The atheist looks at the suffering of humanity and declares, how can there be a God who would allow such suffering? Those of the Islamic faith reject Jesus as the Son of God. Why is that the case? In their teachings how could a God allow His Son to die as Jesus did? To them this is all the proof they need to reach the conclusion that Jesus could not have been the Son of God. Communism sees the effects of religion in the hearts of men’s actions and they needed to explain it. Hence in their teaching, religion is just the “opium” of the masses. God is not real, He is just made up by man to deal with all the suffering around him.
There are still others who come to read the scriptures and know there is a God. Yet as they view the actions of God as revealed in scripture they find themselves arguing with God. The atheist rejects the idea of God as does the Communist, while those who are Moslems accept the idea of God but only their version based on words that Mohammad got in a cave. Let us forget all three of those false ideas. Yet how do we explain the actions of God as we open our Bibles?
We begin on this foundational truth. God does not think as we do (Isaiah 55:8,9). There are only two choices to make. Either we bring God down to our thinking or we raise our thinking to view God as He reveals Himself through scripture. How can I read your heart? I am bound to read your actions and therefore make a judgment about the content of your heart (Matthew 7:20). I may make a mistake about some individual action in your life. The passage in Matthew deals with the “fruits” that a person produces. We therefore over a period of time can make judgments about the heart that leads to given actions. We are always bound to judge in a righteous manner (John 7:24).
The man Job approached this problem this way. He declared that there is no daysman between us (Job 9:33). In our language a daysman would be like an umpire. Job was saying who could be a judge between God and man? Who could hear the case of the actions of God and man and decide who is right? No one could be an umpire between God and man. Job did not understand what was happening to him as to the cause. His “friends” assumed it was some sin in Job’s life. Job continued to argue with them that he was unaware of anything he had done to cause all his suffering. His argument then in chapter nine is not saying that God is wrong but rather that no man can argue against God for who would decide the case?
We move then from the foundation principle that God does not think as we do. It is important in the second place to recognize that God is not a man. Balaam in his efforts to curse the people of God was used by God to utter truths for all humanity to consider. Balaam then under the influence of God tells Balak that God is not a man (Numbers 23:19). This verse reveals that God does not lie. If He says He will do something then He will do it. He does not act nor think like we do. By way of example we can read about the command that God gave king Saul to destroy the Amalekites. In I Samuel 15:3, he is told to kill everyone and everything. Man, woman, child, infant and all animals. Why would God order such a thing?
Brethren, God is not a man. He does not think nor act as we do. How can I know the heart of God? Is it by reading one incident or am I bound to look at the totality of His actions? One may read I Samuel 15 and raise doubts in their mind about Who God is. However, the Bible also reveals the great love of God in giving His Son to die on the cross to save humanity (John 3:16). I may see things happening around me in my life but I do not see the whole world. God, on the other hand, who is not man, does see all the world and the effects of sin in the hearts of humanity.
Whether from a human view that I cannot explain given actions, the third principle is to recognize that God is right, always. I must spend all my life and find the God who is revealed in the sixty-six books of the Bible and never charge Him, foolishly.