"IT IS NOT FOR MAN TO CRITICIZE GOD"

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 8:3,4
Psalm 25:4
Psalm 62:4,5
Psalm 144:2,3
Psalm 146:2,3,4

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

On this side of the fall into sin, things happen that we don’t like. It will be in your life as it is in mine: we make our plans, have our hopes - and something happens that brings our dreams crashing down. Perhaps our plans fall to bits on account of a mistake on our own part, or perhaps we’re the victims of another’s mistakes. In any case, we’re left holding the bag, and feeling miserable. It’s happened to us all, and it will happen to us time and again as long as we live in this broken world.

How, my brothers and sisters, do you respond? Our culture encourages us to take nothing sitting down; you have your rights and if they’ve been trampled you’d better complain – it’s part of the "dog eat dog" mentality of our age; survival of the fittest. So our nation, I read recently, has become a nation of whingers….

That habit of whining is not necessarily directed only to other people. We believe in God, believe that He directs and controls all things. Not a hair, we confess in Lord’s Day 1, can fall from our heads without the will of our heavenly Father. The mistakes we make, and the things others do to us, all in some way have the hand of God behind them. If we take that confession seriously, it becomes very tempting in adversity to criticize the way the Lord leads our lives.

Criticize God: that is the topic Solomon addresses next. And his conclusion on the matter is this: it is not fitting for a man to criticize God – not in word, not in deed, not even in attitude or thought. Instead, God’s identity as God dictates that people are to trust Him.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

"Whatever one is," says Solomon in our text, "he has been named already, For it is known that he is man." "Whatever one is:" the reference is to what one has become in the course of the years. Things happen in one’s life, doors of opportunity open and close, one develops one’s talents this way or that way, and as a result of the various factors and influences that bear upon you since childhood you find yourself in a certain position in this world. Perhaps you become a wealthy and influential businessman, or an effective headmaster of a school. Perhaps through hard work and diligence you become the proud owner of a half-million dollar property. Or, under the blessing of the Lord, you receive a large family that’s happy to be together in the service of the Lord. "Whatever one is": we all are something, we all have a place and function in our community; some of us are big, others small, some rich, others poor – but we all have a place, whatever we are.

In the midst of our diversity, what basic element do we all share? Says Solomon literally, "Whatever one is, his name has already been called, and it is known that he is man." "His name has already been called." With those words Solomon refers back to what he has read in his Bible in Genesis 1. On the first day of creation the Lord created Light and "divided the light from the darkness" (vs 4). Then we read these words: "God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night" (vs 5). Similarly, on the second day of creation "God made the firmament" and then He "called the firmament Heaven" (vs 8). On the third day the Lord divided the waters from the dry land, "and God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas" (vs 10). God gave each part of His creation its name, and the point of it is that the Lord identified what He made, gave it its label and hence described its place and function.

On the sixth day of creation the Lord God made man. It’s what we read in Gen 1:26ff: God decided to make man in His image and give him dominion over His handiwork, and so God did so; "male and female He created them." But what name did God give to this creature of His? Before He made Him He already identified this creature. Gen 1:26: "Let Us make man in Our image." "Man": that is his God-given name. Or, as the Hebrew has it, "Adam". What was God saying when He "called his name" Adam, man?

"Man", "Adam": the term doesn’t mean anything particular to us. But in the Hebrew language, brothers and sisters, the term Adam simply means ‘ground’, ‘dirt’, ‘earth’. And see: that is man’s basic identity. Gen 2:7: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." That’s man’s identity; he’s dust, dirt, ground. Then certainly, he has a high position in God’s creation; we were created to image God, to have dominion over God’s world. But that exalted position does not take away our humble origin; we are earth, ground. Ever since the fall into sin, that humble origin is spelled out so graphically to each generation anew, for each generation in turn dies and in a process of weeks and months each person returns to dust, to earth. At the grave our true identity is so in your face. Dust.

