Alleged Contradictions in Scripture – Part 6

“The Lord Is Good To All” Versus “The Wicked His Soul Hateth”

Psa 145:9  The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

Psa 11:5  The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

Introduction

The most effective tool the adversary has in attacking his own Creator is his attack upon our Creator’s character. Twice in Ezekiel 18 the Lord relates to us this false accusation against His character:

Eze 18:25  Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?

Then again just four verses later the Lord reiterates this false accusation:

Eze 18:29  Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?

Notice who the Lord has given to the adversary to make this false accusation against God: “Yet saith the house of Israel”. In other words, it is those who are called by His name who have been recruited by the adversary to slander the name and the very character of our loving heavenly Father who really is “good to all”.

Here is a cut and paste from the web site entitled ‘infidels.org‘. This is their entire entry on this particular alleged contradiction:

“God good to all, or just a few?

“Psa 145:9  The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

“Jer 13:14  And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.

“Editor’s note: Some readers have raised an objection to this alleged contradiction. They point out that PSA 145:20 states that The Lord keep all who love Him, but that He will destroy the wicked. In other words, some see no contradiction between “The Lord is good to all” and JER 13:14. Others contend, however, that even if the Lord destroys the wicked he could do so with compassion, pity, and mercy. Further, there are biblical examples that indicate that the Lord is not necessarily “good” or merciful– even to those who are not wicked. One such example is Job. As one reader points out, “If Psalm 145:9 was not a contradiction of Psa 145: 20 or Jeremiah 13:14, it would read something like this: The LORD is good to all, except the wicked: and his tender mercies are over all his works, except when He is punishing the wicked.” In any case, the idea that the Lord is good and merciful is contradicted by countless example in the Bible where God orders the destruction of infants, personally kills David’s infant child, etc.” (End quote)

To this naturally-minded infidel, this is an obvious open and shut case that hardly warrants his time because, as he just told us, “the idea that the Lord is good and merciful is contradicted by countless examples in the Bible where God orders the destruction of infants, personally kills David’s infant child, etc.”

There is no denying that Psa 11:5 appears to contradict Psa 145:9.

Psa 145:9  The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

Psa 11:5  The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

If God hates the wicked and him that  loves violence, then how can He, with the same mouth, proclaim He is “good to all”? Should He not have at least have said, ‘The Lord is good to all but the wicked’?

The answer of course is, no, He should not have said ‘The Lord is good to all but the wicked’, because if He had, then He would be good to no one since He Himself tells us that all men are wicked:

Gen 6:5  And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

But does this statement really mean what it says? Is “every imagination of the thoughts of His heart only evil continually”? Is there really “none that doth good, no, not one?” This atheist writer and many others think that the story of Job proves that God is not even good to good people like Job. Such a blatant challenge of the Creator’s own words serves only to demonstrate the depth of the truth of Gen 6:5. The Truth is that God created mankind out of the dust of the ground, which in itself accounts for how true are His words “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”, because the very opposite of being heavenly and pure is not the fires of a fabled hell, buy rather the very opposite – being earthy, corrupt and evil:

1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Job was “a good man who feared God and eschewed evil”:

Job 1:1  There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

Yet Job himself, the very person this infidel quotes to condemn God, tells us that a man who sees himself as righteous apart from God is most despised by God for ascribing righteousness to mere flesh.

Here are Job’s own words:

Job 9:20  If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
Job 9:21  Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.
Job 9:22  This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. 
Job 9:23  If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent.
Job 9:24  The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?
Job 9:25  Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.
Job 9:26  They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.
Job 9:27  If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself:
Job 9:28  I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent. 
Job 9:29  If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain? 
Job 9:30  If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
Job 9:31  Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. 
Job 9:32  For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.
Job 9:33  Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.
Job 9:34  Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me: 
Job 9:35  Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.

