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Ron Writes

There are so many full of arrogance and pride. They express it in their judgment of God. They are arrogant enough to sit on the judgment seat. In their vanity they have become the standard of morality. Their statements often begin with “if I were God.” They think they’re exposing the weaknesses of God as they try to explain what a superior god they would make. Sometimes they make the leap that there is no God, because if there were a God, He would have done things differently. He would be like them.

One typical statement is “if there is a loving God, then why is there so much evil in the world.” For the sake of argument, let’s agree with them for a moment. Let’s take God out of the equation. Without God would there still be evil in the world? Yes. It’s not God causing the evil, but we humans. God gave us freewill. We can choose. Man can choose to do evil. God has shown us a way of forgiveness, love, and peace, but man has chosen their own way. He could have made humans like robots, where every move was predetermined by Him. He could have forced us to be good and love Him, but that’s not true love. Love can only exist when we decide of our own free will to love.

In their arrogance they think they are qualified to criticize God’s Word. The Old Testament has some difficult teachings, and they especially want to focus on these. It never seems to enter their minds that they might not have spent enough time to understand the text. We don’t take the Bible literally, but literarily. Context, culture, traditions, etc. are ignored if this can make the Bible sound ridiculous. It’s the height of arrogance (and ignorance) to claim that God’s Word doesn’t meet your standard of morality.

What happens when man is allowed to be their own standard of morality? What happens when people think they’re smarter than God and choose to ignore Him? You don’t need to look very far to see the results of man’s arrogance and pride. Romans 1 describes what happens when man chooses to not honor God. This is why we must be unwavering in preaching God’s Word. “Years I spent in vanity and pride,” but I came to Calvary and I found God’s mercy and pardon, then my burdened soul was set free!

Photo by Michael McAuliffe on Unsplash