How can we express our doubt to God without offending Him (Malachi 2:17; 3:14-15)?

Every question can be asked in two ways, either in humility and with the sincere desire to learn, or else in presumptuous rebellion against the solution, be it what it may. In the first case the questioner honestly takes the place of a learner, which is the right thing for him to do; in the second case he takes for granted that there is no satisfactory answer or else that it is definitely withheld. Man either comes before God in sincerity and with the prayer which later Elihu taught Job "What I see not teach Thou me" (Job 34:32) or he asks in rebellion "Why is everything so different from what it ought to be?"

He who does not wish to sit at the feet of the Master and say "I will demand of Thee and answer Thou me" takes the place of judge against his God. The vessel says to the potter "What makest thou?" Foolish as the question is, we yet find it frequently among the children of Adam, the generation of backsliders. The so-called Higher Criticism that has done so much harm in Christianity puts all its questions in the latter way. In our day, when the spirit of independence forces an entrance everywhere, and all men want to be free to think and do as they please, this fundamental error is almost universal. Even believers must take heed lest they be affected by the spirit of the times. Moreover there is nothing new under the sun. In reality the men of Job's time had to solve the same problems as we have to-day; only with this great difference, that God's counsel has since then been more clearly revealed. There may be some excuse for Job arguing with God, but for the Christian professor who possesses the whole word of God, it is a terrible thing to doubt the wise and loving providence of God.

And just here, when his almost insane defiance of God is at its height, there bursts forth a glance of that confidence in God which we have already had occasion to note. "Will He plead against me with His great power! No! but He would put strength in me," or "regard me with compassion." These are surely not the words of an unbeliever. He doubts God's ways, accuses Him, but is confident that if he could only see Him all would be cleared. God would consider his "weak and wandering cries," and vindicate him from divine injustice! But what an anomaly — the righteous man disputing with Him, and delivered by the Judge Himself from His unjust severity! Strange contradiction it all is; yet better far thus to long to go before God, than the pride which would say to Him, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." It is always better to bring even our doubts of God to Himself, if we have nothing else to bring.

How strange the implied doubt here in Abraham's mind! What poor weak questions do not these minds of ours raise! An Abraham praying the Judge of all the earth to do right! Is it not a first principle that of course He must? How could he doubt? we say. Beloved, do we never? and how much more do we know of God than Abraham could do possibly! How large a portion of our prayers, if they were analyzed, would be resolved into this, the asking God to do right! Alas! what infidelity, even as to first principles, cleaves to us when we little suspect it! God will do right! Why, of course. Oh, but when every thing on earth seems as if it were going wrong, — when with Jacob we are tempted to say, "All these things are against us," — when with Job we have to take our place upon the dust-heap, has there never the bitter question sprung up in our hearts, if it brake not the door of our lips, — do we never at least have to still our hearts with it, — "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

But it is beautiful to see how Abraham flings it all out — doubt and all, casts it down before God. "Pour out your hearts before Him," says the Psalmist; "Be careful for nothing," adds the apostle; "but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." In these very requests, what a multitude of things unworthy of Him! but He who has known them in the heart before would have us pour them out in His presence, and oh the relief that the heart gets so! How many of these workings of unbelief do the psalms thus give us! but they are poured out before God, and the soul stills itself in that blessed presence as no where else can it be stilled. What! we have been asking God if He is God! "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted," peace! He is indeed the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

How strange, perhaps, to find arguments of this kind in an inspired psalm! but how good that God has permitted thus all the conflict and contradiction that can be in the hearts of His people to come out, as it were with a strange, unconscious simplicity, and to be poured out to Him; who in the serene glory of His presence, not so much meets the arguments, as shines forth in His own blessedness, and they are gone, as a dream on waking. Job-like, our eyes see Him the Unrepenting, and we it is who abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes. So it is here: the unbelief is poured out here, — seems to find no answer, passes and is gone, and in one single, joyous, outburst at the end we learn that it is gone. No argument is there at all, but the sweet adoring rapture which says all — "Blessed be Jehovah for ever! Amen and Amen."