That, congregation, is what Solomon refers to when he says in our text that "whatever one is" –rich or poor, powerful or weak, influential or insignificant- "he has already been named", and that name is no secret. "Man", said the Lord God in the beginning, "man" he is, dirt.

Yet he lives; he’s not just a lump of clay as you find today in the paddock. For the dust God had fashioned into the shape of a man received from God Himself the breath of life so that man became a living being (2:7b). He lives, can think, can speak, can do, lives – dirt alive! How remarkable, how wonderful! The crown of God’s creation this being is, and even privileged to be children of God – a position God has not given to horses or to butterflies or even to angels! So elevated, so glorious: "You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet… - O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!" (Ps 8). What You made is so wonderful! Still, at bottom, his name is dust, his identity is dirt; "what is … the son of man that You visit him?"

"Whatever one is, he has been named already" – he’s man, dirt. Why, congregation, does Solomon say this? That brings us to our second point:

Man is ground, dirt. Yet God has highly exalted man, and given him a position over animals and birds, entrusted to him gold and silver and the treasures of the earth. Man, dirt, has received a mind to think and hands to build, and so can grow crops and establish a civilization.

In Solomon’s own day civilization in Israel had risen to unsurpassed heights. According to the book of Kings, the people of Israel in Solomon’s days "dwelt safely, each man under his vine and his fig tree" (4:25). Politically there was peace in the land, and economically there was great prosperity throughout Israel. The land had a judicial system with as chief justice the wisest man of all times – Solomon himself. People had the technological know-how to build massive palaces for the king and an enormous temple for the Lord God. Man was dust, but the heights of civilization to which Israel arose in the days of Solomon reflected so little of man’s essential humbleness.

What temptation follows? We see it around us too: the more one climbs the ladder –be it economically or socially- the freer one feels to criticize. We think we have the right to say our bit, to take a posture above another and talk down to him – pass judgment.

And yes, in Solomon’s day there were thing one could criticize. Solomon knows of official corruption in the land. Chap 5:8: "If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter; for high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them." Solomon well knew that despite the prosperity and peace that characterized his nation, he and his people did not live in a restored Paradise; in Israel there were –like in Australia today- the higher ups who sought to use their position of authority to milk those under them. But, says Solomon, don’t marvel, don’t be astounded, don’t be dismayed. The term he uses here that’s translated for us as ‘marvel’ describes a state of being stunned, taken aback. And you know what follows when one is stunned at what he sees, taken aback; criticism follows!

Solomon observes more evil in the land. Chap 5:10: "He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; Nor he who loves abundance, with increase." Point: the more you have, the more you want. And suppose you succeed in getting more, what does it really help? Vs 11: the more your holdings increase, the more your staff increases – and therefore the more you have pay out. "So what profit have the owners except to see [their riches] with their eyes?" In fact, the more you have the less you sleep (vs 12). Despite all your hard work, that’s the net result! It just doesn’t seem fair….

Or there’s the man who worked hard, very hard, to achieve a good standard of living – and has denied himself much in the process. But when he finally gets to that point in his life that he can retire, can sit back and enjoy his wealth, some disaster hits and he can’t enjoy his riches (vs 13). Perhaps a fire destroys his house, or the stock market crashes, or he himself takes a heart attack…. It’s all so unfair, we say….

And how do we respond when this kind of thing happens to us? We know it: it’s so easy to get bitter, cynical. And with the bitterness and cynicism we become judgmental of others…, including God. Who here cannot relate to this? Some anger against God for taking a loved one – so that you cannot enjoy retirement together? Some anger against God for taking away your earnings – so that you cannot retire in comfort? Some anger against God for giving a handicapped child – and so your dreams of an ideal family fall in a hole? Some anger against God for not giving you a spouse – and so you have to put up with life alone? Others don’t lose their retirement earnings, others retain their spouse to old age, others receive healthy children, others receive the pleasure of marriage – but I don’t and that’s not fair! Then to find fault with another – it’s so tempting, even if the other is God!

