Tag: Providence Reformed Church

A Faulty Measure

pastortravislv

How much of a pragmatist are you? If you do not know that word, to be pragmatic is to be someone who measures the goodness of an activity by whether or not it works. A pragmatist will evaluate what he or she does based on whether or not it gets the results he or she intends.

You might think to yourself that everybody ought to be a pragmatist. We all want to do things that work. But the problem is, there are things that will seem to be working, productive solutions to the problems of life, but those things can often times be wrong choices.

Of course, the place I find this discussed most is when we talk about activities and practices in a local church setting. By what standard do we measure the kinds of songs we sing, the kinds of sermons we preach, the kinds of outreach we do, or even the way we manipulate the setting of the worship service? Is our goal to get the most people in the room? Is our goal to get the biggest number of people regularly in the church building? Or is there another standard, a greater standard?

There have surely been times in my life when I thought like a pragmatist regarding the worship of the Lord. I thought that whatever promoted strong emotion or whatever drew more people to the service must be a good thing so long as I could not point to specific violations of clear commands. But as time has gone by in my life and in my Christian walk, I have discovered that God has not commanded us to measure our services by a pragmatic measure of greater numbers equals greater success or greater emotion equals greater success. Instead, the Lord has shown us that the exaltation of him, his glory, his holiness, his majesty, in accord with his word, by people genuinely committed to him, these are measures of success. Are we being faithful to the word? Are we painting a true picture of the Lord and his ways?

I thought of this topic as I read through the rebellion of the people of Judah who ran to Egypt during the days of the Babylonian captivity. It seems that part of the reason that God had judged Judah was that the people had been worshipping false gods and goddesses. The people had picked up that evil practice while in Egypt. And they were measuring the rightness or wrongness of that activity, not by the word of God, but by the seeming success or failure the practice was bringing to them.

Jeremiah 44:15-19 – 15 Then all the men who knew that their wives had made offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: 16 “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. 17 But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. 18 But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” 19 And the women said, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands’ approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

Imagine, God says to these people that they must stop worshipping this false goddess. They turn to Jeremiah, and with a straight face say that they will not obey. Why? When they worshipped the false goddess, they had more stuff. When they stopped, they went hungry and captive to Egypt. So they will worship her again.

Jeremiah, of course, will follow up this section with the truth of God. They were captive because of the worship of the false goddess. The Lord had been merciful to them for a season, even in their rebellion, but they would not turn from their evil. Their measure was wrong. Their actions were not OK when they had more stuff or wrong when they had less. The proper measure for their actions is the command of God, not the amount of food on the table.

Friends, be very careful measuring your choices or the choices of your church by pragmatism. The only measure of the rightness or wrongness of what you do and the attitude with which you do it is the word of God. What does Scripture tell us worship is about? What does Scripture show us that the church is about? What methods does God prescribe for Christian living, evangelism, social engagement, etc.? Growing in number is no proof of God’s favor. Diminishing in social influence is no sign of God’s disfavor. Faithfulness to Scripture leads to the favor of God. Ignoring the word of God will lead to his disfavor. So be sure you do not use the wrong measure.

Thanks But No Thanks

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As the city of Jerusalem was threatened by the invading Babylonian Empire, there was much political intrigue taking place. Some men wanted Jeremiah the prophet dead for speaking the Lord’s judgment on Jerusalem. They thought he was unnecessarily disheartening the men.

After one failed attempt to kill Jeremiah, a servant of the king rescued the prophet. And Jeremiah and King Zedekiah had a chance to have a conversation. Jeremiah told the king that the city would be taken. And Jeremiah told the king that, if he wanted to be spared by the Lord, he needed to surrender himself to the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah 38:17-20 – 17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If you will surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. 18 But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.” 19 King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they deal cruelly with me.” 20 Jeremiah said, “You shall not be given to them. Obey now the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared.

Consider that King Zedekiah received the most favorable answer he could have possibly received given the circumstances. There is a simple action that Zedekiah could take, and action commanded directly by the Lord, that would spare his life and keep his city from the torch. This is, in so many ways, a no-brainer.

Want to guess what happened? The king, of course, does not listen. His fears and his understanding of the situation would not allow him to obey the command of God. He was too scared of the unknown. So he tried to escape on his own, and he suffered greatly for it.