If God is not sovereign over the good and the wicked, if He has not given the earth to the wicked, “where, and who is He?” At least this infidel has seen the scriptural doctrine that the good and the wise of this world are destined to be destroyed together. What neither the infidels nor the believers of Babylonian Christianity understand is that God’s plan all along was to create a clay model which would demonstrate only one thing, and that is that clay, even in its best state, is still clay and is altogether vanity and corruption:

Psa 39:5  Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Just like Job, who typifies you and me, he “would… not fear him [if He] took away his rod from [our old man]”. Fortunately, with Job we can say “it is not so with me”. Job is the Old Testament type of those whom God loves, and this is what we know about “every son whom He receives”.

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

In the end this infidel I have quoted, along with all men, will appreciate the Truth that is these words:

1Co 1:18  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
1Co 1:19  For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
1Co 1:20  Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 
1Co 1:21  For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 
1Co 1:22  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
1Co 1:23  But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
1Co 1:24  But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1Co 1:25  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1Co 1:26  For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
1Co 1:27  But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
1Co 1:28  And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
1Co 1:29  That no flesh should glory in his presence.
1Co 1:30  But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
1Co 1:31  That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 

It is God who makes Christ “wisdom… unto us”. Without that work of the spirit of God working within us we, too, have asked:

Rom 9:14  What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
Rom 9:15  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Rom 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Rom 9:19  Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20  Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21  Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

“You will say unto me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?” is the question we all ask when we first contemplate the sovereignty of God, and without the faith of Jesus Christ we, too, can so easily be swept away with the thoughts of the infidels and agnostics who have no fear of God and think nothing of denying Him or challenging Him as Job did in his desperation:

Job 9:34  Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me:
Job 9:35  Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.

It is in the book of Job that we find an answer to this alleged contradiction which the infidels are so quick to throw in the face of their own Creator. We are told in the first verse of the first chapter that Job was a “perfect man, one who feared God and eschewed [hated] evil”:

Job 1:1  There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

But just like the infidels, Job [a type of you and me] could not understand why God would want to destroy him:

Job 9:20  If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect [Job 1:1], it shall also prove me perverse. 
Job 9:21  Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.
Job 9:22  This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.

“Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul” is a confession that in bodies of sinful flesh and blood we cannot know the meaning of spiritual perfection. “Though I were perfect” is a hypothetical reference to physical, carnal “man at his best state”, of whom we are told:

Psa 39:5  Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.

As the Old Testament type of each of us when we are deceived by God (Eze 14:9), Job thought he had of his own free will chosen to be the “perfect man who feared God and hated evil” (Job 1:1). He steadfastly “maintained his own integrity:

Job 27:4  My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.
Job 27:5  God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.

He went as far as to inform us of “[his] integrity” filling an entire chapter of which I will quote but a few verses:

Job 29:1  Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
Job 29:2  Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; 
Job 29:3  When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;
Job 29:4  As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;
Job 29:5  When the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me;
Job 29:6  When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
Job 29:7  When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street! 
Job 29:8  The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up.
Job 29:9  The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth.
Job 29:10  The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
Job 29:11  When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me: 
Job 29:12  Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.

Job appears to give God credit when he confesses that “God preserved me… by His light… I walked”. But the adversary is very subtle in using his forked tongue and ‘maintaining his own integrity with his dying breath’, and ‘condemning God while declaring himself to be righteous’.

Job 40:1  Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
Job 40:2  Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.

Job 40:6  Then answered the LORD unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
Job 40:7  Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
Job 40:8  Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

Of all the spirits that are hated by God, it is a self-righteous spirit which presumes to condemn him and dares to contend with and reprove him in the name of its own righteousness. That is what this infidel is. This atheist is like Job, the Old Testament time of you and me, who considered himself to be a “perfect man [who] feared God and hated evil”.  Job thought he “feared God”, yet he ended up accusing God exactly as this atheist does:

“If Psalm 145:9 was not a contradiction of Psa 145: 20 or Jeremiah 13:14, it would read something like this: The LORD is good to all, except the wicked: and his tender mercies are over all his works, except when He is punishing the wicked.” In any case, the idea that the Lord is good and merciful is contradicted by countless example in the Bible where God orders the destruction of infants, personally kills David’s infant child, etc.”

I have chosen Psa 11:5 to make this man’s false accusation more precise:

Psa 145:9  The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

Psa 11:5  The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

The story of Job does not demonstrate, as this infidel says:

“…the Lord is not necessarily “good” or merciful– even to those who are not wicked. One…example…is [the story of] Job…”

You and I, as carnal men typified by Job, make this same accusation against our Creator:

Job 9:22  This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.

