Job 40:1-24
In Job 40:1-2, God asked Job a question that He had designed to bring Job to the pinnacle of faith that God desired for him. God's question cornered Job. God's question caused Job to realize that he could not avoid the fact that his doubts about God's revelations and judgments to him had the effect of his having a lack of faith in an Almighty and Omniscient God. After all, God possessed the superior position and Job the inferior. God had the right to question Job, but Job had no right to question God's revelations and judgments.
Job's answer to God in verses three through five demonstrated that God's question had succeeded in bringing Job to the pinnacle of faith. Job realized that a Holy and Almighty God must be right in all of His revelations and judgments, and this knowledge caused Job to repent for being a vile sinner in God's Holy presence. All persons who become saved by God's grace will be brought by the Holy Spirit to this pinnacle of faith where they repent of their sins and put their faith in Christ alone who can cleanse them of their sins and reconcile them to the Father forever. John 16:7-11; I Corinthians 6:11. Job further realized that he could no longer doubt or question God's revelation to him that He had provided Job with a Redeemer who would save him forever, or God's judgment that He would sanctify Job and purify him like gold. Job 19:25-27; Job 23:10. Job could have confidence in God that should he doubt in the future, God would bring him to repentance again.
In Job 40:6-10, God again demanded that Job stand on his feet and look God in the eye and be proud of himself as a newfound child of God. God then asked Job questions that would make Job realize that God's judgments are absolute. No one can annul them or get around them. God had made Job His child forever, and Job must simply accept that fact.
In verse ten, God informed Job that as His child, Job now had the right to hold his head high and act like royalty. God had made Job an excellent and majestic human who could "array thyself with glory and beauty." God takes pride in His children, and He desires that His children take pride in being His children.
In Job 40:11-12, God taught Job the difference between the right kind of pride and the wrong kind. God created pride which means it can be used in a righteous way. God desires that His children be proud of their royalty but checked by their humility toward God and their fear of God. God's children must never be wrathful towards sinners because only God has the right to be wrathful. But God does give His children the right to be wrathful toward evil itself. Romans 13:1-4.
God also gives His children the right to abase the proud which means that God's children should preach to sinners that they must humble themselves to God and repent in order to be saved. Pride itself is not the problem. The problem is that sinners, like Lucifer did, often adopt a false system called "excessive pride." They come to believe that they no longer need God which causes them to refuse to repent and humble themselves to God. God can handle sin if the sinner repents. But excessive pride leads to total evil and spiritual death which Christ will cast into the lake of fire in the end of the world. Revelation 20:11-15.
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