Is there a lesson here for us? Of course there is. God’s word is true. God gives us counsel that goes against our this-worldly wisdom. And when God tells us what is right, we need to obey, even when we are afraid to do so. There is nothing to be gained by surviving a few more years in a besieged city only to fall in disobedience to the Lord. And there is nothing to gain by compromising the word of God for things that will eternally pass away.

The king heard the word of God, heard the promise of God, heard that he could be safe. His response was basically, “Thanks but no thanks.” Let’s not respond that way to our Lord.

Faith is a Gift

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Why don’t they believe? This is a common question. It may be the most common objection that I know of to a reformed understanding of salvation. People, out of a desire to understand why some people do not entrust themselves to Christ, will raise the question of why this would happen. And the only place they can land where they are comfortable is to say that people do not believe because, though God gave them every opportunity, they simply chose not to.

I thought about this in a recent rereading of Matthew. In our church, we will soon be returning to Matthew for our sermon series, and I thought I’d better remind myself of what has passed. And in Matthew 13, Jesus speaks in many parables. The disciples are very curious as to why he would do so.

Do you remember how Jesus responded?

Matthew 13:10-11 – Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” 11 And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

Why did Jesus speak to them in parables? Why don’t they believe? To the disciples, Jesus responded by pointing out an answer that is a little different than what the disciples wanted to know. Jesus points out that, for the disciples, they should be thrilled that they do believe. Why? It was granted to them to believe. It was given to them to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. The disciples have been given a gift, a kindness from God.

Note, please, that the gift from God is a free gift. Nothing, absolutely nothing, obligates God to give the disciples this knowledge. There is nothing that would make God a bad person or a wrongdoer if he did not give it. It is a free thing that God may do, to show his kindness, for his pleasure.

Jesus then speaks to the disciples about those who do not get to hear the message clearly. He cites Isaiah 6, where the Lord told Isaiah that all his preaching will dull the sight and harden the hearts of the people to whom he preaches. And Jesus says that this is what is happening with the parables.

But what are we to do with that information? How are we supposed to feel? Jesus says this to the disciples.

Matthew 13:16-17 – 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

What the disciples were to do was to see that they had been blessed by God. Why were they blessed by God? Were they blessed because they chose to believe? No, that is not at all what Jesus says. They were blessed in that they were granted by God the message they were hearing. It is not that they had faith that made them a step better than those around them. On the contrary, their blessing is that God gave them eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus said, “Blessed are your eyes.” He was telling them that they were blessed because God chose to reveal something to them that others around them were not receiving. They were gifted by God with the gift of faith.

Even Idolatry is a Symptom

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When studying biblical counseling, I found myself regularly looking at the differences between symptoms and causes. Sometimes a person would come and talk with me about a struggle they were having. But after we would talk for a while, we would discover that their struggle was a symptom of a greater, deeper struggle within. They were feeling concern about the fruit on the tree, but we were able to look down to find the problem at the roots.

In my reading of Jeremiah, I find a fruit and root problem relating to idolatry that surprises me a bit.

Jeremiah 16:10-13

10 “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11 then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, 12 and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. 13 Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

This is a passage where Jeremiah is communicating God’s judgment on his rebellious people. This is just before the captivity of the southern kingdom, their being carried off to Babylon. But notice the difference in the problems of the two generations in that section.

God says that the older generation is particularly guilty of idolatry. But the younger has done even worse. What could possibly be worse than being fool enough to bow to a statue and seek its aid against the command of God? The Lord says, “Every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.”

What then is worse? God tells us here that a generation that follows its own stubborn, evil will, a generation that refuses the word of God, that is worse even than the generation of forefathers who bowed to idols. Something about dad and grandpa bowing to a calf was less evil than Junior saying, “I don’t care what the Lord says, I’ll just do things my own way.”

Now, this is not to say that idolatry is not an evil deserving hell. God is clear that it is. But God says that there is something worse in the heart of mankind when we follow our own stubbornness, our own evil, our own rotten hearts and completely ignore the Lord.

