We each have known a bit of this suffering and sense of loss of desire to continue on in this life although probably not to the extent of this account. For some among us, it might have been during such times of utter loss and devastation that we turned our hearts to the Lord and cried out to Him for His salvation and His comfort and His strength to make it through even one more minute. 
	What is interesting, in the course of our consideration, is the response of Jehovah to the cries and the self-centered pleading and argumentative accusations that Job spew forth in his rumination that life was no longer worth living. God brought forth the reality that we are to stop viewing everything, including the worst situations of our lives with that self-consideration of poor pitiful me. 
Rather than allowing anything to knock us off the foundation of The Lord God Almighty as our source of making it through even those intense times of utter devastation, we are to realize that God is at work. He will always prove Himself mighty and glorious and all-powerful to hold us gently in His loving embrace.
	It would do well to consider several responses of the Lord to Job. These should also speak forcefully to us when we are caught up that those times of poor, pitiful me. We begin with Job 38:3-11. 
Job 38:3-11, "Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me! "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements, since you know? Or who stretched the line on it? "On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? "Or who enclosed the sea with doors, When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; When I made a cloud its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band, And I placed boundaries on it, And I set a bolt and doors, And I said, 'Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop'? 
	God tells Job to … gird up your loins like a man… Job was to quit moaning and fusing and acting like an adolescent. The fact is that there are things that knock us down in our walk on this earth. They are terrible and they can be devastating, if that is what we dwell on, instead of the fact that we belong to God. Yes, we will face trials and tribulations and tough and awful times that will test and batter and pound against the stand we take as one of the family of God’s heritage in Jesus Christ! That is a given! 
However, we are to see beyond our suffering and look to the One Who has made us safe by His manifest grace and mercy. The worst that this world can do is nothing in the terms of the power and the might and the plan and the purpose that God has instituted from before the creation of anything! As God so instructed Job concerning the power and the breadth and the depth of all The Lord created …I placed boundaries on it, And I set a bolt and doors, And I said, 'Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop'…! 
We may be hurting and suffering and facing the worst of tragedies in this realm, but our strength for each day, our understanding of the true battle that is raging around and even over us is set in the fact that God is the Sovereign! Everything works and functions together only as He so ordains it to be! No one can question Who He is and What He has done!
Again, this is brought forth by the Lord in Job 40:6-12. Job 40:6-12, Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm, and said, "Now gird up your loins like a man; I will ask you, and you instruct Me. "Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified? "Or do you have an arm like God, And can you thunder with a voice like His?  "Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity; And clothe yourself with honor and majesty. "Pour out the overflowings of your anger; And look on everyone who is proud, and make him low. "Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him; And tread down the wicked where they stand. 
	Job had gone through the cycle of absolute depression and self-pity to come face to face with the fact that what God does He does! No one can stand before Him and question or criticize the manner in which He brings forth His will on this earth. God deals with each of His own according to the manner in which there will be humility of heart and mind. All will bring forth utmost honor and praise for the name of The Lord. 
Even though Job had a seemingly unbearable amount of tragedy and devastation and piteous destruction, he did not just lay down, curse God and die as his wife advised. He bore it, even in the course of dealing with the self-pity. After all this, Job was found with his heart set upon Jehovah. 
	At the end of the book, we have the following discourse from Job to the Lord as recounted in Job 42:1-6. There developed the awareness that through all the terrible and disastrous events, Jehovah was still most worthy to be praised. This is true no matter what we suffer on this earth. God is God! He is our source of life! He is Our Salvation! No matter what, we can turn to God and trust that He will prove Himself in all His glory and majesty, even if we have lost everything of earthly value! 	
	Job 42:1-6, Then Job answered the Lord, and said, "I know that Thou canst do all things, And that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted. 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask Thee, and do Thou instruct me.' "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees Thee; Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes." 
	At the end of this time of hearing the Lord and the fact that Job needed to repent from his pitiful attitude and demeanor and then recognize that the Lord God had all things well in hand, he was contrite and he was abased. He repented with dust and ashes symbolizing that fact that man is here but for a short time and then returns to the dust from which God has created us. All the while, The Lord God Almighty rules and overrules without any to tell Him what to do and how to do it. All that God does is perfect and will always bring forth the praise from His creation for the work that He does. This is day after day, year after year to the end of time as we know it and throughout all the eternal ages yet to come. 
	The things of The Lord are far beyond the limited understanding of humanity whom God created. We need to learn to completely trust Him, no matter what the circumstances of our lives. As well, there is no place to complain or to set our hearts and minds on that which only brings out our self-pity and selfish intent to the forefront of our consciousness. We need to learn that God is our all in all and that He will forever prove Himself glorious and victorious as we but trust Him and obey the every precept of His Word. 
	Lord willing, we will continue next time with several more examples from scripture of how God deals with the self-pity that infuses our old nature of humanity. He always works to bring forth the fullness of His love in the midst of anything that would otherwise cause us to destroy that which God has put into place. He faithfully proves Himself in the lives that we live before Him, especially in the midst of every trying situation and malevolent circumstance. So be it and Amen!

	
This morning’s benediction is Ps 31:3. For Thou art my rock and my fortress; For Thy name's sake Thou wilt lead me and guide me. Amen.