Can man live without God? Why do many people who reject God seem to live happy and fulfilled lives?

There may be no intellectual or logical proof on my part, but there will be, to a certain extent, a moral testimony in the happiness of my soul, and the warmth of my affections being centred in Christ. I have often found how much it tells with men of all conditions to assure them that I am perfectly happy in Christ, and quite sure of going to heaven. "Are you so?" they say; "I only wish I could say it." It would not be a proof to an infidel, his merely seeing you were happy; but it comes home to the heart of man, as there is a craving in man's heart that will never be met till he gets Christ there; for man is never happy without Christ, whatever he may say.

Even in the death of the ungodly there appears to be no suffering such as many others have (v. 4), but they seem to remain as firm in their rebellion against God as they have been through all their life. Though decidedly wicked in their character, yet so frequently they avoid the troubles that afflict men generally. Of course, this is not true of all the wicked, for some suffer great trouble on account of their sins even on earth; but there are many who keep God out of their lives and live in selfish pleasure with practically no adversity. Job spoke of this to his three friends (Job 21:7-17), none of whom could give him any answer as to why such men were allowed to live out their whole lives in selfish pleasure.

Job describes then the wicked in prosperity in strong terms. "Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes." It is not merely that you have one here and there, but the wicked really take root in the world; they are at home there. "Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them." They come under no special chastening. "Their bull genders, and fails not; their cow calves, and casts not her calf. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ." It is they that enjoy the world, if you leave out God, and take man's appreciation of present life. There is no disputing that such is the fact, account for it or not, if one looks at the world as it is. "They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say to God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? and what profit should we have, if we pray to Him?" In their case it would have been true to say that prayer is restrained.

(2) He looks at the other side, at the case of the prosperous wicked, and with ability equal to Zophar's, reminds him that evil men often go on unchecked. They live to old age and become mighty in power. Their families grow up about them, and all abides in quietness without the rod of God falling upon them. Flocks and herds increase; his children — in sad contrast to the now childless speaker — are like a group of lambs skipping about the home, and in it is heard the sound of timbrel and harp and pipe. All their days are in prosperity until the end comes, although these very men said to God, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." Like Pharaoh, they ask, "What is the Almighty that we should serve Him, and what profit should we have if we pray unto Him?" While describing their profane defiance of God, which goes so long unrebuked, Job is careful to express his abhorrence of such impiety: "Lo, their good is not by their own hand" (all that they have is from God); "the counsel of the wicked is far from me" (ver. 16). All this is true, and bears out the teaching of Psalm 73, where one is under exercise similar to his own.

Zophar had spoken of the wicked being cut off, but Job has questions now that Zophar does not even attempt to answer. Sometimes wicked men are cut off, but some wicked men live and become old and become mighty in power above others (v.7). Why? Their children often get along well with hardly a setback (v.8). They seem to have nothing to fear and the discipline of God's government seems not to apply to them (v.9). "Their bull breeds without failure; their cow calves without miscarriage" (v.10), while often the righteous find just the opposite experience. Their children enjoy life with its music and dancing, spending their days in wealth, "and in a moment go down to the grave" (vv.11-12). In other words, they know nothing of the painful experiences of Job all through their life, then die without suffering. Asaph observed this also, as he records in Psalm 73:3-9, and added in verses 16-17, "It was too painful for me - until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end." He learned that God's accounts are not settled in this life: there is a future to be considered.

We see this instinctive sense, if one may so call it, of God's interest in human concerns clouded over for the time being in a very remarkable scripture, Ps. 73. The great problem of history, the apparent dominance of evil, its seeming success in the world, and its counterpart — the subservience, and to all appearance the adversity attaching to a righteous course — is there come up for solution. "I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked," proceeds the Psalmist, recounting his experience. It is a common experience. We all know it well. Hard thoughts and perplexing doubts chase one another through the despondent mind. Sin, pride, and violence are so apparently successful, His own people so poor, oppressed, despised, tried. These on the one hand "are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish."

In this Psalm 73, we get an illustration of how far a saint may get away from God, and how infidel a mind may become when the eye is allowed to rest upon things visible, and if we judge of him by the way things seem to be ordered upon earth, we will get into darkness, become greatly perplexed, and be in danger of attributing unrighteousness to God. The Psalmist sees the wicked prospering, full of pride and violence, exempted from the hardships and afflictions which are the portion of the people of God, while all the day long he is plagued, and chastened every morning, and in his bewilderment he says he has purified his heart in vain. He is like Job, whom Elihu charged with going in company with workers of iniquity and walking with wicked men, for he had said that it did not profit a man to delight himself in God, he might just as well have been a sinner. Elihu’s answer to him is this: he asks him who it does profit—“if thou sinnest, what doest thou against Him?” “If thou be righteous, what givest thou Him?” “Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art, and thy righteousness may profit the son of man” (Job 35:6-8). Though a man may cause his neighbour to suffer through his sin, or cause him to benefit by his righteousness, the chief sufferer on account of sin is the one who commits it, and the one who gains most from righteousness is the one who practices it. But in this world this is not easily seen, for the ways of God in His government are not traceable. Christ has been rejected from earth, and in this world what is of God is in motion. If we judge God by what we see taking place around us here below, we will be found on the verge of justifying the wicked, speaking against God, and offending against the generation of His children. And to find out God and follow Him in His path through the world, so as to come to an understanding of all that which is so bewildering, is more than we are up to; we will have to confess, “When I thought to know this it was too painful for me.”

The first sixteen verses of Psalm 73 give us a very graphic description of the way in which the wicked frequently are prospered in this life. There is nothing very surprising in the fact that in an ungodly world there should be worldly prosperity for the ungodly: it is rather surprising that the godly should so often be upset as they behold it. There was some excuse for Asaph, for he lived in a day when heavenly things were not clearly revealed, and when God did speak of blessing Israel His people in their basket and in their store. We live in a day when heavenly things are clearly revealed, and when we have been plainly told as Christians that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."

As the day of the Lord is prophetically against the loftiness of man,7 so also is the truth of the gospel in its present operation through the Spirit. Self-seeking is the wisdom of this world; self-losing, to be found in Christ, is the wisdom of the just.8 Neither might nor earthly wisdom has ever brought true happiness to its possessor; but joy and peace are in believing.9 The world both wonders at and curses in its heart, the blessedness of those who, with a knowledge of the living God, are content to be accounted ignorant of other things; who, without either power or visible defence, are yet void of the fear of man, and who are happy with no other reason of their happiness than Christ. Such shall never be confounded; while they do themselves, so long as they walk humbly in the light, confound the world.

The carnal mind is enmity against God. The thought of God is hateful to the flesh. The gospel has no charm for the natural ear. The judgment to come is treated as a baseless priestly invention. God is a hard Master, a compassionless tyrant, who has no respect for the work of His hands; that is, if He exists at all, which some men think may be very rightly questioned. Therefore the only thing to do is to act as though He did not exist, and by “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” make themselves as happy and as comfortable as they can in the land of the vagabond.