Idolatry is a symptom of a deeper problem. Bowing to a statue is a symptom of the disease that came out in the next generation. The disease is trusting one’s own heart, ones own wisdom, one’s own ways above the Lord. And God says that self-trust, that following your own heart, is even more evil than being confused enough to make an offering to a figurine.

What in the world are we to do with this? We must recognize that our hearts are not trustworthy. Jeremiah tells us that in the next chapter.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Our hearts will lead us away from the Lord. The infection of human sin and human self-reliance will turn us from the God who made us. That disease leads to spiritual death. We must be humble enough to stop following our hearts, stop listening to our urges, stop believing ourselves, and start relying on a solid source of truth. We need God’s word. We need God’s wisdom. And this is found in the clear and perfect revelation of God in Scripture.

The point is that even humanity bowing to false gods is a symptom of the folly and the rebellion bound up naturally in our sinful hearts. WE need spiritual heart transplants, a procedure only performed by the Lord at our salvation. And we need to trust the word of God over our desires, as our hearts will still mislead us if left unchecked.

How do you guard yourself from the danger of a rotten heart? First, come to Jesus if you have not yet done so. Second, regularly and prayerfully open the word of God and saturate your life with it. Third, be a part of a faithful, Bible-teaching, Bible-believing church where you can sit under the exposition of the word in classes and from the pulpit. And fourth, remember that your heart, even transformed, is not totally trustworthy. Always check your desires, not by spiritual experience, but by the clear and unchanging word of God.

Prosperity Does Not Equal Favor

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One of the more insidious lies from all of human history is the idea that, if God is with us, we get good things. The counter is that, if God is upset with someone, they always get bad things. The truth is, the favor or disfavor of the Lord is shown far more in eternity than in every day-to-day. King Ahab had a pretty nice kingdom. Job had it pretty rough. But which of them was faithful to the Lord?

As Jeremiah preached against the people of Judah, he had to speak against people who were smug. They assumed that they were fine, because they were experiencing prosperity. But look at how Jeremiah warns them.

Jeremiah 13:12-14

12 “You shall speak to them this word: ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Every jar shall be filled with wine.” ’ And they will say to you, ‘Do we not indeed know that every jar will be filled with wine?’ 13 Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will fill with drunkenness all the inhabitants of this land: the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 14 And I will dash them one against another, fathers and sons together, declares the Lord. I will not pity or spare or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.’ ”

The Lord is speaking through Jeremiah, and his warnings will catch the people by surprise. Jeremiah says that these people have lots of wine. They respond by saying they know that, and they assume that this means that they are powerful, strong, successful, perhaps even favored. But then the Lord tells them that the very wine they love, the very thing they think of as the sign of their success, that is going to be the tool that the Lord uses to bring about their destruction.

I wonder how much we have forgotten this lesson. The things that our society thinks are marks of our prosperity, marks of our strength, marks of our enlightenment, so many of those very things can be the instruments of our destruction. We revel in our freedom. We rejoice in our financial prosperity. But we forget the Lord. WE think we need no favor but our own strength. And we will, if we do not turn to the Lord, find that what we rely on will be the very thing that the Lord uses to show his judgment on us.

But even outside of national issues, this can be true in churches. When we think we are strong, when a church gets proud of a program, a building, or a certain number of people, we can find ourselves in trouble. The Lord builds his church. If we start chasing numbers and dollars and praise from the community, we will find that we are no longer seeking what really matters, the favor of the Lord. May we not let, even in the church, our prosperity be the tool that tears us down. May we love the Lord and love one another to his glory and our good.

It Matters Who Is Our Maker

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In Jeremiah 10, the prophet speaks to the nation of Israel to warn them against learning the ways of the surrounding nations. He especially warns against astrology and idolatry. And then he takes some time to point out the silliness of bowing to statues. After all, Jeremiah reminds them that they know of the wood that was cut and the work of the smith and the sewing of the clothing for the statue. But then to think that the statue that you watched being put together is somehow your deity, that is absurd.

At the end, Jeremiah takes the people back to one place. Who made you? The God who made you is the real God. A god you made, not so much.

Jeremiah 1011, 14-16

11 Thus shall you say to them: “The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.” …
14 Every man is stupid and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
for his images are false,
and there is no breath in them.
15 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
at the time of their punishment they shall perish.
16 Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob,
for he is the one who formed all things,
and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
the Lord of hosts is his name.