The questions of the prophet betray a great confidence toward God. Simultaneously they contain an acknowledgment of ignorance and a strong desire to be taught by Him. He had felt it already before, but would soon fully realize that to know God's ways it is sufficient to know God Himself. Without this knowledge of His Person all that happens in the world will forever remain an unsolvable mystery to us.

“Wherein hast Thou loved us?” (Mal. 1:2). Every question they directed to Him showed anew how hardened they were. Nine questions are recorded in Malachi, twelve in the first part of Zechariah, but the latter were asked by the prophet himself. They gave expression to his faith and his dependence upon the Lord. Although priest and prophet, Zechariah felt how ignorant and unfit he himself was to fathom God’s thoughts. He had only one desire: to receive a direct explanation of the divine mysteries. Let us copy Zechariah in this and ask as he did. If we do, we will receive just as he did. Such dependence we need especially when we begin our look into the visions of the prophet. One who wants to understand them with his intellect will find himself facing insurmountable difficulties. But one who in humble dependence asks God: “What does this mean?” will receive an answer that will build up and strengthen his faith, especially if he first has taken to heart that other word: “Return to Me, then I will return to you.”

It is the unbelief, that would not draw on Him, that refused to ask a blessing, and get it with a seal and a witness, that wearies God — not importunity, but, as I may say, the absence of it. And all this divine blessedness and excellency, which is thus seen in the Jehovah of the house of David in Isaiah 7 reappears in the Lord Jesus Christ of the Evangelists, and in His different dealing with weak faith and full faith.

it will not dishonour Him if it is not one of murmuring against Him. Israel 's cry came up before Him because of the affliction of which Genesis 15 speaks, and we read, "Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their groaning... and God looked upon the children of Israel and God had respect unto them.” The margin reads “He knew them.” It is a moment of great gain to one in affliction when the discovery is made that God is his only hope, and what comfort there is in that thought, He knows them!

All this is like some doubting, fearing, unhappy Christians, who tell me they believe on the Lord, and yet they have not peace. They are full of fears; they are not sure He has received them and forgiven them: they do not know His heart; and another thing, they have never had all out with Him. Have no reserves, my reader. Have it all out with Jesus, and do not you be the one to make our Joseph weep; for the heart of the Lord Jesus feels today your lack of trust in Him, after all He has done for you, all the kindness and the love He has shown to you. Wound not then His loving heart by any lack of confidence in Him.

THE last verse of Mal. 2, as we have pointed out, introduces the subject of chap. 3, wherein another phase is taken up of the moral state of the corrupted remnant. "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words," says Malachi; and then the characteristic answer of this book is returned, "Wherein have we wearied Him?" Poor people! They had departed from God; they drew nigh to Him with their mouth, and honoured Him with their lips, but their heart was far from Him. And yet in their ignorance, real or professed, of their own condition, they are surprised to hear that they had wearied the Lord. The truth was, they were in the path of self-justification, excusing themselves, and laying the blame of everything on God — sure evidence of their own backsliding. The prophet, therefore, speaks plainly, and tells them wherein they had wearied Jehovah. He says, "When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment? So blind were they in their self-righteousness, that they ventured to accuse God of unrighteousness, insinuating that He could not discern between good and evil. They were like the Pharisees of a later date, who were displeased because the Lord in His grace consorted with publicans and sinners; whereas, in their estimation, it was with themselves that He ought to be found. It is the same in every age; for just in proportion as we justify ourselves we are keen to detect the evil in others, and to exalt ourselves at their expense. What the Lord's people showed by their wicked complaints was: first, that they were utterly ignorant of the character of God, as the One who is of purer eyes than to behold evil; and secondly, that their sinful hearts had deceived them into thinking that they, spite of what they were, had a special claim, a meritorious claim, upon Jehovah's favour and regard. Observe also that it was their words that had wearied the Lord. How often is it forgotten that our words are recorded, and brought up for rebuke or judgment! (See Matt. 12:36-37; John 20:24-27.)