Yes, man can think, and so –unlike the animals- man can see the connections between cause and effect; that’s the gift God gave man so that he could have dominion over God’s world. Man knows of God, and of God’s sovereignty, how nothing happens by chance but all things come from God’s hands (cf Ecclesiastes 3:9-15). So, logically, if the stock market crashes or an accident claims my health, God’s hand is behind it. Then, logically in turn, the evil that befalls me must be God’s doing – and I have the right to complain about the way He deals with me. How tempting to do it!

But Solomon, beloved, would lay before the people of his day what man’s actual position is. Man is man¸ Adam, ground, dirt. What did Adam have on the day of creation that was not given to him? His very existence was a gift from God – for he was himself but dirt, and came alive only because God almighty breathed into him the breath of life. And so it is with every child born on this earth. What does one have at birth? One is born with nothing, not even a clothe with which to cover oneself. One comes into the world empty, dependent. And whatever one becomes in life is the result of gifts received from another – be it initially your mother and afterwards your teacher, etc. Then in the course of one’s years one can achieve so much, and acquire so much wealth. But in the day of death all men are equally reduced to the basics of man’s identity: dirt. "As he came from his mother’s womb, naked shall he return, to go as he came" (5:15f). Man is little, and that is why a big mouth to God is simply out of place. In the words of our text: "he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he." Criticize God? Dispute the way God leads your life? Let man remember who he is!

Let no one say, congregation, that the temptation to criticize God is far removed from us. Job was a man of like nature as we are. In the pressures of his life –he lost everything- he sought, he says, to question God. Job 23: "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, And fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which He would answer me, And understand what He would say to me. Would He contend with me in His great power? No! But He would take note of me" (vss 2ff). How characteristic that is of fallen man! "Unfair!", we say, and we set about to criticize God. But we all know God’s response to Job’s arrogance. In four long chapters the Lord God laid out how little Job actually was –how?- by laying out in detail how great He is. Job’s response is humbling: he laid his hand on his mouth and refused to speak further; he repented in dust and ashes (40:3ff; 42:6; cf Is 45:9f).

In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul puts the question so often on the lips of mankind: "Is there unrighteousness in God?" (9:14). In this case the question arises in relation to election to salvation; God has chosen the one to salvation in Christ and passed the other by (9:6ff). Logically, therefore, the one believes because God chose him; the other does not believe because God did not choose him – and so it’s God’s fault that my loved one goes to hell! And God, that’s not fair! But, says Paul, remember who you are! Genesis 2: you are Adam, dirt. And "will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this’?" Paul adds: "does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?" (vs 21). From the dust of the field God makes a man, and from the dust of the same field God makes a dog (cf Ecclesiastes 3:20). Will you, the clay, criticize the heavenly Potter for that?? From the dust of the field God makes a man and in the course of years uses him for a most honorable task in God’s kingdom, and from the dust of the same field He makes another man who receives a dishonorable task in God’s world. Will you, the clay, criticize the heavenly Potter for that?? From the dust of the field God makes a man and endows him with riches and good health – only to take that wealth and health from him later in life. Will you, the clay, criticize the heavenly Potter for that?? Who is man that he should contend with God? It is for man –dirt- to lay his hand on his mouth…. As Solomon says in 6:11 (the NKJV is inaccurate here): "the more words, the more vanity." It does not help for man to say too much to God. Man is man, and so let his words to God not be big – complaint upon complaint. Man is man, and so let man accept both what the almighty Potter makes and what He does with the things He makes – ourselves included.

I suspect, brothers and sisters, that we can all accept that our identity as ‘man’, dust, has implications for our posture before God. But we have questions. There are so many injustices in life! Are we just to take them sitting down? Are we just to let these things happen, let these things be? How are we to live in the face of the corruption and unfairness that hurts us so? It’s our third point:

So man is dust, dirt, little. And God? Says Solomon at the end of our text: God "is mightier than" we. The term ‘mightier’ echoes the imagery of the relation between the potter and the clay. Does that mean, though, that we people are helpless victims of the whims of mighty God?