Stop and consider the question of creation. It really matters who made us. If we exist at the creative decree of the God of the Bible, everything else must align to that fact. If God really formed us, then God is God and we are not. If God made the universe, he is infinitely wiser than us, infinitely stronger than us, infinitely greater than us. If God made us by his power and for his glory, then we exist under his ownership, and we owe him our fealty, we owe him the right due the Creator. If God made us, he has the right to define what we are to be and how we are to live.

Jeremiah reminded the people that the God who made us is real and all other things we bow to are simply man-made objects. It makes no sense to worship what you make yourself. And we must remember that we are creation, owned by God, under his rule. WE must live as his subjects for his great glory. And we must reject the notion that we can do anything to overthrow him or redefine him or otherwise shape the world that he made to our whim.

Anger Turned To Love

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Do you remember the way many gospel presentations used to begin? So often, people would start a presentation of the plan of salvation with the statement, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Of course, when that statement was made in the 1950s, people in the U.S. had a general understanding of who God is and that we all have failed to live up to his standard. Thus, the statement of God’s love came as a relief and a light of hope for those who might have thought themselves beyond the reach of the grace of God.

When we discuss issues of salvation with people who are outside of the faith, often our path will be to focus on the love of God. Of course, this is good, as God is gloriously loving. But, if we are not careful, that presentation of love today can paint a false picture of the actual situation between humanity and God.

What do I mean? When all we let people know is that God loves them and really wishes they would be a part of his family, we do not paint a true and biblical picture. Instead, we paint a picture of desperation. We make God look like a guy who really wishes the sweet girl would go with him to the dance. And such has never been the biblical portrayal of our Lord.

Isaiah 12:1

You will say in that day:
“I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
that you might comfort me.

I think we gain something beautiful to remember about the gospel and about our own experience with the Lord from Isaiah 12:1. This in no way takes the loving nature from the picture of God, but it does clearly portray our position before the Lord.

The Lord tells the people how they will sing of him. He was angry with them. But he turned his own anger away that he might comfort them. Anger turned to favor is the glorious gospel picture.

The theological word for this is propitiation. The concept is that of God having righteous anger against us for our sin. But God, by means of a sacrifice, satisfies his anger so that he can now look upon us with favor.

Now consider the difference. IF I start the gospel presentation with a soft and sappy love of God, I miss some very important truths. God is holy. God is rightly, perfectly, terrifyingly angry over my sin. He should be. And I have earned his wrath. But God, by his choice first, decided to satisfy his anger by means of presenting God the Son as the perfect sacrifice for my sins so that two things can be true. On the one hand, God can look upon me with love and kindness because of what Jesus has done. At the same time, God can be clearly seen as perfectly just, as my sin is perfectly punished.

That is a bigger gospel than is a gospel of a lonely, longing, deity who just deeply wishes you would consent to have him as yours. Yes, God loves, but his love is far deeper than all that. God’s love is based on God’s perfectly turning from his righteous anger and providing the only sacrifice that could ever work so that he might look at us with favor.

Now, is that the picture painted in the Scripture? Yes, Isaiah 12:1 looks that way. But is that the gospel picture?

Romans 3:23-26

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Jesus is our propitiation, put forth by God himself. Jesus is the sacrifice who turns the anger of God into his favor on us. And God did this to prove his justice. This is the gospel, and it is better news than God loving me and having a wonderful plan for my life. IN fact, God does love me and have a wonderful plan for my life, but that comes toward the end of the gospel, not at the beginning. The gospel begins with the holiness of the infinitely perfect God, his choice to turn his own anger away, and my eternal benefit at his gracious hand.

Forgetting How to Blush

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How do we handle texts from the prophets condemning the sin of Israel and Judah? That is not as easy a question as one might imagine. On the one hand, it seems simple. Sin is sin. God is not pleased when nations do the things he forbids. But the prophets are speaking something more.

The prophets who speak to Israel and Judah are speaking to a people who have made a covenant with the Lord. They have promised to obey his laws. They have accepted God’s promise of protection and provision. They also have accepted his promise of judgment if they refuse to obey him.

