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

Elihu then puts clearly before him that he had spoken wrongfully of God, as well as too highly of himself. "Behold, he finds occasions against me." Was it comely so to speak of God? "He counts me for his enemy." Elihu justly complained of such language. A saint should be reverent. "He puts my feet in the stocks, he marks all my paths. Behold, in this thou art not just." Is it possible that a godly man should allow his lips to accuse God of injustice? "I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. Why dost thou strive against him?" The three friends had failed to convict Job rightly while suspecting him wrongfully. Not only was Job judging God, but also he was not subject to Him. There was insubmission of heart. If God was dealing with him, why did he not enquire of Him, instead of murmuring? "Why dost thou strive against him? for he gives not account of any of his matters. For God speaks once, yea twice, yet man perceives it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction."

So when Uzzah put forth his hand and took hold of the ark, for the oxen shook it, God was bringing the matter to a point in judgment. "The anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God." And David, instead of judging himself, instead of looking back and confessing how completely they had all acted without the guidance of Jehovah, was displeased because Jehovah had made a breach upon Uzzah. Displeased with whom? Oh, it is a sorrowful thing to say, he was displeased with the God of Israel. But do not think this so strange a thing either. When you murmur and complain of His chastening in your own case, what are you doing but expressing your displeasure at the Lord? Do you suppose, beloved brethren, that any trial which happens to you, whatever its character, is without Him? that afflictions "spring from the dust?" Do you suppose that anything, no matter what it may be, or by whatever instrument it come, even though it be what most of all pains you, is without His intention or His lesson to your soul? Certainly not. It may fall on you through ever such a wrong in another. But this is never a reason either to justify you nor the smallest excuse for being displeased with God.

The last of the five admonitions here is no less serious: "Neither murmur ye." The spies of Israel who brought back a report of the land of Canaan mixed with their own murmuring, "died by the plague before the Lord" (Num. 14:36,37). Such murmuring was the dreadful evil of judging God as being untrustworthy in His assurance that he would enable them to conquer the land. Let the believer remember that all mere complaint is in its essence against God. Is He not caring rightly for His people and all their interests? Notice here it is not the serpents destroying, but the destroyer: it was a divine infliction, God's own judgment.

"Do you think this is right? Do you say, My righteousness is more than God's? (v.2). This was very clearly what was implied in Job's words, for he had said he was righteous and God was remiss in His not recognising Job's righteousness. How careful we should be when we are tempted to complain, for we are saying in effect that God is not treating us rightly! Job had questioned if there was any advantage or profit in being righteous, more than if he had sinned (v.3), that is, he thought, "what is the use of being righteous if the results are not what I imagined thy should be?" How can a believer entertain such unbelieving thoughts?

And how did it affect Job? Very few converted men now would act as Job did then. "Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground and worshipped." Now he was a most affectionate man, and he was a man full of graciousness even to strangers. What was it for him to lose all, not merely his property, but every soul of the family, outside his own house? And he said "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away, blessed be the name of Jehovah." You cannot conceive a more happy and decided expression of entire godliness from a deeply tried soul. "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly," that is, in a way that was contrary to all propriety.

Job, after those heavy afflictions, which are set before us in the first chapter, the loss of his substance and of his family, rends his mantle, it is true (chap. 1:20); he did not sin in that, the word tells us. His grief was lawful, he was permitted to grieve for the loss of his children; but he arises and worships before God. He can worship Him, because his will is broken, and he can say, "Jehovah gave and Jehovah hath taken away blessed be the name of Jehovah."

Another delightful case of intercession is that of Job's. Satan had moved God against this righteous man, to destroy him without cause, and God had allowed Satan to take away all his children, and all his possessions; yet the response to all this evil from this "perfect and upright" man is, "Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, and said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the LORD" (Job 1:20-21). At the second attack of Satan, when he is covered with boils, and sitting among the ashes, his wife says, "Curse God and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips" (Job 2:9-10).

