Sinners often condemn God

“Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto Me.

Wilt thou also disannul My judgment? Wilt thou condemn Me, that thou mayest be righteous?” (Job 40:7,8).

The Lord was not play acting that He was angry; Job had it coming. By justifying himself Job was condemning God. Although it became clear for Job later, even though he wouldn’t learn from the three men the Lord had sent to him to heighten his pride, he did however, listen (and tremble) when Jesus got involved. As Amos said it, “The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8). We learn when God talks.

Solomon later articulated the lesson of Job. “As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.” (Prov. 26:2). For each of our problems there is a cause. And if there is a cause, there is a correction that cures. If we want to fix our plagues, physical or spiritual, we need to seek out what we are doing wrong. Here was Job’s shortcoming; he justified his life.

“So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.

Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu...: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God.” (Job 32:1,2).

We either justify Christ for our troubles, confess to Him our wrong, seek His forgiveness, and worship Him through changing our course and aligning our lives with His perfection; or we justify ourselves, worship self, and go on with our old life. And, then die in our sins. As it was written, “It was revealed in mine ears by the LORD of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.” (Isa. 22:14).

Many times I’ve heard it said, “It doesn’t matter that I follow health principles, healthy people get cancer anyway.” And just the other day I heard, “So-and-so are overweight but they are vegans, so it must be that their obesity is genetic.” No doubt genetics plays into everything, but I’ve visited So-and-so and they may not consume milk and eggs, but they do a lot of deep frying. “The curse causeless shall not come.” Sin, as the Hebrew language defines it, literally means, “missing the mark.” Did God miss the mark when He inspired Solomon to write this lesson? Did God sin? Or did He hit the nail on the head? Is God a liar? Is He omniscient, as we say? Is His word true or false? It is true. Then, if the word of God is true, let’s believe it and heed it.

I may sound overly forceful here. But I have a mentor, Elihu. Elihu got angry because of this issue. By Job’s refusal to accept any blame, he automatically blamed God who had brought the curse on Job for his enlightenment. If Job had done nothing wrong, how could the Lord tell Him the words in our opening verse? Our Lord is holy and balanced. He doesn’t change and is definitely not given to fits of rage. Job had fallen to the temptation to condemn God.

So when we think we’ve been faithful or have obeyed what God has said in the Bible, yet we don’t see our plague go away and then we give up the work of obedience, then it is that we broadcast to the whole world that the Bible was wrong—and to the whole on looking universe that God had it wrong. He didn’t know my case. He wasn’t speaking to me specifically when He condemned my actions. He was talking to the other guy. Like the song by Don Francisco goes, “Everybody else but me! Everybody else but me! He was talking to the hypocrite and the Pharisee! Everybody else but me!”

When we take what we read and put it into practice and it blows up in our face—who do we blame? If we were pagan, we would say that blind forces are to blame. But, God says we have to blame someone. Somebody must be held accountable. And He won’t let us cheat His system and blame our parents, our environment, our genes, or the devil. We have to blame God or ourselves.

Do we say, “I had it right, therefore God was wrong? So I’ll abandon His principles of life and fly by the seat of my pants on this issue?” Or will we be surrendered to God’s love and humbly say, “Let God be right, and every man wrong. I must not have understood what God was saying, and I’ll go back to the drawing board to take another look at my understanding of what He said.” Obedience to God hinges on this. The whole great controversy between Christ and Satan began from this and will be resolved by a people who accept accountability to their own faultiness, and seek God for truth humbly.

“Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.… Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?” (Rom. 3:4,5). Let every man be a liar before God is untrue; or, Is God unrighteous for taking vengeance on sin? Which is our basic assumption? Are we wiser than God? Are we so naturally good that we can trust ourselves to understand righteousness the first time we read it? The Protestant Reformation ended in stalemate over this issue. The Papal Magisterium said, “The human race is all basically good—we don’t need God or deep repentance to Him; penance to a priest will suffice.” (This is the basic hallmark of every pagan religion.) “The Protestants, going by the Bible, said, No, we are sinful to the core.” The Bible was unarguable on this. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Rom. 3:10). We need repentance or we will die. Admission of and confession to sinfulness has been in the forefront of God’s message to man from the beginning of the Bible, and the great source of peace with God and complete health.

And in the Bible’s first book, Job, the Spirit of God set the right direction for the rest of His divine communications to fallen man―i.e. We are wrong; God is right. We have a problem; He has the solution. But Satan refuses to let his kingdom be treated that way. So he imbues his subjects with rebellion against God’s beginning assumption and to institutionalize pride in their doctrines, which say that God is meaner than we are; we are right to say He is wrong.

“And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” (Rom. 7:10-12). Paul’s approach to the truth of God was, “If the Law overcomes me and condemns me, then GOOD! I need that. Let God be true. My discomfiture means that the Law of God is proven holy and just and good. Just because I couldn’t  or didn’t obey it doesn’t mean it’s bad and wrong and unsuitable for my case. It means that I have a deep seated problem that I can’t fix. It means I have to throw myself at God’s mercy and plead for His help.” This is faith and prepares the heart for justification before God. It can accept future tribulation because it has learned to face of the Law’s accusations, which lead to beautiful surrender to God. But that picture is abominable to Satan and his kingdom.

Our temptation to rebel against God being right all the time is the reason why the road to destruction is so wide that 99.9% of the world goes down it and why so few even consider the narrow path to life. It’s also why the whole world follows the Beast in the end. (See Revelation 13:3.) Everything to salvation and damnation hinges on Job’s issue. Will I be proud and spit in God’s face? Or will I finally back down and humbly seek His grace? Will I surrender to the huge mountain of evidence and ask God for help to fix my lifestyle, which is to blame for all of the troubles I’m experiencing? Will I blame myself or God? The Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast teeter on our surrender to or fist-shaking at heaven.

In algebra our math teacher taught us that if the problem check ended with 0=0, or 2=2, etc., then we solved the math problem correctly. We got that answer by taking our solution and substituting it for the variable in the equation in order to check our answer. If the check ended up 1=2, then we solved the math problem wrong. Therefore, a 1=2 meant we needed to go back and solve the equation again, and recheck our solution. If our check still didn’t end up equal, then we needed to keep going back to resolve the math problem until we got an equality.

The same principle holds true for our sanctification. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime because of its many variables and our oft misunderstandings. But, we’ll never get it right if we justify our wrong solutions, pretending they are correct. In the business world that would get a person fired from his job; in the eternal realities, we miss out on an eternity with heaven’s loving and excellent Jesus. So, we must humbly accept our mistakes and keep coming back to Jesus for His forgiveness.

Let’s trust Jesus and humble ourselves before Him. Let’s never condemn God, but, do like Paul,

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death;

If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:10-14).

We shall often have to bow down and weep at the feet of Jesus because of our shortcomings and mistakes, but we are not to be discouraged. Even if we are overcome by the enemy, we are not cast off, not forsaken and rejected of God. No; Christ is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Said the beloved John, “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 1 John 2:1. And do not forget the words of Christ, “The Father Himself loveth you.” John 16:27. He desires to restore you to Himself, to see His own purity and holiness reflected in you. And if you will but yield yourself to Him, He that hath begun a good work in you will carry it forward to the day of Jesus Christ. Pray more fervently; believe more fully. As we come to distrust our own power, let us trust the power of our Redeemer, and we shall praise Him who is the health of our countenance. Steps to Christ, p. 64.