In our modern setting, our national government is not a one-to-one parallel with Judah. America is not Israel. Even if many of our founders were genuine believers, even if you accept the narrative that the nation is truly intended to be a Christian nation, we are not in covenant with the Lord. What Israel was is different than what we are. And thus to apply the words of the prophets directly is not exactly fitting.

The prophets were speaking to people who were in covenant relationship with the Lord, who had accepted his governing, who had signed off on his justice, and who then turned and rebelled. And I still want to ask, what is the closest parallel? How do we apply something like the following?

Jeremiah 6:12b-15

for I will stretch out my hand
against the inhabitants of the land,”
declares the Lord.
13 “For from the least to the greatest of them,
everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
and from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
14 They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
15 Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,”
says the Lord.

Notice with whom God is most upset. God is speaking powerfully against the religious in Israel who are speaking a false peace to the people of the land. God is speaking to false prophets and other such men who are telling the people of the land that they need not repent. God is promising judgment to come for those who should have the truth, and out of a love of sin or a love of comfort or a love of status are telling the sinning nation around them that it’s all just fine.

Now, do not think for a moment that God is giving the non-religious of the land a pass. They have committed abomination, but they do not even know how to blush. The concept of shame for grievous sin against the Lord is simply gone from that society. And thus the judgment of God is coming.

How do we handle this? I’d say two things at least are in order. On a simple side, sin is sin, and we need to see that our land is full of evil. Be careful not to let gratitude for our nation and those who have helped us maintain freedom prevent you from seeing our need of national repentance. WE embrace as a nation what God calls abomination. We have legalized the shedding of innocent blood. We have publicized sexual immorality and condemn those who still know how to blush. And if we do not repent, repenting as a nation, we are under wrath that we will not survive.

But, as a Christian, I need to be really careful not to let this passage make me only point fingers at the lost world around me. God’s strongest condemnation here is for the people who claim to be his people, the religious leaders, who speak peace to a land in rebellion against the Lord. We cannot do that and be faithful Christians. We need to weep. WE need to blush. We need to call our land to repentance. We need to warn of judgment and not rest in a supposed righteousness built into our culture.

Our nation is not Israel. We as a people do not have covenant promises of favor from God. We would do well not to boldly commit abomination before the Lord. Those who are in covenant relationship with the Lord, his church, need to be sure first not to participate in the sins of the nation. We next need to be sure not to pretend that the sins of the nation are OK. And we need to warn the nation to repent by first coming to Christ and then by turning from the evils that bring the wrath of God down on any nation.

Does this make me about modern social justice? Nope, I’m about repentance. I’m not about allowing the secular academy to tell us what is and what is not acceptable repentance. I’m about the word of God calling the people of God to stand in opposition to all things that dishonor God. So I hate racism. I hate murder. I hate abuse. And it is my job, as a Christian, to let the word of God command me how to live and how to call others to repentance.

A Quick Thought on God Knowing You

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One common interpretive tool to attempt to make sense of the predestining grace of God is a heavy reliance on the concept of foreknowledge. Those who would argue that God responds to the future choices of his free creatures in order to determine his decree of predestination have to argue that God, with divine foreknowledge, looks down the corridor of time and sees who will and who will not choose him.

A reformed response to this kind of thinking is to point out that God’s word regularly uses the idea of God knowing someone with a different semantic meaning than simple information. When the Lord knows a person or a nation, the Lord is expressing that he has a particular favor on them. After all, the Lord knows, intellectually, all that there is to know. But for God to know you is for him to have a particularly loving relationship with you.

Consider the words of God at the beginning of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 1:4-5

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

What is God declaring to Jeremiah? Why is it such a significant turn of phrase? God says that he knew Jeremiah even before Jeremiah was formed in the womb. If this is merely God saying that he had knowledge of Jeremiah’s existence or even Jeremiah’s future choices, that is both amazing and ordinary. It is amazing, as we know our God knows all things. But it is ordinary in that this phrase would mean nothing more to Jeremiah than the expression of the fact that God has intellectual awareness of Jeremiah in just the same way that God has intellectual awareness of all human beings.