Rom 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

The mind of the Christ understands without any contradiction, that “the new man” is born only through the death and the destruction of “the old man”. Jesus Himself explained this dilemma:

Mat 10:39  He tfindeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Joh 12:25  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

To the infidel and to the natural mind those verses only add to the number of blatant contradictions in the scriptures.

The first, self-righteous Job, typifying our old man, thinks he is of himself so righteous that He can presume to contend with, reprove and condemn his own Creator for the suffering his Creator has placed upon him. That “first man Adam” had to be destroyed and replaced with an entirely new, different, humiliated and repentant Job, whose new humble viewpoint was born out of the very trials which serve to destroy the old self-righteous, first man Job. The New Testament calls this destruction of our old man a ‘fiery trial’.

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

Paul explains that it is through this fiery destruction of our old self-righteous, rebellious, carnal “first man Adam” that “every man…shall be saved.”

1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14  If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15  If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

It is that destruction of our old, carnal man which the natural man and the infidel so hate. It is that destruction of the carnal mind which is actually used by God to cause our old man to “suffer loss: but he himself … [is to] be saved; yet so as by fire“.

If indeed God were not in the process of saving “all in Adam”; if He lost even this one infidel to death, then it could rightly be argued that God is not “good to all”. But such is not the case:

2Sa 14:14  For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

Joh 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

1Ti 2:4  Who will have all men to be saved, and [even infidels] to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Job 23:13  But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth [“all men to be saved”], even that he doeth.

1Ti 4:10  For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially [not exclusively] of those that believe.

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Lest there be any doubt about whether God intends to save all men of all time through His “first fruits” harvest we are told:

Rom 11:30  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31  Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Rom 11:32  For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

Finally, we are told this about whose salvation is included in His propitiation for our sins:

1Jn 2:2  And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

The salvation of all come at the expense of God’s hatred of our old man, but there can be no doubt that “The Lord is good to all”:

Psa 145:9  The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

Psa 11:5  The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

What keeps modern day Jobs and infidels from seeing how God’s hatred of, and destruction of, our “wicked… old man” complements and explains how “The Lord [really] is good to all” is a total blindness, given them by God, to “the things of the spirit”, and that is exactly what we are told is the case with all natural-minded men, whether they are those who, as Job typifies, are in the many false churches of Christendom or whether they are just rank infidels.

1Co 2:13  Which things [“freely given to us of God”, vs. 12]… we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 

“The holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual” while both historical Christianity and infidels believe in the damnable false doctrine of “free moral agency”, which doctrine has no concept of the meaning of spiritual words:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Both historical Christians and infidels want to stone anyone who dares to quote any of these scriptures:

Pro 16:1  The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD. 

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Pro 20:24  Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?

Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

Jer 10:23  O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

Amo 3:6  Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

Rom 9:15  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Rom 9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Where is the damnable doctrine of ‘free moral agency’ in any of those verses of scripture? The Truth is that there is no such Biblical doctrine. Rather, this is the truth of the scriptures:

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

If God has not “devised means, that his banished be not expelled from him” then He would indeed be the monster which this infidel, and the first Job in us, makes Him out to be. But God has devised means, that His banished be not expelled from Him”, and all who must “die… in Adam”, will in the same manner, completely independent of our own will “be saved… in Christ”.

2Sa 14:14  For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. 

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam [independent of our will] all die, even so in Christ [independent of our will] shall all be made alive.

These verses accord with all those above them. God is working all things, “yes, even the wicked… after the counsel of His own will”, and it is His will for Him to be “good to … the new man… [in] all” which He will bring about through His destruction of the old man whom “His soul hates” in all men of all time .

So there is no contradiction at all for the man who has been given to understand “the things of the spirit”, when he reads:

Psa 145:9  The LORD is good to [“the new man” in] all: and his tender mercies are over all his [finished] works.

Psa 11:5  The LORD trieth the righteous [“new man” in “all in Adam”]: but [our “old man”] the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.