Not so, brothers and sisters, not at all so! Remember the temple Solomon had built! In that temple this mighty God lived amongst people –man, dirt!- with whom He had made His covenant of grace. This mighty God ordained that sacrifices be made day by day to atone for the sins of His people, and those sacrifices all proclaimed the gospel of God’s grace. Those sacrifices: one day God would send His only Son into the world to be born as a man – dirt. The Potter, if you will, would become clay in order to redeem the clay. So great was His love for the creature He made in the beginning from the dust of the earth, a creature that slapped His Maker in the face with his fall into sin.

In the course of the years the Son of God became man, born of a woman, true man like you and me and therefore dirt as we are dirt. He went to the cross of Calvary to bear the wrath of God against our sins – wrath we obviously could not bear because we are but dirt. But He bore that wrath, for He was at the same time true God. That’s the gospel that reconciles sinners to God, that reconciles the clay to the Potter. That’s the gospel that is preached today, and it’s the gospel that was proclaimed in the temple Solomon built in Jerusalem.

Should the Israelites of Solomon’s day, then, think of themselves as hapless victims of the Potter’s whims? No, beloved, no more than we today should think of ourselves as victims of God’s moods! This God was Israel’s Father, just as He is our Father. This God is Father, and therefore knows what is good for us – and supplies it. Vs 12: "who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow?" We say: a particular event that happened is not good for us. We say: that miscarriage was a negative thing, bad; that bankruptcy was a terrible thing, bad; that cancer was a terrible thing, bad. We feel that we can determine what is good for us. But Solomon would have his people know that people –dust!- are poor judges of what is good for us! "Who knows what is good for man in life?" The only answer to that question is God. He’s our Father for Christ’s sake, and therefore fully aware of what is good for us. The people of Israel ever the prey of His uncaring moods? Never, never! And that is the more true for us today, beloved, now that Christ has satisfied for sin and reconciled sinners to God, reconciled clay to the Potter.

What, then, of the corruption of high officials that makes life so difficult for us? And what of disasters that befall us – death of a loved one, lose of good health, shirt stolen off your back? Do we just accept that? There are certainly things you can do –and must do!- to protect yourself, defend yourself. But contend with God is not one of them. Instead, as the psalmists did so often so long ago, pour out your heart before God in humility. Tell Him of the hurt, certainly. Describe your problem to Him, in detail. But do so in the full awareness that you are man and He is God, you the clay and He the potter. And then, after you lay the problem before Him, leave it with Him. Accept what He has put on your path – for it’s invariably well given. And therefore: make the most of whatever God gives you.

That’s Solomon’s instruction in chap 5:18: "It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him." Notice those last words: "which God gives him." Those words are repeated in vs 19: "as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth…," and again: "this is the gift of God." It’s repeated again in 6:2: "a man to whom God has given riches…." Solomon’s point is: you live by God’s grace. You are but dust, and almighty God is your Father for Jesus’ sake. All that’s on your path comes from His hand, and whatever He in wisdom puts on your path is well given, and therefore: enjoy it! Make the most of the opportunities and privileges God puts on our path. Relax and enjoy the life God gives, instead of complaining about the injustice and oppression you see in the land. Relax and enjoy, instead of worrying about the money and responsibility God has given you. It’s true: tomorrow God can take that money or responsibility away – and you can’t change that, for you are only dirt. So enjoy it today. Use His gifts in His kingdom for His glory – and in doing that you will have pleasure and satisfaction in what the Lord gives.

What, congregation, is the upshot of this instruction? Life has so much brokenness, so much wrong, and we all feel ourselves to be victims of wrongs somewhere along the line. The upshot of Solomon’s instruction is that we need to remember well who we are –dirt- and therefore recognize that the heavenly Potter –our Father in Christ!- can and will do with us what He in wisdom knows is good. Embracing that gospel delivers us from the temptation to complain about our circumstances, delivers us also from the inclination to get bitter in our circumstances. Embracing that gospel gives us the opportunity, yes, the freedom, to enjoy today, to make the most today, of whatever our Father gives us today. Amen.