But look at the parallel. To know Jeremiah was for God to consecrate him. For God to consecrate Jeremiah was to set him apart as a prophet. The knowledge is put in a parallel position to the consecration in the poetic lines. This is not God saying that he understood what kind of guy Jeremiah would be and so he chose to use him. No, it is God saying that, before Jeremiah was ever formed, God had already set upon Jeremiah his consecration, his sacred calling. God knew Jeremiah in a special way, not in the same, ordinary way that God has knowledge of all humanity. God chose Jeremiah before he was born so that Jeremiah would be set apart and fulfill a glorious divine purpose.

Repentance for Questions

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As the book of Job comes to a close, we watch the dramatic confrontation take place, but it is not the one we expect at the beginning. From the third chapter of the book onward, we are expecting to see Job confront the Lord with his questions as to why all this bad stuff is happening to him. But, in the end, it is the Lord confronting Job, and rightly so.

By chapter 40, we have already had a couple of chapters in which God has shown Job that Job is unqualified to even ask the questions that he is demanding that God answer. Job was not there when God set the universe in place. Job was not there when God set the stars in order. Job does not know how God keeps the snow and the hailstones. Job is finite, and there is no way that he is ready to question God.

And as chapter 40 begins, God checks with Job to see if Job has gotten the point.

Job 40:1-8

1 And the Lord said to Job:
2 “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
3 Then Job answered the Lord and said:
4 “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
5 I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but I will proceed no further.”
6 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
7 “Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
8 Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?

In verses 1-2, God asks Job if he really wants to fight this battle. And Job, in 3-5, says that he will remain silent. Job has almost gotten there, but he is not quite there yet.

Thus, with the beginning of verse 6, we get another couple of chapters of questions in which the Lord again declares his infinite might and infinite wisdom in comparison to Job’s finitude.

All this to get to verse 8, the question that God asks that should ring in our ears like a gong. In verse 8, God asks, “Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” And you should be able to feel what the answer to this question should be. It is a rhetorical question, and it’s obvious teaching point is this: No human being has the right to attempt to declare God to be in the wrong.

Stop and consider this truth more clearly. What would be required for a human being to have the right to declare God to be in the wrong? There are only two possibilities that I can think of, and each of them is horrific. One possibility would be that a human being could declare God to be in the wrong if there is an external measure of right and wrong to appeal to that is outside of, beyond, and over God. But if such a standard existed, a thing above God to measure him and find him right or wrong, that standard would be the ultimate, not the deity it claims to measure. Thus, to declare that God is measured by an external standard would declare God to be less than God. The second alternative, one even more blasphemous if possible, would be to declare that the human himself is in a superior position to the Lord and thus has the right to measure and judge God.

But all of theology teaches us that God is the ultimate. God is holy, a cut above us in his perfections, and is measured by no external standard. God gives us the standard of right, not the other way around.

Job 42:1-6

1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:
2 “I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4 ‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
6 therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”

In chapter 42, Job repents. He even laughs at his own foolishness for how he darkened counsel by words without knowledge. Job knows that his words added nothing to the discussion. Job knows that his questions came from an entirely wrong place and lacked wisdom. And so, unlike chapter 40 when Job merely said he would be silent, now Job repents. He was wrong in his questions and attitude. He was wrong in believing that he could declare God to be wrong. And so Job turns. And the book ends with God showing Job grace and favor.

I do not, in this little post, desire to be unsympathetic to Job. He messed up—otherwise repenting would not be the proper response—but he messed up far less than many a human would have done in his setting. Remember his wife telling him in 2:9 just to curse God and die? No, I do not want to put Job down in any way. But this is a significant point that we must grab hold of. God is God and we are not. We are in no position to judge the morality of God, because we lack the wisdom and purity to even begin to measure his perfections.

I have had conversations with many people who do not understand the ways of the Lord. They may even say, at the end of the day, that they disagree with laws God made or things God calls sin. They may disagree with the existence of hell or that Christ is the only way. And all of these are questions of the actual morality, the moral goodness, of God.

We must, if we are not to be taken down a very dangerous path, begin with a proper understanding of the infinite wisdom and unending holiness of god. We must remember that, if God really is God, he cannot be measured by a morality that is external to him. He must be the standard of perfection, for no other being in the universe matches his glory. God is right. And when we think that we can judge his choices, we are acting, to follow Scripture’s own description, like fools.