Is it wrong to blame God? Is blaming God a sin?

Having made Adam the responsible head, the Lord God dealt directly with him and challenged him about his disobedience. Adam admitted it, and what he said in verse 12 was true, but he said it so as to cast the blame on Eve, and even indirectly upon God Himself. "The woman whom You gave to be with me" led me into this disobedience — the suggestion being that if God had not given him Eve, all would have been well. Man's deep-seated sinful instincts are revealed at once. If he cannot deny his guilt he will blame somebody else, and if possible blame God.

It is the way of our guilty nature to throw the sin in which our own will is involved onto someone else. And God judged Adam out of his own mouth. The excuse he makes is the very reason God condemns him. "Because you have listened…" Our excuses are our condemnation.

The foolishness of a man exposes him to evil ways, and all the more because the more foolish he is, the less he judges himself. If he only felt his folly before God and looked up for wisdom, how surely God would give it without scolding him. If he trusts himself, he perverts his way more and more. Worse still, his heart frets or rages against the LORD. His folly grows impious at last, even to casting the blame on Him who alone is absolutely wise and has never done him harm, but good. It is a common case.

Murmuring comes up. This is the very beginning of division — murmuring. Have I been guilty of it? Have you? Any complaints — that spirit of complaint? Remember, that spirit of complaint is actually against God! Think of it! It is as much as to say, "God is not caring for me as He ought to." Or, "God is not caring for the assembly as He ought to." Instead of the spirit of complaint, let us have the spirit of intercession.

Do not murmur, Christian, for it is a most unchristian, a most ungodly thing to do. Nothing dishonours God more, nothing does greater damage to the soul. It was the chief of all the sins Israel committed in the wilderness, for it meant they did not believe their God was fit to be trusted.

What an answer Job's attitude is to those who claim that hard circumstances are an excuse for sinning! "In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." Many since Job's time have proved this while enduring terrible affliction and trouble. Rather than driving them away from God, their troubles have driven them into His presence, to find comfort and joyful fellowship with the Lord.

Surely God would have wished to spare Job his sufferings; also, what Satan was permitted to do did not come directly from the hand of God. This is a mystery, hard to understand, and if Job later did charge God foolishly, it was partly because he did not understand this mystery.

God's word permits a groan, but never a grumble. And the prophet utters his groans to the Lord. Too often there is a tendency in us as believers to discuss the failures of God's people among ourselves in such a bitter spirit that the groaning becomes mere grumbling, or complaining about what God allows in His dealings with His people. Complaining words to one another may betray a lurking spirit of rebellion against God. It is good for us if we escape these traps by pouring out the anguish of our spirits before the LORD.

It is beautiful to see how Abraham flings it all out — doubt and all — and casts it down before God. "Pour out your hearts before Him," says the Psalmist… In these very requests, what a number of things unworthy of Him! But He who already knew them in the heart wants us to pour them out in His presence, and what relief the heart gets that way! What! We have been asking God whether He is God!

"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." There was the great moral victory God accomplished in the face of Satan, in the face of Job's three friends, and in the face of Job himself. For what he had said might have provoked anyone but God. And so we see the wonderful goodness of the Lord through it all.