Winning the Battle but Losing the War

“For what [is] the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?” (Job 27:8 AV)

In reading this, I was reminded of an argument I have heard more frequently as of late.  It goes something like this.  “If God is love, why did He create me and then threaten me with hell for not trusting in Him?  Add to that the suffering I will have to endure and it seems the loving God Christians portray is unjust and cruel.  I would rather he not have created me at all.”  This sounds a bit like Job’s reasoning.  He could not figure out why the LORD would create him, bless him for his obedience, and then destroy him.  Numerous times in his musing, he wished he had never been born.  Or, at the very least, questioned God’s purpose and wisdom in it all.  I was further reminded of a response given.  We do the same when we have children.  We do the same when we build relationships with children.  Knowing that life is full of trouble, why be a parent?  Why be an uncle or aunt?  Isn’t that just as cruel?

Job reasons the hypocrite does have gain.  In the short term, his reasoning does seem to have merit.  The hypocrite can often realize a gain by his actions.  He can be consistent enough to experience profit, but at the same time do just the opposite to not lose profit.  The hypocrite may win in the short term.  He may go to church and pretend to be someone he is not.  He receives accolades from those who see him.  Yet when he leaves and lives his life throughout the week, he is just the opposite.  Thus, receiving affirmation from the ungodly during the week and from the godly on Sundays, he has the best of both worlds.  He had gained.  When it comes to his relationship with the LORD, he may be moral in his business dealings and blessed by God’s universal law of realized blessing from biblical principles, but his relationship with the LORD is at enmity, thus losing it all in eternity.  This is where most of the religious are.  They are moral and upstanding people.  They have blessed lives because of it.  Yet, they refuse to repent of their sin and trust Christ.  They may receive a sound family, a secure financial future, and a reputation in society.  Yet, they use the LORD’s name in vain, lust after others, or refuse to honor the Sabbath.

I think Job is referring to his friends here.  They are moral people who think they are helping Job.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In accusing Job of evil of which he is not guilty, they ignore their own sin.  They may have gained the upper hand in arguments, but only in as much as they are all in ignorance.  These men may have gained what was left of Job’s spirit, but when God restores Job, they are in need of sacrifice at the hand of the one the so wrongly judged.  A hypocrite may do well in our temporal world.  He may even successfully accuse God in the eyes of other hypocrites.  He may fill his calendar on the speaking circuit with millions following his YouTube channel.  He may sell books and trinkets espousing the successful arguments of atheism.  But his end will be as all others.  He will die like the rest of us.  Then he will stand before a God whom he refused to worship and answer for his lifetime of hypocrisy.  He may gain the whole world.  But he will lose his soul.