Most people are afraid of God. No, let me rephrase that. They are not afraid OF God… they are afraid God is unfair! The FEAR of the LORD, the fear to DISOBEY the Lord, is a good thing. But that’s not what I mean. They fear that God is UNFAIR. They don’t TRUST God, would be another way of phrasing it.
These people are afraid to look at someone and say “He’s doing that wrong”, for fear that God will make them go through the same things that person is going through, to teach them a lesson.
People who believe like this believe that God is a hard, and an austere man who is waiting for a man to say “I am righteous” – so that He can CRUSH HIM! The case in point, of course, is the parable of the talents. This man FEARED God. And isn’t that a good thing?
Luke 19:20-21 And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow
But he didn’t fear to DISOBEY God! NO, he feared that GOD WAS UNJUST! He feared that God would reward HIS OBEDIENCE with PUNISHMENT! This man believed that God reaped what He didn’t plant!
JUST LIKE YOU ARE! You fear to say “I AM RIGHTEOUS”. In fact, on some level you may even fear to BE righteous – for fear that, if you obey Him, or admit that you are obeying Him, God will harshly judge you. THAT IS INSANE! Make no mistake, if you AREN’T righteous, and say those things, He WILL judge you, but WHY would He punish you for doing what He, Himself told you to do?
You seem to think that God is just waiting, in sadistic anticipation, for someone to say “I have faith”, so that He can POUNCE on him and humble him and bring him down to the dirt again!
I want you to EXAMINE this beast of a God you’ve been taught! I want you to UNDERSTAND GOD, and understand JUST WHAT HE WANTS FROM YOU! You’ve been deceived long enough! That is NOTHING like the true God!
Nothing could be farther from the truth! God demands that you to HAVE faith, He demands that you ARE righteous – and what sort of a monster would both demand that, and then punish people who say, truly, that they have it??
I want you to see examples of men, men that God loved – and see how they acted. See if they thought that God was a hard and austere man, or if they were willing to argue with GOD HIMSELF when they thought God did wrong! I want you to PROVE if God is a fair, and just God, or if He is unfair, and reaps where He doesn’t plant. And what’s more, you can’t take His word for it! Because if he WAS unjust, and unfair, then He wouldn’t tell you the truth!
But I have a test you can use, to PROVE God is fair! To PROVE that He isn’t hard, and unjust. It is very easy, really. Would the man who feared God in Luke 19:21 have dared question God? I think not! The God that He pictured would not have tolerated being questioned! Oh, no, the God that HE thought He was serving was unfair, and would have punished him HARSHLY for even thinking about questioning Him!
How about you? If you saw God doing something wrong, would YOU tell Him so? Would you even allow yourself to THINK it? I think not! That would be blasphemy, wouldn’t it?
No! The TRUE God doesn’t mind being questioned! Only someone who is VAIN, and PROUD resents being questioned. Is God vain, or proud? “No”, you say? Well, how do you know? Because He said so? Well, Satan probably would say that he’s not proud, either. Shouldn’t you PROVE that God isn’t proud, if you can? After all, God, Himself said to PROVE ALL THINGS!
You know, Abraham PROVED that God wasn’t proud. He PROVED that God wasn’t vain, or austere. He PROVED, beyond a DOUBT, that God was a fair, and righteous ruler. And God subjected himself to this process, WILLINGLY!
Once upon a time, God was on His way to destroy Sodom, which was where Abraham’s nephew Lot lived. And God told Abraham what He was about to do. Let’s see what Abraham said to that…
Genesis 19:23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: SHALL NOT THE JUDGE OF ALL THE EARTH DO RIGHT?
Can you imagine accusing GOD ALMIGHTY OF BEING UNJUST? Can you imagine CORRECTING Him to His face for doing wrong?? The man who feared that God was a hard man, reaping where he didn’t sow, wouldn’t have! Would you?
And yet, God not only put up with it, but Abraham is called “the Friend of God”! And now, Abraham KNEW that God wasn’t proud, because a proud person cannot stand to be corrected, especially by a subordinate! Even puny ministers, when you try to correct them, usually demand of you “Don’t you know who I am??”
And yet the ruler of the universe is willing to take correction from a lowly man. And this is not an isolated incident! No, Moses – another man of whom God was quite fond – did something very similar.
Exodus 32:9-12 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, AND REPENT OF THIS EVIL against thy people….
Moses demands that God REPENTS of EVIL! Would YOU talk to God that way? No, because YOU think He is a vain, pompous, unfair creature, deep in your heart! And then Moses reminds God of His promises to Abraham – as if God had forgotten! How dare he!!
Verse 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
The sheer effrontery of this man, Moses. Why, God should have struck him down on the spot for backtalking and accusing God, GOD of doing evil!
Verse 14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
!!! But instead, God LISTENED to Moses, and REPENTED of it! Surely, this is NOT a proud or pompous God, but a patient, fair one. Now that we have defined His character a bit better, let’s look at a few of these other things.
Let’s for a moment, assume that you are righteous. Now, if you say “I am righteous”, is it a lie? No. If you *are* righteous, why should God pounce on you? What is wrong with admitting that you are doing what God told you to do? Let’s take another case in point…
Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
These are the words of God, Himself. Not someone else. God said that Job was righteous! MAN has looked at what Job said and assumed God was mad at Job because Job said he was righteous. But that wasn’t it at all! What sort of an insane creature would be angry because Job said the same thing that God did?
The whole truth about what was wrong with Job is dealt with in another article, “What Was Wrong With Job?”. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that Job was righteous, but Job did not trust God completely. While he was a great man, he still had that lesson to learn, and he learned it through the process of the book of Job.
But God LIKED Job! Both before and after this trial.
Job 42:7 And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, AS MY SERVANT JOB HATH.
God said Job spoke about Him “the thing that is right”! And many years, perhaps a millennium later, God said…
Ezekiel 14:20 Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.
So it is established that God LOVED Job. The point of all of this groundwork is that Job said…
Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain [margin reads “justify” or “Argue”] mine own ways before him.
Job was willing, indeed, EAGER to argue with God! Job was SO CERTAIN he was righteous that he was willing to debate the subject with God! AND GOD AGREED! God AGREED that Job was righteous!
And the point of this, for the present article, is that Job was willing to argue with God! And in spite of that, or perhaps BECAUSE of that, Job was one of God’s favorite men ever. Just like Moses and Abraham.
If you are afraid to question anything you feel is wrong, even if it is the actions of God Himself, then you, with the man in the parable of the talents, believe that God is unjust. And, with him, you will have your reward taken from you, and given to someone else.
Luke 19:24 And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