How this puts us to shame to whom God's love in Christ Jesus has been so fully revealed, and to whom God's word distinctly says that all things must work together for good! How often do minor trials make us disagreeable and rebellious or cause doubts to arise in our hearts. One thing is worthy of notice; it was Satan not God who killed Job's children, who destroyed his possessions, and smote him with boils. God certainly permitted it; not only in order to prove Satan a liar but also to teach Job a needed lesson. The lesson which Job and his friends learnt was of such great importance that he later indeed considered his suffering of no account compared with it.

At first, of course, everything seemed incomprehensible to him. At the end of the first chapter we read "in all this Job sinned not nor ascribed anything unseemly to God." In Job 2:10, however, it says only "In all this Job did not sin with his lips." 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 on did charge God foolishly it was partly because he did not understand this mystery. Job's patience was admirable and has rightly become proverbial. When his three friends arrived, however, and through their seven days' silence showed only that they had no words of comfort for him but rather thought in their hearts that Job was receiving the due reward of his deeds, then he began to despair of all and in the bitterness of his heart uttered his first presumptuous "why?" "Wherefore is light given to him that is in trouble, and life to those bitter of soul?" "Why, yes why?" Many millions have asked the same question since. Why do I live at all? Would it not be better if I had never been born? See Job 3:10-20. In Isaiah 45:9-12, we see a grave woe pronounced on those who ask such questions.

The first question of Job, "Why has God given me life only to send me such suffering now?" is the language of the natural man in rebellion against his Maker. Contending with the Almighty: man wants to instruct Him (see Job 40:2). He curses the past, reviles the present and all his future hope is gone, just as Jeremiah (Jer. 20:14-18) not only bemoans his torments but also his very existence. What a state to be in!

The Lord begins to speak in Job 38 and we read that He spoke out of the whirlwind. I have already referred to the fact that there is nothing in what the Lord says there that is outside of the life of men and of animals and of the creation as we know it. Some see something typical in them but I do not believe there is the slightest justification for this. The Lord was taking up something that Elihu referred to. He was displaying the immense greatness of God. If Job could not ask one tenth of the ten thousand questions that arise about nature how could he possibly understand God? God speaks first about the inanimate things, the earth, sea, clouds, hail and rain. He shows three things about them. Firstly that He designed them; secondly that He created them; and thirdly that He controls them. Consider the whole range of inanimate things that make up the world and the whole range of living creatures, and God commands them all. It says “Doth the eagle mount up at Thy command, and make her nest on high?” (Job 39:27). All the eagles on the earth, all moving to execute the demands of God. We cannot understand those movements and we cannot conceive in our minds the Being that could embrace the whole of them. The lesson for Job was that it was altogether too great for him to try to get to the bottom of things and seek for explanations. God in His counsels and actions is altogether too big for us. Then when the Lord comes to the end He speaks about Leviathan. We may feel like asking “what has all this explanation got to do with Job?”, but the presence of God was in the Word. If one of God's creatures terrifies the man who sets his eyes upon him how wrong it was of Job to persist and persist in questioning God. Job did maintain his righteousness and we are told that Job was an upright man, but Job also charged God with injustice in what He had done. God didn't exactly reprove Job for this. Elihu did, but God did not. God was altogether in His Words out of the whirlwind, showing that it was quite impossible for Job to cope with questions that arise about God. God gives no account of Himself in these things, His counsels and His designs, that lie behind the things that are done. We cannot expect God to give account, and this is only in earthly things! The presence of God was mediated in the things that Job heard and saw. Job's patience was manifested when he didn't curse God when his wife said “curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). His patience was manifested when he said “Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord ” (Job 1:21). That was Job's patience, but the end of the Lord was reached when Job said “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). After this he sailed into prosperity, though what is spoken about at the end was prosperity of an earthly kind.

Job had said that if God would only listen to him, he would present his whole case in showing how God was unfair in His dealings (ch.33:3-5). Therefore now God gives Job opportunity to do this. He asks Job, "Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it" (v.2). Where were Job's arguments then? How withering were God's words to the unseemly pride of Job!